Floods and Sewer Backups
Floods and Sewer Backups, aside from being a health hazard, often leave a
large amount of odor causing material behind. These odor causing agents
soak into walls and drywall, wood, and even concrete. Since the odor
causing agents almost always contain human or animal waste products,
OdorXit Products are uniquely suited to eliminate the odors. The
difficulty in dealing with these problems compared to simple basement
mold and mildew, is that the contamination is everywhere the water was,
and the amount of contamination left behind can be massive.
The first step is to remove as much of the contamination (sludge) as possible
by what ever means is available as soon as possible to prevent it from
drying on surfaces. Electric or gas driven pumps will remove the gross amount
of water, or just wait for the water to go back down the drain, but this
will not remove the sludge without intervention. Intervention includes hosing
down the entire area while the area is draining and wet. If at all
possible, do not let the sludge dry. Once sludge dries, it is like cement
and very hard to remove. Additionally, the sludge contains massive amounts
of odor causing material and bacteria. And though OdorXit will eliminate
these odors, it is much more effective and cheaper to wash as much away as
possible before applying OdorXit.
If there is wet drywall, paneling, boxes of stuff, etc. they need to be
removed. Don't throw the stuff away just because it is wet, many times
it can be recovered.
If you are tempted to us a high pressure washer, be aware that you can drive
the sludge and other odor causing materials deeply into the concrete
with a pressure washer! This is done by spraying the water directly
at the concrete or at an angle between 45 and 90 degrees with the surface
of the material being cleaned. Don't get me wrong, the concrete will
look clean but the odor will be very difficult to remove because the
contamination is now driven into the concrete. The proper angle to
clean the concrete without driving the contaminate into the concrete
is any angle below 45 degrees with the nozzle at least 6 inches back
from the concrete.
Yes...it takes longer, but the results are much better.
Weather you use a high pressure washer or just a hose, using tri-sodium
phosphate (TSP) not the substitutes to dissolve and break up the residue
makes it much easier to was away.
Second, if you haven't already used TSP to aid in the cleaning process
scrub the affected area with low suds detergent.
Rinse and sweep or squeegee the area dry.
Third, spray the entire effected area with a low concentration batch of
OdorXit. Two ounces of OdorXit per gallon of water should be sufficient
for the first application. Don't forget the inside of the furnace, the bottom
of the steps and shelves ...everywhere!
After the affected area has dried and aired out for several hours, check the
area for odors and treat any persistent areas with the normal consternation of
OdorXit (4 ounces of OdorXit in 1 gallon of water).
If the water has been standing for an extended period of time the chances
of there being high levels of mold and bacteria are almost guaranteed.
So to protect your self, buy and use a high quality cartridge type
respirator. A dust mask is not up to the task! Even before the water
has been removed you may want to use one or more OdorXit ClO2 packets
to kill any mold or bacteria that is in the area. Putting a 25 or 50
gram packet right in the water will kill much of the bacteria in the
water as well.
If you used the Extended Release version of the ClO2 product which product
chlorine dioxide for 20 to 30 days, and they have been in use for
less than 10 or so days, no additional ClO2 is normally necessary.
If the cleanup doesn't start until after 20 day of the ClO2 being in
service, you will want to replace them with fresh packets after the
first stages of the cleanup has been completed to kill and mold or
bacteria that has grown in the mean time.
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