Theft causes flooding in Sussex Cemetery
The flooding
The building manager of the chapel at our local cemetery contacted our team to request urgent assistance after the chapel had suffered flooding overnight.
The flooding was caused by heavy rains which had poured in through a damaged roof, the damage which was caused by thieves who had scaled the property to remove some of the copper roof fixtures and fittings.
This water ingress had meant that all upcoming scheduled appointments and services at the chapel were at risk of being cancelled.
Considering the importance of the services that the chapel provides, it was critical that the water ingress was attended to with the highest priority.
The call was attended to by our out of hours team who quickly collated all the details needed to give us a clear picture of what we would be required of the emergency response team.
The solution
A team of trained technicians were quickly despatched to the location where they met with the client. A risk assessment was conducted prior to any works starting where all was then deemed safe to continue.
The problem that the client was facing was that the main hall of the chapel has suffered a sizeable flooding after heavy rainfall overnight, the carpets, wooden furniture and fittings were very wet and stood in standing water.
By working closely with the chapel, a quick turnaround was required, the first priority was to clear the fixtures and fittings from the area to assist prevent any further secondary damage, these items were removed to a nominated dry area where all items were carefully decontaminated and dried.
Once the floor space had been cleared, as the next priority the team began to extract all standing water from the floor space, this stage of the project was completed with speed to ensure that the floor covering in the affected areas was given the best chance of being salvaged.
After all the standing water had been extracted, a decontamination clean was completed to ensure cleanliness followed by surface swabbing to confirm the clean, the team also helped the chapel to mitigate the risk of further flooding by installing a temporary fix to the roof area whilst they waited for the roofing contractor to attend the property.
A drying regime was quickly commissioned which included the use of air movers and dehumidifiers to further extract moisture from the environment.
The drying equipment was remotely monitored using state of the art sensors to ensure that the moisture levels were heading in the right direction within the affected areas.
With the moisture levels reducing, the drying regime was paused and removed from the property for the planned appointments to take place without any hindrance to the chapel users.
Following the completion of the important appointments, a further full carpet wash was applied to provide the areas a further deep clean to help minimise any foul odours and to assist with saving the carpet.
The drying regime was then resumed which continued to dry the affected areas until the moisture levels were reduced to within acceptable ranges.
The conclusion
Being able to react so quickly and professionally with trained staff to the flooding has saved the chapel and local county thousands of pounds in replacement carpets, fixtures, and fittings, whilst also being able to support the chapel continue with its planned appointments and commitments.
Addressing the flood so quickly has also prevented the risk of any growth of mould within the property which would have led to heightened health risks and more damage, resulting in more cost to return the property to pre incident conditions and possibly ill health.
From the initial call right through to the completion of the emergency works, our teams kept the client updated at every stage of the project along with providing recommendations for future works that will be required to return the property to pre incident conditions.
We are proud to say that all fixtures and fittings were salvaged, being able to react so quickly provided our client a chance to recover from this unfortunate incident. As our company saying goes… WE RESTORE – YOU RECOVER.
Here at Rainbow Restoration, we provide several specialist damage management & cleaning solutions to several businesses and private clients, which include and not limited to… housing associations, private clients, loss adjusters, district & borough councils, construction companies, property experts (commercial & residential), hospitality sector, care settings & FM companies.
If there is anything that we can do to support, please do feel free to be in touch with us, we look forward to hearing from you soon.
