This commercial basement was badly flooded, so much so that the oil reserve tank for the hydraulic elevator was submerged and 40-50 gallons of oil mixed with the ground water. What can you do? We used "Pig pads" which are oil but not water absorbent. We were able to float the pads on top of the water and absorb the water, prior to pumping the water into the storm drain. 

SERVPRO of Elgin/Northwest Kane County, getting the job done!

Going through a training class is a first step for every remediation technician. You sit in a class and a teacher tells you the important elements that need to be addressed to ensure that you learn about a general topic.

However, it is the experience of knowing what to do in a particular situation that determines success or failure. Our technicians have the training and have gained the experience to be able to "pull success from the jaws of failure."

Monitoring a job is a very important aspect of every job but it is a truly critical component when it comes to drying hardwoods. Drying hardwoods requires specialty equipment. Knowing when to adjust the equipment, such as reducing laminar airflow and increasing the vapor pressure differential is what makes us successful!

Elgin/Northwest Kane County, we have the experience to get your jobs done right!

When we have water damage in the winter due to pick breaks, sometimes the damage is quite extensive, damaging the electrical system in the home or business. In those situations, we need to get heat into the unit to prevent additional pipe break damage, and enough power to run the equipment to thoroughly dry and stabilize the unit. 

When that happens sometimes we need to bring in temporary portable power units called generators. This is an example of the unit we brought in to heat and dry a small apartment complex. 

Water damage isn't funny. However . . . sometimes the things we see during an initial inspection of a water loss do LOOK funny. Here is a picture of a bathroom ceiling and wall that had a water damage in the unit above this one. As you can see, sometimes the water cannot find an easy path for it to go and actually gets caught in the paint and forms a big sack of water!

If you look at the wall, you can see where the plumber had to fix the outside water valve which froze and broke. When those valves break, you will not know that the valve is broke until you use the outside hose and water starts pouring into your basement.

SERVPRO of Elgin/Northwest Kane County, making it "Like it never even happened."

At SERVPRO of Elgin/Northwest Kane County, we know how to get things clean, dry and safe. Our strongest knowledge comes from knowing how to keep the doors open! This is a very popular banquet hall and of course, they are fully booked! When they had a pipe break, we were able to do all the emergency extraction and clean up. That we were able to do before guests showed up. 

We came back after all of the party goers headed home for the night, and got the equipment set up for drying. It took us an extra day to get everything properly dried, but making sure they were able to meet their client obligations was especially gratifying!!