When stormwater inundated a care home, we devised a low-carbon drying solution to return residences to normal.
The incident
Gittisham Hill House is a residential care home in rural Devon, supporting vulnerable elderly people. Heavy winter rain resulted in serious flooding, causing stormwater to surround several bungalows on site and trapping the residents inside.
At first, it didn’t appear that water had entered the buildings and staff believed they’d had a near-miss. However, over the following days, it became apparent that water had flowed through the air bricks and inundated the floor space, saturating the concrete slabs and suspended block and beam floors. The residents were moved out and we were called in.
Our Initial Response
On being appointed to the case, we conducted a thorough phone assessment to understand the customer’s needs and organise an appropriate physical response.
Our priorities were to:
- Dry the bungalows to reduce disruption to vulnerable, paying residents and move them back into their homes quickly.
- Triage the buildings’ contents – while residents didn’t have many possessions, those they brought to the care home were highly sentimental.
- Keep staff well informed of the restoration plan and progress, so they could communicate with residents and reduce their anxiety.
The insurer requested a range of recovery options which took drying time, costs and environmental sustainability into account.
“Due to the availability of the different drying technologies at Richfords’ disposal, we did not have to consider methods that would have increased the claims cost and timeline. There is no doubt that the injection drying approach saved significant time, disruption and cost.”
– The project loss adjustor
Ongoing work
Once on-site, our team conscientiously packed and removed all personal possessions to ensure their safety during the drying process.
Richfords’ senior technician carried out damage limitation, removing saturated carpets and extracting water. A range of drying methods were put forward, including:
- Refridgerant dehumidifiers
- Air movers
- Targetted injection drying with desiccant dehumidifiers
- Trailer-mounted dehumidifiers
Targeted injection drying was given the go-ahead, as it provided the best balance of time, cost and lower CO2 production. We used injection drying to remove moisture within the suspended concrete block and beam floor and to extract moisture trapped in the underfloor void, avoiding a significant and costly building strip-out.
The Outcome
It took six weeks to dry the bungalows thoroughly. Due to the ‘keyhole’ nature of injection drying, very little reinstatement was required. Once the injection holes were filled and the carpets replaced, the residents moved home.
By opting for targeted drying, we avoided removal and replacment of the suspended floors, which would have added more than a month onto the recovery timeline and over £30,000 in additional claims costs. Moreover, by opting for a carbon-friendly drying method, the project saved an estimated 3.9 tonnes of CO2.
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Caring for a care home after a flood
When stormwater inundated a care home, we devised a low-carbon drying solution to return residences to normal.