Certificate of Dryness London
Following water damage or flood damage, we are able to provide a certificate of dryness, dry certificate, or dryness certificate, compliant with the IICRC S500 standard and reference guide for professional water damage restoration.
Fully insured and qualified, our team of applied structural drying technicians, thermal imaging damp survey specialists, damp mapping operatives, and water damage restoration technicians will attend and undertake the drying out certification process.
Our dryness certificate survey is a simple process whereby we use thermal imaging, ultrasound, and density mapping tools to determine what the moisture content levels should be, and what the moisture content levels actually are. On this basis, we can then compile a comprehensive data set that forms the dryness certificate which your insurance will need to facilitate the instruction of the restoration works.
A dryness certificate or certificate of dryness is absolutely essential to mark the successful end of the structural drying project and sign off the areas affected by water damage and damp, ready for the contractors to commence with the water damage restoration works. Contact us today for a for a certificate of dryness quote. We respond fast because we know that “water damage does not wait”.
Do I Need a Certificate of Dryness?
This is a question we get asked an awful lot. The answer is simply ‘yes’. Why? Because if you do not have one, you have no recourse. A certificate of dryness is an official document put together by an IICRC Water Damage Restoration Technician, Applied Structural Drying Technician, and Level 2 Thermographic Engineer which essentially constitutes an insurance backed guarantee (in the form of a report) that, at the time of attendance, the moisture content levels of the materials within an affected area have been professionally assessed and found to be at demonstrable acceptable levels of “dryness”. Only once you have your IICRC S500 compliant certificate of dryness will you be in a secure position to commence with the water damage restoration works.
How else will you know for sure and be able to retrospectively prove that everything had been dried to acceptable levels? If you go ahead and redecorate/ restore, put back in new floors, new furniture, your new kitchen, your new bathroom etc, and it then becomes musty and mouldy or damp again, you would obviously look to take action to resolve. This may involve contacting the builders who undertook the drying works or your insurer.
Your insurer will immediately ask you for proof that the premises were dried correctly and signed off by a qualified, competent party/ individual. If you do not have this evidence (a dryness certificate) then you may find the insurer rejects your claim for remedial works/ remedying the problem. Furthermore, you may find you have no recourse and are in a position whereby you have to dismantle and start again. On this basis, always get an IICRC S500 compliant certificate of dryness to prove your materials / property was dried correctly, to the correct standard, before you commenced with restorative works.
Where can I get an IICRC S500 compliant Certificate of Dryness?
At Building Response Ltd, we specialise dryness certification assessments, surveys, reports, and certification issuance. We use thermal imaging, ultrasound, density mapping tools, and calibrated damp detectors and humidity measurement tools to accurately establish what the moisture content of the materials and environment should be, and of course what the moisture content actually is.
We then put together a detailed report which will provide the essential security you need to move forward with your project and constitute a dryness certificate for all those materials found to be dry. All our dryness certificates or reports are insurance-backed.
The terms within a certificate of dryness report:
Certificate of Dryness: A Certificate of Dryness is a document that provides evidence that materials within an affected area have been professionally assessed and found to be at demonstrable acceptable levels of “dryness”.
IICRC S500: The S500 code refers to the IICRC S500 Standard and Reference Guide book for Professional Water Damage Restoration Technicians; professional standards for water damage restoration, providing proper restoration practices based on reliable principles, research and practical experience
Dry: For the purposes of a Certificate of Dryness, “dry” means within environmental and material dependent tolerance of a respective control measurement, therefore “wet” generally means anything outside tolerated levels of density differential in relation to respective control measurements. “Dry” generally means within 5% tolerance of a respective control measurement (up to 40%), and 3.2% tolerance thereafter; therefore “wet” generally means anything outside this range of tolerance, of a respective control measurement.
WMCE: Wood Moisture Content Equivalent. This is where readings have been taken using a protimeter (density measurement device) specifically designed for wood or density measurement, but only the comparative value has been used and therefore the result is purely qualitative, with a quantitatively accurate differential.
Observation Measurements: These readings represent the highest measurement recorded in a specific given material, usually recorded on, or immediately around, the densest area of observed water damage.
Control Measurements: The comparative numeric baseline reading for measured material surfaces, taken from an unaffected material of identical or as similar as possible composition, as close as possible to the affected area.