Burning on Friday, open by Monday
October 1st 2006 One Friday earlier this year, a well-known Chemist Superstore in the Midlands, part of a National chain, suffered fire damage that deposited soot over the entire surfaces of the structure and contents of the store.Over £1m worth of stock was covered in a fine fallout of soot smuts. Luckily, it had the sense to call ActionDry Emergency Services..
Business Interruption was foremost in the minds of the Senior Management who were planning to attend on Monday.Their Facilities Services Company were ordered to start to get things moving.At 1600 hrs on a Friday, ActionDry Emergency Services were called to provide professional damage mitigation assistance and take control. ActionDry provide rapid response to such disasters and have resources that are called on around the clock.
Within two hours of call out an ActionDry Manager and a small team were on site to evaluate the scope of works, undertake a risk and hazard assessment and to start getting the recovery underway.
The decontamination procedure was immediately expanded to provide round the clock working and some 70 technicians were involved in the proposed shift pattern.
Costs were agreed and an environmental team were called in to evaluate what stock was to be written off.A significant task was envisaged for cleaning of the remaining stock, which included removing it from the display units, cleaning the display units and returning it whilst undertaking the cleaning works to the structure, fixtures and fittings.
It was decided that ActionDry's specialised HEPA rated air purification units be used to filter the air of particulates.These units also incorporate an airflow chamber providing two wavelengths of ultra violet light (UVc & UVv) to safely deal with any odours without the production of ozone, a potentially hazardous product. By using this equipment ActionDry removed a potential health hazard to staff and visitors whilst preventing cross contamination to items and areas already cleaned.
HEPA rated vacuums were used with fine point nozzles to remove loose particulates wherever possible and a purpose-made low pressure wash vacuum system (the imaginitively named 'Soot gulper') developed by ActionDry enabled fast through cleaning of surfaces floors walls and the ceiling tiles.Dry Steam enabled fast detailed cleaning of difficult to reach and awkward areas.The quality of clean was so good to paint walls that repainting was not immediately required – allowing for planned maintenance.
As ActionDry progressed – shifting and cleaning displays, shelving and gondolas with methods ranging from the mundane to the state of the art – the huge volume of stock was removed cleaned to pre-incident appearance and then replaced and covered as the technicians moved along. One of the final jobs prior to removing protective covers was the application of a ceiling tile coating to restore the original condition.The floor was stripped and polished.
By 0900 Monday morning some 65 hours after the original instruction, this superstore was ready to be reopened for trading looking pristine.Downtime and business interruption were minimal in view of the incident size and a huge quantity of stock had been saved.
Use the free reader enquiry system for further information. More articles from ActionDry Co Ltd: | 
