{"id":1440,"date":"2019-05-23T23:57:49","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T23:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/resource\/recovering-wet-documents-or-books\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T23:14:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T23:14:41","slug":"recovering-wet-documents-or-books","status":"publish","type":"resource","link":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/resource\/recovering-wet-documents-or-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering Wet Documents Or Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Want to watch some paper dry? Of course not. Unless maybe you\u2019re dealing with something particularly unpleasant at work today.<\/p>\n<p>But in all seriousness, when your business or organization is dealing with important wet documents or books\u2014and the potential related process of legal costs, or historical losses\u2014paper drying suddenly becomes very interesting. So understanding how your documents can be salvaged may save you from a lot of fingernail biting while you wait for the process to play out.<\/p>\n<p>This blog post provides an overview of the document freeze-drying process. And gives you some critical things to consider before you ever need help.<\/p>\n<h2>Refrigeration Trucks to the Rescue<\/h2>\n<p>After you call a <a href=\"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/service\/content-restoration\/\">document restoration provider<\/a> about wet books or documents, their goal will be to freeze them as fast as possible because freezing slows the disintegration of paper. That\u2019s why the first stop for your wet or moist documents or books will most likely be a refrigerated truck. Once the documents are frozen, the water needs to be removed as fast as possible to help minimize overall damage.<\/p>\n<h2>The Magic of Freeze-drying<\/h2>\n<p>When your documents and books arrive at a facility, your restoration provider will typically use freeze-drying (the scientific term is lyophilization) to <a href=\"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/service\/water-extraction\/\">remove water<\/a> before completing any other necessary restoration steps.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The freeze-drying process uses a combination of low temperatures and low pressure to transform water from a solid to a gas. Condensing coils in the freeze-drying chambers attract the gas and remove water from the chambers.<\/li>\n<li>Most freeze-drying chambers can complete a job in 14 \u2013 28 days, but newer technology has reduced the average drying time to just 5 \u2013 7 days.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s important to understand that freeze-drying can be taken too far, in which case it may result in dry or brittle paper. So limits should be applied to prevent this from happening.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Three Things to Consider<\/h2>\n<p>Your document restoration needs can be time-sensitive and involve confidential or even priceless fragile materials. Damaged or lost documents can also set off a chain reaction of process or legal-related scenarios that can quickly grow very expensive. That\u2019s why we recommend planning ahead whenever possible. If your organization has important documents or books that it could not afford to lose, be sure to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Consider how fast you would need them back if something happened<\/li>\n<li>Evaluate your document restoration vendor options ahead of time<\/li>\n<li>Learn how to prevent and prepare for emergency situations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":1437,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Recover wet books or documents after water damage with expert drying and preservation techniques that reduce long-term loss.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":""},"categories":[45,74],"tags":[],"resource-type":[48],"class_list":["post-1440","resource","type-resource","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-facility-hygiene-articles","resource-type-articles"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":45,"label":"All Articles"},{"value":74,"label":"Facility Hygiene Services"}],"resource-type":[{"value":48,"label":"Articles"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/header_article_waterdamagemoldflood4-1024x480.jpg",1024,480,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"First Onsite","author_link":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/author\/first-onsite\/"},"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource\/1440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/resource"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1440"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstonsite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-type?post=1440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}