Recovering Wet Documents Or Books

Want to watch some paper dry? Of course not. Unless maybe you’re dealing with something particularly unpleasant at work today.

But in all seriousness, when your business or organization is dealing with important wet documents or books—and the potential related process of legal costs, or historical losses—paper 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.

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.

Refrigeration Trucks to the Rescue

Après avoir contacté un fournisseur de restauration de documents au sujet de livres ou de documents mouillés, leur objectif sera de les congeler le plus rapidement possible, car la congélation ralentit la désintégration du papier. C’est pourquoi le premier arrêt pour vos documents ou livres humides sera très probablement un camion frigorifique. Une fois les documents gelés, l’eau doit être retirée le plus rapidement possible afin de minimiser les dommages.

The Magic of Freeze-drying

Lorsque vos documents et livres arrivent dans une installation, votre fournisseur de restauration utilisera généralement la lyophilisation (le terme scientifique est lyophilisation) pour éliminer l'eau avant de compléter d'autres étapes de restauration nécessaires.

• 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.
• Most freeze-drying chambers can complete a job in 14 – 28 days, but newer technology has reduced the average drying time to just 5 – 7 days.
• It’s 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.

Three Things to Consider

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’s 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:

• Consider how fast you would need them back if something happened
• Evaluate your document restoration vendor options ahead of time
• Learn how to prevent and prepare for emergency situations