Proper Methods For Sewage Mitagation

A sewage back up or category 3 water loss is an disgusting and unhealthy situation that will contain bacteria, viruses, blood and fecal matter. Any company that cleans and removes sewage should adhere to the The IICRC S500 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Water Damage Restoration.

This guide mandates that any technician that cleans sewage should be trained in the proper techniques as well as be : 1. Blood Born Pathogen Certified, 2. Have Osha Confined Space Certifications 3. Have passed an Osha Medical Exam 4. Have the proper equipment to safely remove sewage from crawl spaces such as a air quality meter and Scott pack on site.

The first phase of all sewage removal projects is the extraction and pumping of the sewage. This is usually accomplished with jet vac equipment and vacuum trucks. Only trucks with 1000 gallon tanks or larger should be utilized in any sewage mitigation project. The pumps should be water or oil cooled masport pumps with a lift of at least 30 feet. Frequently illegal unlicensed contractors will try to use carpet cleaning trucks to clean up sewage spills. These trucks only hod around 50 to 100 gallons and an average sewage clean up exceeds 500 gallons. These contractors will then illegally dump the waste into the local storm drains, with is completely illegal. All Licensed Contractors will use high capacity equipment with an average capacity of 3000 gallon or more.

After the sewage extraction process is finished its time to inspect the property for further damage. This inspection should include all the walls and floor coverings of the rooms that were contaminated by sewage.

 After the inspection the question is should the building materials should be salvaged or demolished and discarded. This decision is based on safety issues as well as the values of the building finishes and contents. It almost always makes sense to remove floor covering unless it is ceramic or marble. It always is in the best interest of the client to remove sheet rock and wallboard because bacteria can proliferate behind walls.

A detailed moisture inspection should be conducted to account for hidden damages such as the presence of sewage underneath floors. This can be conducted with moisture meters and thermal imaging cameras.

The nest step is to treat the structure with a hospital grade disinfectant such as microban 5000 to kill all bacteria and viral partials that will be present. This is a very important part of the process and clients should make sure that their contractor are using the proper chemicals. Ordinary disinfectants and germicides will not kill the necessary bacteria. Clients should ask for and receive the MDST or maters data safety sheet of the products that the contractor is using. If he cant or wont supply one then a client should look for another service.

After demolition and disinfection the building should be dried using professional grade dryers and dehumidifiers to less than 15 % ms as measured with a Delmhurst moisture meter. A series of bacteria test for ecoli and a standard plate count should be undertaken to make sure the property is safe to use.

These test should be sent to a certified laboratory for analysis by a hygienist. No ecoli at all should be present in the results. A base line standard plate count test of an unaffected area of the building should be taken for a comparison.

Chuck Pennington is Owner of Statewide Restoration, a New Jersey based waste mitagation contractor as well as the innovator of the Aquadry system of commercial drying. If you have use of our services kindly go to our web site at waste mitagation. Also visit or mold remediation web site at mold mitagation

Chuck is an author of numerous restoration industry
publications.

by Chuck Pennington - 06/19/2009

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