October Newsletter

Reme­di­a­tion is the action of rem­e­dy­ing some­thing, in par­tic­u­lar of revers­ing or stop­ping envi­ron­men­tal dam­age.

The art of reme­di­a­tion is a bal­ance between equip­ment, mate­ri­als, edu­ca­tion, and the envi­ron­ment.

How, and can heat play a part in removal of excess mois­ture and mal­odours?

Home­osta­sis is the abil­i­ty to main­tain a rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble inter­nal state that per­sists despite changes in the world out­side.  All liv­ing organ­isms, from plants to pup­pies to peo­ple, must reg­u­late their inter­nal envi­ron­ment to process ener­gy and ulti­mate­ly sur­vive. 

This also can be said with Hydro­scop­ic Mate­ri­als.  These mate­ri­als con­sist of mois­ture con­tent which allows the mate­r­i­al to absorb and retain mois­ture and also des­orb and release mois­ture.  These hygro­scop­ic mate­ri­als are look­ing to attain an equi­lib­ri­um mois­ture con­tent in them.  This equi­lib­ri­um mois­ture con­tent depends very strong­ly on the par­tial pres­sure of the water vapour in the sur­round­ing air and rather weak­ly on the air tem­per­a­ture which is com­mon­ly expe­ri­enced in build­ings.  New build­ing mate­ri­als intro­duced may take days if not sev­er­al weeks to nat­u­ral­ly reach equi­lib­ri­um mois­ture con­tent (EMC) which may result in omit­ting an odour.

Hydro­scop­ic mate­ri­als also can absorb VOC’s (volatile organ­ic gas­es) which may result in off-gassing or mal­odour.  Pro­longed sus­tained heat to some mate­ri­als has the great­est poten­tial to cause seri­ous and irrepara­ble dam­age caused by the reme­di­a­tor.  Chem­i­cals bond­ed to hydro­gen atoms allow odours to sus­pend and remain trapped in the cap­il­lar­ies in the hygro­scop­ic mate­ri­als.

The abil­i­ty of the mate­r­i­al to absorb through cap­il­lary sat­u­ra­tion can under­go if the sur­round­ing atmos­phere reach­es 100% sat­u­ra­tion in which vapour pres­sure will allow vapours/voc’s to breach through con­den­sa­tion.

Sev­er­al meth­ods of test­ing mal­odour have been applied with the most pop­u­lar meth­ods being olfac­to­ry and scen­tom­e­try. 

Olfac­tom­e­try involves human pan­el­lists sniff­ing clean air and odor­ous air at var­i­ous well-con­trolled dilu­tion ratios.

The scen­tome­ter is a device that allows a human snif­fer to inhale air into the nose through a cham­ber con­tain­ing odor­ous air that is mixed with air cleaned by a char­coal fil­ter (Huey et al., 1960). The size of the aper­ture allow­ing odor­ous air entry deter­mines the dilu­tion ratio. Researchers in Texas devel­oped and eval­u­at­ed dynam­ic olfac­tome­ters for ambi­ent odour mea­sure­ments and were able to com­pare olfac­tome­ter and scen­tome­ter mea­sure­ments (Sorel et al., 1983; Sweet­en et al., 1983). More recent­ly, olfac­tom­e­try has been applied to the mea­sure­ment of swine odours at Iowa State Uni­ver­si­ty (Bundy et al., 1993), the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta (Clan­ton et al., 1999), and Duke Uni­ver­si­ty (Schiff­man and Williams, 1999).

The intro­duc­to­ry of heat to a water mol­e­cule allows the mol­e­cule to move at a more rapid pace.  At 25°C (77°F), most mol­e­cules (nitro­gen, oxy­gen) in the envi­ron­ment are mov­ing at about 965km/hr (600m/hr) or 270m/sec.  Water vapour in that air is mov­ing at twice that speed – about 1900km/hr (1200m/hr) or 540m/sec.  By increas­ing the tem­per­a­ture to 100°C  (212°F) it increas­es the speed of the water mol­e­cule to 2575km/hr (1600m/hr) or 716m/s.

Using con­trolled heat with mon­i­tor­ing is a way to be able to expe­dite the move­ment of mol­e­cules, includ­ing mois­ture to allow for reme­di­a­tion.  An increase of heat and a decrease of vapour pres­sure to the bound mois­ture inside hygro­scop­ic mate­r­i­al will cause the polar­i­ty of the mol­e­cules to break and sus­pend as indi­vid­ual mol­e­cules and pro­mote evap­o­ra­tion (removal).

Using high heat alone may not be plau­si­ble when dis­cussing the use of “Ther­mal Reme­di­a­tion” due to the exces­sive pro­longed heat required to remove bio­log­i­cal pathogens and voc’s reach­ing their boil­ing point.  The use of a pro­longed heat above 65°C on sur­faces for days, if not weeks may cause oth­er irrepara­ble dam­ages. 

“Above 65°C kills human pathogens @ less than 1 minute per log (90% reduc­tion).  Virus­es are inac­ti­vat­ed at tem­per­a­tures between 60°C and 65°C, but more slow­ly than bac­te­ria.  These tem­per­a­tures will need to be reached and absorbed in the mate­ri­als for the allo­cat­ed times.”

Extreme con­trolled cas­es: Human pathogens do not last when hold­ing the tem­per­a­ture above 90°C for 12–24hours.  May be used for death scene bio­haz­ard and flesh-eat­ing bac­te­ria, etc.

Source of mate­ri­als:

Google schol­ar search:  Research paper: Mois­ture Con­tent in Build­ing Mate­ri­als –

Kumaran, M.K.; Mukhopad­hyaya, P.; Nor­mandin, N. Jour­nal of ASTM Inter­na­tion.

Lead­er­ship in Restora­tion Dry­ing –

Ken Larsen, CR, WLS, CSDS

IAQ Radio – Episode 555 Aired Octo­ber 2, 2020

Michael Gey­er PE, CIH, CSP

Google; Con­ver­sions, Clutch learn­ing, Snip­pets

RIA Release (Restora­tion Indus­try Association).org

The Restora­tion Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion (RIA)  https://www.restorationindustry.org/ is a non-prof­it pro­fes­sion­al trade asso­ci­a­tion ded­i­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing lead­er­ship and pro­mot­ing best prac­tices through advo­ca­cy, stan­dards & pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the restora­tion indus­try.

“Dur­ing the post-war peri­od, mech­a­nized car­pet clean­ing equip­ment became avail­able to ser­vice the explo­sion in tuft­ed wall-to-wall car­pet­ing and car­pet clean­ing flour­ished. No oth­er cat­e­go­ry of on-site clean­ing employed equip­ment beyond the vac­u­um.

As the most mech­a­nized and tech­ni­cal­ly com­pe­tent clean­ing spe­cial­ist on the scene, it was nat­ur­al for pro­fes­sion­al car­pet clean­ers to extend their efforts to the clean-up of homes and busi­ness­es dam­aged by fire, water, and oth­er per­ils.

Some firms embraced the oppor­tu­ni­ties and busi­ness chal­lenge, and devel­oped a com­pre­hen­sive ser­vice called “Fire Restora­tion” refer­ring to them­selves as “Fire Restor­ers.”

This emerg­ing pro­fes­sion and the capa­bil­i­ties of those who called them­selves Fire Restor­ers were attrac­tive to insur­ance com­pa­nies since many of their claimants were inca­pable of per­son­al­ly han­dling the clean-up of their homes.

By rec­om­mend­ing a qual­i­fied fire restora­tion firm who employed Fire Restor­ers, insur­ance adjusters were able to pro­vide valu­able assis­tance to their pol­i­cy hold­ers while min­i­miz­ing the amount of the replace­ment loss.

An Emerg­ing Pro­fes­sion

For their part, this new pro­fes­sion of Restor­ers rec­og­nized that the insur­ance pol­i­cy spelled out cer­tain rules for cov­er­age and claim set­tle­ment.

An unof­fi­cial bar­gain was struck: the Restor­er’s respon­si­bil­i­ty was to oper­ate with­in the pol­i­cy – restor­ing the prop­er­ty back to its con­di­tion 1 sec­ond before the dam­age tran­spired while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly serv­ing the press­ing needs of his client. This required that the Restor­er con­fine work to the spe­cif­ic per­il involved rather than exploit­ing the sit­u­a­tion for finan­cial advan­tage.

The con­fu­sion and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of fire vic­tims demand­ed high stan­dards of eth­i­cal con­duct and work­man­ship. In exchange, prop­er­ty insur­ers referred the Fire Restor­er to the claimant, and includ­ed the Restor­er as a pay­ee on checks issued to the claimant based on the Restorer’s esti­mate.

The Growth Years

Respond­ing to emer­gen­cies, solv­ing logis­ti­cal prob­lems, and serv­ing dis­traught clients engen­dered a spir­it of pro­fes­sion­al pride in those Restor­ers who were stur­dy enough to meet the chal­lenge. From this pride grew a desire for greater tech­ni­cal knowl­edge and pro­fes­sion­al iden­ti­ty.

Under the aus­pices of the nation­al trade asso­ci­a­tion, known as the Asso­ci­a­tion for Spe­cial­ists in Clean­ing and Restora­tion (ASCR) which lat­er changed its name to the Restora­tion Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion (RIA), an insti­tute known as the Nation­al Insti­tute of Fire Restora­tion or NIFR, which lat­er became the NIDR, or Nation­al Insti­tute of Dis­as­ter Restora­tion was formed. Most of the tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions that now char­ac­ter­ize pro­fes­sion­al fire restora­tion were devel­oped by mem­bers of the association’s fire insti­tute and its suc­ces­sors”.

Hal­loween or Hal­lowe’en, also known as All­hal­loween, All Hal­lows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve, is a cel­e­bra­tion observed in many coun­tries on 31 Octo­ber, the eve of the West­ern Chris­t­ian feast of All Hal­lows’ Day.

It is wide­ly believed that many Hal­loween tra­di­tions orig­i­nat­ed from ancient Celtic har­vest fes­ti­vals, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Gael­ic fes­ti­val Samhain; that such fes­ti­vals may have had pagan roots; and that Samhain itself was Chris­tianised as Hal­loween by the ear­ly Church.  Some believe, how­ev­er, that Hal­loween began sole­ly as a Chris­t­ian hol­i­day, sep­a­rate from ancient fes­ti­vals like Samhain.

Hal­loween activ­i­ties include trick-or-treat­ing (or the relat­ed guis­ing and soul­ing), attend­ing Hal­loween cos­tume par­ties, carv­ing pump­kins into jack‑o’-lanterns, light­ing bon­fires, apple bob­bing, div­ina­tion games, play­ing pranks, vis­it­ing haunt­ed attrac­tions, telling scary sto­ries, as well as watch­ing hor­ror films. In many parts of the world, the Chris­t­ian reli­gious obser­vances of All Hal­lows’ Eve, includ­ing attend­ing church ser­vices and light­ing can­dles on the graves of the dead, remain pop­u­lar, although else­where it is a more com­mer­cial and sec­u­lar cel­e­bra­tion. Some Chris­tians his­tor­i­cal­ly abstained from meat on All Hal­lows’ Eve, a tra­di­tion reflect­ed in the eat­ing of cer­tain veg­e­tar­i­an foods on this vig­il day, includ­ing apples, pota­to pan­cakes, and soul cakes.  (Wikipedia)

What hap­pened in his­to­ry in Octo­ber

• Octo­ber 1, 1908 — Hen­ry Ford’s Mod­el T, a “uni­ver­sal car” designed for the mass­es, went on sale for the first time.
• The first Aus­tralian mater­ni­ty allowance was intro­duced on 10 Octo­ber 1912. As of that date, mar­ried and sin­gle women who had giv­en birth received £5 to cov­er the cost of med­ical care for them­selves and their babies.
• In 1912, work began on a new rail­way line between Port Augus­ta in South Aus­tralia and Kal­go­or­lie in West­ern Aus­tralia.
• Stretch­ing across 1693 kilo­me­tres of Australia’s dri­est and most iso­lat­ed ter­rain, the Trans-Aus­tralian Rail­way was com­plet­ed on 17 Octo­ber 1917, pro­vid­ing a link between the east­ern states and West­ern Aus­tralia, and help­ing to give the new­ly formed Com­mon­wealth a sense of nation­al uni­ty.
• More than 100,000 peo­ple worked on the Snowy Moun­tains Hydro-Elec­tric Scheme from its launch in Oct 1949 to its offi­cial open­ing in Oct 1972. Migrants of more than 30 nation­al­i­ties made up about 65 per cent of the work­force.
• The scale of ‘the Snowy’ was enor­mous. Over the course of the project, the work­force built sev­en pow­er sta­tions, 16 dams, 80 kilo­me­tres of aque­ducts, 145 kilo­me­tres of tun­nels and 1600 kilo­me­tres of roads and rail­way tracks.
• The Syd­ney Opera House is one of the 20th century’s most icon­ic build­ings. It broke new ground for design and engi­neer­ing around the world. Since its open­ing in 1973 it has become a sym­bol the world imme­di­ate­ly asso­ciates with Syd­ney and Aus­tralia. The sto­ry of the Opera House is a dra­ma that for more than 15 years grabbed nation­al head­lines and pit­ted the artis­tic vision of the archi­tect Jorn Utzon against the pol­i­tics and bud­gets of the New South Wales Gov­ern­ment and the lim­its of archi­tec­ture and con­struc­tion. Syd­ney Opera House was opened by Queen Eliz­a­beth II on 20th Octo­ber 1973.
• Hand­back of Uluru to the Anan­gu peo­ple
• When the Hawke gov­ern­ment hand­ed back the title deeds for the Ulu­ru-Kata Tju­ta Nation­al Park to the Anan­gu peo­ple in Octo­ber 1985, it end­ed decades of deter­mined lob­by­ing by the tra­di­tion­al own­ers to have their rights recog­nised. Locat­ed in the heart of the nation, Ulu­ru is one of Australia’s most recog­nis­able land­marks. It is a red sand­stone mono­lith that ris­es 348 metres above ground.
• For the local Anan­gu peo­ple, Ulu­ru has been there for­ev­er and is a deeply sacred place. Both Ulu­ru and the near­by rock fea­ture of Kata Tju­ta show phys­i­cal evi­dence of feats per­formed dur­ing the cre­ation peri­od that are told in the Tjukur­pa sto­ries.
• Tjukur­pa is the belief sys­tem that guides every aspect of the lives of the Anan­gu. The Anan­gu believe the land­scape was cre­at­ed by ancient beings, and that they are direct descen­dants of those beings.
• The pro­tec­tion and man­age­ment of the lands around Ulu­ru and Kata Tju­ta are con­sid­ered to be intrin­sic Anan­gu respon­si­bil­i­ties.

• Aus­tralia has the world’s longest golf course mea­sur­ing more than 1300km long.
• Aus­tralia is home to 21 of the world’s 25 most ven­omous snakes.

• Perth is the only city in the world which have air­craft land in its CBD.

• Aus­tralia is even big­ger than you think it is.  It is almost the same size as main­land USA.
• The largest cat­tle sta­tion in the world in locat­ed in Aus­tralia and it is big­ger than Israel.
• 4 out 5 Aussies live less than 50km from the coast­line.
• The first Police Force in Aus­tralia was made up of the most well-behaved con­victs.
• The world’s largest sand island can be found in Aus­tralia (Fras­er Island).