Tips for Cleaning up Water Damage After the Storm

You walk down to your basement after the latest storm and you notice that your family hang out space, now more closely resembles a swimming pool. You’re going to have to act fast. Here are some tips to help you quickly repair the water damage in your home.

DISCONNECT THE POWER AND MOVE AS MANY ITEMS AS YOU CAN

The first thing you’ll want to do is disconnect the power to the area. Any electronics or other items that are plugged in present a significant safety hazard in the area where the water is standing. Remove any personal belongings as quickly as possible increasing the chances that they can be saved. If there are any electronics that were damaged, those are unlikely to be salvageable.

GET RID OF THE WATER

Before starting the process of removing the water, it is important to understand the type of water you are dealing with. There are three types of water:

  • Clean water
  • Gray water
  • Black water

Clean Water

Clean water is usually caused by a leaky faucet or broken pipe, rainwater, or condensation. This is for the most part considered to be relatively harmless and something that you can clean up on your own.

Gray Water

Gray water is considered to be slightly dirty. This type of water typically stems from clean toilet water, dishwashers, washing machines, and other similar sources. This water may contain some chemicals and other precautions. You can also, with the right safety gear, clean this water on your own.

Black Water

Black water is created from flooding as a result of sewage or flooding from nearby water sources (lakes, rivers, etc.). This type of water can cause serious health problems resulting from bacteria, waste, and other contaminants. You should never try to clear this type of water on your own. You should contact a service professional as soon as possible.

Depending on the amount of water, you may be able to get rid of it through the use of old towels or a map and a bucket. If there is more water than these manual methods can handle, a wet/dry vacuum may be just what you need.

If there is a substantial amount of water, consider renting a sump pump to help get rid of the excess water. The important thing is to act as quickly as possible to avoid giving mold a chance to grow.

DRY OUT THE AFFECTED AREA

If possible, open windows to help dry out the area. If you have them, fans and a dehumidifier are also handy tools to help the area dry more quickly. If the area where the damage occurred was finished, you will likely need to cut away the drywall and remove any baseboards. These areas provide great targets where mold can take hold.

If you are in an area of your home that has water damage to the ceiling, it is a good idea to start here first. These areas pose a higher risk as a result of the possibility that portions of the ceiling panels can sag or collapse.

DISINFECT

After the area has dried out, you want to disinfect the places touched by the water damage, including any furniture, walls, and wood that got wet.

TAKE ACTION TO PREVENT MOLD GROWTH

Consider applying a mold control solution to the affected area to avoid it becoming contaminated with mold. This may be a situation where you will want to call in the experts to help guide you through the process.

PROPERLY DISPOSE OF WATER DAMAGED ITEMS

Even if the items that are damaged are of no use to you, consider organizing them rather than throwing it all in the dumpster. Some of the items may be eligible to go to local recycling centers.

For items such as damaged electronics, pain, or other toxic liquids and materials, contact your local waste management company or the town’s waste management office to determine what steps you should take to get rid of the items.

Flooding in your home can be a stressful and trying event. Follow these tips to help you to get rid of the water and your house back to the place that you love to come home to.

If you would like to learn more about ways to clean up water damage or would like to schedule an appointment to learn more about services, please feel free to contact us for more information.

Minneapolis Painters For Retail Buildings

Minneapolis Painting Professionals for Retail Buildings

When you operate a retail store in the Twin Cities area, you know how important it is to make a good first impression on your customers. But this goes beyond shelf displays and product selection. One thing many store owners don’t often think about is the way the color and style of their retail space impacts shoppers. Whether you’re just moving in or you’re ready for a fresh new look, Satin Touch can bring painting expertise to your retail location.

Retail Building Painting Services

At Satin Touch, we specialize in commercial painting services for retail spaces of every kind in Minneapolis and St. Paul. No matter what kind of painting service you need for your retail space, we can help.

Interior Painting

Creating an inviting, comfortable atmosphere is key for any retail space. Not only can new paint help make customers feel at ease, it can also help employee satisfaction and even improve revenues. Our team members are always respectful of your needs as a business, and we take care to treat your space and property like it was our own.

Exterior Painting

No matter what kind of storefront or retail space you’re in, you need it to stand out in order to catch customers’ eyes. Exterior paint can help refresh and renew your retail building, and it can also provide vital protection against the sun and weather. We can paint any surface to your exact specifications, including wood, metal, stucco, brick and more.

Paint Cleanup and Repair

If you just need a small amount of work to repair your existing paint, Satin Touch can help with that as well. Our experienced Minneapolis painters will expertly match your existing paint so you can present the best possible image to your customers. We can also provide other necessary light repairs to ensure your paint job will look as great as possible.

Flexible Scheduling

We understand that having contractors doing work in your store during business hours can affect your company. That’s why we offer flexible scheduling and consultations when you need them. We want to ensure you’re satisfied with every step of the work we do.

The Retail Store Painting Process

Unlike many Twin Cities painting companies, at Satin Touch we pride ourselves on being open and available through every step of the process. We want to ensure you are as happy as possible when our work is done. That’s why we have a detailed multi-step process for every retail painting job we do:

  • Initial Consultation – Members of our team will meet at your location and go over your project with you. We’ll provide you with detailed estimates and make sure you know what work will be performed and what timeline to expect.
  • Property Protection – We take great care in safely covering or moving any items that need to be protected from paints, cleaning agents, or tools. Our team will perform a thorough scan of your space to make sure we protect every piece of your property.
  • Dedicated Work – We will work hard to make sure your project is finished in the timeframe and budget we provide. If there ever do need to be changes, we will make sure you understand and agree with them from the outset.
  • Thorough Cleanup – We make sure the only thing we leave behind is a professionally painted retail space. We will remove any trace of our work, including tape, tools, coverings, and more.
  • Final Inspection – We’re not finished with the job until you’ve inspected it yourself and given your approval. 

If you’re ready to refresh and renew your retail building space, or if you want to make sure your space looks as great as possible, contact Satin Touch today for a free, no-obligation estimate. We work with businesses across the Twin Cities region, and we’d love to help you make your retail space look its best with our dedicated Minneapolis painters.  

How to Handle a Toilet Overflow

There are few things worse than dealing with an overflowing toilet. Not only can toilet overflows be inconvenient, smelly, and unsanitary, but they can also cause water damage to your bathroom’s floor and fixtures.

If you are dealing with a toilet overflow, what can you do to mitigate the damage? While there are several possible causes of a toilet overflow, one of the most common causes is a clog in the toilet bowl or P-trap/S-trap. This article will discuss steps you can take to remove such a clog, what you should do if other issues are causing your toilet to overflow, and how you can get help to restore water damaged areas.

How to Handle a Toilet Clog

There are a few important actions you should take in order to deal with a toilet overflow caused by a clog. These include the following steps:

  • Turn off the water supply. This is the first and most important step. The majority of toilets feature a water supply line coming down from the tank. Usually this line will have a valve that you can shut on or off. If for any reason you’re unable to shut off the water supply in this way, continue to the next step.
  • Lift up the float ball/cup in your toilet’s tank so that the water stops running. If that too proves ineffective, shut off the water supply to your house. The water supply valve for most houses is located in the basement, in a crawl space, or near the foundation.
  • Use a plunger to unclog the toilet. The up-down motion of a plunger creates pressure that will unstop most toilet clogs. If you are unable to unclog the toilet with a plunger, move on to the next step.
  • Use a toilet auger/drain snake. Toilet augers and drain snakes are designed to remove clogs that are more compacted or further down the drain line, such as clogs in the toilet’s P-trap or S-trap.
  • Once the clog is removed, extract any spilled water from your floor. Use a wet vacuum if you have one. Alternately, use towels, rags, or other materials to soak up the water. For sanitary reasons, you want to remove spilled water as soon as possible.
  • Thoroughly clean, disinfect, and sanitize the affected area. Toilet overflow water can contain many harmful bacteria and contaminants. Once you’ve removed the water from the bathroom floor, be sure to thoroughly clean the spill area, using appropriate PPE (such as heavy-duty gloves and eye-protecting goggles) as you do so.

Of course, sometimes a clog is not the root cause of a toilet overflow. For instance, a sewer backup could be the true culprit. In some cases, you may not be able to easily stop the overflow of water. In such a scenario, what should you do?

Seek Professional Help

If you suspect that a sewer backup or another major issue is causing your toilet overflow, call a professional immediately. An experienced plumber will be able to identify and eliminate the root cause of the overflow, and prevent further damage to your home.

At Satin Touch, we offer full-service repair and restoration services to homeowners in distress. Not only will we effectively find and put an end to the main cause of the overflow, but we will clean, disinfect, sanitize, and restore all floors and fixtures damaged from the water. As we work, we will truly put your needs and the needs of your family first and foremost, ahead of all other concerns. We will work hard to restore your bathroom to a sanitary and comfortable condition as soon as humanly possible.

If you’d like to learn more about our services, reach out to us today at Satin Touch for further information.

How to get Professional Quality Paint Lines

There is something about an interior paint job by a professional that makes it really stand-out. You can usually tell a do-it-yourself paint job from a professional job. One major difference between these two types of jobs is in the lines. This is especially true when you are utilizing two colors on a wall. A two-color wall isn’t an easy project.
The lines accomplished by professionals have a particular trick involving overpainting. Some paint will bleed through no matter what type of paint you utilize in your project.
The tape will actually keep your second color from bleeding and messing-up your crisp line. There is a process though, and following this process to the letter is highly important. So if you are interested in doing this type of job yourself, here is the best way to make those lines look crisp and professional. 

Color Number One

Two-color projects aren’t easy, and when you are painting two colors on one wall you’ve got to start somewhere. You begin with the first color of your choice, painting a little beyond where you want your paint line. This provides a solid base color and there will be less bleed when the second color is applied. 

Adding Your Tape Line

Because the edge of the tape line identifies where the two colors on the wall join, it is absolutely necessary that this is a straight line. Measure appropriately and apply the tape to mark this straight line. This cannot happen until the first color has properly dried. Don’t rush this step! Give it plenty of time to dry completely before adding the painter’s tape. 

The Bleed Line

The bleed line is perhaps the most important part of this process. Getting a professional look isn’t hard, but it is important that this is done properly. You create the bleed line by painting the tape line against the tape using the first color. This seals the tape and will prevent the second color from bleeding through and ruining the line. It’s very important that you then taper your new, second color away from the line of your seam to your color contrast isn’t too abrupt. It will look natural and make the two-color wall look amazing! After you’ve done this (and the bleed line layer is dry) you are ready to add the second color. Make certain that you paint over the edge of the paint line. It will look very smooth and professional! 

Peeling the Tape

You’d think that you need to wait for the paint to dry before peeling your tape away. This is not at all the case! If you peel back the tape as it is dry, you are likely going to create a bigger mess, as it will likely chip in places where the paint sealed to the wall. Peeling while the paint is wet, at a 90-degree angle will assure that you are getting a great looking paint line with no mess! 

Getting Help

While this is a job you can do yourself, it may not be a job that you “want” to do yourself. Residential painting takes a certain level of skill and patience. Doing this type of residential painting project yourself will undoubtedly take more time. Many people love the challenge of doing the job themselves, but there is certainly no shame in getting some professional help. Whether you try this technique and it doesn’t go according to plan, or you just don’t think you are quite ready for this project, contact us to get some expert help from knowledgeable professionals that will do an amazing job. 

Handling a Basement Floor Drain Backup

If the floor drain in your basement backs up, your whole basement can be flooded. What is the source of the problem though? There could be a blockage in your main line, and the flood is local waste that can’t exit your home. Or, there could be a problem in the public system, which is sending waste, or backflow, from the sewer system into your house. Water or sewage in your basement can damage walls, floors, and carpets, and destroy furniture and belongings. It can also quickly cause mold.

Causes

If there are lower elevation drains, like in a shower or bathtub, that back up too, then the problem is likely in your main line. You may also hear gurgling when the washing machine empties, tub drains, or toilet is flushed. The basement floor drain backup is the first evidence that you have a blockage. Blockages happen if there is a break in the pipe, tree roots have grown into the pipe, or something has gone down the drain or toilet in the house.

The second cause of a basement drain backup is when flooding comes in from the public sewer, which would include rain water or possibly waste from multiple homes. This can happen when the entire drainage system gets overwhelmed by high levels of rain. If your basement is lower than the current water level, then some of that water will try to come up through your basement drain.

If your basement is flooded, but the water didn’t come from the floor drain, then it may have come in through cracks in the house’s foundation. This is sometimes due to clogged gutters, incorrect sloping of the yard, or extra groundwater.

What to Do

Here’s what to do if your basement drain backs up:

  1. Turn off the water supply in the house. Running more water could worsen the flooding.
  2. Turn off the electricity or call your power company if you need them to turn it off. Don’t step in the water if it’s covering electrical outlets.
  3. Open the windows to let out any toxic sewage fumes (and smells).
  4. Move people and pets away from the flood water. Wear protective gear if you need to be in the area.
  5. A small backup can be cleaned up with bleach or disinfectant and a shop vac.
  6. Carpets should be cleaned with hot water and carpet cleaner. Or, they should be replaced.
  7. Use fans and dehumidifiers to make sure the area dries quickly before mold grows.
  8. If the backup is larger, call in the professionals to deal with the hazardous situation.

If you’re not connected to a public sewer and instead have a septic system and sump pump, a backup of the basement drain could be caused by a sump pump problem. To check on this, first stop using water in your house. Then check the ground fault switch for the sump pump and reset it if it has tripped. If it doesn’t begin working again, it may need to be replaced.

Prevention

If backflow causes your basement drain to flood periodically, you could install a backwater valve or floating backflow drain plug. These features can close off your main line to prevent water from flowing the wrong direction and into your house. You could instead choose to create an overhead sewer system. You may also want to have your sewer inspected and cleaned annually to reduce the likelihood of a blockage in your main line, especially if you have tree roots that grow into your pipes.

Contact us at Satin Touch Homes Reinvented if you need water cleaned up at any hour. We’ll come to eliminate smells, prevent mold from growing, and sanitize sewage contamination.

5 Rental Home Painting Tips for Landlords

Owning investment property, many of the smart landlord tips are about how to protect your property and take good care of your tenants at the same time. Naturally, this rule also applies to your painting choices. Tenants want a beautifully painted home, and to be able to fix little wall splatters and scuffs when they occur in the course of everyday life. You want your home to look good and for the walls not to take damage.
Fortunately, there are several choices and techniques that achieve both sets of goals quite satisfactorily. Let’s dive into smart painting choices that landlords can make for beauty, functionality, and long-lasting performance.

1) Satin and Semigloss: Washable Paint Types

Flat and eggshell paints look great but have one particular weakness: you can’t scrub them. They also scuff easily, and scuffs are difficult to remove. Tenants need a type of paint that can have splatters scrubbed off with the rough side of a sponge. For this, you need semi-gloss which is the most washable of the paints that aren’t devastatingly shiny. If semigloss is still too shiny for you, try a satin which is one stage closer to flat paint but can still usually be scrubbed. You’ll also want to look into brands of paint that advertise durability.

2) Look Up the Latest Colors, Pick the Best for Each Home

The top paint colors for rental homes changes every few years. Lately, the real estate industry went through a blue-gray stage, eased into a ‘greige’ stage (gray and beige) and recently has started to see colors warming up. These aren’t universal color tips and every region and home will have colors that work best. But it helps to keep up with the times on which undertones of neutral paint are most popular overall, as it can reflect the shifting mood and taste of the population.
In general, avoid too much ‘real’ color beyond neutral hints. Leave the actual decorating to the tenants.

3) The Wainscoting Trick

Traditional wainscoting is wooden boards that come up to “chair height” and are bordered by molding. You no longer need to use wood or follow conventional designs, but the idea of designing the lower half of your walls differently can be very clever for a landlord. Especially if you intend to allow pets or welcome families with toddlers.
The wainscoting trick can be as simple as painting satin above and semigloss below the chair-rail line or you can install damage-resistant boards on the lower half of walls to make your walls both more attractive and sturdier in the face of the most common risks.

4) Repaint Every Tenant Turnover

One way to keep your homes looking fantastic and avoid sweating the little scuffs is to simply repaint every time you turnover the home between tenants. Just as you bring in the steam cleaner and get all the appliance maintenance done; bring in professional painters to put up a fresh coat in the latest colors. Your next tenants will appreciate the beautiful freshly-painted feel and you don’t have to worry about any unspotted little paint damages left from the last tenant.

5) Leave a Pot of Paint for Tenants to do Touchups

Finally, and here’s a tip from the real pros, leave the last of your paint pots sealed and labeled by room for your tenants. Let’s say something does scratch or lightly stain the paint during their residence. The ability to lightly touch up the paint can help tenants to handle their own surface-level repairs to keep the home beautiful while they live there.
The right paint strategy is incredibly useful for savvy landlords. Whether you’re planning to make a home beautiful for long-term year-on-year tenants or keep a home fresh and attractive for quick-turnover, these paint tricks will serve you (and your tenants) well for years. Contact us today for more professional painting tips or to schedule your turnover repainting today!