Most legal documents these days are computer-generated. However, there are still a good number of businesses around the world today that greatly rely on paper documents. And the loss of important files has serious implications on such companies and the commercial documents they maintain.

How about your personal papers and book collections? Can you afford losing them? Much like these companies, you also lose a piece of yourself when you found all your legal papers, such as your marriage contract and certificate of birth, all soaked up in flood water.

While you may feel so unlucky for residing in a flood-prone area, you are still fortunate because you can now find document drying services around you. Whether you are a record manager who's having problems on recovering wet documents, or a private individual who wants to save your much-needed records and legal papers, there are companies out there to assure you 100% document recovery if you act immediately.

So what will kind of restoration will a document drying company do to your wet papers? It will prevent your photographic papers from drying and sticking on each other and it will freeze dry your legal papers to avoid further damage. In short, it will stabilize your documents and make them highly reusable.

Document Drying Services

The service you need largely depends on the document you want to save and the extent of water damage. Here are some of the document drying services you will find in the industry and the processes involved in recovering and preserving such materials:

* Wet Documents, Wet Blueprints, Wet Maps Drying Services:
* Vacuum freeze-drying
* Surface grime, mold and soot removal
* Deodorizing (to do away with smoke odor)
* Re-jacketing (applicable for files, books and binders)
* Microfilming or scanning damaged documents
* Relabeling
* Indexing of damaged records

* Wet Book Drying Services:
* Vacuum freeze-drying
* Cryogenic freeze-drying (for vellum and leather-bound books)
* Surface grime, mold and soot removal
* Text block trim (if necessary)
* Deodorizing (to do away with smoke odor)
* Rebinding (meets the LBI preservation standards)

* Wet Photographic Prints and Negatives Drying Services:
* Surface grime, mold and soot removal
* Relabeling and re-housing
* Re-jacketing (applicable for files, books and binders)
* Drying and processing undeveloped film

* Wet Microfilm/ Microfiche/ X-ray film/ Aperture Cards drying services:
* Surface grime, mold and soot removal
* Complete drying
* Relabeling and re-housing
* Roll film re-spooling
* Back file conversion
* Separating adhered x-ray films

* Wet Magnetic Diskettes and Disk Drives drying Services:
* Surface grime, mold and soot removal
* Drying
* Uploading data to tape or copying it to a new disk

* Wet Audio/Video Tape drying services:
* Disassembly and Cleaning of Components
* Vacuum-drying
* Re-spooling
* Duplication (if necessary)

Some companies may include additional methods or processes to preserve and protect your damaged records. However, please be reminded that there are still bad apples out there who will give you less than what you pay for. So it really pays to ask first before employing the document drying services of any company.

So the next time a flood rages through your office or home, you know what to do. Take your files immediately to a document drying service. Remember: document drying is cheaper than replacing your legal papers and business records.