Water damage - Help. Desperate and Urgent.

W

Woodie

Active Member
Mar 23, 2001
2,093
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36
Northern Rivers NSW Australia
Please guys, some urgent help and advice needed.

I just got home after being away for 5 days. Sometime between then and now, the pipe connecting the washing machine in the laundry had burst. The house is completely flooded. Carpets, ceilings, paint, the lot. Water was flowing out the front and back doors when I returned.

My layout is directly under the laundry. It's destroyed. (i was gunna chuck it anyway), but All locos (18 of them) and rollingstock too where all there. All been drenched. (Not actually submerged).

What should I do, especially to the locos to retrieve and minimise any possible damamge. Some of them can't easily be replaced. (kit built etc).

Or should I just toss e'm all in the bin right now.


A very upset Woodie. :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
 
Woodie,I would suggest drying them out ,cleaning them up ,and a light relubeing of the mechanical parts and test running them.

As for the rolling stock just dry them out and clean them up as needed.

Did your buildings get destroyed too?:( :(
 
Woodie. Sorry about your flood. You can probable save the engines and cars. Take the engines apart and spread out on a towel or paper towel. Using a hair dryer, wave it back and forth over all the parts slowly and not to close as you don't want to scorch anything. Make sure you dry the engine real good. Then let the, set for several days all spread out. The water shouldn't harm any of the parts. When assembling them apply the proper grease and oil to their respective parts.
Do the same to the cars excepe they shouldn't take near as long.
 
Thanks guys.....
Stuff the rest of the house. It's stuffed anyway. And just my luck. I've sold the place and settlement and the new owners take over this friday.

Should I have the electricity even switched on? Probably not, but it's been gushin' for days, and not blown anything up.

It's insured anyway, but that's not really the point.

Suppose I'll just have to sit here in the flood till the emergency carpet flood dryer people get here at 7am. (it's 315am at the mo).

I've just pieced together two piices of flextrack, and intend to give each loco a good run up and down to check each one. Should I do that before thoroughly drying them out?? That's if the controller don't go FFFFZZZZZZTT.... when I turn it on.

Catt.... yep all the structures are stuffed. Most of them are balsa and card. And I've also learnt that water disolves woodglue too. All the track ballast is stuffed and washed all over the floor and layout, ground cover washed off.... the lot. Probably stuffed all the turnout motors I was going to salvage too.

Yakko, a can of electrical contact cleaner/waer displacer stuff?

Can't till tomorrow. it's 3.30am here, and I don't want rust to set in before I can get to fixing the things. Oh... and the water has ruined the hand painted locos too. Anything that was dullcoated, has not gone all beached with blotches.
 
BUMMER!! Woodie!! :( :( :( I'm so sorry about your misfortune. I wouldn't run anything electrical for a few days till everything dries out, that stuff should be salvagable once it's dry.

Hang in there...this too shall pass
 
ooooof!

That's why I keep checking all muh connections. My washer and dryer are on the second floor. I know people, including you now who've had burst hoses. Talk about getting hosed!!!

If the equipment wasn't submerged, I'd do I'd even if it was- run it and see what happens (on a test track). Maybe there's no damage whatsoever.

Bummer, I'm with ya Woodie. A nice hair dryer?

Mark
 
HOLY SMOKES WOODIE...I can't offer anything more than what's already been said with respect to your locos and cars and layout....its all excellent advice.

Don't throw out anything though...even the ruined stuff...it all has value and the insurance company rep will want to see it.

There are companies that deal in fire and water restoration...get hold of one of those right away....your insurance should pay for it. Certain that you will contact your insurance company as soon as they open up for the day. Remember, although the laws may be different there in Oz the principals of insurance are basically the same and under your policy you have the duty to protect any property from further loss and the insurance company should pick up the tab for doing so.

On the matter of shutting off the electricity... your fire dept or the electric company can advise you on that... There's probably not a problem but better safe than sorry so seek their advice.
 
:( :( :(

It must have happened days ago. There's rust through them already. Especially the couplers, and especialy especially, the kadees. They've crudded up and gone white and rusty. The paint jobs on the ones that have gone white and blotchy appears to be a white mould of sorts. A spray furniture polish (Mr Sheen) is sorta fixing that a bit. So far, only one has a dodgy mechanism. (out of 7 I've looked at).

The wheels on some are rusty, but they're all wheel pickup so they seem to be OK.

A house where the carpet is sloshy, and water has been pouring out the ceilings, everywhere, in 40C heat seems like it's produced a steam bath sauna. There isn't a think in the house, that not so damp, I can just about ring the water out of it.

:(:(:(:(:( now i'm getting :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
That's a hellish thing that's happened Woodie, I can imagine how you felt when you found it.

Let the insurance worry about recovery or replacement of soft furnishings etc.... but now onto your models --->

I believe your mains power is 220/240 Volts .. so let your power pack thoroughly dry out before trying to use it, the transformer can hold a lot of water/moisture.
Your switch machines should be OK with drying out and a drop of lube on the iron moving armatures.
The up side of things? .. well every cloud has a silver lining! all your track is probably free of ballast and therefore recoverable.

I can feel for you when it comes to your handpainted locos, most distressing!!:( :(

The down side? ... those damned little plastic folks won't lift a finger to help out!!!!!

But hey.. your next layout will be even better, remember all those things you wish you had done with the existing one?? :)

I'll see about making a shipment of the embalming fluid to you, (gotta keep you smiling) :) :)

Errol
 
Hi Woodie, sorry to hear about the flood, Oh dear. However, for the loco's, best bet is to strip them down to the chassis (Body off)
and use a hair dryer on warm and blow dry the loco/motor/gears etc. when it appears dry use some machine oil, and turn the gears by hand first (Take off the motor if you have to) and keep on turning the gears for a couple of mins. The motor might be damaged, but leave it in a warm place for a couple of days before trying it out. Just blow it over with the dryer and connect a couple of wires from the transformer, keep the blower on and put power to it. (Don't grease it yet) if it runs, your in business. let it run for a while, then lightly oil it, then run it again then put grease on the shaft back and front.

Hope this helps.
Shamus
wink.gif


 
Hi guys, and thanks all for the concern and help.

I've now run them all, and all but one are OK. Showing a lot of water marks, and I don't think any of them will be the same again. But at least they are running.

The one that doesn't was sitting on the layout, directly under a constants stream of water. Most of the others were in an old wine cardboard box on the floor under the layout, but had water pouring over the box and it was completely soaked, but the locos were upright in the box, so it seems it as mostly casing water stains, and wheels. Not really the motors.

I did the best I could at drying, without any spray or hair dryer.

All my un-made kits, tools, dremel, bags of ground cover, decals, rollingstock and loco boxes, MR magazines......... all a right off.

Oh well. Not much I can do about it now. :(
 
Hi Woodie, don't despair. Every year for 4 years in a row my hot tub connections would spring a leak and soak the train layout underneath. Everything on the layout was soaked from the first time.

i let it all dry out and with the help of a hair blower. Don't run the engines until u have taken them apart and cleaned and lubed. Take the trucks apart too. They will run as good as new.

The wheels on the rolling stock need to be dryed. The metal trucks need to be wiped good.

The track will be fine. U can reuse it. The plastic models are okay too. They can dry on their own.

At least u don't have to redo your layout, i had to tear up all the track and redo it. The roadbed got all hard and cracked. The scenery held up good, it was mainly the roadbed.

Now i don't worry about the hot tub. its in the back porch. :D

Yeah anything paper is toast. :( Tools, dremel and can be saved. Just let them dry and sit for a week. WD 40 will do wonders. Use this to clean them after.
 
Woodie, Man ,I know how you feel, woke up one morning to find the complete house had a foot of water in it ,our hose on the washing machine had also broke, worked for days to get it dry. Draught extruders on the doors had prevented the water from running out. Use a good brand of Water repelant spray ,some of the cheaper ones leave a residue Best of luck for the recovery, Glad the PC survived
 
Woodie,
I don't have any additional advice but just wanted to add my"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" and a lot of sympathy.
Best wishes,
Ralph (and Sam) :)
 
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