Serving Birmingham
Structural Drying & Dehumidification in Birmingham, AL
Commercial dehumidifiers and air movers remove moisture from the structure, with daily readings logged from the material itself for claim documentation. Structural drying brings building materials back to a documented dry standard using air movers and dehumidifiers rather than surface evaporation alone. Moisture readings are logged through the process so the substrate, not just the surface, is confirmed dry before anything is rebuilt.
Frequently asked questions
Water came up in the street with no creek anywhere near us.
There may well be a creek beneath the street. A good deal of the valley's drainage was culverted during the industrial era, and those channels still carry the same flow with no surface expression. When the culvert's capacity is exceeded, water surfaces at low points and behaves exactly like a stream, because it is one. Historic maps often show a watercourse where a road now runs, and that is worth checking for a property that floods inexplicably.
Our lot is on old industrial ground. What does that change?
Mostly what is beneath it. Fill drains unpredictably because it is placed material rather than natural soil, so water can move in ways the surface does not suggest, and the depth to anything solid varies. It is worth establishing what is there before committing to below-grade drainage work, both for how the work will perform and for what will be encountered while digging.
Why does the valley floor flood when the rain fell on the ridges?
Because the ridges shed almost everything they receive and the valley is narrow. Runoff arrives at the floor quickly and concentrates rather than spreading, and the drainage down there is a fixed-capacity system rather than an open floodplain. A gauge at your own house understates what is coming if the ridge above got more, which is why the useful question during a storm is what fell on the high ground.
These questions come from the Birmingham page.