Office floods

[Mercutio]

Ms_Nitsirk, who is a person I know, had about three inches of water in the quasi-office basement/dungeon thing where she works.

Only a couple of her PCs might be affected but my limited experience in that area is that if you let a PC dry out, it'll be OK. On the other hand, my limited experience involved about two inches less water.

Has anyone been through an office flood before? Anything to watch out for besides the incredibly obvious?

 

[Fushigi]

The incredibly obvious being live power lines ..

A few years ago our NYC office had a flood on the 53rd floor. Seriously. There was a fire a couple of floors above and the water ran down through the ceiling and came into the server room.

I echo the advice that if a piece of electronic equipment get wet it's usually fine after it dries out. Point a fan at it to pick up as much moisture as possible (water may pool in odd-shaped places) and give it plenty of drying time.

If the water had any stuff floating in it, I'd suggest an alcohol bath using 90% alcohol to remove the residue. The alcohol itself is non-residual & usually does a good job of cleaning gunk off the electronics.

If a chip/heatsink was under water, it may be advisable to check/replace the thermal compound as it could have been diluted.

When plugging things back in after they've dried out, plug them in to an otherwise unused GFCI(Ground Fault Circuit Interrupt)-protected outlet (the ones with the TEST & RESET buttons). If the part is faulty, the GFCI should trip and shut it down before sparks fly.

 

[ddrueding]

I'll second all of what Fushigi has said, and also warn of mold/mildew. Hard drives also do not like getting wet.

When I was working for CNet, we were in the process of moving to a new office on 3rd street. After some of us had moved with our servers, a fire sprinkler in the still-under-construction top floor failed. At 7PM on a Friday night. Security hadn't been set up yet, so it didn't get noticed for about 12 hours. 3 floors down, directly behind the lobby, is the server room. Fortunately, my servers were in the top of the rack

 

[P5-133XL]

I had a bathtub overflow above me soaking a whole office of running equipement. Alot died immediately (especially monitors). I then let it all dry out. The electronics, that still operated formed a white crust (similar to battery corrosion) over the next week. Regardless, of functionallity, I slowly replaced all the equipment that got wet because I did not trust it and insurance paid for the replacement.

 

[Howell]

Depending on how hard your water is you can get a conductive layer of minerals left behind when the water evaporates, as Mark alluded. I second David as mold being what I would be the most wary of.

About two months ago a high pressure supply line for the sprinkler system failed at a client. Over night, the water sliced through two sheets of drywall to flood the office next door. Only one workstation was flooded though.

 

[Nitsirk]

Thanks for the input guys. One more question to add... My server did not get wet being about 4 inches off the ground (and yes its going on a rack in our new building which is 2 months from done) but there is a lot of moisture in the air since I do work in a dungeon. Should I point a fan near the server after we move it before I try to power it up? Is it likely the water being around but not flooding it affected anything? What precautions should I take or am I being a worrywort? I plan for the worst and hope for the best....

Thanks again Merc and everyone.

 

[Tea]

Bahhhh ... you are not doing anything right. Read about how to do it properly here

 

[Bozo]

Some better stocked electrnics stores should have a spray cleaner for electronic parts. It should be the type that leaves no residue. Once the electronic part is removed from power and let dry, a cleaning with this cleaning solvent would be advised. This is to remove any residue from the water.
Moving parts like hard drives should just be left to dry. Hopefully they will be okay.
Fans and power supplies should be replaced unless you are adept at taking apart the power supply and cleaning it. (with the above solvent)
DVD/CD drives can have the covers removed and cleaned out. But for the price it might be better to replace them.

Moving a sever from a damp location to a dry location should be fine but I would let it sit overnight in the new dry location before applying power.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Fushigi]

Pick up a dehumidifier, put it close by, turn it on maximum, empty the tank. Repeat until the air is no longer damp.

 

[Clocker]

Most dehumidifies have an attachment for a hose that you can let drain out into your basement drain. That way, you never have to worry about the dehumidifier shutting off because the tank is full.

Any basement should have a dehumidifier that is properly sized for the square footage to control the humidity level. Most of the better ones have a setting where you can specify your desired humidity level so that the dehumidifier runs only when needed.

 

[Fushigi]

Actually, I've got just that setup, although mine drains into the sump pit. I just was being lazy & didn't want to go into detail.

Since the dehumidifier collects & drains relatively slowly, I suggest either replacing the hose annually or clearing it out. Otherwise a buildup of gunk could occur. I recent had a blockage build up in my drain hose & ran a plumbing snake through the line to clear it.

I had to snake the condensation drain from my inside AC coils (in the duct work) recently as well. But for my whole house humidifier, which I run in winter, I just replace the line periodically. Probably because it's clear & I can see the buildup. Yuck.

 

[Mercutio]

I have seen their site and it is not pretty.

Smelly, though. It is smelly.

 

[Howell]

Since the dehumidifier collects & drains relatively slowly, I suggest either replacing the hose annually or clearing it out. Otherwise a buildup of gunk could occur.

Is this gunk from critters crawling in there or from mold and mildew? Either way a low pressure one-way valve might help.

 

[Fushigi]

Is this gunk from critters crawling in there or from mold and mildew? Either way a low pressure one-way valve might help.

I'm pretty sure it's from mildew. I'm not sure about the 1-way valve; I'd need one at each end as the appliance-side isn't a closed connection. The place where the hose screws on is slotted to specifically allow drainage to bypass an attached hose should it become necessary.

And my hose is backed up again, which is odd. So I'm going to have to replace it. Got a Menards 15% off sale paper bag this morning; a trip is in order.

 

[ddrueding]

When I had a washer and dryer to worry about, the hose clogged with clothes fibers. There isn't much you can do about that other than increase the diameter of the hose and maintain a significant incline for the length of the hose (keep the water's speed up so the stuff doesn't settle out, and make it less of an issue when it does).

 

[Pradeep]

For water detection in our machine rooms we use two wire cable that is layed out in regions. Even the tiniest drop of condensation will set the alarm off. Then it's off with the floor tiles to see what's going on. Most common water problem is when an A/C unit condensate pump fails.

 

[MaxBurn]

The company I work for has leak detection systems for computer room environments:

http://www.liebert.com/dynamic/catprodlist.asp?pid=7&cycles=60HZ#Category_List4

Pretty handy stuff for raised floor and you can't see anything. We are more geared for large data centers but the same basic idea could work here. They come in three designs, a rope with a meter that tells you how far down the rope the leak is. The thought there is you make a map and mark out the foot measurement. Then you have just the rope monitor device with a contact that goes off that presumably notifies a security or monitoring system. Or you simply have that monitoring device sitting at a low spot and it has a sensor on the bottom and does the same thing.

 

[Mercutio]

Ms_Nitsirk's situation has improved substantially. Today she was taunting me about the window she now has and the half naked people she gets to see through said window.

I think she told me these things because she hates me.

 

[ddrueding]

Either that or she was encouraging you to flood your office.

 

[Bozo]

Ms_Nitsirk's situation has improved substantially. Today she was taunting me about the window she now has and the half naked people she gets to see through said window.

I think she told me these things because she hates me.

Maybe she wants to see you half naked!

Bozo :joker:

 

[Mercutio]

Maybe she wants to see you half naked!

Bozo :joker:

I wish.