Water Loss Drying Equipment: Air Movers

In this video, we show you how United Water Restoration Long Island uses one of its most powerful tools in our toolbox, the air mover. It’s essentially a high-performance fan, and we all know what a fan does – it moves air. During the restoration process, moving air is a huge deal!

We’re here at a residential water loss to show you how we use cyclonic movement to help dry out this area in the most effective and fastest way we can.

United uses two types of air movers to accelerate drying, air blowers, and fans. Air blowers, or centrifugal fans – and sometimes called snails because they look like Gary the Snail from SpongeBob SquarePants – offer more direct, high-pressure streams of air. They’re a little harder to manipulate than fans, or axials, which provide high volumes of air with lower pressure. An axial fan is easier to move around and angle (to direct the airflow).

Rapid air movement is an extremely important part of the drying process following a water loss. Think about putting something on a clothesline. If you put a damp shirt outside to dry on a very humid day, you’re not going to get good results. If we put it outside to dry on a hot, dry day, it’ll be dry in no time. It’s the warm, dry air that removes moisture from the shirt. So, it’s the same theory to dry out your rafters, or your rugs, or your sill plates. The goal is to pull that warm, dry air from above and direct it to the wet surface. And, the more, the better.

The quantity of fans varies based on the size of the room and the amount of damage. One of the most difficult areas to dry is where the wall meets the floor. IICRC recommends water damage drying equipment be placed at least six inches away from walls or other structures to allow for proper airflow. Their placement is a key factor. When properly situated, air movers create a vortex – or a whirlpool effect – and when paired with commercial dehumidifiers, creates the optimal drying environment.

Air movers, when forcing warm, dry air across wet surfaces, evaporate the moisture.
1. Moist air is removed from the atmosphere by one or more dehumidifiers.
2. Once cooler, moist air goes through the intake of the dehumidifier(s), it comes out the other side as warm, dry air.
3. The dry air is pushed by the air movers towards the wet materials.
4. Repeat until the area is fully dry to industry standards.