Water Damage in Hospitals, Medical and Healthcare Facilities

1/19/2017 (Permalink)

Water Damage in Hospitals, Medical and Healthcare Facilities

Water events at Long Island and NYC facilities are of great concern when you have tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sensitive medical equipment and critical documents.  Unfortunately, we've seen a lot get damaged in Nassau County, Suffolk County, Brooklyn, Queens and New York City that was avoidable.

This healthcare facility had extensive water damage and unfortunately many pieces of electronic diagnostic and treatment tools as well as computers were in the line of fire.

These are the best ways to proactively protect your equipment from water damage:  

1. Make sure you know where overhead pipes are located if you have drop ceilings this is helpful - and if possible, keep equipment on the opposite side of the room
2. If units in your building are vacant and freezing temperatures are coming , DO make sure the building's facility management has the heat turned on in those units - a pipe break from a freeze at the other end of the building can affect your unit if their pipes cross through your unit.  If you are on a slab, this happens. 
3. If equipment has no choice but to be located underneath pipes, use water catch systems that are designed to hide up in the drop ceiling and divert water away
4. Emergency water diversion systems can also be installed outside of the ceiling - helpful when you don't have a drop ceiling but do have a leak - though they are visible.  These are not ideal for permanent placement and are not pretty, but they help keep your equipment and documents dry when you can't move everything and water is flowing where you don't want it.  These are used frequently in warehouses with known leaks.