Don't swing the golf clubs inside!

8/6/2021 (Permalink)

FORE!

Just by the title, maybe this tee’d up the content of the article? Or maybe not. A few years back our team at SERVPRO of Salem West, located in Oregon was contacted by a client from a college town. They suffered a major water damage in their four-story apartment building, with the source location on the top floor.

As the story goes, a college student living the life in a very nice, two bedroom apartment in a newish apartment building was taking practice swings in the apartment. This building, newer in age with a fully installed fire sprinkler system was about to be put the test. A test not created by design but through human error and lack of judgment.

With the great swing of the titanium driver, that little sprinkler head didn’t stand a chance and a millisecond later water sprayed out in a beautiful umbrella pattern.

The golfer must have felt like, “Oh wow, I can’t take a mulligan on that one!”

With gallons of water pouring in the fourth floor apartment, the renter had to notify the building manager, which takes this little story for another turn. Upon being notified the building manager, with limited experience wasn’t sure what to do except call the fire department.

The fire department quickly responded and was able to locate the riser room to shut off the sprinkler system. Total time for the sprinklers to be shut down was about twentyfive minutes.
As would be, water ran for 25 minutes into the building affecting all three levels below: multiple apartments, common areas and hallways.

While we can’t help with your golf swing, we can make water damage, “Like it never even happened.” We went to work as fast as possible drying a restoring the property to preloss condition.