Professional disaster recovery services are great at what they do, but they can’t help restore photos lost in a fire or damaged in a flood. For that, preparation is key.

If you were to experience a fire in your house or severe flooding occurred, could you easily replace the photos on display and stores in your home? Or would these memories be lost forever? As great as professionals like Archer Cleaning & Restoration Services are at getting your house back to its former glory, no service can restore a photo lost in a fire or flood.

Protect Your Memories Against Fire and Flood Damage

Archer Cleaning & Restoration Services knows just how difficult it can be for families to recover their photos and memories after a flood or fire and prepared the following post with information on how you can prevent this from happening to you.

Collect and Gather

The first step is to get all of your photos together. Not just the ones hanging on your wall, but also the ones on display in your bedroom and your children's rooms, along with any and all photos you have stored away in your attic or your basement. If there’s a photo somewhere in your house which you would miss should it be damaged, get it.

Sort Them Out

The next step is to sort out your photos into a filing system. The easiest system to adopt is one based on when the photo was taken. Use a pencil to write the date of the photo on the back and start putting them into piles or months, and then into years. Yes, this will take some time, but it’s something you only have to do once and be a great activity to complete when it’s cold and you don’t feel like leaving the warmth of your living room.

Start to Digitize

If you have an old scanner stored in your attic or you receive a brand new one for Christmas, now is the time to take it out of its box and put it good use! As you scan each photo, be sure to stick with a consistent file naming convention, such as MONTH/DAY/YEAR. Then you can add numeric appendages to end as you scan photos taken on the same date. As you do this, be sure to save them into separate folders based on the month of the year, then once you have finished an entire year, put these into its own folder with a year name to match.

Into the Cloud They Go

One of the best backup solutions to consider is the cloud. In reality, the cloud is just a fancy way of saying somebody else’s computer, however, it isn’t like the one sitting on your desk. Instead, cloud-based storage systems are high powered and have a range of security and redundancy systems in place to protect your photos. When choosing the best provider for you, consider these aspects:

• How safe and protected will your photos be?
• Is there any recurring fees or is it a one-off payment?
• If the service is free, how does the company benefit?
• Do they provide software to help you upload and manage your photos?
• How can you access your photos once they are stored online?
• Is there a complementary phone app which can continue to add new photos taken to your collection?

If your home has suffered fire or flood damage, it’s important that you call a professional and don’t attempt to recover from the damage yourself. Serious restoration work requires professional attention. To find out more, speak with an expert at Archer Cleaning & Restoration Services by calling (888) 436-3499 today.

Time to Upload

Once you have your photos scanned and sorted, and you have chosen your provider, all you need to do it start the upload using their service and sit back comfortably knowing that your memories are protected. Before you put your photos away, consider giving the uploaded files a quick and random audit, to ensure that all of the photos made it to the cloud. Better to find out now while you still have the photos available.

Continuing Protection

Of course, these aren’t going to be the last photos you will take or want to store. If you choose a provider which offers an app for your phone or tablet, be sure to install this and set it up. These apps work by automatically uploading new photos you take with your mobile device to your cloud collection when you return home and are on a wifi connection. This happens without your interaction or intervention, meaning that you can simply take photos and rest assured that they will continue to be uploaded and protected. With a system such as this in place, should you lost any photos to fire or water damage, or simply want to stroll through memory lane, you are covered.

The Best Restoration Services in Polk County

When it comes to repairing your home after a flood or fire damage, you can’t go past the expert services provided by Archer Cleaning & Restoration Services. Leaders in the field of property restoration services, trust in their experience, expert knowledge, and professional grade equipment to return your property to its former state safely and quickly.