Help! Water damage!

Chat
1

Came home from work and went to use my bathroom and saw that it was flooded because one of my kids had left the water on all day. The bathroom is just above my record room and the ceiling has collapsed, and you guessed it, taken out my whole collection.

Seeing what I can salvage but it’s pretty dire. Any tips?

2

Blimey :worried:

3

You can salvage the wax at least… I’d separate what’s really really wet from what’s less so. Separate records from covers, try to dry the covers outside. Don’t let anything dry touching as that will truly ruin covers once you pull them apart. Maybe put them under a glass pane to try and keep them flat. So sorry to hear about this.

4

You need to seperate the records and sleeves and try to air dry them out of the sun separately. Using a fan will help. If there is a lack of space, it’s worth moving them to somewhere that has space. Use paper towels carefully to help accelerate the drying. Get a production line going. Some may need to be rinsed. It is a big job but you can save the records, the sleeves will always be a bit wavy, some worse than others. Ask mates for help.

5

Nightmare. I would also bin all the inner sleeves and order a load of new ones.

1 Like
6

Tossed all of the outer sleeves and inner sleeves. Looks like one of those second hand stores where the owner just doesn’t give a fuck now. And as someone who recognizes his records by the covers alone as in rubbish with names, this is going to be interesting going forward.

Throwing away artwork with posters and inserts was really heartbreaking.

2 Likes
8

Mate i feel your pain, sounds awful, at least the vinyl itself is still intact.

1 Like
9

Yeah it was heartbreaking. Having the water/mold guy come in and say, “were those records? My parents used to have them” didn’t help at all.

10

Jesus mate that’s tough. Hope you can save as much of the vinyl as possible :crossed_fingers:

11

Ouch. Really sorry to hear this happened and hope your salvage mission is a success.

12

Nightmare scenario. My records were water damaged. Well the couple of boxes I had left as got rid of most many years ago. I lent them to my now wife to have a listen to and she left them under a window and left it open and it rained heavily. The vinyl was ok but the sleeves are all wonky and some have ripped when I tried to take the records out. A shame but at least the records are still playable. You are probably all questioning why I married her!? The rain also ruined a DJ controller I had bought her that I was teaching her to beat match with.

1 Like
13

Here is my handy guide on how to save your records.

  1. Don’t cry
  2. Buy a shit ton of inner sleeves and plastic outer sleeves.
  3. Buy a Pro-Ject VC-S2 ALU
  4. Listen to mixes from here as the thing is loud
  5. Don’t be precious about sleeves, just toss them
  6. Remove all labels that are damaged or water soaked. Replace them with a sticker and a sharpie.
  7. Copy and paste track listings from discogs and put these in with the records or you might be unintentionally doing late 90’s coverups
  8. Enlist a 7 year drawing genius to make those sleeves look a little more inviting, pay him in screen time. Having dinosaurs and transformers as a cover for something like Eddie Chacon shouldn’t work but I’m convincing myself that it does.

Took forever.

And voila, disaster averted and a very unique collection that looks like what I’d imagine mid-90’s touring DJ’s collections looked like.

9 Likes
14

Is she at least a decent DJ now?

15

Yep not bad at all. She only wanted to learn so we could DJ together at our wedding but she has loads of rhythm and a great taste in music so was like a duck to water.