Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

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Catweazle
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Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Catweazle »

Last week a water pipe in my cellar broke.
Unfortunately, I had taken most of my LPs from the living room to my study in the cellar some time ago. Ca. 150 albums which stood directly on the floor, or too close to it, got more or less soaked. Was anyone of you unfortunate enough to experience a similar damage, and how could you mitigate it?
Of course, the vinyl can be cleaned by a RCM, and the sleeves can be replaced. (And hopefully my insurance will cover this effort.)
But then? What should be done to best dry the covers to keep them free of mildew?
Replacing all these LPs appears virtually impossible to me. I bought many of them on my journeys, and then there are the off-the-mainstream titles which I bought on life events.
Any advice is highly appreciated.
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Arjen »

Well, this is very serious. I’m very sorry for you. Your records themselves will survive. They might need cleaning and after that new proper inner sleeves. The covers I ‘d say drying between changing sheets, maybe flatten them by some weight, I don’t know. Never had this experience myself. I know of two recordshops after fire extra damage was caused by the fire fighting water. Bought long time ago one or two CD’s (Them Again)from one of the shops,, but the inner leaflet stayed blurred and weary. After a some restoration close your eyes and enjoy the the music which hopefully might be left safe
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Tendaberry
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Tendaberry »

This is so awful to hear, I really feel for you. It happened to me, when I was living in Cologne and my basement was flooded because of heavy rains. About 450 lp's were destroyed. What I can tell you is to try and separate the covers, before thy dry. After they have dried, it's impossible to separate them without destroying them.
My accident still had a happy ending: they wet lp's were all stolen before I could report it to the insurance company. They later offered me a generous settlement for the stolen lp's, that financed my Radikal and Akubariks :-)
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Defender »

thats really sad to hear

I would recommend to try to get as much water out of the covers as possible before they really dry
kitchen paper might be a good idea but not leave it to long on the cover

later maybe newspapers but not flat on the cover as that might stick
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Arjen »

Catweazle, is the drying of the covers in progress already? And how are the records left?
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Catweazle »

Unfortunately, some of the covers 'baked' together, before I separated them the other day Well, it was 2 am when I had carried the LPs, about 70 books, and many other things to other rooms, and dried the wet floor as much as possible. Then it was time to catch some sleep, as the next day was a working day with meetings galore. It is like it is now. The majority of the covers are just more or less warped, but some are heavily hurt. They are all kind of dry now. We had all the gatefolds opened to a 30° angle and standing on the floor while the simpler covers were leaning to the walls. The living room was pretty much crammed with LPs. With the very low air humidity of the winter weather drying went pretty straightforward.

My dealer told me of similar cases, where the insurance paid the record cleaning and new inner sleeves at least. I had a specialist at our house today: We need to replace the floor and wallpapers of my study. Looks like a lot of more work ahead, as I need to move everything out.
On the other hand: While I compiled the list of my damaged LPs, I felt really happy, that I placed my order of LP12 upgrades in the last Dec week. I can look forward now to clean the records, and hear more of the music in the grooves, than ever before. With the uncertainty of the restauration work in front of me, today I would not dare to commit this very same order. So I was lucky in a way, wasn't I? ;-)
Thanks, to you for the advice and good wishes. If we can learn something it's: Keep your records high!
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Arjen »

Good to read you keep the spirit high too!
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by lejonklou »

So sorry to read about this, Catweazle!

If some records were in plastic-inside inner sleeves, they may not have to be cleaned at all? Covers should be the worst part. I hope it turns out as well as it possibly can!
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by ThomasOK »

Yes, that is a real bummer. I have had to deal with this kind of problem on records twice. The first time was when the condo I lived in when I was in Encinictas (Southern California) developed a leak under the bathroom that seeped into the living room next to it. In that case only about a dozen records got wet and the main loss was damage to the outer jackets. I still have a couple of those with part of the jacket peeled off. The records themselves were all fine. The piece of furniture my Hi-Fi was on at the time, a nice teak-veneered modern style piece, was destroyed. It turns out the landlady was at fault for ignoring notices from the condo association about replacing the plumbing. But I was never able to get her to compensate me for the loss. Luckily my Isobariks, electronics and LP12 were all unscathed.

The second time I was given a bunch of classical records that a friend had inherited and had been kept in a garage. Many of them had water damaged records and jackets. Most of the records in plastic inner sleeves either escaped unscathed or had a little dirt at the sleeve opening and I was able to clean them effectively. Records in paper sleeves were mostly moldy to the point of not being worth dealing with. I joked that God must like good music as I went through all the records that were OK from DG, Angel, London FFRR, Decca, etc. and saw the cheapo records that were junk. But I think it is mostly due to the better labels using plastic sleeves. The outer sleeves were completely destroyed on over half of them. I ended up going to one of the supply places for record sleeves, etc. and bought a bunch of plain white outer sleeves. I figured it wasn't a great loss as a lot of classical record covers weren't great works of art and some were just tacky. I had planned to make a database of the composers, pieces played, conductor, orchestras, soloists track times, etc. and print out labels that would wrap around the edge to let me know what they are. "The best laid plans if mice and men..." Yeah, it still hasn't been done and I do still have them all. If I was smart I would at least file them in with my other classical records by composer as I would then know who wrote the piece(s). But right now all the white sleeves are just in one group in no particular order. One of those projects I will have to get to when I retire. (Yeah, right!)
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markiteight
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by markiteight »

At least it's just water. A friend of mine gave me a box with about 150 of her old records. It was mostly Scandinavian and Icelandic artists I had never heard of and I was looking forward to expanding my musical horizons. I managed to saturate the entire box in diesel before I had a chance to listen to any of them. There's no recovering from that!
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by tpetsch »

markiteight wrote: 2022-01-20 00:45 At least it's just water. A friend of mine gave me a box with about 150 of her old records. It was mostly Scandinavian and Icelandic artists I had never heard of and I was looking forward to expanding my musical horizons. I managed to saturate the entire box in diesel before I had a chance to listen to any of them. There's no recovering from that!
That's very funny, Ikea comes to mind, not sure why, but probably because I just finished assembling a POÄNG Rocking Chair..

You know that musty order you get when you walk into a second hand record shop? ...Well if I smell that in my house then it's time to move on, and wet record jackets will probably eventually smell that way and it can adversely effect your health with long term exposure, it's just not worth it. If it was me I would throw all the damaged jackets away and put cleaned vinyl into new sleeves / jackets.
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Catweazle »

tpetsch wrote: 2022-01-20 02:04 You know that musty order you get when you walk into a second hand record shop? ...Well if I smell that in my house then it's time to move on, and wet record jackets will probably eventually smell that way and it can adversely effect your health with long term exposure, it's just not worth it. If it was me I would throw all the damaged jackets away and put cleaned vinyl into new sleeves / jackets.
A good point tpetsch and definitely something to keep a nose on.

But the next thing now is to get everything out of the cellar room into some remote storage space, to have the floor redone. I'm not feeling happy by the idea to bring my records to a self storage space for some time. This refers not only to the damaged ones, but to the bulk of my records. Most of my collection is in that room. On the other hand, my partner isn't happy either, by the idea to store them someplace else in this small house. And I have binders with documents in the cellar room as well, which I need here in the house for quick access.
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Tony Tune-age
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Tony Tune-age »

Sorry to hear about the flood water damage to your vinyl albums Catweazle. That's never an easy situation to clean up, or get corrected. But you do have a great attitude towards this unexpected accident. And at least the albums can be cleaned fairly easy, and the record sleeves can be easily replaced as well. However, the covers might be more difficult to dry out (if possible), or replace. Hope everything works out for you...

Cheers
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by moog_man »

Tendaberry wrote: 2022-01-18 12:23 My accident still had a happy ending: they wet lp's were all stolen before I could report it to the insurance company. They later offered me a generous settlement for the stolen lp's, that financed my Radikal and Akubariks :-)
Phew. Good to hear that something positive came out of this situation.
Presumably your vinyl was insured. Did you catalogue everything on Discogs, or similar?

Catweazle - so sorry to hear of your predicament. Those one-off records that you find in unexpected places make the album that much more cherished. I hope you find a resolution.
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by Catweazle »

Thx for your empathy @moog_man. The vinyl can be cleaned, but as you said the memories are more tied to the visual appearance of the covers, which link to the context of buying them in the glorious days when we used to visite record shops, and browse through their offerings. Still, when I look at the news these days, my loss appears a minor issue in general terms!

Most of my records - all that have been in the room - are now in a self storage space, waiting for the room to be refurbished. Last friday my dealer called me. He'll deliver an LP12 to another fellow close by next Monday, and can take this opportunity to pick up my LP12 for upgrades. My upgrade parts are due to arrive next week, anyway. So there's something to look forward to. Looks like I'll be listening more jazz + classical music. My LPs of these genres are in a different room, so I have still a few hundred LPs to enjoy, when the upgrades are done.
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Re: Advice wanted: Water damage to LP collection

Post by John »

When catalogued most of my records using Discogs I replaced the plain paper inner sleeves with poly sleeves. Those with printed inner sleeves got a poly inner sleeve that fits nicely inside to original sleeve. I also at the same time placed them in polypropylene outer sleeves that have a sealable flap. I mainly did it to protect the vinyl from getting scratched up from the paper sleeves as well as protect the covers and keep them looking new.

I store them in a basement and I suppose if ever got water seepage the covers would be protected against the temporary high humidity levels. Hoping that never becomes and issue, it’s been good so far for the 31 years we’ve been in this home from new.
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