How do I rescue documents and photos damaged by water?

Paper is fibres held together by size and coatings. Wet, those fibres swell and the sheet loses most of its strength, which is why wet paper tears when handled and why a stack of wet paper glues itself into a brick as it dries. Photographs are worse: the gelatine emulsion carrying the image softens in water, so wet prints stick face-to-face and take the image with them when pulled apart. Almost everything about a rescue comes down to buying time and drying slowly.

Safety

What you'll need

• Clean absorbent paper — blotting paper, unprinted newsprint or kitchen roll
• Freezer bags or greaseproof paper
• A fan
• Disposable gloves
• A dehumidifier (optional)
• A camera or phone, to photograph anything unreadable (optional)

Step by step

1. Decide what actually matters before you touch anything.Passports, certificates, deeds, wills and irreplaceable photographs first. Most paperwork — bank statements, bills, policies — can simply be reissued, and spending two hours on it costs you the things that cannot be.
2. Photograph anything that is still legible, right now.A phone photo of a wet certificate is a permanent record even if the original does not survive. Do this before drying, because drying is when ink runs and text disappears.
3. Freeze anything you cannot deal with in the next 48 hours.Interleave with greaseproof paper, bag loosely, and freeze. Freezing halts mould and stops paper sticking together, and items can stay frozen for months until you have time. This is what archives do, and it is the single most useful thing on this page.
4. Rinse off mud gently, in clean cold water.Silt dries into the fibres and is far harder to remove later. Support the sheet on a plastic sheet or a mesh so it is never lifted by one corner, and do not rub.
5. Lay items flat on absorbent paper, one layer deep.Blotting paper, unprinted newsprint or kitchen roll under and, for thick items, between pages. Change the underlay every few hours while it is still taking up water.
6. Move air across the room, not at the paper.A fan pointed at wet paper curls and scatters it. Point it across the room or at a wall, keep the room cool, and run a dehumidifier if you have one. Slow and cool beats fast and warm every time.
7. Dry photographs face up, and never let them touch each other.Lay prints emulsion side up on absorbent paper. If prints are already stuck together, do not pull — soak the block in clean cold water and they will usually separate themselves within an hour or two.
8. Get photographs out of albums and plastic sleeves immediately.Self-adhesive album pages and plastic sleeves trap water against the emulsion and are the most common cause of a total loss. Slide them out under water if they will not come out dry.
9. Interleave a wet book rather than opening it flat.Stand it on its head, fan the pages slightly, and slip absorbent sheets every twenty or thirty pages, changing them as they wet through. Forcing a swollen book flat breaks the spine.
10. Press flat once dry, under weight.Dried paper cockles. A day or two under a flat board and some books, with clean paper on either side, takes most of it out. Do not iron paper or photographs.

Tips

• Inkjet prints and thermal receipts are the least survivable of everything — inkjet dye runs the moment it is wet, and thermal paper turns black or blank. Photograph these before you do anything else.
• Anything with mould already on it should be dried first and cleaned second, outdoors, with a soft brush and a mask. Wet mould smears into the fibres and stains permanently.
• A conservator is worth ringing for genuinely irreplaceable items — a family bible, a painting, an old photograph album. Freezing buys you the time to make that call rather than forcing a decision on the day.
• Replacing a birth, marriage or death certificate through the General Register Office is straightforward and inexpensive, so do not spend hours rescuing one at the expense of something unique.

Common mistakes

• Using a hairdryer, radiator or airing cupboard — Fast heat cooks the fibres, makes paper brittle, sets cockling permanently and can melt a photographic emulsion. Cool air movement is what dries paper without destroying it.
• Drying in direct sunlight — UV fades photographic dyes and inks within hours, and the heat does the same damage as a radiator. A cool, shaded, airy room is the target.
• Trying to pull stuck photographs apart — The emulsion is softened and the image transfers to the back of the other print, destroying both. Soaking the block in clean cold water separates them without loss.
• Leaving a wet box until the weekend — Mould can establish within 48 hours in a warm room, and once it is in the fibres the damage is permanent. Freeze it instead — that costs ten minutes and buys months.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask