Who loves having his favorite books wet with water, coffee, or any other liquor? Simply None! Unfortunately, it happens in our daily life with our beloved books getting wet at home or office.
Sometimes, we subconsciously knock our water glass on the book during reading. Natural disasters like floods or heavy rainfall can also seriously soak our books and reading materials.
Most of the time, we cannot understand what to do instantly and let them be damaged overtime. It may dissolve glue. Warp binding, grow mold, distort cover, deform pages, and more.
You can avoid all of these sorry figures with your wet books by applying some effective methods. It may require some simple tools like a hair dryer or a fan available at your home.
So, stay with me to explore step by step guides to dry wet books with less effort and time.
What Does Happen With Wet Books?
Your academic, professional, and personal books can be water saturated due to different reasons. These wet books may lose their readability with deformation and damage overtime.
If you don’t care about your wet books on time with the proper guidelines, it can mar the usability of your books forever. Let’s see what may happen with your wet books.
Absorbing Gum: If water enters inside books, it may dissolve binding gum of the books. So, the pages of these books get relaxed and disordered for further use until getting fixed properly.
Undoing Binding: Saturated water inside books may untie bindings whether your wet books have twine, ribbon, or thread bindings. It loosens pages’ attachment with wet books’ spines.
Growing Mold: Wet books are prone to develop mold within 48 to 72 hours. It causes serious damage to wet books’ pages and covers. Wet and damp surfaces help mold survive and breed.
Defacing Pages: Page deformation is a common issue that happens with wet books. Water soaking dissolves glue, untiesbinding, wrinkles pages, and crumble papers of wet books.
Making Garbage: Your favorite books and essential documents may also turn into unexpected garbage. Sudden floods or heavy rainfalls water books severely and make them wastage.
How To Dry Wet Books? A Step-by-Step Fixing Guide!
Drying wet books lets you rebirth your wet books for further reading. You can do the job in many ways that is appropriately applicable. Let’s look at the step-by-step wet book fixing guide.
Drying Method One: Using a Hair Dryer
If you need to dry your wet book fast, using a hair dryer will be an ideal choice. It is the easiest and fastest method to save wet books from getting wrinkles. Move with the following steps.
Tools to Use
- A hairdryer
- A piece of absorbent cloth
Steps to Follow
- Put the wet book on a flat surface like a table or bed.
- Take a piece of absorbent cloth and press over the wet pages gently. You must wipe water residues by the cloth before using the hair dryer. Otherwise it may cause discoloration, grow mold, and damage pages.
- Place the absorbent towel underneath the pages to absorb all remaining water from the rear part of the book. It helps dry wet books without having any wrinkles.
- Use your hair dryer 5 to 8 inches away from the wet pages. Move it frequently over the wet pages until the damphish appearance gets away completely.
- Go over a few pages together from spine binding to page edges to keep pages away from sticking one another. Do the job when you have dried the wet pages once.
Cautions to Care
- Maintain a suitable heating setting to avoid causing wrinkles over pages and even burning them. Take the hair dryer aside from the page’s hot portion and roll over the rest.
- Keep your kid away while drying the wet book with a hair dryer.
Drying Method Two: Using a Fan
If the dampness seems insignificant, you can apply this particular method to dry your wet books. It is one of the easy-to-do jobs for protecting wet books from getting mold or further damage.
Tools to Use
- A Table Fan
- A piece of clean & soft cloth
- A heavy item
Steps to Follow
- Expunge water residues as much as possible from the soaked surface using a soft and clean cloth. Don’t rub over the pages harshly to cause further damage.
- Open the face of the book and hold it at a 90-degree angle to spread enough air inside.
- Start fanning the wet pages at the medium setting to avoid page folding and wrinkling.
- Place a heavy item like a paperweight or large lock on the closed book for one to two days if it is completely dried up. It works well to remove wrinkles and makes pages smooth.
Cautions to Care
- Don’t run the fan with a low or high setting to get the expected result.
- Ensure that the book binding is aligned properly before placing a heavy item on it.
Drying Method Three: Freeze-Dry
The freeze-dry method is recommended when a book is entirely waterlogged. Though this method takes time to dry the water-soaked books, it helps protect books from serious damage.
Tools to Use
- Some absorbent papers
- A piece of absorbent cloth
- A plastic bag
- A deep freezer
Steps to Follow
- Place the book on its head atop an absorbent cloth and let it drain excess water.
- Put absorbent papers in ever soaked pages to absorb water residues. Change the papers if they are also soaked with excess water.
- Place the water drained book in a plastic bag and seal it properly.
- Insert the plastic bag sealed book in your deep freezer. Keeping it separate from food items will be ideal.
- Wait for 1 to 2 weeks.
- Finally, bring the book out of the freezer and open the sealed bag. You can gently blot the cover and pages using a soft, plain, and clean cloth for removing coldish feeling.
Cautions to Care
- Don’t use any lettered and design absorbent paper into the wet pages.
- Don’t use a vacuum seal.
Drying Method Four: Using an Iron
If the books are in quite wet condition, a mild hot iron may be the right option to dry the damp books. It is an effective way to dehydrate water-soaked book pages within the shortest time.
Tools to Use
- An electric iron
- A piece of clean, dry, and soft cloth
- Water absorbent papers
Steps to Follow
- Absorb excess water from the wet pages by gentle blotting with absorbent papers.
- Confirm that no water residues on the pages before heating them by an electric iron.
- Place new and dry paper on the damp page and put the soft cloth onto.
- Switch the iron on and start pressuring over the cloth on the wet page.
- Apply the iron-heated pressure on the damp portion repeatedly until it dries.
Cautions to Care
- Don’t place any colored paper and cloth on the wet pages.
- Apply the iron with mild heat to avoid further wrinkles or burn of the pages.
Drying Method Five: Simply Blotting
Blotting is applicable for slightly soaked book pages. It is a simple and effortless way to dry wet books at home. You can do the job by yourself with no such sophisticated skills.
Tools to Use
- Absorbent papers
- Soft and clean cloth
Steps to Follow
- Wipe water residues from the damp part of the page using an absorbent paper.
- Take a piece of soft and dry cloth to blot over the wet pages.
- Gently pressure over the back and front cover of the book to erase soggy mode.
- Finally, keep the book open for somewhile to pass air inside to make drying faster.
Cautions to Care
- Don’t use harsh & sharp paper on the wet pages.
- Don’t apply any colored towel on the damp books.
Final Words
Wet books aren’t a waste if you can treat them in the proper manners. With the above methods, you can save your precious books or reading materials from unexpected damage.
Apply the proper method according to the depth of the books’ dampness and the level of waterlogging. You must follow every step to dry your wet books having no more harm.
Finally, don’t waste time to dry your wet books without getting wrinkles over the pages. The faster you dry your damp books, the less mold will get a chance to grow.
So, choose your required method and make a great change of your wet books by yourself.