- The damage from flood or water exposure occurs in the first few seconds
- It's not the water itself that causes problems, but chemicals and contaminants that are left behind when the water dries; the good news is that very often only a small portion of tape is directly exposed to a chemical reaction, leaving the majority of the tape and footage recoverable.
- The best way to handle tapes that have been flooded is to let them dry
- Attempting to rinse the tapes has the potential to spread any contaminants throughout the cassette, causing additional damage. Our advice is to let the tapes dry naturally and slowly with a fan in a well-ventilated room; do not try to speed the process up. If you've just been through a flood you likely have so much to do and take care of- the footage on your tapes is indeed priceless but they will be fine in the coming weeks and months while you get things back in order.
- Most tapes can be cleaned and restored with the vast majority of their footage recovered
- We use a variety of tools and techniques when working on flood damaged tapes and can recover footage from cassettes caked in mud to tapes that have been soaked in salt water. The repair and cleaning process depends entirely on the individual tape and the overall success rate with flood damage recovery is very high, but if it turns out that your tape cannot be repaired to our standards with the majority of its footage recovered there will not be any charge to you.
- $69.50 per tape repaired for flood or water damage
- VHS, S-VHS, VHS-C, miniDV, miniDV HD and Audio Cassette- anything and everything that's wrong with your tape is covered, please visit our FAQ page for details regarding the repair process for Video8, Hi8 and Digital8 tapes. Discount pricing is available.
- Discount pricing is available
- The repair process for flood or water damaged tapes is slow and gentle in order to increase the chances that footage can be recovered; working with tapes in batches allows us to be more efficient. If you send in 5 - 9 flood-damaged tapes we can offer 10% off of the repairs and if you send in 10 tapes or more in a batch we can take 20% off of the repair costs. When you place an order you will see a prompt that will ask if you will be sending more than one tape and the discounted price will be reflected in the automated quote you receive.
- If you would like more advice on what do to with your wet tapes please read our post on the topic: What To Do If Your Tape Gets Wet.