As frozen pipes have lead to some flooding in some of our accounts, we find ourselves estimating these machines for possible damages. In most cases, the water seeped into the room with the copier and rose about one or two inches. Once the copiers were rolled into another room and allowed to dry due to possible humidity issues, the machines appear to operate normally. Our concern is gauranteeing performance over the next several months - how do we know that there isn't a time bomb waiting to go off due to the "low-level" flood here. I can see there could be an issue with casters and rust, the aforementioned humidity and condensation on the optics and laser unit, etc.

What has been everyone's experience in this kind of situation? Pipes bursting over a machine is a no-brainer in many cases, but what about when the water doesn't quite touch the bottom of the copier and there is no visual apparent damage? What have you seen? What happened down the line if your company continued to cover the machine because the copies were still coming out good? Did something later go wrong?

I have dealt with smoke-damage and literally a tornado-damaged machine and know how to address this for the client and their insurance company. I'm interested in real-world examples of what happens when a machine sits in a couple of inches of water for a day or two, especially the not-so-obvious stuff.

Thanks!

How would this be any different than a copier located near the beach? As long as the machine wasn't dowsed directly, why would anything go wrong with it. I have worked in some pretty horrendous print shops, where 80 PPM machines literally have water running down the fuser exit guides, strictly due to condensation from the paper. There isn't much you can due but replace any metal guides that start to rust out, (canon 6085 anyone?) . Remember, if you don't want to take a chance, some other company will.
make sure when the customer gets the office straightened out, you go through the machine thoroughly, and hope it stays cold for a little longer so the heating system dehumidifies the office.

See my answer on Smarka.

I had one that the pipes burst above the copier seeping into the doc feeder, the op panel. I took it apart and used a blow dryer to dry everything out as good as I could. Everything has still been working since. My after thought on the whole situation if insurance can cover the damage, I probably should have had the machine replaced, who is to say what kind of stess that can put on a machine after the fact.

Being from South Louisiana I've seen my share of flood damaged machines. It really depends on how long they were exposed to water and what kind of enviroment they were placed in afterwards. I'm assuming the humidity was pretty low since it was very cold. That is good. Also the building's heater systems were probably running. If the machines were only in this room for day or so and the heater was runnig and humidity was low, the machines are probably OK. I've seen similar machines that the buildings were flooded from heavy rain in the spring and summer. As long as the machines didn't get water in them, and the buildings were dryed out properly; the copiers were generally ok.

Reading these stories about water damaged machines reminds me of a Konica copier I had to "FIX" after a fire had broke out in the fire alarm panel which was mounted right on the wall above the copier. Well naturally they wanted to get the fire out and not thinking of moving or even at least shutting off the copier they discharged and entire ABC extinguisher to put it out. Well with all the fans running you can just imagine what the insides of that copier looked like. I took an air compressor to the location and rolled the copier outside and proceeded to gut the machine of all it's components i.e. the drum unit, the DV unit, the fuser the trays. Everything I could remove I did and then proceeded to blow out all the extinguisher residue then made sure to thoroughly clean each component and put the copier back together. Amazingly the copier came back to life and last I knew was running when the lease expired and it was replaced.

Here's my water damage story. It was a Canon NP-6085 with finisher.

There was an 18" water main on the other side of a single sheet of drywall. When it blew the machine was propelled across the room to the other wall. Since the doors into this room were all closed the water got to (3) feet deep before the doors collapsed.

There were two thinks in our favor. The break was reported within 6 hours on a weekend (that's got to be a lot of water!), the electrical breakers blew instantly, and they called Serve Pro immediately. By the time I arrived Monday evening the machine was sitting in the middle of the room with two gigantic squirrel cage fans blowing on it and all the machines doors open.

Like Techboy I took the heat gun to the PCBs, and opened up all the motors to pour out the water. The finisher motors held the most water.

The machine finished a two year contract with nothing out of the ordinary happening. I've heard about components rusting on the boards in other cases, but personally I think that Serve Pro saved this machine. =^..^=

I don't understand why you would want to take a chance on one of these machines with this much damage unless you had to. All the copiers I've had to deal with that had that much water in them were easily replaced by the customer's business insurance.

Well in the case that I had this customer had a home business and only $10,000 in business insurance so sometimes it's not so easy to replace equipment. But there machine is working good like it was never wet. A little water on the floor is no problem .