Short Answer: You *can*, but you shouldn’t
Long Answer: One of the major concerns we hear a lot from people is the amount of noise that air movers, air scrubbers and dehumidifiers make in the home. While they are far from quiet machines, they are an improvement over previous models which were higher amperage and much louder (read more here…).
We never recommend that our equipment is turned off except by a technician who has determined that the affected area has been dried fully to our specifications. Otherwise, the process can take much longer than expected, leading to more days of equipment fees or worse. This can be problematic when dealing with your insurance company, which approves our estimate to restore your home based on our scope of work. In a scope of work, we outline how many days we will need in order to perform the job and how many pieces of equipment will be needed.
In addition to taking more time, disrupting the drying process by turning off the equipment, or moving it out of the configuration in which it was placed by a technician can impact the efficacy of the prescribed treatment for your loss. If not allowed to dry properly or only allowed to dry intermittently, this allows more time for microbial growth to feed off wet organic material, leading to the spread of mold under carpeting, behind baseboards and drywall, or at the base of cabinetry.
Because of the time-sensitive nature of this type of work, we highly recommend allowing the equipment to do its’ job. And while we know that is can be noisy for a few days, it’s certainly a lot better than waking up to the smell of mold.
