Why the drying log is the most important document on a water job
On a water mitigation job, the work disappears. Once the structure is dry, nobody can see how wet it was, how much equipment it took, or why drying ran four days instead of three. The drying log is what remains — and it is what the desk adjuster, the TPA, or the program reviewer reads when deciding whether the emergency-services invoice holds up.
Paper logs and loosely structured apps fail in predictable ways: readings that skip days, points that change names between visits, atmospheric readings without an unaffected reference, equipment with no removed date, and photos that are not tied to anything. Water mitigation software should make the complete record the easy path for the tech, and the clean report the default output for the office.
What RestoredOS records on every drying job
Drying chambers
Each chamber carries its IICRC S500 water category (1–3) and class (1–4), length, width, and height, and the affected materials.
Moisture points
Labeled monitoring points with the material, the meter used, and a target reading from a dry standard.
Daily moisture readings
Moisture content plus infrared surface temperature for every point, every day — trended against the prior visit.
Atmospheric log
Temperature and RH for exterior, unaffected, affected, dehumidifier outlet, and HVAC, with GPP and dew point calculated.
Equipment per chamber
Type, model, asset tag, quantity, cost code, day rate, placed and removed dates — equipment-days counted automatically.
Notes, consumables & media
A daily work log, consumables used, drying photos, and LiDAR room scans, all on the same chamber record.
The drying page also does the S500 equipment math for you: it compares what is placed in each chamber to recommended counts for air movers, dehumidifiers, and air scrubbers, warns when a chamber looks under-equipped, and shows what share of moisture points have reached their target.
Moisture mapping and drying maps
A moisture map is only useful if the same points are read the same way every visit. In RestoredOS each point has a label, a material, and the meter used, so day five is compared with day one on the same spot. The 2021 S500 puts weight on consistency — using the same meter on a job, or cross-checking meters — and recording the meter on the point makes that visible in the record.
For the room geometry, the RestoredOS Scan companion app for iPhone uses LiDAR through Apple’s RoomPlan. A tech scans the room and the app sends floor area, volume, perimeter, ceiling height, and the 2D wall and opening layout to the drying job, where it appears as a dimensioned floor plan. Cubic footage for dehumidifier sizing comes from the scan instead of a tape measure and a guess.
Psychrometric logs: GPP, dew point, and the reference readings
Relative humidity alone does not tell you whether a structure is drying, because RH moves with temperature. Drying logs track grains per pound — the actual water in the air — and dew point. RestoredOS calculates both from each temperature and RH reading.
The locations matter as much as the numbers:
- Affected area — the chamber; its GPP should fall over the job.
- Unaffected area — the building’s normal; the reference the chamber is compared with.
- Exterior — tells you whether ventilation would add or remove moisture.
- Dehumidifier outlet — compare with the chamber to see whether the unit is pulling water. Our grain depression calculator does the inlet-versus-outlet math.
- HVAC — when the building’s system is part of the drying plan.
The 5th edition of S500 frames drying performance around controlling the environment and confirming that material moisture is falling, rather than any single psychrometric number. That is why RestoredOS keeps the atmospheric log and the material readings side by side on the same chamber.
Daily drying records and reports
Three outputs come straight from the drying record, with no retyping:
- One-day drying summary — a server-rendered PDF for any date, with each reading trended against the previous one and equipment-days to date. Send it to the adjuster or the property owner the same day.
- Emergency-services documentation package — the equipment-days, drying log, and daily reports for the phase in one printable package.
- Daily reports — the job-level report with summary, status, weather, labor, materials, equipment, delays, and photos, exported as a branded PDF.
Equipment and consumables on the drying record can also be compiled into a draft scope priced from your rate catalog, so the estimator starts the mitigation invoice from the same data the reports show.
Carrier-audit defense: the Mitigation Audit
Before a contested invoice goes out, the Mitigation Audit assembles the defense package: the documents on file by category, photo counts, daily logs and reports, the moisture trend for every point (first and last reading against its target), psychrometric readings by date, equipment by type with equipment-days, consumables, the timeline, and days on dry.
An AI review then reads that record — and the text of the job’s key PDFs — against paraphrased IICRC S500 5th-edition documentation points. It returns a pass / concern / gap table with the evidence for each, a billed-versus- documented cross-check of invoice lines, strengths, gaps, an overall audit-risk rating, and a recommendation. The audit renders to PDF and can be emailed. It is a review aid, not a substitute for the restorer’s judgment or the standard itself.
Already using Encircle? Keep it.
Many crews capture drying data in Encircle. RestoredOS does not ask them to stop. Each company connects its own Encircle account, and RestoredOS imports rooms as chambers, moisture readings, affected and unaffected atmospheric readings, equipment placements, photos, and room dimensions into the job’s drying record. A webhook re-syncs the job when the Encircle claim changes. If you only have an Encircle PDF report, RestoredOS can read it and extract the dated readings.
The import is one-way; RestoredOS does not write back to Encircle. More on how the two fit together on the RestoredOS and Encircle page.
Free drying tools from the Restoration Lab
GPP calculator
Grains per pound and dew point from temperature and RH.
Psychrometric calculator
Compare two air masses and check condensation risk.
Drying goal calculator
A maximum GPP and RH that keep the dew point below the coldest surface.
Water damage class calculator
Class 1–4 from the wet share of floor, wall, and ceiling area.
Dehumidifier sizing
Initial dehumidification load by room volume and class.
Air mover calculator
Air movers per room from wall perimeter.
References to IICRC S500 are paraphrased from the 5th edition (2021). Verify against the current edition of the standard.