You need a barrier between you and black water, and a filter between you and demo dust. Everything else is comfort.
Houston heat will tempt you to strip down. Heat injury is real. So is the cut on your ankle that sat in sewage. You can take shade breaks without going barefoot.
Buy or borrow gear before you open walls. Do not use the good kitchen gloves and then make dinner.
Do this now
- Wear waterproof boots and gloves that you can throw away or sanitize.
- Put on goggles and a fitted respirator before you cut or spray.
- Cover cuts with waterproof bandages. Get tetanus advice if a wound meets floodwater.
- Peel wet PPE off at the door so you do not track it into the dry car.
The minimum kit
Rubber boots, nitrile or heavier gloves, eye protection, and an N95 or half-face respirator with the right cartridges for dusty demo.
Long sleeves in August feel cruel. They still beat fiberglass in the skin. Light, long, and cheap is fine.
Duct-tape the glove-to-sleeve gap if you are reaching into a wet wall. It looks silly. It works.
Heat and the Houston tax
Work short shifts. Drink water that did not come from a questionable tap. If there is a boil-water notice, use bottled.
A soaked cotton T-shirt is not PPE. Change out of contaminated clothes before you sit in someone else’s dry house.
If you feel dizzy, you stop. A hero with heat stroke is another 911 call on a day the system is already busy.
Health over a closed wall
CDC’s flood cleanup page and EPA’s mold page both treat wet cavities as a health job, not a weekend bleach project. If anyone in the house starts coughing or wheezing, get them out of the work zone. A TDLR mold assessor is the Texas license to look up when a company wants to diagnose and remediate in the same breath.
Do this next
- Floodwater categories: clean, gray, and black water
- Sewage backup in the house: immediate steps
- Water cleanup hub
More in Mold, sewage & health right after.