A flooded house is never an enjoyable event. Burst pipes, a leaky roof, or even damaged appliances can lead to a large enough flood of water that you find yourself dealing with waterlogged carpets. Aside from being a danger to the flooring and leaving you with wet socks, the extra moisture is a sure-fire way to fill your house with mold. Knowing how to deal with a soaked carpet is essential.
Small Floods
Small puddles of water are fairly easy to clean up.
Start with a Towel – Spread towels over the wet carpet until you’ve covered the entire area. Walk across the towels until they’ve soaked up as much water as they can. Don’t rub at the carpet, simply blot to soak up the water into the towel itself. Replace with dry towels and keep repeating until the carpet is dry.
Use a Wet Vac – A vacuum cleaner is an effective way to pull the water out of the carpet, especially if it’s started to soak through. Do not use a regular vacuum for this, you’ll need a wet/dry vac that’s capable of handling water. Keep vacuuming the carpet until no water is being pulled out anymore. Maintain a steady eye on the fill level of your vacuum and be sure to dump it out before it overfills.
Forced Air – Finally, use forced air to dry out the carpet. Keep air circulating with a fan or hair-dryer until all the water has dried. For larger areas, keeping several fans pointed at the spill is ideal.
Large Floods
When it comes to larger flooding, or a room where all of the carpet has been soaked, more drastic measures will need to be taken.
Move Furniture Out – Remove all large furniture. You need to clear off the carpet so that you have access to the entire floor. Never try to clean around furniture. The water will simply damage both furniture and carpet while you’re trying to clean up.
Use a Wet Vac – Just as with small spills, use a wet vacuum to remove all of the excess water. For a large carpet you will have to dump out the tank several times. There are a few other ways to pump water out of a carpet, such as a hot water extraction unit. The main goal is to remove as much water as possible.
Check for Soaked Matting – For larger spills, the matting underneath the carpet is likely to be soaked through. Even if you remove all the water from the carpet and dry it out, the matting will re-soak the carpet as long as it stays wet. Simply walk across the carpet and listen for squelching noises.
Raise Carpet Corner – you need access to the matting beneath the carpet. Go to a corner of the room and pry up the edge. Use work gloves and pliers to pull the carpet free, then fold the corner over so you can see the padding beneath.
Force Air – Just as with a small spill, adding ventilation will dry out the carpet and the padding. Place a fan to blow air under the carpet to start the drying process. Use the exhaust hose from your wet/dry vac and place it under the carpet. The warmer air will help to dry the carpet quickly. Finally, rent or purchase a dehumidifier and run it in the room. This will speed things up greatly.
Call Professionals
If all else fails, or you want the certainty of a dry carpet without having to worry about floor damage and mold growth, call a professional. RestoPros specializes in water damage remediation and removal. Rather than trying to tackle flood damage yourself or having to rent specialize tools, seeking help from a professional is faster and far more efficient than trying to do so on your own.
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