So, I have some rental property and unbeknownst to me, it flooded. I didn’t hear from my tenants until like a week after it flooded. They didn’t think it was bad because they said that the water never rose above the carpet line, but it was soaked throughout the basement. I can’t tell where water originated from. My guess is that the sump pump was overwhelmed (but I have two sump pumps (one sealed) for a 600 sq ft basement!). The water is clear, thankfully! My basement is finished with nice-ish carpeting and about 1/2" padding. All the walls feel dry, and, upon inspection of water heater closet, the insulation is dry (I don’t want to tear through dry wall if I don’t have to).
When I hear this, I bring my dehumidifier and shop vac. I also rent a carpet cleaner to extract the water. When I get there, the place smells like my car when I leave soaking wet beach towles to try in the back. I then buy a bunch of Lysol and tell them to spray on the floor occassionally (this appears to be helping).
After about 3 days (two applications of the carpet cleaner extracting water), the carpet is pretty much dry. Can any of this be saved? I didn’t plan for this and would hate to dip into emergency fund. I don’t blame my tenants, but I don’t feel compelled to replace the carpeting as I’d rather wait a year or two and buy new carpet for the whole house. We threw everything away that was wet and it doesn’t smell. What are the chances that mold will develop? Is there anything I can do to kill mold?
Lastly, what can I do with water from the dehumidifier? I fell like I’m wasting it by throwing it out. Could I drink it or mix it? Water plants with it?
If the relative humidity is not extremely high you can keep fans running in the basement for a few days and it should dry out. If you don’t have mold by then you should be ok. You want plenty of fresh air comming in until completely dry. I have seen thick pad pretty well dry out in less than a week. Standard procedure is to rip out the pad and toss it and then put fans under the carpet for a couple of days. Some of the landlords I had as carpet accounts never wanted to pull the carpets and most of the time they came out ok.
So the carpet and padding were all soaked? For over a week? I think you need to pull up a corner of the carpet and look, because I’d bet 1) the pad isn’t completely dry yet and 2) you’ve already got some mold growing in there.
I honestly don’t know why you’d want to drink the dehumidifier water. Maybe do that right before you get an estimate on the carpet.
The water in the dehumidifier is there from condensating not evaporating. IOW it’s not distilled so any bacteria or mold in the air is going to end up in the tank as well. Just toss it down the drain.
Thanks for the responses so far. Drinking the water was a silly question, but I always wondered about it.
Update: Anyway, I’m pulling up corners and I don’t see any mold on the carpet. I think it’s because I have synthetic carpeting. I am however, seeing white and dark (not black, but I suppose give it time) spots on the base boards, which are dry. I’m guessing that’s mold. The smell is nowhere as strong as when we got the majority of the water out, but it’s still there.
I looked into mold remidiation. I guess they call it remditiation because it’s impossible to truly remove mold. My tenants have allergy issues, so it looks like I’m going to have to use a service. My question: does this work? Or, do I have to remove the baseboards, too? The carpet is turning out very nicely and surprsing enough, my tenants want to save it. Is any of this saveable now? I have a guy coming on Monday, but I want to be prepared in case he tells me something different.