# Drying a Wall to Wall Carpet after a Flood **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 3, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683 "2007-12-03T18:19:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ethelbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ethelbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethelbert)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/1 "2007-12-03T18:19:38Z")
I am talking about a garden variety washing machine overflow here, not Katrina. Basically I used a wet/dry vac as best I could. The rug is still squishy. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2007, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/2 "2007-12-03T18:32:30Z")
Space heaters. Set them on high and keep an eye on them. ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2007, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/3 "2007-12-03T18:41:37Z")
Dehumidifiers. Fans. ---
**Author:** ![Solfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/4 "2007-12-03T19:35:19Z")
If you’re talking a large area of seriously squishy carpet, I’d call a carpet cleaning company or disaster restoration company. They’ve got powerful truck mounted extractors made for getting water out of carpet. Excessive moisture is a very bad thing in flooring. ---
**Author:** ![Gus\_Gusterson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@Gus\_Gusterson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Gusterson)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2007, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/5 "2007-12-03T19:46:27Z")
If you don’t want to spend the money to have the pros fix it, you should pull up the carpet right away. There’s usually a pad underneath which will disintegrate if it remains soaked for too long before drying out. Most shop vacs aren’t strong enough to suck water out of the pad under the carpet. If we’re talking about a large amount of carpet, you might want to call on your home insurance company. They deal with this all the time. If you don’t fix it quickly you’ll probably end up having to replace the carpet. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21825_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/6 "2007-12-03T20:42:40Z")
Rent a carpet steam cleaner, but don’t steam - just use it to suck the excess out. That’s what my mom did when she had a basement flood. That and dehumidifiers and fans, but she extracted all she could first. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2007, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/7 "2007-12-03T20:46:34Z")
It was time for new carpet anyhow, wasn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2007, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/8 "2007-12-03T20:46:56Z")
[QUOTE=FairyChatMom] Rent a carpet steam cleaner, but don’t steam - just use it to suck the excess out. That’s what my mom did when she had a basement flood. That and dehumidifiers and fans, but she extracted all she could first. [/QUOTE] Agreed… suck the water out/off with a steam cleaner, and use [one of these](http://images.google.com/images?q=carpet+dryer&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi) to circulate air under the carpet… pull up two corners (one to insert and one to allow air out) ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/drying-a-wall-to-wall-carpet-after-a-flood/428683/9 "2007-12-04T12:29:49Z")
The cleaning folks removed the padding and then had floor fans running underneath the carpeting. But mine was a larger area. Brian