I came home from work Friday night (we got off a half hour early – whooptie-doo). As I was driving home from work, I was thinking about how the weather was supposed to get rainy and cold. No big deal, I thought to myself. After all, I’ll be snug, warm and dry in my house. When I arrived home, however, I knew something wasn’t right. There was water on the front porch and it hadn’t been raining. The conscious part of my mind was in denial. I distinctly remember thinking “Gee, I guess it must’ve rained.” Wrong-o!
I opened the door and heard running water. I put my foot down just inside the door to discover a ½ inch-deep pool of water on the linoleum right next to the door. The sound of running water was coming from the hallway. After a flustered second or two during which I repeatedly started to set my stuff down on the (very, very wet) floor (but didn’t), I finally remembered to set the stuff down on the couch. I ran into the hallway. [Sound effects: Splash!Splash!Splash!Splash!] I opened the door to the hot water heater and discovered the plastic pipe that feeds water to my refrigerator’s ice machine had split. There was a ¼" (~6.5mm) stream of water jetting almost straight up and raining down inside the enclosure. I closed the valve, getting only somewhat soaked.
Walking around the house, [Sfx: Squish!Squish!Squish!Squish!Squish!] I found that almost every square inch of carpet and floor was sopping wet. One magazine laying on the carpet had wicked up enough water to be fully waterlogged. The carpet didn’t even look wet until you stepped on it [Squish!] and left a very wet-looking footprint. Following several minutes of looking around in stunned amazement I went back to my van and drove to Wal-Mart (thank G-d for them) and bought a 10-gallon wet-or-dry shop vac.
From midnight to 5:00 a.m., I vacuumed up 60 gallons of water (it started raining – heavily – around 3:00 a.m., and it hasn’t really quit yet). The floor was still wet, but I needed some sleep. At 8:00 a.m., I rose long enough to call TW and reschedule my weekend with Son for next weekend (in an uncharacteristically magnamimous move, she “allowed” me to take him to lunch anyway). After lunch, I vacuumed another 40 gallons of moisture from the carpet. To aid in the drying process, I’d been alternating between heating the house (so the air can hold more moisture) and running the swamp cooler’s blower to drive the excess humidity outside. I stopped doing the latter when the inside temp dropped to 60° with the humidity at 80% (B-r-r-r-r!), so now it’s warm (and humid) inside the house (except at floor level, where it’s cold and squishy).
There’s still a lot of water in the carpet, but the inside humidity has dropped from over 80% to around 70%. The carpet still squishes most anywhere you step, but there’s a few spots that seem to be dry. For now, anyway. My feet are like prunes, and I expect them to stay that way for at least a week. I can’t afford the $500 deductible on my homeowner’s insurance right now. Can anyone give me tips on how to dry the place out efficiently? Anyone who can’t may submit sympathetic noises in lieu of sound advice.
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Oh my that sounds terrible! makes sympathetic noises and hugs Baloo Unfortunately I have no advice since I’ve never had to dry out a house but I’m good with sympathy makes more sympathetic noises
My dad is a carpet installer and probably could pass on a few hints… but unfortunately, he’s retired for the night. I’ll ask him for you in the morning, or when he gets home from work.
My guess is that he’ll tell you to soak up as much of the water as you can with something absorbent-- a towel or cotton rag-- and then let it air-dry. I’m not sure if playing with the humidity inside your house will adversely affect your carpet. It depends on what kind of carpet you have, but it might not be a good idea to do that. Again, I’ll ask.
Baloo, the only think I know to tell you for sure is that the carpet is done. Fini. No mas. Ruined. Spoiled. Trash. Forget about vacuuming - tear it up and get it out before it starts to smell. That, plus your carpet acts as a sponge that hold moisture in your floorboards that much longer.
My house has a (concrete) slab foundation. The carpet wasn’t all that great when I moved in, either. Is there any way to keep it from disintegrating until some other catastrophe occurs when I can afford the deductible?
Not as far as I know…you might as well rip it up and put down scatter rugs or something. You’re in NM, and I know it’s drier there than it was where I lived when I had a similar water problem (namely SoFlo and Hurricane Andrew), so maybe that will save you, I dunno.
What are your walls made of? Are those concrete, too, or drywall? If the latter, at least pull the carpet away from the walls…unfortunately, if the latter it’s probably too late
Am SO sorry you have to go through this mess - it really is a pain…
The walls appear to be quite unaffected by this flood. I think most of the water is trapped in the foam backing.
Good news! The hallway (most of it, anyway) is dry. Huzzah! Keeping the heat going seems to be doing (part of) the job.
Also, since I started this thread, I’ve been walking around the house, noting where the floor is most squishy, and vacuuming up more water. I’ve collected another 10 gallons!
Water in the foam padding can be a problem, since getting the stuff to dry completely is difficult. If you live someplace dry, though, it shouldn’t be too bad. Still, sandyr is right that your carpet will never be the same. Replacing it with area rugs might be a good idea.
Sorry To hear about your problem. Having had to clean up after many floods like yours, one word, FANS. Circulate as much air as you can. Get the carpet up in the air, use blocks or 2X4s something so air can circulate over and under it. Once it is almost dry get a spray bottle and mix 3parts water to 1 part bleach(I would use a scented one) and lightly spry the foam padding (to prevent mold and or mildew). Also spray the bottom 1/3 of the walls. They have wicked up some water and that is a source of mildew. Make sure everything is dry before puting it back down. Good luck to you.
I agree with MrBear , (Please don’t hurt me Purple !)Fabreeze will help with the odor too. when the carpet and padding are about dry spray those puppies down again with Fabreeze.
I recommend everything Mr Bear said. Fans and more fans. My ex-BF and I came home from a weekend away one time to discover water pouring out of the dining room ceiling–seems he had this type of pipe in his house that was defective and prone to rupturing at any time, especially when you were out of town. Ruined his dining room table and soaked everything. We sopped up as much as we could with towels and ran fans for several days to dry it all out.
Fortunately for him, that particular pipe had been the subject of a class action lawsuit that enabled him to be reimbursed for his repair costs and got the pipe replaced with copper for free.
{{{Baloo}}} Good luck getting everything dried out!
If you want to try to save your carpet, use the fans. But I have to agree with sandyr that your carpet should be thrown away. It will always smell funky every time it rains and the humidity is high. If you want to enjoy being home during a spate of rainstorms, you’re probably better off with the area rugs.
You might be able to get a good deal on carpet remnants, to keep your floor covered until you can afford something better.
the worry I’d have is that the padding may seem to be dry, but trapped moisture etc = odors and molds and all sorts of yuckiness. but, then again, my experience has been with floorboards vs. concrete.
So, I guess give it a shot (keep doing the fans etc, make sure you’re moving furniture around so the areas under the couch for example have a chance to get dry, too)
to try and make you feel a LITTLE bit better:
When my baby bro and his wife lived in a tri level house in Kansas, they left for the weekend. The floor plan : Main level has living room, kitchen and so on to the left, to the right are stairs down to a den, and stairs up to bathroom, bedrooms, laundry room (the latter over the garage.) while they were in Michigan for the weekend, “something happened”. Neighbors called them to came home :
The connecting hose to the washer had broken open, so water was flowing out for 48 hours, the den was soaked, everything IN it was soaked, everything in the garage was soaked. Carpeting full loss, (all of it), much of the furniture was also wrecked, the joists and floorboards UNDER the carpet on that level needed to be replaced.
First, you’re lucky you don’t have to deal with high humidity. I grew up in Florida and our dining room flooded three times- I feel your pain.
If you can, pull up the edges of your carpet and aim fans (preferably industrial) under it. Beg, borrow or steal anything that will move some air around.
You’re lucky your floor isn’t made of that compressed board material. I used to live in a trailer that was made from this junk, the floor got wet and it partially dissolved and fell through.
Getting rid of the carpet might not be necsessary if you use the bleach idea, but the foam padding might be almost impossible to dry without ripping it out.
I’ve done some more checking and it appears that nowhere have the walls suffered damage (no wicking action there – thank G-d!)
I seem to have reached the vacuum’s limit for sucking water out of the floor. Although the carpet still squishes when I walk on it, it now sounds more like air displacing water than water displacing water, sort of like squeezing a slightly damp sponge.
I kept the heat up pretty high last night (~80°F, ~27°C). I’d been hoping for a change in the weather, and we got it this morning. It’s sunny and clear (low, low humidity), so I turned all the heaters off and kicked on the blower again. Hopefully, the very low humidity will draw the moisture out of the carpet better.
I’ve been taking notes of all the above advice. Eventually, the carpet will have to go, but for the short term, it will have to stay. The heater in the living room gave up the ghost last month and the cold season approaches, so that’s the first priority. I’m going to replace the plastic pipe that burst with a copper one. That will prevent a repeat occurrence from happening. Once those two items are taken care of, it will be time to save for a new carpet.
