Your Guide to Drying Carpeting after Flooding and/or Water Damage

5/3/2019 (Permalink)

If your home or business has been damaged by flooding or a water leak, your carpeting may be a soggy, water-logged mess. When this happens, it’s imperative to dry the carpeting quickly in order to prevent damage to your walls, sub-flooring or any other structural elements of your building.  The good news is: the drying process is one you can often start on your own until the professionals get there.

Here at SERVPRO of Hackensack/Little Ferry, we know how devastating water damage can be to a home or business. As a leader in professional restoration services here in this community, we want to help make sure you mitigate any damage that may occur to your property due to a water problem.

Here’s your step-by-step guide to start drying your wet carpeting in order to prevent further damage:

Identify and Stop the Source of the Water Problem

There’s no sense in doing the work to dry out your carpeting if will just continue to get flooded. While you’re working on figuring out the cause of your water problem, see if you can find a way to at least prevent further water damage.  

Remove Any Standing and/or Excess Water

Once there’s no more water coming in, your next step is to start to remove any standing or excess water.

A useful tool is a wet/dry shop vac which can be used to suck up excess water from a saturated carpet. 

Separate the Soaked Carpeting from the Floor

Once you’ve removed most of the water, now you will want to separate the carpet off from the floor.

Begin along a wall, pulling away from the tack strips and moving across the room. Be careful not to use too much force in handling your carpeting, as wet carpeting is more fragile than normal and more likely to tear.

Once you’ve pulled up the carpeting, you’ll want to dispose of the carpet padding. (Carpet padding is typically inexpensive and generally easier to just replace than to try to dry out).

Dry, Dry, Dry!

Once the carpeting is separated from the flooring, it’s time to do your best to dry both completely.

It’s often useful to move the carpeting to another totally dry area. Use high-powered fans and/or blowers on both the flooring and the carpeting.  Although a household fan may work in a pinch, if you can rent a professional-grade blower, the process is typically much faster and more likely to end with a positive outcome.

It is also useful to use a dehumidifier to remove the excess humidity and speed up the drying process, however typical models are not sufficient enough on their own.

Clean the Floor and Sub-Flooring

Make sure to thoroughly sanitize the subflooring to prevent mold growth and odors. Ideally, a medical grade sanitizer is best in this kind of situation, but you can also try a solution of one-part bleach to one-part water.

Bring In Professional Restoration Services

Because SERVPRO has specialized equipment that can do a job faster and more efficiently, even if you start with extraction and dehumidification, it is in your best interest to call the professionals who will do the job completely and safely.