How to fix my flooded carpet

The main risk when carpet floods is mold and mildew. Mold smells terrible, and can cause adverse health effects including but not limited to: allergic reactions, asthma, and respiratory infections. Some molds can produce toxins. It is essential that we do not allow mold to grow or exist in our indoor living areas. While mold exists everywhere in our environment, excessive moisture causes mold to multiply quickly.

How Fast Do I Need to Act?

You need to act right away. The EPA says to have the carpet (and padding) completely dry within 48 hours of it first getting flooded to protect yourself from runaway mold growth. Drying that carpet will take time, so if you delay, the likelihood of saving the carpet is diminishing quickly.

If Your Carpet is Glued Down

Use a wet-vac to carefully and thoroughly extract as much water as possible. Slowly moving the nozzle over each area will remove more water than quickly sweeping back and forth. And also use fans and blowers to circulate air over the carpet. If weather permits, open windows to reduce excess humidity and speed drying. Use dehumidifiers to further reduce humidity.

If your carpet is loose and you don’t have a pad

Remove as much water as possible with a wet-vac. More water will be removed if the nozzle is moved slowly over each area rather than sweeping back and forth. Circulate air over and under the carpet with fans and blowers. Open windows if the weather permits to remove extra humidity and hasten carpet drying. To lower humidity even more, use dehumidifiers.

If you have a professionally installed carpet, you can skip the pad.

Cuts can be avoided by wearing gloves. Many steel nails protrude from the tackstrip at the room’s edge. When you’re already in an unsanitary condition, you don’t want to puncture your hand with these nails. To avoid hurting the carpet, carefully lift it up. Grasp the carpet in the corner with a pair of pliers. Once you’ve started the carpet, it should begin to lift away from the tackstrip. Place the carpet back down flat once the cushioning has been removed. You don’t want the carpet to become tangled.

Keep an eye on the drying process

To ensure that your carpet dries fast, keep an eye on the drying process. Fans and blowers may need to be repositioned to ensure that the carpet dries evenly.

Once the Carpet is Dry

Replace the pads after the carpet and floor have dried. You can now reinstall your carpet if it was already installed. For this job, we recommend hiring a professional carpet installer. It takes a lot of effort to reinstall previously wet carpet because the carpet is typically rigid and difficult to stretch. Due to the fact that carpet is a textile, it may have shrunk in some circumstances. If the carpet has shrunk too much, reinstalling it may be impossible. A thorough carpet cleaning can help restore the appearance of the carpet, as the water that flowed in may have taken up soil. Make care to empty and clean the wet-interior. vac’s Never leave a wet-vac with standing water inside.We really hope that your efforts to rescue the environment are successful.