water heater leaked and soaked basement carpet - what to do? archived

My water heater broke and let gallons of water into my basement, including the finished part that has wall to wall carpeting. I have been shop-vaccing it for hours but now I'm wondering if we should be doing something more, including possibly replacing the carpeting. It's wet in a large segment, but not the entire carpet. When you step on the carpet, it leaves a wet footprint. Is mold a serious concern?

I think the problem is more the padding under the carpet. When we got water in our basement, the first order of business was to put on the biggest fans we could find, keep windows open, etc, to dry it all out as soon as possible. We ended up opting for tile in the basement and use throw rugs... good luck!!

I think your homeowner's insurance will cover the costs of Service Pros (or what ever their name is!) to come in and remediate the situation.
I doubt the DIY route will be enough.

Bettina,
X's what eire said. I also have carpet in half my finished basement. The Shop vac did most of the hard work, the fans and an open window or hatch door finished the rest. I would sprinkle a bit of carpet fresh after everything dries, and vaccum. I have not had any mold issues whatsoever. I seriously doubt you will need to bring is specialists unless you have serious amounts of water covering the entire basement? and sheetrock.

Do you have a dehumidifier? We used that and towels when we had a flood in our finished basement. We put the towels down and walked all over them to soak up water, wrung them out in the laundry room tub, then repeated until we had most of the "squishing" out of the way, then set up fans and a small dehumidifier to keep wringing out the air as the water evaporated. We didn't call in professionals, and it did not seem to create any mold problem. However, I do want to get Stanley Steamers or someone to come and clean that carpet very, very thoroughly.

OH thankyou! Yes, I am shop-vaccing up the water, and no, it isn't an insane amount, though there is quite a bit soaked into the carpet. I will do as advised - maybe hold off on the professionals for now. Slightly regretting the basement carpeting idea right now though!

you may also want to go and rent one of the grocery store carpet steam cleaners...it probably will extract more water from the carpet than your wet vac.

The "good" news (though of course this hasn't been good...) is that this sounds like a one-time occurrence, i.e. the water heater, as opposed to a potential water leakage problem in the basement - hopefully you can dodge the bullet and get through just this one time...

I had a big flood in a finished basement (12" of water) once. Pulled up the carpet -- dried it out, threw out the pad. Then had new pad put down & carpet reinstalled.

The trick is to get the carpet dry, but somewhat slowly so it doesn't shrink, but not too slowly so mold/mildew forms.

Call the pros!

we've had water in our finished basement a few times and I agree that the problem will be the pad. what we found to be the most effective was to shop vac the water, then steam clean the carpet with a rented machine. Then we had the carpet people come and rip up the carpet, remove the pad and then put the carpet back down without a pad. True, it is not as comfy without a pad, but it is way easier to deal with any sort of water issue you may have in the future.

I've been thinking about ripping out our carpeting in the basement and replacing it with those carpet squares that have rubberized backing that keeps them stuck to the floor. Has anyone used those, and what do you think about them? I would love to do tile, but I'm not sure it's feasible in the basement because of all the areas where the floor takes funky dips (like near the old sump pump and where the water supply comes into the house). I just don't think hard tile would be practicable if the floor isn't all flat and level.

Rent a carpet drier. Pull up a corner of the carpet and stick it under for a day or two. Also add a dehumidifier if you have one. If it is a big carpet rent two carpet driers...

bettina, you can borrow our dehumidifier if you need. Boy, that word is hard to type!

Posted By: Tom ReingoldBoy, that word is hard to type!

:rolling: It is hard to type, isn't it? I noticed that earlier...

First rule regarding installing carpeting where water can be an issue is to use commercial grade indoor/outdoor carpeting. You would still shopvac excess water, use dehumidifier and try to air out the basement,but you wouldn't have nasty undercarpets and the carpeting itself doesn't encourage mold.

Posted By: PeggyCI've been thinking about ripping out our carpeting in the basement and replacing it with those carpet squares that have rubberized backing that keeps them stuck to the floor. Has anyone used those, and what do you think about them? I would love to do tile, but I'm not sure it's feasible in the basement because of all the areas where the floor takes funky dips (like near the old sump pump and where the water supply comes into the house). I just don't think hard tile would be practicable if the floor isn't all flat and level.

I have this down in the basement. Looks like wood, but it's vinyl. It's flexible, so it follows all those dips. It's cheap and we installed it ourselves in a (long) day.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100594664&N=10000003+90401+500335

Grahamb, thanks for mentioning that, because I never thought of the vinyl that looks like wood. That could actually be a really good option for our basement. I've seen some at Home Depot that are pretty convincing, and the style of our finished basement would look pretty nice with "wood" on the floor.

Did you just lay that directly over the cement floor, or was there any kind of underlayment?

I have been furiously shop vaccing and fan blowing and airing out the basement. Unfortunately, it is begining to smell like mildew. Is this a sign that the carpet needs to come up?

Most likely. And it sounds like you probably will have to get rid of the pad, at the very least. Did you try a dehumidifier? Sorry, Bettina.

I wonder if pouring a large amount of baking soda on will help. It can't hurt.

Does that kill mildew/mold? It would make a hell of a mess once it gets wet, however.

There are spray-on mold treatments at Home Depot. Test it carefully on a place that doesn't show first, because they might contain bleach, which is the best mold killer I know. But even so, that would be a bit of a bandaid solution, I'm afraid.

Look for Borax recipes for killing mold. Bleach is not effective.

Keep at it with the water removal and use a dehumidifier. If you need one I can set you up with ours. If the carpet can be lifted without too much trouble, get at that pad to remove more water. The pad might need to be replaced but you don't know until you really sort that water out.

I have removed as much water as possible by using the wet vacc - now the carpet is just damp, or rather the padding underneath is clearly very damp and when you press on the carpet, you can feel the dampness underneath. I have fans and dehumidifier going. The question is - how will I know if the pad needs to be replaced? If, when it is all dry, if the mildew smell goes away, can I assume that everything is fine - or is it possible that mold has grown underneath where I cannot see or smell it?

Bettina,
It will smell awful for a couple of days, but once it's dried out, all will be well. Keep the fans and dehumidifier going and put down some carpet fresh in a few days and you will be fine. I've sucked close to 20 gallons from my carpet & pads when we had some bad storms in the past. My downspouts were not pitched properly and the hydrostatic pressure just pushed the water through the cinder blocks. You'll be fine.:wink:

You can buy mold test kits at the big hardware stores, Home Depot etc. I suppose you could pull up part of the carpet to let you get at the pad, and use the mold test kit once you think the water is gone. But you'd have to make sure you were testing a spot that was actually wet, so maybe do it near the area where the flood started.

Posted By: PeggyCDid you just lay that directly over the cement floor, or was there any kind of underlayment?

Yup.

But - When we pulled up the carpet, we had some ancient (vinyl?) tile on the cement floor. It did not go all the way to the wall, so if I laid the fake-wood on top of that, the ridge where the tile floor ended, would have telegraphed through...making it visible on the surface of the fake wood. So I bought the cement equivalent of spackle and smoothed out that little ridge.