Cracked pipe upstairs caused rain downstairs in my garage. Fixed the pipe, but afraid of mold and wet ceiling

Question

I came home from work, only to notice it's raining in my garage. I ran upstairs to notice that the old pipe under my sink was busted and flowing water for hours. I have an air vent right under my sink so all the water poured into the air conditioning vent, and the base of the air conditioning vent goes to the garage. The damage wasn't hard to fix, just replaced the old rusty pipe with a PVC pipe, what really worries me are the ceilings of the garage. Almost the whole ceiling is a yellowish color now and I don't know if the air conditioning vents will mold or not.

I called up commercial help and they said they will have to remove the entire ceiling, remove all the vents and replace it with new ones and told me it will cost over 5000$. I don't have that kind of money, shouldn't a heavy duty dehumidifier do the job?

Answer 1

If your garage is finished you will need to remove all the drywall.

A dehumidifier won't get it done fast or good enough. The faster you act on this the better off you will be in the long run. It doesn't cost anything to tear down the ceiling, but it will cost you when it is time to replace the sheetrock.
If this was my garage; I would get out there and start taking down all the ruined sheetrock, i would inspect the rest of the water damaged stuff to see if it can just be cleaned and dryed.

The vents should be fine, maybe a little rust if its been long enough, but that wont hurt anything.

If it got on your carpet upstairs then you need to pull it up so it can dry, including the padding. It can all be put back later unless it shrinks.

Essentially you need to open up all the spots that got soaked so they can dry out. All your sheetrock in the garage is now garbage, and will start molding in time.

Crank up the ventilation and raise the temp to help it dry quicker.

Putting the sheetrock up after all is dry is not too hard of a job, you can get instructions at most home building stores.

Madsci30
http://www.officialperformanceautostore.com

Answer 2

Check your insurance policy. Many policies cover water damage due to ruptured pipes as long as the dwelling is being lived in at the time.

Failing that and I assume you must live where it is warm (20 degrees F here today) run the AC unit. It will dry out the duct work. As for the ceiling, if you can close up your garage, and run a de-humidifier that should dry out the ceiling. Drain the de-humidifier outside and place a fan in the garage blowing on the ceiling. Open any access panels in the ceiling so the dry air can circulate above. As long as you can dry out the ceiling material and keep it dry then mold should not be an issue.