My basement was flooded with water about 4~5 inches deep. How can I dry it out? How to recover the carpet too?

Question

We had the rain storm last Sunday(4/15). When I checked the basement, it was very dry during the storm. My house has always been very dry so it doesn't have a sound-pump. Only until this morning(Tuesday) we noticed that it was flooded.

Answer 1

I'd get rid of the carpet, as it has had time to get moldy. You'll need a pump to get out the water and a shop vac to get what the pump won't. You will need to replace dry wall as well, as mold will be growing in and behind it. If you have any electrical outlets that are below the water level, you'll need to have your wiring worked on, too.

If you are in the area of the nor'easter it could be that you will qualify for financial assistance if your governor has declared it a disaster area.

I'm so sorry you are experiencing this. It is a difficult situation. We had pipes burst a few years ago and it was a difficult time.

Answer 2

You got five inches of water in your basement and you're on here asking what to do? Well, here goes. most likely your basement has a drain in it, at least it should. So the water will start to recede. But what caused the flooding, a broken pipe? Listen, most towns have an infrastructure, you know, police, fire department, public utilities, electrical department. Why not get off of the computer and call someone. Start with the police and work your way to the department of public health. In the mean time, go to Walmart and get a container of HTH, the pool chlorine. Go down and dowse the standing water with about half the container full. It will disinfect everything and destroy anything in there like the stuff your landlord left behind, Good luck.

Answer 3

If you have homeowner's insurance (or even better flood insurance) immediately call your agent or take a lot of photos of the damage and see if they will pay anything to help.

You first need to pump it dry using either a rented pump, a wet dry vac, or maybe aid from the local fire department.

Then open the windows and run a fan to try to lower the humidity in there.

You need to pull up the carpet and pad. The odds are that theya re ruined and ready to mold. However. if you drag them out and try to let them dry naturally in the sunshine (if there is any sunshine) you might get lucky on the carpet and just need a new pad.

Now look at anything that was stored on the floor. If it is books in a carton or a bunch of papers get them into the trash pickup - they are probably goners.

If the walls have plasterboard you might need to cut off the bottom wet area to keep it from molding.

If the water is not just pure rainwater but instead smells of backed up sewage you need to be scrubbing the wet areas with bleach.

If the water line on the walls reaches up to electrical outlets or to parts of your furnace or water heater, you might need to get those checked by a pro.

Answer 4

I agree the rug is probably ruined and needs to be taken up. Try renting or buying a submersible pump that is portable if you don't have this problem all the time. You can rent them at rent a centers. and I think, Lowes, Menard's or Home depot. Check in the yellow pages under rentals.

Sometimes if you live in a small town like we do, the town will sometimes lend you one.

We don't have a sump pump either with our basement (we are on a hill in town) and rarely have water but we get a heavy rain once in awhile that will put two to three inches across it and it draines on it 's own in a few hours.

Answer 5

Get a pump & pump it out. The carpet is going to be a total loss, there's no saving that.
The storm that went through the Northeast over the weekend was the worse storm in like 14 years, so you probably have enough time to make modifications to your basement (ha ha)
I would install an adequate sump pump though for future storms of this magnitude.
Hope this helped, good luck!!

Answer 6

You need to get a sump pump to get all the water out.

Unfortunately your rug is history. If you do keep it you will be harvesting mold & mildew, which is horrible for you to breathe in.
You may have to repaint as well, and anything that was on the floor could be ruined too.
Sorry to be such a downer, but the same thing happened to my family last year. This year we were prepared with a sump pump, and tiled floors. No more carpet.

Answer 7

First you have to have the fire department come and pump out the water. After you are down to your soaked carpet you will have to rent a carpet extractor and then you will have to use it to extract all of the water out of the carpet. When you get out all that you can let it dry by a fan for a couple of days. Rent an industrial fan for this. After you do this you will have a dry smelly carpet. At this point rent a carpet shampooer and shampoo the carpet this will make it smell good. As a final step sprinkle on some Love My Carpet and vacuum. Your carpet will be better than new and cleaner than new. With the price of carpets they are not ruined after being in a flood if you know how to save them as I do and I have passed this on to you. Good luck.

Answer 8

You can rent a "crash" pump from home depot. It's a heavy duty portable sump pump.

A wet/dry shop vac can handle what that leaves behind.

Then comes the dehumidifier.

Then you need to install a better permanent sump pump for the next time it happens.

The rug is going to smell so lovely for a while.

Answer 9

throw away that carpet

buy a pump

some of them can be installed and set to turn on whenever it gets wet

maybe opening doors to outside, a half inch a day might evaporate

Answer 10

your carpet is ruined
take it up or u could have a serious mold problem