Help! Wet Carpet!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Rain from a thunderstorm today has leaked into my basement bedroom, leaving the carpet so wet there are puddles of standing water.

Does anyone know how to dry something like that out?

[factotum]

Well, firstly, find and fix the leak so it doesn't happen again. As for the carpet, it's probably pretty ruined--best way to dry it would be to take it outside and hang it up, but if that isn't possible, hire a portable aircon or dehumidifier unit to dry the air out and make the water evaporate faster. (Don't get an evaporative cooler, those would have the opposite effect!).

[Extra_Crispy]

I would also look into buying or renting a shop vack or steam cleaner type vaccuum. Shop vacks can suck up water and some vaccuums are, like a steam cleaner, able to suck up the water also. This will help you to dry the carpet faster then use the dehumidifier and other things like heaters to finish drying it. Finally vaccuume it and maybe even steam clean it a couple of times to get rid of the mold before it trys to grow.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, firstly, find and fix the leak so it doesn't happen again. As for the carpet, it's probably pretty ruined--best way to dry it would be to take it outside and hang it up, but if that isn't possible, hire a portable aircon or dehumidifier unit to dry the air out and make the water evaporate faster. (Don't get an evaporative cooler, those would have the opposite effect!).
How would we find the leak? For all we know we'd have to dig up the side of our house to find it! And this isn't some little throw-rug. This is wall-to-wall carpeting.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I would also look into buying or renting a shop vack or steam cleaner type vaccuum. Shop vacks can suck up water and some vaccuums are, like a steam cleaner, able to suck up the water also. This will help you to dry the carpet faster then use the dehumidifier and other things like heaters to finish drying it. Finally vaccuume it and maybe even steam clean it a couple of times to get rid of the mold before it trys to grow.

We have a shop-vack. Using it is like trying to suck up a swimming pool through a straw!

[Extra_Crispy]

We have a shop-vack. Using it is like trying to suck up a swimming pool through a straw!

ouch sorry it also depends on the vac, I have used some that are much better than that.

[drakir_nosslin]

Well, if I were you, I'd call for a professional carpenter or plumber or something. My sister had a similar experience last fall. The neighbor above her (she lives in a apartment) came home after a night out, fell asleep in the shower with the water on and his clothes covering the drain. Result: Water over the entire apartment, and it leaked through the roof to my sister's place and into her walls. They had to tear up the entire floor in the above apartment and dry it out, as well as my sister's walls and repaint her ceiling and walls.

The danger with just trying to dry it out yourself is that you risk getting mold into the walls, which might spread through the entire house. Not only is this bad for your health, but it could get quite expensive to fix and you might loose a lot if you'd try to sell a house like that.

[IonDragon]

Use a SHAMWOW! They're super absorbent, and work great on wet carpet!

Please don't spend any money on that garbage...

[Cyrion]

I've had this happen a couple of times in my basement, and it's probably not a leak you can fix. Houses aren't sealed at the bottom, they typically are on top of a set of drainage tiles that empty into your sump (probably located in your basement utility room) where the water gets pumped back outside. In a heavy enough rainstorm, these tiles can get overwhelmed, and you get water. Things to do:

1. Make sure that you don't have an obvious leak- look for stains on your wall or another indication of a broken pipe. Check that you didn't lose a seal on a window and water came through that way (again, stains are probably going to be the telltale sign). If you find a leak, call a repair man.

2. Check that your sump pump is working. Sometimes, if it gets over-worked it will quit and need to be reset (look for a reset button, or just turn the power on and off; make sure that you haven't tripped a circuit breaker). If you've got that much water in your basement, you should hear it come on at regular intervals because the tiles are still draining, so it still has work to do.

3. If you've got more water than you can mop up fairly quickly via shop vac etc., the best thing to do is call a professional water abatement company. You REALLY don't want this to sit around- it can ruin the carpet and get sucked up into the walls where it could ruin the drywall and/or insulation. The water abatement is moderately expensive, but nothing compared to the cost of repairing all of that if necessary.

[Jack Squat]

There's a lot of supermarkets that rent out carpet cleaners - my store rents out rug doctors. Run these dry over the carpet a few times, and it'll suck a good bit of the water out. Then place a dehumidifier or two and as many portable fans as you can get. It might take about a day or so of having these running- and don't forget to check the dehumidifiers to empty them out every so often.

The trick is to do this fast, or else there may be mildew buildup, which can be fixed, it just takes more effort.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, I've been using the shop-vack for an hour or so, and it's made a noticeable difference, and it seems my dad was way ahead of me on this matter. He bought a dehumidifier this morning, and it's now going on full blast.

[thubby]

fixing the leak sounds like a matter for a professional if it's that bad.

[Supagoof]

How would we find the leak?
Chances are it's not a hole in the wall/leak at all, it depends on how your landscaping is setup.

Also pending on when the house was built, the basement could have a variety of setups. One rule is true of all houses - make sure the water runs away from the house. Here's a few things to check...

Outside grading - Just looking at your yard - do you think it slopes toward or away from your house. Heavy rain rolling off you roof should hit the grading in your yard and move away from the house. Time changes how the grading works - for dirt erodes away, cement settles around the house. If the landscape is angled toward your house - then that's issue #1. Fortunately, all you need to fix it is dirt and labor, make it so water that lands on the ground flows away from your house. You can also hire a contractor to re-grade your land - this also means you'll need to seed for new grass and such, but better that then water in the basement.

Do you have gutters? A lot of water comes off the roof in a storm. If you have gutters, then can direct the water away from the house. Check and make sure they aren't blocked or clogged up by leaves. Also make sure the spouts from them are long enough to move the water away from the house. I'd recommend at least 5 feet in length from house to end of the spout keep the water flowing away. And if you don't have them, look into getting some installed or putting some up yourself.

Check and see if you have a sub-pump. If you don't - having one installed is a bit expensive, but the cost is worth it in the long run. If you do have one - double check it to make sure it functions properly - that it has electricity and the pump itself runs. Finally make sure the hose from the pump isn't blocked or clogged. The hose from sub-pumps usually runs from the house out to the street - again to keep water away from the house. Make sure that it hasn't been broken or stopped off where it allows water to run back into the house after pumping it out. This would burn out the pump from overuse and render it useless.

And if you find a hole in your foundation, they can be fixed. Purchasing a cement sealer kit to fill in the hole is fairly cheap. It's simply a mixture of water and cement, then pushing that mixture into the hole until it dries.

If you have a home depot/lowe's around you, not only can you find the stuff you need there to make the fixes, but the staff can point you in the right direction for how to correctly fix things.

Just remember this - First step is making sure water flows AWAY from the house. :smallsmile:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I think the source of the problem is the direction of the rain. This has happened to our basement before, and it's rained hard several times since then but hasn't leaked. My folks believe that the water only leaks in when the rain is hitting the north side of our house, where the egress windows for me and my brother's rooms are. I've done some more shop-vacking to get rid of the really squishy parts, and the humidifier's still running while my brother shop-vacks his room.

[Cyrion]

A couple of things to look at, then-

Does the land slope down toward the house from the north? If so you might want to see if you can regrade it a little to change the direction of water flow. (Your other option, of course, is to become a weresponge and lurk outside during rain storms).

Do your windows face north? Are they sealed well?

Where does your sump pump empty? Check that it empties well away from the house. The idiots who built my house had it empty right next to the house, so the water I pumped out was just draining right back in.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I brought these up to my dad. We actually don't have a sump pump. And judging by what he said, the leak was inevitable with the massive rainfall we had (the pond near our house was flooded all the way up to the footpath).

Fortunately, nothing's been damaged, and we've decided to go all out like we always planned and just tear out the old carpet. That way when it happens again we just mop it up in a half-hour. Plus it's gotten all my stuff nice and organized via evacuating it upstairs for the bedroom shift my family's been planning for me and my brothers all summer.