Flooded basement question

[angie_nrs]

I'm so out of my zone on this one. I have a family member who experienced a flooded basement yesterday. We went to help and he had about a half inch of water on his carpeted floor throughout the basement. We brought a wet vac and a carpet cleaner over b/c we weren't sure how we could help and didn't know it was going to be that bad. Apparently the flood got worse as we headed over there. When we got there, we finally got the reason for the flood fixed and then sucked up numerous gallons of water from the floor. The water came in from the great outdoors so it was dirty, but not sewage.....thank goodness. After 4 hours of constant wet vac and carpet cleaner we finally got the floors as dry as we could. They were still working on it when we left last night. They have dehumidifiers and fans running full bore. Hubs took 3 more fans and one of our dehumidifiers over there today. I feel so bad b/c they don't have a lot of money, but just finished their basement this spring. They had new carpeting, furniture, and walls put in. I'm not sure their insurance will even cover it if they have severe damage.

I've never had to deal with a flooding issue like this before, nor have they. I told them they should probably get an opinion from ServePro or some company like that to determine if they have to go in and do anything to the basebooards or drywall? I don't know if that's something we can figure out on our own? Does the carpet and padding have to be ripped out or can it be salvaged? Has anyone been through this? Any advice??? I'm lost.....and heartbroken for them. I just wish I could give them some answers.

 

[zoomzoom]

Start by calling the the insurance company. If it's covered, have ServePro or someone similar come in and fix it.

If insurance doesn't cover it:
Run the fans and dehumidifiers as you are now.

Peal the carpet and pad away from the wall in a corner (preferably a corner that got the deepest water or where the water entered the basement). Remove baseboard in that area if it has baseboard. Now you can see the drywall. Look for water stains on the drywall to see how deep it got. If more than 1.5 - 2", I'd get a utility knife and cut the drywall horizontally at about 3" to remove that bad drywall. If cutting the drywall was required, you can now see your studs and insulation. Feel in there to get an idea of how wet the insulation is. If it's not bad, blow fans on that area.

Please do those steps and let us know the extent of the damage.

Oh, and if there was baseboard, let us know if it was real wood or a compressed foam or particle board. If it's real wood or foam/synthetic, let it out to dry. If particle board, it's probably shot since once wet, it greatly expands then never goes back into shape.

 

[Mr.Meer]

Sound advice zoomzoom, I agree, stopping mold is the issue there before it starts. lmo

 

[Frodo]

The carpet needs to be removed ASAP and the mat under neith it replaced

Cut the dry wall at 24'' above the floor and toss it. inspect the insulation. remove any wet insulation and replace.
rent, borrow, steal some REALLY BIG fans and get that air moving to help dry out
get a couple of gallon yard pump sprayers and fill with bleach, start spraying every thing that got wet. bleach will kill the mold

"experts" will tell you 1 cup bleach to 1 gallon water. LOL NO pure clorox and a face mask

If you can not take the carpet out doors, raise it up off the floor by putting chairs under it
you need air circulating completly around it to dry it out

why cut the rock at 24"" the rock soaked up water, the insulation behind it wicks up the water. you may have wetness 3'' up the rock but the insulation wicked the water up 12''

 

[Meerkat]

We found the best mold and mildew fighter is Dawn Dish,Ammonia or bleach.We have used all these here in humid Florida for our fungus problems. We use Ammonia in our truck and Van vents.We also spray Lysol in them now and then.
Watch for fumes ans vapors when using any of these products. And never mix them together.

 

[hashbrown]

Get the carpet out of there first thing.

 

[Peanut]

I agree, went through this last fall. You have to get the carpets and pads up asap.

I took my carpets up to the shop and spread them out over spare bee hives and put two really strong fans on them... flipped them over after 12hrs and continued until dry. I saved my carpet, no smell. I still use it.

For cleaning try below... It'll kill/prevent mold. The TSP is sold at the big box store. I cleaned my slab with tsp before putting carpet back down. I've had no problems with mold.

Doubtful you can get the pads dry.

While every thing is ripped up... Think about a sump pump... You almost never need one but it will save you when it is needed. A pump isn't that expensive and the work making a sump basin & the plumbing is straight forward...

 

[backlash]

Triple post. No idea how that happened. Sorry again.
Maybe our newest Mod can delete the mess. Thanks

 

[backlash]

Like the others have said. Get the carpet and pad out NOW. Mold will be growing very fast and once that happens it is much worse. It doesn't matter how well you dry the carpet and pad it will mold and smell really bad forever.
If they have insurance call the insurance company first thing and let the pros take care of the mess.
I worked in a hospital that had a sewage explosion in the X-Ray department. A 12" sewer line plugged and all the raw sewage shot up through the toilets and sinks. It hit the ceiling a brown wave flowed down the hall. Everything that got wet and would absorb water had to be removed and replaced. The leaded walls were removed 4' above the floor. Everything that didn't absorb water had to be removed and disinfected. It took almost 4 months to get everything cleaned and reinstalled. 2 X-ray machines had to be scrapped.
When you are working in the basement wear a resperator. You do not want to breath in what is growing there.

 

[Supervisor42]

Get the carpet out of there first thing.

First of all, what's a basement?

Down here, houses don't even have a crawl-space, the slab sits on the ground.
Anything below ground level can be assumed to be continuously submerged in water.
And carpet , they gave up on that here years ago, unless you have a 2-story house.
Edit: Not one square foot of carpet in this house, only easily replaceable throw rugs. (keyword, throw)

 

[Meerkat]

First of all, what's a basement?View attachment 46730
Down here, houses don't even have a crawl-space, the slab sits on the ground.
Anything below ground level can be assumed to be continuously submerged in water.
And carpet , they gave up on that here years ago, unless you have a 2-story house.
Edit: Not one square foot of carpet in this house, only easily replaceable throw rugs. (keyword, throw)

Us too SuperV, no carpet in our house for almost 40 years.We took it out and replaced it with hardwood,one was low cost utility lumber ,after hand sanding [ I lost some of my finger prints,had ugly knees for awhile ] and carnish that was one of the prettiest wood floors we have had.

 

[Meerkat]

I use to like to remodel ,one MH I took the walls out of living ,bedroom to make living room bigger,hubby came home from work and freaked seeing all the electrical wires hanging down,but it worked had a larger LR.!

 

[hiwall]

First step is fix the problem so it never gets wet again.

 

[Mr.Meer]

First of all, what's a basement?View attachment 46730
Down here, houses don't even have a crawl-space, the slab sits on the ground.
Anything below ground level can be assumed to be continuously submerged in water.
And carpet , they gave up on that here years ago, unless you have a 2-story house.
Edit: Not one square foot of carpet in this house, only easily replaceable throw rugs. (keyword, throw)

Us too , no carpet. Up stairs or down stairs.

 

[angie_nrs]

The problem is being fixed as much as you can fix mother nature. It's a long story, but suffice it to say, some very large equipment was busy today.

He called ServePro early this morning and they can't get out there until tomorrow to look at it, since many people had issues this weekend, so they are swamped. However, the guy on the phone told him pretty much what ya'll are saying. That he thinks the pad needs to be ditched and they can probably save the carpet. He's got a call out to the insurance company but doesn't expect to hear anything from them until tomorrow. Regardless of whether or not insurance covers it, it'll have to be taken care of.

 

[Meerkat]

The problem is being fixed as much as you can fix mother nature. It's a long story, but suffice it to say, some very large equipment was busy today.

He called ServePro early this morning and they can't get out there until tomorrow to look at it, since many people had issues this weekend, so they are swamped. However, the guy on the phone told him pretty much what ya'll are saying. That he thinks the pad needs to be ditched and they can probably save the carpet. He's got a call out to the insurance company but doesn't expect to hear anything from them until tomorrow. Regardless of whether or not insurance covers it, it'll have to be taken care of.

Thats a job we helped hubbys brother when his basement flooded.

 

[The Lazy L]

The carpet needs to be removed ASAP and the mat underneath it replaced
...

If you missed Frodo's post go back and read it!!!!!!!

Without drying between the carpet and concrete floor ASAP mold will grow quickly to cause health problems.

 

[Flight]

My wife and I had our basement flooded 7 years ago, I ended up ripping out everything unfortunately, I was able to locate were the most water was coming through the floor, I ended up cutting out a hole and putting in a sump pump in, never had any more water coming in.

 

[Morgan101]

I agree with all that has been said, but most importantly I agree with Hiwall. Fix the problem. Why did it flood in the first place? I would highly recommend at least one sump pump with a marine battery back-up, so if you lose power it will still run.

In our old house we had two sump pumps; one at either end of the house. We have had flooding issues in the past. It is no fun to sweat bullets every time it rains praying you don't get flooded.

 

[The Lazy L]

Off subject just a little...

Several years ago we were looking at a house too buy. It had a seven foot basement that you could walk out to the backyard. Fifty feet from the back of the house was a beautiful river. The property extended to the far side of the river too. House needed remodeling but did I mention the beautiful river view? I asked the Realtor how many times did the river overflow into the basement? ONLY twice in the last 10 years the current owner had lived there.

Back to the OP subject...

 

[Morgan101]

When we moved into the subdivision we are in now it was brand new. There is a creek that runs through the subdivision. My wife wanted a lot that was on the creek. I refused. After the flooding problem we had in our previous house there was no way I would have my property adjacent to a creek.

Long story short. It took about 25 years, but the house on the lot she wanted flooded; 4 feet of water in the basement. The flood water never touched our property.

 

[hiwall]

I do not blame people for buying and living in places that flood. It is just too much to know everything about everything.
But once you know about flooding then it is all on the homeowner. Fix the problem, live with the problem, or move. I think the best answer is to move and take your new-found knowledge with you so you do not make the same mistake again.

 

[Morgan101]

Hiwaal: I agree, but sometimes things change, and you have no idea why. During our residence in this house we survived a 500 year flood, and nobody had any water in their basement. The house I referred to earlier is across the street from me. Twenty five years later three houses, two across the street from me, had substantial flood water in the basement. What changed? How could you survive a 500 year flood, and 25 years later when flooding in the area was not nearly as bad, your house gets flooded?

Somebody somewhere along that watershed did something. It had to be a township or the Corps of Engineers. An individual could not have done this. They changed something so the water does not run through the creek the way it did before. Our area flooded two years in a row.

To your point the owners of all three of houses that flooded moved; two are long gone and the third is moving this month. From my experience, fixing this problem is not an option. It will happen again. It is just a matter of time.

 

[angie_nrs]

Thanks for all the advice everyone.

They got a company coming in to pull the carpets and padding tonight or tomorrow. I told them to start pulling it all now, but they are going to let the company do it. They are also pulling all the baseboards up and will use their blowers to dry everything out. They said the leakage into the dry wall wasn't that bad but that they still want to drill into the drywall and blow everything out, if I understood them correctly.

I've offered them my suggestions, but have stepped back from it all now. They are handling it with their insurance company and the cleaning company. It looks like their insurance is going to cover it. I told them they should consider just getting new carpet, but the cleaning company said the carpet could be professionaly cleaned and re-used. I guess if it was me, I'd just get new carpet even though this carpet is only a few months old. But, it's not me.

The problem has been fixed. There were many fluke conditions that lead to the problem. Unless God decides that he's going to have Noah float that ark again, they shouldn't have another issue. It's just a shame that they had to go thru all of this after just sinking all the money and energy into their basement. Oh well, it could be worse......

 

[angie_nrs]

Update.....it just got worse for them. Apparently the insurance company decided they are not going to cover it. I don't know what to tell them.....

 

[Supervisor42]

Update.....it just got worse for them. Apparently the insurance company decided they are not going to cover it. I don't know what to tell them.....

Tell them to bend over and use appropriate lube, it's going to sting a little .
Most homeowners insurance does not cover water damage unless there is a roof failure.
NFIP covers the rest.
(don't ask us how we know)