How to dry a flooded room.

If you have experienced flooding to just one small room in your house or flooding to one room in your commercial premises and you think you can clean and dry it yourself, here are a few tips that we think may help you.

As with any water damage situation, time is critical so always act fast, the longer you leave water damage the worse it will be.

 

Safety first:

Water and electricals don’t mix so make sure that the flooding has been below the level of all PowerPoints in the room and that any electrical appliances that may have been affected by water are carefully removed.

Never attempt to dry or restore carpet if it has been flooded by sewage water or by flood water that has entered to house or commercial building from outside. If your property has been flooded by contaminated water, then you need to contact a reputable IICRC accredited water damage restoration company as fast as possible!

• If unsure always have a qualified electrician inspect the flooded area for you just to be safe.
• Have any electrical appliance that may have been affected by the flooding test and tagged.
• Be careful as the wet flooring may be slippery.
• Never attempt to clean and dry a room that has been flooded by contaminated water.
• Call the professionals to clean up contaminated water.

 

Protecting your content items from water damage.

If possible, move all of your furniture and content items out of the room, they will only suffer more damage if left in the wet room. If you are unable to move heavy furniture items out of the room, try to place alfoil or foam block underneath the legs of the furniture for protection.

• Remove content items from the room.
• Place protection underneath the legs of heavy furniture.
• Furniture in the room will impede the drying process.

 

 

Open the flooded room up to let wet air out.

As long as it is not raining and extremely wet outside, open up the room as much as possible, including all doors and windows. By doing this you are letting the wet air out of the room and allowing drier air from outside into the wet flooded room (wet air out & dry air in.)

You can even place an oscillating fan near the window to direct the wet air out of the room, this will dramatically reduce the relative humidity in the wet room.

• Let the wet air out and the dry air in.
• Place an oscillating fan near the window.
• This will reduce the humidity levels in the room.

 

Flood water removal.

You will need a wet vac for this, never use a normal vacuum cleaner to suck up water, this is extremely dangerous and will end in disaster. If you don’t have a wet vac that is designed for water extraction you can hire one from your local equipment hire store.

If the flooring is tile, vinyl or concrete then you will just need to go over the floor 2 or 3 times, if the flooring is carpet, then you will need to go over the floor around 5 to 6 times at least.

If you are extracting water from wet carpet allow time in between water extraction passes, for example extract the water then wait for 10 minutes the extract again and so on. This will allow time for the water to wick up out of the carpet underlay in between extraction passes.

• Hire a wet vac if you don’t have one.
• Never use a normal vacuum cleaner to extract water.
• Extracting wet carpet will take longer than extracting water from hard floors.

 

 

 

Drying out the wet room.

To achieve good drying results, you are going to need some drying equipment, and the best place for this is your local hire store or even a local water damage restoration company. You can always get hugely discounted rates for a 7 day hire and I would suggest taking advantage of this and hire the drying equipment for 7 days.

If you are drying a relatively average size room of 14 to 20sqm I would recommend you hire 3 air movers and 1 LGR dehumidifier. Whilst this may seem like a large financial outlay, remember water damage restoration is costly, and you will definitely be saving yourself some money by doing it yourself.

We recommend you place the air movers around the perimeter of the room facing towards the walls at a 45-degree angle and place the dehumidifier in the middle of the room. Ensure the air movers are creating a circular motion with the air flow.

If the air and the weather outside is warm and dry, then leave the windows and doors open as much as possible for the first couple of days then as the room starts to dry down and the air inside the room becomes drier than the air outside you need to close up the room and allow the dehumidifier to keep lowering the relative humidity inside the flooded room.

Be patient, it will typically take around 7 days to effectively dry a flooded room, remember we are not drying just the wet floor or the wet carpet, we need to dry the structure of the flooded house or the flooded commercial building.

Not drying a flooded room properly is the most common mistake people make when doing DIY drying, always remember you need to dry the areas that you can’t see as well, such as inside the walls and the entire structure of the building or house. Even if the room feels and looks dry, we recommend you keep drying for 7 days.

• Hire 3 air movers & 1 LGR dehumidifier for an average size room.
• Close up the room after a couple of days drying.
• Create a circular motion with the airflow around the room.
• Dry for 7 days, remember you need to dry the structure.

 

 

Wet carpet drying.

If the floor covering in the flooded room was carpet, then it is always a good idea to give the carpets a good clean after they have been flooded. You can hire an easy-to-use carpet cleaning machine from your local hire store for this, why not take advantage of the hire and clean the carpets in the rest of your house as well.

Alternatively, there are many local carpet cleaners around that could come and give your carpets a good steam clean. Carpet cleaning will help remove any lingering odours and freshen up your carpets.

 

How can Flood Fixers help with flooded house drying in Adelaide.

If you are trying to dry your flooded room yourself and you are struggling or if you are having issues, you can call the team at Flood Fixers Adelaide anytime. We are a professional water damage restoration company providing flooded house drying services in Adelaide.

We are more than happy to offer obligation free advice to anyone who needs help or advice.

If you think that the room or the house that you are trying to dry is beyond you, we can also help out with that, we have accredited water damage restoration technicians available that can provide you with fast, professional water damage restoration service anywhere in Adelaide.

• Flooded house drying.
• Flooded building drying
• Flooded apartment drying Adelaide and Adelaide CBD

 

If you need water damage service or advice anywhere in Adelaide, please call the Flood Fixers Team anytime