There was a time many years ago when basements were mostly a storage room . That changed when the concept of club basements became in vogue. If you remember the movie Diner, where a father tests his new son in law about the Baltimore colts. You can see the concept of the basement storage area now converted into a " clubroom", complete with bar, sofa's, TV and wall to wall carpet.
If you think about it, pre club room basements had no carpet so when a toilet over flowed, water heaters busted, and leaked, pipe bursted, and water leaked from the outside in you can see that all you needed to do was have a mop and a ringer.
Now add wall to wall carpet and you have added another issue. The issue is soaked wet carpet.
What did most homeowners do? Most homeowners let the carpet dry out and hoped for the best.
What happened after the natural drying? Major odors occurred, ruined carpet, and of course mold growth.
To solve these issues of flood damage cleanup in basements, a whole industry was born.
Now if basements have water damage, and a qualified IICRC water damage restoration company like SI Restoration is used within 24 hours of the damage, most water damages can be restored without the possible effects of mold damage.
For your information mold takes 36 hours to 72 hours to start to grow in the right conditions. The right conditions are excessive moisture, food source and warmth. For more information on mold remediation and mold removal, please see SI Restoration's mold remediation page .
Although you can go to SI Restoration's water damage main page at www.si-restoration.com/services/water-damage/water-damage.html , here are a few tips on what you can do when you have a water damage in your flooded basements.
- Remove any items that are on the floor or carpet
- All furniture must be on wood blocks or foam blocks
- Extract as much water as possible out of the carpet
- In a home, lift the carpet up and remove the wet padding. When you try this there is a good chance, you may rip the carpet. This is one of the many reasons a water damage restoration company is a good choice.
- Use carpet fans that blow underneath the carpet.
- Use a COMMERCIAL DEHUMIDIFIER
- Behind walls will be wet ( but you won't be able to see ), so remove wall base and have carpet fans direct air inside walls.
There are more steps involved, in drying out flooded basements, but these tips will give you a better insight on what to do.