Wet Carpet: What Are The Steps You Should Take?

If you have water anywhere in your home and you have carpet, you can very quickly have a nasty problem on your hands – the carpet will help retain the moisture and you’ll be looking at mold and gross smells before too long. While the smell might SEEM like the worst part, the mold and damage to walls and the flooring will cause the really big problems.

So, you have two options – call in the pros or try to do it yourself. Mostly this is a judgement call. If you feel that it’s a small patch or is under control, then you might try it yourself. However, if you don’t know what to do, calling in carpet techs might be the right step for you:

Water is necessary to get truly clean carpet and remove carpet stains, but no one should have wet carpet for long after a professional cleaning. In fact, wet carpet can be more than an inconvenience. It can damage your carpet and harbor mildew growth.

There are four primary factors that affect dry times:

The homeowner and carpet cleaner typically have little control over these four factors. But over-wetting the carpet and lack of dry stroking are the most common reasons for long dry times, which are both caused by the technician. No matter the conditions of the job, dry time is the technician’s responsibility.

The industry standard for dry time is 4 to 8 hours and never longer than 24 hours. If your carpet is still wet 10 hours after a cleaning, consider switching service providers. And always look for companies that use professional grade fans to speed up dry times.

Hot water extraction, also known as “steam cleaning,” is a popular technique for cleaning carpets that involves applying a pre-spray to the carpet, agitating it and then extracting/rinsing through a wand using hot water.

Most services using hot water extraction rely on soaps, detergents and shampoos as cleaning agents. In order to remove these substances, the technician often over-wets the carpet to rinse out the chemicals. Because ZEROREZ uses Empowered Water as its cleaning agent, any possible need for adding extra water for rinsing is eliminated. Wet Carpet: What Are The Steps You Should Take?

DIY Carpet Drying

If the above sounds like too much, you may want to give it a shot yourself. This can be done in cases where there hasn’t been a large water leak or continuing water problems.

In the event that you are going to take on the project yourself, read through these good tips we found for dealing with moist carpets on your own:

Multiple drying methods are required for carpet cleaning a large room or for an entire section of a room. An absorbent towel can be used to quickly dry smaller areas that are drenched by spilled water.

Use towels to soak up excess water. Open the towels thoroughly before laying them around the wet sections of the carpeting. Absorb the water by pressing the towels with your feet or hands. Towels should be replaced as they become drenched with water. Keep a bucket nearby to prevent dripping water on other areas of the room as you store towels or wring the water out.

Plug in the wet-dry vacuum instead of a traditional vacuum using your dry hands. Use the wet vacuum to draw the water out of the wet carpeting. Move it over the damp carpeting repeatedly in slow, straight lines. The vacuum’s canister can be emptied if needed.

To provide a cross breeze, open the windows throughout the floor and in the room with damp carpeting. If there’s humid air outside and there’s a window air conditioner in a room, keep the windows closed. A central air can be used if there’s no window air conditioner.

Plug in fans before placing them on dry areas of the floor or in the doorway of the room in the direction of the wet carpet. To suck in the moisture from the room, plug in the humidifier. The humidifier’s water-collection canister can be emptied if needed.

Sprinkle baking soda over the carpeting and let it sit for 30 minutes to allow any absorption of remaining odors and liquids. Remove the baking soda by vacuuming the carpeting. You may need to sweep off the solid pieces first, so that the vacuum cleaner will not become jammed.

Let the humidifier and fans run overnight. To avoid getting electrical shock, keep the humidifier and fan off the wet carpeting while plugged in. Inspect the carpeting on the following day for any signs of dampness. Pressing paper towels against the carpeting can be done to see if any dampness remains. Once you have determined that the carpeting is dry, return the furniture to the room. Dealing With Wet Carpets And The Threat Of Molding

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