I’m wondering if I should be concerned about water that invaded our mostly finished basement over the weekend (I’m in NY and got pounded with 8 straight days of rain ending Friday, which was the first and only day the basement got wet). The basement has two distinct areas: one that is carpeted over a plywood base that sits on 2x material and one that is basically and unfinished concrete slab. The water was 2-3 inches deep on the slab, but the carpet never got wet…but I’m fairly certain that the area under the carpet got wet becasue as we vaccuumed water from the doorway connecting the areas water seeped through the threshold from under the carpet area into the slab area. My guess is that the water hit the underside of the plywood sub floor and ran to the slab area. I’m concerned about how the underside of the plywood will dry and whether or not mold or other bad stuff will develop–especially since the carpet area is a playroom for my two kids, 4 and 2. I would hate to rip up the entire floor unless absolutely necessary. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.
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You usually have only 24-48 hours to dry an area such as under the finished floor before a mold bloom may start. Don't wait and see if mold develops; lift some of the floor materials and see if you can dry the cavities under the floor with heat and air- I did that once for a raised floor under our laundry. You have to keep at it until it's truly dry.
There is a lot of info about mold and mold clean-up at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (a national gov't organization). Go to http://www.cmhc.ca and type in "mold" at their search bar.....a lot of info will come up.
thanks for the advice.