With the recent floods in upstate NY my house got about 6 inches of water.
Approximately 3 days after the flood I was able to remove the wall-to-wall carpet, remove all standing water, and to start a big fan to start the drying process.
A cleanup contractor measured the dampness in the walls and indicated that the bottom 4 feet of the drywall should be removed to prevent or eliminate mold.
Questions: Is this really needed? Do I need to remove the hardwood flooring (it buckled a little – about 1/4 in curves – do I have to replace the subflooring?
Do I still need to run dehumidifiers? Which models do you recommend? Is this a project a handy man can try him / herself? Where can I find good guidelines regarding this type of job?
Thanks a Ton.
Demolition Man
Replies
demo.... an insurance cleaning company MAY be able to save some or all
the real deals come with giant dehumidiifers they park
they drill holes in the wall and dehumidify each bay
it may be cheaper to open the walls and replace
as for the oak floors.... they MAY lie down again..
and yes .... buy another dehumidifier and keep them running until you no longer get any water in the pan
you floor may lie down, or it may need to be refinished... but you should be able to keep it
and of course.... faster is better
the drywall yes because of mold
If any fiberglass insulation gets wet it takes forever to dry out. It is better to remove it. Also the weight of wet insulation can make it slide down in the stud bays, leaving the top of the wall uninsulated.
Is this really needed?
Absolutely needed? Maybe not.
But, 4' makes it a lot easier to get new wallboard in. The full access also means being able to see if anything got into the walls with the water (the amount of silt in only a couple of inches of water is spooky).
Being able to spray an antiffungal (ok, bleach) up higher than need always works out as a good thing, too.
For the floors--much TLC. Then repeat the TLC. Then do that over again. At some point, everyone will hit that happy medium where it's "all good." If you hit "all good" in only one go--all the better.
Floods are a not-very-clean female dog with a bad disposition. BTDT, tossed out the shirt long ago.
Don't dry you house out to fast! ie: with giant dehumidifiers. Pulling moisture out of the house to fast will reak havok on all your wood trim and cause it to warp and split. Windows and doors may fail to close properly. Give it a couple of weeks not a couple of days.
Thank you very much!
G