When your home is damaged by flooding, you have a major mess on your hands. With all of the cleanup that has to follow, it may be tempting just to let your carpet and rugs air dry while you focus on other things. But proper water damage cleanup in Kansas City is essential to preventing mold from growing in your wet carpet and padding. Keep reading to get tips on preventing mold growth in your carpets.
Act Quickly
Speed is of the utmost importance when it comes to water damage. You may have a lot of things on your plate right now, but focusing on removing excess moisture from your carpet should be at the top of your list. Ideally, you should work with a water removal expert to extract water from your carpeting. If you’re doing the cleanup yourself, use a wet vacuum to remove as much water as possible as quickly as you possibly can.
Replace Padding
Unfortunately, the odds are low that you can completely salvage soft flooring like carpet, especially if it’s been soaked all the way through to the padding. You can often salvage the carpet itself, but the padding should be replaced. Even if you can get the carpeting dry, damp carpet padding remains an ideal breeding ground for mold.
Control Humidity
Mold usually begins to form within 24 to 48 hours of moisture exposure, so those first couple of days are essential to preventing mold growth. You should spend those days focusing on controlling humidity levels in your home. Add as many fans and dehumidifiers as you can to the space to help. If you’ve removed your padding, you can elevate your carpeting to help air circulate all around it and assist with completely drying it out.
Check around Furnishings
Be sure to check around furnishings and in any hidden areas where moisture could be lingering in your carpets. Behind your entertainment center, inside the hall closet, and under your area rug are all common places for moisture to linger. Ideally, you should be moving rugs and furnishings out of the affected area as you clean and dry the space. This will make it easier to ensure no nook or cranny is left untreated.
Sanitize Surfaces
Finally, sanitize as many surfaces as you can with a cup of chlorine bleach diluted in a gallon of water. While you obviously shouldn’t re-soak your carpets with this, you can wipe down the flooring beneath your carpeting (after it’s been pulled up and before the new padding has been removed), clean adjacent baseboards, and disinfect any furnishings in the impacted area. You should also consider having the carpets and rugs professionally cleaned.
Mold in carpets is a common problem after a flood. It’s essential that you act quickly and utilize professional emergency flood cleanup in Kansas City to prevent mold from growing in your carpets.