Prevent Mold Under a Wet Carpet

LESLIE: Tiffany in Louisiana, welcome to The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?

TIFFANY: Yes, I have had a little problem with water running into my carpet area. We had some – the air conditioner leaked [1] …

TOM: OK.

TIFFANY: … anyway and the carpet got soaking wet. And I can never get all of the water. I believe some of it is underneath the …

LESLIE: In the pad.

TIFFANY: … sheetrock. I don’t know what to do.

TOM: Is it a large area that’s still saturated?

TIFFANY: No, we did one of the little carpet rental where it – shampooer?

TOM: OK.

TIFFANY: And it suctioned up quite a bit of it but it’s still damp.

TOM: Hmm.

TIFFANY: And I can’t get it all out.

TOM: Well, what you’re – the best thing to do is to (clears throat), generally when you get floods in carpets, is to get a fan on it as quickly as possible. Now, if it physically flooded, typically they’re going to lift the carpet up and loosen it up so that it can get – the water can get – the air can get underneath and dry it out.

TIFFANY: OK.

TOM: But if you don’t want to take the carpet up you at least have to get a fan on there. If it’s a bad flood [2], very often people will go out and rest whole – rent large fans that really move a lot of air through the house. But if it’s a small area you could probably just put a regular window fan sort of pointing in that area and just blow as much air over it as you can and it’ll evaporate eventually.

TIFFANY: OK. Do you know about how many days and how do I make sure it’s not going to mold?

TOM: Well, you should be able to dry it out in a day or so. I wouldn’t think it’s going to take much more time than that. And once it does get dried out then you don’t have to worry about any type of mold [3] setting in.

TIFFANY: OK. Well, I appreciate your time.

TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.