It's a sinking feeling when you enter your house and hear the carpet squishing under your feet. A flooded home is never a good thing to come home to, but if your home has to get wet, it's better for the water to come from an overflowing tub or busted water pipe than a contaminated river. Still, cleanup has to begin right away or the water will stagnate and grow bacteria and encourage mold. Here are some tips for dealing with damage from clean water in your home.

Call In Professionals

If the water leak is so bad that your carpet is squishy, then you're looking at the need for some heavy-duty cleanup. It only takes a little bit of water to cause a lot of damage in your home. The damage comes from the porous materials being wet or damp for a long time. If you take quick action and call in professionals with a crew and commercial drying equipment, you'll have better results at restoring your home quicker. Plus, you'll be able to stop the progression of damage caused by high humidity in your home.

Consider Pulling Up The Carpet

The cleaning crew may have equipment that can pull all the water from the carpet, padding, and flooring underneath. You'll want to discuss your options for drying the carpet, because pulling it up and drying it outdoors might be best. The problem with a wet carpet is that the floor and padding under it can stay damp when the carpet seems dry. Since you can't see under the carpet, there is the risk that mold will grow and you won't see it. You can eliminate that risk by extracting water from the carpet as much as possible and then pulling it up to dry in the sun. With the carpet out of the way, the padding can be pulled up and the floor thoroughly dried. Once the restoration process is completed, new padding can be put down and the carpet returned.

Remember To Dry The Furniture

You should also have water extracted from upholstered furniture and then set it out to dry in the sun if possible. You'll also want to dry off wood furniture so it doesn't get water stains or warp and crack. If it isn't possible to put your sofa and easy chairs in the sun to dry, place them on flooring other than carpet and point fans on the bottoms to help dry out the fabric. You'll want to keep the room as cool as possible since warm, damp conditions promote the growth of mold.

Prepare To Replace Drywall

If part of your home was flooded high enough that the drywall is wet, then plan to have the drywall cut out and replaced. Wet drywall tends to expand, form bubbles, and warp. Even if it could dry out, its appearance would be altered. It's best to have it removed and replaced with new materials. If the flood happened on an upper level and leaked to a lower floor, you'll have to replace drywall used in the ceiling and maybe even the material used for flooring above it.

While you won't have to throw out as much building material and belongings with a clean-water flood as you would with a flood from contaminated water, you should still be prepared to replace anything that is so difficult to dry out that your home stays damp and humid for days. Otherwise, you'll have to deal with cleaning up mold too.

For professional water damage restoration, contact companies like Continental Carpet Cleaning Restoration.