Browse Forums Flooring & Floor Covering 1 Mar 08, 2010 8:07 am Hi guys No need to sook and say poor me but we have some damage done to our home after the melb storms. water poured through all our electrical points and lights up stairs and most of our ceilings will have to be pulled down and replaced. Beside all that, I am most upset that our beloved carpet that I love so much is damp in some places. It is 100% wool and I can smell as well as feel it is still a little damp What should we do? We have all the doors open trying to dry the rooms or do we pull up the areas where it seems to be affected the most. It didnt take the brunt of the water damage but enough in every room for me to be very concerned. Mr B is rining the insurance company but I really dont want to replace the carpet unless we really have to. If anybody could help and give advise what is best to do right now in regards to saving the carpet. I would really appreciate it Mrs B Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 2Mar 08, 2010 8:23 am Oh poo!!! That sucks!! I'm so sorry I don't have any advice, hopefully Ash comes in with the solution! It would be such a pain to rip them all up and re-do them again! Hope you get a good outcome We were lucky enogh to come away damage free - apart from 2 hours of power loss eveything else is fine My karma ran over your dogma Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 3Mar 08, 2010 12:21 pm You need airflow asap. Your insurance people will send a blower dude around to dry it out, hopefully it won't shrink too much. Then you need a professional cleaner to treat the carpet with an anti-mould treatment and clean it with hot water extraction. Ash is the expert on this compared to me ...he will know more. My wool carpet was flooded in dec 09 and that's what we did to save it, although there is still a couple of watermarks ( not ppr) that will come out next clean. Good luck. If you need to go insurance let me know. I can have a quote done in24hrs for you. Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 4Mar 08, 2010 2:55 pm Mrs B, these kind of disasters are what you pay your insurnace for! You should not have to worry about how and what to do, other than to have your insurance company send a professional water damage restoration specialist. They should be there ASAP as it is an urgent matter. Some general info for anyone in this situation..... #1. BE VERY CAREFUL OF SAFETY HAZARDS!!!!!! Water and electricity do not mix! Turning power off straightaway is advisable if there is a lot of water in cavities etc. Ensure there is no live power sitting in water. Other hazards such as tripping and slipping on wet surfaces should be assessed and measures taken to ensure safety. Get kids right out of the area. 2. Contact your insurance company straightaway. Get your policy out and make sure you are covered for water damage. They should advise when a WDR tech can be there. 3. In some cases the SES can be called for emergency assistance. 4. Do not rip up carpets unless you know what you are doing. Often damage is done by incorrect action. If there are small areas of water ingress, move furniture and items right away from the area, and use old towels to soak up the water at the furthest point from where the water entered. 5. Mitigate damage if possible by stopping water from entering property. WDR techs should extract most water, then assess damage, act to protect the property from further damage, and initiate restoration. That may mean all sorts of things. Its their job to know whjat action is required, and to act quickly. Do you best to cooperate with the WDR techs. Depending on your policy, you may need to pay a deposit up front, normally the amount of the excess on yur policy. Ash. Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 5Mar 08, 2010 6:43 pm If anyone in Melbourne needs a quick quote submitted to your insurance, please call me on 0404 807 433 and I will sort it out. We have stores in ; Frankston Dandenong ( one of my shops ) Fountain Gate ( the other shop ) Moorabbin Chadstone Nunawading Preston Thomastown Broadmeadows Sunshine Maribyrnong Water Gardens Waurn Ponds Corio We can get a quote to replace your carpet off to your insurance company in 24hours. We can match as close to existing. We do alot of work for RACV, CGU etc already, so if you are with them then we may get called out anyway, depends on your suburb. Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 6Mar 08, 2010 7:07 pm Yep in some cases carpets and/or underlay must be replaced. But the decision is normally made by an insurance assessor on the advice of the water damage restoration professional. That is, the WDR tech must make an assessment at the first visit whether or not carpets and other materials and/or contents are restorable or whether they are to be replaced. It is not for the home owner to make these decisions, although they should be consulted and advised. Whether carpets are to be replaced depends on a number of criteria such as; How long the carpets have been wet Age and general condition of carpets Whether mould is evident Whether water is clean or contaminated (eg. sewerage contamination = replacement) Whether there is cellulosic browning or staining from furnitiure etc Remember with any water damage (including small incidents), FAST action by a water damage restoration tech can save most carpets and other items. The longer it takes to initiate restorative drying the more costly the repairs will probably be. Ash. Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 7Mar 09, 2010 5:32 am Thankyou so much Ash and Anthony for your quick responses, much appreciated. Ash, what you said about the insurance is exactly what Mr B did. You are right thats why we have insurance but I am still fretting over my carpet that is my pride and joy Update, we rang the insurance company and told us a carpet person is coming out to assess the damage. I hope its in the next few days though Anthony, Mr B spoke to the Insurance people before I saw your answer or else he would of asked if its alright to get our own person in....I just hope they send someone out today! With over 40,000 claims, ours in not as urgent as other people we know. One friend lost his entire interior of his brand new home. Furniture, plasmas, ceilings, beds, carpets all destroyed so I am trying not to overact and dwell on our damage. The insurance company will allow us to do all repairs by our builder as we dont want anybody touching the house other than the tradies our builder uses. The carpet looks fine, it just has that wet wool smell in all the rooms. We will just keep airing out all the rooms until somebody can fix it. Hi Bel Where you live missed the hailstorms It was the most unbelievable experience, great to watch if you werent watching the waterfalls inside your own home Mrs B Mrs B Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 8Mar 09, 2010 10:29 am Mrs B, In some cases where there is a lot of properties affected, fast response is not always possible. In those cases, often the insurance co advises you to get what techs in that you can. You pay them and keep for receipts for reimbursement. What area are you in? You might be best to contact a local WDR tech if the inurers tech cannot be there promptly. Look for accreditations in WDR, rather than just a carpet cleaner. Good luck with it all! Ash. Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 9Mar 09, 2010 10:43 am oh no Mrs B, so sorry to hear about your storm damage your beautiful carpet... we were lucky enough to come away unscathed also - had hailstones the size of marbles so not too bad, and discovered one small leak in our ceiling in the hallway. very lucky indeedy. hope you get your ceilings and carpet sorted quickly xxx "Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." — Elizabeth Gilbert Living in our new house. Currently scaping the land. Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 10Mar 14, 2010 2:23 pm Thankyou everybody for all your good wishes and advise. We are fairly ok about the whole ordeal as we know many offers have been affected much worse than us and so what if carpet and ceilings are wet....much more important things in life Anyhoo, update, on Sat the water restoration guys came out. Very interesting to watch what they do. they have this long pole and proded into wet carpet it makes a beeping sound. They tore back half the carpet and I was blown away by how much damage had been done by the water. The underlay was so saoked that when they took it out, water just dripped every where. lesson to be learnt that just because you cant see it, dosent count for a thing! Its what you cant see that causes all the damage. They then put blowers in 2 of the rooms and they are to be left on until we go to sleep for the next few days. Its amazing how good it feels knowing that all the wood underneath is drying. they were going to cut some of the affected carpet but Mr b said NO!!!!! as he knew that would send me over the edge...the guys were ok about that. I dont understand why they wanted to cut the carpet though they took heaps of photos but I still cant get over the damage a bit of water can cause. if anybody on the forum thinks that some of their carpet may have been wet, please get it looked at.....everything was soaked and if we hadnt of got somebody out, I would hate to think of the damage it would cause to the structure of the floor with rot and mould. So, one room has to be replaced but the other room can be saved. next we need a builder from the insurance company to assess the damage to the ceiling...this will take a little while as the guys told us some home owners have been forced out of their homes from roof collapsing. I consider ourselves very lucky that more damage wasnt done. Mrs B Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 11Mar 14, 2010 7:04 pm Hmmm, Mrs B, if the carpet was continuously wet for abot 5 days or more before being lifted, it probably would have become mouldy. Carpets should be REPLACED in that case. Australian Mould Guidelines suggests carpets wet for 72 hours or more should be replaced. Keep in mind, this is just a guideline, and if carpets are very new, sometimes can be ok for longer. Is there visible mould? Are the pins of the smoothedge corroded? If mould is present (which is likely) it is NOT appropriate to use blowers in that way. Yes it dries things out, but it might blow mould spores everywhere. PM me if you would like to discuss details. Ash. Re: Melb storm...damage to carpets, advise needed. 13Mar 15, 2010 5:23 am royalblue Hmmm, Mrs B, if the carpet was continuously wet for abot 5 days or more before being lifted, it probably would have become mouldy. Carpets should be REPLACED in that case. Australian Mould Guidelines suggests carpets wet for 72 hours or more should be replaced. Keep in mind, this is just a guideline, and if carpets are very new, sometimes can be ok for longer. Is there visible mould? Are the pins of the smoothedge corroded? If mould is present (which is likely) it is NOT appropriate to use blowers in that way. Yes it dries things out, but it might blow mould spores everywhere. PM me if you would like to discuss details. Ash. very interesting Ash...the thought of mould spores being blown everywhere is now making me sick! There is no sign of mould or smell, that was the first thing we looked at. I will pm you. Thanks Mek for you thoughts I walked past some neighbours last night and they told us several homes where I lived had collapsed ceilings (my area had the most rainfall) I consider myself lucky that the roof is still holding up although the plaster will have to be replaced. Mrs B Hello I am developing 2 side by side units. 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