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 …
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, 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 setting in.
TIFFANY: OK. Well, I appreciate your time.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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