Being awakened by a flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder convinced me that we truly are on the brink of a new season: the wet basement season.
My first thought (well, after thinking of putting away the snowblower – as if!) was whether our re-grading work around the foundation would hold up against melting snow coupled with rain. Three years ago, we had seepage and soggage, due to a bum downspout and some poorly slated ground.
Repairs and creating some gentle earth berms within the gardens has worked for the past two springs, but with a winter that's flirted with the record books, my fingers are crossed. All of which has sent me to reviewing what to do when the basement carpet goes squish-squish.
Turns out what we'd done the first time around by instinct was the right strategy. Fortunately, we own a wet/dry shop-vac (which are easily rented) so we first used that to soak up as much of the water as possible. The trick is to move slowly over your carpet, over and over and from different angles. Here's a guideline from eHow.com: Plan on spending about 30 minutes for an area 5 feet square.
Turn off the humidity for your furnace; believe me, you now have enough in your house. If you have a dehumidifier, place it in the room with the damp carpet.
The next step is to get the air moving across the carpet. Dig out the fans from the cubby where you store the summer stuff. Get all of them out and plugged in. If you have some high-velocity fans, all the better. Aim them as close to floor level as possible and let them run for, well, as long as it takes until the carpet starts to feel dry.
We also sprinkled some baking soda on the affected areas, but we probably did it too soon. Ideally, baking soda should be applied when the carpet feels somewhat dry. We shook it on when things still were quite wet and it clumped up. As one website noted "it will be a pain when you vacuum it up."
Yes. I know.
