Water Damage Cleanup in Hampton Roads | Can Carpets be Saved After Water Damage?

When you’re dealing with a flooded home, one of the main concerns you’ll have will be what can be saved from your belongings, flooring, and carpets. Professionals who handle water damage cleanup in Hampton Roads have many tips and tricks they can use to restore your carpets so they can be saved instead of needing replaced. This will save you time and money on your restoration process, but there are many factors that will go into the determination.

What Category Flood Waters is Your Disaster?

There are three different categories of flooding and each will impact your carpet differently.

Category 1 flooding comes from clean water that is not mixed with any contaminants. When a pipe bursts or rainwater comes in through a leaky roof and soaks the carpeting, if it has been saturated for less than 48 hours, the carpeting can usually be saved through drying, cleaning, and sanitizing.

Category 2 flood water is also called grey water and is water that is contaminated and can make you sick if consumed or if it touches your body. Examples of category two flooding include overflowing washing machines or dishwashers, toilet backups and overflow without waste, aquariums that shatter, or failed sump pumps. When you need water damage cleanup in Hampton Roads for category 2 flooding, you will need to have the padding replaced, but the carpet can typically be salvaged.

Category 3 flooding is blackwater and very dangerous. Sewage, flooding from bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, or seawater, hurricane or stormwater, or anything else with dangerous pathogens. Water damage cleanup in Hampton Roads for category 3 flood incidents calls for carpet replacement.

No matter what kind of floodwaters you are dealing with, there are other factors that need to be considered before determining if the carpet can be saved including how saturated it is and how long the water has been sitting. The best way to make sure you can salvage your carpets is to call a company that does water damage cleanup in Hampton Roads such as ServiceMaster within hours of the flooding.

If you are dealing with water damage, call ServiceMaster at 757-330-4520.