Our house has flooded. The water is gone but there is so much to do I don't know were to start. Help anyone?
Question:We have called the insurance but flooding by "at of God" is not covered. FEMA can't help because it isn't a disaster area. Red Cross was no help. No one seems to be able to offer assistance and the estimate to get just the carpet out and carpet and/or tile put in its place was $5,000. Not to mention all the other things that were ruined.
Answers:
Get all items that are wet out of the building. Carpet can be removed in pieces. Just cut it with a utility knife into manageable pieces. Do the same with the carpet pad. Next take up the tack strips. The walls are next. Probe up the wall until you find dry wallboard. Mark this line around every wall. Use a reciprocating saw and cut shallowly around the walls at the marks. Be especially careful where power outlets and phone lines are. Remove all base and doors and casing by prying away from the wall. Sometimes the trim can be reused if you can dry them out, remove the nails, and mark each piece for location. Sometimes it will warp badly or mold and not be reusable. Next, remove the lower, wet wallboard up to the cut line. You may be able to remove just one side of interior walls. Once opened, examine backside of open wall for mold. If it is not moldy, run fans in each room to dry out moisture remaining in framing and wallboard. If exterior walls have wet insulation, cut out and remove. Prepare a formula of 1 cup bleach to 1 gallon of water and spray on any remaining areas where mold begins to grow. Once all is dry, cut new drywall to fit, mud tape, reinstall trim, paint, redo floors. It sounds like a daunting task, but take it one step at a time, and before you know it you'll be moved back in.
start by emptying the basement, call the city- maybe their systems were at fault. You may have a class action suite if your neighbors had the same problems. Call your congressman.
Next, pull up carpet, bleach everything.
You may be able to save some things by sun drying and bleach.
Do not put in more carpet, you will have this problem again.
I just painted my floors and rolled a rug down.
Bad situation. Just keep trying to fight the insurance company. Also, take out the carpet and padding yourself. It is easy and will save you some money. All you need are some pliers and box cutter. Just use the pliers to pull the carpet from around the corners of the floor and cut it into 3 foot wide strips. The garbage men should take it, but you may have to bring it to the dump youself. Here, there is a 20 dollar charge for things up to 775 lbs so you should be fine. good luck
Check out getting a grant or loan from the Farmer's Home Administration or the SBA. Start with the little things first. If you can pull up the carpet yourself do that. you don't have to immediately replace it. any warped materials that cannot be reused strip them out yourself. then once you have everything stripped down it will go a lot smoother knowing what you need to replace and you can budget out a timeline to do it. Also try talking to local churches for assistance.
i'm telling u take another house n shift off ok that'll be better n pain free coz no work to do.just joking take halp of relatives n friends.
bye
Start pulling out the carpet and pad. You didn't mention how long you were underwater? If not very long (less than a couple of days) Cabinets and wood trim should be OK. Interiors of cabinets will tend to come apart before the "real" wood exteriors. Next buy ( or rent ) as many de-humidifiers as you can get. You should put one in each small room and two in large living areas. These should run constantly until you notice a considerable drop in the water collecting in the resevoirs. My mothers house flooded 4 times and only once was FEMA any help. It was under water 3.5 ft. deep for 4 days the worst time. Good Luck!
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