Water has entered your house. It has damaged almost everything that it has touched. Your wooden furniture, your antique lampshade, your books and your fabrics all need some water damage restoration. However, your carpets are probably the one thing which get the worst affected due to water damage. Therefore, they need special water damage restoration work.

In water damage restoration work for your carpets, there are certain things that you should keep in mind for minimizing the damage.

1. Remove anything that is in contact with your carpets. If there are plants, or decorative articles, or furniture placed on the carpet, they should be immediately removed. This will prevent in staining your soaked carpets and increase the chances of water damage restoration methods proving to be effective for their recovery.

2. Avoid walking on the carpets. It will further damage it and make it difficult for the water damage restoration methods to work on them. It will also spread the water damage to other areas of your house and to those sections of your carpets which have not yet been damaged with water.

3. If the water is coming from a contaminated source such as a broken fish tank or an overflowing toilet, then it is very important to include disinfection as part of the water damage restoration methods. If the contamination is not high, the carpet can be dried and disinfected during the water damage restoration.

However, begin your water damage restoration immediately. Water extraction should take place within the next 48 hours. During this period, it should be allowed to dry. This will help in restoring the carpet. After drying, another water damage restoration step that will need to be followed here is proper cleaning of the carpet. Since there is a degree of contamination involved here, proper cleaning forms a very important step in the water damage restoration of the carpet.

4. The padding of the water-soaked carpet should be removed once the carpet is dry. It is a better idea to replace the padding than to try and save it since it will be difficult to remove the contamination from the padding.

5. If the water is coming from a source which is unsanitary such as a broken sewer pipe or sea water, where the degree of contamination is very high, consider replacing the carpet. Although you can use the water damage restoration techniques of drying and cleaning in this scenario also, it will never be able to remove the contamination present in the carpet.

Keeping a contaminated carpet at your home will only result in various health hazards and pose serious threat to the health of your family. To protect your and your family's health, get the carpet replaced immediately. Don't waste your time trying out different water damage restoration methods in such a case.

6. It has been found that with longer drying of the carpet, the adhesive on the carpet becomes stronger than it originally was. Longer drying also helps in easier cleaning of the carpet. It also reduces the chances of mold growth on your wet carpet. Drying in the sun not only prevents the growth of mold but it also kills any mold which has started to grow on the carpet.

Keeping these things in mind will help make your water damage restoration methods effective and will help you in recovering your carpets to the best extent possible.