Drying Out Basement Floor After Flooding
Hi all, with the spring thaw, i was one of the lucky ones that got water in my basement. We found the problem and the leak was resolve quickly! The water was there for at most 6 hours, then we vacuumed it all and started the process of drying. The problem is some of the water made its way under the basmenet bathroom floor which is dricor with electric heating wire on top, then tiles, and unfortunately it looks like some of the dricor wood got wet as well! We have industrial fans going 24/7 to try and dry out the room and also have a dehumidifier running, I’ve had the heated floor running in hopes that it could help dry any of the wet wood directly below. The humidity in the room is currently 40!
Anyone have any ideas that can help, do you think that heated floor actually help to dry or do they make things worse and more humid! Am i looking at mold if i dont rip the floor out?
Any ideas or help is greatly appreciated
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Replies
The heated floor will definitely help dry out the floor. With a room dehumidifier and fans you'll probably get it all dried out in time.
It's probably worth buying a 2-prong wood moisture meter to help monitor the progress. Moisture levels north of 25% are on the mold-critical list, anything under 20% m.c. is much less important, and anything under 15% has effectively no risk.
Hi Dana, thanks for the response! I did buy a 2 prong moisture tester and on edges of the floor, near the wall, i was getting readings of 12 to 18%, however these areas are exposed, i guess imnworried about the areas under the tile, would these be holding alot more moisture? Can dricor dryout on its own before causing mold? Also now noticing some small cracks the the tile grout..
Low perm tile, wet OSB, low perm plastic - a dangerous moisture trap. You should do something to push air underneath the dricore.
The small blowers commonly used for floor drying are great for creating a localized area of high velocity air flow. Costco sells them (or at least they have in the past), and Home Depot rents them -- other stores probably do too. It might be a good idea to use a blower or two to get some air movement under the floor to aide drying.
Bill