How to Dry and Get Water Out of a Carpet

Before you begin trying to soak up the water and dry out the carpet, you need to figure out why the carpet is drenched in the first place and take care of the issue. Otherwise, you’ll just continue to see the same problem again and again.

It could be a broken appliance, flooding from a storm, a burst or leaky pipe, or something else entirely. But you’ll want to call a local water damage restoration specialist, an emergency plumber, or a leak detection specialist to find and fix the issue as soon as possible. Until it’s fixed, you risk more water seeping into your carpet, and all of your drying efforts will be undone.

You should understand the categories of water damage that can affect your home, too. For clean water from water supply lines, rain, flooding, or snow, plumbers, water damage restoration specialists, and even general contractors will be able to tackle the work. For grey water, stick with specialists or plumbers, and for black water, always call a water damage specialist.

The next thing you’ll want to do is remove all your belongings from the room, including furniture. At this time, you can inspect your furniture to see if it’s been water-damaged. If it has, you’ll also need to make a plan to dry out and sanitize your furniture before mold begins to grow.

We recommend wearing protective gloves while dealing with water damage. It’s a good idea to wear a face mask as well, especially if you have respiratory issues.

Use a wet/dry shop vacuum to suck up as much of the water from the carpet as possible. Always remember to remove the collection bag and dry filter and install the wet filter, if applicable.

Don’t rush this step. It’s important to suck up as much water as possible, going over the same area repeatedly. The more water you pull out with your vacuum, the more effective the following steps will be.

After you’ve thoroughly vacuumed up the water, use old towels to soak up any remaining moisture in the carpet. Apply as much pressure as possible to every inch of the towels to ensure they’re thoroughly sopping up the water.

Next, sprinkle a liberal amount of baking soda all over the affected area of the carpet. Baking soda is great at soaking up water deep within your carpet and also doubles as a deodorizer for any resulting mildew smells.

Leave the baking soda on the carpet for at least an hour before vacuuming it up. Repeat this multiple times, as needed.

To dry out the water-damaged carpet further, you’ll need to create airflow in the room. Turn on any ceiling fans, open all the windows, and use box fans and pedestal fans to create airflow over the affected area. The best course of action here would be to rent and set up blower fans and dehumidifiers and run them for 24 to 72 hours. These will dry out your carpet and the padding underneath to prevent mold growth after the water damage.

If you have a steam cleaner (or are willing to rent one), steam cleaning the carpet is a good idea to sanitize it and remove odors. You can also hire a local carpet steam cleaner to handle the job for you.

Alternatively, you can purchase an antibacterial carpet sanitizer to run through your carpet cleaner to prevent the growth of mold and mildew. In addition to the carpet, you should thoroughly sanitize any other surfaces that suffer from water damage.

If the water damage was extensive enough, it could have damaged the carpet padding or subfloor. You can use a carpet moisture reader (available at a hardware store) to detect the moisture level beneath your carpet or simply pull up a corner of the carpet to inspect what’s going on underneath.

If you’re not comfortable with the steps above—or if you determine that your carpet padding and/or subfloor were damaged during the previous step—it’s time to stow away the wet vac and towels and call a professional water damage restoration company near you.

These companies can do more extensive remediation to your flooring, furniture, and any other parts of your home affected by the water damage. Teams can tackle both water damage and mold in their remediation, and they can repair subfloor and floor joist damage that could result in structural issues if unaddressed.