? on water issues from Fay

15 years ago

We are fine but we have been having lots of rain from Tropical storm Fay. We are in Melbourne. It's been raining for 4 days. On Wed afternoon the total water accum was 21 inches. Haven't had time to check since then. We have ground water seepage into the edges of 3 carpeted rooms. It's wall to wall carpeting. Its not sewage, just rain water that saturated the ground so much, that some of the water seeped into the carpet. We have fans & dehumdifier running. Also a/c set to lower temp to reduce humidity.

If anyone has advice on cleaning the carpet I'd appreciate it. I will check with prof carpet cleaning company, but I'd like the rain to stop before I do this. I found someting on the internet saw a thread where some recommended that downspouts empty water at least 8 feet beyond one's house. Don't know how to do this. The homes here only have 15-20 feet between them. People would trip over downspouts that long. Also we can't mow our lawn ourselves. Mow and blow folks could not handle downspouts.

This truly is a once in 50 year or longer occurrence. The house is 10 years old and this has never happened before, from what I know.

Can anyone recommend anything else we should do to dry or clean carpet?

Up north, we used to have the hose like attachments to our downspouts that theoretically would unfurl when there was rain. I can't recall how they didn't work but there were some problems. Have these things improved over the years? Any specific products to recommend?

Thanks much

Lynne

Thanks much

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Comments (9)

Melissa Houser
15 years ago
Lynne, We have concrete thingies (technical term) that sit underneath our downspouts and direct the water to where we want the water to go. They are sloped so that the water is moved away from the house and are about 6 inches wide by 2 feet long. I think DH bought them at the Depot.

Apparently ours worked because we had no water come into the house, even as seepage around the foundation. I know it's not because this house was built so well, because it wasn't.

Until late last night, the roads around my house were 2-3 feet deep in water. Somebody must have opened up a flood gate because the road is dry this morning.

I'll try to get a picture of one later on today, but DH just informed me that part of the reason we didn't get water is because of the number of downspouts we have. Apparently more downspouts is a good thing with how our house is built.
msmarion
15 years ago
Lynne, I wonder if french drains would help. I gave you a link to Wikipedia. That describes it better than I could. We had these installed when we built our home in NH.

Here is a link that might be useful: Check it out!
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coorscat
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Lynne: If you are going to try to save that carpet, you have to get it up and start drying it fast! Pull the carpet up away from the walls. Put chairs or other furniture up underneath it to prop it up. Then get your fans UNDER this lifted up carpet. You will have to do sections at a time. We had a flood in Houston and through this process my husband saved our carpeting from the entire downstairs in our house (only to be told by State Farm in Texas that because the carpets were more than 5 years old it was a waste of our time and effort). He had a wet vac and sucked up as much water as he could before he pulled the carpet up and started drying.
As far as the downspouts, ours shoots out to one of those concrete directions thingies that Lissa mentioned they slope away from the house and go to an area where DH has all these red volcanic rocks. I thought it was strange when he did it but it works. Best of luck to you
wanda662
15 years ago
First thing to do is take pictures. Then call your insurance comp. if your lucky enough to have insurance!
Yes, pull the carpet back, put down towels around the walls and use a fan.
On your down spouts, dig a trench and put black drain pipes or the flexable black pipe out as far as you can get them.
Just remember that the more saturated the ground there isn't much you can do.
Hope this helps some of you.
When the ground is soo full there really isn't much you can do until it recedes.
lynne_melb
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks so much everyone, once again you are the greatest. I'll have to do some checking on your advice. Lissa, what city are you in?
scott7876
15 years ago
Lynne:

We had the same issues, water seeping the front of the house through the foundation, I guess. Wasn't too terrible, the carpets got wet about 3-4 feet out from the wall, and the water also got under the ceramic tile in the kitchen, not sure what's going to happen with that yet. I have concrete diverters under the downspouts to carry the water away, but it was just too much water. Several others in the development had the same problems. I'm in West Melbourne.

Scott
lynne_melb
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks, Scott.
An informal poll in the neighborhood indicates that everyone got the problems on the south side.
scott7876
15 years ago
Ditto, south side here as well. I've only been down here a few months, this was quite an event! Been running a dehumidifier in the TV room with the wet carpet, might very well need to be replaced, but it's slowly drying.

Scott
Melissa Houser
15 years ago
Lynne, I'm in Fort Pierce, about 100 miles south of you. Sorry to not get back to you sooner. I finally got to be out in the yard for a bit today without the ants literally eating my poor feet! :)

? on water issues from Fay

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Melissa Houser

msmarion

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Melissa Houser

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