A sudden summer storm brought the magnolia tree down on your roof, and the resulting water has left your furniture and carpeting soaked and soggy. Your first step should be to call your insurance company so that they can send an adjuster as soon as possible to assess the damage and issue a check. Although some items will need to be replaced, there are some that may be able to be salvaged if you are willing to work hard .



One of the first places that you would like to try to minimize the cost of water damage restoration is the carpet. Carpeting is expensive and not always the easiest thing to replace, considering all of the furniture moving and other considerations. If there is any chance at all in saving the carpet, you should try to do so before replacing it.

First, assess the actual amount of water damage to the carpet itself. If it is a concentrated spot on a relatively new carpet, you might be able to do a spot removal and replacement instead of tearing up a whole roomful of rug. If the carpet can be matched, then that damaged section will be removed and replaced by a new piece. If the damage is more extensive however, then patching will be less possible.

Do not gauge the damage based solely on what you can see. Underlying water damage may be warping your sub flooring and allowing dangerous mold to grow in the padding and carpet backing. With the amount of people who have grown seriously ill by contact with such mold, it would be in your best interest to take care that this not happen in your home. Pull up a small section of the carpet and feel the backing and the pad underneath- if it is dry, then you might be able to easily care for your carpet without a lot of expense.

Use white towels and soak up as much of the extra water that you can, just be sure that you use white towels or you will end up transferring color and making a bad situation worse. After you have soaked up as much as possible with the towels, aim a fan toward the remaining wetness and make sure that you monitor for the growth of mold. Make sure that the floor that you put the fan on is dry for safety.

After the floor is dried, monitor it for odor, fading or other signs of damage. Water damage restoration can be a nightmare well beyond the actual water itself. It is simply heartbreaking to have gone through the struggle of water damage restoration, only to find the carpet is still ruined. Although there are products on the market to assist in the minimizing of water damage restoration costs, they are not likely to be as effective if they are not used carefully and diligently. Of course the water damage restoration companies want you to use their services, but their costs can be out of the reach of some budgets even with good insurance coverage.