Sorry to hear about your water problem. I can sympathize. A year ago, I had to replace the sump pump after a snow melt. There's nothing more fun than doing plumbing work while up past your elbows in 40 degree water.

May I suggest renting a carpet cleaner and using it dry to suck up the water from the carpet? It's pretty much what they're made to do. It'll get the carpet and padding dry a lot faster, and reduce the risk of mildew.

Hi Rob, Thanks for the advice. Fortunately Jenne and I own a carpet steamer and friend Will (AKA The Hubb) dropped off a wet/dry vac. We also now have an up tp date and accurate count of all of the towels in the house. We are experienced in this sort of thing having had a similar thing happen when the old water heater went bad. Some where on this blog there are photos and a story for that adventure.
Peace, --Will

Suck.

Sorry to see your sump pump went up. Wish you could have come out to hang tonight. Or that you could have gone to NY to see The Gates. Nothing like having all your plans ruined by the roof over your head. Or in this case, the plumbing in the basement.

I'd rather have a few beers with you but instead, I'll have one for you. Hope everything works out.

I think you have the heart and soul of a true photo journalist to DOCUMENT all this misery with photos! If I went through all that, I'd just as soon forget it!! ( Hope your weekend gets better!!!)

Good luck with the clean up. I hope you didn't have too many collectables on the floor that became damaged. If you have a large amount of dollar damage call your insurance company. Sorry your having a sh*ty weekend cleaning up. I had the same problem during a heavy rain 5 years ago and the water was 2" deep in the entire basement. Be thankful that it wasn't raw sewage or a larger amount of water.

Oooh, bummer, Will. I used to live in a house with a sump pump, and whenever the power went out, we had to bail it out. Eventually got a generator for the long-term power outages. But one of those floods happened when I was a kid, and the Atari 2600 and a huge box of disks just happened to be on the floor.

Dang things.

dude i'm sorry to hear about that.

Why are you using towels when you have a carpet extractor and a wet/dry vac?

Because I like towels and I always know where my towel is.

Throwing down towels (cloth or paper) is my natural immediate response to stop the flow of any spill. After that I get the carpet steamer out and use that to suck up what's left.

The basement is all dry now and the pump (not a sump pump, but a small pump on our humidifier) has been fixed. The problem was that when it filled with water it would get out of level and the switch would not kick in to turn it on. It have stabalized it so it will stay level. Now that everything is dry we can start to put stuff away. What a way to spend a weekend.

Peace out ya all,
--Will

Ack! Our water heater went last year in the basement. Fortunately it was a slow flood, that was noticed fairly quickly and on the unfinished side so there was no carpet to worry about. Glad you got it under control.

Oh and one more thing about using towels first as oppossed to a wet dry vac and a carpet steamer. Wet towels on the floor make for dramatic photos as they clearly show what's happening. A photo of a WDV and CS doesn't say nearly as much as the towels.
Peace out,
--Will