How to Dry Your Home After a Leak or Burst Pipe

Winter is a treacherous time for water damage. Whether it’s melting snow causing excess moisture in the air, freezing temperatures causing pipes to burst, or widespread flooding – there are a lot of ways your home or business can become water damaged.

Even a small leak can cause significant damage if it is left unattended for too long. Further than cosmetic damage, excess water can cause damp, mould, rotten wood, crumbling mortar, and structural damage.

This is why it’s so important to quickly and effectively remove water after a leak or flood.

Step by Step Guide: Drying Your Home After a Leak

1. Remove Standing Water

The most urgent first step is to remove any standing water that is left. This can be done with a wet/dry vacuum, but this might be difficult to source, especially if there has been widespread flooding. You can remove standing water easily by just mopping it up using towels, sheets, or other absorbent fabrics.

2. Extracting Water

Even after using a wet/dry vacuum or mopping water up with towels, there is likely still water soaked into your walls and floors.

To effectively remove this deep water, set up one or more dehumidifiers in the affected areas. If it’s just a leak in one room you can use a domestic dehumidifiers, but more serious or extensive water may require a commercial alternative.

To ensure that you don’t waste any extraction time or energy, consider setting up the continuous extraction hose on your dehumidifier so that all the water can just drain away. This means you don’t have to risk the dehumidifier stopping because of a full tank.

3. Drying the Walls and Floors

Properly drying the affected area may require more than just a dehumidifier. Properly circulating the air in the room and keeping it warm will help to evaporate and remove moisture. If you simply let the water evaporate but the circulation is forgotten, this room may become stuffy and the water could just resettle.

Set up a heater pointing at the walls and floors that have been damaged, and a high airflow fan that is pointing out of a window (if possible).

4. Cleaning

Even after all areas are completely dry there is still a chance that mould may grow, so it’s important to use a disinfectant on affected areas. To further keep this risk to a minimum, especially if a member of your household suffers from allergies or asthma, you should set up an air purifier.