Most of my relatives are in Houston. Two households both have water standing in their homes. They may get home by Sunday.
They asked me what happens to wooden furniture standing in water.
I know it depends on the furniture type.
Particle Board - dead
Veneer - delaminated
Solid wood - ?
Also, mold or fungus issues?
Thanks for the input.
Rip all flooring out… Rip all sheetrock and insulation out… Studs get sprayed down with bleach/water or other cleaner. Anything with cushions gets tossed. Anything not easily dried/salvaged gets tossed.
For things that are left, they all need to be cleaned with something like bleach & water, Lysol, etc. That water contained sewage and God knows what else. That will help with mold/fungus too. As for the solid wood furniture it depends on how it was finished and how badly things swelled or warped when it got wet.
Have them buy a good dehumidifier. Put the furniture in a room, all by itself, and turn it to 35 degrees. They need to get one with either a shutoff when the bucket is full or one with a hose outlet. In the garage would be perfect with a hose out the door.
It seems like a lot of money but it will bring any nice furniture to a point where it can be repaired. Delonghi sells a good one. I use it in my shop when I do finishing.
I have helped friends many times who were flooded by the Missouri and Meramac rivers. Seems like we always tossed the furniture. Some solid wood chairs were power washed and kept but thats about it. Very little was ever salvageable.
Generally furniture that has ridden out a flood is a complete loss. Even if the furniture is high quality and solid wood, it will tend to warp, mold, and just generally misbehave. Unless the object is a family heirloom, it just isn’t worth the effort to save the furniture. For example, the father in law is a woodworker. Several of the pieces he made were in his house when it flooded. The water was only 14 inches in the house for a few hours. Everything in the house that was below the knees was damaged. In the following days of pulling out sheetrock, doors, insulation, etc, the furniture molded. Once it’s molded, it is very difficult to safely abate mold growth.
What I would do is go to your local home improvement store and get the following if you don’t already have them:
Hammer
Small and Medium Pry Bar
A couple utility/sheetrock knives
A dremel saw-max will make cutting the sheetrock out much faster.
A decent sized dehumidifier (helps keep moisture down)
Chalk Snap-Line
Construction 3mil garbage bags
Gloves/Face Masks/Eye Protection
Marker
Mold preventative spray
Gallons upon Gallons of Pinesol and Bleach (Neighbors can use what you don’t use)
2x Heavy Duty dehumidifiers
Of course the following depends how far up in the house water was able to get. You’ll be able to tell from a water line. If it’s just barely in the house, and the carpet got wet, you can just check out what’s been damaged. The sooner you get wet stuff out of your house the better. I would pick the worst room(s) and pull the carpet up. There should be a tack strip near the wall that keeps it down. Pull it up and see how bad it’s soaked. If it’s soaked enough that it still has water, then you’ll have to pull the carpet out, any padding under it, and possibly the tack strips. IMO, I would pull anything that got wet, just to be sure there isn’t a mold problem in the future. Use the chalk snapline to snap a line 4 foot up the wall. Use the utility knife or sawmax to cut the sheetrock. It’s only 1/2 inch thick, so you don’t have to cut very deep. On the exterior walls, there will be insulation. If it’s fiberglass (most are) then you will want to cut the wet part out. It’ll soak up an amazing amount of water. If that water sits around, it’ll mold.
If the water line is pretty high in the house, say above 4 feet, you’re looking at pulling everything out down to the studs. Leave at least one section of a wall in tact so that the insurance adjuster can see what was in the house before the flood. Get the sheetrock, insulation, flooring, cupboards, everything out. When you get power back, put the dehumidifiers in and let them drain into a bathtub or sink. As you get rooms down to the studs, spray the anti-mold solution on the walls and the floors (follow the directions). Before you can get started putting the house back together, you’ll probably want to get a moisture certification. This will prove that the house was dry before work was started. If you don’t, the insurance company may not cover mold/mildew in the future.