Last week my basement flood cleanup turned into a 3 day nightmare

I was finishing a bathroom reno in my 1950s bungalow near Whyte Ave when a pipe burst behind the new wall at 10 PM on a Tuesday. By the time I shut off the water, there was an inch of water across the whole basement floor. I spent Wednesday shop-vaccing and ripping out wet drywall, then Thursday running three industrial fans and a dehumidifier from Home Depot. Has anyone else dealt with a surprise flood mid renovation? How did you handle the drying process?

2 comments

2 Comments

henrys7412d ago

Yeah man, that sounds about right. I had a similar thing happen last year, except my pipe burst at 2 AM and I didn't find it until the next morning when I stepped in a puddle with my socks on. Three fans and a dehumidifier running non-stop for four days and my basement still smelled like a wet dog for a month. The real kicker was when I realized the shop vac I was using had a crack in the hose and was just spraying water back onto the floor the whole time. Got a laugh out of that one, sort of.

ruby_murphy12d ago

Not gonna lie @henrys74, reading this made me wince. That shop vac betrayal is exactly the kind of dark comedy you can't make up. The wet dog smell lingers way longer than anyone warns you about. My cousin had a similar thing happen in his crawl space and he had to rip out the carpet just to get rid of the mustiness. Sorry you had to deal with that mess, especially at 2 AM when you're half asleep and already annoyed. Hope your basement is back to normal by now.