Emergency Steps to Save Your Rugs After a Flood
With heavy rains on the way, floods can happen fast, and if you own valuable rugs, quick action can make the difference between saving them or losing them. Here’s what you need to do to protect your rugs and lessen the impact of permanent water damage.
Rug dyes will bleed when they are wet too long.
1. Prioritize the Most Valuable Rugs
If you have multiple rugs affected, focus on saving handwoven wool or silk rugs first—these are the most valuable and most likely to be salvageable with quick action. Machine-made or synthetic rugs can often be replaced more easily, and can stay wet longer without damage to the fibers as they are plastic. So prioritize natural fibers over synthetic plastic fibers.
Many rugs will buckle when they get wet. Sometimes this is shrinking damage, and sometimes these issues will leave when the rug is completely dry again.
2. Extract Excess Water ASAP
Use towels, a wet vacuum, or any absorbent material to remove as much water as possible. Be gentle—aggressive vacuuming can damage delicate fibers.
One SUPER handy item to have in your home is a box of New Pig Absorbent Mats. These hold a tremendous amount of water in them. We have used these in flooding scenarios and to pack up wet rugs. They pull away water and can pull away loose dyes to prevent severe dye damage in rugs. You will love having these handy with any water incursion in your home, trust me on this one.
Here is a box of them to have handy in your garage the next time you have a water line break or rain water incursion
Using towels to help get a rug dry will minimize damage.
3. Avoid Hanging Wet Rugs
Do not hang a wet rug—it can cause dye bleeding and fiber damage. Instead, lay it flat on a dry surface face down over towels (or Pig Mats) to absorb moisture. You can cover the back side in towels (or Mats) as well to sandwich the rug to absorb moisture from both sides.
Dry rugs flat instead of hanging them up wet. Face down (fuzzy side down) on a clean surface or towel can help minimize damage.
4. Protect During Transport
If you need to move the rug, roll it up with dry towels, sheets, or absorbent mats to help soak up moisture and prevent colors from bleeding.
5. Dry Quickly in a Well-Ventilated Area
If professional help isn’t immediately available, place the rug in a dry, airy space with fans to speed up drying. Avoid direct sunlight on the face side of a rug, as it can fade colors. You can lay the rugs out face down over towels and the sun can dry the back side, and if any fading happens it will happen on the back side of the rug instead.
Some rugs have damage that looks horrible, but they can be saved through quick action.
Rug saved from flood damage.
6. Get Professional Help ASAP
Even if your rug looks fine after drying, floodwaters leave contaminants, bacteria, and mold risks. A professional rug cleaner can perform deep sanitization and proper restoration.
One of the biggest mistakes we see rug owners make is when they quickly dry out a flooded rug and then leave the rug aside for months thinking there are no issues to address. Most rugs have a cotton foundation, which is super prone to fungal (mold) and bacterial (soils) growth. When these fibers are left dirty and damp they are a petri dig of activity that becomes very difficult to remedy in the future.
Flood affected rugs need to be dried out very quickly to minimize damage, and then must be thoroughly washed using a sanitizing line to address any long term issues.
If you have a cherished rug affected by flooding, don’t wait! Fast action is key to saving it.
If you have any questions about your rugs, we are here to help. Reach out by phone or email to Blatchford’s Rug Cleaning & Repair, 858-566-3833 and by email at rugs@blatchfords.com.
A Navajo rug dried out from a flood and rolled up in the garage developed mold which caused permanent damage to the rug.