What do to when your basement floods
What to do when your basement floods? We’ve had some surprises this September. A big one was the basement flooding in one of the properties we manage during Hurricane Irene. The power went out in the middle of the night, so the sump pump wasn’t operating to clear the sump pit of the water that was gathering from the french drains under the basement floor. (Any recommendations on battery operated sump pumps?) We brought in a generator and got the sump pump running, which cleared most of the water. (The power didn’t come on until later that day.) But the carpet and pad were ruined and the drywall got wet. We removed all the items from the finished basement, sliced up and removed the carpet and pad, and Rotozipped the drywall at the 12″ mark and removed it, too.
Stacks of sliced up carpet and pad ready to be taken to the curb.
We removed the wet drywall up to 12″. To cut the drywall quickly I used a RotoZip freehand along a line I marked with a long straightedge/level. Note: RotoZip drywall bits won’t cut through aluminum corner bead!
The 2008 Silverado crew cab came in handy when I needed to move a large amount of rolled up, soaked carpet and pad from just outside the egress window in the back of the house, to the curb for trash pickup.
Closing it up has gone pretty quickly after it all dried out. 4 sheets of 1/2″ drywall. Tara did a great job measuring. Not a linear foot to spare! Just the way I like it. Paint and carpet are next!
