Some carpet containing a foam rubber back may be glued to the floor. As long as the water does not remove the bond holding the carpet to the floor, no attempt should be made to remove this type of carpet. Usually, most of the water can be vacuumed out. Follow this with maximum drying methods and the damage to the carpet will be minimal. It is possible there may be a separation at the seams. The reason for this: The back of the carpet is cemented to the floor, but the rubber will give and allow the shrinkage to take place. Normally, this is not an easy condition to correct. Sometime an installer can pull the two pieces together. In other cases they may be able to cut a piece of carpet and fill in the gap.

This article was written by Anne Field, Extension Specialist, Emeritus, with reference from the USDA Disaster Handbook, and the Carpet and Rug Institute.



MSU 2003