salt water on carpet

[joeyg4583]

My husband dumped 20+gallons of salt water down the carpet on our stairs. How can I clean it up without the salt ruining our carpet and carpet pad? Should I rent a carpet machine from lowes? Hire someone?

 

[Haddonisreef]

shop vac and fans!

 

[dv3]

yea you probably want to get it dry first then clean it ...you can rent blower fans pull up your carpet and stick them under there

 

[Kieth71]

Yes get it dry..box fans in windows or whatever you can do to get airflow over the area.As haddonisreef mentioned shopvacs work well or go rent one of the carpet cleaners

 

[stugray]

One truth in our Hobby: Spilled Salt Water doesn't grow mold or mildew. I think it actually protects from it.

Dont sweat it too much. Worst case is that you need to replace the carpet on the stairs & even then the new stair treads beat carpet hands down.

Stu

 

[coralreef321]

holy crap 20+ gallons???? how did you manage doing that? I have a small misshape here and there but never that much unless you busted a tank in which case you have bigger problems on your hands. either way good luck

 

[dv3]

One truth in our Hobby: Spilled Salt Water doesn't grow mold or mildew. I think it actually protects from it.

Dont sweat it too much. Worst case is that you need to replace the carpet on the stairs & even then the new stair treads beat carpet hands down.

Stu

salt water can dissolve the glue that hold the carpet and the backing together ...get it dry

 

[PotHuntR]

The no mold or mildew thing is pretty nice though. Been useful knowledge over the years.

 

[joeyg4583]

he decided to move the live rock tub down the stairs by himself by sliding it down, the rubbermaid tub cracked down the middle of the bottom effectively creating a waterfall ending at the landing at the bottom of the stairs. We toweled the water, sucked it up with a shop vac, then I rented a rug doctor, ran it with no water to suck up the old, and then ran it to clean it. I also rented a blower fan from our carpet cleaner. Do you think it will be ok?

 

[coralreef321]

yeah it should be ok. you might want to run the vac dry again just to be sure. run the fan on high. maybe if you have some dry towels stomp on them to get the water deep in the carpet. but other than that there isn't really anything else you can do shy of tearing up the carpet. the more water you get out the less likely you are to damage the wood underneath and that is more important than the carpet. a section of carpet that small is easily replaced.