Job completed for Structural Drying After Water Intrusion in Kershaw, SC

A homeowner in Kershaw, SC called us after water spread through several rooms of the house, including the kitchen, living room and the hallway between them. Flooring had gone soft underfoot and moisture had worked its way beneath the lower cabinetry and into the structural wood at the base of the kitchen wall. They asked us to remove the wet materials and dry the structure properly before the damage went any further.

The job in Kershaw began with a walkthrough to establish where moisture had actually reached. What shows on the surface rarely matches what has soaked into subfloor, wall cavities and framing, so we worked through the affected rooms with moisture meters and thermal imaging, marked the damp areas on a sketch of the floor plan, and logged elevated readings in the wood sill plate at the base of the kitchen wall. Those readings set the boundary for everything that followed.

Before any material came out, we set up containment and made the work area safe. Plastic sheeting with a zippered access door closed off the affected section of the house so dust and airborne particles stayed inside the work zone, and air scrubbers running HEPA filtration kept the rest of the home clean while demolition was underway. Outlets near the wet flooring were checked before equipment was plugged in, and belongings were moved clear of the rooms being worked in.

Removal came next. Carpet and padding were pulled from the living areas, and the laminate and vinyl flooring in the kitchen was taken up along with the baseboards behind it. With the finished flooring gone, the meters were confirmed by what we could see: a saturated subfloor with old adhesive and staining across the surface. Lower cabinets that had been sitting in water were removed as well, so the wall and floor behind them could dry instead of holding moisture out of sight.

With the wet material out, we built the drying setup. Air movers were positioned low along the floor and through the doorway between rooms to push a steady sheet of air across the exposed subfloor, while dehumidifiers pulled the released moisture out of the air rather than letting it settle somewhere else in the house. The equipment ran continuously, and the hallway and doorways were used as air paths so the whole area dried as one system instead of several isolated rooms.

Drying is only finished when the readings say so. We returned to the property daily to take readings at the same marked points, log them against the dry standard for each material, and reposition equipment wherever a spot was lagging behind. Once the subfloor, framing and wall bases held at normal levels across consecutive visits, the equipment came out and the containment was taken down.

The final stage was putting the rooms back together. Surfaces were cleaned and treated, and the baseboards, flooring and cabinetry that had been removed were replaced so the finished space matched what was there before the loss. A record of the daily moisture readings and the work performed was left with the homeowner in Kershaw for their file.