Job completed for Bathtub Overflow Hallway Hardwood Removal and Subfloor Drying

A Blythewood, SC family called Kingsley water damage & Fire cleanup after an upstairs bathtub overflowed. The water soaked the upstairs bathroom, hallway and bedroom floors, then came through to the downstairs hallway, bathroom and nursery and down into the crawlspace. With several young children in the home, the homeowner asked the crew to wear face masks while they worked and to keep the children out of the work areas.

Kingsley water damage & Fire cleanup treated the overflow as Category 2 water and set up three separate drying areas: upstairs, downstairs and the crawlspace. The crew mapped moisture room by room with meters, removed baseboard where readings ran high, cut out wet drywall in the downstairs hallway and nursery closet, and placed air movers and dehumidifiers sized to each area. On each monitoring visit, air movers were repositioned to aim at whatever was still wet, from the nursery closet drywall to the subfloor under the house.

Upstairs, the hardwood in the hallway held water the longest, so the crew set up an Injectidry floor drying system with a dehumidifier and added a lay-flat duct to the dehumidifier exhaust to push dry air along the edge of the boards. A small section that did not respond was pulled up, and the subfloor underneath was HEPA vacuumed, treated with antimicrobial and dried with a dehumidifier. At the homeowner's request, plastic was stapled over the cut drywall and containment was left standing so the children could not wander into areas still drying.

In the downstairs hallway, readings stayed high in the hardwood right outside the linen closet and nursery doorway after everything else had dried. The crew removed about half of the hallway flooring, shown in this photo, to expose the subfloor and dry it directly, then took follow-up readings across the subfloor and sill plates and checked the crawlspace, where the highest reading was 10%. Homeowner takeaway: a bathtub overflow upstairs can soak floors two levels down, and hardwood can hold water in the subfloor long after the surface feels dry, so have it checked with a meter before new flooring goes in. If you have water damage in your Blythewood home, call Kingsley water damage & Fire cleanup at 803-219-8873. Our team is available 24/7 for emergency water damage service.