Bathroom flooding is one of the biggest headaches you can encounter as a homeowner. Although it’s never fun to see your bathroom floor covered in water, taking the right steps immediately can at least make the damage easier to take care of. Here are the steps you need to take immediately if your bathroom floods.
Stop the Water
The very first thing you need to do is to stop the source of the flooding. If the flooding is caused by an overfilled sink or bathtub, you should be able to do this simply by draining the water. If a pipe has burst or the toilet is flowing continuously and won’t stop, you may have to resort to turning off the water at your home’s main valve.
Dry Your Bathroom
Once the flooding has stopped, you need to get all of the water dried up so that you can assess the damage. Use towels or a mop to get the worst of it taken care of. You can also use a wet/dry shop vacuum if you have one. After the standing water is taken care of, open the window and position a fan over the floor to dry out the surface as much as possible.
Get a Plumber to Fix the Problem
If the source of the flooding was a damaged pipe or a toilet malfunction, you’ll need to bring in a plumber to get the problem taken care of before you start thinking about the water damage. Try to get the plumber in as soon as possible, since you probably won’t be able to run the water in your bathroom until the plumbing problem is addressed.
Bring in a Professional to Fix the Water Damage
With the problem solved, you can start thinking about getting the water damage taken care of. Call a water damage restoration professional in your area, since taking care of water damage is a fairly specialized skill set. If you’re lucky and managed to get the water off the floor quickly enough, the damage will likely be minimal. Even so, it’s important to get whatever damage there is taken care of immediately. Water-damaged materials that aren’t removed and replaced can provide an ideal breeding ground for mold, which comes with its own set of problems.
By taking these four simple steps, you can limit and address the damage caused by a flooded bathroom. Even though it’s never fun dealing with this issue, taking these steps quickly will at least minimize the trouble and cost of getting your bathroom back to normal.
