Rugs after water damage

Water attacks from the back

The wool pile takes it. It is the foundation that suffers: the wefts swell, the edge threads slacken, and on backed or tufted rugs the adhesives on the reverse soften and then migrate. A lifted backing that dries in place leaves a stiff patch that nothing will put right afterwards.

So look at the reverse first. A gaping selvedge, a rippling edge, an area darker on the back than on the surface: these are the signs that decide what follows, not the look of the pile.

Clean water from a leak, grey water from a machine and sewage water are not dealt with in the same way. The third calls for disinfection, not merely washing.

The first hours

Do not leave it rolled up. That is the one instruction that really counts. A wet, rolled rug is a warm, dark, damp environment: mould takes hold overnight, and the smell it leaves survives several washes.

Do not hang it over a line or a railing either. Waterlogged, a rug weighs several times its dry weight and deforms permanently under its own load. Spread it out flat, in the shade, in a ventilated room, pile upwards, and move away any stained furniture whose colour could transfer onto it.

Do not apply heat. A hairdryer, a fan heater or a dehumidifier turned up full dry the surface before the core, fix the tide mark and, above 40 °C, set the colours bleeding.

Drying flat, under tension

In the workshop, the water is first removed mechanically by centrifuge — in the order of 1,200 revolutions per minute. That is what then makes fast drying possible. The rug is laid out flat on a perfectly rigid beam, to avoid permanent deformation, in a ventilated and controlled atmosphere, in the order of 22 °C and 45 % relative humidity, and it must be dry in under 24 hours.

Tension during drying is no detail: it is what decides whether the rug will find its right angles again. A rug dried without restraint stays skewed, and no amount of later laying will put it right.

Before any return to water, colour fastness is tested: a slightly dampened white cotton cloth, rubbed gently for thirty to sixty seconds on a discreet area, then left under light pressure before the transfer is read. On an older piece, this test runs for up to an hour.

Mould and odour

Mould is not a surface stain: the mycelium settles between the fibres and at the base of the pile. It leaves brown or grey tide marks with star-shaped edges, a powdery reverse and a cellar smell that comes back with every spell of damp. Treatment begins with complete drying — as long as the core is damp, cleaning achieves nothing — then hand washing and, depending on where the water came from, disinfection.

Odour alone, with no visible mould, almost always comes from incomplete drying. It goes when the rug is genuinely dry right through, which a hand laid on the pile is not enough to judge.

Insurance and written quote

Water damage is a claimable loss: the rug is part of the contents, just like the furniture. Photograph it in place before you move it, note the date and the source of the leak, and keep everything — including whatever you think is of no interest.

We draw up a written, itemised quote setting out the operations one by one, usable as it stands in your claim file. Send photographs of the whole rug, of the reverse and of the affected areas first: a costed reply within 48 working hours.