Homebuyers survey and Bleeding Radiators

ddavemac1981

Hi all, 
This may seem a stupid question . . .and it stems from a stupid situation. Yesterday I decided to bleed my radiators - as I had not done so in 2 years the screw flew out and water came out for a good few minutes before I found the screw and got it back in, soaking my carpet. Luckily, very little went down to the fella in the flat below me, and wood layer above the floorboards is now dry. Carpet and underlay in the process of drying now, but fairly sodden  - heating is on and the dehumidifier is running! I am in the process of selling my house and have a homebuyers survey in about a week . . . . . . do you think it will be dry by then, or could it show up as damp on a survey - any thoughts? 

PS - I know I am an idiot. 

youth_leader

Can you get hold of some nappies?  I know it sounds daft but if you put a nappy face down, and stand on it, they absorb loads of water very quickly.  

ddavemac1981

youth_leader said:

Can you get hold of some nappies?  I know it sounds daft but if you put a nappy face down, and stand on it, they absorb loads of water very quickly.  

Cracking idea - as I have a toddler this will not be an issue! 

martindow

If the carpet is sodden could you dry it further by soaking the water up with towels or newspaper?  The more moisture you can get out like that the quicker heating and the humidifier will dry it out. 

Maybe a carpet cleaning firm could use their machine to extract as much as possible.  This might be a good thing to do anyway as radiator water is likely to have stained the carpet.

ddavemac1981

martindow said:

If the carpet is sodden could you dry it further by soaking the water up with towels or newspaper?  The more moisture you can get out like that the quicker heating and the humidifier will dry it out. 

Maybe a carpet cleaning firm could use their machine to extract as much as possible.  This might be a good thing to do anyway as radiator water is likely to have stained the carpet.

Luckily, the dirty water that come out managed to mostly hit me! I did get towels down at the time and they bore the brunt of it. Definitely I will get a cleaning company in if it is stained. 

martindow

The cleaning company's machine could well extract a lot of moisure to speed things up and they might as well clean the entire carpet while they are there.  Might be worth talking to few firms to see if they think it would help the drying out.

SandyN21

Hope this doesn't sound silly...but if now just a small area.... how about the hot air of a hair dryer

ddavemac1981

martindow said:

The cleaning company's machine could well extract a lot of moisure to speed things up and they might as well clean the entire carpet while they are there.  Might be worth talking to few firms to see if they think it would help the drying out.

Good idea - I will try the nappies when I get back from work but tentatively look up some cleaning companies for Monday. 

ddavemac1981

SandyN21 said:

Hope this doesn't sound silly...but if now just a small area.... how about the hot air of a hair dryer

Not silly at all - I will give that a god tonight (before my wife gets home . . . it is her hairdryer!) 

princeofpounds

With a week - yes probably it will be long-dry given the measures you are taking. Particularly if you can expose the underlay (may not be necessary though). The question is more the staining that will be left.

However, if the surveyor notices it, your explanation for what happened should be pretty credible given the location of the stain. Losing the screw when bleeding a radiator is something many people do once! They may note the damaged carpet but that shouldn't affect the value of the property.

You could of course try to hide it with furniture they are unlikely to move, but that would only work in certain circumstances and I don't think it's really necessary. 

With things like the hairdryer - don't try to do it all in one go - multiple treatments will work better. It will remove the surface moisture in one go but not do much below that. Then moisture will probably wick up again and you can give it another go a bit later.

ddavemac1981

princeofpounds said:

With a week - yes probably it will be long-dry given the measures you are taking. Particularly if you can expose the underlay (may not be necessary though). The question is more the staining that will be left.

However, if the surveyor notices it, your explanation for what happened should be pretty credible given the location of the stain. Losing the screw when bleeding a radiator is something many people do once! They may note the damaged carpet but that shouldn't affect the value of the property.

You could of course try to hide it with furniture they are unlikely to move, but that would only work in certain circumstances and I don't think it's really necessary. 

With things like the hairdryer - don't try to do it all in one go - multiple treatments will work better. It will remove the surface moisture in one go but not do much below that. Then moisture will probably wick up again and you can give it another go a bit later.

Awesome - cheers for the advice. The location of it is under a bay window where there is normally a sofa so should be okay - I will of course happily explain if it is noted! I will do the hairdryer for a bit, then leave the nappies there overnight.