cleaning up after water ingress

[gRoberts]

Hey guys,

Well as always, since the ford community is utter shite, I need your help lol

As most of you will chuckle, I've had problems since moving from Peugeot to Ford. Costly ones at that.

The latest one was that when it rained, the passenger floor wells would flood. After finding that rain was collecting in the wing and then flowing into the car when full, I poked a coat hanging down the hole and it pour out of the bottom of the car and I no longer have water coming in the car.

I've had a vax carpet cleaner on the carpets to suck up the lying water but I can't get the carpets completely dry.

Anyone got any suggestions on how to dry the carpets out properly?

Cheers

[omega]

i would have thought the best way would be to remove the carpet out of the car,because if the carpet is that wet it will have gone through and it will trap water between the carpet and the floor so helping it to rust,

[gRoberts]

That's why I'm trying to get as much water out as possible. I've sucked about 2-4 litres of water out of them and that was after using about 10 towels to clear up the 2 inches of water that was under the carpet when I lifted it lol

It's just damp now, but condenstation might be making it worse

I've lifted the carpet in the front to ensure the water wasn't coming back in but I can't really take the carpet out. Not only is it a major job to do, I'd end up ruining the car lol

[steve_earwig]

If I was nearer I'd lend you my dehumidifier

[highlander]

Rust will ruin the car more

[Welly]

What about putting a household dehumidifier in the car and shutting the doors and windows?

I run a dehum in the house for drying clothes and it can collect up to 2ltrs of water a day. Mine was about £65.00 from b&q and if you were to buy one you'd end up using it in the house after. You can even frig the unit up to a drain hose for constant water removal.

The problem you have is the water sitting below the acoustic foam under the carpet, you might have to at least lift some sections off the floor pan with props etc. to help drying.

Just a thought.

[gRoberts]

There isn't much water left there now. It looks like previous owner tried to hide it from me by valeting the car just before I got it. There isn't any signs of rust etc so far, so I just need to clear it out.

Cheers Steve, I appreciate the thought mate.

The car is 100x better than what it was when I first noticed the issue. Because I had no real way of cleaning it up, I had to leave I'd say about 10+ litres of water swishing around the front and rear passenger side.

Once I got the wet vac and some towels in there, it took about 4 days of towel and wet vac'ing to get it to where it is. Now it's just damp, which isn't ideal in a warm car lol

I may have to bite the bullet and one weekend take the passenger seat out.

Welly, I'm looking at dehumidifiers now mate ;) cheers

[steve_earwig]

Rust will ruin the car more

But driving around in a car that smells like a dog died in it isn't too pleasant.

Useful things dehumidifiers, mine's already out on load again. With the cheap ones the warmer you can get it the better they work, so stick a fan heater in the car too.

[gRoberts]

The smell is 100000x better than what it was lol Now it's just a wiff every now and then.

I'll probably drive around with the heaters on max, pointed to the floor and the windows open. Fingers crossed that'll draw a fair amount out as the car is fogging up a fair bit at the moment.

I've found something on ebay that's going fairly cheap at the moment, does 10 litres a day with the option to continuiously flow. If I hook it up when I get home from work and leave it on until the morning when I go to work it should do fairly well.

Cheers ;)

[Welly]

so stick a fan heater in the car too.

I'm not sure I'd be happy to do that. Actually the condenser built into the dehum unit gives off a nice bit of warm itself.

[gRoberts]

There isn't much space in the car as it is lol, not enough for a dehumidifier and heater.

Plus, although I've covered for Fire, I'm not sure what the T&C's would say about setting fire to your own car

[steve_earwig]

WHen I had to dry out the inside of my Senny after the heater matrix went I dropped the back seats and stuck both in the boot. Ok, the Senator is a tad bigger than a 406 but nether need to be industrial size.

Oh, and shine the heater into the car, not at the carpets or upholstery.

[gRoberts]

Mmmm I miss my parent's old Carlton. The whole reason I am going for big cars is the Carlton and Senator. Sad huh lol

Back in the days of repairing a broken clutch cable with a pair of tights.

Shine it into the car? it would be inside the car it self lol obviously I wouldn't lay the heating element on the floor otherwise I'll have no carpets to worry about, possibly no car too ;)

[steve_earwig]

Oops, hit edit there instead of quote

so stick a fan heater in the car too.

I'm not sure I'd be happy to do that. Actually the condenser built into the dehum unit gives off a nice bit of warm itself.

Can't see it being a problem, ok be careful not to shut the lead in a lock mechanism or something. My humde gives off a bit of heat but nothing useful, it works like a fridge using what would be the cooling side to condense moisture and the closer it gets to zero the less good it does, plus you want the inside to be fairly warm to evaporate the water.

I just remembered the time I left the sun roof on my Ashtray popped up during a rain storm (yeah, I know, but I looked out the window and was sure it was closed), the wind was blowing up and blew it into the car so in the morning I had puddles on the dash. AT the time I was the BT storeman for North London so I had access to those little bags of silica get they use for keeping the insides of cabinets dry, so I spent a few weeks driving around with loads of them hanging off everything.

Perhaps you could get something like this (I see they do buckets of something similar on Amazon for a few quid but no idea if they're any good), plus run the air con on max heat to warm things up & it dehumidifies too.

[gRoberts]

I initially thought about doing that but I wasn't sure how good they would be?

I saw some where that people have used instant coffee too? It kind of draws the moisture and smell out although I could imagine that once it's wet, it turns into liquid and then I have coffee stains on my carpets too.