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Damaged, Not Destroyed: Restoring Your Family Furnishings After a Flood
Water, water, everywhere.
If you’ve just been through a flood, and you’re wondering whether you should throw everything away and start over, here are some things that probably should be thrown away and some things that can be kept and fixed.
For Furniture
This is a tough call as it really depends on the furniture. If you’ve got family heirlooms, it might be worth the trouble to salvage them and refinish everything. Before you do, though, decide which pieces are worth saving.
Things like table legs can be replaced, but you may have to replace the entire piece if the frame is broken or split.
Don’t try to force open swollen wooden doors and drawers, Instead, give the piece time to air and dry out before working on it. Solid wooden furniture can usually be repaired and restored. Anything with particleboard is probably not fixable.
Wood veneered furniture is usually not worth the trouble and cost to repair unless it’s a sentimental piece. If the veneer is loose in a few places, you might be able to just glue it back in place. Upholstery should be cleaned by a professional, or replaced.
Appliances
Most appliances are going to be damaged if they came into contact with water, unfortunately. Before you rush back into your home, make sure you check the electrical. Shut off the main. You don’t want to get electrocuted accidentally if there is still water in the house and your appliances are plugged in.
If you can’t safely do this yourself, have the power company do it for you.
Before cleaning and sanitizing an appliance after a floor, make sure the motor unit still works. If it doesn’t, it’s probably not worth the effort to clean it up. Motors are the most expensive part of an appliance and, unless you can easily pull one from a used machine, it’s just going to be to hard and expensive to get a new motor.
Assuming the motor is OK, you’ll want to use a rust inhibitor for metal surfaces. Other than that, clean up the appliances with a mild detergent and test them to make sure they work. Check for frayed or damaged electrical wiring. If they check out, then you’re back in business.
Refrigerators can sometimes be salvaged, but only when the motor and freezing unit is in good condition and not damaged by a short. Wet insulation is also a bad thing. If the insulation did get soaked by flooding, then you may just want to replace the entire unit.
Assuming the only thing wrong with it is cosmetic, open it up and let it air out. Use a mild detergent to clean it, and you should be good to go.
For washers, you should pour a disinfectant in the tub and run it through a cycle on the hottest water setting. For dryers, unplug the machine and wipe everything down, inside and out, with a disinfecting solution. Leave the dryer door open until everything dries out.
Niamh Sheppard works part time restoring and up-cycling furniture to create loved-again pieces. Having suffered from a flood in her home recently she shares her tips in this article.
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