Wet rug service
Flood Water, Hillside Seepage & Cellar Damp
Some of the soaked rugs in this county met a river. Most of them met something smaller:
a hillside that pushed through a basement wall after a wet week, a gutter that gave up
on a steep roof, a supply line behind a washing machine, or a pipe that froze on the
north side of the house in January. Water that starts clean rarely stays clean, because
it crosses a slab or a crawlspace to get to the rug.
River water is its own category. Helene put record levels down the French Broad and the
Swannanoa in September 2024, and the 2004 remnants of Frances and Ivan flooded Biltmore
Village before that. Water like that has crossed roads, yards, garages and fuel tanks on
the way in. Either way, what matters is what happens next. A wet wool foundation is a
growing medium, and drying the surface with a fan leaves the contamination in the base
of the pile and produces a rug that seems fine for a few weeks and then does not. The
rug has to be flushed, treated, and dried flat with the moisture content actually
measured — and photographed before any of that, because that is what an insurer
will ask for.