I live on Goforth Rd. in Dallas near White Rock Lake. My house took on a foot of water Friday night/Saturday morning.

We were able to get a lot of things up off the ground before we had to get the 2 year old out, but we still have significant damage.

We have been moving anything dry that we want to salvage to a storage unit over the last 2 days and taking pictures of everything.

I have been waiting on a flood cleanup place to call me back, and am on a few lists, but I could not get one over the weekend.

I am assuming they will need to rip up the first 4 feet of my drywall and all of my hardwood floors.

News interviewed me

Questions:

Who makes the decision on what is good vs. bad from a construction/building perspective?

Should I just go ahead and hire a contractor for Demo and reconstruction? I am assuming I am going to need HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Structural assessment etc.

Does anyone have any local contractor recommendations?

Any other general advice?

Also, if you are interested here is a gofundme for the ~6 families on my street that were flooded. Link

I don't have a good answer for the construction questions. I spend a lot of time in the woods across the way from you, gotta say that area has always bothered me for flood potential.

Good luck.

Best advice I can give is air the place out. Open the windows and buy ten fans. Run then two weeks.

Having work on your problem for more than a year now on various homes, here is the way to approach it. 1) Get the wet items out, dry wall, floors, carpet etc. 2) Get lots of air movement with fans and dry the place out. 3) I next spray inside the wall removed with consan triple action 20 then bleach to kill the mold and odors. 4) Paint the exposed studs and inside the wall with Pigmented Shellac you can find this a any of the big box stores under the Zinsser Brand. This step is important as you seal and kill any mold that may form later. 5) If any elec. boxes went under have the wires checked.

Rip it all out now. All flooring, sheetrock, and insulation. The longer you wait the higher you might have to go.

All cabinets, tub, shower, everything down to the studs. Find your first sheetrock seam above 2' and rip out there. Industry standards will have you go up to 48" so do that if you want.

After its all out run fans and dehumidifiers. Rent one. If needed.

I flooded after Harvey and did it all myself and received a remediation cert from insoector afterwards. Its hard work but waiting increases mold chance.

Outlets are 18" above floor so likely electrical is good. If AC works, run it to control temp and humidity to minimize mold chance.

Username at gmail if you have specific questions. Sorry. It sucks. But it sounds like the important stuff (family) are all ok.

Agree with several posters, if you can't get on a schedule ASAP, you should at least get things drying out now. once you've moved things out of the house, get either some fans going or dehumidifiers if you can.

for the drywall, find how high up the water softened the drywall (this will be higher than the waterline because it wicks the water up) and then go up an additional 12 inches. this is how much needs to be taken out. from there its a matter of rounding. to make things fast and easy on the drywall-er i round up to the nearest 2 ft increment so they are only ever using whole sheets or splitting them in half.

just to reiterate what has been said, the #1 priority is to get everything open and drying as quickly as possible.

here is a presentation my church put out post Harvey for the teams going out to mud out flooded homes.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwJXkLgbtAQiU3p6Qy1KdzdMaFU

HumbleAg04 said:

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Rip it all out now. All flooring, sheetrock, and insulation. The longer you wait the higher you might have to go.

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After its all out run fans and dehumidifiers. Rent one. If needed.

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Outlets are 18" above floor so likely electrical is good. If AC works, run it to control temp and humidity to minimize mold chance.

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bolded these just to emphasize them. the sooner you start the fewer long term problems you will have. dehumidifiers are worth their weight in gold if you can get them, with 4 running I completely drier out the framing of a 2,000 sq-ft warehouse in 3 days. and if the ac works, set that thing as low as you can get it because the longer it runs the more moisture it will remove from the air.

If you opt to cut the drywall rather than tear out at a seam make sure your cuts are very, very straight & clean. Buy lots of extra razor blades if you're using utility knives. If your cuts are not straight, then when you or your contractor puts up new drywall the seams will be very obvious no matter how good you or they are with mud.

Find out if your drywall was put in horizontally (most likely) or vertically. If it's horizontally, which it should be, go ahead and take it out to the seam. It will be faster to demo, faster and cheaper to replace.

Get the walls demo'd to the studs - including any insulation. Get air moving on them as quickly as you can. Once it dries out, I'd mix up a 50/50 solution of bleach and water in a handheld sprayer and give everything a good spray, then let it dry out again.

High displacement fans are the best for this. You want a lot of air moving fast to wick the moisture out of the wood. You'll need to get it certified from an inspector prior to closing it back up (they test for moisture). If you only got 12", your outlets should be good, but go ahead and get all of your boxes opened up as well to let them dry out. Plan on replacing any outlets that did get wet (might as well do them anyway, it's not expensive).

Get your floors up as soon as you can too.

Flooding sucks, few things can cause more damage like water can. Make sure you get your concrete slab moisture test done prior to installation of any flooring as well.

will.mcg said:

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If you opt to cut the drywall rather than tear out at a seam make sure your cuts are very, very straight & clean. Buy lots of extra razor blades if you're using utility knives. If your cuts are not straight, then when you or your contractor puts up new drywall the seams will be very obvious no matter how good you or they are with mud.

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this. if i am going to be cutting vs tearing out at a seam, i like to snap chalk lines around the room before i make any cuts.

BlackGoldAg2011 said:

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will.mcg said:

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If you opt to cut the drywall rather than tear out at a seam make sure your cuts are very, very straight & clean. Buy lots of extra razor blades if you're using utility knives. If your cuts are not straight, then when you or your contractor puts up new drywall the seams will be very obvious no matter how good you or they are with mud.

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this. if i am going to be cutting vs tearing out at a seam, i like to snap chalk lines around the room before i make any cuts.

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on my mom's house after Harvey we didn't worry about neat to begin with, we went foot above wet line. Then after we got everything dried out and when the temperature dropped we came back and chalked out "neat" lines.

we did have fans and de-humidifiers running none stop until we could tell everything was dry

I saw on tv once - that Holmes guy on HGTV and DIY. He was working on a home that had been flooded previously. He claimed that after you rip out the sheet rock and other stuff - you need to wait quite a while before you put everything back and seal up the walls. Otherwise, you can get mold growing back again, after the new sheetrock and stuff is replaced.

So, apparently, it is not a process you can rush...

I grew up in that neighborhood and spent many afternoons in the woods there. Sorry to hear about the flooding. Do you know if any homes by WRE along the McCree ditch were affected?

I moved to Galveston and flooded in Ike, then to Houston and flooded in Harvey. What has been said above about covers it. Get the walls opened up and get air moving. If you can't get dehumidifiers in today you can begin cycling the furnace and AC assuming the condenser is still operating. Run temp up to 85 or so and then cool it back down. Rinse and repeat. The warm air is able to hold more moisture and can help to dry out the studs.

Pick up a moisture meter and make sure you get the studs under 15% before beginning to seal anything back up.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00275F5O2/

Second BMF. Take pictures of everything. Maybe leave one piece of drywall that shows the flood line

I had a drying company come out today.

They wanted me to pay for everything up front as they have had so many issues with the NFIP/FEMA insurance paying claims. They seemed nervous that some of their work wouldn't be covered. They wanted to set up all sorts of equipment. So much they needed to add electrical panels etc.

My adjustor is supposed to come out tomorrow so I am going to wait and talk to him. Then Call them back to get a demo crew and equipment set up.

I got the a.c. on today, amazing that it's working as the outside unit was completely under water. Also pumped all the water out from under my pier and beam house with a rented sump pump and have a bunch of fans going. Also got some of the baseboard out as we have finally cleared out the house.

Amazing what seems to not be covered on the NFIP policy.

I was able to get all my elk meat I brought home last week into neighbors freezers.

Quote:

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Pick up a moisture meter and make sure you get the studs under 15% before beginning to seal anything back up.

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This. Don't rush the drying out time. Use the moisture meter to assess. It takes longer than you might think. Be patient and don't let the contractor rush it.

jayelbee said:

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about $500 in dehumidifier rental and$500 in electricity.

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This is very true. After Harvey I was hanging drywall within two weeks but that was thanks to the 5,000 kwh that did the drying.

I do have NFIP/FEMA insurance. Didn't know there was such a thing as a public adjuster. That looks VERY helpful.

Anybody have a public adjuster rec in Dallas area. I'll be calling a dew this morning.

Sorry you're having to deal with this. Good luck with the rebuild. I'll chip in if I can figure it out. Glad to hear you saved the elk meat too.

Talked to a group here in Dallas.

By far the most helpful and knowledgeable people I have spoken to in 3 days. Thanks for the advice.

Now to line up contractors. Any recommendations appreciated.