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Does Water Damaged Drywall Need to be Replaced?
Ryker Bingham | Apr 15, 2020
It is always an unfortunate circumstance when you are faced with water damage
in your home. In many situations, you have no idea how it happened or where the water is even coming from. More often than not the water that comes pouring through your rooms, ruining the carpet or wood floors. And just as common seeping beneath the walls, getting into the interior drywall.
When this happens you may ask yourself, “Does water damaged drywall need to be replaced?” But more often than not, the water damaged drywall is going to have to be replaced.
Wet drywall will lose its structural integrity and if left alone for long enough will develop mold spores, between the insulation and the drywall.
It’s easy to think it’s not a problem because out of sight out of mind, but it does need to be handled. Cleaning the flood water in your home that caused the flood damage of the drywall, then having to replace the drywall can be an arduous task to do on your own. But with a little effort and a little know-how, yours can be a successful job.
By following these guidelines, you will be able to properly assess the damage, clean out the floodwater and restore the walls if possible.
Why Drywall May Need to Be Replaced After Water Damage
As previously mentioned in the opening segment, interior drywall that has since taken on water damage
(which is commonly called “flood damage” and will be used interchangeably throughout this article) needs to be replaced in the majority of cases. Due to the loss of structural integrity of the interior drywall and the potential health risk of developing mold spores.
Few health concerns in your home are as damaging as having mold spores developing inside of your walls. The excess water that had built up inside of your interior wall in most cases do not only damage the drywall. The water soaks into the 2x4 studs, wets any internal wiring, soaks into the insulation which acts like a sponge and seeps into the drywall.
Between all of those interior wall components, you will more often than not develop mold spores of some kind. When that happens the mold will grow, spreading throughout the interior wall, working its way closer to ventilation points in the home. At that point the mold spores
become airborne spraying through your home, causing serious issues for anyone who has allergies.
The effects of mold are well known and even healthy individuals who do not have allergies or asthma will be negatively affected as well. It is better to avoid this issue entirely with some simple water cleanup and drywall replacement than to risk airborne mold spores forming inside of the interior walls, only to spread through your home soon after.
How to Assess the Flood Damage and Fix It Now
Assessing flood damage
to drywall is not too complex a process but does have a few steps to go about assessing in as efficient a manner possible. Some of the steps may require a tool that you have to purchase at the store, but most of them are just simple tricks that you can implement right this moment to begin assessing the damage of the interior drywall now.
If you are fortunate with the placement and extent of the flood damage, then there is a chance that you will not have to replace the drywall at all and will simply have to clean up the flood water and do a few steps to dry out the drywall once more. If these factors are not the case, then you will have to replace the interior drywall. Now let’s get started.
1. Locate the Focal Point of The Water Damage
To begin you first have to do a visual assessment of where there is the most water damage
in the room. A massive pool of water emanating from a corner in the room or water leaking out from the center of a wall or water trickling from the edge of a washing machine or other such home appliances are obvious indicators of where the source of the water damage exists.
Use your eyes as the guide for your start point. After you have found the position where you feel is the source of the water damage inside the interior wall, to get a more accurate assessment of the water damage inside of the wall you will want to use a moisture meter. Moisture meters are an inexpensive tool that you can buy on Amazon or at the department store for only $25.
If you get a reading over 1% (outside of the green zone) on your meter, then this suggests that the drywall has reached the point of needing replacement. If, however, the reading is below 1% there’s a chance you will not have to replace the drywall and will be just fine cleaning up the flood water and going through our steps to dry out the drywall once more.
2. Rent a Professional Dehumidifier from Your Local Department Store
More likely than not you do not have a professional-grade dehumidifier of your own. Unless you work in an industry that uses them regularly, then you likely will have to go rent one from a department store or borrow one from a friend who happens to have one of their own. You will also need to rent out some high-volume fans to help move the water around in a useful manner.
3. Setup and Wait
Once you have come back from the local department store and have all of the equipment you need, you will want to seal up any windows and doorways to the room you wish to clean up the flood damage. After doing so, place the dehumidifier at the pool of water, set up the fans to blow the water towards the dehumidifier and turn everything on. All you have to do is wait now.
You will need to check the water collection well inside of your dehumidifier every once in a while, just to make sure that it’s not full and can continue picking up the water. But outside of that, all you need to do is wait for the equipment to do its job while you occasionally use the moisture meter to measure your wall.
Sadly, this part does take some time and will take near three days on average to completely dry out the drywall.
4. Conditional Last Step - Fresh Coat of Paint
In the case where when you initially measure the moisture of the interior drywall and you found that the moisture content was below 1% or within the boundaries of the green meter. This is the next step for you. You are going to put a thin coat of primer over the flood damage portion of the interior drywall as well as the surrounding area. Oil-based or alcohol-based primers both will do.
After the primer has set you are going to go over the interior drywall a second time with a fresh coat of paint to finish off the newly restored interior drywall! That is it! It takes a bit of time and a little cash for the rentals, but the process is a simple one that anyone could do. Now, as was stated earlier, you may not necessarily be able to restore your interior drywall.
Once the interior drywall has taken on a sufficient amount of flood damage, cleaning the water, drying it and layering it with a new coat of primer and paint will not be enough. The structural integrity of the wall has simply taken too much damage and is compromised. If you measured the moisture of the drywall and received a reading of higher than 1% a replacement is needed.
Final Thoughts
Anytime there is flood damage
in the home it is not a fun time for anyone. It can be a pain in the butt, feel like a bit of a dreadful hassle and maybe even a bit overwhelming. But it does not have to be that way. The guidelines we laid out for you here is more than enough for you to be able to handle this home project yourself with minimal stress.
All it takes is a bit of time, a little bit of money and the patience to follow through on the information we have given you here. It is a simple process and all you have to do is take action now. Hopefully, your situation is one where an interior drywall restoration is a best-fitted solution for you.
If your situation is conducive to a drywall restoration, then by following these guidelines you will be more than prepared to knock out this home repair project in no time at all.