re: Drywall mold from floods. Need help in how to mitigate.

When you say cabinets, are there counters on top? If counters must be removed, recommend having insured granite company conduct. Mine broke when removing and had to be replaced.

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Without removing cabinets how can you treat the insulation, sheetrock, and mold behind them?

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I actually cut out the wall in the back of the cabinets and removed the insulation and removed the doors and dried out and treated them that way. We only had 10” and I didn’t have tear out the cabinets. Insurance paid to replace them.

We saved the cut outs and tested and painted and put them back.

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In 16’ I didn’t do any of the the mandatory things being said here. I didn’t hear of one person getting sick from mold. Central AC by itself will dry a house out. only replace what is badly water damaged. The adjuster will hook you up. Get everything dry first, buy a moister meter for $40, and 5$ thermometer with humidity. wait 2 weeks if needed to dry. hire someone to do a mold test for 300ish if I remember, no mold means you mitigated the damage appropriately, and frees you from liability. let the drywall dry out and just replace the baseboard/ and floor if needed.
very unlikely you'll have mold in an Air-conditioned house, not like power was out for days?. You can cut back of cabinets out to get to exterior insulation if needed. cut a hole to see how wet insulation is. Your insurance co. gives you money for damaged stuff and cares not if you replace it, but your mortgage co might. but the wont nessasarily check reciepts or even ask if you did, they just send another subcontracted adjuster out to see if its water damaged. Theyll never know. You could potential keep a lot of the check they write, and still repair anything needed.

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There is a fricking novel of factually incorrect information in this post and I don’t know where to even begin. Please, do NOT take the advice given by this poster.

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Do NOT do that.
All cabinets have to go!

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Why not? In a pool room and the cabinets were all on outside walls. We did it and it worked out just fine.

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Tell me you don’t live in post Laura Lake Charles without telling me you don’t live in post Laura Lake Charles

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I lived in south Louisiana for Katrina and Houston for Harvey. Contractors were literally walking up and own the street checking on projects daily.

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would recommend using fiberglass drywall (which won't deteriorate with water)

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I’ve never heard of this. Where can I find it? Half of my shop floods every time we get a big rain like recently and I’d like to rip it all out and replace it with this if I could find it.

Unless you’re talking about Fiberock - just found that. Looks like it’s still gypsum for the most part. What am I missing?

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A buddy of mine got an inch of water in his house from the floods recently. Insurance says he needs to remove several feet of drywall throughout the house, remove cabinets, etc. Does that sound right for that much water? Is there any other way to keep the mold from growing, other than removing that much drywall?

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I figure others have mentioned this but I'm going to chime in anyway due to having had personal experience with this (both from the 2016 flood and from having a slow leak behind a wall).

First off, the reason for all this is: mold. Mold is a toxic bitch and you have to make absolutely sure it's gone. Flood water brings it in by the truckloads so mitigation means you have to get into every place it touched. That means getting down to the studs of every place.

It sucks, but there it is.

Unless he's physically unable, he can do his own demo. It's not all that difficult.

Now, get the flooring up ASAP. Carpet is the worst at holding moisture in and this fomenting mold.

Once the carpet is up, get the dehumidifiers going, start on the walls and turn the AC as low as it can go (if it's still working). The idea now is to get as much dry air circulating as possible. Once some of those wall sections have been removed, get some box fans to help move the air around.

Floor tile can usually be left alone unless you know there are hollow points beneath the tile. Those should be pulled up, sprayed and then reset (if possible).

For walls, the general rule is you remove 2x as high as it flooded, this is due to the wicking nature. Yes, even if it was just for a few hours.

For the walls he'll need some gloves, a box cutter with some replacement blades and a rough estimate of how high 2 or 4 feet is (better to underestimate a little).

Why 2 or 4 feet? The panels normally come in sheets that are 4x8 so when he cuts he's going to be best off cutting either at 4 feet or two feet to make the installation easier, faster and cheaper.

During this time, he should also be sure to cut out the insulation from any walls with it. If he still finds moisture at his highest cut point, he needs to cut higher. Cut until there's no more moisture and then make that the high mark for the entire house.

Eventually while doing this he's going to get to cabinetry and door frames. I held off on those until last although I did cabinets on outward facing walls asap (because of insulation). The cabinets have to go. Water was in and under them and there's usually no way to get them out without permanently damaging them nor will they remain unwarped.

After walls and cabinets are done, it's time for doors and doorframes. This also includes any all doorways which don't have doors (can't think of the proper name at the moment).

He'll also need to remove the nails or screws in the studs which were holding the sheetrock. Also, he should pull up the tackstrips used to hold down the carpeting.

The last thing we did were the exterior doors. We saved them until we had actual replacements ready due to security reasons and because keeping the house closed off from the elements helped it dry faster.

Once everything is dry he needs to spray the living frick with mold spray. Brick, wood, tile... everything. I recommend:



You can find tons of it at Lowes, maybe at Home Depot as well. Just spray then let it dry. Once that's done the rebuilding can begin.

I know you said his insurance isn't covering a lot but one thing he should think about doing while he has this chance: if he has popcorn ceilings this is the perfect time to get rid of that shite. It will run him maybe $3k-$4k to have it all removed and repainted (if memory serves) but it's VERY MUCH worth it if he every wants to resell his place.

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would recommend using fiberglass drywall (which won't deteriorate with water)

I’ve never heard of this. Where can I find it? Half of my shop floods every time we get a big rain like recently and I’d like to rip it all out and replace it with this if I could find it.

Unless you’re talking about Fiberock - just found that. Looks like it’s still gypsum for the most part. What am I missing?

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I have found it at drywall supply companies. It may be called Fiberrock, I don't know.

It looks like real drywall on the front but you can tell it's fiberglass when you touch it or rub against it. The back is yellow on what I've used, but it tapes and finishes out just like drywall. In fact it's all I would use in any high humidity application like bathroom areas above and around a bathtub.

In the OPs application I would use it without taping anything if I could (no screws in the field, just at the top and bottom - both hidden by chair rail and base trim). I would caulk the corners and see if I could trim over the butt joints. Or I might even be tempted to wallpaper over the fiberglass drywall if I'm doing the above, in which case you would have to screw the butt joints.

I've used the fiberglass drywall twice and it's better than drywall in bathrooms because it can't deteriorate.