There are multiple ways to dry affected walls, each with different benefits depending on the severity of the loss. It is often recommended to start with the drying process that requires the least amount of demolition. When you remove affected materials that could be dried, you decrease the amount of drying equipment needed. Drying walls allows you to minimize your labor costs while maximizing the amount of drying equipment on a job.
1. A common step to drying affected walls is to remove affected baseboard. By detaching baseboard from wet walls, capillary action (stage 2 of the drying process) can occur. While baseboards may impede the dry-time of wet walls, this is also the case with wall coverings such as calcimine (often referred to as “cal-cote”), gloss and semi-gloss paints, and wallpaper. Once the baseboard is removed, and nearby flooring is dry, bound moisture in the walls may “wick” out through the bottom of the walls. Contractors often leave a small gap between the wall material and the subfloor.