How to Use a Dehumidifier for Carpet Drying After Water Damage

Wet carpets attract insects, bugs, and promote the spread of bacteria. If you leave them dirty and damp for hours, they develop a musty and dank smell that carries through the rest of the house.

This is why it’s so important to know how to dry a carpet quickly. If someone spills a drink or forgets to turn off the faucet and floods the house, you'll know what to do.

This blog introduces one of the best solutions for drying soaked carpets: dehumidifiers. Using a dehumidifier for carpet drying is a low-effort, high-efficiency method that often gives the best results.

House remodelers and restoration companies working on flooded properties use dehumidifiers a lot. They are a must-have for anyone wanting to know how to dry carpet after cleaning or getting water damaged.

How to Dry Wet Carpet After Water Damage

When a carpet absorbs water, it passes through three layers with different absorption and water retention levels. This is why drying wet rugs isn’t easy: the top layer might feel dry, but the bottom fabrics could still be soaking wet.

Quick action can mean the difference between saving it and needing a replacement. Here’s a guide on how to dry carpet fast using a carpet dehumidifier.

1. Clear the room and remove all the furniture from the carpet. If it is still soaking wet, the furniture probably is, too, and would also need to be dried.
2. Take the carpet outside if you have access to an outdoor space like a backyard or balcony. Lay it out on the ground or hang it to dry naturally under the sun.
3. If you can’t take the carpet outside, dry it as much as you can with a mop or a bunch of towels. Press the towels down on the carpet to absorb any excess water. Lift the carpet to see if water has soaked through and pooled underneath.
4. You can also use a wet/dry vacuum to remove as much water as you can.
5. Lift the carpet from the floor by placing long pieces of wood, low benches, or low hanging racks underneath it. You don’t want the wet carpet to stay on the floor longer than necessary, especially if it’s wood. Lifting it also allows air to circulate and dry the underside of the carpet.
6. Open the windows to let warm air enter the room. However, if the humidity outside is around 60% or higher, keep those windows closed and follow the next steps instead.
7. Raise the heat in the room if you can. If that’s not possible, just don’t turn on the AC so that the room can be warm enough to evaporate the water.
8. Get more dry towels and blot the underside of the carpet to absorb more moisture.
9. Turn on the dehumidifier and set the target indoor humidity to around 30-40%. Let it run for several hours until the carpet feels dry to touch. Only then should you raise the humidity setting if you want to; just make sure to keep it under 50% as recommended by the EPA.
10. Turn on some fans or air circulators to promote ventilation, which helps a lot in drying soaked carpet indoors.

Why Using a Dehumidifier for Carpet Drying Works

Some of you might wonder, why not just use heat to dry a drenched carpet? Using a hair blower to dry a damp spot in a rug works, after all. Moreover, water needs heat to evaporate. Doesn’t that make more sense than worrying about moisture in the air?

The answer is simple. You need heat and low relative humidity (RH) to dry a soaked carpet. Yes, heat is necessary for evaporation. However, if RH levels are too high, water cannot evaporate properly regardless of the temperature.

Here’s the explanation.

Water turns into vapor when it evaporates. Air “holds” water vapor, which is what we now refer to as humidity.

Here’s the rule for humidity: air can hold more water when the temperature is high, and less if it’s cold.

Now, let’s talk about RH.

This measures humidity relative to the current temperature. It indicates the amount of moisture that air can hold depending on how warm or how cold it is. Since warm air holds more water than cold air, then the actual volume of moisture is greater at 82°F than at 59°F, even if the RH reading says 45% for both temperatures.

When air reaches saturation point, or 100%RH, it will no longer be able to accommodate more.

Flowchart showing how Relative Humidity affects carpet drying.

What does this have to do with using a dehumidifier for drying carpet?

Air "at saturation" means water cannot evaporate anymore. No matter how warm it is, water will remain in liquid form because the air cannot accommodate any more vapor.

This is what happens when your skin feels damp and sticky on a hot, summer day. The air is near saturation already, so the sweat on your skin isn’t evaporating. It has nowhere to go, so it stays put—much like water in a carpet.

This is where a dehumidifier for wet carpet comes in. It is the most straightforward, fastest way to reduce the RH level and make sure there’s more room in the air for water to evaporate. This then allows water to evaporate.

Making the room warmer will also help.

Remember, higher temperature = higher capacity for the air to hold moisture. And with a dehumidifier in place to keep the RH consistently low, your wet carpet should dry out in no time.

How Long Does Carpet Drying Take?

It's hard to provide a definite duration of how long it will take for a carpet to dry. A damp spot from spilled water can dry in just an hour on a summer day, but an entire carpet can easily take 24 hours or more to fully dry.

Carpets are made differently, and their composition can affect how quickly or slowly they release moisture. Factors like indoor temperature and relative humidity, as mentioned earlier, also have a direct impact on drying efficiency.

Besides these two, below are other elements that influence how fast a carpet dries:

1. Size of the carpet – Bigger carpets hold more moisture and naturally take longer to dry than smaller ones.
2. Pile material/fibers - Natural fibers like wool, jute, and sisal are highly absorbent and therefore dry slower than synthetic piles like nylon. Olefin and polyester are also fast-drying synthetic carpets. Their fibers are hydrophobic, so they absorb little moisture to begin with.
3. Pile cut – Carpets with cut pile dry faster. Their fibers are loose and easy to ventilate (except for frieze carpets, because the fibers are twisted for texture).
   Loop pile, on the other hand, is slow to dry because the fibers are woven into loops that aren’t cut at the tops. They’re not as soft as cut pile, but they are more durable and advisable for high-traffic floors. Unfortunately, this often means they are more prone to spills and moisture.
4. Thickness and density – Thick/high carpets with high fiber density have more material that can absorb moisture, so they take longer to dry out than thin rugs and carpets with much shorter pile.
   Saxony carpets, for example, have cut piles but with longer fibers. They take longer to dry than plush cut carpets, which have shorter fibers. You can learn more about pile styles and thickness.
5. Type and composition of the water – Carpets soaked with clean water, such as from a pipe leak or spill, tend to dry faster than those exposed to floodwater or greywater.
   Contaminated water contains dirt, debris, and organic matter that slows evaporation. Flooded carpets often require extra cleaning before drying can even begin.
6. Severity of water damage – When carpets are saturated with muddy water, drying takes longer because residues and stains trap moisture within the fibers. The heavier the contamination, the more difficult it becomes for air and dehumidifiers to extract water efficiently.
7. Heat and air circulation – As mentioned above, raising room temperatures helps water evaporate faster. Sun exposure is ideal for drying carpets.
8. Capacity of dehumidifier for carpet drying – A dehumidifier’s capacity tells how much moisture it can remove from the air.
   For example, a high-capacity dehumidifier like Argendon Guardian 85P can remove up to 85 pints per day (PPD) at AHAM and 180 PPD at saturation. A dehumidifier like this lowers humidity fast and keeps it stable for hours. Trapped water can evaporate more quickly and evenly across the carpet.

Best Way to Dry Wet Carpet Without Damaging the Pile

Let’s suppose you’re in a time crunch, and your carpet has to be cleaned and dried as quickly as possible, faster than even the usual period of drying using a dehumidifier. The following tips can help dry wet carpet faster:

1. Use air circulators – Bringing in an additional fan will increase air movement and circulate warm air over the carpet. This speeds up surface drying, which loosens the fibers and allows air circulation deeper into the pile.
2. Brush the carpet – When the pile dries, you have to make sure the backing is dry as well. Brushing or raking the fibers helps reveal the still-wet clumps hiding underneath the thick fibers. Brushing again after backing dries will also restore the carpet’s design and texture.
3. Dry in sections – This might be more efficient if you’re drying a permanently installed carpet in a large room. Place the dehumidifier and air circulator on one side of the room, then gradually work your way across as the carpeting in the immediate area dries.

Understanding how to dry a soaked carpet the right way helps protect both your flooring and indoor air quality. Whether you’re dealing with a small spill or a soaked carpet from a plumbing leak, you must act fast to remove water as quickly as possible.

A dehumidifier will be extremely useful in removing excess moisture in the air, maintaining low relative humidity, and allowing moisture between carpet fibers to evaporate completely.

Follow the steps above, and you can restore your carpet’s comfort and appearance without risking mold, odor, or permanent fiber damage. More importantly, you can speed up the drying time so that the room and your daily activities can finally go back to normal.

Find the right dehumidifier for carpet drying here in Argendon. Visit our shop today.