So yesterday where we are, it was nice and sunny all day and rained all night. She whose name can now never be spoken of, left the car window half opened and the upholstery is well soaked (thankfully not leather).
Is there anything that can be usefully done. ie windows left open to blow the air through or not to bother with that? (yes i know as long as its not raining).
When I brought my car home from a Southern Ireland (where it rains for 15 mins every quarter of an hour!!) holiday and the carpets were awash (well it is an open sports car!) I left my dehumidifier running propped up inside it blowing dried air at the raised carpets - no long term damage.
AWEM
Do not do what someone I knew once did. Having left the roof of their MG Midget down and it having filled with rain they raised the roof, closed the windows and left it a week to "dry out" (their theory being that it got hot inside when the sun was shining so this would speed up drying). As it happened they left it more like three weeks before looking inside to find several whole new life forms evolving out of the inch of mould and moss growing over and in everything.
A small proper condensing humidifier inside is your best bet. Failing that windows open and warm air (a small fan heater).
I'd take any carpets that can be unclipped out, and dry them somewhere else. It will also give you a chance to make sure there's no water trapped underneath them.
Water damage is a killer for a car interior ... you'll need to lift the carpets (best remove them) and see if the fluffy sound-insulating material has got damp. If it has it'll need to be thrown out, or you will never lose the smell of damp.
It'll dry a lot quicker even when parked if you leave the windows open to get a breeze through. I did it a couple of months ago and left it for a few hours like that, then drove it with the windows open & heaters on full and it dried out OK. Mop up the worst first, of course. Heat and airflow is best.
Whatever you do (parked, driving, fan heater etc) make sure you keep at least one window partially or fully open or you'll get condensation
*everywhere*.
Rubbish. I know from experience after a leak throgh the floor caused the insulation to become wringing wet. Only noticed the smell after leaving the car parked at Heathrow for a few days.
After fixing the leak and drying out, the smell is gone.
MBQ
Mop up what you can manually
Drive with full heat on and windows open. sometime in humid conditions use aircon as WELL to dehumidify the air.
If you own a dehumidifier use that.
It is important not to leave it for months as the mould will come.
Buy a dehumidifier, run it for a couple of days, then sell it when you're done - assuming that you don't think this will happen again :-)
I think it should be OK as you caught it early...
cheers
Jules
Dehumidifier. The faster you can dry it out, the less chance of it ending up "pongy".
Run with windows CLOSED needless to say.
and empty the dehumidifier regularly.
On Tuesday, May 1, 2012 5:54:01 PM UTC+1, Jules Richardson wrote: =20
Or, if it has got AC, run that on the coldest setting, recirculating the = air. You should get a puddle of water under the car.
Refrigerant Dehumidifiers work by condensing the water vapour on the evap= orator (cold) coil of a fridge/AC system. A dehumidifier would be better 'c= os the car interior would be warmer and you won't be paying fuel duty to ru= n it. But, if you haven't got a dehumidifier handy..............=20
If its AC and not climate control then run it with it set to hot. The AC takes out the moisture followed by the heater warming the cold air up which then absorbs more moisture than the cold air can.
Remove any carpets, sound deading material you can first and dry on the washing line. Anything you can't lay an absorbant cloth on (J cloth type thing) and it will soak water out of them, wring out, repeat. When that starts to stop working a bit of manual pressure.
An when parked up leave diagonal windows opena crack to allow air flow but remember them if it starts to blow/rain... B-)
A proper heat pump one, not one of the evaporative type!
You can get chemical dehumidifiers they work well in houses for damp windows they could be worth a go.
I now have an image of a car completely filled with silica gel.
Colin Bignell
Or rice, or charcoal... :-)
they come in little plastic troughs and they are not silica.
8 +0100, Nightjar wrote:
They're lime, and about as useful as a bra on a kipper.
NT
In message , John Black writes
My neighbour knocked on the door during a heavy, wind blown, snow storm to tell me that all the windows on my car were open and I went out to find snow up to the top of the seats inside.
It never dried out and had continuous condensation problems. Finally traded it in and thought of the new owner a few times.
Found out later that keeping the door open button pressed down on the fob opened all the windows and it must have been pressed down while in my trouser pocket! I don't keep my keys in my trouser pocket any more.
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