Interior Water Spill: Standing Water Front-Passenger

Hi everyone,

I tried doing a search beforehand, but didn't see anything.

I only recently used the A/C and noticed that it will sometimes leak condensation out onto the driver-side floormats (without the mats is it called a "floorpan", or is that just the exterior?).

Regardless of that, today, in the front *passenger-side* floor/foot-rest--more pooled by the lowest area by the door-sill, I just noticed today about 1-1/2 inches of standing water.

It looks like a water bottle may have emptied out, and I have no idea when I last used that water bottle, maybe days ago really.

I quickly took towels to soak up all the standing water, and then shop-vac'd the cars carpet, and then went back and used a hair dryer to dry it as best as possible.

I took off the passenger-side doorsill to see if I could try and sop up any remaining water/get an idea if I needed to do any more drying, but A) it looks like I would have to remove the front-passenger seat, and B) it didn't seem like there was too much moisture, or water beneath the carpet--I believe there is a foam-like synthetic under the carpet.

My questions are A) is water damage there a real risk? as in are there any notorious electrical parts that could be getting damaged, B) is there any additional "drying" techniques anyone knows of to get more of the water/moisture away from there, and C) when I took the passenger door sill off and pulled some of the carpet off of the clips to try and wiggle my hand down there, I noticed what looks like some sort of fluid-line (is this the rear washer line?), it didn't look cut or leaky or anything, but could this be the source if it wasn't the water bottle?

I haven't used the AC in weeks, so I highly doubt this was the AC, I don't think it was the opaque fluid line running through the front-passenger door-sill, just FYI.

Any help is much appreciated, even if I'm overreacting, I'd rather do so, water damage is just such a nightmare.

Thanks!

 

Sorry for the delay!

Okay, so after worrying more I decided to remove the door-sill, and kick panel and then get under the carpet.

Once there, there was more standing water and it smelled like a creek (bacteria, composting, decay, etc)

I could only easily visually inspect ~50% of the floorpan as I could only fold old about of the area of the carpet (like folding a square napkin by grabbing one corner and making it into a triangle).

But physically I could get to almost the entire floorpan my running my hand under the carpet.

There was standing water there as well (mostly towards the center console).

I set up a fan and dried it for ~4 hours with all the doors open and in the sun/temps (~80-85F).

That got most of the moisture and then I took the styrofoam which has the composite-synthetic padding (thick particle-board but with fibers/fabric) and dried those out in the sun for the day.

Everything seemed nice and dry (there was no lingering smell so I think it was just minor).

However after checking the fromt driver side it also seemed damp there as well.

At this point the water-bottle *may* have leaked and thus been responsible for some of the water, but I do not believe it is responsible for all of it, so I do believe something is clogged.

I have a dehumidifier arriving tomorrow that I will put in and run overnight, and we will see what happens after that.

I also think I need to look/check the AC Drainage, as that definitely seems to be the likeliest culprit.

Thanks for the help, I'll update again!

Edit: That white styrofoam you can see, I removed that as it has some of the fiber-composite padding on the underside and dried that in the sun. The photo is from when I inspected it in the garage before moving it out into the sun, you can see the water making the concrete of the garage floor darker, I just used a small hand towl, rummaged it around under the carpet soaking up water, then taking it and squeezing it dry. I used a small hair-dryer for a bit, but that wasn't nearly as easy/work-itself-out as just setting up the fan and waiting a few hours.