I have a portable air conditioner unit in my bedroom. This unit generates a lot of water, and it has a drain plug at the bottom. I attached a tube to the plug, and the tube goes into a container. The air conditioner sits on a piece of wood about 1.5" thick, so that the tube is elevated enough for the water to flow down into the container. Either last night or this morning, I checked the container, and there was only a little bit of water in there. A couple hours ago, I walked over near the unit and felt the carpet was wet. The container was overflowing. I could see from the side of the piece of wood under the AC that the wood had soaked up some water. I moved the AC and the wood, and about a 3 foot x 3 foot area of carpet was very wet. The container may have been overflowing anywhere from a few hours to almost a whole day. I've been stepping on several towels on top of the carpet to try to soak up as much of the water from the carpet as I can. The carpet is still wet now, but not as bad as a couple hours ago. I have a fan blowing onto the carpet right now. We'll see how it is when I wake up. Do you think using a hair dryer to blow hot air on the carpet would help any? Also, do you think there may be any damage to the wood under the carpet? I did notice that one hour after moving the AC and the piece of wood, that piece of wood seems just about totally dry now. I could see that it had soaked up some water before, but now I can't tell that it was wet. Maybe a good sign for the wood under the carpet, but maybe it's a different type of wood, and it certainly can't dry if the carpet is still wet.

This will be my first time putting a new carpet on my home. Let's say the room is measured 12' by 14'. When I go to the local carpet store, should I just purchase it exactly what I've measured or should I purchase a bit bigger? If I need to purchase bigger, how much extra? Second, do I have to remove the moldings around the walls? I really don't want to if I don't have to because it'll require more time and work. For rooms that less than 17' by 20', do I need a power stretcher tool?