How do you dry a wall out?

We have just discovered that the laundry sink has a leak. The water has flowed along the varnished floor boards and under an interior wall which has also soaked up the water like a sponge and is bulging at the base. I guess the water has risen at least 20 cm up the wall.
The source of the water is now stopped, but how do you dry out the wall? It was built in the 1960s and is a weatherboard house and I guess it is gib board on the interior.

Gib board is just Plaster of Paris type stuff in a sandwich of paper sheets, so if it has soaked up water it will be pretty worthless now, for best results you'd have to remove the floor trim and cut out the wetted gib and reline.

Speak to you insurers. When my mother was overseas her hot water cylinder developed a leak, which spread to kitchen units and the floor. I spoke to the insurers and they sent a team in to dry it out. They used dehumidifiers and when they left, you wouldn't know there had been a leak at all.

Kate, I would suspect that your mother's insurers were taking the cheapest option to avoid the high cost of doing the job properly.
Kai, I agree with Kiwi that the best way to fix this would be to remove all the damaged linings, allow everything to dry out, and reline with something that can handle a bit of water.

Thanks guys, I always forget about insurance, yes we are insured, have lodged a claim as on further inspection the outer wall has also soaked it up as well. So two rooms are effected.
The whole place had been completely re-decorated professionally not long before we moved in, so I really don't want to attempt a bodge job myself. I started to tot up what it would cost excluding labour - gib, paper, paint, possibly new skirting board (in my experience they always split when you try and take them off), then the amount of time plus any tools needed and then it could always be worse than I think it is once I get started.

Your new place wasn't redecorated to "hide" the evidence of the leak prior to sale was it?

That's kind of what happened at our place anyway - as soon as we hooked up the washing machine and set it going, it was like Niagra Falls flowing out under our walls and we too had to replace the laundry and neighbouring toilet gib [!]. We talked to the previous owners before going to the Insurance company and they offered to pay half the cost. They said they weren't aware of the leak (house had been rented for a number of years) and they'd only seen the place after it was redecorated for sale (they lived in Australia). Nice ending, but not always the outcome.

no greenfingers, the leak was our fault, when we attached the washing machine, the washer fell off in the process of screwing it on (we only realised this when it was found on the floor, when fixing the leak), also, it was the entire house inside and out that got decorated, including ceilings plastered and painted so would have been a bit of an over kill to try to hide an obvious leak.

Yep - house insurance!

kai, before you get your hopes up - check your insurance policy. Many do not cover slow leaks - only quick floods. Hence, if a water cylinder burts, you're covered but if a pipe slow leaks, you may not be.

But - without going backwards, this was a personal screw up - not an undetected slow leak that caused the outcome? Lose your no claim bonus against what it will cost you to repair and that is your answer. You have every right to claim on your insurance and wear the "I screwed up" situation. You just need to work out if it is worth the increase in premium.

Update - yes it has taken this long. Lodged a claim the day of my first post. After two weeks of no action rang the insurance company and asked what was going on. Assessor sent out. Walls definitely damp, need drying out, repainting etc. Guy came today to start the process. Walls are worse than thought previously, gib now ripped off. Also floor with its nice polished rimu floor boards is wet, so needs to be sanded to allow the wood to dry, then dried and re polished. Glad I put the claim in, it could have worked out pricey other wise.

Lucky the floor is rimu not chipboard crap with all the structural integrity of weetbix as soon as it gets wet.

Finally the repairs are finished and the plumber has just put the laundry sink back in place.

Yes I have just looked on the date of my last posting and it really has taken this long. At least the floor sanding/varnishing is a very good job, better than it was originally.

When MIL had a serious flood a few months ago, Insurance wouldn't come to the party for the saturated carpet, citing non-fixture. However, there has proven to be a complication in that the laundry tiles were fixed and we recently discovered the "weetbix" integrity of the hardboard that the tiles sat on. We have ripped up the flooring in the laundry and adjoining toilet and those lovely insurance people are going to cover the floor. No pun intended. We were planning to refurbish the laundry as it happens, so this will be a big help.