While many of us are gripped in the snow and winter conditions, now may not seem like a good time to be considering the worst that can happen – flooding of our homes, especially the basement as a result of all of the snow melting and increased rain.  Nevertheless, now is the time to start thinking about taking steps to make sure flooding does not happen and the effects of excess water are kept to a dry minimum.

The first thing to check are the gutters and downpipes – you may need to consider rerouting or extending downpipes so water does not concentrate by the side of the house, especially be careful with excess water accumulating at the corners of your property.  Excess water pools and puddles but it will seep into the foundations and the basement through cracks, causing warped and rotted woodwork, rusting and increased mold and mildew problems.

You can attach a “leader” to the gutter to take the water away from the foundations – if you do install these you should aim to have the water taken at least 10 feet away from the wall.

Some homes do not have gutters at all and this leads to problems with leaks caused by the water running off the roof directly onto the foundation at the foot of the wall below.  Where this is the case, establish where the “drip line” of the roof is, i.e. where the water hits the ground after running off the roof.  You should then dig a trench and use sturdy plastic sheeting over which you should place a plastic pipe.  The pipe should be perforated so it will collect the runoff and excess water which pools above – you should finally cover the pipe with a mixture of stones and soil to assist in draining the excess water.  The pipe outlet should then be directed away from the house and preferably towards a dry well or water outlet.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Home Improvement Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.