How To Stop Your Home Flooding
Your house should be a place where you can unwind and recharge your batteries. You might sometimes share it with friends, but most of the time, you could very well share it with your pets and family. Water is the only thing you don’t want to share it with, unless it’s coming out of a water tap when you need it. If you know how to keep your home from flooding, you can live there without damage, which is what you want. Read on to find out how to keep your home from flooding and avoid the risk of buyer’s remorse.
Water damage can be highly destructive and expensive to correct, therefore it’s important for you to take preventative steps to ensure your home remains protected against leaks and flooding. If you do notice signs of water damage, it’s important that you contact water damage restoration experts, like Protegrity Restoration, as soon as possible for urgent and effective water restoration.
Check Your Plumbing
Home floods don’t just happen because of bad weather (although this can be a major cause of water damage, of course). Floods can also happen when your pipes burst or have other problems. Make sure to always use a trusted plumber and ask them to check all of your fittings and fixtures in order to make sure they are in good shape once you move in – or before you move in if need be. As an extra safety measure, you might want to have your crawl space checked out every so often. This makes sure that there are no leaks that could cause your foundation to sink.
Remember, though, that having your pipes checked shouldn’t be a one-time thing; changes can happen over time, and as pipework gets older, more problems can arise. Therefore it can be a good idea to have your plumbing checked annually, just to be on the safe side.
Take Care Of Your Roof
Some flooding occurs as a result of roof leaks. Hire a contractor to ensure that everything is properly mended. Additionally, ensure that the gutters are in excellent shape and clean. Inspect your downspouts and make sure they are long enough to divert runoff away from the foundation of your house.
Again, this should be done on a regular basis, and especially after bad weather that could affect the integrity of your roof. You might feel you don’t want to do this as it costs money, but water damage can often cost a lot more, so it’s a wise investment.
Waterproof The Basement
The most likely place to flood in your home is the basement or crawl space. When you waterproof your basement as much as you can, you give it a line of defence against water penetration that comes down with gravity. You can use tools such as Sika 4A to ensure the job is done well and to prevent any further issues in the future.
Don’t just stop at the flooring and walls, however. Be careful to cover your window wells, too; all it would take is one strong downpour to flood a whole room, which would then lead to mildew and other problems.
Install A Sump Pump
Even if you do everything you can to keep water out of your basement, it may still get there. Putting in a sump pump gives your home a way to get rid of the water that will always get in. Even if you don’t use it that often, it’s nice to know it’s there if you need to handle things before they get too bad.