Water is an essential part of our lives, but it could also be a difficult enemy when we want to maintain a good lifestyle. Water is powerful, it slowly dissolves everything. As a life sustaining material, it will encourage the growth for many fauna and flora inside our house. Things like termites, fungus, mold and other organisms are present inside our house because of water’s presence. Our house will be destroyed quickly or slowly by water. From home improvement point of view, water could corrodes metal surface, washes away soil from the foundation, dissolves mortar that holds the brick together, stains the siding and erodes the paint. It could also saturates sloped areas of our properly, causing it to slip and endangering the structure of our house.
The possible list of water damage can be quite extensive and in many cases, proper drainage could help our house. Damages may cause expensive repairs and we should handle it properly. Water damage could also be caused by the lack of understanding on how water behaves. In an ideal situation, our house is located at the top of a small hill.
However, it is not always possible to achieve this and creating this condition artificially can be quite expensive. However, we could use a method called grading. It involves moving enough soil around our house to create a sloped area that is directed away from our house. Depending on the location of our lot, it can be easy or difficult to do. In some cases, we need to use sub surface drains aggressively, if the surrounding lots are slightly higher than ours. Water will need to be directed away from our house. The use of artificial ditch and sub surface ditches can be quite expensive, but it would mean that our house won’t slowly sink into water-clogged soil during heavy rainy days.
Downspouts and gutter are also essential and if you don’t have gutters or need new ones you can get them from Roof Worx. For every inch of rain, each 1000-square feet of area collects more than 600 gallons of water. If the water falls on our roof, we should remove them effectively. Improper drainage could direct the water not far from our foundation and this arrangement may cause our foundation to settle. Proper gutters design is also essential if we don’t want our basement to get flooded. A common mistake is that downspouts dump the water to a planter alongside the foundation. If we have the same problem in our house, we may need to install an extension of rail leader, so water can be drained away from the foundation.
Another that we should use is flashing and it can prevent water penetration. Flashing should be placed at roof penetrations, hips and valleys. Another critical area is the joints between vertical wall and rood. Without flashing, rust and hidden damages could take place inside our walls. This will create a hospitable habitat for termites, mold and other organisms. Roof should be checked regularly, because it represents the first line of defence in keeping our house dry.
