How to prevent a flooded basement
If you’re a resident of a locale that is used to large scale floods and heavy rainfall, you’d know that flooding of your basement is very hard to get rid off and can permanently damage your home. A flooded basement can lead to many things. Stagnant water is the perfect breeding ground for all sorts of pests. Dirty and stagnant water also acts as a petri dish of harmful germs, bacteria and viruses. These are only the effects that would harm you health wise. Flooding can also damage your HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) and leave you with huge repair bill and lack of regulated temperature.
A flooded basement can drastically affect the structural integrity of your home. Neglecting a flooded basement would lead to your pipes and walls slowly eroding because of the water. Also this would lead to nasty looking cracks and lines all over your home because of water entering the air pockets within the walls. Stagnant and still water deeply affects the wooden structures of your homes, making them soft and weak. Flood water is also a major reason as to why the inner linings of your pipes and plumbing start to gather mold. Mold can potentially clog and block pipelines, preventing you from receiving water and dispelling waste.
With that being said, here are a few preventive measures you must take in order to never have a flooded basement.
Clear rain gutters to prevent flood:
The first step in prevention of flooding is to constantly clean your rain gutters. Rain gutters can get clogged by leaves and debris from your surroundings. A clogged rain gutter will lead to water overflowing from the sides and seeping into the ground near your home. Another issue is with the downspout of your rain gutters. Too often, these downspouts are placed close to the house’s foundations. This in turn leads the water back into the foundation of the home which defeats its purpose as a downspout altogether.
Now, what can be done to ensure the water flows away from the base of your home is to have your downspout extended to lead the rain water away from the house. This will ensure that no rain water seeps into the foundation of your home and in turn is away from your basement.
Take a walk in the rain (to observe your garden and landscape):
Whenever there’s a bit of rainfall in your area, take a short walk around your home and inspect the puddles that form around your house. Observe the puddles that form and see whether they lead up to your home. If yes, then you’ll have to call in a landscaper to fill up the voids in the land around your house. These gaps act as pockets for water to fill in and eventually flood up in your basement.
Calling in a landscaper or local excavator to come and regrade the land around your home will ensure that surface water will move away from your home than flood towards.
Furthermore, you could even solve your basement flood in a stylish fashion as well. After having your local excavator monitor your house, you could opt to set up gutters all around the base of your home. This will ensure that water flowing from any direction will fill into the drain instead of gushing through the seams of your basement.
If you aren’t satisfied with a gutter around your home, you could ask your excavator or landscaper to make a beautiful brook in your garden to flow the rain water away. You can make all your neighbors envious with a simple addition to your backyard fauna.
Invest in a Sump Pump (or two)
This is a no brainier. It is absolutely essential to buy a sump pump. Why? Because in the case of a flood, a sump pump is the only tool you’ll need that can pump out the water in your flooded basement. Now why buy two? Just like any other energy powered device, a Sump pump may also break down mechanically and you can’t have that can you? That it is why it is advisable to buy another sump pump as backup if or when the main sump pump breaks down.
Furthermore, you could opt to buy a battery powered pump, so that in the case of a power outage and your main pump isn’t accessible you still have a lifeline available to drain out all the flood water from your basement.
Speaking of power outages, it would be advisable to invest in a emergency power generator. The first reason would be to have all your appliances/utilities running to prevent pipes from freezing and cracking. Most importantly a emergency backup generator will be essential for having your sump pump continue to push out water even when there is a power outage.
Getting a landscaper to inspect your basement:
One factor that a homeowner must always remember is that there is a water table below your home. A Water table is a layer of water below the earth’s surface. If your basement has been dug up too close to a water table, it could lead to having a very damp basement which is the perfect fodder for a mold and algae infestation. But a worse case scenario is when there is heavy rainfall. When there’s torrential rain for a long period of time, the precipitated rain seeps and collects onto the water table.
If there’s an excess of water in the water table, it can lead to the water rising through your basement floor and flooding upwards. It would be very difficult to remove the flood water, which will lead your sump pump to work overtime. Hiring a landscaper to check how close your basement is to the water table will help you fortify your basement with another layer of cement.
Dehumidify your basement:
A crucial step most people forget when there is a susceptibility of a flood is to let in some air after you’ve cleared up the water in your home. Invest in a dehumidifier, if you’re broke, a table fan would suffice. The reason why you need to blow some air into your basement after you’ve cleared the water is because the water remnants soaked on your floor carry a lot of moisture. Moisture in turn is the perfect catalyst for mold growth. So it’s always best to keep your basement floor completely dry after a flood, leakage or pools.
Another easy solution to this problem would be to install exhaust fans. Exhaust fans are quite friendly on the pocket, lasts a long time and are easily replaceable. Plus, they don’t use too much electricity like a table fan or dehumidifier would. What’s more, after it’s installed you don’t have to go through a long process to set it up, all you need is the flick of your switch and your home basement is dry in no time.
Vent your Washing Machine/ Clothes dryers to the outside
Most Homeowners tend to place their washing machines and clothes dryers in the basement because they are quite noisy when used and the excess water drips onto the floor. Furthermore the drained water and suds used from these appliances spread through to your basement. In order to curb this, it is advised that you set the exit pipelines of these appliances to the outside your home, preferably your garden or lawn.
What do you do if you can’t protect your home from floods?
If you aren’t in a position to spend so much money on all these preventive measures, the best solution you have is to opt for a home warranty. But before you make that decision try out this home maintenance calculator. Maintaining all the appliances in your home is an arduous task for a homeowner. Constantly monitoring and paying high costs for individual repairs will leave a large hole in the pocket. In preparation for such a scenario, this calculator will allow you to gauge and see how much you could potentially be spending on repairs for a given year. What’s more, you can calculate how much you would be spending on maintenance and repairs on all your current home appliances for the next 25 years!
If you think you’d be spending a lot of money on individual repairs, or just fear that your basement will flood eventually, invest in a home warranty. A reasonable one time payment at the start of the year that secures most of your appliances in your home.
But how do you know what home warranty is best for you? You have to worry about locations, value for money, reputations of home warranty companies when considering to buy. That’s why we at Homewarrantyreviews.com have created a concise database and review system of all the top home warranty companies. Our ratings and reviews are all based on feedback and opinions of actual users of these home warranty companies.
Each of the companies listed in HomeWarrantyReviews.com has its own ratings timeline. The ratings timeline is where possible customers can see how the company has been faring in the eyes of the public. This timeline tells you how they have been performing for the past five years, making it easier for you to make a decision when it comes to choosing a home warranty.
Also at Homewarrantyreviews.com, you can opt for a consumer resolution program with your home warranty company in the case of them being negligent in their services. This occurs when you write a review stating your negative experience with the home warranty company. The Home Warranty company will then in turn try to resolve your issues, failing to do so would lead to your initial negative review being published in our public forums.
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