Do you own a home with a basement? Does it seem like the basement floods, or at least gets excessively damp, every time it rains? Basement flooding is a common issue for many homes, even if the surrounding area is usually dry. Floods can be an expensive problem, resulting in damaged property and undesirable mold or mildew growths. In order to protect your home and your belongings, there are a number of things that you can do. A few of these things include:
Install French drains
Properly constructed French drains both around your home and in your basement can help redirect water to a new location instead of allowing it to actually enter your home. Although it may not always be cheap to put an interior French drain into an already-constructed basement, the reduction in damage can be more than worth the cost. A well-made French drain will have a sump hole where the water can collect and get pumped either into the sewer system or to a point some distance away from your home. Doing this will prevent too much water from collecting at once and causing damage to your basement.
Buy an extra sump pump
Installing a sump pump replacement is often as simple as unplugging the old one, pulling it out of the sump hole, and disconnecting it from the sewer line, and reversing these steps to install the new pump. Although you may be able to have the old pump repaired, you may not want to wait for this if your sump pump gives out in the middle of a heavy rainstorm. Having a sump pump replacement on hand will help keep your basement clean and dry until you can get someone to take a look at the old pump. If the old pump can be repaired, you can keep that one on hand as the replacement in case the new pump also breaks down in the future.
Clean & repair gutters
A single rainstorm may dump hundreds of gallons of water on your roof. Without properly working gutters, this water will flow from your eaves and wind up directly at your basement walls. Even having a working sump pump may not be sufficient to keep the basement fully dry when this happens. If you have a good gutter system installed on your roof, this water can be redirected to a point far enough away from your home that it's unlikely to cause flooding. Contact a business such as Rite-Way Waterproofing for more information.
