The foundation is the base and the backbone of your home. To keep your home structurally solid, you need to protect the foundation from water. If water continues to “pool” or run close to your foundation, it can erode the foundation, leak into your basement or crawl space or even soften the soil your foundation rests on, causing shifting and cracking of the walls of your home. A few easy steps to protect your home are:
-
Slope the soil away from your foundation. It should drop one inch per foot for at least five feet.
-
Do not install sprinkler systems within five feet of your foundation.
-
Keep you gutters and downspouts clean and well maintained without leaks to prevent water from dripping next to the foundation.
-
And most important, use downspout extensions to get the water five to six feet from your home. If you tip them up to do yard maintenance, ALWAYS tip them back down before the next rain or snow melt.
-
If your downspouts empty into underground piping (which I don’t recommend), that piping must be kept clear and made of non-perforated pipe to get the water away from the home.
Taking these few precautions will go a long way toward protecting your investment and keeping your home structurally sound. It will also help to keep your basement or crawl space dry. Next week I will discuss the use of sump pumps to protect your basement from water that comes from underneath your home.