Over time all houses settle. It’s just the name of the game. It’s up to you as a homeowner to help prevent some of the longer term damage by preventative maintenance, and having us on speed dial if you have a bigger issue. #ShamelessPlug. Today we are going to talk about positive and negative drainage and the effects it can have on your home.

To give you an idea of proper drainage

Most building codes state that the ground should slope at least six inches down in the first ten feet of distance away from the house. If yours doesn’t do this you need to do some reevaluating. Last week we talked about cleaning your gutters. Combine that with positive drainage and proper grading, they will definitely help with keeping your basement dry. After a rainfall, if it is not collected and piped away from the house properly it can cause all sorts of damage.

Negative Drainage is when you have water flowing towards your house instead of away from it.

The average one floor house could have around 2,400 square feet of surface area on the roof. Any given storm could produce one inch of rain, the amount of water draining from the roof to the ground could be nearly 1,500 gallons! That’s a LOT of water. Allowing this water to just drop down and not be properly drained away from the house allows it to sit and corrode at the basement walls, eventually leading to seepage, cracks and worse.

A few things you can do to turn that negative into a positive.

• Check to make sure you have a 6″ slope for the first 10′ away from your home
• If it’s in your landscaping – yes you will need to dig up your landscaping, add some soil to raise the grade and replant your bedding.
• Gutters! Clean them and also make sure they are flowing 10′ away from your home. If you don’t want 10′ of downspout drains sticking out from your house into your lawn, we have underground drainage solutions that we can do to get rid of the unsightly view.

Give us a call for a highly trained professional to come by
and assess your problem and give you a safe and secure solution to waterproof your basement.