Ideas to Keep Water Away from Your House – Family Roofing

Posted on by David Reid

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Ideas to Keep Water Away from Your House

 

These easy-to-implement tips can help your house function as it should by mitigating water infiltration.

In order to know how a house functions, we also need to know how the surrounding landscape affects it.  Shrubs, flowers, trees, gardens, and sidewalks—most of which probably weren’t there when the house was originally built—all can contribute to excess moisture that can damage a structure.  Many of these landscapes were probably put in place with little to no consideration about how the house functions.

For instance, there are certain plants, shrubs, trees, and ground covers (such as rhododendrons, azaleas, ornamental holly trees, and certain types of boxwood) that grow very slowly and will soak up more water than other species.  If you know the foundation of your structure has moisture present, these types of plantings can help you control it naturally.

If replanting isn’t an option, here are some other ways to improve your structure’s moisture content:

1. Downspout leaders: Extend them so they’re several feet from the house to keep water away from the foundation.

2. Garden beds: Make sure they are pitched away from the house to keep excess water from draining toward the foundation.

3. Gutters: Backed-up gutters can cause water to leak onto the house.  Clean them out to keep it flowing.

4. Soil or mulch: Hard soil or mulch won’t let water drain slowly, so turn soil or mulch near the house yearly.

5. Trees, bushes, and shrubs: Trim them back so there’s at least a body’s distance between the plant and your house, to promote airflow.

 

Additional Ideas to keep water away from your foundation:

1. Attach an elbow to bottom end of downspout and connect a downspout extension to carry rainwater away from the foundation.

2. If using a splash block at end of downspout, be sure the splash block and ground upon which it rests slope away from the house.

3. Don’t redirect rainwater from downspout toward a driveway where it can freeze in winter.

4. To carry rainwater far from the house, dig a shallow trench from the downspout out to daylight. Then bury 4-inch-diameter PVC pipe in the trench and connect it to the downspout.

5. When you can’t extend the downspout to daylight, dig trench extending 10 feet from house and line it with either perforated PVC pipe or flexible drainage pipe.

8. In extreme situations, you may have to install a drywall at the end of the perforated pipe, which will disperse the rainwater into the ground.