Important Steps On How To Avoid Water Damage To Your Home

Water damage is one of the worst things that can happen to your home that you can almost completely prevent, unless it is caused by mother nature. Floods and hurricanes are something that we can’t really prevent; all we can do is just try to prepare for it and often our preparations aren’t good enough. We should not feel bad about this, however, because nature will almost always win over any preparations that we make to try and keep her out of our homes. There are a few things that you can do to prevent water damage to your home on a smaller scale, but you will have to be diligent in your efforts if you are truly going to make it work.

Pay attention to your water heater. This and anything else in your house that uses a large amount of water is at risk of leaking out onto the floor and doing some serious damage. It should always be installed on the lowest level of your home, preferably in the basement raised up off the floor and sitting on a drain pan that is connected to a water drain in the floor. This will make sure that even if your water heater does start to leak, the water goes back into the sewer or your septic tank instead of onto your floor.

If you are worried about your dishwasher leaking, check the pipes and hoses that are leading to it first and make sure they are connected tightly and are not cracked anywhere. If you are buying a home that comes with a dishwasher already installed, you will want to check around the base of it to check for water damage. If the floor around it is discolored or if the base of the cabinet near it is warped, you might have a leaky dishwasher.

One thing that most homeowners have to do at least once a year is cleaning out the gutters that run around the roof and drain the water from the roof, through the downspout, and away from the house. These always end up collecting leaves, sticks, and other debris and if the gutters become clogged with this material, it will cause water to simply drop off the roof to the base of your house. If water saturates the ground at your home’s foundation, it will eventually cause it to sink into the ground.

What You Can Do to Prevent Water Damage

You might not be able to stop a hurricane or a flood from causing water damage to your home, but what you can stop are a lot of things in your home that can cause the same kind of damage, just on a smaller scale. They are quite simple and although you might forget to do them from time to time, as long as you make sure to check at least every once in a while, you (and your wallet) will be better protected against the surprise expense of water damage remediation.

One of the most frequent offenders of water damage tends to be the water heater itself. This should be located somewhere on the lowest floor of your home and in a drain pan connected to a pipe or hose that drains back into the sewer. This will make sure that even if your water heater does burst or begins to leak slowly, the water will not go into the floor, but down the drain. Most water heaters should be located in the basement and a leaky water heater down there is not going to be as much of a problem as one on the second or even third level of a home.

Make sure you have your rain gutters cleaned out at the end of autumn when the leaves have stopped falling. Your rain gutters are what keep water from simply sliding off your roof and settling around the foundation of your home. Water that collects around your home’s foundation can cause it to sink into the ground and even though this is a slow process, it can do a significant amount of damage to your home’s value. The downspouts should also be clear of any debris and water channeled away from the foundation. Soil around the base of your home should also be at such an angle that water naturally flows away from it.

Keep an eye on the pipes or hoses that go to your dishwasher and your clothes washer in the laundry room. Hoses can develop weak spots over time and develop leaks that can leave you in a huge mess, especially if you happen to be away from home at the grocery store or a friend’s when the leak begins.

Water damage can also be prevented by not forgetting that you have bath water running or water running in the kitchen sink. Overflowing sinks and tubs account for a lot of damage like this and can coat your floor with more water than you think in a very short period of time.

Mold and Your Lawn

Did you know that mold can grow on your lawn and kill all the grass that you worked so hard on during the spring, summer, and fall? Well, you might have known that mold spores and fungi like mushrooms can grow in your front and backyard, but maybe you were not aware of the mold that can grow underneath the blankets of snow that fall during the winter. It is true: if snow falls on your lawn and does not melt for a long period of time, mold can start growing and kill the grass underneath. This is especially true if the grass has not stopped growing before the snow falls and if the snow is thick and wet. Another significant factor is that the ground the snow falls on top of is not frozen.

The only real symptom that you should be able to see besides the mold growth itself is the appearance of large circular patches of dead grass. These circles can be from 3 up to 12 inches wide, but in the most extreme cases of snow mold, you may not be able to distinguish one patch from the next because the mold has killed so much of your lawn.

Pink snow mold appears to be the most dangerous to your grass and it is caused by a mold called Microdochium nivale. This mold, when it matures, can be a light to a dark pink color. This is the most dangerous kind of mold to your lawn because it kills not only the blades of grass, but also the roots. This needs to be treated as soon as possible before it kills your entire lawn, if it has not already.

Gray snow mold can be caused by a few different species in a genus called Typhula and it can be anywhere from gray to white in color. These molds typically do not do more damage to the grass than affecting the blades; the roots are not typically affected.

Snow molds like to grow in temperatures that are just above freezing and in moist conditions. Even though it is called “snow” mold, it can also be caused when leaves are left covering a patch of grass for too long.

Preventing snow mold is not too difficult, but sometimes it will occur, anyway. Do not fertilize your lawn less than six weeks before cold weather starts to come in and causes the grass to stop growing. This can cause a spurt of green growth that the mold will feed on after it starts to grow underneath the snowfall.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
damage restoration companies and
mold removal companies across the united states.