9 Things You Should Do to Keep Your Foundation Healthy and Happy
The foundation of your home is the absolute most important part of the house. That is not to say that the other things you need to pay attention to such as your roof, your windows, and other areas. If you have problems with your foundation or you experience a foundation failure, the rest of your home will be put at risk. This can cause your home to sink into surrounding mud or cause the home to fall apart.
- It is easy to think that in order to pay attention to things in cracks in the walls or other structures. While these do need to be dealt with as soon as they are noticed. There one other thing that people need to focus on. Moisture is the arch enemy of your foundation and many other parts of your home. Here are some things you should start doing to protect your home by keeping your foundation safe and happy:
- Keep your gutters and rain spout clear and in good shape. Your gutters and your rainspouts represent a big line in the defense from water for your home. They need to be watched and cleaned and cleared on a regular basis. When these are clogged, they cannot do their job, which is to keep water away from your foundation. Paying attention to the gutters and rainspouts can help you prevent needing residential foundation repairs.
- Take care with your landscaping design. You should create a gentle slope away from the home. This will cause any water that starts to pool around the base of your home will run down the slope and away from your foundation. If rainwater is allowed to handout around the base of your home, the result can be a bad foundation failure. You may need to put in drainage solutions to keep water from pooling in the wrong areas.
- Put in drains if you need to. Not all houses lend themselves easily to having a gradual slope away from the foundation. In these instances, you may need to put in drains to get the water away from your foundation. One common solution is the use of French drains. They are effective at moving water away from the base of your home where it can cause a foundation failure.
- Deal with cracks as soon as you can. Any time you see any cracks on or around your foundation, they need to be dealt with as soon as you can. Cracks never fix themselves on their own, they just get bigger and cause more problems for your home. If the cracks are bad, you should bring in professionals to have them repaired before you get to the foundation failure.
- Get a smarter sprinkler system. In order to prevent problems with your home’s foundation, you need to control moisture levels around your home. Water gets to pool by your house, not just when it falls from the sky but when you water your lawn. There is no reason to dry out your lawn but you can get a smarter sprinkler system that will not water your lawn unless it really needs it.
- Do not put plants with long roots next to your home. Experts in home and foundation repair recommend keeping plants, bushes, and trees at least a foot from the home. Roots from plants can get into any small cracks in your foundation. Trees can do the most damage and you can end up with serious foundation damage.
- Put plants that do not need a lot of water near the base of your home. You do not engage in activities such as keeping your gutters and downspouts in good shape and installing drains to keep water away from your foundation only to put in plants that need a lot of watering right near the foundation.
- Put in some mulch around your home. Putting in some kind of mulch material around your home can really help regulate the moisture level and keep the temperature stable in that area.
It is in every homeowner’s very best interest to keep their foundation healthy and happy. It is very important to watch the water that likes to hang out near the base of your house.