Perform These Tasks To Make Your Home Less At Risk Of A Flood
If you live near a river or another body of water that rises significantly or your geographic region is often prone to heavy rainfalls, it's a good idea to take steps to reduce the risk of flooding in your home. Upgrading your home insurance policy to include flood insurance is a worthwhile idea, but there are also a variety of different ways that you can roll up your sleeves and get busy to protect your home from flooding. Here are some ideas that you should make sure to implement.
Have Your Foundation Inspected
There's always a risk that the foundation of your home is slightly cracked without your knowledge. This is a grave concern because a cracked foundation is more likely to lead to flooding than one that is intact. It's a good idea to hire a foundation contractor to visit your home and check the condition of the foundation. He or she won't likely dig up your entire yard, so there's no need to worry about a major hassle — instead, the contractor will perform checks in certain areas that provide clues about the overall integrity of the foundation. If it is indeed cracked, you can get it repaired quickly to lower the risk of a flood.
Use French Drains
Your yard should slope away from your home to prevent water from pooling near the structure, but even sloped yards won't prevent flooding during heavy storms. An effective way to divert water away from your home is by building French drains. This type of drain is essentially a trough lined with rocks; the premise is that water will run through the rocks more quickly than through the dirt, which will help to keep water away from the house. You can build one or more French drains around your home, angling them away from the structure and toward low areas in your yard.
Make Sure Your Downspouts Aren't Blocked
If it's raining heavily, you need to be sure that your downspouts are allowing the water to flow through them and away from your home. Downspouts that are blocked with leaves will cause the gutters to overflow, washing water down the sides of your home and increasing the risk of damage. Hire a gutter contractor to clean the downspouts or remove individual sections on your own and pull the leaves and any other plant matter causing a blockage out of them.
For more information about flood dangers and how to prevent them, contact a company like Dave Johnson Insurance, Inc. to see what kind of prevention they recommend.