Do you have water in your crawl space? If you so, you may be putting your home at significant risk. Water is the enemy of your home and can lead to conducive conditions that may create mold or even worse, major structural damage. Your home is not designed to have standing water present and it should be a high priority to make sure it doesn’t have to. Here are some simple steps that you can take to make sure that water is not ruining your home:
1) Take a look at your crawl space.
Most water issues in your crawl space can be corrected easily if they are caught in time. A flooded crawl space can do significant damage if left alone, while quick intervention may avoid major costs. Most people never realize that they have standing water in their crawl space until they find a reason to go down there. Why not put it on a calendar to spend 3 minutes opening your crawl hatch and shining a flashlight down there? This simple step alone may save thousands of dollars! We recommend checking your crawl space at least every 6 months, but it becomes especially important during our rainy season. In Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington this is for most of the year, but to make it simple, check in October and February.
2) How is water draining off your property
Take a walk around your home and observe how the ground slopes. Does it slope towards a foundation vent? When I moved into my brand new home in Vancouver Washington in August of last year I noticed that they graded the my yard to slope towards one foundation vent. I didn’t need to wait until it rained to know that this was going to be a major problem, so I installed a french drain to divert water. You don’t need to be an expert to spot these problems, it is just simple gravity. Where is the water going? Or, is the water not going anywhere and just becoming standing water? Either way, a drainage system should be put in place.
3) Check the plumbing for leaks
If you know where your water meter is located on your property, you can easily check for leaks. First make sure that no water is running and then go out to the meter and see if it is moving at all. If you see some slight movement, you know that you have a leak. That was the easy part, the hard part is trying to find the source of the leak. A good place to start is the crawl space since a lot of the exposed piping will be seen down there.
Of course, these are just the basic, easy steps that you can take, but there are a whole host of steps that you can take to ensure proper drainage on your property. If you would like to have a free inspection and consultation with one of our drainage specialists, we would be happy to accommodate you. Please give us a call today to learn how we can keep your Portland Metro area home clean and dry!