Most of the calls that I get as a contractor are from people who haven't done their home maintenance. No one has told them how to do preventative maintenance. One hundred dollars of simple protection techniques can save a homeowner from spending twenty-five thousand dollars or more to repair the damage.
When you own a home, one of the most important things is simple low cost preventative maintenance against leaking and water build-up. Make your castle bulletproof for fall and winter. Here are 7 tips to protect your home from disastrous results and prevent future costs.
1. Check What’s Under Your Roof: If the roof is leaking get a professional roofing company to make the repairs. Unless you have a new technology roof that is guaranteed for fifty years or your life, you need to check your roof regularly after ten or fifteen years have gone by. It's not the surface of the roof that is going to fail, but usually it's the layer underneath.
2. Protect Your Foundation: Some homes don't have gutters in the right place. Gutters must be in the proper location so you control the water flow away from the house. In heavy rains, put an extension on the gutters to get the water further away from the house.
3. Prevent Clogging in Your Gutter: Don't forget to put a screen on your gutter to prevent debris from collecting inside. The screen is a coated wire mesh that you simply lay on top of your gutter. Pick it up at a home improvement store. This is a normal maintenance that you must do. You can't avoid it. It has to be done. It's like vacuuming or cleaning your house.
4. Repair and Paint Your Siding: Your siding could be susceptible to water leakage in heavy rain if it is not properly waterproofed behind it. Paint is also a way to help waterproof the outside of your home. If you live at the beach, you have to paint every three to five years. If you do not live at the beach, you have to paint every seven to ten years. You must do constant maintenance if you have real wood on the exterior of your home.
5. Waterproof Your Windows: When a window is installed in your home, there is a decorative wood trim piece around it. Even though the window was supposed to be installed with waterproofing techniques and paper under the siding and trim, you still want to caulk the seam of the wood trim against the siding. Don't let the water penetrate under or around the window.
6. Stack Sandbags: If you live in an area where you know there is going to be flooding or extra rain, try to get the sandbags around the perimeter of your home to stop the water flooding the foundation or your basement. There should be three bags of sand on top of each other stacked in a brick pattern so every bag covers every seam. On the second row of sandbags, wrap it with plastic and then throw on the third row of sandbags to hold down the plastic.
7. Use Plastic Like Waterproofing: If you have already experienced any rain in your area, you probably are able to see the signs of what is leaking. Do a temporary fix before you are able to address it in a permanent way. You should pick up a roll of 6 millimeter plastic. Put it where you know there is a leak. Cover the hole with the plastic in the same way you would apply waterproofing methods for your roof.
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