Mix heavy rains and floods with rusty pipes and leaky hoses and you just might invite a storm into your home. Though sometimes water flooding is inevitable, there are plenty of ways to prevent water damage. Here are three simple water damage prevention tasks that you should incorporate into your regular home maintenance plan.
1. Clean the Gutters and Cut the Shrubs
Water can enter your home when your gutters and downspouts are backed up with leaves and other debris. Clogs can also force puddles to accumulate around your foundation, which can seep and mold over time. Overgrown root systems can severely damage your foundation and apply enough pressure on surrounding piping to cause cracks and breaks. Other outdoor maintenance that can affect your foundation include sloped yards and patios and frozen water inside garden hoses.
2. Perform Regular Appliance and Piping Inspections
Water can also leak from piping and fixtures inside your home. Regularly inspect all appliances, fixtures, hoses, piping, flanges and valves for leaks, cracks, breaks, rust, temperature changes, vibrations and noise. For this one, you might want to call a water damage prevention contractor so that worn or damaged parts are repaired and replaced on the spot, or so that the correct parts are ordered immediately.
3. Monitor Your Water Usage
Your water bill is a good resource for detecting leaks that may not be visible on a daily basis or during inspection. For example, if a pipe in a wall or ceiling is leaking steadily but showing no visible indicators, your water bill will certainly reflect an increase in usage. As a precaution, ask a contractor to install water detectors that sense moisture and leaks from appliances.
Overall, incorporate water damage prevention tasks into your regular home maintenance schedule to mitigate problems before they become nightmares. Call Water CleanUp, your local water damage specialist, for a complete list of tasks specific for your home! If you’re dealing with water damage now, don’t wait. Give us a call or click here for a free quote.
