It’s amazing how we spend more money on a house than any other purchase in our lives, and then we don’t think of doing proper maintenance. No one (except me when I was 19) drives a car without checking the oil, occasionally getting it changed or having the brakes done. But our houses can be a mystery. Let me try to give you some information starting with water maintenance.
Every year you see the advice to clean your eavestroughs, check your downspouts to be sure they aren’t clogged and check the discharge point. So why do we need to do these things?
Contrary to some opinions I’ve heard, it is not to stop them from falling off because they are filled with leaves and the weight pulls them down. The real reason to clean your eavestroughs is to ensure that water flows away from your home and its foundation via the eavestroughs and the downspouts.
Why should you care? Not worried about water in your basement (you’ve had it waterproofed from the inside so, no problem right?) Not right. Water in your basement is not only inconvenient and might spoil whatever you have in your basement. But the true problem is that water will erode your foundation. And then your house will fall down. Well – not tomorrow, but it will eventually, if left unchecked.
This happens for two different reasons. Your stone, concrete, or cement block foundation can be eroded by water (just check out the receding shorelines on the Great Lakes – that’s what water does! And well, look at the Grand Canyon but that took a little longer.) The other problem is this water soaks any wood that it comes in to contact with. And wood rots. That could be the sill plate of your house. And that is what your house up. Erosion or rot = a tilting house and eventually a collapsed home.
How to check on your eavestroughs and water management? It’s easy if not a lot of fun. Take an umbrella and step outside during a rain storm. Not a thunder storm!. You can see if water is coming over the edge of your eavestroughs of if the spill ways are running back toward your house, with water pooling close to the foundation. You’ll even be able to see if there’s a suspicious drip somewhere along the roof line.
So, clean out those troughs and check your downspouts. They are part of the solution to keep heavy concentrations of water AWAY from your foundation to maintain your home for you and for the future.