Preparing Your Home for Fickle Spring Storms

Many people look forward to springtime because it marks a return to warmth and sunshine. However, that switch often isn’t an immediate one, and you’ll probably need to go through a number of seriously rainy days. Due to this fact, you should start preparing you home for fickle spring storms. By doing so, you can avoid costly water- and wind-related damage and repairs.

Clean the Gutters

You can easily forget about your gutters because they’re physically such a small part of your house. When you’re expecting a good deal of rain, however, they’re pivotal to maintaining the home’s condition. Gutters and the downspouts connected to them prevent water from running down the sides of your house and leaking inside or weakening the foundation. By cleaning out the dirt and debris that get stuck in your gutters over time, you ensure that water falling on your roof has an open path to follow away from your house.

Prune Your Trees

Strong gusts of wind can snap off large branches from trees, and they may even fell an entire tree if they’re severe. This is very dangerous for your home—a tree and/or its large branches can scratch up your home’s outer surfaces, break through windows, and harm nearby powerlines. A toppled tree can also smash through a portion of your roof. Preparing your home for fickle spring storms must therefore include reducing the surface area of your trees that might catch the wind. Have them pruned so that you can avoid disaster before the gales arrive.

Waterproof Your Basement

With rain comes the possibility of flooding in your basement. When you let water sit there, it can create health hazards, as it makes an environment ideal for small, pesky organisms to proliferate. Despite your home being tightly sealed, water can still fill up the soil to the point where it puts enough pressure on the basement walls to cave them in and form penetrable cracks. Waterproof your basement by installing a system to remove water that would otherwise gush inside. A sump pump is efficacious for collecting groundwater and pumping it away when your property is prone to flooding.