The only thing worse than coming home to find that you have a flooded basement is realizing later that you could have done something to prevent it. There are many common household problems that can lead to serious water damage issues in your basement if you don’t know about them (or if you choose to ignore them!), so today our water damage restoration specialists at Restoration Now! Omaha want to take some time and go over the biggest problem areas in your home that can lead to a flooded basement. Taking care of these problem areas now can help you avoid the costs and headaches that come with cleaning up after a water damage emergency.

Reason #1—Your Home is in a Bad Location

You can usually identify this problem fairly easily, but it might take some doing to fix it. After all, you can’t just airlift your house out of the neighborhood and put it down somewhere else!

Water flows downhill, obviously, but we don’t often Restoration Now! to think about where our homes rest in the terrain around them. If your home is at the bottom of said hill, any water coming down it, whether it’s from a river or simply a heavy rain, might cause a flooded basement in your home. While this may seem like a situation without a viable solution, our water damage restoration specialists want to assure you that there are things you can do.

For instance, you can take steps to make your yard more level by grading the soil or hiring a landscaper to create a slight slope around your foundation so water can’t seep in. These solutions can be pretty pricey in the short term, but if your home is in a flood-prone location, you’d be wise to consider the investment.

Reason #2—Your Foundation is Poorly Sealed

If your foundation was built with concrete blocks and the spaces between them weren’t sealed properly, water can leach through them into your basement from floods or heavy rainstorms. This can be a huge problem because, let’s face it, we can’t really tear out the foundation and build it the right way once it has a house sitting on it.

However, there is something you can do to help keep that water from coming in. Using a product called masonry waterproofer (it’s applied like paint and comes in a similar can), you can coat the problem walls in your basement and keep water from seeping in. There are many kinds of masonry waterproofing products available on the market, most of which can stand up to 10 psi of water pressure.

Reason #3—Your Gutters are Clogged

Yep, you heard that right. A problem as simple as clogged gutters can lead to a flooded basement and thousands of dollars in damaged property. This is an essential task in any home maintenance routine, so even if you hate getting up on the ladder and scraping out the sticks, muck, and those little propeller seeds that have built up over the year, you need to do it. If you don’t, water can overflow your gutters during a heavy rain and collect around your foundation, which can cause weakening of the structure and other costly water damage problems.

Flooded Basement? Contact Restoration Now! Omaha at (402) 502-7277!

Our water damage restoration specialists at Restoration Now! Omaha hope that these tips can help you avoid a flooded basement in Omaha this spring, but we also want you to know that if you do get water damage in your basement (or anywhere else for that matter), you should give us a call immediately at (402) 502-7277—we can handle any water damage situation you can think of quickly and thoroughly to get your home back to normal.