This week we're going to have to change direction from the outside of your home to the inside. With the last of dry fall weather here, it's now time to address any problems that you might have with water.
So for the next several articles, we will look at waterproofing and protecting your home. We will also protect concrete slabs and patios, repair your chimney, as well as protect some of that landscaping that you did this year.
But before we can do anything, it's time to cover some basics, as in Waterproofing 101.
Lesson number one: water is basically, uhmmm, lazy, and to better understand what you need to do to protect your home, you need to understand the "enemy," whom we will call "Drip." Now, Drip by himself is very harmless, but like unwelcome company, he never comes alone. And like unwelcome company, Drip always seeks to take advantage of every situation.
Drip is motivated by gravity. This means that he will always move downhill. Drip also has the habit of always seeking the path of least resistance. Like in school, when it was either fight the bully, or walk that extra block to avoid him, we who were cowards would walk the extra block, realizing that even though the path of least resistance was longer, it was much healthier. Drip is the same, in that he is following the crow, and he wants to do the lazy thing and seek the path of least resistance. So to put it simply, the goal in successful waterproofing is to make Drip work, to hinder his path, to make him seek the path of most resistance.
Your home offers a couple of things that are attractive to Drip. It has a giant cavity, or void space, usually a basement which offers little to no resistance. It also has had excavation work around it, so the soil will percolate more, or allow for easier water movement. Drip can go faster and farther with less work because the soil is not as compact, in other words. Also many homes are built in an area where water has run before on the surface; and far too often we never think about below-grade water, where the water is moving below the surface.
Drip also knows that people usually don't prevent him from entering into their home through chimneys, cracked concrete slabs, tree roots which are going into the basement, and lots of other ways. In other words, he's pretty content. Life is easy, life is lazy.
Now, here's how we're going to make life tough for Drip. First of all, let's figure out where he is coming from.
Step outside your home and take a close look around it. lf you are on a hillside, look at the terrain above your home, and locate any gully areas where Drip can get together with his friends and travel. Think like Drip: you are lazy and you wish to find the path of least resistance, so you look for tree roots or anything that might break the soil up. lf you see areas where the vegetation is greener than others, then Drip is possibly coming through that area and watering the vegetation as he goes. (He's not always that bad of a guy!) Are there areas where there is little vegetation? Is this because of surface water? And is that area pointed right at your home? When your home was built, was there a French drain built around it to protect it? (What is a French drain? Mon ami, it is a trench that was dug on the uphill side of your home, filled with drain rock, then covered. At the bottom of the trench is a pipe that will carry water away from the house and into a drain area.) The idea here is for you to get a firm idea on where it is possible that Drip may be coming from, because next week we'll find out how he invites himself into your home.
It might be easier for you to take a piece of graph paper and step to the side of your home where you can see the slope of your land and draw it. Then do the same looking up the slope, once again drawing any gully or dip onto your paper. This will force you to look the terrain over very carefully and become much more attentive to the places where Drip can "Drop in" (sorry, couldn't resist!) More on this next week. Until then, see ya'!
Originally published in the Daily Courier October 21, 1999