How to Reduce Flood Damage to Your Home

Flood damage is a major topic of concern in North Carolina. This is due to the fact that climate change has caused flooding to be more prevalent. It has also caused the level of damage that occurs during flooding to grow more acute. As a result, you will need to do all that you can to protect your home and family.

Clean Out Your Gutters and Spouts

North Carolina is a region of the country that is very prone to floods. Since you can’t do anything to prevent flood damage, you may as well prepare for it. The best thing you can do in this regard is to make sure that all of your various drains are clean. This includes all of your home’s gutters and spouts.

Contrary to popular belief, huge floods aren’t the real culprit. It really won’t take a whole lot of water to produce flood damage in your yard. As a matter of fact, the fault for the damage is almost more on you than on nature. This is because you may have failed to take a number of simple and routine precautions.

However, this doesn’t mean that your efforts to protect your home are doomed. The best thing you can do to give your home added safety against flood damage is to prepare in advance. Make sure that all of your gutters and spouts are cleaned and emptied on a regular basis. This will soften the impact of heavy flooding.

The point of cleaning out your drains is so that the water left behind by flooding will drain in a safe manner. The best way to guarantee this will be to make sure that all of the downspouts are cleaned and facing outward. Doing so will channel the water to a location that is safely out of reach of your home.

Make Sure Your Roof is Properly Reinforced

Another key method to use when trying to prevent flood damage will be to make sure your roof is in good shape. If you are like most home owners, you may not even think of your roof as being an effective deterrent for floods. In fact, you may not even have thought about damage to your roof unless you have seen it.

If you have ever had to replace shingles or stop a leak, you know how crucial your roof really is. A leak in your roof, no matter how minor at first, can lead to a high level of flood damage. Your best bet to keep your home safe is to make sure that you replace your roof. You should do so at a rate of every 25 years.

While you renovate or replace your roof, you should also consider adding a layer of waterproofing material. This can be set up at an interval that lies just beneath the shingles. The idea here will be to make it much harder for rainwater to penetrate your roof. This will prevent damage to your walls and your ceiling.

Pay special attention to the walls, ceilings, and floors in your home. If there has been a major storm recently, check all of these areas for flood damage. You want to look for leaks, stains, pools of water, and strange smells. Doing so will prevent further damage from water as well as dangerous mold and bacteria.

Move Your Expensive Furnishings to Higher Ground

One of the most crucial things that you will need to do is protect your home furnishings. This is all the more true if they are antique, rare, or otherwise expensive and irreplaceable. They may be items that you can’t easily replace. If this is the case, you will want to do all that you can to protect them.

Your best bet will be to move them to a much higher area in your home. You may also wish to move them into storage in an area of increased elevation. Flood damage can occur at any time of the day or night. For this reason, you’ll want to have these items moved out of the way even before the storm begins to brew.

You need to keep in mind that the number of flood zones in the state of North Carolina has been steadily on the increase in recent years. 1 in 5 areas in this area see flood insurance claims that come from well outside of the normal flood zone areas.

Contact Drainage & Waterproofing Solutions for Info

Drainage & Waterproofing Solutions, LLC is here to be your go-to authority for flood damage and other issues. We serve clients in Raleigh, Southern Pines, Fayetteville, and surrounding areas in North Carolina. Our goal is to give you full protection for your home and property. Contact us today for more info.