According to the UK Environment Agency, property owners across the country must brace themselves for potential property damages due to flooding. The agency revealed that at least £1 billion is eyed for flood management annually, which suggests just how widespread and devastating water damages can be.
If you own a rental property or a private residence, you should be proactive in safeguarding your hard-earned investment against the potential damages of flooding and common water leaks. Here are five inexpensive ways on how you can protect your property against water damage:
1. Reseal cracks in walls, ceilings, foundations, and floors.
No matter how small the cracks on the building’s foundation, ceilings, walls, or floors maybe, they could silently allow water to seep in and cause damages to your furniture and appliances. Additionally, they could weaken the building’s foundation and cause mold to grow, which could affect the health and safety of building occupants.
You can easily prevent these things by resealing any crack that you can find inside your property. There are many commercially available sealants meant for water damages, so you can do this DIY style.
2. Have your plumbing system regularly checked by a professional.
Early detection and troubleshooting are key to preventing water damages that could run in thousands of dollars. Unless you want to waste money this way, you should call in professional plumbers near you to give your entire plumbing system a thorough check at least twice a year. This simple trick will help you identify leaks in pipes, damaged plumbing fixtures, and other related problems that could lead to serious water damages.
3. Regularly clean the gutters and do preventive roof repairs.
Your property’s roofing is constantly exposed to the elements such as rain, sun, and snow. Over time, such exposure could cause normal wear and tear to the roof, gutters, and downspouts, which could then cause leaks. Without timely intervention, even a small leak could go out of hand and cause massive damages to the building foundation, walls, and interior spaces.
Knowing this, you should perform periodic gutter cleaning and carry out preventive repairs to avoid costly water damages. You can do these things on your own during your spare time or simply hire professional maintenance crews to do them for you.
4. Invest in and constantly test your water pumps.
During flooding, water pumps help keep much of the flood away from a property and into the municipal drainage system. This is why you have to invest in several water pumps and then periodically test them to see if they are working flawlessly. The last thing you want to happen is to think that they are in perfect condition only to find out during an actual flood that they’re unserviceable.
5. Make sure that rain and flood naturally flow away from your property and into the local drainage system.
One of the most inexpensive and effective ways of keeping water damage at bay is to grade the soil in your yard in a way that gravity does much of the water diversion work. This kind of trick will initially set you back a few hundred or several thousand dollars for professional grading but the benefits that you stand to get in terms of water damage prevention are priceless.
If you have the tools and equipment, you can save big dollars by grading your property on your own. It would be tiresome but totally worth the efforts since you’re hitting two birds with a single stone: you’re saving money doing it and preventing water damage to your property at the same time.
Just follow these five tricks and you can easily keep devastating water damages at bay.
