Your foundation is critical to keeping your home in tip-top shape—and its greatest enemy is excess moisture, which means proper drainage is a must! Well-planned drainage will protect your house from pooling water, prevent costly structural repairs, and give you peace of mind.
Here’s what happens when poor drainage lets moisture infiltrate your foundation—and how the right solutions will safeguard your home.
4 Problems Poor Drainage Can Cause for Your Foundation
1. Broken Concrete Slab
If water doesn’t flow away from your home, then it will likely pool along the edges of your foundation. There it will sit until it seeps into your basement or crawl space. It works its way into the smallest cracks in your concrete slab, making those cracks bigger over time.
The result? Your foundation breaks, and either sinks down or heaves up. Your home’s entire structure can move significantly out of alignment, causing cracks in walls, sloped floors‚ and more—which are all pricey to repair.
2. Unhealthy Mold Growth
The longer moisture sits in dark, unventilated places—such as your crawl space—the likelier it is that unhealthy mold will grow. Mold can spread throughout your house, causing respiratory issues for vulnerable family members. Left unchecked, this nasty stuff negatively impacts your home’s value and structure and can require costly professional mold remediation to safely address.
3. Insidious Wood Rot
Another problem that spreads if not addressed, wood rot is an all-too-common result of excess moisture around your foundation. As water lingers, wood rot can spread into support beams and wooden frames. This issue can remain hidden for a long time, putting your house at risk.
4. Too Much or Not Enough Support Underneath and Alongside the House
Pooling water can erode the soil around and beneath your house. With Oklahoma’s hot and cold, wet and dry spells, our vulnerable clay-based soil can expand and contract quite a bit. This means your foundation loses support and can shift and crack, weakening its ability to hold your home securely in place.
Proper Drainage: Your Foundation’s Best Defense
In the beginning, issues caused by drainage problems may seem inconsequential. But over time, your foundation can weaken and lead to a host of problems such as:
- Unsightly bowed or cracked walls
- Sloped or uneven floors that cause slips and falls
- Doors and windows that get stuck or won’t lock, posing a safety hazard in case of emergency, inviting in critters and encouraging break-ins
- Rot and mold spreading into walls
- Loss of value in your home, coupled with the need for costly repairs
Fortunately, you can reduce the chances of foundation problems—in spite of Tulsa’s clay soil—with smart drainage solutions like these, which keep moisture safely away from your home:
Ensure Your Land Is Properly Graded
Simply put, water flows down, not up—so your yard should be sloped downward to encourage rain and snowmelt to flow away from your foundation. Swales (which are shallow, V-shaped soil inserts) are handy for addressing yards that are sloped well but still have a few annoying spots where water pools.
Keep Gutters Repaired and Free of Debris
Broken, cracked, loose, or blocked gutters will lead to water pooling near your exterior instead of flowing down and away. So, be sure to clean your gutters regularly to prevent problemativ clogs. Have damaged or old gutters replaced.
Install French Drains and Surface Drains
If your yard tends to create pools of water, you may need an option like French drains and surface drains. These systems encourage rain and irrigation water to move freely through your landscaping instead of getting stuck in spots. They’re handy for yards that are at the bottom of a hill, as well as around outdoor surfaces like patios, decks, and driveways.
Ensure Your Home’s Structure Is Safeguarded with Thorough, Effective Drainage You Can Count On
Ignoring water and drainage problems can put your house at unnecessary risk. If your yard isn’t draining properly, it’s time to act and get a lasting solution that protects your home’s structural integrity—and its value too!
At Edens Structural Solutions, we value honest answers and helpful guidance. If you don’t need our services, we’ll tell you upfront. But if you do need us, we’ll do the job right! Check out our drainage repair services to see how professional, carefully installed French drains, surface drains, and swales can ensure your yard drains properly, protecting your foundation.
