Taking A Look At The Prevention Of Water Damage – And What To Do if It Happens Anyway

Preventing water damage in your home should be a top priority when it comes to home maintenance, due to the fact that there are many ways in which water damage can occur. From your crawl space to your basement to a leaky roof, water damage can happen in a number of different scenarios. Therefore, it become even more important to prevent against it in as many ways as you possibly are able to.

Crawl spaces are common in the United States, found in more than twenty five million homes all throughout the country. And homes continue to be built with crawl spaces as well, in about twenty percent of all new homes throughout the United States. When you own a crawl space, you must be wary of water damage, as crawl spaces can more easily trap humidity in them, something that can create condensation, which will in turn foster mold growth should water damage occur.

One way to prevent this is to have a crawl space dehumidifier in place, as a crawl space dehumidifier can work to keep the humidity below seventy percent. Seventy percent is the recommended maximum amount of humidity that should be in a crawl space, though ideally the levels of humidity should be as low as possible in such a location in your home. In addition to having a crawl space dehumidifier, you should also be checking the humidity of your crawl space on a relatively regular basis.

So what happens if your crawl space gets water in it from an outside source? In order to prevent water damage, a crawl space drain system can be installed. A crawl space drain system will be quite effective in keeping water from accumulating and a crawl space drain system can help to remove a good portion of standing water, again preventing mold growth. While a crawl space drain system might not remove every drop of water that gets into your crawl space, this crawl space drain system can certainly make any clean up services that become necessary all the easier to conduct and far less time intensive than the process otherwise would have been.

Prevention is key to keeping water out of your crawl space or basement and part of waterproofing certainly entails installing a crawl space drain system. But in addition to this crawl space drain system, other steps can be take, some of which are very simple indeed. For instance, keeping your crawl space dry can sometimes be as simple as keeping plants away from the foundation of your home. Ideally, in fact, it is recommended that plants be kept at least two feet from the soil at the least. And if they are planted this closely, they should also be planted relatively low in the soil, as this can help to prevent them from directing water towards the soil.

But what do you do when water gets in your crawl space or basement and even your crawl space drain system does not get rid of all of it? In such cases, it is very important to take quick action, as this is what will end up being instrumental for preventing the growth of mold throughout your basement or crawl space. And the importance of preventing and mitigating mold growth is hugely important.

This is due to the fact that all types of mold are dangerous to some extent, though this extent will certainly vary from type of mold to type of mold. This has been stated by the EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency), so it can certainly be viewed as fact. Thanks to the presence of mold in homes, for example, up to ninety three percent of all sinus infections have originated. And in some cases – though this complication is very rare – the presence of mold and even ultimately result in death, something that is of course ideal to avoid at all costs.

Fortunately, taking steps to prevent your basement and your crawl space from sustaining water damage in the first place will play a key role in mitigating the growth of mold and the lasting effects of water damage in the long run.