Exterior Waterproofing – Keeping Water Out of Your Duluth Home

While there are several effective means of waterproofing a home, exterior waterproofing comes with an added advantage. Not only will it keep your basement dry, but proper drainage can prevent problems caused by water outside your home as well.

Exterior waterproofing in this way has two parts that can be used separately or together depending upon circumstances. The first is focused on directing water away from the home to a place it can’t do any damage. The second involves making sure that any water that enter the ground near your home is stopped from entering and causing damage.

Start With the Basics: Gutters

If exterior waterproofing is about dictating where water flows, gutters are your first line of defense.

From a pure area standpoint, your roof provides a large target for rainfall, and if you don’t have gutters and downspout extenders, all of that will end up falling straight down from the edge of your roof.

Gutters, however, can take all of that water and begin the process of directing it away from the house.

Simply having gutters is not enough, however.

• Make sure that your gutters are not clogged and are well-maintained. A gutter system with a bunch of leaks isn’t going to do its job properly.
• Use downspout extenders, preferably long ones. Recommendations from different groups vary on how far from your foundation extenders should empty, ranging from 3-10 feet. Otherwise, all of the water is still being discharged right by your home, just in more concentrated locations.
• Make sure the extenders discharge in an area where the grading will take the water away from your home. It does little good to discharge water 5 feet from your home if the slope will just cause it to run right back to your foundation.

If you are in need of new gutters or are looking to replace old, damaged ones, contact Alliance Inc. today.

French Drains and Other Drainage Systems

Sometimes, gutters alone aren’t enough to properly keep water from entering your basement or damaging your foundation.

In that case you need a drainage system that will carry water away from the foundation in trouble areas.

One of the available options is a French drain.

With a French drain, a ditch will be dug, extending from the problem area to the place where you want the water to drain. A perforated pipe is then laid in the ditch in order to collect the water and direct it away from the house.

The pipe is then covered with gravel for its superior drainage properties. The gravel is then either left bare or covered with soil.

In certain situations, however, a French drain won’t be ideal, especially if the area being drained isn’t an open area of grass. In some of these cases, a channel drain or trench drain is better. A channel drain typically involves a drain system in which water enters the pipe through grating at the surface rather than after soaking through a layer of gravel.

Other tools such as catch basins can also be installed to properly store and dissipate water.

Waterproofing Membranes: Keeping Water Out of Your Basement

Gutters and drains accomplish the first part of the exterior waterproofing equation: directing water away from the house.

Waterproofing membranes accomplish the second: keeping any remaining water from entering the basement.

Excavations are dug to expose the basement wall and drainage board is installed to keep any water in the soil from infiltrating the basement walls. This way even the water that inevitably remains in the soil near your home won’t be able to seep into the walls, damage your belongings or cause mold and mildew damage.

Advantages of Exterior Waterproofing

1. While interior drainage systems and sump pumps are good at keeping your basement dry, they are less effective against hydrostatic pressure harming your basement walls or erosion weakening the soil around your foundation. Water, in large quantities, can cause damage even if it doesn’t flood your basement.
2. It lets you direct where the water is going. This can be helpful when it comes to landscaping considerations.
3. You don’t have to tear up your basement. Installing an interior drain will involve excavating around the edge of the basement. For a finished basement, you will then have to, basically, re-finish the basement.

Need Exterior Waterproofing in Duluth? Contact Alliance Inc.

Alliance Inc. offers exterior waterproofing services and gutter installation among the services it offers in Duluth and the surrounding area. Want more information? Contact us today.