In my experience, I’d say that the most common problems that come up in home inspections relate to water entry, whether from a leaky roof, or through the foundation. One of the culprits, downspouts, are notorious for giving homeowners problems, yet they are so easy to fix!
Here’s the problem: downspouts dump the water next to the foundation- over time the foundation sinks or is weakened- water gets through the foundation causing rot or mold.
Whew! What to do…
Here’s the easy solution: extend your downspouts to get the water away from the house. At today’s project, all of the home’s downspouts were dumping water right next to the foundation. What’s more, there is a driveway along one side of the house so the water tends to pool next to the house.
My job was to extend the downspouts to correct the problem. For most of them, I could just attach some black drainage tubing to get the water away from the house.
For the ones by the driveway I couldn’t go across the driveway, of course. Instead, I had to link the downspouts together and take the water along the house and downhill to the backyard where it would keep the grass green and solve the water issue. The homeowner said “How ugly!”, but hey, it’s protecting your home and keeping the buyers happy :).
Most of the time the fix is even simpler, using simple downspout extensions like I used in this article.
Bottom line: protect your home and make a home inspector happy: get the water away from your house!
-Peter
