When the weather outside is rainy, snowy, hailing, and more, what do you do? Even if you’re hiding inside your house and waiting for the storm to pass, you can suffer from leaks and flooding if you haven’t managed your stormwater properly. To get ready for fall storms, make sure that your home and garden are ready to weather whatever the weather might bring.

Look for Leaks

If you have a chronic leak that’s been too small to fix, summer and early fall are the time to address this problem. Look for stains on ceilings and walls. To prevent future leaks, examine your roof, especially in the areas where different materials meet. Take a look for leaks, soft places, and areas where the shingles have come off, and make sure that these are fixed before fall begins. A small repair now will prevent much larger repairs over the fall and winter months.

Make Sure You Have a Firm Foundation

How is your foundation drainage faring? It’s a good idea to check on this before the fall begins. Although you can’t always dig down to take a look, take a close look at the inside of your home in the basement and make sure that the walls are hard and dry and that there are no visible cracks or stains from old moisture. Maintain or remove any trees that look like they are creeping too close to your foundation.

Maintain Your Gutters

Your gutters are the route that water takes to move away from your building. Make sure that they’re working for you. Look around the perimeter of your building to see if there are areas where the gutters are warped or sagging. Take a special look at the joints to make sure that water is still moving easily where gutters connect. Clean out your gutters, or install gutter systems like a gutter guard to protect your gutters from fall leaves. Look at your downspout as well, making sure that it moves water where you need it to go, whether that’s into a pipe, a rain barrel, or a rain garden.

Check Out Your Garden Hotspots

If you live in a climate that receives a lot of winter ice and snow and fall rain, take a look at the hotspots where moisture tends to linger in your garden. You may have a wet hollow in the yard where there are always puddles. If water pools in an area that doesn’t work for you, think about how you can make it work. Add a bed of plants that love the water, or channel that water elsewhere.

Get Your Water Moving and Sinking

When you have a wet yard or a yard that gets very soggy during the spring snowmelt, plan now for drainage. You can add sand to your soil to help sink water into the ground, but you can also use earthworks to move your water around. You might choose to dig shallow trenches called swales that capture, store, and sink water into the ground. Plant shrubs on the far side of these swales so that they can benefit from this water flow. If you have a lot of runoff, angle your earthworks to a single location to divert the water into a natural pond or wetland.

When you’re planning to get your water running the way you’d like it, talk to Harry Helmet. With our Gutter Guard and Helmet Heat products, your drains will run clean and clear throughout the fall and winter season. Contact Harry Helmet today to see how we can simplify your fall home maintenance.

Written by Del Thebaud