National Preparedness Month: Prevent Storm Damage in Your Charlottesville Home

9/26/2018 (Permalink)

Photo courtesy of Alan Levine

When a large storm hits, you should be thinking about the personal safety of yourself and your loved ones. You shouldn’t need to think about what could happen to your home or belongings. SERVPRO of Charlottesville focuses on National Preparedness Month to help you learn about and prepare for the worst, so you can be confident that your home and family are ready should a disaster occur. In the past few weeks, we have discussed making a disaster plan and packing a home emergency kit. This week we will explore house preparation to prevent and minimize storm damage.

Storm damage prevention can be costly. There are multiple intensive options. If you wanted to, you could almost rebuild your home with storm preparation options and techniques. Yet, we’re more interested in how you can prepare your home with your own hands and without breaking the bank.

The first, and perhaps easiest thing you can do is secure any items that you leave outdoors. Especially heavy items, like lawn chairs and grills, can cause damage if they are picked up by winds or swept away in a flood. Move these items indoors or take measures to secure them in place.

Furthermore, keep you gutters and downspouts clear. In the case of heavy rain, one of the best ways to avoid flood damage is to create paths for the water to flow away from your house. As long as the water has somewhere to go, it won’t stream into your home.  As such, keeping the debris and clutter out of your drainpipes and away from other drainage paths can reduce the risk of flood damage.

But even if the water has a path away from your home, you will still want to block its path into your house. Think of the path of least resistance. You have a couple options when evaluating potential leaks in your home. First, check the seal on your windows. The waterproof sealing around the outside of a window can wear away over time and may need to be replaced. Additionally, check for holes in your siding. One of the most common type of hole occurs when electric or cable companies attach cables or wires to the side of your home. These attachments can cause holes that will allow water to sneak behind the siding. They can be easily repaired using an affordable waterproof caulk.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, walk around the outside of your home and check the foundation for any crack or weakness that may allow water into your home. Small cracks that don’t cause problems during a normal rainfall can easily become a leak during flood conditions.

For more information you can visit: https://www.fema.gov/

Or

If you’ve sustained storm damage recently, give us a call at 434-977-5850 so that our team of professionals can help make it “Like it never even happened.”