Weekly Maintenance for your Home

May – Week 18

Just like preventative maintenance on your car, if you take care of a few small items around the house every week, you can avoid many emergency breakdowns and expensive repairs.

Foundations

The snow melts off at different times in each part of Canada, but during that period when the ground is frozen but the snow is melting, water does find its way into so many basements. Whether it has already happened, or just beginning, it is critical that you dry out any basement water as quickly as possible to avoid the growth of mould and mildew. Take out those wet rugs, lift up any vinyl that has water under it, even open up walls if it smells the least bit musty when you come in from the fresh outdoors.

Why is it only this time of year that water comes into many basements? It's because the ground is frozen, and something about your house is directing excess quantities of water towards the basement wall. Even if you waterproof the basement wall, if there is too much water outside, it will flow along the wall until it finds an unsealed crack. Most spring basement water problems can be solved by making sure that your landscaping slopes away from the house, and that rain gutters and downspouts take the water at least 4 to 5 feet away from the foundation. A couple of weeks from now, all that rainwater will simply percolate into the grass and not flow towards the house. For more details on "Wet Basements", check the SEARCH tab above.

Once the heating system is turned off, it is time to open up the crawl space ventilation. But don't forget, the primary defence against crawl space moisture is not ventilation, but a plastic sheet over the open soil. Check out the SEARCH tab above for more information on "Crawl Spaces"

Although I am not much into gardening, it is time to feed the lawn as soon as it is firm enough to walk on.