If you’re concerned about keeping water away from your home, you’re not alone. Heavy rains, melting snow, poor drainage, and other factors can lead to water seepage, causing many homeowners to worry.
However, keeping water at bay doesn’t have to involve hiring a waterproofing expert or making expensive foundation repairs. Here are some simple landscaping tips to prevent water from entering your home.
Make the grade
Ideally, your home should be slightly higher than the rest of your landscape. However, this is only sometimes the case.
Years of DIY landscaping can flatten the ground, making water drain right next to the foundation. You can regrade the ground to keep water away from your home. Even better, consult a landscape professional to get it right.
Install a dry creek bed or french drain
In some instances, it may be impossible or challenging to grade your ground away from your home. An alternative is to build a dry creek bed filled with river rock to hold water.
Installing a french drain is also a great way to prevent water accumulation. It involves digging a trench, running a pipe connection wrapped in a water-permeable fabric, and then covering it up with topsoil or rock.
Add native plants
Beyond beautifying your garden and boosting your curb appeal, native plants also protect your home. One key advantage of native plants over others is that they have better drought tolerance.
As a result, they establish sturdier roots that help keep the soil and grading in place, preventing water entry into your home.
Clean your gutters
Maybe you didn’t know; clogged gutters cause the pooling of water around your home’s foundation. So if you’ve paid no attention to your gutters, now is the time to clean it.
When your gutters get clogged with leaves and other debris, there’s a backup and water pools directly near the walls of your home.
Extend the downspout
If the downspout terminates a few distances from your home, water will pool close to the foundation and get in sooner or later. So you want to extend the downspout by several feet to ensure it drains water away from the house.
Looking for more tips to keep water away from your home or need landscaping maintenance, design, and installation services? Reach out to us at 770-434-0933. We serve the entire Atlanta Metro area and will be glad to help.