Water Always Wins: What All This Rain Can Teach Us About Protecting Our Homes

If you live in Upper Arlington—or pretty much anywhere around Central Ohio—you probably don't need me to tell you that we've had a little rain lately.

And by "a little rain," I mean the kind of stretch where you start wondering if you should be mowing the lawn or stocking the garage with life jackets.

It seems like just about the time things begin to dry out, here comes another round. The ground gets wetter, the creeks get fuller, the sump pumps get busier, and our Corgi, Gracie, becomes increasingly convinced that going outside is an unreasonable request.

Gracie hates rain under normal circumstances and has been known to require a golf umbrella before she'll venture outside when the grass is wet. Apparently being approximately six inches off the ground means precipitation is a much more personal experience.

But all this rain has also given homeowners a really good opportunity to see something we don't always think about: Where is all that water going?

Because here's something I've learned after decades of working on houses: Water always wins. You can divert it. You can manage it. You can give it somewhere better to go. But if water continually collects against your house, sooner or later it's going to find a way in.

And sometimes the warning signs are literally right outside your front door.

Your House Should Be Sitting on a Very Small Hill

Let's start with something incredibly simple: the dirt around your house. Ideally, the ground immediately surrounding your foundation should slope away from the house. This is called positive grading. When it rains, gravity does most of the work for you and carries surface water away from your foundation.

Unfortunately, houses and the soil around them don't remain exactly where they were placed forever. Backfilled soil settles. Landscaping changes. Mulch gets added year after year. Flower beds get reworked. Twenty or thirty years later, that nice slope away from the house may have become completely flat—or worse, it may now slope toward the house.

That's called negative grading, and it essentially creates a very shallow swimming pool against your foundation every time it rains.

Your basement did not request a swimming pool.

Walk around your house after a good rain and look for standing water near the foundation. Even better, look during the rain. If water is flowing toward your house instead of away from it, you've found something worth addressing.

This is also one of those rare occasions when Gracie's refusal to go outside in the rain can actually be educational. While I'm standing there holding a golf umbrella over a perfectly capable, waterproof dog, I have plenty of time to watch where the water is actually going.

Turns out she may have been conducting drainage inspections all along.

Your Patio May Be Trying to Tell You Something

Concrete settles too. Patios, front porches, sidewalks, stoops, and driveways are all susceptible to settlement over time. Sometimes it's minor and harmless. Other times it changes the direction water flows.

A patio that originally pitched gently away from your house can settle along the foundation and suddenly begin doing exactly the opposite. Now you've basically built a several-hundred-square-foot rainwater collection system... and pointed it at your basement.

I was reminded recently just how serious this can become. An older neighbor stopped by our house extremely upset about significant water damage in her basement. She has extensive wood rot and other damage, and one of the major contributors appears to be a concrete patio that no longer slopes properly away from the house. Instead of shedding rainwater away from the structure, it's directing water back toward the house.

I spent some time with her talking through what appears to be happening, what I think needs to be investigated, and some possible next steps. I'll continue helping her however I can. But seeing how upset she was also reminded me why this is worth talking about. Something as seemingly insignificant as the direction a patio slopes can eventually become a very expensive problem inside the house.

An inch of settlement outside your house can potentially lead to thousands of dollars of damage inside it.

The same thing can happen with front porches, driveways and sidewalks. Water collects against brick veneer, foundation walls, door thresholds, or joints between materials. One ordinary rain may not expose the problem. But when rain keeps coming and the soil around the house is already saturated, you're repeatedly putting water against an area that was never intended to handle it.

Look for puddles against the house, concrete that visibly slopes toward the foundation, separation between concrete and the house, or old paint and caulk lines that indicate a slab has dropped. The good news is that settled concrete doesn't always need to be torn out and replaced. Depending on its condition, concrete lifting or leveling may be able to restore the proper pitch for considerably less money.

Then There Are Your Gutters

Your roof is basically a giant rainwater collector. That's perfectly fine—as long as all that water has somewhere to go.

Your gutters collect hundreds or even thousands of gallons of water and direct it into your downspouts. If they're clogged with leaves, sticks, maple helicopters, tennis balls, or whatever else somehow manages to end up on a roof, the water spills over the edge. I'm reasonably certain Corgi hair is capable of reaching our gutters too, although I have no idea how and currently lack scientific evidence to prove it.

And where does all that overflowing water usually land? Right beside the foundation.

During a good rain, go outside—assuming it's safe—and simply look at your gutters. If water is pouring over the front or back of them like Niagara Falls, something isn't working correctly. Also look for gutters that are sagging, pulling away from the fascia, or holding standing water after the rain stops.

Cleaning your gutters may be one of the least exciting home maintenance projects ever invented, but it's considerably more exciting than discovering two inches of water in your finished basement.

Don't Forget About the Downspouts

Even perfectly clean gutters don't help much if the downspouts dump all that water three inches from your foundation. Downspouts need to carry water away from the house.

Many homes have extensions that discharge onto the lawn. Others—especially throughout older neighborhoods like Upper Arlington—have downspouts connected to underground drainage systems.

And that's where things get interesting.

The Underground Pipes Nobody Thinks About

If your downspouts disappear into pipes in the ground, you probably have some type of underground conductor or drainage system.

Out of sight. Out of mind. Until it doesn't work.

Over the years, underground pipes can become clogged with leaves, roots, dirt and debris. Older pipes can crack, collapse, separate at joints, or become damaged by settlement. When that happens, the water coming off your roof still has to go somewhere.

It may back up through the downspout. It may overflow the gutters. It may leak underground beside the foundation. Or it may create a miniature geyser somewhere in your landscaping. None of these are desirable features.

If you have underground conductors and you're unsure whether they're working properly, they can often be scoped with a camera and flushed or cleaned—similar to the way a plumber inspects a sewer line. That's especially worth considering if they're older or you've noticed drainage problems around the house.

Your House Usually Gives You Clues

Water intrusion often feels sudden. "We've never had water in the basement before!" And that may be completely true. But the condition that eventually allowed the water inside may have been developing for years.

Some things worth watching for include:

• Water pooling against the foundation after rain

• Soil that slopes toward the house

• Settled patios, porches, sidewalks or driveways

• Gutters overflowing during storms

• Downspouts that don't appear to be draining

• Water bubbling out around underground downspout connections

• Damp or discolored basement walls

• Efflorescence—the white, chalky material sometimes visible on masonry

• Musty smells in basements or crawl spaces

• Peeling paint or damaged drywall near exterior walls

• Cracks around foundations, windows and doors

• Mulch or soil washing toward the house after storms

None of these automatically means you have a major problem. But they're clues worth paying attention to.

Your house talks to you. Unfortunately, it usually communicates through cracks, puddles and expensive noises.

The trick is learning to listen before it starts yelling.

Before You Waterproof the Basement, Look Outside

This is probably the biggest takeaway. When homeowners discover water in a basement, the first instinct is often to start thinking about sump pumps, interior drain systems, waterproof coatings and very expensive basement waterproofing projects. Sometimes those things are absolutely necessary.

But before doing any of that, figure out where the water is coming from.

Walk outside. Look at the grading. Look at the patio. Look at the driveway. Look at the gutters and downspouts. Find out where the underground conductors discharge. Watch what happens during the next rain.

Sometimes the solution to water entering a basement isn't inside the basement at all. It might be $200 worth of gutter work, a clogged underground pipe, some grading, a downspout extension, or lifting a section of settled concrete.

And sometimes it is a larger foundation or drainage problem. The important thing is diagnosing the cause instead of immediately treating the symptom.

Do a Five-Minute Rain Inspection

After the weather we've had lately, right now is actually a great time to walk around your house. The ground has been wet, drainage systems have been put to the test, and problems that might be invisible during a dry stretch are much easier to spot.

You don't need to be a contractor. You don't need special equipment. And you definitely don't need a clipboard—although carrying one will make your neighbors assume you know what you're doing.

Walk around the perimeter and ask yourself one simple question: If I were a gallon of water, where would I go?

Look at the slope of the ground. Look at the concrete. Look at where the downspouts discharge. Look for puddles, washed-out mulch, overflowing gutters, and areas that remain wet long after everything else has dried.

And the next time we get a normal, safe rain—which, judging by the last few weeks, should be approximately 15 minutes from now—grab an umbrella and walk around again. Watching your house while it's raining can tell you things you'll never see on a sunny afternoon.

If you have a Corgi, apparently you'll need two umbrellas. One for you and one for Her Majesty.

Water follows gravity relentlessly. Your job is simply to make sure gravity is sending it somewhere other than your basement.

We've had an awful lot of rain lately, and eventually Central Ohio will dry out. Probably. But before it does, take advantage of the opportunity to see how your house handles water.

Because the best time to discover that your patio slopes toward your house, your gutter is overflowing, or your underground conductor isn't draining properly...

is before the next round of rain turns your finished basement into waterfront property.

Besides, if anyone in the family is going to demand waterfront accommodations, it should probably be the Corgi.

She already expects umbrella service.