wantsHi, I'm Tom Scherer an agricultural engineer with North Dakota State University Extension Service and Water Damage Restore Chanhassen  - water remediation. We're going to talk about water and the outside of the house. You know, most people think the sump pump is the first line of defense to keep water, out of the basement but have you ever thought about walking around the outside of your house? Just looking at the areas that might contribute to that excess water and getting into the basement. There are outside factors that can influence how much water gets to the basement and what the sump pump has to handle. We're going to cover the six most important items to limit water devastation problems in your basement sump pump and discharge soil sloper on the house and window wells.

How to prevent soil from pulling away from the house gutters and their downspouts and the discharge. The sump pump is really important if you want to make sure that whatever is pumped out of the basement flood cleanup is giving away from the house. As you can see here, sometimes the mowed lawn or whatever people pull the hose away, but if the pump were to turn on a lot of water, it might end up here. What the Water Damage Chanhassen want to make sure is that the water is pumped far enough away from the house, so that it slopes and that goes into a drainage area. As you can see here, between every two houses it flows down towards the street there and flows into the storm sewer, because the discharge hole is from the sump pump. When it comes out of the house and sometimes it gets in away. A lot of homeowners will bury their line as and as you can see from here, there's some pump and this runs out to the streets. The discharges into the street, way it's covered up and you don't hit it with the lawnmower and it's not in a way but it's always discharging where you want the water to go and for the water remediation.

I'm Keneth Hellevang agricultural engineer with the NDSU Extension Service and I want to visit with you a little bit about the slope of the soil, that next to the house. Maybe we start out with the soil slope in the right direction and then, as the soil settles all of a sudden the water damage is flowing toward the house rather than away from the house. In many homes, we'll have landscape rock around the house and that can be deceiving or fool us sometimes. The rock may look okay, indicating that we have on a proper slope from the house. Sloping away for several feet, but encourage you to pull the rock back and in some locations. Actually we see if the soil itself is sloping in the right direction and here, what I have done is to put actually put a level on here so that we can see the slope higher near the house. Sloping away from the house so that that water runs down and we'll get away from the house. Another thing that you would want to look for is is their soil, all the way up to the house or is there a separation there, that has been allowing floodwater to flow down along the basement wall and down to the basement of your home.

We're at a home, where they're just in the process of doing some remodeling on their landscaping, and what they're doing is adding soil to build it up that ahead sunk. Near the house, adding soil to get that slope and they're gonna even add more soil underneath this plastic, but I wanted to show the plastic because of this is what we would recommend, either we go with plastic or some kind of landscape fabric and something that helps move the water away from the house. Before it starts soaking into the soil, the other idea is to use clay or something else where the water doesn't permeate through and very rapidly to water mitigation. Earlier I mentioned one of the concerns that we have is that the soil will settle near the house and when it settles rather than the water running away from the house. It runs toward the house or it may pond to the house, so we want to look for places where that soil is settled. Here, we have a patio where it's very obvious, and next to the wall it has the soil is saddled. The patio pavers have gone down as well put a level on there to reference what would be level off of the patio. 

Onto the house, of course, we really wanted the slope from the house out in a way, so that we would need to raise the patio and if this happened to be concrete slab there, would be all the water from out on that concrete. Flowing toward the house, it particularly looks at sidewalks concrete and slabs or patios or just any place where that soil is sunk. Near the house, we need to move the water to the other direction with a patio like this and we need to pick up the pavers and put it. Bring the soil fill, so that it will flow away from the house with a concrete slab and sometimes, we can mud jack or lift the concrete to establish the right slope. Also, you will notice here we have a downspout but that downspout has been extended away from the house and to make sure that the water isn't being deposited right close to the house. It's important that we extend downspouts and preferably several feet maybe even ten feet away from the house so that the water does not flow.  Next to the house, with just a one-inch rain coming off and a 1200 square foot house, that amounts about 750 gallons of water, so there's a huge amount of water coming off. The roof down through the various downspouts and we need to assure that water is not deposited next to the house, but it is draining away from the house. 

Another problem, that can kind of sneak up on us is when we have dry weather. The soil won't dry out and it'll actually shrink and pull away from the house. Actually, it establishes a crack right along the basement wall and that then allows the water to flow in. Once it does rain, we frequently get questions about people wanting to fill that crack and the soil. We discourage that because if we were to go packing soil in there the soil gets wet and expands it's going to push on the wall of the basement and so even though it seems tempting to fill that crack with soil, do not feel that crack with soil. What we recommend is that you try to maintain uniform moisture in the soil, either running sprinklers or what. I like to do, is to use a sprinkler hose where I tip it upside down and just run it a foot or two away from the house. Run a little bit of water, to keep that soil at constant moisture and to keep it moist, so that we're not having that soil pulling away from the house. Another way that water can enter into a basement is through the window well and here, we have an escape window so it's larger than some window wells, but regardless of the size and the way that we handle. A window well is going to be the same and we'll start out looking here at the soil around the window well. We want to make sure that the window well is a couple three and maybe even four inches above the soil. Around that window well

the water doesn't run into the window well, ideally, we would like to see the ground sloped away from that window well so that we are assured that water doesn't pond next to the window well.

I encourage people, to use a window well cover. Actually for several reasons, one is to make sure that the water drains away, rather than flowing into the window well, so that's one of the things you want to look for is does that window well cover slope to allow that water to come out. Away from the window, also it's going to help keep leaves and other debris from getting into the window well and that's a frequent problem. If we get an accumulation of leaves or debris it'll prevent that water from soaking in the way, that we want it. There are several things that we need to consider, actually in the window well, we want to make sure that the ground level is several inches below the bottom of that window. Then, I also recommend putting a rock or other very permeable material on top of that soil, so that the water can easily soak through and get down to the soil. Ideally, we would also run a vertical column of rock and down to the drainage system around the footing or foundation of the house and frequently what they will do is to use some drainage pipe. Fill it full of the rock, so that if water comes flowing in it, it can easily drain through the rock and into the drainage system for the house.

One other thing that we should consider or look for when we're inspecting our window well is to see if it's bonded to the concrete and sometimes what we will find is that the soil settles. As it settles, it's going to pull the window well away from the wall and that then allows any water that flowing outside and to just flow down along that crack and down into the window well, so in that case, we would need to either pull the soil away and redo the window well or if it's a smaller crack we can probably do some kind of a sealer to assure that water entry path is closed. The last thing we want to talk about is that too contributes water to the outside of the house, the dental spouse and the gutters that feed them, we want to make sure that you remove the leaves and sediment in the fall in the spring since they can plug the downspout. Then the water would overflow and dump all that water right next to the foundation. Clear the downspouts and if they're plugged, install leaf guards on the gutters. 

There are many home supply stores, that carry a wide variety of covers. You can put on that and keep most of the leaves and larger debris out. Then the last, but not least is safety if you are having your gutters cleaned it and if you do it yourself, be extremely careful. They are up in the house and you have to climb a ladder, to get up to them to

clean them or else hire somebody down to do the job for you.