Every year, summer storms roll into Madison, WI and cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage. High winds, flooding, hail, tornadoes, lightning add up to a high potential of damage in the three months of tempestuous weather. Prepare now and lessen your risk for water damage restoration costs.
Secure The Roof
Your roof takes the brunt of summer storms. Schedule an inspection by a roofing professional to check for split or missing shingles, dislodged flashing, leaky skylights, and other issues that could cause indoor water damage from heavy rain. Also, ensure gutters are securely attached and water flows freely through downspouts. A complete roof inspection should include an attic check to look for evidence of leakage or deterioration on the underside of the roof sheathing.
Common causes of leaky roofs are:
- Missing shingles due to high winds, storms, and tornadoes
- Damaged flashing around pipes, chimneys, and skylights
- Roofs with shallow slopes and inadequate runoff
Manage Trees
Trees cause two types of water damage to your home:
- Tall trees with long, huge branches can hang over your roof.
- A big wind storm could break a branch; it could end up puncturing your roofing membrane and decking.
Thrashing limbs scraping the roof can cause damage even if limbs remain intact. If they break, the weight of a heavy limb impacting the roof can inflict severe damage to the roof structure. Large limbs extending over the house should be cut back. If any tree limbs that are close enough to strike the home are weak, dying, or otherwise compromised, consider having these limbs (or the whole tree) removed.
If you have trees that are close to structures, they could cause foundation problems. Over time, they can lead to cracks in your foundation walls. Whether you have a basement, pier, and beam home with a crawlspace or a slab foundation, these cracks can provide the perfect ‘highway’ for groundwater to travel through and cause flooding in Woodland Hills to the home.
Improve Drainage
Water pooling close to the home during heavy rain may seep into the structure or undermine a slab foundation. Ensure that your surrounding landscape is graded so that water flows away from the house and into the yard. Your solution might require adding more soil along the foundation. You might need to further improve drainage by adding french drains to carry the rain away from the home and out toward the storm server.
Lightning
Lightning strikes the earth more than 8 million times per day, each year lightning strikes cause billions of dollars in property damage and complete devastation. The risk of being struck is low but the consequences of a lightning strike on your home are serious. Two risks associated with lightning are 1) house fires and 2) power surges.
The biggest threat lightning poses to a structure is fire. Wood and other flammable materials can easily explode when exposed to the high temperature of a lightning strike. Lightning can connect to gutters, then jump to a window frame as a ‘stepping stone’ to the electrical system or water pipes, catching fire on combustible materials.
Secondly, when lightning strikes a house, the electricity often surges through a home’s wiring or plumbing system, searching for the quickest possible route to the ground. Any electronics not on a surge protector can be ruined.
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