If you have never had to deal with major flooding in your basement, you may not be prepared for what lies ahead. You may simply be thinking that it is the result of a recent storm that had standing water in the streets for many days or perhaps a small leak that went unnoticed over time.
While it is important to know why you have inches of water on your basement floor, that can wait until you’ve drained, and hopefully, dried it. Here are three critical reasons why you must drain and dry it as soon as humanly possible.
1. Preventing Structural Damage
One of the reasons why so many homeowners put off seeing to that standing water in their basements is because, to them, it is simply a nuisance. Sadly, letting that water stand for any length of time is much more than a bothersome situation that needs to resolve itself, which hopefully it will. It is critical to get to the root of the issue because of the structural damage that can result from all that water sitting at the foundation of your home.
This can be critical according to one restoration company, Service Restore. They have found that homeowners who leave that water standing for any length of time regret their complacency later on. Restoring the floor to a basement after a quick drain and dry process is much easier than trying to salvage a foundation that has been severely compromised.
2. Health-Related Reasons
You have probably read much about the dangers of black mold in the walls of your bathrooms or kitchens. Homeowners have been dealing with that to prevent a myriad of upper respiratory conditions, some of which they’d already suffered from. Imagine all that standing water in your basement that can seep up through the walls of your home.
If you are trying to prevent mold in your bathroom, kitchen, and even your laundry room, you should be aware of just how critical it is to get that water out of there immediately, if not sooner! Also, bacteria love standing water and that can also cause any number of health-related issues which are too numerous to get into without writing a textbook on the subject.
3. Keeping Unwanted Pests Away
Then, of course, you know that many rodents are water creatures and will seek it out. If you don’t want an infestation of rats or pests, it is important to get rid of that attraction before they begin breeding. If you take away the main attraction, they will look for fertile ground elsewhere. Isn’t this why you tell the kids not to leave crumbs laying around? If you think that attracts mice and rats, just leave that water in your basement for any length of time!
Once you have that water out of there, it is possible to see where it came from in the first place. Just because you’ve had a recent storm doesn’t mean that was the ultimate cause. Perhaps a pipe burst somewhere which you hadn’t even noticed was leaking. Your primary concern, however, is to get that water out of there so you can begin searching for the cause and restoring your home before the damage is worse – and that’s NOT something you want to contend with.