Whether it’s due to adverse weather or structural issues, basement flooding can often happen when you least expect it.
Although you can’t always control the cause of a water leak, you can take steps to ensure that as little damage occurs to your home as possible.
This is what a Notion customer named Alec learned recently.
Below we share his experience with basement flooding and how he was able to avoid costly damage and repairs.
A New Homeowner's Worst Nightmare
When Alec moved into his new home in Northern Virginia, he was filled with joy. But that bubble burst rather quickly.
Within a few days, an unusually severe thunderstorm with high winds and heavy rain moved into the region, wreaking havoc on major roadways, power lines, and, unfortunately, the newly finished basement in Alec’s home.
“We went to check on the condition of the basement to determine if there was any water intrusion,” Alec says. “Sure enough, we found that the carpeting in a room adjacent to the exterior wall was wet.”
Alec did what any homeowner in a similar situation would do – he hired a professional to locate the source of the leak.
Not long after, the restoration expert arrived to inspect Alec’s basement and exterior wall, and offered a few recommendations to prevent future leakage.
The first was to have all the gutters and leaders surrounding his home cleaned.
This is something we often write about on the Notion blog. The job of your gutters is to move water away from your home’s foundation. If they get clogged, water will end up pooling at the foundation instead.
Even if this doesn’t cause basement flooding, the water can still lead to significant property damage.
Second, the expert suggested that Alec hire a landscaper to modify the backyard so the grade pitched away from the house.
This is also a sound piece of advice. As we wrote in our guide on how to protect your home from basement leaking, sloping soil away from your foundation walls is important to prevent water from pooling around your home.
Unfortunately, this didn’t quite do the trick. Just a day after Alec had his gutters professionally cleaned, he found another puddle of water in his basement, in the exact same spot as before.
Eager as ever to find a solution, he asked the expert to come back and take another look. This time, they determined that the downspouts were emptying out too close to the house’s foundation, and that they would need to be extended further away from the house.
He also suspected that there might be a crack in the foundation, which would explain how the water was seeping in.
Notion to the Rescue
Faced with the prospect of having to hire someone to repair his new home’s foundation, Alec decided to take things into his own hands.
As soon as the expert left, he placed a Notion Sensor in the affected area so that he would be alerted during the next rainstorm and confirm the source of the leak.
Shortly after, he went upstairs to take a shower. But within seconds of turning on the faucet, he received an alert on his smartphone that the Notion Sensor in his basement had detected a leak.
He rushed downstairs and quickly realized that there was a small crack in the cast iron drainpipe about 6 inches above the basement floor. This was the cause of all of Alec’s woe!
Rather than extending his downspouts and looking for a foundation crack that didn’t, all Alec had to do was replace a section of the drainpipe with a new piece of PVC.
All in all, it took about two hours and significantly less money than anticipated to fix the problem. After the incident, Alec shared his story with us, noting that he was "going to recommend your product to everyone and buy a few more sensors for [his] home".
While Alec's story ended on a positive note, this certainly isn't always the case. Using Notion Sensors to get water leak notifications is one of the best steps you can take to protect your home from costly and inconvenient water damage. Plus, if you want another layer of security, you should consider upgrading your system to Notion PRO. Get additional notifications: push notifications, group texts, and phone calls so you don’t have to miss a notification while you're traveling, sleeping or just busy.
