Secure Your Home With This Drought Preparedness Checklist

How Do You Know When There Is a Drought?

Unlike other severe weather events like hurricanes or tornadoes, droughts are a bit harder to define and identify. With that, damages may occur in your home before you realize the cause. If drought damages that affect your home’s foundation are not fixed quickly, they may become irreparable. So, how can you protect your home and how can you determine when a drought starts and when it ends? 

Typically, droughts are long-term events that can have long-lasting effects. They can last for many months or even years. When there is a lack of precipitation over a prolonged period of time, affecting the area’s total water supply, it’s known as drought conditions. 

Unfortunately, this may cause damages to arise in your home or around your property. Some of the most common foundation damages caused by droughts are:

• Settling foundation
• Foundation cracks
• Chimney cracks
• Basement flooding or water damage
• Soil erosion causing foundation damage

With that, to save your home from damages that may become irreparable if unnoticed, it’s important to become aware of your home’s overall health. Luckily, there are things that homeowners can do to prepare for a drought. Check out this Drought Preparedness Checklist to plan for drought conditions in your area.

How To Prepare For a Drought

To save your home from severe damages, there are things you can do to prepare for drought and its long-lasting effects. First and foremost, to prepare for a drought you should review your town’s history of drought conditions. 

It’s vital to understand how the communities are affected and what others have done in the past to beat the possible drought damages. Along with that is staying informed about the possible drought effects in your area. Look into federal, state, and local resources to help with planning and responding to drought conditions in your community.  

Next, you should take note of your community’s water supply. Where does your water come from, and how is the community monitoring water use amongst everyone in the area? It’s also important to consider who will be affected most by drought conditions, like farmers or agricultural industries. 

With that, to prepare for severe drought conditions, it’s especially important to consider water conservation strategies. For example, some things you can do in your home to save water are:

• Take shorter showers
• Fix leaky pipes or faucets
• Install water-saving appliances like low-flow showerheads
• Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth

Homeowners can also reduce water use by watering their lawn no more than once a week and only when necessary. 

What Happens After a Drought?

Unfortunately, a single rainstorm will not be able to end a drought. Instead, many heavy rainfalls are needed to replenish an area’s water supply over a sustained period of time. It may take weeks for the full effect to take place. Drought won’t be considered over until enough rain water falls to recharge and dampen the soil to replenish plant growth and improve the area’s water sources like lakes and rivers. 

With that, some areas will also experience flash floods during rain storms while the area is experiencing drought conditions. This happens because instead of soaking into the ground to revive plant growth and improve soil, the soaking rain runs down quickly and drains into streams and rivers. 

To avoid taking on severe damages from droughts and the possible effects of flooding, it’s essential to take your home’s health seriously. Implementing an effective waterproofing method to your basement and sensitive home areas can save you money in damages that may occur from a drought.

If your town or city is experiencing drought conditions, prioritize securing these areas of your home:

• Foundation
• Basement
• Crawl space
• Concrete areas on your property

Fixing Damages Caused By Drought Conditions

Damage from drought conditions can show itself in many areas of your home. For example, cracks in your home’s floor, walls, basement, or crawl space are damages that should be inspected immediately. 

Droughts often cause soil erosion, which occurs under your property’s concrete slabs. This creates uneven soil under concrete, which in turn, causes cracks, heaving, and breaking. To fix damaged concrete slabs, call Innovative Basement Authority to lift sunken concrete with PolyRenewal™ injections.

Other damages that may occur from drought conditions are flooding in your basement or crawl space. Moisture in these areas can potentially cause mold, which may harm you and your home’s occupants by causing respiratory issues or worsening asthma. 

If you live in Fargo, ND, Minneapolis, MN, Rush City, MN or Sioux Falls, SD make sure your property can handle the effects of a drought. Contact Innovative Basement Authority for a free inspection of your home’s foundation, basement, crawl space, and concrete areas today.