How Main­tain­ing Your Gut­ters Can Help Stop Base­ment Seepage

Nov 8, 2022 • By Matthew Stock.

Who thought that gut­ters could be a source of base­ment seep­age? Doesn’t seem like some­thing so high up could affect some­thing below the ground. But alas, they do! Car­ing for your gut­ters is the eas­i­est pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure to avoid base­ment foun­da­tion cracks and base­ment seep­age. Read on to find out how main­tain­ing your gut­ters can help stop base­ment seepage!

How Gut­ters Can Cause Foun­da­tion Wall Cracks and Base­ment Seepage

Gut­ters are affixed to a house to col­lect rain­wa­ter from the roof. If homes did not have gut­ters, water would run down the sides and dump direct­ly next to the foun­da­tion. The gut­ter col­lects the water and allows it to run through the gut­ter sys­tem and down the down spout into the ground in a des­ig­nat­ed area. Many homes have their down­spout dump­ing water about a foot from the foun­da­tion. You will notice, if there is noth­ing to catch the water and help dis­perse it at the bot­tom of the gut­ter, the ground starts to erode and cre­ate a hole. (A one-inch rain on a 25’ x 40’ roof gen­er­ates 600 gal­lons of water that your gut­ters and down­spouts have to deal with.) This excess water near a home’s foun­da­tion can cause hydro­sta­t­ic pres­sure, where over­sat­u­rat­ed ground cre­ates pres­sure on foun­da­tion walls, caus­ing cracks, seep­age, and pos­si­ble struc­tur­al prob­lems. Improp­er­ly placed down­spouts can also wash out soil under side­walks and dri­ve­ways, caus­ing con­crete side­walks and dri­ve­ways to sink. 

Best Prac­tices for Gut­ters & Down­spouts Help Pre­vent Base­ment Seep­age

Gut­ters should be clean and free of debris. Wind, rain and storms, can cause leaves, and oth­er debris to gath­er in your gut­ter caus­ing a block­age. Addi­tion­al­ly, birds, bees and oth­er pests can build their nests hin­der­ing prop­er flow from a gut­ter. If a gut­ter block­age occurs, water will build up in the gut­ter and pour over the top falling direct­ly next to the foun­da­tion. Anoth­er thing to think about is where the down­spouts are placed. Down­spouts should dis­charge at least 4’ – 6’ away from the home, but prefer­ably 10’away. If the water is not prop­er­ly dis­persed it will still cause ero­sion wher­ev­er the end of the spout is dump­ing water. 

We can­not rec­om­mend get­ting up on a lad­der and clean­ing the gut­ters your­selves. Each year, there are more than 164,000 emer­gency room-treat­ed injuries and 300 deaths in the U.S. that are caused by falls from lad­ders. Most lad­der deaths are from falls of 10 feet or less. This is some­thing worth hir­ing a pro­fes­sion­al for, and not just any pro­fes­sion­al. Some gut­ter clean­ing com­pa­nies climb to the roof and walk along the edge as they clean. This loosens shin­gles and can cause oth­er roof issues. Lucky for you, U.S. Water­proof­ing offers lad­der free gut­ter clean­ing! We stay on the ground and use our spe­cial vac­u­um tech­nol­o­gy to safe­ty and ful­ly remove all debris from your gut­ters with­out dam­ag­ing roofs, sid­ing, or lia­bil­i­ty of falling off a ladder. 

How to Fix Down Spouts So They Don’t Cause Base­ment Wall Cracks

Main­tain­ing a dry base­ment starts with divert­ing water away from the foun­da­tion. At U.S. Water­proof­ing, we have devel­oped a low main­te­nance gut­ter down­spout exten­sion sys­tem. This sys­tem effec­tive­ly pipes water away from the foun­da­tion, under­ground, and into a bub­bler pot which dis­pers­es the water even­ly across an area. This sys­tem is also aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing as all the pip­ing is under­ground, does not cre­ate any trip­ping haz­ards, and elim­i­nates the has­sle of hav­ing to remove the plas­tic exten­ders that sit above ground when mowing. 

We can help you with divert­ing your down­spouts and with clean­ing your gut­ters! U.S. Water­proof­ing has helped keep homes healthy and base­ments dry for 65 years. We have been in over 450,000 homes. Our wealth of knowl­edge and exper­tise can bring you edu­cat­ed and com­pre­hen­sive solu­tions to your seep­age issues. Book your free con­sul­ta­tion online ²⁴⁄₇!

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