LESLIE: Kevin in Rhode Island has a question about keeping a basement dry. What can we do for you?
KEVIN: I removed the downspout extension that took the water away, maybe, 3 feet from the foundation.
TOM: OK.
KEVIN: And I replaced it, because someone said it didn’t look good. I replaced it with a cement kind of water carry-away, which is 2 feet. And I noticed I have some water in the basement. So, it’s very damp. It’s damp is what it is.
TOM: Yeah.
KEVIN: So I put a little crushed rock at the end of the extension, hoping that that would maybe help out on the water dispersing down or something.
TOM: Yeah, that’s not going to do anything except prevent erosion.
If you want to make your basement drier, you’ve got to move the moisture away from it. You were on the right track with the downspout extension.
Now, if you don’t want to see that, you might want to explore the possibility of running your leader into a solid PVC pipe and running that underground. But it has to be pitched and then discharged somewhere. So it depends on kind of the shape of your property as to whether or not you could make that happen.
But I would rather see those downspouts extended away from the foundation wall than deal with the water that can accumulate in the basement as a result.
KEVIN: Good idea.
Leave a Reply