Are you looking for a way to improve your indoor air quality, lower your heating and cooling bills, and make peace with the neighbors? Then don’t stop there. The best place to start is in your basement.
Yes, it’s true that basements are too damp for proper living conditions as well as unsafe for storage with their mold-prone floors and fragile walls. Most basements also leak; this is due to poor drainage and an inferior foundation that can’t hold up against the weight of the soil on top of it.
You need to take the time to diagnose and repair the problems in your basement before you can get rid of that annoying musty smell or the mold that’s invading everything. With a good assessment and plan in place, you’ll be able to breathe easy down there without having to spend loads of money on new tools or products.
Drainage
Drainage is the number one priority if you’re serious about not just alleviating the water problems in your basement but also making it livable and safe to use.
The key word here is drainage. You have to provide your basement with an alternate route for excess water through basement tanking so that you can prevent flooding and bad odors in the future. This means adding gutters, downspouts, or even a sump pump to your property.
Air
The second step is to decide how to use your basement. If you want to make it a living space, then you need to be sure that it has enough ventilation. This way, you’ll be able to keep your family safe from any mold problems and make sure that the air stays fresh.
In order to get this ventilation, make use of windowless areas of your basement such as a closet or a pantry for instance. Place an exhaust fan in these areas and it will do the trick.
Water
If you’ve already fixed the drainage in your basement, then you can now focus on the water problems. First thing that you have to do is create a tight seal with your soil so that it won’t splatter all over your house during heavy rainfalls in the future.
You’re also going to want to install a dedicated water line so that you don’t have to go through a messy, inconvenient installation process every time it rains.
