Common plumbing and flooding problems in Greenwood and Franklin Indiana
For Greenwood and Franklin, Indiana residents, plumbing and flooding issues can be tough to handle. As an area with an abundance of flat terrain, there aren’t all that many homes on an elevated level that water naturally flows away from. On a flat plain, water accumulates and has nowhere to go, allowing this type of standing water to lead to damage. Sump pumps are vitally important, as well as staying on top of your plumbing so that you don’t see water damage affecting your home.
How Plumbing Issues Lead to Flooding
The first and most obvious plumbing issue that could lead to flooding and water damage in your home is having leaky or broken pipes crack in your home. Whether it’s from freezing, poor initial setup or drastic changes in water pressure, there are any number of ways these can lead to water spraying everywhere in your home.
Next, leaking or malfunctioning water-using appliances like washers or water heaters. As part of their regular operation, both of these are regularly filled with water. If there are leaks in your water heater or washing machine, though, the sensors will continue to register them as not filled and keep adding more water. This could go from inconvenience to disaster during the time that it takes to discover them, with who knows how much water filling into your basement floors.
Clogged drain or sewer lines are a common but extremely unpleasant source of flooding in some homes. At first, clogs could just lead to a slowdown in how fast a drain operates, but if a clog is complete, or a sewer line is backed up, there’s nowhere for all of that water to go. This could lead to huge amounts of flooding, as well as disgusting and unsanitary human waste in your house and permeating the materials that surround it.
Lastly, your sump pump is one of the most important pieces of equipment that you own when it comes to preventing floods. During storms, it continually pumps water out from the lowest point in your home and away from the building. Especially for those living on flat ground, flooding can be an issue otherwise. If your sump pump malfunctions or simply doesn’t work well enough during a storm, your basement can experience massive amounts of flooding and the resulting water damage can be incredibly costly and filled with hassles.
Property Damage From Flooding
When a home floods or experiences leaks in plumbing, water gets everywhere, it sounds obvious, and it is, but the simple fact is that where water goes, so does water damage.
The largest floods and leaks are readily apparent, and immediately draw attention to the affected areas. For smaller leaks, however, they can be hidden in ceilings, behind walls and under floors. With more time that materials are exposed to water, they become more likely to develop water damage and begin to deteriorate. This can be in the form of mold or rot, which is expensive to clean up and could represent a potential health risk, all the way to damaging the foundations of your house by degrading the materials that keep it standing. At its worst, water damage could lead to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage and effectively ruin a home, so it’s important to keep an eye out for it.
First, regularly check your basement to make sure that there’s no standing water anywhere. You might not have occasion to go down into your basement all the time, but by checking you’ll be able to tackle an issue right when it happens. Next, keep an eye out for irregular colors or smells in your walls or ceilings. If they look as if they’re discolored or have a mildew-y smell to them, you likely have water damage behind the scenes, and it’s important to address before it gets worse. Lastly, a subtle thing to keep track of is the level of humidity in your home. If it seems more humid than normal, you n=might have an issue and should call a plumber.
The team at Johnson Comfort has decades of experience serving Greenwood and Franklin, as well as the rest of Central Indiana. We have the plumbing expertise necessary to put a stop to issues and prevent damage before it starts. Contact us as your partners to deal with plumbing issues any time, day or night.
