How Wooded Lots and Storm Runoff Send Water Into Your Home
The wooded, sloped lots that make this area beautiful also move a lot of stormwater. Here is how that water reaches your home and what keeps it out.
Beautiful lots that also move a lot of water
The wooded, sloping lots that give Franklin Lakes and the surrounding towns their character are wonderful to live on and, from a water standpoint, a genuine challenge. Sloped ground means stormwater moves, and the direction it moves is decided by the grading around your home. A lot that sheds water away from the foundation is an asset; a lot that channels runoff toward the house is a recurring source of basement and lower-level water, storm after storm.
Mature trees add their own complications. Their roots can disturb grading and crack the laterals that carry water and waste away from the home, and the leaves and debris they drop clog gutters and downspouts, which then overflow and dump rainwater right against the foundation instead of carrying it clear. The same trees that make a wooded lot beautiful quietly work against the drainage that keeps water out.
None of this means a wooded lot is a problem to be solved by clearing it. It means the water management around the home, grading, gutters, downspouts, and drainage, has to be maintained with the lot's natural water movement in mind. The water is going to move; the question is whether it moves away from your home or toward it.
The path from a storm to a wet basement
It helps to picture how stormwater actually gets from a downpour into a basement, because the path is more preventable than it seems. Rain falls on the lot and on the house above. The water shed off the eaves is supposed to be caught by the gutters and carried by the downspouts well away from the house, but if the gutters are clogged with leaves from the surrounding trees, the water sheets over the edge and lands at the foundation instead.
Meanwhile the rain that falls on the sloped ground runs downhill, and if the grading near the house has settled or was never right, that runoff pools against the foundation walls. Soil that is already saturated from a wet season cannot absorb it, so the water sits against the foundation under pressure and works its way through any crack, gap, or porous spot it can find. On a lot with a naturally high water table near the lakes, the ground is already full before the storm even starts.
Inside, the sump pump is the last line of defense, pulling groundwater out before it rises into the lower level, and a sump that cannot keep up or fails when the power drops is the moment a manageable storm becomes a flooded basement. Each link in that chain is something a homeowner can maintain, and each one prevented stops the water a step earlier.
Keeping wooded-lot runoff out, and responding when it gets in
The defenses against wooded-lot runoff are mostly maintenance, and they are worth keeping up precisely because the trees work against them. Clean the gutters often, more often than a home on an open lot, because the surrounding trees keep filling them. Make sure downspouts discharge well clear of the foundation. Watch the grading and correct settled spots that let water pool against the house. Test the sump pump before the wet season and keep it backed up so it runs when the power fails.
Even with all of that, a severe enough storm on a saturated lot can still push water into a lower level, and when it does the response is the same as any flood: get the water out fast and dry the structure completely before it grows mold. Storm runoff that came in from outside has usually picked up soil and organic matter from the lot, so it is treated as contaminated rather than clean.
If storm runoff has reached your home, call WaterPro Restoration at 551-237-7447. We will extract the water, clean and sanitize what the runoff contaminated, and dry the structure to a verified standard, with the documentation your insurer needs for a storm or flood claim.
Wooded, sloped lots move a lot of stormwater, and whether it ends up in your basement comes down to grading, gutters, downspouts, and a working sump. Keep those up against the trees that fight them, and when a big storm gets through anyway, dry the loss fast and completely.
Call 551-237-7447 to put a damage assessment on the calendar this week.