They say that April showers bring May flowers. But if your yard has poor water drainage, nature might gift you with dead grass, foundation issues, and an increased risk of disease, instead. The value of proper yard drainage cannot be overstated. Without it, we open our properties up to unsightly damage, health issues, and problems which could impact the stability of the home itself.
Proper yard drainage affects more than just the aesthetic beauty of a property. Problems related to drainage can follow you inside the home and beyond. When it comes to the health and stability of your family and home, the issue becomes one of utmost importance.
But what is the negative impact that poor drainage can have on your home? How can it impact your life outside the house? What can you do to combat these issues?
Dead Grass
Plants need water to grow and thrive. During periods of drought, we’ve all seen our lawns turn yellow from lack of moisture. Much like a flower will wilt and die if deprived of water, so too will grass. But overwatering plant life can be just as hazardous as deprivation. Improper yard drainage will cause rainwater to pool in certain areas, drowning and killing the grass beneath it.
Not only is this unsightly, but lawnmowers cannot roll over these spots, due to the risk of damage. This makes the simple process of mowing the grass a complicated procedure. What’s more, this issue has the ability to follow you back inside the house as well. A simple walk through the yard will lead to muddy shoes, which can then track filth inside. Pets can also bring mud in with them, and they won’t wipe their feet off before bounding onto the carpet.
Attracting Dangerous Insects
Standing water is a breeding ground for dangerous and irritating insect life. Gnats can be common, but they pose no actual threat to our lives, save for being annoying and ruining cookouts. The danger comes in the form of mosquitoes. While mosquitoes primarily reside in tall grass and weeds, they reproduce in areas of standing water.
That means hundreds of newborn baby mosquitoes will make your yard the first home they’ve ever known and begin the process of chowing down on the blood of you, your family, your friends, and your pets. But mosquitoes do more than just cause itchy bites. These bloodthirsty buggers are noted carriers of diseases, some of them deadly. A few of the more hazardous ailments carried in the saliva of mosquitoes include malaria, yellow fever, and West Nile virus.
Lawn Fungus
Did you know that your lawn can get sick? It’s true, and the risk of a lawn fungus spreading throughout your property increases exponentially when overwatering occurs. Grass Fungal Disease can present in a number of ways, some of which include: thin patches of discolored grass, spotted blades, powdery or threadlike coatings around grass blades, and darkened slimy looking grass.
Fungal disease can effectively kill your lawn, spreading to other areas and ruining the entire look of your property. Once a fungal disease infects your grass, it can be costly and difficult to eliminate. The best preventative measure one could take in the fight against Grass Fungal Disease would be to have proper drainage throughout the property, ensuring that water does not pool around specific areas and overwatering does not occur.
Basement Flooding
If too much water gathers within your yard and has nowhere to go, there’s a chance that moisture might make its way inside. Basements and crawlspaces can be flooded, which can cause long-lasting damage to your home. Property stored within those areas can be destroyed by the incoming water, but perhaps the greatest danger of internal flooding comes in the form of continued air quality.
Flooding can cause mold growth which, when inhaled, leads to respiratory issues. This is one of the many ways that protecting the exterior of your home can help preserve its interior and your overall quality of life.
Ground Integrity
Flooding causes harmful shifts in the ground, which can create foundational damage to your house. Drainage issues can cause oversaturation around your home. This causes the soil to expand and, in turn, press against the foundation. This pressure can be so great that it causes cracks to form, severely affecting the home’s structure and necessitating costly repairs.
Foundation cracks that are more than 1/16 of an inch need to be repaired immediately. If left untreated, foundational cracks can lead to increased water damage, further exacerbated by continued drainage issues and structural hazards. Cracks can also elongate and deepen if not repaired, causing the concrete to fracture and crumble.
What Can You Do?
If your home has drainage issues, are you doomed to suffer at the whims of nature forever? Of course not. There are a number of ways in which you can help improve your home’s drainage.
If landscaping close to your home is causing an issue in the form of a natural basin, that’s a simple matter to fix. Extending the house’s downspout so that runoff flows past the landscaping usually solves this issue.
Installing trench and channel drains can help contain and direct the flow of water. This helps prevent inconvenient pooling. Also, it’s important to allow the drainage runoff to channel itself back into the earth. Once there, natural processes can filter the gathered liquid before it flows into a body of water, like a lake or river.
In-ground yard drainage systems can also help to correct naturally problematic draining in an area. Installing the system just under the surface ensures that bulky eyesore pipes remain out of sight while they perform this vital task.
Mikula Contracting has been solving yard drainage issues in New Jersey for 72 years. Our residential drainage services solve issues related to street water, lawn water, stormwater damage, and trench drain systems. Our comprehensive service also includes troubleshooting. We will identify your issues and then solve it with a winning combination of honesty and experience. Mikula Contracting provides drainage, seepage pit installation, and tank removals for homes in Northern New Jersey. We are proud to service Essex, Hudson, Bergen, Passaic, Morris, and Union counties.
For more information on Mikula Contracting’s residential draining services, visit us online, or contact us today for a fast quote.
