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Protecting Your Home From Moisture

Tue 24 Mar 2009 - 08:19

Protecting Your Home From Moisture
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Allison_Ryan]Allison Ryan

One method sometimes employed to turn surface water away from cellar walls is to lay a concrete pavement, walk, or gutter, 2 or 3 feet in width, around the house with a gradual slope away from the walls.

Where the sidewalk joins the wall, the wall surface should be roughened, cleaned, and moistened and the concrete rounded up to meet the face of the wall. This method will make a good bond and turn water away from the joint.

The gutter type of construction is used to conduct surface water along the wall and lead it to some low spot. The gutter should be at least 2 feet wide over all, with an outer lip, or edge, about 5 inches in width.

The depression should be about 4 inches deep at the outer edge and sloped gradually up to meet the wall, and the joint should be treated in the same manner as above recommended for the sidewalk.

In low damp locations, or in other places where there is a large amount of water in the subsoil, it is advisable to install drain tile around the footings to lower the water table, or water level, and to carry the water away before it can penetrate into the cellar. Where conditions are unusually bad, waterproofing may be necessary in addition to the drain.

Generally this is going to be underneath something like a swim spa or [http://www.mybath.biz/besthottub.html]hot tub, if you have one. Sometimes under bathtubs as well, if you have a leak or a habit of splashing about while taking a bath.

To lay the tile, dig a trench adjoining, to a depth of a few inches below the level of the bottom of the cellar floor but not below the footing level. The tile should be at least 4 inches in diameter (although 3-inch tile has proved satisfactory in some cases) and should be laid so that the grade or fall will be smooth and as sharp as possible to avoid settlement of mud within the pipe.

Kitchen faucets, bathroom fixtures, and counter tops should all have sufficient tiling as well, to prevent water from getting into the innards of your home and rotting them.

The tile should also be connected to an outlet similar to those recommended for down spouts. The cracks between the joints should be covered with pieces of tin or strips of roofing paper, to prevent sediment running into the pipe.

The pipe should be carefully laid and protected against settlement or breakage under strain, but surrounding it with fine screened gravel or broken stone, tamped firmly around it. Following this, coarser material up to 1 inch in size should be covered over the pipe to a depth of 1 or 2 feet.

Before back filling to grade with earth, it is well to spread burlap or bagging or to place sods, grass side down, on top of the stone to prevent fine material falling or washing down into the stone.

Steam rooms are much the same, but the sauna is a bit simpler, especially the dry sauna, because they are located outside and any damage done by moisture will not directly affect the home.

Allison Ryan is a freelance marketing writer specializing in do-it-yourself home improvement from sauna and hot tub installation to bathroom fixtures. For a wide selection of hot tubs, steam showers, and infrared saunas, stop by http://www.mybath.biz/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allison_Ryan http://EzineArticles.com/?Protecting-Your-Home-From-Moisture&id=2124220


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