I have NEVER had any issues...

Hey everyone!                                                                                          

We talk with a lot of homeowners, homeowners of every kind. New construction, just moved in, been there my whole life...  If we could count the number of times we have heard the phrase, I have Never had that issue at my house, we could probably get out of the gutter industry and retire on a beach somewhere. Lol. 

Jason and I spend a lot of time at home shows or events talking with homeowners about issues with their homes.  Some people tell us they have never had water issues in their basement.  We have been homeowner for three decades. I have never had an issue with water in my home is something I thought about for the last three homes I have personally owned. I grew up in a house that had water in the basement every spring. We did everything that was suggested to us. Put in the sump pump, put in the drain tile, seal every crack and hole, install Rain Gutters. It worked. Finally! it all seemed to work; the house did not get water in the basement. Peace of mind that everything together made a system that worked great for many years for a very old house with a heavy soil all around it.  As this story goes on and every spring is different, the Spring of 2024 with all the rain we have had in April and May. That house has water in the basement! Ugh.  Bad luck, the water table is so high the hills around it have big puddles. 

Moving on, the last house I owned, had a walk out basement, my garage had some exposed foundation blocks. Those blocks in the springtime would get wet, and the garage seemed to always have this damp smell (something I did not notice before purchasing the home).  The house had gutters to get the water away from the foundation and it was a very sandy soil around the property. What I did not know until mid-spring, my gutters were not functioning at all. Most of them held water as if they were just buckets hanging on the side of my roof line. All of that water falling off my roof lines and next to my foundation the blocks. The soil was taking on all that water and putting hydrostatic pressure on my foundation walls to the point the water was seeping in through the blocks and concrete on the floor.  Solution to that was to get a better water diversion system. I put in gutters that functioned all the time, I could now gather the water and divert it where I chose for it to go. Game changer, I no longer had that musty smell in my garage where I felt like I needed to run a dehumidifier all the time. 

Let's move forward a few more years, I live in a house where there is one section of the house that does not have gutters. I keep meaning to get them installed for two years now! (I am a little embarrassed about it). I have lived in this house for 4 years. I have never had an issue with water ever. This is a house on a hill, sandy soil everything that works in our favor as homeowner that think they do not need to have gutters.  This house has been standing for over thirty years. The previous owners, the builders, never once had water in their basement. Not Once! let's move forward to this spring. We have had a lot of water this spring. Mind you I have very sandy soil, great for drainage. Water is never an issue. Till this year! In my utility room I have a piece of conduit that runs outside with some wires in it. After the last rain I went down to the Utility room to find Mud everywhere. MUD! In my home. Things change all the time. 

Welcome to this year, this day, this rain shower. As humans, we grow and change every day, so do the houses we live in. The house shifts due to frost, erosion, or hydrostatic pressure, and many other things. The insulation gets a little less insulating properties in your attic or walls. Changes happen over time, and one thing I do know is you can do nothing and hope for the best or you can do some preventative work to protect your home. We build homes to last and invest in them for most of our lives. I bet almost everyone has taken out a 30-year loan on a property. If you have that kind of investment, why not do the preventative stuff to protect every part of it. 

Investing in gutters to keep water and hydrostatic pressure away from your foundation is a very small cost compared to having to repair your foundation or eliminate mold and mildew growing in your walls, or all the other unfortunate things that can happen to your home. We cannot predict what will be in the future and what the weather might do, but we can make conscious choices to protect our investments, homes and families.