While I’m not much into conspiracy theories, there’s one I’m not ready to let go of yet. I think aliens regularly visit us, grab our land, invade our bodies, destroy our homes, and yet hide in plain sight.
Think about it. Water now accounts for 71% of the earth’s surface, 60% of our body weight, is smart enough to locate every hole as small as a pinprick on our houses, and evil enough to enter and create damage. And every once in awhile, this alien mocks us by turning Fenton, of all places, into an isolated, remote, supra-tropical retreat.
Last week, we St Louisans successfully fought-off this liquid foe, and it eventually moved on. But, what weapons should homeowners be adding to their arsenals right now to prepare for the next aerial assault?
No, silly, not water guns. They just make the problem worse. Instead, we at Fix St Louis suggest the following:
Flashing
No, I’m NOT talking about what you fear every man prancing around in a raincoat, other than Gene Kelly, might do next. Flashing is about metal strips installed outside, mostly above windows, doors, deck ledger boards, and beneath roof vents, to direct water away from the cracks where two separate building materials meet. If your builders and remodelers installed things properly, this should never be a problem. But sadly, there are no perfect builders or remodelers on this side of heaven.
Caulking
Caulking kinda works like flashing, but it’s for all the other gaps in your home where water might intrude. You’ll mostly find it around windows and doors, but it’s used in other places, too. Unlike flashing, caulking is not permanent, and it degrades and gets ugly over time. So, Fix St Louis gets regular calls to check and replace caulking – and not just on house exteriors, but also around tubs, showers, and sinks, too.
Sump Pumps
If you have a perfectly circular hole cut in the floor in a corner of your basement, that was not put there by some desperately hungry, but misguided ice fisherman. That hole collects water from an invisible channel that runs beneath the perimeter of your basement floor, and if there’s a ‘sump pump’ in there, every time the water level gets too high it pumps the water out through those pipes around it. If you have a broken sump pump or a hole without any sump pump at all, we can install one (if you don’t have a hole, we can refer you to either an ice fisherman or a foundation company). We can even install sump pumps that have an alarm and a battery backup, in case your house loses power.
While they say you can fight fire with fire, when it comes to water, not so much. Let Fix St Louis help you fight off this existential threat to humanity.
Dr Steve
Fix St Louis
314-434-4100