There are a number of different types of foundation to choose from when constructing your home. Crawlspace foundation and slab foundation are both quite popular, as too is basement foundation. If the soil allows for it in your part of the country, you are likely to see many a home with basement foundation. After all, basement foundation is ideal for a number of different reasons.
For one thing, basement foundation allows you with some extra living space, should you choose to get your basement finished. When you have a finished basement, you can transform it into any number of things. You can make it into a movie theater or a rec room. You could even transform it into a bedroom or full basement apartment, though this will certainly depend on the size of the basement you are working with. Ultimately, the choice is up to you and the possibilities can be nearly endless. Even if you choose to leave your basement unfinished, you can easily use it for storage purposes, something that will free up a great deal of space indeed in any person’s main home.
Basements can also be quite critical to the overall safety of just about any given home as well. This is due to the fact that basements are ideal for providing shelter in certain severe weather events. Such is true for tornadoes, which are quite prevalent indeed in certain parts of this country. Having a basement means that one can take refuge from tornadoes quite easily, and that they will stay safe even if a tornado were to cross paths with their home and even if that home would suffer a great deal of structural damage.
But basements and even crawlspaces can accrue some issues of their own, such as the issue of flooding and water damage. In basements of all kinds, flooding is commonplace. In fact, it is actually more likely that your basement will flood than that it will not, as up to 98% of all basements will experience some level of flooding at some point in time. For some people, this flooding will be significant, as up to 37% of the population of those who own basements have actually stated that they have lost property thanks to issues of basement flooding. Therefore, there is no doubting that basement flooding is quite commonplace indeed.
Fortunately, there are steps that one can take to avoid issues with basement flooding (and all the problems that come along with it). For one thing, getting interior waterproofing services done can do a great deal for preserving the overall quality of your basement. Such interior waterproofing services are offered through many basement waterproofing companies nowadays, making interior waterproofing services more accessible than ever before. Therefore, you should absolutely take advantage of the interior waterproofing services in your area, as interior waterproofing is likely to go a long way in preventing flooding and the related water damage that it is all too likely to cause.
And interior waterproofing is really just one option out of a number that are likely to be available to you. In addition to interior waterproofing, it is important to keep in mind that even the quality of your foundation can impact whether or not flooding occurs. Therefore, conducting any kind of foundation repair services to damaged foundation is likely to be hugely beneficial indeed. Fortunately, many foundation repair contractors are now available throughout the country, again bringing better and more accessible service on a nationwide scale. For many people, the ability to get ahold of and hire a foundation contractor in a timely manner means that any damage that might occur in a flooding incident can be mitigated – and quite dramatically, for that matter.
At the end of the day, there are many ways to improve your foundation as well. For instance, keeping all plants at least two feet away from it is one of them. Ensuring that gutters dump out water at least ten feet away from the foundation is also critical, and can make a big impact. Ultimately, this means that foundation issues – and therefore flooding – can often be avoided almost entirely.
