During storm season, you may consider sandbagging your house and making sure that you have enough batteries, torches, and water to feed a small army. But it’s your house that is the problem. In a storm, keeping yourself safe is easy, especially when you know how to shelter in place or go to a local shelter to keep safe. But what do you do about your house? A lot of people plunge all of their money into their houses so to see a storm coming along and whipping it out is literally watching money blow away. Now that summer is approaching, maintaining your house now can help to protect it when hazardous wet weather comes with it. Storm season can be difficult to ride out, especially if you live somewhere that’s prone to cyclones and hurricanes.
Supercell storms seem to be more common of lake, causing widespread rainfall and therefore significant damage to homes.If you don’t have the right systems for your drainage, such as pre sloped at .7% systems, you’re going to find it hard to protect your home from the deluge of wet weather. Preparation is key when it comes to ensuring that your home can stand against the wind, rain and hail that comes with the storm, here are the top ways that you can prepare your home for storms. Having a plan in place with an emergency kit and maintaining the external structure of the home will ensure that your house is in the best position possible to withstand the intensity of storms.
- Work on your outside greenery. One of the biggest hazards in a storm is actually going to be your trees and your bushes outside. Pruning the gardens, removing your trees and overhanging branches is a must. We talked about having the right drainage system earlier on to keep your home safe in a storm, but that also includes your guttering if you’ve got giant tree branches hanging over your gutters on your roof. You’re going to find that a storm is going to essentially ruin your roof. Tree branches that hangover the gutters can be a hazard should they snap, and not just for your house, but for anybody that happens to be outside during the storm. Something that would be a bit of debris blowing around in the wind becomes a missile in a cyclone. Trees can impact the structure of your roof and cause it to cave in, which allows the rain to damage the internals of your home. If you want to prevent branches from impacting your roof, prune them right back.
- Clean out the gutters and the downpipes. If you’ve recently installed a whole new drainage system, then it’s a good idea to clean down the gutters and the downpipes right before a storm hits. Once you’ve pruned those tree branches, you need to make sure that the leaf debris in the gutters isn’t going to cause any problems. Once you’ve cleared the gutters and prevented the debris travelling down your pipes to cause a blockage, you should use a hose test. Your hose can help you to test every downpipe to ensure that it’s definitely clear before the rainfall comes. If you don’t check this and the rains start and your gutters are blocked, you’re going to find that that water could potentially back up into your roof and leak through your attic, causing catastrophic damage to your house.
- Call out the roofers. In anticipation of storm season, it’s a good idea to have your roof inspected. When was the last time you had somebody up a ladder visually inspecting your roof, your gutters and the tiles? Rusted flashings, broken tiles and blocked gutters should all be repaired and replaced to prevent an entrance of water into your home. Licensed roofers and plumbers should inspect the roof and fix any potential issues before storm season becomes a problem.
- Stash and secure your outdoor furniture. If you have a sturdy shed outside, then storing your outdoor furniture there is a good idea when storms approach. Outdoor contents such as loungers, planters and even the BBQ have to be secured under the roof or within a shed. Wind and rain can cause a lot of damage to unsecured contents, and those unsecured contents could cause a lot of damage to the house and surroundings. You don’t want anything of yours becoming airborne if you can avoid it. You’ve secured all of your outdoor furniture, make sure that your shed is completely secured too. You don’t want to end up filling your shed with things only for your shed to take off in the wind.
- Locate where to turn off your power. Depending on the severity of the store, you might need to isolate the services like gas, water or power in your house. So it’s a good idea to know where to turn those utilities off before the storm hits. Once you know this, you’ll be able to go in and turn them off just as a storm starts so that you don’t have to worry about power surges or being electrocuted.
- Put together an emergency kit. Every single house should have an emergency kit and a plan for that emergency. You need enough water for three days for every member in your household, a first aid kit, a torch or a lamp with spare batteries, important documents in a plastic wallet, spare clothes, non perishable food items, power charges for phones and iPads, insect repellent, and somewhere that you can go if you’ve been asked to evacuate. Emergency plans should be well thought out in advance to a natural event, and if you have to leave your property, make sure that you know where you’re going.
- Have an emergency repair kit. At Christmas time you get out the screwdrivers, batteries and any scissors you need for putting together toys. In a similar vein, during a storm you need to have an emergency repair kit should the unpredictable happen. This should include duct tape, plaster, knives, sandbags, battery operated lights, hammer and rope. Emergency repairs should never be conducted unless it’s safe to do so. It’s always a good idea to call the emergency services if you need help first.
- Make sure that you’re signed up for weather alerts. Weather alerts can be set up to your phone and email so that you are informed of any storms heading your way. Listening out for breaking news alerts on the radio and checking the sky activity is important. You want to make sure that you are alert and ready for any storms and any activity that could begin when you least expect it.
- Check your home and contents insurance. You should already have home insurance or at least renters insurance. If you don’t have those things in place, now is the time to get them in place and find out what your limit is. Insurance companies love a good storm because they know they’re going to be getting a lot of claims. But the reason they love the storm is because there’s a lot of insurance companies out there who will use the small print to refuse to honor a claim that you make with your house.
Getting ready for a storm doesn’t have to put you in too much of a panic. Feeling prepared can actually make you feel OK about a storm coming. All you have to do is get ready and then wait it out safely. This too shall pass.
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