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Cold winter months can be one of the most wonderful times of the year! With the holiday season and temperatures getting colder, nothing beats being cozy inside your home with friends and family.

There are many things to do to make the holiday season perfect! Along with shopping and other preparations, many people are busy getting their homes ready for family visits and hosting parties.

And if you’re planning on having family members or friends assemble or live in your basement, the last thing you want to deal with is a basement leak or flooding. That would mean more work to fix your house, plus scrambling to find last-minute living arrangements for your guests.

As you are tidying up and decorating your home, check the basement, crawl space, and other rooms for signs of water damage, including mold growth and musty smells. This can help avoid much bigger and more expensive home repairs down the line. Also, it’s more convenient and less complicated to do it now before the heavy snowfall, snow melts, frigid temperatures and holiday guests are with you!

To help you along, you need a professional. Value Dry typically focuses on fixing:

• Wet or flooded basements due to heavy rain and snow melt in winter months
• Musty or unpleasant smells from the basement or crawl space
• Cold floor and crawl space insulation issues

How to winterize your crawl space

The basics to getting your basement “winter ready” are:

Inspect and repair waterproofing – If you’ve had any Basement waterproofing issues in the past, make sure to get them repaired before future rain or snow melting makes it worse. Every year we receive calls from homeowners who desperately need basement waterproofing so that their basement living space is usable for guests. But often, they’ve called too late for us to perform the repairs in time to save their holiday plans. Don’t be caught off guard by basement leaks!

Test sump pumps – Sump pumps should be tested regularly to ensure they are working properly. During winter, heavy snow and the resulting snowmelt can cause a lot of water to flow into your sump pit. If the sump pump is inefficient, it might get overwhelmed, leaving water to seep into your basement.

We highly recommend a sump pump installation with a backup battery if your home is susceptible to power outages during inclement weather.

Improve ventilation – Even if you don’t have an issue with standing water, small leaks or moisture issues can encourage mildew growth causing musty and unpleasant smells in your basement or crawl space. If the smell of mildew goes unchecked, the smell could affect your home’s comfort and indoor air quality. If you feel you have musty smells in your home from your basement or crawl space, we can install waterproofing plus ventilation solutions to help.

Seal crawl space vents – During cold weather, crawl space insulation and conditioning issues become more apparent by causing cold floor issues in the living spaces above. Although this is typically not an emergency issue, cold basement floors affect the comfort level of the inhabitants and guests.

Cold floors during winter also indicate a lack of energy efficiency and that you may be getting high energy costs! If you feel cold floors or drafts from your crawl space, our crawl space encapsulation services are what you need.

Get a pro to help winterize your crawl space

Now is the time to address any moisture or home comfort issues related to your basement or crawl space. Don’t let a wet basement or smelly crawl space ruin your holiday plans and spoil the cheer!

If any of the issues above sound familiar to you, contact us to set up a free inspection. Our inspectors will provide basement waterproofing or thermal insulation recommendations to help reduce air leaks and heating bills.