Rain ready your house

Jagvir Goyal

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Rains provide a welcome relief from the summer heat. For home owners, these can become a problem if they cause leakages and damage the house. Take care of the following to avoid any leakages or dampness.

Check catchment area

Make sure that the catchment area of your house, i.e. the area that receives rainfall, doesn’t allow any ingress of rainwater into the walls and rooms. Ensure that there’s proper slope towards the drainage pipes or spouts. Large-sized roofs can be suitably divided towards rainwater pipes by preparing a drainage plan of the roof.

Seal the tile joints

Whether you have brick tiles, stone or waterproof tiles, check the grouting and flush pointing on the roof. Get the joints grouted and sealed well. Next, check the corner joint of parapet and the terrace for any fine cracks, which can allow ingress of water below the terrace finish and find a weak spot in RCC or RB slab to permeate inside the rooms. Always provide a cement concrete fillet or ‘Gola’ of size 3 inch x 3 inch all along this joint.

Rainwater pipes & gratings

In India, lot of debris, bird droppings and dead leaves accumulate on open terraces. Make sure the terrace is cleaned during pre-monsoon and monsoon. Else, the wind will sweep all debris towards the rainwater pipes and block their mouth gratings. In case the rainwater pipes are provided at the corners of terrace, these should be provided with slanting gratings to avoid blockage.

Projections & window sills

In addition to roof drainage system, check the projections over windows and window sills to see that these are clean and carry a slant towards the outer edge. This will avoid the accumulation of water at the corners and prevent seepage to the inside of the walls. The best way to seal the window sill joints is to use a silicon sealant gun which you can handle yourself easily.

Gully trap and cover

Provide gully traps in the courtyards at the discharge point of rainwater pipes. A gully trap is a sort of small basin of 9 inch x 9 inch size provided below the discharge point of rainwater pipe to receive the rainwater and then to discharge it through another connected drainage pipe to the drainage network of pipes. Its cover can be easily removed to check that the bottom shoe or elbow of rainwater pipe is not clogged with dust or leaves. Make sure these elbows are cleaned well before the rains begin. Gully trap cover is usually made in cast iron and provided, along with an angle frame in which it rests securely.

Harvest Rainwater

There were times when rainwater pipes used to discharge water in the open courtyards at lower levels over a special concrete platform called ‘khurra’ and the water used to flow to the surface drainage open drains. Nowadays, it is mandatory for house owners to make provision for rainwater harvesting system and make sure that it discharges rainwater effectively to recharge ground water. A defective RW harvesting system may create problems due to ineffective drainage of rainwater.

— The writer is former HoD and engineer-in-chief, Civil Engineering Department in a Punjab PSU