[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's Around the House. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know. But we've got you covered. This is Around the House. Welcome to the Around the House show, the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. I'm Eric G. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

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[00:00:59] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining [00:01:00] me today. I wanted to talk about a common mistake that people do when they're trying to store rainwater. They'll go to rainwater harvesting and there's a lot of comments out there like government won't let me do it. And generally speaking, you can water, grab that water off your roof.

[00:01:16] Eric Goranson: But here's the problem. You can cause significant damage to your house by not doing this correctly. Like I see a lot of damage being done by people putting in those decorative rain chains because the water splashes off. Gets on the house, causes water damage, goes around the water, a base of that is splashing out.

[00:01:34] Eric Goranson: It's not going down that downspout, causes basement damage or crawl space damage. You can get water down there, cause mold issues. It can be very expensive. But here's where people get into trouble. They'll go, I'm going to store water because I'm going to use it out in my garden. I'm going to use it for later this year or early next year.

[00:01:51] Eric Goranson: And I'm going to water with it and reuse that rainwater. I totally get it. But here's where the problem lies. If you think about one [00:02:00] inch of water on the average roof, and I'm talking about 1700 square foot, average roof size. Now that doesn't really have to do much with the square foot of your house. But that's the square footage of roof because that's what's collecting the water.

[00:02:13] Eric Goranson: So I'm gonna get my facts right. That is about 1054 gallons of water. Now, here's the problem. A 50 gallon drum filled up with water is 416 pounds. So if you put three of those down, which would be about one inch of rain plus a little extra, You're now putting a lot of weight on the foundation. I have seen multiple homes in my career of people taking those kind of big square cubes that are like a yard square.

[00:02:43] Eric Goranson: Those hold about 2, 700 pounds of water. I saw somebody put two of those next to their house. And because it was right next to the foundation, they had to do a foundation repair because it pushed the wall of the foundation in to the basement. So be really careful [00:03:00] with rainwater collection. If you're going to do it, get it out of way, get it away from that foundation wall.

[00:03:06] Eric Goranson: Be careful. Don't put it on decks because all of a sudden, if you put three, four barrels up there on your deck, that's like putting a hot tub on it. That can be a serious problem and that can cause some serious structural issues to the foundation or the deck that it's sitting on many times around the perimeter of the house.

[00:03:22] Eric Goranson: They didn't do the best job of packing that and filling it in. So all of a sudden you're going to pack that in more. It's putting pressure in on those walls and all of a sudden you can have a patio that starts dipping back towards the house. Now the water is going to rain down on it and it's going to push back and it's going to go towards the house and then away from the house.

[00:03:40] Eric Goranson: So that can be a very serious issue. So it's something to really consider when you're collecting rainwater like that. The best case scenario is not to collect the rainwater. And put it into a downspout system that goes out into a storm drain and gets at least 10 feet away from the house. But if you're going to store it, make sure you get five or six feet away from the [00:04:00] house with those barrels or that storage system, and then make sure that you have an overflow that gets the water even farther away.

[00:04:06] Eric Goranson: In case you get a couple inches of rain someplace and you've overloaded your system, or you're not taking the water out of it, that can be another issue that all of a sudden that backs up and you've got a problem. So make sure you have, you know, what would be a heavy storm, figure out what your heaviest storm is in the area.

[00:04:21] Eric Goranson: And make sure that you've got probably twice of that in storage or a really good way to divert it when it does get full that way you don't have those damage problems because Here's the issue that I see is is that if you flood your basement because of that rainwater system that you built I'm, not sure if an insurance company is going to cover that or not They might, but they might say that you cause that neglect.

[00:04:42] Eric Goranson: And that can be an issue when there's a big claim. So you don't want to see that. And that's the problem with insurance companies these days, when it comes to your house, they usually try every little aspect they can to get away from having to pay that out. And if you cause that issue, that could get really expensive.

[00:04:56] Eric Goranson: Nobody wants to see that. That can be an [00:05:00] expensive one for you because now it's coming out of your pocket. So be really careful with rainwater collection, not worried about if it's, you know, if your government allows it or not. Most places where they say they don't, well, yeah, you're right. It's, it's tough.

[00:05:14] Eric Goranson: Some areas do say that, hey, that water coming off your property, you don't own that, that it goes into the, into the city or the county or the state, but there's no rainwater police out there running around unless you're overflowing. And that's a whole other issue. And that could be something too, that you've got to be careful with when you design out these gutter systems.

[00:05:32] Eric Goranson: If you have an overflow and it runs down and you're like, Hey, I ran it down the front of my yard. It's a slope, it goes down to the sidewalk. goes into the street. If you're running water across the sidewalk, that can be a hazard. If it freezes, that's ice that gives you more liability. And then on top of it, you could have somebody come by from your city county road department, whatever, and go, Hey, you're putting water into the street.

[00:05:54] Eric Goranson: This isn't a good thing. Control that, do something different. So make sure you understand that many [00:06:00] places. You'll see if you drive down a street and they've got gutters and storm drain systems Some cities they designed it for that some of those streets You'll see these little round holes where it comes out and you're looking down the curbs and there's round holes in front of each house Those are either low point drains or gutter drains out of the house.

[00:06:16] Eric Goranson: It goes into that storm system and goes away. That's not a bad thing, but the problem is nobody maintains those. So you should be actually going through and making sure that those are clear. I'd water jet those every five years or less, because I tell you what, if I walk the dog up here on the next street up here on the back way, and it's raining outside, which I do very often in the winter time, we'll be walking through there and 15 percent of those are actually working.

[00:06:41] Eric Goranson: The rest of those are backed up someplace on their property, and that water's not leaving, causing damage. So make sure that those things are clear, especially if you're coming into the rainy season where you're at. If you're coming into the dry season, it's not as big a deal, but it's a great time to maintain it.

[00:06:55] Eric Goranson: Now, you can run a snake through most of those, and that's why you want to make, if you do these [00:07:00] systems where the water comes down off those roofs, and you've got trees or dirt or things like that that get into this water, Make sure that you build a system that you can run a snake down or a hydrojet or something to clean it out with That's the problem when you use that more flexible Corrugated material underground is it's a lot harder to clean up and it does catch a lot of dirt So I like to use abs Or PVC out drain lines outside because it's easier to keep clean and there's less intrusions And the thing is is when you glue those things together You have a less the snap together roots can get in there pretty easy when it's glued.

[00:07:33] Eric Goranson: It's a lot harder So if you've got trees shrubs things like that to get into that that's something to consider because that can be pretty Darn troublesome. So something to consider when you're working on these systems and it's something good. And it's a great time of year right now to go around and check those gutters while you're at it.

[00:07:50] Eric Goranson: If you're working on it, make sure if it's raining hard and you're coming into winter, especially if you're in the Northern States where you've got snow, take a look and walk around and make sure that those gutters are attached [00:08:00] correctly. If you've got something droopy, jump on Amazon, head to your hardware store, get some of the screw style clamps that work with your system.

[00:08:08] Eric Goranson: And you can get up there and safely take care of that, or just hire a gutter person to come in and do that. That way you've got something that's not dripping water is all that water landing on a deck or, or the foundation again can cause other issues. And that's a big one. All right, everybody. I'm going to cut this a little bit short today.

[00:08:26] Eric Goranson: I've got a busy day today and looking forward. We've got a brand new around the house, Northwest television show. If you haven't caught that, it's a new version of the show. We did a big refresh with it. It's a half hour show. We're spending a lot more time on the production side of things. So we're actually got about where we had Bradley on there and I, my buddy doing that show together for the last almost 80 episodes there, we ended up, it was just two of us.

[00:08:51] Eric Goranson: Now we got a whole handful of people working on the show today and we're doing a half hour. So it's a, it's a different production style. And hopefully we'll get that [00:09:00] thing dialed in exactly where we want it. Cause it's a, you know how it is with new things. You got to get it dialed in where it is, but I'm happy with where it's going.

[00:09:06] Eric Goranson: It's a whole different look and I hope you enjoy it out there. And we got a great show coming up this weekend. I'll give you a little tease. I sit down with Andrew pace, my buddy, healthy building expert. We're going to talk about some of those tricks and tips to make sure if you're out shopping for a home, what's the best years of homes to get.

[00:09:25] Eric Goranson: What's the best stuff to deal with mold. A lot of these different things we're going to dive into. And we've got a great one. If you listen on the podcast and the premium episode, you want to catch this because we talk for almost an hour and only about 40 minutes goes into the radio show and podcast. So we have a whole other discussion on the premium episode with this, which is so much fun.

[00:09:46] Eric Goranson: We get into whiskey. He's also a Scotch and whiskey sommelier. So we get into that on the backside of the show a little bit and talk about that, but it's only in the premium episode because that's where we put that stuff. And the cool thing is, is right now through September and into [00:10:00] October, we're offering a 10 day free trial.

[00:10:02] Eric Goranson: So if you want to listen to it, sign up for the free trial. If you don't want to do it, no worries. But we're putting in those extended conversations into the premium episode. It's four bucks a month. It's less than a price of coffee at Starbucks. So that way you can get something there and it covers the cost of the show and keeps us going without putting in.

[00:10:20] Eric Goranson: And if you don't like the ads, there's no ads in that. There's one in the middle, nothing in the middle. There's one at the beginning, something in the end. And the only time we put an ad in there is if we have a contest giveaway or something that you might want to have. Other than that, we keep that commercial free throughout the middle.

[00:10:34] Eric Goranson: So you don't have to worry about that. No edit commercials. So if you want the commercial free. That's one way to do it. All right, everybody have a great rest of the week. If you're watching this on YouTube, make sure and click the subscribe button and get notified when something new comes out and make sure you check out that YouTube channel as well.

[00:10:51] Eric Goranson: I'm Eric G, thanks for tuning in to Around [00:11:00] the House.