By now, you already know that basements are below ground level and this presents a number of problems that if not dealt with could render the basement unusable, which is not a good thing. For this reason, you need to know the problems you will have to counter as far as your basement apartment is concerned. When it rains, rainwaters collect as floods and flow down the slope, filling every space along the way.

Should the flood waters find an entry point to your newly decorated basement apartment, you will not be spared at all and once the rains are gone, you will be left with more damage and heartache than you can imagine. The good news is that you can very easily prevent basement flooding through basement landscaping. This article will mention a few tips to help you.

Channel the water away from the basement

Landscaping gives you the ability to manipulate the surface to attain the result you want. The first thing you want to do is direct water away from the basement and you can do this by digging creeks that slope away from the basement as opposed to towards it. Once dug, fill up the creeks with cobblestones of different sizes. The stones cover up the creek and since they are good to the eye, they improve the aesthetics of your yard. Once the rains fall, the water collects in the creek and flows according to the direction of slope. The rain has to be directed away from your home. This way, you will never have to deal with basement flooding.

Mulch away from the basement

Many landscaped gardens have mulch at the edges near the house, normally in form of grass. It brings out a good décor aspect. If you want to mulch as you landscape, you can use the same as a way of driving rainwater away from your basement. As you mulch, make sure that you leave a distance of about 7 inches between the basement wood and the mulch. As you can already guess, the mulch keeps and retains moisture and for this reason, can contribute to wood rot if you join the mulch to the basement structure. Once it rains, the landscaping mulch makes it easier for rainwater to seep into the yard soil and into the drainage system, and this is what prevents basement flooding.

Place decorative stone around the basement

The beauty of landscaping is that it is all about creativity. In some cases, the downspouts on the roof cause basement flooding. As it rains, the water collects and flows on the downspouts and sorts of drills holes around the basement edges. This increases the occurrence of basement flooding. To prevent it, you need to find decorative stone and place them all around the basement, especially where the water from the downspouts fall. Once it rains, the water will fall on the decorative stone and splash away as opposed to drilling the ground. You will have managed to landscape your garden and prevented basement flooding at the same time.

Carry out flooding correction

There are other cases where the best ideas still do not get rid of basement flooding. In this case, you need to carry out flooding correction. Flooding correction is carried out in gardens that are like a valley. When it rains, water collects in the depressions as opposed to flowing away.

Eventually, this water will find its way to your basement and cause flooding and damage. To keep this from happening, the best thing is to hire professional landscaping experts to carry out flooding correction. This service costs can be quite expensive depending on the scope of flooding correction to be done. The good news is that once the landscaping project is complete, you will enjoy sleeping in your basement apartment even when there are heavy rains.

Pump the water away

There are times when the rains seem to fall to an unusual extent, normal landscaping tricks refuse to work, and you still find some basement flooding. In the event that you have lived in your locality for a while, you know when it rains this way and this gives you an opportunity to try something new. This should be installing a pump in your garden. For this purpose, a sump pump is the best and they are designed to run even when the rains are falling. Many a home that have been constructed in a sunken area benefit a lot from a sump pump and if you have been having the same problem, try this idea and see the difference it makes.

You can play around with some landscaping ideas to keep your basement apartment free from flood water all year round. You can carry out some of the landscaping yourself but it will be a wiser solution to hire professionals to help you for this endeavor.