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Winter Tips for Your Foundation

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Oftentimes this time of year we start to see a break in the winter weather, and the warmer days melt the snow, causing an immense amount of water to runoff. That water must go somewhere. If the ground near your foundation is not set to a proper sloping grade, then that water could be seeping into your home, and working its way through cracks or imperfections in your home’s concrete foundation.

Keeping water outside the home

The grade of the ground surrounding your foundation is the most important deterrent for keeping water away from your home. Ground sloping at your home’s foundation will only provide a downspout to push the water toward the home. Obviously, this is bad. When the ground clears of snow, check the areas around your home’s foundation to make sure that the ground slopes away from the foundation. The grade of the ground doesn’t need to be severe. It’s easy to correct if your grade goes the wrong way. Oftentimes a poor grade is just the result of a home settling, and the remedy is nothing more than adding dirt, packing it, around your homes foundation. However, do not add dirt up to the level of the siding.

Also, a functional gutter system is important to keeping excess water from your home. If your gutters are full of the dead leaves from last fall season, water is going to be trapped there, plugging up the gutters, and preventing water from draining away from your home properly. Make sure that all downspouts have an angle/elbow section at the bottom which turns the water out and away from the home. For homes with a minimal grade at downspout locations, it may be beneficial to add a lengthy section of downspout here to push water away from the foundation. Also, make sure that any downspouts don’t empty water onto common walking surfaces. This won’t affect the runoff of water, but it will push water onto the surfaces where we want to walk or drive, create ice where we don’t want ice.

If you have any further questions about how to protect your foundation or for more winter care tips, call Bruce Tall Construction today.

 

luxury home construction billings mt, Luxury Homes and Cabins Construction Billings MT

Luxury Log Homes

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Log homes are as beautiful as they are practical. While conventional—also known as stick built homes—are the norm, log homes can be equally as practical to build, as efficient to heat, and its appearance should withstand the test of time—you don’t have to repaint the logs, or worry about weather damaging your siding. While log homes are often viewed as luxury homes, or even antiquated, abandoned structures, or possibly simple vacation homes, some timbered structure tucked back in some remote nook in the mountains of Montana; log homes are actually more then capable of being a forever “live-in” type of home.

luxury home construction billings mt, Luxury Log Homes

Luxury Log Homes

One major advantage to a log home build is how it will make the person living in it feel. A house is a uniquely personal thing, and for those of you that have a strong desire to live in a log home, there’s nothing like the feeling of tall timbered walls, and lots of natural light.

One definite pro of owning a log home is the durable nature of the construction. Log homes withstand most anything mother nature throws at it, and, even though it may seem counterintuitive, log homes are better in a fire then a stick built home. Because of their overall mass, logs are difficult to burn (when you start a fire you start it with tiny bits of kindling before the big logs, because the big logs wont burn until the fire is at its hottest). Timbered walls and a metal roof can defiantly outlast the homes inhabitants, leaving the home to be passed down generationally.

People view log homes as “green homes”, because log homes are built from a renewable resource. However, logs do have a lower insulation rating (R-factor) then a conventional home with insulation between the studs, but logs do hold in more residual heat, which doesn’t necessarily translate to a higher R-Factor, at least not by ratings, but logs can take the heat in from the sun during the day and release the heat at night, which, in some climates, significantly increases the R-Factor.

Today’s homeowner has a plethora of choices for a new home build. Log homes are definitely a great option, for the person for which nothing else will do.