It’s no secret that you want your house to be a safe and welcoming place that’s capable of supporting and protecting your whole family. If your home is many decades old or newer and poorly constructed, however, it may be vulnerable to complications. Even if your home is rock-solid, it still isn’t immune to issues.
When you experience property damage, your home feels much less secure than it did before. To prepare yourself in the event of an incident—perhaps you didn’t know hail damage was so common, for instance—read this guide to common kinds of property damage.
Water Damage
First, water damage of all kinds significantly harms a home. In adverse weather, ranging from a hurricane to chronic rain over several days, surrounding water threatens to invade and flood your basement and other areas. This leads to a days-long process of mitigation, leaving home and getting professional help, cleaning up, and preventing future mold damage.
Meanwhile, internal pipe problems also induce flooding. A leak, perhaps one you don’t catch until much later, means a costly cleanup. In winter, your pipes can burst due to water freezing from within. In general, the pervasiveness of water when loosed in and around your house causes a lot of headaches, so maintaining your pipe system is wise.
Wind Damage
Another common kind of property damage is wind damage. High-velocity winds accompanying a storm or pressure fluctuations stress a house’s exterior greatly, compromising the integrity of your roof and other exposed elements of your home.
Meanwhile, winds of a certain strength cause surrounding trees to fall. If one falls onto your house, a tree can cause blunt-force damage that calls for professional attention. Among other things to do when a tree falls, calling a certified arborist—though costly—is your next move. Remember to ask your insurance company how much of a tree cleanup they cover.
Hail Damage
An insidious but sometimes unknown threat is hail. Hailstones form when budding raindrops shoot up into colder parts of the atmosphere and then fall, growing in size as they encounter more moisture. You can do precious little to avoid hail, but large-enough stones cause substantial roof damage. Like with other types of property damage, your insurance may cover repairs if you have the right policy.
