The October Checklist: Getting a Puget Sound Home Ready for Rainy Season

Every October the same thing happens. The first real atmospheric river rolls through, and for the next week our phone rings with the same five problems, in the same order, from Everett to Olympia. Almost all of them were preventable with an afternoon of work in late September.

So here is that afternoon, written down. This is the checklist we would run on our own houses before the rain settles in for six months.

1. Gutters and downspouts (the cheapest insurance there is)

Most "roof leaks" we get called for are not roof leaks. They are gutters packed with needles and maple seeds overflowing straight down the siding and into the wall cavity or the crawlspace. Clean them now, before the leaves come down in earnest, and again in mid-November. Then follow every downspout to where it ends. If it dumps next to the foundation, it is feeding your crawlspace or basement directly. A $10 extension that carries the water six feet away from the house prevents more crawlspace water calls than anything else on this list.

2. Walk the crawlspace once

Nobody wants to. Do it anyway, with a flashlight, before the rain, so you have a baseline. You are looking for standing water or stains on the vapor barrier, sagging or wet insulation, and the smell. Puget Sound crawlspaces sit on glacial till that drains poorly, so a little dampness is normal here. Standing water, a musty smell, or insulation hanging down is not. Our crawlspace guide covers what is normal and what is a problem, and if you are not sure, a moisture reading is free.

3. Test the sump pump

If you have one, pour a bucket of water into the pit and watch it cycle. If it does not kick on, or it runs but the water does not go anywhere, that is your project this weekend, not in November when the pit is already full. Check that the discharge line actually drains away from the house and is not crushed or frozen shut. And think about what happens when the power goes out during the first big windstorm, because that is exactly when you need it: a battery backup pump is a few hundred dollars and pays for itself the first time the lights go out during a storm.

4. Look up in the attic

Ten minutes with a flashlight. Water stains on the underside of the roof sheathing, especially around vents, chimneys, and skylights. Daylight where there should not be any. Insulation that is dark, matted, or compressed in one spot. And the one people miss: find where your bathroom fan duct actually ends. In a lot of homes built from the 1960s through the 90s, it ends in the attic, which means every shower all winter condenses on cold sheathing above your ceiling. That is the number one cause of the "mysterious" attic mold we find in spring.

5. Windows, doors, and the places wind-driven rain gets in

Atmospheric rivers do not fall straight down. Sideways rain for eighteen hours finds every failed window seal, every cracked bead of caulk, and every deck-to-wall connection where the flashing gave up. Run your hand along the inside bottom of window frames after the first heavy rain. Damp means the seal is done. Homes from the late 1990s and 2000s have their own signature: siding and window details that leak into the wall without ever dripping inside, which is why the damage shows up as soft drywall months later.

6. Know where your water shutoff is

Not storm related, but winter related. When a supply line lets go at 2am in January, the difference between a small job and a large one is whether you can shut the water off in ninety seconds. Find the main valve now, make sure it actually turns, and show everyone in the house. If it is one of the old gate valves that has not moved in twenty years, have a plumber replace it with a quarter-turn ball valve before you need it.

7. Exterior hose bibs and exposed pipes

We do not get many hard freezes, which is exactly why the ones we get do so much damage: nobody is ready. Disconnect hoses, drain and cover the bibs, and insulate any supply line running through an unheated crawlspace or garage. A pipe that bursts in the crawlspace can run for days before anyone notices the water bill.

8. Decide now what "call someone" means

The most expensive water damage we see is not the dramatic kind. It is the ceiling stain that got watched for three weeks. We wrote a whole post on why waiting is the worst strategy, but the short version is that materials dry from the outside in, so the surface always looks better than what is behind it. Set a rule for your household now: if water shows up somewhere it should not be, and you cannot see the whole footprint, someone puts a moisture meter on it within 48 hours. Ours is free.

If the storm already won

If you are reading this with a wet floor, skip the checklist and go straight to what to do in the first 24 hours, or if a windstorm just put water in your house, storm water damage first steps. Stop the source, take photos, and call. We answer 24/7, including during the storm, and during region-wide events we triage by severity, so active water intrusion goes to the top of the list: 253-553-6435.

An afternoon in September or a week of equipment in November. Your call, but we know which one we would pick.