by Matthew Brady

For 23 years, Angie's List member Mark Serrano tolerated water in the basement of his Stone Mountain house every time it rained a few inches.

Then came the record-breaking rains of September 2009.

"It was literally a river on both sides of the house," he says. "I had a ton of water come in the basement."

Serrano's relatively minor home repair issue became an emergency, and he wasn't alone. Homeowners who had been enduring cracks, leaks or drainage issues and clogged gutters suddenly found themselves facing catastrophic and expensive repairs in the aftermath of the epic rainfall.

Of particular concern in the Atlanta area are unreinforced concrete block foundations, says Jay Eastland of highly rated Engineered Solutions of Georgia in Acworth [Ga.].

Last year's rain and this year's above-average rainfall have "allowed the soil to stay saturated long enough to put enough lateral pressure on those block walls to collapse them," he says. Before this year, Eastland says he'd seen three walls collapse. This year, he's seen 13.

The warning signs are long horizontal cracks accompanied by stair-step cracks starting 6 feet or so from the corners, he says.

Before a wall collapses, a repair might cost $5,000 to $10,000. "When you let it collapse, it goes to $50,000 or $60,000," Eastland says.

Homeowners can reduce their chances of foundation problems by keeping their gutters clean and using downspout extensions to direct water away from the house, he says. "You want to have them extended at least 10 feet and preferably to a discharge point that allows it to flow away from the house."

Gutters in Atlanta should be cleaned every six months, says Brad Ladner, owner of highly rated Atlanta's Best Gutter Cleaners in Roswell [Ga.]. "Some people go as long as two to four years between cleanings." It only takes two handfuls of debris to create a clog, he says.

Buddy Wofford of highly rated Aquaguard Basement Systems in Marietta [Ga.] says if water is still finding its way in, then homeowners should take further action. The problem simply doesn't get better by itself. "We know that once water has found a path, it will always continue to find that path until it's fixed," he says.

Serrano hired highly rated Trotter Co. in Doraville for a multi-pronged solution to his water woes. For $20,000, the company regraded his yard, waterproofed a basement wall, constructed a retaining wall, installed an industrial-grade sump pump with battery backup and whole-house dehumidifier, and encapsulated his crawl space.

"Now, with the way they designed the basement and the retaining wall and the encapsulation, it's bone-dry," he says.