The North-East monsoon does not change anything about your home that the rest of the year hasn't already weakened. It just exposes it. Below is the actual checklist on the clipboard our technicians carry on preventive visits — six items, none of them dramatic, all of them frequently neglected.
1. Clear every outdoor drain gully
Walk the perimeter of your home or balcony and lift every drain cover. Fallen leaves, plastic wrappers and tile grout dust collect at the bottom of the gully and form a felt mat. Two minutes with a gloved hand and a small bucket is the difference between water leaving cleanly and a backed-up porch at 2 a.m.
2. Test the roof downpipe
If you have access to the roof or upper terrace, pour a five-litre bucket of water into the catchment near the downpipe inlet. Watch it leave from the bottom. A weak or delayed flow points to a partial blockage in the riser — typically twigs or a bird's nest at the elbow. Easier to clear now than at the peak of a storm.
3. Inspect floor traps inside the home
Bathroom and laundry floor traps dry out in the months when the rain is sparse. A dry trap lets sewer gas drift up the line, which is also a clue that the trap will not seal under heavy rain backflow. Pour a litre of water down each trap and add a teaspoon of cooking oil — the oil floats on the seal and slows future evaporation.
4. Check the main water shut-off valve
Find the main isolation valve for your apartment or house and turn it fully closed, then fully open again. A valve that has not been moved in two years is often seized. The day you actually need it — a burst pipe at 3 a.m., for instance — is not the time to find out. If it does not move smoothly, replace it.
5. Look up at every visible pipe joint
Under the kitchen sink, behind the washing machine, around the water heater. Take a torch and inspect each compression fitting and threaded joint for white mineral deposits or a faint green halo on the metal. Both are slow weep markers. Tighten gently or call us to swap the seal before the joint lets go.
6. Test the roof gutter overflow if you have one
Landed property usually has an overflow weep at the gutter, and it should be visible from the ground. If you cannot see daylight through it, it is blocked. A blocked overflow turns a heavy rainfall into a slow-motion ceiling stain inside the eaves — by the time you spot the dark patch on the painted soffit, you are looking at a much larger bill.
If any of the six fail, do not improvise
Most of these are five-minute fixes for someone with the right tool and the right replacement part on hand. Most are weekend-eating projects without them. We run a fixed-price pre-monsoon home check that covers all six items plus the meter, the heater drain and the WC inlet for a flat rate — usually completed in under 90 minutes.