Storm & Flood Damage Recovery in Butte, MT

In mining country that is common. Old workings and the fractured ground around them carry water along routes that have nothing to do with the surface slope, so a discharge can emerge well away from where any rain or melt occurred, and on a schedule of its own. Surface grading often makes little difference. Interception at the wall, with a drain and a sump sized for continuous running, is usually the practical answer.

Water that has moved through old workings carries dissolved metals and is frequently acidic, which is why it stains what it touches and eats at anything metal sitting in it. Fasteners, ducting, and the bases of appliances all suffer. Porous material that has been submerged in it is generally removed rather than cleaned, and metal that stays needs inspecting rather than assuming. Drying alone leaves the corrosion going.

A frozen supply line. At this elevation the freezing season is long enough that any plumbing in an unheated or under-heated space will eventually freeze and split, and the release comes on the thaw at full pressure. Draining the system for any extended absence prevents it entirely. Where a house is heated remotely, a low-temperature alarm is cheap against what a burst line costs.