Storm & Flood Damage Recovery in Rock Springs, WY

In alkali soils that is often salt rather than ordinary weathering. Salts in the ground draw moisture and crystallize in the pores of concrete and mortar, breaking the surface apart from within, and they corrode buried metal at the same time. It is slow and it accelerates wherever the ground beside a wall stays damp. Keeping that ground as dry as possible is the practical control, since the soil chemistry cannot be changed.

It is a channel nonetheless, and it carries flow within minutes when its catchment gets rain, because this ground absorbs almost nothing. Anything built, fenced, or stored in its path is exposed on those occasions. Looking at the channel during a storm rather than on a dry day is the way to understand what it actually does, and it is worth doing before deciding what to keep near it.

Wind decides where it lands, and where it lands decides where the meltwater goes. A drift built against a wall through the winter melts directly against the foundation rather than across open ground, concentrating a season of precipitation at one spot. Snow fencing, or changing what sits upwind of the building, moves the drift. It is a landscaping decision with a direct effect on the foundation.