What is a Weep Hole?

Weep holes play a very important role, as they help keep water from entering your home. It’s common to find weep holes in brick or windows.

We discuss weep holes in greater detail to help you understand their importance and why they need sometimes need to be inspected.

What Is a Weep Hole?

Weep holes are special channels made for water. These channels allow water to escape from the building envelope. What’s more,  weep holes have an important use for the home. It’s common to hear weep holes described as a device that lets homes breathe.

Due to the fact that water has many opportunities to enter structures, weep holes are a necessity that ensures any water has a route to flow out and away from the home, thus avoiding potentially costly moisture damage.

Weep Holes in Brick

Weep holes in bricks are typically slits in the mortar that let water flow out. If you notice these slits in your bricks, it’s vital that you don’t attempt to seal them up.

Without a way to escape, water can collect behind the brick and work its way into your home. What’s more, it is important to ensure that there is nothing blocking the weep holes in bricks.

For example, you wouldn’t want to stack lumber or place an object against the weep hole. Doing so would likely cause water to accumulate behind the brick.

The same goes for vegetation growing around the area where the weep hole is located. Too much plant life can equally cause blockage, so it’s important to pull weeds and any other vegetation that might get in the weep hole’s way.

Weep Holes and Windows

Whenever there is a weep hole present in a window, it often takes the form of a small black rectangular slit. This slit lets water flow out and away from the window.

Please keep in mind that there are different types of windows that use different drainage hole methods. For example, older windows may not have weep holes present at all. Still, some other types of windows may only have a small opening or slit that serves to let water out. 

It is important that these water seepage holes are free of things like 

Due to lack of understanding of weep holes, painters will sometimes apply paint or caulk to these drainage holes on the outside of homes. In doing so, water will quickly build up inside and find its way into the home.

Please note that if you decide to perform maintenance around your home, you should carefully examine exterior areas and look for weep holes. What’s more, if you hire a professional to work around your home, it may serve you well to casually point out your weep hole locations to them.

You can do this in a manner that doesn’t insult their intelligence while making sure they understand what weep holes are and the purpose that they serve.

If you can’t seem to locate weep holes around your property, you should hire a team that specializes in home inspections like Guardian Angel Inspections.

We can examine your property and find the exact locations of your weep holes to ensure that you know where they are for future reference. Furthermore, it’s a good idea to have your weep holes inspected periodically.

Unbeknownst to you, there could be an internal or external blockage. While it might not be causing you any trouble at present, additional accumulation could occur in time, leading to serious damages to your property.

When you hire Guardian Angel Inspections, we carefully inspect your home to ensure optimal performance of your weep holes and any other needs you request. With our expert home inspection services, you can be sure to catch potential issues before they turn into costly problems. 

We invite you to contact us today for all of your home inspection needs in South Florida. We will be happy to schedule our  weep hole inspection services at your earliest convenience.   

Call Guardian Angel Inspections in South Florida

Guardian Angel Inspections Inc. delivers professional home inspection services for your peace of mind. Regardless of your needs, you can trust our inspection experts to meet them. For example, you might be:

We can inspect the property to help you determine the status of your weep hole. So call Guardian Angel Inspections today to discuss your home inspection needs. You can reach us at (561) 512-7854 .

The information in this blog post is for reference only and not legal advice. As such, you should not decide whether to contact a lawyer based on the information in this blog post. Moreover, there is no lawyer-client relationship resulting from this blog post, nor should any such relationship be implied. If you need legal counsel, please consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.