In a crisis, sometimes it takes your brain a moment to catch up to reality. Such was the case for me on a particularly rainy night in mid-July. As my wife and I settled in to watch a movie in our den, I noticed a puddle shimmering in the glow of the television.
"For real?" I cried, wondering which of our dogs had peed on the floor.
When I turned on the lights, it was obvious that a dog wasn't to blame; the room was taking on water like a foundering ship. Though our Charlotte house sits on high ground about 25 feet above a nearby creek, the night's persistent and intense rain — more than five inches in four hours — had overwhelmed our perimeter drain. In minutes, our basement was ankle-deep in water.
We weren't alone. On July 10 and 11 — the one-year anniversary of Vermont's devastating summer storm of 2023 — a combination of record rainfall, flash flooding and rivers overflowing their banks once again inundated the homes and businesses of thousands of Vermonters.
We were witnessing firsthand the impacts of climate change: more frequent and intense storms; greater year-round precipitation, more of which falls as rain; faster winds; and higher temperatures. On the flip side, Vermont is also experiencing more severe and frequent droughts, which can wreak havoc for homeowners who rely on wells rather than on municipal water systems.
Ultimately, we were among the lucky ones; our soggy basement was vacuumed dry by the following morning, leaving behind no serious damage. But it was clear that we needed to not only prepare for the next big rainstorm but also reassess our property's resilience to the changing climate.
Since stormwater management is Vermont's most pressing climate-change concern, there are things that homeowners, homebuyers and landlords can do to safeguard themselves and their properties.
First thing to consider: location, location, location. Whether you're building a new house or buying an existing one, it's essential to know whether it sits in a floodplain, said John Lens, a professional engineer and professor in the University of Vermont's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. Federal floodplain maps are available online, though town offices can usually provide that information, too. Such info is critical because homeowner insurance policies do not automatically cover flood damage.
It's also important to know what kind of soil the house sits on — sandy soils drain faster than clay — and how close the house is to nearby bodies of water. A small creek, like the one behind my house, can quickly turn into a raging river after a heavy rain, so it's helpful to know ahead of time what direction that water is likely to flow.
Homeowners should also assess what lies uphill and downhill of the house and the likelihood that a hillside will slide once the ground becomes saturated. Lens recommends examining steep slopes for evidence of previous slides, such as trees with curved trunks, which indicate that the tree once toppled and needed to right itself. An engineer or landscape architect can help with such an assessment.
People buying an older house definitely need to know what type of foundation it has. Because Lens' 19th-century house in Randolph Center was built on fieldstones, he installed a plastic membrane around the foundation to keep snowmelt and runoff away from the house, then installed a perimeter drain, aka a French drain, to keep his basement dry.
Newer homes typically are built on a concrete slab, and mine had a sump hole already cut in the basement floor. A phone call to Twin State Basement Services in Essex Junction resulted in a relatively quick and inexpensive fix. For $1,900, Twin State installed two sump pumps, which extract the water that accumulates around the foundation and pipe it downhill and away from the house.
That said, there's more to managing stormwater runoff than merely keeping it out of the basement. Stephanie Hurley, a landscape architect and associate professor of ecological landscape design at UVM, suggests that homeowners reduce the quantity of impervious surfaces — driveways, walkways, patios and other pavement — on their property.
"You don't necessarily have to plan your parking as if it's Thanksgiving day and your entire extended family is visiting," she said. "Ask yourself: How much parking do you really need?"
The same goes for the amount of lawn, which provides few, if any, ecological benefits but can sheet water just like an impervious surface. One of the best things homeowners can do, Hurley said, is to think of their lawn not as "wall-to-wall carpeting but as an area rug" used for picnics, parties or throwing a baseball. She recommends setting mower blades to no shorter than three inches and abandoning the idea that everything surrounding the house should resemble a putting green.
Instead, consider installing a rain garden with native plants that soak up rainwater and provide habitat for pollinators and other species. People can download UVM's free 2021 Vermont Rain Garden Manual, which offers advice for creating an inexpensive but effective one. Hurley also noted that the City of Burlington's Blue BTV program provides free home stormwater assessments to all city residents.
As storms become more frequent and intense, trees are more likely to blow down on houses, garages and power lines. More ice events and freeze-thaw cycles can also damage trees and snap limbs.
"I would never recommend cutting down all your trees because they might fall on your house," Hurley said. But it makes sense to periodically hire a professional arborist to assess your trees' health, remove dead limbs and treat infestations.
Because windstorms also increase the likelihood of outages, homeowners might consider investing in backup power systems, which are becoming more affordable. Green Mountain Power has a program that offers its customers two Tesla Powerwalls for $5,500 — or $55 per month for 10 years. An even lower-cost program for income-qualified customers is due to be unveiled shortly, GMP spokesperson Kristin Carlson said.
Backup batteries serve a dual purpose, she explained. During outages, customers have auxiliary power until the grid comes back online. On normal days, GMP can use those batteries to store electricity, then draw it back to the grid during peak usage hours when energy is most expensive and "dirty," or reliant on fossil-fuel generation. GMP constantly monitors the weather to ensure that customers' batteries are fully charged for bad-weather events.
For homeowners who may be considering buying an electric vehicle, GMP has been in talks with U.S. car manufacturers to pursue what Carlson called "the holy grail" of energy storage: drawing power from electric vehicles when they're not in use.
Consider the standard battery in an F-150 Lightning, Ford's fully electric pickup truck, which has 98 kilowatt-hours of usable energy. (For comparison, a Powerwall has 12.2 kWh.) Theoretically, you could power a typical Vermont house for three days with the Lightning.
That concept is not decades from becoming a reality. Carlson noted that GMP is already using such "batteries on wheels" with South Burlington's fleet of four electric school buses. When the buses are not in use, GMP can tap their storage during extended outages or peak usage times.
As summers get hotter, homeowners might consider installing mechanical systems that cool and ventilate the house more effectively. David Pill, of Pill-Maharam Architects in Shelburne, suggests installing an HRV, or heat-recovery ventilation system, which removes stagnant air and brings in fresh air. Air entering the home is cooled in the summer and heated in the winter. And HRV systems can control humidity more effectively than heat pumps, especially in a tightly sealed house.
For homeowners who use well water, Pill strongly recommends installing low-flow showerheads and faucets. "The amount of water you save is incredible," he said. And today's low-flow fixtures are significantly better than the ones from the 1990s, when "Seinfeld" ridiculed them in an episode called "The Shower Head."
Low-flow fixtures save not only water but also money to heat it. When homeowners are ready to replace their water heater, Pill recommends investing in a heat-pump water heater, which is far more energy-efficient than a conventional one and doesn't use fossil fuels. The yellow EnergyGuide sticker on mine, which we installed last year, says it costs just $132 per year to operate, which is significantly cheaper than our previous gas-powered one.
Now, if only I could convince my teenage daughter to take shorter showers.