Make Your Home Flood-Proof With These Tips

*This is a collaborative post on how to make your home flood-proof

It’s not really a question that people think to ask when they are looking for a new house, but it’s one that can make a big difference to the day you’re about to have: is my home flood-proof? 

It’s a simple question, but it’s one that you can ask and ensure that you are protected and prepared at all times. Depending where you live, floods may be more frequent and severe – especially with climate change being more of a danger than ever before. Assessing your risk of flooding is just as important as assessing the cracks in the foundations; though we hope there aren’t any! You should get a damp report as part of your home survey, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ensure that your home isn’t flood-proof anyway. The sea levels are rising and the rainfall seems more intense than ever before, so it makes sense to ask whether your home is at risk of flooding. You can also look at public information and figure out whether your new land and house are going to stand the test of your lifetime.

Areas impacted by flooding

Usually, the areas that are impacted by flooding tend to be areas in which people think they’re going to be safe. Not everyone lives in a high risk area or a flood zone, but if you want to buy a house it makes sense to check first whether it’s going to be one for you. A waterlogged garden and backed up water in the basement can be a problem, and the way you renovate your home can determine whether these will be a continued issue for you. So, with this in mind, you should do what you can to make your home as flood-proof as possible. Here’s how to do it.

Ask about the risks

The first thing to do is ensure that you know the risks. As a homeowner, you can gauge your flood risk with local maps and the national flooding websites. These can tell you the base elevations for floods, all of the flood zones and the floodplain boundaries, which are important to know! Any house within a 100-year floodplain could be at risk, and you need to know if that’s you. If you’re looking at a home, you should ensure that you know whether the land has been flooded before. If it has, it can impact your decision to buy in the first place. Ask your potential neighbours and check the reasons previous owners have sold the space; it’ll help to always ASK!

Always have good flood insurance

If you take the risk to buy a house within a 100 year floodplain you should buy flood insurance. Even living in areas that are prone to heavy rain, you should consider flooding insurance. It’s going to cover you for damage caused by heavy flooding in the area that then affects your land and structure. You don’t want to be led into a false sense of security with your home and get caught short without insurance backing you up. Extreme weather can affect the house and the garden, but living outside a flood zone doesn’t exempt you from damage, either. If you’re close enough to a flood zone, just be smart and get the insurance!

Keep your equipment up off the floor

You can’t avoid your appliances being on the floor, but you can ensure your boiler, HVAC units and more are up on the walls. The things like this that are too close to the ground are susceptible to flooding and damage, so why not consider bringing them up? Put these units onto higher ground with the help of platforms and if your flood risk is low, you don’t have to go too nuts with the height of these platforms.

Keep your sewage contained

Sewage is one of the first things that overspills in a flood, but if you ensure that you have a sewage water backstop installed, you can avoid it. Your Basement floor will need a drain backup after heavy rain but get a licensed plumber to come and do it for you. Don’t do this one on your own as it can take some work. You need to have backflow prevention valves installed as well as other devices to prevent overtaxed sewer mains from spilling over.

Make it flood-proof: Call the landscaper

If you don’t have porous surfaces outside, you need to call in the landscapers and they can ensure that your home has some porous surfaces outside. This will ensure that water seeps into the ground and away rather than pooling outside the home. You can dig swales to channel your stormwater away, too, and this will help heavy rain and flooding to move away from the house and not into it. You should consider collecting water from the gutters, too, and you can do it with a rain barrel underneath the gutter downspout.

Consider moving away

If you have moved into a home and you can’t deal with the flooding, especially when it happens too often, the best thing to do is sell up and move! You can save yourself a lot of money in repairs and the constant rebuilding you’d have to do with extreme flooding and water saturation. Check your flood risk before you move into a new house though, or you’ll be in the same position again.

Campaign for change

It can be devastating to constantly be under fire with your home flooding. It’s exhausting to keep replacing all of your furniture and carpets, and it’s devastating to your home to be flooded time and again. You want to make sure that you are campaigning for local changes that are necessary. Speak to your environmental groups and your local council and complain about your flooding issue. The more you talk about it, the more awareness you can raise and the more you will be likely to get some help. Your home needs to be flood proof and you should consider how to get there!