Civil engineering question
In light of the thousands of homes which last year were devastated by flooding. What steps might a property owner take to ensure that their property does not suffer similar flood damage in the future. ?
K
Comments
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In light of the thousands of homes which last year were devastated by flooding. What steps might a property owner take to ensure that their property does not suffer similar flood damage in the future. ?
K
Water tight airbricks & a flood gate at each access door .... as my parents have just had fitted. I hope they never need them. They've
just (ie last week) got carpet down after being flooded out last Boxing Day.0 -
In light of the thousands of homes which last year were devastated by flooding. What steps might a property owner take to ensure that their property does not suffer similar flood damage in the future. ?
K
Water tight airbricks & a flood gate at each access door .... as my parents have just had fitted. I hope they never need them. They've just (ie last week) got carpet down after being flooded out last Boxing Day.
Write your comments here...Hi MM , do you know if the "Manthorpe Airbrick flood water defence Protection cover" might have been something that your parents considered.?
Sorry but this Tablet doesnt do links.
K
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Is this question about a specific property or just propeties in general? What works in one location may be useless in another. Much money, time and grief has been expended by people who have been flooded just to see water enter their property by another
route.0 -
Even 1/2 way up a hill I could still be flooded. The number of variables to consider is considerable. Amount of rainfall per hour, per day, continuously over a week. Are the local drains effective, blocked? has someone altered the natural drainage flow
by building? If everyone uphill of me deflects the water flow from their property - do I cop it all?Sadly, unless it happens regularly in any one area, there is little that can be done to any single property and be relied on to be effective. Yes watertight airbricks, flood curtains, watertight door boards etc can work to an extent. The danger of a bund
is that once water is in you have to pump it out immediately and probably continuously.0 -
It's not a civil engineering problem it's a climate problem. If you give a competent civil engineer a problem to solve within a fixed set of parameters he will find a solution or you can sue him. If you keep moving the problem around then he can only give
it his best guess.0 -
It's not a climate problem, it's a man-made problem.
If you cover the ground (especially flood plains) with concrete and buildings, it will not deal with rainwater as well as bare ground.
Regarding the op.......air brick covers that float up and seal, rubber sealed covers to doors, solid floors with tile / slate coverings, plug sockets raised well above the floor level, impervious wall coverings at low level.......and a good plan for moving
furniture etc upstairs.0 -
I have noticed a couple of things about flooding from the aerial images. Buildings above water level are generally pre-war construction and those flooded are generally post-war. Also, there are frequently long threads of wooded land that sit above the
level of the waters showing where the railways once ran.The Victorian engineers knew things that have been forgotten.
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If you ask an engineer to design a drainage system for a huge concrete area , say an airport, and you give him the once in a hundred year rainfall figures to work with he will come up with a suitable system to cope with that. If you then drop the once in
a two hundred years storm on it then it will flood.It's not a man made problem It's just that the weather is becoming more unpredictable. We can design to cope with anything imaginable but when the unimaginable ( or the unaffordable ) happens we are buggered.0 -
I have commented on a number of planning applications that have included a drainage design that "will cope with a 1 in 100 year event" .......usually they incorporate attenuation systems.
When you delve further into the design, you find that they have ignored surface run off, blockages in pipework, run off from outside the site itself......etc.
They assume that they can discharge into a local watercourse......one that is already flooding by then.
They assume that they can store excess water on paved areas.....i.e. that they can cause deliberate (but supposedly controlled) flooding on the site.
In other words......they design something that simply doesn't work. But it bamboozles the planners sufficiently (and ticks the box that says that they must design a system that deals with flooding) so they get approval.
And then the new buildings flood.......and so do the unfortunate residents of adjacent buildings. Who can then no longer get insurance for their buildings. And we see yet more unfortunate scenes on the news.......and hope that it never happens to us.
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The engineer will design the system for the 1 in a 100 year event, and probably build in a good bit of leeway - like 100%!
Then the accountants arrive. Need I say more.
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The trouble is that housing demand is such that beggars can't be choosers.
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The engineer will design the system for the 1 in a 100 year event,
....and few people buying a new house expect to be there for 100 years.........
There is a common misconception that a '1 in 100 year flood event' will only happen once in a 100 years.
The reality is that it's an event that has a 1% chance of happening in any year.
We had several of them within a couple of years not that long ago.
We have watched the local river overflow and surge across adjacent fields many times (fields that are now full of houses). The Environment Agency were in denial and said that the river 'never breaks its banks' despite eye witnesses, photos and video footage
proving the contrary.0 -
Sadly, our friends who live in York, did all the things they were advised, but their house flooded anyway when water came up through the ground, into the foundations and then up through the floorboards.
Fortunately, because they'd done what they were advised by their insurers, they could claim.
They've now taken the first piece of advice in this thread - moved!
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In light of the thousands of homes which last year were devastated by flooding. What steps might a property owner take to ensure that their property does not suffer similar flood damage in the future. ?
K
Water tight airbricks & a flood gate at each access door .... as my parents have just had fitted. I hope they never need them. They've
just (ie last week) got carpet down after being flooded out last Boxing Day.Write your comments here...Hi MM , do you know if the "Manthorpe Airbrick flood water defence Protection cover" might have been something that your parents considered.?
Sorry but this Tablet doesnt do links.
K
Sorry, I know they have some kind of auto shutting airbrick now, but no idea what make. As Val said, water came up through their floor boards .... their next door neighbour (other half of the semi) phoned them to warn them, ankle deep to start with but the
became knee deep a couple of hours later.0 -
Sadly, our friends who live in York, did all the things they were advised, but their house flooded anyway when water came up through the ground, into the foundations and then up through the floorboards.
Fortunately, because they'd done what they were advised by their insurers, they could claim.
They've now taken the first piece of advice in this thread - moved!
Another example of Environment Agency incompetence......
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Thanks for the advice folks. We have a friend who lives in an area where flooding has occurred, fortunately up to now the flooding has never come as far as their particular house so any advice on protecting their home in the future is very welcome.
K
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Move before the insurance companies decide your postcode is a flood risk. Not an easy task to convince them,as I have found out, despite our house being the highest in the end of a cul de sac, a good many metres above the lowest point. (I did try to get
my own postcode, but was too expensive)Rgds
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