How Do You Deal with Flooding

Mike

Mike

Well-known Member
Location
London
Lately we have been hearing about flooding in Scotland
plus parts of England and Wales, the news services spend
lots of money sending out reporters and camera people
to stand in the rain and film the disasters as they happen,
yet nobody makes any suggestions about how to lessen
the impact to your home.

Sand bags are from World War 1, not very good over a
hundred years later, modern tape would be better, there
is a version that sticks to wet surfaces, that is a good tip,
take anything valuable upstairs on into the attic if you
live in a bungalow, stand the dining table legs in boots,
wellington boots, stuff a child's football, into the toilet,
really jam it in hard, try to do something to plug the
waste pipes for sinks and washing machine also the
dishwasher, if you have one.

I have run out of suggestions as I, touch wood, have
never suffered flooding, do any of you have any useful
suggestions, some that you know are effective.

Tell us lucky ones who never got flooded out, how to be
prepared for any in the future.

Mike
 

I only experienced flooding once in my life. It was awful and I can't imagine sandbagging helping at all.

We have basements here, and even though power stayed on the sump pump barely kept up. Before the rains subsided we had several inches covering the floor. A lot of things got damaged despite effort to take as much upstairs as possible and elevate the rest as best we could.

The house was an island. With under a foot of elevation from ground level (below the slight foundation embanking) to the windows we lucked out and at least water didn't pour in that way.

Next door the lot and house upon it was a good 5 feet lower in elevation. It didn't do too well in 5 feet of water.

I can't imagine being able to cope with that stress today. Somehow we survived even with little kids to care for.
 
If you are ā€˜thatā€™ concerned , Iā€™d move. Water damage is horrible especially to a house. The very potential health threats it can cause are horrendous and not worth it. If you live in an area that is susceptible to flooding and you think thereā€™s a chance it could happen, make sure your insurance covers it. Pay extra for the proper insurance that covers this type of incident , as some donā€™t.

You can get stuff called rubber cement and paint over areas you think might be susceptible to damage. It comes in all colours imaginable. If you canā€™t move Iā€™d be doing things like this.

Make sure you have the proper slopes to drain water away from your house.
Make sure your drains work properly. Clear all gutters.

Get a sump pump to pump excess water out from around your house Hook up a hose to the outlet for that sump pump water and take it away from your house so you arenā€™t recirculating it within your house.

Note: just make sure you arenā€™t flooding some one elseā€™s house. Youā€™ll need a. Extra wide hose for this.

We never had our house flood but we had our sump pump running about 3 weeks every 5 to 15 minutes every spring in the house we lived in for 24 years.
 
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I live on the side of a 600 ft hill, so if I get flooded out, most of Pennsylvania would be under 600 ft of water. My lot isn't flat, it drops 10 feet in 300 ft, so I was getting lots of runoff. It was causing 'scour' (?)-ruts. I cleared way too much, so I let it grow back at the top of my lot. That stopped most of the torrents of wash off.
Maybe allowing natural growth back into certain areas, may help ease flooding. Although, if you built on the middle of a flood plain, what did you expect?
 
We are near the Missouri River. It has flooded here once. There was nothing we could do to prevent it. There was rain for days and weeks until most everywhere near the river flooded. There was lots of sand bags placed a strategically as possible, and it did help some. It depends on where you live. Some places you can help prevent flooding, and some places you just can't. @PeppermintPatty had good suggestions on how to prevent your house from flooding. Our home repair business did a lot of work making houses safe from flooding. Gutters and landscaping mainly.
There is a river town where they have an Octoberfest each year. It has flooded there so many times this how they deal with it.

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Some great suggestions there, thank you, though I must
point out that I am not, nor will I be affected from flooding,
where I live is on a slope plus it is higher than other areas,
around me.

The question, was just get some ideas about what to do, they
might help others who are in tricky situations and could get
wet.

I like the idea of houses on stilts Paco Dennis, hopefully the
water rises, but doesn't flow?

Mike.
 

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