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Practical Tips: How to Reduce the Impact of a Flood

An article from Mary Long-Dhonau OBE – Property Flood Resilience Champion – on what practical steps you can quickly take to reduce the impact of a flood at your property:

“When a flood is imminent, our natural instinct is to protect our homes from the devastating impact a flood can have. But what if we can’t afford to install certified flood barriers or doors? Or perhaps we are waiting for them to be installed and a flood may be on its way?

While the following suggestions may not be as effective as official barriers, they can help to reduce the amount of flood water that enters your home.

1. Stay Informed

Sign up for free flood warnings: If you’re at risk of river flooding, make sure you have signed-up for free Environment Agency flood warnings. This early alert system allows you to act quickly when a flood is approaching. Sign up here: https://www.gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings.

Monitor weather reports: If you are at risk of surface water flooding, do keep a close eye on weather warnings and listen to local radio, especially during heavy rainfall. You will have to act quickly, so it is really important that have written a flood plan – see below!

2. Prepare a Flood Plan

Having a well-thought-out flood plan is essential. It helps you act quickly when time is of the essence:

• Prioritise items to move: Know what belongings you want to move out of harm’s way first. Don’t forget about your car – you don’t want to deal with both a flooded house and a flooded vehicle!
• Identify storage locations: If you live in a bungalow or have limited upstairs space, arrange for friends or relatives to look after your most sentimental and valuable items during a flood threat. Include these details in your flood plan.
• Gather supplies: Keep a collection of lidded plastic boxes ready for storing and transporting items to safer locations. Store important belongings on higher shelves and on top of wardrobes, where possible. 
• Flood Plan template: The BeFloodReady website includes an example plan, plus a host of tips of what you should do if you receive a flood alert: https://www.befloodready.uk/before-a-flood/create-a-personal-flood-plan

3. Protecting Your Home

Airbricks

Seal with aluminium tape: If you have airbricks, cover airbricks with wide aluminium tape to help prevent water ingress. One large roll can cover many airbricks and can be purchased online or in hardware stores (such as Screwfix, B&Q, Toolstation etc).

External Doors

• Use waterproof tape: For any external doors, apply wide waterproof (gaffer) tape up to about 0.6 meters high across your external doors and along the bottom. If water starts to leak, leave the tape in place; it will be holding back a significant volume of water.
• Add plastic coverings: Fix a large piece of plastic over doors using gaffer tape and weigh it down for additional protection.
• Fit wooden barriers: Try cutting a large piece of wood to size to fit over door openings. Use quick-setting silicone sealant to secure them in place when needed. Remember, you’ll need solvent to remove the sealant afterwards. Alternatively, you can make wooden slots to slide the wood into and then seal them (pictured).

This will need advance preparation and make sure you have where it’s stored written into your plan.

Absorbent Cushions

• Invest in flood sacks: If you can, invest in some large absorbent cushions (FloodSax is one brand), similar to oversized baby nappies! They can soak up any water that seeps through the gaffer tape. Each can absorb up to twenty litres of water so are useful for soaking up water after the flood. Perhaps consider sharing the cost of a box with neighbours.

Drains and Toilets

• Block toilets: Push a deflated small child’s football into the toilet bowl as it will help to stop sewage backflow. If unavailable, fill a couple of heavy-duty rubble sacks with soil, double them up for strength, and put them into the toilet. Shut the lid and use the gaffer tape to secure it.
• Cover shower drains: Place gaffer tape over any downstairs shower drain and put something heavy on top to prevent water from coming up through the pipes.

Protecting Furniture and Belongings

• Elevate curtains: Fold your curtains over the curtain track or tie them in a large knot to keep them dry.
• Raise furniture:
  • Put four large wellington boots on the legs of your kitchen or dining tables and stack the contents of your kitchen cupboards on top. You can even use large flower vases, plastic litter bins or cut-off 6-pint plastic milk bottles in place of the boots.
  • Use decorating trestle tables to lift sofas and place chairs on top of them.
  • Put bricks in plastic bags and use them to elevate your furniture. For lighter items, plastic litter bins should work. If you’re alone, use a plank of wood under the furniture to help lift it more easily.

While all this may sound like an awful lot of hard work, it is time and effort well spent.

On average, people are out of their homes for around nine months after being flooded. Taking moves now to reduce the amount of flood water that can enter your home and protecting your sentimental and hard-earned belongings out of harms way, can make a difference in the aftermath of a flood.

Please stay safe and be prepared!

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