Tinkerer wrote:
"Tim Downie" wrote in message
...
Whenever I hear about the poor b*ggers waiting for months to get
back into their flood damaged houses I always wonder whether the
repairs shouldn't just stop at "repair" but should be aimed at
making a house flood resistant.

By this I don't mean "keep the water out" as I suspect that this is
actually very hard to achieve. I'm thinking more of waterproof
non-absorbant walls (possibly tiled) downstairs, all electricty
cables coming from upstairs (or from the loft) *down* rather than
from under the floor up, solid concrete floors downstairs and maybe
even a floating "raft" floor on top of the concrete floor for your
furniture that would float on top of flood waters keeping your
valuables dry. How much of the above is practical? Would it be terribly
expensive?
What other measures could one incorportate to make recovery from a
flood in a flood prone area just an inconvenience rather than a
disaster?


I suppose the ultimate is what they have done, in the so called third
world, for years in flood prone areas - houses on stilts.

But we live in a world where planning control give a maximum roof height,
which tend to make the ground floor lower than it should be. I know of one
building which was flooded as a direct result of this.