There are certain parts of the country where, as much as you may try to avoid it, your home will experience flooding. It might happen frequently, or it may happen at least once a year or a month—that is if you’re lucky. If you find yourself in a house like this, you may be remodeling frequently, and renovations could be an annual thing.
If you want to stay debt-free and enjoy your home for a long time, you’ll most likely want to make the renovations a one-time project. There’s a way to do this, of course. There’s also a way to do it in a way that you won’t only solve your problem with the flooding but also contribute to helping the planet restore itself a little. Interested to know what these are? Here we go:
Elevate Your Property
This is the oldest trick in the book. You should consider building a house on virtual stilts, especially if your land is located near the sea or a river. It’s quite easy to do. Coordinate with your home’s architect so that you’re sure that you are above sea level. There are also unique ideas that you can incorporate into elevating your home, such as a catch-basin for the flood water or a design that makes it look like it’s a tree house.
Flood-proof Your Home with Walls
One of the best and most basic solutions to flooding is using flood walls to protect your home. It’s actually being done to protect larger places, such as whole towns, from flooding. It’s worked fairly well for villages, so it will work for a home as well. If you’ve got the budget, you can also make it so that your garden might be submerged, but your home stays intact from flooding. Flood also helps fertilize the land in some way, so it should be good for your plants.
Build a Catch Basin
A catch basin might be a little too extreme for a home, but it’s also an effective way to make your home eco-friendly, not to mention make mold remediation easier. Run-off floodwater can be repurposed (if distilled) to be used to water your garden, or it can be used as wastewater for use in the bathroom. Some structures have already employed the use of catch basins, and these places are flooded most of the time. Consider using this method if you’ve got plans on making the most out of your flood-prone area.
Use the Dry Flood-proofing Method
If you must simply keep your family and everything you own dry, then you can go ahead and build your house on stilts or on a pier-like foundation. An added insurance is to use waterproof materials to make your home watertight. It should keep the floodwater out of your home and where it truly belongs—outside. Some homeowners in different parts of the country have always chosen to waterproof their homes, but this might be a pricier way of keeping the flood out.
Move with the Flood
It’s hard to adjust with the season day in and day out, especially when you’re sure that your house or the part of the country you’re in might one day be underwater permanently. A good way of future-proofing your home is to make sure that it’ll stay above the flood by ‘floating’ on the flood. In the Netherlands and other parts of the world such as Thailand, for instance, people are already living in flood-proof, floating houses. It might be a method that works for you.
The future is never certain, but one thing is: with how the environment has been neglected, flooding will always be here to stay. Consider these nifty designs if you want to live above the water, and not in it, which, of course, is unhealthy.
