HomeProtecting your home or business
A few inches of dirty flood water will destroy your carpets, flooring and soft furnishings. If you can, keep this water from entering your house. You can take the following emergency measures to protect your house from a few inches of water – if there is time to do so.Outside your house
- Make sure all your external gullies and open drains are clear of debris before they flood. If they have already flooded stay away from them as the flow of water might trap you.
- Place plastic sheeting across the bottom of doors and low level windows. Place plastic bags or pillow cases filled with earth on top.
- If you can get sandbags place them over the plastic sheet as above.
- Nail wooden boards across low level air vents on outside walls.
- Place a heavy weight on top of manhole covers and inspection chamber covers which are within your property. You should not interfere with manhole covers which are in the road – if these overflow.
- Call the flooding incident line on 0300 2000 100
Inside your house
- Put plugs in sinks and baths and place a heavy weight on top.
- Disconnect the drainage pipes of washing machines and dishwashers and place the end of the pipe as high as you can.
Protect your property
If the water outside is one metre deep the water pressure may cause damage to the structure of your house. Therefore on some occasions it is better to let the water come inside and do a cleanup afterwards.Also protecting your house in this level of water is dangerous and you would be better to move out. In this case you should concentrate on quickly removing your car, valuable items, electrical equipment, soft furnishings and essential paperwork out of the way of the water.
You may have little time to do this. Think about what is insured and what would be irreplaceable, such as family photographs. Above all stay safe, you are irreplaceable.
This is difficult work. So don’t forget to check on your neighbours and relatives.
