Prevent Flood Water Damage By Elevating Your Home

In the age of natural calamities such as typhoon and tsunamis, you may find that you've experienced flood water damage to the home. Homeowners living in flood-prone areas should take preventive measures to ensure that flood water doesn’t come into their home, because flood water damage can destroy houses and valuables, such as furniture and electronics. These measures can help avoid damage by natural calamities, which can come at anytime and at any day.

Flood Protection Elevation (FPE)

The required Flood Protection Elevation or FPE is the most common method to prevent flood water damage in your home. Properly elevated homes can be protected from the most dangerous floods. If you are in a flood-prone area, you are qualified to apply to the “Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.” The program funds home elevation projects.

Base Flood Elevation (BFE)

The base flood elevation, or BFE, for any location concerns the height of water that is to be expected with a 100-year flood. To ensure that flood waters don't reach your home, the ground floor or lowest structural component of your home must be elevated to or above the BFE. Options for elevating the home include raising the entire foundation and putting a higher support under it, as well as adding a living area in a higher floor of the house instead of areas of the home that are flood-prone. Homes elevated to or above the BFE with foundation walls should have flood vent openings. These openings will allow water to go through and underneath the home, and will prevent hydrostatic forces on the home that is elevated.

There are other preventive measures that need to be taken to protect your home from flood water damage. This includes elevating utilities to or above the BFE and installing a backflow preventer. The backflow preventer will put a stop to possible backup of sewage during a flood.

House Elevation Facts

Damage to the house and its contents are reduced via elevation of the home. When a lower floor of a home is used for storage and the house is elevated, the need to move the valuables to areas above the water level during flooding is eliminated. If you are in a flood-prone area, don’t fret because elevation techniques are well-known and contractors qualified to do elevation jobs are often readily available. Elevation lessens the physical, financial, and emotional strain that goes with floods. There are benefits to home elevation, such as its practical use of being used as an additional parking place or storage space for less valuable items. If a home within a flood area is elevated, this often reduces flood insurance premiums.