The floods have arrived

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20502736

There was a longer coverage of Dutch solutions on Costing the Earth on R4 last week. They have been compensating farmers for having their land flooding under a project called something like Make Room for the River.

I think we could learn a lot from the Dutch on building on flood plains, there was a very interesting item on the Today programme on Radio 4 yesterday. Some of the houses they had built were amphibious, & rose as the water encroached, sounded very strange, but if it works ??

Sorry to hear about flood problems Joelise. Horrible.

I suppose dredging rivers would help a bit but from what I've been reading the main problem (apart from the freak weather obviously) is governments only paying for short term solutions.
Rivers have been straightened which makes the problem worse, instead of being allowed to meander along the water rushes down.
Tree planting is a real help too, as the ground under trees absorbs much more water (65% more, does that sound right, not sure).

Obviously building on flood plains is not a great idea either. I think they have now developed a kind of driveway material that allows water to drain through and away. Not sure how much it is used though.

Ah - it was not a great era for builders was it. I was wondering whether you were covered by the house builders guarantee thing if it was newer.

Hope it doesn't cost a fortune joelise or flickety

Oh no Flickety , that sounds a long & messy job ! Hope it all works out well for you.
We have just had the surveyor in, & she had to take a brick out of the bedroom wall, INSIDE ! She says it will mean re pointing & putting a coating on the wall ( outside) but, thank God it " will be a lot less than £15000 " she certainly earned her fee, she was here for ages & was very thorough. We will wait for it to dry out for a few months & then have it done. The positive side is that I can go along to John Lewis & choose wallpaper for the sitting room & bedroom !

Joelise my real sympathy, we also have a non-insurance problem following the storms. Our electricity cable is anchored to the chimney and the cable from the electricity pole is 45 metres long. The gyrations of the cable in the high winds has put pressure on the chimney and it is becoming unstable and water is leaking into the house soaking the ceilings in two bedrooms.

There is no alternative place to fix an overhead cable to the house, the only solution is to run the electricity cable underground, which means digging a 55 metre trench 45 cms deep, take up the patio steps, and part of the patio to make a new connection to the consumer unit. When that is done patio and steps must be re-laid, trench backfilled and then the chimney can be repointed and repaired.

Apart from the repointing of the chimney, the cost of which is insignificant, putting the cable underground is considered betterment so no claim can be made on the insurance. Fortunately, compared with you this is 'only' going to cost £5,000 plus!

DGD1 instructed us to 'always get 3 quotes' very emphatically when she was 3 and we were ordering a conservatory. She was repeating what DS had said to us on the phone, (we only got 2, should have got 3)

The house was built in the mid sixties Jess, our DD also said to get 3 quotes

Sorry, Ana, I haven't read that thread yet. It is now on three threads!
As I said, I was reading taxresearch.org.uk when I saw it, so came on here to post it. Forgot about the waste thread!

I thought I'd seen that article before! Penstemmon posted it on the 'Waste of Taxpayers' money' thread earlier today. (But of course, as it's from the Guardian it bears reposting on any other flood-related threads )

www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/16/flood-area-defences-funding-cuts

Brilliant article in the Guardian today. Got it from www.taxresearch.org.uk
not the Guardian - sorry for mentioning it twice.

Fingers crossed indeed. Make sure you get 3 quotes. How old is the house?

We love in the Thames Valley, only 2 mies from Staines & Shepperton. We haven't been flooded, but we live in a 3 storey town house, & the rain has driven against the end wall eroding the pointing. Consequently we have water seeping through from the outer wall to the inside in about 3 places, the water has channelled through the struts that " tie " walls together. The insurance company say it is a maintenance issue, ie our problem, not theirs !
We have engineers coming tomorrow to assess the damp, I don't think that there will be much change from £20,000 , what with scaffolding etc etc ! Please keep your fingers crossed for us that it won't cost that much !

If you live in a bungalow there is no upstairs, and many of Thames riverside communities have a disproportionate number of bungalows.

Nelliemoser, if you mean the floods in S. Queensland then they were truly dreadful, sweeping people and properties away. We know a lot of people over there , but all were safe thank goodness, although one family was flooded.

Just seen that Police were unable to go to help people in Egham because they were not given waders and had to turn back. Unbelievable!

I am sure I heard someone say 'Lessons will be learned'just on the ITN news,. I could be mistaken as we had only just turned it on.

I did ask earlier how long it would take before some prat one said that

My cousin in north of OZ took some photos of the bad floods they had a couple of years ago.
That flooding was dreadful and quite rapid once predicted. He said that Neighbours just got together and moved lots of furniture and stuff upstairs house by house in the houses most threatened.

I am sure this could be done here if people just organised. It would not solve everyone's flood problems but it would reduce a lot of damage.

There was a lot of warning of our floods, but as FlicketyB rightly says, people are often in denial and do not do the sensible thing in such circumstances.

For some background on the causes of the Somerset floods (also applies to the Thames) there is this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=95s34TDLlA4#t=756

I think the flood waters can rise up through the floorboards so suddenly that people are caught out, it doesn't necessarily start coming in through the doors slowly. And if they have never been flooded before despite previous floods nearby perhaps they thought their house would be OK. Or could be physically unable to move heavy furniture.
All kinds of reasons I suppose.

Well, that was very weird. I was just responding to FlicketyB re responses to disasters, I typed the word 'freeze', my tab froze and we had an almighty hailstorm.

Grannyactivist

I must admit I do find the lack of common sense astounding . I was watching a woman who showed the TV crew her home, it had two sofa's, dining room table and chairs, coffee table etc., all were in a foot of water. You have to ask why weren't the chairs upstairs, why weren't the Sofa's on the dining table and coffee table???

I certainly don't agree with the comment 'I suppose they are looking forward to the insurance companies paying out'.

I think people are in denial, the shock of seeing flood waters encroaching where they have never seen them before seems so incredible they cannot believe it is true, so they do nothing.

We have a book at home, I am away at the moment, so cannot check its title about how people react in emergencies, the book deals mainly with air crashes, and the author shows that in emergencies about two thirds of us just freeze mentally, and do nothing, another 20 percent panic and only about 20 per cent keep their cool think rationally and take instant action.

I think this is what is happening with many flood victims.

I think it was Paul Daniels who suggested a very good way of protecting items by placing them inside an empty, sturdy kid's paddling pool.

I agree, ga. There has been plenty of warning and a lot of stuff can either be moved upstairs or stacked on top of tables and worktops.

I suppose they are looking forward to the insurance companies paying out but imagine what the premiums are going to be like.....for everyone?

I'm slightly puzzled after watching scenes on TV of the interiors of flooded houses. One enterprising family had put plastic bags on the feet of furniture that couldn't be moved and had obviously cleared away as much of their belongings as they could from ground level, but most of the scenes show water in homes where even things that are easily moved, like rugs on the floor, remain in place and are flooded. Do the floods really rise so quickly that even these precautions can't be taken? I appreciate that not everyone will be physically able to shift heavy items, but I'm bemused by these scenes. I know that if my house were in danger of floods I would be taking anything movable out of harms way.