Flooded Again - Time To Build Thousands Of Floating Houses

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Article

http://www.inspirationgreen.com/floating-homes%20%20

AMPHIBIOUS FOUNDATIONS AND THE BUOYANT FOUNDATION PROJECT: INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES FOR FLOOD-RESILIENT HOUSING Academic Paper

http://www.buoyantfoundation.org/pdfs/ECEnglish_ParisUFMpaper_nov2009.pdf

Nice summary in vid of what's involved

Edited December 10, 2015 by Saving For a Space Ship

[200p]

The NIMBYS won't have it - because then their BTL investments won't be backed up by "They're not building any more land".

[billybong]

So the buoyant foundations helps to pretend that the houses aren't in a flood zone - because people don't like living in homes with permanent stilts (occasional stilts are ok), maybe because that would mean that everyone else would know it was a flood zone - and people don't like steps.

Cost of anchors included in the price.

To be fair the sliding stilts in the video look like about 5/6 metres or so high so that would be a proper flood. It's a good idea - if people have to live in a flood zone

Edited December 10, 2015 by billybong

[Bear Hug]

Looks like a caravan, a ridiculous idea. Even if the house is safe in flood, everything else is disrupted for days anyway. Get out by a boat? Cars flooded/written off?

If you have to live in such place, why not just build on stilts with maybe just a garage downstairs?

Or just build flats with ground (and first) floor parking and raised road access.

Although that wouldn't help when the whole town is in flood plane. Call it greenbelt, build somewhere else.

[200p]

Yeah, step out and see the turds floating by - real hygienic!

[dgul]

Even if the house is safe in flood, everything else is disrupted for days anyway. Get out by a boat? Cars flooded/written off?

If you have to live in such place, why not just build on stilts with maybe just a garage downstairs?

Or just build flats with ground (and first) floor parking and raised road access.

Although that wouldn't help when the whole town is in flood plane. Call it greenbelt, build somewhere else.

Exactly.

What you need is a house on stilts with everything in the air, including car parking and a garden shed. Oh, and have a raised walkway to the raised shops so that you can still buy your essentials etc, and to the raised schools so that the children could still be educated. Or maybe a raised road because who'd want to be walking in that weather.

Or you could just not build any additional housing in flood plains.

[200p]

Don't forget these

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Some very valid points made in this thread.

However, I think many assume the flood house owners have somewhere else to go, which they increasingly will not.

Their houses become unsaleable, uninsurable, they are stuck. Dwindling public funds & increased floods has problems relocating them.

Heavy bricks appear to be redundant tech in this situation. Ironically, Structural insulated panels (Sips) have a core of buoyant foam. If only they had been widely adopted when invented decades ago, for energy saving alone.

At least they have the land, so demolish & build a floater or stilter. Perhaps a design can utilise the brick walls in situ to save demo costs & stop inner floating away, so it has a sips type inner rises

Edited December 10, 2015 by Saving For a Space Ship

[billybong]

The point of the sliding stilts is that even after a massive flood (with water maybe 5/6 metres in depth) they still have accommodation for the duration of the flood and it won't have to be repaired, you won't have to live in temporary accommodation due to damage. Most of the time they won't have to live above the normal ground level.

It's understandable that in areas where they might have 5/6 metre deep floods that they won't want houses on fixed stilts 5/6 metres high (equivalent to 2 storeys). Not unless they have high speed elevators

If they have to live in a flood zone.

Edited December 10, 2015 by billybong

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Floating architecture will offer "an improved way of living"

http://www.dezeen.com/2015/12/09/floating-architecture-buildings-will-offer-improved-way-of-living-amphibious-housing-houseboats/

Why did it take until 2014 to build the "Uk's first Amphibious house? " Hadn't tethered poles & boat hulks been invented ?

Edited December 13, 2015 by Saving For a Space Ship

[Bruce Banner]

Nice of George to give taxpayer money to people who don't understand risk isn't it? Socialise the losses. Always.

They understand risk okay. The house is ten or twenty percent cheaper than one not liable to flooding and the risk of the government not bailing them out is negligible.

[Saving For a Space Ship]

They understand risk okay. The house is ten or twenty percent cheaper than one not liable to flooding and the risk of the government not bailing them out is negligible.

I would have thought it was worth less, bit it appears floods don't drop prices as much as I thought, from this 2012 article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20528352

One might assume that there would be massive falls in property prices after a highly publicised episode of damaging flooding.

But the figures don't seem to back that up.

If you take a place like Tewkesbury, you can see that the floods of 2007 did not significantly affect prices.

Tewkesbury has beautiful buildings... some people think that outweighs the odd flood Anthony Rhodes, local estate agent

In June 2007, the average property value in the historic market town was £241,821. It dropped slightly to £238,200 in July, the month floods hit - when the average property price in England was £258,855. But the average price stayed consistently about the £240,000 mark for the rest of the year, according to figures collated by property website Zoopla.

Prices in Tewkesbury have dropped since, but not at a vastly disproportionate rate to the rest of England. Tewkesbury's average property is now £215,322, with the average value in England £236,134.

It's a similar picture in parts of Cumbria that were heavily affected by floods in 2009, and also less severely in 2005.

In October 2009, the average property value in Cockermouth, was £217,243, dropping to £213,234 in November - when floods hit. Today the average property price is £208,749, according to Zoopla...

[olde guto]

I would have thought it was worth less, bit it appears floods don't drop prices as much as I thought, from this 2012 article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20528352

I think to get a real feel of what is going on the you'd have to look at the specific streets that were flooded. The prices there might well go down, but those in areas that weren't touched might go up as people try and get out of the riskier areas. That increase might help mask the true trend.

It could also be that some people are so hell bent on buying a house they'll buy in a flood risk area so there is no big drop (people soon forget).

Edited December 13, 2015 by olde guto

[Ah-so]

I think to get a real feel of what is going on the you'd have to look at the specific streets that were flooded. The prices there might well go down, but those in areas that weren't touched might go up as people try and get out of the riskier areas. That increase might help mask the true trend.

It could also be that some people are so hell bent on buying a house they'll buy in a flood risk area so there is no big drop (people soon forget).

There is also some government guarantee that you can always insure your property even in a food plane. Some kind of subsidy. Otherwise the houses would be uninsurable.

[The Knimbies who say No]

Got to be worth considering for areas which are prone to significant flooding where it is impractical to up sticks en masse, Louisiana I guess fits the bill- much of the highway infrastructure is raised in any case. Sure, there would be other issues about supplies etc but having people in dry homes would offer huge potential to be able to sit tight while rescue efforts were mobilised.

I wonder how susceptible these are to damage from floating debris though, eg being bashed by floating vehicles, or when the water receeds being plonked on top of a pile of stuff that wasn't there before which is snagged in the structure eg sunken cars etc.

Suppose this could be designed for.

[Saving For a Space Ship]

I think to get a real feel of what is going on the you'd have to look at the specific streets that were flooded. The prices there might well go down, but those in areas that weren't touched might go up as people try and get out of the riskier areas. That increase might help mask the true trend.

It could also be that some people are so hell bent on buying a house they'll buy in a flood risk area so there is no big drop (people soon forget).

Aye, need further research

Got to be worth considering for areas which are prone to significant flooding where it is impractical to up sticks en masse, Louisiana I guess fits the bill- much of the highway infrastructure is raised in any case. Sure, there would be other issues about supplies etc but having people in dry homes would offer huge potential to be able to sit tight while rescue efforts were mobilised.

I wonder how susceptible these are to damage from floating debris though, eg being bashed by floating vehicles, or when the water receeds being plonked on top of a pile of stuff that wasn't there before which is snagged in the structure eg sunken cars etc.

Suppose this could be designed for.

Good point, perhaps a good reason to keep the brick walls in place & build a floating one inside if an old building is present. I mentioned previously on this thread

[billybong]

It looks as if the floating houses are built with a smallish gap underneath so any smallish debris won't have any effect. Something the size of a car might present some difficulties.

[SpectrumFX]

There is also some government guarantee that you can always insure your property even in a food plane. Some kind of subsidy. Otherwise the houses would be uninsurable.

And uninsurable = unmortgageable, so they're one government prop away from financial ruin. But I suppose a river view is nice.

[workingpoor]

There is going to be a hell of alot of newly uninsurable houses this week, i'm watching the floods build up tonight Leeds City centre is at risk of flooding peaking at 11pm tonight.

Manchester city center is flooded

And plenty of towns in Lancashire are flooded out with 5 feet of water in some homes.

House prices could lose value in some of these areas.

Edited December 26, 2015 by workingpoor

[Drummer]

There is going to be a hell of alot of newly uninsurable houses this week, i'm watching the floods build up tonight Leeds City centre is at risk of flooding peaking at 11pm tonight.

Manchester city center is flooded

And plenty of towns in Lancashire are flooded out with 5 feet of water in some homes.

House prices could lose value in some of these areas.

That's correct. There are areas without a "flood reputation" that have been flooded today.

House buyers beware!

[dgul]

That's correct. There are areas without a "flood reputation" that have been flooded today.

House buyers beware!

House sellers despair!

[jiltedjen]

its rather sad that houses reverting closer to their true value (cash value) is seen as terrible when credit is what drove prices up in the first place.
if i could get a house that flooded downstairs once every 10 years for reasonable cash value i would be pretty happy. a good few weeks once every few years working to clean it up, dry it out, replace things, seems a lot better than 30 years working to pay off a mortgage.

[Olebrum]

More houses = more carpets to soak up the water, right?

[workingpoor]

Search and rescue teams and Army in York

Posted at 22:37

Search and rescue teams and the Army have joined the flooding operation in the centre of York.

Charlie Croft, of City of York Council, said they were "in uncharted territory" after the River Foss pumping station failed and the Foss barrier had to be opened.

Sounds ominous.

[wherebee]

I worked on some of the recovery/civil help work after the Victoria floods when an area the size of Germany was flooded - it was unbelievable. Properties were flooded that you would have never have even thought about water in - tens of KM away from the nearest watercourses. I remember looking out of one previously flooded house across dry again paddocks and I could see the nearest river was just at the edge of my visibility across the plains. The water had left tidemarks up to my chest inside that house - and that meant everything in sight across the land had been under that much water. This is because the catchment areas are simply continent sized.

So I look at the UK events now, and the small size of the land, and conclude that official **** up - allowing building where they should not and ineffective flood defences - have more to answer for than a true natural disaster.