Flood Resilient Repair House

Firemen testing the flood house with giant hoses

Showing what good practice looks like

The flood resilience issues considered by the Roundtable included the need to demonstrate what good practice actually looks like.

BRE already had considerable experience of demonstration buildings through the Innovation Parks, and a Victorian terrace house was available for refurbishment on BRE’s Watford Site. With the support of the BRE Trust and several partner organisations, the Flood Resilient Repair House was created.

Firemen testing the flood house with giant hoses

Current post-flood actions

At present the repair of flood damaged homes generally involves striping soggy plasterboard, removing flooring and ripping out saturated chipboard kitchen materials – and then, once the house has eventually dried out, putting the same sort of materials back in to suffer the same fate in the event of future flooding

What should we do instead?

The Flood Resilient Repair Home uses alternative replacement products in repairs that will reduce the damage caused by subsequent flooding. This can be achieved through the installation and application of certain design measures and products as well as researched initiatives to encourage positive changes in societal actions and flooding economies. More about each of these elements can be found in the subsections below: