Buying a house in a flood risk zone – bad idea?

Liking the look of a house that’s close to the river and has previously flooded (although the extent of this wasn’t too catastrophic – a couple of inches in the lower ground floor kitchen we believe)

Should we run away screaming or is it manageable/worth the risk with an appropriate fit out of the kitchen?

Local insurance broker says buildings cover could be had but would exclude flood damage…

Thanks,

Chris.

as long as your happy to live with the risk

As long as you don’t mind the prospect of living in it for the foreseeable future. Could be very hard to sell if it is not only in the risk area, but has actually flooded recently.

Things are only going to get wetter, one assumes, so regular flooding could be a complete PITA.

insurance costs (baring in mind that your mortgage will require some form of buildings insurance and that many insurers wont touch you if you have flooded recently.)

subsidance from flood damage

being in the local rag moaning about how the local council does nothing to protect you after you bought a house in a known flood plain.

If it’s cheap enough (for me that would have to be very, very cheap).

I wouldn’t worry about it. I read in the Daily Mail that all this climate change/global warming stuff is a right load of old cobblers, made up by hippies and their bloody commie agenda. It stated as fact that the floods last year were just a freak one-off incident, that we’ll probably never see again in our lifetimes

Get it bought!

definantly binners ….. only ive seen 3 lots of significant widespread uk flooding in my life time that i can remember off cuff right at the moment…. im only 27.

Haha, you don’t happen to have a house for sale do you Binners?

bear in mind cheap insurers may not cover you at all.

I’ve never been flooded but am within 100m of a lake, and even though I’m about 30m vertically higher than the lake some companies won’t cover me!

Don’t ,it will only encourage people to build on the beach at low tide.

I agree with Binners, except that I prefer the Express to the Daily Mail. If you don’t buy this house now, you might well miss the boat, never be able to buy, and be a second class renting scum citizen for the rest of your life.

Buy it now or regret it for the rest of your life.

Living ankle deep in raw sewage can cure arthritis, according to a headline in the Express I saw the other day.

I used to work with a couple who live on the somerset levels. area regularly floods but they love the area so have adapted to it.

Whole ground floor was effectively a wet room, furniture could be hoisted up to the ceiling, all electrics etc routed down from the ceiling and installed above any flooding level. would take them a couple of hours to clean up after a flood and carry on.

I’m ok. I live half way up a mahoosive hill. I’m glad I don’t live at the bottom of it. This is what it looked like last summer*

* The word ‘summer’ is used figuratively in this instance, and does not infer that it will ever stop raining

Is there some sort of flood risk map?

http://maps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiybyController?x=357683.0&y=355134.0&scale=1&layerGroups=default&ep=map&textonly=off&lang=_e&topic=floodmap

Look on the environment agency website.
Edit… Doh, 2nd again.

You can always fit the entire downstairs out as a massive wet room. That way the better half can’t moan when you walk a muddy bike through the house either.

Our previous house was right in a red bit of the EA flood map.
It never flooded or even got close in 18 years

Our new house is in an amber flood zone. Never ever flooded in over 50 years.

I agree with Binners. it’s all made up.

The resale value might be a concern if you think that far ahead.

Recall our town getting seriously flooded when I was still at school, at least in those days the surrounding fields took some of the strain. Now the fields upstream of the town are flood defended, and so there’s nowhere for the run-off to go except through the town, then it’s a 5 mile meander to reach the sea. OK until it’s high tide, then boom..

Avoid places called “Meadowspot”, “The Haugh”, “Riverside” and you might be OK. 🙂

As has been said, your issues really are getting insurance, the potential repeated costs of repair if your insurance won’t cover flood damage and the difficulty in selling on the property.

The best way to ascertain the actual risk and likelihood of flooding is to look at the flood map jam bo linked to and speak with the EA about the risk to that particular area. You can put in an information request to the EA for about £50 and ask, what was the flood level from the lastest 20 years of flooding known in that area (and what return period of event was it estimated to be) and what are the 0.1% per annum (10 year return period) to 0.01% per annum event (100 year return period) flood levels modelled for that location. That should give you an idea of how often it might flood and how bad it could be. i.e. if the last flooding event was a big one (estimated at 70-100 year return period) then thats about the worst flooding you might expect in your lifetime (though a bigger event could happen, its very unlikely). If however the last flood event was a 1-in-10 year event, then its likely to flood again 2-4 times in the next 30 years and one of those events might be much more substantial. (That very much depends on the character of the river and its catchment and the connection with surface water drains and the like in the vicinity of the house).

There is loads of information and different structures on flood protection you can buy to hold low-level flooding back. Everything from removable covers for doors and air bricks to the full refit jam bo described.

Depends how much you want the house but I would at least get better informed and cost up the appropriate flood protection + risk of a bigger event before you exchange! (Note that the removable door covers will work up to about 30cm but more than that and it’s best to allow the building to flood for structural reasons).

I agree with Binners. it’s all made up.

Are you ignoring the small fact that the OP said this property HAS previously flooded to make some sort of point?

His situation is not ‘made up’. It is real.

chr15 – I’d not take the extra hassle that this house will generate. A lack of insurance or mugh higher costs, risk of further flooding and the disruption that this brings to you and yours. There are other houses that will be less hassle.

Worth bearing in mind that in a normal house you don’t just let it flood, wait for all the nice clean water to drain out and then carry on as before.

The water will contain all sorts, lots of sewage, oil, fertiliser, mud, silt, dead rats/dogs/tramps etc. It will soak into the floor boards and the plaster board and anything else porous.

A ‘small’ flood might mean gutting and refitting the entire ground floor of the house.

They build new flats on the River Cam flood plain, which regularly floods. As a concession the ground floor was just a car park, so they just get all their cars written off once ever few years:

Here is a photo of water half way up the ground floor. Inside of which there are cars bobbing around like rubber ducks…

[/url]
Why building houses on a flood plain is stupid[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

I think it would depend on how difficult the property appeared to be to flood harden yourself

By that I mean could you do it with a couple of drop in door panels (inch thick marine ply and a steel frame with rubber seal) or would it be a major civil engineering project?

Are you ignoring the small fact that the OP said this property HAS previously flooded to make some sort of point?

His situation is not ‘made up’. It is real.

Are you ignoring the fact there may have been a certain amount of tongue in the author’s cheek when they typed that?

Are you ignoring the small fact that the OP said this property HAS previously flooded to make some sort of point?

His situation is not ‘made up’. It is real.

Are you ignoring the the small fact that binners was having a laugh and so am i?

Don’t touch it. Really not worth the hassle. Run for the hills (literally)

Don’t touch it. Really not worth the hassle. Run for the hills (literally)

See, thats where I would see the opportunity to get a really nice house a lot cheaper, because so many people would have exactly that reaction.

See, thats where I would see the opportunity to get a really nice house a lot cheaper, because so many people would have exactly that reaction.

It’s nice until you’re wading through the turds of the people who bought the houses that didn’t get flooded.

Unless of course one of them swallowed a diamond ring or a gold bar in which case it’s yours now.

Plus, my company has pointed out that technically all that poo belongs to us and we’d like it back please.

“See, thats where I would see the opportunity to get a really nice house a lot cheaper, because so many people would have exactly that reaction.”

first rule of buying a house. location.

a nice house in a shit area is still shit.

The EA flood map is not all made up. So many times people say “ive lived here for 30 years and i havent flooded”, so therefore the flood map is wrong. The EA floodmap is the flooding an extreme event, ie the 100 year outline. The bright colours are also to do with risk, its not only the depth to consider but also the velocity of the water – the bright colours use this info the come up with a hazard rating. A common public misconception is also, there was a 100 year flood event last year, so my house wont flood for another 100 years – this is wrong. Flooding is like a bag with 99 white balls in and 1 black ball. Everyday you pick out a ball. Just because you picked out the black ball yeaterday doesnt mean you cant pick it out again today.

Buying a house that floods is entirely upto you whether accept the risk and accept the disruption that comes with it. If the location is well worth the hassle, then go for it. If you go down this line, then making the ground floor flood resilient would be the way to go. Move electrical sockets half way up the wall, tile the floor etc will make the after effects alot easier to cope with.

EDIT : you can also get flood gates etc that fit into your door frames.

I wouldn’t.
*on the grounds – check out insurance excess/conditions (and bear in mind that if insurance companies make a loss they will up restrictions/excess), resale issues esp if market less than booming (Obviously that won’t happen*),planners and builders seem to be pretty dumb, given they build on clearly marked flood plains and wonder why the house have got a tad damp you don’t know else what will happen up/down river that affects things and my best bet is neither do they, no matter how expensive the enquiry they hold before, don’t know your age but I’d suggest the following as accurateish – the older/more ‘baggageified’ (*wife/children, dog, cat, orange 5 etc etc) you get the less hassle you want in your life and once you’re 60 plus lifting heavy objects in a panic might not be hugely appealing

It’s nice until you’re wading through the turds of the people who bought the houses that didn’t get flooded.

From now on I’m going to attach a little message to all of mine in case they ever deem to pay a visit to any STWers living on a flood plain.

And for what it,s worth I wouldn’t live in an immovable object in the path of an irresistible force.

Just like you can buy a house next to Pylons, a main road etc etc. Let me use a girlfriend analogy.

You can go out with girls who are cute but have issues. Fantastic in the bedroom but occassionally you have to deal with their insecurity/abusive language etc etc.

Then there are girls who are cute, well-grounded, fantastic parents/childhood and you love them.

Both the above deteriorate with time however the latter you can see yourself growing old with. The former you are always worried about ‘something’.

Then there are girls who are cute, well-grounded, fantastic parents/childhood and you love.

eh?

Are you ignoring the the small fact that binners was having a laugh and so am i?

Which is great – if the OP wasn’t asking for advice about the biggest debt he’ll ever get in to.

There was an old mill house round the corner from us that used to flood massively. I once saw a DB9 being hauled out by a fire engine with a very embarrassed driver watching on.

That was 3 years ago and since then the building has been redeveloped into 4-5 posh townhouses. I thought they might have sorted out the flooding issue … but oh no … drove that way Monday night (post SE-storm) only to see 2 cars stuck in the middle of the road. If anyone had moved in recently and left their car on the road it would have been a right off.

A fantastic analogy, as usual Hora.

Buying a house on a flood plain is very much like……