Jul

How to Protect Your Home in Case of Flood

Our homes are the places where we keep our most valuable possessions. This is the place where we can rest in the end of an exhausting day, and not worry about the problems of the world. Therefore, it’s very important to keep this place safe at all times. There are many forces, which are trying to destroy our homes. Some of them we can prevent, but some are forces of nature, so we can’t do anything to stop them.

But still, we can do something to limit their influence on our property. Such great and very dangerous force is the flood. It can destroy everything we worked for in just moments. It’s crucial to know how to protect your home in case of flood, if you want to prevent most of the damage. Fortunately, there are a few easy ways to do it.

Be informed

The first step to protecting your property from anything, is to always be informed about the possible dangers. Otherwise you would be just living in the dark, not knowing what could happen in the future. Therefore, you should check first what is the likelihood of flood happening the region you live in. Usually every area in the world is threatened by this, but some are more than the others. After you acknowledge what is the danger, you can just prepare your home as much as you can, and follow the news. They will give you the proper notice if there’s something like that coming.

Clean the drains

The drains are a very important part of the house. They take the water off the roof, so it won’t get to the inside of the property. But when there are a lot of leaves and sticks stuck there, the drain can’t do its job. And this makes the risk of flooding your home much bigger, if there’s a heavy rain. So, you should take care of these things before it gets too late. Just climb on a ladder and clean everything up. This way your home will be a lot more protected from flooding in the autumn and spring, when it’s raining a lot.

Protect your possessions

The items we own are one of the most valuable things in our homes. So, it’s important to always keep them safe. If you have very expensive items in your home, you should find a very safe place for them. Some people use safes, and some prefer to keep them in a deposit box in a bank. Also, the flood usually starts from the lowest parts of the house, which is usually the basement. Therefore, you shouldn’t keep anything too valuable or breakable there, because you will lose it in no time in case of flood.

Electrical wiring

The electricity in the house can be very dangerous during a flood. The wires react very badly in connection to water. If there’s a short circuit, not only your life can be in real danger, but also your entire electrical system can be fried. And it’s expensive to fix one of those. Therefore, if you want to protect your home in the best way you can, be very careful where these electrical cords are situated. If you have any in the basement, you should try to remove them from there or just put them as high as possible in the room.

The furniture

The furniture is also an integral part of the home. Unfortunately, if there’s a flood, it will suffer the most. And there’s almost no way to prevent that from happening. The only thing you can do, is to keep all the furniture high in the house, and this is no guarantee that it will be saved. Packaging them in an appropriate material, like plastic, can extend their chances a little.

Photo credit: rbanks CC BY-NC

A warning system

Our modern society has created a very useful tool, which can help you effectively protect your home in case of flood. Most of the security companies can provide you with a device that will alert you on your phone, if the basement if flooding. Isn’t technology great?!