UK: How to build a climate-proof home that never floods

Many of us already face an uncomfortably high risk of flooding. More than one in 10 of the new homes built in England in 2016-17 are in areas the Environment Agency deems at risk of flooding (it estimates they face at least a 1% chance of flooding every year). Over time, those aren’t great odds.

Yet the agency recently warned that “we can’t win a war against water by building away climate change with infinitely high flood defences”. Instead it is calling for housebuilders to construct homes that are more flood-resistant, for example by adding watertight flood doors and thicker, more waterproof membranes in the walls.

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But a more radical change to the way we build homes could deliver a more immediate benefit – by helping tackle the housing crisis.

Building homes that aren’t just resistant but immune to flooding could allow developers to build safely on land currently dismissed as unviable because it has a high flood risk.

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More modern techniques include building on a raised platform like a beach house – a familiar sight in my wife’s native Australia – or simply on banks of earth or concrete. Of course this approach requires an element of second guessing: you need to build the accommodation above the level any floodwater will reach.

But the latest technology solves this problem: houses that float and rise with the floodwaters.

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