Protecting Your Furniture From Flood Damage

Floods are increasingly common. Hurricanes will happen no matter what. However, growing suburbs eat into natural watersheds, reducing how much open ground is available to absorb rainfall. This result in more runoff that pours into creeks and lakes until they flood. Then there are the more mundane causes of flooding like a rising water table or broken water pipes. Everyone should have a general understanding of how protect their furniture from flood damage.

Put Things in Waterproof Storage

This will protect your property, but only if you have both notice and such a location available to you. Note that you can protect various items in your home by storing them in large, sealed plastic containers instead of cardboard boxes. You can put other valuables up on a fireplace mantle or a shelf. Most floods only affect the bottom one to three feet of your home. Don't forget to put plastic sheeting over other items to protect them from roof leaks, if the flooding is due to a major storm.  Read more here.

Elevate Furniture.

This is a solution if you're not able to move valuables. Put concrete blocks under sofas and tables. Put smaller items on top of the elevated furniture. Another option is moving things into the attic, though this assumes you have space in the attic and don't have to worry about holes in the roof.

Protect Your Home from Flood Waters.

The best choice is to protect your home entirely from the rising flood waters. How can you do that? With sand bags. A wall of sandbags will act like a personal retaining wall. This will hold back the water, as long as the sandbags are properly filled and stacked. This approach has several benefits. The sand used to fill the sandbags is cheap and readily available. (Don't use gravel, soil or clay in sandbags.) You can read more info here on how to properly fill and use sandbags.

You can choose when and where to install the sandbags. For example, if you're dealing with a flooding lake or creek, you probably only need to set up a wall of sandbag on the downhill side of your home. Suppose you get the sandbag barrier up to two feet. You can add to it as necessary. You might even be able to set up a sandbag barrier as tall as your home. Note that the sandbags need to be disposed of after use. Don't just dump the sand on your yard. The bacteria in the floodwater will remain in the debris and contaminate your soil.

 There are plastic, inflatable barriers you could try to use instead of sandbags. However, they're harder to get and need to be stored in between uses. Furthermore, the same concerns about bacteria and contamination exist with inflatable flood barriers. And this is assuming you have the electricity to inflate it.

Grade Away from the House.

Fill in the low spots near the house. If you have time, grade the yard away from your house. This prevents runoff from accumulating around the foundation year-round and reduces the risk of flooding. Don't forget to put space between your mulch and your home's siding, so that rain sinks into the ground instead of dripping into the house.