Flood resilient design | Resilient Homes Program
Information about flood resilient design elements that can improve resilience of your home.
The Resilient Homes Program aims to help impacted communities recover from disasters and improve the disaster resilience of eligible homes in high-risk areas. Incorporating flood resilient design principles into resilience works at your home is key to reducing risk from future floods.
What is flood resilient design?
Repairing your home after a flood can be a costly exercise. By using a resilient approach, some of these costs may be avoided in the future. Flood resilient building design refers to modifications that adapt your home to reduce the impacts of flooding.
It involves the use of certain materials and construction systems that may be able to withstand substantial and multiple floods by actively mitigating their effects and decreasing their consequences.
Flood resilient design aims to enable homeowners to safely remove and store belongings prior to a flood and easily clean, repair and quickly return to the home after the flood waters recede. It minimises long term disruption to family and finances.
Even with a flood resilient design, there is no guarantee that your home won’t flood in the future, or be able to withstand future flood events.
A flood resilient home may help:
- minimise the chance of flood damage to your property
- minimise the costs and inconvenience of getting back to your home after floods
- save you in the long-term from having to pay for repetitive repairs to your home following floods
- prepare your home for changing flood conditions in the future, particularly from climate change
- reduce insurance premiums through recognition by the insurance sector of the value of such approaches - insurance pricing considers many factors however similar programs have delivered homeowners some savings on insurance premiums, please check with your insurer.
Approaches to flood resilient design
While considering what is physically and financially practical in your situation, you can use a combination of wetproofing and elevation to increase your home’s flood resilience.
Wetproofing
Wetproofing involves using flood resilient materials and construction methods to allow flood waters to enter the house with a minimised chance of damage and moisture problems afterwards. By accepting a level of risk through wetproofing, and creating space for water to flow, you can be better prepared for any future flooding that may occur. This means going with the flow and working with water rather than against it.
Elevation
Raising the house to, or above, the designated Flood Planning Level (FPL) set by your local council, can be effective. Footings, posts, slabs and other structures all need to withstand the flow of water across the site. Services such as air conditioners, hot water units and electrical meter boards can be easily raised as high as is practical to minimise the chance of important utilities being inundated. Home raising is no guarantee that your home won't flood in the future.
Fact sheets and guidance
Find resources about the Resilient Homes Program in our Reports and publications library.
