When water floods your home, it can contain sewage and other impurities like oil, petrol, and diesel. Normally these would be highly diluted, and the risk to life would be low. However, decontamination must be undertaken, followed by the drying process. Next, a structural survey needs to be done to check that the building is stable and not adversely affected.

If your building has had flood water above 0.6 m in height, or if there is any movement or cracking, a structural engineer should check the building before any work takes place.

After a flood and before any work takes place, the flood cause needs to be established and also whether the flooding could occur again. Because the remedial work undertaken will differ depending on the cause of the flood. The work required if a sewage system failed will differ from a river overflowing its banks. Also, it’s important to investigate whether there was more than one source of flood water; otherwise, you could do the work for one source and later be flooded again by another source or sources.

It should be noted that flood water can pick up contaminating materials before it gets to your property. Possible contaminates include:

• Black/Grey Water

• Chemical Contamination (including oils)

• Seawater

• Biological (e.g., sewage)

• Sand, Salt, Silt/Other Fines

Therefore, materials in contact with the flood waters should be sanitised before removal.

As a company, we can guide you through each step of this process and how to rebuild your property and life after such an occurrence.