SFI will be showcasing their Floodstop system at Farmlands Mosgiel on Saturday morning 17th August from 9-12.
The effects of a flood are devastating for both businesses and residential properties. Things are never quite the same. Even if insurance does cover the majority of your loss, and even after an intense clean-up, your property is never quite the same. Many homes and businesses live with the effects of flood damage for many years after the fact, which can be caused by water damage no higher than 20cm. If you do live in a flood prone or low-lying coastal area, the best remedy is to have robust protection.
The problem with Sandbags
Sandbags have been the traditional solution to for flood protection. Although they can be somewhat effective if deployed properly, they suffer from a number of disadvantages.
- Quantity: to properly construct a flood defence using sandbags a ratio of 1:3 is required ie. a 1m high wall requires a 3m wide footing and only 1m in length requires 150 sandbags.
- Weight: Sandbags are difficult to deploy due to their sheer weight- 20kg.
- Sand: Empty sandbags are easy enough to store. The problem is locating and filling them with sand in time for a flood event.
- Cost: a 900mm high wall using sandbags requires 150 sandbags per m. At an average of $5 per filled bag, this is $750 per m. This excludes transport (it is 3 ton per meter- 150 bags at 20kg each), labour to deploy, and possibly the largest bill, packing up and then disposing of contaminated sandbags.
- Effectiveness: Sandbags are not waterproof, so regardless of how well your wall is built, there is significant seepage.
Floodstop
Floodstop is designed to counter many of the problems that are inherent to sandbags as a flood protection solution.
- Speed: Floodstop is fast to deploy, and requires no specialised training.
- Reusable: Sandbags need to be disposed of after use- Floodstop can be cleaned and is then ready for the next flood event.
- Effectiveness: With the unique design, Floodstop is significantly more effective than sandbags.
- Footprint: When deployed the 0.9m Floodstop only takes 750mm as a footing- critical if space is a concern.
Flood events are difficult to predict, and each case and property is different. If flooding is an issue for you, come in and discuss if Floodstop is right for you on Saturday 18th.
For more information check out our webiste HERE
