TTA top tip - flooring for flood risk homes

Here is some information and advice about flooring for homes at risk of flood damage. You can download a free PDF version of this information.

If your home is at risk of flood damage, then tiling floors will enable you to get your home back to normal much more quickly. When your home is at risk just roll up the rugs and if any water does get in it can be mopped away. Some house insurers insist on replacing existing floor coverings with natural stone or ceramic tiles when compensating for flood damage.

In their publication “Prepare your property for flooding - A guide for householders and small businesses” The Environment Agency advise “Flooring: lay tiles with rugs rather than fitted carpets, which often need to be replaced after a flood”. The National Flood Forum is a charity that “Provides support and advice to communities and individuals that have been flooded or are at risk of flooding”. They advise “modifying the inside of your home to reduce the impact any future flood”.

They have many case studies on their website, www.floodforum.org.uk. We quote two of them. In Worcestershire, “Our Insurance Company were reasonably flexible in making payment for loss suffered and then allowing the money to be used to incorporate flood resilience as far as possible. This flood resilience amounted to (so far as the initial reinstatement of the property was concerned) tiling the whole of the ground floor, including skirting’s and extending the tiling up the walls behind kitchen units. Removing all fitted carpets and wood flooring”. In Oxfordshire, “They noticed that in their neighbours’ farmhouse the stone flagged floor only needed mopping to return to normal. So they decided to have stone (travertine) floors, rather than replacing wooden floors”.

You can actually make your floor completely waterproof so the water doesn’t seep into cellars or foundations. Waterproofing systems can be used in areas that may suffer water ingress such as hallways or for the whole of your ground floor. You can put floor tiles, with a waterproofing system, on most suspended wooden floors.

Choose the latest hardwearing porcelain, natural stone look a like floor tiles for a really robust floor. Tiles with a textured or riven surface will also add slip resistance even when wet. Visit your local tile retailer to see the vast selection available and be inspired! Do choose a reputable tile retailer who can advise on the best tiles for your projects.

The Tile Association is the trade association for the wall and floor tile industry, they check out potential members before they join for financial health and professional competence so you don’t have to. The Tile Association are so confident of their fixer members’ workmanship that they have introduced an insurance backed warranty scheme especially for TTA fixers working in the consumer sector. Because it is insurance backed, even if the tiler or TTA go out of business, the consumer will still have cover. The TTA scheme covers tiling contracts from £250 to £5000 including VAT. It covers the tiling work only, not the product, in a single private residence with no business use, for six years. This is the ONLY insurance backed warranty scheme in the tiling industry.

If you like the tiles in our illustrations, you will find the contact details for the companies in the directory

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