Pricing Breakdown – How to Determine Floodproofing Cost? – Residential

Dry flood proofing is at the forefront of Residential flood protection, with FloodSafe USA leading the charge 12 years ago as the only comprehensive flood solution for residential communities. 

We pride ourselves on the quality of our workmanship and our attention to detail when protecting your dream home. As one can imagine, water seeks the path of least resistance and requires nothing more than a pinhole to begin causing flood damage. It goes without saying that our team at FloodSafe USA undergoes extensive training to ensure that your home is being one-hundred percent protected from flood damage.

FloodSafe USA provides a comprehensive, fully-customized service to seal your home from rising flood waters. With each home being uniquely different in construction and design, there have been practically zero instances of having two projects that are exactly the same. The objective of this article is to help you gain an understanding of what a Trusted FloodSafe Advisor will be inspecting at an assessment and how to gain an understanding of the size of your investment. 

WALLS

If your home was your fortress from an approaching army, which portion of your castle would be the most effective at keeping soldiers out? I know, as cool as catapults are, the correct answer would be your walls. There’s a reason they constructed castle walls ten feet thick and thirty-nine feet tall. 

In this scenario, rising flood waters from storm drain inundation, creek flooding and dams being released are the approaching army. One of FloodSafe’s objectives is to provide a solution for fortifying your walls to keep the threat away from your family, or castle. To do this, we must gain a firm grasp of the condition of your existing wall, as well as the history of your flooding. 

Depending on the quantity of exterior wall penetrations and existing conditions of your home, costs typically vary with each property. This is a guide to exemplify what we take into consideration when pricing a flood proofing project:

  • First of all, how high are we protecting your home? Remember, we are limited to 36” of protection, with different costs associated with each 6” increment. 
  • Next, what are your walls made of? More common than not, residential homes have a mix of brick, hardi plank siding, or stucco. Each of these substrates have their own patented process. Residential Brick sealing is the most affordable service that we offer, with Painted Brick and Demising (garage) Walls having the highest price tag. 
  • An important next step is to identify the amount of deterioration that your wall has – is the brick falling apart? Has the mortar deteriorated? How have flood waters damaged it? The homes with the best pre-existing conditions are much easier to apply our process to, thus saving you money. 
  • How many wall penetrations fall within the designated flood protection zone? We must account for every penetration to properly seal your home from water intrusion. 
  • This is the most important pricing element… how many linear feet makes up the perimeter of your home? Essentially, how much wall space does our crew need to work on? This element determines a major portion of wall cost.

If walls make up 95% of the perimeter of your home, does it make sense to invest in protecting that asset by fortifying your walls to prevent flood waters? We provide door solutions as well, but we strongly suggest protecting the walls – so in the event of a flood, sandbagging the doors could be an alternative. 

If you are reading this because you have flood concerns, have flooded before, or are exploring your options, you know very well that flood mitigation is typically an expensive endeavor and the best solution should not be selected lightly. For contrast, a minimum investment into elevating your home 3’ is roughly $150,000, and that is a bargain. I have seen clients of mine show me bids of elevation that ran into the upper $200k’s. This will not include the additional expenses of repairing the plumbing, HVAC, electrical, etc. since they were not designed to be that high. Not to mention the repairs from the flood damage in the first place. This is essentially an investment the size of a new home, away from a flood plain, that you are making into your current home that is in a flood plain. 

Depending on the size of your home, amount of doors that we are protecting, how we are protecting them, and the flood protection height, FloodSafe USA can protect your home & peace of mind for a fraction of that investment. 

To provide reference, here is an example: We can provide 24” brick protection for a luxury home with three (3) Automatic Flood doors for around the cost of a brand new car. Understandably, having your house made FloodSafe is still a sizable investment, which is why our Trusted Flood Safe Advisors work tirelessly with homeowners to ensure that they are not only getting a solution, but the right solution that fits with your needs & budget. 

In summary, an array of different factors come into play whenever designing a specialty flood solution. If you have interest in determining what it would take to make your home FloodSafe, I would encourage you to pick up the phone to schedule an assessment with our team of Trusted FloodSafe Advisors at FloodSafe USA, (832)-352-4372. 

DOORS & WINDOWS

Upon scheduling an assessment, two other elements that we will be inspecting are the exterior doors and ANY windows that fall into the designated flood protection height. The objective of this is to provide guidance as to what we are looking for when determining the right solution for your doors & windows. 

DOORS: Doors are going to be taking up a majority of the remaining 5% of the home that we have to make FloodSafe. Yet, when it comes to pricing, they are less complex than the Wall Phase. For more information about our doors & windows, check out our ‘How It Works’ tab at the top. 

When we look at a doorway, we analyze a variety of different features about the door to determine what would be the best fit for the solution. Here are some things that you, as a potential client, would need to keep in mind when making your door protection decision:

  • What is my schedule like?
  • How much water am I anticipating?
  • Is there anything prohibiting a flood door from operating, since it has an outward swing?
  • What is the value of your peace of mind? Is automatic or manual protection more appealing?

Pricing a door typically relies on an assortment of different variables, but are not limited to these:

  • Is it a single or a double door?
  • Do you want to custom order a door model or stick with the traditional fiberglass?
  • How much glass do you want in the door, if any?
  • Are there any irregularities with the existing framework?
  • What size is the door? (WxH)
  • Are there side-lites adjacent to the door?
  • Are we retrofitting an existing door to be a flood door?

Prices sometimes vary, but you can expect to pay around five thousand per flood residential flood door. 

We also offer manual flood barriers that can be inserted prior to a flood event. These are highly-effective flood barriers, but are not automatic protection. This method requires a human element to the protection, but will get the job done. We inspect many of the same things that we inspect for doors, but door protection is left up to client’s discretion. Please ask a Trusted FloodSafe USA for additional information. 

WINDOWS:

Windows rarely come into play, but if you are one of the few that has low-lying windows or require 36” protection – we have a solution for your windows, as well.  

We provide a fixed, high-impact resistant flood window to seal the windows in the protection zone, with an operable window above it for normal window access and/or egress. The flood glass is water tight in it’s frame, while providing impact resistance from floating debris or hydrostatic water pressure. 

Prices vary with windows. These can only be determined at an on-site assessment. The two main dictators of window costs would be:

  1. Window Size
  2. How much of it do we need to protect?

A single window unit alone will not skyrocket the final cost, but a slew of windows that fall into the protection zone should raise the expectation of any potential buyer. 

We also offer manual flood barriers that can be inserted prior to a flood event. These are highly-effective flood barriers, but are not automatic protection. This method requires a human element to the protection, but will get the job done. We inspect many of the same things that we inspect for doors, but door protection is left up to client’s discretion. Please ask a Trusted FloodSafe USA for additional information. 

Article Written by Devin Skapura, FloodSafe Advisor Email Devin at  Dskapura@fdy.zfz.mybluehost.me