Is Your New Home, Soon To Be, In The ‘Flood Zone’?
By Mark Eberwine
Buying a home in a ‘flood zone’ sound like fun, doesn’t it?
Think of the possibilities.
You can lose all of your possession, including family photos and videos.
You can spend a few weeks to a few months at a local hotel chain.
You can fight with the insurance company.
You can explain to the children how their ribbons and trophies were lost.
Think of the fun you’ll have as you scramble to replace at least some of your furnishings and clothing.
All this is possible with the new home you just purchased or are considering purchasing.
That’s right, for no extra charge, you can buy a home that would have been in a ‘flood zone’, had it not been for the developer and builder building your house on a lot that was altered (aka unconsolidated fill) to elevate the lot slightly out of the ‘flood zone’.
Here’s how it works…
The developer/builder buys land in a ‘flood zone’. Soils manipulation soon takes place. The lower portions of the ditch, creek, river, bayou, pond, etc. are dredged and contoured. The lot that the builder is going to build your house on has earth added to it to raise the elevation just enough to take the house out of the ‘flood zone’.
Don’t spend too much time wondering about the lack of a soils compaction report, or the fact that the soils samples for slab design criteria are taken from another location. You know, to keep your house ‘affordable’ (aka increased builder profits, to your detriment).
Picture yourself out house-hunting on a bright and sunny day. You and your spouse have decided on buying a brand-new shiny house. Soon, you are being shown lots or spec home.
If you are somewhat savvy, you see the ‘green belt’ behind the lot or house, and you ask ‘what’s going to be built back there’? The salesman says, ‘Oh that, that’s going to remain a ‘green belt’. ‘There is a ‘little creek’ back there (aka raging river during heavy rainfall.’.
‘Oh?’ you ask. ‘Is this lot in a flood zone?’ The answer is often ‘No, we’re not allowed to build a house in a flood zone’.
What they don’t tell you…
There is increased risk of foundation failure due to the soils that are typically found in drainage areas, creeks, and rivers. The soils that were added to the lot were not properly compacted. The slab was ‘engineered’ based soils obtained from somewhere else.
What they don’t tell you…
Your lot is barely elevated out of the flood zone. With very little future development upstream, your house will soon be back in the flood zone as the ‘Flood Plain Maps’ are re-drawn to reflect added runoff from impermeable membranes such as streets, parking lots, driveways, houses, commercial buildings.
What they don’t tell you is that the ‘affordable house’ they built you or sold you is anything but affordable.
You now have to purchase ‘flood insurance’. It’s not an option if you have a mortgage. You can spend anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars to repair a faulty foundation.
Congratulations, you get to experience life in the ‘flood zone’.
