How water gets into your home

Water finds its way into your home in many different ways, but the most common are:

• Around closed doorways.
• Through air-bricks and other wall vents.
• Back flows through blocked sewers leading to water being discharged into your home through ground floor sinks and toilets.
• Seepage through external walls as brickwork can be porous, even if it is undamaged.
• Up through the ground and the floor.
• Via gaps in walls made for cable or pipe entry.
• From adjoining properties.

The extent to which water enters your home will depend on the duration and depth of the flood water. It is important to identify potential water entry points and put in place measures to reduce or eliminate the damage.

Flood facts:
It was the wettest summer for the whole of the UK since the rainfall series began in 1914. For England and Wales as a whole the summer has been the wettest since 1912.

Provisional tallies show a total of 358.5mm (14.114in) of rain fell on the UK, narrowly beating the previous 1956 record of 358.4mm (14.110in).
Source BBC News Service Aug 31, 2007 and Met Office news: issued 6 September 2007

For more information: Environment Agency floodline