Overview

What is this page for?

This page is to help people understand what Property Flood Resilience (PFR) is and its importance in reducing flood damage.

Contents

The cost of flooded homes

What is Property Flood Resilience (PFR)?

PFR in building climate resilience

Advantages of PFR

Build your flood resilience

FAQs

The cost of flooded homes

The effects of flooding are profound, both emotionally and financially.

In 2014, the average cost of repairing a 3-bed, semi-detached house stood at £30,000. The cost of repairing water damage can be between £1,505 and £3,672 per square foot. 

Flooding can severely affect people's mental health, particularly for the most vulnerable. Time spent out of the home, loss of treasured possessions and the breakup of routine all take a serious toll.

These real-life examples show how, with PFR installed, you can greatly increase your home's recoverability, reducing recovery costs and time spent out of the house.

What is Property Flood Resilience (PFR)?

Property Flood Resilience is a set of modifications added to a building to lower its flood risk. It can reduce flood damage and speed up recovery after a flood.

We can never remove the risk of flooding entirely. However, PFR reduces the risk of water getting into properties and speeds up recovery if the worst happens.

Communities that have used PFR have recovered much faster from flood events.

PFR products

PFR in building climate resilience

Climate change is causing more extreme changes in weather patterns. As a result, flooding is likely to increase and be less predictable. 

Climate change and flooding More Information

We want communities to become more resilient to flood events, ensuring they can respond to and recover from flooding faster.

Advantages of PFR

Because PFR measures are focussed on individual properties, they can be installed much quicker than built defences, such as a flood wall. By targetting the most vulnerable homes, we can have a more immediate impact on a communities’ flood resilience.

Traditional concrete defences are more expensive and time consuming to install than PFR. They are often more difficult to modify if conditions change and are less environmentally friendly, even when made with low carbon concrete.

Build your flood resilience

The Environment Agency is always here to help you prepare for and recover from flooding. We help communities become more flood resilient, enabling faster and more effective responses to flooding.

This is especially important as we experience climate change. Less predictable and more dramatic weather requires more flexible and independent responses.

Empowering people and communities reduces the stress, anxiety and cost of flooding. The below resilience measures can be done immediately:

• Sign up to the Environment Agency’s flood alerts: www.gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings
• For surface water, sign up to Met office weather alerts: Met Office (govdelivery.com)
• Develop a Personal Flood Plan and know what to do to keep yourselves and most important possessions safe during a flood. Download a template here: Personal flood plan - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• Investigate ways to make your house more flood resilient. Find information here: Make your home more flood resilient - Creating a better place (blog.gov.uk)

FAQs