Flooded House - Repair

[ETatBKK]

moo baan manager reported that my house is slightly flooded about 10cm to 20 cm inside, although the house is raised by 50cm. I am not able to check on site yet, I get a list of damage already :

- flooring - stained

- wall paper - stained and peep-off

- wooden doors and frames - wet and water logging

- kitchen cabinets, doors, drawers - wet

- fridge, washing machine - water logging

- indoor low level powerpoints and conduits - water logging

- outdoor low level powerpoint, lighting and conduits - water logging

- water pump - dead

- auto gate motor - in the water

question is, what should I start first and how ? I am not even deal to switch on the main circuit board !!

what could be repair, what should be rebuild ?

thanks for any idea !

[Pib]

First you need to the water completely drain out of your house and dry a few days before turning any downstairs circuit breakers on. Before turning on power I would let the water level drop below the foundation level of the house which should allow any water in conduits to drain out also. You could even take off the cover plate of each power outlet which may have got water in it to let any trapped water drain out. The main power lines that feed your main circuit breaker box shouldn't be damaged even if they run underground to your house to the circuit box....these lines are PVC/rubber coated to protect them against water and many are designed to be buried directly in the ground with no required conduit protection. I know in my moobaan, which is all two stories homes, maybe 10% of the people have stayed through the floods with their power on....the 1.5 meter deep water has not hurt their unground power lines. And there are some in low areas where the houses have flooded on the first floor and the people are living upstairs "with electricity on" although I'm assuming/hoping they have turned off the breakers feeding their first floor.

When I evacuated my house I turned off all the breakers feeding the first floor except the wall mounted air con units and a head level outlet on my kitchen stove exhaust fan....in fact I left one air con unit running at 28C just to help keep humidity down in the house. I had raised my refrig about 20 cm on cinderblocks since it was too big to take upstairs and then I plugged it into that high exhaust fan outlet with an extension cord. I then turned off all the first floor and outdoor electricial outlets. Every thing else downstairs I was able to move upstairs or raise up around 20cm except 3 large cabinets.

But back to your situation, since 20cm of water is below knee level your appliances may be OK once you give them a day or two to dry out, but you may want to remove the back of the appliances if possible to wipe the inside of them assuming the water was really dirty/nasty. Usually all the electronics for your applicance are on located in the mid to top level of the applicance and the frig freon pump is sealed. I would also let the gate opener and water pump completely dry out for a few days before applying power to them...they may still work but don't be surprised if they fail in the near future as motor corrosion grows due to be submerged for days/weeks. The motors for these things were not designed to be submerged in water; only water resistance from rain, water hose spray, dog peeing on it, etc.. with it protective cover on. Since water pump motors are pretty sturdy items, I would guess the water pump has a better chance of continuing to work OK for a long time after it dries out compared to the gate opener. The water pump will have a electrical pressure switch with a protective cover...you may water to remove this cover usually held by one small screw to make sure no water is trapped inside.

Regarding all the other stuff, once again let it all dry out first before deciding what needs to be done. As long as the tile did not come unmortared you can clean it up. The various wood products may be OK after they dry out as.a lot depends on what kind of protective coating (i.e., type of lacquer, paint, etc) was on the wood. A new lacquer/varnish job just may make the wood products look like new. Wallpaper quality, color, how dirty the water was, etc., will determine if the paper can be cleaned/re-glued.

Just give the house a few days to dry out before turning the power back on...."one circuit breaker at a time." Don't have all the individual room breakers turned on when you turn on the main circuit breaker. Ensure all the individual breakers are off before turning on the main breaker. Then turn one individual breaker on at a time. I would also plug each appliance in one at a time. This sequenced method of turning breakers back on and plugging in individual electrical items will help to narrow down any problems/short circuits.

Good luck. I'm in a similar situation to you in that my western Bangkok moobaan has around 1 to 1.5 meters of water in it, but fortunately my home's yard/foundation is around 1 meter higher than road level. Water did enter my house but didn't make it to the main 1st floor; it only made it too an entrance area from the carport and the downstairs bathroom which is about one foot lower than the main floor. My gate opener is still submerged; but the water only touched the bottom tank area of the water pump. I'll have some wallpaper damage also but only the bottom few inches in that entrance area....I hoping the approx 5 inch wide decorative stripping in various colors/designs with self adhesive backing (comes in 5 meter long rolls for about 200 baht) will cover up that wallpaper damage if the wallpaper cannot be fully cleaned. This is day 12 of being evacuated from the house and it's still looks like another week or two before the water level drops enough that regular vehicles can travel into the moobaan again; right now only boats can travel the soi's of my moobaan. Floods suck...preaching to the choir I know. Once again, hopefully your damage won't be as bad as currently expected and/or be repairable at a low cost....just let thing dry out first.

[ETatBKK]

hi Pib

thanks for the comprehensive suggestion ! indeed the electrical system is the most tricky part.

my concern is the water pump as we need water to clean. unfortunately my water pump is on the same circuit breaker as the outdoor lighting outdoor powerpoint, that will be badly damaged. I may need to lay a temporary cable to the water pump from the indoor powerpoint.

checking and cleaning the conduits will be a hell of dirty work, and never know until the breaker is on.

I planned to 'stay in' and prepared the house for short term water damage. but we left the house in a rather quick decision and no time to prepare the house for being alone for weeks. this is an unprepared scenario :-(

[Pib]

I can associate with leaving quick. We initially thought we would ride out the flooding by staying in the house and just didn't think it would rise as fast and high as it did in our moobaan--no one really did in our moobaan as this is supposedly the worst flood in around 70 years which is most everyone's lifetime....so people just didn't think it would flood as high as it did.

But on the evening of 1 Nov as the water keep rising and we knew if we waited much longer (say a few hours) the water would be too high for us to drive-out in our Toyota Fortuner SUV, we made the decision to pack two small suitcases, throw the 4 dogs in the SUV, and off we went through at least a meter of water...I was expecting the SUV to stall-out an any time....the water eventually reached approx 1 to 1.5 meters in our moobaan depending on the specific moobaan soi.

Per telephone calls to neighbors who stayed behind the water level is now a few centimeters below the lowest point of our first floor and seems to be dropping about 5cm per day. The earliest we may be able to go back is maybe this weekend if we certain roads reopen and we get confirmation the water level in the moobaan is down to around 50cm which the SUV would have no problem traveling through. Floods suck.