)Hey! I'm looking at getting myself some sandbags to protect my house from water damage. I'm not in a particularly high flood risk area but near where I live in Kent (not too far from the sea) doesn't have the best drainage. Therefore I'm not anticipating flood risks from bursting rivers or lakes (or the sea itself) but we could potentially have an issue from excessive rain now flowing away. Also my house is at the bottom of a very slight hill so there's the potential that excess rainfall could flow towards my house.
Structure-wise, it's a detached house, with 2 main doorways into the house. We also have a conservatory door but it's raised off the ground by a foot, so I'm hoping won't be an issue. However we do also have a garage door which does have a slightly sloping driving way so this is probably the most "open" of spots to our house.
I was thinking about just buying 2 dozen bags of Sharp Sand from our local B&Q and chucking them in front of the house if needed but having done some research, I'm not sure that's sufficient.
Firstly I've heard that sandbags for flood protection shouldn't be full and in fact a bag around 2/3rds full is good so you can flatten them down and give the sand some space to move.
I've also heard folks say you should put the sand in Hessian bags. Having looked on Amazon, these aren't particularly cheap and many of them seem to tear or "decay" after a few weeks or months being left outside. I was planning on just putting the bags outside by our shed and just use them when needed, but perhaps this isn't how it should be approached.
This obviously leads to considerations on storage of the sand and bags.
So here are some initial questions:
1. Is Sharp Sand ok to use?
2. Would 20ish kg bags of Sharp Sand from places like B&Q work?
3. Can I just store the sand in the bags as it comes from B&Q and then transfer to strong rubble-black bags and use these rubble-black bags as my sand bags when I need to use them?
4. If I need Hessian bags, should I just store these dry (i.e. unpacked without sand) and then just transfer the sand into these Hessian bags when needed?
5. I've seen folks also put plastic sheeting around the bottom of doorways and then put the sand bags on the sheeting. Advisable?
6. I've also seen folks store their sand bags on a raised pallet rather than directly on the floor (for outside storage). Is this required? I was assuming that the standard B&Q type bags of sand would store outside in all weathers without issue. Should they themselves be covered outside too?
... but I also welcome additional comments or recommendations. As always, I don't want to spent a fortune on sand and sand bags, so an effective but low-cost solution works best.
Thanks in advance.
