
Floating house could ride New Orleans’ floods - Flemlord
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/10/09/floating-house-could-ride-new-orleans-floods/
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btilly
Someone garbled the reason that the Netherlands has been working on this.

The problem those houses are meant for is not rising sea level - if the dikes
get seriously breached the rushing flood water would pose problems that no
floating houses could solve. The issue is that global warming is expected to
bring increased storms, and therefore larger floods coming into the
Netherlands down the Rhine. There is a limit to how quickly that flood water
can be pumped out, so sections of the Netherlands have been targeted as
temporary floodplains in case of emergency. However all of the Netherlands is
fairly densely populated, so there are a lot of people living in those areas.

Therefore effort is being put into designing floating houses, roads, etc for
these areas so that people could get by with minimal damage even if they are
several meters deep in water.

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brm
So here's what I don't understand... Why build a house on the ground in a
floodplain in the first place?

If it's going to float up a pylon to 12 feet when the water rises why not just
put it a story off the ground on stilts to begin with? Seems like it would
reduce some of the unnecessary complexity this house has and maybe even reduce
the needed footprint since you could do things like park vehicles under the
house when a catastrophe is not in progress...

Anyway logical reasons why this was not considered?

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stcredzero
Another wrinkle in the "fab-prefab" movement. Why is it that beautiful, well
designed manufactured homes aren't already the norm? What are the barriers?

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ponnap
"While not intended for occupants to remain inside during a hurricane, the
structure is designed to minimize catastrophic damage and preserve the
homeowner’s investment, Mayne says.

In case of a flood, the base of the house acts as a raft, allowing the home to
rise on guide posts up to 12 feet as water levels rise. In the Lower 9th Ward,
which saw some of the worst flooding in the city during Katrina, floodwater
reached as high as 12 feet."

Looks like this helps 'preserve' your house in the event of flooding.

