
A Floating House to Resist the Floods of Climate Change - rafaelc
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-floating-house-to-resist-the-floods-of-climate-change
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Animats
You see lots of floating structures in marinas. They're attached to heavy
piles, and go up and down with the tide. They're always floating, never
resting on the ground. The proposal here is a watertight hull which very
seldom floats.

That's a maintenance problem. It has to be kept watertight for years or
decades between uses. Modifications to the house have to maintain hull
integrity. It's hard to test the watertightness. The experience of Louisiana
levee boards indicates the maintenance won't get done. People who have a house
like this might have it sink, or worse, sink unevenly and break apart, in a
hurricane. Since it's supposed to ride out a storm, it would probably be
occupied.

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gshubert17
It's too bad that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is getting in
the way of adopting this technology:

> she mentions the story of a developer who built an amphibious house in New
> Orleans, then found himself unable to acquire an N.F.I.P. [National Flood
> Insurance Program] policy; the building remained unsold until he replaced
> the amphibious foundation with a traditional one.

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kemiller
There was a floating house for a floodplain on the Thames river featured on
Grand Designs: [https://www.dezeen.com/2016/01/20/baca-architects-bouyant-
am...](https://www.dezeen.com/2016/01/20/baca-architects-bouyant-amphibious-
house-river-thames-buckinghamshire-floating-architecture/)

~~~
Gys
Exactly the same project was mentioned in the article. Maybe next time read it
before posting ;-)

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didgeoridoo
Wow. I wouldn’t have guessed that basically strapping styrofoam to the bottom
of a house would provide enough buoyancy. I assume this only works for single-
story homes, e.g. in the New Orleans “shotgun” style?

Also, how does the plumbing work?

~~~
schiffern
> I assume this only works for single-story homes, e.g. in the New Orleans
> “shotgun” style?

It works for multi-story buildings as well. This home in the UK has a
basement, ground floor, and a loft.[1]

> how does the plumbing work?

"Services are connected through "elephant cabling" – a flexible cable that
carries electricity, water, and sewage. For safety reasons, the house only
uses electric power and no gas." [1]

[1] [https://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/15/baca-architects-
amphibious...](https://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/15/baca-architects-amphibious-
house-floating-floodwater/)

~~~
didgeoridoo
That’s one of my favorite Grand Designs episodes. They end up having to build
a little ferry system to get the construction equipment over the water (which
ultimately fails and dumps its cargo into the Thames, necessitating a whole
recovery effort).

It’s a different flotation technique though (“boat in a hole”), and much more
expensive. I think the breakthrough here is the relatively cheap approach of
slapping styro to the bottom of the house and letting it ride. I assume if you
were trying to lift a bigger/taller house, you may need to start digging down
to find room for all the foam, which starts blowing up the price tag.

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moocow01
"The system was simple and cheap" ... $10-$40 per sqft without labor assuming
you are "handy" is not exactly cheap. Presuming most homeowners wont want to
do this work themselves it sounds like something that would cost $50-100k for
a midsize home. At that cost I'd imagine it would only be installed for more
expensive homes where flooding is expected to occur frequently.

~~~
BugsJustFindMe
That's also about what it costs to raise a house up. I guess with this you're
losing a known (and importantly still insurable) quantity constructionwise +
not having stuff fall off your shelves in a swell for being at street-ish
level most of the time with this floating business. I guess if my house were
prone to significant submersion I'd look into it vs always being 10 feet up,
but I've also always wanted to live on a boat, so...

