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Many people in flood-prone areas, no doubt, already use a lot of those widely advertised air-evacuated plastic bags to store their soft-goods in, especially when a flood is predicted.
Taking the principle a step further, I visualise bags intended to protect large items such as furniture, even machinery,
from floods. ["Mothballing" differs. I'm thinking of a re-useable consumer product. A search revealed nothing similar.]
I see two kinds of bag : ONE, being pre-flood bags issued by insurance companies and civil authorities probably with a manual suction pump available on request. They would be fitted to, say, a chest of drawers full of clothing, like this :
1. Fit into the large bag supplied, a corrugated board "floor", the shape of the chest's footprint. 2. Roll the open bag down to this floor. 3. Two people lift the chest. Third person puts the rolled down bag in place and starts the upward unrolling. 4. Seal top and suck out air.
I think a solo person with practice could fit a bag by tilting and kicking the bag-floor into place. A good aspect of the scheme is that size-match of bag and object isn't critical; with shrinkwrap. All the flappy bits get sucked flat. One large size might fit all ordinary furniture etc., keeping costs down.
TWO : "Flood-furniture" with flood-bags built-in to the base, invisible like air-bags in cars. Comes the flood warning, you flip down the concealing panels, pull up the bag, seal, and deflate it.
Named FloodBags, the product could have other than flood uses, such as in boats, and for non-water uses such as shrink-wrapping the entire contents of a seldom used mountain hut.
Flood bag for cars
http://totallyabsurd.com/floodbag.htm
Semi-baked in car form. [mmmrorschach, Jun 01 2007]
[link]
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I seem to remember reading somewhere once that the Israeli army keep their tanks stored in giant zip-up plastic bags. No really: it stops sand drifting into the machinery and causing embarassing equipment breakdown just when a trouble free quick start is called for. So it should certainly be possible to extend the idea to furniture and domestic appliances. It's a fine idea, and I applaud you on it. |
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I really like the sentence "All the flappy bits get sucked flat." It should be more widely used. |
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These would be useful for off-season storage of many things, even without disasters; adding some camphor and a dessicant, perhaps. |
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Why is it important to evacuate the bags? I could see that helping to preserve foods, but I don't see why you'd bother with furniture. |
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[a] to reduce thr tendency of items to float away in extreme floods [b] to reduce number of mould etc spores trapped in air as in the case of food-packaging [c] to reduce thr moisture they need [d] to make "one size fits all" a more likely proposition, to simplify emergency procedures. |
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Somewhere, I saw a thing for water-activated dams. You bury them around your house, and when a flood starts, water flows into the bottom of the housing, raising the clad-styrofoam dams. They interlock together, and stop the water. Unfortunately, I can't remember where... |
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Can we give Rayfro a Gideon Award? Ever seen tears on a flood-victims face? Evacuating air is important for all reasons indicated. Necessity is the mother of all invention. |
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This really is a fine idea. I voted for it. Do you suppose that a company that invested in creating such FloodBags would see a return on their investment? Is it economically viable? |
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I too adore "all the flappy bits get sucked flat." |
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Hooray for flappy bits getting the sucking down that they deserve. |
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Some things that you might add could be; handles for carrying or tying down; address labels for location if they drift off etc |
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Also they could be inflated and secured in doorways to prevent water ever getting to the furniture. This would also mean that there would be no need for bulky, heavy, hard to transport sandbags. But starchasers' thingy sounds better because it stops the water from even entering your property and spoiling your garden, car or shed |
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Would've come in handy about now down south. |
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Why isn't this happening already? I would
guess insurance companies would offer
them theirselves. |
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Generally, I like this idea. |
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However, the "floating away" issue is real; if you evacuate the bags, this means that any leak is going to result in water getting in, whereas a slight OVERpressure would prevent it; you could prevent mould problems etc more effectively by filling the bags with nitrogen rather than air. |
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Of course, overpressure would also make the stuff even more inclined to float about - most things would do this pretty badly even with underpressure. Taking inflated bags off again would be difficult to do without just cutting the bags, too - one can imagine the room being completely filled with bags. |
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Which suggests another idea: why NOT fill every room with inflated bags, and keep the water out completely? Or shrink wrap the whole house? |
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Or run refrigeration coils around the
house, and freeze the rising water into an
impenetrable ice-dam. |
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//why NOT fill every room with inflated bags// |
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..Because it would be tradgedy multiplied, when the buoyancy from the room full of inflated bags pushes the roof off the house with only a foot of water. |
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The list of annotators here is a Who's Who of the
early days of the HB. [rayfo] was an old, frail man
when I first arrived. He must surely have passed by
now. |
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House on one end of a lever, the other end a weighted container in a sealed-ish chamber. Flood comes along, fills container via a pipe, container sinks, house rises. Flood recedes, open tap on side of container. |
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Chamber has to be water-proof with a top vent that is dog/drunk proof to stop them taking a leak into the container and the house mysteriously rising over a period of time. |
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