Flood Doors Flood doors usually means doors that, once closed, will not let floodwater through. They are of course specially designed to do their job and often depend at least partly upon mass ­ they are usually very heavy. They are also correspondingly expensive. Using a flood door sounds a safe and simple solution, but as always with anything designed to prevent passage of water, it isn't. The ability of a door to withstand water ingress depends not only on its own structure but also on seals used around it, the frame for the door and, not least, the strength of the walls, floors or other structures to which both door and frame are fixed. These doors need have not only a correspondingly heavyweight frame but also a very strong structure to hold both door and frame. In many normal structures walls and/or floors may well have to be carefully strengthened so that every part of the structure that might be affected will be able to take the extra forces ­ forces that include the water expected to be held back. Structural design is therefore very important and owners need a professional to advise on use of flood doors. It does not end there. Do people need to be able to get out of a building through the door? The answer is normally yes and that being so, is the door designed so that it can be easily opened by anyone in the area enclosed or inside a building ­ can a slim person, or a younger person open the flood door? If they can't, might they end up being trapped inside with unforeseen consequences? Is emergency access needed through the door ­ can someone (for example) overcome by fumes open the door? All of these are issues that have to be considered when a flood door is introduced. It must also be remembered that water gets in from many other sources. These include through walls, which often let water through, but that is only one problem, particularly when the door is part of a building, rather than used as a gate. Will water come through floors? Will it come in through toilets or other drains? Through party walls from neighbouring buildings? Will water rise high enough to come through windows? Can water penetrate into lower-level service ducts under a building? What about cellars? The list goes on and the answers are never the same from one building to the next. All that one can say of flood doors is that they are only part of a solution and, like any other flooding issue, everything else has to be taken into account if a full solution is required. This is not to denigrate them in any way ­ they are sometimes the best solution for one part of a problem. Flodef will always survey any building or flood defence project and recommend the best combination of solutions to solve the total flooding problem. Its surveyors are always available to advise on the fitting of flood doors.