[sportair]

Hi All.

I'm looking for ideas on protecting machines when we get the next big flood.

Previous floods were 800mm high and machines were protected with poly sheeting taped to the floor.

The recent flood was 4.5metres and fast flowing, leaving the machines wet and thoroughly clogged with mud.

The machines are a VMC, CNC lathe, 8 x 4 CNC router, manual lathe and Bridgeport style mill... assuming these can be resurrected or replaced.

Cheers
Phil

[Jim Dawson]

I think the machines are scrap metal now and need to be replaced. They could be completely disassembled and cleaned, and the bearings & electronics replaced, but I think it is not worth that effort.

As far as future protection from flood damage, build or acquire a new shop on higher ground, out of the flood plane.

Or I guess this might be an option

[sportair]

As I don't have a spare $600k and another 30 years to rebuild my shop,
recovery is the primary aim right now.

One machine is back up and running, two more are awaiting bearings. The cnc's may be too far gone hence my "resurrected/replaced comment.

As for moving up the hill, that's a great idea, and when the council decide to move the airport up there I will indeed follow.

Now back to question I posed, which you didn't answer, does anyone have any thoughts on protecting machines in a flood prone area?

[Jim Dawson]

My first thought is who would build an airport in a flood plane, but it is not that uncommon. Portland International (PDX) runways are at 16ft MSL and the Columbia River, about 300 yards north of 28R, can easily get to 35ft MSL during a flood event in that area. About a Billion $ of dikes and pumping stations keeps the airport dry during flood events.

I don't think there is any practical way of waterproofing machines that would allow complete submergence.

What you need to do is keep the machines out of, or above the water surface. This would mean a floating structure that the machines would be housed in or on top of. This may not be as crazy as it sounds and I actually have some experience with this. I lived in the Columbia River, on a house boat (also called a Floating Home), for 25 years. And I had one of 3 near commercial class machine shops in our moorage, one of those was housed in a 40x40ft dedicated machine shop structure, with quite a lot of equipment. We simply floated up and down as the river level changed, sometimes as much as 40 feet during flood events.

Setting your equipment on a shallow draft flat boat type structure would allow the equipment to float, thus keeping the equipment out of the water during a flood. I'm not going to run the buoyancy numbers to calculate the needed draft, but you can do that. Most likely a foot or so of draft would do, depends on the total area of your shop floor vs. the weight. I would just build a floating shop floor, it could even be concrete. Concrete floats are very common around here. Weight and balance is important when placing the equipment to keep it somewhat level when floating.

Another option is to place your equipment on a mezzanine well above an expected 100 year flood event. You already know a 4.5m flood is possible, so raising the equipment 5.5m off the floor level might be enough.

I don't see an inexpensive way of doing this, but it is possible.

[sportair]

Hi Jim.
Thanks for your rely.
Australia is full of low lying towns due to the rivers being used for transport of timber from the early days. Floods (and droughts, bush fires and storms) are a fact of life here.
This one was exceptional.

I appreciate your thoughts but submergence protection looks like being the only viable solution.

For context we have had three floods in 80 years to the 800mm level, which we plan for. This one was 800mm above the mezzanine, a full three meters above the record!
It also came in under ten hours rather than the 24 hours notice we usually get.

Moving machines by truck is not viable as access to the airport is lost before the airport floods.

Floating machines is not viable as the machines are below the mezzanine. Moving them into the hangar to float would likely cause them to hit the roof as the water reached to just under the eaves.

The flow was what really did the damage.
In the last flood we left the doors open and got a shed full of mud and broken hay bales, every other hangar with closed doors just got wet.
In this one we left the doors closed. The four doors in blew in at the two metre level, blowing out one wall out and every door and window on the downstream.
The force was sufficient to move benches, a heavy welding table, tool boxes and a 4' folder into the drain 40 metes behind the hangar.
Of the 30 odd aircraft parked on the raised flood mound, two remained and several were found a few miles down the river.
A week after the flood we found a dead cow in the workshop from a farm five miles upstream. It took a week to get through the debris in the shop.

We were looking at building a raised floor extension to the building but we have limits on building heights so we could only go 2 metres higher.

So aside from moving the only thing I can think of is to make a few steel frames which can be wheeled over the machines, clad in rigid aluminium foam insulation panels and a heavy duty welded plastic bag covering the boxes with everything bolted to the floor.
Hopefully this would keep the machines in an air bubble. A submersible pump in each box and a generator in the roof should counter minor leaks
The boxes could be sized so they nest when not used.
We could also relocate things and keep doors open to manage the flow issue so the machines are not in direct line of fire from debris.
Any other thoughts are gratefully received.
Phil.Attachment 477856

[RCaffin]

So it would be too expensive to move to higher ground, but equally too expensive to keep replacing all your shop after each flood? Hummm.

Ideas of waterproof boxes over the top are amusing but won't be effective, imhe. They will probably float away.

As far as raising the building goes, can I suggest that you first raise the building by 3 m (ie, make it a 2-story workshop building), and only then ask for permission? If 'they' complain, ask them for a guarantee of compensation for the next flood. Take lots of photos of the current mess.

Remember Black Thursday in Victoria. One rural resident wanted to clear a firebreak around his house, but was refused permission by the Council. He cleared anyhow. The Council tried to prosecute. The fire came before the trial, and burnt out everyone, EXCEPT his house. A very red-faced Council went away. Sometimes you just have to be a bit stubborn.

Cheers
Roger

[76special]

I'm in NZ and saw that on the news - that looked proper mental! 800mm flooding is doable but fast flowing 4.5m is insanity!
I did see a containerized CNC router on a TV show (Grand Designs UK). They'd do all the cutting onsite.
It depends on the size of your machines and layout, but you could put drop sides on them which are up in normal usage, which you'd drop and seal (RTV?) shut in a flood?
You could use the container mount points to bolt them to the founds to stop them washing away (4.5m flowing at any rate is going to have some serious grunt)

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