In August 2000 shopfitter John Lockwood was laid up with a bad back watching stories about flooding on daytime TV. Inspired by his kids’ paddling pool, he thought: if a membrane can keep water in, why can’t it keep water out? FloDef (pronounced “flow deaf”) was born.

Lockwood’s brother Steve came up with a clever way of storing it. They didn’t want something you had to haul out of the garage because that could damage the membrane, so they designed it to be stored underground so you can pull it up and hook it on the walls, like tied down roller blinds. It can hold back a metre of water.

Initially funded by family and friends, the Swansea firm has now installed the system on a house in Hereford that withstood a four-day flood, and has another project on the go. In June it became the first company to get a BSI Kitemark under a new British Standard for temporary demountable systems for flood defence. See www.flodef.com for details.

Source

Construction Manager