Flood/Water Proofing your home

What kind of house do you have ?

A wet one.

Look at the lay of tha land folks. Does it look like water might flow that way? Where would it come from, why how often when?
You can go to the land titles office and perhaps the council to get a copy of the 100 year flood levels in almost all areas of Australia. Plus lots of other stuff if you look around.

My first house was in Brisbane near the brisbane river and the bank said, won't lend you the bucks unless you can get flood insurance. This was in 1981.

In 1974 Brsibane was totally flooded and this area was well under by several metres (even the street gutters used to fill just on a king tide) but I thought the house would be OK as it was built up the back of the block and on tall stilts. And as I could prove that the flood level would not reach it, based on the flood level charts I obtained from the relevant authorities.
the bank loan was approved and it was never an issue.

Re living with flood, not a lot you can do, my parents house used to get 6 inches of water under the house every 6 or so years due to a local creek backing up on a high tide with lots of rain (Most Brisbanites would love that today) and the water would back up and run across the local parklands.
The house was on stilts in inner Brisbane, and dad just built some stands to keep the washing machine up high enough, etc, and once the council really cleaned out and re-routed the creek we never had floods again.

We used to watch at the new ground level flats that were allowed to be built over the road get 2 fot of water through them. So don't rely on the council not letting you build in "subject to flooding areas"

So for me, I'd get the 100 year flood levels, plot them out on your block and go with that.
As for sandbagging etc, too much effort for a very rare occurence. If it's not rare, then your building in the wrong place.
Steve

PS - My current house is 110m above sea level. Did I get the 100 year flood plans - NADA

I used to live in a house that was in a 'natural water course'. Unfortunately I only found that out after it was completely flooded out. Lost a car and hundreds of books The council did offer some compensation since it was shown that their stormwater provisions were clearly inadequate - the natural water couse reasserted its ancient path.

The second time it was flooded out it was due to the main side drain (a large open rock drain) collapsing. So even though the stormwater provisions in the street were now OK, just the water falling on our property was enough to flood it out again.

The lesson for me was very simple: NEVER live in a natural water course, valley, or low point of the street or area. Now that I'm looking to build or buy that's the first thing I look at. If it looks even slightly suspect I immediately reject it.

It's truly devastating to have your home flooded out, everything ruined and saturated with water or stinking mud.

We are about 300m away from a waterway - Eastern Creek - but luckily the land is on pretty much the highest point of the estate - though I have no idea about the 1 in 100 yr flood level. Should get this checked out.

Is it expensive to request this info from Land Titles?

If you do ever plan to build a house in a natural flood plane, you could always build an old style queenslander. Flooding was one of the reasons why they where designed with long legs!