What to Do After a Flood: A UK Recovery Guide

Knowing what to do after a flood comes down to sequence. Make the building safe, record the damage for your insurer, get the water and silt out inside 24 to 48 hours, strip out and disinfect over the following weeks, and only then dry the fabric of the building, which takes months rather than days, before any repair work begins. Get that order wrong and the usual result is a second, hidden problem: damp sealed into a wall behind fresh plaster.

Our work at Unda is mostly about stopping floods before they start, through flood risk assessment and drainage design. But flooding happens, and when it does we are often asked a second question a few weeks later: why did the water get in, and what will the insurer want to see? That is the job of an independent flood risk assessment for insurance, and it is worth knowing it exists before the repairs are signed off rather than after.

Clean and dry fast, but repair slow. Redecorating a wall that is still wet traps the damp and undoes the work.

This guide runs through the whole recovery in order: staying safe, what to record, getting the water out, what you can save and what has to go, cleaning and disinfecting, how long drying really takes, mould, food and water safety, what your insurer should be doing, why the house flooded, and how to make sure the next one costs less. Work through it in sequence, and start the cleaning and drying within 24 to 48 hours wherever it is safe to do so, because that is the window in which mould takes hold.

1. The first hours: stay safe. Only go back in once the building is structurally safe and the power is off. Wear gloves, boots and a mask. Photograph everything before you touch it.
2. First 24–48 hours: water out, insurer in. Pump or sweep out standing water and silt, open up to ventilate, and phone your insurer to start the claim before you throw anything away.
3. First weeks: strip out, clean, disinfect. Remove ruined carpets, plaster and insulation, clean hard surfaces with detergent and then disinfectant, and get the drying equipment running.
4. Weeks to months: dry to the core, then rebuild. Solid walls can take months. Wait until the fabric is dry before you re-plaster or redecorate, then build back more resilient than before.

Is floodwater dangerous, and what should you do first?

Yes. Treat all floodwater and everything it has touched as contaminated, even once it looks clear. UK Health Security Agency guidance lists what floodwater can carry: human and livestock waste, sewage, household, medical and industrial hazardous waste, physical debris, petrol and oil spillages, and displaced wild or stray animals. Before you re-enter, make sure the building is structurally sound and the electricity and gas are off at the mains.

Moving water shifts walls, lifts floors and hides sharp debris underfoot. Do not use any electrical appliance that has been wet until a qualified electrician has checked it. Once you are inside and working, the most protective thing you can do is also the simplest. UKHSA describes hand washing as the most important way to get rid of harmful bugs.

• Cover up. Rubber gloves, sturdy waterproof boots and a face mask, plus a waterproof apron or overalls. Goggles are recommended where you are moving debris.
• Protect broken skin. Cover cuts, grazes and sores with a waterproof plaster before you start, and keep them covered.
• Keep it out of your mouth and eyes. Do not eat, drink or smoke while cleaning, and wash your hands before you do any of those things.
• Wash work clothes separately. Keep what you clean in away from the rest of the household wash.
• Mind the fumes. Never run a petrol or diesel generator, pump or pressure washer indoors. HSE guidance on carbon monoxide warns that even a few minutes of petrol equipment in an enclosed space can create levels that kill.

Wash with warm clean water and soap whenever you take a break, before eating, and before preparing food. It matters more than anything else on that list.

For the full health picture, the government's own advice is the authority to read: the UKHSA guidance on how to recover from flooding, and the shorter GOV.UK page on what to do after a flood. Both sit within the wider flooding and health guidance, which also covers preparation and the response phase.

What should you photograph before you touch anything?

Everything, and before you move, bin or clean any of it. Insurers query claims where there is no evidence of what was damaged and how badly, so your photographs and notes are what turn a stressful clean-up into a paid claim. Twenty minutes recording the state of each room pays for itself, and it is the one task that becomes impossible to redo once the skip has gone.

1. Photograph and video every affected room, including the depth the water reached. A tide mark on the wall is powerful evidence, so capture it before anything is wiped down.
2. Record damaged contents individually where you can, noting makes, models and rough ages of appliances and furniture.
3. Phone your insurer's emergency line before you throw anything away, and ask what they need and whether they will send a loss adjuster.
4. Keep every receipt for what you spend during the emergency: pumps, dehumidifier hire, temporary accommodation, replacement essentials.
5. Set aside rather than bin anything you are unsure about, once it is logged, though you are not expected to keep a health hazard.

The Association of British Insurers is explicit on that last point. Its guidance on recovering from a flood states that insurers "will not expect you to keep anything that is a health hazard for inspection", and that they may accept a small portion of a damaged item, or photographs, instead of the whole thing. So log it, photograph it, and then dispose of soaked carpet and contaminated soft furnishings without waiting for permission.

How do you get the water and silt out?

Once the outside water level has dropped below the level inside, pump out standing water where it is more than ankle-deep, then shovel and sweep the silt while it is still wet. Silt sets like concrete as it dries and becomes far harder to shift, so this part is genuinely time-critical. A wet vacuum handles the last of it.

Put the dirty water down a foul sewer, a toilet or a soil-stack gully, and never into a river, ditch or surface-water gully. If you are unsure which is which, our explainer on foul, surface and combined sewers shows how to tell them apart.

Speed matters here more than anywhere else in the recovery. The sooner standing water and saturated silt are gone and air is moving through the building, the less damage the structure takes and the smaller the mould risk. Open windows and doors while the weather allows, and get fans running as soon as the power supply has been checked and declared safe.

In a Flood Re study of 702 domestic claims, floods lasting more than 24 hours cost on average 2.5 times more to repair than floods lasting less than a day, and added around 100 days to the claim.

That research, carried out for Flood Re by the University of the West of England and Sedgwick and published as evidence for property flood resilience, is the argument for urgency in a single line. How long the water sits outside is not in your control. The standing water inside the building is, and it is worth attacking hard on day one.

What to throw away after a flood, and what you can save

The hardest part of any flood damage clean up is deciding what goes in the skip. Porous, soft and food items that have been in contaminated water usually cannot be salvaged safely, while hard, non-porous and sealed items often can be cleaned and kept. When you are deciding, err toward disposal for anything that touches food, skin or bedding, and toward cleaning for solid, wipeable things.

Wooden furniture is often worth saving. Take it outside, clean the mud off with warm water and washing-up liquid, and let it dry slowly and evenly so it does not crack or warp. Wash all clothing and textiles you intend to keep, whether or not they were wet, and use a launderette if your own machine was affected. UKHSA advises washing soft items at 60°C or above.

How do you clean and disinfect a flooded house?

In two separate stages, working top down and from the cleanest room to the dirtiest. Wash hard surfaces (walls, floors, skirtings, worktops) with hot water and a household detergent first to lift the dirt, then disinfect with a bleach solution or a proprietary disinfectant. Detergent removes the grime; disinfectant kills what is left. Skipping the first step wastes the second, because disinfectant does very little on a dirty surface.

• Give bleach time to work. Leave it on the surface for the contact time on the manufacturer's instructions, then wipe the residue off.
• Detergent first, disinfectant second. Clean, then kill. Never mix bleach with other cleaning products.
• Hot-wash soft items. Curtains, cushion covers and bedding you are keeping want 60°C or above, or steam cleaning.
• Use a HEPA vacuum on dry material only. UKHSA is specific about this: a vacuum is for dust and dried residue, not standing water or wet silt.
• Pressure-wash outdoors only. Hose down paths, walls and hard standing outside, and collect the run-off rather than flushing it to a watercourse.
• Do not skip the enclosed spaces. Under kitchen units, behind bath panels and beneath floorboards is where contamination survives a visually clean room.

One free advantage is worth using. UKHSA notes that sunlight and natural UV radiation kill micro-organisms, so anything that can be cleaned and then left out in the sun should be.

How long does it take to dry out a house after a flood?

Weeks for the surfaces, months for the fabric of the building. Getting plaster, brick, screed and timber genuinely dry takes far longer than most people expect, and solid masonry walls are the slowest of all. The Association of British Insurers reports that after major flooding most people who have to leave their homes are back within six to nine months, and that severely damaged homes can take a year or longer. Drying is the single largest block of that time.

Two things stretch this phase beyond what it needs to be. The first is starting late; the Flood Re evidence found that deeper floods increased drying times by roughly a third. The second is stopping early, which is the more expensive mistake, because a wall that is re-plastered or painted while still wet holds the damp and the work has to be done twice.

The practical rule that catches people out is that ventilation and dehumidifiers do not work together. Open the windows while the outside air is dry and you are ventilating. Run a dehumidifier and the windows have to be shut, or the machine spends its day drying the outdoors. Northern Ireland's official guidance on clearing up after a flood puts a usable number on the heat side: hold the property at 20 to 22°C on the central heating once it has been professionally inspected, and keep external openings closed while a dehumidifier runs.

There is no fixed number of weeks a house takes to dry. A property is dry when moisture readings in the affected areas match readings taken in an unaffected part of the same building.

That baseline comparison is what a drying technician is actually doing with a moisture meter, and it is why "it felt dry to the touch" is not the test. Where an insurer has appointed a restoration firm, the work should follow PAS 64:2013, the British Standards code of practice for the mitigation and recovery of water damaged buildings, and it should end with written confirmation of dryness before reinstatement begins. Ask for that document. It is your protection against being re-plastered too early.

• Lift floorboards and open boxed-in voids where you safely can, so air reaches the damp trapped underneath.
• Empty dehumidifiers daily, or plumb them to a drain. A full reservoir stops the machine.
• Expect the readings to plateau, then fall again. Drying slows once the easily available moisture has left.
• Do not lay new flooring or plaster until the readings confirm the substrate is dry, whatever the programme says.
• Keep the heating on rather than cycling it. Steady warmth dries a building; intermittent warmth just moves the moisture around.

How do you stop mould taking hold after a flood?

By getting the building dry, and by treating what appears early rather than waiting. Mould needs moisture, and the window in which it establishes is the first few days after the water leaves, which is exactly why the clean-and-dry stage is urgent while the repair stage is not. Treat small patches with a proprietary mould remover as they appear, and call a specialist if growth is extensive or keeps returning after treatment.

The health case for taking it seriously has hardened considerably. Government guidance on the health risks of damp and mould, updated in April 2026, states that damp and mould "can produce allergens, irritants, mould spores and other toxins that are harmful to health", and cites a 2019 study associating exposure with roughly 5,000 cases of asthma and around 8,500 lower respiratory infections a year in England, with the caveat that the real figures may be several times higher.

• Short-term exposure is usually fine. UKHSA is clear that brief contact with a little mould does not normally cause health problems.
• Prolonged exposure to large amounts is the risk, and it is linked to coughing, wheezing, airway infections and worsened asthma.
• Some people are more vulnerable, including children, older adults, pregnant women, and anyone with a respiratory or cardiovascular condition or a weakened immune system.
• Recurring mould means the building is still wet. Treating the surface without fixing the moisture buys a few weeks, no more.
• Speak to your GP if anyone in the household develops symptoms while the property is drying.

Mould that keeps coming back after treatment is a drying problem, not a cleaning problem. Go back to the moisture readings rather than buying more spray.

What is safe to eat and drink after a flood?

Nothing that has been in contact with floodwater, and that includes sealed tins and jars, which can be contaminated around the seams and lids. Where the power has been off, judge the fridge and freezer by time rather than by how the food looks or smells.

Clean all work surfaces, plates and pans before you cook again. If you grow anything, read the Food Standards Agency's consumer advice on food safety after a flood first, because gardens and allotments carry their own waiting rules before harvesting.

What should your insurer be doing?

For most households the flood damage clean up runs in parallel with a claim, and knowing what the insurer is responsible for takes a good deal of pressure off. Contact the 24-hour claims line as early as you can. On a larger claim they will usually appoint a loss adjuster to assess the damage and manage the repair, and they can arrange emergency drying, a surveyor, specialist cleaning and restoration firms, and, where your home is uninhabitable, temporary alternative accommodation under your policy.

Keep every receipt and every piece of correspondence. For the wider picture on payouts, timescales and why offers sometimes fall short of the repair cost, our guide to UK flood insurance claims sets out the mechanisms that create the gap, and our guide to flood risk and mortgage lending covers what a flood history means if you later remortgage. The wider context is that insurers themselves are pressing for tighter controls on floodplain development, as our piece on the insurers' NPPF flood risk warning sets out.

There is one opportunity that is easy to miss in the chaos. When flood-damaged parts of your home are being repaired, that is the cheapest moment you will ever get to make the property more resilient to the next flood.

Through Flood Re's Build Back Better scheme, participating insurers can pay up to £10,000 over and above the cost of repairs to fit flood-resilience measures as your home is put back together.

That £10,000 covers measures such as flood doors and barriers, automatic airbrick covers and non-return valves, raised electrics and appliances, sump pumps, waterproof membranes and hard flooring in place of carpet. Fourteen insurers now offer it, but not every insurer does, so ask specifically whether your policy includes Build Back Better rather than waiting to be offered it. The details are on Flood Re's Build Back Better page, and our guide to what Flood Re is and how it works explains the scheme behind it.

Why did your house flood, and does it matter now?

It matters a great deal, because the measures worth paying for depend entirely on where the water came from. A flood barrier at the front door does nothing about water rising through the floor, and a non-return valve does nothing about a river. Yet the question often goes unanswered, because the recovery is busy and nobody is obviously responsible for asking it.

Scale is part of why it gets missed. The Environment Agency's national assessment of flood and coastal erosion risk puts around 6.3 million English properties at risk from one or more sources, of which roughly 4.6 million are at risk from surface water and 2.4 million from rivers and the sea. Those are different mechanisms with different fixes.

• River or sea water arrives from a watercourse or the coast, and is the source most people assume. Our guide to types of flooding sets out how each source behaves.
• Surface water — rain overwhelming the ground and the drainage — now affects more English properties than any other source, and often arrives with no warning at all. Our guide to surface water flooding and planning explains who is responsible for managing it.
• Groundwater rises up through floors and into basements, typically after a prolonged wet period rather than a single storm. Our explainer on what groundwater flooding is covers the mechanism, and our report on communities affected by groundwater flooding shows how long it can persist.
• Sewer flooding backs up through the drainage system and brings the worst contamination of any source; our guide to sewer flooding explains who is responsible for it.
• More than one source at once is common, and it is the case most often misdiagnosed from the outside.

Where a flood was serious or widespread, the lead local flood authority may publish a Section 19 flood investigation under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, setting out what happened and which authorities held responsibilities. That duty is discretionary, so a missing report proves nothing. You can also check the long-term flood risk recorded for your address, or the government's own check the long-term flood risk service, bearing in mind that national mapping describes an area rather than a specific building, which is why a house can sit in a flood zone having never flooded.

Where the answer genuinely matters — because an insurer has flagged the property, because premiums or excesses have jumped, or because the mapped risk does not match what actually happened — a property-level assessment is what settles it. Unda prepares independent flood risk assessments for insurance that compare modelled flood levels against your actual threshold and floor levels, identify the pathway the water took, and give an insurer site-level evidence in place of a postcode score.

Renting? What your landlord should do

The building is your landlord's responsibility, not yours. Report the flooding to them or the letting agent immediately and in writing, keep a copy, and let them handle the buildings insurance claim, the structural drying and the repairs. Your own contents (furniture, clothing and electricals) are yours to claim on your contents insurance if you have it, so photograph and log them exactly as an owner-occupier would.

Where a rented home cannot be lived in, talk to your landlord about alternative accommodation and about a fair position on rent while you cannot live there. If you cannot reach agreement, your local council's housing team and Citizens Advice and Shelter can explain your rights. The same drying standards apply to a rented property, so it is reasonable to ask for confirmation of dryness before any redecoration begins.

A landlord's repairing obligation covers the structure. It does not cover your possessions, and a buildings claim will not replace them.

The toll a flood takes, and where to get help

The clean-up is physical, but the hardest part is often emotional, and it is worth naming that plainly. The loss of irreplaceable things, the upheaval, the months of disruption and the fear of it happening again all weigh heavily, and the effect lasts long after the house is dry. In communities flooded more than once it compounds, as our look back at 25 years on from the 2000 Severn floods describes.

The scale of it is well evidenced. The English National Study of Flooding and Health, which followed residents across six flood-affected English local authorities for three years, found that people whose homes were flooded were around six times more likely to report probable depression, anxiety or PTSD than those who were not. Two years after flooding, the study recorded probable PTSD in 24.5% of those affected, anxiety in 13.6% and depression in 10.6%. People displaced from their homes, and those who received no warning before the flood, were significantly more likely to report symptoms, and the effect persisted for at least three years. UKHSA publishes separate guidance on flooding and public mental health for anyone supporting an affected community.

Distress in the weeks after a flood is normal. If it lasts more than two weeks without easing, that is the point to seek professional support.

Lean on friends and family, talk to your GP or use NHS mental health services, which you can refer yourself to without a diagnosis, and use the specialist support that exists. The National Flood Forum, an independent charity, runs a support line on 01299 403055 and helps people through both the practical recovery and the stress of it. You do not have to manage the recovery, the insurer and your own wellbeing entirely alone.

Stopping it happening again

The recovery is the best possible moment to reduce the damage the next flood does, because the building is already open and the works are already under way. Property flood resilience splits into two ideas: keeping water out, and limiting the harm when it gets in anyway. It matters more each year: our assessment of flood resilience in England and our review of how prepared households really are both point the same way.

• Resistance: keep water out. Flood doors and barriers, airbrick covers, non-return valves on drains and sealed low-level walls buy time and hold back shallow floods.
• Resilience: limit the damage. Hard flooring, raised sockets, moveable or water-resistant kitchen units and lime-based plaster mean a flood that does get in dries faster and costs far less to put right.
• Match the measures to the source. Work out which sources threaten you before you spend, or you will pay for protection against the wrong thing. Our explainer on pluvial and surface water flooding is the place to start for most homes.
• Keep drains clear. Regular maintenance of gullies and drains reduces the surface-water flooding that now affects more English homes than any other source.
• Sign up for flood warnings. The Environment Agency's free service at check for flooding gives advance notice for river and coastal flooding, and you can sign up for free flood warnings by text, phone or email. Floodline runs 24 hours on 0345 988 1188. There is still no equivalent property-level warning for surface water, though our piece on Lincolnshire's new approach to flood warnings covers one attempt to close that gap.

It is worth knowing your starting point. You can check a property's risk on our flood risk map and postcode checker, watch levels on nearby watercourses with our live river levels map, and read our companion guide on how to protect your home from flooding, which covers the preparation side this guide deliberately leaves out. If pollution such as oil, chemicals or sewage has been left behind, report it to the Environment Agency's 24-hour hotline on 0800 80 70 60 or through report an environmental problem.

If you are dealing with the aftermath of a purchase that was flagged for risk, or you are thinking about selling, our guides on flood history declarations, how flood risk affects house prices and what NaFRA2 changed for home sales are the places to start, alongside our guide to understanding flood risk before a property purchase. Where a property has flooded repeatedly, our piece on rebuilding a house in a flood zone covers the harder decisions.

If your insurer has flagged flood risk after an event, or you want to understand why your home flooded and what would actually reduce the risk of it happening again, we prepare independent, property-level flood risk assessments for insurance and flood risk surveys for property purchase. Every report is signed off by one of our chartered flood risk consultants, and any term in this guide you want unpacked is in our flood risk and drainage glossary. Tell us about the property and we will send a fixed quote within 60 minutes, or call 01293 214444.

Frequently asked questions