Beyond Installation: Why Post-Installation Support Matters
At Watertight, delivering high-quality Property Flood Resilience (PFR) measures is only one part of the process. What happens after installation is just as important.
This week, our Project Manager Benn Cudworth has been out on site across Northamptonshire, revisiting properties as part of the post-installation audit process for the Defra-funded RAIN Project’s PFR scheme, which has been led by JBA Consulting.
Working alongside RAIN’s programme lead, Alan Ryan, these visits are a vital step in ensuring that installed measures are performing as intended and that householders feel confident in how to use and maintain them.
Closing the loop: from installation to confidence
Post-installation visits are about far more than inspection. They provide an opportunity to:
Review installed PFR measures in real-world conditions
Ensure everything aligns with the original design and specification
Answer questions and reinforce understanding with householders
Build confidence in how measures will perform during a flood event.
In many cases, this is the moment where resilience becomes tangible for residents; moving from something that has been “installed” to something they actively understand.
Supporting residents through Resilico Connect
A part of these visits has been to support residents with their onboarding to Resilico Connect. Benn has helped residents to install the app, and set-up hyper-local flood alerts, create a personalised flood plan for their home, record and manage maintenance needs of installed PFR measures, and keep all relevant information in on place - so it’s easily within reach when needed.
This ongoing engagement is critical from a preparedness point of view. PFR is not a one-off intervention but it is something that needs to be understood, maintained and embedded into everyday awareness.
Working in partnership with housing providers
A small number of homes within the RAIN Project’s PFR scheme are managed by Northamptonshire Rural Housing Association, and it’s been particularly useful to work in tandem with housing providers.
This week Benn was joined by Mark Boon from Northamptonshire Rural Housing Association. While the Association’s residents are onboarded to the Resilico Connect app, their in-house team is being introduced to Resilico Enterprise, enabling them to take a portfolio-wide view of flood risk, resilience measures and ongoing maintenance requirements.
This joined-up approach ensures that:
Individual properties are supported at a household level
Housing providers have visibility across their portfolio
Maintenance responsibilities are clearly understood and managed
Long-term resilience is embedded, not assumed.
For housing associations, managing properties in flood-risk areas, this level of oversight is increasingly important, helping to ensure that resilience measures continue to perform effectively over time.
Embedding resilience for the long term
The RAIN Project has always been about more than installing measures. It’s about building confidence, capability and long-term resilience at a catchment, property and community / individual level.
Post-installation audits play a key role in the overall journey. By combining robust audit processes, resident engagement and partnership working with housing providers, we can ensure that PFR measures deliver lasting value, not just on the day they are installed but for many years to come.
