A coastal property before storm season

Work backwards from the season, not forwards from today

Every coastal property has a season it should be ready for, and the work that makes it ready has lead times that are longer than the warning. Roofers, arborists and shutter installers are all busiest in the weeks when everyone else has had the same thought, and the parts that matter are the ones ordered months ahead.

So the useful date is not the first storm. It is the last sensible week to book a trade, which is usually a season earlier than feels necessary.

What counts as adequate preparation for a building is a question for a builder, an engineer or the local authority, and requirements differ by council and by state. Nothing here states what any of them require. This is the operational half: what to look at, what to book, and what to have written down before the wind arrives.

The building envelope

• Roof and flashings, inspected by someone who goes up rather than someone who looks up. Most storm damage to a sound building starts at an edge or a penetration, not in the middle of a roof.
• Gutters, downpipes and the path water takes once it leaves them. A blocked downpipe in heavy rain puts water inside a wall, and it is the cheapest thing on this list to fix.
• Windows, doors and any shutters, including whether the shutters have been operated this year. A shutter that has not moved since installation is a hypothesis.
• Loose fixings: aerials, solar mounts, awnings, light fittings, anything on a parapet.

Where the water goes when there is too much

Ask the question directly and walk it: in a very heavy fall, where does the water run? Down which side of the house, into which drain, and what happens when that drain is full.

Look at pumps if there are any, and test them rather than assuming. Sump pumps, stormwater pumps and basement pumps share a failure mode with standby generators, which is that they spend their lives switched off and are discovered at the worst moment.

Power and communications

If the property has a standby generator, storm season is the reason it exists, and it wants a load test and a fuel check before rather than during. If it does not, decide now what the house does without power for two days: what is in the freezers, whether the water pumps, whether the gates open, and whether anyone can get in or out.

Gates and garage doors are the common surprise. Know where the manual release is and who has been shown it.

The grounds, and anything that can move

• Trees, assessed by an arborist rather than by eye, with particular attention to anything overhanging a roof, a power line or a neighbour. Booking is the long pole.
• Furniture, umbrellas, planters and bins, with a named place each goes and someone responsible for putting them there.
• The tender, jetski, boat or trailer, and whether the plan is to move them or secure them. If moving, where to, and does the person who would move them have keys and time.

Who does what, and when

This is the half that is usually missing. Write a single page that says what happens at each stage: when a warning is issued, when it is upgraded, and when the property is going to be unoccupied through it. On it:

• The named person who acts, and their backup
• What gets moved, closed or shut off, in order
• Where the keys, remotes and manual releases are
• Which contractors to call, with out of hours numbers
• Who tells the owner, and when

Then make sure it exists somewhere other than in one person's phone.

Insurance and evidence

Read the policy before the season rather than after the event, and specifically what it says about maintenance, about unoccupied periods and about any conditions attached to cover. If anything on it is unclear, that is a question for the broker now, when the answer can still change what you do.

Photograph the property in good order, dated, at the start of the season: roof, exterior, grounds, and the contents that matter. A claim is an argument about what was there and what condition it was in, and photographs settle it. Keep the receipts and the service records for the preparation work as well, since they evidence the maintenance a policy may expect.

After the event

Photograph first, before anything is moved or cleaned up. Then make safe, then notify, then repair, and keep every invoice and report attached to the same record. A tidy-up that happens before the photographs is a claim arguing with itself.

What this looks like kept properly

One record for the property, holding the seasonal checklist and when each item was last done, the trades with what they are contracted for, the plant and its tests, the dated photographs, the policy and its dates, and the action page with the names on it. See how the operations view works, or read an asset register that survives a staff change, because the seasonal list above is worth nothing if it leaves with the person who keeps it.