Understanding Building Diagrams For Flood Insurance

Hello. Chris Greene here with The Flood Insurance Guru, and today we're talking about building diagrams when it comes to your flood insurance. In particular, we're talking about elevation certificates. What do these building diagrams mean? Well, what a building diagram is, is it's the foundation type of what your house is or what the surveyor or engineer who did that elevation certificate thinks it is. The reason we say, thinks it is, because sometimes it could be incorrect. We have seen that where surveyors or engineers have put foundations, because many houses could have two different types of foundations. You could have a crawlspace part of a house, and you could have a slab, but if you look in the corner here, then you're going to see a building diagram on an elevation certificate. In this particular situation, you might see a 1 here, or you might see a 1A, a 1B. What this is, these are slabs is what this 1A and 1B means.
Now, you might see 2 up here. If you see a 2 up here, then it means that you've got a subgrade basement. It's not split level. Now, maybe you see a 3 up here. What that means is that you have gotten a split level slab that's not subgrade. What subgrade means is, it means it's below the grade of the house, and so you might see a number 4 up here. Four is going to be a split level with a subgrade basement. Now, you might see a number 5 up ... Five is going to be an elevated building with no enclosure, and what this means is that the building is elevated below. It might be parking, but it's completely opened. It's not enclosed at all. You might see a number 6 up here. Six is going to be a building, an elevated building with an enclosure. You might see a 7 up here. A 7's going to be an elevated building with solid foundation walls. Number 8 is going to be an elevated building with a crawlspace. Number 9 is going to be non-elevated on subgrade crawlspace.
Now, it's very important to understand these buildings, because this can have a big impact on your flood insurance. Particularly, what we're talking about here with these buildings, it's like above-grade crawlspaces, are flood vents going to help? You also want to make sure that the building diagram on your elevation certificate is correct. I said if you just look at the corner here, you're going to see kind of what the elevation certificate should look like with the building diagram and things like that. Now, if you've got questions about elevation certificates, maybe you think your elevation certificate is wrong or something like that, please reach out to us, www.floodinsuranceguru.com. Go to our YouTube and our Facebook channels, The Flood Insurance Guru, or give us a call. 205-451-4294.