According to the Vancouver Sun interview with Gavin;Q: What is the future for waterfront cities like Vancouver?A: You are going to have to put up with rising sea levels; they are not going to go down. But there’s a huge difference between a foot or two over 100 years and a metre or two metres. There’s a lot of waterfront development going on but is it sea-level-rise smart? I don’t know that it is. So don’t put stuff in the basement, have all your electrical equipment on the second floor or on the roof.
Well I checked with NOAA sea level trend for Vancouver tide gauge, and it shows the yearly rise is 0.37mm, an online calculator says 0.37 Millimeters 0.01456692913 Inches, is that right? that is 1.45 inches in a hundred years. Edit. NOAA has tide gauge sea level trends for all of the US, I tried to post the graph for Vancouver, but for some reason Yahoo could not manage it (we are experiencing some difficulties it said)
That sounds a bit simplistic. There are houses in Europe that are periodically flooded with little problem, but they are older brick or stone-built structures that pre-date electricity. Vancouver homes with gypsum wallboard and carpet or hardwood floors aren t going to fare so well.
In general you should put your electrical equipment above ground level if doing so is convenient. There is little utility in putting it in the basement except that it is out of the way. The wisdom of this is especially true in areas that are flood prone; global sea level rise and other climate change phenomena will affect what areas are prone to floods.
