Small building and home-improvement firms in England should watch a new pilot designed to make household flood resilience easier to understand. Flood Performance Certificates, announced on 13 October, will bring together information about a home’s flood exposure and the improvements made to protect it. For tradespeople, the useful step now is to make their advice, quotes and installation records clear.
What the certificates will test
The government and Flood Re say work on pilots will begin during 2026, with more taking place through 2027 and beyond. They will test ways of presenting a property’s flood risk and resilience, including a rating covering exposure, the building’s characteristics and resistance to flooding.
The intention is to show householders where further work could help and reflect improvements already made. Examples in the announcement include flood barriers, self-closing air bricks and water-resilient flooring. Homeowners, insurers and lenders will be involved in testing how useful the information is.
This is an England homeowner pilot. The announcement sets out no compulsory certificate deadline or new installer approval scheme. Recognition of resilience improvements by insurers is an ambition being tested; a contractor cannot treat it as a promised premium reduction for a customer.
Why smaller trades should pay attention
A clearer assessment could help a customer ask more specific questions about their home. A builder, joiner or flooring business may be asked what a proposed improvement achieves, how it should be maintained and what evidence will be available afterwards. That is a possible business implication of the pilot, rather than a government forecast of new orders.
Start with the work your firm already knows how to deliver. If flood-resilience enquiries involve specialist assessment or unfamiliar products, identify where competent specialist help is needed before quoting. A general home-improvement service should describe its own capabilities accurately.
There is also a practical reason to distinguish the product from the installation. A customer needs to understand the agreed work, any limitations and who will explain ongoing use or maintenance. Saying a property is protected without a clear account of what has been done can leave both sides with different expectations.
Make the handover record useful
As a preparation step, review a recent job file and ask whether a customer could understand it months later. A straightforward record could include:
- The agreed scope, price and any changes approved during the job.
- Product details, photographs of completed work and the location of each improvement.
- Instructions for use and maintenance, with the relevant guarantee and contact details.
- Any assessment supplied by a specialist, kept separate from the installer’s own description of the work.
These are practical record-keeping suggestions, rather than a published certificate application checklist. The pilot will need to establish how improvements are assessed and recognised. BritishSME’s earlier article on customer records and aftercare for home-upgrade installers offers related context, although it concerns a separate consumer-protection proposal.
Check your own premises too
The homeowner announcement is also a useful prompt to review the resilience of a workshop, office or stockroom. Existing Environment Agency guidance for businesses applies in England and provides actions firms can take now.
Begin with the long-term flood risk checker. It covers area-level risks including rivers, the sea and surface water, with groundwater information where available. It does not predict whether an individual property will flood or cover risks such as blocked drains and burst pipes.
Use the agency’s business flood plan checklist to assign responsibilities, keep emergency contacts accessible and protect important records. Check your insurance arrangements for flood damage, business interruption and lost revenue. The checklist also recommends agreeing contingency plans with suppliers and customers, and checking that existing protection products work properly.
For smaller firms, today’s priorities are manageable: prepare a useful customer handover record, identify any gaps in specialist capability and review the business flood plan. Then watch for the pilot’s practical details before making certificate-related claims or commitments.
Sources: Defra’s 13 October certificate announcement; GOV.UK long-term risk service; and Environment Agency business checklist, checked on 13 October 2026.
