Water Activated Flood Barriers for Home Door, Sandless Sand Bags for Anti Flood Control, Alternative Sandbag for Rain Protection, Prevention for Garage & Basement (1FT x 2FT(6-Pack))

Our property is downhill from three houses. I have used the gel filled sandbags for 3 years now to mitigate the rain issues. These are the best I’ve found. I have them nested within plantings around the back of my house. They spend most of the year swelled up but my basement is dramatically dryer. I know this is not the intended use but it has worked really well. This brand has the most durable exterior. Others break down quickly and tear too easily.

These are perfect if you are anticipating a rain storm or flooding, but don't want to keep around real sand bags because of the space they take up and the potential mold/health issues with just keeping sand around. These are silica based and are completely flat until they take up water. Super easy to store in the shed if and when you need them. As per instructions, they take some time to activate in water, and are a little lumpy and soggy but seem to do the trick of keeping out 85% of the water. It's not the best until you start stacking them and adding weight, at which point it may become cost prohibitive. But we bought a few sets of these and stored them just in case we needed them...and one season we did. It was super convenient to not have to go to a local center to fill sandbags and to instead just lay these out and watch them balloon up. However, they aren't perfect at diverting water--some will get around the edges as it is less malleable than real sand bags. But they make up for it in convenience factor.

These guys are really effective at diverting water. We should have made sure to spread out the gel beads as it was filling up… it was more full in some spots and at full expansion it ripped the fabric seams. Not meant to be durable for multiple uses, but we keep them at the top of the driveway so we can pull them out when it rains. Highly recommend. Wish I had pictures.

These things are supposed to swell to act as sand bags. I put them in place I got them wet and it was very uneven I was able to sort of smooth out the Slime inside of it and it was about an inch off the ground. Absolutely useless. They don't swell up even close to what the photographs suggest. These things need to be engineered better, or they need to put more material inside them. Absolute junk just fill some sandbags you'll be better off.

There is a very, very small amount of material inside. The instructions say to spread that out but it's really not possible - at least with the 10' ones that I bought. I don't need to stop 100% of the water. I'm just trying to minimize erosion on a dirt slop that goes down to my septic tank (to avoid covering the top and the risers in mud when it rains). You're also supposed to completely submerge them in water before placing them wherever you need them. Can't see how that's feasible - a dripping 66lb mess to try dragging around where you need it. I placed the two of them on the dirt slop anyway. Tried to move around some of the pellet-like things inside but it's impossible to evenly distribute them. After the next heavy rain I'll update or write a new review but I doubt these will help at all.Update: changed from one to three stars because after they actually plumped up a bit with heavy rain they may do the job. Still uneven and lumpy because that stuff is so hard to distribute evenly. Seller also reached out and offered a refund, which was unexpected but nice.

I have one wall that weaps water and this really helps me. The water usually puddles throughout my rental basement. I spent dozens of hours over the years wet vacuuming and mopping… now I just leave them where they are and it just absorbs the water. Gel sand inside of each pad absorbs the water. Just make sure you don’t have all the granules in the pad on one side .

Not what was needed.

I bought some small bags, two 5' bags and two 10' bags. The 5' and small bags worked very well but I found it was almost impossible to get the "sand" in the 10' bags to evenly distribute. Therefore most of the blockage I was looking for ended up in isolated parts of the bag. Not a one man job for sure.An update to my previous review; I tried these 10' strips for a second time and found them to be ineffective. As previously noted, the internal product wouldn't distribute evenly and the protection was very lumpy. So far I've had them in the sunshine for a week trying to dry them out for storage but they're still wet. I won't use them again and have no need to store them. The 5' and individual bags I purchased were better but only about 20% of them actually worked the second time around.

Thought that there wasn't enough absorbant pellets inside. I was wrong, really bulks up once water is absorbed. Good stuff & it does weigh more once saturated.

No me gusto

Hopefully will reduce the amount of water coming into my garage after heavy rain.

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