The Rockaway Peninsula resident considers herself fortunate. She not only has her home heating restored, but her new high-efficiency combination heating and domestic hot water appliance can cut her previous gas bills by 30 percent. Plus, the whisper-quiet boiler is installed on the first floor of her home, so it will likely survive any future flood storms.

It turns out that wall-hung boilers can prove ideal in any flood-prone region.

While Sandy destroyed many heating systems in oceanside homes in the region, Baxi homeowners on the Rockaway Peninsula escaped the ravages of the storm. For instance, the 54 homes with Baxi wall-hung boilers installed in closets on the first floor of New York City's Arverne Waters Edge development on Rockaway Peninsula survived Superstorm Sandy. The boilers all started up automatically once electricity was restored in the area following the massive storm.

The Briarwood Organization chose to install the high-efficiency Baxi combination boiler in their Arverne development two years ago because it was a more affordable, more reliable and more efficient heating system. It also freed up valuable living space. Baxi wall-hung boilers survived not only Superstorm Sandy but also Hurricane Irene in 2011 -- so "flood-proofing" has been proven to be a key feature and benefit of Baxi wall-hung boilers.

As Baxi homeowners in Rockaway Peninsula and other flood-prone areas throughout the United States have discovered, the combination wall-hung boiler is the right heating appliance to include in natural disaster mitigation strategies. The small, compact Baxi boiler's proven reliable wall-hung track record, ease of installation and fully packaged design also make it ideal for emergency rebuilding efforts in storm-ravaged areas, as New York's Mia Simmons will attest.

To learn more about the Baxi Luna wall-hung boilers, visit www.wallhungboilers.com.