V-Flyer

I'm baaaaack!

For those of you not in the know, on the morning of the day I was due to fly to LHR to connect the following day to SFO my home was flooded by a freak storm. I left thinking that my loss was only two carpets but on my return (and a further flood exactly two months to the day later) I realised that there was more remedial work to be done. I initially thought that it would involve removing the plaster at the base of the affected walls but when that happened, the results were far more sinister!!

To put this in context, next year we celebrate the 400th anniversary of our town's charter (C'mon over! We're having a year long birthday party!) and as I live slap, bang in the town centre my house is not young - and is possibly over 200 years old! It would therefore have no damp course and would have been built with stone, earth and lime which would have acted like a sponge. Rising damp and other similar problems would surface from time to time. So, back to the present! The builders (who were also engineers) began their task of stripping the walls and discovered that the internal walls were contained by timbers from floor to ceiling all of which crumbled like Weetabix to the touch! One wall, which was a load bearing wall supporting that of my bedroom above actually started to move as they stripped the plaster because of the timbers! And as for the ceilings!! And the stairs!! There was wet rot, dry rot and woodworm!! I had no option but to vacate the house and decamp to a holiday rental which was fine for a temporary measure but I had no internet save for the iPhone and a Vodaphone dongle, which after a week's free trial, lasted candlelight on PAYG. It also had limited TV channels but I think I've got over that.

The builders worked like Trojans. They excavated so much floor that I half expected to come across some Bronze Age artefacts! They stripped and rebuilt falling walls. They repositioned doors and walls. They installed drains to cope with floods and they did any cosmetic changes I wanted. They even cleared out my shed!! The electrician all but re-wired the house and peppered it with light switches and sockets to the extent that I have de-commissioned 4 extension leads!

Last Friday evening I moved back home. Currently I have no flooring, doors, curtains or tiling. Today a fault on the phone line was restored and I now have broadband. There is still much to do but I don't care - I'm home and I'm back to enjoy V-Flyer once more

Welcome home HL . Shall we imbibe of a small G+T ( or two ) to celebrate ?
DL

Sorry about the flooding sounds awful.... But glad you are ok and good to see you back

Oh. What a tale - I think the worst bit is no v-flyer .

So glad you are home, I wouldn't care about the lack of amenity, just be glad to mix a martini in my house!

Ah that all makes sense now

I passed through town a couple of weeks & glanced over (as I always do) to what I believe is your home, as I drive by & was shocked to see it was pretty much a building site & spotted the interior walls had been stripped back to the stone.

I thought to myself, "Wow that's a lot more than just carpets & wallpaper"

I popped on here to V-Flyer to see if I could see any mention of the calamity you were facing, but when I saw nothing, I thought perhaps I had mistaken which house was yours. But now , as I said, it all makes sense

All I can say, is that I hope you get settled back soon & can put the “Summer of 2012” firmly behind you

Makes the touch-up in our place we did last year seem like a UC trip

Happy to see you're back home and functional, it's an ordeal to be sure! Sounds like you have the fun part coming up now !

Glad you got back into your home in such a short space of tie - welcome back

buns

You were missed but never forgotten. It's great news that you are finally back in your home.
I remember thinking at the time that you were marvellous to go on holiday considering the problems you were leaving behind. It made total sense as there was nothing you could do at home, but you dealt with that, the subsequent 2nd flood and the major house rebuild with your usual mixture of good humour and efficiency.
Welcome back to V-flyer and now that you have your internet, telephone and TV working hopefully life can begin to get back to normal again.

Welcome home and welcome back to V-Flyer. I really admire your amazing resilience to it all.There should be a new award : the G & T T medal... Great Attitude To Troubles Medal.
best wishes,
hiljil

That's awful HL - what a trial for you, but I'm so glad to hear how hard the builders worked for you. And gladder still that you're now back home - no place like it, even without curtains etc.

A warm welcome back home - must feel great to be back I hope the rest of the work goes to plan and 'normality' resumes in the HL household

Welcome back!

Assuming the weetabix nature of the timbers was of long standing and not the immediate result of the flooding, then that's possibly a small silver lining to be found amidst the chaos.

Ahh wow HL, what a trial to go through.

Firstly welcome back

Glad all is meandering back to normality and at least your house is vaguely still in tact.. could be worse.. could have been lost to a landslide off the edge of a cliff - for those that do not read rubbish papers over people's shoulders on the train; there was a house bought at auction by a retired police officer which, 8 days after finalising, was nearly lost to a landslide off a cliff!! It is uninhabitable, will most likeley fall into the sea and I must confess, I thought of you Honey Lamb

Hope all is well from here on out, also that the bar survived and is well stocked with G&T, trust of course the builders did not get at it

Hi Honey Lamb!

So glad to hear you are finally getting everything sorted and back on your feet.

Welcome back xx

Goodness that's awful but at least your back in now in amazing speed ! Some builders/insurance you had there. Same happened to a friend last February and she is still in rented accommodation !

Bet you're glad to be back in your ain wee hoose, albeit sans flooring, curtains etc. I'm sure you'll have a fine time choosing new furnishings! That birthday party sounds - as our colonial cousins would say - awesome .

Wow.. That puts our claim for a leaky pipe into context!! Hope all goes well with the rest of the work.

Fab news Christine that you're baaaaaack!! :-)

Welcome back HL. I can only imagine what an ordeal it must have been, but on the bright side, your home will soon be as good as new and with the new drains, able to withstand any future flooding (not that we want any more of those). Have fun redecorating.

Have great sympathy with your predicament. I live in CockermouthCumbria which had its main street wiped out by floods. Also manage properties in a nearby town which were flooded in 2005 & 09!
The stress can be incredible but if you have a sympathetic Insurance Company half the battle is over. Hang in there and lock up. Get yourself away and put problems in the home in context, you have survived!

hazban wrote:Have great sympathy with your predicament. I live in CockermouthCumbria which had its main street wiped out by floods. Also manage properties in a nearby town which were flooded in 2005 & 09!
The stress can be incredible but if you have a sympathetic Insurance Company half the battle is over. Hang in there and lock up. Get yourself away and put problems in the home in context, you have survived!

Hi, hazban and thank you for your post. I see you are a new member and I appreciate your thoughts. If you clicked on the link in my post you will see that I actually flew out the same night to connect to a SFO flight.

Since then I have taken on a new part-time job which surprised even me, enjoyed a private VF get-together which was brilliant and I'm about to head off to South America. OK, it hasn't been easy but the support from V-flyers has been enormous even though my internet access has been sporadic over the past few weeks and I'm a survivor and always have been

What a hideous thing to have happened Glad to hear that some normality is being restored!