MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Looking in excess of £50k on current estimates..
Leaky washing machine waste pipe. It split goodness knows when and has been spurting water down the wall into the floor space. Where it has allowed dry rot to flourish and spread. The whole of the ground floor except the living room will have to be lifted, cut out, replaced and treated. Under floor heating replaced, Kitchen out and hopefully back in again after, if it isn't damaged.
Family of four and two cats into rented accommodation for minimum of 12 weeks.. So grateful its covered by the Insurance Co..
Eek, that's a big one!
Parents had an estimate of 'over £100k' for heating oil leaking and running into next door's foundations, Grade 2 listed 18th century manor house... Luckily it didn't come to that, turned out to be about £5k of drain cleaning required to remove the diesel-like smell from the old drain under the house.
Weirdest one was my friend's neighbour's cat getting stuck up their chimney, around £5k for chimney demolition, rebuilding, and rehousing whilst it was done, but covered by the pet insurance. Cat is fine
That’s pretty impressive. I suspect my uncle could have claimed to a similar level when his radiators sprung a leak and the lounge floors, walls and ceilings were rebuilt (very nicely) on insurance money whilst they were accommodated elsewhere.
mattyfez could win though in the next few weeks if he doesn’t just ring the gas leak number.
That's nothing. I'm in the middle of a claim for subsidence which the insurance company are saying is only part covered and I'm looking at £50k for repairs which I'll have to fund. (Drainage, walls, retaining wall).
If that's what's they're saying now then expect it to be waaaaayyyyy higher by the time it's done.
Small fry compared to yours but we had a slow leak on the bath waste that must have been at it for years until eventually it burst through the ceiling below. Claim adjuster initially said we just needed the ceiling redone and wanted to settle for about £800. We just said "ok send your guys in to fix it then". 3 months later we were back in the house after they found pretty much all the joists on one side of the house were rotten and we had 3 rooms and the staircase completely gutted and redecorated. Think the final bill was around £28k.
I’m not going to lie, I’ve had a few sleepless nights waiting to get the final ok, we are going to cover this from the claims management co and the insurer. The first bit of advice I got from a mate who wholesales chemicals and materials to the damp treatment industry was to sell the house proto. 🤦♂️. I’m not looking forward to a summer in rented. 🤬
My folks last flood claim was 110k IIRC. The one before that was a piddling 67k.
Depends where you live I guess. We were put in a beautiful holiday home just outside St Andrews, mainly because that seems to be the only kind of short term rental available round here.
A six month rental (if we can find one) is going to be iro of £18k around here. Unfurnished, so they/we will have to get the movers in too!
We got flooded by torrential rain on 9th September. It was so bad the drains backed up, flooded our garage, boot room and hallway. Then at the south end of the house it drove through my daughter’s balcony window, the kitchen windows & kitchen door flooding the kitchen, destroying the flooring, kitchen units and sub-floor.
last week we had a new floating floor fitted to the kitchen and I’m working through myself replacing the stud walls and improving the insulation.
The flooding caused some amusing electrical issues with the metal socket and switch faceplates in the kitchen at one point sitting at 130vac above ground. We’ve had a full lighting rewire, new dist board and earth spike.
While the work goes on we’ve an insurance provided temporary kitchen pod and a 7m x 5m storage unit next to it on the drive with my garage contents in it. They’ve been there since Jan 4th. We’ve had dehumidifiers in since mid December, finally being removed just before Easter.
The current estimate is over £70k with all the work that’s subsequently been required.
at the time it didn’t look too horrific, but when we started digging into things it had got everywhere. Black water too as our run off drains have been stoopidly plumbed into the septic tank.
My parents got flooded in the twin storms in February 2020, a few weeks before the pandemic kicked off. The initial estimate for the rebuild, their accommodation and replacing all the lost stuff was £92k, thanks to labour shortages, material costs skyrocketing and delays due to lockdowns etc the final bill was £140k. That was just the house, we have a garage further down the lane that went completely underwater. We're looking at a final bill of £15k to get that repaired as the water lifted the concrete roof off enough to move the mounting points then crack every beam (reinforced concrete beams with a flat roof on top), it also weakened the rear wall and destroyed the door. That wasn't insured at all although thankfully the Wednesday before I'd sold mum's old car that was inside, every car down that end of the street was destroyed. One house down there had to claim for 5 cars and that came to over £300k on their own (Range Rover x2, a Tesla and two MINIs), the house was on top of that! I did have a small trailer in there but that just rattled around inside until the door failed, then floated out and into the street where it ended up parked in a bush. A quick spray of WD40 on the electrics and a check of the hubs (grease was untouched) and it's back in use.
Thanks, that is starting to make me feel a bit better off. Christ flooding is a nightmare isn't it. At least we are able to live in the house relatively unbothered by the horrors under the floor, for the time being.. Shouldn't have watched The Last Of Us though.
Terrible times for all of you going through any of this. Major repairs for floods, storms and flooding must be horrendous.
Back in my claims handling days I "wrote off" two different properties with subsidence where repairs exceeded the market value of the property.
Some notes from our experience so far:
Take photographs of everything as it progresses. from the tiniest bit of damage to materials being delivered and put in place. A lot of the work will bypass building control but could contribute to enhanced EPC ratings later on.
dont be tempted to cash settle until after the drying process has completed. That stage can cost a lot more than you think.
You’ll need a mind map of all the sub, sub-sub and sub-sub-sub contractors involved.
Axa (well their sub-sub contractors) have been really good in hiring local companies. We’ve subsequently bunged them cash to enhance areas of the build.
Shy bairns get nowt. Bairns with no paper trail get less. Follow every conversation up with a confirmatory email. You’ll have to do this - they certainly won’t and let here-say from the sub-sub-sub contractors lead you down a bad path.
save everyone’s number in your phone as soon as you get a call. Even if it’s the apprentice calling to say he’s got his hand stuck in the hole he’s just cut in the floor.
obey rule #1: make them tea, coffee, show them where the bog is, buy some swarfega. My lot were out on the patio furniture today grabbing lunch. They were going to eat in their van.
I was feeling a bit smug because I live up a hill so flooding is pretty unlikely. And then I looked at the Coal Authority mining influence map. I wish I hadn't and am now wondering what's under my house. Or what is not there but should be.
https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html
@hotfiat. Thanks. All sounds like good advice.
I worked on a job where the oil delivery company’s fuel hose split as it was filling their heating oil tank.
The house ended up being underpinned, cavities opened up to vent, partial ground floor dug up and a significant amount of garden excavated.
The client said the claim was over £150k !
These claims make my 11k burglary claim several years ago seem tiny!
It was pretty traumatic coming home to your house trashed and most of the things you value stolen. Luckily we didn't have much to steal back then. It took me nearly 5 years to be able to sleep properly at night without thinking we were being robbed
As stressful as a house flooding etc.. I think I'd take it over a burglary. maybe because I have been lucky enough not to experience it. Plus we live on a hill
Heating oil spillage is far worse than a general flood. A friend of mine once had a house in the fens. His oil feed pipe turned out to have been leaking for many years prior to his purchase. The insurance company gutted the ground floor, dug down below the level of the foundations and then filled it all with seawater, the bacteria in which slowly ate the oil up over about a year before it could be put back together.
AmbroseFull Member
I was feeling a bit smug because I live up a hill so flooding is pretty unlikely. And then I looked at the Coal Authority mining influence map. I wish I hadn’t and am now wondering what’s under my house. Or what is not there but should be.
We live on a big hill. It has a brook at the bottom which has gradually eroded the bankside but speeded up this wet winter. Not a massive issue on its own, been like that forever. However, some stupid decisions by previous owners to pipe surface water and a spring onto the top of the bankside means the whole bank has been saturated for 8 months and "flowed" like a liquid. The 2" drop in the edge of the lawn quickly grew to about 12' as an acre of woodland (including some mature trees) moved downhill and took our garden with it. Finger in the air estimate from a geotech engineer was no change from £300-400k.
We've just had a mate in with a mini digger and laid 100m+ of land drain in about 20 tonne of stone to get the water out of the way and let the whole bank dry out then see where we go from there really.
Ahem... Hold my beer 😂
$450k (AUD) plus around $20k for contents, $20k+ for make safe and 2 years temporary accommodation.
Thoughts with you OP, it's not much fun.
Another tip or two. Scrutinise everything the insurance company put in front of you and ask for more detail - they are weasels. Don't put a contents claim in until you are ready to move back in - prices went up a lot in 2 years so by doing that we saved ourselves a heap.
I once worked in an estate agency who had a house for sale at £4m (25 years ago).
Sale was agreed and searches started. Buyer put 10% deposit into escrow.
Survey revealed subsidence to the garden walls that were substantial... Cost to repair was estimated at £1.4m. Not coverable by insurance as the house itself was fine (biiig garden, sloping plot, stone wall retaining the garden at the lower end).
Buyer walked away giving up the deposit.
'Floating floor': best advice
I had a subsidence claim a while back that ran to over £100K for the actual repair work, not including several months of renting a property while the house was inhabitable.
That was for long metal screw things put into the walls and filled with resin, floors all lifted and re-layed, entire place redecorated, two sides of the house re-rendered, patio relayed. Probably some other stuff I've forgotten.
Just removing the row of trees that caused the issue cost thousands alone.
That £300 policy was good value 🙂 shame the renewal now costs over £1000/year despite the issue being entirely eliminated.
A six month rental (if we can find one) is going to be iro of £18k around here. Unfurnished, so they/we will have to get the movers in too!
3k a month on rent for an average in your area, i don't think we've got any houses round here to rent for 3k 🤣
I think it's time @reeksy shared his storm damage photos again to demonstrate a proper 'hold my beer' claim.
<hr />
Yes, Reeksy it’s ridiculous. The probable uplift due to not wanting a short term let and a high demand due to lots of EDF(Hinkley Point ) and Airbus people coming to Bristol. Especially wanting to start in Sept. And short supply. Next door was rented for £2.5kpcm but they think they could get closer to £3 now. Thats another reason HPC is gone into overspend.
@multi Little point jumping your premium up is there. They aren’t ever going to recoup their losses on you. Just lose your custom altogether.
We had a big house, built in 1838, and built on top of cellar walls from a previous cottage, which were constructed from stone blocks nicked from Stafford castle, just up the hill. Some cracking led to a claim to underpin the whole of the cellar area because of subsidence. Massive job, requiring us to move out for months. I happened to be on site when the underpinning team, working on the last section spotted that the cracking was due to a broken sewer saturating the ground and making one wall lean outwards a bit. No subsidence at all.
The surveyor went white: a plan was hatched that as soon as the building inspector left the next day they would dig a big trench, fill it with a mixer full of concrete, cover it up with dirt and carry on as if nothing had happened. Everybody was happy.