Good that everything went well in the end. :)
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Good that everything went well in the end. :)
That's great news!! I'm happy to hear this.
Successfully moved house yesterday. Very hectic day and now we have a house full of boxed up belongings. That's my weekend sorted! lol
One odd thing. Phone line was confirmed moved over to the other house yesterday, and broadband company text me to confirm broadband ceased at rented house. However, I'm currently at the rented house collecting last bits and packing my computer stuff up (wasn't having the removal men touching that!) and the phoneline is still working here and I'm using the internet to post this. Very odd. Seems we have both lines active and broadband still here. hmm..
Glad to know your back :D
Broadband might be taking another week before it's activated so I won't be around much till then.
The landline also seems to have some interference so I can at least use the time to get the line checked. I'm wondering if there is water in the phone line from the flood.
I have managed to borrow a mobile broadband dongle from a friend at work for some access, and I can tether my phone to my tablet, as I'm doing now, so I've got some connectivity.
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Good to hear you are finally back home Dave. Best wishes to you all for you new home. :)
Thanks Charlie. Definitely feels like a new house as nearly everything on the ground floor is new.
We do however have a new concern. The next door neighbour's house has only starting having work done on it this week! They got the NHBC involved as they have had damp issues in their house since it was built, whereas we haven't. That delayed the whole drying and restoration start, and the builders they have in there now are working directly for the NHBC, not their house insurance, and have decided to take the whole ground floor out right back down to the soil and re-construct it again. We spoke to them and they believe the house's floor wasn't constructed correctly. This has therefore raised a concern for us that nothing was done to our house to change its floor construction, or to add prevention against any future flooding. Our house was just dried out and renovated back to its original condition, so we have contacted the NHBC again this week and they are sending an inspector out to investigate.
My wife is understandably concerned they might want to do something serious and we will have to move out again. Hopefully not and anything they do to protect the house from future flooding can be achieved without resorting to major work. The most important thing I want to try and make them do is replace our air bricks with a special flood prevention air brick.
Yeah Dave, no worries & a pleasure. Deb's sends all her best to you all, meant sincerely from both of us. One hell of an upheaval..
- Bugger of this is, the house if a Semi-detached should surely have been done as a complete unit? - Meh @ this for crap-age.... Gah!
Our house is staggered, only joined by part of the wall to the neightbours, with ours being a few meters further forward, so it was treated as separate. The builders did say the 2 were completely separate at the time. The concern is more how they were constructed because if they are needing to do so much work to the floor in the other house why wasn't the same needed for our house. We will know more once the NHBC inspector has visited.
Is your property on a slightly higher level than your neighbor?
Just by a few inches at the most.. maybe one brick worth. The row of 8 houses were built on a gradual slope, with the private road running down hill to a drain at the bottom of the road. So they are all slightly lower than the last as they go down the road, with ours being the 3rd from the bottom. The house to our other side, which we are not connected, is quite a bit higher though, maybe 3 bricks worth, and they didn't flood.
Wooha!!
Just read this! Hope everything is ok Dave, and your getting through it!! Ive been living in a tent since end of June after splitting from my wife and I only found a room 3 weeks ago and moved.
I can tell you it wasn't nice sleeping in a tent with all that rain. And I ended up with a chest infection for 2 months! So you were good in getting out early into somewhere dry!
I thought so. Technically, you were on the higher ground of the flood & are most likely, .....least affected by it. Hence why your house was renovated first. I expect the damage to houses below you will get worse further away from yours....Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrison
Anyways, we're just really pleased to hear you are all back home now, especially so soon after becoming a Dad for the first time. :)
You mentioned elsewhere about being flooded again H.
To what extent this time fella? :(
Pretty much identical to last time, but the water was not quite as high or as long lasting.
On the 23rd I stayed up moving furniture and belongings upstairs just in case, as the water was getting high at the back. We called the environment agency at about 11pm because it was about a foot deep by then and they delivered us 50 sand bags for our 3 houses within half an hour, which was brilliant. They even carried and put them in place for us, around the doors and covering the air vents, although the water was in those already as they are stupidly at ground level (which is part of the problem).
I ended up staying up until about 4am because high tide was at 3.30, and the water level hadn't increased so we thought we were ok. I went to bed and got up again at 6am to check and the floors were all wet downstairs. But the water level had dropped, so it must have risen up within those 2 hours and dropped. Although outside the front was now completely flooded. Last time it happened we watched it seep up through the floors and slowly rise to about 3 inches inside the house and stay there most the day, causing more damp and damage to the woodwork.
The problem we have is that the whole of our 8 house close is served by a single drain at the bottom of the road, and apparently that drain is just a soakaway (according to neighbors), so when the ground is saturated it has nowhere to drain and starts to backup and fill up the bottom of the road and as it rises it floods each house at the bottom. We are 3rd from the bottom, and all 3 at the bottom flooded again.
Looks like we will have to move out again, meaning we will have to pay two lots of every bill again, which we afford.
As we have now flooded twice, and the back garden and sideway flood whenever we get heavy rain, we are really trying to work out if anyone can be held liable. The original builders, the building control and planning offices, environment agency and council etc. Surely someone is accountable? Any ideas?
We got the NHBC out after the first time and they said there wasn't a claim because it was just an act of God and a one off situation. But now that has changed.
Where our house is built used to be the bottom of the gardens we back on to. We found a refused planning application from a previous builder in the 90's, and it says that there were concerns about over developing the area, and with existing drainage being able to cope. One resident's objection letter also stated that they thought it bad to build there because the bottoms of all the gardens regularly flooded, so that is evidence of existing flooding where our house is built.
So now we need to try and work out if anyone is liable.
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Getting anyone to admit liability is always going to be hard. No one will want to stand up with a raised arm about matters such as this. The involved re-work costs are going to be a killer, let alone the insurance claim to repair your home.
Perhaps the Insurance people are the ones to talk about who to proportion/rationalise some sort of responsibility with. After all, we don't build houses to flood & now they are, someone has to be accountable. I could understand it if your home was an Older home, but it isn't. :eyebrow:
Really sorry you're having to go through this mer-larky again chap. - Even more so with the time of year. :(
I would think about getting in touch with watchdog you maybe able to get some free independent advice! Also you would think that the ground would have some sort of water table survey done in the planning process for development of the site. Things like roads and street lighting responsibility can be automatically taken over by local authorities after say 12 months you need to find out if its the same for drainage? I just tried some searching online and you can contact ombudsmen http://www.lgo.org.uk/publications/f...bout-flooding/ Hope you find a solution :(
Any more developments for you H?
They announced continuous rain until next Monday here, no good foresight :(
We can't contact the Ombudsman yet because we have to give the authorities responsible a reasonable time of 12 weeks to respond and take action first. Once that time has expired then we can contact them.Quote:
Originally Posted by DonAmiga
We are putting in a joint claim with the NHBC along with our 2 neighbours, because the houses are only 7-8 years old and are still covered by them. We are also contacting the planning office to obtain the original planning and building control documents for the development to see what was outlined and stated for how the houses should be built and what was meant to be done for drainage of the site.
I hadn't thought about a water table survey, so will look into that. I'm assuming that is probably the Environment Agency whom undertake those? Any ideas? Will need to do some research.
Our neighbour is also in contact with an elderly neighbour whom has lived here since at least the 80's and he has said he has photographs of the land before it was built on, showing a natural pond and willow tree where our houses are built. If that is so then we do have a legitimate problem that needs to be fixed my someone.
It is just making someone accept responsibility for this ongoing drainage issue, and the low height of our houses in relation to the ground level and flood risk.
We are definitely going to try and move once the house is repaired again though. Not sure how we can sell, but we are considering looking into another new house so we can attempt to part exchange our house to offload it.
Yeah, we are meant to have another big storm today/tonight some time. We keep having very heavy rain storms in the last few days. Over New Year we visited my wife's parents in Trowbridge and a lot of their roads had flooding. West Country is meant to be getting some bad flooding today and over the weekend. I hope you are on high ground Kin?Quote:
Originally Posted by Demon Cleaner
Yes thanks. On very high ground here H.
Good luck with your enquiries. :thumbs:
With the water table survey I would have thought you'd get some info from planning department/environmental office? I did find this site (haven't had much time to read over it)http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/ground...vels_data.html it does look like it could be useful. Its good that all your neighbours coming together to fight this, even the houses that are not effected should be taking part as it will effect the value of the whole street. Hopefully you can get it sorted before you sell-up keeping the value of your house. With the planning department I know (up here) they like to be consulted and asked for advice as to many people think "I'll just do what I want" so it could be worth ringing them to enquire what a building firm would have had to do in the planning process for development with regards to water table survey, drainage responsibility/requirements?
All the best :)
Along with our neighbours, whom also flooded, we have been going through online documents from the planning office, and other agencies related to the development of our building site, and have uncovered a lot of evidence indicating they knew this area has a high level water table and that the land being built on was known to flood.
The documentation outlines in detail where an existing drainage ditch and drain already existed on the site, and indicated that the site did flood at that part of the site. Further documentation shows plans of the existing ditch, and clearly shows that this ditch no longer exists and is in fact the location where the flooding now occurs whenever we have heavy rain to the right of our houses, and then backs up until the ground water level rises enough to enter our houses through the floor (not in through the doors).
We have also found previous planning applications from other builders which were turned down due to the risk of flooding to the site and preventative measures proposed not being good enough for the development to take place. Plus reports submitted by existing home owners next to the site raising their concerns about the existing regular flooding which occurred on the land.
We now therefore need to work out what course of action is available to us to prove this was a known and outstanding issue on the land used to build our houses, and to prove that the developers/builders did not put into place adequate drainage to prevent further flooding, or build the houses high enough above ground level to protect them against flooding due to the known high water table and subsequent flood risk to the site.
We managed to follow the documentation between our builder and the agencies regarding the flood risk and required drainage, and it ends with a report stating that the Environment Agency met with the builders at the site during the summer (when it was dry) and managed to verbally convince (using anecdotal evidence) the EA that a Flood Risk Assessment was not required. Is this really all they needed to do to prevent the need for this? If so I'm shocked and someone must be liable regarding this?
I guess if you go back to the EA with pictures of your houses flooded, with evidence of the lack of ditch, then you should have some leverage with the situation. Things like this really annoy me & largely because someone has got nice & fat from the investment whilst causing misery to other people lives. Bastards! :mad:
Concentrate on the previous planning applications that was rejected gathering the information on the why and if recommendations where given at the time for drainage! Then gather the information for the successful planning application trying to find out what drainage proposals where in place before the site meeting with the environmental people! Then if there was a report on why the environmental agency dropped any drainage recommendations, what evidence did they have when previous planning applications had been rejected.
I have studied construction management with some planning and building regulations but up here in Scotland can have different regulations but its should be a case with new build property development a set of criterias should be met with a document/report for each before a planning application is successful. Your trying to go through it all to see if there's any discrepancies and find out why, also if there was supposed to be adequate drainage put in, its then checking if it had been done. If you can get most of the information in place it would be easier and cheaper for a solicitor to look over it. I would have thought your building warranty should cover drainage? It sounds like a soakaway drain is not going to be good enough, so where would be the nearest main drainage system and if it would be possible to get connected to it?
The drainage is definitely the area we are concentrating on at the moment. I need to read through a lot more decuments and want to work out exactly what the drains are that are serving us directly. One neighbour is sure it's just a soak away, whereas another isn't. I'm also not certain because a soakaway wouldn't gurgle when the water does drain away after backing up.
The next main drainage system is in the main road in front of us as our close branches off from it. However it is on higher ground, which could be an issue, and I've also read some documents where it is stated that the developers are not allowed to connect to it because it can't handle additional capacity. However we must be connected to the mains sewer and that didn't backup with the last storm floods so I need to keep reading.
There's some really good advice there from DonAmiga. :thumbs:
You can also get drainage/sewerage details from your local water board if you need additional reference for comparison. ;)
Im came on here to look out for this! And Im sorry I found it updated! :( how are the things going down there? the weather is not letting up at all.
Well, our house hasn't flooded again since Christmas, and we have some developments with Southern Water investigating our drains, but it is ongoing and we are currently waiting for a report from them detailing exactly what they found.
There are loads of places around here with flooding though, but no where near the amount in the West Country, and now the Thames valley. Romsey where I grew up is quite badly flooded too, and I'd never seen it flooded like it is currently.
I also visited Hambledon, near Waterlooville in Hampshire a couple of weekends ago and the flooding there is really bad. The main street running through their village is completely shut because it's under a few feet of water and they are constantly pumping it out from the properties back into the road.
Take a look at this to see how bad it is there: http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/topic/hambledon/
Hambledon is having a real tough time with it for sure, but the spread of flood carnage is much bigger than Hambledon alone. Funny to hear the peers & queers arguing who was to blame for the widespread flooding here in the UK. One of the UK's biggest foible's.... blaming someone else, instead of rectifying the problem. :dry:
Still H, there is one good thing about this for you. At least you haven't flooded this time. :)
True, although both times we flooded the rain was constant for the whole night so it just overwhelmed the drainage we did have. Since then it has only rained heavily in relatively short bursts.
Every time the guy from the drying company comes out to take reading and adjust the drying he asks if we have flooded again. :lol:
As for the authorities, general public, PMs and others all bickering over who is to blame, why hasn't anyone been sensible enough to see that this is an unprecedented weather event that no one could have foreseen as being of such magnitude. The problem is that when a location hasn't flooded for 50+ years in some cases people get complacent and forget how bad it has been in the past. It's impossible to prevent all flooding, that would just be naive. However they are certain cases such as Hambledon for example. In the video reports in that link it shows the drainage ditch that used to run along the centre of the main street and prevent any such flooding, but in their wisdom at the end of the second world war they filled the whole ditch in so the tanks could drive through on their D-Day parade. Mad!
Not quite sure what the answer is where I live, but maybe for the majority of Fishbourne's flooding a similar idea of a very large flood drainage pipe running under the centre of the road would be a very good solution. But that costs a lot of money.