As some may know last Saturday we got a tad damp, 2 inches of water throughout the downstairs. Really lucky when you see what some have to face after a flood. Monday I called the Insurance Company Legal & General who arranged to have an assessor out the following day and asked me to forward photos of damaged goods and the video I had taken of the flood. I called the local Council to collect the damaged stuff and this was arranged for Thursday.
Tuesday the assessor arrived bang on appointment, he was really professional, very thorough and gave us the go ahead to lift the wooden flooring which is a PITA at any time but when you have to strip down a marine aquarium to do so it becomes a right challenge, anyway late Tuesday with water filled tubs with fish, corals etc secreted around the house I got the skirting and flooring lifted.
Wednesday L&G had a company called Polygon call out to start the drying out process but the technician a really nice chap noted that the floor was covered in 12" square vinyl tiles laid sometime in the 70s. "Sorry fella, I can't start any work until I get those tiles tested for Asbestos!!!!!" He took all the details he needed gave me as much info as he could and left saying L&G would be in touch as soon as they got my report. Wednesday afternoon L&G called saying the guy would be out Monday to take a sample of the floor tiles for testing and it would take 3-4 days to get the results. We're heading away Sunday for a few day so this has been arranged for Wednesday next week.
Thursday was spent rebuilding the aquarium and making 55 Gallons of salt water mix as corals and invertebrates would survive more than a couple of days without the proper condition (I will most certainly still have casualties) The council came Thursday morning and lifted the damaged items BUT NOT the flooring as it wasn't on their list and they are not allowed to lift something in case the property owner says the took something they were not meant to. He then asked me to sign a form which he had hand written the list of stuff they had taken, which I had to sign
I called the council to rearrange the flooring to be lifted. 30 minutes later the same crew arrived loaded to flooring and got me to sign the same form again where he had added the flooring.
Upshot is that if the tiles contain Asbestos, we're moved out, everything downstairs put in storage and specialist contractors called in to lift the tiles but this won't happen for at least 2 weeks. After that there's the week to 10 days of drying out to be done before we can even start to put the place back into shape.
I have to say that whilst it's been a right pain so far Legal & General have been cracking with how they have dealt with us, can't fault them.
I knew I took this fortnight of for a reason