oh-oh

We did have some unplanned work go on in our house this year-all caused by a burst pipe upstairs. 

L works shift work and had an afternoon start. I went off to work, he went off for a surf. He got back about 2 hours later, opened the garage door and water was gushing through the floorboards. He rushed up through the bottom story, water running down the walls, pouring down the stairs, dripping through the roof to find water gushing out from below the upstairs bathroom vanity. He ran out and turned off the mains water. 

Thankgod he was on a late-if it had been me that had come home to find that I don't know what I would have done. Apart from the fact that he found it at about 9.30, if it had run all day long-for 6 or 8 hours the damage could have been a lot worse. 

We were so lucky. We live entirely upstairs, downstairs is for the future. There are only the two of us, and we moved here from a unit, so we have no furniture, no electronics, nothing downstairs. Luckily because of the bathroom being close to the stairs and because of the floorboards, all the water went downstairs. If we had had different flooring it could have spread out across the top floor and damaged furniture and electronics. 

We had an emergency visit from a plumber and an electrician to sort out the pipe, and check the everything was safe. 

We don't have photos of the water-L was too busy trying to clean it up. These photos are from a bit later that day-about 8 hours later. 

You can see where the water flowed through from upstairs

Downstairs floor-it was already damaged in some places

There was about a meter square of floor that was really scratched. We think once there was an office downstairs, and someone used a wheelie chair without a mat underneath.

Water flowing down the light fitting

Water dripping from the cornicing

It was over the coming days and weeks, and even months that the damage really became apparent. The roof bowed in a few places, paint bubbled, skirting swelled up, the skirting separated from them walls and the floorboards started to cup. 

Don't mind L's ugly feet

Because it burst in the bathroom the water proofing stopped the water, so it flowed out down the stairs, and through the floorboards. It then spread out across almost the whole downstairs ceiling, so the damage was quite widespread to the roof and cornicing. We were hoping we would get a paint job covered, but that didn't happen. 

I just want to point out that our 'flooding' was really minor in the scheme of things, and is in no way compared to the heartache and absolute disaster that lots of people have experienced. We have friends who lost everything, and weren't covered by their insurance in the 2011 floods-they are still missing walls in their house. 

I'll be back with the repairs. Have you had any disasters?