Flooding aftermath

[glenfield2]

Like 70-odd other houses in our village of Debenham Suffolk we were flooded in Storm Babet three weeks ago. 12-15 ins through the ground floor. We were lucky enough to live in a house with solid largely tiled ground floors so, unlike many, we are still at home with services running again.
Anyway, one thought and one question.
First what a large and cumbersome food chain insurance is: the company (Ageas) appoint a claims handling firm, who appoint a loss adjuster, who appoint a drying out company. Total of three visits by damp meter wavers, none longer than 20mins. Industrial dehumidifiers only in two days ago (fortunately we had borrowed three domestic ones).
Everyone around us feels the same - flurry of activity doing necessary stuff like re-housing people and then it all stops.
No-one - aside from me - seems to have made a serious assessment of what is damaged in our house.
So to the question: the drying out firm says all plaster needs to be stripped off to a metre high to let (solid brick) walls dry out. Theirs even talk of ripping up floor tiles. Is this really needed? The flood water was in and midday and out by 10pm. It was river water, silty but no sewage. It smacks to me of the ‘hack it all off and concrete render it’ damp proofing ‘cures’ of the ‘70s. There’s some movement in a few kitchen units and some swelling in household doors but that’s it really.
A big part of me wants to crack on and sort the place out without all the bureaucratic delays.
Has anyone had experience of flooding and the aftermath and got any thoughts?

 

[Ozi]

My thought - be very careful not to be helpful to the insurance company.

I had a water leak which filled my workshop roof with water, thinking it was coming from the bathroom/shower above having pulled down enough sealing to see the board the shower tray was mounted to before the "assessor" arrived I removed the tray to find where the leak was coming from. I was told "It must have been past the mastic your not covered", turned out to be from a dead end on a radiator circuit which would have been covered but no amount of evidence or complaining would budge them. I was probably stupid but just wanted to get my house and workshop dry much as you do.

Had my house broken into once, car stolen and keys for the other car. First question from insurance company when I wanted the car locks changed "Did the keys have your address on them"

If you say yes you're not covered, if no they don't need to replace the locks. Did get that payed for as I could say they know the address as they broke in.

Good luck getting all back to normal, hope you're in a position to take precautions to stop it happening again