Water damage and recovery

Whilst I was away in Scotland, sailing, I was phoned up by my 19 year old son informing me that the lounge ceiling had collapsed and there was an inch of water downstairs. I took the next train back to Cambridge.

After informing the two insurance companies - Tesco Contents insurance and Barclays buildings insurance, I tidied up and started to log progress. Here is my diary so far.
* 19/6/08 - Ceiling collapses
* 4/7/08 - Skip delivered
* 7/7/08 - Man comes to collect plaster samples from hall and lounge to test for asbestos
* 8/7/08 - £150 Excess paid to Buildings Insurance - surveyor now en route
* 19/7/08 - Jenny phones Electrical Insurance people - no problems with new-for-old on our TV ( modified to have no TV tuner ), CD player, Archos, and some DVDs.
* 19/7/08 - Jenny phones soft furnishings people- sofa - told me to phone tesco
* 19/7/08 - Jenny phones Tesco - they wanted me to phone soft furnishings people
* 8/8/08 - Jenny phones Homeserve - agree sum paid so far. Amp will be £295.00, WII cash settle, DVDs settlement lost so far. Will call back.
* 8/8/08 - Homeserve phone back - confirm amp. Wii:£239.97. DVDs:£270:00
* 11/8/08 - Builder does not turn up - rescheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
* 13/8/08 - Unplasterer turns up and removes plaster from chimney breast and coving.
* 14/8/08 - Call Homeserve Project manager, awaiting call back
* 14/8/08 - Homeserve Project Manager calls in and confirms that another unplasterer will arrive on the 15th to remove plaster
* 14/8/08 - Camdry KI calls to see if the plaster is off ( no ). Will call back on Monday.
* 15/8/08 - 06:50 - skip removed.
* 15/8/08 - One plasterer turns up after my phoning Homeserveat 12:00, he wanders off to find college and kango. They remove a small amount of plaster and make holes into wall hollows. Give up and go home around 15:00. I arrive home at around 18:30, try to phone Homeserve and complain, no luck.
* 17/8/08 - Find sofa
* 18/8/08 - Speak to Asprea insurance and give tail of woe.
* 18/8/08 - Speak to Tom ( Homeserve ) and measure the remaining plaster ( 20m^2 ) to be removed
* 18/8/08 - Plasterer now removing plaster from walls without power hammer. Only removing 'raised plaster'
* 26/8/08 - Surveyor arrives to inspect plaster - OK. Hardboard removed in bathroom.
* 28/8/08 - Phone Asprea to ask about Camdry - they already have an appointment for 10:00 on the 29th.
* 29/8/08 - Camdry issue certificate of dryness
* 01/9/08 - Asprea have not received certificate of dryness yet
* 02/9/08 - Asprea claim that Homeserve will call in a day or so to start work
* 02/9/08 - Independent Inspectors Ltd claim to have received the sofa quotation and will process it. they are backlogged to the 21st of August.
* 04/9/05 - Phone Asprea, they state that they will get Homeserve to call back by 12:00. I phone them at 16:00 and they state that Homeserve will call Friday.
* 08/9/08 - Phone Asprea, no word from Homeserve so will escalate the problem to a manager
* 09/9/08 - Jennifer redirects call to me. Homeserve are now arranging plasterer ( ceiling and eventually walls) for 16th and decorator for 25th after another call from them to Asprea. They had no plans to look at the hall, no instructions from Asprea despite being reminded every visit and some phone calls. Another call to Asprea and now they are going to look at the walls. We decide not to paper, but to paint instead. Choose paint.
* 10/9/08 - Letter from Independent Inspectors re the sofa quotation, they wibble on about the floor coverings so I phone them up and apparently they have sent me the wrong standard letter, we agree that they will send me a cheque and I will pay the balance of the target sofa.
* 12/9/08 - Receive cheque from Tesco for £1250 ( sofa )
* 14/9/08 - Buy sofa, 9 weeks delivery - leave deposit
* 26/9/08 - Surveyor ( Homeserve ) surveys the hall at last.
* 08/10/08 - Call Asprea to see where the builders have gone and they have not agreed the work on the hall
* 17/10/08 - Call Asprea and find that they have OK'ed the hall work but so word from Homeserve
* 21/10/08 - Call Asprea - they call Homeserve - builders arranged for today. They seem to have lied, no builder arranged with any of us.
* 21/10/08 - Builder turned up at 13:00, wandered to B&Q and did not return
* 22/10/08 - Builder arrived. Stripped wallpaper, ply floor of bathroom. Tiles damaged, I was told to choose different ones. However, there was lots in store of original ones in store
* 23/10/08 - Builder arrived, wallpaper stripped above dado rail. Bathroom floor untouched.
* 27/10/08 - Talk to Asprea, they mention no builders due to another variation order.
* 27/10/08 - Arrange carpet install for 5th of November
* 28/10/08 - Talk to Asprea, Homeserve did not phone back. Asprea state that they are allowing any variations.
* 29/10/08 - Talk to Asprea, they state that they will have to run through the process of variations again. I complain
* 29/10/08 - Jo from Asprea phoned back. she will talk to Homeserve.
* 29/10/08 - Jo phones back again - I miss call.
* 30/10/08 - Phone Asprea, passed to Jo. She states that the plastering has been validated, as well as below the dado rail and is all now with Homeserve.
* 31/10/08 - Phone Asprea, no word from Homeserve. Ask to be put through to Homeserve. The person who books Peterborough has gone home.
* 31/10/08 - Asprea also get on to Homeserve, but no process on getting a start date
* 03/11/08 - Phoned Asprea, put on to Homeserve they offer Thursday, we take Friday. Lounge skirting, bathroom tiles, radiator, hall walls above and below dado - strip wallpaper, line and paint.

all in all, the stress from the damage to the house was as nothing when compared to dealing with Asprea and Homeserve. I had to push for any progress, average phone call duration of 15 minutes usually waiting in a queue ( you call is valuable to us ), the intransigence of the poor operators at the other end of the line and the sheer incompetence of dealing with four companies :
Barclays -> Asprea -> Homeserve -> random tradesman.

The water damage was inconvenient, the stress from the repair has been too much.