A flooded summerhouse!

When Jochem opened the door to our newly renovated summerhouse this Friday a minor tsunami met him. More than 10 cm of water covered the first floor, the basement had even more and from the bathroom on the second floor water was dripping through the ceiling down to the bedrooms downstairs. No power was working. We just finished the renovation with new plumbing, new electricity, new walls, new ceilings, renovated floors, updated kitchens, and a new drainage. Somehow five pipes had detached themselves at the joint or coupling (not sure about the correct vocabulary here) despite us having 18 degrees in the house.

Last winter one of our radiators exploded due to the cold and to prevent this from happening we now had a constant high temperature on. Maybe we had a power cut the led the heating to stop and made our pipes freeze but why would they then detach at the joint? Anyway, Jochem swam his way though the house, closed off the main water supply and called me. Within 30 minutes we had our electrician, our plumber and a builder sent by the insurance company in the house but as they went though the damage Jochem realized that our renovation is more or less lost.

Jochem has had a really tough time lately and listening to a builder telling him that we have to brake off walls, ceilings, lay new floors, set up new wallpaper etc. was more than he could take so the first thing the builder said to me when he called we “you are going to get through this. It can all be solved”. And of course it can and of course it could have been a lot worse (well, maybe not in the house but worse thing could have happened) but it is still crap!

We had a Friday with many tears but now we focus on the future – no use crying over spilled milk (or was it water???). Maybe we can laugh about it all one day and when looking at the problem one has to keep things in perspective. We are so fortunate with many fantastic people around us and the things that really matter in life, the health and well-being of family and friends, is worth so much more than any house or any renovation project.

Today we are all off swimming!