Just by a few inches at the most.. maybe one brick worth. The row of 8 houses were built on a gradual slope, with the private road running down hill to a drain at the bottom of the road. So they are all slightly lower than the last as they go down the road, with ours being the 3rd from the bottom. The house to our other side, which we are not connected, is quite a bit higher though, maybe 3 bricks worth, and they didn't flood.
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Wooha!!

Just read this! Hope everything is ok Dave, and your getting through it!! Ive been living in a tent since end of June after splitting from my wife and I only found a room 3 weeks ago and moved.

I can tell you it wasn't nice sleeping in a tent with all that rain. And I ended up with a chest infection for 2 months! So you were good in getting out early into somewhere dry!
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I thought so. Technically, you were on the higher ground of the flood & are most likely, .....least affected by it. Hence why your house was renovated first. I expect the damage to houses below you will get worse further away from yours....
Anyways, we're just really pleased to hear you are all back home now, especially so soon after becoming a Dad for the first time.
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You mentioned elsewhere about being flooded again H.

To what extent this time fella?
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Pretty much identical to last time, but the water was not quite as high or as long lasting.

On the 23rd I stayed up moving furniture and belongings upstairs just in case, as the water was getting high at the back. We called the environment agency at about 11pm because it was about a foot deep by then and they delivered us 50 sand bags for our 3 houses within half an hour, which was brilliant. They even carried and put them in place for us, around the doors and covering the air vents, although the water was in those already as they are stupidly at ground level (which is part of the problem).

I ended up staying up until about 4am because high tide was at 3.30, and the water level hadn't increased so we thought we were ok. I went to bed and got up again at 6am to check and the floors were all wet downstairs. But the water level had dropped, so it must have risen up within those 2 hours and dropped. Although outside the front was now completely flooded. Last time it happened we watched it seep up through the floors and slowly rise to about 3 inches inside the house and stay there most the day, causing more damp and damage to the woodwork.

The problem we have is that the whole of our 8 house close is served by a single drain at the bottom of the road, and apparently that drain is just a soakaway (according to neighbors), so when the ground is saturated it has nowhere to drain and starts to backup and fill up the bottom of the road and as it rises it floods each house at the bottom. We are 3rd from the bottom, and all 3 at the bottom flooded again.

Looks like we will have to move out again, meaning we will have to pay two lots of every bill again, which we afford.

As we have now flooded twice, and the back garden and sideway flood whenever we get heavy rain, we are really trying to work out if anyone can be held liable. The original builders, the building control and planning offices, environment agency and council etc. Surely someone is accountable? Any ideas?

We got the NHBC out after the first time and they said there wasn't a claim because it was just an act of God and a one off situation. But now that has changed.

Where our house is built used to be the bottom of the gardens we back on to. We found a refused planning application from a previous builder in the 90's, and it says that there were concerns about over developing the area, and with existing drainage being able to cope. One resident's objection letter also stated that they thought it bad to build there because the bottoms of all the gardens regularly flooded, so that is evidence of existing flooding where our house is built.

So now we need to try and work out if anyone is liable.





Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
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Getting anyone to admit liability is always going to be hard. No one will want to stand up with a raised arm about matters such as this. The involved re-work costs are going to be a killer, let alone the insurance claim to repair your home.

Perhaps the Insurance people are the ones to talk about who to proportion/rationalise some sort of responsibility with. After all, we don't build houses to flood & now they are, someone has to be accountable. I could understand it if your home was an Older home, but it isn't.

Really sorry you're having to go through this mer-larky again chap. - Even more so with the time of year.
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I would think about getting in touch with watchdog you maybe able to get some free independent advice! Also you would think that the ground would have some sort of water table survey done in the planning process for development of the site. Things like roads and street lighting responsibility can be automatically taken over by local authorities after say 12 months you need to find out if its the same for drainage? I just tried some searching online and you can contact ombudsmen http://www.lgo.org.uk/publications/f...bout-flooding/ Hope you find a solution
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Any more developments for you H?
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They announced continuous rain until next Monday here, no good foresight
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We can't contact the Ombudsman yet because we have to give the authorities responsible a reasonable time of 12 weeks to respond and take action first. Once that time has expired then we can contact them.

We are putting in a joint claim with the NHBC along with our 2 neighbours, because the houses are only 7-8 years old and are still covered by them. We are also contacting the planning office to obtain the original planning and building control documents for the development to see what was outlined and stated for how the houses should be built and what was meant to be done for drainage of the site.

I hadn't thought about a water table survey, so will look into that. I'm assuming that is probably the Environment Agency whom undertake those? Any ideas? Will need to do some research.

Our neighbour is also in contact with an elderly neighbour whom has lived here since at least the 80's and he has said he has photographs of the land before it was built on, showing a natural pond and willow tree where our houses are built. If that is so then we do have a legitimate problem that needs to be fixed my someone.

It is just making someone accept responsibility for this ongoing drainage issue, and the low height of our houses in relation to the ground level and flood risk.

We are definitely going to try and move once the house is repaired again though. Not sure how we can sell, but we are considering looking into another new house so we can attempt to part exchange our house to offload it.

Yeah, we are meant to have another big storm today/tonight some time. We keep having very heavy rain storms in the last few days. Over New Year we visited my wife's parents in Trowbridge and a lot of their roads had flooding. West Country is meant to be getting some bad flooding today and over the weekend. I hope you are on high ground Kin?
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