Tell me about your worst home emergencies

[Teacoaster]

Because I currently having a boiler pissing water with no way to switch it off (the water mains is switched off in the street) and it's still coming through.

Fyi, this is not a request for DIY help, I'm currently waiting for an emergency heating engineer to come out. 24 SLA.

The issue isn't covered by my home insurance either as it's not our main boiler. I bought this house back in May last year and I've been regretting it ever since, especially today.

Tell me your worst emergency home issues and/or buyer's regret... Help me feel better please.

I'm currently in Costa trying not to think about the damage being done in our outbuilding.

Go and switch it off in the street op.

It's possible, but awkward if they're not properly labelled.

If you know where the access point is, access it and switch off all the feeds you can see (several properties). Then turn then on one by one until you know which is yours. If you don't know where it is, call your water company and they can tell you.

DH had to do this a couple of years ago to stop a burst pipe - neighbours were very understanding.

The mains water in the street has been turned off 🙃

Oh, that's crap. We've just moved into a new place with an ancient boiler that's likely to die at any moment. Hopefully less dramatically though.

In our previous house - got a general handyman to fit some bathroom taps. He did a rubbish job and we didn't realise until the living room ceiling gave way and all the water that has been building up fell on us as we were having dinner.

Just before Christmas my house went up in flames. Still living at my mums. 7 of us in a 3 bed house

The fact it was a "simple" tap fitting that caused so much damage would have really annoyed me.

Yeah. I'm sorry, that's got to be the worst home emergency there is. I'm sorry, I hope no one was hurt/injured. How are you doing?

@Teacoaster it was infuriating. And he ghosted us when we contacted him about it. AND he smelled so bad (that nasty unwashed smell) I had to air out the entire first floor after he left.

@startingagain17 I'm so sorry. I think I remember your thread at the time.

Ours have all been water related:
DH decided to fix a squeaky floorboard in the bathroom on our previous house. Banged a nail straight through a hot water pipe. There was hot water coming through the light fitting in the kitchen below. Eventually managed to find the right tap on the pipes to turn the water off before the emergency plumber arrived.

We had a radiator leak in this house. I was sitting in the living room and remarked to DH that there seemed to be a dark shadow on the ceiling above his head. He said no, it's just the light. Unconvinced, I made him check. He said it did feel damp. Investigated upstairs, couldn't find anything. I went to look and discovered the bedroom carpet was wet by the radiator. DH looked and touched the pipe which came away in his hand and the black contents of the central heating system started pouring out. He rang his friend who lived 50 miles away, but who was a plumber, for advice. DS and I moved all the furniture in the living room to prevent damage and I had every towel out of the airing cupboard to soak up the gungy water whilst DH figured out how to turn it off and drain the system. We needed a hosepipe to attach to the last radiator on the system to drain it - it was 10.30pm. Fortunately our neighbour was still up and had the right size hosepipe so we were able to drain the rest of the system and prevent the ceiling coming down. There was a fair amount of cleaning up to do the next day though.

We’re all well thanks. I got the children out before the fire alarm went off thankfully. We were lucky in many ways that day. I hope you can get your boiler sorted ASAP

I flushed a loo and the cistern overflow pipe wasn't connected to the outside properly so water cascaded through the kitchen ceiling. I went outside to turn the stop cock off and locked myself out of the house with my 4 year old son on his own inside! Luckily we had read that Alfie gets in first book so I could talk him through how to open the door without panicking.

Fortunately not water or fire related but my 3 year old locked himself in the bathroom. I was alone in the house and the door frames were metal, (1960s ex council house) so however hard I threw my (considerable) weight behind it, nothing shifted. I called the fire brigade. They had it sorted in minutes (more weight and stronger shoulders than me, obvs) and my son was was ecstatic to get a sit in the fire engine. We disabled the lock after that. 🙄

So many.

The first was probably finding out, around a year after we bought that house, that the previous owner had managed to wire a plug socket into the lighting circuit and a light switch into a plug socket circuit. It explained all the little electric shocks we had been getting and the random buzzing from the light switch.

I had a plumber round to fix a leaking radiator that was dripping through the ceiling to the room below.

I heard a small cry of help, went upstairs to find the plumber had put a nail through a water pipe. Shortly after that, the ceiling collapsed and the ground floor became a paddling pool.

Also, had contractors to install cavity wall insulation. Because I had an open fire they had to fit a vent. Cue another small cry for help and I discovered one of the contractors in actual tears because the wall had collapsed (the internal part, the external was still clinging on), but oh, the mess!

Did a self-build: planned and built a whole, new, beautiful home with fabulous everythingness.

Went away for a few days while the carpets and solid wood floors were being put in. Arrived home 3am to move in that morning.

Woke up to see a waterfall running down the front of the beautiful new home - a mains water pressure connector had split. Took out all the electrics, the kitchen, all the floors and carpets. Had to live in the portakabin for another 6 months while it was stripped out and refitted. Thank god the builder had good insurance.