FLOODING PART FIVE----THE LAST CHAPTER

<SIGH> As I am sure that you understand from reading the previous sections, it was one mess after another. What else can I say?  I am truly hopeful that this is my LAST Blog on this subject.  For now anyway! 

I have never been involved in all my years of life in a flooding incident this bad personally. But here it was, in my new home that I have lived in for about 1 1/2 years. It did not seem that it was going to be a disastrous situation even though our basement had been flooded. I thought that everything would work out fine. As I am sure that you have read from previous sections of this story, was I ever wrong about that! One problem after another in such a short time. It literally wore me out.  

Let me continue telling you what happened.  I'm going to deal with this in a different way. I will tell you about each area in which we had difficulties and what has happened since the time we have tried to solve the problems of the incidents that I have described so far. 

First, what has happened in the basement to clear up the flooding. As you will recall, the representatives of the Insurer came into our house to clean up the floor after we solved what their role was to be and for whom they were acting. They did a very good job of what they did. The floors were wiped clean with one of their liquid solutions used as a cleansing agent and then four fans were put in to dry the area. That dryness operation lasted about 2 1/2 days. Naturally, the floor was somewhat dirty with all of the dirt that remained and so the representatives from the restoration company washed it all down to remove the dirt. They did a very nice job of that as well.  In the end then, what they did worked out very well for us and we were pleased to see their efforts that accomplished so much. 

Next matter: the 2nd visit to our hot water heater for repairs by the Reliance person accomplished a terrific job didn't it. Nope! The system again made horrific sounds for reasons that we did not know.  Again, without going into all the newly arrived misery, I called up the Technical Services Department and arranged for a technician, hopefully the one who had come before, to come in and finally fix up the disaster that we were suffering for the 3rd time! It just did not make sense anymore for this kind of nonsense to happen and it is something that I was not going to let happen again. I was sick and tired of the mess. 

Fortunately, the person who did come in was the Reliance repair person that I wanted. He was quite familiar with the mess happening in my basement because he had just come in before. His examination took all of about 5 minutes. What he said to me immediately after he was able to get the water heating up again was that he was going to arrange to have our complete hot water tank replaced immediately. Something he thought was clearly wrong with the entire system and needed to be changed. 

The next day another Reliance employee came in and removed the old hot water tank and installed a complete new one. That work took about an hour to accomplish. Fortunately, it has worked fine since that time producing very hot water and I hope it continues for a very long time in the future without any more problems! It had better. 

The third  matter: of course, we did have a minor little issue after the new hot water tank was installed. Much of the water was removed from the water system in the house and naturally water filled in the pipes when the system was turned on again. If you have ever had that happen, you know I'm sure, dear reader, that the pipes have air in them and they create some "bubbling" when the water is first turned on. Well, that happened in the kitchen except the "bubble" in the water tap there was so powerful that it caused the faucet aerator to completely blow out. Of course, I did not know this at the time because I had never seen such a problem come in play.  Naturally, I turned on my computer and did some investigation to try to figure out what happened and then discovered what I thought the problem was. 

Naturally, I thought I could fix it myself. It did not seem that it was a major action. The only problem was where I could find a replacement part that I needed. The solution to that was that I went to a local hardware store to get it all done. Whether it was due to so many people having to accomplish this in our area or not, the store did not have the exact part that I wanted. Fortunately, the sales rep took me to a different part of the store for a more advanced part that was available and I purchased it hoping that it would work. 

The luck was with me. I have tried to fix up the system using the old parts but they did not work. The new one worked so quickly. Its installation was amazingly simple. I accomplish that so easily. Of course, it leaked like crazy when I first put it in. Accordingly I had to add the extra part in what I purchased that the hardware representative had told me that I probably did not need. So far, so good. It works beautifully! 

Number four.  Marsha and I have had a remarkable relationship with our home Insurer. Just so you know, that Company is Aviva Canada.  I have not told you who that Company was before because our relationship was not a very good one at the start. Our horrific business relationship transformed into a fabulous one when our contact was transferred from the person with whom we had a terrible relationship at first very quickly.  After leaving that woman, we started speaking to a senior Ontario claims person who was a fine gentleman with whom we started dealing.  We spoke several times about outstanding matters and resolved them all very quickly. 

Our insurance policy presumably gave us a maximum claim of a rather limited sum of money for the type of loss that took place this time around. Fortunately, the amount that my wife and I were seeking after the flooding was below the maximum amount. I did not have to try and figure out how else there would be coverage if the amount exceeded the policy's maximum. 

Our conversations were quite direct. I had done some research into what the costs would be to fix up our basement from the flooding and to replace some of our personal property that was destroyed by the water. What I found quite remarkable was that I had no argument at all from the Insurer's representative and we worked out quite quickly what had to be done and the amount of insurance money that could be used. 

I do not intend to go into discussion about the insurance amounts but do want to say how good our telephone conversations were so that we were able to get agreement as quickly as possible and we had no disputes at all. Moreover, we had some interesting conversations about other topics that were more personally oriented because our relationship worked out so well in a very friendly manner and so promptly. In addition, we may not have to complete all of the forms we thought were necessary to finalize this matter. My wife told me that the Insurance representative told her that some of the documents were no longer necessary. 

When all of this started with the Insurer as you may recall, I was so upset about it that I seriously thought about going to a new insurer as soon as possible. After my relationship with the senior Insurance Company representative, I intend to stay with Aviva because he treated us so well! 

There may be some other matters that we resolved in this flooding mess but frankly, that's enough to talk about for now.  We were fortunate that we found some fine people to deal with and so were able quickly to bring our lives back to normal. 

Now to get back to my "every day" writing.