KIS's kit escaped, just!

Andy

Honorary Member
We haven't had a daytime temperature above minus 5 Celsius over the last week, & nightime temperatures down to minus 18!! Anyhow, we had a bit of a thaw last night, & the water main burst in my garage. We were out at a friend's gig, & returned to one almighty flood. My drums are stored in a big loft above the garage. The burst was in the roof eaves, & missed my drum stuff by inches!!! One hell of a mess everywhere else (downstairs ceiling collapsed, electrics blown, appliances ruined, etc, etc) but my drums survived without a drip on them. Someone's looking after me. Just thought I'd share.
 
Drums are often victim to things like this due to where many of us play and store our kits.
Only once were my drums in a flood.
It was many years ago.
They were set up in a friends basement and a washing machine hose burst.
My friends parents cleaned up the water and left my drums sitting on the wet drum rug for a few days. They never even called me so that I could go over and move the drums.
I would have even helped with the clean up!

To this day there is a discoloration on the bottom of the bass drum on my old Gretsch kit.
The drum survived other than that!

I'm glad that you were spared any damage to your kit.
Is the clean up and repair being covered by your insurance?
 
We haven't had a daytime temperature above minus 5 Celsius over the last week, & nightime temperatures down to minus 18!! Anyhow, we had a bit of a thaw last night, & the water main burst in my garage. We were out at a friend's gig, & returned to one almighty flood. My drums are stored in a big loft above the garage. The burst was in the roof eaves, & missed my drum stuff by inches!!! One hell of a mess everywhere else (downstairs ceiling collapsed, electrics blown, appliances ruined, etc, etc) but my drums survived without a drip on them. Someone's looking after me. Just thought I'd share.

Whew... close call!! Your drum sets must have guardian angels or something ;)
 
Cheers for the kind thoughts guys.

EH & POL, I live on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. We're about 1,000ft above sea level & the black mountains (2,500ft) are right behind our property, so we do get quite cold here in winter. We also get good snow each year (rare in the UK). Last winter we had about 2.5ft lying for a month or so.

Bob, not sure if I'll claim yet. I'm covered, but I'll see if the repair cost is worth the hike in premium. I build & fix most things myself, so my costs are usually low. Means eating into quality drumming time though, dammit!

Here's the garage with typical winter snow (1ft +) from a couple of years ago. My drums live up top.
 

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Used to practice in the basement of a friend's parents house. Tornado came through and ripped the entire roof and rafters off the house. I just knew my drums were rain soaked at best but they were cheap CB 700s and in view of my friend and his parents losing everything I felt it a minor loss. Went over the next day to help clean up and the entire neighbor hood looked like a..well..tornado had hit. Got to his house and he said my drums were fine. The drum riser kept them off the wet floor, and the linoleum from the kitchen above diverted the water off to another portion of the basement and off the drums. Luckily 90% of their personal belongs were saved because they ran a freight salvage store and had just gotten in a load of plastic sheeting they had stored in the garage and used it to cover stuff after the tornado hit.

Now...if I had a set of nice vintage Ludwigs they would have been sucked out of the basement somehow and wisked off to Oz!!!
 
Hah! Here in Norway, we have temperatures as low as -35 C. The lock on our door is white with frost. Good that your drums made it though.
 
Andy, so sorry for the mess and destruction. Good to hear you are handy with the rebuild and that your drums are safe.
Me thinks it would be more difficult to replace your drums then to rebuild/repair your building.
Much luck to you.
 
Hah! Here in Norway, we have temperatures as low as -35 C. The lock on our door is white with frost. Good that your drums made it though.
Haha, I wondered when our Viking friends would chime in, lol! I worked part time out of Sweden for many years, so I know just how cold you guys get it. We get nothing like your weather, but what I get here, is unusually harsh for the south of the UK.

@ Yellow, thanks for your supporting words, & yes, I'd rather replace the building than replace the drums. That said, my major self build/repair bones are getting older (past 50 this year), & after so many house renovation & landscape projects, I'm just about done with it!
 
Wow. Good thing all is well otherwise! And here in sunny Southern California, we're complaining as it drops to 45-degrees F! We're freezing to death out here!
 
Wow. Good thing all is well otherwise! And here in sunny Southern California, we're complaining as it drops to 45-degrees F! We're freezing to death out here!
That's pretty funny bo,
45F is still work outside in a tee shirt temp in New England.
 
Whew....thank goodness the water didn't get to the drums.

Yes, in So. Cal we're spoiled with our warm weather. On the other side of that though, they don't build houses down here for extreme cold either. So on the rare occasions when the temps to drop, we really do feel the freeze!
 
Glad to hear all is well KIS, reminds me of when my parents' basement flooded when I was a kid. Thanks for the kind words on my post as well. Good luck with the renovation!
 
Holy crap Andy, I am so sorry to hear this. You of all people don't deserve this. Tough year for you man...At least you had the foresight/luck to store your stuff up high. (that must be a PITA to have to haul stuff up stairs to store them between gigs). Knowing you, you probably equipped your storage buliding with an elevator. Is the building heated?

My brother in law is a public adjuster so I know a little about that aspect of the insurance industry.
Home insurance in the States is a great deal, as far as insurance goes. My premium for my little house is like 700 a year, and rates can't go up if you have a claim, unlike car insurance. They can drop you, but who cares because there are plenty of companies that will pick you up.

I had to put in a claim in 2009. I got 22,000 back, my rates didn't increase. I didn't get dropped. 22,000! I was ecstatic! I redid the whole main floor of my house. If the insurance industry is similar to the US over there in the UK, I would absolutely put a claim in, that's what you pay for. Get what you are due, don't let the insurance companies get off scott free. I suggest getting a public adjuster before contacting your insurance. Even with their fees, they will recover 10x what you could get on your own. Your insurance company's goal is to pay you as little as possible. The PA's goal is to get you everything you are entitled to, which is usually considerable. Since they work on a percentage, the more you get back, the more they make, which is in your best interest. Their fees come out after it's settled, you pay zero up front.

Time to get some of that money back that you have been paying them for all these years, JMO.
Insurance companies take soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much of everyones money, that any chance I can, I get as much back as possible. Yea I don't like the insurance companies because they suck so much blood from their clients, and don't want to give any back.
 
(that must be a PITA to have to haul stuff up stairs to store them between gigs). Knowing you, you probably equipped your storage buliding with an elevator. Is the building heated?
Cheers for the insurance company soapbox Larry. Just off to a gig so I must be quick! Elavator, lol, I wish. Not so my friend, just good old fashioned stairs. Yes, the upstairs is heated. We have our fully insulated drum room & office up there. Got a bathroom too! While I'm at it, this is the building I'm toying with turning into a studio. Thing is, if I do that, I'll have to build another (smaller) garage, & planning permission in the Golden Valley is painful (read, almost impossible).

Al, no problem, great news for you.

Bo, yeah, yeah, I get the weather superiority thing. Maybe I'll come over to retire. Isn't that what everyone else does? Anyhow, I don't do heat very well, so maybe I'll move in with Thaard!
 
Had no idea England got that cold... I figured it must get cold if it snows but that's crazy.

Some brilliant luck concerning the drum kit, sounds like you picked a good place to store them.
 
Andy, I thought you had an desirable lifestyle on your estate until hearing about the drums being hauled up and down stairs.

Wow. Good thing all is well otherwise! And here in sunny Southern California, we're complaining as it drops to 45-degrees F! We're freezing to death out here!

I relate to that. This year was the coldest winter we've had for 20 years. It dropped to around 3C (about 39F) overnight a few times. Madness!

Of course that's nothing compared with the aircon at work. My theory is that they keep us cold to prevent us from rotting. I expect Samuel Taylor wrote a paper in 1910 about productivity issues arising with staff decomposing on the job ...
 
Andy, I thought you had an desirable lifestyle on your estate until hearing about the drums being hauled up and down stairs.



I relate to that. This year was the coldest winter we've had for 20 years. It dropped to around 3C (about 39F) overnight a few times. Madness!

Of course that's nothing compared with the aircon at work. My theory is that they keep us cold to prevent us from rotting. I expect Samuel Taylor wrote a paper in 1910 about productivity issues arising with staff decomposing on the job ...

And you're in sunny sydney... what do you think it was like in miserable old Melbourne....
 
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