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I'll begin by saying that both my wife and I are fine. But this time yesterday our flat was covered by 34cm of water.

At 7:30pm yesterday I was preparing to fly back to Edinburgh, had my bags packed and was checking the aa website for details of road closures. Then I heard a sound like something falling, and felt a tremor. I looked out the window and could see that the carpark was flooded when only five minutes earlier it was fine. I went out to the hall and could see water gushing through the front door. I started plugging under the doors with towels, but water started bubbling up from the floor and through the walls. So I just quickly started throwing as much as possible on top of the table and bed, but after a few minutes the water didn't stop rising so we just grabbed a change of clothes and ran upstairs.

Looks like I've lost a lot of books, and lecture notes over the past 8 years. Interestingly, a book entitled "Flood mitigated" survived unscathed. Anyway, after a day of salvaging, cleaning and filling a skip I can pause to think about it all. Not sure if my batch of stout is ok, the waterline was below the top of the bucket but I'm not sure if I can risk it. I took a sample and it tasted lovely...

My stock of bottles was submerged, not sure if it's safe to clean them and drink the contents. About half of my brewing equipment was destroyed (the stuff on the bottom shelf) but I was planning on renewing most of it after Christmas anyway.

We're both fine, thats the main thing. We didn't loose anything too valuable, and we were just renting. Note for the future, IKEA furniture warps like hell while the other furniture survived.

Yikes! Do you have to move now?

I'd keep the stout and give the bottles a more-thorough-than-usual clean and sanitise.

Glad to hear ye're ok anyways. Hope it all works out ok. I have a surplus of swingtop bottles you can have to help a fellow brewer in need.

Sorry to hear that mate. The bottles should be okay if you sanitise them. The brew might be okay but probably not worth the worry. And Ikea furniture warping?? Who'd have thought.

Glad to hear that you and your wife are OK,what part of the city are you in.

We are (were) in Raheny. Just back from a day of packing. We rented a storage locker on the M50, will try moving all of our stuff out there. Unfortunately the car gave out today, surviving the flood was too much to hope. It's in the garage, maybe we'll be lucky.

I think my stash of homebrew is worth the risk. I reckon I'll clean the bottles in the sink tomorrow, (and then drink them all and see if it helps <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->). I'm going to sanitise a keg and fill it with the stout I had in the fermenter. It'll be worth a taste, but not worth the effort of bottling. Thanks for the offer of spare bottles, may take you up on it in a couple of months when we are back on our feet.

Anyone with any tips on flats who'll let us rent for 3 months please don't keep it to yourself.