West Palm Beach Water Damage Restoration

Allergies and Mold

2008-02-04T23:08:00.001-08:00

Millions of people in the world suffer from all kinds of allergies, whether it is pollen, grass, foods, animals, or mold. Allergy symptoms are mostly seen from the spring to the late fall because of the fact that most of the allergies are due to seasonal plants and molds. Most plants and molds that cause allergies do not thrive during the winter and cannot continue to grow in freezing temperatures. They simply remain dormant and this is true of mold infestations inside homes. While the mold does not continue growing during the winter, it will thaw during the winter and be just as much of an inconvenience as they were before they were frozen.

There are all kinds of allergy symptoms that are associated with mold. The kind of reaction and the severity can vary from person to person, but the usual signs are runny noses, sneezing, watery eyes, and skin rashes. The presence of mold can also cause what is called Perennial allergic rhinitis. The allergy symptoms caused by mold are often aggravated and made worse by eating any food that has been made with mold or any other kind of fungus, like mushrooms. Even bread and beer, which are made with yeast can cause the symptoms to worsen. Cheeses that are made with mold, particularly gorgonzola and blue cheese, can also bring about the onset of these symptoms.

There are a few dozen species of mold that can cause allergic reactions, but most of the species of mold on the planet are not very allergenic. The majority of allergic reactions are caused by molds in the genii of Cladosporium, Penicillium, and Alternaria. The only genus that has a disease and a medicine named after it is Penicillium.

If you have some allergies besides just mold, you should probably keep an eye out for the allergen reports that appear on the news each day at different intervals. If you are a senior citizen or have a young child that is allergic to these things, you need to be careful about yourself or the child going out if the reports indicate a high amount of the allergen in the air. Depending on the severity of your allergy, it could possibly trigger a serious reaction.

If you discover mold in your home and fear that you may be allergic to it, you should have your home tested for mold immediately and if the test returns positive, you should relocate while the problem is being taken care of.

Dror Klar is a writer and promoter of
Westchester County Water Damage Repair and
Elizabeth NJ Water Damage Repair Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.

Wood Rotting Mold

2008-02-04T23:07:00.002-08:00

A mold that plagues some homes and should not be underestimated is Meruliporia incrassate. This is a fungus that causes a severe amount of rotting in the wooden parts of your home and this is extremely difficult to get rid of, since is has the ability to collect and retain water over a longer period of time than other molds. It typically extends itself through not only the wood, but other porous materials that make up your home and find the water that it needs in order to stay alive.

The news calls this a “house eating fungus” because it will eventually do just that if it is left untreated. The decay of the wood framing of your home is inevitable if this infestation is not removed as soon as possible. This usually shows up in the areas of your home that are the most moist, such as the bathroom, kitchen, and the basement. This mold appears as a somewhat yellowish dust on the areas that are affected. In order to keep this growth from returning, you will need to remove all of the materials affected by it and then some. Simply trying to clean this mold with disinfectants or bleach will not work under any circumstances. Cleaning any other kind of mold off of a porous surface with bleach or any other disinfectant is usually not possible, but this kind of mold cannot be gotten rid of in this way at all.

About two extra feet of infected material needs to be removed from the home before the infestation will be gone for good. This means if the visible infection spans about 4 feet of a wooden beam, then an extra two feet needs to be removed on each side of it to be sure that you get all of it. This mold likes to extend strands of itself out about this length in order to retain the water that it will use to keep itself alive. Getting rid of this extra material may seem like a waste, but it is really the only way to be certain that it does not come back.

As long as your previously affected area remains dry for a long time after the infected wood was removed, the infection should not return. Keeping the previously affected area as dry as possible may help keep the mold from coming back, even if some of the wood remained infected after you removed the majority of it.

Dror Klar is a writer and promoter of
Manhattan Water Damage Repair
and
Elizabeth NJ Wet Basement Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.

Water Damage Tips For the Bathroom and Kitchen

2008-02-04T23:07:00.001-08:00

Something most homeowners are aware of is the fact that preventing a kind of damage to the home often takes a lot less effort and money than repairing the damage after it has already been done. It might take some purchased materials and a little bit of diligence on our part to make sure that the rest of the household follows the rules, but in the end it will end up saving you hours of time and hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

Water damage is one of the most preventable kinds of damage that can occur to a home, unless it is caused by some natural disaster like a hurricane or a flood. There are a number of different areas of your home that you will need to pay attention to in order to keep the cost of repairing this damage down. The areas of the home that are the most exposed to moisture are the ones that you have to go into usually at least twice a day: the kitchen and the bathroom.

A precaution that applies to both areas is simply to make sure that sinks and other water receptacles do not overflow. You may forget the water is running while you are on the phone or doing another household chore, but letting this happen over and over can cause some serious damage to your floor. Another way to prevent floor damage is to make sure that tiles on your bathroom or kitchen floor are not cracked or that the floor is completely water tight.

Installing an exhaust fan in both of these rooms in your home will help prevent damage to the ceiling and upper walls, since the steam will have somewhere to escape to instead of just clinging to the ceiling. If your ceiling becomes discolored from water stains, the only real option here is to paint over it. If a slab of drywall on the ceiling becomes cracked due to absorbing water over a long period of time, you can usually repair this with joint compound and some time repainting it, but if the crack is in the middle and is sizeable, the whole slab needs to be replaced.

Carpet should not be installed in either of these rooms, since there are so many water junctions in both of them. Carpet loves to soak up water and get moldy and when the carpet padding underneath becomes molded, it needs to be taken up and thrown out. Even if you clean the mold from the carpet, if you do not take up the padding underneath, the growth will return.

Dror Klar is a writer and promoter of
Queens Water Removal
and
Elizabeth NJ Wet Basement Flooding Emergency Service Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.

The Invisible Mold Threat

2008-02-04T23:06:00.002-08:00

You might think that you know exactly how to look for mold and what it looks like physically, but you may not realize that you could be missing some serious mold infestations that are right in front of you, but cannot see them. Hidden mold that grows inside your walls is one thing, but there are also molds that grow on your walls that are difficult to see with the naked eye, at least, without some help. There are members of the Aspergillus sp. and Penicillium sp. that can be almost invisible on different surfaces of your home and you can very easily miss them when you are doing a normal inspection. There is a way to detect these growths, but you will need a flashlight and know just how to use it in order to accomplish this.

Detecting molds that are nearly invisible with a simple flashlight might seem like an odd idea, but the way it is done is shining the light along the surface instead of directly against it at a 90 degree angle like most people would. These molds are particularly hard to see on wood paneling and sometimes the appearance of the paneling itself can give away the presence of mold. Paneling that is warped or buckling may indicate that it has been water damaged and that mold may exist on its surface. Paneling is often used as a cheap replacement for drywall that has been flooded, since many people cannot afford to fully replace all the drywall in their homes after such an event.

Not all hidden molds grow behind your drywall or paneling, but they can actually be growing right in front of you and you do not realize it. These molds are very light colored and it is often that deliberately looking for them with a flashlight is the only option to find them.

While these molds can be harmful to your health and you can miss them very easily, there are cosmetic molds, such as Ceratocystis, that are very easily seen, but are almost completely harmless to humans and the homes that they live in. Looks can be deceiving and it is often the threats that we cannot see that are the most dangerous to us. Try not to judge a book by its cover and if you find mold in your home of any kind, consult a professional to determine just what it is and how dangerous it might be.

Sewage Cleanup After The Flood

2008-02-04T23:06:00.001-08:00

Floods are often some of the most devastating natural events that can hit a home and the cleanup process that needs to begin afterward is one of the most hectic. Biological hazards such as sewage, chemicals, and even decaying bodies have been known to be found in flood waters, as the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina showed us, and the likelihood of these things lurking in the flood water that has affected your home is fairly prevalent. Cleaning up your home after a flood can be one of the most trying experiences you can have, but if you stay calm and rational, you can get this done without a lot of help.

You need to obtain some protection equipment if you are going to be cleaning and disinfecting your home on your own. Latex gloves and rubber boots are just two of the things that you will need to protect yourself from the bio-hazards that now exist in your home. Make sure you have plenty of antibacterial soap on hand so that you can wash your hands frequently, especially before you eat anything.

Almost anything porous that has been contaminated by the water should be thrown out. Furniture like upholstered couches and chairs should be thrown out because the padding will absorb chemicals, soil, and sewage over the short time that it was in the flood waters and completely disinfecting these items without tearing out the old padding and re-upholstering them is almost impossible. They will still likely smell and eventually become molded. Any toys that your children had such as stuffed animals and even much of their bedding will need to be thrown away. Children should not be let back into the house until the cleaning process is finished.

Cleaning the sewage on the floors and walls will not be that easy. Obtain two buckets and put clean water for rinsing in one and water that has been treated with disinfectant in the other. Wash the floor with a mop, but do not put the dirty mop back into the clean water without rinsing it first. Follow this procedure and make sure you replace your rinse water often.

Depending on the condition of your drywall, you may either need to replace it or just repaint it. It depends on how long the house was under water, the amount of damage that was done and if the drywall appears to be trying to buckle. If discoloration is the only problem, repainting over it is feasible.

Dealing With Flooded, Wet, Carpets

2008-02-04T23:05:00.001-08:00

If your home is flooded, then odds are pretty good that your carpet is going to need to be taken up. Sewage, chemicals, and other biohazards live in the dirty flood water that took over your home during that time and most of the time, porous materials such as carpet cannot practically be saved. You can go through a lot of trouble trying to save your old carpet when the most efficient thing to do is just to throw it out.

Trying to shampoo the carpet itself may work and remove a lot of the smell and stains, but the carpet padding underneath will need to be completely taken out and replaced. Foam padding like this cannot be cleaned and will usually end up shredding if you try, so whether you choose to clean the carpet or just replace it, it will still need to come up.

Removing your carpet is not a difficult task. You must remove all furniture from the room first and depending on whether you want to save the carpet or just replace it, you can take a utility knife and cut it in areas that may be difficult to take up. You can also use it to cut the old carpet into strips if you do not want to save it. Pull the moldings on the walls around the room off and take the door off its hinges. Removing the door will help you get the old carpet out and the new carpet in. The carpet padding also needs to be removed.

Pulling the old tackless strips up and installing new ones may be a good idea and you need to leave about half an inch of space between the new strips and the wall. The tips of the tacks need to be facing toward the wall.

If the floor has had much mold or sewage damage to it, you will want to clean this up before installing new carpet or re-installing your clean old carpet. Cleaning up mold stains can be done by putting 5 tablespoons of trisodium phosphate in a single gallon of water and scrubbing the floor with something that will not scar it.

If you cannot afford new carpet or to have the old carpet cleaned, refinishing the hardwood floor that may be underneath it may be an option. If you had to take carpet out of the bathroom, laundry room, basement, or kitchen, then you will really want to avoid putting carpet back into these areas, since these rooms of the house tend to stay damp.

Clogged Toilets Flooded Your Bathroom?

2008-02-04T23:04:00.000-08:00

Everyone who has had a toilet has had the misfortune of having to unclog it and clean up the mess that resulted. A toilet that is let to overflow often can be a serious source of water damage to your floor and the sad thing is that this can be avoided the majority of the time.

If you have small children that like to play around in the bathroom, then it is possibly a good idea to invest in a product called a lid lock. This will lock down the lid of the toilet so that the hand of an adult can open it easily, but a child’s hand cannot. This keep you from worrying not only if the child has put something in the toilet that does not belong there, but also stop curious toddlers from actually climbing in it. These are not expensive at all and can save you quite a bit of time and worry.

Whenever a toilet overflows, the first thing most people tend to do is try and flush it again. This is not a good idea. Allow the water to get back to its normal level before attempting to flush it again. Be sure that the rest of the members of your household know this, too.

Bale water from the clogged toilet out until you cannot remove any more. Try using a plunger to see if that dislodges the object and the water goes down. If a plunger does not work, see if you can get the object out of the toilet by putting your hand (preferably in a waterproof glove that reaches to your elbow, since the water is probably nasty) down inside it, but be careful not to get it stuck. If you cannot get it out this way, you may need a plumbing snake.

If you think the clog is gone, fill a bucket with water and pour it down into the toilet. If the water goes down as it should, then the blockage is gone.

If none of these methods worked, it may be time to call a professional. There are such things as emergency plumbers that are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but getting one of these in your local area may be a bit difficult. If the problem is a blocked city sewer, then you need to call the water company, since it will be their responsibility to remove the blockage.

Here’s How To Deal With Sewer Damage

2008-02-04T23:02:00.002-08:00

Undeniably sewage is a awfully foul substance and of allowing it inside the residence or having to wash it away is extremely unwelcome. Unfortunately, those who reside in an area presdisposed to being submersed, though, this can be an event you could someday have to clean up if the water find. Washing away sewage from a house is something countless homeowners within a submersed region have to contend with and though it will be a pretty unwelcome thing, you can be certain that you get the job finished on your own without having to get a professional business to complete it for you.
All things in the household has to be done away with. Furnishings that have thick padding should really be disposed of, since the more time those things stay under unsanitary water, the more the padding absorbs all things within it, from bacteria and viruses to sewage and chemicals. The biohazard factor of these items causes them to be awfully dangerous, so getting rid of them and acquiring new furnishings is really the best idea. Go with used furnishings if necessary until you can find something new, but your old furniture should be considered unsanitary, because you [most likelyprobablysimplysurely are not able to disinfect the padding once it becomes contaminated in this manner.
The carpet in your household needs to be gotten rid of, too. You can have it shampooed and cleaned with steam. If you are alright with allowing it to stay inside your house, then you may. But, most of the time carpet cannot be totally purified of these stains and/or dangerous particles.
Towels and some flimsy objects within the household could be washed, so you should be sure to wash these things in the most scalding water you have access to.
As you begin to scour your floors, you will want two metal or plastic tubs; the first will have with pure water and the other should be full of water and your cleaner. Use your mop or rag and put it into the cleaning solution and begin scouring. Rinse it inside the uncontaminated bucket completely and then put it again in the cleaning bucket. That is the only approach to prevent from cross contaminating your cleansing water.

Keeping Mold Out Of The House

2008-02-04T23:02:00.001-08:00

There is not really any such thing as an environment that is completely mold free, but you can do quite a lot to reduce the amount of mold in your home. You can get rid of it to the point that you do not even know that it is there, but most people are not quite sure of all the different things that they can do to accomplish this.

If you are moving into a new home that has no pre-existing mold in it, then you are off to a great start. The trick here is keeping the mold away. You can do this by trying to keep the mold spores out of the air in the house, since the spores are what cause the mold colonies to start growing in the first place. Vacuum cleaners and air purification systems that have HEPA filters in them can do a lot to keep mold spores and other airborne irritants out of the air that you breathe. This is really helpful for people who have breathing or allergy problems, like emphysema or asthma.

HEPA filtered vacuums capture the dust and other particles that they extract from carpet and make sure they are not re-distributed back into the air of the house; vacuums that are not HEPA filtered do not do this and a lot of the dust mites, pollen, and etcetera end up getting tossed back up into the air.

HEPA filtered air purification systems are absolutely great for people with breathing problems and allergies, since the filter is designed to remove about 99.7% of particles from the air down to 0.03 microns in size. This is pretty small and to give you an idea of just how small the particles it collects are, take a hair from your head, and divide the diameter by 3. This includes just about everything that you can think of: pet dander, smoke, dust, dust mites, pollen, mold spores, etc.

As long as you have these, mold should not really be a problem in the house unless the home has moisture problems. Try to keep an eye out for water leaks and make sure that any spills of water in the kitchen and the bathroom get cleaned up as soon as possible. Wet clothes should be washed as soon as possible and never thrown into a laundry basket with dry ones, since they are usually forgotten about.

You can avoid mold on your shower curtain often by spreading it out instead of bunching it up at one end of the tub.

Keep The Humidity Down To Reduce Mold

2008-02-04T23:01:00.002-08:00

Controlling the humidity level in your home is one of the most important things that you can do to make sure mold does not start to grow and this is not very difficult to do. You do not want to make the air in your home too dry, though, since this can cause nose bleeds and other forms of nasal irritation for the members of your household. Air that is too dry or too wet can cause problems for any respiratory system, so keeping the humidity level in your home around a medium level is optimum.

Keeping the humidity level in your bathroom down is fairly easy if you have an exhaust vent installed that will draw the steam out of the room when you take a bath or a shower. The steam is soaked up by the upper walls and ceiling, causing it to become molded and eventually, to crack and collapse. This can cause injury if you are in the room at the time, so installing an exhaust vent is a good idea. Building codes usually dictate that a bathroom have either a window or an exhaust vent, but windows are fairly inefficient in releasing the steam from the room since it settles at the ceiling instead of the middle of the room. Unless the window is located near the ceiling, it is not going to work as well as an exhaust vent.

Basements are also prone to having humidity problems and you can solve this by installing an exhaust vent here, as well. This is not the only solution, though, since you can also replace your basement windows to make the more energy efficient and therefore, allow less moisture from outside the house inside. Dehumidifiers can help take care of humidity problems that stem from the simple fact that the room is underground.

Keeping the humidity down in the house means reducing the moisture across all areas of the home. Wash wet clothes and dry them as soon as possible to keep the moisture from evaporating in the laundry room and never put dry dirty clothes on top of wet ones. Mold loves warmth and moisture, so you are only helping their cause by doing this. It really is a bad habit to let yourself get into, so try to wash damp towels at least once a day instead of letting them dry in the laundry room naturally.

How To Have A Mold Free Home

2008-02-04T23:01:00.001-08:00

Whether we like it or not, the mold that we are warned about on television, online, and in magazines will get into our house. It is always there in its spore form, but we do have the ability to control whether it forms the splotchy growths that we see talked about so much. It does not take as much effort as you might think and you can keep mold out of your house pretty easily by following some simple rules and making a few worthwhile purchases.

The first defense that you have against mold growth in your home is the air that you are breathing. If the air is clear of mold spores, then mold cannot start to grow in colonies in the house, which is what causes the structural damage to the home and to your body. Now, mold spores themselves can cause allergic reactions whether they are alive or dead, so removing these from your air is also beneficial in this regard, as well. HEPA filters have been proven to perform the best at this and the two most popular items that have them are air purifiers and vacuum cleaners.

The vacuum cleaner that you use to collect the dirt and other particles from your carpet probably does not have a HEPA filter on it unless you purchased it specifically for that feature. If it does not have one of these filters, the best thing for you to do is go out and buy a new one that does. The reason for this is that vacuums that do not have HEPA filters often do not do a good job of capturing these particles and making sure they stay inside the vacuum’s containment unit. They simply get spilled back into the air, only to settle right back down onto the carpet you thought you just cleaned.

Air purification systems are fantastic for households that have members with breathing issues, like asthma or emphysema. Since irritants in the air can aggravate asthma or allergies, getting as many of these particles removed from your air as possible helps a lot, so in addition to preventing mold growth in the house, you are also directly improving your own health.

Neither of these appliances are going to do you much good if your house has moisture problems. Correcting the moisture issues in your home needs to happen first before you can expect mold growth to be almost non-existent in your house. The most important thing to remember is that excess humidity, condensation on pipes and windows, and standing water needs to be cleaned up and if you can do away with these 3 items, you will have a mold free home.

Areas At Risk For Mold

2008-02-04T23:00:00.002-08:00

If you have a home, then you may have possibly gone through the house searching for mold at least one time and if you have not, then you really should be considering performing this action this sometime soon. We have all seen mold on the news in some way or another and how harmful it may be to our health, however that is not the single issue with mold. Although you manage to exterminate it, it may still bring about irritation reactions in some individuals since the spores are still floating on the air and their bodies continue to look at them to be something they need to defend themselves against. Taking some kind allergy pills might help, but no one needs to take allergy medicine frequently if you do not have to.
There are a few things that will show you that you need to inspect for mold in different areas of your home, however you may not entirely know what you are supposed to be searching for. Look around your household and any room that may be naturally moist ought to be inspected more than others. Unless you have performed a remodeling job within the past few years and you have totally waterproofed the lavatory, then you should consider it as a probable nursery for mildew. A few other rooms that are naturally damp are the kitchen, utility room, and the cellar.
You should inspect for signs of mold within the utility room because it is likely to remain damp because of the quantity of wet clothes and evaporating of water that remains within there at all times. Your dryer has to be correctly vented to the outside if it is not already, unless it happens to be a ventless model. Do your best to clean moist clothes immediately and do not put dry clothes on top of these, either. You could possibly ignore them and they might become molded after around 24 hours.
The kitchen should be a different room that you need to be concerned about. Spots near the sink and floor that are not waterproof and even the ceiling need to be inspected. The vapor that comes off the stove when you prepare food damages the ceiling and may discolor it over time, so you need to have an exhaust outlet installed over the stovetop to assist in preventing this. These vents ought to be put within other humid rooms of the house, particularly the bathroom. It might prevent you from having to re-coat the ceiling as frequently as you should typically have to and even prevent you from having to get rid of the old sheetrock.

The Best Ways To Protect Your Home From Fires

2008-02-04T23:00:00.001-08:00

Protecting your home from wildfires is probably not as difficult as you might think it would be, as long as you have the time and money to put into it. There are a lot of different ways to help protect your home and if you can do all of them, you just might end up saving your house.

The condition of the lawn and other vegetation around the outside of your house is usually the first line of defense, so make sure this is taken care of first. Your lawn should stay mowed and not allowed to become overgrown or dry and grass cuttings need to be raked far away from the house, but preferably taken away from the property. Trees near the home should be cut down.

Fire-resistant materials should be used in new constructions and if possible, the exterior materials of older homes should be replaced. Old homes often have vinyl or wooden siding on them and this is not fire-resistant at all, especially not compared to brick, stone, or metal. The last three materials will protect your home a lot more and you should have these installed if you are in an area that is prone to wildfires. You will thank yourself later.

The roof is perhaps the most important exterior surface of your home, since it has the largest amount of surface area. The wind carries sparks of fire on it when there are wildfires nearby and when these land on your roof, it can catch it on fire. To do away with the majority of this risk, you should have fire-resistant roofing material installed. Asphalt shingles are oil-based and will catch on fire fairly easily and so will wooden shingles. A metal roof can help solve this problem, among a few other materials available on the market today.

When a wildfire is nearby, you would also do well to keep your roof and lawn wet to discourage firebrands floating on the wind to ignite. If you must evacuate your home, you should wet the lawn down as much as possible to slow the fire from getting close to your home.

Small windows in your home instead of large ones can help, since they will radiate a lot less heat inside the house and be less likely to catch drapes and other things near the window on fire.

Reducing The Mold In Your House

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Removing mold from your house often involves a lot of scrubbing, cleaning, and sometimes replacing entire walls and floors, but there are ways to prevent mold from developing in the house in the first place. One of the easiest ways to prevent mold growth in the home is to make sure the majority of the mold spores in the area are collected and done away with.

HEPA filters are built into vacuum cleaners and air purification systems to remove as much particle debris as possible and it is effective up to about 99.7% of removing almost anything from the air you could want removed. Smoke particles, pet dander, hair, pollen, dust mites, mold spores, and etcetera are all removed from the air that you breathe and this not only stops mold spores from being able to grow in your home, but also from forming an infection in your body. You should note that not all particles in the air are removed, but since only about 0.3% remain, this last bit that remains is negligible in comparison.

Air purification systems are becoming popular in families that have a history of breathing problems such as asthma and allergies. Since people are spending more and more time indoors these days, especially in work environments, the air that we breathe indoors is becoming much more important. The indoor environments that we work in typically allow the air to become stale. Fans do not really solve this problem very well, since all they do is cause the dust and other debris to be stirred up into the air instead of removed. When purchasing an air purification system for your home, you should make sure that you buy one that can handle the square footage of your home so it does the best job it can.

Vacuum cleaners should also have HEPA filters in them, since their purpose is to pull soil and particle debris out of your carpet. If it does not have a filter on it, then all of the dust and particles that the vacuum collected will be spilled back into the air that you breathe and you might as well not have vacuumed at all.

Remember when you vacuum a carpet, you should vacuum all of it and not just part of it. When you get your HEPA filtered vacuum cleaner, go over the carpet at least twice to get it as clean as you can. If members of your family have allergies, it is probably a good idea to do away with as much of the carpet in your home as possible, since pollen, dust mites, mold spores, and the like will have less places to live if you do.

Preventing Mold In Your Home

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Having mold in the house is a pretty nasty thought, but there are a lot of people who live with this problem every single day. There are a lot of things that you can do to prevent mold growth in your home and some of the best ones start with removing the mold spores from your indoor air supply.

Removing mold spores from your air supply serves a couple of purposes. The first one is that the spores do not have a chance to land anywhere in your home and start to form a colony, which will produce more spores. If you can stop the spores from producing colonies, then your mold problem is removed before it starts. The second reason you would want to do this is to be able to avoid breathing the spores in, since some species of mold can cause aspergilloma to develop in the body. These are essentially fungus balls that will grow in cavities such as where a person has had cancer or ulcers of some kind and can spread from one part of the body to another.

There are a couple of appliances that you can purchase that will help remove the majority of mold spores in your home’s air. These are a vacuum cleaner and an air purifier and both need to be equipped with HEPA filters.

HEPA filters remove about 99.7% of all particle debris in the air, including mold spores, down to a size of 0.03 microns. This is equal to about one third of the width of a human hair, so only about 0.3% of the air you breathe will have any particle debris in it. All of the things you were breathing previously, smoke particles, mold spores, pet dander, and etcetera are being captured by the filter. As long as you replace it as regularly as you are supposed to, this will work very well, especially for people that have respiratory conditions such as asthma, allergies, or emphysema.

Keep in mind that not all vacuum cleaners and air purification systems have HEPA filters in them, so be sure of what you are purchasing before you hand over the money. Read product reviews and find the best vacuum cleaner and purification system for you, since not all are created equal.

Any pre-existing mold problems in your home need to be taken care of, as well, as soon as possible to make the most out of your prevention methods. As long as mold colonies continue to exist in your home, you will continue to have mold spore problems.

How You Can Protect Your Home From Wildfires

2008-02-04T22:58:00.001-08:00

If you live in a rural area that is prone to having wildfires, you might feel helpless to them when the season starts. There are things that you can do to protect your home, however, and they might not end up being as difficult as you think.

The protection starts with your lawn and the area surrounding your home. Fire has to get past this area before it gets to your house most of the time, unless the house catches on fire due to a spark floating on the wind, but more on that in a minute. Your lawn should stay cut regularly and not allowed to become dried up, since it will catch on fire much easier when it is dry. Keep grass cuttings away from the house and if possible, try to carry them off somewhere away from residences. The same goes for dead leaves and branches. If these items do collect in your yard and you must evacuate, wet them down as much as possible and leave. This is all you can do, since you will probably not have time to collect them and take them away from the house.

Trees that are close to your home, especially those that have branches hanging over the roof, need to be cut down. It might take away your shade, but when a wildfire comes calling, the tree will probably be the first thing to go.

Try to keep the roof of your home wet when a fire is nearby because of the sparks of fire called firebrands that float on the wind. Changing the material your roof is made of can help with this problem, too, but if you cannot afford a new roof, keep it wet as much as possible.

The exterior that your home is made of can also offer some protection against fire, but only if it is fire resistant. Wooden or vinyl siding do not fit into this category, but stone, brick, and metal do. If you can afford to have the exterior of your home re-done, you should.

If you are forced to evacuate your home due to fires nearby, take as many of your valuables as you can with you and get out as quickly as you can. Even though you have done everything listed, a wildfire can still take your home and all of your belongings from you, not to mention your life.

How To Stay Healthy And Reduce Mold In Your Home

2008-02-04T22:57:00.000-08:00

Moving into a brand new home can be an exhilarating experience, but from the time you move in, you are causing wear and tear on the house’s structure. You should start taking precautions to protect your home immediately and do not let yourself think that your home cannot be easily damaged, because it can. Mold gets into the house quickly and silently, but there are a lot of things that you can do to protect your home and your family from it.

If the house is a new construction and was inspected for mold before it was completed and found clean, then you are off to a great start. As long as your bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room, and basement are properly waterproofed, you should be fairly safe for a while, but part of the process of keeping mold almost completely out of your home means keeping it out of the air you breathe. This is easiest done with the application of HEPA filters to certain appliances in your home.

The vacuum cleaner from your old home should be replaced with one that has a HEPA filter on it. Your old vacuum cleaner that does not have one releases the dirt and other particles it collects back into the air instead of capturing them the way that it should. This is important if you want to keep as much particle debris out of your new carpet as possible, especially mold spores. Mold loves to grow in carpet, especially wet carpet, so you should try not to allow it to be wet for very long at a time. Soak up any spills of liquid as quickly as you can and be sure to vacuum your carpet evenly and move furniture, if you have to. Carpet gets dirty under the furniture, too, and vacuuming only one section of the carpet can cause uneven color fading over time.

HEPA filters are also used in air purification systems to keep the air that we breathe clean on a consistent basis. The filter will remove up to 99.7% of all particles in the air, including mold spores, pollen, smoke particles, dust mites, and etcetera. This is a great thing to have, especially if any of your family members suffer from allergies or other respiratory ailments.

A new vacuum cleaner and an air purification system that both use HEPA filters will assist in keeping mold out of your home and out of your bodies.

How To Reduce Mold And Stay Healthy

2008-02-04T22:56:00.002-08:00

Reducing the amount of mold growth in your home usually starts with removing the existing growth from the property. This growth is typically located in the moist areas of your home like the kitchen and bathroom, but what if you do not already have mold in the house and you want to prevent it? There are a few different ways that you can do this, but one of the most helpful is the HEPA filter.

HEPA filters are specifically designed to remove particles from the air that we breathe indoors down 0.03 microns in size. Believe it or not, this means that it removes everything that is down to one third the width of a person’s hair. Dust mites, mold spores, hair, pet dander, pollen, and just about anything else that you can think of gets removed by these filters, so you can imagine the help it must bring to people with respiratory conditions like emphysema, asthma, and allergies. This is a great addition to the fact that it takes the mold spores out of the house before they have a chance to land on anything wet and start growing.

Vacuum cleaners that have HEPA filters are the only kind that should really be used in your home, since other types of vacuums may extract all of these particles from your carpet’s pile, but toss them right back into the air that you breathe. In reality, you might as well not have vacuumed at all, since it will just settle back down on the carpet.

If you decide to purchase an air purification system for your home, you should only get one that has a HEPA filter, since the other types simply do not work as well. This is the best kind of system that you can get, as long as you get one that can handle the square footage of your home. Air purification systems are often used by more expensive businesses who have employees that spend a lot of time indoors in a particular space, since the air needs to be circulated and kept from being stale, but at the same time needs to be clean of particle debris that can cause illness. The less employees are sick, the less sick days they take, and the less insurance is claimed. You may not work in a building like this, but it is a fact that people spend more time indoors these days and to stay healthy, breathing the cleanest air possible is a must.

House Fires And Common Appliances

2008-02-04T22:56:00.001-08:00

House fires are often caused by some of the most common appliances imaginable, but this is usually due to the mistakes and clumsiness of the people who are using them. Most appliances are completely safe to use in the home, but it is most often their misuse that causes accidents and fires, since all appliances come with a list of warnings.

The most dangerous appliances, though, in terms of the risk that they post to your safety and the safety of your home are the ones that are designed to emit heat.

Space heaters are very dangerous in the hands of someone who is clumsy or does not follow directions. Perhaps following directions is a little more important here, though. There are a number of things that you should take into account when you are using space heaters to keep your place warm during the winter. Never place space heaters near fabric items or upholstered furniture, if you can help it. If you have to, move these items out of the way and never use common household extension cords with space heaters for any reason. A heavy duty extension cord is the only thing that you can use here and most of us know these by their bright orange color and thick diameter. Small extension cords that you use indoors for small appliances will melt if you try to use them with space heaters.

Another item to be careful with is an electric blanket. Everyone likes to crawl into a toasty bed during the winter, but you should never use an electric blanket to do more than just warm the bed up for you before you get into it. Leaving these on or even plugged up while you are sleeping is a very bad idea, simply because many beds have been caught on fire and houses burned down because of this.

Grease fires are the most common type of house fire, since cooking is something that every household has to do in order to survive. Unfortunately, inexperienced cooks do not know how to handle grease correctly and often make mistakes. You can help prevent these fires by cleaning underneath the burners on your stove as often as necessary, since grease and food particles will build up and catch on fire when you turn the burner on. Keep baking soda around for these small burner fires and a fire extinguisher in case the fire grows in size.

Here’s How To Stop Water Damage

2008-02-04T22:55:00.002-08:00

One of the last things that any homeowner wants to have to do is completely renovate their bathroom or kitchen due to water damage and mold growth, but it happens all the time. It does not have to happen to you, though, as long as you know how to maintain these two rooms properly. They require a lot of daily maintenance to keep in top shape, but it is not the kind of difficult maintenance that you might think. Most of it is just a light cleaning up or casual inspection.

Inspect the floor of the room first. This is what supports everything else, so the integrity of this structure is paramount to the integrity of the entire room. If this goes, so will the rest of it. Try bouncing up and down a little on your toes and see if the room shakes. If it does or if the floor feels weak at all, you may have a water damage problem on your hands. You can also inspect for water damaged floors by looking at the tile and seeing if it is cracked at all. If you have a vinyl floor, looking for cracks in this can also help. Grout or caulking around the room should not be missing or loose at all.

The ceiling in both the kitchen and the bathroom is also at risk, although most kitchens come with a range hood with an exhaust fan built into it that will remove the steam from the room. The bathroom should come with one, as well, but if you live in an older home that has a bathroom in the center of the house, you may not have an exhaust vent already installed. These are installed by standard procedure now, especially in bathrooms that do not have windows, as a part of most building codes.

Make sure that the cabinets underneath the sinks in both of these rooms are covered in a laminate material to keep any dripping pipes from rotting the wood and causing you to have to replace that, too.

Spills of water in the kitchen and bathroom can be somewhat controlled by using rugs to help absorb some of the water. Most homes like to have rugs in these rooms, anyway, but many do not realize that they have a practical application other than just feeling good under bare feet and looking pretty.

How To Prevent Water Damage In Your Home

2008-02-04T22:55:00.001-08:00

Preventing water damage to the kitchen and bathrooms of your home is fairly easy, although a lot of people tend to think that it is not. It comes from a number of different sources in your home, but the two rooms that usually suffer the most are the bathroom and the kitchen. If they are built properly in the first place and well maintained, you may never have to deal with this problem in either of these rooms, but if you have moved into an older home that already has damage to it, you may want to try and invest the money to have the support structures re-done.

Weak floors are a sign of rotting or termites, so if you can bounce up and down on your toes and the whole room shakes or if objects lean toward the center of the room, you may have weak floor joists. These need to be replaced as soon as you can. Look for missing areas of grout, caulking, or cracked areas of flooring. If you do end up having to replace the floor in the bathroom, you might as well try to renovate the whole thing, if you can.

As long as you are replacing the floor, you may want to consider installing a waterproofing membrane such as a product from Schluter called Ditra. This creates an extra seal between your bathroom’s subfloor and the tile or whatever flooring that you choose to install.

Water damage also occurs to the ceiling just as much as it does to the floor, but most people do not usually think about it. When you renovate your bathroom or are having a new one constructed, you should always have an exhaust vent installed. If you do not have one, you may recognize them either from other homes you have been in or hotel rooms. These are definitely a worth while investment, since steam absorbed by the drywall can cause it to crack and collapse over time. The first sign that you are having a problem is the mesh tape used to hide the drywall seams coming loose from the wall. It will start to become visible, since it is losing its adhesive properties.

Most people have rugs in their bathroom to help soak up some of the water that gets inevitably dripped on the floor and this is a good thing. Try not to let water stand on your bathroom or kitchen floor for long.

A Few Ways To Stay Safe Around The Water

2008-02-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

People have been going swimming to get away from the heat during the summer for thousands of years, but these days some of us have the luxury of a swimming pool in our backyard that is free from all the wildlife and hazards that swimming in a creek, river, or ocean could give us. Even though the danger of wildlife and disease are mostly done away with when you have this luxury, other dangers still present themselves simply because the water is there.

The most important thing when you have a swimming pool is to teach your entire family how to swim. Your baby can swim even before they can walk, since the water will support them and they are free to exercise their arms and legs as they please. Your baby has an inherited memory that reminds it how to swim, but by the time the baby is a year or a year and a half old, this memory is lost, so the sooner you introduce your baby to the water, the better. Start in the bath tub and work your way to the shallow end of the pool.

Even though your child is born basically knowing how to use their arms and legs to swim and you can teach them to use this skill before they’re even walking, you will still not want to let them outside near the pool without you there. To prevent this, you should invest in a product called Safety Turtle. It acts as a beacon of sorts that attaches to your child’s wrist via a strap and when it comes into contact with water, a base station located in the house emits an alarm to let you know he or she is in the pool.

Another thing that you can do to protect your children and others in the neighborhood is to build a fence around the entire pool and have the gate to it locked. This will help prevent other children in the neighborhood from getting into your pool and possibly drowning.

Teach your kids that running around the pool is not acceptable behavior and make sure that the older children and young adults in the home lead by example, since running around the pool can cause serious injury or even death. It is not very difficult to slip and fall, especially if the surface area around the pool is excessively slippery.

A Few Guaranteed Ways To Prevent Water Damage

2008-02-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

Water damage occurs to your home in a number of different ways and the truth is, most of them are entirely preventable. The only cases that water damage is unpreventable are when it is caused by a natural disaster such as a flood or a hurricane or when a water leak is hidden inside a wall.

There are two rooms in your home that are particularly at risk for water damage and these are the kitchen and the bathroom, since there is a large amount of water that passes through these rooms every day, especially if you have a number of family members living with you. The bathroom is the most at risk of these two rooms, though, and you should make taking care of it a priority.

The grout and caulking around your bathroom floor should be completely sealed. This means it should not be loose or have any parts missing at all if you are going to have a waterproof bathroom floor. If you can jump in the center of your bathroom and the whole room shakes or the floor feels weak, then you might want to consider taking a look at the joists underneath the house in this area to see if they are weak. If they are, then replacing them is the only real option that you have if you do not want the whole room to fall through the floor.

Another problem with water damage concerns the ceiling. Steam from your bath or shower floats upward and has nowhere to go, so it becomes absorbed by the drywall. Eventually, the tape that hides the seams of the drywall will start to loose its adhesive properties and start to detach itself from the walls. The drywall starts to crack after this happens, sometimes toward the edges and sometimes in the middle. This can happen in the kitchen or bathroom, but especially the bathroom, since kitchens usually have exhaust fans installed to help with this problem. Have an exhaust vent installed in your bathroom, since this is usually required by most building codes, especially if the room does not have a window. It is not very expensive and it might take you half a day to install by yourself.

Try to keep spills of water in the kitchen and bathroom cleaned up as much as possible and keep the plumbing underneath the sinks inspected regularly for drips. The bottom of the cabinet under the sink should be covered in a plastic material to keep any dripping water from rotting the wood.

Mold Miracles

2007-09-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

For the millions of years that mold has been around, it has been considered a harmful scourge to our health. However, there are a variety of ways that mold has been used by human beings for years in order to improve our quality of life as opposed to harming us. It has been used in various kinds of foods. It has been used for medicinal purposes. It has even been used to decompose dead organic matter.

There have been many different kinds of foods have been produced with the aid of mold for millennia. And perhaps the most famous food created using mold is cheese. Blue cheese was actually an accident when mold had been allowed to grow on a block of cheese that had been left to age. Roquefort, as well as gorgonzola, is also made with molds. It takes cultivation of the right kinds of molds to make these blue cheeses. The cultivation of these molds has become somewhat of a science over the years, and the gorgonzola and Roquefort are the so-called “kings” of cheese.

The popular Japanese alcoholic beverage sake is produced by using the mold aspergillius oryzae, also known as “koji-kin”. Sake is not the only drink that employs the use of aspergillius oryzae as an ingredient. It is splashed on the top of steamed rice and it provides all of the enzymes that are needed to make the sugar that the yeast needs to grow. The mold is also very important to the creation of sake, as any brewer who would be proud of his drink would tell you. Depending on the desired flavor of the sake, the koji-creation process is manipulated by the use of different temperatures, the different kinds of rice used, the mineral content of the water, and all of the other factors affect the final product.

Alexander accidentally created penicillin back in the early 1900s and it is used in countries worldwide in order to keep all sorts of different diseases and infections at bay. While there is a group of people who are allergic to penicillin, they are not common enough to prevent doctors from breaking out their prescription pads.

Apart from the usual uses that human beings have found for mold, its natural role is very basic. Its role is nothing more than to decompose dead matter in the natural environment. This is how it makes its way into our homes and work places, because these buildings are composed of organic material.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
water damage restoration companies and
Dallas Residential Water Damage Restoration Contractors.

Mold Fun Facts

2007-09-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

Mold is everywhere around us. Be it indoors or outdoors. It is simply there. There is no such thing as a mold-free environment on this planet, or any other. There are three things that mold absolutely must have to survive. And the only time that mold is visible to the naked human eye is when large colonies begin to grow and gather. Previously stated was the fact that there are three things that mold need to survive.

First of all, mold requires nutrients. And if the mold was in an outdoor environment, these nutrients would most likely be acquired from organic matter like dead animals or dead plants. This is natural and necessary so that debris that builds up from the cadaver of the animal or plant. The mold causes decomposition and that helps the fertilization product in plants. The mold can also inhabit discarded trash such as cardboard, paper, pieces of drywall, fabrics, and other kinds of dust.

Another key element that is essential to the survival of mold is moisture. The decaying of organic matter requires moisture. As does the digesting of the organic matter by the mold. In fact, the highest numbers of cases of mold infestation occur during the summer time, when there is high humidity, and therefore higher condensation. This condensation gathers inside of a house. Winter time is also a bad time for homes, because certain areas can become drafty, and that can lead to condensation build up.

Something else that mold requires is something that there is an unlimited supply of. And that would be: time. Mold simply requires the time to grow. It can start a colony, after it has gained a sufficient amount of nutrients and moisture, in up to twenty four hours. And if something like a wet towel or piece of clothing is simply allowed to sit, then the mold is simply being handed enough time to gather in size and in number.

The last thing mold requires in order to survive and continue to spread is heat. Most molds do not even require an exponential amount of heat in order to spread. However, a good number of molds need it. Molds have been known to remain dormant at extreme temperatures while not growing. They stay in a kind of suspended animation. This goes for cold temperatures as well. They can be exposed to temperatures near two degrees Celsius, and they would revert to this state of suspended animation.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Florida water damage restoration companies and
Miami Water Damage Restoration. contractors

Mold Dangers

2007-09-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

Insurance companies, as well as other various groups in the country, would be thrilled at the prospect of fooling you into believing that mold is not as dangerous as the media would tell you. However, mold is most likely even more dangerous than speculated. While mold has been around far longer than human beings, that does not mean it does not cause us medical and financial complications. And if anyone has tried to tell you that the problem is not as serious as stated, you may want to inform them of just how dangerous of a problem mold really is.

Mold affects far more than simply the appearance of your home. There are serious health ramifications as well. Some of these include, but are not limited to, fatigue, allergy symptoms, damaged vision, and sinusitis. The allergy symptoms are the most common health complication brought on and usually appear in the form of runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes, and in some cases rashes. If these symptoms are not experienced when you are outside of your home, however, then it could be something in your living environment causing these reactions. It comes highly recommended that you see a doctor when you are able to determine that it is indeed something in your home causing these symptoms. There you can receive a proper diagnosis and recommendations on how to deal with the ailment.

It is very important that you protect pets and loved ones from mold, as well. It has been known to kill pets, and especially infants by way of lung bleeding. Elderly people, especially those who are in poor health and with respiratory problems, are at a high risk for health ramifications of mold. If someone is HIV positive, has AIDS, has any other kind of immunity debilitating diseases, or are recovering from surgery, then they are at extremely high risk for mold-related health problems.

In the region of Southeast Asia, some of the most dangerous infections are caused. This includes penicilliosis, which most commonly affects HIV positive and AIDS patients. It is caused by mold in the genus penicillium, a genus which is best known for including the species of mold used in penicillin, which was invented due to an accident in the 1940s.

Now, there are ways to make sure that your home and loved ones are safe from mold. A do-it-yourself home mold test taped to the grill of one of your air conditioning vents is a good idea. You can put tests in other rooms as well.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
mold removal in Atlanta Georgia and
Water Damage Restoration companies.

Removing Standing Water From Your Home

2007-09-10T15:32:00.001-07:00

Standing water inside your house can be a big problem if you do not get it taken care of soon, but people are often not exactly certain as to what they can do about the water that may stand in their basement or other room of their home. What most do know is that water damage and mold are two things that are pretty easy to let happen to a home. The fact is that this standing water can come from a few different places and not only are they repairable, but most of the time, they are preventable.

Sometimes the source can be from a leak in the plumbing in the wall. This is especially true if the leak is located in the bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, or the basement. Shutting off the water is the first thing that you should do in this situation and after that, soaking up the standing water with a towel should be next. Unless you have some experience in plumbing, then you should probably call a plumber to help fix this problem.

The leak could also be coming in from the roof, windows, or doors. If your home is newly built, contacting the contractor who built your home is the best thing that you can do, since your home should still be under its construction warranty. Water leaking in from a chimney that is improperly sealed is also a possibility.

If there is standing water in your basement, there is a possibility that there could be a leak in your home’s foundation. This is especially true if the water is mostly there after a heavy rain. Your sump pump could also be malfunctioning and not draining the water out of the basement as it should be. You may need a new one. Another cause for the water buildup could be that water is settling around your home’s foundation. This could be due to the soil around your home not being piled up high enough so that the water runs away or because your rain gutters are not collecting water as they should be and are dropping it down on the foundation instead of channeling it down through the downspouts.

Clean out your gutters and install some downspout extensions. Pile some new dirt around your home’s foundation so that the water drains away from your home.

Most importantly, if you cannot repair the leak right away, make sure to keep a towel or something absorbent up against the area to keep the water soaked up. Water damage to your floor and walls is even more difficult and expensive to repair.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Connecticut Mold Remediation services and other states such as
north carolina mold remediation companies across the united states.

Preventing Water Damage By Replacing Tile

2007-09-10T15:31:00.001-07:00

When your bathroom tile has become so cracked and the grout so loose and missing that water starts to seep underneath to the floorboards, then you have a problem. The water damage occurring to the floor underneath the tile is a potentially expensive and time consuming problem to take care of, so going ahead and replacing the damaged tile is a good idea.

You will need a tile cutter, chalk line, a grout float, tape measure, rubber mallet, notched trowel, level, and a pull saw.

To measure how much of a square tile you will need, you should draw the room’s layout on a piece of graph paper. Each square should represent a tile. The measurements should be checked more than once so you know just how much tile you need to order. After you figure that number, order at least 5 to 10 percent more tile so you will have a cushion in case you damage some of it.

Selecting the correct color grout is also a consideration. Dark grout can be used in high traffic areas to hide dirt.

Before laying the tile, you need a smooth, tough subfloor to put the tiles on. Ceramic tiles do not flex and an uneven surface can cause them to crack. The baseboards and the trim molding needs to be removed temporarily and the pull saw will be used to trim door casings and jambs so the tile’s thickness will be accepted.

All appliances must be removed from the floor, including toilets.

Start in the center of the room next to the main entrance and lay down a row of tiles without using any adhesive so you have a guide. Each tile should have an equal amount of space between them. The tiles should be perpendicular to the door.

The techniques used to actually install the tile vary depending on the kind of tile being put down and the size of it. Applying it to the tile instead of the floor is recommended for tiles larger than 8 by 8 inches. It should be skimmed with thinset mortar almost like peanut butter and this needs to be applied with the notched trowel; the trowel will help prevent weak spots in the installation. Use the tile cutter and nippers to cut the tile to fit certain areas of the room that will not accept a square tile.

After you are done laying the tile, the grout phase will come next. Apply it with your grout float and use a clean float to remove the excess. After about 15 minutes, wipe the rest of the excess away with a sponge and some water. Let it set for a day before walking on it.

Installing the tile correctly will waterproof your bathroom floor and prevent water damage from occurring to the wooden floor underneath and save you a large amount of money in the long run.

Jim Corkern is a writer and respected contributor to the Water damage restoration and mold remediation Industry. Visit his sites for more information.
http://www.moldrestorationny.info
http://www.moldrestorationnj.info

Information on Sump Pumps

2007-09-10T15:30:00.000-07:00

Whether it is due to a hurricane or a flood, water flooding your basement can be a nightmare for a homeowner, especially if they have anything of great value down there. Some people use these areas for extra bedrooms or entertainment areas, so the potential value of the items in the basement can be quite great.

Having a correctly functioning sump pump in your basement will help to keep it from flooding during times of heavy rain or hurricanes, since drying out a wet basement can take a very long time after such an event. If you want to help defend your basement against flooding and other forms of standing water, the most beneficial thing that you can do is to install a new sump pump.

A sump pump removes standing water from the basement by pumping it out of the lowest part of the basement before it reaches the floor level of the rest of it. When the water level rises up, the excess is pumped into a sump pump hole. After this water reaches a critical level, the pump will begin to direct this water out of the home and away from it to a drain outside.

You should keep a check on your sump pump regularly to make sure that it is functioning properly. You can do this by taking off the cover and pouring water slowly into the tank. The float that is in the tank should rise with the water and cause the pump to start up. When it turns on, the water level will quickly recede and as the float goes back down to the bottom, the pump will turn back off.

The majority of problems with a sump pump’s operation come from the float not working as it should. If it gets stuck on something inside the tank, it will not turn on and off as it should. Sometimes the float will need to be replaced in order to fix this problem. Pour water inside the tank and if the float does not trigger the pump turning on, the float is the problem. Also watch for it to trigger the pump to turn off. If it fails to do this, you may need a new float.

Some homeowners even choose to have a backup sump pump and a good idea for this is to have a back up pump that operates on the water pressure in your home’s water system instead of on electricity, so if the power goes out during a flood or hurricane, the water will still be pumped out of the basement.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
New Jersey Sewage Damage Cleanup and other states such as
New York mold remediation companies across the united states.

Fire Damage Cleanup Instructions

2007-09-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

Dealing with the damage after a fire is something that no one who owns a home wants to have to deal with, not only since the home has been damaged, but also because the belongings inside it have been damaged, as well. Repairing the damage can be done either by a professional or by you, depending on the funds that you have to devote to the project, although you can probably do a lot of the cleanup and repair on your own.

The very first thing that you need to do before you re-enter your home after a fire is to make sure that your local fire marshal says that it is safe to. Once it is safe, turning off the electricity to your home is the next thing to do, since odds are good that the fire truck that responded to your call for help likely sprayed many, many gallons of water into your home. This can cause an electrocution risk of you step into electrified standing water. Remove this water after the electricity has been turned off as soon as possible.

Pets should be taken to a clean environment until the cleanup of the home is completed. This is especially true for birds, since they are much more sensitive to environmental changes than other animals.

Plants need to be washed on both sides of their leaves to remove soot, since this soot can likely kill them.

Any food that has been opened should be thrown away, especially if it was anywhere near the fire.

The windows and doors of the home should be opened to allow ventilation. This should help to remove the smell of smoke from the rest of the home.

Anything that needs to be vacuumed should be vacuumed carefully and without an upright vacuum that has brushes underneath it. Brushes will only rub the soot further into the carpet and all you want to do is lift it gently off the surface. After the soot is cleaned off the carpet and other upholstered items, put down plastic over them so you do not track soot in from other areas of the house.

Avoid sitting on upholstered furniture if you can help it.

Electronic appliances need to be cleaned and checked thoroughly.

Clean chrome, stainless steel, marble, and other materials in your home as soon as possible, since soot and ash can etch these items irreparably.

The clothing in your home should not be sent to a normal dry cleaner. Cleaning these items improperly may set the odor and smoke further into the fabric.

Jim Corkern is a writer and respected contributor to the Water damage restoration and mold remediation Industry. Visit his sites for more information.
http://www.moldrestorationny.info
http://www.moldrestorationnj.info

What Your Contract With Your Home Builder Should Have

2007-09-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

Building a new home is a big job that requires a lot of paperwork, a lot of money, and a lot of responsibility. This responsibility falls not only on you, but also on the contractor that you hire to do it for you. Having a contract written up by your lawyer or signing a contract that the contractor hands to you is always a big issue and you need to make sure that you understand everything in it before signing it or any other document. Contracts are designed to protect the signers from each other in the event of a dispute or in the event that one person tries to cheat the other for any reason.

A contractor that you hire may ask whether you want a “time and materials” contract or a fixed price contract. Even though the time and materials contract might sound appealing, since it means that the contractor will charge you a percentage of the overall cost of the building materials needed to finish the job, this can be a real booby trap. Unforeseen issues and building costs can hold up a job and create a slow leak or a flood of funds coming out of your wallet before you realize what has happened. It can also take longer to finish the home than you first thought that it would. A times and materials contract puts it on you to make up for the change in the cost of materials. Having a fixed-price contract will protect your pocketbook from these time and budget increases.

Anything that you expect the contractor to do should be in the contract. This means that you need to include the dates that the project will last, as in when it will begin and an approximate date as to when it will be finished. There should be a list of materials needed to build the home and approximately what they will cost. You should also consider having in the contract the right to settle a dispute by arbitration, since this will cost significantly less than having to go through a court proceeding should there be any problems between you and the contractor.

You should also obtain a warranty on the contractor’s work that will last for at least a year on the materials and labor. Sometimes a state will require a warranty on the contractor’s work for the period of at least five years.

A payment schedule should also be specified and you should never pay cash. Do not let the payments get ahead of the amount of work done. If work stops, stop paying until it resumes.

Fire Damage Cleanup Instructions

Dealing with the damage after a fire is something that no one who owns a home wants to have to deal with, not only since the home has been damaged, but also because the belongings inside it have been damaged, as well. Repairing the damage can be done either by a professional or by you, depending on the funds that you have to devote to the project, although you can probably do a lot of the cleanup and repair on your own.

The very first thing that you need to do before you re-enter your home after a fire is to make sure that your local fire marshal says that it is safe to. Once it is safe, turning off the electricity to your home is the next thing to do, since odds are good that the fire truck that responded to your call for help likely sprayed many, many gallons of water into your home. This can cause an electrocution risk of you step into electrified standing water. Remove this water after the electricity has been turned off as soon as possible.

Pets should be taken to a clean environment until the cleanup of the home is completed. This is especially true for birds, since they are much more sensitive to environmental changes than other animals.

Plants need to be washed on both sides of their leaves to remove soot, since this soot can likely kill them.

Any food that has been opened should be thrown away, especially if it was anywhere near the fire.

The windows and doors of the home should be opened to allow ventilation. This should help to remove the smell of smoke from the rest of the home.

Anything that needs to be vacuumed should be vacuumed carefully and without an upright vacuum that has brushes underneath it. Brushes will only rub the soot further into the carpet and all you want to do is lift it gently off the surface. After the soot is cleaned off the carpet and other upholstered items, put down plastic over them so you do not track soot in from other areas of the house.

Avoid sitting on upholstered furniture if you can help it.

Electronic appliances need to be cleaned and checked thoroughly.

Clean chrome, stainless steel, marble, and other materials in your home as soon as possible, since soot and ash can etch these items irreparably.

The clothing in your home should not be sent to a normal dry cleaner. Cleaning these items improperly may set the odor and smoke further into the fabric.

Waterproofing Your Chimney

2007-09-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

In general, most people are not aware of the fact that water tends to do a lot more damage to your chimney than the fires that you burn in them actually do. The rest of your home is protected by the roof and the eaves, but your chimney remains completely vulnerable to all the cycles of nature, whether it is rain, sleet, snow or just a simple change in seasons.

Whether the chimney is made of brick, steel, tile, cast iron, or some other building material, it will eventually begin to deteriorate as it comes into contact with the elements of nature. Water damage usually occurs to chimneys simply because of the fact that some people do not know how to take care of them properly, even though taking care of a chimney is fairly easy.

Replacing the very top of the chimney is one of the best things that you can do to prevent water damage. What you do not want is a chimney crown that is made of a simple mortar mix, which is about the same thing used to lay the bricks of your home. This will deteriorate, chip, and crack much faster over time than a crown that is made of portland cement. This should hang over the edge of the chimney by at least two inches on all sides.

You should also check and see if the flashing around your chimney needs to be replaced. The flashing is located between your chimney and the roofing material and serves to keep rain water from seeping down into the crack underneath it and causing damage to the ceiling or walls.

There are a few different products that you can use to help waterproof your masonry chimney. Some of these products will allow your chimney to breathe water vapor and moisture out, but not allow it under the seal.

You should take good care of your chimney and keep a check on it every so often to make sure that it is not deteriorating at an excessive rate. If your chimney has cracks in it or areas look particularly unstable, you need to do whatever you have to in order to get this repaired as soon as possible. Severely water damaged chimneys can have pieces fall off of them before you know it and seriously injure someone in your family.

In addition to protecting your chimney from water damage, protecting the inside from becoming a fire hazard is also necessary and you can do this by burning logs that are specifically manufactured to cleanse your chimney of any buildup that may exist.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
New Jersey Sewage Damage Cleanup and other states such as
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