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.
Showing posts with label water safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water safety. Show all posts
Monday, February 4, 2008
Here’s How To Stop Water Damage
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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