Thursday, October 18, 2007

Taking Care of a Fireplace

Lots of people have fireplaces in their homes, but keeping them clean and smoke free takes some maintenance and effort on the part of the homeowner. The fireplace will not maintain itself, even though there are some fireplace cleaning logs on the market these days. These will not completely replace a professional cleaning, though, so you should have one of these done at least every year or two.

You should also have the proper tools stored next to your fireplace and these are available in many different materials and types. Cast iron is a good and durable material, but fireplace tools are also available in brass, pewter, nickel, and etcetera. There is a large selection on the market and you will surely be able to find what you are looking for.

A fireplace blower can help build up the fire and add more heat to it. You have probably seen one of these before and it can be a real help when first starting to build a fire.

Fireplace tongs can be used to move around logs that are obviously too hot to pick up with your hands and this is necessary, since the logs will not always be exactly where you need them to be to get the most heat and longevity out of the fire.

A fireplace poker can be used to stir around coals and spread them so that the heat is more evenly distributed. This helps larger logs catch on fire faster than they normally would.

A shovel is used to clean out the ashes that are left after a fire is out and a small broom is necessary to keep the area immediately outside the fireplace cleaned up.

If you are having problems building a fire that does not spill smoke back into the room, you need to make sure that nothing is blocking the chimney on top of the house. Leaves, bird nests, and sticks can clog it up during the spring, summer, and fall and make it completely unusable.

Using the correct wood is also important; logs that are freshly cut and have a lot of moisture still in them will smoke instead of catch fire. Use logs that are dried out and try to store them in a place where they will not get wet.

Start the fire slowly by building it up with paper and small sticks at first to get the chimney warm. Warming up the chimney is important so that the air inside it becomes warm instead of cold. Cold air pushes the warm air and smoke down and back into the house.


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

Invest in a Water and Fireproof Safe

We all have valuables that we need to have protected, whether it is from a burglar, nosy child, fire, or floods. Documents, jewelry, or anything else that may be valuable to you can be put inside and safe and be almost completely protected from anything that might have happened to them outside of it. Making an investment in a safe can possibly save you thousands of dollars, simply depending on what you choose to keep inside it.

Depending on your situation, there are a few different kinds of safes that you can consider. Do you need a waterproof safe because you live in an area prone to floods or hurricanes? Or an area prone to wildfires? Or do you want a combination of the two? Both kinds of protection are good to have, since water damaged documents can be a hassle to deal with and a fire can do away with them completely.

Safes that are fireproof have the feature of having a positive pressure inside them that will keep water from getting inside, but unfortunately if there is not a fire present to create this pressure, water can get inside these and cause damage to your items. If possible, try to purchase a safe that is both waterproof and fireproof.

There is also the choice of where you want your safe to be located. Portable safes are good if you do a lot of traveling and want a thief to have a hard time getting to your valuables, even if they can pick it up and take it out of your room. It will take them a while to get your belongings out of the safe, to be sure, and it is very possible that the police will catch them before they have a chance.

A floor safe is just what the name implies: a safe that you install directly into the floor. You can cover this with a rug or a piece of furniture to make sure that no one sees it. A safe installed into the floor should be waterproof, since the floor is the first thing that flood waters will reach.

A wall safe offers the same kind of concealment that a floor safe offers and you can cover these with tapestries, mirrors, or photographs. Make sure you choose the correct depth for it, however, so you get the right one for your wall.



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.waterbasementct.info and
http://www.moldrestorationusa.com

Mold and Your Children

The health of children is probably the most important issue for the majority of parents across the nation and as time goes on, we are seeing more and more potential threats to it. Whether it is asthma, the flu, bronchitis, or any other type of illness, all parents are concerned with the long term effects of these conditions and what causes or aggravates them.

Mold has somewhat taken center stage in the list of things in your home that can cause adverse health effects for not only children and the elderly, but anyone else living in your home at the time, as well. Not only can mold cause the aggravation of allergies and respiratory conditions such as asthma and emphysema, but it can also be toxic and cause long term medical conditions that can even end in death in some severe cases.

Due to their underdeveloped nature compared to adults, children are much more at risk to face the health effects of mold exposure than their adult counterparts. If your child has allergies, you probably keep an eye on their exposure to them on a daily basis, as well you should, but have you had your home tested for mold? If you have not, then you probably should.

Your child’s immune system is in development in the early years of its life and you should do what you can to make sure that the natural maturing process is not disturbed. Educate yourself about the different symptoms that can be caused from mold exposure, since many doctors are not particularly aware of the complex symptoms that can come about from the exposure. If you believe that your home has mold and your child is sick, relate this to your child’s pediatrician.

Infants are the most at risk, obviously, and if you suspect there is mold in your home anywhere, you should remove the child from the environment immediately and have tests done to determine if the mold is cosmetic or not. Hemorrhagic pneumonia can be caused by mold exposure in an infant and deaths have been reported.

If your home has been flooded and your child’s toys were exposed to flood waters, anything porous needs to be thrown away. This includes stuffed animals, pillows, and other bedding. These are no longer safe for your child to play with. Even mattresses need to be thrown out and replaced, because of the recent link between mold, crib mattresses, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.



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

Sanitizing Your Well Water

If you live outside the city limits, you may be among the thousands of people that have to rely on well water to drink and to bathe in. There are filters that can be put on your well to get rid of any mineral deposits, rust, or soil that may get into your water, but actually disinfecting your water if it is contaminated with bacteria is a somewhat different matter. You can clean your well water out by chlorinating it and this process is fairly simple.

Chlorinating well water is usually done to get rid of bacteria, to disinfect after you make some kind of repair to it, to disinfect after it has not been used in a while, such as the well of a vacation home, or the removal of hydrogen sulphide.

The first thing that you need to do is to get enough water saved up in your house by using milk jugs or whatever else you have to put water in to last your home’s needs for at least the next 24 hours.

Depending on how deep your well is, you will want to put a different amount of bleach into the water. The bleach that you will want to use is a simple, unscented household bleach. This should contain about 3 to 5 percent sodium chlorite. As far as just how much bleach you need to use, it varies. If your well is less than 50 feet deep and is 6 inches in diameter, you will want to use 3.5 liters of bleach in it. A well that is 100 feet deep and 6 inches in diameter will require 7.

You should not use the water system of your home for at least 8 hours after doing this. 24 hours is usually the recommended time, but this might not be practical for you if you have a large family.

By the time the process is over, your water should not smell like chlorine. The water may look similar to a tea color, but this will go away after a bit of use. Do not drink the water until the chlorine smell is gone.

If the process helps your water’s quality, but the problem comes back in a few weeks, you will need to repeat this process and possibly add more bleach per application. This should result in a water supply quality that is much better than it was before.


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

Standing Water in the Yard

The only thing more unsightly than a yard with no grass is a yard that is covered in patches of standing water. Having standing water in your yard or around the foundation of your home can be a pretty aggravating thing, but there is something that you can do to remedy this situation and will probably not cost you an arm and a leg.

Most of the time, problems with standing water in the yard can be attributed to the yard having uneven elevation all over it. Some parts may be lower than others and will retain water after a heavy or even sometimes a light rain. The simple solution to this is to fill in these lower areas with soil and plant grass over them to hold the new soil in place. Planting grass over it is not only necessary to look good, but also serves the practical purpose of making sure the soil does not just wash away over time.

The other option is to have a drainage system installed in the yard. Call your local building commission first and make sure that you have permission to take on such a project, even if you do own your house and the land it is on. Obtaining a building permit may not be easy and it might take you a few weeks to get one, but it just depends on where you are living at the time.

Dig a ditch in your yard starting at the point you want to drain water from and end the ditch where you want the excess water to be deposited. Slant this ditch downhill about 6 inches for every 100 feet so that water does not simply collect in the pipe and stand there. Lay a small amount of gravel throughout the length of this ditch and put a PVC pipe over it. Cover this with more gravel and cover it again with soil. The gravel will help direct ground water toward the drain’s end. Put some wire mesh or a sink strainer over the highest end of the pipe to keep debris from getting into it. You do not need a strainer at the other end.

If you have somewhat of a sense of humor and like the idea of a small pond in your yard, consider putting a goldfish pond in one of the spots where water likes to collect. Digging it out and keeping it aerated for some fish might add a pleasing effect as long as it is located in the right place.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Water Damage Miami and
water damage restoration in atlanta companies.