If you live in an older home or are thinking about buying one, there may not be exhaust fans in the bathrooms. Installing them will probably be in your best interest for quit a few reasons. First of all they help to pull those smelly odors out of the room. Next they stop your mirrors from fogging up so much, but more importantly they go along way towards the prevention of mold growth. All that moisture will eventually lead to the black fuzzy looking stuff setting up housekeeping on your bathroom walls and ceiling. Excessive moisture can damage to your paint or wallpaper and woodwork as well. If left unresolved it can damage sheetrock and cause extensive repairs to have to be made. Mold growing anywhere can be unsightly and not a very healthy situation either.
Installing an exhaust fan now can be a fairly inexpensive solution when compared to the costly consequences of putting it off until later. You can get them at most home improvement stores. They can be purchased with or without lights. If you have a ceiling light fixture in your bathroom already, you can replace it with a fan/light combination. Or add just the fan in another location. Before you go down to pick one out, be sure to know the measurements of your bathroom so you are able to purchase one that will be strong enough for the size of your room. A sales person should be able to help you locate one with the right CFM {cubic feet per minute} That information can be found somewhere on the box..
If your going to attempt the installation yourself, take a good look at the tools you will need and all the necessary steps involved to be sure that you are up to the task. There are several things such as electrical wiring, installing the vent into the ceiling and out of the house through the attic. You might want to consider hiring someone to do it for you. Sometimes this is the best way to go if your not very skilled at do it yourself projects.
Whichever way you decide to go, it will be an inexpensive improvement that will help to dispel a number of things excessive bathroom moisture can cause. It will defiantly be worth the time and money now compared with what it could cost you least on.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
North Carolina Water Damage Restoration and other states such as
New Jersey Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Whether you’re a home owner or renter, live in a new place or old one, no one ever wants to deal with major water damage. It can be difficult to clean up and costly to repair. Mother Nature can always throw some curves that only a good insurance policy can cure, but there are a lot of things you can do to prevent small things from becoming major problems.
A solution to major avoidable water damage in the future can be to make a check list for your home today. Start in the bathrooms. Check the shut off valve under your toilet. Make sure there are no leaks there or any dampness around the base where it sits on the floor. If there is, this could mean the seal inside is leaking and probably needs to be replaced.. It is not really difficult, but it has to be reset on the new seal correctly to prevent new leakage. Check anywhere under the sink for the same kind of leaks. The tub and shower pipes and fixtures should be next. If there are signs of water stains on the walls or floors, the problem should be addressed immediately. Putting off fixing these problems can lead to rotting floors, wall studs and mold in the sheetrock.
Of coarse the kitchen is a source of water problems. The same procedures can be repeated there under the sink. Your refrigerator can leak also. Check underneath for water, bumps in the floor or loose tiles. Check the water supply line if you have an ice and water dispenser on your fridge.
There are other places that are just as important as the kitchen and bathrooms. Hot water heaters are seldom thought of unless you get no hot water when you turn on the spigot. They can leak around the fittings and older ones can rust through the bottom.
The laundry room if you have one has potential too. You can get leaks from the water supply feeding to the washer or from the washer itself. If you have ever had a washing machine flood you never want to have another one!
Last but not least are the outside sources. Your roof should be checked for leaks outside and in your attic. Especially after strong storms and or high winds. Outside water spigots are common leaking things that you should keep an eye on. Checking under the house and any pipes in the basement if you have one, is just good sense. Save time and money down the road by utilizing a good check list for all the water sources in your home.
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.floodingct.info
http://www.floodedbasementnj.info
A solution to major avoidable water damage in the future can be to make a check list for your home today. Start in the bathrooms. Check the shut off valve under your toilet. Make sure there are no leaks there or any dampness around the base where it sits on the floor. If there is, this could mean the seal inside is leaking and probably needs to be replaced.. It is not really difficult, but it has to be reset on the new seal correctly to prevent new leakage. Check anywhere under the sink for the same kind of leaks. The tub and shower pipes and fixtures should be next. If there are signs of water stains on the walls or floors, the problem should be addressed immediately. Putting off fixing these problems can lead to rotting floors, wall studs and mold in the sheetrock.
Of coarse the kitchen is a source of water problems. The same procedures can be repeated there under the sink. Your refrigerator can leak also. Check underneath for water, bumps in the floor or loose tiles. Check the water supply line if you have an ice and water dispenser on your fridge.
There are other places that are just as important as the kitchen and bathrooms. Hot water heaters are seldom thought of unless you get no hot water when you turn on the spigot. They can leak around the fittings and older ones can rust through the bottom.
The laundry room if you have one has potential too. You can get leaks from the water supply feeding to the washer or from the washer itself. If you have ever had a washing machine flood you never want to have another one!
Last but not least are the outside sources. Your roof should be checked for leaks outside and in your attic. Especially after strong storms and or high winds. Outside water spigots are common leaking things that you should keep an eye on. Checking under the house and any pipes in the basement if you have one, is just good sense. Save time and money down the road by utilizing a good check list for all the water sources in your home.
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.floodingct.info
http://www.floodedbasementnj.info
Do It Yourself Books
Today’s homeowners can have a much easier time doing those repairs that used to require calling a plumber, a carpenter, or electrician. Basic tips and instructions from minor to major undertakings can be found in a wide variety of do it yourself books. Every home should have at least one good one that deals with a range of subjects. They can help you learn to do the small things that can go wrong in the home before they can turn into bigger problems.
For example, a small leak from a bathroom pipe. Usually they start out small and progressively worsen. A drip around a toilet valve can eventually cause enough water damage to rot the flooring around the entire toilet. It will cause it to become unstable and slowly sink into the floor. This can be avoided if you know how to fix the problem immediately. Sometimes tightening a loose fitting or replacing a deteriorated washer will do the trick, but if not, even replacing an entire toilet is really not that difficult if you know how.
Do it yourself books tell you exactly what you will be getting yourself into before you start a repair. They will show in detail how difficult it will be and the tools you will need to do the job right. This will help you decide if it is something you are brave enough to take on yourself or if you would be better off to hire a professional.
Other than just small home repairs, these books can show you how to make improvements that will add to the value of your home. Things like adding exhaust fans to help prevent mold and moisture damage in your bathrooms. You can add sprinklers and soaker hoses to your lawn and plant beds. A deck or patio are very beneficial things that will allow you to enjoy them now while you live there and get additional pay offs if you sell your home later.
All in all you can not go wrong when you buy one or more of these great books. Whether for small repairs or some creative projects, they can be a small investment that can save you time and money in the long run, add beauty and value to your home and give your ego a little boost from just knowing that you really did it yourself!
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
flood water damage restoration New Jersey and and other states such as
Connecticut Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
For example, a small leak from a bathroom pipe. Usually they start out small and progressively worsen. A drip around a toilet valve can eventually cause enough water damage to rot the flooring around the entire toilet. It will cause it to become unstable and slowly sink into the floor. This can be avoided if you know how to fix the problem immediately. Sometimes tightening a loose fitting or replacing a deteriorated washer will do the trick, but if not, even replacing an entire toilet is really not that difficult if you know how.
Do it yourself books tell you exactly what you will be getting yourself into before you start a repair. They will show in detail how difficult it will be and the tools you will need to do the job right. This will help you decide if it is something you are brave enough to take on yourself or if you would be better off to hire a professional.
Other than just small home repairs, these books can show you how to make improvements that will add to the value of your home. Things like adding exhaust fans to help prevent mold and moisture damage in your bathrooms. You can add sprinklers and soaker hoses to your lawn and plant beds. A deck or patio are very beneficial things that will allow you to enjoy them now while you live there and get additional pay offs if you sell your home later.
All in all you can not go wrong when you buy one or more of these great books. Whether for small repairs or some creative projects, they can be a small investment that can save you time and money in the long run, add beauty and value to your home and give your ego a little boost from just knowing that you really did it yourself!
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
flood water damage restoration New Jersey and and other states such as
Connecticut Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
What You Need When Removing Mold
Nobody wants to have to remove the mold from their home, but if you live in an older house, then you may have to go through this eventually. Even newly built homes can have mold growing in them in certain areas if bad techniques were used or just poor quality materials. As long as the building codes in your area were followed by the contractor of your new house, there is nothing that you can do, even if the poor quality materials are the reason that mold exists. If the job was done “by the book”, then you cannot obtain any legal compensation. When having a home built for you, make sure you know that the contractor you hired to do it will do the job with good quality building materials and get references before even letting them start.
But, what do you do if you already have mold in the house? Well, you can probably clean up a lot of it yourself if you have a smaller mold problem. If you have experience in interior remodeling work, then you can tackle even a larger scale mold removal project on your own. Your insurance may even cover it, if it is due to another kind of damage that your homeowner’s insurance covers, like water leaks.
There is a certain amount of equipment that you will need if you are going to do this job on your own, though. Having a respirator is something that you will really need, especially if you are going to open up any walls. You can get a basic respirator from a hardware store, but if you are going to open up any walls, you will probably want a respirator that has a HEPA filter attached to it.
You will also want a few heavy duty trash bags to toss the debris in.
As far as some protective equipment that you can wear, heavy duty rubber gloves might also be helpful depending on what you are handling. If you are just scrubbing floors or walls, then you could probably get away with some lighter latex gloves. Some plastic disposable coveralls and covers for your shoes will help keep mold spores from getting on your clothes. Safety glasses might also be necessary.
As with your respirator, the cleanup job after all the debris is gone should be done with a vacuum that has a HEPA filter on it. This will release clean, filtered air back into your home instead of releasing the dust and mold spores like a normal vacuum would.
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.floodchicago.info
http://www.damagewatersc.info
But, what do you do if you already have mold in the house? Well, you can probably clean up a lot of it yourself if you have a smaller mold problem. If you have experience in interior remodeling work, then you can tackle even a larger scale mold removal project on your own. Your insurance may even cover it, if it is due to another kind of damage that your homeowner’s insurance covers, like water leaks.
There is a certain amount of equipment that you will need if you are going to do this job on your own, though. Having a respirator is something that you will really need, especially if you are going to open up any walls. You can get a basic respirator from a hardware store, but if you are going to open up any walls, you will probably want a respirator that has a HEPA filter attached to it.
You will also want a few heavy duty trash bags to toss the debris in.
As far as some protective equipment that you can wear, heavy duty rubber gloves might also be helpful depending on what you are handling. If you are just scrubbing floors or walls, then you could probably get away with some lighter latex gloves. Some plastic disposable coveralls and covers for your shoes will help keep mold spores from getting on your clothes. Safety glasses might also be necessary.
As with your respirator, the cleanup job after all the debris is gone should be done with a vacuum that has a HEPA filter on it. This will release clean, filtered air back into your home instead of releasing the dust and mold spores like a normal vacuum would.
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.floodchicago.info
http://www.damagewatersc.info
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Preventing Mold When Home-Canning
Odds are fairly good that if you have a vegetable garden or any fruit trees in your yard that you know how to go about canning these items so that you can have them year-round. Whether you can tomatoes so you will have them during the winter or pickle cucumbers, growing our own food and preserving it at home has been commonplace in American culture for a very long time. Pickles, jams, jellies, marmalades, soups, or chutneys have been being made in homes across the country and the world for quite a while and it is still going on today because some people prefer home-made goods to their commercial counterparts.
There are benefits to both growing and canning your own food at home, even though a process that is similar is used by commercial food canners worldwide. One benefit is that you have the knowledge of just how sterile the equipment being used to preserve your food is. You know how clean the items are that you are using to can your food. When you purchase these items in a store, you do not know whether the equipment used was clean or not. You also have the benefit of knowing what pesticides, if any, were used on the fruits and vegetables that you are preserving. You do not have to be exposed to more pesticides and chemicals than you would use to protect your own garden from insects and different kinds of rodents.
One problem with home-canning, though, is that if it is not done properly, mold can start to grow inside the jars of food that you thought that you were preserving so well. Mold grows in everything that is preserved eventually, anyway, but it can occur much sooner if the food that you can in your kitchen is not properly preserved. Most home-canning guides suggest that you date everything you can and use it within a year to avoid spoilage.
Mold-contaminated jars can be a problem, but you can avoid this problem most of the time by making sure the equipment that you use is sterile. You can sterilize glass jars by filling them and your canning pot with hot water (not boiling) and bringing the pot to a slow boil for around 10 minutes. This should effectively remove all microbes and spores from the water.
Any food you can should be washed and thoroughly inspected. Questionable items should not be canned, but thrown away.
Food should also be packed loosely in the jars so that the food inside can be completely heated throughout. If the temperature does not get high enough, it will not be completely sterilized. Mold spores, bacteria, and yeast can continue to grow even in high temperatures.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
flood water damage restoration chicago and
mold remediation companies across the united states.
There are benefits to both growing and canning your own food at home, even though a process that is similar is used by commercial food canners worldwide. One benefit is that you have the knowledge of just how sterile the equipment being used to preserve your food is. You know how clean the items are that you are using to can your food. When you purchase these items in a store, you do not know whether the equipment used was clean or not. You also have the benefit of knowing what pesticides, if any, were used on the fruits and vegetables that you are preserving. You do not have to be exposed to more pesticides and chemicals than you would use to protect your own garden from insects and different kinds of rodents.
One problem with home-canning, though, is that if it is not done properly, mold can start to grow inside the jars of food that you thought that you were preserving so well. Mold grows in everything that is preserved eventually, anyway, but it can occur much sooner if the food that you can in your kitchen is not properly preserved. Most home-canning guides suggest that you date everything you can and use it within a year to avoid spoilage.
Mold-contaminated jars can be a problem, but you can avoid this problem most of the time by making sure the equipment that you use is sterile. You can sterilize glass jars by filling them and your canning pot with hot water (not boiling) and bringing the pot to a slow boil for around 10 minutes. This should effectively remove all microbes and spores from the water.
Any food you can should be washed and thoroughly inspected. Questionable items should not be canned, but thrown away.
Food should also be packed loosely in the jars so that the food inside can be completely heated throughout. If the temperature does not get high enough, it will not be completely sterilized. Mold spores, bacteria, and yeast can continue to grow even in high temperatures.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
flood water damage restoration chicago and
mold remediation companies across the united states.
Mold in Our Homes
While there is no real way to completely get rid of the mold that exists in both our outdoor and indoor environments, there are some things that we can do to keep mold from growing on our food and our belongings. This typically happens when items like clothing are improperly stored or when foods are improperly preserved in our refrigerators. Whatever the cause may be, it is very likely that we can prevent these instances of mold from occurring if we just exercise a little diligence in the maintenance of our homes.
Mold likes to grow in the refrigerator, especially in jars of jellies and jams, but as long as we keep our refrigerators clean and free of contaminated items, mold will not grow as quickly. Take an inventory of the items in your refrigerator and make sure nothing is sorely outdated. Outdated items can be used for a short period after they expire, but if they start to show discoloration or mold growth, they should be thrown away immediately. Fruits and vegetables that show signs of mold growth should also be thrown away and anything else they were touching, especially other fruits and vegetables, should be washed.
Mold also likes to grow on clothing that has been packed too tightly into a closet space or other container. Air needs to be able to circulate through the entirety of the closet and some closets have air vents located in them to help with this, but if you pack clothes too tightly, then the vent cannot do its job.
If you have baby bottles in your kitchen, then you might have a problem with getting them completely dry if you do not have a dishwasher. If you have to wash your dishes by hand, then the best thing to do in order to keep mold from beginning to grow inside these and other oddly shaped bottles is to dry them the best that you can and put them in your freezer immediately after. Leave them in there until you need the bottles again.
Wet clothes or towels should never be tossed on the bathroom floor or into a hamper and left there. Any clothes that you throw on top of them will become contaminated with mold after they have been left there after anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. Some molds will grow after 24 hours, but many require up to 48 hours to begin to multiply. Wet clothes should be washed immediately.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Texas Residential Water Damage Restoration Contractors and
Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
Mold likes to grow in the refrigerator, especially in jars of jellies and jams, but as long as we keep our refrigerators clean and free of contaminated items, mold will not grow as quickly. Take an inventory of the items in your refrigerator and make sure nothing is sorely outdated. Outdated items can be used for a short period after they expire, but if they start to show discoloration or mold growth, they should be thrown away immediately. Fruits and vegetables that show signs of mold growth should also be thrown away and anything else they were touching, especially other fruits and vegetables, should be washed.
Mold also likes to grow on clothing that has been packed too tightly into a closet space or other container. Air needs to be able to circulate through the entirety of the closet and some closets have air vents located in them to help with this, but if you pack clothes too tightly, then the vent cannot do its job.
If you have baby bottles in your kitchen, then you might have a problem with getting them completely dry if you do not have a dishwasher. If you have to wash your dishes by hand, then the best thing to do in order to keep mold from beginning to grow inside these and other oddly shaped bottles is to dry them the best that you can and put them in your freezer immediately after. Leave them in there until you need the bottles again.
Wet clothes or towels should never be tossed on the bathroom floor or into a hamper and left there. Any clothes that you throw on top of them will become contaminated with mold after they have been left there after anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. Some molds will grow after 24 hours, but many require up to 48 hours to begin to multiply. Wet clothes should be washed immediately.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Texas Residential Water Damage Restoration Contractors and
Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
Mold and Your Lawn
Did you know that mold can grow on your lawn and kill all the grass that you worked so hard on during the spring, summer, and fall? Well, you might have known that mold spores and fungi like mushrooms can grow in your front and backyard, but maybe you were not aware of the mold that can grow underneath the blankets of snow that fall during the winter. It is true: if snow falls on your lawn and does not melt for a long period of time, mold can start growing and kill the grass underneath. This is especially true if the grass has not stopped growing before the snow falls and if the snow is thick and wet. Another significant factor is that the ground the snow falls on top of is not frozen.
The only real symptom that you should be able to see besides the mold growth itself is the appearance of large circular patches of dead grass. These circles can be from 3 up to 12 inches wide, but in the most extreme cases of snow mold, you may not be able to distinguish one patch from the next because the mold has killed so much of your lawn.
Pink snow mold appears to be the most dangerous to your grass and it is caused by a mold called Microdochium nivale. This mold, when it matures, can be a light to a dark pink color. This is the most dangerous kind of mold to your lawn because it kills not only the blades of grass, but also the roots. This needs to be treated as soon as possible before it kills your entire lawn, if it has not already.
Gray snow mold can be caused by a few different species in a genus called Typhula and it can be anywhere from gray to white in color. These molds typically do not do more damage to the grass than affecting the blades; the roots are not typically affected.
Snow molds like to grow in temperatures that are just above freezing and in moist conditions. Even though it is called “snow” mold, it can also be caused when leaves are left covering a patch of grass for too long.
Preventing snow mold is not too difficult, but sometimes it will occur, anyway. Do not fertilize your lawn less than six weeks before cold weather starts to come in and causes the grass to stop growing. This can cause a spurt of green growth that the mold will feed on after it starts to grow underneath the snowfall.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Texas Residential Water Damage Restoration Contractors and
Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
The only real symptom that you should be able to see besides the mold growth itself is the appearance of large circular patches of dead grass. These circles can be from 3 up to 12 inches wide, but in the most extreme cases of snow mold, you may not be able to distinguish one patch from the next because the mold has killed so much of your lawn.
Pink snow mold appears to be the most dangerous to your grass and it is caused by a mold called Microdochium nivale. This mold, when it matures, can be a light to a dark pink color. This is the most dangerous kind of mold to your lawn because it kills not only the blades of grass, but also the roots. This needs to be treated as soon as possible before it kills your entire lawn, if it has not already.
Gray snow mold can be caused by a few different species in a genus called Typhula and it can be anywhere from gray to white in color. These molds typically do not do more damage to the grass than affecting the blades; the roots are not typically affected.
Snow molds like to grow in temperatures that are just above freezing and in moist conditions. Even though it is called “snow” mold, it can also be caused when leaves are left covering a patch of grass for too long.
Preventing snow mold is not too difficult, but sometimes it will occur, anyway. Do not fertilize your lawn less than six weeks before cold weather starts to come in and causes the grass to stop growing. This can cause a spurt of green growth that the mold will feed on after it starts to grow underneath the snowfall.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Texas Residential Water Damage Restoration Contractors and
Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
Protect Your Infant From Mold And Possibly Eliminate Crib Death
Something that a lot parents hate and cannot understand these days are diseases and disorders that the medical community claim that they cannot do anything about at this point in time. Parents become outraged when it happens to their child and the medical community says that there was nothing that they could have done to help or to prevent it from happening and this is the case with the occurrence we have come to call SIDS -- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
The term itself is a misnomer: it is not a “syndrome”. It is the act of dying suddenly and inexplicably. In European countries, it is also called “cot death”, since it is most commonly associated with babies that die in their cribs. The health care system of the United States has said that there is no true explanation of why crib death occurs, but a man in New Zealand may have come up with an answer… over a decade ago.
A man in New Zealand has begun a crusade against crib death and has pointed to a very likely explanation for it.
Most flame retardant mattresses contain one of three chemicals: antimony, arsenic, or phosphorus. These chemicals are poisonous to us as human beings and you have to wonder why they are being put in our mattresses in the first place, much less in the mattress of an infant.
We all know that babies will get their mattresses and bedding wet from spilling milk, juice, urinating through their diapers, and etcetera, but what happens when these spills do not get cleaned up properly? Mold can grow in mattresses just as easily as carpet or on wet clothing, but the difference is that when mold begins to grow in a mattress made with these poisonous chemicals, they (like anything else on the planet that digests things) secrete gases. Since mold is consuming poisonous chemicals, is it not safe to say that these gases are also poisonous? An infant sleeping on its stomach and breathing in these gases would probably die, right? It is a fact that less babies have died since the advice was given to sleep a child on his or her back instead of on their stomach.
His advice says to not re-use an old baby mattress, but to buy a new one when you have another child because the instances of crib death have shown to increase with the more children you have. It is more common in children that are the 2nd, 3rd, and so on in their family.
Special mattress wraps can also be purchased out of New Zealand for less than $50.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
North Carolina Basement water damage restoration and other states and cities such as
New Jersey Basement water damage restoration companies across the united states.
The term itself is a misnomer: it is not a “syndrome”. It is the act of dying suddenly and inexplicably. In European countries, it is also called “cot death”, since it is most commonly associated with babies that die in their cribs. The health care system of the United States has said that there is no true explanation of why crib death occurs, but a man in New Zealand may have come up with an answer… over a decade ago.
A man in New Zealand has begun a crusade against crib death and has pointed to a very likely explanation for it.
Most flame retardant mattresses contain one of three chemicals: antimony, arsenic, or phosphorus. These chemicals are poisonous to us as human beings and you have to wonder why they are being put in our mattresses in the first place, much less in the mattress of an infant.
We all know that babies will get their mattresses and bedding wet from spilling milk, juice, urinating through their diapers, and etcetera, but what happens when these spills do not get cleaned up properly? Mold can grow in mattresses just as easily as carpet or on wet clothing, but the difference is that when mold begins to grow in a mattress made with these poisonous chemicals, they (like anything else on the planet that digests things) secrete gases. Since mold is consuming poisonous chemicals, is it not safe to say that these gases are also poisonous? An infant sleeping on its stomach and breathing in these gases would probably die, right? It is a fact that less babies have died since the advice was given to sleep a child on his or her back instead of on their stomach.
His advice says to not re-use an old baby mattress, but to buy a new one when you have another child because the instances of crib death have shown to increase with the more children you have. It is more common in children that are the 2nd, 3rd, and so on in their family.
Special mattress wraps can also be purchased out of New Zealand for less than $50.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
North Carolina Basement water damage restoration and other states and cities such as
New Jersey Basement water damage restoration companies across the united states.
Wet Basement Tips
Maybe you use your basement for storage or maybe it is used as a family recreation area or even perhaps contains an extra bedroom. No matter what you use your basement for, what you really do not want is to have leaks in it. It usually creates an odor or causes mold to grow on some of the property that you may have down there and most of us are aware that any mold growing in our homes is undesirable. There are quite a few things that you can do to waterproof your basement, though, and most of them are pretty easy.
Basements are most likely to leak around the joints where the wall and the floor meet up and this is especially true after a heavy rain or when a heavy blanket of snow starts to melt around your home. This makes up about 90 percent of all the leaks that occur in basements. What happens here is that the surface water, like rain or melting snow, collects and builds up around the foundation of the home. This is forced through the joint where the wall and the floor come together. One of the best ways to prevent this is to make sure that the ground on the outside of your home slopes away from it, so that water is directed out toward the outer edges of your lawn instead of toward your basement. The slope should be extended for at least ten feet and up about one inch per foot.
Downspout extensions can also be installed for the same purpose of taking water away from your foundation. Rain gutters also need to be cleaned out regularly. If you do not have rain gutters, you should install some. This prevents water from falling off your roof and directly to the base of your home.
The windows to your basement also need protected. Installing windows that are properly sealed and installing window wells will prevent this.
Stopping water from condensing around the pipes and other cold surfaces in your basement can be done by insulating the pipes and also by controlling the ventilation in the room. Humidity should also be lowered if you are experiencing condensation build-up on windows.
Something that should never be done is hanging up wet laundry in the basement to dry. This will build up the humidity that you are trying to get rid of.
Any plumbing that is leaking should be repaired immediately and if necessary, a dehumidifier should be installed in the basement to lower the moisture content of the air. This should help keep your basement feeling dry.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Connecticut flood water damage restoration and other states and cities such as
South Carolina Sewage Damage Clean-up companies across the united states.
Basements are most likely to leak around the joints where the wall and the floor meet up and this is especially true after a heavy rain or when a heavy blanket of snow starts to melt around your home. This makes up about 90 percent of all the leaks that occur in basements. What happens here is that the surface water, like rain or melting snow, collects and builds up around the foundation of the home. This is forced through the joint where the wall and the floor come together. One of the best ways to prevent this is to make sure that the ground on the outside of your home slopes away from it, so that water is directed out toward the outer edges of your lawn instead of toward your basement. The slope should be extended for at least ten feet and up about one inch per foot.
Downspout extensions can also be installed for the same purpose of taking water away from your foundation. Rain gutters also need to be cleaned out regularly. If you do not have rain gutters, you should install some. This prevents water from falling off your roof and directly to the base of your home.
The windows to your basement also need protected. Installing windows that are properly sealed and installing window wells will prevent this.
Stopping water from condensing around the pipes and other cold surfaces in your basement can be done by insulating the pipes and also by controlling the ventilation in the room. Humidity should also be lowered if you are experiencing condensation build-up on windows.
Something that should never be done is hanging up wet laundry in the basement to dry. This will build up the humidity that you are trying to get rid of.
Any plumbing that is leaking should be repaired immediately and if necessary, a dehumidifier should be installed in the basement to lower the moisture content of the air. This should help keep your basement feeling dry.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Connecticut flood water damage restoration and other states and cities such as
South Carolina Sewage Damage Clean-up companies across the united states.
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