Friday, September 28, 2007

Water Sanitation Using Heat and Bleach

When you are having to sit a hurricane out in your home or other building, the most important thing that you need to have plenty of is clean water. Hurricanes are often something that we can prepare for in the United States, since we can typically see them coming, but failing to pay attention to the weather reports during hurricane season does happen to some of us.

You should have on hand about a gallon of clean water for every person staying with you. This will be used up in a day’s time, so having one gallon for every person for every day you expect the storm to last plus a few is a good idea.

Having a gas powered electricity generator is something else that you might want to have on hand, especially if you might not have enough water. If the electricity goes out and you run out of water, you will not be able to boil any water to make sure that it is sanitary before you drink it. During storms like this you should never assume that the tap water is alright to drink. Local water treatment plants could be contaminated with all kinds of things during this inclement weather and you should never drink it until the storm clears and your local government okays it.

Boiling water is the best way to sanitize it if you have no other means of doing so, such as a high quality water filter. Bring the water to a boil and keep it like this for about 5 to 10 minutes. Covering the boiling pot of water should shorten the time necessary to get the water boiling and will help you save fuel.

Liquid Clorox bleach can also be used to sanitize water. It can be used to purity tap water and make it safe for you to drink. This will kill any bacteria and microorganisms living in it and the process is fairly simple.

Any water should be let to stand in a container until any debris or sediment settles to the bottom. The clear water should be poured into another container, leaving the water still containing sediment in the bottom of the first one. You only need to use a couple of drops of bleach per quart of water.

As a backup for boiling and bleach, you can also purchase water purification tablets at most outdoor supply stores. People who go camping or hiking often take these with them in case they need them, but you can also benefit from keeping a few on hand.

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.

Water Sanitation Options

The most important thing that you need to have plenty of on hand during a hurricane or tropical storm is simply clean water. Clean water may be more difficult to obtain during these times than you might think, so you need to try and have plenty of it stocked up beforehand if you live in an area that is prone to having these serious storms. If you happen to run out before the storm is completely over, though, there are a few things that you can do to make sure that you have enough to last you.

For every person that will be with you during the storm, you should be saving at least one gallon for them per day for use.

An electricity generator that is powered by gas might be a good thing to have around, as well, since electricity tends to go out during hurricanes and tropical storms, affecting your ability to boil water for drinking. You can boil water on your stove for about 10 minutes or so and make it safe to drink as long as you filter out any sediment that might be in it first. Do not drink flood water, since this will likely have more in it than you can get rid of by simply boiling it.

If you do not have electricity, using chlorinated bleach to sanitize water is also a good idea. You only have to use a couple of drops for each gallon of water you want to sanitize. Be aware that you should only use regular chlorinated bleach for this process. Do not use lemon or any other scented bleach.

When you filter water out of your tap for boiling, you should pour this through a clean (white, if possible) cloth and let the water set until it is no longer cloudy. Do not under any circumstances drink water straight out of the tap after the storm has hit, since your water treatment plant could be contaminated. Do not drink water out of the tap that has not been boiled until your local government says that your tap water is safe to drink.

If you do not have electricity or bleach, then using some water purification tablets to sanitize your water is also an option. Purchase some of these at an outdoor supply store where hiking and camping supplies are.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
New York water damage restoration and other states and cities such as
New York Basement Water Removal companies across the united states.

Water Damage Risk Areas

Correcting the water damage in your bathroom is usually a time consuming task depending on the severity of it, but the prevention of such damage is usually within the reach of most homeowners. The fact is that preventing this damage is usually much, much easier than the act of having to actually repair it after it has already occurred. Steam from showers and baths can discolor ceilings and cause mold growth, overflowing toilets onto cracked tile can lead to rotting of the floor underneath it, and there is always the possibility of mold growth. You should do what you can to protect this room in your home, since it is one of the most important rooms along with the kitchen.

There are a few different areas of your bathroom that you need to keep an eye on and look for any sign of abnormalities in on a regular basis. These areas that are the most at risk are the toilet, shower, bath tub, and the sink.

The bath tub and shower usually require some special attention, since these are the largest sources of water in the room and present the most risk. Over time, the tiles around the tub and shower can become cracked and if it is allowed to overflow, the floor underneath can become so damaged that the whole floor will need to be taken up and redone. Missing grout can also cause this. Repair the tile floor as soon as you notice cracks in it. Also make sure that the caulking around the tub is not loose or missing and if it is, you should re-caulk this yourself or have a professional do it for you.

Check the plumbing underneath the sink and make sure that there are no leaks. Loose seals in this plumbing should be replaced as soon as possible, as well.

The toilet can also overflow and the tile around this area can also be breached if it is cracked, so in the same manner as the area around the tub, the cracked tile needs to be dealt with. Keep your toilet from overflowing by not putting more paper in the toilet than it can handle. A lid lock can be purchased and put on toilets in homes that have small children that are prone to putting things in the toilet that do not belong there.

If you can see signs of moisture on the drywall, then you might also have a problem in the plumbing running through the walls. You need to call in a professional to deal with this problem.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Connecticut water damage contractors and other states and cities such as
Chicago mold remediation companies across the united states.

Restoring Smoke Damaged Clothes

Anyone who has been the victim of a house fire will tell you that the cleanup that you have to do afterward is a huge chore and that a lot of things in your house will either have to be cleaned thoroughly or have to be replaced. Unfortunately, this includes something that everyone has to use on a daily basis: clothing. The vast majority of us have to wear clothing every day of our lives and if a fire were to affect our whole wardrobe, a lot of us would be in some trouble.

Fortunately for us, though, cleaning smoke damaged clothing is not always as difficult as some might make it out to be. You will need to sort your clothing fairly heavily, though, since there are so many factors involved. How soiled the clothing is, what it is made out of, and what color it is. This will be the most time consuming part of the whole task.

Some things will need to be dry cleaned, but you do not want to take these to a normal dry cleaning service. Make sure that the dry cleaning service that you are dealing with has experience in dealing with smoke damaged clothing items.

Sort your clothes. Lightly soiled clothing should be put into one group and heavily soiled items into another. Sort them further by dividing them into kinds of fabric. Put synthetic fabrics into one pile and organics such as wool and cotton in another. Further sort them by color type. Bright warm colors, cool colors, dark colors, and reds should be given their own group. Do not be concerned over whether there is enough in each pile to constitute a full load. Washing them separately like this is necessary.

Before you wash the heavily soiled clothing, take them outside and shake them out. The excess soot and ash need to be removed so that the water in the washing machine does not become too saturated with dirt to be of any real use. Heavily soiled clothes should be washed twice or more.

Use as much detergent as the washer requires and add about a cup of water conditioner to the mix. Some all-fabric bleach can also be used. Use as much water as your machine can handle for each load.

Synthetic items should be washed in warm water so that they do not start to wrinkle during the washer’s spin cycle. Wrinkles can be difficult to remove from synthetic fabrics.

Hang the clothes out to dry instead of using the dryer, but do not do this in your basement or a confined area. Clothes should never be hung to dry inside the house; only do this outside. After they dry, smell them and see if the smoke odor is still there. If it is, wash them again and repeat the drying process.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
New York water damage restoration contractors and other states and cities such as
Connecticut mold remediation and water damage restoration companies across the united states.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

When Remodeling Your Home Kitchen

Even though the kitchen is one of the only rooms in the house that gets cleaned every day or even two or three times a day, depending on how many meals you fix, it is also one of the rooms that is the most neglected as far as long term care. This is one of the two most important rooms in your house and will often be a selling factor of the home. You need to take care of this room’s structure and appearance, especially if you plan on selling your home any time soon. Do what you can to take care of the water damaged parts of your kitchen and learn how to prevent water damage from occurring in the future.

One thing to be sure of is that the flooring in your kitchen is waterproof and completely sealed. You can have a hardwood floor in your kitchen or even in your bathroom, but reviews on the subject by most people are mixed. Some say that they have had a hardwood floor in these areas for a long time and they have been no worse for the wear, but others have had problems. It is really up to you, but you should consider going with a laminate that looks similar to real wood, since this will resist absorbing water much better and it will look almost the same.

If the dishwasher in the house is old and malfunctions often, you should really consider replacing it, whether you have hardwood, laminate, linoleum, tile, or vinyl floors. It really does not matter. Too much water spilled on the floor will eventually damage it and the cabinets that it comes into contact with. If the dishwasher is malfunctioning, wash the dishes by hand until the problem is solved.

Your plumbing under the sink should also be checked on a regular basis. If you find that it is leaking, even only a few drips, you should put a bucket or a large bowl underneath it until you get a chance to fix it. It is important not to let this leak into your cabinets for very long, because it can cause the bottom to rot out.

If the power goes out and all the food in your freezer melts, you’ll have a fair sized water leak on the floor. Get this cleaned up as soon as possible, even if your floor is waterproofed.

Lastly, make sure you have a mop in your kitchen that really absorbs water well. Some cheaper mops simply will not do the job if you spill a large amount of water onto the floor. If you can afford one, you might even want to purchase a wet vacuum.



Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
damage restoration companies and
mold removal companies across the united states.

Water Damage Considerations in the Bathroom

The bath has almost always been an important part of daily life for us all, even back into the ancient Romans who were known for their lavish and expensive bathing areas. The importance of the bath has not declined over time but has actually become much more important than it used to be, since most people are expected to bathe at least once a day. The bathroom takes a pretty heavy amount of abuse, though, and most people do not realize just how important it is not to neglect this area of the house. Neglecting the bathroom can knock thousands of dollars off the value of the home, especially if it appears to be structurally damaged by water.

Structural damage is significantly more important to take care of than cosmetic damage when you are trying to sell a home and a lot of the time, this damage is due to rotting support beams in the house. This is pretty common in the wet rooms of the property, such as the kitchen and the bathroom. One of the last things that any homeowner wants to deal with is the floor of a room collapsing, especially in the rooms that can add or subtract the most value from the house.

Make sure that the floor of your bathroom is extremely water tight. If water can get under the tile, it will soak the floor underneath and even though it does not seem like a lot to worry about, it will really add up over time. Having hardwood floors installed in either the kitchen or bathroom is not a good idea. Try installing laminate that is made to look like hardwood instead for a similar, yet more practical effect.

The ceiling and upper walls are often forgotten about completely when we think about the structural integrity of our homes, since we do not often look up long enough to realize that they need care, too. They take abuse in a different way, though; the steam that comes from taking a bath or a shower can damage these more than you think and this is why having an exhaust fan (as you see in most hotel bathrooms) is almost imperative if you want to avoid having to repaint or replace drywall in the future.

Something else important to think about is how often you allow your bathtub or toilet to overflow. If the bathroom is on the second floor or higher, this can wreak a huge amount of damage not only on the floor, but the ceiling underneath it. Do your best to not begin running a bath while you are on the phone or leave the room if you have to answer it. Keep an eye on it from the time you begin it until the time it ends and do not get occupied with other chores in the house.

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

Water Damage Concerns in the Kitchen

The heart of the house is the kitchen for most people, but they may not realize just how important taking care of this room is. Its structural integrity is often overlooked and everything in it is bound to take a lot of abuse, since it is one of the only rooms in your home that everyone goes into at least once or twice a day. The only other room that competes with this frequency is the bathroom in most circumstances, but it can suffer from about the same amount and kind of neglect. That neglect is water damage and these are the areas most at risk for it for obvious reasons.

Water damage not only does physical damage to the home, but it can also do a lot of damage to the value of the home, as well. Most people understate the drop in value that this can cause and thus, are not as careful in their kitchens as they need to be.

The most important structure in the kitchen is not really the most obvious one: the floor. The floor of your kitchen really needs to be water tight, since there are bound to be all kinds of spills, not just of water, but also of grease. For this reason, hardwood floors should not be put in the kitchen. Installing laminate floors that appear almost like natural wood is a great alternative, since they will handle spills much better.

Your dishwasher is also a concern. Malfunctions and leaks can end up doing a lot of damage to the floor over time and if you have one that does this often, consider saving up the money necessary to purchase a new one to replace it.

Another thing to consider is the ceilings and upper walls. You might not realize this, either, but the ceiling of your kitchen takes just as much of a beating as the floor does over the years. Steam from cooking on the stove year after year is absorbed by it and will eventually cause it to discolor or even to sag. Consider installing an exhaust vent in your kitchen if one does not already exist. This should do a great job of ridding the room of the excess humidity that can cause damage to the ceiling and also mold growth over time.

Try to keep any spills of water on the floor or counters cleaned up, since water and grease can do damage to anything if they are allowed to stay on the surface long enough.

Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
north carolina flood water damage restoration and other states such as
New Jersey mold remediation companies across the united states.

Mold Spores and HEPA Filters

While you may think that HEPA filters are overrated and you do not need to have any appliances in your home that have them, you may want to rethink that logic and take a moment to consider all the things that contaminate the air inside your house. As people are spending more and more time making a living while working from home, we do not realize just how many airborne particles we are inhaling. Whether it is smoke, pet dander, dead skin cells, mold spores, chemical fumes, dust mites, or anything else that might become airborne, having a HEPA filter either on your vacuum cleaner or having an air purifier equipped with one can improve the quality of your health by leaps and bounds.

High Efficiency Particulate Air filters are becoming more and more popular these days, but many of us are still skeptical about what exactly their qualifications are. These filters are made up of fibers that are arranged randomly so that dust and other small particles in the air have a hard time navigating through them. They are capable of removing 99.97% of all particles in the air down to 0.3 microns in diameter. This is approximately 1/300 the width of a human hair.

Removing mold spores and other possible allergens are of particular concern for parents of children who have allergies and respiratory conditions. A household that suffers from a high mold spore count can benefit from the purchase of a vacuum cleaner that is equipped with a HEPA filter until they can afford to remove the mold from the property.

HEPA filters used in hospitals and other clean areas have also been known to incorporate ultra-violet lights to kill some live bacteria that often become trapped by it. Some of the most effective HEPA filters are capable of removing 99.995% of particles from the air and this means that they are very effective in reducing incidences of airborne disease transmission.

Some vacuum cleaners also come equipped with HEPA filters, although in order to be effective, all the air that the machine takes in must be pushed out through the filter and none of the air can be allowed to get past it. To get through the extra amount of air resistance, the motor of the vacuum also needs to be much more powerful, so these machines are typically quite a bit more expensive than your normal vacuum.



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.
The Affect of Mold on Your Pets

If you have pets, you probably care for them about the same as you would care for the rest of your family. They are a part of most of our lives and have been for thousands of years, but unfortunately, they are not able to communicate to us with words that there is something wrong with them. Sometimes we notice symptoms or signs of disease or of pain, but they cannot really tell us what is wrong or where it hurts.

One example of this unfortunate situation is when mold spores form a yeast infection inside the body of the animal and by the time you notice symptoms, it is too late and it has to be put to sleep. This is a horrible situation for a pet owner to be in, but if you have mold in your home, you may not realize that there is anything wrong with your pet until the outcome is unavoidable. If you are experiencing allergy symptoms when you have no known allergies or suspect that there may be mold in your home, you should have the property inspected as soon as possible.

The symptoms of mold allergies are often the same as normal allergy symptoms, but the presence of mold can aggravate the allergies that you already have. Children, infants, the elderly, and pets are the most susceptible to health complications resulting from mold and if you are experiencing problems, odds are good that your pets are, as well.

Some mold remediation companies have even taken to the inhumane practice of using dogs to detect mold growth in homes. This is cruel and particularly unusual, since we as human beings are told repeatedly to never inhale mold spores, since they can lodge in the lungs and possibly lead to what is called aspergilloma (fungus balls) growing inside the body. There are often no symptoms of this until the infection is very advanced.

Birds are also particularly sensitive to changes in their atmosphere and physical environment. Keeping a bird, especially an expensive and exotic one, in a home that has a significant mold spore count in the air is not advised at all. This is not only for the sake of the animal, but also for the sake of your own investment.

If you believe mold is in your home and your pets are being affected adversely by it, take them to your veterinarian as soon as you can.


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