Most people would love to design and have their own custom home built and anyone that gets the chance to do this would do well to do their research on the entire home building process before even dialing the first number to a contractor. Know what issues can crop up with buying a home that already exists and educate yourself on this before considering having a home built for you. There are a number of things that a person wanting to build or even just purchase a home should do research on before they begin the process.
One of the most important things that you can look for when you are purchasing a home is mold. While you may not be able to see mold if it is growing inside the walls, floors, or ceiling, you can often smell that something is wrong with the house or look for other signs that mold may be growing in the house. Look around in the more moist areas of the home for mold, like the kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, and the basement. These are generally the areas where mold likes to grow the best simply due to the amount of moisture in these rooms. If you find no mold growing here, then odds are good that it is probably not growing anywhere else.
Water damage is also something that you want to look for. If you notice any buckling in the floors and the home is fairly new, ask if the home has been flooded in the past, either due to a natural disaster or due to a waterbed rupturing or a similar accident. Human errors like bathtubs, toilets, or kitchen sinks overflowing on a regular basis can also cause significant damage to the floor and carpet. You can avoid these most of the time just by paying attention to what you are doing when filling up a sink or a bathtub. Try not to leave the room.
You should also look on the outside of the house for signs of smoke damage under the eaves. This could be a sign that the inside of the house has been on fire at some point or another. If you see this, ask the seller about it to make sure that he or she is telling you the entire history of the property. There could be problems with it that you are unaware of and the last thing that a new homeowner wants to find is a bunch of surprises that they never factored into their budget.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Water Damage Miami and
water damage restoration in atlanta companies.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Mold and Food: What to Throw Away
Food in our refrigerators becoming contaminated with mold is just a simple fact of life. It is fairly inevitable, no matter how clean you try to keep your refrigerator, but which foods do you throw away?
It grows on everything that we eat and a few things that we do not, but when we find it in our refrigerators, we often end up arguing with ourselves over whether or not it will still be safe to eat if we remove the molded portions. The fact is that most foods, when they become contaminated with mold, cannot be saved. It can be a jar of our favorite jam or the sour cream you love to put on top of tacos, but if it gets mold on it, you might as well just toss it. Go buy another container and save yourself the trouble of a doctor visit later.
The reason that you need to throw most items away is that foods that have a high amount of moisture in them such as sour cream, cottage cheese, jellies, and jams, will become contaminated all the way through them because they are soft foods. The mold can easily get to the rest of the container, unlike in more dense items like blocks of cheese or in dense meats like hard salami. If mold gets onto these more dense items, you can generally cut out the moldy parts and just throw them away. As long as you cut one inch around and underneath the molded part of the food and throw it in the garbage, the rest of the item should be fine to eat.
When you bring home fruits and vegetables, make sure that they are clean and have no bad spots on them. If they do, make sure and cut them off before storing them in your refrigerator. Some fruits and vegetables will be fine when stored in plastic, but the use of re-sealable plastic bags is recommended over simple plastic wrap. Throw away any fruit or vegetables that have become contaminated, since this will cause other items nearby to become contaminated, as well.
Anything that has been baked such as cakes or breads should be thrown away if you find mold growing on them. These foods are porous and the mold is likely to have contaminated the majority of it.
Lunch meats should also be thrown away if they are found to be contaminated. These have a high moisture content and cannot be saved.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Chicago Water and Sewage Extraction and other states and cities such as
North Carolina Water and Sewage Extraction companies across the united states.
It grows on everything that we eat and a few things that we do not, but when we find it in our refrigerators, we often end up arguing with ourselves over whether or not it will still be safe to eat if we remove the molded portions. The fact is that most foods, when they become contaminated with mold, cannot be saved. It can be a jar of our favorite jam or the sour cream you love to put on top of tacos, but if it gets mold on it, you might as well just toss it. Go buy another container and save yourself the trouble of a doctor visit later.
The reason that you need to throw most items away is that foods that have a high amount of moisture in them such as sour cream, cottage cheese, jellies, and jams, will become contaminated all the way through them because they are soft foods. The mold can easily get to the rest of the container, unlike in more dense items like blocks of cheese or in dense meats like hard salami. If mold gets onto these more dense items, you can generally cut out the moldy parts and just throw them away. As long as you cut one inch around and underneath the molded part of the food and throw it in the garbage, the rest of the item should be fine to eat.
When you bring home fruits and vegetables, make sure that they are clean and have no bad spots on them. If they do, make sure and cut them off before storing them in your refrigerator. Some fruits and vegetables will be fine when stored in plastic, but the use of re-sealable plastic bags is recommended over simple plastic wrap. Throw away any fruit or vegetables that have become contaminated, since this will cause other items nearby to become contaminated, as well.
Anything that has been baked such as cakes or breads should be thrown away if you find mold growing on them. These foods are porous and the mold is likely to have contaminated the majority of it.
Lunch meats should also be thrown away if they are found to be contaminated. These have a high moisture content and cannot be saved.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Chicago Water and Sewage Extraction and other states and cities such as
North Carolina Water and Sewage Extraction companies across the united states.
Household Water Damage Prevention Tips
Water damage is something that no homeowner wants to have to deal with, but many times it is just a fact of life. Whether it is a flood, excessive rain, or even something as devastating as a hurricane, sometimes water damage cannot be helped, but what about the water damage that occurs to our homes that are simply accidents? Or something that we have just overlooked for far too long? There are quite a few things that you can to in order to keep water damage from impacting your pocketbook, but for them to have any affect, you have to remain vigilant.
Cleaning out your rain gutters as soon as the leaves stop falling in autumn is a pretty good idea. What your rain gutters do is keep the rain that falls on your roof from simply falling to the base of your home and settling there. Allowing water to settle around the base of your home will eventually cause it to sink into the ground, doing damage not only to the structure of the house, but also to the home’s value, as well. Another way to prevent this kind of slowly occurring damage is to make sure that the soil around the foundation of your home is piled up against the house at an angle so water drains away from the foundation naturally. Keep downspouts clear of leaves and sticks, as well, and make sure that the bottom of the downspout has gully that drains the water coming out of it away from the home.
Making sure the plumbing that leads to your dishwasher or to your clothes washer is of good condition. You should not have to replace these hoses very often, maybe around every 4 to 5 years, but hoses of poor quality can rupture and leave you with a huge mess, especially if you happen to be out of the home at the time it bursts. Clean up any spills as quickly as possible, but if the floor in your kitchen is hardwood, the best thing to do is just soak up whatever water you can with towels. If you have a vacuum used to draw water up, such as a carpet shampooer, you can use this to get some more of the water out. Do not use artificial heat to dry your floor, because this can cause the floor to buckle or cause what is called “cupping”.
Something else that you can do is install a vent in your bathroom and kitchen. This allows the steam that builds up from cooking or bathing to escape the house and not be absorbed by your walls and ceiling.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
flood water damage restoration chicago and
mold remediation companies across the united states.
Cleaning out your rain gutters as soon as the leaves stop falling in autumn is a pretty good idea. What your rain gutters do is keep the rain that falls on your roof from simply falling to the base of your home and settling there. Allowing water to settle around the base of your home will eventually cause it to sink into the ground, doing damage not only to the structure of the house, but also to the home’s value, as well. Another way to prevent this kind of slowly occurring damage is to make sure that the soil around the foundation of your home is piled up against the house at an angle so water drains away from the foundation naturally. Keep downspouts clear of leaves and sticks, as well, and make sure that the bottom of the downspout has gully that drains the water coming out of it away from the home.
Making sure the plumbing that leads to your dishwasher or to your clothes washer is of good condition. You should not have to replace these hoses very often, maybe around every 4 to 5 years, but hoses of poor quality can rupture and leave you with a huge mess, especially if you happen to be out of the home at the time it bursts. Clean up any spills as quickly as possible, but if the floor in your kitchen is hardwood, the best thing to do is just soak up whatever water you can with towels. If you have a vacuum used to draw water up, such as a carpet shampooer, you can use this to get some more of the water out. Do not use artificial heat to dry your floor, because this can cause the floor to buckle or cause what is called “cupping”.
Something else that you can do is install a vent in your bathroom and kitchen. This allows the steam that builds up from cooking or bathing to escape the house and not be absorbed by your walls and ceiling.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
flood water damage restoration chicago and
mold remediation companies across the united states.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
