Even though wildfires are a part of the natural process of creation and destruction in the environment, the bad thing for people is that sometimes their homes are located directly in the path. A large number of people have to worry every year whether a wildfire will affect their area, but if you own your home and you know what to do, there are things that can protect your home from them. Depending on the circumstances and where your home is located, it may not be enough, but it certainly cannot hurt to try and you may actually end up saving your home.
Using fire-resistant materials on the exterior of your house is essential. The roofing material is the most important, since this has the largest amount of surface area and sparks of fire called firebrands will be picked up by the wind and possibly carried over your house. Having the fire-resistant roofing material such as metal, fiberglass, or tile will slow down the spread of the fire from the roof and it may not even catch on fire at all from one of these small sparks. You do not want to use oil-based roofing materials on a home that is located in a place at risk of wildfires.
Fire-resistant materials on the outer walls of your home will also slow down the spread of the fire, such as stone, metal, or brick, so if you are considering having a home built for you, these are materials you really want to consider. You should also have smaller windows on the exterior of your home, since large windows are more likely to break and allow the hot air and fire sparks from the outside of the house inside, where it will catch curtains and everything else. If you have to have large windows, have multi-pane ones instead of single-pane.
If there is a wildfire close to where you live, wet down the exterior of the house, especially your roof. This will give a little extra protection against firebrands floating by on the wind. Wetting down the yard and vegetation will also help, but you should do this just before you decide to leave the house.
Get rid of any dead vegetation in the yard and do not allow things like dead leaves to build up, since these are easy targets. If you do have a pile of leaves in your yard, the best thing that you can do before you evacuate is soak them down with water.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Dallas Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Your Laptop Hates Water
To anyone who owns a laptop, getting a soft drink or a glass of water anywhere near it is probably taboo, but if you are like me, then you probably keep something to drink near by at all times. You’d rather “risk it” than go thirsty, but this does not always have to be the case. While getting your laptop wet in any way can seriously damage it, there are ways to save it if you do happen to spill your drink or anything else onto the keyboard and subsequently, onto the hard drive, and etcetera. Unlike a desktop computer, the keyboard of a laptop is obviously located on top of the most important components of your computer: hard drive, memory, CD-ROM, and etcetera. Without these, your computer will not function.
The problem when you spill something onto your laptop is not with the actual liquid that you spill on it, although things that become sticky after they dry like soda or tea can be a hassle to clean up. The problem lies with the electricity that is running through your laptop at the time you spill the liquid onto it. It usually takes a few seconds for the liquid to get down into the electrical components of the laptop, so the first thing that you need to do if you spill something on your computer is to unplug it and take out the battery IMMEDIATELY. You must remove the electrical current from the laptop as quickly as possible in order to be able to save it.
After you remove the electrical current, the next thing that you have to do is to turn the machine upside down completely in order to keep the liquid from getting further into the shell of the laptop. This will keep it from coming into contact with your hard drive, memory, motherboard, and etcetera. You should allow the least amount of this liquid that comes into contact with those important components as possible, especially if it is an acidic liquid such as soda.
After you have drained as much of the liquid as possible out of it, collect some paper towels or just a normal towel and clean up any of the liquid from the outside of the machine.
At this point, depending on if you got the electricity removed from the unit in time, you could take it to a professional repairman or continue to repair the laptop yourself. The extent of the “repair” could be just allowing the unit to completely dry out or it could involve removing components and cleaning the sticky soda residue from them. Attempting to repair it yourself could possibly void your warranty for future damages, but a professional could be expensive.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
The problem when you spill something onto your laptop is not with the actual liquid that you spill on it, although things that become sticky after they dry like soda or tea can be a hassle to clean up. The problem lies with the electricity that is running through your laptop at the time you spill the liquid onto it. It usually takes a few seconds for the liquid to get down into the electrical components of the laptop, so the first thing that you need to do if you spill something on your computer is to unplug it and take out the battery IMMEDIATELY. You must remove the electrical current from the laptop as quickly as possible in order to be able to save it.
After you remove the electrical current, the next thing that you have to do is to turn the machine upside down completely in order to keep the liquid from getting further into the shell of the laptop. This will keep it from coming into contact with your hard drive, memory, motherboard, and etcetera. You should allow the least amount of this liquid that comes into contact with those important components as possible, especially if it is an acidic liquid such as soda.
After you have drained as much of the liquid as possible out of it, collect some paper towels or just a normal towel and clean up any of the liquid from the outside of the machine.
At this point, depending on if you got the electricity removed from the unit in time, you could take it to a professional repairman or continue to repair the laptop yourself. The extent of the “repair” could be just allowing the unit to completely dry out or it could involve removing components and cleaning the sticky soda residue from them. Attempting to repair it yourself could possibly void your warranty for future damages, but a professional could be expensive.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Cleaning Out Your Refrigerator
I love my food, but unfortunately, if I do not remember to keep my refrigerator cleaned out regularly, mold loves my food, too. Often people who have busy lives working and taking care of children cannot remember to clean their refrigerators out as often as they probably need to and since they have more people in the house to feed, there will also be more food. More food in the refrigerator equals more of an opportunity for bacteria and mold to grow. This is not typically a problem as long as someone keeps an inventory of what is in the refrigerator and what needs to be thrown away. You cannot completely keep mold out of your refrigerator because it exists in its spore form in the air that we breathe and unless we are talking about an extremely controlled situation like a hospital clean room, it is truly everywhere. There is not really any escaping it and while mold can grow in your fridge, you can do things to inhibit its growth rate.
Take anything that is outdated and obviously inedible out of your refrigerator and throw it away. Cleaning out everything from the refrigerator and setting it aside to go through later is a good idea when you need to clean out the entire refrigerator and sterilize it. Gather whatever chemicals you might want to use for cleaning the fridge and while this can include bleach, you might want to find another alternative that kills mold and bacteria specifically. If you only have bleach, though, go ahead and use it; just do not mix bleach with any other household chemicals.
Wash all the surfaces in the refrigerator with whatever cleaning solution you have decided on, including the racks in the door and the shelves and drawers inside the main part of the unit itself. Give it a good and thorough scrubbing. This is probably something that you should consider doing between two and three times a year or possibly more, depending on how messy your fridge gets.
When you are done cleaning the inside of the refrigerator (and the outside, if it needs it), it is time to go through what you took out. Take anything that you no longer desire and is no longer edible and throw it away. If any jars have any sticky residue on the bottoms of them, wash these off with a warm rag so you don’t get sticky grape jelly or whatever it is back on the surface of your clean fridge.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
Take anything that is outdated and obviously inedible out of your refrigerator and throw it away. Cleaning out everything from the refrigerator and setting it aside to go through later is a good idea when you need to clean out the entire refrigerator and sterilize it. Gather whatever chemicals you might want to use for cleaning the fridge and while this can include bleach, you might want to find another alternative that kills mold and bacteria specifically. If you only have bleach, though, go ahead and use it; just do not mix bleach with any other household chemicals.
Wash all the surfaces in the refrigerator with whatever cleaning solution you have decided on, including the racks in the door and the shelves and drawers inside the main part of the unit itself. Give it a good and thorough scrubbing. This is probably something that you should consider doing between two and three times a year or possibly more, depending on how messy your fridge gets.
When you are done cleaning the inside of the refrigerator (and the outside, if it needs it), it is time to go through what you took out. Take anything that you no longer desire and is no longer edible and throw it away. If any jars have any sticky residue on the bottoms of them, wash these off with a warm rag so you don’t get sticky grape jelly or whatever it is back on the surface of your clean fridge.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
General Rules For Mold Testing Kits
If you are unfortunate enough to have to test your home for mold, you are probably thinking that this is going to be a pretty inconvenient thing to have to do. Well, it might not be fun to think that you have disease-causing mold living in your house, but doing the actual test to determine if it exists is not really that hard to conduct at all. Whatever kind of test kit you end up using, the directions on the package must be followed to the exact letter or you will probably render the test useless. There are a few quite general rules that you should follow to get the most out of your testing kits.
If you can see the mold growing in your wall, ceilings, carpet, or on anything else in the home, you do not really have to do any guesswork as to whether you need to test the home or not. If you see anything like this, do not only test that room; test your entire home. Every room needs to be tested and this includes the ventilation system, because it extends to every room in the house and if mold is growing in the vents, it will spread to the rest of the house.
Run the air conditioner or fans in every room in your home before you put out the test kits so that if there are any mold spores in the room, they will be stirred up into the air and will settle down in the kit. Do not set them up anywhere high; a coffee table or somewhere around the mid to low level of the room should be fine. If you set them up too high, you may not get a good sample.
If there happens to be mold growing visibly on anything, you can use a piece of scotch tape to lift the mold up off the surface and place it into the test kit. There is a method that you can use involving scraping some of the mold into the kit with a knife, but since this can stir up mold spores even more, unless you are wearing a respirator, you are probably better off using the tape method.
To test the ventilation system, the best thing that you can do is tape a test against the grill of one of the ventilation ducts so that the air coming out of it is hitting the testing kit at a 90 degree angle. This will allow you to get the maximum amount of exposure.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
If you can see the mold growing in your wall, ceilings, carpet, or on anything else in the home, you do not really have to do any guesswork as to whether you need to test the home or not. If you see anything like this, do not only test that room; test your entire home. Every room needs to be tested and this includes the ventilation system, because it extends to every room in the house and if mold is growing in the vents, it will spread to the rest of the house.
Run the air conditioner or fans in every room in your home before you put out the test kits so that if there are any mold spores in the room, they will be stirred up into the air and will settle down in the kit. Do not set them up anywhere high; a coffee table or somewhere around the mid to low level of the room should be fine. If you set them up too high, you may not get a good sample.
If there happens to be mold growing visibly on anything, you can use a piece of scotch tape to lift the mold up off the surface and place it into the test kit. There is a method that you can use involving scraping some of the mold into the kit with a knife, but since this can stir up mold spores even more, unless you are wearing a respirator, you are probably better off using the tape method.
To test the ventilation system, the best thing that you can do is tape a test against the grill of one of the ventilation ducts so that the air coming out of it is hitting the testing kit at a 90 degree angle. This will allow you to get the maximum amount of exposure.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
Home Canned Food and Mold
Most of us like homegrown and prepared food, but sometimes when we can them in glass containers when we have too much garden produce to eat or too much to just give away, it does not all go according to plan. There are some tried and true canning techniques that have been in use in the past century or more, but sometimes we forget to use common sense when we are canning and this can lead to mold contamination in our food that we worked so hard to prepare and preserve.
We like to can our own food because we know exactly what chemicals and pesticides are going into it. Most of us do not like the idea of chemicals being put onto our food, even if they are deemed “safe” by the government or FDA. Sometimes the chemicals that they say are safe today are not safe tomorrow. But, mold contamination can be just as dangerous as any pesticide or preservative and there are a few things that you can do as a home canner to prevent this from happening to your canned items.
Make sure that the fruits and vegetables that you are canning are of the best quality from your garden. If they have any bad spots on them, cut these off or simply do not can them. Fruits and vegetables need to be washed and some need to be peeled before you can them. Starting with good quality ingredients is key.
Do not pack the food too tightly into the jars that you will can them in. The food in the center does not get to the high temperature that it needs to in order to kill bacteria and mold spores. You should pack food loosely, with at least a few inches from the top of the jar, depending on the size that you are canning in.
After you fill the jars, put the lids and the bands on. Start processing the food immediately so that mold and bacteria do not have a chance to start growing. If mold spores get into the jar, you might have a problem, because sometimes high temperatures just do not kill mold spores. Make sure any equipment that you use is completely sterile.
If you do happen to find mold growing in a jar after you open it, just throw it away. Foods that have a high amount of moisture are not salvageable when they become contaminated.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
We like to can our own food because we know exactly what chemicals and pesticides are going into it. Most of us do not like the idea of chemicals being put onto our food, even if they are deemed “safe” by the government or FDA. Sometimes the chemicals that they say are safe today are not safe tomorrow. But, mold contamination can be just as dangerous as any pesticide or preservative and there are a few things that you can do as a home canner to prevent this from happening to your canned items.
Make sure that the fruits and vegetables that you are canning are of the best quality from your garden. If they have any bad spots on them, cut these off or simply do not can them. Fruits and vegetables need to be washed and some need to be peeled before you can them. Starting with good quality ingredients is key.
Do not pack the food too tightly into the jars that you will can them in. The food in the center does not get to the high temperature that it needs to in order to kill bacteria and mold spores. You should pack food loosely, with at least a few inches from the top of the jar, depending on the size that you are canning in.
After you fill the jars, put the lids and the bands on. Start processing the food immediately so that mold and bacteria do not have a chance to start growing. If mold spores get into the jar, you might have a problem, because sometimes high temperatures just do not kill mold spores. Make sure any equipment that you use is completely sterile.
If you do happen to find mold growing in a jar after you open it, just throw it away. Foods that have a high amount of moisture are not salvageable when they become contaminated.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Texas Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
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