A house fire is one of the worst things that can befall a person and their family and the cleanup afterward can wreak even more havoc, but more on the wallet than anything else. You can hire someone to assist you in cleaning up your home after a fire has damaged the inside or you can do the majority of the cleanup yourself, depending on whether you are physically able or not. You can save a lot of money by doing most of the work yourself, but if there is anything that you are unsure of your ability to do, let the professionals handle it.
Do not enter the house without turning the electricity off, especially if there is standing water from the fire truck left. You need to record any damage that occurred to the home with a video or still camera. This will help you when you need to file a claim with your insurance company in the very near future. Locate the important papers in your home, such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, insurance papers, and etcetera. If you did not have a fireproof and waterproof safe to store these in, you should purchase one as soon as you can. The odds of a house fire happening to the same person twice may not seem that great, but it does happen. Learn from the past and protect your valuables.
Do not walk on carpets that have ash and soot on them. Use a vacuum cleaner (not an upright) to clean this up, since an upright has bristles that will only drive the ash further into the fibers of it.
Anything damaged by the fire or the water sprayed into the house by the fire truck should be removed and taken outside. Wet items of furniture should be taken outside and let to dry out as soon as possible. Items with a heavy amount of padding that have been soaked with water must be dried out as soon as possible or they will mold within a few days. This is different than in a situation where a sofa or chair is flooded by water from a river or the ocean due to a hurricane or other storm, since those waters contain mud, silt, bacteria, and etcetera. There is not much danger of a large amount of bacteria being in the water from the truck, so you are more able to save your furniture.
Unfortunately, the smoke damage to your ceiling and walls will have to be painted over. Most of the time, attempts to wash this off the walls only succeed in spreading the soot around.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of
Emergency Water Damage Restoration and
Houston Water Damage Restoration Which are Certified IICRC Water damage and mold remediation contractors.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Rooms at Risk for Mold
There are a number of different rooms in your home that can harbor mold, but a good way to guess where it might be is to look at the rooms of your house that are naturally moist. This is any area in your home that water comes out of the plumbing system and these are usually only the bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, and basement. Bedrooms and common areas can also be at risk for mold growth, but nowhere nearly as much as the other rooms in your home.
One thing you do not want to have in either the bathroom, kitchen, or laundry room, is carpet. This is just not a practical choice, since these rooms usually have large amounts of water going through them at least once a day. If the dishwasher or clothes washer malfunctions and spills water all over the floor, it will be much more difficult to clean up than if it was spilled onto a tile or linoleum floor. Mold starts to grow after about 48 hours and if you do not completely clean up the water, this is most likely to happen.
If you have a large appliance such as a dishwasher or clothes washer (and if you run a full household with spouse and kids, you should), and it malfunctions, you really need to get it replaced as soon as possible. The cost of repairing the water damage done to the floor by both over time will probably outweigh the cost of a new appliance. Cut back on some spending in other areas and purchase a new one as soon as you can.
Your bathroom is another important area to take care of. If your bathtub or toilet overflows, the damage to the floor can be substantial if it is not waterproofed. This means that there should be no missing areas of grout, no cracked tiles, and no missing or loose caulking around the base of the toilet or bath tub.
Something that you should purchase for all the moist rooms of your home is an exhaust fan. Most building codes require that there be an exhaust fan or a window in the bathroom, but you should really have both, since leaving a window open for the steam to escape is not always practical. It could be too cold, too hot, or raining outside, so having the exhaust fan helps with this inconvenience. The reason for the fan is to keep the steam from being soaked up by the ceiling and causing it to become discolored. If it soaks up enough water over time, it could start to sag and even collapse on you.
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.
One thing you do not want to have in either the bathroom, kitchen, or laundry room, is carpet. This is just not a practical choice, since these rooms usually have large amounts of water going through them at least once a day. If the dishwasher or clothes washer malfunctions and spills water all over the floor, it will be much more difficult to clean up than if it was spilled onto a tile or linoleum floor. Mold starts to grow after about 48 hours and if you do not completely clean up the water, this is most likely to happen.
If you have a large appliance such as a dishwasher or clothes washer (and if you run a full household with spouse and kids, you should), and it malfunctions, you really need to get it replaced as soon as possible. The cost of repairing the water damage done to the floor by both over time will probably outweigh the cost of a new appliance. Cut back on some spending in other areas and purchase a new one as soon as you can.
Your bathroom is another important area to take care of. If your bathtub or toilet overflows, the damage to the floor can be substantial if it is not waterproofed. This means that there should be no missing areas of grout, no cracked tiles, and no missing or loose caulking around the base of the toilet or bath tub.
Something that you should purchase for all the moist rooms of your home is an exhaust fan. Most building codes require that there be an exhaust fan or a window in the bathroom, but you should really have both, since leaving a window open for the steam to escape is not always practical. It could be too cold, too hot, or raining outside, so having the exhaust fan helps with this inconvenience. The reason for the fan is to keep the steam from being soaked up by the ceiling and causing it to become discolored. If it soaks up enough water over time, it could start to sag and even collapse on you.
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.
Molded Foods in Your Fridge
You do not normally think of mold as a part of your diet and you probably should not, but the fact is that foods have been made with mold in them for millennia. Most of the time, though, molded food in your refrigerator does not work in your favor and ingesting it can very well make you sick. This usually comes from outdated items or fruits and vegetables and most of the time, you will have to throw these things away.
Molded bread needs to be thrown out, because it is a porous food and any mold that grows on one piece will contaminate the next one to it. You cannot be sure how far the mold has embedded itself into the loaf, so it is best to just throw away the whole loaf.
Jellies and jams in the refrigerator are also notorious for mold growth. We tend to forget about old jars of grape jelly stuffed into the back of the fridge behind everything else and they mold after a while. Throw these out. These contain a large amount of moisture and cannot be saved. If you notice that this happens every time you purchase a certain kind of jelly, jam, or other item in your fridge, try to buy things that you know your family will eat before they become moldy. This will help with the problem.
Other items like sour cream and mayonnaise, like the jams and jellies that we mentioned earlier, cannot be saved. You can use outdated sour cream for a while, since sour cream is already sour, but molded sour cream should be thrown out as soon as it is discovered.
Some items in your fridge that become molded can be saved, though, if you know what to do with them. Items like hard salami and blocks of cheese can be salvaged if you cut around the molded spot and throw it away. Cut off at least an inch around and under these areas and do not touch the knife to the mold itself and then touch another part of the food. Cross contamination is a real problem here.
You can cut down on the amount of molded foods in your fridge by making sure that your family eats the leftovers that get stored there and by purchasing smaller containers of foods that you find are becoming molded the most often. You will save time and the money necessary to replace the molded food.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Orlando water damage restoration companies and
Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
Molded bread needs to be thrown out, because it is a porous food and any mold that grows on one piece will contaminate the next one to it. You cannot be sure how far the mold has embedded itself into the loaf, so it is best to just throw away the whole loaf.
Jellies and jams in the refrigerator are also notorious for mold growth. We tend to forget about old jars of grape jelly stuffed into the back of the fridge behind everything else and they mold after a while. Throw these out. These contain a large amount of moisture and cannot be saved. If you notice that this happens every time you purchase a certain kind of jelly, jam, or other item in your fridge, try to buy things that you know your family will eat before they become moldy. This will help with the problem.
Other items like sour cream and mayonnaise, like the jams and jellies that we mentioned earlier, cannot be saved. You can use outdated sour cream for a while, since sour cream is already sour, but molded sour cream should be thrown out as soon as it is discovered.
Some items in your fridge that become molded can be saved, though, if you know what to do with them. Items like hard salami and blocks of cheese can be salvaged if you cut around the molded spot and throw it away. Cut off at least an inch around and under these areas and do not touch the knife to the mold itself and then touch another part of the food. Cross contamination is a real problem here.
You can cut down on the amount of molded foods in your fridge by making sure that your family eats the leftovers that get stored there and by purchasing smaller containers of foods that you find are becoming molded the most often. You will save time and the money necessary to replace the molded food.
Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
Orlando water damage restoration companies and
Water Damage Restoration companies across the united states.
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