Heating Devices Can Cause Fires

There is not a homeowner in the world that wants to have to clean up after a house fire, but this is a common occurrence around the world, no matter how careful you might be. You can go through your whole life and never even see a single tiny grease fire in the kitchen and your house still burn to the ground. On the same token, you can have several small fires on your stove or in other parts of your house, and the entire thing still be standing tall when you are ninety years old. But, do not think that it all comes down to luck, because it most certainly does not. The likelihood of a fire burning your house down is directly related to how closely you pay attention to the electrical items in your home. This includes maintenance on large appliances and whether you are using small electrical appliances correctly or not.

One thing that most people do not think about causing a house fire is a curling iron. These have been used by women to curl their hair for many years, but leaving an electric one on and unattended for any period of time is not a good idea. They can cause not only burns on any small children or pets that may run into the cord, but can also cause things to catch on fire depending on where you are using it in the house.

Another item that needs to be used carefully is the space heater. These come in all shapes and sizes, but the general consensus is to never leave these on for extended periods of time and to not use extension cords with them. If you have to use an extension cord, make sure that it is a heavy gauge one with a marking of at least 14. If you can stand to turn them off while you are sleeping, it is a good idea to do so, since many fires of this nature happen at night when no one is awake to watch the heater.

A winter item that you need to be just as careful with is the electric blanket. There have been reports of people waking up with their beds on fire because they left them on while they were sleeping. You also do not want to put pressure on the heating elements in these blankets, since they are easily damaged.

Storm Survival Necessities

Preparing for a hurricane can be some hectic business, but compiling a list of things that you will need during the storm if you are planning on staying home is the easiest way to sort this mess out.

The most important thing you will need is clean water to drink. You can purchase bottled water at the grocery store if you need to, but a cheaper way to do this is to save old milk jugs and fill them with tap water before the storm begins. As long as you have somewhere to store the milk jugs, you should not have a problem with this method. If you do not have anywhere to store them, you can buy water at the store just before the storm begins, but be aware that they might not be able to meet the demand.

After the storm begins and you are shut up inside your house, you should not drink the tap water or even really bathe in it because of possible contamination. It might be fine to bathe in sea water, but you never know what the local water supply may be contaminated with. It could be sewage, chemicals, soil, or any one of a number of different things. Try to have enough clean water saved up to bathe a little with while the storm passes.

You will also need plenty of non-perishable food to eat. This should include pre-packaged food that does not have to be cooked, since there is a good chance that the electricity will go out, depending on how far you will be from the hurricane’s landfall.

Another item you may want to have on hand is a hand crank radio. This is something else that you will need if the electricity goes out; it will allow you to keep in touch with what is going on in the outside world and if there is anything that you need to know about. It can also help keep you from getting cabin fever, since you may be trapped by the storm in your house for a few days or longer.

Batteries for anything that you may need should also be available, especially for a flashlight.

Having a first aid kit on hand is always a good idea whether a natural disaster is imminent or not.

A rain coat and some heavy rain boots should be kept in case you have to go out for any reason.

You should also make it a point to keep some cash on you, since your local ATMs and banks may not be available for a while.

Preventing House Fires

A house fire can be one of the most devastating experiences a homeowner can go through, but there are a number of things that you can do to reduce the chance of this happening. A large number of house fires result from people simply not paying attention to what they are doing, neglecting an electrical device, or using one incorrectly.

Space heaters are used in the winter in many homes that cannot afford to pay the gas bill or the extra electricity cost that it takes to heat their home, but these are the cause of house fires if they are not used properly. The first thing you need to realize about these devices is that you should never use an extension cord with them unless they are heavy duty. The cord should be a gauge 14 at least or else it will melt. The smaller cords simply cannot handle the amount of electricity needed to power these devices and so, they cause fires.

Something else you should be wary of is putting the heater on a carpeted surface. You can do this with heaters that have a good amount of space between the heating element and the floor, but space heaters with short legs should be used only on non-carpeted floors.

Another electrical item that is often misused is the electric blanket. Imagine waking up and the bed being on fire with you in it. That could be mistaken for a nightmare, but it has happened before to people who do not turn their blankets off when they go to sleep. Electric blankets need to be used to warm up the bed only and turned off afterward and they should NEVER be left on their highest setting while you are sleeping under them. You should also not allow pets or children to walk on these, since it can damage the cords inside them and cause them to have shorts.

Any other electrical device that puts out heat should be used very carefully to ensure that a house fire does not break out. It is important to follow the directions of the device to the letter and use the utmost caution if you have to leave it unattended for any amount of time. Try not to leave these items alone for more than a few minutes at a time.

Grease fires are also common in the kitchen. The best way to prevent this is to heat oil or shortening slowly and never leave it unattended.

Hurricane Water Sanitation

Hurricanes and typhoons occur in different parts of the world, but the effect of both is typically the same. Flooding, high winds, extremely heavy rain, and often casualties occur during both of these kinds of storms, even though one type occurs in the Atlantic and the other occurs in the Pacific. They are similar in not only this way, but also in the way that you need to prepare for them.

Both of these storms can do serious damage to your local water supply and contaminate it with leaves, sticks, other debris, sewage, and sea water. This means that your local water supply is not safe to drink until your local government says that it is safe to do so after the storm is over. You should never drink the water out of your faucet while the storm is still going on outside and if possible, you should always evacuate your area if you are worried that your home could be flooded by the storm or the collapsing of surrounding dams or levees. The catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 showed what can happen when levees break, so if you live in a similar area and a hurricane comes to town, take whatever you can carry and get out.

If you are not worried about your home flooding during this storm, then you will still need to save up as much water as you can to ride out the storm in your home. As mentioned earlier, drinking your tap water after the storm begins is not an option. You can boil it if you need to, but the bad thing about this is that boiling does not remove any chemicals from the water that it may have been contaminated with. You can purchase bottled water before the storm gets to your house or you can go the cheap way and save tap water in rinsed milk jugs. This is the easiest and cheapest way to do it.

Consider just how much water you are going to need. This amount will go up with the number of people that will be staying in your house and the amount of time you are expecting to be locked up in it while you are waiting for the storm to end. Each person should have access to one gallon of water for their use per day. The last thing that you want is to run out of drinking water, so if it is looking like your water supply might not last, forego bathing until the storm is over.

Floor and Ceiling Water Damage Help

Finding mold or water damage in your bathroom is something that no homeowner wants to deal with, but the fact is that this happens more often than most people realize and that preventing it is much easier than dealing with the discovery later on after you have neglected this very important room of your home. If you are moving into a brand new house, then you are in luck, since there will probably be neither water damage nor mold in the bathroom when you get into it. You are ahead of the game. If you are moving into an old house or have lived in the same home for a number of years, then you might have some issues on your hands, but hopefully the room is not so far gone that you will have to renovate completely to take care of them.

The first thing that you need to look at in your bathroom is the floor. This is what holds up everything else in the room and if it gives way, it does not matter the quality of the craftsmanship in the rest of the room; everything in the room will end up on the ground under the house. So, if the flooring in your bathroom is old or damaged, then you should replace it. Before you put the new flooring down, though, you should take a look at the joists underneath to see if they are water damaged or rotting. If they feel weak in any way, you should find the money to repair it with, since building a new bathroom on top of weak joists makes no sense at all, because weak and rotted joists are what you are trying to prevent in the first place. You should also look for mold under the old flooring, as well, and remove any materials contaminated with it.

After you replace the flooring (if necessary) and put down the new flooring, you need to make sure that the entire floor is water tight to prevent rotting the joists later on. Much more water goes through the bathroom every day than you may realize, so think about this when waterproofing your floor. There should be no missing areas of grout or caulking anywhere in the room.

The next place you need to look is up. Does your ceiling sag at all or is it cracked in any places? Do you have a window in the bathroom or an exhaust vent? Or do you have neither? One of the most important things that you can install in the bathroom to protect it is an exhaust vent. Steam from your shower or bath is absorbed by the ceiling over time if it has nowhere to go, cause mold growth, and the drywall to sag. If enough water is absorbed by the ceiling over the years, it can crack and eventually collapse.

Bathroom Water Damage and Mold Help

Nobody wants to find mold growing in the bathroom, but you will if you do not take the proper steps to make sure that it is taken care of on a regular basis. There are a number of things that you can do to stop mold from growing in your bathroom and since you will spend a large amount of time in this room over the years, it is suggested that you take these steps no matter what it might cost your wallet. The last thing you want is to need a mold remediation done in the bathroom that could cost you thousands of dollars simply because you did not take the time and effort to care for it.

One of the most important parts of your bathroom is not the tub, the toilet, or the sink, but the floor. This holds up everything else in the room and if this goes, the entire thing will fall to the ground underneath the house. This happens more often than you think and it is usually due to floors not being properly waterproofed. You can do this by making sure that there are no cracked tiles or cracked portions of linoleum or whatever flooring you have decided to have put down in the bathroom. If the flooring is old and you have not had it replaced since you have lived in the home and it is damaged, you will want to seriously consider having the floor checked out to see if it is water damaged. Mold can also start growing underneath it, so if the bathroom smells musty at all, you may want to have the house checked for this, too.

Another thing that you want to consider adding to the room is an exhaust vent. Exhaust vents are required by many local building codes and you may not really feel like you need it if you have a window, but installing one is a good investment since it is not always a good idea to leave the bathroom window open. The reason for these vents is so steam is not absorbed by the ceiling and upper walls and cause them to become molded over time. Ceilings that absorb water like this will also start to sag and possibly collapse later.

You should also keep an eye on the plumbing underneath the sink and near the toilet. You should not neglect the slow drips that can happen with these pipes and you should get them fixed as soon as possible, no matter how water tight your floor might be.

What to Know About Hiring a Contractor

Hiring a contractor to build your house might be some tricky business, especially since there are so many factors involved, but it does not have to be a nightmare if you do your research and know what to look for.

First of all, the contractor that you choose needs to be a licensed one. After you discover that they are licensed, find out if there have been any lawsuits or claims filed against that license. They should also have the appropriate levels of insurance so if anyone is injured while they are on your property, you are not liable for their medical bills.

Second of all, you need to talk to each contractor you are considering in person and make sure that you can get along with this person. You both need to be able to get along so you can concentrate on the process of building the home instead of arguing about this or that. This person will be in your life for at least a few months, so hiring someone that you can tolerate is important.

Next, you need to get references from each contractor that you talk to and talk to those references at length and make sure that the contractor does good work. Ask if they have had any mold or water damage issues since their home was constructed or since their remodeling work was finished. Mold may be the most important issue to look for, since this gets built into new homes more often than most people think due to materials being stored directly on the ground or because they have been rained on.

You should also consider what your contract with this person is going to have in it. You should schedule a date for when the project will start and an approximate date that you want it to have been completed by. If you are expecting a baby or any other major event that will require you to have the home completed, take this into account when hiring your contractor. Find out when they can start on the project and if you do not have any room to be flexible (this is rare), consider hiring someone else.

The contract also needs to contain exactly what materials you want your home to be built from, from the kitchen counter material to the type of finish you want on all the hardware. Be very specific and do not give room for any substitutions, since some contractors will substitute lower grade materials without you noticing if they can get away with it.

Space Heater Fire Prevention

While a large number of people use space heaters in their home during the winter to avoid having to pay the gas bill during that time, most people are not completely aware of just how much damage these little conveniences can do to their home if they are left unattended or used incorrectly.

Any homeowner with children should be wary of using space heaters, depending on how old the child is. Small children tend to touch things they are unfamiliar with or things that look “cool” and this can be a really big hazard. It is a bad idea to use a space heater in a child’s room at night, especially since smaller children tend to have stuffed animals and toys all over the room that could easily get too close and start a fire.

Something else that you should know about space heaters is using extension cords with them is a very bad idea if you do not have access to a heavy duty one. The smaller extension cords that are used for lamps or other electronics simply cannot stand up to the high amount of electrical current needed to power a space heater and they will eventually melt. You may or may not realize it, either, since sometimes you will be able to smell the melting plastic, but other times you might not. Use an extension cord that is marked as being at least a 14 gauge or higher cord. This should be able to handle most space heaters.

A great number of fires concerning space heaters happen at night when people are sleeping. If you can help it, try to leave space heaters off at night. Cover yourself with more blankets or anything else you have to do in order to stay warm, since a space heater may catch on fire and end up causing you and everyone else in the house to be much, much warmer than you intended.

Space heaters should never be used as dryers for any kind of wet clothing, even though some people have done this by setting something they want to make warm on top of it. Do not do this even for a few seconds and even if you are right there watching it. It is a bad practice to get into and once you become confident that nothing will happen, you will let your guard down and a fire will eventually happen. It may not happen the first, second, or third time, but fires are unpredictable and you never know when one may start.

Keep at least one smoke detector in your home and have one located on each floor, whether you use space heaters in your home during the winter or not. Fires can break out no matter what kind of heating system you may use.

Simple Ways to Prevent Water Damage

Finding mold growth in your house does not always require the help of a professional, since not all mold is hidden in nooks and crannies or behind the wall. The easiest places to find mold growth are typically in the bathroom, laundry room, kitchen, and basement. These are usually the places that show the signs of negligence the most and mold growing in these rooms is usually fairly easy to spot.

In a bathroom, the usual place to find mold growth is around the upper walls and ceiling if it does not have an exhaust vent or a window in it. Even though building codes in most places now require that there be either an exhaust vent or a window in the bathroom, older homes may not have either one. It is in your best interest to make sure that your bathroom is renovated to include one of these two features, although if your bathroom is located in the center of your house and not attached to an outer wall, you will have to install a vent to get rid of the excess moisture. What happens is that the moisture is soaked up by the ceiling or the upper walls and allows mold to grow on it and eventually, the ceiling will absorb so much water that it will be in danger of collapsing. The need for an exhaust vent also extends to the kitchen, since steam comes off the stove from cooking dinner.

Another problem to worry about in bathrooms or kitchens is whether or not the floor is waterproofed. No matter what kind of flooring that you have in either room it should be completely water tight so water does not get underneath it and to the floor joists. Floors have completely collapsed in these rooms due to this when waterproofing the floor would have been much cheaper than repairing the damage done by neglecting to do this.

Overflowing toilets, bathtubs, and kitchen sinks also cause mold growth and water damage to a home if it is allowed to happen very often, so making sure that this does not happen and that the floor around it is waterproofed is extremely important. You should do your best not to get preoccupied with other chores or talking on the phone while you are running a tub of bathwater or filling up the kitchen sink.

Any small leaks under the kitchen or bathroom sink also need to be taken care of fairly quickly. Put a bucket underneath it for a temporary fix if you have to, but do not let the drip continue to come into contact with the inside of your cabinet.

Remodeling the Kitchen and Bathroom

The favorite and most frequented rooms of the house tend to be the bathroom and the kitchen and while these are the rooms that can add or subtract the most value from your home, most people do not realize just how important it is to take care of them. A great deal of time in everyone’s life will be spent in one of these two places in the home and making them the most comfortable and pleasant rooms in the house to be in can be quite a task, especially if you have just moved into a home where they need a bit of TLC.

Some of the giveaway signs that a kitchen needs a little remodeling are the cabinets and the flooring. If these are out of date, water damaged, or otherwise unpleasant to your eyes, you will want to replace these as soon as you can. Sometimes all they need is a simple coat of paint or a drawer or two replaced, but any cabinet that shows signs of severe water damage such as rotting need to be thrown out. It is hard to make a kitchen look new and modern with old, partially rotten cabinets still in it.

The same goes for the bathroom. A water damaged or molded vanity needs to be thrown out and replaced with a new one if you want your bathroom to look brand new.

Something else that you need to think of when you are remodeling your kitchen and bathroom is the existence of a steam vent so the moist air in the room can escape. Bathrooms and kitchens that do not have ways for steam to escape will be the victim of mold growth and a sagging ceiling if the problem is not dealt with. These are not too difficult to install, but will cost you maybe a couple hundred dollars and half a day’s time. If you are unsure how to do this yourself, you can hire someone to do it for you.

The floor of both these rooms should be waterproofed, but the bathroom floor is more important than the kitchen since a much larger amount of water flows through the bathroom every day. Rotting floors in the bathroom is a big problem, since there are a number of cases every year where the bathroom floor completely gives out due to the amount of water the floor joists have soaked up over the years.

Mistakes Made With Fire

Almost everyone has let the bathtub or the kitchen sink overflow at least once, but what most people do not realize is that not paying attention to what you are doing when you are working with heat and water is that these can cause much more damage to their home than they may think. Since fires tend to do much more immediate and devastating damage, they are what will be covered here.

One of the biggest mistakes that you could ever make in your home is leaving something unattended in the kitchen on the stove. We all know what devastating damage a fire can do to a home, but the number of people that put items on the stove and leave the room are staggering. Almost all of us do this on a day to day basis because we get preoccupied with other chores or have to answer the phone or tend to other matters in the household. If you can put any of these things off until later and focus on cooking, please focus on cooking and try to leave the kitchen as little as possible. A fire can start in an instant and this is especially true when you are cooking with grease. At least one person that I know has burned her entire house down and everything in it by putting a pan of grease on the stove, sitting down to watch television, and falling asleep. She lost everything. So, if you are cooking with grease or a deep fryer, forget everything else and just focus on the food. If you absolutely must multitask and watch TV in the kitchen, adding a small television on the counter or under the cabinet may be the way to go.

Another mistake that people make when dealing with electricity and possible fire concerns the space heaters that some people use to get by during the winter. These are notorious for starting house fires, but you do not have to be a victim as long as you know how to use these safely.

The first thing you should know about space heaters is that you should NEVER use an extension cord with them. Simple extension cords simply cannot handle the amount of current necessary to run these items and they will melt fairly quickly. If you must use an extension cord, it needs to be a heavy duty cord marked as being at least a 14 gauge.

You should also be careful with where you place space heaters. If possible, they need to be on a non-carpeted surface, but you can put them on carpet if you are careful. Heaters with more space between the heat source and the floor are safer to use on carpeted areas than ones with shorter legs. Try to avoid space heaters with short legs if you can, since these tend to start more fires than any other kind.

Making Mistakes With Fire and Water

Everyone makes mistakes and that is just a fact of life, but the reality is that a lot of the mistakes that you can make that are the most devastating to your home can be completely avoided simply by paying attention to what you are doing. Some of the worst accidents conceivable can happen while you are inside your own home and no matter how careful you are, accidents will always happen, but one of the most important things that you can do while you are working in your home is to pay attention.

For example, when you are cooking in the kitchen, the worst thing that you can do is put something on the stove and leave it unattended. Maybe you get occupied doing other chores around the house or you have to answer the phone or tend to the kids in another room, but if you can put that off until later, never leave anything unattended on the stove for more than a few seconds. Houses have been badly fire damaged and even completely burned to the ground by leaving things unattended on the stove, especially grease. You should never begin heating grease on the stove and leave it alone. A relative of mine did this and sat down on her couch, fell asleep, and her entire house burned to the ground. Never leave the kitchen when cooking with grease unless absolutely necessary and never let yourself get preoccupied with other chores. It is just not worth the risk.

Another less immediate threat to your home is water. Water does not do the devastating immediate damage that fire can do, but this could possibly make it even more of a risk simply because you do not realize any damage is being done. Whether you are filling up the kitchen sink to wash dishes or filling up your bathtub, this is another area where getting preoccupied with other activities can get you into trouble. Doing your best to keep the sinks and tubs in your home from overflowing should keep your kitchen and bathroom floor pretty safe from water damage and mold growth.

Even if you do slip up and let a container of water overflow, you can keep it from doing too much damage to your floor by making sure the floor is waterproofed. You can do this by making sure that there are no cracks in the flooring, whether it is tile, linoleum, or anything else, no missing areas of grout, and no missing areas of sealant around the base of the cabinets.

Home Contractors, Mold, and Water Damage

The worst thing that you can find in your newly built home is mold, but it is something that is built into homes these days by careless contractors bent on getting the job done with as little effort as possible on their part. As the employer of the contractor, it is your responsibility and in your best interests to be at the job site on a regular basis to ensure that the building materials that your contractor purchased to build your home with are both up to your standards and that they are handled correctly.

Your contractor should have purchased only the materials that you outlined in your contract with him or her to purchase. They should have purchased nothing more and nothing less. None of these materials, especially drywall, should be stored directly upon the ground where it comes into contact with the soil. They should be stored on tarps or raised up off the ground in some way. This will help ensure that mold does not start to grow on them before they are used in the construction of the house.

The building site should also be covered with tarps before it rains until the roof and walls are put up to protect the interior of the structure.

Before you hired your contractor, you should have obtained references from him or her to determine the quality of their craftsmanship. This is something that you should do when hiring anyone to do almost anything for you concerning an investment such as this. You should ask the references whether they have had any problems with mold or water damage since their home was built and if it was due to bad construction or not. As long as your contractor is known for good building practices, you should have no problem with the way that he treats the building materials for your house.

It is unfortunate that you cannot be at the site of your home’s new construction all the time, but the more you are able to check on the progress of your home’s construction, the better. You should have a mold inspector come and inspect the property at least twice, once during the middle of the construction and again once it is completed to determine that there is no mold growing in the home.

Home Building Contractors

Having a home built for you is a tricky procedure, especially since there are so many different factors to consider. The first thing that you need to think of, though, is just who you will hire to do this task for you. There are a large number of contractors out there that would love to do the job, but the fact is that not all of them are honest or completely up to the task of making sure it gets done correctly. Many contractors have been known to use poor quality materials, even if they are up to local building code standards. They may end up causing damage to your home, but you cannot do anything about it as long as the materials the contractor used are up to local structural codes.

When choosing a contractor, you should talk to people that you know and trust first to find out if they can recommend anyone for the job. Only after you have exhausted these resources should you look to the local phone book. No matter which method you use, you should obtain at least three different references from at least three different contractors so you will have some options. Contact each of the references and ask if the newly built home has had any problems with mold or water damage since the construction was finished. Other structural problems should also be asked about.

After you have gotten a few different contractors to choose from that you find to be reputable, ask each one of them for a fixed price bid based on the building plan that you give to them and what materials you want the home built out of. They may try to get you to accept a time and materials contract, but this can be tricky, since time and materials contract allow the price to vary depending on different factors such as the cost of labor and building materials. They may quote you a low price in the beginning, but it can quickly rise as unexpected issues come up with the building process.

The contract with your contractor should be very specific as to what is covered in it. It should include the date that the project will begin and a date by which it should be finished and also include what specific building materials you wish for the home to be built out of so that your contractor does not have much room to substitute other, lesser materials.

Getting the Right Contractor

There are a number of factors that you need to consider when hiring a contractor to build your new home and the process of finding the right one can be somewhat tricky. While you may think that hiring a contractor is a few simple steps, but a lot of it can be attributed to your own intuition.

Talk to your relatives and friends and find out if they can recommend a good contractor to you. This is the most reliable way to do find a contractor to build your house, but if you do not have anyone that you can talk to or they cannot recommend anyone, then you should try the phone book. The general consensus is to never use the phone book to hire people to work on your home, but not all of us have the friends or relatives that can give us advice on who to choose.

Get in touch with a few different contractors and ask for at least three references from each one and contact them all. Ask if they have had any issues with water damage or mold in their newly constructed home and ask about other structural problems that might exist. Write down what you discover about each contractor and use this to make a decision on who to offer the job. Get a fixed price bid from the ones you think are good enough for the job and make sure they get the same building plan.

Your contract with them should have a number of specifics in it so that there is no room for confusion as to what is expected of your contractor. Dates showing where the project should begin and approximately when it should end are to be included along with a list of materials the home will be built out of. Consider offering incentives to your contractor if the job is completed early and offer penalties if the job is not completed by a certain date if moving in as soon as possible is important to you.

Any contractor that you hire should have the proper insurance for himself and his workers so workers are covered by his insurance while they are working on your property. You need to obtain copies of all these insurance policies and keep them in a job folder along with other necessary documents like your building contract and a payment schedule.

You should make payments to your contractor as work progresses and do not let your payments get ahead of the work that has been done.

Fires And The Smoke Point of Oil

If you cook a lot at home and with oil, then you are probably at least somewhat aware of what a smoke point refers to. Even some of us who do cook fried or stir fried foods often are not fully aware of what a smoke point is and what it might be for the particular kind of oil that we are cooking with. It is something that every cook should be familiar with, since not knowing the smoke point of the oil that you are cooking with can cause it to catch on fire. Some of the worst house fires ever have been started by cooking with oil in the kitchen and by knowing the smoke point of what you are cooking with, you can reduce the chances of having an oil fire greatly.

Unrefined oils that have been harvested using what is called cold extraction tend to have a lower smoke point than other kinds of oil. These unrefined oils usually have better flavor than refined oils and are usually used in sautéing, baking, and for salad dressings. Unrefined oils tend to include avocado oil, some nut oils, and olive oils. Oils that have high smoke points are generally peanut oil, canola, soy, and safflower oil.

A pan containing oil that has reached its smoke point needs to be removed immediately and let to cool. After it cools, it should be thrown out for a number of reasons. Oil that reaches its smoke point starts to break down and will taste very bad, which is why any kind of oil that has reached its smoke point should be thrown out. It will make the food taste bad and the smoke should not be breathed in or the oil consumed, since it can form carcinogens.

You should heat oils gradually because they will perform better than if you just pour them into a very hot pan. As long as they are heated up and cooled off slowly, you can reuse most oils, but you should throw them away as soon as they start to discolor or smell rancid.

One of the worst things that you can do is leave oil to heat in the kitchen on its own. A home catching on fire and burning down completely is not an uncommon occurrence when there is unattended oil heating in the kitchen. What makes this another very bad situation is that oil and electrical fires cannot be put out with water, no matter how much of it you throw on it. If your oil or stove catches on fire and it is fairly small, you can put it out effectively by using baking soda or using your fire extinguisher. Anyone who cooks with oil on a regular basis should have both of these items close by, just in case.

Carelessness Concerning Electricity and Water

All homeowners have been careless at one time or another concerning water or electricity in their homes, but unfortunately negligence is one of the leading causes of damage to homes in the country. You should not fail to take care of your property and do maintenance whenever needed, but you should also make it a point not to take unnecessary risks when concerning water and electricity. While water does not do much immediate damage to a property, fire certainly does and carelessness with electronic items can cause fires much more quickly than anything in the natural world.

Most house fires are caused by either failing to make sure that an appliance used on a daily basis is not in danger of having electrical shorts or due to an electrical device being left unattended when it should not be. Space heaters are particularly dangerous in this regard and should not be left on overnight or used with an extension cord that is not a heavy duty gauge of at least 14. They should also not be left on overnight unless absolutely necessary, since most house fires tend to happen when people are sleeping.

This is also the case when you are cooking with grease or oil of any kind in the kitchen. Houses have caught on fire and burned completely to the ground due to leaving oil or shortening to heat in the kitchen unattended. You should never leave anything you are cooking unattended on the stove, especially if it is grease or solid shortening. It catches on fire much quicker than you would think, so no matter what reason you may find to leave the room, you should either stay in the kitchen or turn the stove off.

Water damage occurs mostly when there are leaks from the outside of the home or the plumbing, but sometimes damage occurs due to carelessness, too. This can happen when you are running a tub of bath water or filling up the kitchen sink to wash dishes, but the fact is that people often become preoccupied with other chores or phone calls and allow them to overflow onto the floor. Whenever you run a large quantity of water into a container, you should always watch it to make sure that it does not overflow, since allowing it to do so on a regular basis can cause damage to the floor, especially if it is not waterproof.

Buying a Home: What To Look For

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.

Bathroom and Kitchen Remodeling Necessities

The one thing that most wives want in their home is a bathroom and kitchen customized to their tastes. Since we will spend a large amount of time in these rooms before we die (especially wives), these need to be the most pleasant and comfortable rooms in the house to be in. You should be able to spend a lot of time in this room without wanting to leave, but if you have just moved into a house where these rooms need a little TLC, then you have the perfect opportunity to make sure you have the ability to do just that.

One of the first things that shows the age of the house is the flooring in the kitchen and the bathroom. Water damaged or molded flooring shows the most age, but old linoleum and cracked tiles can show it just about as much, depending on the extent of the damage. You should choose the new flooring of your choice according to what you can afford and make sure that the materials that you build the kitchen out of are of consistent quality, but these days it is best not to go with a linoleum floor. Travertine stone floors are in style and are expensive, but are easy to take care of and will last a long time. It will be harder for water and mold to get underneath this than linoleum, as well.

While the kitchen floor is at risk for water damage and mold, the bathroom floor is even more in danger. This is because a much larger amount of water goes through the bathroom every day than in the kitchen, so making sure that this floor is very water tight is essential if you want the floor joists underneath to maintain their integrity over the years.

You also need to consider the fact that the kitchen and the bathroom are the two rooms in the house that are the most humid. You should have a range hood installed over the stove which will serve as a vent to draw the steam out of the kitchen and stop the ceiling from absorbing water and thus becoming molded over time. Mold is an extremely unsanitary and unsightly thing to have in the kitchen, so making sure the steam has a place to go is a good idea. An exhaust vent should also be installed in the bathroom above the tub or the shower and depending on your budget, the light in the room can also be included along with the vent.

Advice For Hiring a Contractor

Most people would love to be able to design and have a home built just for them, but not everyone has this opportunity. If you do, though, it would benefit you to do a lot of research beforehand to make sure that you get the right person to do the job.

Something you should understand about hiring a contractor is that the best place to find a good one is not in the phone book. The contractors with the ads that look the best are not always the best people for the job and if you or someone you know has ever had a home built and was dissatisfied, then you probably already know this. Ask your friends and relatives for someone that they can recommend to build your home for you, even if the only work they have had done for them is some small scale remodeling. If the contractor that they hired did a good job, then even if that person does not build entire homes, they can probably point you to someone else who will do similar quality work. Only resort to the phone book if you cannot find anyone through friends or relatives.

Get a few different contractors from any source you like, but be sure to talk with them face to face first. You will have to deal with them for at least a few months of your life, so make sure that you get along. You need to have somewhat of a bond with your contractor so that you can focus on getting the house done right, not arguing.

The contractor you choose should also have all the appropriate insurances and that you can obtain a copy of all of these policies to keep on hand in a job file. Keep a record of every piece of paper concerning the job and the progress of the project, including a payment schedule. You should pay your contractor as the work is done and never let your payments get ahead of the amount of work that has been done on the house.

Mold can also grow on building materials that are stored directly on the ground. Visit the job site regularly to make sure that the contractor is not doing this, especially with drywall. Everything should be stored on tarps and the site should be covered during rain until the roof and walls are put up to protect the interior.