Where Your Home is at Risk for Mold

You may not think so, but everyone’s home is at risk for mold on one level or another. Mold is everywhere and in the air we breathe, so there is not much that we can do to escape it completely in our homes, but there are some things that you can do to stop it from developing colonies where you live. Some areas in your home are more at risk for mold growth than others and these are the laundry room, kitchen, basement, and bathroom. Of these four rooms, the two the most at risk are the kitchen and bathroom, since these rooms see the most use of the four. We all go to the kitchen and the bathroom at least once a day.

Kitchens are at risk when items like dishwashers or ice makers malfunction or the kitchen sink is allowed to overflow. Pipes underneath the sink can also burst, but this does not happen often if you have good plumbing. If you do have an appliance that uses a lot of water and it malfunctions often, you will be much better off purchasing a new one than allowing it to do damage and cause mold growth to your floor.

The bathroom is the room in your home that is at the most at risk for mold growth and water damage. Everyone in your home takes a bath every day (at least, they should) and this results in a large amount of water flowing through this room on any given date. This humidity buildup can wreak havoc on your ceiling if there is not an exhaust vent in place to take the steam out of the room. Ceilings have been known to become discolored and even collapse after years of steam soaking into them. Local building codes will probably require that your bathroom have either an exhaust vent or a window, but ideally, you should have both. Leaving your bathroom window open all the time is usually not practical at all, since bad weather crops up no matter where your home is located.

Another area at risk is the laundry room. This is mainly because of the washer and the possibility of it malfunctioning and releasing a large amount of water on the floor, but pipes can also burst behind it if you do not keep an eye on them. Make sure the plumbing is securely connected to the washer on a regular basis to help prevent this. You should also wash wet clothes as soon as possible and never throw them in with dry dirty clothes, since they will mold after a couple of days. Who has not covered up wet dirty clothes with dry ones and forgotten about them before?

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

Water Damage and Preventing It From the Outside

When talking about preventing water damage, one of the most important places to start is outside the home. Making sure rain and flood waters run away from your home instead of settling around the foundation is essential to prevent the weakening of it. Water will not only cause structural damage, but it will loosen the soil in the ground around the house and cause it to sink over time.

If you live in an extreme climate such as on that receives an exceptional amount of rainfall or snowfall every year, you need to take some extra measures to prevent water damage to your home, since it’s likely to occur in these areas more than in some others. The more rain a home is subject to receiving upon it every year, the more likely it will seep inside and cause water damage to your home’s structural integrity. Make sure soil at the base of the home is piled upward so that water drains away from the foundation and into another area of the yard; if you can, have it drain into the ditch that usually runs beside most homes just next to the road.

Sometimes your gutters can be overloaded by water if the rainfall is harder than normal, so the gutters attached to the outside of your home need to be as large as necessary to handle a large amount of water. They should remain clear of debris such as leaves, sticks, and anything else that can stop them up. Being sure these are cleaned thoroughly might be a pain, but when you think about the money that’s spent on water damaged homes every year, you’re actually saving yourself a lot of trouble.

Be sure the downspouts that are connected to your gutters are free and clear of debris both inside them and down at the ground level so the water collected by your gutters doesn’t collect around the base of the house.

Your roof should be built at such an angle that water is not able to merely sit standing on any part of it for any period of time. Standing water on your roof will cause weak spots and will begin to leak inside the house and eventually cause standing water there, as well. Insulation soaks up water like candy and once it’s wet, it’s no longer effective and becomes a breeding ground for mold and other fungi.

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.waterbasementct.info and
http://www.moldrestorationusa.com

Preventing Water Damaging in Electronics

People would not get as bent out of shape about their cell phone getting wet if it wasn’t for the reason that they were probably using it at the time. Often is the case that electronics cease to function once they make contact with water because the device is powered on when it hits the liquid. If you are one of the unfortunate many who has dropped a electronic device in the drink, don’t worry about it. Just make sure that it wasn’t on when you dropped it in. While water can cause damage to electronics, the electricity that causes it to work is what causes the machine to fry like an egg on the windshield of your car in triple digit weather. Turning on your device after it has been submerged will cause the electric current to run through it and will usually render the device useless.

There are obvious ways to prevent your device from being submerged in water. One such way is called being careful. But this method isn’t always effective. If your device is, let’s say, a cell phone, a cover for it is your best bet. While a cover won’t always, well, cover it, it will be a great way to prevent a good deal of moisture. If, say, your computer has some water spilled on it (and just what are you doing with liquids around your computer, anyway?) you should IMMEDIATELY unplug it and wait for roughly two weeks so that it has dried out, and there is no water to cause its very unpleasant death. It is very important that you keep the device in a cool, dry area that won’t pick up condensation, because that will cause the device to take longer to dry, and additional water damage can be done. It is also important to wait for a week or two, and to make sure that you do NOT shake the device to see if there is still water in it. This can just cause damage to the device, and then you will have waited for probably nothing.

Now, if you are the kind of person who doubts their repertoire of electronics knowledge, it’s best to simply take the device to an electronics repairman. You will have to shell out a few bucks, but not as many as you paid for the device. This can also be taken as a chance to make sure there is nothing else wrong with the device that should be fixed before it is used again.


Jim Corkern is a writer and promoter of quality
mold removal in Atlanta Georgia and
Water Damage Restoration companies.