Who knew protein could be so bad?!

Photo from My Recipes.Com(click for a great recipe for Baked Beans)

4th of July just passed and as we celebrate our country over an open grill and picnic tables a story of a baked bean disaster comes to mind.  A few years ago we received a call on a fire; normal fire, normal crew, normal repair right? Turns out though that it was a protein fire... which are particularly hard to clean up.   A women had left a pot of beans on the stove while she stepped away, the juices dried in the pot from too much heat and it began to burn emitting protein smoke.  Eventually the heat increased so much that it caught her house on fire.  Fortunately they were able to put it out before the whole house was engulfed but the fire had done a fair amount of damage.  Unfortunately it didn't stop there, the whole house had been covered by protein smoke.

According Ron Reese with REE-Construction a protein fire can be very damaging.  Unlike a more typical smoke damage where the primary residues are from wood, paper, fabrics, etc.,  protein fires are not so much a matter of removing the smells of  a damage, but of  removing the visible smoke residues.For example, a 20lb turkey catches on fire after sitting on a pot for some time, you might think the damage would just be to the area that looks burnt but in fact you have a little bit of turkey everywhere; on the cabinets, on your clothes, on the walls.  Protein smoke residues may leave little or no visible residue, but will deposit that nauseating smell on every surface.  It isn't just that though, it gets into places you may not usually check like the insulation in your dishwasher or behind the cabinet. It is imperative to hire a professional to get rid of these odors. Success requires careful and methodical attention to detail in every phase of the restoration.  Source removal is the most likely approach to produce successful results as efforts to mask the odor with chemical deodorants usually results in just making it a sickly sweet smelling problem.

So next time you have a BBQ and leave something on the stove to go check on your grill or make a phone call make sure and leave enough water or juices so that a fire doesn't start.  The cost of not doing so is high. For more information on Returning to Normal after a fire check out our website at http://www.the-restorers.com

Thunderstorms Predicted: In the Garage

Photo Courtesy of Boydo's Tech Talk

Thunderstorms Predicted: In the Garage

When you head out on a vacation probably one of the last things you expect is to get a phone call while you are out and about from your daughter that the garage is raining, but one such man went through this.  I had the pleasure to sit down with a friend and colleague who had one such thing happen to him. 

On a trip to Italy he was surprised to get a call from his daughter who was staying at a friends home.  She had returned home for more clothes and much to her surprise a downpour of water had consumed their garage.  Doing her duty as a daughter, she had done what most of us would do, and called the number one choice for all emergencies, Dad!  They later found out that a pipe had broken in their garage and had been spraying water for more than a day.  Fortunately he had a wonderful relationship with his insurance company, USAA, that was more than happy to help him out from 5592 miles away. They called in the professionals and were able to have the project virtually completed by the time of their return!

But this wasn't the end of it, a couple of years later they found another leak(not nearly as big and not when they were on vacation). It turned out, thanks to the knowledge of the plumber, that the type of pipe they had used for plumbing in the house in the 80's had actually been recalled in the 90's. The found out just in time to be involved in the class action lawsuit against the company, who eventually had to replace the entire piping system in their entire house.

A couple lessons learned; the tough reality is that disasters NEVER wait until you are ready to have them, so always be prepared.  Know who you would hire, know and trust your agent and insurance company, and know how you will react if something does happen. Staying calm and making intelligent decisions can save you time and money in the end!

Wet and Wild

Photo from Alliance for Water Efficiency

One of the most common damages we have in the spring is caused by sprinklers and children's innate ability to forget to turn things off.  A few stories popped up I thought I'd share;

Story 1: Cutting corners and new homes 

In a small town in Idaho a gentleman had just bought a house in the spring and was excited to get the water up and running to make sure his green yard stayed that way.  The house was new and hadn't, to his knowledge, had the water turned on.  Cutting corners was apparently what the landscaper did best because as soon as he turned it on he noticed a few lines that were leaking.  Being responsible he quickly turned it off and attempted to fix the lines.  Thinking he had done so, he turned the water back on and left to run for a couple of hours every other day for some time.   And there in-lies his mistake because his basement slowly filled with water from the flooding of a sprinkler that wasn't correctly adjusted.  This of course led to mold growing.  

Note to self: CHECK ALL SPRINKLERS!!! And if you don't know what you are doing find someone who does, mold remediation and repairs can be much more expensive and annoying to deal with than getting it done right

Story 2: Cheaters Never Win

The second story is of a woman who decided to cheat the system a little. In theory, pending nothing would go wrong, the idea made sense.  Rig the cities irrigation system to water your yard... stealing? Yes? Immoral? Probably! Apparently karma thought so because her system failed horribly and irrigated not only the yard but also her crawl space.  Unfortunately for her, the insurance didn't see fit to pay for the damages incurred and her out of pocket expenses for the emergency services and structural damages took care of her fun fund for a while.  

Note to Self: cheating the system can cause more trouble than it is worth and usually karma or bad luck shows it’s pretty little face to retaliate in one form or another.

Story 3: Kids will be Kids

Spring and then summer mean two things, heat and children are home from school.  Those cute little faces and seemingly innocent cool off sessions in the sprinkler or water hose can turn into a home owner’s worst nightmare.  One case of the "let’s go play in the sprinkler" and then   head in for snacks or drinks and "forget" to turn off the hose can flood your lawn, and eventually make it into your basement or crawl space or even the first level of your home.  

Note to Self: please teach your kids that their allowance can go away in a heartbeat if they don't take responsibility and make sure the water is indeed off.  Innocent doesn't change the damage or the cost of repairs!

Spring and summer are the best times to get out there but make sure you learn from those mistakes!

Attack of the Washing Machine

The washing machine is at it again.  I can't tell you how many times we get called in on a damage that happens because someone left their washing machine running while they left the house or on at night while they slept. Washing Machines can cause trouble!!

Here is a particularly unfortunate damage that I heard about recently.

A couple had just bought their new house and were going to sleep in it that night.  The woman woke up and meandered down the stairs after a great nights sleep and took the last step onto their first floor and KERPLUNK found three inches of standing water waiting for her.  Turns out after turning on the washer the night before the hose that connects the waterline to the washer had come loose and instead of filling the washer had filled their entire first floor. She called an emergency team out that promptly fixed the problem, pumped out all the water and put in dryers to make sure the damage was properly mitigated.  What they didn't expect was how much damage had occurred to the house and the contents.  Water damages rarely end when all the water has been taken out, drywall wicks water (For those of you who don't know what that is, drywall, like a tree, wicks water which means it draws it upward and outward until it runs out of water to wick).  A "good" restoration company will get their moisture readers out and fix the insulation as needed but this couple wasn't so lucky.  They hired an organization that just painted over parts of the drywall that looked damage, replaced the carpet and called it a day.  A few months later they found mold growing by accident and when they opened up the drywall found mold all throughout the bottom floor of the house.

This just stresses the importance of getting it done right the first time.  Making sure to hire an organization that doesn't cut corners to come in at a lower bid can save you money in the long run.  Mold, in some cases, is not covered by insurance, so this cost can be on the homeowner to fix and can be dangerous for your health.  So when a disaster occurs make sure and take a moment to read reviews, ask for referrals from trusted advisors, and do your research!

Water makes Fire

I heard an interesting story today that I thought may be interesting to home owners out there!

5 years ago an acquaintance went through an experience where her home caught on fire. As fate would have it, the family, that usually travels on weekends during the summer, decided to stay home and take advantage of the good weather locally.  On a Saturday evening she walked in the house for a refill and smelt an odd smell.  She said specifically that it did not smell of smoke but she knew that something was horribly wrong.  She then went outside to inform her husband and to have him come help her look for the source of the odd smell.  Sure enough as they walked towards the garage they noticed the smell growing in intensity.  They opened their door and found the whole thing on fire.  They summoned their son who happened to have a fire extinguisher on his rig and opened the garage door to give him access to the flames as they crawled up the walls and across the ceiling heading towards the main house.  He successfully killed the fire and being much braver than the author of this story(me) their son decided to climb into the attic to make sure the fire hadn't made it up there, which fortunately it had not.  They decided to call the fire department to come and ensure the fire was not continuing to burn on inside the walls(which can happen). In the end the damage was contained to just the garage but it could have been seriously worse.

After the damage, they also found that the smoke was almost the worst part as the stench had gotten into a variety of different parts of the house.  Fortunately they were related to someone in the restoration industry who knew how to adequately handle the damage but it still meant they had to stay in a hotel for a few nights because of the smell.

The kicker is that this whole thing started with a water heater.  What they found was that the wood crate that many water heaters sit on had slowly caught on fire from their defective water heater that was dropping scalding hot water onto it and slowly overtime caught on fire

MORAL?  take a moment to check out the water heater at your house, it could be the difference between thousands of dollars of damage, getting the temporary boot from your home and making sure your home and children are safe as we head into the summer!