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Winter Weather and Your Crawl Space

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Even though spring is just around the corner, winter is still here and the cold, damp, and blustery weather can wreak havoc on your crawl space if it has not been properly winterized. The last thing you want to deal with while you are enjoying the powdery winter wonderland is a mold infestation, structural damage, or an unexpected increase in your energy bill.

What exactly does “winterizing” your crawl space entail?

Winterizing is actually a multi-faceted term, which refers to the steps taken to ensure that your home is protected from winter’s natural elements. In order to properly secure your crawl space from the cold, damp weather, it is recommended by the experts that you do the following:

Inspect your crawl space and foundation before winter comes along

If you aren’t sure what you’re supposed to be looking for, hire a professional or ask a friend who is more experienced to assist you. You’ll want to look for things like pest infestations, wood rot or bulging, signs of mold or mildew, and water seepage. Before you go any further in the process of winterizing your crawl space, you definitely want to fix any existing or underlying problems.

Check your insulation OR install some if you haven’t already

Insulation is extremely important to the health of your home and helps to keep more money in your pocket. If the insulation is old, soggy, or falling apart, or you notice that your home is extra drafty, you will want to replace it. Insulation is comprised of thousands of tiny air pockets. These pockets trap the air in the crawl space and prevent the transfer of energy. If these pockets become full of water, or if the insulation starts to decay from the mold or mildew growth, then it cannot properly serve your home. In order to be restored. Once you have cleaned and repaired your crawl space and added new insulation (if needed), the next step is a must in preventing future headaches and spending unnecessary money.

Install a vapor barrier

A vapor barrier is a must if you are wanting your crawl space to be waterproofed and free of excess humidity and condensation. With rain and snow coming into the space under your house, mold, mildew, and wood rot are highly likely to flourish. Encapsulating a crawl space can be done individually or by a professional. You can purchase reinforced polyethylene crawl space liner from various places online and at your local home improvement store. When using, you want to make sure the entire floor of the crawl space is covered as well as the walls. There are very specific techniques to ensure everything is covered properly—therefore, it may be wise to contact a professional if you are unsure about doing it yourself. Don’t wait until it is too late—get busy with initially inspecting your crawl space so that you can make a plan; you want to be fully ready for next year’s winter weather! If you do decide that you’d like to winterize your crawl space and need some advice going forward with it, give Restoration Certified Specialists, Inc. a call. RCS prides themselves in excellent customer service and in being experts in water and mold restoration and also specialize in creating moisture and vapor barrier for crawl spaces. They treat each project with the utmost importance and care.

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What To Do in a Home or Office Flood Emergency

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Depending on your geographical location, what the weather is typically like, and what terrain your home or office resides on, flooding may be a natural and more-common-than-you’d-like occurrence. Or you might live in an area where floods rarely to never happen and when it does...it does. Lastly, a flood can take place due to a burst pipe or another fluke accident within the four walls. If you’ve never experienced a flood, you probably aren’t too sure about what steps to take to secure your belongings, who to contact, and what process to go through to get everything cleaned and restored. Sometimes it takes going through something dramatic to know how to react and what to do. Thankfully, there is research, there are experts, and there are other people out there who have been through a flood and can give others sound advice. Let’s review some of those tips:

Always practice safety first!

Obviously you are going to want to avoid going into or staying inside of an area that is not deemed safe. If there are people and pets in the flood, get them out and to safety before you do anything else.

Turn off the electricity.

If you feel comfortable doing this yourself, do it immediately; otherwise, wait for professionals or someone else to come help you. You don’t want a flood and a fire or risk someone getting electrocuted in the water.

If the flooding is coming from inside of the home, shut off the water supply.

The source of the water may not be weather-related; it may be coming from a burst pipe. Just like it is absolutely necessary to turn off the electricity, the same goes for the water source. If you neglect this step, the flooding will only continue to get worse.

Take pictures of the damage.

Do this before you move any items or have anyone come out to inspect the damage. Taking videos and pictures of affected areas will help to cover you later on when dealing with your insurance company.

Move valuables to non-flooded areas if they are accessible.

If you are able to get around in the water, try to move valuables to a higher ground or to an undamaged area of the home or office. Unless you just truly don’t care about Aunt Marge’s clown figurines, get everything of value and sentiment away from the water and begin the drying process as needed.

Contact the appropriate people.

Call for help if needed (a neighbor, a friend, 911, etc.) and call your landlord (if applicable) and your insurer. Your insurance company will be able to advise you going forward and will let you know what information they will need to process the claim and get the ball rolling.

Get the professionals out there.

To avoid even more damage from mildew, mold, and wood rot, as well as to avoid a potential health hazard from flourishing mold spores, get a water and mold restoration professional out to the scene as soon as you are able to. A flooded area needs to be dealt with ASAP. For additional information on staying safe and what to do during and after a flood, check out the American Red Cross Flood Safety Guide. Have you recently been through a flood or know someone who has? Do you need help from a restoration specialist? Don’t worry—Restoration Certified Specialists, Inc. will take care of you! They have been proudly serving the Santa Rosa and North Bay areas since 1975.

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Mold in the News 2020

mold in the news

When you read Mold in the News, surely you think, “Oh, this cannot be good.” And who would have thought mold could be in the news so often! Moldy situations happen all the time, all over the world...and the big ones make the headlines. Sometimes the stories are devastating and unbelievable while others are tales of caution—what to do and what not to do. So far in 2020, there have been two major mold-related stories in the news. Baby dies after infection from mold in hospital operating room: “A baby born with a serious heart defect who contracted Aspergillus mold from a Seattle Children’s operating room has died.” Beth, who was barely six months old and undergoing surgery for a severe congenital heart defect, was one of at least five children who died of complications due to Aspergillus exposure. “She’s (Beth) one of six patients being represented by attorney Karen Koehler, who says all of her clients contracted Aspergillus from Seattle Children’s operating rooms. Five of those six patients have died.” Seattle Children’s Hospital’s CEO admitted that the hospital had had a mold problem since 2001. This is a tragic and cautionary tale about what devastating effects leaving mold untreated can have. West students, staff to be evacuated for mold remediation: Mold inside of schools seems to be a more common thing than we all think—although, that doesn’t mean that these occurrences should be happening. Students and staff of West Elementary School in Grand Forks have been relocated to an alternate site for learning until the school’s mold problem can be taken care of. The school board deemed the situation an emergency as mold around certain areas of the school “exceeded the acceptable limit.” “The cost of the mold remediation project is not yet known; it will depend on what workers find when walls are opened, Arnold said. Similar work is needed in some other schools that have been damaged by extensive rains last fall.” As of now, it is unknown as to how long students will be kept out of their building, but it is definitely an inconvenience to uproot young students in the beginning of the last semester of school. Both recent mold-related events are unfortunate for all parties involved. It really goes to show that businesses—even schools and hospitals—need to be more diligent about checking for mold on a regular basis and have a professional visit regularly to conduct a thorough inspection. People should not be getting sick and lives should not have to be lost. If you aren’t quite sure about a moldy situation inside of your home or place of work and are in need of an inspection and a cleanup from a restoration specialist, don’t worry—Restoration Certified Specialists, Inc. will take care of you! They have been proudly serving the Santa Rosa and North Bay areas since 1975.

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How to Tell if Water Damage is New or Old

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You smell that tell-tale musty odor, you locate the source, but you aren’t certain whether or not the water damage you have found is new or has been there for a while. You definitely didn’t notice it before, but then again, it has occurred in a location that you don’t frequent on a daily basis. Should you take the wall apart in that area to see behind it? Should you get an area of the wall tested for mold? Or should you call a professional? First, of course, you should determine if the water damage is new or old because that information will help to clarify what the next steps should be. Below are some things you should be paying close attention to while determining the severity of the water damage.

What material has been damaged by water?

This will make a difference in the amount of damage the water has potentially done. Carpet, drywall, and hardwood are more porous than a material like brick and tile; therefore, if you notice water damage on either of those materials, it may be that the water damage is relatively new, since the water seeps through the material at a faster rate. If signs of water damage is on a material such as tile or brick, it is more likely that the damage has been there for quite some time, as it takes much longer for water to seep through to the surface of stronger materials such as these.

Pay close attention to the pattern of the water damaged area.

Experts say to look for rings. As water is damaging a surface intermittently, such as from a pipe or from weather, the area will eventually dry, then will get wet again once water is reintroduced to the same area—this causes rings. Discovering water rings indicates more serious water damage that has been happening for some time. Touch the area to determine whether the damage is new or old.
  • Wet + Firm = Water damage more than likely just recently occurred.
  • Wet + Soft = Water damage more than likely is older and has been ongoing.
  • Dry + Soft = Water damage more than likely is older and has been frequent but not recent.
  • Wet + Soft + Strong material such as brick or tile = Definitely older water damage

Check for mold growth and damage.

Mildew and mold can begin growing within 24 to 28 hours of the water damage occurrence. To fully determine whether or not you have a mold problem, you can purchase a mold testing kit from online or your local hardware store, or you can call a professional to come out and assess the damage.

If in doubt, contact a professional ASAP.

Don’t wait too long to determine the severity of the water damage. Health-related issues from being exposed to mold can be detrimental and the longer you wait to clean the mold and restore the surface to its original form, the longer you will be dealing with poor air quality and the risk of mold spores flourishing even more so or traveling to other locations. If you aren’t quite sure about a moldy situation inside of your home and are in need of an inspection and a cleanup from a restoration specialist, don’t worry—Restoration Certified Specialists, Inc. will take care of you! They have been proudly serving the Santa Rosa and North Bay areas since 1975.

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