Home Care Articles
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The Ice Dam Cometh
Here are some important winter tips for homeowners:
Ice Dams
If you see large icicles or areas of ice near your rain gutters, this could indicate that ice dams are forming. Ice dams occur when heat from your home rises through the attic insulation and melts the snow on your roof. The snow melt runs down the roof and re-freezes at the roof edge.
A small amount of this freezing is not a problem. But if the wrong combination of snow and cold combine with excessive heat loss, you might have melting snow backing up under the shingles and coming into your house. This can cause serious damage to your walls, ceilings, and furnishings.
Ice dams need not be a permanent affliction. You can lessen their impact with roof cables or eliminate them with proper attic insulation and ventilation.
Energy Audits
It's a good idea to have an energy audit on your home to determine some cost-effective ways of saving energy. Some simple improvements can save you money both summer and winter. Contact your local power company for more information.
Salting Your Walkways
If you use salt to melt ice on your steps and sidewalks, you can cause damage to your concrete surfaces. It's much better to use sidewalk grit like “quartzite” which provides traction without hurting your concrete. If you have wood floors, be sure that your guests remove their shoes to prevent floor damage.
Household Safety Checks
Make sure that you have working smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors on every floor of your home, including the basement. Your carbon monoxide detector should be replaced every 5 years. You should also have a safety check and tune-up performed on your gas heating appliances every year.
By Alan Copia, a home inspector with Cornerstone Inspections, 612/824-2000.
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Sealing Those Leaky Winter Windows
Mid-winter is a great time to evaluate how cozy your home feels. Try this test: when the temperature outside is well below freezing, is it hard to find a warm place in your home to read or watch TV?
If chilly winter drafts are disturbing your repose, one of the main culprits might be leaky windows, especially if you live in a home built before 1975. The best solution, of course, is to install new energy efficient windows, but at $300-$700 a pop, this major investment might not be possible.
Fortunately there are less expensive alternatives. Aluminum storm windows can be a great improvement at far less cost ($75-$200 per window). The most affordable option is to seal your windows with plastic film. 3M makes a good kit that covers five normal size windows for around $20. You can also buy less expensive kits, but the film is opaque rather than clear, so you can’t see out your windows.
Plastic film is easy to install if you follow the directions that come with your kit. You’ll need a tape measure, scissors, and hairdryer. Each kit comes with double-stick tape to attach around the window frame. After applying the tape, cut the plastic film to fit the approximate size of the window. It helps to have two people do this so that one can position the film over the opening while the other presses it onto the tape evenly. Next, use a hair dryer to blow warm air onto the film and shrink it into place, smoothing out any wrinkles.
As always, I recommend that you buy your plastic film kit at your neighborhood hardware store rather than a big-box chain store. Your local store has staff on hand to offer helpful advice on this and many other home repair questions. Have a warm, safe, and happy winter!
By Alan Copia, a home inspector with Cornerstone Inspections, 612/824-2000.
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Choosing the Best Exterior House Paint
No matter what, exterior house paint will eventually peel, flake, blister, and fade. Always has, always will.
So why do we keep using it? Well, nobody has yet come up with something to beat its color, beauty, variety, ease of application, and the thousands of color combinations it offers the discriminating home owner. It’s just darn beautiful!
If you want to get the longest-lasting, toughest paint possible, here are some tips:
· You have to pay for quality. Virtually all paint is “price competitive.” There is no such thing as good paint at a cheap price. Quality costs more. If a manufacturer could produce high quality paint at low cost, believe me, they’d be happy to do it. Their unique product would quickly dominate the market and put all others out of business.
· Feel the heft of the can. The heavier a gallon of paint, the better it is. That’s because high quality paint has more of the heavier pigments and binders and less of the lighter solvents. Pigments and binders are costly chemical components that make paint more visually pleasing and longer-lasting. Top quality exterior latex paints use 100 % acrylic resins as the most important ingredient.
· Oil based? Latex (water) based? Which is better? Oil-based paints go on a bit more smoothly and dry harder. But they don’t stand up to sunlight and weathering as well. Today’s latex paints win the contest.
· For best results, always apply primer before the final coat(s) of paint. Primer is a kind of glue. It’s formulated to bind tightly to the surface being painted and to the final paint applied on top of it.
· The best place to buy paint? I always choose a well-established “paint and coatings only” retailer. Usually the knowledgeable “old hands” like to get the weekend off, so I shop late mornings on weekdays for the best advisors. I tell them the results I want, and then ask for the products they recommend and how to apply them.
By Gary Havens. Copyright 2004, Good Havens Home Inspections. Contact Gary at 612/396-6207.
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