After the devastating floods in New Jersey, The Record ran the following flood tips from the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification, along with additional advice for pre- and post-storm safety.
1. Safety first. Before you enter your flooded or damaged home, make sure you and your family aren’t at risk of electrical shock.
2. Assess the damage, either through your insurance company or by enlisting the help of a water damage restoration company/specialist.
3. Ventilate your home -- in order to stop mold from growing and spreading. Open your doors and ventilate with fresh air.
4. Evaluate moisture levels in structural materials.
5. Reconstruct or replace components as required.
Allergy season is upon us, but there are ways to improve the indoor air quality in your home. “According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Atlanta is one of the country’s top 20 worst cities for spring allergy sufferers. And this year, the organization also bestowed upon Atlanta the designation of Top 2007 Asthma Capital.” In addition to using medication, there are new technologies which can help remove allergens from your home.
Seattle Post Intelligencer
By Craig Harris
March 9, 2007
Retail Notebook: Rug Cleaner’s Roots
The Seattle Post Intelligencer chats with Thea Sands of Emmanuel’s Rug & Upholstery Cleaners, a fourth generation family business that has operated in Seattle for the past four generations.
NBC Action investigators (www.nbcactionnews.com) in Kansas City, Mo., interview IICRC Master Textile Cleaner Brian Bock about what consumers should expect from a professional carpet cleaner. Many unscrupulous cleaners offer coupons through the newspaper and then fail to honor the advertised price. Bock informs viewers that an IICRC-Certified Firm will always take the appropriate steps to vacuum, pre-condition, extract moisture from, groom and dry the carpet.
Click play button to view video.
Adobe Flash player require to view video.
Tips on Caring ForYour Area Rugs and Carpets
Roy Thomsitt
November 18, 2006
The value of your area rugs and carpets will, of course, depend on their quality, size, type and style. However, whatever they have cost, they are an asset worth maintaining and cleaning well. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, the pile of a rug or carpet can harbor lots of dirt, dust, mites and other particles and insects. Regular cleaning will help to keep such infestations and debris to a minimum, which is good for your family's domestic health. Secondly, the rug will not only look better but its life will be preserved.
You Can Run, But You Can't Hide
by Daniel Paul Simmons III
With more than 100,000 species worldwide, roughly a thousand of which are native to the United States, molds are literally everywhere on the planet, including Antarctica. In nature, these fungi serve as a catalyst—speeding decomposition and ridding the planet of megatons of dead plant matter. And some varieties even have a time-honored place within our homes. After all, you owe the penicillin in your medicine cabinet to a mold called Penicillium chrysogenum, part of the same genus as Penicillium roqueforti, the mold you can thank for that delightful Roquefort cheese stinking up your fridge.
Click here for more and read IICRC Technical Advisor Jeff Bishop expert commentary in the photo gallery called “Mold!”
MilliCare Offers Carpet Education Classes The classes will begin in December.
by Staff
Interior Design · November 13, 2006
Knowing what to do with flood-damaged possessions is often a simple matter of answering the question: Hard or soft?
The porosity -- or ability of water to pass through -- is a good indicator of whether to junk an item or not, says Jeff Bishop, a technical adviser for the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification, a nonprofit association based in Vancouver, Wash.
Company's product helps fight insurance fraud by Tony Quesada
Staff Writer
June 16, 2006
JACKSONVILLE -- SkyeTec, an indoor environmental-consulting company, will launch a hosted computer application on July 1 designed to help insurers review claims for drying structures damaged by water.
SkyeTec executives say the company's property claims calculator can reduce or mitigate the rise in property-insurance premiums based on the company's experience performing manually the kind of review the new program is designed to accomplish.
In an instant, years of memories can go up in flames.
Stacks of books, furniture, paintings and photographs — damaged by smoke and covered in layers of soot — can be found inside the gutted and charred remains of a house destroyed by fire.
Homeowners dealing with the emotional trauma of losing their personal belongings can sometimes find comfort in the services provided by restoration technicians, who remove and clean anything that might be salvageable.
The nonprofit Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification's Web site contains a comprehensive set of procedures and recommendations for flood victims that has been used by insurance carriers, particularly as a reference for victims of hurricane Katrina. Go to www.certifiedcleaners.org and click on "Advice for Storm Victims" for the complete document.
Up in Calistoga the day after Christmas, John Koss pointed out the high-water line (vintage 1997) on the shed behind his ranch-style house along the Napa River. The river was hurrying along that day but stayed far below the top of its banks. At the time, it hardly seemed possible that within the week the river would encroach on the shed again.
"It stopped just a little tiny bit below the line," Koss, who has lived on the river for 18 years, said the other day. "And then it went back to where it came from."
