Maintaining a healthy and safe home should be everyone’s goal.  Just as the proper function of a home involves the interaction of numerous systems, there are many factors that must be addressed to ensure your home provides as healthy and safe an environment as possible.  Here are just a few items of the many items to consider.

• Order a radon testing kit for your home.  January was National Safety Radon Month but it is certainly never too late to test your home for radon.  Even if you tested your home several years ago or a recent test of a neighbor’s home did not indicate a concern, it does not mean that present conditions in your own home are the same.  House renovations, energy retrofits, and weatherization projects can all contribute to changes in radon levels.  The only way to find out if radon levels are elevated beyond the recommended action point is to test for it.  Experts estimate that radon causes more than 20,000 deaths from lung cancer each year.  Contact your local HouseMaster office to arrange a radon measurement test.
• Make your home smoke and particulate free.   Never let anyone smoke in or near your home – especially if someone in your family is pregnant, has asthma or other respiratory issues.   But it is not just cigarette smoke that can create a health hazard.  Poorly vented fireplaces, excessive candle burning, the overuse of aerosols and products advertised to “clean” the air all add potentially harmful particulates.  If you are not concerned about your own health, realize that parents control 90% of their children’s exposure to secondhand smoke and other airborne hazards.
• Check for fall hazards.  Do a 3-minute “clean sweep” of your house, particularly the stairs and hallways – and especially if children or older friends or relatives spend time in your home.  Regularly pick up clothes, shoes, bags, and any other clutter and clear it out of the way so it won’t cause falls.  Make sure guard rails and hand rails are present and securely attached.   Accidents on stairs are a leading cause of a significant number of accidents in homes.  Falls, particularly on stairs, are the leading cause of injury-related deaths for adults over age 65.
• Test your smoke alarms.  If they aren’t working and you are unable to replace the battery or otherwise get them working properly again, don’t delay.  Call a friend, relative, professional electrician or your local fire department and ask for help right away.  Don’t let one night go by without protection.  Having working smoke alarms in your home cuts your risk of dying in a fire in half.
• Program your phone for poison control.  It is estimated that everyday more than 300 children under age 20 are treated in emergency departments for poisonings from product found in the home. In the event of suspected poisoning emergency medical assistance should be called for immediately.  However, contacting a poison control center may help provide helpful information related to the particular incident (or piece of mind) while waiting for help to arrive.  In the U.S. nationwide assistance is available at 1-800-222-1222.  In Canada, there are Provincial Poison Control Centers that can be contacted for local information.

Also visit the websites of the U.S. Healthy Home Program and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation  for more tips on maintaining a healthy and safe home, including topics like lead-based paints, mold, radon gas, asbestos containing materials, carbon monoxide, household pests, senior safety and childproofing.

Note:   These tips are only general guidelines. Since each situation is different, contact a professional if you have questions about a specific issue. More home safety and maintenance information is available online at www.housemaster.com.

P.S. Spring is just around the corner!  It is never too early to start your home search or get your home ready for the Spring market.  This past year was the busiest year we had in home sales in 5 years.  This year could be even better!  There are large numbers of homes at below-market prices & the Interest rates are hovering around 3.5%! Contact me for details today!

Even though we've made it to March, we're likely to keep using our fireplaces for a few more months!  So here are some tips to help prevent a smokey fireplace

Any number of conditions can contribute to smoking problems in a wood-burning fireplace. In some cases, cleaning or some relatively simple measures may improve conditions.  In other cases, further evaluation and extensive repairs may be necessary.
 
The first step in most cases is to arrange for an inspection or cleaning of the chimney flue.  A certified chimney sweep is usually the appropriate professional person to contact for chimney cleaning or investigation of fireplace or chimney problems. Many sweeps now have equipment to take a video of the chimney flue so that you can see exactly what problems may truly lie within the flue, as well as to confirm if it was cleaned properly.

Here are some possible practical solutions to aggravating smoke problems:

• Raise the hearth. A fireplace opening that is too large compared to the opening of the chimney flue can lead to poor drafting (the movement of the gases that result from the burning wood up the chimney). By building up the base of the fireplace, the opening will be decreased. To experiment with this approach, a sheet metal hearth can be supported on bricks placed on the existing hearth. If this change improves the draft, the hearth can be raised using firebrick masonry. The hearth extension can also be built up to the same level.
• Add a canopy hood. An experimental model of a canopy hood can be made of sheet metal and temporarily attached over the top of the fireplace opening. Try various designs and sizes. If the hood works well, a permanent metal hood can be installed.
• Extend the chimney. The higher the chimney, the better the draft. A good draft is usually provided by a chimney which is 20 feet or more higher than the hearth. If the existing chimney is short a good draft may just not be able to develop. One or more metal chimney sections can be temporarily installed on top of an existing chimney to test whether the draft is improved before a more permanent (and expensive) fix is tried.
• Trim surrounding trees. Wavering smoke patterns above the chimney may indicate that tall trees are causing a downdraft (air forced down the chimney by the wind). The surrounding trees should be trimmed and/or the chimney flue height extended to prevent this condition.
• Add a chimney cap or flueguard. If a downdraft appears to affect the exhaust gases, adding a chimney cap or flueguard of metal or stone may help deflect the air before it entering the chimney.

These suggestions for correcting smoking fireplace conditions may be only the first step in some situations. If there are major fireplace deficiencies or the chimney is deteriorated, more drastic measures will be needed. The only practical options in severe cases may be to rebuild the fireplace and/or chimney. A less expensive option would be to retrofit a masonry fireplace or chimney with a gas-fired fireplace coupled with a new metal flue inside the defective chimney – or to use an electric fireplace and seal off the old chimney. Simply maintaining a small fire may help as well.
 
Note:   These tips are only general guidelines. Since each situation is different, contact a professional if you have questions about a specific issue. More home safety and maintenance information is available online at www.housemaster.com.

P.S. Spring is just around the corner!  It is never too early to start your home search or get your home ready for the Spring market.  This past year was the busiest year we had in home sales in 5 years.  This year could be even better!  There are large numbers of homes at below-market prices & the Interest rates are hovering around 3.5% !! Contact me for details today!