Category: Equipment & Tools

5 Tips for Cleaning Up After a Storm

On March 18, 2020

Spring is almost here, and while that means warmer weather and outdoor activities for many people, it also means potentially dangerous thunderstorms.

Storms can wreak havoc on your property, and it is important to clean up the damage in a timely manner. However, if your property has been hit hard, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Here are some helpful hints for handling the herculean task of cleaning up after a storm.

1. Repair Broken Windows

Broken tree branches and flying debris can hit your windows and cause them to shatter. Your first task is to clean up the broken glass so that no one gets hurt. Ultimately, a broken window will probably require glass repair Irving TX. In the interim, however, you can board them up to protect your home until you are able to arrange the repair.

2. Extract Water

Strong storms can sometimes result in flash flooding. If this occurs, water can collect in your basement. A regular old mop and bucket may be sufficient to handle this job, or you may require a wet vac. Drains may become covered with debris, so make sure you clear this away. This should be one of your first priorities because of the potential for mold growth.

3. Check the Roof

It is very important to inspect your roof for any damage, such as lost or broken shingles. If discovered, these problems should be fixed as soon as possible or they can allow water into your house, which can cause even more damage that can be even harder to mitigate.

3. Inspect the Interior

In addition to checking the roof, you should also look carefully at walls and ceilings inside of your home for discoloration or any other signs of water damage. If found, you should check for the source of the leak and try to have it repaired as soon as possible while also taking steps to mitigate mold growth.

4. Remove Wet Drywall and Insulation

These are porous materials that absorb water. Because they are behind the wall, it is unlikely that they will dry out on their own. Your best bet is to remove them entirely and have them replaced.

5. Clean Up Your Yard

If the damage is minor, this may be a relatively simple matter of raking up leaves and clearing away small branches. However, if you have trees that have sustained major damage, you should consult with a tree expert about whether the tree needs to be removed entirely or it can be saved.

Though not a clean-up task per se, it can be helpful to take pictures of the damage for the benefit of your insurance company.

Why Invest in a Water Softener?

By Barry Hale

On February 9, 2020

In Equipment & Tools, Kitchen & Bathroom

Many homes across the country are plumbed with hard water. This means the water flowing through the pipes and into appliances and the kitchen sink is full of minerals and metals. Homeowners often find that hard water is, well, hard on the household. If you live in an area where the water is hard, and you probably do, you may already realize just how hard.

Financial Savings

Appliances are expensive and hard water leaves a lot of scale and other buildup that wears down the components of the washing machine and dishwasher. Treating your water with softeners prevents a lot of wear and tear, so appliances last longer. Naturally, those benefits apply to the plumbing in your home as well. Water softening systems reduce the risk of mineral deposits and scale, reducing the occurrence of corrosion, and preventing the need for expensive repairs.

Warmer Showers

If you rely on a water heater for hot water and you’ve had to wait for hard water to get warm, you’ll soon find that softened water heats up more quickly. In addition to making your mornings nicer, this benefit is great for your electric or gas bill, as well, because the heater won’t need to run as long. It also means lower maintenance and repair costs as the heater’s motor and elements won’t have to work as hard for your shower.

Softer Clothes

Finally, hard water deposits aren’t nice to clothing, dishes, your skin, and your hair. When you have fox valley plumbing technicians add a water softener to your home’s water system, clothes are softer, your dishes are streak-free, and your skin and hair feel cleaner. You can decrease the amount of soap and detergent in your washing appliances and worry less about the presence of soap scum in the bathroom.

You don’t need to put up with stiff clothing from the laundry, mineral deposits on your glassware after running through the dishwasher, a significant investment in fabric softeners, appliance repair costs, and that scale buildup around the faucets. Most of these drawbacks can be overcome when you have a water softener installed.

Salzgitter – City of Steel, Mobility and Logistics

By Barry Hale

On January 11, 2020

In Developments, Equipment & Tools

The city Salzgitter is located in southeastern Lower Saxony north of the Harz and south of the Lüneburg Heath. It was founded in 1942 by founding act and still exists today from 31 z.T. relatively distant districts. The urban area covers 224 square kilometers and has a north-south extension of 22 kilometers and an east-west extension of 19 kilometers.

House line in the Ostsiedlung,

Salzgitter bath

Their development and naming is closely related to historical salt finds, but also to the ore deposits that formed the basis for the development of the city of Salzgitter during the Nazi era.

Under the special political circumstances of the 1930s and the associated ideological ideas, the raw material area at that time in the middle of Germany offered ideal conditions for founding a city under the banner of industrial iron ore mining and processing. The Reichswerke «Hermann Göring» were founded in 1937, at that time Salzgitter counted 19,500 inhabitants. An industrial center with 250,000 people was planned. In 1939, Salzgitter already had 46,000 inhabitants, and by 1950 the population had increased to 100,000.

Although iron ore is no longer extracted in Salzgitter, foreign ore is still smelted and processed into steel products. With approx. 50,000 employees, Salzgitter is the third largest industrial location in Lower Saxony and has numerous globally operating companies. Despite its importance as a business location, the city has already suffered population losses in recent years, alone 6.5% between 1995 and 2003. For the future, a continuing loss of population is expected, which by 2015, the city now has about 110,000 inhabitants on a population of 96,800 will reduce *.

The problems due to persistent population losses are concentrated, as in other pilot cities, in the settlements where rental housing with only suboptimal living standards is offered. In the neighborhoods of Gebhardshagen and Bad, the focus is on housing stocks from the 1930s, and in Lebenstedt those dating back to the 1960s. Individual residential areas have vacancy rates of up to 20%, in some residential buildings up to 60% of the apartments are empty.

In the urban redevelopment process, Salzgitter is facing the challenge of carrying out a city-compatible market adjustment of rental housing stocks in several housing estates from the 1930s and 1960s while at the same time adapting remaining housing offers to today’s residential requirements. Particular attention will have to be given to how the continued demand for homes can be taken into account in the restructuring of housing estates.