Dealing With Home Storm Damage

General

There are a variety of ways storms damage homes — blown off or damaged shingles, dented or torn siding, broken windows or fallen tree limbs — but the potential long-lasting damage is the same: water getting inside your home.

While cosmetic damage can easily be repaired, structural storm damage that allows water into a home causes longer lasting and lingering problems, including rot, mold and structural decay.

That is why it’s crucial that any storm damage is dealt with immediately, including steps to keep any new water from entering a home and ensuing any existing water damage is minimized.

Here are some steps suggested by Home911, a home emergency water and fire damage response service in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area:

  • If your basement is flooded ensure there are no energized power cords before wading in to assess the water damage.
  • Understand that sewage may have backed up into water pooled in a basement. Take precautions to limit your exposure.
  • Be quick in removing standing water and starting the drying process. It takes only a day or two for mold and mildew contamination to begin.

Continue reading Dealing With Home Storm Damage →

APEX Fiberglass Siding Limits Water Damage

Construction Defects, General, Siding

Water damage resulting from seepage behind house siding can cause health problems for those in the home because of the mold that can form inside the walls.

It can also prove costly to tear off the siding, do mold remediation and re-side the house.

Such water damage is known to occur with improperly installed stucco siding, but can occur with all types of siding.

The newest siding technology — fiberglass siding — helps resolve potential water and mold damage in several ways. First, fiberglass is water and rot resistant and won’t expand and contract with the weather, which opens up the opportunity for water to penetrate the siding. info

Newest Replacement Window Options Is Fiberglass

General, Windows

While fiberglass siding is beginning to gain traction among homeowners, the material’s counterpart in replacement windows has been on the market for several years.
Marvin Windows’ Integrity line of doors and replacement windows are made from a proprietary process generating Ultrex&reg pultruded fiberglass.

Ultrex&reg fiberglass is as strong as steel and more than eight times stronger then vinyl, according to Marvin. That strength protects the windows from the elements, including hail, wind and the stray neighborhood baseball.

In fact, the fiberglass replacement windows are strong enough to endure a motocross motorcycle and hockey pucks, as the videos below show.

The patented acrylic finish on the replacement windows is bonded with the surface to prevent dings, scratches, nicks and chipping as well as fading and UV degradation.

That leads to virtually maintenance-free replacement windows and also allows using far less of the material in the window’s profile to maintain strength, meaning there is far more visible glass area allowing more light into a room.

While fiberglass is stronger and more rigid than other types of window material, it also has drastically less expansion and contraction than aluminium, wood/vinyl composite and vinyl … particularly vinyl windows. Continue reading Newest Replacement Window Options Is Fiberglass →

New Materials Offered In Replacement Windows

General, Windows

Materials and technology used in windows continues to advance past the wood windows that dominated the early 20th Century, to the steel and aluminum windows introduced in the 1950s to vinyl windows that appeared in the 1970s.

So far this century composite and fiberglass windows have been added to the mix, both offering stronger, more durable options that profess to last longer than other window types while providing a ‘greener’ alternative for homeowners looking for eco-friendly products.

Both composite and fiberglass replacement windows are made from material manufactured using a proprietary method. Marvin Windows uses pultraded fiberglass to build windows, a material it calls Ultrex®. Continue reading New Materials Offered In Replacement Windows →

Architectural Shingles Choice Of Homeowners, Roofing Contractors

General, Roofing

In our last post we covered the changes and improvements that have been made to the asphalt shingles, the most widely installed shingle by roof contractors.

Using fiberglass as the core element to asphalt shingles instead of asphalt-soaked paper has made today’s asphalt shingle lighter, more fire-retardant and water resistant.

But that hasn’t been the only change in the last 15 years that has kept asphalt shingles the most dominant type of roofing shingle on the market. There are also new designs that have proven popular with homeowners and roofing contractors alike. Continue reading Architectural Shingles Choice Of Homeowners, Roofing Contractors →