Fire Chief calls for help

Fire chief calls for residential sprinklers after fire destroys  home

According to a report on BurlingtonFreePress.com, the chief of the Colchester Center (VT) Fire Company is re-issuing his call for local lawmakers to require automatic sprinkler systems in new homes. This comes after crews spent nearly six hour battling a blaze that eventually destroyed a local home.

The fire started in a shop room, but officials have yet to determine the cause, Chief Mike Chmielewski told the newspaper. “If they had residential sprinklers, the house would probably be standing today,” he said.

The report says that last October, local lawmakers shelved the fire chiefs’ proposal because opponents questioned the relative benefits of sprinklers and said the sprinkler mandate would have boosted the cost of new housing. According to a report from the Fire Protection Research Foundation, the cost of installing sprinkler systems to the home builder averages $1.61 per sprinklered square foot.

Read the full news report on BurlingtonFreePress.com.

Moisture in New Homes

The only thing worse than finding moisture in your new home, is hearing from your homebuyer that they have unexplained moisture in their new homes.  Often, I receive e-mails or calls about moisture in a new home.  Typically the questions revolve around three potential situations.  New building practices have led to more opportunities for moisture to collect within the home.  In this blog and the next few we will discuss scenarios when and where moisture can occur and the best building practices to avoid any potential problems.

Let’s tackle the simplest one first.  From time to time, we get calls regarding moisture on the floor near the furnace.  There are often two reasons for this.  Humidifiers and High-Efficiency Condensing Furnaces have drain lines.  Sometimes these drain lines get moved away from the floor drain and the water overflow can collect in undesirable areas.  Check this first, or perhaps the drain lines have come away from either unit. 

Some customers question why water is coming from their furnace.  This is a good question!  The reason is;  High efficiency furnaces employ sealed combustion and there is trace amounts of water in natural gas.  This water ‘condenses’ out of the burned fuel and needs to be drained. 

Note: If water has pooled around the base of your furnace, once you have resolved the drain line issue, be sure to dry the area around the base to prevent any potential corrosion issues.