House Investigations

Learn everything you need to know about bed bugs

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:54:06 +0000

Don’t let the bed bugs bite.
You have heard of the “Ghost”,” Dog”, or “Horse Whisperer”. Now comes “The House Whisperer”. After inspecting over 14,000 homes in the last twenty-five years, homes do whisper and convey messages telling us about house problems.
In Ohio, we have many nuisance biting insects such as fleas, ticks, lice, and flies. All these nuisance pests bite humans to obtain blood meals. However, the one blood sucking vampire that gets all the attention is the small, flat, reddish-brown bedbug that enters the home as a stowaway in luggage, furniture, clothing, pillows, boxes, and more when these are moved between dwellings. Moving out of your home will not solve the problem. The bed bugs will just hitch a ride to your next dwelling. Some exterminators state, that while dealing with bed bugs, its best not to sleep away from home. The bed bugs will move to other rooms that may not be infested. Used furniture, particularly bed frames and mattresses, are most likely to harbor these 3/16 of an inch wingless creatures. Watch out for items found on the curb or at estate sales! Because they survive for many months without food, bed bugs could already be present in clean, vacant apartments hiding in crevices because of their great advantage of having dorsoventrally flattened bodies.
Look for small blood smears on the sheets and pillow cases. Look for fecal matter which looks like a pepper spray. Look for bed bug casings and skin that they have shredded. These predators shed their skin five times before reaching full adult size. Peel back the bed sheets and look in the crevices of your mattress at the head of the bed and at the crevice between the mattress and the box spring. You also should look on walls being picture frames, outlets, and inside drawers of night stands. If you are looking for a bedbug siting, you need to stay awake between their feeding time of 2 AM and 4 AM. Lift the sheets and turn on a flashlight. This may lead to your bed bug siting, but this method can also be unsettling. Once you determine that you have bed bugs, it is best to call an exterminator.
A few things you can do to keep bed bugs off your bed. Move your bed at least 6-12 inches from the wall. Bed bugs can’t fly or jump. Wash the sheets, with very hot water. Steam clean your mattress and box spring. Hot water and hot steam kills bed bugs. Install climb up interceptors which can be bought at stores to all four legs of your bed. Bed bugs approaching the bed will climb up exterior surface and fall into the outer pitfall ring. Bed bugs climbing down from bed will be found in the center well. Finally, invest in bed bug mattress covers, box spring covers, and pillow covers which can be bough online. These covers that will trap and kill bed bugs that are hiding. These products will not allow bed bugs to escape.
The bed bug does have a weakness and it is its sensitivity to high and low temperatures. Bed bugs cannot live for more than 10-20 minutes at temperatures below 32 degrees. So all the foreclosed, vacant and bank-owned homes, the bed bugs are not going to bite in those homes. Additionally, bed bugs can’t survive in temperatures above 115 degrees. Therefore, if you move your bedroom to the hot third floor attic, the bed bugs won’t bite their either. The most effective and most popular method of killing bed bugs thermal heating. The house temperatures are raised to 130 F and left their for several hours. This method probably kills everything including spiders, ants, fleas, mice and more. Weather you use chemical treatment that can cost an excess of $1200 or thermal heating which can cost an excess of $2000 it will still be necessary to remove the dead carcasses, eggs, and fecal matter from your living space. This needs to be done to eliminate the potential for skin and respiratory irritation from these bed bug leftovers
Finally, when traveling, always inspect before settling into any room. Pack a flashlight and gloves and don’t forget your glasses or readers.
If you would like to read other House Whisper volumes, become friends on Face Book with Marko Vovk and read his wall for his daily learning posts. Marko is licensed in termite, radon, and lead paint. Certifications include: Indoor Air Environmentalist, Carbon Monoxide, HVAC air balancer, ASHI Home Inspector, ICC Code inspector, and has a B. S. in civil engineering. You can email Marko at clevelandmold@aol.com or call him to schedule an inspection at 216-924-8378.

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admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:05:04 +0000

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Cleveland home inspector inspecting black stains caused by candles

admin — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:27:53 +0000

Cleveland Home Inspector inspecting black stains caused by candles.
Marko Vovkexplains about Long, narrow, parallel black and gray ceiling or wall stains in buildings or homes can be due to “black stains” or “ghosting” which are soot type dark lines, or black stains appearing in patterns on building ceilings, walls and floors. This colder surface can also be seen with a Flir or a thermal Imaging camera. Thermal tracking or ghosting stains usually occur on cooler surfaces (thermal bridging) such as the locations of ceiling joists, wall studs, or areas of smaller amounts of or completely missing building insulation. Tight energy star homes also are susceptible to black stains if jar candles are being used. Additionally, as air moves through the building, typically up walls and across ceilings, debris in the air, particularly soot such as that left by a burning candle, fireplaces, candles that are scented, back drafting, gas fired appliance, poorly fired gas appliances, garage car exhaust, pellet stoves, and other incomplete combustion conditions which adhere to damp surfaces, cold surfaces, or areas of differential pressure, leaving black stain marks. In a conventionally-framed wood structure, wall and ceiling framing is typically on 16″ or 24″ centers. The wall or ceiling interior surface will be cooler where the framing is located than will be the spaces which are not touched by framing and which, perhaps, are insulated. So if you see black streaks up the building wall in a regular 16″ or 24″ pattern, particularly on cooler exterior walls but potentially anywhere, black stains at carpets or carpet corners, it may be impaction stains, plate-out stains, thermal tracking, or ghosting. Marko Vovk from http://houseinvestigations.com/and from Clevelandmold@aol.com states that 75% of home with these types of stains are usually cause by jar candles or other types of candles. As jar candles burn down, the oxygen gets used up at the bottom of the jar candle. Vovk states that the by-product of pure candle combustion is vapor, CO2 and some other combustion by-products. The carbon dioxide (CO2) is heavy and falls to the bottom of the jar candle causing further incomplete combustion. This results in carbon monoxide generation (CO) and black carbon or soot generation, Additionally, regular candles that are place in draft area, hall areas where people walk, near heat registers, near windows, near fans or anywhere where small drafts exists cause the candle wick to flicker. When the flame flickers it also has incomplete combustion. This soot is very small and can float in a home for weeks and eventually attached to the homes walls, floors, carpets.

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admin — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:27:53 +0000

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Water in furnace when AC on can cause carbon monoxide, rust and other HVAC problems

admin — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:27:53 +0000

Water in furace.

If water is dripping out of your furnace (water in furnace) while the AC air conditioner is running and, HVAC, or Heat pump, you most probably have a blocked condensate drain pipe.
Grains of moisture are taken out of the warm house air as the air moves across the coils which carry the refrigerant that are located inside your furnace. These grains of moisture condensate onto these coils. This lowers the indoor humidity, dehumidifies, and provides cool conditioned air. This condensate drips into a drain pan and is discharged. If this drain pan is dirty, or the discharge pipe is plugged or clogged, water overflows and backs up into your furnace. This problem can also be caused be the fan speed, problem coolant fluid levels, or other issues. This is why you need to call a trained HVAC man. This dripping water can short out your HVAC circuit board, it can rust your heat exchanger, and it can create rust in your heat exchanger burner orifices. This can potentially created incomplete combustion during the heating season which can result in carbon monoxide poisoning. If your furnace is leaking, turn off the AC, dry up everything you can dry up, plug in your Home Depot dehumidifier, and call your certified HVAC contractor. Additionally, make sure that the company you call is also combustion CO Carbon monoxide certified so they can perform a combustion analysis test on your heating unit so it will not cause carbon monoxide poisoning. For more information, please watch more videos on the ClevelandMarko YouTube channel. Please subscribe to this channel. You can also go the http://houseinvestigations.com for more information. Thank you for watching

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The Girl Who Likes It Hot

admin — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:27:53 +0000

The Girl Who Likes It Hot

The hot water heater is too small for the jacuzzi so people raise the temperature to very high dangerous levels.

Once upon a time, there was a nice girl who liked to take hot baths. When she moved into her nice house, she saw that she had a nice bathroom Jacuzzi. She filled up this whirlpool and found the water to be only eighty degrees. This was too cold. She saw an HVTV home show that showed how to turn up the water heater to a hotter temperature. She turn the dial counter clockwise to where is said VERY HOT. She filled up her hot tub and it was a nice warn temperature of 102 F. In the morning, she put the very hot water from her faucet into her tea cup and put in a tea bag. She was happy with her very hot tea and her very warm Jacuzzi. Then one day a home inspector came to the home to inspect. He tested the water temperature and found it to be 175 degrees Fahrenheit. He told her that she can burn her skin in 2 seconds at 150 degrees Fahrenheit. He also told her that she can get 3rd degree skin burns at 175 degrees Fahrenheit. The home inspector told her to turn down the hot water heater to a safe hot water temperature of 118 F. Then he told her if she wanted to use her 80 gallon Jacuzzi, she would need a larger water heater that was at least 2/3 the size capacity of her 80 gallon Jacuzzi. He told he she needed a 60-75 gallon hot water heater. This made her very sad and now she is saving up $1200 to buy an new larger water heater. The end.
This has been short stories by Marko Vovk at www.houseinvestigaions.com. Please rate, subscribe and visit Marko Vovk on Face book.Hothot girlwater heaterhot tubJacuzziwhirlpoolwarmwaterbathroomplumbingdangerousburn2nd degree burn3rd degree burnhot water heaterhot tankMarko VovkClevelandMarkoClevelandmoldClevelandmold@aol.comwww.houseinvestigations.comBurningWater Heating

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