Homes can be surprisingly dangerous places with the potential for both environmental hazards and safety concerns.

Homes can contain lead-based paint, asbestos, formaldehyde, radon, mold, imported drywall and other substances that can cause illnesses or chronic health problems. Homes are also full of safety hazards from stairs and stoves to bathtubs and swimming pools that can contribute to accidents, injuries or deaths.

Hazards at home Substandard housing is a significant public health problem, according to Sandra Whitehead, director of healthy community design at the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee and a technical advisor for the National Environmental Health Association, a nonprofit organization in Denver.

"People who reside in substandard housing are at increased risk for fire, electrical injuries, falls, rodent bites and other illnesses and injuries. Other issues include exposure to pesticide residues, indoor toxicants, tobacco smoke and combustion gases. Burning oil, gas and kerosene can release a variety of combustion products, including carbon monoxide, a well-known cause of illness and death," Whitehead said via email.

Homes can also harbor mold, unhealthy indoor air or residues from illegal drug manufacturing.

"Materials such as carpet and wallboard in homes used as meth labs have absorbed chemicals that can damage the nervous system, liver and blood production mechanisms. Children are at the highest risk, and exposure can trigger birth defects and developmental issues for babies in utero," Whitehead explained.

Home inspection Many home hazards were originally introduced by builders and contractors, says Jay Gregg, director of marketing at Pillar to Post Professional Home Inspections, a Tampa, Florida-based franchise company with 450 outlets in the U.S. and Canada.

One way to find these hazards is get a home inspection , but that's only a starting point. A home inspector can't move furniture or boxes without the homeowner's permission and even a vacant house isn't 100 percent accessible.

First-time homebuyers especially should seek the help of a home inspector as they have never been through the homebuying process before and are not aware of the potential problems they could encounter as homeowners.

"We can't see behind drywall," Gregg says. "We aren't Superman. People end up doing renovations and (discover that) -- whoa! -- there's funky wiring behind this piece of drywall. There's no way a home inspector could see that."

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How Healthy Is Your Home?

Vance Lile relied on his keen attention to detail and sharp situational awareness to stay safe every day during a decade-long career in law enforcement. Now he uses those same skills to inspect Longview homes.

You have to know whats going on around you at all time, Lile, 44, described working in law enforcement. You have to know exactly what youre looking at.

Lile began working as a reserve Longview police officer in 1997 but quit law enforcement in 2007 to pursue a career in building science. In April, he began assessing homes for Pillar to Post, a nationwide home inspection franchise. Within the last month, Lile says, he has become one of the fewif not the onlyLongview home inspectors certified to examine pools, spas, four-plexes and log homes. Hell soon be certified to inspect septic systems and check for radon.

Lile describes himself as mellow and said he liked working with the public during his law enforcement career. But working with buildings affords him the chance to interact with people without having to watch his back all day long.

In 1999, while still working in law enforcement as a juvenile corrections officer, Lile started a side business Aftermath renovation and cleaning. He later left his corrections job to become an operations manager at General Growth Properties.

Inspections became the most enjoyable part of Liles job at General Growth Properties, he said, and he always dreamed of owning his own business. So the former cop closed Aftermath and left General Growth earlier this year. Since then, hes spent about six months and tens of thousands of dollars setting up his new franchise.

Lile says he enjoys the freedom of making his own schedule and the art of running a small business.

Youve got to keep coming up with ways to promote it, and to keep it going, and to feed it, Lile said. Its almost like a living creature.

Lile lives in Vancouver but hopes to move to the Longview area soon. His business serves Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties.

Lile cant keep his business afloat with just specialty inspectionslike examinations of pools and spashe says. Regular home inspections still make up about 90 percent of his business, but his new certifications allow him to offer more hard to find inspection options to potential customers.

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Talking Business: Former Longview police officer opens home inspection service

Brian Carothers sees great wisdom when he meets a yinzer basement visionary.

Those adept buyers can look at an unfinished area beneath a house and see things to come. Plans generally involve pictures of Pittsburgh athletes; IC Light cans commemorating a Super Bowl win; and a piece of carpeting that doesn't quite fit but sort of makes it look like a room, he says with a laugh.

It is space that, when unfinished, isn't counted in the square footage of a home, so is basically free, say building and taxing officials. Architect Ben Maguire and builder Stephen A. Catarinella call it bonus space.

Although the space has untapped potential, as Lawrenceville homeowner Kelly Compeau says, it sometimes is overlooked in discussion of a home.

Catarinella says he always tries to make basement possibilities a part of the conversation when starting a house project. Even if the client doesn't want to do anything with the space when the home is being put together, he tries to make sure they can see what they could do down the road, says the owner of Steve Catranel Construction Co. in Wilkins.

Maguire says he, too, tries to make sure even empty basements are ready for the future by making sure that elements such as electrical wiring or plumbing are available.

Basements, though, still can be a problem with some homes.

Some people look at the bad reputations of basements and leave them unfinished, says Maguire, owner of Emerge Real Estate, a firm that has been creating and redoing homes in Lawrenceville and other parts of the city.

Others, like Kelly Compeau and his wife, Alisa, see basement work as a way to add to their house. He says they wanted an informal gathering spot they didn't think the first floor would provide.

They had Maguire's builders turn an end-to-end basement-level garage into a family room and a workout room the latter of which still is served by the garage door and has a little patio on its end.

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Basements can be valuable bargains for alert homebuyers

by TANYA EISERER

WFAA

Posted on August 22, 2014 at 8:22 PM

Updated yesterday at 12:42 AM

LITTLE ELM -- The gray brick home in Little Elm seemed perfect. Now, its become a nightmare for Leana Sanders and her husband.

The Navy veterans rented the house from Khosrow Sadeghian, the landlord featured in News 8 stories about the substandard, unsafe conditions at many of his properties.

The family had lived there for 21 days when a fire broke out. Electrical wiring was the likely cause of the fire, according to a Little Elm fire department report. The house is currently not habitable.

Something could have happened to my kids, Sanders said, sobbing. Something could have happened me and my husband. It makes me sick. And the thing is that he knows what kind of shape this was in.

Sanders tells a now-familiar story about Sadeghian. They found the house on Craigslist. It needed work, but it sat on a one-acre lot and they liked the location. Sadeghian promised repairs.

We kept coming over here and checking to make sure that everything was getting done, Sanders said. Nothing was getting done.

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Family devastated by fire in Little Elm home rented from problem landlord

SAN DIEGO - No one was hurt after a boulder -- which came from a rock quarry nearly a half-mile away -- struck a Tierrasanta home on Thursday.

Bianca Bushnull was inside her home in the 11400 block of Madera Rosa Way when the giant projectile hit her house.

"I thought we were having an earthquake or something like that, and then I heard like a big, big pop," Bushnull said. "It could kill people, and it's dirt. I mean, imagine if it was a rock... would any of this stuff still be here?"

10News learned the "earthquake" that Bushnull described was from a blast at a quarry on Mission Gorge Road.

The boulder, which was the size of a bowling ball, blasted through stucco, metal wiring and drywall after shattering the corner of a recycling bin.

Escondido-based Superior Ready Mix has explosions in the quarry all of the time. The company uses rocks to make concrete and asphalt, and they contract out.

10News learned Jones Services, out of Alpine, was the company that set off the blast. A company representative came to Bushnull's neighborhood to look for damage and also spoke to Bushnull after the incident.

"[He] said that he had been looking for damage because he actually saw the rocks fly," said Bushnull.

No other homes or neighborhoods reported any damage from the launched rocks.

"I don't know; what if we would have been outside? I guess that's the biggest question. What if I would have been outside?" said Bushnull.

Excerpt from:
Quarry blast sends boulder into home

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - Storms rolled through the bluegrass on Friday night and at one point, the heavy rain closed multiple roads and lightning had stop lights across Lexington out of order.

Heavy lightning struck down throughout the city. A lightning strike caused some damage to one Lexington home on Blue Ash Drive, off Harrodsburg Road.

Firefighters say that lightning traveled into the home, blowing off a few shingles and setting some insulation to smoldering. The man who lives there called firefighters before it could get out of hand.

"(There was) light damage to the home, basically just his duct work and some wiring that was in the attic crawl space," says Major Jason Walton, with the Lexington Fire Department.

Police say the traffic lights at about 20 different intersections were affected, some flashing, some out all together.

The heavy rain also caused problems. Leestown road near Dolan Lane had to be closed when the water began to rise where the road goes under a set of train tracks.

Police say they had one car stall out. They also had to deal with some tractor trailers turning on that section of the road.

Lexington police say they expect Leestown Road to be closed for several more hours. They say they're used to it flooding and that water is slow to recede.

Are you in the area? Do you have any information, pictures or video to share with WKYT? You can email us at iWitness@wkyt.com, find us on Facebook by searching for WKYT, or send a message to @WKYT on Twitter.

Originally posted here:
Lightning strikes home, power out in Lexington storm

BANGOR, Maine Work is continuing on upgrades to Cameron Stadium, home of the Bangor High School football team and numerous other local athletic entities.

After playing all their home games on Saturday afternoons last season while the stadiums electrical and lighting system was being upgraded, the Rams will play all home games under the lights this fall, beginning with the September 12 contest against Scarborough.

The new lighting was turned on for the first time last spring and is ready to go, said Bangor High School athletic administrator Steve Vanidestine. With the stadiums electrical needs now linked to the adjacent William S. Cohen School rather than connected to the power grid separately like the previous light system, the school department that operates the facility will save an estimated $20,000 per year in demand fees.

Vanidestine said the return to Friday night home games would be beneficial on several fronts, among them the fact that the high school team wont have to compete for fans on Saturday afternoons with University of Maine and Husson University home games, and it will allow players to have some additional weekend rest on both Saturdays and Sundays after Friday night home games rather than playing those games on Saturdays.

Bangor is scheduled to play just one Saturday afternoon regular-season game this season, that on Oct. 18 at Cheverus of Portland.

Coach Mark Hacketts Rams, who finished 5-5 and reached the Eastern Maine Class A semifinals last fall in the first season of the Maine Principals Associations new four-class format, open their 2014 campaign at Edward Little of Auburn on Sept. 5. After hosting Scarborough the following week, Bangor faces back-to-back road trips to Portland for games Sept. 19 at Deering and Sept. 26 at Portland High School.

Bangor then plays three of its final four regular-season contests in the Queen City, beginning with home dates against Windham on Oct. 3 and Lewiston on Oct. 10.

After traveling to Cheverus, the Rams will conclude the regular season with their homecoming game against Oxford Hills of South Paris on Oct. 24.

By the time Bangor hosts Windham, new restroom facilities should be completed and operational just behind the year-old main grandstand at the stadium.

Vanidestine said all the preparation work involving plumbing, wiring and electricity has been completed, with the end of September serving as the target date for completion of the building.

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Bangor football team to resume playing night home games

If you want blazing fast speeds and the ability to multitask with all your devices, nothing beats a wired network. This week, Tech Talker explains all the steps you need to set up your own home wired network, from cabling, to design, to the finishing touches.

This week's episode was inspired byTech Talkerlisteners Mike and Bill.

In a previous podcast, I talked aboutswitches, routers, hubs, and bridges. In that episode I mentioned why having a wired home network would be extremely useful. Say you wanted to stream movies, home videos, share files, orback upall of your computers to your home network. Well, you can do that.

Mike and Bill both wanted to know more. So that's why today,I'll be covering just how to go about wiring your house withCat6internet cabling so that you can have an ultra fast wired home network of your own.

Step #1: Design Your Network First things first - you'll need to decide how many rooms you want to run your wired internet through. This will determine much of your price, because it will dictate how many feet of cable you'll need to buy.

> Continue reading on QuickAndDirtyTips.com

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How to Create a Wired Network at Home

Severe summer storms terrorized Okotoks last week as at least three buildings and one tree was hit with lightning during the evening of Aug 14.

Stuart Donaldson was surprised when he came home and found his maple ash tree in the backyard of his Downey Green house split right down the middle. His neighbour Don Gilbert found splinters from the tree on his deck two doors down.

I found a piece over by my barbecue. We heard it but we didnt know what happened, it was so close and we came and checked it out and just saw it, there was debris over by our house, Gilbert said. It was an explosion, Ive never heard anything like that.

Okotoks Fire Department responded to three lightning related calls during the storm a business that was struck on McRae Street, a house on Crystal Shores, and a house that was hit in Drake Landing. The first two received no damage, but the Drake Landing home received extensive damage including an attic fire.

Owner Chuck Shields wasnt home at the time, but his 19-year-old son Spencer was. Shields said his neighbour was watching the storm and saw Shields Drake Landing house get hit.

My neighbour sent a photo three or four seconds after it hit and the house was already starting to smoulder, Shields said.

Fortunately, another neighbour quickly came over and knocked on the door to alert Spencer to get out of the house, as he was in the basement and hadnt initially realized the house was on fire.

He didnt know because he couldnt smell anything, Chuck said. He did exactly what he was told to do, grabbed the dog and grabbed his phone and was out of the house in 20 seconds.

The familys bird was also rescued by firefighters who were on site quickly and were able to contain the fire to the attic. In addition to the fire, the bolt blew out a light in the master bathroom and travelled through the wiring, erupting out of a bar fridge in the basement.

Okotoks Deputy Fire Chief Pat MacIsaac said the department has responded to a few other lightning strikes this summer, and each year its something theyve come to expect.

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Lightning ignites attic of Drake Landing home

MEMPHIS, Tenn. Criminals are stopping one mans fight against blight in Binghampton.

He was hoping if he fixed one home, there would be a domino effect.

I had a vision. I saw potential in this property, said Deon Spight.

Some people told him it would never work, that he was crazy to invest in any home on Carpenter. Now, hes starting to agree.

Spight said when he first bought the home last year, things went great. He slowly fixed up the place.

In the last few months, however, thieves stripped the aluminum siding, yanked what was left of the copper wiring, and even stole the Azalea bushes lining the walkway.

If thats not enough, Spight said he picks up beer cans and drug paraphernalia in the yard daily.

Anything that is not bolted down, they will come back and try to steal, he said.

Spight said he called police over and over again, and even filed three reports.

Memphis police told WREG they went to the home three times last week, but didnt mention if they are close to catching who did it.

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Criminals stop a mans fight against blight in Binghampton