A burst pipe can be a headache when it flood your bathroom with water. The water will overflow into the nearby rooms and cause other furniture to become wet. It is important to quickly get your pipe fixed to prevent it from wrecking more expensive damages. The following are 4 tips on what to do when there is a burst pipe in your home.

1. Look for Pipe Burst Symptoms
When the pipe is burst, you can see directly noticeable symptoms like puddles of water underneath. More often, a pipe that is rusty in some places and have strange smells are indication that it is broken somewhere. You could also be hearing noises behind the walls. The first thing to do when your pipe is burst is to turn off the main water valve which is located somewhere in your house. It is usually located in crawl spaces, and below a metal lid on your property. If the leaking occurs near the electricity fuse, you should also shut off the electricity.

2. Get Rid of the Water
The next step is to get rid of the standing water caused by the leaking pipe. You will need to get a mop to mop up the water puddle. If you have a wet/dry vacuum, you can also use it to vacuum up the water. If the water is up to your knee, you will need to use buckets to scoop up the water and dump in the drain outside. Quick clean up can reduce the chance of your wall and flooring become damaged by mold.

3. Melt the Ice in the Frozen Pipe
You can melt the ice in the pipe to by turning on the heater. You can turn on the faucet while the heater is on. You will notice an increase in the flow of the water after the ice has been melted. If the pipe is in a vanity mirror cupboard, you should open the cupboard doors so that warm air can come in.

A burst pipe often happen in winter when the water freeze. The water pressure can increase up to 40,000 psi inside the pipe when the water freeze. The high pressure is the reason why the pipe burst. You can relieve the pressure in the pipe by opening the faucet. This should be done on the cold taps first. After you drain off the cold water in the cold taps, you can turn off the water boiler and heating system.

4. Seek Help from a Licensed Plumber
Unless you are experienced in plumbing repair, you should hire a professional plumber to repair the leaking pipe. The cost will be minimum 1,000 onwards. You might want to hire an electrician if the leaking pipe is causing damages on the electrical system. Hiring a licensed and insured plumber ensures that you get reliable repair. If your hire a handyman that is not licensed, there is a chance that the repair will go wrong and you will not get covered since he is uninsured.

If you have recently tested positive for the newest strain of coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, one of your first priorities, after you have recovered from the disease, should be to clean your property. Covid-19 is a particularly dangerous disease because it can live on surfaces for a week or more. This means that even after you have recovered, there may be Covid-19 still contaminating your home. To prevent yourself and your loved ones from contracting Covid-19 again, you should make sure that your entire property is professionally cleaned thoroughly and in a timely manner.

The first thing you should do after you have recovered from Covid-19 is research companies that have experience cleaning infectious diseases. Traditional cleaning companies may be cheaper, but they do not have the necessary equipment or experience to assure you that your home will be 100% free of Covid-19 after they are done cleaning. To make sure that a cleaning company is legitimate, look for a certification by the Institute of Inspection Cleaning & Restoration Certification (IICRC) on their website. If they have this certification, also make sure they comply with all Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations. By checking for these two specific points, you can be sure that you will find a cleaning company that specializes in infectious disease cleaning.

Once you have found a company that has both the IICRC certification and complies with OSHA regulations, read more about the company online. You should start by checking reviews from third party sources such as Google reviews. If they have a lot of credible, positive reviews, this proves that they have a history of successfully cleaning properties contaminated with infectious diseases. After you check online for reviews, go back to the company’s website. On the website, check to see if they describe their cleaning process. The more specific they are with the steps they use to decontaminate properties the better. Most importantly, you want to make sure that their cleaning procedures are approved by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This may not be specifically mentioned on their website, in which case you should call them and ask if the CDC and EPA have approved their procedures.

After confirming that the company’s procedures have been approved by the proper authorities, closely read their infectious disease decontamination procedures. Note that traditional property cleaning and biohazard remediation are two completely separate procedures. While a traditional property cleaning may be as simple as deep cleaning your house with vacuums and water, biohazard remediation is much more thorough. Biohazard remediation involves three simple steps: removal, cleaning, and disinfecting. If the company’s biohazard remediation services do not offer some variation of these steps, they are likely repackaging their traditional property cleaning services, which will not guarantee that your house is decontaminated from Covid-19. Although companies differ in how they execute these steps, all legitimate biohazard remediation companies will be sure to follow them. Before you choose a cleaning company to decontaminate your property from Covid-19, make sure they are committed to following standard biohazard remediation procedures.

The government has urged over 120,000 people in the Florida Panhandle to leave as fast as they can as Hurricane Michael approach the Gulf of Mexico in increasing speed. The hurricane is now heading north at 12 mph with winds of 110 mph. It can potentially bring a storm surge of 12 feet.

Many residents have prepared their homes by boarding up the windows and arranging sandbag around their house to block the water. The hurricane is expected to arrive on the Gulf Coast which is near to fishing villages and famous for its white sandy beaches on Wednesday.

Ken Graham, the director of the National Hurricane Center, is urging people to leave today. It is a Category 3 hurricane now but it is strengthening over the Gulf waters. From the top view, the hurricane measures 35 miles across while the tropical storm force measures 370 miles across.
Marshy areas near the Big Bend is already experiencing storm surge of up to 12 feet.

Some people have planned to ride out the storm by stocking up food and other necessary supplies. Gov. Rick Scott of Florida is asking people in the low lying area not to stay where they are but move out of town as fast as they can. In Bay County, more than 120,000 people in Panama City along with those with are living in the low lying area have been asked to evacuate. Evacuations are also in the process in Escambia County.

Some are not sure whether the hurricane is strong enough to destroy their homes but they have nevertheless decided to evacuate just to make sure they ride out of the storm safely. Many in Apalachicola have decided to stay. In the state’s capital, Tallahassee, gas stations are sold out as many people rushed to filled their vehicles with fuel. Many convenience stores like Quick ;N’ Save have sold out water bottles and ice bags.

The mayor of Tallahassee, Mayor Andrew Gillum is assisting the residents in filling the sandbags. Michael could potentially dump up to1 feet of water in the community. After that, it will head southeast and return to the mid Atlantic state where it comes from. It could bring 3 – 6 inches of rain in Georgia, Carolinas, and Virginia.

Gov. Rick Scott said that many people who were affected by recent Hurricane Florence don’t know how they are going to make preparation for Hurricane Michael. Florence has blown away the roofs of many houses. Florence took 5 days to turn into a hurricane but Michael took only 2 days to turn into a hurricane. David Morgan, the sheriff of Escambria county, is warning the people that no one may come to help them if a tree falls on their houses and they call for help.

Hurricane Florence has started to pound North Carolina coast with heavy rain and wind on Thursday. Roads on the Outer Banks are being flooded as the storm passes through. This is a big storm that will cause many homes on the southeast coast to be flooded.

The National Hurricane Center said that the location of Florence is 85 miles east southeast of Wilmington and 145 miles east of Myrtle Beach. Hurricane Florence previously had a sustained wind speed of 140 mph but it was dropped to 100 mph on Thursday. On the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, Category 4 Florence is being reduced to a Category 2 storm.

According to forecasters, the hurricane situation will become even worser when it lashes the area of the boundary line of North Carolina and South Carolina early Friday. The center said that it will move in slow motion across the east and central part of South Carolina. Forecasters believe that Florence will be dangerous because the storm is wide and moving slowly.

The powerful storm surge is likely to cause a big portion of the Carolina coast to be under over 11 feet of ocean water. The continuous heavy rain will dump up to 40 inches of rain on the area along the coast. It will bring inundation of more than 3 feet of rain in the area near to Carolina coast. It could bring the same situation as experienced during Hurricane Harvey and cause businesses and homes to be flooded.

There may also be a few tornadoes hitting eastern North Carolina on Friday. Florence will also affect Georgia and other places inland. Governor Nathan Deal has already declared a state of emergency in Georgia on Wednesday. North Myrtle Beach is now a ghost town as people get evacuated for Hurricane Florence. Only some locals choose to stay in town.

Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said he is serious about the residents taking heed of his message and not underestimate its strength. He said he knows people are paying attention to the predictions of the storm but he has also heard some people commented that the hurricane is having a break on North Carolina. FEMA encourages the residents to have a few methods to get the latest updates on the hurricane, for example, phone, TV and radio.

Gov. Henry Mc Master of South Carolina urge everyone in the evacuation to leave now as there won’t be time to escape when the tropical storm arrives. He warns that landfall will arrive at about 8 am Friday in Wrightsville Beach. When this happens, there could be up to 30 inches of rain and storm surge could reach up to 10 feet at the beach areas.