Latest "Your Home" Article

The engineers at Criterium encourage residents, homeowners, condo/apartment owners, and commercial property owners to prepare for the hurricane season which begins each year on the first of June.

This year’s seasonal forecast was recently announced by NOAA’s Climate Prediction. They predict a near-normal Atlantic hurricane season this year with a range of 9 to 15 named storms. Dr. Gerry Bell, Lead Seasonal Hurricane Forecaster at NOAA, provides this season’s outlook.

Now is a good time to prepare your home or business for such an event. FEMA provides a wide array of hurricane tips—including what to do before, during and after a hurricane at READY.gov.

It’s also a good time to take photos of your residence or commercial property in its current state. That way, if your property is involved in a hurricane—you have photos to use as a basis of comparison. When it comes to insurance companies and FEMA, more is better for documenting any hurricane damage. That way you will have “before” and “after” photos to document your property’s situation.

The post Hurricane Season is Here—Are You Ready? appeared first on Criterium Engineers.

May is National Deck Safety Month® and your spring maintenance checklist should include a thorough inspection of your deck and railings. It’s important to ensure their safety before the outdoor entertainment season begins with family gatherings and neighborhood barbecues taking place on your deck.

• Check Connections: make sure all railing connections are secure. Anchorage points for wood railings often rot and may fail. Perform a stress test by cautiously pushing on the railing to make sure it doesn’t give at any point.
• Stair Railings: stairs with two or more stair risers should have a railing.
• Guardrails (railings): are required on “open-sided walking surfaces” higher than 30 inches from the ground, including decks. On single family homes, guardrails must be 36 inches high for decks (measured from the deck surface to the top of the rail) and 34 inches for stairs, measured vertically from the tread nosing.
• Strength & Spacing: both guardrails and handrails must be able to withstand at least 200 pounds of force applied at any point and in any direction. The balusters should withstand 50 pounds of pressure exerted over a one-square-foot area. Spaces between balusters cannot exceed 4 inches to prevent children from getting their heads stuck in the openings or falling through them.
• Benches: a bench installed around the perimeter does not serve also as a guardrail. The bench may be the required distance from the ground (36 inches), but without a guardrail behind it, which both the building code and common sense require, there is nothing to prevent someone from toppling backwards off the deck.
• Touchup with Paint: repaint or stain the wood, if necessary (the experts suggest at least every five years). Consider using paint with slip-resistant additives for the deck and stairway riser surfaces.

With regular inspections of handrails and guardrails, you can identify and correct problems before they become an accident you could have prevented. Ensuring that your deck, handrails and guardrails are safe will help to ensure the safety of all who use them from toddlers to seniors.

• Your Home – a Criterium Engineers publication “Stairways and Decks Aren’t Safe Unless their Railings are Secure.” This document outlines building code requirements for guardrails and handrails, as well as design elements that may cause problems such as rail height and benches along the perimeter.
• The State of California has a new extensive law that went into effect January 1, 2019, requiring the inspection of Exterior Elevated Elements (Decks and Balconies) and waterproofing elements for buildings with 3 or more multifamily dwelling units. Information on this bill and its history may be found on CA.gov.
• The North American Deck and Railing Association (NADRA) provides tools for consumers to Check Your Deck® for the upcoming season.
  • Check Your Deck® consumer checklist
  • NADRA® deck evaluation checklist

Note: these resources are provided for consumer guidance only. To have a licensed, Professional Engineer inspect your deck, contact Criterium Engineers.

The post How Safe Is Your Deck? appeared first on Criterium Engineers.

You’re standing in the basement waiting for a friend, who is following you down the stairs. Missing a step, your friend reaches for the railing, which breaks away from the wall. This will not end well for your friend, who may be seriously injured or worse; and it may not end well for you, because of the law suit and liability claim that will follow, and the friendship that will almost certainly end.

This isn’t an article about the importance of having adequate insurance; it’s about the importance of having secure railings on your stairs. Accidents related to stairs are the second-leading cause of accidental injuries in the United States, according to the National Safety Council, responsible for 12,000 deaths annually and for non-fatal injuries costing $92 billion a year. Only automobile accidents take a higher toll.

There are no statistics indicating how many of the stairway accidents are caused by faulty railings, but as the incident described above illustrates, the stair rail can make the difference between a close call and a disaster.

Recognizing the importance of railings – inside and outside of homes – building codes establish detailed requirements for them. The codes address two major types of railings:

•Handrails or stair railings, which are installed along one or both sides of a stairway, providing a surface to grab to prevent falls down the stairs or over a stairway’s open side.
•Guardrails, providing a safety barrier to keep people from falling off or through stairways, balconies, decks, and porches.
The requirements for railings in both categories focus primarily on their height, location, strength and grip. (See related sidebar.)

Emphasis on Safety
Building codes establish the safety standards structures should meet; they don’t guarantee that any specific structure complies with them. For one thing, building codes change over time, usually in response to incidents that highlight inadequacies in them. (Allowable baluster openings got narrower because children kept falling through them.) Older homes, covered by earlier codes, won’t necessarily incorporate those changes. Newer homes may fall short as well.

Municipal building inspectors who issue occupancy permits, ostensibly certifying code compliance, may not notice every shortcoming nor object to every one they find. They would doubtless notice if a required railing was missing, but they might not notice (or decide to overlook it) if the railing was a little shorter than required.

Your concern is safety, not code compliance. The question you should ask about railings is not just whether they are ‘built to code,’ but whether they provide the safety a particular stairway (or deck) needs, given where it is located and how it is used.

Cool Designs – Uncool Risks
Architects, and homeowners themselves, don’t always put safety first. Architects often make building code compromises to achieve design effects, and homeowners often focus more on the coolness of the design than on the risks it may create.

For example, to ensure an unobstructed view while sitting on a deck, the guardrail may be set lower than the 34-38 inches the building code requires. This protects the view, but it doesn’t protect the people who are standing on the deck. At 38 inches, the rail will hit someone of average height at hip level or higher, which is above their center of gravity. At 32 inches, the railing is now below hip level, which means someone who leans too far over the railing or slips will probably go over the side.

Another common deck-related compromise is to install a bench around the perimeter, expecting it to serve also as a guardrail. It won’t. The bench may be the required distance from the ground (36 inches), but without a guardrail behind it, which both the building code and common sense require, there is nothing to prevent someone sitting on the bench from toppling backwards off the deck.

If you read home decorating magazines, you will notice that using cable in deck railings has become popular. The longer the distance between the cables and their anchor points, the cooler the design. But stretching also makes the cables more flexible and easier to pull apart, creating wide spaces through which small children, or less-than-sober adults, could fall.

These risks aren’t theoretical. According to the National Association of Certified Home Inspectors, more injuries result from the failure of deck railings than from the collapse of decks.

I’m not suggesting that only conventional designs are safe. The problem, in many cases, is not the design but how it is implemented. Glass railings, which you will find in many buildings today, are a good example. Thetempered glass used in these railings is quite strong, so there’s no cause for concern there. But the exposed glass edges must be protected, and the railings must be secured firmly. If they are inserted in a wood frame (a common structure), there has to be enough overlap so the glass won’t be dislodged if it is hit hard, as it could be by someone grabbing the rail for support.

Essential Maintenance
Whatever the design and composition of your railings, maintenance is essential. Aging affects all structures and all materials to varying degrees, but deck railings are particularly vulnerable, because they are exposed to the elements. Rain, heat and freezing temperatures all can take a toll. Wood rots, steel rusts, the connections anchoring railings to the deck weaken over time.

Your spring maintenance checklist should include a thorough inspection of your deck and its railings. Repaint the wood if necessary (the experts suggest at least every five years). Make sure all railing connections are secure. Perform a stress test by pressing on the railing to make sure it doesn’t give at any point.

Railings on inside stairs aren’t exposed to weather, but they are affected by age and wear and tear, so you want to inspect them periodically, too. Grab the top rail on a stairway to make sure it doesn’t wiggle at the touch. Shake the rail slightly and notice if it vibrates; it shouldn’t. Perform the same stress test you used on the deck railing; interior handrails are supposed to withstand the same 200-pound force.

With regular inspections of handrails and guardrails, you can identify and correct problems before they become accidents you could have prevented. Most of us have heard Smokey the Bear intone: “Only you can prevent forest fires.” A mascot for stair safety might issue a similar warning: “Only you can prevent railing failures.” Ensuring that your handrails and guardrails are safe will help to ensure the safety of all who use them.

While local building codes may vary, most track closely, if not completely, the International Residential Code, from which this summary is drawn.

Handrails are required on at least one side of each continuous run in a flight of stairs with four or more risers. The rails must:

•Run continuously for the full length of the stairs.
•Be 34-38 inches above the nosing of the stair treads.
•Allow no less than 1-1/2 inches of space between the wall and the handrail.
•Be easy to grasp. (The code requires one of two types of specified grips or their equivalent.)Guardrails are required on “open-sided walking surfaces” higher than 30 inches from the ground. This would include interior and exterior stairways as well as decks.

Guardrails must be 36 inches high for decks (measured from the deck surface to the top of the rail) and 34 inches for stairs, measured vertically from the tread nosing. (Guardrails for decks on multifamily buildings, which are covered by the International Building Code, must be 42 inches high.)

Strength and Spacing

•Both guardrails and handrails must be able to withstand at least 200 pounds of force applied at any point and in any direction.
•The balusters should withstand 50 pounds of pressure exerted over a one-square-foot area.
•Spaces between balusters can’t exceed 4 inches, which is the average diameter of a baby’s head. The obvious purpose is to prevent children from getting their heads stuck in the openings or falling through them.

Download the Printable PDF Version

The post Stairways and Decks Aren’t Safe Unless their Railings Are Secure appeared first on Criterium Engineers.

Is your hot water safe??   Too hot and you can be seriously burned.  Not hot enough and your hot water may harbor dangerous bacteria.   It’s not a simple question!!

What’s the “correct” temperature at which to set a water heater?

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You’re standing in the basement waiting for a friend, who is following you down the stairs.  Missing a step, your friend reaches for the railing, which breaks away from the wall.  This will not end well for your friend, who may be seriously injured or worse; and it may not end well for you, because of the law suit and liability claim that will follow, and the friendship that will almost certainly end.

This isn’t an article about the importance of having adequate insurance; it’s about the importance of having secure railings on your stairs.

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Fire safety probably isn’t high on the list of concerns for buyers when they purchase a home.  But the statistics indicate that it should be. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), in the United States:

• Most fire-related deaths (more than 80 percent of them last year) occur in residences.
• More than 4,000 people die and 25,000 are injured in fires every year.

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If we were writing a Steven King-style horror movie, it might begin with a real estate broker discussing all the attractive features of a new home.  After noting the “brilliant design,” the high ceilings, state-of-the art kitchen and the exciting architectural details, the broker happily, assures the buyer, “The house is fully compliant with the building code, so you can be confident that it has no structural defects and that the construction quality is superb.” Cue the eerie music and note the black storm clouds forming in the sky. 

Why is this a horror story?  

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You have heard of radon. Perhaps you have tested your home or the home you intended to buy for the presence of radon gas. If so, when you received the results, did you take any action? Did you install a mitigation pump or even refuse to purchase the home?

Is radon risk real? There is a wealth of information out there. Let’s review some facts. Let’s look at what leading agencies are saying.

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What is a retaining wall? To retain, according to Webster’s Dictionary, means “to hold secure or intact.” A retaining wall, then, holds something “secure or intact.” Typically, as it matters to homeowners, the “something” is soil on a slope or at a higher elevation that, if left on its own, will not remain “secure and intact.”

Retaining walls come in many shapes, sizes and materials. This issue of YOUR HOME will examine a few of them.

Have you ever looked around your property to see if you have retaining walls?

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Seen on a Maine license plate - BRRRRR. When it comes to winter, that says it all!

But what of our houses in winter? Think about it. Is your home winter-time safe?

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In the wake of the damage and flooding of Hurricane Sandy, Criterium Engineers encourages residents, homeowners, condo/apartment owners, and commercial property owners to have a thorough inspection, especially as winter advances.

Criterium Engineers are assessing the clean up for Hurricane Sandy. President of Criterium Engineers, Alan Mooney, P.E.says the devastation is still a shock but cautions commercial and residential property owners to consistently document damage as much as possible.

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The following information has been compiled from several credible sources including the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).While for many years there have been two levels of fire protection available for your home, now there are three!

Smoke and fire alarms Fire extinguishers Fire sprinklers

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Feeling safe at home is important. While some crime statistics are declining, media coverage of acts of violence and vandalism increases our concerns about the safety of our families and ourselves. Busy families with chaotic schedules add to the concern as one may be returning home alone, late at night.

If you want to increase the security of your home, what can you do?

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Use this as a guide as you check your home for safety measures.Boxes marked “No” indicate areas where you could take action to improve your home’s security.These are just some of the steps you can take to decrease the likelihood that you or your home is targeted.

Yes

No

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ENERGY STAR is a program first introduced by the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) in 1992. It is designed to save energy. While many people relate the name to the energy-efficient performance of individual appliances, lighting and equipment (heating, cooling and water heating), the ENERGY STAR program actually is designed to rate the performance of an entire home.

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Is it modular, manufactured or mobile? Or…is it pre-cut, pre-fab or panelized? Or…is it site built or stick built? Or…is it a trailer?

And what regulations apply, if any? Previously, we discussed building codes and addressed some common myths and misunderstandings. Building codes, when they do exist, apply primarily to homes built on-site. But there are other types of homes to consider as well.

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What is a building code? Is it a law? Or a guideline? Or a voluntary standard?

What do building codes mean to my home?

Perhaps you will find it useful to review how building codes affect your home, both the theory and the reality.

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Since September 11, 2001, we have become a much more security-conscious nation. We expect better lighting in parking lots and walkways, prefer living in communities with controlled access, and lock our cars and houses more frequently. And we are installing security systems at a record-breaking rate. Companies installing security systems have been one of the fastestgrowing types of businesses in recent years. That’s probably a good thing.

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It's not that hard, really!! If you have an existing home and want to reduce your energy bills, here are eight ways to do that. They are simple and basic because that's what energy saving is – simple and basic. If you read the latest Green Building guidelines published by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), you will find that building an energy-efficient home is a very big part of getting a Green Building rating.

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