How to Stay Cozy and Safe This Winter

   During the winter season, we often see an increase in our electricity bills, due to the added cost of running a central heating system, in order to keep the temperature inside our homes at a warm enough temperature .

   In order to avoid these increased costs in electricity, many people use alternative heating sources such as, space heaters, gas and wood burning fire places, and kerosine heaters, to keep warm inside their homes. These alternative heating sources are convenient, affordable and often quite effective in providing enough heat for a person to stay cozy with minimal use of their central heating unit. However, when used improperly, these items can become a deadly fire hazard, threatening the safety of you and your loved ones. Thousands of fires occur each year due to the improper use of alternative heating sources, so the National Home Safety Council provides a few tips for how they should and should not be used, in order to assure you stay not only warm but safe during the cold months.

    

FOR SPACE HEATER SAFETY

- Upon purchasing a new space heater, prior to your very first use, make sure that your heater has been tested for safety. To be certain that the machine you purchased has met safety and quality control regulations, look for ETL, UL, or CSA labels (both on the box and the machine itself). If any of these labels are present, the machine has passed inspection and been deemed safe for purchase and use of product by consumers.

 

-Always remember to always place space heaters flat on the floor and out of harm's way. All space heaters should be kept a minimum of 3ft away from people, pets and anything else that can burn. An easy way to remember this 3 ft rule is to make a mental note to always, "Give Space Heaters Space". Also, you should never drape wet clothes or towels over space heaters to dry, and never attempt to dry your hair using a space heater.

-Never plug a space heater into an extension chord, instead always plug directly into a wall outlet.

-Always turn off AND unplug your space heater before going out of the house or to bed. 

-Never leave children or pets unsupervised in a room where a space heater is in use.

FIREPLACE SAFETY

-Prior to your first use of your fireplace each winter season, it is a good idea to seek a professional Chimney Sweep to come out to your home for a full chimney inspection and cleaning, if they find that this is necessary upon initial inspection.

Fire Place Screen

-Never make a fire in your home, without the use a fireplace screen to prevent open flames and pieces of burning wood from flying out and burning people or pets nearby, and from reaching any household items such as carpet and furniture, which are extremely flammable. 

KEROSINE HEATER SAFETY

- Place kerosene heaters several feet away from all furniture, curtains, papers, clothes, bedding and other combustible materials.

-Remember that kerosene heaters have a constant open flame and should not be used in a room where there are flammable solvents, aerosol sprays, lacquers, gasoline, kerosene containers or any type of oil.
 

-Never attempt to move a lighted kerosene heater. Even a carrying handle could cause a burn. Extinguish the flame and allow the heater to cool before moving it.

- Never refuel a kerosene heater in living quarters or when the heater is still hot. Wait for it to cool.

- Fire officials strongly urge that kerosene heaters be turned off before you go to sleep. It's better to use your central heating system while the family is sleeping.

-You can lessen the fire, serious burn, pollution and asphyxiation dangers from kerosene heaters by:

       1. Following safety tips.

       2. Maintaining a constant source of fresh air

       3. Keeping doors to other rooms open

FOR ALL HEATING SAFETY

*Keep a working fire extinguisher in an accessible area on each level of a house. 

*Know how to operate your fire extinguisher.

*Have at least 1 working smoke alarm in each sleeping quarter of your home. Check and refresh the batteries often.

*Have at least 1 working carbon monoxide detector on each level of your home. Check and refresh the batteries often.

For more tips on home heating safety, be sure to check out the Home Safety Council's website and be sure to check back for upcoming blog posts here, about how to keep you house safe and warm throughout the winter season!

  Seems only natural, that we use our first official blog post, to introduce ourselves to you, the blogging community, and also give you a bit of an idea of what it is we do, and why we think you might find our blog (or so we hope) to be useful. So, here goes...

Hi, we are Half Moon Contractors, a team of property restoration and reconstruction specialists, based out of Columbia, South Carolina.

What does that mean exactly?

We are a team of contractors, licensed by The Clean Trust, and certified by the Academy of Restoration Sciences, to provide property owners with repairs made necessary after damages have been caused by

fire, water, wind, mold, etc. Basically, we are the first ones called in situations such as, a pipe bursting and causing water to flood your entire basement, strong winds knocking a huge tree down landing directly across your roof, or any other property catastrophe that comes to mind...pretty much if you can name it, we have likely seen and handled, damage like it before. There is certainly some "shock and aw" value, occurring on a regular basis, when you are in this line of work. 
    
   We also provide full-service construction service, for property owners with large remodel and renovation contracting needs. This side of our business also has a fair amount of "shock and aw" involved in it, as our clients are often amazed at the transformations we accomplish for their homes. In fact, we like to call this side to our work, the "wow factor," because we have had a few clients who have contacted us with a budget, but lacking any visions for what they would like the results to look like. They tell us they just want to be "wowed" by what we come up with, and we are happy to report that we have yet to disappoint thus far.
   
   And while all of this does make for some rather interesting stories to exchange around our office water coolers, the "shock and aw" is not the reason we enjoy what we do...

Why we enjoy what we do...

  Behind every piece of property we repair, restore, and remodel are the people who own them. Each one with a unique face, unique background, and each one counting on our help, to restore the places they call home. We do what we do, and we enjoy doing it, because we love to help people, and the bottom line for every service we offer, on any given day, is the people who are in need of our service. We get to "save the day" almost every day, and that is a great feeling that makes it all worth it at the end of each of ours!


Enough about us...what will you find interesting about this blog?
  This will be the first and last of our blog posts which will solely cover the topic of Half Moon Contractors. We promise. While we will, on occasion, post about some HMC specific jobs, stories, etc. our purpose in blogging at all, is to provide property owners and insurance providers with non-biased, industry related information (both professional and DYI contracting that is!), and anything we feel you might find useful or even just entertaining...we are open to cover just about any topic you might want to discuss, so we encourage your feedback always, and gladly accept any of your suggestions for topic considerations--so let us know what you think!

   

 We hope you will enjoy reading our blog, and maybe even recommend it to others (that would be awesome!). Be sure to like us on facebook and follow us on twitter, so you will know when each new blog is posted! Whew, glad to be done with talking all about ourselves now...looking forward to our next post topic: Tips for winter Home Maintenance. Stay tuned! Thanks!