Is your houe storm or natural disaster ready?

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[00:00:29] Eric Goranson: Making sure that you've got everything ready to rock. So that's a big one, you know, making sure you've got two weeks of water. Second of all, backup power. Do you have a generator? Do you have, you know, an on demand generator? What are you doing to make sure that you can keep some power going for a while?

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[00:01:10] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining me today. I'm Eric G. We have got a fun show here and we're gonna talk a little bit about, is your Home Storm ready now? This is a big one right here because. It doesn't matter where you're located in the country. There are things you can do to help make sure that you keep you, your family, or anyone in your household safe.

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[00:01:51] Eric Goranson: Hey, real quick, before we get started, if you need to get a hold of us, give us a call 8 with your home improvement questions. That's 8 3 [00:02:00] 3 2 3 9 41 44. Or if you want to check us out, head to around the house. Online. com. I want to say thank you to all the new stations out there on the radio that have been carrying around the house show, especially the new ones after Danny Lipford and today's homeowner retired.

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[00:02:34] Eric Goranson: Just look for around the house online. com. All right, guys, or just look for around the house show on your favorite podcast player. So we're talking here. But first off, understanding what your local risks are, right? Do you live where a hurricane could hit you? You know, is it, um, a wildfire? Could it be a windstorm, tornado, earthquake?

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[00:03:26] Eric Goranson: So, is your home built up to current safety standards? You know, if you look, uh, for instance, to our friends down in Florida, if you're 1 of them down there. You know, Gulf Coast states, they have really enacted a lot of good building practices for those areas, you know, with impact resistant windows with extra tie downs and things that you can do to have a more sustainable home long term with a storm and they have done a better job than some of us with windstorms and you know, when you're talking [00:04:00] about that kind of stuff, hurricanes are prepped on the East Coast, especially down the South.

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[00:04:29] Eric Goranson: There are some things you can do to the house structure to make it more reliable for you. Great example, homes before 1980, uh, in most areas of the country were rarely fastened to their concrete foundation. Many times there was a concrete nail or two. There were some regular nails and a soft concrete and the weight of the home.

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[00:05:14] Eric Goranson: If you're going to pay to have somebody to do it and thousands of dollars. But really, what you're going to do is every three or four feet and always have an engineer look at it or have a professional look at it. You're going to take their tie straps and you're going to use these brackets, which are kind of C shaped to attach the foundation wall to the sill plate.

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[00:05:53] Eric Goranson: Floor joists over to beams. Beams to post post to the ground. Those all need to be bracketed together [00:06:00] with your favorite structural bracket to make sure that they're nailed and fastened together. That will really help you keep from that house. Blowing is a complete thing out into the middle of the road.

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[00:06:34] Eric Goranson: Are tied into the so plates in the, in the attic space. This can be a little bit tougher, but if you're doing any renovations, if you're doing any remodels, if you're even doing soft at work, sometimes you can do it there, but use hurricane ties to tie those systems together will make a big deal on wind uplift.

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[00:07:11] Eric Goranson: A little bit goes a long ways. I mean, my house built in the 70s, they did a great job of doing that. And it was pretty early, but, um, a lot of homes prior to the seventies don't have that. And if you can tie those together, that just makes for a tighter, stronger structure. So, uh, make sure you're using the right nails, the right fasteners, screws, that kind of stuff.

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[00:07:52] Eric Goranson: Now, the next thing is I want you to talk about in understanding your local risks to make sure that you've got the proper supplies [00:08:00] there. Now, in most cases, in most places in the U. S., it could take as long as two weeks for them to get. Your food, water, and even be able to help you get some heat on in your home after a natural disaster.

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[00:08:34] Eric Goranson: Do you have it stored someplace? Do you have big water jugs? Do you have a way to clean that water that could be coming out of a, out of a stream, a lake, or a storage device? I mean, how much is your water heater? Okay, so you've got a water heater, right? Mine's 80 gallons, because it's a heat pump water heater.

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[00:09:13] Eric Goranson: That way, if you have any water contamination, it's not going to be an issue. And now I've got 80 gallons of water. If I've got a storm coming, putting some water in the bathtub as well is not a bad idea, because that way you've got extra water stored. So making sure that you've got something like that is not a bad idea.

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[00:10:09] Eric Goranson: What's up, this is sticks it in you and satchel from steel Panther. And you are listening to around the house with Eric. Gee, yeah, we love Eric G. And you should too.

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[00:10:49] Eric Goranson: Is it natural disaster ready? Are you ready to go in case something bad happens? And we like to keep it positive here on the show. But, uh, these are things that you should be doing to make sure you are [00:11:00] dialed in. And we were just talking about talking about drinking water and making sure that you've got enough for you, your family, your pets, your animals, everything else, making sure that you've got everything ready to rock.

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[00:11:34] Eric Goranson: And is that fuel any good? You know, this is the thing. So many people have generators out there. I got a generator. When was the last time you tested that out? Is the fuel good in it? Is it gonna start right up? You're gonna have to remove old fuel. Because here's the thing, unless you're using any fuel stabilizers, Gasoline and a motor like that last months, not years.

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[00:12:13] Eric Goranson: You know, you look for it out there. There's websites you can find that'll do it. That will help because it's pure gasoline. A lot of less additive packages in it. No alcohols, things like that that really burn off quickly. You'll get a longer lifespan out of that clear gas. And then if you put a conditioner in it like stable or 1 of the other ones out there, you're gonna be much better off.

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[00:12:54] Eric Goranson: That gas can is used for filling the lawnmower. It's used for filling this, filling that. And it's just [00:13:00] 1 of those things. That, um, we forget to do, but it's an important 1. So make sure that you've got enough fuel and you've got it stored and that you're cycling it through enough that you're good to go.

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[00:13:29] Eric Goranson: I would say that water and food are your top tiers here, uh, and then shelter in there as well. But really what you're talking about is food. What do you have for backup food? How long will the food last? That's in your fridge. How long, you know, is that a day? Is it hours? You have a generator. That's going to keep it going for a while.

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[00:14:12] Eric Goranson: So, you can eat well, while you're having to boil some water, and uh, and do that. Now here's the other thing, when you're talking about food, what are you going to do to finish things up? If you need boiled water, how are you going to do it? One thing I want you to be very careful with, and we depend on natural gas for generators.

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[00:14:56] Eric Goranson: And they've got pumps things to keep the gas pressure [00:15:00] up, whatever's in that. I don't understand. I haven't been in 1. so I can only imagine what's in those buildings power went out there. Everybody in this area of Oregon city, Oregon lost their gas in the middle of that storm. So anybody that had a natural gas fireplace, anybody that had a natural gas stove that was planning on using or barbecue, they're in trouble.

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[00:15:41] Eric Goranson: So that's a key right there. How good can you keep this dialed in and be able to cook your food and not have to worry about ways to do that. So that's a key there. So make sure you got the food dialed in. And then next one here is communication. Now, one thing I learned after being in a big earthquake, when [00:16:00] your cell phones and internet can go down really quickly, and here's why everyone at one time is trying to tell their loved ones that they're safe.

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[00:16:30] Eric Goranson: I can't even make a phone call because the system is overloaded. That's what's going to happen around your house. Rarely, is it going to work? Well, so make sure that you have a way to communicate. And this is where kind of creating that family plan works out. Well, where is everyone going to meet if there was an emergency during the day?

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[00:17:14] Eric Goranson: And emergency, um, ways to talk, that kind of thing. You know, the ham operator community is good out there. But just think, if you want to tell your loved ones you're okay, a lot of this stuff's going to be down. Or if you're trying to communicate to a loved one, make sure they understand what the rules are, where they're supposed to head.

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[00:17:57] Eric Goranson: Make sure that your phone has all that [00:18:00] information. So if you're trying to call emergency personnel, they can see where you're calling from. And so let technology be your friend in that aspect and make sure that you've got that stuff filled out on your phone. I know on my Apple iPhone, you want to make sure and use that and update that information as you go, because it's easy to not have that information updated.

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[00:18:34] Eric Goranson: If you, Hey, if you've got any questions for us, your comments, 833 239 4144. And that's 833 239 4144 around the house. We'll be right back.[00:19:00]

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[00:19:13] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round the house show. This is where we help you get the most out of your home through information and education. Thanks for joining us today. We've been talking about, uh, is your house storm ready? Are you ready to rock with all that? Is it ready to deal with whatever mother nature decides to throw at it or whatever natural disaster happens around you?

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[00:19:54] Eric Goranson: So these are things that you should be careful with. And there's something that's new out there that, um, I wanted to [00:20:00] talk about, uh. Because I think it's a great option for people that live in high risk wildfire areas. And there's different companies doing different things out there. But one of them is, for instance, frontline wildfire defense, and they're at frontline wildfire.

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[00:20:32] Eric Goranson: Against wildfires. So of course you want to do the things you're normally going to do to harden your home, right? You're going to want to control the landscaping. You're gonna want to make sure that you've got the right vents and things like that, where embers can't blow back in, but really when it comes down to it.

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[00:21:14] Eric Goranson: And so this is a sensor system. And, um, it is crazy how well this stuff works. And so what's cool is it's always connected. So it has satellite cellular wifi. There are different ways for it to communicate, but these are an interesting way to discreetly install a system around your house. And so they have different zones there.

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[00:22:00] Eric Goranson: And so, a lot of different cool systems out there like this. But I think it's something to take a look at. If you're trying to defend your house, um, you know, it could help you with your homeowners insurance. Um, there's a lot of different things that can help with this, but, uh, it could be expensive. Let's be honest.

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[00:22:36] Eric Goranson: And so there are now surge protectors that you can put in line to your system. Your electrical system that will keep those surges from coming in and doing damage to your home. It's something I'm gonna do It's on my list of upgrades that I want to do to my house is to have a surge protection system here And you can do that as well as lightning protection systems just depending on how often that stuff happens for me It's not that big a deal on lightning [00:23:00] because I've got these trees that are full canopy cover over the top I am much more likely to get damaged to my house From bark coming off a tree that was hit by lightning versus getting something that was a direct, you know, lightning hit to my house, just because it is well protected by a tree canopy that is 95 percent over it.

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[00:23:45] Eric Goranson: And that way you can keep that. Dialed in and, um, you know, I think it's good because it doesn't take much. It takes a windstorm to blow a tree over maybe to cross some power lines and put a surge down through the system. Um, these are all things that I think are really smart [00:24:00] to, um, stop electronics damage and potential fire risks within your home because the last thing you want to do is overclock stuff, burn them up.

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[00:24:31] Eric Goranson: And all of a sudden we had pharmacies that were shut down for days on end. And so I had to travel a fair distance just to get a refill done, and it took days longer. And that was just crime that had nothing to do with a natural disaster that could take down, you know, geez, it could take down your power and utilities for a couple of weeks.

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[00:25:20] Eric Goranson: Just make sure you've got a safe amount, not too much. You don't want to go bad, but you just want to make sure that you have enough of that medication that you're going to be safe and you're going to be good to go. And I think that's going to really help you out in the long term. Now coming up here, I want to talk a little bit about, um, you know, resources in great places to find more information on all of this stuff.

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[00:26:03] Eric Goranson: org is a place for you to go take a look. About this. So what is it that's primarily used down in the South, but they're expanding out across the country. A fortified home construction method is a voluntary construction standard backed by decades of research. That's your roofing contractor and builder can use to protect your home against severe weather.

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[00:26:51] Eric Goranson: And then there's a building standard called fortified gold. And that is kind of their ultimate protector package. And so [00:27:00] this is what the, the, the differences are between these. And it's really cool. So just the fortified roof gives you an enhanced roof deck attachment, sealed roof deck, lockdown roof edges, impact resistant shingles rated by them.

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[00:27:37] Eric Goranson: Where it gets you pressure rated windows and doors, stronger exterior sheeting. Engineered roof to wall connections, engineered story to story connections and engineered wall to foundation connections. And so these are things, um, they have a lot of different programs here. You can get hail ratings, you can get all these different things within them.[00:28:00]

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[00:28:20] Eric Goranson: org. Round the House will be right back with more important information for you just as soon as we return. Don't go anywhere.[00:29:00]

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[00:29:21] Eric Goranson: It's 8 9 41 44 that number 44 and I'll tell you what, uh, we've got some exciting stuff coming up here for around the house in the future here that you Don't want to miss. And, um, there's going to be some exciting things coming around the corner here that, uh, boy, I can't wait and not talking about it just yet, but, uh, we are going to be loaded for bear here soon.

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[00:30:06] Eric Goranson: But, uh, I have, if you are a Comcast Xfinity internet customer out there, um, something that's cool that they have and I have at my house, which is their storm ready wifi, which means when your internet goes down and many times that happens after a power outage, you know, the power goes down and all of a sudden you're trying to figure out what's going on.

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[00:30:47] Eric Goranson: For your wifi, but it's seamless, your password, everything else works. It's just grabbing up as a secondary off of, uh, you know, 5g or LTE or whatever's in your area. So this is a great way to be able to [00:31:00] continue to communicate with people. And there's a decent chance that it might work for you. So something to think about pretty cool.

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[00:31:30] Eric Goranson: Ready to rock and I'm talking about maybe some heavy duty tarps if you have wind or storm damage Do you have some two by fours? Do you have screws? Do you have stuff to do a quick roof repair because here's what happens just like any time that you have a major storm whether It's a hurricane or a snowstorm or you're trying to find dust masks in the northwest here in wildfire season Here's what happens somebody goes in and in 20 minutes that stock is gone So here's what I would recommend is to [00:32:00] build Yourself, your home, a kit that will help you get ready for the storm.

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[00:32:28] Eric Goranson: With scaffolding, so it's a high grade plastic. It's got the, the woven in, you know, kind of mesh on the inside of it in this stuff is durable and you can get them, I think, as big as 30 by 40. And so you could almost wrap the top of a good section of your house with that, depending on the size of your house.

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[00:33:03] Eric Goranson: And then having some two by fours, having some, some roof repair stuff, maybe a couple of tubes of, uh, Roofing tar, you know, some couple sheets of plywood to board up some windows, just some basics like that, you know, some screws to put it in with making sure that you've got the materials to be able to kind of, you know, maybe even a small role of roofing felt something that you can put up to keep the water from coming into the building.

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[00:33:59] Eric Goranson: In [00:34:00] case you had to do some fixes, you know, these are important things and as you go around your house and you're doing these remodel projects like you're maybe you're in windstorm area or you're in hurricane area or you're in tornado area, what can you do to be more prepared down the road? And these are all things that I think are super important that you can do.

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[00:34:36] Eric Goranson: So I've got something to work with Give yourself the right amount of tools get some rope Get some stakes if you need to put it down Or even if you just had some of those washers with nails that you could You know, nail into the trim that you could go back and, and clean up later. That's all important stuff that will really buy you some extra time to, you know, [00:35:00] get somebody out there to fix it.

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[00:35:19] Eric Goranson: You know, right after a storm, maybe you had something go through there. You can at least buy yourself some time because I tell you what, as we know, during hurricane season or during some of these storms, stuff goes, we're supposed to be getting snow here this weekend coming up. And, um, of course it's a few days before that, but I tell you what, go to the grocery store.

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[00:35:58] Eric Goranson: Kind of like the great toilet [00:36:00] paper shortage of 2020. These are things that are never fun, but guess what? It all tends to come around when, uh, when these things happen. So, uh, make sure that you're prepared. If you're going to go for the last minute, you're going to really run into some issues because unless you are foreseeing this before other people do that stuff runs out quick.

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[00:36:36] Eric Goranson: Then a wildfire that runs up there on the West Coast or a hurricane hitting on the East Coast. So think about this, just things to have things backed up, you know, for power, for heat, you know, if you're in a cold area, what happens when you lose power, do you lose your, your, do you need a generator? Do you lose all your heat?

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[00:37:14] Eric Goranson: All right, everybody. Well, that's enough of that subject right there. And a few things that I wanted to talk about here just as we close out the show today. I really appreciate all you guys tuning in. Share with a friend. Make sure and follow us on social media as well. We are on Facebook. I have a YouTube channel.

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[00:37:56] Eric Goranson: I am chasing after people out there that are giving you [00:38:00] bad information and you're going to see more of that on social media coming up. And if you're listening on the radio and just make sure you catch the podcast as well during the week. If you're missing, if you're catching us on the radio show out there on the talk media network.

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[00:38:30] Eric Goranson: And uh, I am the fourth, fourth person hosting around the house and I'm going to be here for a long. Time to come, so that's the cool part of this and I really appreciate you guys tuning in. So here's the thing, make sure you contact me over around the house online if you have any questions. And that is our website where you can track us down and then, uh, feel free to go back.

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[00:39:09] Eric Goranson: We'll see you next weekend for a new episode of Around The House Show. We'll see you next time.