The Importance of Boarding Up Your House
By insulating the openings of your house with cover systems that will protect it from the force of rain and wind, professional emergency board up services can mitigate the damage caused by hurricanes and storms. Your two primary concerns should be your personal safety and ensuring that as little damage as possible happens to your home when a tornado, a hurricane or a storm occurs and you are forced to evacuate. When local authorities ask you to evacuate your homes, you should not give it a second thought since wind velocities of hurricanes range between 74 to 155 miles per hour. Your house will be at risk due to accompanying winds, a storm surge and several other factors that generate an overwhelming destructive power.
If your house incurs fire damage, there is a high possibility that parts of your house will be exposed to the public. Hence, your valuables such as personal items, appliances and furniture may be potential targets for thieves since all the secure and protective walls of your home are gone. To prevent strangers from entering your house while you are in the process of restoring the damaged areas, emergency board up services can install a covering system around the open spaces in your house.
Due to the strong gush of water that could penetrate inside your house, floods have an unwavering effect of damaging your house. Since houses often need to be evacuated to repair the damage done to the house, homeowners have to think about the safety of their belongings inside their house. Fortunately, emergency board up services specializes in sealing off all openings around your house so that you won’t need to worry about your personal belongings.
For homeowners who have not experienced major damages within your home that require evacuation, you should always keep in mind that your house is at high risk from being entered by thieves. That is why an emergency board up service is so important so that they can properly seal your house and protect it from thieves that will take advantage of an empty house.
Why Hire An Emergency Board Up Service?
Emergency board up services is used for several things. Doors, openings and windows are probably the most common things that need to be boarded up. Due to the force of strong winds and flying objects, glass windows are most prone to dame during storms and hurricanes. The inside of your house is prone to severe damage once all your glass windows are shattered. Emergency board up services is imperative unless your home has built-in hurricane shutters, which are rarely seen. To prevent further damage, gable vents, skylights, entry doors, sliding glass doors and glass windows should be secured with heavy duty shutters. In order to prevent debris, water and wind from entering your house, professional emergency board up services offer installations of protective covering systems on your windows and doors. Moreover, these heavy duty shutters also protect your house from unauthorized entry and vandalism.
The cheapest and one of the most effective materials emergency board up services us is plywood since it is easy to get a hold of and is reliable as well. Although homeowners can install plywood shutters by themselves, the advantage of hiring a professional emergency board up service is that they know where and how to position the shutters correctly. The only disadvantage of using plywood shutters is that they need to be replaced regularly since the plywood material tends to brittle through time.
The Materials Used For Emergency Board Up Services
Emergency board up services also use window shutters and doors that are made out of clear polycarbonate panels, steel and aluminum. Designed to withstand the forces of strong rain and winds, these kinds of shutter systems are more effective, although they cost a lot more than plywood. Since they often come with an installation system that makes them easier to hook up than temporary plywood panels, clear polycarbonate panes, steel and aluminum are often corrugated. Unlike other panels, polycarbonate panels allow light to enter the house even after installation, making it a huge advantage. However, polycarbonate panels need to be installed by professional emergency board up services and cannot be done by homeowners themselves.
To secure large windows and glass doors from incurring further damage, glass panels, sliding doors and floor to ceiling windows need to have protective braces aside from shutters. Emergency board up services install these by taking angled beams that are anchored to the ground and screwing plywood support beams across aluminum or wood shutters. Minimizing the battering effect the shutters absorb, these beams are essential for support.
By installing steel braces or horizontal wood to the panels and tightening them with screws, emergency board up services are able to reinforce garage doors. To ensure additional reinforcement, angled braces are secured to the ground. Usually, a lot of garage doors have no support apart from the beams at the side due to their design and size. So they can be easily lowered and raised, they are also often made out of lightweight materials. The disadvantage of lightweight materials is that the garage door becomes more prone to damage. To prevent heavy rains and strong winds from forcing the garage door open, protective braces are needed.
Emergency board up services specializes in installing hurricane straps to protect residential roofing from natural disasters. Used to anchor the roof to the beams, hurricane straps are made out of small metal braces and are much stronger than nails. The strength of the roof can be increased from fifty to seventy-five percent if they are placed correctly.
Continuous heavy rains cause leaks that can damage the roof deck and attic. Moreover, roof shingles and bigger parts of the roof can easily fall tear apart due to high velocity winds. The roof of your house is at risk of collapsing, rafters and trusses become unstable and the interior of the house becomes exposed to harmful elements when parts of the roof fly off. Due to the damage it can cause on other structures, flying shingles are also dangerous hazards. To mitigate the damage natural disasters can wreck, emergency board up services uses impact resistant roof covering and plywood sheathing. These are necessary for the protection of roofs from the impact of heavy rains and strong winds. The reinforcement of gable end walls by emergency board up services is also another preventive measure for major roof damage.
Preventive Measures That Emergency Board Up Services Implement
To prevent your outdoor equipment and furniture from being destroyed or swept away by hurricanes or strong winds, emergency board up services also bring them all inside your house so they can be safe from the storm. These include barbecue equipment, toys, gardening tools, lawn chairs and other items that could easily be damaged or blown by strong winds. Another thing emergency board up services specializes on are isolating the electrical wiring around your house so you don’t need to worry about electrical grounds or malfunctions.
Since crisis situations often leave homeowners to forget unplugging and disconnecting utility services, this may lead to a more serious problem inside your house. Due to the strong winds and heavy water, electrical appliances, equipment, water lines and gas pumps can be seriously damaged. The possible effects could be short circuits, leakages and worse, a blazing fire. You can be assured that an emergency board up service will be able to make a comprehensive check of the interiors and exteriors of your house, ensuring that all your utility and electrical connections are turned off and unplugged.
Fencing your pool area is an important task for homeowners since natural disasters like storms and hurricanes can make pools overflow, resulting to basement flooding. This can post as a serious and major task for restoration services so your best bet would be to securely have your pools fenced. Furthermore, a house envelope is when a plastic sheathing or a tarpaulin is wrapped around your entire house. In order to prevent doors, windows, roofs and broken walls from hitting and hurting people how happen to be near the structure, a protective covering that is made out of heavy plastic sheets or tarps can be installed by an emergency board up service on your whole house. To avoid crumbling and falling debris from landing on your house, a plastic sheath serves as a soft wall. These are often used before the disaster strikes to minimize damage and to prevent further damage from occurring while your house is being repaired.
If you want to protect your house from incurring further damage and looming disasters, call on emergency board up services to safeguard the valuables inside your house. You can be rest assured that most emergency board up services are on duty every single day and can finish boarding up your house in just a few hours. Keep in mind that by having your house boarded up, you save a lot of money so that your house can be protected from natural calamities and at the same time, it prevents vandalism and theft. Always make sure though that you check the credentials of the company you are going to hire. Be sure to always ask for their license and certification. Do not be ignorant when it comes to dummy companies that just want to take your money. The last thing you want is to fall victim to a scam.
