The Unique Appeal Of French Creole Homes

The Unique Appeal Of French Creole Homes 
By Kevin 
French Creole architecture is one of the most prominent building styles of the Old South. This stately form is recognizable on homes of all sizes, and immediately evokes the South's vibrant past. Although it is called "French" Creole, the style draws from a mix of other cultures, including Spanish, African, and Native American.
French Creole architecture is one of the most prominent building styles of the Old South. This stately form is recognizable on homes of all sizes, and immediately evokes the South's vibrant past. Although it is called "French" Creole, the style draws from a mix of other cultures, including Spanish, African, and Native American.

The French Creole style is most easily distinguished by generous front porch galleries which usually span the length of the house, fronted by light wooden colonettes. What usually makes a French Creole porch stand out is the fact that the building's roof extends all the way across the porch, instead of stopping at the edge of the house and then changing its angle slightly to cover the porch. Most French Creole homes are also built up to avoid seasonal river floodwaters and hurricanes - the main rooms in these homes are placed well above grade, while ground level rooms are used for a variety of non-essential 

purposes - for this reason, French Creole homes are also known as "tidewater" homes. A broad staircase connects upper floor galleries with the ground level, and acts an extension of the main entrance. French Creole homes are also characterized by heavy timber construction, occasionally with an infill of mud or brick. A unique building material, known as bousillage, was also pioneered in the construction of French Creole homes - it was comprised of moss, animal hair, and mud. Many homes in this style were also distinguished by multiple French doors, and extremely steep angle braces.

There are also a variety of commercial and urban interpretations of the French Creole style. French Creole cottages in downtown New Orleans stand flush with the property and generally have no gallery. Townhouses of this style included a low mezzanine-type storage area known as the entresol between the first and second floor, and a wide carriage passage connecting the street to the building's main courtyard. Many buildings of this type can still be seen in New Orlean's French Quarter.

French Creole homes originated in New Orleans in the early 1700s, and quickly spread across the south as builders looked for a practical yet attractive style for this region's humid subtropical climate. "Creole" refers to a people of mixed French and West Indies or Latin American heritage who live in the Gulf of Mexico region. 

Original French Creole homes provide some of the most attractive examples of residential architecture in the South, from small cottages to large plantation estates. 

How To Select And Install A Home Well Water Chlorinator

How To Select And Install A Home Well Water Chlorinator 
By Gerry 
Many residential water wells require a chlorine bleach injector or chlorinator either to kill bacteria or to eliminate odors or treat iron bacteria. This article describes the simple steps one should take before selecting and installing a home chlorinator.
Common household bleach can used in an automatic chlorinator system to kill coliform bacteria and provide disinfected water. In some wells iron or sulfur bacteria can create 'rotten egg' odors and cause staining of fixtures and appliances. Chlorinators can also be used to address these problems.

The first step in selecting a chlorinator is to find out your basic water chemistry and have your well water tested. A general mineral analysis will provide a list of the common minerals (calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese, dissolved solids) alkalinity and pH. The pH is important because the higher the pH the more chlorine is required. 

How Much Chlorine Should I Plan to Add?

Chlorine is injected in parts per million ('ppm') which is the same as saying milligrams per liter ('mg/L'). For bacteria you want 1 to 2 ppm of chlorine and approximately 10 minutes of contact time. If the water is colder than 50F you may need longer contact time.

For each part per million of iron or manganese you want to inject 1 ppm of chlorine. For each 1.0 ppm of hydrogen sulfide gas (which causes the rotten egg smell in water) you want to inject 2 to 3 ppm of chlorine. 

So say you have bacteria and 2.0 ppm of iron. For our example here, we will assume you want to inject 3 ppm of chlorine.

How Do I Know What Size Chlorinator Pump to Install?

The next step in selecting your metering pump is to know how many gallons per minute your well water is flowing at the point where you will be injecting the chlorine. Usually the best place to inject the chlorine is before the pressure tank. Unless you have a variable-speed pump, your water at this point is flowing in approximately the same flow rate every time the well pump turns on. After you use up your reserve in your pressure tank, the pressure switch turns on the well pump and the water begins to flow from the well.

You can easily calculate the flow rate at this point by following these steps:

1. Open any hose bib or faucet until pump turns on.
2. Close hose bib or faucet and let pump fill up pressure tank until it turns off.
3. Using a 1 or 5 gal. bucket, open faucet, collect and measure all water discharged until pump turns on. Let us say this amount is 20 gallons.
4. When pump turns on, immediately close faucet and start timing pump cycle.
5. When pump turns off, record pump cycle time to refill pressure tank in seconds. Let us say this figure is two minutes or 120 seconds.
6. Divide the number of gallons collected in Step 3 by the number of seconds in Step 5. 20 divided by 120 is 0.166
7. Multiply the answer from Step 6 by 60, which comes out to 10.
8. The answer in Step 7 is the average pumping capacity of the pump in gallons per minute (GPM). 

Now that you know the amount of chlorine you want to install (3 ppm) and the flow rate of the water stream you are injecting the chlorine into (10 gallons per minute) you are finally ready to calculate the size of the metering pump!

How Strong Should the Chlorine Bleach Solution Be?

Use unscented 5% chlorine laundry bleach and dilute it by adding 9 gallons of water to 1 gallon of bleach. This will give you a solution strength of 5000 parts per million of chlorine.

Metering Pump Sizing

Metering pumps are often rated in the amount of chlorine solution they can pump by gallons per day. They have adjusting knobs so you can pump the full output or turn the pump down to deliver up 90% less than the output.

The formula simple: multiply the flow water (GPM) times the Applied Dosage in Parts Per Million and them multiply this by 1440 (the number of minutes in on 24 hour period). Finally divide this number by the solution strength being used. 

10 GPM x 3.0 PPM x 1440 divided by 5000 = 8.6 Gallons Per Day

At this rate you can select a metering pump that can pump 10 gallons per day and adjust the output of the pump to 86% to achieve the desired 8.6 gallons per day. Finally you can test the chlorine residual at the kitchen sink. Your goal should be to have a residual of 0.2 to 0.8 ppm of chlorine. If you find the residual is too high, you can adjust the metering pump down to deliver less or dilute the chlorine solution with more water. If you find the residual is too low, you can make the solution strength stronger by using less water to dilute the solution, or you can turn up the output of the metering pump.

 We strive to provide only quality articles, so if there is a specific topic related to home that you would like us to cover, please contact us at any time.

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The Fsbo Guide To Selling Your Home In 2008

The Fsbo Guide To Selling Your Home In 2008 
By Kris
If you are planning to sell your house as a FSBO, it is essential to keep safety in mind when you think about the prospect potential buyers for your house. In the last few years, there has been a problematic climb in assault cases on realtors in the real estate industry. Due to this reason, people need to be careful when selling their house on their own. If you want to protect yourself and your family from becoming a victim to this problem, you can take into consideration the following protective measures:

Screening the callers:

If a buyer calls you and expresses his or her intention of seeing your house, make sure that you seek all the required details before granting an appointment. Ask the name, telephone number, existing address, job and other necessary details like-do they have children? Why do they want to buy a house in your area? Whether they have a family in that area or not?

Information is essential:

Never let any unannounced visitor enter your house unless you have granted an appointment. In case they arrive when there is no one else in your house, ask them to come later because it is safe to show your property when there are few people at home. There is no strong reason why a buyer cannot act professional and ask for an appointment before visiting you. 

In case you don't have any other family member staying with you and you have to show the house all alone then make sure to carry a cell phone with you. If you feel that the potential buyers can pose as a danger to you, call 911 for help immediately. If there is a need to get away from the buyer, run out of the house to your neighbor's house or the car. There are many criminals who don't want to harm the owners when stealing money or any valuables but when forced they can. So, be ready to take all necessary safety measures. 

Your children must also be told not to let any stranger inside the house when you are not at home. According to statistics, most of the assaults are committed on young children of 15-25 years. 

Virtual tours should also be avoided:

In case virtual tour is an option to sell your house, no expensive or valuable items must be kept in the rooms. This can be a good opportunity for criminals to target your house for theft. 

It helps to inform neighbors about your decision to sell the house. You must keep asking them if they came across someone around your house when you were not at home. Criminals usually use walk though or open houses for theft by posing as potential buyers, so that the property can be scoped out. 

Curb appeal will not only keep you safe from any kind of danger, but it will also add value when you sell a house. Put high watt light bulbs and low trimmed bushes for prevention from theft. There is no need to hesitate and if you are determined to sell your house on your own, you must create a plan for safety before taking a step further.

Information On Acid Neutralizers For Home Well Water Treatment Systems

Information On Acid Neutralizers For Home Well Water Treatment Systems 
By Gerry
On private water systems, one of the most common causes of corrosion is acidic water. Water that has a pH value of less than 7.0 is considered to be acidic. The ideal pH for most domestic supplies is between 7.0 and 8.0 on the pH scale.

Signs of acid water are corrosion of fixtures, pinhole leaks in plumbing, and blue staining (from copper pipes) or rust staining (from iron pipes). Often these waters are great for drinking or household use, but are low in buffering calcium minerals, and contain dissolved carbon-dioxide gas, which can cause a low pH and acid condition. Without treatment, these waters can be contaminated with copper, lead and other metals from piping, fixtures and appliances, turning good water into contaminated drinking water.

Treatment is accomplished by neutralizing the water with the use of an automatic neutralizer filter. These are water filter tanks filled with a media blend of calcium and magnesium carbonates made from naturally occurring minerals. This media, one brand of which is called Calcite, slowly dissolves into the water, raising the pH and making it less corrosive. 

More mineral can quickly and easily be added as needed to the filter tank. This is typically done once per year for most residential applications. No special tools are required. This type of neutralizer also acts as a filter removing sediment and small amounts of iron.

Calcite Media

Calcite is a crushed and screened white marble media which can inexpensively be used to neutralize acidic or low pH waters to a neutral, less corrosive effluent.

Calcite is a naturally occurring calcium carbonate media. One of the advantages of Calcite is that it will only dissolve until the water reaches a neutral pH. It does not over-correct under normal conditions. 

Upon contact with Calcite, acidic waters slowly dissolve the calcium carbonate to raise the pH which reduces the potential leaching of copper, lead and other metals found in typical plumbing systems. Periodic backwashing will prevent packing, reclassify the bed and maintain high service rates. 

As the calcium carbonate media neutralizes the water, it will increase hardness and a softener in some rare cases becomes necessary after the neutralizing filter. However this is unusual and only occurs on water that is very low in hardness and alkalinity. Most homeowners rarely find they need a softener. 

Calcite can be effectively combined with Clack Corosex to combine the high flow neutralization properties of Corosex, along with the slower reacting low flow properties of Calcite, increasing the ability to correct low pH.

How to Install Calcite Neutralizer Filters

Calcite neutralizer filters are easy to install. They need to be located in the piping after the pressure tank on a well water system, but before the copper household piping. If the pressure tank is piped with copper, it is best to remove any copper piping before the neutralizer and replace with PVC, PEX, or stainless steel piping, in order to avoid the corrosive effects of the acidic water.

Neutralizer filter tanks for home water systems typically measure 10 or 12 inches in diameter and 48 to 54 inches in height. The tanks have a center tube about 1 inch in diameter, called the distributor tube, which have a screen at the bottom of the tube. When the neutralizer tanks are assembled, the distributor tube is first placed in the tank and some tape or a cap put on the top of the tube to prevent media or gravel from entering the tube when the filter is built. Approximately 10 to 20 pounds of aquarium gravel 1/4 inch in diameter is first poured into the tank to cover the bottom distributor screen. The calcite media, which looks like white sand, is then poured in until the depth of the media reaches about two-thirds of the tank.

The top one third of the tank is left as free space. This free space allows the media to expand when the neutralizer is backwashed. 

Neutralizer filters need to be connected to a drain to allow the filters to backwash. The backwashing is done automatically based on a simple timer typically once every one to two weeks. This flushes out any sediment or iron that the neutralizer filter has trapped and keeps the calcite clean and properly settled so it can filter and raise the pH in an optimum manner.

Up-Flow Neutralizers 

An effective neutralizer filter uses an automatic backwash control valve, which allows the owner to have the neutralizer tank be automatically cleaned every one to two weeks. 

In some cases, no backwash control valve is used and instead of the water first flowing down through the media and up the distributor tube, the piping is installed so the water flows down the distributor tube and up through the media. This is called an "up-flow neutralizer" and they are not backwashed. 

There are some disadvantages to up-flow neutraliers despite the lower costs. In some cases calcite media can wash out of the neutralizer and enter the home water piping system causing damage. If the water flow is not sufficient the media can become solidified in places, causing the water to bypass the media.

Concrete Countertops: Hot Designs For Your Home

Concrete Countertops: Hot Designs For Your Home 
By Ryan 
Truly a designer's dream, concete countertops are rapidly gaining popularity with custom colors, unlimited shapes and unique style possibilities unmatched by any other surface, but a few trade-offs too. Are concrete countertops right for you? 

If you're unfamiliar with concrete countertops, you are probably feeling a little amused with the whole idea of having a sidewalk where your kitchen counter top or bathroom vanity should be.

I can assure you that this comical vision is far from the stylish, warm and natural look of this surface. 

Concrete countertops can be customized with unique colors, unusual shapes and specialty finishes not available with other surfaces. 

Truly a designing dream, concrete countertops are rapidly gaining popularity with restaurants, hotels and homeowners.

Colors

Virtually any color can be achieved with cement counter tops. Every fabricator of mixes their own recipe of sand, water and stone and custom color pigmentation can be added to the mix or stains can be applied in the later stages. Either way you get a unique color variation to your finished countertop.

The particular coloring process results in colors that are warm and rich with earthy tones. Considering that the colors found in nature provide us with an amazing spectrum from sandstone creams to deep reds and every shade in between, your choice is almost endless. 

The most popular colors are creams, grays and browns that are a natural complement to popular decorating and design materials like wood, stone, stainless steel and brick.

Design Possibilities

As coloring pigments, stains, various aggregates, and epoxy coatings are added to the concrete mixture, your countertop may be created to resemble the look, texture, and feel of quarried stone such as marble, granite, and limestone.

Interesting objects such as shells, coins and glass tiles may be set into your kitchen counter top to enhance your decorating theme or give added depth to the counter top surface. This is particularly beneficial to restaurants and hotels when creating decor themes, but offers equally enticing design possibilities for your home as well.

Like stone or other natural surfaces, concrete is not a static material and it will acquire character over time. 

Unlimited Shapes and Forms

If you desire a non-traditional shape, then concrete countertops definitely are the most versatile surface on the market. Your countertop can be as unique as your imagination. Molds can be individually shaped to perfectly suite any space, or unusual location.

Curves, L-shapes and V-shapes are all available options when designing with concrete.

Trivets for hot pots and pans can be made and built-in sinks are popular for both 

kitchen and bath.

Many edge styles are available and you're sure to find one you like, but each fabricator is a bit different so your choices depend on your contractor. 

Fabrication and Installation

As with coloring, each manufacturer has their own method. They may be pre-cast the countertop in a shop controlled environment or create it on location.

Concrete countertops are made with a combination of cement, lightweight aggregates and additives such as silica, fume, pozzolan and acrylic fiber. Structural steel or wire mesh and/or fiberglass is used for reinforcement.

Sometimes the concrete may be ground or polished to achieve a finer, smoother finish.

The final step when installing your countertop is sealing the concrete. The type of sealer used varies so consult with your installer. 

Price

Concrete countertops range in price from $66-$125 per square foot for materials, plus installation of between $40-$50 per hour. Installation is difficult and requires a high level of skill and experience to do properly. Hence, the steep price. 

This might be far more than laminated surfaces, but concrete countertops offer more style and durability than laminate.

Actually, the price of an installed concrete countertop may rival that of some expensive granite or marble countertops with beauty to match.

Cleaning and Care

It is not recommended to use your concrete countertop as a cutting board or place hot pots and pans straight onto the surface. Concrete may be hard and durable, but your countertop must still be treated with proper care.

Cleaning your concrete is no different than cleaning your granite countertop. Hot water and a sponge will clean suitably. When more aggressive cleaning is required, neutrally balanced ph soaps are recommended. Abrasive cleaners should be avoided.

Your concrete countertop should be waxed every three months for continued care and protection of the sealer.

Are Concrete Countertops Right For You?

Let's see: 

Pro's:

**Concrete countertops offer custom colors. The colors of wood, granite, marble and other durable alternatives are restricted to the material itself.

**Unique personalization is possible by embedding objects into your countertop to add depth or create a particular theme.

**Any shape or form can be fashioned with built-in sinks and drain boards.

**Concrete countertops can be installed without seams in many instances.

Con's:

**Concrete countertops are more porous than granite requiring sealing initially and waxing on a regular basis

**They are not heat or scratch proof

**Concrete is more susceptible to cracks

**Expensive--often more than granite or marble

Concrete countertops certainly offer interesting and stylish design possiblities not found with other surfaces and a few trade-offs as usual. 

However, with professional installation and proper care, you can be confident your concrete countertops will provide you with years of fashionable and functional satisfaction. 

We strive to provide only quality articles, so if there is a specific topic related to home that you would like us to cover, please contact us at any time.

Modern Prefabricated Homes And Their Benefits

Modern Prefabricated Homes And Their Benefits 
By Kristen Banker 
While a traditional home is built by workmen on a site, a prefabricated house is built in a factory. In other words, sections of a prefab home are built in large pieces in a factory, transported to the owner’s land and then simply assembled and placed onto a pre-existing foundation. 

Modern prefab homes are also popularly known as modular homes as you can put together any number of rooms to create the kind of home you wish. 

Prefab homes are increasingly witnessing high demand due to a variety of reasons: 

Speedy construction

The construction of a prefab home is much faster than a custom built home. Within two months of order time your home is ready. 

Since each room is built in a factory, all you have to do is to place your order with the prefab house builders and your house is built, transported to your site and then put together. On the other hand a traditional home can take few months or even a year. 

Life nowadays has become very fast and people are perennially short of time. Prefab modern homes are an ideal option as they are faster to build and hassle-free. 

Better Insulation

The insulation of prefabricated walls is superior to traditional houses as they are built in a factory. Although site-built walls are thicker than prefab walls, they still tend to sag over a period of time. 

Protection from Bugs

Since modules of prefab houses are built in the factory, they are better protected from bugs. In contrast, traditional homes take a lot of time to build so the timber and other parts are more exposed to damage. 

Money Saver

Once your prefab home is built, you can save a lot of money on electricity due to superior insulation. Precious money is also saved on lumber. It generally reduces construction and design costs to a great extent as compared to a traditional home. 

Design the Way You Like

With a prefabricated home you get the benefit of designing your own home according to your whims and fancy. You can choose the number of rooms you want, their size, designs, etc. 

Environment- Friendly

Prefabricated homes are less damaging to the environment as they are made from recycled, renewable materials, use less energy and don’t pollute. As people are becoming more conscious about environment, the demand for eco-friendly green prefab homes is growing. 

In fact, there are green home building websites now that offer aesthetically designed environment-friendly prefab houses, modern outdoor and indoor furniture, home accessories, etc. 

Better Equipped to Handle Natural Disasters

Prefab homes are stronger than traditional homes. Particularly, for an area which has experienced hurricanes or tornadoes, a prefab is an ideal choice as they can withstand violent storms and other natural disasters better than traditional homes. 

Lower prices, faster and easier to build, and a range of designs to choose from are the chief benefits of prefabricated homes. The popularity of prefabricated homes is thus sky rocketing. 

Prefab homes today are built from such advanced technology that you can’t even tell the difference between a prefabricated house and a traditional house. People from all walks of life are now choosing prefabricated homes instead of traditional homes.