The storm has passed, but its dangers haven't. Here's how to keep your home, your property and even your neighbors safe and sound after a blizzard. In addition to beauty, quiet, and days off from school, a heavy snowstorm brings a range of hazards to homes and property, some of which can cause expensive damage or endanger your family. These five steps will help you keep your home and your family safe. 1. Lighten the load on the roof Head outside and walk the perimeter of your house, looking at the roof line. Are your gutters and eaves decked in icicles? Your roof may be forming an ice dam, where ice freezes into hard ridges that prevent snow melt from draining off your roof. Without anywhere to go, water will find its way into your home. Extreme snowstorms can also stress the roof through the weight of the snow. This is especially true as old snow compacts under fresh snow in subsequent storms.  If you live in a single-story home, you can help prevent ice dams and re...

Employers or employees, we sometimes forget that half our lives are being spent in a workspace that is enclosed, and without any exposure to the outside environment. In short, employers and employees are breathing office air for eight hours or more during the day. And when that indoor air is poor quality, health is impacted. Allergy symptoms can be aggravated, worker performance can be diminished, and sick days can start to rise. For all kinds of reasons, it makes good business sense to keep employees healthy in their work environment with excellent quality indoor air. Air quality professionals often pinpoint poor ventilation as a major problem in the workplace. It simply means that fresh outside air isn’t circulating properly throughout a given space. Even worse, a poorly performing HVAC system might be circulating air pollutants instead of cleaning the air, as it should be doing. Optimum air ventilation in any living space is critical in providing fresh air, while reducing the p...