The Flood Co. Blog

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Since I started working for the Flood company, I have been sent to Moab, Price, Birdseye, Bear Lake, and many other parts of the state. However, I had never been to Wyoming, and just yesterday, we got a call from a couple that lives in Evanston. They were having a hard time finding anyone local that could respond right away. Their dishwasher had started leaking while they were at work, so it flooded the kitchen upstairs, as well as the majority of the basement. I went with another guy to help out, and we didn’t get up there until just after 6:00 pm. We ended up staying in Evanston overnight, going back in the morning, and finishing the work. We’ll go back in a couple days, and if everything is dry, pick up our equipment. Then starts the fun task of putting the home back together again.

I’ve always shared with customers that although I’ve never had a flood in my own home, I can sympathize with them through their ordeal. Well that just changed recently. I am moving to Kaysville, found a great place, but before renting, I noticed that the rain gutters had been damaged. The owner confirmed that during the wind storm a few months ago, they were damaged, and she intended on replacing them. While the rain gutters were missing, rain had eaten away at the soil by the foundation, causing a depression in the soil. Once the rain gutters were fixed, the gutters directed the water right to the ground, but because the grading of the soil was reversed, the water was pooling up by the house and seeping in through the foundation. As I went to move in, the first person to carry a box in came back out saying ‘hey, you got a flood’. At first I thought they were just joking, since they knew where I worked. Alas, that was not the case, and the family room and bedroom on the west side of the house were soaked. Carpet, pad, walls, all had to be taken care of. Everything is dry as of yesterday, and repairs are soon to be underway as well. The owner wasn’t happy about it, obviously, but now that it’s fixed, it shouldn’t be a problem in the future. In addition to re-grading the soil, we also put down spout extensions on all of the rain gutters, to get the water further away from the foundation.

With freezing temperatures already here, is your home prepared? There are several things you can do to help ‘winterize’ your home and prevent water damage now, and in the spring. First of all, make sure your sprinkler system is turned off and that the lines have been blown out. Leaving water in the sprinkler lines will make them susceptible to freeze damage, which could break lines and lead to leaks and costly repairs. Second, disconnecting your garden hose will prevent if from freezing. Some hoses have anti-siphon devices which don’t function when it is cold, which can lead to damage inside the home. Finally, blocked or broken rain gutters can cause water to flow to close to the foundation of the home. In very wet conditions, when the ground water table has risen, this can lead to water seeping into the home through cracks in the foundation. A little bit of foresight and planning can save you from costly repairs, so make sure your home is ready for the coldest part of winter, which is still to come.

Recently, I got a phone call late at night from someone that was house-sitting while their brother was on his honeymoon. They had stopped by to check on the property, and what they found was pretty overwhelming. A sink had been left running on the upstairs level of the home. Needless to say, there was water everywhere! It affected most of the upstairs, the main level, and the unfinished basement. Luckily, they hadn’t moved all of their personal possessions into their new home, so most of the damage was structural, and nothing irreplaceable was lost. The water even missed the Christmas tree and all the presents underneath. The homeowners just got back into town today, and I was able to walk the job with them and show them everything that had been done. Luckily, they had good insurance, and all of the damages are being taken care of. It’s not the best time of year to have a loss like this (not that there is ever a good time!), but before long, they will be back to life as normal. A good lesson here is to always have someone check on your property when you are out of town; had this gone undetected until they returned from their honeymoon, the damages would have been much more extensive, and possibly could have led to mold growth and other, more complicated issues.

Just inspected a condo unit in park city, which had suffered smoke fire and smoke damage. The customer was frying some tortilla’s on the stove, and lost track of what they were doing. When it started on fire, the customer tried to use water to put out the fire. Many of you know that you don’t want to add water to a grease fire; instead, you want to cover or smother the fire and remove its’ oxygen. Now, there was obviously some smoke damage, and a burned microwave above the stove, but the biggest problem came from the fire-suppression system, which was pressurized with a glycol-mixture to prevent the lines from freezing. The glycol-based mixture is very sticky, and though it did put out the fire, it also wet a lot of the structure. Getting everything dried out was necessary to prevent mold growth. Also, everything that came in contact with the smoke was cleaned and treated to prevent corrosion from soot. Be careful out there, especially during the up-coming holidays!

This is the time of year a fast-rising creek or overtaxed sewer system can spell water disaster to homes or businesses.

Water from such sources can contain dangerous pathogenic agents or other contaminants.  If you suffer such a crisis, don’t waste time.  Call us.

We are experienced and trained to handle contaminated or unsanitary water.  Remember, the longer the contamination remains unchecked:

• The more likely contamination will spread to adjoining rooms and furnishings.
• The deeper contamination will penetrate floors, walls, insulation and other materials.
• The greater chance of health risks and property loss.

We act fast to contain damage, remove water, pressure wash the affected area, then thoroughly dry and disinfect the building and its contents.  We can limit your losses on flood claims.

We here at The Flood Co. wish you and yours a safe and happy holiday season. Remember to call us this holiday season for your flood and water damage remediation needs.

The Utah Jazz have had a history of being relatively consistent with their logos over the years. Unlike other NBA teams, they’ve stuck with two primary logos throughout their team history. Ever since their days as an expansion franchise in New Orleans, they’ve decided against changing much.

So when news leaked a couple weeks ago that the Jazz were planning to unveil a change in logo and color scheme, a lot of people were understandably concerned. And after the unveiling of the color scheme and logo earlier today, I’d say those concerns are justified.

Could someone, PLEASE, explain how this is okay? This is perhaps the worst logo for a team I’ve seen in the NBA since the teal Detroit Pistons logo back in the 90s. I’m saying that as a fan and as a graphic/web designer. However, I’m hoping this is the just the alternate and the real logo is a return to simpler times:

Much simpler, less busy, and is more appealing, at least in my mind. And again, I speak as a fan and a graphic/web designer. So, if you’re asking for my personal and professional opinion, I just have three simple words:

KILL THE MOUNTAINS!

It’s about time the Jazz get rid of the mountain logo once and for all. They’ve clearly greased the tracks to get ready for an eventual removal of the mountain logo by going back to the music note, and this particular color scheme is more suited for the music note as opposed to the mountain logo. It’s painfully obvious, at least to me, that the fans are more into the music note logo anyway, so just go that route.

Personally, if this was what they had in mind right from the get-go, they should’ve waited to change the color scheme for a couple years. Slowly phase out the mountain logo and phase back in the music note logo using the blue monochromatic color scheme for a couple years, then make the change to the blue-green-yellow scheme. Doing it this way is only going to make people want to gouge their eyes out looking at the mountain logo with that color scheme.

I could go on about how I think the only reason for the change now is the overwhelming – and in my mind anyway puzzling – popularity of the green music note throwback jerseys the Jazz have sported from time to time throughout this past season, but I’ll spare you the conspiracy theories and just say that I think it still could’ve waited a couple more years. Sure, those green jerseys are popular now, but popular enough to change the primary color scheme altogether?

Well, for the Jazz’s sake, they’d better hope so, because what’s done is done now.

For a brief history of the logo, click here.

Amazing how even in this modern day and age of people becoming more and more familiar with technology how we can still be fooled by scammers and bots. (A “bot”, for those that are not technologically savvy, is an automated program designed to spam you till you cry pretty much.) Sure, we know how to tell whether or not somebody that’s sending us an email is legitimate, and most sites that you go to these days have a “captcha”, which is designed by nature to determine man from machine.

However, it’s funny how we still fall for the old trick to this day. Of course now, bots are using social networking sites like Facebook to get their message across.

And if this starts sounding like a public service announcement, trust me, it is.

Facebook has been seeing a lot of this going on lately, where someone will come on board, and start sending out friend requests like nobody’s business. And then, once they reach a certain amount of friend requests sent within a certain timeframe, Facebook will ask for that particular user to slow down the friend requests or the account will be suspended. But yet, somehow, Facebook’s initial efforts don’t seem to work as well as I’m sure they’d hoped, because the bots continue to send out requests after waiting a certain time length.

Once these bots have enough friends, that’s when they start sending nasty messages to the user via wall, instant message, or P2P message. Mission accomplished.

While this may seem like a nuisance, it’s a security breach that could end up getting a lot worse. Who’s to say that the friend requests stop at spam bots? Next thing you know, your Facebook account is hacked into, your password is changed, and goodbye Facebook account.

So if you receive a friend request from somebody, do what I do and make sure it’s legit. If there are mutual friends, ask the friends that you do know if that person is legit before accepting that person’s friend request. If you know the person who’s sending you the friend request, even better.

Because while a blind leap of faith can sometimes land you on your feet, 90% of the time, you’re just jumping right into a bottomless ravine.

As a web page designer and technician, I tend to keep one eye on things that are happening in the web design world. If there’s a development involving HTML5 or CSS3, chances are I have heard about it. If there’s a new version of a web browser either coming out or released, chances are I have heard about that. (By the way, Safari 5 was released earlier today.) So I’d like to think I’m on top of all things web design.

Which brings me to today’s topic of discussion: whether or not to use Flash in your website, or better yet, use Flash as your website.

The questions get asked all the time, and there was a time that even I asked those same questions. So, here’s a rundown of how Flash can help or hurt your website.

Flash can help you in making the designing of animation on your site that much easier, as well as animated buttons. The best example of this on the web is the Homestar Runner site. The Flash used on this site is used to animate pretty much everything.

Flash can also help if you have games on your site. Flash is one of the leading programs for game development on the web. Best example of this is Zynga, the leading company for games that are found on MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites. The most popular of their games are Mafia Wars, Farmville, and YoVille.

However, there are just as many reasons not to incorporate Flash in your website.

For one, Flash is not supported on the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, and the list of portable devices that no longer support Flash is growing.

Also, Flash takes a while longer to load than straight HTML and CSS. You may not notice this if you have high-speed internet, but if you have a dial-up connection, it’s really noticeable.

As for animated buttons, there are some animations that can actually be done just as easily with either CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, or a combination of the above. They may not be as flashy (no pun intended) or even as clean, but they still catch the eye.

But perhaps the most important reason to not incorporate Flash into your website is for SEO purposes. If you have the most gorgeous Flash website ever made, but yet nobody can find it, that really doesn’t do you any good. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo send “spiders” to crawl all over your website, looking for keywords to help rank your page. Once these “spiders” run across anything Flash, they tend to avoid that however they can. You want the “spiders” to find the keywords to help rank your website because you want people to find your website.

Flash, especially lately in their much-publicized squabble with Apple, has been a lightning-rod of both conversation and controversy in the web design community. Flash incorporated into websites has both its advantages and its disadvantages. Whether you should or should not use Flash in your websites is entirely up to you. If you want to be found by Google and the other search engines, chances are you do not want to use Flash that much, if at all. It’s all a matter of personal preference, especially with so many alternatives out there.