The question every homeowner must answer: How solid is your foundation? The foundation of any home or building, the oldest saying in construction warns, must be built on solid ground. These days, it can be difficult for residential home and commercial building owners to know for sure just how strong the foundation holding their most […]
Wood has become a precious natural building resource that has become construction gold overnight. Seemingly overnight, lumber has become the new oil. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. construction industry is seeing a massive building crisis: A deep lumber shortage that is driving prices sky-high and 200 percent higher than April 2020 supply costs, […]
“In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.” Author Mark Twain Bob Segar’s classic rocker “Against The Wind” is not a soundtrack any Iowa homeowner wants to have playing as they inspect their home for damage following a spring storm. If there’s one gospel […]
The radiant light of a new day is here. Friends, behold spring: The season of the return of natural daylight. After living in the dreary darkness of winter for of a COVID-19 weary winter for months, Iowans are opening their windows again, allowing the sun’s sweet, bright rays to shine in their homes once more. […]
It’s January in Iowa, which means the unwelcome return of Iowans’ least favorite winter curse word: Snow. Unless you’re a seven-year-old going 50 mph down a sled hill, a 4-year-old trying to bring Olaf the Snowman to life, or training to make the U.S. Snowboarding Team for the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, we’re betting […]
At long last, we can turn the page. Friends, let’s open by stating the obvious: 2020 was a monster bummer year for all of us. We’d all like to wipe the past 365 days from our collective memory. Stephen King novels have nothing on the terrifying horror tale we all just lived through. The year […]
Every Thanksgiving is festive until the turkey catches on fire. Nothing instantly spoils America’s favorite day of giving thanks, enjoying family and dining like a scorched bird that decides to torch your house. Thanksgiving is America’s worst day for house fires by far, according to the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA). The NFPA’s U.S. Home […]
Iowa’s Gorgeous Leaves of Fall No Friend of Gutters The leaves of an Iowa fall are gorgeous, a falling rainbow of colors and a stunning marking of the changing of seasons and times in Midwestern America. They also can be pure hell on a home’s most essential water drainage system. The Hawkeye State is home […]
In flashback, it was a $1 billion disaster movie come to devastating, soul-piercing, heart-crushing life in the American Heartland. In the blink of an eye at 140 fierce mph, the homes, lives and worlds of thousands of Iowans were ripped apart on Black Monday. One month after the vicious derecho that nearly ripped Cedar Rapids […]
Armed with hurricane and EF-2 tornado force, violent winds straight out of a disaster movie roared through Cedar Rapids and the Iowa City corridor on Monday, August 10. The fallout was stunning, heartbreaking and incredibly costly. “It’s unlike anything we’ve seen recently,” Mid-American Energy spokesperson Tina Hoffman told The Des Moines Register. The monster storm, […]
