Couple Who Hid Secret Home With Fake Garage Door Slapped With Fine

There’s often a hitch when it comes to extending your home into an uber-pad – your next door neighbours and local authorities might not be all too happy with it.

Now one UK couple who tried to hide the fact they’d converted their garage into a secret home by fitting it with a fake garage door have been slapped with a fine.

Dr Reeta Herzallah and Hamdi Almasri, of Enderby, Leicestershire, used the false door to hide the doorway and window of the new building from planning inspectors, reports the Leicester Mercury.

This was despite the fact that permission for the new build had already been refused by the local council, as they went ahead and did it anyway. Naughty, naughty.

The pair were convicted at Leicester Magistrates’ Court for breaching a number of planning conditions after authorities caught wind of reports that the couple had been carrying out unauthorised work on the garage.

The couple now face having to return the garage to its original purpose. Can’t imagine that a garage would be nice a place to live in, can you?

“The development included the conversion of their garage to habitable accommodation and the erection of fencing, preventing off street parking at the property,” a planning authority spokesman told the Leicester Mercury after the court hearing.

“The couple also undertook illegal works within the highway and created an unauthorised vehicle access onto the busy B4114 dual carriageway.”

The couple’s home only got planning permission in 2007 with the condition that it had permanent car parking facilities to ease potential issues with on-street parking. Permission was also required to build a driveway.

After the council became aware of the breaches in October 2015, the couple made an application to keep the works in July 2016. A six month battle ensued but their appeal was finally dismissed in February last year, leading them to come up with their ploy.

A spokesperson for Braby District Council said: “After further correspondence from the council, some remedial works were undertaken by the defendants in May and June of 2017, which included the removal of fencing.

“Inspections by officers in July and August 2017 confirmed, however, that the garage had not been restored to its approved use, with the inserted door and window concealed by a propped up garage door.

“A final site visit in November 2017 confirmed that the required works to the garage had still not been undertaken, following we sought prosecution for the offence.”

The couple have been issued a Breach of Condition notice and were ordered to pay a £770 fine, £1,252 in legal costs, and a £77 victim surcharge.

Councillor Sheila Scott, the council’s cabinet member for planning, called the couple’s removal of ‘valuable’ off-road parking space ‘completely unacceptable’.

“The message from this case is clear: if you breach planning regulations and ignore us we will not just go away,” Cllr Scott said.

She added: “We will be following up the successful prosecution with a further visit to ensure that all the requirements of the Breach of Condition Notice are fully complied with.”

This isn’t the only time lately that rogue landlords in England have used their garage or garden space for nefarious purposes.

Last month a London family was convicted for renting out a four-bedroom property to as many as 40 people. Some of them even lived in the garden shed.

Link to the article: http://www.ladbible.com/news/uk-couple-who-hid-secret-home-with-fake-garage-door-slapped-with-fine-20180212

Related articles: https://rollerdoor8227.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/crucial-steps-are-assessment-adjustment-repair-and-replacement/

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Indoor Air Quality vs. Your Garage Habits

Do you have an attached garage? I do. It’s convenient for storing tools, bicycles, and holiday decorations. Oh, and my car. That, too.

Unfortunately, attached garages are also a source of indoor air quality problems. Cars live in them, which means internal combustion engines live in them. Every time you start your car, it exhausts carbon monoxide, or CO, into the air.

In some cases, the CO can seep into your home.

Shutting the garage door is important, but it’s not the only solution.

By now you’re probably thinking, “Ok. I already open the garage door before cranking up my car. What else is there to know?”

Well, that is the main thing to remember if you don’t want car exhaust to make you sick. Always open the garage door before you put the key in the ignition. Pretty simple.

The thing is, car exhaust can linger in your garage for awhile – even after you’ve backed into the driveway or after you’ve parked the car in the garage and shut off the engine. According to a fact sheet from the Iowa State University Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering extension service, closing the garage door immediately after backing out the car might create an unintended threat to health and safety:

The effect of backing the car out of the garage should be monitored with a CO detector in the house (several detectors have digital displays and memories that can help determine if the CO in the house is elevated by backing the vehicle out of the garage). If carbon monoxide enters the house, it will be necessary to leave the garage door open after backing out until the CO clears.

Every home is different. Every garage is different. Every garage ventilates differently. If you happen to have a garage that doesn’t ventilate particularly well – or one where air inside the garage tends to migrate into your living space – you might need to change your garage habits.

Here’s how to prevent car exhaust from polluting your home.

The following primer isn’t a set of instructions. Rather, it’s a guide for determining whether CO from your car’s exhaust enters your home – and taking the appropriate steps to stop it.

1. Don’t ever close the garage door while your car is running. By the same token, don’t ever crank your car before the door opens. Doing so presents real danger. CO concentrations in car exhaust are extremely high and can harm you very quickly.
2. Keep the door open for a few minutes after parking your car. This gives the exhaust time to dissipate into the outdoor environment.
   Install a CO detector in the room adjoining your garage. This might be a hallway, foyer, kitchen, or laundry room. Whatever room contains a door that opens to your garage, put a CO detector in there. And make sure you get a quality unit with sufficient CO sensitivity.
3. Monitor indoor CO concentrations after cranking or parking your car. Does the alarm go off following normal activity? If it does, then you definitely need to heed steps 4 and 5.
4. Air seal the area between your garage and your living space. When we say “air seal,” we’re talking about applying fire-rated foam around wiring and plumbing penetrations between the garage and the living space. You should also have a quality weather seal around the door to the garage so that fumes can’t leak in.
5. Install an exhaust fan in the garage. Here’s a great way to remove CO from your garage. Install a small exhaust fan that turns on every time you close your garage door. Connect it to a timer, and it will turn itself off after several minutes. You can also use a switch to turn it on and off manually. A properly-sized fan will remove lingering car exhaust from your garage so that it doesn’t enter your living space.

Even if your carbon monoxide detector doesn’t go off while you’re testing things out (see #3 above), air sealing and/or installing an exhaust fan is smart. After all, “normal” conditions aren’t consistent. You might be in the habit of opening and closing the garage door at the appropriate times, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always remember to do so.

Forgetting to open the garage door before cranking your car is an innocent mistake, but the consequences can be serious. Good air sealing and an automatic exhaust fan can pick up the slack for our own absentmindedness.

The exhaust fan is also a good idea when:

• You’ve got a really “tight,” energy efficient house. Indoor air quality is the achilles heel of many supposedly high performance homes. They’re so well-sealed, the indoor air takes forever to escape! But while these homes are well-sealed in their entirety, the air sealing between the garage and the living space isn’t always so robust.
• You don’t like keeping the door open after you park. Maybe you’re afraid people will steal your stuff or you’re worried about letting in cold air, hot air, humidity, or rain. Whatever your reasons for keeping that door shut tight, an exhaust fan is a way to mitigate the heightened CO risk.

We’ve all got our habits.

And they can be tough to break. However, when it comes to protecting yourself and your family from CO poisoning, changing your habits is worth the effort.

If you’re like most people, you won’t have to change anything about your garage habits – and that’s good! The only way to be sure is to get a CO detector, adopt good habits, and take action to reduce your risk.

Garages are great. Just be aware of the hazards they may pose.

Link to the article: http://www.pvhvac.com/blog/indoor-air-quality-vs-garage-habits/

Related articles: https://prefabshedskits03.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/3-reasons-to-buy-prefabricated-sheds/

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Aricle source here: Indoor Air Quality vs. Your Garage Habits

2017 Hurricane Season: How to protect your documents, home, boat

Longtime Floridians know the drill. Each year, as the heat and humidity build, forecasters begin their warnings: Hurricane season is upon us, and you’d better take it seriously.

Sure, it was easy to tune out the advice when, year after year, storms skirted past Florida. The Tampa Bay area hasn’t had a direct strike in almost a century.

Let the 2016 storm season serve as a warning: Destructive hurricanes lashed both Florida coasts. The bay area also endured flooding, especially in Pasco County.

What’s at stake in a storm is just about everything you own — your irreplaceable wedding photos, your pets, your windows and watercrafts. And when a hurricane is bearing down, you won’t have much time to make sure they’re protected.

Here are some specifics to guide you through the critical process of keeping your home, your boat and your belongings safe this hurricane season.

Protect your home

• Act fast: Everybody else will flood the same hardware stores to buy storm supplies.

• If you’re boarding your windows with plywood, don’t drill directly into the frame. That lets water inside. Instead, apply bolts, nails or screws to concrete or wood about every 6 inches.

• If you’re in a rush, don’t waste time taping your windows. Experts say it doesn’t keep them from shattering (though it may make cleanup easier afterward).

• Need to brace your garage door? You can buy a kit from a home-improvement store. Experts recommend using wooden 2 by 4s to brace the door horizontally and vertically.

• French doors and double doors are additional vulnerable spots that need to be reinforced. Add extra locks or slide bolts, and pay extra attention to doors that swing inward.

• Give your roof and eaves a close look. The impact of a storm will likely accelerate any damage. Same goes for broken trusses or beams. Make repairs before a storm is bearing down.

• Secure any loose items on your lawn. Hurricane-force winds will take old tree limbs, sports equipment and lawn ornaments and turn them into window-shattering projectiles. Don’t put your home (and your neighbors’ homes) at risk.

Protect your documents

• Grab a pen and paper and make a list of your important documents, then make copies of each one. When a hurricane hits, you don’t want to be scrambling to find the papers that prove your identity and verify what you own.

That means insurance policies, car titles, important receipts, passports, Medicare cards, appraisal documents, medical paperwork, birth certificates, tax returns, Social Security cards — the list goes on. Don’t forget your pets’ paperwork.

• If you’re evacuating, take photos of your home and belongings before you go. Print them out, if possible.

• Your smartphone and email won’t be much help if the power is off for an extended period of time. That makes it even more important to have physical copies of your documents on hand to help speed up the process of reporting storm damage.

• It helps to have electronic scans of your documents, which the IRS accepts, saved on an external hard drive as a backup. You can also back up files on the cloud through free and paid services such as Dropbox and Google Drive.

• Sporting goods stores sell watertight bags that can protect your paperwork and photos, and Pelicancases.com stocks airtight, watertight and “crushproof” cases. Some tackle and ammunition boxes with O-ring seals can also keep documents safe from water.

Protect your boat

• The best course of action is to move your boat inland far in advance of a storm. Look for dry storage in a marina or garage.

• If you’re short on time, take your boat up creek or a river — mitigating the effects of storm surge, which raises the water level and can break deck lines. Operate cautiously, and know that drawbridges can lock down many hours before gale-force winds begin.

• Leaving your boat tied up at the marina invites more risk, but you can minimize the damage. Ensure your deck lines are strong — this is not a time to take chances. Extra-long “spring” lines help during major tidal fluctuations and are a good investment. Remove all valuables, disconnect electronics and put away loose items, such as sails and cushions.

• After the storm, remember that buoys and channel markers may have shifted. Drive your boat slowly, as if you’re in a no-wake zone, and keep a close watch for debris, fallen trees, wrecked boats and other dangers.

Information from Times files was used in this report. Contact Claire McNeill at cmcneill@tampabay.com.

Link to the article: http://www.tampabay.com/news/weather/hurricanes/2017-hurricane-season-how-to-protect-your-documents-home-boat/2323453

Related articles: https://diybb.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/the-other-option-sun-shade-sails/

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Aricle source here: 2017 Hurricane Season: How to protect your documents, home, boat