If you’re looking for smart home improvement projects, you’ve come to the wrong place. But dumb stuff that could ruin your home? Now we’re talking.
It can happen to any homeowner. You think you’re doing something smart — or at least something neutral — and it turns out to be a bad decision.
The problem with doing dumb things, of course, is that you often don’t realize you’re being foolish or are misguided until it’s too late.
Want to avoid that? Here are some pitfalls. (Spoiler alert: Most of the “dumb things” in this article are fire-related. Burner beware.)
[What to Do When Your Home Improvement Project Goes Wrong]
Burning Leaves in the Backyard
A lot of people burn leaves and other yard waste. A lot can go wrong, though. You really, really want to do it away from your house.
Al Ruggie, marketing director at ASAP Restoration LLC, a restoration and home contracting company in Tempe, Arizona, recalls a call the company once got from a customer who had a house fire.
“He decided to kill some weeds and eliminate some brush on the side of his house by burning it away — fairly common in Arizona,” Ruggie says. “But he didn’t put the fire out completely before going inside to take a shower from smelling like burning plants.”
While the homeowner was showering, the burning brush apparently blew onto the side of his house. According to Ruggie, after the fire department dumped thousands of gallons of water on the house to put out the fire, the homeowner ended up spending $120,000 on repairs.
How to prevent a problem: In some cities, you need a permit to burn leaves and weeds, so it may not even be legal for you to set anything on fire in your backyard without this. Generally, fire rules establish a minimum distance a fire must be from a structure. Before burning brush, check the weather forecast and avoid windy days that could create perfect conditions for a fire to rapidly spread out of control. And never leave a fire unattended.
Nailing Pictures to Walls
It’s good to want to decorate. But you could pound a nail into the wall and puncture a water pipe, says Mark Fogarasi, owner of I.R.S. Insurance Restoration Services in Commerce Township, Michigan, which fixes commercial and residential properties after natural or manmade disasters. He also owns a plumbing business and a flooring company.
Nailing a picture into the wall can be more dangerous to your home than you’d think. “Oh, my gosh, it happens a lot,” Forgarasi said, in a phone interview on the way to a homeowner who just had a $40,000 basement flood due to nailing a picture on the wall.
Forgarasi says a punctured pipe can go unnoticed because at first, there’s just barely a leak, with a little water trickling out of view. But then more water leaks out, and more water, and more water, and the hole can widen.
How to prevent a problem: A stud finder will sometimes find piping, but not always. Forgarasi says newer homes have pipes protected by steel plates in areas where people are likely to be pounding nails into the walls, but older homes (built before 2018), likely don’t have them. Forgarasi cautions homeowners to be especially careful when nailing anything on a wall in the bathroom or in a room next to the bathroom.
[DIY or Don’t? What to Consider Before Taking on Your Own Home Improvement Projects]
Boiling Things in a Pot
It isn’t boiling water itself that gets anyone in trouble — it’s what is in the water. It isn’t always pasta or eggs.
“Parents will boil those baby bottle nipples to make them germ-free and they forget about them,” Forgarasi says.
They’ll go off upstairs and change the baby’s diaper, he says, or they’ll simply get distracted. The water boils over and spills out of the pot, and eventually boils away, leaving nothing but the rubber baby bottle nipple, melting and burning in the pot.
“The parents will be in the bedroom, and they’ll see white smoke coming under their door,” Forgarasi says. And that smoke, he says, “goes everywhere, into the walls, the insultation. Smoke does more damage than fire.”
Even boiling liquids can lead to problems if left unattended. Food that drips onto the burner could start a fire, especially true if the pot or pan contains grease-laden foods like meat or cooking oils.
Cooking is the leading cause of reported home fires and home fire injuries, and the second leading cause of home fire deaths, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Thanksgiving is the peak day for home cooking fires, followed by Christmas Day and Christmas Eve. Between 2017-2021, unattended cooking was the leading factor contributing to cooking fires and casualties.
How to prevent a problem: Keep within sight of cooking and boiling, especially if it isn’t food. Forgarasi suggests setting a timer on your phone to remind you to check on that pot. Make sure to have a working smoke alarm in the kitchen and replace batteries regularly. Keep anything that can catch fire — oven mitts, plastic or wooden utensils, food packaging, towels, curtains — away from your stovetop. Cook with a lid beside your pan. If you have a fire, slide the lid over the pan and turn off the burner. Leave the cover on and let the pan cool for a long time. Never throw water on the fire.
Charging a Hoverboard Overnight
The tendency for charging hoverboards to catch fire made news several years ago, but it’s still happening, according to Anthony Fico, a licensed public adjuster and one of the owners of Atlas Adjustments, a property damage consulting firm in White Plains, New York.
“People will buy off-brand chargers, and they’re charging them overnight, and these hoverboards and power scooters and e-bikes, they’ll catch on fire,” Fico says.
He is not wrong. A hoverboard charging led to a fire in September in a three-story house in Columbia, South Carolina. In August, a fire at an office building in Utah was attributed to a hoverboard charging malfunction. That same month, a charging hoverboard caught on fire, damaging a home in Indian Springs, Maryland.
How to prevent a problem: You need to charge hoverboards, scooters and e-bikes. Just don’t leave them plugged in all night, Fico cautions.
He points out that cell phones can be charged almost indefinitely, which may be why people don’t think twice about leaving items charging. As a general rule, mobile transportation gadgets with lithium batteries need to be monitored.
“You keep it charged in, and the charge gets stronger and stronger and overheats and then blows up,” Fico says.
[Fire Safety Tips for Your Home]
Grilling Too Close To Your Home
Many homes have grills too close to the house. A flare-up can damage the home’s exterior or nearby items. Plenty of homeowners have discovered the hard way that if you grill really close to vinyl siding, the heat can melt it.
Fico described an incident where a homeowner tossed hot coals into a plastic garbage can located close to the house. The coals melted the can, igniting the vinyl siding, and soon the kitchen and living room were an inferno.
Grilling in an enclosed space such as a tent or even a garage poses a fire hazard as well as the risk of exposure to toxic fumes and potential asphyxiation.
How to prevent a problem: Dispose of hot coals properly. Fico recommends keeping grills at least 10 feet from the house. As with cooking indoors, never leave a grill unattended.
Having Too Much Faith In Your Power Strip
Overloading a power strip can create a fire hazard. Fico has worked after fires with homeowners who simply had too many energy-guzzling appliances and gadgetry plugged into a power strip.
“You know, they’ll have an X-Box, their Christmas tree, their TV, speakers, all plugged into one outlet,” Fico says.
How to prevent a problem: You could hire an electrician to make sure your house can handle all of your power needs. Homeowners should try to spread out what you need to plug in throughout the house. Keep power strips and surge protectors uncovered so air can circulate around them. Also — especially if you worry that you’re overdoing it — later, after you plug things into the power strip, feel it.
“If that power strip is hot to the touch, unplug it,” Fico says.
Here’s the Good News
There are really too many “dumb things” that smart homeowners can do to list them all. For instance, Fico and Forgarasi says they’ve often seen the aftermath when a homeowner forgot to engage the parking brake on their car, or the driver put the car in drive instead of reverse, and suddenly a vehicle crashes into the house. So be careful with your cars.
Knowing when to call in a professional is also key, experts say. Ruggie recounts the customer whose bathroom flooded, really flooded, not a toilet overflow. There were hundreds of gallons of water to remove, and the homeowner chose the DIY route.
“They failed to extract all of the water and much of it seeped into the floorboards of the room and caused fungal infestations and mold growth,” Ruggie says.
Another common tale involves neglecting to clean gutters, only to have flooding occur since the gutters are stuffed with leaves; or people trying to cut down trees only to have the tree crash onto their home.
Fortunately, if you have good homeowners insurance, you may be compensated for a lot of the damage you bring to your home, so you may yet have a happy ending.
“The majority of our claims are homeowner-caused mistakes,” Forgarasi says. As a general rule, he says, “As long as you have insurance, stupidity and ignorance are covered.”
More from U.S. News
5 Fireplace Safety Tips Every Homeowner Should Know
12 Home Improvements That Don’t Add Value
11 Outdoor Home Maintenance Tasks to Tackle Before Winter
6 Dumb Things Even Smart Homeowners Do originally appeared on usnews.com
