During warm weather it is so much more comfortable to do maintenance on the home. People get so busy in the spring and summer with gardening and lawn mowing that they probably do not give much thought to the inconvenience that frozen and busted plumbing causes in the cold months. It is a good idea to schedule your plumbing inspections during the warm months. Going underneath your home into the crawl space, if you have one, is essential to be able to inspect your outside pipes for leaks and deterioration.

If the pipes in your crawl space are not insulated, you can do this simple job yourself by wrapping them with pipe insulation or heat tape made specifically for that purpose. It can be terrible to have to get under there and make pipe repairs when there is a foot of snow on the ground and it is only 10 degrees (or many times MUCH colder) outside. Why not do it now when the weather is nicer?

Outside water faucets are also prone to more damage in the winter months. If you are using your spigots right now and notice that they have leaks anywhere, do the repairs now and save trouble later. These spigots can also be insulated for the wintertime. When you have spigot leaks, it can cause you to lose a lot of water over time. This is not good for the planet to waste water and it will not be good for your home either if you get water damage inside your home because of it. Your local hardware or department store should have the supplies that you need to insulate your outside and inside water sources and pipes to help you get your home winterized.

 Red wine stains are very common and the typical response is to use products that contain bleach to try to remove the red stain from your carpet.  That’s a big NO-NO as it will also discolor the carpet as well.

Instead, try to blot as much of the wine stain with a white towel.  If your have a wet/dry vacuum, such as a shop vac, try to extract as much as you can as well.  If you have club soda, take a clean (dry) white towel and pour some club soda on the towel and go over the stain again.  This step will help get more of the stain out. 

If the carpet is still stained, there is only one more thing you can do.  Take a bottle and combine amonia with peroxide (50/50 mixture) and spray this solution into the stain.  Saturated the area well.  This solution will work on acid dyes when they are still fresh.  Simply COVER the affected  with a piece of plastic wrap and place a phone book above it so it dries very slowly.  Check it the next day and the stain should be GONE!

If a red stain or shadow still exists, contact a professional carpet cleaner as soon as possible.  They can work the stain further and in most cases get it out completely using advanced red stain removal techniques.

 Furniture and fabric manufacturers recommend that consumers not wait until severe soiling occurs before cleaning because the greater the soiling, the less the likelihood of restoring the fabric’s original color, appearance and texture; and the greater adverse effect on indoor environmental quality.

Regular cleaning of fabric and leather furnishings by a trained, certified professional can help restore your furniture’s appearance, extend its life, and keep it looking like new. Moreover, certified professionals can offer simple suggestions to maintain a clean and healthy home or business environment overall.

Dear Mr. Hongslo,

“In late October, we returned home from a 4-day visit to family in Washington to find a broken hot water pipe in our downstairs utility room and a completely flooded basement level.  It was early Sunday evening when we discovered the disaster and were desperate to handle the situation.  I knew we did not have the equipment or resources to deal with the problem and went to the yellow pages for help.  The first seven restoration companies I called did not answer their phone.  My eighth call was to TCM and was answered by one of  your Project Managers, Mr. Ron Farnsworth. Ron told me he would have a team to our house in just over an hour.  Much to my relief, Ron and his crew did in fact arrive in about an hour and immediately took control of the situation, vacuuming up water, moving furniture and valuables to sage dry areas, removed damaged flooring and planning how to save the sheetrock on the walls of the lower level of my house.  For the next three days Ron and his crew brought in specialized equipment to dry the walls, and helped plan the complete restoration of the downstairs, all the while making measures to allow my wife and I to stay in our home.  Within a short number of weeks Ron had arranged subcontractors to restore our home with new flooring, repairing wall paper, replacing doors and trim, etc.  All work was conducted in a very professional manner and was of very high quality.  I want to thank Ron and TCM for all the efforts to make a disastrous situation bearable for my wife and me, and for making our house our home again.  I have rarely experienced such outstanding service from a service provider.”  

Sincerely, Bud Alto

Treasures found in an old Colony home in Palmer we recently dried out from a water damage.  Great story that was recently featured in The Frontiersman.

Ron Farnsworth doesn’t usually carry women’s lingerie in his coat pocket — especially not musty bras from the 1940s.

He was willing to make an exception this time after finding what looks like the upper portion of a woman’s slip from the World War II era stuffed into the floorboards of a Colony-era home with Newsweek, Life and PIC magazines dating between 1941 and 1943.

“I just want to be sure the . . . uh . . . item gets back to its rightful place,” the loss mitigation manager for TCM Restoration of Palmer chuckled Monday while on his way to deliver the bra to homeowner Betty Bohman. 

Trina Bohman sorts through vintage magazines that were found in the floors of her mother-in-law’s home. The discovery has presented a minor mystery for the family, wondering who might have stashed them in the house. ROBERT DeBERRY/Frontiersman

Bohman, 87, had no idea whose bra it was or who put it there. She also didn’t know why there were piles of nearly 70-year-old publications stashed between the ceiling and floors of the 1936 home she’d occupied since 1995.

To make matters even more intriguing, many of the photos of women in the magazines had been cut out, as if someone had used them for a special project or purpose separate from the magazines.

“It’s a rather amusing mystery,” Bohman’s daughter-in-law, Trina Bohman, said Monday as she flipped through the pages of the magazines.

Farnsworth and his crew had been called to the home near Mile 5.8 of Palmer-Fishhook Road just before Thanksgiving after Bohman discovered her water pipes had burst the week before and all three floors of her home were damaged.

“We had seven people working in that house from 5 p.m. until midnight that first night,” Farnsworth recalled. “We knew the ceiling had to come down and when we started to remove it, there was a layer of sheetrock, then a layer of acoustic ceiling tiles, then a layer of plywood, then insulation. It was odd there were so many layers.”

As his crew worked its way through the layers from the floor in Betty Bohman’s room on the top floor, one of them found the old magazines and newspapers stuffed inside a small storage space behind her closet.

“Who knows why they were there?” Trina Bohman said. “They’re all in pretty good shape, though — except for the cutouts.”

Philip Morris ads praising America for smoking more of their cigarettes, illustrations showing Nazi swastikas carved into rock next to an American soldier, articles exposing as “traitors” famous authors such as Ezra Pound, and headlines declaring President Roosevelt wasn’t telling the American public the whole story can be found in the magazines.

Betty Bohman and her late husband, K.D. Bohman, had purchased the home in 1994 at its original location near the Tsunami Warning Center off the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and had it moved next to their son Brian’s home on Gold Bullion Street near Hatcher Pass.

“K.D. had built a basement next to our house and put the house on top of it,” Trina Bohman explained. “He was in the middle of remodeling it when he got sick all of a sudden and died of cancer six weeks later — just after his 73rd birthday.”

Bohman said that because her father-in-law was so well loved by Palmer residents because he’d helped farmers get loans as a home loan administrator and he also was a bishop in his church, the community came together to finish the project for Betty Bohman.

The Bohmans were told the home was first occupied during the Colony days by Don Irwin, manager of the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corp., but they doubt the magazines belonged to him since others had purchased the home after him.

A few of the magazines offered a clue to their original owner through address labels naming Herbert C. Hanson.

A Google search of that name reveals there was an ecologist named Herbert C. Hanson who published articles on vegetation in Northwest Alaska in 1953 for the Catholic University of American in Washington, D.C. He also published a “Dictionary of Ecology” around the same time. However, it is unknown whether he’s the one who owned the magazines or if he ever even lived in the Palmer area.

Trina Bohman found it amusing that in Irwin’s 1968 book “The Colorful Matanuska Valley,” he urges builders to erect “large, substantial and impressive” structures with plenty of insulation when his own home was a mere “stick building.”

“We even found tinfoil used between the floors,” Brian Bohman said of his parents’ home.

His mother said she worked as a nurse at a veteran’s hospital at the end of World War II and that her husband had served with the Navy at Okinawa during the war in the Pacific. Looking through the magazines from that era now brings back memories she’d probably rather forget.

She stopped on a magazine page with a bold photo of an American flag waving from a ship’s mast and remembered walking by the old Palmer Post Office one day in the late 1960s or early 1970s and seeing some young men getting ready to hoist an American flag up the pole.

“The flag was piled on the ground,” she recalled, shaking her head in disgust. “So I walked over there and picked it up and held it until they were ready to put it up. Then I went inside and told their boss what they did. They just weren’t trained right.”

Interesting video on how Persian Rugs are made.   We clean a variety of styles of rugs in our shop.   You can drop them off or we will pick up and deliver.

Unfortunately sometimes real Christmas Trees make a mess…sap will get on the carpet somehow.  Either when bringing it in for the season or it’s just dripping off the tree, missing the tree skirt.  It happens…

But not to worry it is simple to clean up and doesn’t require a professional to  come in to fix the “mess”. 

Super easy fix….

Get some Glycerin  (Available at most drug stores). Use a 50/50 mixture with warm water and apply directly to the sap. Let the mixture disolve, then use a paper towel and gently pull the sap away from the carpet. 

Easy Peasy and You don’t have to give up the love of having a real Christmas Tree…

What you should DO:

Contact a plumber or contractor to eliminate water source (i.e. shut off water or fix roof).

 Contact TCM Restoration & Cleaning to remove standing water and inspect damage.  373-7410 Mat Su Valley or 562-7410 Anchorage.

Call your insurance company. 

For Safety Concerns turn off circuit breakers supplying electricity to wet areas, unplug and remove any small electrical devices currently located on wet carpet or other wet surfaces.

Remove and secure small furniture items and as much as possible to prevent rust or stains and expedite restoration. 

Hang draperies and pin up furniture skirts as required to prevent contact with wet carpet (water marks, browning, dye transfer, or migration).

 Remove books, shoes, paper goods, fabrics, potted plants, or other items that may stain carpet. Check especially under beds and in closets for these items.

Remove and secure breakable, moisture sensitive, or high value items. 

 Make plans for restoration crews to remove large furniture items onto dry carpet, linoleum, garage, or storage areas.

What you should NOT DO: 

 Use your home vacuum, as electrical shock may result, as well as damage to the equipment itself. 

 Place newspaper on wet surfaces, as newspaper ink transfers easily.

Walk on wet surfaces any more than necessary in order to minimize safety hazards, and to keep from spreading damage.

Activate the HVAC system if it has been directly contacted by water, it might serve as a means of spreading contamination. 

 Adjust indoor temperature unless instructed to do so by a qualified technician.

We do carpet cleaning, upholstery, oriental rug cleaning, duct cleaning, tile & grout.   We  respond 24 hours a day to water damage emergencies in your home or business.