A do-it-yourself approach for home improvement projects may reduce your initial costs but for certain jobs, the risks far outweigh any potential savings. If any of these projects are on your to-do list, call in the pros unless youve got plenty of related experience.

1. Roof replacement

Roofing is extremely hard and dangerous work. Any upfront savings you might get with a DIYroof replacementcould easily be eclipsed by the costs of making expensive mistakes or causing dangerous accidents. Aside from having the skills and tools needed to do a decent job, youll also need to climb ladders, lift heavy materials and navigate a steeply pitched surface high above the ground. Risks include:

Cost of hiring a pro

Roofers charge about $150 to $300 per roofing square in addition to the cost of materials, which typically brings the total price of installing a new roof over your existing one to about $5,400 to $10,900, according to the home services company HomeAdvisor. Removing the old roof or repairing damage can add to that cost.

In some cases, homeowners insurance might cover some or all of these expenses. Opting for less-expensive materials can also lower the bill. And if youre installing an energy-efficient roof that meets certain criteria, you might qualify for a tax credit.

2. Mold removal

Everyones cleaned up a bit of mold at some point, and even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gives the green light on DIY mold removal for areas under 10 square feet. But once mold infestation becomes widespread, it might become necessary to open up walls, lift up carpeting or take out fixtures to fully remove it and clean and dry the space thoroughly. A DIY approach, in this case, means risking:

Cost of hiring a pro

Professional mold remediation generally costs about $1,500 to $3,150, or $15 to $30 per square foot, according to HomeGuide, a home services referral website.

To make sure that money is well-spent, go with an experienced, well-reviewed mold remediation specialist who can do a thorough job.

3. Toilet replacement

To install a new toilet, youll have to shut off the water; disconnect, drain and remove the old toilet; and seal and connect the new one. Thats a manageable task for someone with basic plumbing knowledge. But if youre a DIY newbie, its trickier. Risks include:

Cost of hiring a pro

The average labor cost for basic toilet installation runs between $70 and $190, according to the services marketplace website Thumbtack, and that doesnt include the price of the toilet. Underlying problems your plumber finds (such as leaky pipes, a cracked flange or leaky valves) can increase costs; disposing of your old toilet also runs about $50 to $200, the site notes.

If youre installing a water-saving toilet, you might qualify for arebate from your state, which could defray some of these costs.

4. Window replacement

Replacing drafty old windowscan reduce your utility bills but only if its done correctly. Installing a window is a meticulous process, and any mistakes may leave your home unexpectedly vulnerable to the elements. Other pitfalls include:

Cost of hiring a pro

Professional window installation usually runs between $175 to $700 per window, but can be much more expensive for high-end windows, according to Angies List, a website that provides referrals for home services pros. If the frame needs to be replaced, thats extra.

Choosing less-expensive materials reduces upfront costs. And if youre switching to more energy-efficient windows that meet certain specifications and are professionally installed, you might qualify for rebates in some states.

More From NerdWallet

Roberta Pescow is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: USexpansion@nerdwallet.com.

The rest is here:
4 home repair projects that are best left to the pros - OregonLive

Honda is recalling a total of 1.79 million cars worldwide1.4 million in the U.S.across four separate campaigns. It boils down to three distinct issues, one of which has been linked to over a dozen reported fires due to a part that's already been recalled before. According to the NHTSA doc, precisely 268,652 CR-Vs from model years 2002 to 2006 have been recalled in the U.S. over power window master switches that are at risk of melting, smoking, and catching fire if exposed to moisture.

Notably, the issue was already addressed in a 2012 recall that apparently attempted to remedy the issue using butyl tape. The documentation specifically calls out this previous campaign as "insufficient" and will be replacing switches entirely this time around with a redesigned part.

Via NHTSA: "The recall remedy for NHTSA recall ID number 12V-486 of applying butyl tape to seal the power window master switch (PWMS) from moisture was insufficient. The butyl tape could separate from the PWMS if improperly applied. Under certain conditions, moisture may enter through an open drivers window and reach the PWMS on the door. Over time, exposure to moisture can cause electrical resistance in the switch, which ultimately can cause the switch to overheat and melt, damaging the switch and potentially damaging an associated wire harness. Additionally, if a switch melts, it could produce smoke and increase the risk of a fire."

As of late November, Honda is aware of 16 fires and 87 reported "thermal events" related to the second-gen CR-V's window switch woes but no injuries.

Honda's recall blitz also affects 737,233 cars made much more recently such as certain 2018 to 2020 Accords, Accord Hybrids, and 2019 to 2020 Insights that have been recalled in order to install an update to those cars' Body Control Module software. "Inappropriate software programming" is said to be the culprit over electrical components failing after "a certain combination of driver actions and vehicle conditions" that "may intermittently or continuously disrupt communication between the BCM and other components." This is said to affect windshield defrosters, wipers, automatic headlights, turn signals, rearview cameras, and power window systems.

Lastly, two separate campaigns will address front driveshafts on some of the company's compact models that may break due to corrosion from road salt. Only applying to cars residing in 22 states and the District of Columbia that keep ice off their roads during the wintertime using salt, Honda's recall applies to the 2012 Civic Hybrid, 2007 to 2014 Fit, 2013 to 2015 Acura ILX, and 2013 to 2015 Accord, according to Reuters. Affected cars will be inspected and if (but only if) corrosion is found, front driveshafts will be replaced.

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Honda Recalls Nearly 1.8 Million Cars Over Flaming Window Switches and Corroding Driveshafts - The Drive

New West Brom manager Sam Allardyce has admitted the January transfer window will be important to the clubs hopes of survival.

The 66-year-old has been tasked with the job of keeping the Baggies in the Premier League and signed a contract until the end of the 2021-22 season.

Allardyce replaced Slaven Bilic, who was sacked after West Brom secured only one victory from their opening 13 games to leave them two points from safety.

Speaking to talkSPORT on Thursday morning, the new man in the hotseat at the Hawthorns said: They (the board) are prepared to get some players, but we need to find where those players are and who wants to let a player go in this pandemic.

I cant suggest at this moment how many players we need.

By the time I had finished four weeks and no wins in six games at Crystal Palace, I knew exactly what we needed to do and pushed Steve (Parish) beyond the brink of really where he wanted to go which paid off in the end.

It will be a very important part I think and while the players here are trying their very best and had a fantastic gutsy performance at Manchester City, which I watched live on the TV, it is always good when a player sees a new player come in.

And then sees that player on the training ground who will make them better. The difficulty is finding that player and we will have to do our best to do that.

This is Allardyces first role since he left Everton after he guided them to an eighth-place finish in the 2017-18 campaign after they were embroiled in a relegation battle when he had replaced Marco Silva six months earlier.

After keeping up Sunderland and Crystal Palace in similar circumstances, the one-time England national team boss expressed sympathy for predecessor Bilic, who replaced him at West Ham in 2015.

You always look at the job and say how difficult will it be and have you got an opportunity to try and turn it around and use your experience, which I have done on many occasions over the last few years and I only hope I can have the same influence at West Brom, with no guarantee of course, that I have had at many other clubs, Allardyce added.

All of a sudden you have gone 13 games with only one win and unfortunately for Slaven that is what has cost (him) and made West Brom think they need to make a change.

I know Slaven and he is a great guy, but it is what it is when the board make a decision and I am here to try and save West Brom and keep them in the division for next season. If I can do that it would be great.

Bilic has expressed his sadness at leaving West Brom but wished his old club all the best in their battle for Premier League survival.

The Croatian was dismissed by the Baggies on Wednesday, with his last game in charge a creditable 1-1 draw at Manchester City on Tuesday.

During his year-and-a-half spell at the Hawthorns, the 52-year-old led the club back to the top flight with automatic promotion last season, but seven points out of a possible 39 this term has proved his undoing.

I am hugely disappointed to have left West Bromwich Albion, Bilic said in a statement to the Daily Mail.

I am honoured to have managed this unique football club with full commitment and integrity. I would like to place on record my sincere thanks to all the players, my hard-working coaching team and our dedicated staff.

I am incredibly proud that we secured automatic promotion from the Championship in our first season. It was a real shame to not have our loyal supporters there with us during that moment and upon our return to the Premier League.

In what has been a really difficult year for so many, those special fans have stood alongside us throughout it all.

My staff and I are grateful for having had the privilege to serve them. They would have enjoyed some of our excellent performances where the team showed how much they wanted us to succeed.

Ultimately, I am sad that it hasnt worked out in the way we wanted. But I leave with my head held high, along with some wonderful memories that I will always cherish.

Im sorry that I cannot say goodbye to you all properly at The Hawthorns. I genuinely wish the club well for the future.

West Brom are second from bottom and two points from safety, with new boss Allardyce due to face the media later on Thursday afternoon.

Originally posted here:
Sam Allardyce admits January transfer window could be key to West Brom survival - FourFourTwo

The window minimizing feature is set to leave Windows 10 in early 2021.

An upcoming Windows 10 update will remove one of the operating system's least liked and least used features.

That's right: Shake to Minimize is leaving Windows 10 for good.

Although it is an underused Windows 10 feature, it is also one that drew considerable ire from users, usually after triggering the feature accidentally.

Shake to Minimize was first introduced with Windows 7. It allows users to close all windows on their screen bar one by moving their mouse back and forth rapidly.

Microsoft doesn't advertise the option widely, and many users only discover it when all of their windows disappear from the screen.

The feature, also known as Aero Shake, is the only existing Windows 10 option that allows a user to close all windows except the one you shake. As such, some users will definitely bemoan the loss of the feature, especially without a replacement.

Shake to Minimize will be removed in Windows 10 build 21277, which was pushed to Windows 10 Insider Preview users on the Dev Channel in December 2020.

Given the normal timetable of Windows 10 features moving from the Dev Channel into a proper release, you can expect to see the removal of Shake to Minimize in the Windows 10 21H1 update, expected in the first half of 2021.

Related: The Most Important Things to do After Installing Windows

True to form, dedicated Microsoft users have already found a method to switch Shake to Minimize on again. The fix involves creating a new registry key, but it isn't a difficult process.

To switch Shake to Minimize on in Windows 10:

Please note that this fix will only take effect on systems where Shake to Minimize has been disabled. If you're using Windows 10 on the standard release branch, as most users do, Shake to Minimize is still active on your machine.

Related: How to Clean Up Your Computer Without Reinstalling Windows

The loss of Aero Shake leaves Windows 10 users with two alternative desktop minimization shortcuts. You can use Windows Key + D to show or hide the entire desktop, or Windows Key + M to minimize all open windows. Furthermore, you can restore all of your open windows using the Windows Key + Shift + M shortcut.

You need specialized search engines to find legal torrents, foreclosed houses, public records, and even UFOs. Enter the dark web.

Gavin is the Junior Editor for Windows and Technology Explained, a regular contributor to the Really Useful Podcast, and was the Editor for MakeUseOf's crypto-focused sister site, Blocks Decoded. He has a BA (Hons) Contemporary Writing with Digital Art Practices pillaged from the hills of Devon, as well as over a decade of professional writing experience. He enjoys copious amounts of tea, board games, and football.

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Microsoft to Remove Handy Windows Feature in Upcoming Update - MakeUseOf

In what might prove to be the biggest Android news story of the week, today Google announced that all of Qualcomm's future chipsets, starting with the upcoming Snapdragon 888, will support three Android OS updates and four years of security updates. In layman's terms, that means some new phones landing in 2021 will probably get an extra year of updates assuming OEMs step up to the plate and follow suit.

The change builds on some of Google's previous improvements, and it's pretty technical. Most of our readers are probably already familiar with Project Treble, which restructured how parts of Android work in a way that made it easier for manufacturers to deliver updates and that's actually making a difference, too. But because of how it worked, this actually made chipset manufacturers' jobs harder, amplifying the work they had to do to support multiple generations of software depending on when phones would launch during that chip's lifecycle. In short: Making it easier for smartphone makers to deliver software updates pushed extra work onto companies like Qualcomm.

Above: A rough idea of how complicated a chipset vendor's job used to be across years of updates. Below: How it is now, with these changes.

Over the past year, Google has been working with Qualcomm to fix that problem, bringing the logic of Treble's modularity down to the chipset level as well. This makes Qualcomm's job easier, allowing them to maintain chips for a longer period, resulting in today's news: All future Qualcomm chipsets starting with the Snapdragon 888 will support four years of Android OS version updates three Android OS updates and four years of security patches. That means some Android phones launching in 2021 and later could see four years of updates.

That lack of certainty is because, although Google and Qualcomm have made this change, they're not the ones that deliver updates to your phone. This just guarantees that the updates will be available should smartphone companies want them. Right now, we don't know of any manufacturers that have stepped up to match these numbers when it comes to Qualcomm's future chips. But, I think there's a good chance that companies known for their update commitment like Samsung and Google will take advantage of it. Or, at least, they should.

We've asked Google if any phone manufacturers are on board already to match that change, and if there are plans to bring this same level of support to other chipset vendors (like MediaTek), but have yet to hear back at the time of writing. We'll update if and when more information is available.

Up until now, the best update commitment you could get in the world of consumer Android devices is three years usually for security patches paired with either two or three years of OS updates. This is in stark contrast to iPhones, which get updates pretty much until Apple can't get the software to run on its older hardware that's usually around five years, and sometimes more. In many cases, perfectly capable Android phones have been left behind as a result of limited software support windows, as was the case just this month with Google's recent Pixel 2 series.

Ultimately, we can't promise that today's change will result in longer-lasting Android phones. This change only even applies to future phones powered by upcoming Qualcomm chipsets, starting with the 888, and it's still on phone makers to actually deliver those updates, regardless of the changes Google or Qualcomm implement. Best case scenario, we'll finally reap these benefits in 2025. But hey, at least it's something.

The joint announcement was slightly misleading, and there's a little more subtlety involved than we originally thought. Google and Qualcomm are promising three OS version updates and four years of security updates, rather than just four years of OS updates. (While four years of OS updates would usually equate to three version updates under most software upgrade schedules, they are technically different things.)

Phones like Pixels actually already meet that requirement, by virtue of being updated at the last minute to the latest version (and therefore getting three total updates) before being dropped. However, it still sounds to us like Qualcomm and Google are now promising four years of security updates as a result of this change, which would be an extension of our understanding of the current policy, and more than the best-case three-year promise most smartphone vendors have now.

This is more complicated than it probably needs to be, and we're digging into the details in case this slightly more nuanced understanding is also flawed, but it sounds like the two companies are still making it possible to get an extra year of security updates on top of what we're currently used to, if smartphone makers will use it.

Link:
Future Android phones may get 4 years of updates, thanks to Google and Qualcomm - Android Police

Ken Herman|Austin American-Statesman

An email with a good opening line is sure to capture my attention. Heres a recent one:

Howdy Herman. This is the bull sperm muralist with another idea for an article.

I like a good mural. And Im always looking for good ideas to write about. And, though Im not an expert, I have reason to believe bull sperm somehow is important in the bovine cycle of life.

The electronic missive came from Tom Besson, an artist I wrote about in 2017 when he completed a fabulous mural celebrating the history of Elgin Breeding Service, a Central Texas business that collects and sells frozen bull semen.

Thats right. Frozen bull semen. You got a problem with that? You think you can get frozen bull semen via Amazon? I typed in frozen bull semen and the first four results were for a masters thesis about Norwegian Red Bull semen, flea pills for dogs, an energy drink and a box of staples.

But Besson didnt want to talk about frozen bull semen. Pity. He wanted to talk about the festive holiday season.

My family and I have a 40-plus-year history of painting Christmas windows at Austins car dealers, Besson, who also goes by Snap P, told me. It started in the mid-70s when many car dealers were in downtown Austin and no one had to beg that we keep Austin weird because that was its natural state.

Weird, yes. And often unbound by traditional notions of taste and standards. Oh, Snap P, please do regale us with tales of car dealer holiday art of yesteryear.

The bean counters had not yet overtaken the world and the sales managers had a free hand, he said, recalling a downtown dealership that was OK with Bessons interpretation of a band of hippies dancing around a bonfire whose flames became a 20-foot-tall dancing naked woman.

Yes, that says festive holiday season. To somebody.

At a truck dealer, Besson, 69, once painted a New Years artwork featuring an outgoing-year grim reaper that was so scary they had to call me to change it because the grade-school kids on the bus started crying when they rode by.

Yes, what says festive holiday season more than crying kids on a school bus?

Thats all in the past, Besson said as he fondly recalled the last of the halcyon days of hippie Austin and cheap rent.

I recently caught up with him as he, with wife Beth Rolingson and son Pascha, were doing the windows at Leif Johnson Ford on East Koenig Lane. Fairly standard holiday fare was going up there, but Besson fondly remembered when lots of unstandard holiday fare went up on the windows.

It just depended on the personality of the sales manager and general manager, he said. Back in the old days, those people had more freedom to do what they wanted. Austin was a weird city. They accepted strange things.

Maybe even expected them, especially when Besson was hired. From his website bio: My work is born of some strange marriage of Paganism and Roman Catholicism, substituting the juxtaposition of evil and good with the mundane and the inspirational.

Reality, it says, comes with such limitations.

So true.

Besson says he generally doesnt get specific painting orders from his customers. Wife Beth immediately recalled that the problem with Christmas windows sometimes is Christmas. As youve perhaps heard, the word has become somewhat controversial. Besson told me that last year they had to scrape Merry Christmas off the window of a customer who didnt think it was a good idea.

You also can go wrong by excluding Christmas.

Someone came up to us telling us she was offended by our message, Besson reports. We had painted Happy Holidays and she said we were taking Christ out of Christmas. I gave her a little history of Christianity usurping the pagan holidays but this failed to appease her.

Surprising.

Images also cause controversy. Rolingson recalled a window on which they painted gnomes headed to a bonfire and carrying lit torches.

So,Besson said, youve got these torches in their hands and youve got this 10-foot figure and the people say, What in the hell are those torches for? Thats not very Christmasy. So you think, Damn, I dont want to have to scrape that stuff off. So, quickly, theyre holding bells!

Some customers offer general instructions on whether they prefer religious or secular.

I tell them, Well, if I put anything religious up there its so damn pagan nobody will recognize it anyway, Besson said.

Later that day, he sent me another email, this one devoid of frozen bull semen references. I read it anyway.

Do we do what we want or ask the client what they want? Besson wrote. For the most part we do what we want but across the years we have learned what we will be asked to scrape off and repaint.

A few years back, he painted what he called a beautiful winter scene with snow cranes on a winter lake on the windows of a Japanese vehicle dealership.

We were told it wouldn't do as it looked too Japanese, he said. It was scraped and repainted into the more mundane, resisting a mischievous notion to replace it with a Pearl Harbor scene. That would have been wrong.

Though it wasn't a Christmas window, Besson told me of another painting, one of our saddest scrape and repaints was a kneeling 10-foot Jimi Hendrix with his guitar aflame and with the hand of God passing him a joint from the heavens.

This years whimsical, yet pandemic-appropriate offerings include one on a medical facility showing a stethoscope-wielding nurse/angel.

Despite having to learn to live with periodic rejection, Besson enjoys window art.

Like most artists, I enjoy working at a large scale but find that large-scale work is hard to sell and very hard to store, he told me. Window work, which lies somewhere between art and cartooning, allows me to draw big and get paid for it. And the whole family gets to color for a living, at least for awhile.

And, because some things and people in Austin still are weird, sometimes the family gets to color outside the lines. No bull.

More here:
Herman: 40 years of painting holiday decorations on windows - Austin American-Statesman

SINGAPORE - There were 49 cases of fallen windows across Singapore from January to November this year, but no one was injured, said the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) on Friday (Dec 11).

The majority of them, 32 cases, involved casement windows, while 16 were fallen sliding windows, and one case of louvre windows.

"There were no injuries from the cases reported," said the BCA in a press release.

The agency said investigations showed that the key causes of fallen casement windows included windows that were found fitted with aluminium rivets which had corroded.

"Corrosion compromises the strength of the rivets, rendering it unable to hold the casement window panels firmly in place," said BCA.

Since 2004, BCA has been issuing retrofitting orders requiring home owners to replace all aluminium rivets with stainless steel ones.

Home owners can be fined up to $5,000 and jailed up to six monthsfor failing to carry out the replacements.

For sliding windows, a key cause is the lack of proper safety stoppers and angle strips to keep the window panels within the tracks, said BCA.

"Sliding window panels without these safety features in place detached and fell when homeowners applied excessive outward force in opening or closing the windows," BCA explained.

It added that home owners should ensure that the safety features are in place, and also replace any worn-out ones.

If a window falls due to lack of maintenance, home owners can be fined up to $10,000, jailed up to one year, or both, said the agency.

Since 2006, 378 people have been fined and 92 people were prosecuted for fallen windows, said BCA.

BCA's facade engineering and technology department director, Mr Lee Chee Weye, said: "Over the past few years, the number of fallen window cases we see yearly remains at about 50 cases. While there has not been an increase in numbers, there has also not been any improvement.

"The risk of injury from falling windows is high and is not a trivial matter. All home owners and occupants can play a part to mitigate this risk by checking and maintaining their windows regularly. Together, we can keep our community safe."

BCA added thathome owners can prevent falling windows by checking and maintaining their windows at least once every six months.

For casement windows, check that fasteners are not rusty or loose, and clean and oil the joints or moving parts. All aluminium rivets should also be changed to stainless steel ones by an approved window contractor.

For sliding windows, check that safety stoppers and angle strips are in their proper places, and change those that are worn out. The tracks also have to be cleaned so that window panels can slide smoothly.

Read the original:
49 cases of fallen windows reported in first 11 months of 2020 but no injuries: BCA - The Straits Times

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of 178 trusts nationwide set to receive a share of 600m to tackle their maintenance backlogs.

It will get 1,515,000 to spend on 25 projects, covering critical maintenance and improvement works.

Outdated ventilation plant and controls at Thomas Linacre Centre will be replaced and water systems at Wigan Infirmary and Wrightington Hospital will be upgraded.

Leaking flat roofs at Wrightington Hospital, Wigan Infirmary and Thomas Linacre Centre will be replaced, and a trust-wide window replacement programme will start at Wrightington and Leigh Infirmary.

Other work includes a new boiler plant at Wrightington, improved cafe at Wigan, and a fire alarm and emergency lighting upgrade at Leigh.

Medical gas systems plants will also be replaced at all sites.

David Evans, the trusts director of estates and facilities, said: I am delighted that the Government has recognised the importance of additional investment to help us address the on-going condition backlog issues across the trusts estate.

The NHS estate is both extensive and complex with many of our buildings and engineering services being built and installed many years ago.

Ongoing investment in the estate is critical in ensuring compliant, high quality and reliable facilities for our clinical teams to treat patients and the continued commitment to fund these critical maintenance and improvement works is welcomed.

The national investment is part of 1.5 billion capital funding announced in the summer, which includes plans to modernise mental health facilities, expand A&E capacity and improve infection control ahead of winter.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: Alongside delivering on our manifesto commitment to build 40 new hospitals and 20 major hospital upgrades across the country, this investment will help our NHS build back better.

These crucial maintenance projects will deliver immediate benefits and provide NHS staff with the facilities they need to provide world-class care to their patients this winter, helping ensure the NHS is always there for you when you need it.

Thanks for reading. If you value what we do and are able to support us, a digital subscription is just 1 for your first month. Try us today by clicking here

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Trust reveals how 1.5m fund to improve Wigan's hospitals will be spent - Wigan Today

SINGAPORE: There were 49 cases of fallen windows across Singapore between January and November this year, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) said in a joint media release with the Housing and Development Board (HDB) on Friday (Dec 11).

Thirty-two of these involved casement windows,or windows with a side that is hinged to a frame.

Sixteen cases were of fallen sliding windows, while the remaining incident involvedlouvre windows or those with horizontal panels.

No injuries were reported from these incidents, said the agencies.

The number of cases reported in the first 11 months of this year is not far from the 51 incidents in the whole of 2019.

Over the past few years, the number of fallen window cases we see yearly remains at about 50 cases.While there has not been an increase in numbers, there has also not been any improvement," saidBCAs director of facade engineering and technology departmentLee Chee Weye.

BCA said the key causes of fallen casement windows included corrosion in aluminium rivets in casement window fittings."Corrosion compromises the strength of the rivets, rendering it unable to hold the casement window panels firmly in place," said the agency.

Since 2004,a retrofitting order issued by BCA requireshome owners to replace all aluminium rivets in casement windows with stainless steel ones.

In the case of fallen sliding windows, investigations showed that there was a lack of proper safety stoppers and angle strips to keep panels within the tracks.

"Sliding window panels without these safety features in place detached and fell when homeowners applied excessive outward force in opening or closing the windows," BCA added.

Home owners can face a penalty of up to S$5,000 and/or a jail term of up to six months for failing to replace all aluminium rivets in casement windows with stainless steel ones.

In cases of fallen windows due to lack of maintenance, home owners can face a fine of up to S$10,000 and/or a jail term of up to a year.

Since 2006, 378 people have been fined and 92 people prosecuted for fallen windows, noted the authorities.

"The risk of injury from falling windows is high and is not a trivial matter," the agencies said, adding that home owners and occupants should check and maintain their windows regularly.

Read more:
49 cases of fallen windows in the first 11 months of this year - CNA

ALBANY -- Congregation Beth Emeths biggest sanctuary has seven floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows, cascades of hundreds of hues of blue dramatically symbolizing the cosmos, skies and oceans during Creation. Floating in the abstract colors are realistic and detailed stained glass scenes of men, women and children celebrating holy days and worshipping. Those scenes were rescued from Temple Beth Emeths 19th century building on Swan and Lancaster Streets.

International authority on stained glass art, Robert Sowers, worked to incorporate those highly detailed human stained glass scenes into the towering blue, green, purple and white abstract designs. The building was dedicated in 1957 and has optimistic, midcentury modern elements like swooping, curved roofs, lots of light and glass.

Even on a gray snowy afternoon, the stained glass shimmers with light.

The realistic scenes are vibrant against the blue background. A beautiful woman gleaning golden sheaves from a field of grain smiles down at visitors.

Yes, thats Ruth from the Bible, an old window from the previous building explains synagogue maintenance director Steve Squires.

He explains that when the old windows included the names of the people depicted, those names were removed before the smaller windows were incorporated into the abstract cosmic windows.

Now, without names, we can see them just humans, just people who are part of all Creation, he adds.

Squires has worked for the synagogue for 30 years and knows all about the treasures it holds.

One of the most fascinating is the Torah scroll displayed in the lobbys glass case. It belonged to Czechoslovakian synagogue but was stolen by the Nazis for Hitlers museum curators. Squires explains that Hitler dreamed of building a Jewish Museum that would showcase the art, religion and culture of an entire population he was determined to murder.

He had curators who kept meticulous records of each object that would go into the museum, said Squires, who remembered that when the Torah scroll was rescued and given to Beth Emeth the tag written by the Nazi curator was inside the box with the scroll.

He leads visitors into a nearby Wolk Hall (named after Rabbi Samuel Wolk, who sadly died right before the 100 Academy Road buildings dedication) where three Tiffany windows sparkle in the darkness. Three wooden doors leading outside were removed and replaced by the Tiffany windows that fill the door frames. One window depicts a life-sized Moses. Visitors have the odd sensation of standing a couple of feet from and eye-to-eye with Moses. His red and burgundy robe and the greenish blue gems surrounding him have the rich pigments that helped make Tiffany famous.

Squires says a Metropolitan Museum of Art researcher came to Beth Emeth to examine the three windows. But she was more astonished by a sample of Tiffanys fabric art owned by Beth Emeth. Its also displayed in a glass case: a silky Torah cover in a shade deep rose with Hebrew words embroidered on it. The researcher said examples of Tiffany's fabric art were rare.

A lot of people dont know that Tiffany made robes, prayer shawls and Torah covers for synagogues, Squires says.

A hall table is loaded with Hanukkah gift bags and little sacks packed with gelt (chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil). Most of the celebrations will be via Zoom but at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec.13, there will be a drive-up Menorah lighting worshippers can enjoy safe and warm in their cars.

Just down the hall, a group portrait of the greatest Jewish baseball heroes crowded in front of one dugoutand most of them autographed their portraits. Sandy Koufax and his signature are front and center. Even better, the artist painted the portrait of every person who bought the work of art into the stands. movie director Rob Reiner and talk show legend Larry King are among the famous buyers painted into the stands. They autographed the painting hanging in Beth Emeth.

The synagogue also has striking sculptures outside the building. But Beth Emeth education director Shara Siegfeld, who looks forward to giving tours of the synagogue when the pandemic ends, says the stained glass windows seem to have an especially powerful impact on visitors.

"When all the sunlight is streaming through, the sensory experience is amazing," she says.

In this pandemic year, when so many have lost loved ones, the Creation windows stir the emotions. Those small windows showing nameless humans set against the vast, blue cascade of Creation remind visitors of how brief one individual life is in the thousands of years before and after one person's birth and death. Yet, as Siegfeld points out, the feeling inspired is somehow reassuring because the small, human scenes are so brightly luminous.

In one, two children and a rabbi gaze at candles burning with orange flames surrounded by gold haloes. In another, a stained glass portrait of three men in prayer shawls, their expressions are so vivid. Its the same expression the children have.

Its awe, says Siegfeld - the awe at how valuable an individual life can be, even if its just one fragment in a huge creation.

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Temple's stained glass shimmers with light and history - Times Union