Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

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Hampton Journal real estate transactions for the week of Aug. 30 - TribLIVE

Arizona was among thefirst states to be approved to issue the new $300 per week in federal unemployment benefits established by President Trump's August 8 memorandum. The state, which pays a maximum of $240 in benefits per week (one of the lowest in the nation, just above Mississippi and Puerto Rico), began administering the boosted aid last week.

But for many residents, the arrival of the supplemental benefit isn't without headaches and confusion.

The Trump memorandum, which cut enhanced unemployment from the CARES Act's $600 benefit down to $300 in federal aid each week, applies retroactively to August 1. Many Arizonans aren't seeing the back payments hit their accounts like they were told to expect.

Emma Locarnini, 42, tells CNBC Make It she saw just one $300 payment, minus taxes, hit her prepaid debit card account last week, rather than a lump sum of three weeks of boosted pay retroactive to August 1. The same thing happened again for her payment this week, which she receives on Mondays.

The Tuscon, Arizona, resident has been out of work since the resort where she works shut down in late March. She applied for unemployment benefits as soon as she was eligible and received payments after five weeks of waiting.

With the previous $600 federal boost, along with her maximum $240 benefit from Arizona, Locarnini says she earned just about as much on unemployment as her previous job as a conference services manager.Unlike critics who said the $600 enhancement discouraged people from going back to work, Locarnini found the opposite to be true.

"It's frustratingso much of losing my job is totally out of my control, and I don't like not knowing when I might be able to go back to work," she says. "I'm certainly looking for work elsewhere, but I am competing with so many people. I want to work. I want to be back in the office. I don't want to keep relying on unemployment."

With roughly 100% replacement of her lost earnings, Locarnini and her husband, who was furloughed in March but went back to work full-time in late May, have stretched their income by trimming their food, entertainment and travel spending. Locarnini says she's thankful they do not have the stress of caring for children, and their main expense is a monthly $1,600 rent payment.

"It's a day-by-day thing," Locarnini says. "We don't know what will happen three or six months down the road, but it might be more worrisome later."

Others who rely more heavily on the federal unemployment enhancement are feeling the stress of its absence now. According to reporting from AZCentral, Arizona's Department of Economic Security (DES) said last week it was "working to provide retroactive payments ... and anticipates beginning those payments later this week."

On Monday, DES spokesperson Brett Bezio wrote in a statement to CNBC Make Itthat the state "will finish distributing all retroactive payments within the next couple of days. Due to the number of payments to be issued, we issued retroactive payments in batches over several days. DES anticipates receiving funding on a week-by-week basis, and will make payments until federal funding is exhausted."

The federal program, known as Lost Wages Assistance, is being funded by $44 billion set aside by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). States must apply to FEMA for a grant to fund an initial three weeks worth of benefits. Subsequent weeks of aid are approved on a week-to-week basis so long as funding is still available.

That means, for many Arizona residents, boosted payments this month may be gone just as soon as they arrive.

Of course, that's if unemployment benefits ever make it out to them.

Nearly six months into the pandemic and its ensuing unemployment crisis, thousands of Arizonans have yet to see a cent of jobless aid as the state unemployment office works through a crushing backlog of applications. Last week, the DES releasedroughly 90,000 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) applicationsthat had been previously approved but then flagged for potential fraud andput on hold for payment for up to 10 weeks.

The department said it paid more than $730 million in delayed PUA benefits to self-employed, contract and gig workers last week, with some deposits likely exceeding $8,400. With these applications finally processed, an estimated 500,000 Arizonans are currently receiving unemployment benefits.

But as of Sunday, more than 26,000 Arizona unemployment claims sat in a backlogwaiting to be reviewed by an adjudicator for payment.

Colin Smith, 34, first filed for unemployment when he lost his job with a cannabis company in February, which shut down as a precautionary measure to the coronavirus outbreak before widespread closuresdue to the pandemic. Every time he's filed a claim since, he's notified that his application has been disqualified and he must fax in additional paperwork to verify his employment history.

"It's a broken system," the Gilbert, Arizona, resident says. "I keep continuing to file assuming they'll eventually pay me. This is money I already paid into the system this is my money, and I need it now. Why is this process so hard?"

Adding to the frustration is that Smith recently qualified forSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, which he says required many of the same documents to verify his employment history. He says he was approved for SNAP benefits the same day he applied. He estimates he's spent roughly 300 hours trying to get through the unemployment process.

In addition to accessing food stamps, Smith says he deferred his $700 monthly payments on his private student loans, cut down his utilities usage, stopped driving his car and borrowed money from his mother. He lives with his fiancee, who is still working full-time for a custom home builder.

Earlier this month, President Trump signed a memorandum to defer federal student loan paymentsand set the federal student loan interest rate to 0% through the end of the year but approximately 9 million borrowers who have private student loans will not get total relief under the new rule.

"I've had to change everything," Smith says about making ends meet with no income or jobless benefits. "It's been so long, my deferment period is coming to an end. I have a student loan payment due next week, and I won't have unemployment benefits before then."

Smith is grateful to have help from family during this time.

"I never thought at 34 I'd be relying on my mom to pay my cellphone bill," he says. "I went through two economic crashes in my lifetime, and my story's not unique. So many people have the same story and struggle that we've got to do better. We have to fix some of these broken systems like unemployment."

Other workers may never see the $300 weekly boost, as the new enhancement applies only to workers who receive at least $100 in regular unemployment. The requirement, which the Trump administration is an effort to curb fraud, will exclude an estimated 1 million of the lowest-paid workers nationwide.

As of Monday, the majority of states were approved for the federal unemployment supplement. Only Kentucky and Montana have agreed to kick in an additional $100 in state funds for a total boost of $400 per week to unemployed residents. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has said the state will not pay the extra unemployment benefit at all.

According to the president's order, the federal lost wages program will run until December 6; until the $44 billion FEMA aid runs out; until the national Disaster Relief Fund, which normally funds emergency weather-related aid but will now also fund boosted unemployment, depletes to $25 billion; or until Congress passes new legislation regarding federal unemployment benefits whichever occurs first.

Around 28 million Americans are currently collecting jobless benefits.

Weeks of heated negotiations among the Congress and White House officials over the next round of pandemic relief aidcame to an abrupt halt in mid-August when the Senate adjourned for a recess until Labor Day.

"I don't think every single [member of Congress] understands the struggles people are really going through," Locarnini says of the recent legislative stalemate. "When I work, I can't go home until I get my job done, so it's frustrating to see them say, 'Well, it's our vacation time, so it's time to go home.'"

Smith echoes the feeling of frustration.

"It's so disheartening to see my senators spend millions on campaign ads on TV, just bashing each other but not doing a damn thing about anything," he says. "The fact that they walked away tells you everything you need to know about their priorities."

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New $300 boosted unemployment arrives in Arizona, but not without headaches and confusion - CNBC

While the first impression you get upon approaching the elegantly landscaped, 13-room, two-story Gold Coast home at 153 E. Glenside Ave. in Linwood is apt to be a pleasing one, what really sets this five-bedroom, 3-bath residence apart from so many others in its price range is the treasure trove of hidden architectural assets it was endowed with by its builder three decades ago.

The exterior, in fact, has one feature that tends to makes first-time visitors do a double takethe striking contrast between the grey-brick exterior of the front and the moss green, wood-surfaced side of the house, where its two-car-garage, chimney and upper- and lower-level decks are situated, which makes it appear to be part of a completely different structure (although on closer inspection, the brick front also includes some of that same wood).

That effect, according to its current owner, Atlantic County Freeholder Director Frank Formica, former owner /operator of Formicas Bakery and Caf in Atlantic City, was the creation of the homes builder and original owner, George Thomas, whose firm, Thomas Company, Inc., of Egg Harbor Township, has long done specialty work for the construction industry. And no, thats not vinyl siding, Formica notes, but top-grade California redwood cedar. Its the real McCoy, he says.

But then, so is everything else that has gone into the construction and interior design of this house, which Formica characterizes as the last word in authenticity. All the casing and all the trim work, as well as the interior staircase and the cabinets, are made of No. 1 solid natural oak, and all the hallways, including the 22-foot-high atrium, have solid birch floors. Thats one reason he considers it such a great buy at $449,000 You couldnt replace it today for twice the price with that quality of materials.

Nor, for that matter, could you easily find a home on the market that offers such a unique combination of amenities, such as its two distinctively different wood-burning fireplaces, a traditional-looking type in the sunken family room and a less conventional, semicircular one with an elaborate red brick hearth that adorns the finished basement, and the natural-gas barbecue unit thats built into the lower deck from bricks identical to those used in the living-room hearth.

Then theres what Formica refers to as the all-season room located right off that deck, a huge, totally enclosed sun porch thats both heated and air conditioned. Ive spent more time relaxing in that room than I have in the rest of the house, he says. For a potential buyer who also needs a good place to work remotelyas more and more people are doing these daysthis house also has a first-rate home office, complete with built-in bookshelves (as well as a bedroom that can be converted into a second one if needed).

As for that 1,300-square foot basement, in addition to the aforementioned fireplace, it also has a bar thats suitable for hosting any type of entertainment (as soon as large gatherings become permissible again), an extra bedroom and a full bath, making it an ideal vacation suite for family members of friends.

The list of hidden surprises this home offers also include some cutting-edge energy-efficiency features, such as a wet hot-air heating system controlled by a boiler thats custom designed to send heat to six separate zones via more than 200 feet of cast-iron radiators --one which the owner says has allowed him to keep his biggest heating bills within the $200 range. And thats in addition to what he describes as two ecologically friendly central air systems that separately cool the upper and lower levels.

Another highly economical featureone Formica credits with having saved him thousands of dollars in water bills is a sunken irrigation well and pump installed by Thomas to provide water to a six-zone sprinkler system with 10-12 heads each. Using municipal water for the same purpose, he estimates, would have cost him another $150-$200 a month. (Another significant savings, he adds, can be realized from the fact that the site is not subject to flooding, and thus requires no federal flood insurance.)

The house, according to its owner, also contains numerous other testaments to the ingenuity of the builder. They include a stainless steel baseboard around the walls of the garage, along with a giant matching workbench; two 200-amp electric mains (although the appliances, heating and hot water are all powered by natural gas) with a hook-up that can easily accommodate a generator; a built-in mahogany sideboard in the formal dining room; a lighting system in the foyer that can be programmed to match the occupants mood; a wall of shower nozzles in the master bathroom, and a leak-proof tile tub in the upstairs laundry room in which both the washer and drier have been placed as a safety measure.

Among the homes other amenities are an eat-in kitchen that has both a comfortably traditional feel and a full complement of top-of-the-line, stainless steel Electrolux appliances (in addition to those 100 percent-oak cabinets); a huge storage attic accessible via a stepladder from the laundry room, and no fewer than three walk-in closets (two of which are in the master suite). Finally, theres whats standing on the front lawnan authentic antique gas lamp from Philadelphias Broad Street (a wedding gift to the builders father), which has been electrified, but retains its original charm.

Adding to this homes appeal is its location in one of the Mainlands most desirable neighborhoods, just a short walk from the Linwood athletic fields, the meadows and bucolic Offs Pond, a popular spot with local nature lovers.

If all those hidden attributes, as well as an outwardly lovely home are the kind sof things youd like your lifestyle to include, the person to contact is Kevin Corcoran from Kevin Corcoran Real Estate in Atlantic City, at (609) 348-0077 or his cell phone (609-432-9226), or email him at 3480077@gmail.com to arrange for a private showing. But dont hesitatea property with so much going for it may soon no longer be on the market.

Originally posted here:
Adding to this Linwood homes value is a treasure trove of hidden features - Press of Atlantic City

NASHVILLE, Tenn., (WKRN) If you are in need of lumber, then it is likely you are on a long waiting list with others.

Demand is high and supply is low for lumber. Meaning, prices will continue to soar. If you are planning to build a deck, fence or house this fall, you may want to think twice.

Theyre basically at historic levels across the bar, Chris Lewis said, Vice President of Sales at Rogers Manufacturing Corporation. Its all through the roof.

Lewis said due to COVID-19 production at lumber mills has slowed down. Their production now sits around 60% to 70% of what it should be in relation to the demand.

Theyre all saying were trying, we just cant,' Lewis said in addition to high prices they are also struggling with availability issues.

Amid the onset of coronavirus lumber production slowed, and experts thought demand would drop. But instead, it soared.

[People] are at home bored. Theyre going to build an addition; fix something on their house; build a dec; redo this; or redo that, Lewis said.

According to Random Lengths weekly report on North American forest products markets, the price of framing lumber topped $800 p/bdft last week. Thats a 130% increase since mid-April.

The price last year was just $350 p/dbft.

According to my suppliers, weve seen a two almost two and a half times of cost increase, Jeff Checko said, broker with The Ashton Real Estate Group. Youre going to see impact in the delivered asking prices from builders and quoted pricing for custom homes and home renovation projects.

The recent spike is causing the price of an average new single-family home to increase by $16,000 since late April, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

These builders that have these houses for $350,000-$550,000 now instead of paying $30,000-$40,000 for their framing package theyre spending $75,000-$90,000 for their framing package. So, when does that kill the deal? Lewis asked.

Unfortunately, Lewis doesnt see anything changing anytime soon. Unless, demand drops and supply grows. If prices continue to rise, Lewis said it may be hard for customers to find lumber on store shelves.

We have problems pricing something because we dont know where our cost will be next week, Lewis said. When does it stop, where is the top.

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The price of lumber soars to unprecedented level - WKRN News 2

The world is changing and quickly too. As I get closer to my 80s, I cant keep up.

Have you noticed, phone booths are nowhere to be found. They have been replaced with itty bitty phones we can stuff in our pockets.

Everyone, wanting to be different, is becoming more the same as they race to cover their bodies with tattoos.

Folks, not satisfied with the number of body holes they were born with, are drilling new holes into their bodies to hang metal objects from, which makes it increasingly difficult to pass through the airports metal detector.

These are only a few of the changes. Did I mention the blue hair craze?

It had to happen eventually. I, for one, cannot believe it. Borrowing an old idea, Starbucks has come out with what is certain to become the latest popular craze. It may not replace the blue hair craze, but I am confident customers will be clamoring to be first to get in on this hip action. Check out the sign displayed on a Starbucks coffee shop window.

As the sign plainly states, you can order a head and pay for it with the Starbucks app.

One caution. Do not order a head in the state of Idaho. Ordering a head violates the cannibalism law in Idaho. None of the other 49 states have specific cannibalism laws to make ordering a head illegal.

You have to admit, the window sign helps prove I did not make this up.

Hey, wait just a minute. I wonder if I got the sign all wrong. Maybe I read too much into the the sign, order a head. Yea, I wonder if Starbucks is getting into toilet sales.

Another distinct possibility is Starbucks is bringing back a new and improved pay toilet which customers can reserve by ordering a head. You do not need to carry change for the pay toilet because you can pay with your Starbucks app.

It certainly is a sign of the times.

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Westside Story A Sign of the Times - The Suburban Times

Irelands Kevin OBrien is no stranger to big-hitting exploits but he had cause to regret his batting prowess on Thursday when he smashed his own car window with a trademark six.

OBrien, who scored the fastest century in World Cup history in 2011 to help Ireland chase down a mammoth 327 to secure a famous win over England in Bangalore, made 82 off 37 balls for Leinster Lightning in the Inter-Provincial Twenty20 Trophy.

He hit eight sixes, one of which sailed into the parking lot next to the Pembroke Cricket Club in Dublin to shatter his cars rear window.

After the match, the 36-year-old all-rounder drove the car straight to the garage to get the window replaced.

Dont worry @KevinOBrien113 well get it fixed up as good as new, the dealership said on Twitter. Brien then came up with fitting reply, promising that he would park the car further from next time around.

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Irelands Kevin OBrien smashes own car window with monster six, says Will park further next time - Hindustan Times

Photo by Mark Cornelison | Staff

Photo by Mark Cornelison | Staff

On Tuesday, news that had long been speculated became official: As first reported by KSRs Matt Jones, DeWayne Peevy, the Deputy Athletic Director at Kentucky, has been named the AD at DePaul. The news had seemingly been in the works for weeks and is now finally official, with Kentucky announcing Peevys departure and DePaul following it up by announcing his arrival.

Admittedly, we dont normally do a lot of transactional, athletic department hirings and firings on this website. But it felt necessary here, if only to explain just how much this guy meant to the University of Kentucky, and its basketball program over the last decade and change. And while Peevy was long overdue to get a job of this magnitude (one he will crush, I have no doubt), its important to explain just how big of a hole he will leave behind at Kentucky.

Understand that Peevy has been at Kentucky for so long, that he actually pre-dates John Calipari by a year. In a world where there are now teenagers who dont remember life in Lexington before Calipari was named head coach, Peevy was on the ground in the wild year of 2008 BC (Before Cal) startingin Billy Gillispies final season as the head coach.

And yeah, if that feels like a lifetime ago, it basically was. Peevys job responsibilities also reflect just how long ago, and just how different Kentucky was at the time. Poor Peevy spent his first year in Lexington trying to drum up any positive media coverage he could for the Kentucky basketball team, in a year when there really was no good news to report. Yes, there was a time not long ago where Kentucky didnt have enough media coverage. Unlike today where it is impossible to keep track of all the newspapers, blogs, podcasts and radio shows who cover the team.

It also means that as Peevy walks out the door, he leaves with a little piece of history with him. He has been there since Day 1 of the Calipari era.

And when I say since Day 1 I mean, the guy was literally there Day 1. When I wrote my book One and Fun some of the best, most vivid stories I got from the entire book centered around Caliparis opening few days as the Kentucky basketball head coach. They were stories that many others had long since forgotten, or simply never took the time to commit to memory. It was Peevy who was there alongside Calipari as he prepared his opening press conference the day he accepted the Kentucky job. It was Peevy who tried to pass along notes, ones that Calipari stubbornly (surprise, surprise) chose not to use.

But it brings me to two important points. One, its that Peevy leaves as basically the unofficial historian of the Calipari era in Lexington. Two, outside of Kentuckys assistant coaches, Peevy quickly became Caliparis most-trusted right hand man at UK.

Really, the best way I can put it is this: You know how John Calipari is just a crazy visionary? A guy who comes up with a million new ideas every year, ranging from Big Blue Madness stuff to schedule quirks, the NBA Combine, on and on and on? Well, if Calipari is the guy throwing a million ideas at the wall, Peevy was the guy who had to execute them all.

When Calipari said I want to beef up the schedule early in his time at Kentucky, Peevy helped create the CBS Sports Classic (an event that Indiana was originally supposed to be a part of, according to Peevy). When Calipari said that he wanted to take his team down to the Bahamas for their once-every-four-years foreign tour, Peevy was the guy who had to call Atlantis and figure out where the team would play, how many hotel rooms theyd need and how to get opposing teams into the country. When Calipari wanted the latest and greatest crazy stunt at Big Blue Madness (think, John Wall dancing in the rafters) Peevy was the guy who worked with UKs operations team to make it happen.

And those are really just examples of things I know about personally. I cant imagine how many other hats he has worn at UK over the past 12 years.

More than anything though, what will be missed most around Lexington is Peevys unique ability to build relations and connect with people. See him at a UK basketball game and the poor guy never got a moment of free time, shaking hands with old friends, chatting with media members, you name it.

That extends beyond just gameday as well, as Peevy was essentially the connective fiber of Caliparis La Familia culture in Lexington. Yes, Calipari is the Godfather, and yes, Calipari is in touch with his former players daily.

But so too is Peevy.

And in the same way those former players inherently trust Calipari they trust Peevy the same. Meaning that if you ever needed John Wall or Jamal Murray or Willie Cauley-Stein for something, Peevy was the guy to go to. He might not be able to get you on the phone with the player that day, but any time Peevy asked one of the guys for a favor, they obliged. It was never a hassle for the player. It was never a wild goose chase where you had to track down the player through a million PR people. If Peevy vouched for you, that was all the players needed to know. Usually you were on the phone with them within a day or two.

Add it all up, and thats really why it is impossible to fully explain what Peevy leaving means to Kentucky basketball. Yes, he had a fancy title of Deputy Athletics Director in Lexington. But thats just a job title. Kentucky will be able to fill the job. But theyll never be able to replace the person theyre losing.

In the end however, what it all boils down to is what I said up top: Kentucky should just be thankful they had him as long as they did.

Hell make a heck of an Athletic Director at DePaul. A job he was long overdue, and way overqualified for.

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DeWayne Peevy will be impossible to replace at Kentucky - kentuckysportsradio.com

The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs indoors, most of it from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus. The best way to prevent the virus from spreading in a home or business would be to simply keep infected people away. But this is hard to do when an estimated 40% of cases are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people can still spread the coronavirus to others.

Masks do a decent job at keeping the virus from spreading into the environment, but if an infected person is inside a building, inevitably some virus will escape into the air.

I am a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. Much of my work has focused on how to control the transmission of airborne infectious diseases indoors, and Ive been asked by my own university, my kids schools and even the Alaska State Legislature for advice on how to make indoor spaces safe during this pandemic.

Once the virus escapes into the air inside a building, you have two options: bring in fresh air from outside or remove the virus from the air inside the building.

The safest indoor space is one that constantly has lots of outside air replacing the stale air inside.

In commercial buildings, outside air is usually pumped in through heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. In homes, outside air gets in through open windows and doors, in addition to seeping in through various nooks and crannies.

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Simply put, the more fresh, outside air inside a building, the better. Bringing in this air dilutes any contaminant in a building, whether a virus or a something else, and reduces the exposure of anyone inside. Environmental engineers like me quantify how much outside air is getting into a building using a measure called the air exchange rate. This number quantifies the number of times the air inside a building gets replaced with air from outside in an hour.

While the exact rate depends on the number of people and size of the room, most experts consider roughly six air changes an hour to be good for a 10-foot-by-10-foot room with three to four people in it. In a pandemic this should be higher, with one study from 2016 suggesting that an exchange rate of nine times per hour reduced the spread of SARS, MERS and H1N1 in a Hong Kong hospital.

Many buildings in the U.S., especially schools, do not meet recommended ventilation rates. Thankfully, it can be pretty easy to get more outside air into a building. Keeping windows and doors open is a good start. Putting a box fan in a window blowing out can greatly increase air exchange too. In buildings that dont have operable windows, you can change the mechanical ventilation system to increase how much air it is pumping. But in any room, the more people inside, the faster the air should be replaced.

So how do you know if the room youre in has enough air exchange? Its actually a pretty hard number to calculate. But theres an easy-to-measure proxy that can help. Every time you exhale, you release CO2 into the air. Since the coronavirus is most often spread by breathing, coughing or talking, you can use CO2 levels to see if the room is filling up with potentially infectious exhalations. The CO2 level lets you estimate if enough fresh outside air is getting in.

Outdoors, CO2 levels are just above 400 parts per million (ppm). A well ventilated room will have around 800 ppm of CO2. Any higher than that and it is a sign the room might need more ventilation.

READ: Colorado Sun opinion columnists.

Last year, researchers in Taiwan reported on the effect of ventilation on a tuberculosis outbreak at Taipei University. Many of the rooms in the school were underventilated and had CO2 levels above 3,000 ppm. When engineers improved air circulation and got CO2 levels under 600 ppm, the outbreak completely stopped. According to the research, the increase in ventilation was responsible for 97% of the decrease in transmission.

Since the coronavirus is spread through the air, higher CO2 levels in a room likely mean there is a higher chance of transmission if an infected person is inside. Based on the study above, I recommend trying to keep the CO2 levels below 600 ppm. You can buy good CO2 meters for around $100 online; just make sure that they are accurate to within 50 ppm.

If you are in a room that cant get enough outside air for dilution, consider an air cleaner, also commonly called air purifiers. These machines remove particles from the air, usually using a filter made of tightly woven fibers. They can capture particles containing bacteria and viruses and can help reduce disease transmission.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that air cleaners can do this for the coronavirus, but not all air cleaners are equal. Before you go out and buy one, there are few things to keep in mind.

The first thing to consider is how effective an air cleaners filter is. Your best option is a cleaner that uses a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, as these remove more than 99.97% of all particle sizes.

The second thing to consider is how powerful the cleaner is. The bigger the room or the more people in it the more air needs to be cleaned. I worked with some colleagues at Harvard to put together a tool to help teachers and schools determine how powerful of an air cleaner you need for different classroom sizes.

The last thing to consider is the validity of the claims made by the company producing the air cleaner.

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers certifies air cleaners, so the AHAM Verifide seal is a good place to start. Additionally, the California Air Resources Board has a list of air cleaners that are certified as safe and effective, though not all of them use HEPA filters.

Both the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that poor ventilation increases the risk of transmitting the coronavirus.

If you are in control of your indoor environment, make sure you are getting enough fresh air from outside circulating into the building. A CO2 monitor can help give you a clue if there is enough ventilation, and if CO2 levels start going up, open some windows and take a break outside. If you cant get enough fresh air into a room, an air cleaner might be a good idea. If you do get an air cleaner, be aware that they dont remove CO2, so even though the air might be safer, CO2 levels could still be high in the room.

If you walk into a building and it feels hot, stuffy and crowded, chances are that there is not enough ventilation. Turn around and leave.

By paying attention to air circulation and filtration, improving them where you can and staying away from places where you cant, you can add another powerful tool to your anti-coronavirus toolkit.

Shelly Miller is professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom.Read our ethics policy for more on The Suns opinion policyand submit columns, suggested writers and more toopinion@coloradosun.com.

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Opinion: How to use ventilation and air filtration to prevent the spread of coronavirus indoors - The Colorado Sun

By Shirley Salemy Meyer

Im an avid painter. Fine art, such as peonies rendered in watercolors or portraits captured by oil, is not my forte. I favor the practical arts. Each year, in late spring and early summer, I paint something a room, a radiator, a patio chair, a window seat in my century-old house. In a week or a weekend, I see a dramatic change.

The notion of change is often thought of as difficult changing jobs can be laborious, changing routines can be disconcerting, even frightening. But change can also be transformative. I approached this years painting season, a time when COVID-19 forced me to change my routines and added layers of worry about my elderly parents in quarantine and my teenage children in remote learning, with a profound need for something new. The slowness of rolling a fresh paint color along nine-foot-high walls, of brushing another layer of semigloss onto wide, decorative wood moldings, allowed contemplation during this disquieting time, a stocktaking of present-day problems and future possibilities.

During my weeks of isolation in Essex County in the midst of the dangerous pandemic, sobering protests urging us to acknowledge and fight racial injustice, and stubborn national leadership one project led to the next. I painted the attic, the mudroom and two bathrooms.

Painting is a methodical, meditative process. I use a roller to cover broad areas of the walls, and then carefully drag my brush along the narrow spaces that the roller is unable to reach. I dont use tape to protect the window and door casings, the crown and baseboard moldings, when I cut in. Instead, I rely on my steady hand and a sharply angled brush. My body leans into the wall, nearly hugging it, as I pull the brush along the edge of the molding to get a clean line. The result of this slow, intimate work is a new look.

Sometimes, change can cause harm. The baseboard moldings are a mess, scuffed up by kids shoes and toys, and contain sections that are wavy and chipped. But lead paint is present amid the layers of paint. Ill never risk sanding the molding to attain a smooth finish when lead paint dust can be so damaging to our health. I can live with the moldings flaws.

But most change is a mark of progress. My drop cloths are a historical record of change in the house: old sheets with dump trucks or bright green polka dots, discolored shower curtains and plastic tablecloths splattered with glitter glue. After each painting project, I wash them all, then store them in a basement room where I keep supplies. The room is filled with old gallons of paint and quarts of colors I tested in various rooms. I recently cleaned out the cans that I will never need again: an electric blue and lime green that were on the walls of the girls room a decade ago; a soft blue that adorned the baby room the bedroom with the crib and changing table that two of my kids cycled into as infants and out of as toddlers. My youngest remained there a twin bed replaced the crib and the changing table became a bookcase and now three of its walls are painted white, the fourth a brick red.

The dining room has been three different colors in 19 years: golden yellow, off-white, and now a saturated, smoky blue. The color of the living room has changed from gold to beige to taupe during that same time period. The most dramatic makeover during my current painting season was in the mudroom, with the walls changing from fiery orange to a serene blue-green hue.

Each time Ive painted a room, Ive gained a new understanding, a new way of looking at the house and my environment. I never realized the usefulness of a bedroom window seat with storage until I painted it. I didnt appreciate the intricacy of the balusters in the attic until I painstakingly brushed them with paint. That gorgeous new color in the mudroom, which toggles between blue and green depending on the time of day, opened my eyes to how much sunshine enters the room.

Right now, we all would benefit from such a new perspective a shake-up in our thinking, a revitalization in our own lives and a much-needed boost to the collective well-being of the country. If only it came as easily as a few fresh coats of paint on imperfect walls.

Shirley Salemy Meyer, a Maplewood resident, is a part-time lecturer in the Writing Program at Rutgers-New Brunswick.

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Painting is slow, meditative and a way to bring change | Opinion - NJ.com

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The main stained-glass windows at St John's Anglican Church in Reid have served as a reminder to the church's parishioners of the story of John the Baptist for nearly 150 years, but time can take its toll on the delicate assembled panels of glass. Now, a $10,000 heritage grant from the ACT government will see the church develop a conservation plan for the building's windows. The church's rector, Father Paul Black, said no conservation work had been done on the windows for 25 years, and the church did not know what condition the windows were in. Stained-glass window experts from Brisbane will be brought in to assess their condition and make a plan to best care for them. Father Black said he and the parishioners hoped the windows were in good order and little needed to be done to maintain them well into the future. He said the church's heritage was part of its attraction to its parishioners, who were drawn from a wide social circle. "There are a lot of people right across the generations who are attracted to a sense of history: a church that actually looks like a church rather than an auditorium, and so on and so forth," Father Black said. Apart from the main windows, the church has stained-glass placed in memory of members of the Campbell family, some of the earliest settlers on the Limestone Plains. Two small windows composed of fragments collected from ruined churches on the First World War Somme battlefields in France by Chaplain F.G. Ward were installed in June 1929. Last year, the church, which predates the establishment of Canberra by more than 70 years, replaced its shingle roof with Welsh slate, raising $360,000 to complete the project. Father Black said when the original wood shingle roof came to be replaced in 1960, the new wonder material chosen was asbestos. Although the church was spared from the January hailstorm, which lashed Canberra in a band from west to east wreaking havoc on many of the city's heritage buildings, Father Black said it was a difficult church to maintain. Father Black, who has been rector at the church for more than a decade, said there was a lot of community support for the church as a piece of Canberra's history. "This precinct is wider than say Christianity. It's to do with who we are as a Canberra community," he said. The coronavirus pandemic has meant the church's services have shifted to accommodate more people. It can comfortably fit 120 people normally, but is presently limited to 40 people. On Saturday, the first wedding since March was set to be held in the church. "It's very difficult to disinfect historic pews and all those things," Father Black said. Other projects to receive grants include more than $11,000 to help conserve murals at the Free Serbian Orthodox Church St George in Forrest and nearly $30,000 for conservation works at Cuppacumbalong Homestead near Tharwa. Expanded audio and augmented reality experiences will also receive heritage funding. Grants will be made to individuals, schools and local historical and residents' societies. More than $370,000 will be awarded under the scheme in 2020-21. Heritage Minister Mick Gentleman said the grants would help support new tours, signage and digitisation projects, as well as conservation work in private, heritage-registered homes. "All the projects celebrate Canberra's wonderful heritage and will help preserve our local history for future generations," Mr Gentleman said.

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc7c3cu7aullv1l98x8f47.jpg/r6_192_4100_2505_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

The main stained-glass windows at St John's Anglican Church in Reid have served as a reminder to the church's parishioners of the story of John the Baptist for nearly 150 years, but time can take its toll on the delicate assembled panels of glass.

Now, a $10,000 heritage grant from the ACT government will see the church develop a conservation plan for the building's windows.

The church's rector, Father Paul Black, said no conservation work had been done on the windows for 25 years, and the church did not know what condition the windows were in.

Stained-glass window experts from Brisbane will be brought in to assess their condition and make a plan to best care for them.

Father Black said he and the parishioners hoped the windows were in good order and little needed to be done to maintain them well into the future.

A stained-glass window at St John's in Reid. Picture: Elesa Kurtz

He said the church's heritage was part of its attraction to its parishioners, who were drawn from a wide social circle.

"There are a lot of people right across the generations who are attracted to a sense of history: a church that actually looks like a church rather than an auditorium, and so on and so forth," Father Black said.

Apart from the main windows, the church has stained-glass placed in memory of members of the Campbell family, some of the earliest settlers on the Limestone Plains.

Two small windows composed of fragments collected from ruined churches on the First World War Somme battlefields in France by Chaplain F.G. Ward were installed in June 1929.

Last year, the church, which predates the establishment of Canberra by more than 70 years, replaced its shingle roof with Welsh slate, raising $360,000 to complete the project.

Father Black said when the original wood shingle roof came to be replaced in 1960, the new wonder material chosen was asbestos.

Although the church was spared from the January hailstorm, which lashed Canberra in a band from west to east wreaking havoc on many of the city's heritage buildings, Father Black said it was a difficult church to maintain.

Father Black, who has been rector at the church for more than a decade, said there was a lot of community support for the church as a piece of Canberra's history.

"This precinct is wider than say Christianity. It's to do with who we are as a Canberra community," he said.

The coronavirus pandemic has meant the church's services have shifted to accommodate more people. It can comfortably fit 120 people normally, but is presently limited to 40 people. On Saturday, the first wedding since March was set to be held in the church.

"It's very difficult to disinfect historic pews and all those things," Father Black said.

A stained-glass window at St John's in Reid. Picture: Elesa Kurtz

Other projects to receive grants include more than $11,000 to help conserve murals at the Free Serbian Orthodox Church St George in Forrest and nearly $30,000 for conservation works at Cuppacumbalong Homestead near Tharwa.

Expanded audio and augmented reality experiences will also receive heritage funding. Grants will be made to individuals, schools and local historical and residents' societies.

More than $370,000 will be awarded under the scheme in 2020-21.

Heritage Minister Mick Gentleman said the grants would help support new tours, signage and digitisation projects, as well as conservation work in private, heritage-registered homes.

"All the projects celebrate Canberra's wonderful heritage and will help preserve our local history for future generations," Mr Gentleman said.

Read more:
St John's at Reid will receive heritage grant to help maintain stained-glass windows - The Canberra Times