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State police in Kiski Valley are looking for an A1 Heating and Cooling employee who they say sold an elderly man in Bell a used oil furnace but allegedly failed to install it.

According to a police report, the associate sold and delivered the furnace, which was advertised in a newspaper for $450, to a Waukena Road resident Nov. 25. The associate offered to install it for $500, police said, so the buyer gave the man $950 to finish the job.

As of Thursday, the installation has not been completed, police said, and the victim has been relying on a kerosene heater to keep his home warm.

Numerous attempts to contact the associate have failed, police said.

Police listed the location of the company as Hopwood or Uniontown. The phone number for the company under Uniontown on the Better Business Bureau's website is the cellphone number for a Newell resident, Timothy Novak.

Theresa Puchalski said Novak, her fiance, was contacted by state police regarding the incident, but she said they have nothing to do with A1 Heating and Cooling. She said they were never contacted by a man purchasing a furnace, nor do they know the victim.

Puchalski said Novak has brain damage from a near-fatal motorcycle accident, so he would be unable to operate such a company.

Attempts by the Tribune-Review to contact the company using a phone number listed under a Hopwood location on the Better Business Bureau's website were unsuccessful, and the listing states the company is believed to be out of business.

Police said the associate will be charged with theft by deception unless he is located and completes the installation.

Anyone with information is asked to contact state police at 724-727-3434.

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Furnace seller allegedly dupes elderly man in Bell Township

Winter heating bills can cost you a small fortune if youre not careful, so we thought wed share a few low-cost ways to prep your house for cold weather. We left out the obvious stuff like turning down your thermostat, drinking hot cider, and wearing six layers of Snuggies everywhere you go the stuff in this list is a bit more creative than that. Enjoy!

Even if youve got double-paned glass, youre still likely losing heat through your windows. The problem is that glass just isnt a very good insulator but theres an easy way to fix that: bubble wrap. The little pockets of air act like tiny little buffer zones that keep heat from escaping through the glass. Its relatively cheap, too. You can get a gigantic roll of the stuff for around $10-20 bucks.

To stick it to your windows, just cut out strips to match the size of each pane, and use a spray bottle to apply a light mist on the window. The water should create a seal that effectively holds the bubble wrap against your window. If it falls off, just give it another light spray and reapply.

For those of you who want to insulate your windows without ruining the view, check out this window insulation kit from 3M.

Fireplaces are wonderfully cozy to sit around in the colder parts of the year, but theyre really not that great for heating your home. The problem with most fireplaces is that theyre designed in such a way that a significant amount of heat gets pulled straight up the chimney and only a small amount radiates into you home. Furthermore, they can also create updrafts that suck heated air from the room. So, to overcome these problems and boost the efficiency of your fireplace, here are a few things you can do:

First of all, check to make sure your damper is in good working order. If youve got an older fireplace and the damper hasnt been replaced in a few years, theres a good chance that years of heating and cooling have caused it to warp, thereby exacerbating the problem of updrafts.

Second, install a fireback. These are generally just sheets of reflective material placed against the rear wall of your fireplace in order to radiate heat back into your house. People typically use sheets of stainless steel to make this happen, but you can get the same effect for a fraction of the price by coating the rear wall with heat-resistant metallic silver spray paint, or even just tacking up some aluminum foil. That being said, the aluminum foil method will only work for deep fireplaces with sufficient room between the fire and foil to keep the foil from getting damaged/blackened.

Lastly, if you dont already have one, we highly recommend you get your hands on a glass fireplace door. Theyre a bit on the spendy side, but they allow heat from the fire to pass through into your house while also preventing heat loss due to updrafts.

Were going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume youre already aware of the importance of weather stripping your doors and windows to reduce drafts but what you may not realize is that your outlets and switches might be causing just as much heat loss. Sure, the drafts escaping through any one outlet arent that significant, but with all the outlets in your house combined, those little drafts add up toa pretty substantial leak.

If your outlets arent already equipped with foam insulation pads, installing some is a great way to fight the draft. You can pick them up from your local hardware store for just a few bucks, and they can easily be installed in an hour or two using nothing more than a screwdriver. If you want to take things a step further,wed also recommendcaulkingthe perimeter of the outlet boxes to the surrounding drywall.

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Cut down your winter heating bill with these low-tech home hacks

AMES, Iowa For an Ames woman 2015 is a lot warmer than 2014.

For the past two months, Sheli Dougherty was warming her house with an oven and space heater after her old furnace quit working.

I was like oh Im okay. I was like the oven is doing great. I`ll put on another sweatshirt. Everything is fine,Dougherty said.

Dougherty was able to buy a furnace on E-bay but couldnt afford to have it installed.

But leave it up to social media to lend a hand. Word got around on Facebook and within hours heating and cooling technician, Brett Linder, offered his services for free.

If we can make someones holiday a little brighter and they dont have to use their oven to heat their house anymore, that`s the bottom line, Linder said.

Linders company, Ames Heating and Cooling has donated furnaces in the past but it was especially nice to finish the year with a random act of kindness.

The cost to install a furnace would cost close to $1,000.

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Woman Without Heat Posts To Facebook, Receives Random Act of Kindness

Amanda Hansen would have been 22 today, a graduate of the University of North Carolina working as a Spanish teacher, said her father Ken Hansen of West Seneca.

She wanted to be a Tar Heel, Hansen said, referring to the nickname for University of North Carolina students.

But the 16-year-old high school student died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a defective boiler during a sleepover at the home of a friend in 2009. The swimmer with a sunny smile also wanted to help others, former classmates said.

Thats why Amanda would have been tickled by the furnace drive her parents mounted to help homeowners who cannot afford to replace their faulty furnaces.

In the past year, with the assistance of friends and heating companies, the Amanda Hansen Foundation has collected 17 furnaces to be donated to area families.

The first furnace was installed last January in the home of Candee Camillo, a Town of Tonawanda single mother of two.

Thomas Tarnowski, a single father of three, received a furnace after a flood swept through his Lackawanna home and ruined a 40-year-old furnace he could not afford to replace.

Ken and Kim Hansen established the foundation in 2010, one year after their daughters death. They started by donating carbon monoxide detectors. The nonprofit organization has worked to raise awareness and funds to prevent deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning.

From 1999 to 2004, an average of 439 people died annually from unintentional, non-fire-related carbon monoxide poisoning in the United States, according to the National Center for Environmental Health. In New York State, approximately 200 people are hospitalized each year because of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.

From 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, the foundation will kick off carbon dioxide awareness month at Amandas high school, West Seneca West, on 3330 Seneca St., by giving away its 17,000th detector. As a rule, Hansen said, carbon monoxide detectors are good for five years.

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Foundation to give away furnaces in fight against carbon monoxide poisoning

Kitchen Remodeling Chicago | Kitchen Remodeling Designs | Remodeling Ideas
Kitchen Remodeling Chicago | Kitchen Remodeling Projects Completed In Chicago. Kitchen Renovation Ideas. Let Our Designers Help You Create Your Dream Kitchen...

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Kitchen Remodeling Chicago | Kitchen Remodeling Designs | Remodeling Ideas - Video

New York, NY (PRWEB) January 02, 2015

MyHome, the Manhattan-based renovation company, has completed a kitchen renovation at 529 West 42nd Street in Manhattan. The project was designed by MyHome Remodeling Con-sultant Kristiann Colasacco.

Colasacco and her team were tasked creating the illusion of more space in the kitchen without the actual construction of the room changing. To address this, an existing closet space was in-verted and used for the refrigerator, thus creating a built in refrigeration system. To make up for the lost closet space, a larger island with a drawer storage system was installed. Extra seating was also added around the island.

Tall upper wall white melamine cabinets were installed with silver edge banding, creating fine lines and a open, bright, uniform look. A Haisa Marble backsplash creates a mosaic effect, re-sulting in minimal grout lines and providing beautiful contrast between the backsplash and the darker Caesar stone countertops installed in the space. Porcelain floor tiles that resemble slate were also installed, adding a touch of rustic style to the space, which connects it to the ambiance of the rest of the apartment.

MyHome was founded in 2001 by managing partner Yoel Piotraut. The company, which is based in New York City, has a team of fifteen consultants, designers, and managers. MyHomes New York City showroom is located at 353 West 48th Street in Manhattan. Kristiann Colasacco, the projects lead designer, joined MyHome in 2013 after five years of experience in the industry following graduating with honors from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandizing in Los Angeles.

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MyHome Completes Kitchen Renovation on 42nd Street in Manhattan

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) So its the first weekend after the holidays are you thinking spring and home remodeling projects?

I think people are always thinking about home remodeling. Theres no bad time to update your house, says Nick Vedder of L&L Exhibition Management.

L&L Exhibition has arranged the 12th annual Pittsburgh Remodeling Expo, and over a hundred local exhibitors are betting homeowners agree that its time to update their homes.

Sure the holidays are just over, and it may seem a bit early to think spring remodeling, but dont tell the folks at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center that. A lot of people are turning out to get some good ideas.

Over ten thousand people are expected to show up this weekend to check out everything from bathrooms to kitchens to basements to garages to all kinds of outdoor improvements.

Just come to see all the new products out this year, and Im off work so its a good time to come, says Bill Phelan of Uniontown.

Like many, Kristen Wenskovitch of Gibsonia with her husband and newborn had some specifics in mind.

Few for the outside patio area that we are working on, yes, and we have an indoor flooring project that were looking for next.

And others were, well, sort of along for the ride.

What brings you out to this exposition today? KDKA money editor Jon Delano asked one gentleman.

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Home Remodeling Expo Kicks Off At Convention Center

A sharp slowdown in government-built schools and infrastructure caused U.S. construction spending to fall slightly in November.

The Commerce Department said Friday that construction spending slipped 0.3 percent in November, after having climbed an upwardly revised 1.2 percent in October and 0.6 percent in September.

Much of the decline came from a 1.7 percent retreat in government expenditures. Publicly-built school spending fell 2.5 percent, while the transportation, health care and public safety sectors also fell.

Private construction spending rose a modest 0.3 percent in November. Home-building climbed 1 percent in November, offsetting the declines in the office, commercial and health care-related construction.

Total construction spending has improved a mere 2.4 percent from a year ago to $974.9 billion.

Construction activity has lagged broader economic growth for much of 2014, hampered by limited gains in homebuilding. Few potential buyers can afford new homes, a reflection of meager wage growth, tight credit standards and builders focused on pricier housing developments that are beyond the financial reach of most home-seekers.

Residential construction spending declined 0.5 percent over the past 12 months to $352.7 billion, although solid gains in the past two months suggest that homebuilding activity likely helped economic growth in the final quarter of 2014. Analysts at the bank Barclays projects that annualized growth in the October-December quarter will be 2.8 percent, a solid increase but down from an annualized gain of 5 percent in the third quarter.

Modest buying activity has dissuaded builders from breaking ground on more homes. Sales of new homes dropped 1.6 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 438,000, the Commerce Department said in a recent report. That second straight monthly decline leaves home construction significantly below the annual rate of 700,000 that was common in the 1990s.

Still, broader economic growth should help to bolster construction. Employers have added 2.65 million jobs through the first 11 months of 2014, the most in 15 years. Each new paycheck helps to increase consumer spending, even though average wages have yet to meaningfully outpace inflation. The job gains have accompanied faster economic growth during the second and third quarters of 2014.

"As the labor market continues to show improvement and wages increase, especially for young adults, we expect the pace of single-family building to pick up this year," said Anika Kahn, a senior economist at Wells Fargo.

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US Construction Spending Slips 0.3 Pct. in November

Canvas Window Cleaners Emergency Plan Safety Checklist Mobile App
http://www.gocanvas.com/mobile-forms-apps/18468-Window-Cleaners-Emergency-Plans-Safety-Checklist The Window Cleaners: Emergency Plans Safety Checklist mobile app contains rules for ...

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Canvas Window Cleaners Emergency Plan Safety Checklist Mobile App - Video

Created: 01/01/2015 9:16 AM WHEC.com By: Associated Press

Restaurants and commercial buildings statewide will be required starting next June to install and maintain carbon monoxide detectors. The two laws signed this week apply to New York City and the rest of the state. Sponsors say they are intended to extend the requirement for the detectors already in place for apartments and one- and two-family homes. They noted that a carbon monoxide leak from a malfunctioning water heater pipe recently killed a Long Island restaurant manager and sickened nearly 30 people. The colorless, odorless gas comes from incomplete combustion. Milder symptoms from inhaling it include dizziness, headaches and confusion.

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NY to require carbon monoxide detectors in restaurants