5 Things You Should Know – Part 19

Here are this week’s 5 things you should know.

01. How to stop pipes from freezing and bursting during winter

If the heat is out at your home you can leave the faucet on a slow drip. Also, when it is expected to get and stay well below freezing, a slow drizzle will stop the pipes from freezing and allow you to still have water.

02. Type 1 Diabetes is a really, really terrible disease.

It seems to me that a majority of the population see diabetes as a very benign, harmless disease where all you have to do is “check your blood sugar, and check it often.” Diabetes Type 1 is mainly an endocrine disease that leads to vascular complications causing many horrible diseases. It doubles your risk for cardiovascular disease. It can lead to chronic kidney disease (via diabetic nephropathy), blindness (via diabetic retinopathy), and ulcers which could lead to amputation. Most diabetics die because of coronary artery disease.

03. What to do if your house is on fire

First thing’s first, have working smoke detectors and a plan.

Get out and stay out. Call 911 or your countries emergency phone number immediately from the front lawn with a cell phone or from a neighbor’s house. The link says to preferably use a landline, but if you are confident in your cell service, in this day and age, the cell phone will be quicker therefore better. Stay calm. The first question they will ask is address, so be ready to listen to them and answer every question.

Stay by the mailbox, or the edge of your driveway so you can tell the first arriving fire department officer vital information like if there are people trapped, pets inside, or if there are any hazardous conditions inside (propane or oxygen tanks, fire arm ammo, or if you were renovating and there are holes in floors/walls etc). DO NOT GO BACK INSIDE! A fire intensifies incredibly quickly, some sources say it doubles in size every 30 seconds, others every 5 minutes, the important thing is in the time it took you to exit your house and call the fire department, that fire is significantly larger, hotter, and the smoke it has produced will kill you.

People often get killed because they went in thinking they can fight it. If you attempt to go back in, you will be met with thick black smoke that is not only toxic, it may be superheated and burn your lungs if inhaled. Even if you stay low and out of the smoke, you will immediately regret your decision once you get closer to the fire. The heat experienced is incredible and will burn and kill you if the room is close to flashover.

If on the way out you come across the fire and it is small and you have a way to fight it that doesn’t require you to pass an exit, you can try one quick attempt at putting it out.

So an example would be, on the way to the front door, you can clearly see it is a small fire on your stove, or the garbage can is on fire and you have an extinguisher that is right there, give it a go. Tell everyone to get out and stay out and have them call the FD.

Know how to use a fire extinguisher and use the PASS technique. Pull Aim Squeeze Sweep. Pull the pin. Aim for the seat of the fire, Squeeze the handle and let her rip Sweeping the area being sure you got the whole fire. ONLY DO THIS IF YOU ARE ABLE TO PUT YOURSELF BETWEEN THE FIRE AND THE EXIT!

You get one chance, if the fire doesn’t go out, get out and stay out. Don’t run to the basement or garage for another fire extinguisher, by the time you get back the fire will be larger and out of control.

If it is a cooking fire, do not put water on it or this can happen.

A fire is a helpless feeling. You will watch light smoke turn to dark smoke as you listen to windows beginning to break and fire start to pour out of the openings. You can hear the sirens for miles and it seems like an eternity before the FD gets there. But you must remain outside.

Some other things that will make the FD’s job easier is getting cars away from the front of your house. That will give the FD a nice open space to work with.

It helps to have a fire proof safe to keep important hard to replace documents in. Passports, birth certificates, S.S cards, important family items etc. I have a small $20 one like this one. They make larger ones to hold bigger items like photo albums and such, but the majority of my pictures are backed up on a computer.

Also if the house is safe to approach, unlock all the doors to the house DO NOT OPEN THEM. Just unlock them. Opening the doors will give the fire more O2 causing it to intensify and spread. Also make sure the fire hydrant on your street isn’t obstructed in anyway.

Now let me be clear, garden hoses are not to be used to fight a house fire. Typical garden hoses flow 10 gallons per minute of water (GPM) where a fire department’s hand line will flow anywhere from 150-300 GPM.

It’s amazing how many people have super detailed “zombie outbreak” survival plans, but no clue what they’d do in a fire.

04. Don’t vacuum up mice droppings

It can give you (or anyone else around) Hantavirus. The virus is primarily spread by mice, and is contained in their droppings. Vacuuming the droppings aerosolizes the virions, making it possible for you to breathe them in and become infected. If you are, there is no treatment other than basic rest and fluids.

Don’t even sweep up the droppings! That’s pretty much the same thing as vacuuming it up! The CDC calls for you to first spray it with bleach & water to make it very, very wet to prevent it from becoming airborne. Then wipe it up with a paper towel.

05. How to use a Military Tuck to Keep Dress Shirts from Billowing at the Waist

There’s a simple trick for tucking in a shirt that not many men know about. This technique not only keeps the shirt tucked in, but also helps remove excess fabric, making the shirt appear more tailored.

“The Military Tuck” has many variations, used by servicemen to give their standard-fit uniforms a clean, fitted finish. Purists who read this will have an obvious question at the back of their mind – “Why not just have the shirt altered by a tailor?” There are many reasons why a man would choose to tuck over altering; time, expense, hassle. While a tailored shirt will sit perfectly on the body, this 30-second tucking technique gets the job done just as well.

Steps:

1. Unbutton pants and place the base of your shirt neatly downward. Your shirt should not be scrunched into your pants as they’ll easily come untucked.

2. Pinch the shirt at the side-seams and pull tight to collect the excess fabric.

3. Fold this excess fabric backwards. You want both back and front of your shirt to sit flush against your body; no bunching (you haven’t pinched enough fabric) nor pulling (you’ve pinched too much fabric).

4. Button your pants up, tightly securing the folds against your body.

5. Adjust if necessary to neaten the shirt.

It helps to think of this method as placing your pants over your shirt, rather than tucking your shirt into your pants. Obviously, this technique only works for shirts that mostly fit, and just have some excess fabric in the body. If the shirt is a size (or more) too large, this method won’t work and it will need to be altered by a tailor to make it fit correctly.