Kathy Dumont had been cleaning and preparing to move into her new home this week when the house went up in flames early Wednesday.

“It would have been my mom’s initial house. She’s 55 years old,” said her son Jeff Foss, who co-owns the home on Bennett Avenue with Darrell Blodgett. They had been within the process of selling the house to his mother, who has always rented property, he stated.

The two-story home in the residential region was insured, Foss stated, but “it’s not rebuildable.” It is located about 50 feet from another house, where kids live.

The hearth originated with an electrical problem related to a light above the kitchen stove, stated Edward Hastings, a fire investigator with the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office. The blaze is ruled as accidental.

A neighbor known as 911 at 12:42 a.m., stated Shawn Howard, captain of the Skowhegan Fire Department. When firefighters arrived there was “heavy fire” on the initial floor and around the exterior of the building.

Rescue workers’ initial concern was that someone was trapped within, as they had not created contact with anyone living there. However, they determined that no one was occupying the house, Howard stated.

As they fought the fire, it caught hold from the roof, requiring a technique of ingenuity.

“The hearth was knocked down on the within of the constructing, but ... the fire acquired gone around the outside from the building to the roof exactly where it was then between the steel roof and also the older, shingled roof,” he said.

So around 1:45 a.m., employees known as Ed Ryan, a Solon firefighter who drives a logging truck. He brought his pulp truck and its grapple — used for loading logs onto a trailer — to be able to peel up the metal roofing, so employees could extinguish the hearth burning up the wooden shingles underneath it.

“He’s very amazingly able to grab every piece of steel and lift it off the roof, exposing the wood under the metal,” Howard said.

It's “unfortunately common” to discover houses with metal roofing on top from the shingles, Howard said, “and that always offers us with a challenge.”

Workers extinguished the fire at 3:03 a.m. and cleared the scene at 5:30 a.m. They returned at 7:30 a.m. to finish their investigations.
Howard stated the constructing is “still structurally sound,” but that it is “heavily damaged and cannot be occupied at this point.” The insurance business and owners will decide whether to repair it.

Madison and Norridgewock hearth departments assisted, along with medical personnel from Redington-Fairview General Hospital. No one was injured.

“The fire definitely acquired potential to be a lot worse. There were other homes very close towards the constructing, but fortunately the crews made a extremely fast attack on the fire. We were able to maintain the hearth from spreading. One of the factors that’s feasible is because of the great mutual aid that we have from our surrounding towns,” Howard said.

David Hinkle worked a night shift and arrived house within the morning to discover a charred structure across from his house. “It’s too bad. It’s been part from the neighborhood,” he said.

Howard stated several people slept via the hearth. “One homeowner came out at 4 a.m.,” he said. “He was extremely shocked. He didn’t realize anything was happening until that time.”

Source: Online Sentinel

Two splinter homebuilder groups have formed following financial troubles at the 64-year-old Metropolitan Omaha Builders Association. The 15-member Home Builders Association of Omaha is led by homebuilder and former MOBA executive Gene Graves.

The 20-member Home Building Experts of Greater Omaha is led by homebuilder and developer Jerry Torczon.

The fracturing underscores the concern within the home constructing industry over MOBA’s situation. Originally shaped in 1946, MOBA severed ties using the nationwide and Nebraska homebuilder associations, cut its staff and is thinking about selling a new headquarters just built in 2008.

“Good people have different views about how things should be approached in occasions of crisis,” stated Graves, who is co-owner of Charleston Houses.

The two new teams seem to become putting different levels of emphasis on marketing and advocacy for homebuilder concerns.

Graves said his group wants to choose up the nearby charter using the Nationwide Association of Home Builders, which then would affiliate the new group with the Nebraska State House Builders Affiliation.

“We feel that’s a unified effort we need to put forth,” he said. “We want to be component of the team.”

John Bachman, a development attorney working using the other new group, stated the House Building Professionals will concentrate much more on advertising new house development and is thinking about offering house tours.

Bachman stated the builders involved had concerns about MOBA’s finances and leadership and decided they would be much better off as a separate group.

The organization will concentrate on representing homebuilders, Bachman stated. MOBA has a broader membership that contains businesses related to new homes. Where building contractors now make up much less than half of MOBA’s board of directors, he stated, “that will not happen with this group.”

Torczon, proprietor of Birchwood Homes, said the group also will be involved in nearby issues such as consulting with city officials about building codes.

Torczon, who plans to be a member of all three organizations, said he could see the two new groups working under the umbrella of MOBA.

Jeff Brau, president of Brau Builders and MOBA, was unavailable Tuesday to comment. In a letter last month, he stated MOBA was making modifications to redirect its concentrate back on its members.

Kevin Woodward, president from the state building contractors association and proprietor of Grand Island’s Kevin Woodward Development, said the group is available to assist MOBA. The national affiliation, he stated, has even provided financial help.

Woodward said MOBA still has a opportunity to continue its nationwide and state affiliation. He stated it is “absolutely huge” that some Omaha organization have that connection.

“It’s the energy of several versus the energy of one,” he said.

Graves stated his organization contains Ted Grace Houses, KRT Construction and Regency Homes and will be soliciting new members.

Celebrity Homes, Omaha’s second-largest builder, will probably be joining all three nearby organizations, stated Shawn McGuire, sales manager-broker for Celebrity Homes.

“They want to produce these organizations to much better our business, and that is great,” McGuire said.

Graves said he believes MOBA’s efforts have a good opportunity of success.

But within a couple of years, Graves said he believes that two of the three teams will go away, leaving one group to represent homebuilders.

Source: Omaha News

The quantity of building permits issued for new homes in Wisconsin's biggest metro regions dropped 22% in August in contrast with a year ago, the third consecutive month that home construction permits trailed totals from 2009.

The slump is blunting an early-year revival of new home development within the Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Fox Valley and Racine-Kenosha regions.

However, looking at the entire year via August, building permits nonetheless were up over a weak 2009 by nearly 12%, according to data gathered by MTD Marketplace Services of Wisconsin Inc.

A slowdown was expected after federal tax credits for homebuyers expired in the end of April, but continued high unemployment appears to be keeping people out from the market.

"Once people begin feeling much more comfy about their jobs, we're all heading to turn around," said Rick Hodges, executive director of the Metropolitan Builders Association, the trade organization for house builders in metro Milwaukee. "I believe that our experience more than the final six months would indicate that we're firming up, but we are heading to have ups and downs as we bottom out here and begin turning up."

Dominic Collar, owner of Oshkosh-based MTD, said another problem is whether potential new-home customers can sell their existing home at an acceptable price throughout a slow residential genuine estate market.

"This will carry on to be a main factor in new home construction," Collar said.

Sales of current homes also have been down for the final three months in southeastern Wisconsin, according to Metro MLS Inc.

In August, permits to construct single-family homes or duplexes decreased in four of the five big metro areas in the state. Only the Racine-Kenosha region had an improve, rising to 29 in August of this 12 months in contrast with 12 within the same month in 2009.

Economist Clare Zempel stated he thinks the economic slowdown has ended, and that growth will take location "probably marginally quicker than expected."

"I think that the slowdown is probably over and the economy will carry on to develop, which means jobs will carry on to grow, which means that housing will come back gradually," said Zempel, principal in the investment research firm Zempel Strategic in Fox Point.

Source: JS Online News