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Found 122 results for the keyword(s) ‘Ventilation’

• Article

  BBS: Raised Heel Trusses

    How do you get enough space above the wall and below the roof for both massive insulation and ventilation? One way in new construction, or even in the rebuilding of a roof, is what we call a Raised Heel Truss. This design forces the overhang of the house further out from the house, but does gi...
• Article

  How do you clean a toilet stack?

  Al wants to know how to clean out a vent stack. Most people never clean out their vent stack -- it just doesn't need it. However some people do get birds nests in there, or clogs that for some reason are difficult to reach through the regular plumbing branches. You can run a plumbing snake into...
• Article

  Cutting oval holes in a sloped roof for round pipes

    When plumbing pipes and chimneys have to go through sloped roofs, they are always cut fairly large just to make sure that the pipe will pass through. The problem is that a 3 inch round pipe needs an oval hole in a sloped roof. There is an easy trick for drawing out the hole.   Hold the p...
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  Tracing the source of nasty plumbing odours

  Evert from Brownsburg, Quebec has the problem of a sewer odour in his bathroom but isn't sure where it is coming from and whether or not he needs to change his toilet. It can in fact be difficult to localize the source of sewage odours and hence which fixture or drain is guilty.  One technique ...
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  An alternative to ducting through the attic in a cold climate.

    In my experience, heating ducts that run through attics cause serious problems in snow country. Don't let a contractor talk you into it. In warm climates it is common practice to run heating and air conditioning ducting through attic spaces simply because it is easy to do. Unfortunately this ...
• Article

  Ductwork that moves air best

    The best way for air to move through a duct is to have a straight duct with a smooth inside wall and a round form will have the smallest surface area to cause the air to slow down. That straight smooth round duct is what is considered the benchmark for good ducting. Everything else is measure...
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  Balancing Forced Air Heating & Air Conditioning Air Flow

    Some rooms are colder than others, or a forced air system works well for heating but not air conditioning.  Although such problems may require repositioning ductwork, or adding booster fans -- the first thing to check is that the ductwork is balanced and balanced differently for the two differ...
• Article

  What is Radon and should I be worried?

  The basic message to remember is that Radon is a dangerous cancer causing gas and if found to exist in high concentrations in your house the problem can be solved permenantly and at a reasonable cost.  So we don't want to ignore the possibility, we need to test every house in Canada. 7% of homes...
• Article

  What is wrong with my gurgling double sink? The Vent Valve

  David writes that he recently installed a double sink but it gurgles and backs up. It is 10 feet away from the plumbing stack and goes through a garbarator. What did he do wrong?     When you attach a large double sink on a long horizontal run, the drain pipe will tend to fill up with water ...
• Article

  MYTH: AN AIR SPACE BETWEEN THE INSULATION AND THE WALL PREVENTS CONDENSATION.

  Often promoted in southern Ontario, this theory has never, to my knowledge, been proven by any government agency or independent researcher in the insulation field. On the contrary, the unanimous opinion seems to be that it will cause, not prevent, condensation.  Even efforts to drain condensation...