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Found 45 results for the keyword(s) ‘mould’

• Article

  What is the proper level of humidity for a house in the winter?

  Victor from Stoney Creek, Ontario writes: "My house is a 3 level back split and is 3 years old. The furnace is natural gas. I am having problems with condensation and mould on my thermal windows! The window manufacturer said that there is too much humidity and that thermal windows always get cond...
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  OVERVIEW: Spring Flooding of Basements

  Every spring basements get flooded with water and I get flooded with letters about basements turned into swimming pools. Although there is a lot of information on this site about the problem, let me summarize and link it together.  For solutions, see PREPARING FOR  A FLOOD The spring thaw is the...
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  Our washing machine smells.

  Karen from Kingston, Ontario writes: "We have a washing machine on the second floor and have noticed the water from previous cycles does not always seem to drain completely away, as evidenced by a smell of grey water when the machine begins it's next cycle. Our upstairs plumbing is well vented wi...
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  How do you keep mould off of bathroom tile grout?

  One viewer has a cold, probably uninsulated, wall in his shower, and the mould grows rapidly on the grout. What to do? He is right when he suggested that the best idea would be to tear down the wall and insulate it properly, and while renovating, make sure you have a functioning bathroom fan to ...
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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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  Good and bad techniques in insulating basement walls.

  The national building code requires a minimum level of insulation in a basement that reaches about two feet below the outside grade level. The objective is to make this storage space a heatable space. Hence some materials and techniques have developed that satisfy this minimum code requirement th...
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  Just what is Mould anyway?

    SPELLING First, a simple spelling problem. Is it 'mold' or 'mould'. According to the dictionaries, the two are equivalent, with 'mould' being primarily a British variation. But mold is active and dynamic, and dictionaries are slow in comparison. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Co...
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  Mould on outside corners of the bedroom

  Ken in Sault St.Marie wants to paint his bedroom but has mildew on the outside corners. Anywhere where there is wood and no insulation in the walls, like where studs and other framing go right through the wall, we have a thermal bridge that cools the drywall more than where there is insulation. ...
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  Hollow Bulkheads over bathtubs.

  Rodney from Hamilton Ontario asks "why is there a bulkhead over most bathtubs? Every home I remodel seems to have the ceiling above the tub furred down about one foot." First of all Rodney, bulkheads are not a requirement of any kind and as far as I know, never were. In fact, they are a very reg...
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  Insulating un-insulated outside wall corners

  Often in constructing a house, the sequence of putting up walls, applying outside sheathing and installing insulation batts can leave the outside corner as a hollow spot with no insulation. The carpentry work was done and the hollow corner closed and hidden before the guys with the fiberglass eve...