When Heritage Window Restoration becomes
an energy efficient & cost effective
alternative to new windows
Most of us who have worked in older neighbourhoods have at one time or another thought about or dabbled in restoring old building components rather than ripping out and installing new...
Angela from cyberspace (you really have to tell me where you are from when you write in, it helps me to know things about your climate, even about your soil) wants to seal her driveway but needs to fill up the cracks first. How to do it?
If we are talking about interlocking bricks, start by fill...
David in Toronto sent us a photo of some very badly worn steps that he wanted to recover with wood without removing the old stairway. It is not easy, but it can be done.
First sand or cut the round nose of each stair square. We will put a new round nose on as the last step.
Clean the stair off ...
THE DEAL I made a deal with the singing nuns of St. Michaels convent in Spokane Washington :
If they would teach me how to sing, I would teach them how to repair their convent.
My only dissapointment in this large project with HGTV Canada was that they never promoted the show well and the...
Here are a few tips when it comes to re-wiring an old lamp.
Use the existing wire to pull the new wire through. You need to join them in a way that does not create a lump in the wire.
Avoiding a lump
On the old pair of wires, cut one wire shorter than the other and s...
There exist special little tile grout knives, which are really just a blade with carbide dust on the edge. They are efficient at cutting out old grout between tiles.
There is a special a power grout remover as one of the accessory blades that comes with the FEIN MultiMaster. Unlike a circular ...
A viewer from Aurora, Ontario has a small pin hole leak in a copper pipe in the wall and wants to know if there is any way to fix it without having to tear the whole wall open and replace the pipe.
There exists an epoxy wrap called "Pow-R-Wrap". You simply turn off the water to relieve the press...
MOLDABLE PLASTIC -- RESUABLE
Utile Plast is a great British product that I stumbled upon -- plastic granules that you put into very hot water - they soften - then you mold them into anything you want. You can shove the soft plastic into a nut and when cool you have a plastic bolt -- or form t...
Disloving the problem
If your sink is just suffering from a lot of face cream and shaving cream, the least expensive and most ecological solution is simply 1/2 cup of baking soda (try using a funnel to get it into the drain), followed immediately by a cup of vinegar. Let it sit a few minutes...
When condensation shows up inside a thermal pane double window (between the two pieces of glass), you know that the seals around the edge have been compromised, allowing moisture to get inside. These cannot really be re-sealed so the standard response to this problem is to replace the gla...
