For most houses, never -- let nature handle it. The reason for that is that most roofs are built to handle the snow that is piled up on it, removing snow is dangerous to you and often the process of snow removal causes more damage to the roof than the snow would. Those were the conclusions tha...
In some ways, the old fashioned fuse is actually better than the circuit breakers. To make sure I got my facts right on this one I visited George Brown College in Toronto to talk to one of the instructors in the electrician's apprentice programs.
Fuses are 100 % reliable. When they get hot, the...
Follow this link for a background and an overview of the debate on EMF and human health.
The debate is strong in Québec. A large group of scientist and engineers worried about what they consider the unfounded public outcry against wireless progress published a letter in the newspaper LeDevoir o...
One viewer who caught my camera in a renovation store asked what to do about the 20 x 20 ceiling in his condo that was dipping down in the centre.
A serious visible dip must be caused by someone having removed a support wall from the original construction. Each floor is designed to remain flat a...
No de-icer is perfectly safe for concrete. Why? Because you are melting ice while the general temperature is below zero, allowing both water and some kind of chemical to flow into the concrete itself and refreeze shortly after. De-icers should not be used on new concrete -- wait until it is at le...
Dave from Ottawa writes : Is there a formula to determine the correct length of an extension ladder for a particular application? I suppose one should consider what is a safe overlap of the ladders, the length a ladder should extend beyond the point of contact where it touches the edge of the roo...
Pat has an 80 year old house and the previous owner built an addition onto it. The floor is tiled and when Pat looked underneath the floor to find out why it was so bouncy, she discovered (see the photo) that the floor joists were 2x4's turned flat! That's not a floor, that's a trampoline, and on...
This entry has been updated in 2013 and you may want to jump to the last paragraph to see the positive current state of Pressure Treated Wood.
Is pressure treated wood safe or not? Is the wood used to build my deck a few years ago now banned? There is a lot of confusion about pressure treated wo...
When you need to stand a ladder on uneven ground, you always have to mess around to get something sturdy under the feet. Now there is an incredible invention from British Columbia that attaches to the bottom of any ladder.
Place it on uneven ground. Step on one of the two release levers and the ...
Underground tanks are banned
Many years ago we buried oil tanks in the ground. Think a minute about how bad an idea that was. When a very old tank developed a leak, we never knew about it and it just leaked oil into the ground for years, creating quite an environmental problem. That is why it is...
