Barbara in Montreal had water damage in her bay window area as wind driven rain always found it's way in. Contractor repair bids ranged from $1,200 for a patch to $4,000 for a new roof. A study of the detail where the added-on bay window joined the very edge of the roof showed a flashing flaw tha...
Every year the snow and ice slipping down from one of our viewers roofs does great damage to their rain gutters. How to stop it?
POSITION THE RAIN GUTTER RIGHT
The rain gutter should be installed a bit lower down so it is not directly in the path of the sliding snow, and the metal roof shoul...
More and more people have domestic power washers, allowing them to quickly clean all kinds of things around the house. Of course one of the first things we want to use it for is to clean off the siding on the house. CAUTION -- you all know that you need to be careful not to damage wood or spra...
An ivy covered wall
John from Mississauga, Ontario writes: "We recently bought a house that was half covered in ivy. We didn't like it and we were told to cut the roots and let the ivy die and then just tear it down from the walls. We cut the roots and let the ivy die but we noticed all these li...
Pyrite and the damage it can cause to homes is a worrisome and expensive problem in certain areas of Quebec and is affecting property values. So just what is the problem?
Pyrite is a mineral, also known as Iron Sulfide or more commonly as Fools Gold for it's looking similar to gold specs in r...
Johanne from Laval, Quebec writes: "Could it be damaging to my new shingle roof to climb up on it in the winter time to install a satellite antenna? If so, what would be the ideal temperature to do work without any damage?"
Aside from slipping on ice, winter is not a bad time to walk on th...
When faced with an invasion of insects, the first thing to do is to determine if this is a variety of insects that are easy to deal with yourself or do they require a professional. For instance it is important to distinguish between insects that migrate in and out of the house and hence can often...
Carpenter Ants are probably one of the most home damaging insects in Canada and one of the most difficult to control. They don't eat the lumber in the walls of your house; they just dig tunnels through it to make a comfortable living space, but that tunnelling can destroy the structural integrity...
Termites and carpenter ants are the two most destructive insects for homes constructed with wood. Termites eat the wood in a home while carpenter ants simply burrow living quarters in the structure. Both remain connected to colonies outside the house and it is this necessary traveling between y...
Bill from British Columbia sent in an e-mail asking how to remove silicone caulking from his acrylic shower floor. For many years we had nothing that would remove silicone caulking from a bathtub. Then all the companies came out with silicone caulking removers. Then they all disappeared (or will ...
