Frost in the attic is no different than anywhere else. It is caused by warm moist air coming into contact with cold surfaces and dropping its moisture. The problem in attics is primarily one of quantity; in one house frost accumulations of up to fifteen hundred pounds were discovered one co...
When fiberglass is pushed up into the space between the floor joists around the perimeter of the basement, condensation often builds up on the wood behind the fiberglass. This can be stopped by the addition of an air barrier -- as simple as Kraft paper or as complex as caulked polystyrene. In p...
Dry rot is actually a fungal growth that destroys the cell structure of wood. In order to grow it requires moisture, oxygen, and warmth. Once started it will not grow in the winter, but it will survive and continue to grow during whatever periods of time provide its three necessary conditio...
False. If you increased the sealing of the house and did nothing to ventilate or control moisture generation, humidity would build up and force more moisture through the unsealed cracks. But window condensation and air quality demands forces us to keep the humidity in the house to a constant co...
False. Vapour barriers do help to protect the walls from moisture accumulation, but the help they provide is almost insignificant compared to that provided by air barriers. Moisture gets into walls and attics by two paths: air exfiltration through cracks and vapour diffusion through the wa...
No, but don't worry about it; they are no longer available in Canada anyway. It was impossible to seal the joints, which let through more moisture than the paper ever stopped. They were actually eliminated in Canada because their fire ratings required them to be covered with special materials. ...
Blocking the eve vents with the insulation is one of the most common causes of moisture problems in attics. The insulation should extend over the top of the outer wall and stop short of the vents, not touching the roof in such a way as to block air passages from the vents into the attic.Batt...
Lorraine from Elliot Lake, Ontario has mould growing out from the joint between the wall and the ceiling in her bedroom. This is a common problem caused by the fact that most houses are built with two pieces of wood on the top of the wall called a ?double header?, with no insulation at this spot...
A viewer in Edmonton sent us some pretty nasty photos of mould under her sink. Two plumbers told her that the moisture was not coming from the plumbing.I saw two things on her photos. First, mould was building up around the cold water pipe, meaning that there was humidity under the sink that...
Joan insulated her basement using dense insulation made for steel doors, then discovered moisture behind the vapour barrier and is worrying if it is the insulation that is causing the problem.No Joan, there can be lots of reasons for moisture in a basement wall, and even the researchers are tr...
