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...
Note 2014 :
As you read below you will find a detailed history of Vermiculite insulation and problems it had starting in 1920. Just recently I have become aware of houses built around or before 1920, yes 100 year old houses, where it was discovered that there was about 2 inches of Vermiculite u...
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...
People ask me for professional recommendations and I shy away from doing too much of that. But the company Electrika is worth a special mention. First they are competent at doing things right. Second they are great at trouble shooting and figuring out problems. You will be won over by thei...
There do exist in-line booster fans that can be used with clothes dryers for long duct runs. But you cannot use just any fan for this purpose.
The fan motor and fan blades must be designed to handle the temperature of the dryer exhaust and prevent a build up of lint on a hot motor that could cau...
