A couple of years ago we went to Canada's primary earthquake zone, Vancouver, and saw a lot of details about how hot water tanks and just about everything else in the house can and should be tied down to avoid damage during an earthquake. This time we went to near-by Victoria to see how to st...
Here we saw a oil furnace chimney that had completely plugged up with debris from trees, pieces of terracotta chimney liner and soot.Use of a Chim Scan video camera down the chimney permitted to determine that there were many open joints inside this chimney. The only real alternatives were to co...
I live in a basement suite and our lights and electrical outlets on one side of the suite blink and stutter a lot. We did have a flood thru the bathroom fan about 7 - 8 months ago and ever since that we have had the problem. The other thing we have noticed is when everything is blinking and s...
Several years ago Fine Woodworking Magazine did a study on safety in the workshop, interviewing people who had lived through a workshop accident and discovered that most people reported that they saw it happen just before it happened. How many times have you heard this or experienced it your...
For my TV show we took the cameras to Vince Way-Nee's shop where he told us his story about the demanding but satisfying hobby of turning burled wood.Take note of his dust protection system. He has a full face mask with a cotton skirt around it and a filtered air pump on his back. This feeds coo...
In this episode we collected a whole bunch of interesting electronic devices that will help you with safety and security around your home.Many people worry about the health effects of electromagnetic fields caused by wiring and appliances. A gauss meter is what scientists use to measure the s...
When the pressure-release valve on the top of a boiler or a hot water tank is leaking it could mean several things.
The first thing to try is to simply lift the little lever on the top of the tank to let out some hot water. Before you do this, make sure that the valve has a discharge pipe attach...
A bolt of lightning has 10,000 times the power of the electric chair. You don't want to get hit by lightning. For your house, its a numbers game. If there are a lot of houses around you, you probably won't get hit by lightning, especially if there are taller buildings and trees around that would ...
WHY SURGE PROTECTION?
Today's homes and offices are full of electronics. Appliances, TV's, VCR's, fax machines, computers, etc. Most electronics today use some type of microprocessor device. These devices are vulnerable to fast moving high energy disturbances known as 'surges'. For instance a li...
David from Tracadi, New Brunswick wants to tear a wall down in his basement and wants to know if it is load bearing or not. He says it runs perpendicular to the floor joists.
If a wall runs parallel to the floor joists, chances are that it is not load bearing, as it is only holding up one floor ...
