Rick from New Brunswick is having problems with his wood stove backdrafting and he wants to know if it will help to box in the chimney on the outside of the house. Backdrafting or difficult starting with wood burning appliances is often a problem and there are several entries in this database ...
Concrete, outdoors in the Canadian climate, has a particularly difficult time surviving. Walkways, patios, driveways and the like must have as much as 4 to 6 inches of gravel as a drainage base to minimize the effects of shifting from frost movement in the soil. Drainage around these areas has to...
Gerry is reshingling an open beam low sloped roof that has always given him problems with ice dams. He wants to know if it is worth it to tear up the first four feet, install air sheets and replace the boards?
Actually it is a great idea to perfect the over-the-wall section of the roof space any...
Hi Jon,
I have a driveway retaining wall that continues to be pushed by the ground, even though it is backed by gravel and drained to "nothing under the driveway" except crushed gravel. I realize proper drainage affects this somewhat, however would prefer not to cut open my driveway, sidewalk a...
I have always said that as far as the cold getting into your house is concerned, a window is always the coldest part of a wall. But no longer. A company called Prelco from Riviere-du-loup, Quebec has produced a window called Prel-Therm that actually plugs into your electrical system. That's right...
Michael writes from St. Lazare, Quebec : We recently found a nasty surprise with our new house. The land has a high water table and as a result we have sump pump in the basement. The plumbing for this pump was hidden in the walls and ceiling of the basement. When our inspector inspected the home,...
Tim wrote in asking if he should use roofing paper on his roof in addition to Ice and Water shield.
Well Tim, there are not a lot of hard and fast rules in roofing but there are some guidelines and some little things that definitely make a better more problem free roof.
First, on the front edge...
One of the most successful, but most expensive ways to keep leaves out of rain gutters is to place a solid shield over the top.
Using the principle of surface tension of water, the water flows over the shield and wraps around its outside curve. That curve extends out over the rain gutter itsel...
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...
Little cracks in the bottom of the house let cold air in, and can raise your heating costs by as much as $600 a year. They also dry out the air in the house, resulting in dry throats and the needless purchase of humidifiers. Nothing too serious -- unless you don't like wasting money!
Let's start...
