There are over 2000 window manufacturers in Canada, and with all that competition, each one wants to make homeowners, renovators, and builders believe that their windows are easier to install than the other brand. This has led to a lot of very poorly built windows that are often difficult to ins...
When you're thinking about changing the windows in a house, you need to make one fundamental choice: whether to slide the new window into the old window frame (the first photo), or whether to remove the old window right down to the structure of the house (the second photo) and replace the whole t...
Wayne from Halifax, NS writes: Is there any problem painting or staining new projects that are built with pressure treated wood?My reason for this question is....I was always told to wait at least one year before painting. You had a Canadian Wood Council representative on your show approximatel...
I have a copy of your Fine Tuning Your Radial Arm Saw , am interested in the article on page 52 relating to planning the table flat, but I can't seem to find anyone that knows where to obtain the rigid sanding disk that is shown in figure 3-46. I hope you might know where to obtain one. - Willia...
There is a lot of debate about whether to put a vapour retarder (vapour barrier) on an insulated wall behind shower tiles. The code has not historically been specifically clear on this so we get lots of different interpretations. What the code does say clearly is that we should not have two vap...
Darren Barrett from the Hardwood Flooring Store in Markham, Ontario and a long time expert in hardwood floors joined me in the TV studio to discuss the evolution of hardwood flooring. We set aside for this discussion all the plastic laminates with press board bases that have become so common. N...
To my mind old fashioned hardwood floors are far more trouble than they are worth, especially now that we have better and better Engineered Floors available. An engineered floor is not a cheap plastic laminate on masonite floating floor. It is a very stable, usually pre-finished, real massive h...
Most portable vacuum cleaners have fairly poor filters. Sure most of the real "dirt" gets caught in the bag, but much of the very fine stuff just blows out the back end. A central vac has the same problem, but because it is placed in one place, it can have a much stronger motor to allow it to d...
Radiant Heating and Convection Heating are the two primary types of ways we heat our houses. FORCED AIR HEATINGConvection heating means moving hot air -- what we usually call a forced air heating system simply heats air and moves it around the house through a system of fans and ducts. Forced air...
I am always amazed at house construction where so often things are half built or more while people are running around beginning to think about "extras" that should never be though of as "extras" but as part of the essential system. So time for one of my lectures -- (you asked for it).Heating is o...
