While visiting a viewer's basement we discovered two very dangerous things. She had mentioned that she had a heating duct that was disconnected. As we doug out the boxes and hanging coats that were in the way, we discovered a burn mark across a plastic coat cover as well as a burn right into the ...
Over the years we have worked on perfecting each piece of our house. We have gotten the walls and windows pretty good, and have a lot of good mechanical devices as well, but several years ago Natural Resources Canada decided to help several manufacturers to get together and see if they could not...
Thomas from London, Ontario writes: "We have an electric water heater. To conserve electricity, I turn the heater OFF at its circuit breaker at night before retiring and then ON when I return from work. This usually gives plenty of hot water while at home. Does this cause any premature "wear ...
A viewer from Nanaimo, BC has a bedroom ensuite far away from the hot water tank and wants to know how to cut down the long delay between turning on the hot water and getting hot water at the tap.Even if you could open the walls and add insulation to the pipe, it would not help the problem. Insu...
Todd wants to "replace our 175 litre water tank with two smaller size tanks. We think we could hook up one just for showers and the other to look after some household needs. Is this a good idea?"Actually the 175 litre or 40 Imperial gallon tank (46.25 US gallons) is considered standard if not s...
There are a number of appliances around the house that have user or trade adjustable temperatures and it is not always simple to get them right.Hot Water HeatersMost Hot Water heaters for domestic hot water are factory set to 66deg C. ( 150F ). This is actually hot enough to scald someone so legi...
Insulating hot water lines that run through a heated basement or crawl space sounds logical, but in fact it will same you little or no money. The infrequency of their use lets them cool off whether they are insulated or not, and the heat is converted to useful room heat anyway.
The exception is ...
Heating water accounts for almost 20 percent of the total heating costs in a normal home. The percentage is higher in an energy-efficient home (the same dollars, it's just a bigger piece cut from a smaller pie).
Almost all of the recommendations for improving heating systems for space heating ap...
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...
NEW CONSTRUCTION
In the interests of health and safety a number of trades are controlled by law, most particularly plumbing and electricity. The degree to which plumbing and electrical work are actually regulated varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For instance almost all work performed in...
