Jon welcomes Ron Sheppard of Perfect Post Hole in Toronto, a company that will come and use its power equipment to dig your fence or deck holes for you. If you want they will also install the posts.A service like this is a perfect example of how to combine hiring a contractor for the hardest wor...
When it is time to replace your windows you will hear a lot of confusing and even contradictory things from contractors, salesmen and even friends. If you just look up Windows in this database you might be overwhelmed -- so here are the links to the most useful entries specifically related to pla...
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...
Is there real value to having a generalist come in and perform a complete home inspection? Yes!
I wrote this entry in 2007, and in 2016 I added this note from my Newsletter:
“There is a brand new CSA standard for home inspections -- an industry that has been plagued by inconsistency and the abs...
Should you have a contract or not for every renovation? According to David Foster, author of the pamphlet Get It In Writing, except for the simplest of maintenance tasks, you need a contract, and for a lot of reasons that you may have never thought of.
If you would like to read the other two par...
This was the first part of a special three part series designed to give you some insights to the business side of renovation because hiring a contractor and getting the job done right is a business deal. In this segment we tried to give you an idea of the advantages and disadvantages of each diff...
For a project like building a deck, you will want to go as far as you can with realistic graphics before laying the foundation or building the structure because many people around you will certainly want changes as soon as they begin to visulize the deck itself.
There are a lot of simple ...
A caller from Ontario has a leak that keep's coming in through the wall despite the efforts of two contractors.
It is often very difficult to find the place where water gets into the wall, when it is not something obvious like a crack in the caulking around a window. You need to make a careful i...
Unless you have a great personal reference to a contractor, you will probably have to use the Yellow Pages, or an association list and start calling. Here are the kinds of questions to ask during that first contact on the phone. The objective here is to narrow the field to two or three contractor...
Lots of CJAD listeners want to see pictures of the house of the roaming cat that has claimed me as his property. Understand this house is a bit of an evolving concept. It started out as an effort to help this 10-year-old cat get through the winter despite his desire to roam more than settle. Y...
