Pham from Hamilton asked why he sees air returns on the ceiling sometimes and on the floor in other houses, and what effect this placement has on air quality in the house.If you are in the far north, or in the Southern US, the answer is simple. In an air conditioning climate the return duct goes...
Have you ever wondered how much air actually comes out of your hot air floor registers, or how many cubic feet per minute your bathroom fan actually exhausts? Well the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has developed a simple tool that will give you a good approximation.They call it the Gar...
Many years ago there were some heating systems, particularly in the Prairies, that had the heating ducts on the ceiling in the centre of the house and the cold air returns under the windows. When we blew a lot of hot air into our houses, this worked fairly well, on the premise of pulling the col...
Good question -- but all filters are not created equal. Some are disposable and others are cleanable. Pleated disposable filters last longer (maybe 3 months) than the cheapest of the fibreglass filters (one month). In fact the 3M Filtrete filter, the top of the 3M series of filters, is rated a...
This question comes from Ura in Cochrane, Alberta.Whether you are looking at the flame of a gas burner or an oil burner, a soft, yellow/orange flame that is dancing slowly all around is a poor flame. There is a lot of material not being burned, but wasted up the chimney. Sharp blue flames are t...
Phyllis from Regina, Saskatchewan wrote: "We live in a house that was built in the early 60's. The furnace has a vent that runs to the outside. I suspect this is bringing in fresh air. Is there a problem in closing off the vent for the winter? I think that the furnace would run more efficient...
Lani from Burnaby, B.C. writes: "We have a gas fireplace and the pilot light won't light. A gas company technician inspected the situation and told us the pilot light needs cleaning. Can we do this safely ourselves?"Why didn't he just clean it while he was inspecting it?But, yes you can clean i...
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...
Tom in Newfoundland has problems of oil smells when the wind blows a certain direction.As you can see in his photo, the chimney is low for his own roof, and then overshadowed by the roof of the larger house -- causing the wind to blow right down the chimney. The rule of thumb is that if you m...
Barb from Regina has a house with a slab on grade with the furnace in a closet and the heating ducts running under the concrete and the cold air return high on an inside wall. Some of the ducts don't give her much heat and the floor is often cold.High inside wall heating and return ducts were...
