Carol from Halifax, Nova Scotia writes: "I have two toilets in a vacant condo that haven't been flushed for a long time and now are completely dry. What will happen if I use buckets of water to fill them (until the level is back in the bowls) and then fill the tanks the same way? I am afraid t...
Judy from Stoney Creek, Ontario is baffled by the fact that her cold water is hot, at least for the first few seconds of running.Faucets that combine the hot and cold water to come out of a single spout are of two basic varieties: two completely separate valves each feeding the spout, or a combin...
I just saw an ad on the weather network for a deck cleaning product called deck renew (I think that is what it is called) and I am looking for some more information about it. I built a 600+ sq. ft deck last summer and on someone's recommendation treated it with just a water repellent. the dec...
Leonard (Scotty) Wells, a long time floor installer dropped by to discuss hardwood floor expansion and contraction.His greatest recommendation was to try and control the humidity in the house to keep it as even as possible between summer and winter.Pre-finished floors have less problem of expansi...
Annie has three roofs on her house, a shingled roof in the front part followed by an asphalt and gravel flat roof and then an elastomeric membrane flat roof over her back porch. They all seem to leak. The asphalt roof is only six years old, installed by someone who advertised in the local paper...
I receive a tremendous quantity of questions about mould, the housing sickness for the new century. First, it is important to understand, in nature, there are mould spores all around us and most of us are not bothered by or aware of them. It is massive accumulations of mould that can cause ...
Brian from Toronto, Ontario sent in a great tip. His toilet is very close to one wall, so every time you get up, you tend to force the seat over to one side and it ends up always out of line. He simply cut a little bracket out of plastic and screwed it to the bottom of his wooden seat so that i...
False.
Vapour barriers, together with air barriers, prevent moisture from escaping into the walls.
In this sense vapour barriers make you more aware of the quantity of moisture you have generated in your house.
Condensation problems are caused by generating too much moisture and/or having too ...
Do not fill the space between brick siding and the sheathing.
First, this space is outside the sheathing and does not cause condensation, as does an air space inside the wall. (A small space between ordinary siding and the exterior insulation or between ordinary siding and sheathing is also perm...
A basement that has more than 50 per cent of its height sticking out of the ground is not really a basement. The walls should be treated as ordinary, above-ground walls. The foundations should be treated as slab-on-grade to avoid frost problems.
Interior/exterior insulation combinations can be u...
