Paint like coatings have been around for a long time claiming to extend the life of your roof for years. Until the late 90's they actually didn't do much more than camouflage a dying leaking roof -- the problem being that things move up there from full sunlight to cold nights, from hot summers t...
Getting something to stick to asphalt or asphalt coated materials is a unique problem. Asphalt driveways have their own specific crack sealers and roofing materials generally use what we call "Plastic Cement". (One exception to this is a specially formulated polyurethane adhesive that will work...
Sheila writes from Ottawa : Hi there. I will try to make this as easy as I can however, it may not be.I purchased a brand new home from a very reputable builder in 1999 and took possession in December of that same year. December led into January and towards the end of January I began to experienc...
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...
Letter: I have a ceramic shower, that is leaking, I do not know how it was built or what is underneath.In the last week +- have noticed about an ounce or 2 of water in the garage,I have a small openeing in the ceiling directly under due to the drain pipe, the drain pipe and feed lines are dry. Bu...
Ed writes from Ajax, Ontario : All 3 walls of my bathroom shower stall are finished with 4" ceramic tiles and are in good shape. When I had to remove one of them, I discovered that the drywall was behind it was so wet that I had to put a fan on it over night to dry it out before I could glue...
We visited Anne's roof in a previous show where she had three different types of roofs, no flashings and inadequate transitions between each roof, and of course water buckets in the house. In fact one roof was only six years old, the centre part in good shape but the flashings letting in enough ...
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...
Dale asks about hardwood floors over concrete.If the concrete floor is above grade, like is common in a new condo, no problem.If the concrete is in a basement, below grade, then you have potential serious moisture problems, and hardwood really doesn't like excessive moisture.Generally it is not r...
"I would like to ask your thoughts on the "pros and cons" on the use of the self-adhesive, 3 ft wide membrane (ice dam) used on the edge of the roof line. I believe that this would replace the felt paper, under the 1st rows of asphalt shingle. We have a sloped roof, but I do not know how ste...
