Mike from Kingston, Ontario writes: "Why do all of my counter tops come away from the exterior walls in the winter time? The caulking between the drywall and the back splash stretches, and in some cases tears -- sometimes as much as 3/16". Our house is 14 years old, all brick two story, faces w...
-- Oil base, resin base and polyvinyl acetate caulking do not hold up. There are far too many better caulkings available to waste time and money with these old formulations.-- Latex based caulking is inexpensive, can be painted and has medium durability. It is acceptable for baseboards and caul...
One viewer has sent in his tip that he can "see" the studs on his wall for hanging pictures by just holding a lamp close to the wall.It sounds fishy but it does work on some wall but not on others.It will not work on freshly painted, or well insulated walls.Actually he is not really seeing the st...
Gord from Elliot Lake, Ontario asks: "What is the best way to fasten baseboards when you have metal studs and base plates?"Often workers will add a piece of wood into the floor track to allow for nailing of the floor boards. If you don't want to double up material like that, then you should use ...
Although the Canadian building codes list about 160 acceptable ways to soundproof party walls, it all comes down to taking care of three basic things.Low frequencies travel through the structure, so the more you separate the structure of one apartment from the structure of the other, the more...
At one time or another every renovator, professional or weekend warrior, has tried to determine what might happen if they remove or make a big hole in a wall – is it holding something up? This is not always easy to determine but you can get some help from this article.
Getting this right is imp...
Wood heating appliances get hot -- that's why we use them -- but they also burn down houses. They are only safe if you install them safely.
-- Let's start with the fascinating process of how wood burns;
-- and now let's see how that process can happen inside your walls or floors near woo...
The world of tiles is changing rapidly.
Twenty years ago we generally had a range of tile sizes from 1 ft x 1 ft down to tiny mosaic tiles. This made tiling relatively simple because slight changes in the flatness of the surface could be adjusted for at the next grout line. In fact that is...
When you build that basement wall with economy lumber, and one stud is just not flat with the others, there is a way to fix that quickly to end up with a flat wall.
IDENTIFY THE BULGING OUT SIDE OF ANY STUD
Then in the middle of the bow, saw cut about 2/3rds of the way ...
To see all of this on video visit the Drywall section of the Learning Curve.
When you need to install an electrical box in a specific location and there is no stud to attach it to, we call that ReWork -- getting a box in where it is impossible or difficult to attach to a stud. Most electrical b...
