Kevin from frosty Regina, Saskatchewan writes: "I had a new steel door installed this summer. When the temperature outside drops below -15 c, frost develops on the bottom of the interior casing. Is this due to a lack of insulation behind the casing? Also the bottom of the exterior threshold a...
Although we tend to associate the term accessibility with wheelchairs, in reality it is much larger than that. Accessibility can relate to people who are extremely short or extremely tall, to very young people or very old people who have trouble holding on to things, or seeing things -- anyone w...
Beth has a kid in a wheel chair and wants to know how to lay down a floating floor across two rooms without a bump in the doorway.Good question Beth, because floating floors are designed to shift a bit with expansion and contraction. The first photo above shows the official transition piece that...
The smoke test described in the previous answer should be used to verify the presence of typical leaks and discover those peculiar to your own house. Before sealing, read the section on Ventilation to avoid any future condensation problems.
The leaks high in the house are not necessarily the lar...
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...
For years we have talked about protecting the sill plate of basement walls from moisture rising up from the concrete. This could be water in the concrete from plumbing spills, or even from under the slab from a high-water table. The old standard ways to protect that bottom piece of wood on t...
Jack wants to know just how a door frame is made, so that he can take his apart. The sill is rotten.
Usually, but not always, the sill goes right under the vertical framing. Sometimes the vertical piece is notched into the sill. In either case, you have to either cut out all the rotten wood, or ...
I have reproduced below an article from the construction professional publication Solplan Review November 2008 because it was such a good article on this complicated subject. In 2023, Solplan Review is no longer in publication. For an animation on what is a rainscreen, follow this link.
But...
