Slate roofs are one of the most durable, beautiful and expensive of roofs. Even the maintenance of the roof is expensive.It is very risky to walk on a slate roof, you may crack some slates, and repairing one in the middle of the field is a real job -- I know I grew up in a house with real slate ...
Sol, from Sudbury, Ontario, has terrible ice dams, as you can see in the photo. They are directly over his bay window. Take a good look at the house design. The bay window comes right out to the edge of the roof, preventing any possibility of any ventilation up over this area. In addition, be...
Kara lives in BC and has foam insulation over her roof with shingles over the foam. She wants to put on new shingles and questions having them right over the foam.You are right to question that application. The first problem is that shingling nails that have to go through an inch of foam will n...
Kevin from Thunder Bay, Ontario has a sag in his roof that he wants to shore up.First Kevin you need to inspect inside to be sure it is not sagging because of rot in the roof joists. If they are sound, but just not properly supported from below you can guild a knee wall half way up the roof, jus...
Hector from North Bay, Ontario, tells me that he has just built a new house. He has soffit vents on both side of the house but no gable nor roof top vents. Is this enough?Simply -- NO.If there is a strong wind, you would probably get a little air moving through the attic, but most likely just ...
Karl lives in a new house next to an undeveloped area. Strong winds come across from the open North West. "The access panel in the ceiling of our walk-in closet lifts and dislodges on top of the 18 inch "passage way" that exits to the roof. What causes this and how to stop it?"An access hatch ...
Newfoundland is known for its brutal winds, all year round. So I thought there would be no better place in Canada to take a look at what to you do to a house to avoid wind damage, and keep that wind out of the house. I called on my old buddy Gary Reardon, a prominent new home builder in St. Jo...
Dan from Winnipeg, Manitoba writes: "We have an older manufactured home with a basement. Years ago a new roof was put on top of the existing one. It is post & beam with trusses, sheeted in with shiplap and a metal roof put on. The problem is the original metal roof now seems to sweat in th...
Jim from London, Ontario writes: "I have a 30 year old home and the metal gutters have never been replaced. Certain sections seem to have rusted through and have developed pin to dime size holes that leak. I have tried to patch them but nothing seems to stop these small holes from re-occurring....
Larry in Calgary has the problem that the wind makes a lot of noise with the damper on his bathroom exhaust fan.The banging noise of a duct damper can be reduced or eliminated by carefully placing the self adhesive foam insulation strips as soft bumpers against the damper. Make sure that the d...
