Robert from Winnipeg Manitoba asks about the safety of walking around in his attic.First let's be sure not to fall into the room below. If you were to remove all the insulation, you would see the drywall or plaster of the ceiling below, nothing more. It is held in place by the ceiling joists,...
20 years ago Bob built a geodesic dome in Saskatchewan. As you can see, it was a community effort. After all this time he has finally gotten tired of the snow melting off the roof creating all kinds of ice cycles, so he is asking about the feasibility of putting some Styrofoam right over th...
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 ...
Any insulation that is properly installed to provide R-20 of insulation will save just as much energy as another insulation installed to R-20. So why have I accepted to do media work for one insulation company over another?Because there are many ways that we loose energy in a home and therma...
Foam guns are the air sealing tool of our epoch. We all use them. We all kill them. We all wish they would last longer and clog less. Of course there are as many different qualities of single component poly-urethane foam guns as there are different qualities of foams — at least we can be happy t...
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...
Insulating hot water lines that run through a heated basement or crawl space sounds logical, but in fact it will same you little or no money. The infrequency of their use lets them cool off whether they are insulated or not, and the heat is converted to useful room heat anyway.
The exception is ...
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...
This article deals with a block wall above grade. For a below grade block wall see Basement Perimeter Drainage and Leaking Foundations.
Bryan is faced with a totally un-insulated cinder block wall with 1x2 strapping and a plaster covering. He is thinking about stripping it back to the block...
When it is time to replace your windows you will hear a lot of confusing and even contradictory things from contractors, salesmen and even friends. If you just look up Windows in this database you might be overwhelmed -- so here are the links to the most useful entries specifically related to pla...
