Terry from Winnipeg, Manitoba has a bad smell coming out of his sink garbage disposal unit that he can't get rid of.Don't try to kill the smell with bleach. That will kill the smell, but it will also kill your graburator because the bleach will eat at any rubber or fiber washers. Look for an ...
Margaret has a balcony over a porch and has had some house movement. The water no longer flows off over the edge, but pools back near the house. She is looking for some way to solve the problem without having to rebuild the balcony.Years ago a company on the west coast made an outdoor carpet...
Peter wrote: I recently moved into a new house, and the builder put in a drainage swale at the bottom of my backyard. Since I am at the end of my street, whenever it rains I get all the runoff through my backyard to the street. The drainage swale runs across my back fence as you can see in th...
Moreno from Port Colborne, Ontario wrote : I recently built a wine cellarThe area I live in allowed me to pour the footings on bedrock and has given me a bedrock floor. This lets the room take the coolness from the rock to help keep the temperature down. The problem I am having is that there...
Several years ago when we had my live hot line TV show across Canada, I got a call from a homeowner who had a toilet that functioned perfectly except that every night when he came home from work, the water in the bowl had dropped low enough to let the sewer gas smell into the bathroom. He ha...
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...
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...
I went to the store and bought a box of really nifty 100 percent recycled vinyl interlocking floor tiles, the kind that stand up above a concrete floor and let the water drain through and under. I needed them to keep boxes off of a basement floor where there was occasional moisture -- and I ended...
The reality is that there is not just one good way to install windows, but there are certain principles that must be taken care of with any installation to prevent cold air or water leakage later.
Basically a window installation must shed most of the water with the siding, what does get through ...
Janice from Thornhill, Ontario writes: I'm having some wood/fiberglass windows installed and would like to know the product you recommend as the moisture barrier between the outside capping and inside insulation.
Your website recommends installing such a barrier but no specific product is mentio...
