There is a lot of debate about whether to put a vapour retarder (vapour barrier) on an insulated wall behind shower tiles. The code has not historically been specifically clear on this so we get lots of different interpretations. What the code does say clearly is that we should not have two vap...
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) does not recommend the use of any blown-in insulating material inside "enclosed vertical cavities" (that's a fancy way of saying "walls that are not open"). They feel that techniques of installation and verification during installation are not good ...
Joe from Beaverton, Ontario has discovered that he has rot in his floor joists. All the black wood you see in this photo is rotting wood that Joe discovered when he pulled out the existing fiberglass. In places he can poke a knife two inches into the floor joists!He has a crawl space with a ...
Dry rot is actually a fungal growth that destroys the cell structure of wood. In order to grow it requires moisture, oxygen, and warmth. Once started it will not grow in the winter, but it will survive and continue to grow during whatever periods of time provide its three necessary conditio...
Wood in contact with slightly humid concrete can easily develop dry rot. (search keyword "rot" for the title "WHAT IS DRY ROT?") This often happens to studs laid on the basement floor or standing up against basement walls. A perfectly dry basement will present no problem -- but how many ba...
A viewer in Edmonton sent us some pretty nasty photos of mould under her sink. Two plumbers told her that the moisture was not coming from the plumbing.I saw two things on her photos. First, mould was building up around the cold water pipe, meaning that there was humidity under the sink that...
When we are building new structures, we need to think about avoiding future rot problems. When we are renovating or repairing existing structures we are often faced with dealing with existing rot problems.
In new construction we need to understand that all wood preservative systems are not equal...
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 ...
THE DEAL I made a deal with the singing nuns of St. Michaels convent in Spokane Washington :
If they would teach me how to sing, I would teach them how to repair their convent.
My only dissapointment in this large project with HGTV Canada was that they never promoted the show well and the...
More and more people have domestic power washers, allowing them to quickly clean all kinds of things around the house. Of course one of the first things we want to use it for is to clean off the siding on the house. CAUTION -- you all know that you need to be careful not to damage wood or spra...
