Newsletter #03 - October 2008
Newsletter #03 - October 2008
I am always telling people that Fall is time to get ready for Spring because you can't do much during the Spring thaw when winter is still giving us trouble. That means dealing with landscaping now so that water will flow away from the house later when the ground is frozen -- and for me, to get this deck DVD captured on tape before the snow starts falling. The deck has been a long slow project, not only because cameras always slow things down, but unfortunately when I do projects for the public, they have to be done right -- you know, like that guy on TV always says. But I will get it in and will have the advantage of being able to use the deck the first day of spring and you will get access to an interactive DVD on building techniques. So I will be editing and animating while the snow covers everything.
Jon
In this issue:
— Chatelaine and I didn't seem to agree much.
Last Spring I told you that I was going to start a regular column on homes in Chatelaine magazine. I was rather excited at the challenge but as it turned out they found me too detailed and I found them unwilling to deal with real questions. You can read the one and only column in the September issue of Chatelaine, page 179, and you can read what they didn't want to print by following this link: Living With Dust .
— Hard Surfaces and Tired Legs
You know that standing on concrete or ceramic tiles all day can be tiring to your legs, while standing on wood, cork or vinyl floors is easier on the back. But do you know why? The hard surface you say. Not really. Some time back I did a mini study on the question of why we get tired standing on different surfaces, but unfortunately I never found the resources to turn it into a real scientific study. However I did discover some very interesting things.
If you take your finger nail and push it into the floor - you can easily see that concrete and ceramic tiles don't dent, hardwood barely, softwood a little, cork a little and vinyl a bit (although cushion vinyl is in fact spongy). Of course push on a rug or soft rubber mat, it really gives. That's with a finger nail. But when you push down with something about 1 inch square it takes scientific instruments to see any difference between concrete, tile, wood, even cork. So why is it that we swear that walking or standing on one or the other is more tiring when our feet don't actually dent one more than the other?
It all has to do with temperature of the floor, not its hardness. When I had people walk barefooted across various floors blindfolded they identified tile and concrete quickly. But when I heated the tile and the concrete with radiant floor heating, they thought that floor was the wood and the cold wood was tile. Cold tile and concrete suck the heat out of your feet (even with shoes on, it just takes longer), cause a contradiction between what the feet are feeling and the temperature of the body --setting up muscle stresses in the legs. When bare feet feel warmth, there is no muscle contraction -- no complaints about hard floors, even on tile and concrete. Why do wood and cork feel warmer in the same house without heat? Because they are both good insulators and your feet actually succeed in warming up a thin layer of the surface of the wood or cork floor, relaxing your muscles.
Now there's some trivia for your next party -- or a guide for your next renovation. A heated ceramic floor in a bathroom or kitchen is a dream come true.
— An old product to take a look at before the spring floods.
If you have ever had water back up into your basement drains from the city water system, you need a back-flow damper. Traditionally backflow dampers were complicated things because of the necessity of bypass vent piping (OK you don't know what that is, but it is complicated and expensive) and they often even plugged up the drains themselves. Then a fellow in Edmonton developed a full flow backflow valve that turned the old rules up-side-down and is the best house protection on the market. If you are in one of those spring backflow neighbourhoods, check out the Mainline Backflow Valve in preparation for winter.
— New Products
Trying to keep the autumn leaves out of the rain gutters? I have researched systems to do that and have three recommendations -- depending on your needs. Check out Rain Gutters.
Here is a new drywall utility knife that will impress any handyman (hint, hint - Christmas is not far away) -- it has a slot that catches your tape measure hook allowing you to accurately and safely cut a measured line in drywall. Not to mention a built in drywall saw blade and drywall rasp on the side: the Speed Rocker at www.chHanson.com.
Jon Eakes