Found 47 results for the keyword(s) ‘Mystery’

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  History of the Robertson Screw

  If any one thing distinguishes Canadian home improvement from American home improvement, it is the Robertson (square socket) screw. In this segment, we took a look at the history of this famous Canadian invention and visited their head office and warehousing operation in Milton, Ontario. Wikipedi...
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  Mysterious dark permenant stains on carpets.

  When air flows through the edges of carpets, the carpet acts as a filter and collects whatever is in the air. Hence we often find dirt streaks around heating outlets where some of the air sneaks under the grill and through the rug. Often, streaks are found near baseboards where household air flo...
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  What are the 19-3/16+ marks on a tape measurer for?

    Dan wrote in asking what is that little diamond mark on his tape measurer at 19-3/16 inches?           Look further down the tape and you will see it repeated every 19+ inches, always at some imprecise measurement, not really a multiple of 3/16 of an inch. Finally when you get to 8 ...
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  Why do decor paints not hide what is underneath?

    "Decor" paints are the deep rich colours that are often used for decorative trims or accent walls. But home painters are constantly complaining to me that they can't get the right colour at home, or that it requires three and four coats to cover the old wall. To understand what is wrong and h...
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  Why are there cracks that come and go in my ceiling?

    Chris from Clarenville, Newfoundland has a mysterious crack in his ceiling that you can see in the photo. It comes and goes with the seasons and nothing appears to be able to keep it closed. Why he asks. Many houses today are constructed with pre-fabricated "trusses" for the ceiling joists an...
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  Rattling plumbing pipes that sound like the house is coming down.

  Lynn from Cambridge, Ontario asked about a horrible rattling sound in their plumbing pipes when someone is using the outside hose bib and someone flushes a toilet. Only when those two things happen at the same time. What is it? Actually it is quite simple and you can understand it best if you bl...
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  Fresh paint chips off an indoor metal railing.

  Joanne writes from Bois de Silion in Quebec. She has twice cleaned all the paint off an indoor metal railing, repainted with a primer and a finish coat, and both times, chunks flake off -- sometimes exposing the metal, sometimes exposing the primer. She is not a novice at painting and can't figur...
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  Green ooze from electrical outlets???

  Yes it happens -- but Why? Two viewers have strange problems with their electrical outlets. One has had bright green oily ooze coming out of an electrical outlet on and off for the last two years. Changing the outlet didn't stop it. Another has green deposits at the outlet every time she uses he...
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  Gumbo Clay and what it does to your house.

  For those of you who have move into the area spreading roughly from Winnipeg to Regina, but you have not grown up in this area, the living nature of the soil itself may surprise you. Clay soil under and around a house can cause problems anywhere in Canada, but in this region there is a special cl...
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  Protecting shower tiles from hand held shower scratches

  When mysterious problems arise in a house the task is to track down the cause – and sometimes encapsulate it.   I built a beautiful new tiled shower, only to discover a hole starting to develop in one tile a few months later!  When I inspected carefully, there was nothing that touched the ...