Found 43 results for the keyword(s) ‘Overview’

• Article

  The river is rising – preparing for a flood: OVERVIEW

  This article is about stopping water outside the house, then if necessary, controlling the situation as your basement floods.  For some very interesting water alarms, covering both plumbing and overland water,see Stopping Plumbing Floods.   SANDBAGGING The first line of defense is sandbaggin...
• Article

  OVERVIEW: Living with Pressure Treated Wood

  This entry has been updated in 2013 and you may want to jump to the last paragraph to see the positive current state of Pressure Treated Wood. Is pressure treated wood safe or not? Is the wood used to build my deck a few years ago now banned? There is a lot of confusion about pressure treated wo...
• Article

  OVERVIEW: Frozen pipes: Tracing, thawing, preventing.

  As weather patterns change we are getting longer colder periods than traditionally in many areas of the country -- and with that, more and more complaints of water pipes freezing. Finding the frozen point can be difficult, thawing it can be problematic but if you have done those two, go one step ...
• Article

  HEAT PUMPS - OVERVIEW

  Heat pumps do not create heat. They simply pump it from one place to another, either raising the temperature or lowering it in the process. It's much like a water pump: that doesn't create water, it just move it to wherever you need it. Heat pumps are valuable because it takes less energy to move...
• Learning Curve

  Using Resilient Channels

  Installing drywall panels onto resilient channels is one of the first lines of defense against sound transmition through walls or ceilings. Here is a summary overview of their use.  Notice there are more details in one of the videos which follow.
• Article

  Overview - Building the base to a tiled shower.

  Most people don't realize it but glazed tiles are not completely waterproof although they are highly water resistant. The reality is that the tile and the grout are not the final line of defence against water leaking through to the ceiling below. A proper built-in shower stall starts with a tape...
• Article

  OVERVIEW: Electromagnetic radiation and your health: THE DEBATE

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update Dec. 2019:  The US Supreme Court just rejected an appeal of a lower court decision maintaining the legality of the city of Berkely, California’s ordinance passed in May of 2015 obliging all retail seller...
• Article

  OVERVIEW: Pyrite

    Pyrite and the damage it can cause to homes is a worrisome and expensive problem in certain areas of Quebec and is affecting property values. So just what is the problem? Pyrite is a mineral, also known as Iron Sulfide or more commonly as Fools Gold for it's looking similar to gold specs in r...
• Article

  OVERVIEW: Spring Flooding of Basements

  Every spring basements get flooded with water and I get flooded with letters about basements turned into swimming pools. Although there is a lot of information on this site about the problem, let me summarize and link it together.  For solutions, see PREPARING FOR  A FLOOD The spring thaw is the...
• Article

  OVERVIEW: When do I need to remove snow from a roof?

    For most houses, never -- let nature handle it. The reason for that is that most roofs are built to handle the snow that is piled up on it, removing snow is dangerous to you and often the process of snow removal causes more damage to the roof than the snow would. Those were the conclusions tha...