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Found 18 results for the keyword(s) ‘Thermal Bridging’

  • Article

    Why do I see the wall studs right through the drywall?

      Tim lives in a 13 year old house and is rather disturbed by the fact that he can see the studs and ceiling joists as if they were coming right through the wall. Don't panic Tim, this is unfortunately very common. It relates to a poor job of insulation in a cold climate.     You see, the ...
  • Article

    What causes metal studs to show through the drywall?

    Colour from the studs themselves is not really "bleeding" through the drywall, but it is the studs that are causing the problem. When metal studs are used in outside walls of a house, they conduct so much energy through the metal that the overall R-value of an R-19 wall drops to only R-10. When ...
  • Article

    BASEMENT: INTERIOR OR EXTERIOR INSULATION?

    It is always better to insulate on the outside of basements and crawl spaces, but usually more expensive and more trouble. Brick or field stone foundations must not be insulated on the inside for much more than one foot below ground level. The poor quality of the mortar in these foundations dete...
  • Article

    Mould on outside corners of the bedroom

    Ken in Sault St.Marie wants to paint his bedroom but has mildew on the outside corners. Anywhere where there is wood and no insulation in the walls, like where studs and other framing go right through the wall, we have a thermal bridge that cools the drywall more than where there is insulation. ...
  • Article

    Hollow Bulkheads over bathtubs.

    Rodney from Hamilton Ontario asks "why is there a bulkhead over most bathtubs? Every home I remodel seems to have the ceiling above the tub furred down about one foot." First of all Rodney, bulkheads are not a requirement of any kind and as far as I know, never were. In fact, they are a very reg...
  • Article

    Insulating un-insulated outside wall corners

    Often in constructing a house, the sequence of putting up walls, applying outside sheathing and installing insulation batts can leave the outside corner as a hollow spot with no insulation. The carpentry work was done and the hollow corner closed and hidden before the guys with the fiberglass eve...
  • Article

    Tips for working with fiberglass insulation

      CUTTING FIBERGLASS STRAIGHT AND SQUARE   It is always easier to cut fiberglass batt insulation if you compress it down as flat as possible. That way you can get through in one pass. Using a piece of plywood gives you a straight edge at the same time.         There is a special devic...
  • Article

    A window that is warmer than the insulated wall

    I have always said that as far as the cold getting into your house is concerned, a window is always the coldest part of a wall. But no longer. A company called Prelco from Riviere-du-loup, Quebec has produced a window called Prel-Therm that actually plugs into your electrical system. That's right...
  • Article

    Infra-Red Thermography -- heat X-Rays of your home

    There are several non-destructive ways that we can see what is going on inside the walls, ceilings and roofs of our homes. Simply watching the melting patterns of a light snow on the roof will tell you where you have insulation and where you have heat losses. In the first photo this was an unheat...
  • Article

    Different thermal pane window spacers

    Peggy is moving from Calgary to Vancouver and in her new province she says she can't locate the SuperSpacer windows that she loved in Calgary. That brings up the whole question of what are different window spacers, and why some are available in some areas of the country and not others.Thermal pa...