Gary from Thunder Bay, Ontario, wants to dig a relatively small storage space under his cottage, through the crawl space, although he plans to make it about 8 feet deep, and wants to know just how to insulate it to keep the contents from freezing.Aside from putting about 4 inches of foam insulati...
Ice Dams are a serious problem throughout Canada, although it varies from year to year as to which region gets hit. Here we visited one of the solution companies who work to seal up the primary cause of ice dams, the warm air leaks into the attic. For more background on the problem check out th...
Darlene from Charlottetown, PEI wants to put an old 33 foot travel trailer out by the ocean and live in it, but it isn't very warm. How can she winterize this old rig?It was interesting to research the evolution of mobile homes in Canada.From the 70's to the 80's, they almost doubled their amoun...
Tim from Timmins, Ontario has a 2x4 constructed home with wood chips for insulation in the walls. He wants to know if he can leave it there and insulate over the wall on the inside or should he tear it all out?Wood chips do insulate but only at about R-1.4 per inch. Fibreglass is 3.5 per inch a...
No. Sorry about that Ken from Oakville, Ontario.If the garage is unheated, insulating the door will not make the room any warmer. Insulation does not make heat it just helps to hold it in. Good weather-stripping on that door may help a little, simply because cold air drafts can wipe the unders...
Seaweed in the Maritimes and Sawdust in the rest of Canada were common insulation materials in the old days. If they are still light and fluffy, they are still insulating your home, although not the best of insulating materials. That is why we often just add new insulation right over the to...
George from Fort Frances, Ontario has a problem of snow melting off of his new addition. He is trying to pin down the problem because this causes ice formation on the edge of the roof.He had a ridge vent installed, but never checked to see if his soffit vents worked. A ridge vent, without goo...
Rob in London Ontario has one wall that is cold in the baby's room and he just wants to warm it up a bit. The easiest way to make a significant difference without major renovations is to put about 1 to 1-1/2 inch of Styrofoam right over the painted wall and cover that with more drywall. That ma...
Ray from Woodstock, Ontario writes:For 20 years we had no ice problems on the roof. Heating was radiant heating in the ceiling. Then we installed a forced air furnace. The contractor ran all the ducts through the attic and we have had terrible ice dams ever since. The contractor refused to...
We can't stop heat from escaping from the house by conduction, but we can effectively slow it down with thermal insulation. In practical terms, just about the only insulating material we work with is dead air. All the fibers, foams, beads, and batts are just different ways to package dead a...
