for Cold Climate Housing and much more

Found 151 results for the keyword ‘Water’

  • Good and bad techniques in insulating basement walls.

    The national building code requires a minimum level of insulation in a basement that reaches about two feet below the outside grade level. The objective is to make this storage space a heatable space. Hence some materials and techniques have developed that satisfy this minimum code requirement th...
  • Vapour barriers in basements

    One of our viewers is about to insulate his basement and he has been told that he should not run the vapour barrier all the way to the floor. Fact or fiction? You should run the vapour barrier wherever there is insulation to keep the moisture on the warm side of the wall. And in a basement insta...
  • 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...
  • Removing rust stains and toilet brown stains

    (See non-toxic cleaners in the last paragraph, and Do Rust Cleaners Work?) RUST ON RUGS There has always been one basic chemical available for getting rust off about anything and that was Oxalic Acid. That was the active ingredient in the old petroleum jelly that we used to clean the rust off o...
  • What is wrong with my gurgling double sink? The Vent Valve

    David writes that he recently installed a double sink but it gurgles and backs up. It is 10 feet away from the plumbing stack and goes through a garbarator. What did he do wrong?     When you attach a large double sink on a long horizontal run, the drain pipe will tend to fill up with water ...
  • Improper power washing can damage the inside of your walls

      More and more people have domestic power washers, allowing them to quickly clean all kinds of things around the house. Of course one of the first things we want to use it for is to clean off the siding on the house. CAUTION -- you all know that you need to be careful not to damage wood or spra...
  • SOLAR ENERGY

    The sun's energy is free. It's collecting it that costs money. There are two different ways of collecting solar energy; actively and passively. Active solar heating systems collect the sun's heat and transport it into the house where it is used to heat water or living space. Usually there is a...
  • Know what's below. Call before you dig.

    Many utilities are buried just underground on residential properties.  --- Water supply pipes --- Water drain pipes --- Gas pipes --- Electrical supplies --- Telephone, TV and Web Cables --- And sometimes even more as neighborhoods move more and more away from overhead wires.  Some of the...
  • Water in the bottom of the window well.

    Robert from Oakville, Ontario wrote: I live in a town house and only have two basement windows. Last year I cut out the wall on one of the windows and took out the 32" X 15" window and replaced it with a 32" X 24" window. It worked great. So this year I decided to enlarge the back window before f...
  • Stopping flies and gasses from coming out of my basement floor drain with Dranjer!

    I have had several letters recently about bad smells and even flies coming up out of basement floor drains and sump pump pits. One viewer was quoted hundreds of dollars to break up the entire basement and replace all the sewer lines. The real problem is usually that the trap under the floor has ...