If for any reason you have turned OFF the main breaker of your household electrical system, do not simply turn it back ON. In fact in many cases it will simply not turn back on, especially if you have baseboard heaters all on all over the house. Powering the main breaker while all the circui...
One homeowner had an annoying screech coming from her hydronic heating system that was hard to trace because it only happened occasionally and then usually late at night. The servicemen could find nothing wrong, and of course it never made a screech when they were there.
RECORDING THE SOUND...
Scott in Grand Falls, NF has a loud banging noise in his pipes every time he shuts off a faucet.
In some plumbing systems when a faucet or an automatic valve like in a washing machine stops the water too fast, it tries to keep going and you get a banging sound throughout the house. The pipes are...
When it comes to installing screens into a screen door I have always had problems keeping the mesh straight and avoiding wrinkles in the corners when I followed the standard instructions of starting at one corner and working my way around, unless I was working with someone else to help hold it al...
Iron ochre is a rust coloured sludge that accumulates and clogges perimiter drains in certain soils. It is often found the Eastern Townships of Quebec. It is a very complex problem which can be controlled but not solved. In fact the real solution in regions known to have iron ochre is to not b...
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 ...
Determining, definitively, whether a given paint was oil or latex has always been a bit of a problem, but an important one as you can paint oil over latex, but not latex over oil unless you use a special 'super adherent primer' first.
I used to recommend taking a bit of paint thinner on a clean ...
Have we really moved to a new generation of Pressure Treated Wood?
With the introduction of MicroPro treated wood to the Canadian market in the spring of 2013, some are saying that we have a game change in exteriour wood and building decks. It has taken several years to get this technology adap...
Back Pain and arthritis are probably the two primary health problems that cause people to give up manual trades and even renovating or repairing their own homes. Back pain in particular can step in while people are quite young.
It doesn't have to be so.
I have always had a peculiar pro...
Underground tanks are banned
Many years ago we buried oil tanks in the ground. Think a minute about how bad an idea that was. When a very old tank developed a leak, we never knew about it and it just leaked oil into the ground for years, creating quite an environmental problem. That is why it is...
