Angela from cyberspace (you really have to tell me where you are from when you write in, it helps me to know things about your climate, even about your soil) wants to seal her driveway but needs to fill up the cracks first. How to do it?
If we are talking about interlocking bricks, start by fill...
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...
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...
(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...
The basic message to remember is that Radon is a dangerous cancer causing gas and if found to exist in high concentrations in your house the problem can be solved permenantly and at a reasonable cost. So we don't want to ignore the possibility, we need to test every house in Canada.
7% of homes...
Some rooms are colder than others, or a forced air system works well for heating but not air conditioning. Although such problems may require repositioning ductwork, or adding booster fans -- the first thing to check is that the ductwork is balanced and balanced differently for the two differ...
In my experience, heating ducts that run through attics cause serious problems in snow country. Don't let a contractor talk you into it.
In warm climates it is common practice to run heating and air conditioning ducting through attic spaces simply because it is easy to do. Unfortunately this ...
Evert from Brownsburg, Quebec has the problem of a sewer odour in his bathroom but isn't sure where it is coming from and whether or not he needs to change his toilet.
It can in fact be difficult to localize the source of sewage odours and hence which fixture or drain is guilty.
One technique ...
In all too many new houses, there is a seasonal problem where in the winter the ceiling actually lifts itself right off the wall in the centre of the house, and then settles down after the heating season. Even in some older houses this goes on every year.
What causes this crack?
Avoiding...
Truss uplift causes cracks between the wall and the ceiling that open and close every year and you cannot plaster or caulk them shut. For details on the cause and solutions to this problem follow this link.
If you cannot do the major work required to prevent this crack from opening, or you j...
