This was the first part of a special three part series designed to give you some insights to the business side of renovation because hiring a contractor and getting the job done right is a business deal. In this segment we tried to give you an idea of the advantages and disadvantages of each diff...
When Heritage Window Restoration becomes
an energy efficient & cost effective
alternative to new windows
Most of us who have worked in older neighbourhoods have at one time or another thought about or dabbled in restoring old building components rather than ripping out and installing new...
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...
Unless you have a great personal reference to a contractor, you will probably have to use the Yellow Pages, or an association list and start calling. Here are the kinds of questions to ask during that first contact on the phone. The objective here is to narrow the field to two or three contractor...
Burn Smell in the shower
Bill from Newcastle, Ontario gets that smell in the morning and wants to know how to get rid of it. This is not a common problem, but it is certainly not unknown. It is not common because it requires a specific set of circumstances to create this problem.
First it re...
John from Halifax wrote in asking about replacing his salt based water softener with an electronic water softener to make it easier to water his lawn.
Note 2020: I originally wrote this article in 2004 and many products have come and gone since then. I recently received several requests to l...
As indoor air quality (IAQ) has been identified as a more and more important issue in our homes, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation had instituted a training program to train individuals/companies who are qualified to come into your home, identify IAQ problems and outline the solutions...
The microbiologist Dr. Phillip Stuart joined me to talk about residential water filtration systems.
A couple of very important things came out.
Carbon filters, like the Brita and other counter-top or end of spout filters are only designed to use with treated water systems to remove bad tas...
THE WIRE WORKS, THE CONNECTIONS ARE THE PROBLEM
Aluminum wire does a good job of conducting electricity (although you do have to use one size larger wire than copper for the same electrical load) and can do the same job for less money. So for a short while it was used in houses for regular wirin...
