This entry has been updated in 2013 and you may want to jump to the last paragraph to see the positive current state of Pressure Treated Wood.
Is pressure treated wood safe or not? Is the wood used to build my deck a few years ago now banned? There is a lot of confusion about pressure treated wo...
Tired or damaged hands from computer mouse use
Years ago I had a serious problem caused by overwork with a computer mouse dealing with very detailed graphics work for several days non-stop. My hand was going numb and losing its functions because of my “death grip” on that little mouse. The doct...
THE ALMOND MYSTERY
Updated--
20 almonds soaked in water overnight are good for my wife’s and my health. But when there are only 14 almonds in the bowl in the morning I was getting accused of old age distraction. Next day 20 in the bowl, next day 20 in the bowl – I guess it was my distractive ...
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...
This article is about stopping water outside the house, then if necessary, controlling the situation as your basement floods. For some very interesting water alarms, covering both plumbing and overland water,see Stopping Plumbing Floods.
SANDBAGGING
The first line of defense is sandbaggin...
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IS THERE A FIRE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD?
December 2018 - As I was walking home from the grocery store in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil in one of the first cold days of winter, I found myself choking on smoke.
I started looking around to see if the...
I just received (October 2014) an alert from Healthy Building News about additives in many building products that are supposed to kill microbes and make the house healthier. These things are called “Antimicrobials”. A couple of the best known trade names are Microban and BioFresh.
Little disi...
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...
Instant adhesives are generally in the family of cyanoacrylate adhesives -- although there are two basic types: those that cure by very quick evaporation of solvents, like Crazy Glue found in local hardware stores -- and those that cure by depriving the glue of oxygen, like PascoFix. The advantag...
Pim from Etobicoke would like to install a door from his garage into the house. The danger of this is that it opens a path for pollutants from the car into the living space of the house. Recent CMHC/Health Canada research has shown that many more pollutants than we imagine come off of cars and fi...
