One way to preserve your sanity when that dripping faucet keeps you awake at night and you don't have time to fix or replace it just yet -- simply tie a string around the faucet so that drip will flow quietly into the sink. If the drip makes noise from the sink down to the bottom of the trap, lo...
Spray paint is no longer just spray paint.Crystal Anderson from Sherman Williams Paints came on my TV show to demonstrate a wide variety of new spray paints.There are marking paints, even ones that are temporary so that the mark will weather away.There are sprays that look textured, speckled, str...
Ok, I'm not the best painter in the DIY world. I don't even enjoy painting that much. So I asked Alan Watkins from Sico paints to come in so I could grill him on my common painting errors.I always thought that the thick rollers were for rough surfaces and the low mat rollers were for smoother s...
Changing a faucet is a simple task that you actually should do once a year, to avoid having it ever drip. The general concept is easy enough, but here are some useful working tips:Put a plug or strainer in the drain first, to catch screws and other little parts. This avoids having to extend ...
Brian in Calgary just can't get the handles off of his faucets in the shower. He has tried to pull them off until his hands are raw. When he tried to pry them, he discovered that the plumbing in the wall is not stable and the pipes move forward. He tried WD-40 and CLR to get the handles to...
George sent in his tip of using a pulley or bearing puller to get faucet handles off of the stem without having to bang them all up. He takes out the retaining screw and puts in a headless screw to give him something for the puller to push against. Then the puller just grabs the handle and you ...
As winter approaches people are asking how to get more heat out of those very old hot water radiators. A few tips.
Bleed the air out anytime they don't feel hot enough. This will usually be only one or two that have problems while the rest are hot. If they all are cold you may need to check the ...
Many government or crown corporation publications are afraid to ask too much of homeowners both in terms of work and comprehension. They prefer that homeowners do things half-way rather than not at all. When compromises seem to work some of the time, these publications (and many contractors) are ...
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...
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...
