A respectable rewinterizing job need not include the addition of insulation into the walls. They are the most difficult (and expensive) parts of the house to re-insulate, and usually have the poorest financial payback of all re-winterizing tasks because:-- Walls are finished on both sides, and i...
Ed and Sharon in Manitoba just bought an old house in Manitoba and it is very cold, there doesn't seem to be any insulation in the walls at all. They have been told that it was double brick construction with plaster on the inside. Well friends, it was probably built by someone from Toronto who ...
"I have a painting problem: All the walls and ceilings in my apartment have been painted using a sponge technique. The paint itself is a latex flat base to which powdered pigments were added along with a small amount of an abrasive material to give the walls an "adobe" look.I now wish to repaint...
There are over 2000 window manufacturers in Canada, and with all that competition, each one wants to make homeowners, renovators, and builders believe that their windows are easier to install than the other brand. This has led to a lot of very poorly built windows that are often difficult to ins...
Insulating on the outside of the house is quite easy if there are no air spaces between the insulation and the warm house. Check out: OLD WALLS CAN SABOTAGE INSULATION EFFORTSSimply attach insulated sheathing panels or foam boards directly to the studs, or to the old sheathing, or, in some cases,...
There is a lot of debate about whether to put a vapour retarder (vapour barrier) on an insulated wall behind shower tiles. The code has not historically been specifically clear on this so we get lots of different interpretations. What the code does say clearly is that we should not have two vap...
A comment from a reader:"I notice in your section on self leveling concrete that you mention about needing to let the water out before putting anything on top of the new compound. (Self Leveling Concrete) This is a common misconception about concrete, in fact the water does not leave, it becomes ...
One of our viewers was wondering how to clean cooked-on grease off of kitchen walls around the stove, without bothering the paint.The reality is that it all depends on the quality of the paint you have on the wall.Regular latex paint can't stand much scrubbing. That is why we use latex acrylic e...
Graffiti is a major problem primarily for cities and schools, but even some homeowners have to deal with passing artists. There are now several graffiti removers on the market, but here we looked at a new graffiti inhibitor from a company called Wearlon.This is a transparent coating that simply ...
A young lady grabbed our camera in a store and begged for help with hanging posters in her room. The scotch tape marks were just pissing off her mom too much.Probably the best of the new gadgets for hanging things on a wall is the one that you see advertised so much by 3M, the plastic clip that ...
