One way to cut paving stones or bricks is with a brick chisel. It has wide top and bottom flanges to protect your hands -- and of course you wear goggles to protect your eyes from flying pieces. Score both edges, then whack it across the face. A heavy hammer works easiest as you don't have to ...
Special "mortar chisels" fit perfectly between the bricks, allowing you to get rid of loose or poor mortar without disturbing the brick. Whenever you are going to add mortar to existing brickwork, you must make sure that the layer of new mortar will go as deep as it is wide. That is because it ...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
Most paint removal or building cleaning is either done with harsh solvents or harsh blasted granules like sand. The solvents are not good for the environment, and the sand can remove important outer layers on materials like brick.We visited a cleaning/stripping company in Toronto, Ontario called...
Sealants, caulking and other confusing vocabularyThere are all kinds of "sealants" used in construction.What we normally call a "caulking" is properly called a sealant -- a thick material that cures to a flexible solid designed to "seal" the space between two materials -- particularly two materia...
Seasonal tips for working with masonry.SUMMER Summer Moisture Content:If too much water is drawn out of the mortar before it sets, the bond joint will not be good.Most clay bricks, calcite bricks and stone do not require pre-wetting because of minimum absorption. However in extremely hot weat...
