Barb from Regina has a house with a slab on grade with the furnace in a closet and the heating ducts running under the concrete and the cold air return high on an inside wall. Some of the ducts don't give her much heat and the floor is often cold.High inside wall heating and return ducts were...
Leon Spurrell from National HVAC Consultants Ltd. in Toronto came onto my TV show to talk about heating systems, and their differences across the country.One important point he made, was that heating, ventilation, filtration and air conditioning all work together as a single system. When the...
What surprises many people is that however big or small a portable heater may be, if it they are rated 1500 watts, they all give off the same heat. A watt is a watt no matter how it is packaged. One thing that is different, is whether they have fans on them or not.As to where to place them, ...
Catherine in Toronto has asbestos insulation on the hot water pipes that run from her boiler to her radiators. She is changing the boiler and wonders if she has to remove all the old insulation.If the insulation is in good shape and will not be disturbed by the new work, then it can be left a...
Daniel in Ottawa has a lot of trouble getting the fire started without smoke in the house.Chimneys on the outside of the house always have more problems than chimneys that run up inside the warm part of the house. There may not be enough air available for the draft to start, which can be demo...
Free standing gas fireplaces, gas fireplace inserts and in this segment from my TV show, a cross breed between the two put a very inefficient fireplace back into operation. Yes you need a chimney liner when you do something like this - that is the duct sticking out of the fireplace in the photo....
Chimneys : The Six CommandmentsChimney does not belong to the house, but to its appliance.More carefully sized to the heating appliance.Be insulated.Be tightly constructed.Be located within the heating envelope of the house.Terminate at or near the highest point of the building.The best resource...
An e-mail from Roger in Cambelleville Ontario:We have just started to build our home (3300 sq. ft.) and I recently found out that natural gas is not available. So the great debate begins on what fuel source to use. I have narrowed down my selection to radiant heat using a propane to heat the ...
Ray from Woodstock, Ontario writes:For 20 years we had no ice problems on the roof. Heating was radiant heating in the ceiling. Then we installed a forced air furnace. The contractor ran all the ducts through the attic and we have had terrible ice dams ever since. The contractor refused to...
Elise from Montreal wrote: We bought a small warehouse that we converted into living space. Three years ago we changed all the piping for the hot water radiators. Now it is time to get rid of the very old and costly oil boiler. We are thinking of switching to an Electric boiler. Is this ...
