for Cold Climate Housing and much more

Found 42 results for the keyword ‘Air Sealing’

  • Overview: Attic Moisture

    Ventilation in a Canadian attic does very little to remove moisture when the temperature in the attic is below freezing. During that time, the moisture is in the form of Ice and the passing air simply won't remove it -- whether you have passive vents or power vents. When things warm up, if the ...
  • Solving Ice Dam problems.

    Ice Dams are a serious problem throughout Canada, although it varies from year to year as to which region gets hit. Here we visited one of the solution companies who work to seal up the primary cause of ice dams, the warm air leaks into the attic. For more background on the problem check out th...
  • CONFLICT: USE OR DON'T USE BLOWN-IN LOOSE FILL INSULATION INSIDE HOLLOW WALLS.

    Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) does not recommend the use of any blown-in insulating material inside "enclosed vertical cavities" (that's a fancy way of saying "walls that are not open"). They feel that techniques of installation and verification during installation are not good ...
  • Should you caulk window trim?

    Rob wrote in saying that he had an Energy Audit done on his house and as part of the energy tune-up, they caulked his window trim down to the wall. Yet he thinks this was a wasted effort because he put the trim on himself and it was just decorative.In most window installations, the trim actually...
  • What to do about rotten 2x6's in a basement concrete floor?

    Martin went to renovate his basement and discovered that he had rotten out 2x6's right in his concrete basement floor. He thought that they simply left the forms for the footing in place when they poured the floor slab. This sounded a bit strange so I sent him the first graphic above that shows ...
  • Mysterious tracks in an attic.

    Dennis in Calgary, Alberta convinced me to come visit his attic which he was about to add ventilation to, but he had never been up in the attic.This was a very interesting attic, and an interesting home. The cellulose insulation was matted down a bit and had a very strange grid pattern in the to...
  • Wind protecting houses in Newfoundland.

    Newfoundland is known for its brutal winds, all year round. So I thought there would be no better place in Canada to take a look at what to you do to a house to avoid wind damage, and keep that wind out of the house. I called on my old buddy Gary Reardon, a prominent new home builder in St. Jo...
  • Moisture problems with a new roof over an old roof.

    Dan from Winnipeg, Manitoba writes: "We have an older manufactured home with a basement. Years ago a new roof was put on top of the existing one. It is post & beam with trusses, sheeted in with shiplap and a metal roof put on. The problem is the original metal roof now seems to sweat in th...
  • Can I insulate my electric in-the-floor heater?

    Debbie from North Bay, Ontario has electric heaters sunk right into her floor. Very few people even know that these things exist, but if you have a baseboard heated house you know how hard it is to get heat in front of a patio door or some other place that needs heat but there seems no way to ge...
  • What is temporary caulking?

    Temporary caulking is a transparent caulking specifically designed to be put on a window frame in the Fall and then peeled off in the Spring. It is used to actually caulk old windows, usually sliders, shut for the winter because their weather-stripping just isn't keeping the cold out. Remem...