My renovating buddy Mike Holmes of Restovate in Toronto (before he went on TV) was into the creation of a new basement suite so I asked him to show us as he cut in for the rough plumbing for the toilet. So he jack hammered up the floor, then dug a bit more (as is common), then he discovered that...
Debbie from East York, Ontario has a problem with a basement leak that apparently is caused by a crack between the sidewalk and the wall. Her contractor patched it last year, but it leaked again.If there is any movement of the sidewalk, from frost or just swelling and or shrinking clay, then no ...
What is an Enviro Home? It is an energy efficient R-2000 house that in addition meets a series of environmental requirements that relate both to the process of construction as to the final quality of the house.One example of environmentally friendly construction practices is the re-use of wood. ...
Drew from Moffat, Ontario has a very large concrete deck 10 feet in the air, covered with ceramic tiles. For some strange raison, six of the tiles have buckled up, several years after they were glued in place.They have been there for several years, so it would not be caused by the deck shrinking...
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 ...
We have used a lot of concrete cleaners on this show, even recently compared water based to solvent based cleaners and found them rather equivalent.Here is a new one that is rather amazing. It is called Oil Lift. The difference with this one is that it is totally ecologically friendly, no harsh...
Earlier in this TV segment we installed a threshold between an old and a new floor. In that case we actually cut away to a flat base that allowed us to put our threshold down flat. If you cannot do this or for some reason need to fill in a low spot in a floor before putting in the threshold its...
Some tools go un-noticed on the hardware store shelves, like the rotary hammer chisels. At first glance this appears simply to be a heavy duty hammer drill. It has a special quick change chuck called an SDS system and will only work with drills and other accessories with the special SDS shanks....
Rick from Grand Bend, Ontario writes: "I need advice on how to strap a block wall for board and batten. The wall is 10 ft. high, and I am wondering how many straps I will need?"Too few straps and the boards will warp, too many and you are wasting your energy and perhaps blocking ventilation behi...
Tom from Thomasburg, Ontario writes: "I'm thinking about buying a house, however the basement has low ceilings. Is it possible to bust out the cement floor instead of jacking up the house?"Yes you can dig down, but you need to be aware of just how the soil under the house supports the house. Al...
