You know that I don't believe in trying to keep a basement dry by simply patching all the cracks in a wall. First I want to remove as much of the water as possible from the other side with rain gutters on the roof, downspouts running far away from the house and the landscaping slopped away fr...
A basement that has more than 50 per cent of its height sticking out of the ground is not really a basement. The walls should be treated as ordinary, above-ground walls. The foundations should be treated as slab-on-grade to avoid frost problems.
Interior/exterior insulation combinations can be u...
Connect to your favourite weather forecaster and look for the following conditions:
Category: Sealants (Caulking) Product: Butyl Calking / Sealant
Temperature Limitations: Above -20 C (-4 F) but with product above +5 C (+40 F) to flow easily.
Rain Limitations: Apply to a dry surface
Wi...
Connect to your favourite weather forecaster and look for the following conditions:
Category: Masonry Product: Masonry based weatherproofing coatings
Temperature Limitations: Use above +7 C (+45 F)
Rain Limitations: No rain until hardened -- about 8 hours
Wind Limitations: High wind c...
Connect to your favourite weather forecaster and look for the following conditions:
Category: Concrete Product: Bituminous foundation moisture control coating
Temperature Limitations: Water based products must be used above freezing -- Solvent based materials minimum -17 C (+1 F)
Rain L...
Connect to your favourite weather forecaster and look for the following conditions:
Category: Concrete Product: Elastomeric Liquid Waterproofing Coatings
Temperature Limitations: Use above +10 C (+50 F) and below +32 C (+90 F)
Rain Limitations: No rain for 24 hours
Wind Limitations: ...
Frost Protected Shallow Foundations
The foundation for a house is generally poured below the soil grade level so that the footing itself is well below the frost depth for any given region and soil type. This protects the house from frost heaving caused by expanding soils beneath the foundation....
The old days of stacking structure
In the old days, before we had specialized hardware like joist hangers, we would always create beams, or low lying ledger boards and place the joists on top of them with some kind of toe-nail attachment.
The arrival of joist hangers
When joist hangers came in...
Michele in Hamilton, Ontario needs to repaint her cinder block walls on the outside of the basement. But a close look at a photo that she sent us showed a lot of deep holes or pock marks in the blocks.
Not only the paint was peeling off, but the block itself was breaking off.
This is a sign o...
For those of you who have move into the area spreading roughly from Winnipeg to Regina, but you have not grown up in this area, the living nature of the soil itself may surprise you. Clay soil under and around a house can cause problems anywhere in Canada, but in this region there is a special cl...
