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How to Make a New Home Even Better
Buying a new home can be a stressful time. There are so many things to consider from the safety of the neighborhood, to the size of the backyard to the number of bathrooms in your home. One other important thing you need to consider is whether there is room to upgrade or even finish any rooms such as the basement. The basement has huge potential. Before you turn your new space into a family room, game room, bedroom or creative workshop, you need to first assess the …
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Consider a Finished Basement
For many homeowners, finishing the basement provides the solution to many items on the family “wish list”. A place to play, a space for entertainment, a home office, organized storage – the uses for an attractive basement are limited only by your imagination.
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Quiet Comfort With Basement Insulation
In order to create a quiet, comfortable living space below grade in basements and other lower-level living spaces, it is important for homeowners to understand the types of basement insulation available. That includes basement insulation for foundations walls, concrete floors, ceilings and partition walls. For soundproofing the upper level of the home from noise created in the basement, acoustical and fire-rated batt insulation in the basement ceiling is recommended. …
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Venture Into the Darkness
A home’s crawlspace is often used for storage and may be a place that homeowners rarely explore. With its low ceilings, minimal light and often cluttered space, venturing into this unchartered territory might be a little scary. Though you may not have any idea what you are storing in your crawlspace it is important to know that air flows in and out of there, and can affect the overall health of your home. Crawlspaces are built directly above the ground, which means that …
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How to Stop Your Home's Rising Energy Costs
The cost of moving into a new home can be quite steep. New homeowners are often focused on buying new home furnishings, appliances and accessories. But one other important thing to consider is how your home can help you save money in the long run. Insulating your basement is one way to help put money back into your pocket. An insulated basement can help reduce energy costs and increase your living space, as well as help increase the resale value of your home. A …
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Fixing a Wet Basement
Growing up in the west end of Toronto, our three-storey attached Victorian row house had beautiful stained glass windows, spacious rooms and a third floor bedroom large enough to house four children. The basement, however, housed the mountain of coal dumped through the basement window, quarterly, which fed our furnace – that was it! In the early 1950s, people just accepted the fact that basements were dark, dank, wet and only about 6 feet high. Today it’s a different …
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Basement Insulation Building Science
Basement insulation, specifically extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation, is the best basement insulation to use for residential basement construction. Dow Chemical invented XPS insulation, giving it a closed cell structure that proved to be ideal for use in basement insulation projects. There are no holes or voids that would allow water to penetrate. In fact, Dow’s XPS insulation is so waterproof that it is used to make billets for floating docks. Because it has high …
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Vaulted Ceiling Insulation
A great basement-finishing product that insulates and neatly finishes basement walls has taken on a second role as a simple and effective way to insulate and finish vaulted ceilings. It took one imaginative homeowner in northern Ontario to discover this new application for the Barricade system. The beauty of the product is that homeowners can complete projects themselves. The homeowner was researching online to learn how to insulate a vaulted ceiling for his vacation …
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Not all Basement Subfloor Systems are Created Equal
When it comes to basement flooring ideas, a subfloor is a necessity, not an option. But why do you need a basement subfloor system? For basement remodeling, there are three important features that a basement subfloor must provide: Basement Floor Moisture Control, Basement Floor Insulation, Basement Floor Sound Control, Basement Floor Moisture Control. Basement concrete floors, because they are built right on top of the soil, are cold and damp. Warm, moist …
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Ventilating Basement Radon Gas in the Home
Radon is a natural gas derived from uranium found in the soil that is odorless, tasteless and invisible. It seeps out of the ground and enters the home usually through cracks and crevices in the basement and can affect other areas of the home. In the open air, the amount of radon gas is very small and it does not pose a health risk. However, in some confined spaces like basements and underground mines, radon gas can accumulate to relatively high levels and can become a …
