Article
Eco-Disposal Helps the Environment and your Community
Occasionally, we tire of furniture and want to replace it even though there it still has plenty of life left. Or we may move to a smaller or larger home and the existing pieces are no longer useful or needed. Rather than adding to already overpopulated landfills, consider local charities.
Article
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 …
Video
Video
Article
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 …
Article
Article
Article
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.
Hot Product
Hot Product
Article
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 …
Article
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 …
Article
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 …
Article
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 …

