Maintaining and cleaning your gutters is a critical part of the exterior maintenance of your home. This is a job that you can do yourself provided you do it safely. Here are some safety tips you before starting the job.

1. Make certain that you use a sturdy ladder. Always set the ladder on level ground. If standing the ladder in a flower bed, be sure all straw or mulch is moved out of the way to allow the ladder is set firmly on the ground.

2. While using an extension ladder that is leaned on the gutters, try cutting a small 2×4 board that you can sit inside the gutter. By doing this, you will provide a solid location that you can safely set the ladder against without running the risk of severely damaging the gutter.

3. While standing on a ladder, don’t try to lean out on either side of the ladder. While standing on the ladder keep your hips square to help keep your balance.

4. Never stand on the top two rungs of a ladder. This is a vulnerable part of the ladder and provides little leverage if you were to lose your balance.

5. When working from the roof, never lean out over the gutter. You may want to purchase a safety harness and secure it to a sturdy item such as a chimney.

6. Don’t attempt to work on a roof during wet, icy, or windy conditions.

7. When working on the roof or climbing a ladder it is a good idea to wear non-slip shoes like sneakers or work boots.

8. Always wear heavy duty work gloves to protect your hands from sharp metal corners and screws sticking through metal surfaces.

9. Always wear protective eye wear or safety glasses to protect your eyes. Gutters will contain many small particles that could get in your eyes causing you eye damage or to lose your balance.

10. Always stay clear of electrical lines.

By following these safety tips when cleaning your gutters you’ll do it safely. Safety is the most important thing you can do when preparing to do work to your home.

Hubert Miles is a blogger for many websites and the webmaster of Riverfront Land. Get more information on Riverfront Property websites.

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Ontario building code regulates the type of construction, whether combustible or non-combustible, and fire resistant ratings of their assemblies and supports. This is to provide a degree of life safety and reduce chances of building collapse while building is still occupied.

This protection is achieved through use of non-combustible construction materials, fire separation between floors, compartmentation of floor areas, sprinkler systems, fire department access and higher fire resistant ratings as size and height increase.

These requirements are based on many building characteristics which include type of major occupancy, multiple occupancies, number of streets for access and building height and area.

Firewalls are usually used to separate a building to achieve the ability to use less restrictive life safety and building protection features which can provide a considerable saving to owner. Fire separations on the other hand are mainly used to provide protection to the occupants of the building, either when exiting or from other occupants.

Spatial separation is the distance between buildings that is used to provide protection from fire spread through heat radiation.   This involves calculating un-protected openings, such as windows and doors, and the type of cladding on the exposed building face.

The required separation is identified as the “Limiting Distance” and is taken from the middle line of road or from property lines between two or more buildings. When two building faces form and angle of less than 135 degrees the walls must also meet EBF requirements of the building code unless building is sprinklered.

Fire Alarm and Detections systems are based on occupancy, building size and height of buildings. Fire alarms are used to alert occupants and notify fire departments by signal or monitoring station.   Fire alarms are also used to monitor sprinkler systems, standpipes, fire pump power supply and fire alarm circuits.   Some addressable fire alarm panels are used to monitor heat and other building systems via trouble alarms to monitoring stations.

Fire alarms come in two types, single and two stage.   Most buildings have single stage fire alarms but hospitals and jails usually have a two stage system where an alert signal is generated and activation of the main fire alarm is activated by a key or similar device.  Hotels, for instance, would have an alarm sound immediately in the activated zone and an alert signal throughout rest of building to notify staff.

As buildings grow in size and height the Ontario Building Code has more restrictive life safety requirements in conjunction with higher ratings for fire resistive products and separations to ensure adequate life safety for occupants are being maintained.

Ongoing articles on the education required to properly inspect commercial buildings which is not covered in basic Part 9, small building, courses which most home inspectors have obtained.

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These are some interesting pictures I received in an email asking the reader to think about God for one minute. I have no idea if these pictures are real or have been re-touched, either way they are interesting. I have included the message also. Celebrating Canada Day is a opportunity for people to think and pray for those who are less fortunate than we are. A poll on the radio suggested that over 95% of Canadians are proud of our country. We should then reflect on what we can do for those less fortunate. Have a good Canada Day and don’t drink and drive.

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Fresh Air Mix Boxes – Barrie Home Inspections

During my inspections of Barrie’s many new homes I have come across many furnaces with a Fresh Air Mix Box installed. I always point this feature out to my clients but as many of them are totally unaware of the purpose of this feature I decide to give a brief explanation for those home owners who wondered what the purpose was.

The Fresh Air Mix Box is designed to allow your HVAC system to introduce air from the outside into your house. The difference in air temperature can vary radically so this is where the mix box does its work. Air from your furnace is mixed with outside air combining the two to create warm air.

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Grant Table for ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes

Effective March 30, 2009

Thinking of ways to make your home more energy-efficient? Here’s what you can do to reduce your energy consumption and receive grants through ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) is offering residential energy efficiency evaluations through licensed service organizations to owners of single-family homes, including detached, semi-detached and low-rise multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) that are no more than 3 storeys high. Also eligible are some small buildings of no more than 3 storeys for which at least 50 percent of the floor area is used as one or more permanent residences. Under ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes, property owners can qualify for federal grants by improving the energy efficiency of their home and reducing their home’s impact on the environment.

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Receive 25% More Money!

As part of the Government of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, the ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program has been expanded to help 200,000 more homeowners cover the cost of making energy-efficiency retrofits to their homes. The expanded time-limited program includes a $300-million increase in funding over two years.

Energy advisors that are certified by NRCan conduct a detailed, on-site evaluation of your home’s energy use from the attic down to the foundation. They then provide you with a personalized report, including a checklist of recommended retrofits to improve the energy efficiency of your home or MURB and, in some cases, reduce water consumption. The report also shows the grant amounts for each eligible upgrade that you can receive by carrying out these energy-saving improvements.

On the following pages, you will find a list of improvements and retrofits that are eligible under the ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program and the corresponding grant amounts. The maximum grant you can receive for a home is $5,000. In the case of MURBs, the maximum grant receivable is $5,000 per dwelling unit. The maximum grant for property owners with multiple properties is $500,000.

The grant is calculated and based on the grant amounts and eligibility requirements that are in effect at the time of the post-retrofit evaluation. You must complete your retrofits and receive your post-retrofit evaluation by March 31, 2011, or within 18 months from the date of your pre-retrofit evaluation report, whichever comes first and subject to available funding.

Once you have received your post-retrofit evaluation, you can re-enter the program using the evaluation as a baseline if you would like to perform more work within a new 18-month deadline, provided you do not exceed the maximum grant of $5,000 per dwelling unit. To re-enter the program, you must first contact your service organization to register for a new 18-month period.

When replacing ANY of the equipment listed in this brochure, the new equipment must have an efficiency rating higher than that of the original equipment. The second system must be of the same type and efficiency.

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The History of the Blower Door by Abba Anderson Perhaps no piece of equipment has changed the way energy professionals look at buildings more than the blower door. Over the past 15 years, entire diagnostic procedures have evolved around this relatively simple device that can make subtle, but measurable, changes in house pressures. The blower door as we know and love it today springs from technology first used in Sweden in 1977, where it was actually a blower window. The idea migrated to the United States with Ake Blomsterberg, who came to Princeton University to do research in 1979. “We started using it because we were trying to understand infiltration,” says David Grimsrud, who was a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in Berkeley, California, at the time. According to Grimsrud, the Princeton researchers decided to mount the fan in a door because door sizes are more uniform than windows. Ken Gadsby (who was and still is at Princeton) recalls that they based the height of the lower door panel on his inseam length! With the help of the blower door, the researchers discovered that hidden leaks accounted for a much greater proportion of air leakage in a home than the more obvious culprits, such as windows, doors, and electrical outlets–a giant leap forward in our understanding of how a house operates (and malfunctions). Researchers at LBNL began to see how useful the blower door would be in weatherization and retrofitting work. Blower door companies started springing up to serve the new market. LBNL energy researcher Max Sherman even got into the business of manufacturing blower doors for a short time. “The Department of Energy put out a solicitation to buy ten blower doors, so my father and I started a company and bid on the contract and we won,” Sherman remembers. These were big, heavy, clunky blower doors, made of plywood and Formica. “We were all working out of our garages,” recalls Gary Anderson, cofounder of the Energy Conservatory. In 1986, Home Energy (then Energy Auditor and Retrofitter) identified 13 blower door manufacturers, with combined revenues for sales and testing nearing $10 million per year (see “A Healthy Outlook for the Blower Door Industry,” EA&R May/June ‘86, p. 6). Home Energy estimated that blower door sales alone reached $1.2 million in 1985. The focus at that time was on making more powerful fans in more manageable sizes. And Then There Were Three The industry has consolidated today, with only three North American manufacturers–the Energy Conservatory, Infiltec, and Retrotec–now vying for sales in a growing market. The Energy Conservatory Of the three, Energy Conservatory (manufacturer of the Minneapolis Blower Door) is easily the largest, selling 800 to 1,000 blower doors per year, along with Duct Blasters, digital pressure gauges, and other diagnostic tools and procedures.

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Steps to painting and prep work required.

Often times during the prep phase you will be using products such as sandpaper and scrapers, which produce millions of pieces of debris. The best way to insure that your flower beds do not end up with thousands, dare I say millions of paint chips in them is to cover them using a drop sheet.

Drop-sheets for your interior are just as important if you plan on using caulking and spackling. Caulking and spackling gets into carpeting easier than it comes out, so be sure to cover any areas requiring protection. If you do not plan on painting on a regular basis, we recommend using painters’ plastic rather than professional-grade drop-sheets. It is available at most hardware stores and is inexpensive and easy to dispose of at the end of each day, or the job.
Painters’ plastic also comes in easy to manage weights and lengths. You can usually pick up enough plastic to cover 3,000 square feet for about $20, whereas professional painter drop-sheets will run you hundreds of dollars.

Sandpaper, scraper, wire brush, spackling compound and a putty knife. This is where the real work starts. Your time and effort put into this phase will definitely be rewarded at the final outcome of your painting efforts. Sanding, scraping and wire brushing are generally exterior methods for removing the peeling paint that you are sick of looking at. You can also rent yourself a power washer at the local tool rental yard if you want to expedite the process.
Power washers are good for removing peeling paint and knocking down all the dust and cobwebs off your house. After power washing, sand the edges where the paint peeled away and left bare siding. Scrape out all the soft wood areas in your siding and then clean them before applying spackle, wood Bondo or caulking. You can also use an exterior caulking (not silicone), which can be painted to spruce up your cracked glazing around any of your single-pane windows. Caulking also works well for filling in staple and pinholes on your interior walls.

Rather than removing all the cracked glazing you can just apply a thin coat of caulking over your old glazing and push it into the cracks with a damp rag and then wipe it clean. Do it the same way for pin holes on your interior walls and your cracks and holes will be filled. Doing this prevents lines where you went over your old cracked glazing. This will also help waterproof your windows in the process. Contrary to popular belief, paint does not fill all small cracks and holes, so this will also insure that you do not leave any pinholes behind. Do not caulk over glazing that is loose or falling out. In these cases all the old glazing should be removed from around the window and then replaced.  Read more... (1179 words, 1 image, estimated 4:43 mins reading time)

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Basic Information

1.    Oil tanks installed prior to 1971 are grandfathered and are “deemed” to be approved.
2.    All oil tanks installed after 1971 are required to be ULC approved.
3.    Oil tanks are to be inspected annually by TSSA certified fuel oil burner technician, and a comprehensive examination every ten years
4.    90 day period may be granted for correction of defect if not considered an immediate hazard
5.    If your oil tank is not in compliance your distributor can not deliver oil.In June 2001 Ontario enacted the Technical Standards and Safety Act, which designates two main documents for management of residential fuel oil storage systems, including Ontario Regulation 213/01 – Fuel Oil, and the Fuel Oil Code Adoption Document. The Regulation identifies two kinds of fuel oil storage tanks: aboveground fuel oil storage tanks and underground fuel oil storage tanks, defining them as follows:“aboveground tank” means a tank that is installed at or above grade level within a building or within a secondary containment, but does not include a tank that is in direct contact with backfill material
“underground tank” means a buried tank or partially buried tank that is in direct contact with earth or backfill; Several highlights from these documents include: Fuel oil distributors are now required to inspect fuel oil systems and be satisfied with the installation and conditions of the fuel oil system. Hazardous conditions must be repaired prior to filling storage tanks with oil.Several changes regarding USTs (Underground Storage Tanks) include: - Fuel oil distributors are not permitted to supply oil to USTs that have not been registered with the Technical Standards and Safety Authority,- Existing UST installations must be upgraded with significant changes such as double walled USTs with overfill/corrosion/leak protection systems. In most cases, these upgrades will likely be cost prohibitive and the installation of an AST will be preferred from an economic perspective, or Existing UST installations that are not upgraded (as described above) will require removal between the years 2006 and 2009, depending on the tank age. USTs that have been out of service for 2 years also require removal. Assessment reports that document the extent of any fuel oil contamination and environmental cleanup must now be provided to Ministry of Environment.All fuel oil storage tanks are required to undergo annual maintenance performed by a Technical Standards and Safety Authority (“TSSA”) certified oil burner technician. The TSSA adopted the Canadian Standards Association International’s Installation Code for Oil Burning Equipment, B139-00 as amended, which outlines the annual examination requirements. The required annual examinations are not automatic, and it is the owner’s responsibility to arrange for such maintenance examinations every year. Additionally, all existing fuel oil storage tank and appliances are required to undergo a comprehensive inspection by the Fuel Oil distributor at least once every ten years in order to ensure compliance with the regulations and code.The regulation prohibits the sale or purchase of a fuel oil storage tank unless it is approved. The Regulation defines “approved” as:(a) with respect to a standard or a laboratory test report, that it is listed in “Titles of Standards and Laboratory Test Reports Authorized in the Province of Ontario” as published by the designated administrative authority from time to time,
(b) with respect to an appliance, tank, equipment, component or accessory, that it bears the label or symbol of a designated testing organization or a label or symbol authorized by the director, certifying that it complies with an approved standard or laboratory test report, or
(c) with respect to an installation, that it complies with this Regulation.If a fuel oil storage tank is in such an unacceptable condition that it constitutes an immediate hazard, a distributor who finds or is informed of this is under a duty to:immediately cease supplying fuel oil;immediately take reasonable steps to shut off supply of the fuel oil;promptly give written notice of the condition to its operator stating that it is not to be used until the condition is corrected and approved by an inspector;affix such written notice to the fuel oil storage tank; andgive notice to the TSSA.If the distributor finds or is informed that the fuel oil storage tank is in an unacceptable condition but is not an immediate hazard, the distributor must notify the operator with a description of the condition and a notice that the distributor will cease supplying fuel oil until the condition is corrected. Similarly, such written notice must be affixed to the fuel oil storage tank and a copy forwarded to the TSSA.  The distributor cannot give more than 90 days for the condition to be corrected. If the condition is not corrected within the time specified in the notice, the distributor cannot supply fuel oil to the fuel oil storage tank.Contractors (i.e. a person who installs, removes, repairs, or services fuel oil appliances) have a similar duty in such situations.All components installed in Ontario must be approved for their purpose. The requirements for tanks to be certified by ULC did not take place until after 1971. Some tanks were installed at the same time as the house was built and may not have been replaced since. These tanks may be grand fathered if the house was built prior to 1971. Prior to the inception of the CSA Installation Code for Oil Burning Equipment in 1971, there was not a national standard that outlined minimum requirements for use during the manufacturing process of aboveground fuel oil tanks. Therefore, your tank is grand fathered and deemed approved. The complete documentation may be found on TSSA web site. 

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The Ontario Building Codes are a minimum set of standards that all building must meet when constructed. Although the Ontario Building Code is not designed to be used as a requirement to bring existing buildings up to this standard, not having a knowledge of the code would not allow a person to know what deficiencies existed in a building.

Existing buildings only have to be built to the standard of the existing building code that was in effect at the time of construction. This is known as “Grandfathering” and will apply to most buildings unless they have under gone a “Major Renovation, Change of Use or Occupancy or a Building Permit has been issued that would involve bringing building up to current requirements. Most older buildings would fall under Part 10 or 11 of the Ontario Building Code and not require extensive upgrading, especially if the building was over 5 years old.

Knowledge of the Ontario Building Code is essential when performing Home Inspections. Some home inspectors mask their lack of skills and training by refraining from ever mentioning the Ontario Building Code and this lack of knowledge can lead to missed deficiencies that a trained inspector would pick up. If your house was built to the minimum standards set out by the Building Codes, how could any professional not be trained in their use and application. As a member of the Ontario Building Officials Association I ensure that my knowledge is maintained at the current editions of the Building Code, to do other wise would be unfair to my customers.

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Concrete foundations are of two types – poured concrete and concrete block. Poured concrete is a modern manner of laying foundations, while concrete blocks are more traditional. Concrete blocks are preferred for their visual appeal and strength. Yet, as time passes, there may be degradation of concrete.

The prime cause of cracks in concrete foundation is seepage of water. Such cracks caused due to leakage of water are thin and hairline. They may widen over time, but they are present only in those areas where the seepage occurs. In order to repair leakage cracks, it is necessary first to investigate the source and the point from which the leakage originates.

There may be other reasons for concrete foundations to crumble. Soil may lose its moisture content in summer. There may be underground roots which may wither and die. Such natural causes make the soil shrink and hence the foundation may move. Though this movement is gradual, overtime it will cause cracks to occur. These cracks will be large gaping ones, running across the entire length of the foundation. They may even be in the form of tiny holes in certain places.

Whatever be the reason, cracks in the foundation are very perilous if ignored. Repair must be done as soon as possible. Difficulties involved in the repair process are influenced by how big the cracks are.

For tiny moisture created cracks, the repair is relatively simple and can be done by almost anyone. These cracks must first be brushed clean with a wire brush. A jet of water may be passed to remove any loose concrete particles within the crack. The crack is then allowed to dry completely and filled with concrete caulk. If the crack is large, then it is packed with patching materials that are specifically available for concrete. These patching materials must be wet when applied. They are limestone based, and they expand as they dry, filling up the crack completely. The finishing touch is to apply a sealant to the repaired crack.

But if the crack is sinister and not the do-it-yourself kind, then it is most prudent to shell out a few dollars and hire some good repairmen. Such cracks occur due to rods which may have rusted inside and snapped or because of deterioration of the materials present within the concrete. Some leakage cracks when ignored can also reach dangerous levels. Such cracks are more found in poured concrete.

Contractors treat the concrete foundation with urethane injections to extract the embedded water. They may even excavate the area around the foundation and replace the faulty tile or construct a provision for the water to lose contact with the foundation.

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