Renovation & Design
Renovation & Design
The sky is the limit for flooring options
Patterned carpet
Texture adds visual interest to flooring and manufacturers, such as Canada-based Krause, are offering carpet with a variety of embossed-looking designs. Made of nylon with a "kinked molecule" for better durability, the patterned carpet is available in a variety of patterns and colours, including Lucerne and Bermuda Dunes www.krauscarpet.com
Engineered hardwood
With our often dramatic weather changes, solid hardwood floors can become problematic. During cold weather, gaps can appear between planks, which is why engineered hardwood flooring is a popular choice for installers since it doesn't shrink and expand as much. Tarkett's Millstone Collection of engineered hardwood includes many different finishes, including maple wheat and maple slate. www.tarkettna.com
Broadloom
Fine wool broadloom is perhaps the ultimate in carpet luxury. Masland now makes its easy to take its wool broadloom and turn it into an area rug of whatever size you need. Just pick a style and colour -- such as asana or porcelain -- choose an edging of leather or cotton twill, and the size and Masland will custom-make it for you. www.masland carpets.com
Leather flooring
Nothing beats leather for sheer luxury and leather flooring is a great way to make a room the centrepiece of a home. Available in planks, leather can be as easy to install and click and go, or comes in nail or glue-down products. Torlys leather flooring comes in numerous leather finishes, including Modena Wine. www.torlys.com
Ceramic tile
Other than their durability, the largest advantage ceramic tiles have over other floor products, such as hardwood and laminate, is the immense variety of colours available. Also unlike woods and laminates, various colours and styles of ceramic tiles can be mixed and matched and/or cut and arranged to create unique designs. www.totem.ca
Vinyl
Old-fashioned felt-back vinyl has given way to more robust fibre-backed products such as Tarkett's sheet vinyl. The new material makes for a cushioned feel underfoot, while the latest patterns and designs are more realistic looking than ever, such as pompano tile (top right) and vogue tile. www.tarkettna.com
Slate tile
Natural stone tiles, such as slate, offer a texture and style that can only be found in a product that comes straight from the mountain to the home. Available in a variety of shades, slate tiles provide a natural look that goes well with both traditional and contemporary decors. Their high frost rating also makes them a good choice for colder areas. www.totem.ca
Laminate tile
This Terreco charcoal slate rectangular-shaped laminate tile from provides the best of both worlds. It combines the look and feel of a ceramic tile with the slate colour of a natural stone at a very affordable price. Better still, because the tiles are laminate flooring, they click together easily, making for simple do-it-yourself installation. www.qualitycraft.com
Renovation & Design
ASK THE INSPECTOR: Questions on central exhaust system's use
QUESTION: I am a regular reader of your column and I thought I would ask you about a system. We purchased a house that is about seven years old now. When we purchased it, we did not receive any information from the previous owner about the central exhaust system. It is connected to the two upstairs bathrooms, so the exhaust fans in those rooms do not work by the switch outside the rooms. We have been running the system year-round and wonder if we should be running it all the time like that. In the winter, we are exhausting moist air from the bathrooms but in the summer we are also exhausting air that we are cooling with our air conditioner. I have not been able to find out any information on the proper use of this central exhaust. What is the proper way to operate the system?
-- Terry and Melanie Voss
ANSWER: The central exhaust system in your home is quite a simple system that requires little maintenance or service. I will explain its purpose and how you should be using it in the summer as opposed to the heating season.
Unlike older homes that have individual exhaust fans in each bathroom, each with integral ducting and vent hoods to the exterior, your home has only a single fan located in the basement. This larger-capacity fan is connected to registers in each bathroom, and normally at least one more in the main part of the home. These registers are connected to ducting that terminates in the fan housing. From there, a partially insulated duct vents exhausted air to a hood on the exterior wall of the house or foundation. The purpose of this central fan is to remove excessive moisture and stale air from the home. It can also increase the influx of fresh air from the exterior if a fresh-air intake duct is installed in the basement or connected to the ducting for the furnace.
The main reason this single fan has replaced multiple bathroom exhaust fans is for simplicity and to better control relative humidity (RH) in the home.
Older homes may have two or three individual bathroom exhaust fans, typically mounted in the ceiling. These would have to be individually vented outside through the exterior walls or up through the attic. The ducting for each unit would have to be partially or completely insulated and sealed to prevent condensation and leakage.
These ducts and the vent hoods on the exterior would need periodic inspection and maintenance and would each be a possible entry point for pests or water into the home. With a single central exhaust fan in the basement, the ducting for the bathroom exhaust could be hidden in the walls and terminate in the basement where they are connected to a single duct and the fan housing. From there, one single partially insulated duct could be vented through the foundation or exterior wall between the floor joists.
This simplifies the entire system and requires only one penetration of the building envelope rather than several. Also, the vent hood for this fan will be located only a little bit above grade at the exterior, allowing easy inspection, cleaning and repairs. This is a major advantage over roof-mounted vent hoods that could be blocked or frozen without anyone knowing.
The other big advantage of this system improvement is the ability to minimize buildup of excess moisture in your home. New homes are built very tightly and have minimal air leakage through the building envelope.
For this reason, significant amounts of moisture can accumulate in the air inside the home. This moisture comes from normal daily activity such as showering, bathing, cleaning, cooking and respiration from the occupants. This damp air must be periodically removed from the home to prevent condensation, sweating windows, mould growth and other moisture issues.
Most central exhaust fans have individual switches or timers in each bathroom, but there should also be an additional control in the main area of the home. This is often located near the furnace thermostat and should ideally be a humidistatic control. If you have one of these installed, that is the way you should be controlling the central fan.
This humidistatic control should normally only be operated in the heating season and sometimes the shoulder seasons when your windows are normally closed. A typical winter RH inside the home is around 30 to 40 per cent and can be higher in the summer. If your main fan control has this range of numbers on the housing, turn the dial to the approximate number depending on the outside temperature. If the RH in the home exceeds this level, the fan should automatically turn on and exhaust enough house air until the RH drops below the desired setting. Some of these controls have an area of "normal operating range" rather than actual numbers and the dial should be set in this location during the heating season.
The final item to address is the use of this fan and control in the summer or continuous use in the winter. The humidistatic control, if you have one, should be turned off or to the maximum setting in the summer as soon as the weather warms enough.
Once you start to leave your windows open, or close them and run your air conditioner, the fan should be shut off. You don't want it to cause an influx of outside air this time of year, because it often has a higher moisture content than the inside air.
Also, central air conditioning will significantly reduce the RH in the home, so additional moisture reduction is not necessary when your A/C is in use. Your bathroom fan controls should still get rid of stale air when used and should be sufficient for indoor air quality issues.
In winter, you don't want to run the fan all the time, as that may cause the RH in the home to drop too low and your home will feel overly dry. If you don't have a proper humidistatic control or it is not functional, call a licensed HVAC contractor or electrician to install one for the proper use of your central exhaust fan system.
Ari Marantz is the owner of Trained Eye Home Inspection Ltd. and the president of the Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors -- Manitoba (www.cahpi.mb.ca). Questions can be emailed to the address below. Ari can be reached at (204) 291-5358 or check out his website at www.trainedeye.ca
Renovation & Design
SOLUTIONS: Use Iron Out to remove dishwasher stains
QUESTION: My dishwasher has developed a brownish stain on almost the entire interior, including the cutlery rack. It is a white interior and is only six years old. What can I do to get rid of this staining? The dishes come out clean. Hope that you have a solution. Marion, Winnipeg
ANSWER: There is a product on the market called Iron Out. Open your windows and run the powder through your empty dishwasher soap dispenser (the way you would run a normal cycle). Iron Out is available at stores all over Manitoba but be prepared, it does smell, and it is strong, so remember to ventilate.
QUESTION: I use bar hand soap, and always have a small one inch or so piece leftover. I wonder if you know of any way to melt or turn these leftovers into a larger bar, so it won't be wasted. A number of friends are looking for the same answer. Thank you, I enjoy your column. Gord, Winnipeg
ANSWER: When it comes to bar soap, get the biggest bang for your buck by saving your slivers. Drop the slivers into knee-length pantyhose and keep them near the bathtub. Scrub your body by wetting the nylon with water and lathering yourself with the nylon-encased soap slivers. You can also drop the soap slivers into a plastic squeeze bottle and then fill it with water. Keep the bottle beside the sink for washing hands and dishes. You can also pile wet soap slivers one on top of the other. Stick a pop-bottle cap onto the top soap sliver (to make the squished-together bar easier to hold). Allow the soap to dry and use it in the bathtub. To make your own hand soap, save slivers of soap bars and mix them in a bottle with glycerine, shake with warm water and use.
QUESTION: I was wondering if you would be able to help me. I suspect the eczema my son has been suffering from since birth may be sensitivity to detergents. I would like to use your homemade laundry soap recipe from your first book but with pure soap flakes we purchased from eco-pioneer instead of the grated soap bar. My question is this: Would this laundry soap recipe be safe to use in the soap dispenser of my HE front-loading washing machine? I am afraid I will clog up the dispenser or the machine. Tanya, Winnipeg
ANSWER: In my experience, you can use the homemade laundry detergent in your HE washing machine and you only need one-eighth cup per load. As well, there is a completely different alternative to laundry detergent called soap nuts. The soap nut (Sapindus Mukorossi) is the fruit of a tree that grows in India and Nepal. Soap nuts are all-natural and safe! While the seeds of the soap-nut fruit are used as detergent to replace washing powder, the outer shell of the soap nut contains saponins, which are good for treating skin problems.
In India, soap nuts are used in washing woolen and silk garments, as a fabric softener, as a treatment for eczema and allergies and as shampoo. Soap nuts are a 100-per-cent renewable resource, biodegradable and can be composted after final use. Soap nuts are often sold in a drawstring bag. The bag is tossed in with a wash load and reused several times. The soap nuts are taken out of the washing machine and not put into the dryer with your clothes.
In my opinion, this is the most environmentally friendly way to clean your fabrics. Soap nuts are available at householdsolutions.org
Best Tip of the Week:
Keep your sink from clogging by not pouring fat down the drain! Collect fat in a container such as a metal coffee tin and let it solidify. Scrape the fat into the garbage (not the compost pile). Wash and reuse the container. Kenya (La Broquerie, Man.)
Reena Nerbas is the author of the national bestselling Household Solutions series. Her website is www.householdsolutions.org You can contact her at Box 429, Blumenort, Man., ROA 0C0.
Renovation & Design
Window-walls a design opportunity, use it!
Dear Marc:
I have bought a new high-rise condo with an amazing view. My living room has a clear view of the skyline, and two of my four walls are windows. How do I design my living room with this wall of windows? -- Brenda
Dear Brenda:
Some are "wowed" by scenic mountain views, some by the vast fields of the Prairies, but my favourite view has always been a city skyline. There is something about being able to see the peaks of buildings, and how these peaks form an overall shape that amazes me. City skylines are like fingerprints, since each is unique.
Designing a space with a wonderful city skyline in mind can be a great adventure. The traditional rules of design still apply to this type of space, but some alterations are necessary. Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing this type of space:
1. The view seen from the space is a feature in the room. When choosing your colour scheme, furniture and accessories, it's important that you look at design elements that blend well with your view.
2. Unlike a traditional living room, your colour scheme will alter drastically from day to night. As two of your four walls are made of windows, the blue colour of the daytime sky will complement your wall and accent colours differently than the nighttime view.
When choosing your wall colour, I suggest you paint a small piece of cardboard with your chosen wall colour and hang it on the wall. Analyze how well the colours go with the different skyline colours and how these complement each other at different times in the day. You might love the look of the colour paired with the daytime skyline but hate the colour when paired with the nighttime skyline. The key is to experiment with different colours and see which works best with all the skyline-view variations.
3. Neutral vs. bold colours. A skyline is filled with vivid colours, from the blues of the sky to the greenery of trees in nearby parks. The rule of thumb is to choose a neutral wall colour when working with large walls of window. Many high-rise condos even go as far as to use white as their neutral colour. A neutral colour on your walls will accentuate the colours in your skyline view.
It has been said that when buying a high-rise condo, you pay for the view, therefore, when designing this space, ensure your view looks like a million dollars.
4. Designing a higher-end estate is about being eclectic. Each piece should be carefully chosen, with many being from your travels. Other accessories should come from boutiques, not big-box stores, so your condo doesn't look like every other home in the neighbourhood. Most pieces in the space should have a story and a personal sentiment attached to them.
I love this type of design, simply because it is centralized around the personalization of the space. The designer and homeowner work hard to make the view part of the space, while adding a personal look and feel.
Marc Atiyolil is the editor-in-chief of Canadian Home Trends, Canada's Home Decor & Lifestyle Magazine.
Renovation & Design
Remedy depends on extent of moisture damage
QUESTION: Please advise us on the following problem. Our ceramic tiles above the bathtub have been leaking and we are going to have to remove them and replace the wallboard. There is mould behind the tiles because there are black areas in the basement ceiling and main floor floorboards where the pipes come through.
What disinfectant should we use to kill the mould after we open up the wallboard? Is bleach safe to use and in what proportion to water? What precautions should we take when removing the wallboard?
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Elizabeth & Stephen Bahr
ANSWER: Moisture damage in bathroom walls is one of the main things I check for when inspecting the interiors of homes because of the high cost of repairs associated with this very common defect. This issue can be quite insidious as evidence of a major problem may be hidden from view to the average homeowner.
I am consistently telling my clients during pre-purchase home inspections to repair or replace the silicone caulking around tubs and showers and maintain grout in tile walls. While these may seem like minor repairs and hardly worth the effort to identify, they can be instrumental in preventing the issue you are facing.
Ceramic tiles are an excellent product for preventing moisture damage to the area above your tub, but they are only as effective as the condition of these two items. Mortar between the tiles will last for many years but once it becomes eroded or deteriorated, it can allow moisture to infiltrate the backing behind the tiles.
Even more important, silicone caulking at the joint between the tub and tile and in corners has a very limited life expectancy and should be removed and replaced every one or two years. If either of these two areas are neglected it may not be long before moisture damage behind the tile leads to major repairs to the entire shower area.
One reason this is such a common issue is the backing material used behind the tiles. Often, this is not moisture-resistant enough to last a long time in the wet environment of your bathroom. Many homes have simple plaster or gypsum drywall behind these areas that will easily absorb moisture from the shower. Even moisture-resistant drywall will have a limited life expectancy in this application.
More modern homes, or older bathrooms upgraded by knowledgeable contractors, should have more moisture-resistant backing for tiles. Cement-based sheathing or protective plastic membranes are often employed behind tiles to keep the substrate solid even if some moisture does penetrate the tile surface. After you remove the damaged material in your shower, ensure you are employing one of these better products to prevent a reoccurrence of your current situation.
Now that I've offered my advice on how to proceed with the new surface after replacement of your old shower area, I should answer your question. The repairs or treatment of the moisture damaged, mouldy or rotten material behind the tiles depends largely on the extent of the damage.
If you remove the tiles and wall covering behind them and find only stains on the studs, there may be little you need to do before redoing the bathroom. If you find large stains or blackened or soft sections to the wood framing then you will have to do more significant remediation.
The way to simply test the framing is to take a sharp tool such as a scratch awl or screwdriver and firmly push it on the surface of the wood. If the tool does not easily penetrate the surface, the wood should have minimal damage and maintain its structural integrity. If the sharp surface of the probe easily punctures the wood and sinks in more than a few millimetres, the wood will need to be replaced. There is no treatment that can prevent further deterioration to wood once significant rot has taken hold and only removal will do.
Your concern with mould in this area will likely be concentrated in two areas, the wall covering and the wood framing behind. Since you will have to remove and discard the wall coverings completely to do a proper assessment and repair, there is little issue there. Once this is removed from your home there will be little chance of any mould in this material being a problem after cleanup and repairs are complete.
If the wood is in good condition behind this area and you are still concerned about mould, I would not recommend using any bleach for treatment. Chlorine bleach is a toxic substance and if you mix potentially hazardous types of moulds with it you could create more dangerous toxins that have unknown effects. There are commercially produced liquid fungicides designed for this purpose that could be applied to the surface of the studs, which are available at home centres or other suppliers.
What you should understand is there are naturally occurring moulds everywhere in our environment, indoors and outdoors. Wood rot is a type of mould, but is not one known to cause health concerns to people. Finding a small amount of surface rot in wood framing behind a damaged bathroom wall or in the old floor boards below the tub is not cause for panic.
If the material is badly damaged, cut it out and replace it after tearing out the tiled walls. If the wood has a minor amount of surface staining or damage, it should not become a major issue and certainly not a health issue as long as the walls are properly repaired with the right materials and well maintained in the future.
Ari Marantz is the owner of Trained Eye Home Inspection Ltd. and president of the Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors - Manitoba (www.cahpi.mb.ca). Questions can be emailed to the address below. Ari can be reached at (204) 291-5358 or check out his website at www.trainedeye.ca
trainedeye@iname.com