Your electricity bills are high and your spouse plans to review the insulation of the house? Your daughter has just acquired her first home and plans to do some work? Your mother feels cold drafts while sitting in the living room? This year for Christmas, put aside unnecessary gifts and think outside the box: give…
An article in the online magazine Realty Times mentions a drop between 17 and 23% of the market value of homes when they contain mold. Your attic can quickly become a breeding ground for mold growth if its humidity level becomes too high or if water infiltration occurs. It is therefore important to monitor problematic…
Nowadays, no one marvels at seeing hot water flowing from the tap with a simple flick of the wrist. But even though this small miracle is now taken for granted, did you know that nearly 50 plumbing and electrical technical points from the building code apply when installing a water heater? And all that is…
With the many stories on the subject shown on TV or heard on the radio, we are savvier than ever when it comes time to acquire a home or a condo. The seller's declaration, the pyrite test result and the pre-purchase inspection: we take all the means at our disposal to make a prudent and…
Year after year, evaluators, inspectors, technicians and other Legault-Dubois building specialists assess numerous cases. We’ve had the opportunity to visit commercial buildings, construction sites at various stages of completion, apartment buildings and condominiums of two, three and even 300 units. But for this article, we had to make some hard choices. So we chose 20,000 single…
Dual energy heating systems are still little known in Quebec. Some of you may be using it, but for others the term is not even familiar. Yet all homeowners would benefit from knowing more about these systems because they could benefit from DT pricing, a more economical rate. Effective use of a dual energy heating…
Every morning you jump in the shower. Without thinking, you call upon an essential element of our modern comfort: the water heater. Often neglected by homeowners, the water heater is responsible for most water-related damages in our basements. And you, can you tell the age of yours? Do you know its condition? Do you know…
"My brother will help me with these renovations. He knows what he’s doing; after all, he built his house himself!" Far from us the idea to contradict you or to question your brother’s skills, but too often in our profession do we see building problems arising directly from renovations made by relatives of the owners…
In March, a fire broke out in a building in Pierrefonds, causing damage estimated at more than $100,000. In May, another fire forced the evacuation of 68 families while yet another in Sainte-Adèle threw forty residents on the street. More recently in Laval, twenty people were left homeless after a fire burned their apartment complex…
The BBQ season is fast approaching and many of us are planning to review the layout of our backyards. The Quebec Construction Code gives us rules to follow to ensure the safety of all, but have you ever consulted it? If so, were you able to understand it all? What is a handrail, a guardrail? Our…