Winter is fast approaching, and that means fireplace season. But don’t assume lighting a fire will warm up your house.

Unfortunately, you may end up cooler than when you started, since conventional fireplaces are notoriously inefficient sources of heat. In fact, most fireplaces take away more heat than they provide. The physics are simple: a fire needs oxygen to burn, which it draws from the surrounding air. In most cases, that means the fire is drawing in heated air from your house and sending it, along with some of its own radiant heat, up the chimney.

There are some things you can do to help improve the efficiency of your fireplace. If you have an older home, you probably have a freestanding masonry fireplace, meaning the fireplace rests on a foundation. If so, partially open a window in the room where the fireplace is located whenever you light a fire. That way, the fire will draw some fresh air from outside instead of taking air that is already heated from within the house. Modern freestanding masonry fireplaces are an improvement on older ones; the building code requires a fresh-air intake in the fireplace hearth, making it unnecessary to open a window.

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Your garage may seem like a relatively benign area of your home,but in fact it may be harbouring serious safety hazards.

One potential danger is the garage door. A garage door is the largest moving object found in your home, heavy enough to exert deadly force when closing. Both children and adults have been known to suffer serious injury or death from impact or entrapment.

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Planning Your Basement Reno

Converting your basement from a musty cellar to additional living space can be a good alternative to buying a larger home. And with proper planning, you could help the job proceed more smoothly, and even save thousands of dollars along the way.

(The following suggestions are not intended as guidance for creating a rental unit, since municipal by-laws for basement apartments are beyond the scope of this article.)

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Where to start..  Given that winter is almost upon us, how about the

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For all your commercial or residential inspection needs. Proudly serving the GTA since 1983.

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Due to a shortage of homes for sale in many areas, some many listing agents and vendors are making available an inspection report to all prospective buyers (known as a pre-listing inspection report). Offers can then be presented clean (ie. not conditional on a home inspection ) and saves prospective buyers the cost of hiring their own inspector.

Should you rely on such a report? Depends…..

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