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Home improvement guides
Practical, reviewed advice for planning repairs and projects, choosing the right pro and knowing what to ask before you hire.
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508 guides
- Guide
Stucco guide
Stucco is a hard exterior finish troweled or sprayed onto a wall in layers, and in Canada the word covers two quite different systems.
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Exterior Cladding guide
Exterior cladding is the finish layer of the whole wall, and choosing it is one of the biggest decisions in renovating the outside of a house.
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Exterior Trim guide
Exterior trim is the set of boards and mouldings that frame a house: casings around windows and doors, corner boards where walls meet, the frieze board under the eaves, fascia at the roof edge, and the sills, skirt…
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Chimney Repair guide
Chimney repair covers the masonry, metal and seals that let a chimney carry smoke and combustion gases safely out of the house while keeping rain and snowmelt out.
8 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Chimney Cleaning guide
Chimney cleaning, or sweeping, removes the soot and creosote that build up inside a flue every time wood burns, and it's the moment a trained eye looks over the whole venting system, from the stove or firebox up to the…
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Masonry guide
Masonry is the brick, stone and concrete block that give so many Canadian homes their character: the brick fronts of Montreal plexes and of semi-detached houses in Toronto, the stone foundations of old farmhouses, the…
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Brick Repair guide
Brick repair is the targeted fix for a brick wall that is still basically sound: a handful of cracked bricks under a window, faces that popped off after a hard winter, a loose course at the top of a garden wall,…
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Tuckpointing guide
Tuckpointing, which most Canadian masons also call repointing, is the renewal of worn mortar between bricks or stones.
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Exterior Caulking guide
Exterior caulking is the flexible seal that closes the joints every house has: where window and door frames meet the siding, where two materials meet at a corner, where vents, pipes, hose bibs and cables pass through…
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Exterior Waterproofing guide
Above ground, exterior waterproofing means keeping rain and meltwater out of the walls of the house and out of the structure under balconies and decks that sit over living space.
7 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
HVAC Contractors guide
HVAC stands for heating, ventilation and air conditioning: the equipment that keeps a Canadian home warm through a long winter, cool and dry in a humid summer, and supplied with fresh air all year.
6 min readSeptember 10, 2026 - Guide
Furnace Installation guide
Furnace installation means removing an old or failing furnace and putting in a new one, or adding a furnace to a home that is changing how it heats.
6 min readSeptember 10, 2026
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