Just a reminder to everyone, since I’m having this done: have your heating ducts cleaned. This is slow season for all the operators and prices tend to be lower. We do not usually use our furnaces in the summer, (unless you have spent some time in the prairies this summer) so it is a...
How do you increase the value of your home? Renovations seem always to be the answer. If you are careful they will bare fruit. Typically, lipstick and rouge are common short term answers if you need to sell your home quickly. By this I mean paint. Clean neutral tones please. Everyone loves the current...
With the recession hitting home, the current federal government tried to kick start the economy by advancing a tax incentive for home renovation. I can only assume it was meant to help generate work for the trades. The Home Renovation Tax Credit did some of that. Fairly good idea you would think, but here...
“Green” is now such a loaded word it immediately makes you think of… well… politics, consumption (like sometimes spending more to save more) and opinions less than our impact on the earth. “Thinking Green”, “Going Green” and “Green Movement” all should mean the same thing: doing things more efficiently, with less materials and less...
The art of Landscaping is a complex endeavor involving more than mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges, or installing a privacy fence and stone walkway. Intricatelandscaping work can prove a costly and impressionable feat, which ultimately matures the appearance of a home. Prior to landscaping, a home appears bare or unfinished. In cold...
If you buy an older house it may need a lot of work, including installing new floors. If you intend to fix it up and sell it, a quick and easy way might be to use engineered hardwood. The glue down process might be for you. Modern, engineered wood is clean, hypo-allergenic and well,...
By Erik Kulakowsky, CA ( Kül & Associate … www.kultax.com ) At this point, the only way we’re getting rid of this tax is if the NDP get elected (NDP leader Andrea Horwath vowed to abolish HST should she win the next election), but since that’s never going to happen, might as well learn...
Advancements in roofing have been made over the years in regards to durability, sustainability, and aesthetics. From the earliest fire-hazardous and short-lived straw roofs to a modern green roof. Though roofs have always served to protect inhabitants from the outdoors, basic improvements such as slanting a roof and adding eavestroughs for proper water drainage,...
In Ontario, home owners don’t have to pay the 8% Ontario provincial sales tax on home renovations, they’re basically exempt thanks to current tax laws. However, with the introduction of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) this year, home renovation contractors in Ontario will have to start charging the full 13% tax on any work...
When temperatures hit 34 deg. Celsius or 98 deg. Fahrenheit in Ontario this week, even the energy conscious succumbed to turning on their air-conditioning, when fans and keeping the blinds shut just wasn’t enough to keep cool. The result – an over-usage of power causing a large spanning blackout in the Toronto area: Tens...
I am currently involved in a circa 1950’s house renovation. We are completely gutting it: dry wall, floors, ceilings and some form of insulation (mainly hay and newspaper it looks like). What really struck me was the knob and tube electrical system. Knob and tube electrical is a system of rubber and cloth covered...