A bathroom, restroom or washroom is a room, typically in a home or other residential building, that contains either a bathtub or a shower. The inclusion of a sink is common. In parts of the world e.g. India, a toilet is typically included in the bathroom; in others, the toilet is typically given a dedicated room separate from the one allocated for personal hygiene activities. In the United States and Canada, the word "bathroom" is often used to refer to any room that contains a toilet, regardless of the inclusion of a bath or shower.
A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system are located; so also are amenities such as the electrical system and cable television distribution point. In cities with high property prices, such as London, basements are often fitted out to a high standard and used as living space.
Home repair involves the diagnosis and resolution of problems in a home, and is related to home maintenance to avoid such problems. Many types of repairs are "do it yourself" (DIY) projects, while others may be so complicated, time-consuming or risky as to require the assistance of a qualified handyperson, property manager, contractor/builder, or other professionals.
Holmes on Homes is a Canadian television series featuring general contractor Mike Holmes visiting homeowners who are in need of help, mainly due to unsatisfactory home renovations performed by hired contractors.
Flood insurance is the specific insurance coverage issued against property loss from flooding. To determine risk factors for specific properties, insurers will often refer to topographical maps that denote lowlands, floodplains and other areas that are susceptible to flooding.
Drying is a mass transfer process consisting of the removal of water or another solvent by evaporation from a solid, semi-solid or liquid. This process is often used as a final production step before selling or packaging products. To be considered "dried", the final product must be solid, in the form of a continuous sheet, long pieces, particles or powder. A source of heat and an agent to remove the vapor produced by the process are often involved. In bioproducts like food, grains, and pharmaceuticals like vaccines, the solvent to be removed is almost invariably water. Desiccation may be synonymous with drying or considered an extreme form of drying.
A vapor barrier is any material used for damp proofing, typically a plastic or foil sheet, that resists diffusion of moisture through the wall, floor, ceiling, or roof assemblies of buildings and of packaging to prevent interstitial condensation. Technically, many of these materials are only vapor retarders as they have varying degrees of permeability.
A building envelope or building enclosure is the physical separator between the conditioned and unconditioned environment of a building, including the resistance to air, water, heat, light, and noise transfer.
Wood drying reduces the moisture content of wood before its use. When the drying is done in a kiln, the product is known as kiln-dried timber or lumber, whereas air drying is the more traditional method.
Joint compound is a white powder of primarily gypsum dust mixed with water to form a paste the consistency of cake frosting, which is spread onto drywall and sanded when dry to create a seamless base for paint on walls and ceilings.
Structural dampness is the presence of unwanted moisture in the structure of a building, either the result of intrusion from outside or condensation from within the structure. A high proportion of damp problems in buildings are caused by ambient climate dependent factors of condensation and rain penetration. Capillary penetration of fluid from the ground up through concrete or masonry is known as "rising damp" and is governed by the shape and porosity of the construction materials through which this evaporation-limited capillary penetration takes place. Structural damp, regardless of the mechanisms through which it takes place, is exacerbated by higher levels of humidity.
Basement waterproofing involves techniques and materials used to prevent water from penetrating the basement of a house or a building. Waterproofing a basement that is below ground level can require the application of sealant materials, the installation of drains and sump pumps, and more.
Building insulation materials are the building materials that form the thermal envelope of a building or otherwise reduce heat transfer.
A crawl space or crawlspace is an unoccupied, unfinished, narrow space within a building, between the ground and the first floor. The crawl space is so named because there is typically only enough room to crawl rather than stand; anything larger than about 1 to 1.5 metres and beneath the ground floor would tend to be considered a basement.
The 1966 flood of the Arno in Florence killed 101 people and damaged or destroyed millions of masterpieces of art and rare books. It is considered the worst flood in the city's history since 1557. With the combined effort of Italian and foreign volunteers alike, or angeli del fango, many of these fine works have been restored. New methods in conservation were devised and restoration laboratories established. However, even decades later, much work remains to be done.
Indoor mold or indoor mould, also sometimes referred to as mildew, is a fungal growth that develops on wet materials in interior spaces. Mold is a natural part of the environment and plays an important part in nature by breaking down dead organic matter such as fallen leaves and dead trees; indoors, mold growth should be avoided. Mold reproduces by means of tiny spores. The spores are like seeds, but invisible to the naked eye, that float through the air and deposit on surfaces. When the temperature, moisture, and available nutrient conditions are correct, the spores can form into new mold colonies where they are deposited. There are many types of mold, but all require moisture and a food source for growth.
A rainscreen is an exterior wall detail where the siding stands off from the moisture-resistant surface of an air/water barrier applied to the sheathing to create a capillary break and to allow drainage and evaporation. The rainscreen is the cladding or siding itself but the term rainscreen implies a system of building. Ideally the rainscreen prevents the wall air/water barrier from getting wet but because of cladding attachments and penetrations water is likely to reach this point, and hence materials are selected to be moisture tolerant and integrated with flashing. In some cases a rainscreen wall is called a pressure-equalized rainscreen wall where the ventilation openings are large enough for the air pressure to nearly equalize on both sides of the rain screen, but this name has been criticized as being redundant and is only useful to scientists and engineers.
Interstitial condensation is a type of condensation that may occur within an enclosed wall, roof or floor cavity structure, which can create dampening.
The leaky condo crisis, also known as the leaky condo syndrome and rotten condo crisis, is an ongoing construction, financial, and legal crisis in Canada. It primarily involves multi-unit condominium buildings damaged by rainwater infiltration in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island regions of coastal British Columbia (B.C.). In B.C. alone an estimated $4 billion in damage has occurred to over 900 buildings and 31,000 individual housing units built between the late 1980s and early 2000s, establishing it as the most extensive and most costly reconstruction of housing stock in Canadian history.
An ice dam is an ice build-up on the eaves of sloped roofs of heated buildings that results from melting snow under a snow pack reaching the eave and freezing there. Freezing at the eave impedes the drainage of meltwater, which adds to the ice dam and causes backup of the meltwater, which may cause water leakage into the roof and consequent damage to the building and its contents if the water leaks through the roof.
