Bread Maker Repair

The problem with the spindle was the way the arms were fastened. The design came from the factory with a flat spot on the shaft that engaged with a flat spot on the arm ring, with both parts locked together with a little snap ring. This system worked okay, but movement between the parts made the fit sloppy over the years. The snap ring finally rusted and broke right in the middle of a baking session.

Our model of bread maker isn’t made any more, and some time surfing did lead me to a US supplier that sells entire new pans with shafts, even for older machines. I ended up buying one, then realized that a couple of minutes work with my welder would keep the old one going, too. Now we’ve got two pans for our trusty bread maker, but there’s no doubt in my mind which is my favourite.

I can’t count how many times I’ve made good things happen with my wire-feed welder. It’s one of those things that you might buy for a specific job, then find you use it again and again for little things you could never have thought of.

The post Wire Feed Welder Fixes Bread Maker in Workshop appeared first on .

During the summer of 2006 I had the good fortune to stumble on an obscure book about the life of a man named Villum Kann Rasmussen.

He was a Danish entrepreneur born in 1909, the inventor of the roof window, and the founder of VELUX, the world’s largest company of its kind.

Somehow, contrary to everything that I imagined was possible, Mr. Rasmussen launched his new roof window product  right in the middle of the Second World War. I’m not sure how such a thing was possible in war-ravaged Europe in 1941, but it happened. Something of the innovation and resilience of the company must still exist today, because the roof window and skylight products that keep coming out of VELUX are the most impressive examples of energy efficiency I’ve seen.

“Roof window” is the name Mr. Rasmussen coined for an openable skylight, and besides the fact that I love skylights for what they do for the atmosphere of a room, Mr. Rasmussen managed to do something else that was remarkable.

Highly Anticipated Velux Skylight Product: Solar Powered Roof Window

I’ve been gearing up to create skylight stories and videos for the coming season, based on skylight installations I actually perform and document.

One thing I’m particularly interested in are the new solar powered roof windows.The claim to fame here is not to save the little bit of electricity needed to open and close the windows mechanically, but the freedom from having to run wires to power these automated roof windows in the usual way. You just plunk them in and away you go. Programmable remote controls, automatic blinds and energy efficient glass are all things I’ll be telling you about this coming year.

2 Key Benefits of Skylights: Becoming “Cool” and Energy Efficient

One final thing: Though few people realize it, pivoting roof windows and openable skylight windows can save a huge amount of energy normally used by your air conditioner.

By creating a passage for hot air to rise up and out of your home, the whole house becomes noticeably cooler and more energy efficient. That’s what happened at my house several years ago when I installed four Velux GUU Pivoting Roof Windows in the attic, and I’ve seen this welcome effect in other houses, too.

Hot weather is coming, so it’s worth thinking about.

The post How I Became “Cool” and Energy Efficient Installing Velux Skylights appeared first on .

Except for the 10% to 15% of European young people who go on to university, full-time classroom education stops at 16. After that, most students move on to a 21st century apprenticeship system that makes complete sense. Whether you’ve decided to be a butcher or a banker, the majority of your time is spent learning skills in actual workplaces, with experienced workers guiding you. Not absolutely sure what you want to work at? While many young Canadians spend $80,000 and four years of their lives coming to the conclusion that they really don’t like psychology or political science of philosophy after all, their European counterparts have been earning money while  learning a career that they’ve sampled ahead of time ever since they were 16 years old. Canadian students typically emerge from university with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, while the astonishingly qualified young people coming out of the European apprenticeship programs have a full time paycheck and enough money to easily buy a car and get themselves set up to live independently.

Roland seems smart enough to be a physicist, doctor or lawyer and he has recently completed building a 16-sided, timber frame home using beams as large as 8” x 20” and 40 feet long. A tile setter sharing dinner with us installed ceramics in that house and has never seen such precision in his whole working career.  Why are so few Canadian-trained young people capable of such work?   And more to the point, is there any way Canada can break free of the vested interests and social inertia that keeps things the way they are?

The post Canada’s Tradesperson Shortage a Function of Our Education System appeared first on .

It’s always surprising to me how often people present things as fact even though they bear no connection to reality.  Zinc strips are certainly permitted on roofs in Canada, and every building supply outlet where I live sells zinc for the purpose of roof moss prevention. I always install them on every new shingle roof I put on. The strips go up along the eaves, peeking out an inch or two from under the cap shingles. Rainwater dissolves just enough zinc to prevent rooftop moss and the shortened shingle life it brings.

The post Use Zinc Strips to Prevent Roof Moss From Forming appeared first on .

The plastic gas furnace intake pipe can be insulated, but any insulation strategy must include a vapour barrier on the outside. Without this, indoor air will permeate the insulation and condense internally against the pipe. Bad news.

Plumbing supply outlets all offer high-quality foam rubber insulation sleeves for use over various sizes of pipe – even 4″ or more. These are like the foam insulating sleeves sold for domestic hot water pipes coming from your water heater, but larger and better. They usually include an adhesive strip to seal the slit after installation.

Insulation of this kind would work very well on your air intake pipe. After installation you’d need to wrap the whole thing neatly with black electrical tape, to act as a vapour barrier. With care this approach will look great and work perfectly.

The post Insulating a Gas Furnace Air Intake Pipe appeared first on .

All this is still better than opening a window or running an exhaust fan, which are the only other options for improving indoor air quality and lowering humidity in winter.

The post Should Cool Air be Coming from a Heat Recovery Ventilator appeared first on .

The post Ridding a Roof of Moss appeared first on .

The post Growing Green appeared first on .

If something like this is happening at your place, the first thing to understand is that a steaming roof is normal when you’ve got cold weather, when there’s moisture on the roof, and when the sun is shining brightly during the second half of winter. If your roof is darker than your neighbours it will also be more likely to steam just because it picks up more solar energy.

The only real issue is if the melting water is refreezing at the eaves of your house. If enough of this happens, it can trap liquid water and cause leaks. A few icicles and a little berm of ice doesn’t matter, but a lot of ice could be a problem. Given the fact that there hasn’t been ice damming for 24 years, this reader is probably A-okay.

The post Steaming Roofing Troubles a Thunder Bay Man appeared first on .

The post Trouble with Water Leaking into a Basement appeared first on .