Fuel Ghoul

Waterproofing Roses for Valentines Day

The Rubber Rose was a famous sex shop in San Diego that YELP now reports as being closed. The image is kinky all the same, as rubber symbolizes sexual deviance and the red rose always means love. A genuine manifestation of this sexy symbol is exactly what Matthew Robert White was seeking when he commissioned Bill Korenowsky of Royal Waterproofing in his basement to buy roses and dip them in various chemical treatments until they found one that preserved the rose forever. Matt was seeking an nonperishable rose product he could sell for $5 each on Valentine's Day. You can read all about Matthew Robert White pop-up retail vision on Digital Journal. 

There is something morbidly wonderful about desecrating red roses on Valentines Day, especially when we can use the latest waterproofing science to preserve them, and their contempt for this romantic tradition, forevermore.

Bill Korenowsky, who is getting married this year, is no stranger to florists. He knows just what red roses cost, and where to buy the best ones. He started with a dozen roses and ... well, he never really got one that was beautiful enough or 'rubber' enough for Matt to sell, but he had a lot of fun trying.

Basement Waterproofing Contractor Rose Treatments

Bill Korenowsky did his level best to find Matthew's rubber rose recipe. Here he is holding the best of his Bakor Aqua Bloc dipped roses which are hard as a rock today, but not very pretty.

Bill Korenowsky of Royal Waterproofing holds a Waterproofed Rose.

Bakor Aqua-Bloc® 770-06 is a one component elastomeric waterproofing compound designed to replace conventional hot mop felt ply and/or pre-formed sheeting systems. It's applied in a single application, which cures through solvent evaporation to provide a heavy-duty, seamless, rubber-like impervious membrane. This is a liquid applied waterproof product that is good for year round use.

Dipping the fresh red roses in the waterproofing compound was rather difficult as the mixture was not very viscous. It reminded me of axle grease and as such it was not liquid. and not quite solid, but consistent enough to give the fragile rose a tough time and the finish was not smooth or representative of the flower's true form. So indeed it was an abject failure. But Bill did try his best.

Excellent for use on concrete, masonry foundation walls, parking decks, planters and reflective pools, Bill combines this goop with Yellow Jacket reinforcing fabric to treat cracks and joints. The finished work is a heavy body trowel grade coating that provides a seamless rubberized asphalt membrane.

More photos of Bill Korenowsky dipping roses in liquid waterproofing membrane in a basement garage in Toronto. Bill is being real careful to keep the mixture off the floor and his pants.

There is a video of Bill dipping roses in Waterproofing compound, 

 

The idea of waterproofing roses is not to make black floral pieces but rather to preserve them in a substance that will make them beautiful forever. To be able to transform roses into floral statues is appealing to pop-up retailers and romantics alike, but the dipping experiment has proven unsatisfactory.

The Roses Need Hydrophilic Coatings
Modern waterproof clothing and especially winter jackets are manufactured by spreading a thin layer of resin directly onto the inside face of the fabric, also known as a hydrophilic coating.  Some fabrics are sprayed with a polyurethane coating before being made into a jacket and this is something Matt could try next.  Polyurethane roses..? This is already a name for a type of crown molding.

Durable Water Repellency (DWR) is a waterproofing treatment that is sometimes sprayed onto fabric (and so could also be applied to flowers), but another way of coating fabric is to laminate or membrane over the surface to form a protective wall from water droplets on the outer layer.  A chemical treatment, DWR is not waterproof, but does reduce condensation forming, aiding breath-ability. There is the possibility of 3D printing a protective sealant over a red rose and adding any pigment in any portion of the flower.

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Internal Gutter as Waterproofing Remedy for Wet Basement in Toronto

The real estate market in Toronto is red hot right now. It's a good time to sell investment property, esp residential houses, but not if the domicile has a wet basement.  If you want to sell a property in this city for top dollar, it must have a warm dry bottom layer.

After the 2013 record high rainfall levels for spring and summer months, most homes that have a freshly renovated basements now advertise that fact right under the For Sale sign on the front lawn.

Here's a house just north of Danforth and Broadview Ave in east Toronto that's getting waterproofing to cure condensation on the cement in the basement, and a little bit of runoff from the driveway during the spring melt. Its a beautoful home and having a wet basement could kill its market potential.

More details in this Bizcovering piece How a Waterproofing Company Fixes Wet Basement in Toronto From Inside House.  

Any kind of moisture can compromise framing, destroy carpeting, and ruin drywall, and make smelly crawl spaces. Some folks only use their basement for storage, but excessive condensation on cement walls can still buckle hardwood flooring above and invite mold and pests.

This job started by taking out the trash and cleaning up the modly insulation and drywall that was buried under paneling , and cleaning up the cement walls that flood every srping and fall.

The cinder blocks had to be drilled individually to puncture the cavities inside which can collect water.

It was through this window that all of the building supply materials were passed...

As you can see just below this window, the driveway is right beside the house, and the homeowner tried to put a bandaid on the problem by caulking the joint with the grey waterproof caulking; this is however little more than decporation, a ribbon of protection against the flash floods. When the ground is soaked from a week of rain, a summer storm can trigger a deluge.

In the case of this home, the driveway and lawn area, with a heavy clay soil, some of the water has nowhere to go.  It descends down the fissure at the side of the driveway above the basement region and so approximately 1500 square feet drains into this crevice and if you do that math that much square footage gathers 1,000 gallons of water for every inch of falling rain.

Wet basements flood according to the season in Toronto but for the most part there are five wet months: March, April, May and October, and November.

The standard procedure for drying out a wet basement is to first track down the source of the water. There are three main sources of basement flooding: condensation, run-off, subsurface seepage.

Ask how is the water flooding the basement?

Was the water in basement due to watershed run off? or from seepage (an underground water system which is by far the worst case scenario) or is the moisture due to condensation? Those are the three main ways in which moisture eneters the basement.

In this picture you can see the gravel on top of the special constructed filter hose that surrounds the plastic pipe. There is more about subterreanean landscaping on this Distillery Blog post which documents how waterlogged land can freeze and crack old brick walls in the downtown Toronto historic hotspot.

 

This homeowner in this case had runoff issues from the driveway above and so elected to have the local waterproofing company come into the home and dig an eight inch trench around the peremiter of the basement walls and then bury a perforated plastic pipe that's wrapped in this white plastic / polymer rubber hose filter. Then its all covered in gravel and finished*

Above this internal gutter to sump pump solution, a plastic membrane covers the wall and overlaps and ends at the gutter that has been dug below the wall.

To remedy all leaks and condensation, the solution would have to be tackled from the inside the house.

This is how you engineer a warm and dry basement.

Green Basement Renovations, Advanced Flooring and Insulation for Walls

Fuel Ghoul helps homeowners who are old friends finish their renovations, and install energy efficient appliances and advanced windows and doors before the start of the summer when their families are home making memories.

Professional speculators and building contractors who flip houses for a living must follow four basic rules,

1) They should try to make their client's space bigger by using newage building materials that are lighter, stronger and less bulky. Trimming an inch or two off the width of the walls can have a profound effect on the available space inside the home.

2) Professional contractors should endeavour to make the space brighter, by installing glass block in the exterior walls ( as seen below) or adding thermal windows into walls, or adding new sunrooms and skylights.

3) The experts should work to make the whole house more energy efficient by installing energy star appliances, and using new age building materials to capture heat loss. Best practices include designing thermal barriers and installing heat pumps. The latest trend is to put solar panels on the roof to collect the sunshine - free energy? It's not too late to get your solar rooftop subsidized by the Ontario Microfit program and the City ofToronto is where Hydro One most needs the power.

And finally,

4) The contractors should work to make the living space safer, and more efficient by redesigning utilitarian areas and removing walls and other barriers to movement, sight and sounds (unless sound barriers are required). The family room is gone, and now the whole first floor of the house is open and therein lives the modern family.

Smojoe describes how Kevin Dugald uses insulted wall panels and basement flooring to make over his basement into a showpiece of thermal efficiency and shag carpet comfort with a fireplace and big screen television opposite a huge long (sectional) leather couch and four easy chairs, two at each end. 

 

Below is Kevin Dugald remaking the ground floor of his townhouse in Toronto. The stairway in the sidewall to Kevin’s basement - the walls are composed of Amdry insulated wall panels and you can see me selecting the best examples at the Rona at Islington and 401 in Toronto. Its an investment property and he's doing a green flip, despite advice given in a recent magainze article, Green Flips Bring Only Red InK Kevin hopes future home buyers will appreciate the work he's put into remodeling the structure with green equipment and building materials.

There are a bunch of ways to make money transforming a thin, narrow Toronto townhouse into beautifully streamlined ship of convenience the whole family can enjoy.

RULES OF THUMB  one of the best ways to add value to the renovation is to brighten interiors and reclaim lost space by employing new age building materials. 

Kevin’s property in the Riverdale area of Toronto had already been ‘flipped’ a few different times by the time he bought it in 2010. The first floor had extensive renovations in the nineteen-eighties which completely remade its interior and did work to the exterior. Most Notably, the contractor had stuck some glass block in the exterior walls, in the kitchen area, to brighten up the counter tops. Say what you will about glass block, the idea is rather brilliant and does indeed define the room.

The glass block was added thirty years ago but still works to illuminate counter tops and food preparation areas with beautiful healthy daylight.

Kevin didn’t remove any interior walls.

Home Renovation Magazine Canada claims that removing the walls between the kitchen and living room remains the number one home renovation trend in the new millennium real estate contracting. I’m surprised that there are still any walls left to remove! Home renovations experts and interior designers have been drafting open concept living environments for almost sixty years now. Engineers are well paid to approve plans to remove structural walls and combine the kitchen and dining room into an open concept living space.

Kitchen islands become work platforms, cook stations and dish washing areas where the family meets, eats and finds entertainment.

basement renovations - start by lowering the floor and pouring a new conrete pad, then work up adding insulated walls and floors.

Kevin elected to use Amdry basement flooring which is screwed down directly into the slab which has to be pre drilled to accomodate the screws. Each 24″ x 48″ Amdry panels each provide a full 8 sq. ft. surface coverage. Amdry is a one-step insulated subfloor system with a moisture resistant protective surface film. It provides a healthy, comfortable, warm basement by significantly reducing slab surface moisture and temperature fluctuations that may lead to mold and mildew problems.

You can see more of the guys working and purchasingand then subsequently reselling basement flooring and insulated wall panels on Toronto Golf Nuts, and selling their surplus basement flooring and insulated wall panels on Red Flag Deals and a similar thread offering about insulated wall panels and basement flooring on Toronto Forums as the team liquidates the surplus for Kevin who characteristically overestimated and bought too much after being given a great price for a large order.

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