A recent Wall Street Journal article estimated that a pool costs between $3000 and $5000 in maintenance per year. And that doesn’t cover major repairs that may be necessary from time to time.

Pool advocates like the Association of Pool and Spa Professionals claim this misses the point. Pools “may or may not be a financial investment, but they are most assuredly a quality-of-life investment.”

Further reading:
Are Pools Worth the Expense?
Taking a Bath On Your Pool
Is It a Pool or a Money Pit?

The mediocre numbers were due mainly to a serious slowdown in consumer spending and in housing investment. Housing investment had its slowest quarterly gain in five quarters.

It is expected these numbers will ease the pressure on the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates. Rates had been raised twice since June 1.

Related stores: Economy sputters in second quarter

Why bother insulating your attic? The reasons are pretty straightforward. Since your attic is much more exposed to the outdoor weather the temperature in your attic will be much more extreme – hot in the summer and cold in the winter. So without a sufficient insulation barrier between the attic and the interior of your house there will be a lot of heat transfer. That means you will have a less comfortable house, and higher heating and cooling bills.

Here is a video, produced by the Owens Corning company, where they demonstrate how to properly insulate an attic. They show how to place insulation between your attic joists, where to use a vapor barrier, and just how much insulation to use.

Look at a wide range of options by visiting stores such as Home Depot or Lowes. They will often have kitchen designs set up right in their showroom, and will have people on staff to assist you in coming up with ideas.

Remodeling or improving your kitchen is an important way to increase the resale value as well as your own enjoyment of your your city home.

This is the first in a series of videos about kitchen upgrading and design. In this video kitchen remodeling expert Bob Schmidt discusses the preliminary steps you should go through when deciding on remodeling your kitchen.

Communication between you and your spouse or partner is very important, along with getting the advice of an experienced professional. Every facet of your remodel project has an impact on the end result and on the cost.

More and more people are selling their large family home, getting a smaller house and buying an RV and hitting the road for a few months every year. Some just ditch the home altogether and live in their RV.

The RV lifestyle is not for everyone. If the idea of pulling up stakes every few days and traveling from place to place interests you, then it may be for you. But many find the smaller quarters, the sense of homelessness, and the lack of regular visits from friends and neighbors less than attractive.

Buying a decent RV is the most costly part of the project. A self-propelled vehicle like a Winebago will probably cost at least $50,000 – although no doubt you can get a used one for less. Buying for less will probably increase your maintenance costs significantly. A more elaborate and larger RV will run in the $100,000 range.

Living costs while on the road will vary with the type of traveling you do, and the frugality of your lifestyle. Some experienced RVers say they can live on less than $1500 per month. Others say the difference between RVing and living in a condo are not all that significant.

For more information on the RV lifestyle visit RV Lifestyle Experts.

For an idea of RV costs – both new and used – check out the RV section of Kijiji.com for your city.

If you have one of those new clothes dryers that has a blocked vent indicator, you will at least be aware that having an unblocked vent is important. Many people don’t know that a build-up of fluff can cause a fire.

Tests have shown that even when a vent completely blocked, these new indicators may or may not light up to warn you. Therefore the prudent thing to do is check your dryer vent regularly and remove as much lint as possible. Also remember to clear the lint trap after every dryer load.

In this video from Lowe’s Mike Kraft their home improvement expert, offers helpful tips for maintaining your string trimmer. Learn how to replace string, change the oil, clean the trimmer filter and more that will help keep your string trimmer working like new.

If your Kitchener-Waterloo home has an asphalt or blacktop driveway, it will almost certainly develop cracks. Tim Carter from AskTheBuilder.com shows how to fill a crack in an asphalt driveway. He fills the crack with an asphalt compound using a caulking gun..

Points worth noting:

- The asphalt must be dry
- Sweep out the crack to remove loose bits of debris
- This technique is for “v” shaped cracks
- The caulking material flows easily when the weather is reasonably warm
- Do not put too much compound in the crack otherwise it will create a mess

He also suggests putting bits of asphalt debris from the driveway itself to help fill larger spots in the crack and give the compound more stength.

Another trick he mentions is to use some asphalt debris found along the side of the blacktop surface and sprinkle it on top of compound so it takes on the colour of the asphalt.

Are you considering upgrading flooring materials in your K-W home? If being eco-friendly is important to you you ought to look closely at “green flooring”.

Flooring is thought to be “green” when it is manufactured from easily sourced and renewable materials. Generally flooring made of petroleum-based materials is not considered green.

Many hardwood floor materials are also not considered green for the simple reason that the source trees are relatively scarce and time required to replace hardwood trees is measured in decades.

This video presents a quick overview of different types of green flooring. These include wool carpeting, carpets made from recyclable nylon, stone, ceramic and porcelain, cork flooring, bamboo flooring. Linoleum and vinyl flooring are also included because they are long lasting and can be recycled.