Ottawa homeowners looking for straight answers on home repairs just got a helpful new resource to lean on. The Ottawa Citizen's long-running Houseworks column, penned by home repair expert Steve Maxwell, is back with a fresh batch of reader questions covering everything from foundation cracks to finicky furnaces.
What Houseworks covers
The column works like a mailbag: readers send in their trickiest home maintenance headaches, and Maxwell — a hands-on renovator and building expert — walks through practical, no-nonsense fixes. Recent installments have tackled topics that hit close to home for anyone living in an older Ottawa neighbourhood, like managing moisture in basements, dealing with settling foundations, and keeping century homes in Hintonburg, the Glebe or Old Ottawa South from falling apart at the seams.
Why this matters for Ottawa homeowners
Ottawa's housing stock is a mix of everything — century-old brick homes downtown, 1960s bungalows in the suburbs, and a wave of new builds in areas like Barrhaven and Kanata. That variety means Ottawa homeowners face a wide range of maintenance issues, and our climate doesn't make it any easier. Freeze-thaw cycles through the winter can crack foundations and driveways, while humid summers create the perfect conditions for basement moisture and mould. A column like Houseworks, which answers real questions from real homeowners, is exactly the kind of practical resource that resonates in a city where DIY culture runs deep and skilled trades can book up weeks in advance.
Common fixes worth knowing
While specific reader questions vary week to week, the kinds of issues Maxwell tackles tend to be universal for Canadian homeowners — and especially relevant here in the capital:
- Winterproofing: Sealing drafts around windows and doors before Ottawa's brutal cold sets in
- Foundation care: Spotting the difference between cosmetic cracks and structural concerns in older homes
- Moisture control: Keeping basements dry through spring thaw and summer humidity
- Seasonal maintenance: Simple upkeep tasks that save homeowners from costlier repairs down the line
Where to find it
For Ottawa residents tackling their own renovation or repair projects, Houseworks is a solid place to start before calling a contractor — or at least before heading down a YouTube rabbit hole at 11 p.m. trying to figure out why the basement smells musty.
Whether you're a longtime Ottawa homeowner in a heritage property or new to the market in one of the city's growing suburbs, columns like this are a reminder that a little know-how goes a long way toward protecting your investment.
Source: Ottawa Citizen
