How energy-efficient is your Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Parkland County or Edmonton area home?  Chances are that no matter how well your home is doing, there’s still room for improvement, and that’s true even if you’ve taken advantage of government programs and grants to upgrade such things as the insulation, windows, heating system and the like in your home.

“Make your home an energy fortress”, published January 28, 2012 in the Edmonton Journal asks:  “where exactly should you invest when it comes to ramping up your home’s energy efficiency?”

The article quotes Christopher Straka from Ottawa’s Vert Design, a firm that deals with residential and commercial planning, design and development:   “Every home has its own energy strengths and weaknesses … based on age, construction and other factors. Only an energy audit, which you’ll need to tap into federal grant programs for upgrades, can pinpoint your individual energy issues.  … your best bet is still tightening up the building’s envelope: caulking and weather stripping to reduce leakage, more insulation, and better windows and doors.”

Many of the other things we can do, the article’s author, Patrick Langston, tells us, have an initial cost, but this may be offset somewhat by government grants, and will pay off the longer we remain in our homes.  Don’t forget also that each of these improvements will increase the resale value and saleability of your home.  While it will cost about $1 per square foot of attic to upgrade insulation and plug air leaks, doing so can save $400+ per year.  Spend $3000 to $6000 on a new high-efficiency furnace, and expect to save $500+ annually in heating costs.  Switch to a tankless hot water heater at a cost of about $3000, and save $150 per year.  Read the whole article for other upgrades that will save energy and money.

Planning to retrofit your home or buy a resale home?  Check out fact sheets available at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation website that recommend upgrades for 11 housing types in 5 regions of Canada.

Also included in the article are notes on exciting new technologies that promise to do even more for the energy misers among us.  The article concludes with a reminder about the many gadgets most of us can’t live without that gobble up energy, and suggests ways we can reduce our dependence on these energy thieves.  Check out the full article.

Looking for a new more energy-efficient home?  Give me a call at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here.

Is it a good idea to tackle major renovations just before you put your home on the market to make your Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Parkland County or Edmonton area home more attractive to buyers? 

Some time ago, I posted a blog entry on this topic (Should You Renovate Before You Sell?  Learn Which Home Renovations Give You the Best Return), giving some details about the costs of various renovations and how much, if anything, those renovations might add to the value of your home when it came time to sell.  This information came from Henderson & Butt’s excellent 2009 Home Renovation Guide.  Well, Henderson & Butt are now Ergil & Jackson Appraisals Ltd., and the 2010 edition of the Home Renovation Guide offers even more great information to help you keep or increase the value of your home.  Many thanks to Ergil and Jackson for allowing me to use information from their guide in my blog posts.

I’ve revised my original blog post to include more current information courtesy of Ergil and Jackson.  To view my revised article, please visit my new blog on Active Rain.   

Are there topics you’d like me to discuss in these blog posts?  I’d love to hear from you.  Call me at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here.

Most of us don’t give much thought to the furnaces in our Spruce Grove, Stony Plain or Parkland County homes, as long as they keep us warm through the long Alberta winters.  An article in the October 29, 2011 edition of the Edmonton Journal, entitled “A new furnace can save money, and lives”, might just give you reasons to replace the old workhorse in your basement.

The article points out that, while the initial cost of the newer high-efficiency furnaces is a little steep [expect to pay around $5000 for the purchase and installation of a new, high quality furnace], you’ll save plenty of money over time.  A quote from the article:

“Natural gas prices have more than tripled in the past 10 years and many analysts are forecasting further price increases. Fortunately, the efficiency ratings of new furnaces have also been increasing. Most furnaces installed in the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s, were only 60-to 70-per-cent efficient, and very old furnaces can be less than 50-per-cent efficient. A continuously burning pilot light can decrease these efficiencies by another five per cent. New furnaces are 90-to 95-per-cent efficient. They do not have pilot lights and can reduce your heating costs by up to 40 per cent.”

But it’s not just money you’ll be saving.  Older furnaces are not very good at filtering dust and allergens from the air in your home.  What’s more, older furnaces can emit dangerous levels of carbon monoxide within your home.

My assistant recently replaced the furnace in her 30-year-old Spruce Grove home and had this to say about the experience:  “We knew it was time.  We’d been reading and hearing a lot about how much better the new furnaces were.  Our old one was still pumping out the heat, with no trouble, really, but we knew it couldn’t go on forever.  What surprised us was how much better the air circulated through the house with the new furnace – far fewer cold spots.  We used to have to wrap up in blankets for TV watching in our basement family room, or turn on the gas fireplace, but no more!  The basement is as cozy as the rest of the house.  But what really sold us on the new furnace was something we weren’t expecting at all.  Our son always gets stuffed up and sneezy when he comes to visit because he’s allergic to cats, but the new furnace has taken all of that away.  Now, that’s impressive, and definitely made us happy about our purchase!”

It’s not too late to replace your old furnace before the really nasty winter weather hits.  Learn more about the benefits of the new high-efficiency furnaces by checking out “A new furnace can save money, and lives”.

Comments or questions about this article?  Call me at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca or contact me here.

In the Spruce Grove, Stony Plain and Parkland County region of Alberta, we know it comes every year, and we spend about half the year in winter-like conditions.  Still, it always seems to catch some people by surprise. 

Take these steps now to make your house winter-worthy, and save some money and the environment at the same time:

Home heating

• We’ve heard this before and it still works:  Turn down the heat a few degrees to save energy and money.  When you’re chilly, put on a sweater, socks and slippers, and sip a hot drink, instead of cranking up the thermostat!  Have you heard of the “Triple 8 Equation”?  Decrease the thermostat by 8 degrees for 8 hours each day and reduce costs by 8%.
• Install a programmable thermostat and set it to raise and lower the temperature when needed.  For example, set the thermostat to lower the heat while people are away through the day, and raise it a little about a half hour before the family arrives home.
• If you have a ceiling fan, you might have thought of it as a summer-only accessory.  Reverse the fan to a clockwise rotation so that the warm air is pushed downward and circulates more freely.
• Let the sun in during the day.
• Cook more at home!
• It is possible to vent your electric dryer inside your home to take advantage of the heat and humidity.  (But be careful with this one!  Too much humidity could create a mould problem.)
• Use your dryer for consecutive loads of laundry.  This conserves the energy that would be needed to heat up the dryer several times.

Furnace:

• Clean and vacuum heating ducts, grilles, registers and ceiling fans.  Clean and replace the furnace filter in early fall and once a month during the winter months when it is in constant use.  Consider upgrading to an electrostatic filter for cleaner air.
• Check your furnace’s humidifier, if it has one.  Clean the filter and ensure water is turned on.
• It’s a good idea to have furnaces cleaned and tuned annually.
• Make sure your cold air returns are not blocked. 
• If your furnace is more than 10 years old, it’s a safe bet that it’s not using fuel efficiently.  Although initially pricey to install, a new high-efficiency furnace will pay for itself over time in lower heating bills and less harm to the environment.  Added bonus:  better circulation of air means fewer cold spots throughout your home, and cleaner air resulting in fewer sniffles and sneezes caused by allergies to dust and pet dander.

Fireplace and chimney:

• While your fireplace chimney may not need to be swept each year, it’s a good idea to at least have it inspected before you use your fireplace to ensure that nothing has become lodged in it.
• If you use a wood stove for heat, your chimney will need to be cleaned regularly.  Not doing so can have serious consequences:  fire, carbon monoxide poisoning and the like.
• When not in use, keep the chimney damper closed to keep out cold air.

Insulation

Attic:

Since warm air rises, a great deal of heat escapes from the top of the house.  If you can see ceiling joists in your attic, you don’t have enough insulation.  Besides the amount of insulation, consider insulation r value. The higher the r value, the more effective the insulation material is, both against incoming cold and movement of heat.

The most common types of insulation used in attics are fiberglass insulation in rolls, batt insulation, or blown insulation.  When adding insulation, remember the following:

• Blow in insulation is most effective, but messy to install; hiring an insulation contractor is your best bet. By contrast, fiberglass batts laid sideways over existing insulation is a fast, easy DIY home project alternative. Handyman tip:  Most older homes have somewhere between 3 to 6 inches of fiberglass blanket insulation, roughly equal to an r value of 9 to 19.
• When adding insulation, make sure soffit venting is not blocked.
• Check around light fixtures and along the tops of interior walls in your home for air leakage.  There must be a tight air barrier to ensure warm moist air from inside your home does not get into the cold attic.  This causes condensation in the winter, increasing the risk of mould.

Basement:

Interior insulation can be used in a dry basement, whether finished or not. When finishing off the basement, use batt insulation in stud cavities for walls and ceiling, or extruded polystyrene insulation on the face of perimeter walls. For unfinished basements, install rolls of polyethylene-encapsulated fiberglass over the walls.

Keep in mind that insulating basement walls will help keep cold out and lower heating costs during the long winters, but there are disadvantages to consider.

• Any moist air moving through the wall may cause condensation.
• Due to the moisture barrier on the foundation wall and vapor retarder on the room side of the insulation, the wall’s drying potential will be hindered.

Never install interior insulation in a damp basement.  Address moisture entry problems before insulating.

Keep the heat in

• Check for cold air entry points:  areas in your house where cold air can seep in and inside heat escape out.  Check external wall electrical outlets, switch-plates, gaps around windows and doors (especially sliding glass patio doors).  Outside of the house, check outlets, outdoor faucets, pipes, and along foundation walls.
• Use felt door weather-stripping around the sides and tops of doors.  Install a door sweep along the bottom of the door on the inside. Make sure the threshold (or saddle) is in good condition; otherwise, have it replaced.
• Replace window coverings with thermal drapes.  These not only keep the heat in during the winter, but they keep the heat out in the summer.
• Although expensive, it might be worth it over time to replace the windows themselves with newer, energy-efficient models, especially if your home is more than 30 years old. If new windows are not an option, use window weather-stripping and/or purchase a window insulation kit – about $3 per window.
• To seal up cracks around windows, perimeter walls, and around wall sockets, use standard caulking. Fortify drafty wall sockets with foam pads made for that purpose. To seal exterior cracks around the perimeter of the home, use caulking appropriate for use in temperatures below minus 40 degrees. Caulking will help to keep cold air from entering the house interior. While the estimated cost of caulk runs about $10 per tube, annual energy savings total up to $100 on average.

Lighting and power

Holiday lights:

• Manually turn off lights, or better yet, put them on a turner so they turn off automatically, when everyone goes to bed.
• Invest in LED strings of lights – 95% more energy-efficient than ordinary lights and last up to 7 times longer.

Lightbulbs in lamps and light fixtures:

• Switch to smart bulbs.  A 20- to 25-watt energy-saving bulb can last up to 10 times longer than a normal bulb, uses up to 75% less energy, provides as much light as a 100-watt ordinary bulb.  The new 7-watt LED bulbs have an added advantage:  no fire hazard because they give off no heat.

Electronics:

• If it’s plugged in, it’s using power.  If you’re not using a piece of equipment, unplug it and/or turn off power bars.

Appliances:

• Try to schedule the use of washers, dryers and dishwashers during off-peak hours (after 7 PM on weeknights or on weekends) when demand is lower and the cost of electricity is less.

Water and drainage

• Drain and turn off outside taps.  Drain all garden hoses and neatly store for the winter.
• Check and clean out eavestroughs and gutters and make sure the path is clear for spring run-off.  Spring does eventually come!
• Check your roof while you’re at it.  Missing or worn shingles not only let water seep in during the summer months, they also allow heat to escape.
• While not strictly a winter-time preparation, as long as you’re checking out various home systems, why not repair all water leaks anywhere in your home.  Better still, consider switching to efficient faucets which use up to 70% less water with the same pressure as traditional faucets, low-flush toilets, and low-flow showerheads.  If your water heater needs to be upgraded, consider installing a tankless water heater.

Just in case…

• Check that you have workable carbon monoxide alarms and smoke alarms (test them with an actual bit of smoke) throughout your house, and put in fresh batteries.  Check your fire extinguishers also:  one for the kitchen, one for the garage, one for the basement, at minimum.
• Buy indoor candles (or lanterns) and matches or lighter for use during a power outage, especially if you live in a rural area.  You might even want to consider purchasing a gas-powered electric generator.
• Tape the phone numbers for your utility companies near your phone or inside your phone book.
• Buy a battery back-up to protect your computer and sensitive electronic equipment.
• Store extra bottled water and non-perishable food supplies (don’t forget your pets!), blankets and a first-aid kit in a dry and easy-to-access location.
• Prepare an evacuation plan in case of emergency.
• Before winter hits, round up all your winter gear:  snow shovels and brushes, sandbags, toques, mitts, boots….

Anything I can help you with?  Call me at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here. 

When you bought your home in Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Parkland County or the Edmonton area, you probably had it inspected to ensure that you weren’t buying someone else’s maintenance headaches.   In an Edmonton Journal article published October 1, 2011 (“Why you need your home inspected now”), Mike Holmes makes a strong case for what he calls the maintenance inspection:  getting your home inspected on a regular basis – as often as every 3 years – to determine what, if any, repairs need to be done to your home.  The report generated from the inspection will give you a timeline on when the work should be done along with a rough estimate of the cost.  As Mike Holmes points out, the best way to protect the biggest investment you’ll ever make is through preventive maintenance, and spending a few hundred dollars now on an inspection could save you thousands in costly repairs later on.  Read the article for more reasons why you should revisit your home inspection.

Comments or questions about this article?  Call me at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here. 

Where do you go to get information for renovation projects?  The television set in your home in Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Parkland County and the Edmonton area is probably not your first choice, but flipping through the channels these days reveals something surprising:  Among the many sports, movie and mainstream networks, there are a large number of worthwhile programs and even whole networks offering valuable information to homeowners.  Check out some of these offered in the Spruce Grove/Stony Plain/Edmonton area by Shaw Cable and TELUS Optik TV.  A little disclosure:  After you’ve checked them out, let me know what you think because I admit I haven’t seen most of them myself!

A & E

(Shaw 25, HD 233; Telus 170, HD 670)

$100 Makeover, Disaster Guy, Drill Team, Fix This Kitchen, Fix This Yard, Flipping Vegas, Flip This House, Hoarders, Sell This House

CBC  (Click on Find a Program)

(Shaw 4, HD 209; Telus 4, HD 618)

All for One With Debbie Travis, Steven and Chris

Discovery Channel  

(Shaw 32; Telus 200)

Canada’s Worst Handyman

DIY Network  (Click on Shows A-Z)

(Shaw 136; Telus 144)

A whole network of house-related programming, such as:  Decked Out, The Dirt on Gardening, Disaster DIY, DIY Hot List Kitchens & Baths, Dream House, Garage Mahal, Holmes on Homes, House Crashers, I Hate My Kitchen, Man Caves, Rehab Addict, Turf War, Wasted Spaces, Weekend Handyman, Yard Crashers, and many, many more.

HGTV 

(Shaw 19, HD 231; Telus 142, HD 680)

Too many shows to list them all here!  A few of the more popular:  Colin & Justin’s Home Heist, Debbie Travis’ Painted House, Gardening by the Yard, Holmes on Homes, Holmes Inspection, House Hunters, Property Virgins, Real Renos, Sarah’s House.  Many more.

OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network)

(Shaw 92; Telus 202, HD 651)

Divine Design, Home Takeover with Simon & Tomas

PBS

(PBS Spokane on Shaw 22, HD 204; Telus 23, HD 607 Seattle

PBS Detroit on Shaw 81

PBS Boston on Telus 54, HD 629)

HandyMa’am with Beverly DeJulio, The Perennial Gardener with Karen Strohbeen, The Router Workshop, This Old House, The Woodwright’s Shop

Slice  (Click on Shows)

(Shaw 33; Telus 141)

Family Renovation, House Poor, Shotgun Reno, Till Debt Do Us Part

TLC The Learning Channel

(Shaw 35, HD 236; Telus 140, HD 671)

Hoarding: Buried Alive, Home Made Simple, Kitchen Boss, Spouse vs. House

W Network

(Shaw 34; Telus 146)

The Agents, All for Nothing, Anna & Kristina’s Grocery Bag, Building Bryks, Candice Tells All, Colour Confidential, Divine Design, Grin and Build It, Help My House is Falling Down, Home Wreckers, Inside the Box, Love It Or List It, Making House, Million Dollar Decorators, My House Your Money, Property Brothers, Take This House and Sell It

Not strictly related to houses and real estate but still very much related to home, so we have to give an Honorable Mention to:

The Food Network 

(Shaw 29; Telus 143)

Ace of Cakes, Barefoot Contessa, Chef at Home, Eat Shrink and Be Merry, Family Restaurant, French Food at Home, Iron Chef America, Jamie’s Meals in Minutes, Restaurant Makeover, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, Tough Cookies, and much more!

This list isn’t intended to be comprehensive, but if I’ve missed anything that really should be on it, please let me know!

I’d love to help you find a house to turn into a home.  Call me at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here. 

Most Canadians look forward to owning their own home, whether that’s a house, a condo, or an acreage in Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Parkland County, the Edmonton area or elsewhere.  In the excitement of taking possession of a new home, moving in and settling down in a new neighborhood, sometimes people forget they’ve taken on a long-term commitment to look after the property and protect the biggest investment most of us will ever make.  Owning a home is a lot of work!

With proper planning and good routines, maintaining a home need not be overwhelming.  The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, publishes numerous guides for homeowners.  Check out “Home Maintenance Schedule” for an extended season-by-season checklist of home maintenance tasks.  If you’re like me, you’re bound to find a few things on this list you might not have thought about.  For example, one suggestion is to remove the interior window screens in the fall to allow the circulation of air to keep condensation off the windows and to allow in more free solar heat.

Maintaining your home will make it safer, more attractive and more pleasant to live in.  But there’s another very good reason not to neglect these routines.   Time and again in the real estate business, the houses that sell the fastest and for the best price are those houses that have been looked after the best.  When it comes time to sell your most valuable possession, you’ll be glad you kept up the maintenance!

Thinking of selling your home?  I’d be happy to help you get it ready to put on the market.  Call me at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here. 

Summer in the Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Parkland County or Edmonton areas of Alberta is a great time to tackle projects to refresh your home or acreage.  Painting is one of the best things you can do because it adds value to your home without costing much money and is relatively easy to do.  This is especially important if you are looking to sell your home.   A fresh coat of paint is one of the few renovations where you have a chance to recover all of your investment.

If you’re a beginner, where do you start?  With so many brands, types and colors of paint to choose from, and so many books, articles and internet sites giving all kinds of advice, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

An article that’s been sitting in my clipping file for awhile now is one of the best I’ve seen for a quick introduction to the mysteries of painting a room.  “How to paint like a pro” was published in the March 13, 2010 edition of the Edmonton Journal.  If you are a novice painter, I advise you to study every word of this article before you ever start thinking about finishes and colors!    

Then you may want to learn a little more about painting:

• One way is to check out the self-help section in a quality paint store or a large hardware store like the Home Depot.  Don’t be shy about asking the people working in these places for advice.
• A Google search on “How to paint a room” turned up a number of YouTube videos.
• Some other practical websites:

Bob Vila: How to Paint a Room

How to do IT: Painting a Room!

How to Paint a Room [from the About.com series of websites]

How to Paint a Room Like a Pro – Fine Homebuilding [series of videos]

Painting & Wallpapering – for Dummies [many articles from estimating how much paint to buy, to the proper use of a paint roller, and much more]

TLC Home “How to Paint a Room: Tips and Guidelines”

• The best way to learn to paint?  Just get in there and do it!

Comments or questions about this article, or any aspect of home buying and selling?  Call me at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here. 

Think your house in Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Parkland County or the Edmonton area is clean?  Read “The Germiest Spots in Your Home” posted at 50plus.com and discover some surprising places you might not have thought were dirty, as well as some cleaning tips to banish the bad bugs.  Now excuse me while I go wash my hands!

Give me a call at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here for help in finding the perfect home or acreage, or selling your treasured property. 

Over the years I have done my share of renovating houses.  Consequently, I have managed to amass quite a number of tools.  Where possible, I prefer to use cordless tools.  And just like people’s misconceptions about real estate, whether buying or selling homes and acreages in Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Parkland County, the Edmonton area or elsewhere, there are misunderstandings about how one should treat rechargeable batteries.

We were led to believe that early rechargeable batteries had a “memory problem”.  You always had to draw down the battery completely.  The battery would remember the last charge and would only charge to whatever the previous charge was.  So, if you only charged your battery 10% previously but you now needed a 90% charge, the memory in the battery would only let you charge the battery 10%.

I recently found an article [quoted below] called “Battery Myths 2011” published by Makita.  It explains how you should treat the batteries for your cordless tools and it spells out that if you treat your batteries as I used to up until I read this, you will reduce both the performance and the life expectancy of your cordless batteries.

Battery Myths 2011

Battery Myths – Questions & Answers (from Makita)

 1.  What will cause my batteries to have a reduced life?

There are a number of situations that will reduce battery life.  Some examples are prolonged exposure to extreme temperature conditions, over discharging the battery (running them completely dead), and incomplete charging.  These are the three most common situations.

 2.  Do batteries have “memory”?

Makita brand batteries are of the highest quality and latest proven technology.  In almost all applications for cordless tools, memory or cell set will not occur.  The only possible way to create this effect in a battery is to put exactly the same load on a battery and discharge it to exactly the same point repeatedly.  This can only happen in Nickel-Cadmium and Nickel-Metal-Hydride batteries used in auto-shutoff tools in a manufacturing environment where the tool is used repeatedly in the same process.

3.  Should I run my batteries completely out (i.e. “dead”) before charging them?

No!  This is one of the worst things you can do to a battery.  It is a common misconception that you do this to eliminate “memory” in a battery.  This is referred to as “Over Discharging”.

 4.  How does Over Discharging harm a battery?

Over discharging a battery occurs when a battery is used after reaching its predefined limit of low capacity.  This may result in a cell reversal which occurs when one of the cells in sequence discharges ahead of the rest.  This causes a reverse current to be applied to the discharged cell and the polarity of the battery to invert, resulting in a shortened battery life.

 5.  When is the best time to recharge a battery?

When you notice that your tools begin to slow down or labour, it is time to charge your battery.  Ideally you should allow your battery to cool down for 5-10 minutes before you begin charging.  You must allow the charger to fully charge the battery before removing it from the charger.

6.  How does Over Charging harm a battery?

Overcharging a battery happens when a battery is charged longer than is required, resulting in heat buildup that can damage the battery cells, resulting in a shortened battery life.

7.  Will it harm my battery if I remove it from the charger before the charge is complete?

Yes, this will greatly reduce the life of any battery.

8.  Does storing batteries in a cold environment (e.g. refrigerator or freezer) extend the battery life?

No!  This will increase the rate of discharge in the battery and in the long run will damage the cells inside the battery pack.  Batteries perform better in a warm environment.  The optimum temperature range for using and storing batteries is between 10 and 40 degrees Celsius.

 9.  I just bought a new battery and it is dead.  Why?

Batteries that have been idle for a period of time will lose their charge.  If you have a new battery that does not perform well (i.e. it doesn’t hold a charge), it has been idle for a long period of time.  This does not mean that the battery is defective.  Batteries will self discharge while idle.  To bring the battery back to its normal state, you may have to charge and discharge the battery a number of times (up to 8 charge cycles).  You must run the battery down to the point where you notice your tool begin to labour and then fully charge the battery.  After repeatedly charging the battery, it should return to a normal state.

 10.   What is the ideal situation for operating battery powered (cordless) tools?

Have a spare (or several spare) battery available.  Alternating batteries will reduce each battery’s work load and will increase operational efficiency.  The ideal scenario for battery use is to have four or more batteries being run through a sequence.  Battery 1 is being used in the tool.  Battery 2 is cooling down after use and is awaiting charging.  Battery 3 is charging.  Battery 4 has been charged and is awaiting use in the tool.  When Battery 1 begins to slow down, the cycle is initiated and that battery moves to the charger.  This way, none of the batteries in the series are being over discharged or experience heat buildup due to constant use and charging.

The Makita article quoted above is included as a leaflet with the purchase of a Makita cordless tool.  It does not appear to be online.  If any of my readers, or maybe a representative of Makita, could give me a more complete citation for this article so that I can credit it properly, I would appreciate it.  Please call me at 780-910-9669, email me at barry@barryt.ca, or contact me here.