I have a wrapper with two columns using float: left to align them and a clear: both on an hr tag underneath them. When I used to work in html 4.0 this method used to work allowing the background images in the div of each column to stretch to the same height. However the clear: both doesn't seem to work in XHTML 1.0 strict (unless I'm just doing something wrong).

If anyone would be kind enough to take a look it would be hugely appreciated. If you know what you're doing you'll probably see my errors quickly.

I'm using these styles:

html { min-height: 100%; }

body {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
background-image: url(images/autumn/body_bg.gif);
text-align: center;
height: 100%;




}
#wrapper {
margin: 0px auto;
padding: 0px;
width: 800px;
background-color: #CCCCFF;
background-image: url(images/autumn/right_col_bg.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-y;
background-position: right;
height: 100%;




}
#content-area {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
width: 552px;
text-align: center;
float: left;
background-image: url(images/autumn/content_bg_slice.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-y;
border-bottom-width: 1px;
border-bottom-style: solid;
border-bottom-color: #333366;
min-height: 100%;

}
#content-area-top {
background-image: url(images/autumn/content_area_top.gif);
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
height: 20px;
width: 552px;
}
#right-col {
background-image: url(images/autumn/right_col_bg.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-y;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
width: 248px;
text-align: center;
background-color: #333366;
color: #CCCCFF;
float: left;
height: 100%;



}

As it is the left column - content-area - does not stretch to 100% screen height. As you can see I've got the background image for the right column in the wrapper so that when the left column is longer than the right they both stretch to 100% and that is how I want it. But when the right column content is longer than the left column the left column background image stops where the content stops.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post url's but this will probably help:

www.ukmortgageinfo.com

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.