Transcripts

Transcript For April 26, 2008, Hour 1

Hosts: Tom Kraeutler & Leslie Segrete

(NOTE: Timestamps below correspond to the running time of the downloadable audio file of this show. Text represents a professional transcriptionist's understanding of what was said. No guarantee of accuracy is expressed or implied. 'Ph' in parentheses indicates the phonetic or best guess of the actual spoken word.)

BEGIN HOUR 1 TEXT:

(theme song)

[audio timestamp: 00:25]

TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles. This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Call us right now with your home improvement question. Call us with your do-it-yourself dilemma. 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. Because we’re here to help you get the job done. Want to work on a curb appeal project this weekend? Pick up the phone and call us at 888-MONEY-PIT. Maybe you want to tackle an inside improvement. We can help at 888-666-3974. Hey, maybe you want to make your home more energy efficient; a home improvement project that is always a good idea. You know, the Department of Energy has announced, actually, a revised criteria now for these Energy Star compact fluorescent light bulbs. They’re going to be available, Leslie, for everything from chandeliers down to nightlights.

LESLIE: Which is fantastic because that’s always been sort of the reason why, I hate to say it, but I’ve been hesitant to fully convert; because we have a lot of candelabra bulbs in the house.

TOM: Well we’re going to have those tips coming up in just a bit.

LESLIE: And we’ve also got, for you guys, another way to save money and the planet. We’re going to teach you all about some all-natural cleaning solutions and we’re going to tell you how to clean a tile floor with an ingredient that you’ve got in your pantry right now. That’s ahead in a few minutes.

TOM: Also, some cleaning solutions for your kitchen; in particular, how to take care of that kitchen exhaust fan, which always gets really stinky from – at least if you cook the way I do.

LESLIE: (chuckling) That would be because you’re burning things, Tom.

TOM: The thing is, though, if you don’t clean it, it really smells up the house and actually it can become pretty dangerous. So we’ll give you some tips on how to do just that.

LESLIE: And we’ve got a great prize this hour. We’re giving away something that all of you nature lovers out there are just going to adore. It’s a birdfeeder and seed from our friends at Scotts.

TOM: That’s worth 175 bucks so let’s get going. Call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Leslie, who’s first?

LESLIE: June in Utah has a tiling question. What can we do for you today?

JUNE: OK, we have a fireplace in our home. The home was built in 1960. And it is stone and we would like to modernize it with granite squares. Can we put the granite squares right on top of that tile stone?

LESLIE: Well, you should be able to just use a mastic that’s appropriate for granite – correct? – and adhere right to that; as long as the surface is smooth. What do you think, Tom?

TOM: Well, I think if it’s fairly flat then I don’t see a reason why you can’t go on top of it. As long as it’s flat and secure …

LESLIE: Yeah.

TOM: … I think you can go over it.

JUNE: OK. And it is and that’s very helpful. OK, thanks so much.

TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: We’ve got an HVAC question with Charlie. What can we do for you today?

CHARLIE: We have just built a new home and we have eight tons of HVAC system and our furnace is run off of propane; we’re in more of a rural area. And our propane bill is just ungodly, unsightly. And so, I was trying to consider what the benefit would be to maybe going to a heat pump and maybe have the heat pump warm the house; say, it’s about 38 or 40 degrees and then switch to furnace. I just wanted to get your opinion on that.

TOM: The way a heat pump works is it only maintains the temperature between what you set it at and what it actually is across about a two-degree spread. So if you set it at, say, you know 72 and it falls to 70, the heat pump stays on. But if it falls to 69 the heat pump goes off; it actually brings on the electric-resistance furnace and that costs about two to three times as much to operate as the heat pump. So you want to make sure that you are, in fact, not using the thermostat kind of rising it up and down.

In terms of whether it will be less expensive to run off of propane, it could be. But then again, you’ve got all the upfront cost of investing in new equipment.

CHARLIE: So, what’s more or less the ratio on something like that? Because like our propane last month was $900.

TOM: Hmm. And what was your electric bill?

CHARLIE: Two hundred.

TOM: Well, I have a feeling that, as high as these costs are, that it’s probably more efficient to run off of the propane than it will to run off straight electric; even a heat pump. If you had a ground loop heat pump, probably it would be more efficient; but a straight electric heat pump, probably not as efficient.

You know what you might want to think about doing, Charlie, is having an energy audit done because there could be other reasons that you have a $900 propane bill.

CHARLIE: OK, thank you very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Charlie. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: You are listening to the Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show and now is the perfect time of year to give your money pit a top to bottom cleaning; I mean a really thorough one. It is spring, after all. And don’t feel bad because Tom and I do it, too, in our houses. We’re not that fond of it either. But we can help you get started; do it right. So give us a call at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

Up next, we’ll start that cleaning project in your kitchen with some tips to keep your exhaust fans running right and safe.

[audio timestamp: 0:05:25.5]

(theme song)

ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is brought to you by Therma-Tru, the nation’s leading manufacturer of fiberglass entry and patio door systems. Choose the brand more building professionals prefer and add up to $24,000 to the perceived value of your home. For more information visit ThermaTru.com.

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to the Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete and you should pick up the phone and give us a call at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Not only are you going to get an answer to your home improvement debacle that could be plaguing you at this moment, but one caller that we talk to on the air is going to have the opportunity to win. It’s a good prize for all of you nature lovers out there. It’s the Yankee Flipper Squirrel-Proof feeder plus a ginormous bag of deluxe birdseed from Scotts. It’s great for bird watching. It’s going to keep those birds from eating all of that lovely lawn seed that you’ve just sprinkled around there to get your yard in tiptop shape and it’s going to attract all types of wild birds. It’s worth 175 bucks but it could be yours for free, so give us a call now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

TOM: 888-666-3974 is the number that you need to call right now for the answer to your home improvement question. Maybe it’s about cleaning the kitchen. Maybe it’s about replacing the countertop. Maybe you need a new floor. We can help at 888-666-3974.

Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: Sandy in New York finds The Money Pit on WABC. What can we do for you today?

SANDY: Hi, I just finished painting my kitchen cabinets inside and out and some of the outside came out OK but some of it, it seems like part of the roller – the fuzz from the roller – came off.

LESLIE: Oh, you see some of the nap or the hair in the paint.

SANDY: (overlapping voices) Nap, exactly.

LESLIE: Do you see the fibers or you just see the sort of the pattern that they made?

SANDY: Yeah, it looks like little pieces or dots or something on the outside. It looks ugly.

TOM: Yeah, did you use new rollers?

SANDY: All new rollers.

TOM: Huh. That’s rather unusual …

SANDY: Is it?

TOM: … for it to come and I can’t imagine – I don’t think it’s ever happened to me. But you know, if you had a bad roller I guess it’s possible. Unfortunately now, if it’s embedded into the paint and the paint is dry, there’s nothing that you can do short of sanding it down to a flat surface and putting an additional coat on.

LESLIE: Yeah, redoing that area.

TOM: If you want to be super sure to not have the problem again …

SANDY: Mm-hmm.

TOM: … try the foam rollers. I think it gets pretty smooth, yeah.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Foam rollers give a very smooth finish.

SANDY: Do they?

TOM: Yeah.

LESLIE: Oh, yes. Sometimes they give a little bit of texture, depending on how hard you press into it as you’re rolling …

SANDY: Oh, I see.

LESLIE: … but it’s really great for smooth surfaces to get a nice, good flow of paint and make things look really even.

SANDY: (overlapping voices) Can I go over this with a foam roller once I sand it …?

TOM: Yeah, absolutely.

LESLIE: Oh, yeah.

TOM: And it’s also nice for a small project like a kitchen cabinet where you don’t want to use a big 12-inch-wide roller. You can use the smaller ones that are only about four inches wide. Lot easier –

LESLIE: Yeah, the little hotdog roller.

TOM: – Yeah, a lot easier to handle.

LESLIE: Also Sandy, make sure that when you sand down the area that’s giving you some trouble, as you’re repainting on top of the area that was problematic and then area around it, make sure you sort of feather your paint out around it so you don’t end up with this harsh line of where the new paint job and the old paint job are.

SANDY: When you say feather it what do you mean?

LESLIE: Take – you know, roll it out and then take a brush and sort of wisp it away into the paint that’s already there.

SANDY: Oh, I see. OK.

LESLIE: So it’s not just a harsh line. Let it sort of flow loosely into the other one.

SANDY: I got you. OK, I’ll try that. And what number sand paper should I use?

TOM: About 150 first and then I would do a second sanding with about 220.

SANDY: OK, great. Oh, that sounds terrific. I’ll give it a shot.

TOM: Oh and by the way, Sandy, make sure you use a tack cloth to pull out all of that dust before you start on the second one.

SANDY: (overlapping voices) Oh, yeah. I do; I have some left.

TOM: Alright, good girl. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

SANDY: (overlapping voices) Thanks so much.

LESLIE: Marilyn in California, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?

MARILYN: I’m the president of a homeowners association in a condo building. We have six small townhouses and one water heater. It’s about 16 years old and one of these days it’s going to go. And I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to use a tankless water heater to replace this for, you know, six units.

TOM: Absolutely.

LESLIE: Well, it would be a tankless per unit, correct?

TOM: Not necessarily, Leslie. It depends on the size. Now you would have to have it sized correctly by the plumber that installed it but it might be that a single tankless could do it or there could be a series of two or three tankless that are hooked up together side by side that work together. This is a very common situation in a commercial building and very often the solution is some number of water heaters hooked up in series. But they have to be done correctly because they’re all computer controlled and in order to keep the flow where it needs to be they need to be properly installed. But certainly, tankless is a good option. I presume here, Marilyn, that you have gas-fired water heater?

MARILYN: We do.

TOM: OK.

MARILYN: But here’s an issue. Because I’ve been in some condos where they had them in individually and it’s – and one person I know had it retrofitted and it’s on the third story and it takes forever to get hot water in her kitchen downstairs. And we have a pump, a circulating pump, that keeps hot water going for a good portion of the day.

TOM: I see.

MARILYN: So how do you stop from having to use a lot of water to get to your hot water or could you?

TOM: Well, you would have to do some new plumbing.

MARILYN: Oh, OK.

TOM: The advantage of tankless water heaters is that they’re small. I don’t think one per unit but maybe one per floor or something like that. You may be able to get additional ones but remember, that’s going to require additional plumbing work to close that loop. The idea that you’re circulating a hot water loop throughout the whole building is wasting an enormous amount of energy; an enormous amount. And I’d love to see you find a solution around that. But I think that at this point, considering the age of that unit, it’s a good idea …

MARILYN: Right.

TOM: … to bring in a good contractor or a number of them and let them give you some options and some pricing for those options because as an association, you have the ability to fund that perhaps over some number of years so it wouldn’t be a dramatic cost all at the same time.

MARILYN: OK. Alright, I really appreciate all that feedback …

TOM: You’re welcome, Marilyn.

MARILYN: … and I love your show. I listen to it every week.

TOM: Thanks so much.

LESLIE: Now we’re going to help Mark in New York with a heating question. What’s going on at your money pit?

MARK: Bought a house three years ago and it’s time to update the heating system.

TOM: OK.

MARK: So my question is I have an old oil heater and – old by 30 years – heated by radiator heat; converted from steam now to water. So the pipes are about three inches big. So my question is how should I upgrade?

TOM: If you have a 30-year-old boiler; you have an old, honking oil burner; you want to update it, I think installing a gas, modern, high-efficiency boiler would be the right thing to do because it’s going to save you a lot of money moving forward.

MARK: OK, great. Thank you very much, guys. I’ll look into that.

TOM: Alright, Mark. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: If you’ve got squeaky floors you might be our friend Cheryl in Massachusetts. Tell us about what’s going on.

CHERYL: We just moved in and I was wondering what we needed to do about if we’re walking on the floors and all we hear is, you know, squeaking. We want to lay carpet, so we were just wondering if there’s something we needed to do before we did that.

TOM: Well Cheryl, what kind of flooring do you have right now? Is it carpet or hardwood?

CHERYL: It is very, very old hardwood; 1850 pine, probably. It’s a floor with the spaces in between, pretty much.

TOM: Ah. (Leslie chuckles) Well Cheryl, then you need to think about those floors by their technical definition which is charm.

CHERYL: OK.

TOM: You can quiet them somewhat and we’ll tell you what to do and it certainly is a good idea. What you would want to do is you would want to screw the floor down to the joists below. So you need to identify where the joists are, then you would face screw through the loose boards down and once you do that they’ll pull tight to the floor joists and they won’t squeak nearly as much. Have you considered refinishing these because it sounds like they’re pretty beautiful.

CHERYL: We actually just want carpet. We’re very – you know, we’re from the south originally so we want – we love, you know, carpet being upstairs. And so, I think that’s what we would do, you know, in the end.

LESLIE: Well, you know what? In the long run, if you go ahead and put carpeting down, it usually does very little damage to the hardwood floor below. You’re just dealing with some tack strips along the perimeter of the room. So if you do decide, at some point, to go back to the hardwood and refinish and repair, you’ll at least be protecting the floor with the carpet and carpet is a good choice. It’s nice and cozy.

TOM: Yeah, except if she really wants to quiet the floor down then you really have to screw those floors to the joists below and to do that you’re going to have a lot of visible screws unless you take the time to counterbore each one, which is another …

LESLIE: And plug them.

TOM: And plug them. Yep, exactly.

CHERYL: OK, and if we did decide just to refinish the hardwood, will we have a lot of nails showing; how would we – you said we would have to screw it down?

TOM: Yeah.

LESLIE: Oh, yeah.

TOM: And what you would do is you would either use a trim screw, which has a really small head and sort of counterbores itself right through the floor, or you would actually use a plug and cover the top of the head of the screw.

CHERYL: OK.

TOM: But you know, screws are the best way to quiet those floors because if you use nails they eventually just pull back out again.

LESLIE: And Cheryl, the plugs are going to be wood plugs that you’re going to drill a hole that’s going to sit right on top of it. It’s going to fill right in with this wood plug and then you’ll stain and you won’t even notice it.

CHERYL: Awesome.

TOM: Cheryl, I hope that helps you out. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Rick in Texas has a question about radiant barriers for the attic. What can we do for you?

RICK: My question is I’m thinking about having a radiant barrier sprayed in underneath my roof and someone told me that that wasn’t the best way to do the radiant barrier.

TOM: That it was not the best way to do the radiant barrier?

RICK: Right. That there was something besides spray and that’s the only way I know to do it.

TOM: Right. Well radiant barriers typically do go under the roof and they reflect the sun from the outside back out and they also keep the heat that emanates up into the interior space back down.

RICK: But what they do is they spray it and is there anything better than that?

TOM: Rick, there are really two common applications. You know, the one that you’re talking about is a spray-on and most of them are sheet products. But either of them will work very well. Let me point you to a great website for additional information. It’s the website for the Reflective Insulation Manufacturers Association. It’s RIMA.net. And there you’re going to find all of the technical data on the various types of reflective barriers, radiant barriers and you can make your choice based on the data that you find right there. It’s a good, independent organization with some great technical details about this product. RIMA.net.

RICK: OK.

TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.

When we come back we’ll have some tips to keep your tile floor looking like new using a natural ingredient found in your kitchen right now.

[audio timestamp: 0:16:48.7]

(theme song)

ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit is brought to you by Aprilaire, makers of professionally-installed, high-efficiency air cleaners. For more information go to Aprilaire.com. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.

TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show where we make good homes better. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: And our website is MoneyPit.com where we have for you a treasure trove of resources to help you improve your house 24/7/365 and you can check out our tip of the day and learn how to get a new one everyday on your website. You can even look up our project of the week and check out the monthly maintenance calendar if you’re saying, “Gosh, I don’t know what I should do this weekend.” (Leslie chuckles) Hey, we can help at MoneyPit.com. While you’re there, sign up for the free Money Pit e-newsletter. All of that information is designed to help you keep your house in tiptop shape.

LESLIE: Yeah, and just one of the hundreds of tips that you’ll find on our website are natural cleaning solutions and here is a good one for you because I know a lot of you out there have tile floors; maybe in your basement, laundry rooms, bathrooms. You’ve probably got them in a lot of places; especially if you’re listening down south.

To clean tile floors inexpensively and stay environmentally friendly to you, your home, your self, your health, the environment, you want to make a solution of white vinegar and water. You’ve got both of those things in your house right now; I guarantee it. The vinegar cleans and then it shines without leaving any streaks on the floor. Plus it’s less than half the cost of those expensive chemical tile cleansers that you’re going to find at the big box stores and it’s a natural product; it’s safe for everyone. So give it a try. You will be happy; I guarantee.

TOM: 888-666-3974. Let’s go right back to the phones. Who’s next?

LESLIE: Albert in Wisconsin’s got the number one question here at The Money Pit; flooring. What can we do for you, Albert?

ALBERT: I went and I – my wife says to me, she says, “If you refinish the basement you can buy a new cycle.” (Tom and Leslie chuckle)

LESLIE: OK.

ALBERT: So guess what I did?

TOM: OK?

ALBERT: I went and I remodeled the basement and this is before I listened to you saying never, ever, ever put carpet in a basement. But before I put the carpet in I put plastic on the walls and on the floors; I put polystyrene on the outside walls; I also put radiant heat tubing, half-inch PEX, on the floor. I put ¾-inch plywood down …

TOM: OK.

ALBERT: … with the PEX tubing underneath that, zigzag back and forth. All of it is over plastic. And now my big question is now that it’s all done, am I going to have a water problem?

TOM: Albert, I wouldn’t worry too much about it and I will say that since you’ve taken all these steps to make your basement as dry as possible plus you have heat under the floor, you reduce some of the risks of having carpet in the basement. Generally, we don’t recommend it, though, because basements are very moist and carpet is very attractive to dust mites and it’s hard to get clean.

LESLIE: Mold and allergens …

TOM: The mold and – yeah. So that’s why we don’t recommend it. But having said that, the fact that you’ve got a heated floor with carpet on top of it reduces your risk significantly. So I think you’re going to be fine. So enjoy it, Albert.

LESLIE: And now we’ve got Kristen from Ohio who’s got a question about flooring. What can we do for you today?

KRISTEN: Right now I am looking at different options for flooring in my kitchen.

TOM: OK.

KRISTEN: And I’m looking towards the hardwood flooring but I’m not really sure. There’s a lot of options out there. I don’t know what your recommendation would be.

TOM: Well, hardwood floors in the kitchen are beautiful but remember, they’re going to take a lot of wear and tear. So, a couple of things …

LESLIE: Plus you’re dealing with higher moisture levels because it’s a kitchen.

TOM: Exactly. You know, what you might want to think about as an alternative to solid hardwood is what’s called engineered hardwood. That hardwood floor is a lot more moisture-resistant because it’s made of different layers of hardwood.

LESLIE: Like a plywood.

TOM: Exactly, and it’s dimensionally stable. And that would give you, you know, the beauty of hardwood. Also the finishes on them are super, super tough – the prefinished floors – because they’re made with an aluminum oxide finish. So it’ll give you that durability and the installation is a lot easier because you don’t have to sort of nail the hardwood floor – the solid hardwood down. A lot of these sort of click together or they assemble very easily and it really can be a do-it-yourself project.

LESLIE: There’s also some other great options for kitchens. You can go with laminates and you can even go with cork flooring. Cork is a little bit softer but it’s also equally very, very durable and it’s a great look for the kitchen and it’s also eco-friendly.

TOM: You know, a good website for you to check out, Kristen, is SimpleFloors.com. Not only do they sell all types of flooring on line there. They can take care of the delivery; get it right to your house and in a lot of states there’s no tax on the purchase.

KRISTEN: Oh, OK.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and you know what? The website has wonderful installation guides that go along with the product. So if you’re thinking about a do-it-yourself project it really couldn’t be simpler.

KRISTEN: Right, right. OK, that’s wonderful advice and I really, really appreciate that.

TOM: You’re welcome, Kristen. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show.

Up next, we’ve got new ways and better products that are going to help you save money and energy, so stick around.

[audio timestamp: 0:22:24.9]

(theme song)

ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit is brought to you by Ryobi, manufacturer of professional-feature power tools and accessories with an affordable price for the do-it-yourselfer. Ryobi Power Tools. Pro features. Affordable price. Available exclusively at The Home Depot. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to the Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: The number here is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Ask your home improvement question on the air and you can win our weekly prize. This hour it’s the Yankee Flipper Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder and a big bag of Scotts wild birdseed to keep it full for quite a while. Your yard will be bird heaven. You’ll be able to enjoy your feathered friends in the neighborhood. It’s a prize worth 175 bucks but you’ve got to call to win – 1-888-MONEY-PIT – and have a home improvement question for us.

LESLIE: And that’s a mother-loving nature prize that we’re giving away this hour and since we love to be green to our Mother Earth, you’ve heard us talk about compact fluorescent light bulbs; we call them CFLs. And they save you money and they also save energy, which is great; all keeping costs down and good to our earth. But good news because there’s been a lot of sort of, you know, issues with these bulbs: they’re not available for every type of fixture that you might have; how do you dispose of them.

Well the Department of Energy is going to be soon saving Americans 30 billion more dollars over the next five years. It’s because they’re tackling these issues. They’re building new categories for these CFLs, including candelabra bulbs, which I am so grateful and thankful and awaiting the arrival of these. And the bulbs are now required to have less mercury and a more rigorous testing procedure that’s going to help them get that Energy Star label. So rest assured they’re becoming more and more efficient and good for you.

We’ve got more tips and what you want to do is you want to check out the new video podcast that Tom hosted for our friends over at Energy Star and he’s going to take you on a room-by-room tour giving you energy-saving tips everywhere he goes. So make sure you check that out by visiting EnergyStar.gov.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: We’ve got Texas on the line with Gary who’s got cracks on the inside and outside. Tell us about them. Where are you seeing them? Are they new? Are they big?

GARY: Yes, I have cracks outside. We’ve been in the house three years and after we’d been in the house about six months they started on the outside of the house and then eventually they started on the inside of the house. The builder came in and patched the ones on the inside but they just kept getting bigger and bigger on the outside til I have gaps in the brick up to an inch in several places outside.

TOM: Wow.

GARY: And on the inside they have repaired the cracks twice and I have cracks continually coming up. The builder had his engineer here and they’ve done all sorts of foundation testing and everything and last Friday they told me that they can find nothing wrong with the house and just simply contact my 210 (ph) warranty company.

TOM: Listen, you’ve got a serious problem here, Gary, and you need to get some independent expert advice and I don’t mean from the builder’s engineer. If you have cracks that are continuing to reform you have an active problem with your foundation and I would do two things: I would get an independent expert to review this – preferably a structural engineer; and secondly, if you haven’t done it yet, make sure that you are notifying not only the builder but the warranty company of the ongoing structural problems with your home. And actually, there’s one more thing. You may want to also consult an attorney because I’ve got to tell you that those warranty programs are written to protect the builders, not the consumers.

GARY: Right.

TOM: They love to rap that around you like it’s a warm blanket but it’s really a wet blanket and it doesn’t have a lot of protection. So you really need to take some steps to protect your investment here. The fact that this home – they continue to patch this home and it continues to open up to the point where you have gaps of one inch is a very serious structural problem and any engineer that says otherwise is just not being forthright with you.

GARY: OK. Well, the engineer told me that in the initial package that was given to him by the builder, my back patio was not on that package. But now the roof line comes down and goes over the back patio, which is the way the house was originally built, and he said the house was not approved to have that on there.

TOM: Well, I mean these are problems – this is why you hire a builder. They’re supposed to be responsible for making sure the home is built safely in accordance with plans and if it’s not it’s not your fault. So you need to protect yourself here, Gary. Talk to an attorney. Get a good engineer to review that and find out what’s going on and once you have the information then you determine what the next step should be.

GARY: OK, sir.

TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Now we’re going to welcome Juanita from North Carolina with a painting question. What can we do for you today?

JUANITA: I’d like to know, please, what you know about the liquid ceramic paint. I understand that it’s considerably more expensive and it’s something that originated in Canada maybe 20, 20-something years ago. I understand it goes on like really thick as far as so many mils thick compared to regular paint and that it breathes and I just wondered if you had any feedback or any information on that.

TOM: Juanita, I am not that familiar with liquid ceramic as a coating in particular but we did do a little research about it on their website and my sense is that it’s a product that is sold to professional installers or painters and that they sell it to you. Is that what’s happening?

JUANITA: Yes, sir.

TOM: OK. You know, there are a number of products out there that claim to be pretty much better than paint and there’s not much wrong with the painting products that are available today and if they’re put on properly; if the surface is prepped right; if it’s primed; if there’s good workmanship involved, you can get a good-quality paint job today that can last you 10-plus years. So, I’m not so sure that some of these alternatives to traditional paint really make any sense; especially when I read on their website that the cost of this is two to three times what it would cost for a standard paint.

JUANITA: Yeah, I understand that but then, too, it was talking about the thickening agent was titanium dioxide.

TOM: Titanium dioxide is a normal ingredient in paint. There’s nothing special about that. I would stick with a name-brand manufacturer of paint; one that’s tried and true, has got a good history behind it and you know the main brands that are out there. I’m talking about the Sherwin-Williams, the Behrs, the Benjamin Moores, the Dutch Boys. Good-quality paint product like that, properly applied, is going to give you better bang from your buck than anything else.

Juanita, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: More great home improvement advice coming up on The Money Pit, including how the heck do you get rid of all that dated wallpaper. Well, here’s a tip: you don’t have to rip it all down. We’re going to tell you your options, next.

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ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is being brought to you by Guardian Home Standby Generators, America’s choice in power outage protection. Learn more at GuardianGenerators.com. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to the Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Call us now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT or perhaps you’re too shy to call; you can go to MoneyPit.com and click on Ask Tom and Leslie. And speaking of going online, if you’re thinking about going solar to save some energy, you might want to consider a geothermal system. You can learn about all of the alternative energy sources for your home by checking out my latest AOL column. To read it, simply go to MoneyPit.AOL.com.

LESLIE: And while you’re on MoneyPit.com, don’t forget to click on Ask Tom and Leslie and you can e-mail us your home improvement question and this is the time in the show where we jump into that e-mail bag. And I’ve got one here from Chris in Arlington, Texas who writes: “My question is about painting over wallpaper.” I hate that. “Is there a coating primer that can be used over firmly attached wallpaper that will make painting it a good option? If not, what do you recommend for removing the paper and prepping the wall for paint”?

TOM: Well, according to Leslie, painting is never a good option for wallpaper.

LESLIE: I just don’t like the way it looks. You can see the seams. If there’s any sort of texture on that wallpaper, that’s going to show through. You have to understand that it’s a temporary solution and then when you want to remove the wallpaper, now you’ve got two coats or three coats of primer and two coats of paint; you know, the whole thing combined on there; more layers that you have to get through to eventually take it all down to get to a fresh surface.

TOM: That’s right. It’s actually a lot harder to take the wallpaper down when it’s got all that paint on top of it because the steamers don’t work and the chemicals certainly don’t work.

LESLIE: Well, the chemicals would have to get through three coats of paint.

TOM: Which isn’t going to happen. So we would recommend strongly that you try to remove it first, Chris; however, if you’re dead set against removal and you do want to paint it, you should prime it and I would recommend one of the acrylic primers – like KILZ has one or BEHR has one – so that you can seal that paper first and then paint on top of it. So, we don’t recommend it but if you must, make sure you prime first.

LESLIE: But don’t do it. So if you want to remove it (Tom laughs), Tom and I disagree a little bit on it. He hates using certain products. I don’t mind DIF. I think DIF does a good job of sort of helping the wallpaper come off. We both agree that if you score the paper a little bit and don’t get all crazy with one of those like crazy shredder tools, score it a little bit; work in sections with a rented steamer, you’ll be able to sort of pull it away and then work a little bit to get rid of any glue adhesion that’s behind there. Get it smooth, then prime, then paint. You’ll be much happier in the long run; especially if it’s a place you just bought or something.

TOM: Alright, we’ve got an e-mail here from Charles in Brooklyn, New York. He says: “My wood parquet floor in the dining room is 10 years old. One area is bubbling up. I think it’s from a leak had in my radiator. The leak is fixed. How can I save this section of the floor or do I have to replace?” Generally, you cannot save a water-damaged floor once it starts to warp and pop up.

LESLIE: But if it’s parquet it’s generally like in 12-inch tiles, correct?

TOM: It might be, in fact, possible to disassemble the damaged area of the floor and then reglue it down but if it’s physically buckled and twisted up, probably not going to happen and you may have to replace it.

Next e-mail comes from Asbury in Somerset, New Jersey, who says: “How do you get rid of squirrels in the attic?” My favorite tool for that is the Havahart traps.

LESLIE: They work; they’re friendly; they don’t harm the animals and the best of all is once they get in there you can just drive them to a park and set them free.

TOM: And a little trick of the trade is if you use an apple for bait, which is great, wire it to the inside of the cage.

LESLIE: So they don’t run off with it. (chuckling)

TOM: (chuckling) Exactly.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Thank you so much for spending this hour with us. That’s about all the time we have but the show does continue online at MoneyPit.com where you can sign up for the free Money Pit e-newsletter and check out the find-a-project tool. We’ve basically collected all the information we’ve ever written about every home improvement topic and made it easy for you to find just by choosing your project at the find-a-product section of MoneyPit.com.

I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself …

LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

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(Copyright 2008 Squeaky Door Productions, Inc. No portion of this transcript or audio file may be reproduced in any format without the express written permission of Squeaky Door Productions, Inc.)

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