Transcripts

Transcript For July 21, 2008, Hour 2

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 2 TEXT:

(promo/theme song)

[audio timestamp: 1:00]

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. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. We are here to help you get the jobs done around your house and we’re here in Los Angeles, California for a very special reason today. We are attending BookExpo America and we are here to launch our first ever Money Pit Book. It’s called “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.” It hits bookstores this week and we’re so happy to be able to publish that book with our friends at Globe Pequot Press.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and we are super-duper excited about the whole project. You know, we wrote “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure” to help you survive and then thrive through all of your home improvement adventures and Tom and I have combined our decades of experience to deliver to you the ultimate look-before-you-leap guide to home improvement. This book is going to teach you all of those lessons that you would have learned along the home improvement way but right at the beginning; before you even tackle any project.

TOM: And there’s a lot of buzz about the book right here on the trade show floor. They’re flying off of the floor. (Leslie chuckles) I have to say, they’ve given away hundreds of these books to these bookstore owners and retailers. And we’ve also created a bit of buzz in the home improvement category. We want to take a moment to thank some of our fellow home improvement journalists who have joined us in endorsing the book, including Kevin O’Connor from This Old House right on the cover – nice mention from Kevin – and Bob Vila, how-to guru.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Oh, I think I’ve heard of him.

TOM: Bob Vila has been very kind to provide us with a quote for this book; in fact, Bob says, “Comprehensive and informative, Tom and Leslie’s book keeps the reader focused on what’s practical and smart about their own home improvements.” We want to thank Bob. Also Bill Rancic, winner of The Apprentice, had some nice things to say. Alan Heavens from the Philadelphia Inquirer gave us a great statement. Angie Hicks, founder of Angie’s List is actually in the book and gave us a testimonial and our pal Kevin Ireton. I love his quote the best, Leslie, because he says, “Good advice about home improvement isn’t usually this fun to read,” (Leslie chuckles) and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We tried to make this a fun home improvement book because home improvement is an adventure. It’s exciting, it’s exhilarating and it doesn’t always turn out the way you expect it.

LESLIE: Yeah, and we want you all to have a great time with your home improvement adventures as well; that’s why every, single person who calls in to The Money Pit this hour and gets on the air is going to take home a very free advance copy of our book “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.” So pick up the phones, get in there, give us a call with your question, get on the air this hour.

TOM: 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.

Leslie, who’s first?

LESLIE: Alright, we’re going to start this hour in Philadelphia. We’ve got Jim who’s got a question about the exterior of his home. Jim, what can we do for you?

JIM: Hey, love your show. I’ve got to sell my house this summer and I’ve kind of got my back against the wall. I hear a lot of people talking about the outside of the house can really affect the sales price but I don’t have infinite budget; so I need to try to, I guess, maximize and try to get the most bang for my buck. Can you help me?

TOM: Well, in terms of prioritizing those all-important dollars, Jim, I would start with landscaping. Now landscaping is the least expensive way that you can get a great return on your investment. In fact, some of the surveys that we’ve read have said, for example, if you spend about 500 bucks on your lawn you’ll get about a $5,000 return on investment.

JIM: Wow.

TOM: So take a look at the landscaping. Clean up the shrubbery, get rid of the weeds, do as much landscaping …

LESLIE: Get rid of personal objects out there as well.

TOM: Oh, absolutely. The next thing is maintenance. I mean take a look at the exterior skin of your house. You know, people do judge a book by its cover. Just like our book is flying off the trade show floor today, they do judge a book by its cover. So if your outside doesn’t look good people are not going to stop. They’re not going to come in. You’ve got to remember, you’re competing with a lot of other folks that are actually in the neighborhood looking for homes.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and Jim, you have to remember that a lot of people are doing their initial look-see online; so if you’ve got photos of the exterior of your house online and they see something that they’re not exactly jazzed about, they might not even come to see your house.

JIM: Oh, smart.

LESLIE: So you really want to make it very appealing. Pressure-wash the exterior. If you can afford it, slop a fresh coat of paint on there. You know, think about touching up the trimming. Wash the windows. Simple things like that. Even some containers on the stoop, by the front door with some nice, colorful flowers really does the trick to bring people in.

TOM: And Jim, one last thing. If you do want to invest some remodeling dollars, there was a study done by Therma-Tru that showed that if you replace your front entry you can actually get about five times the cost of that improvement in an increased value in your house. So just changing your front door is also a very dramatic thing. We address all that, by the way, in chapter 14 of our book called 40 Fabulous Fix-Ups for Your Façade – and we’re not talking about your face here. (Leslie and Jim chuckle) We’re talking about the face of your house. That’s in “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.” Jim, we’re going to send you a copy so you can get started. Good luck with that house.

JIM: Awesome, thanks.

LESLIE: Alright, well we are broadcasting from the Los Angeles Convention Center from the BookExpo America; kicking off our brand, spanking new book, “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.”

TOM: And the very first chapter of our book is called Designing Spaces and delivers the step-by-step advice you need to redecorate your space.

Up next, painting is probably the most popular decorating technique but getting it where you want is always the trick; like on the walls and not on your clothes. We’re going to have some strategic painting tricks for sharp lines and clean corners when we come back.

[audio timestamp: 0:05:38.5]

(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: 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: And you’re listening to The Money Pit broadcasting from the Los Angeles Convention Center, site of 2008 BookExpo America. We are here promoting our brand new book, “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure,” published by GPP under the brand, spanking new Knack imprint.

LESLIE: And we start off our book with the most inexpensive project that has the biggest impact you can ever tackle in your home and it’s paint. And on page eight there’s a great tip for creating sharp, crisp lines whenever you’re painting stripes or the diamond harlequin patterns or any other pattern you can dream up and create with paint. Whatever you’re doing, you want to make sure you paint your base coat on the wall; whatever that base first color is. Then go ahead and take your tape and create your pattern and do all your swirls, whatever you’re doing with your tape, then go and paint over all of that tape with that first base color. This is because that paint is going to seal that edge of that paint; otherwise, your next color would bleed underneath and you’d end up with these really sloppy lines. So if you take that first color, go over the tape; it’s going to lock in that edge. Then go ahead, once it’s dry, put on your second, third, fourth, all the other colors that you’re filling in to create that pattern. Once it’s dry, pull off that tape at a 45-degree angle and you will see crisp, nice, beautiful lines.

TOM: More quick tips just like that in chapter one of “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.” That chapter is called Designing Confidence.

Now while we’re here at BookExpo America we’re also taking the opportunity to learn about some other great books that are coming out, from the authors themselves; one of which is a really fun collection of stories by humorist Hollis Gillespie called “Trailer Trash: My Dubious Efforts Towards Upward Mobility” and Hollis joins us right now. Hi, Hollis.

HOLLIS: Hi there. Thanks for having me.

TOM: Now when your name includes the title “humorist” is the pressure always on to be funny?

HOLLIS: I don’t feel any pressure at all. It just kind of comes out of me naturally, so … (Tom and Leslie chuckle)

TOM: Well, that’s great. Now I understand that in your book you talk a lot about buying your most recent home and the neighborhood wasn’t everything that you perhaps expected on the – when you were doing your sort of tour with the real estate agent.

HOLLIS: Well I picked the neighborhood according to what my income could afford me and I didn’t have a lot of income at the time; I was just a flight attendant. I was living on a …

LESLIE: With pent-up aggression. (Tom laughs)

HOLLIS: Exactly. And so I couldn’t afford a nice neighborhood and I did and I ended up buying – but it was so important to me to own a home of my own because I grew up moving around so much. My dad was a traveling trailer salesman and we never did own a home of our own. And so it was really important for me to buy one of my own and my income level really didn’t deter me, so I bought a house for $60,000 in Southwest Atlanta and I just remember that the day before we closed on the – you know, the day before closing I read in the paper that the police had found a severed human head in a plastic sack (Leslie chuckles) …

TOM: Oh, nice!

HOLLIS: … on my street. (Tom laughs) You know. And then they found six other bags full of body parts that were strewn about the neighborhood but the body parts didn’t match the head parts.

LESLIE: Excellent.

TOM: Now when you did your home inspection – right? – at the walk-through before you actually went to closing, did you have the inspector check for additional missing body parts that could have been like in the crawlspace or …

HOLLIS: Well, we had the walk-through before I found out that they had found the body parts. But …

TOM: Oh, OK. So you knew the house was clean, at least. (Tom laughs)

HOLLIS: Yeah, but we didn’t check the carriage house. There’s a little carriage house garage in the back and I remember thinking, “They never did the head to match the body parts and the body parts to match the head part.”

LESLIE: You’re like, “Hmm.”

HOLLIS: So I was like I just never – after that I didn’t venture too far into that carriage house garage in the back because I was …

LESLIE: And you know, Hollis, so many times people dumpster dive for items to put in their home. It’s like in that neighborhood don’t even bother (Tom chuckles) because if you see a bag you never know what you’re taking home with you.

HOLLIS: It’s really true. You don’t know what’s going to – yeah, it was a bad, very bad, neighborhood and I just sort of barreled into it. I just thought, “Oh, I don’t care. I’ll fix it up,” and the funny thing is that I wasn’t a mother then but then I did have a child when I was living in that neighborhood and then, of course, my sanity returned to me once I had a child and I realized I’m living in this, you know, bullet – I’m trying to figure out bullet trajectories from the street to see where I would put the crib and I’m …

TOM: Are you putting like cake pans on the windows and stuff? (laughs)

HOLLIS: Exactly. I was trying to bulletproof the baby’s room by putting cake pans on the windows and …

LESLIE: Picking neutral colors for the house.

TOM: That’s right. (chuckles)

LESLIE: Everything is beige.

HOLLIS: Well, I ended up moving. I still own that house and I ended up moving; keeping it as rental property …

TOM: Right.

HOLLIS: … and moving and now I have – I own three homes and I have rental properties and income properties. Because that sort of started the …

TOM: So you’ve learned a lot, doing home improvements over the years. Any interesting home improvement stories about something that went wrong?

HOLLIS: Well, I’ll tell you. My renters, when they moved – I had some renters in an income property and that was the closest I ever came to just sort of giving up; just sort of sitting down and …

TOM: Right.

HOLLIS: … crying and not taking another …

LESLIE: Even more so than being a flight attendant?

HOLLIS: Oh …

TOM: Renters can have that affect on you. (chuckles)

HOLLIS: They moved out. The place – it looked like – it was so awful. The carpet looked like they had been rolling up corpses in it, you know (Tom chuckles), and in the kitchen the counter looked like they had been performing alien autopsies on it. (Tom chuckles) I don’t know how it was even possible. It was HAZMAT-suit filthy and disgusting and I just went in there and I just rolled up my sleeves and pounded it until it was rentable again. And that’s one of the biggest accomplishments; it’s one of the things that I’m the most proud of myself. I tore out cabinets and toilet stuff – toilets.

TOM: Well, and it feels good. You feel empowered when you get done with that, right?

HOLLIS: Ripping out a toilet; you know, with that awful …

LESLIE: As long as the water is turned off.

HOLLIS: Right, and that awful wax ring, you know? I don’t know if you guys – this house was 30 years – I mean was 70 years old; so it had this horrible wax ring that had probably been through generations and …

LESLIE: Ugh.

HOLLIS: … you know cleaning up that wax ring under the toilet. Oh my – it was – I have a new …

TOM: That’s one of the grosser jobs …

HOLLIS: … definition of my strength as a person because of that incident.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and you know it’s wax but it truly does look like boogers.

HOLLIS: Oh, it totally – (Tom and Hollis laugh).

LESLIE: I went there. That’s right.

HOLLIS: It looks like …

TOM: Listen, I started my kids off on home improvements early and I had my daughter actually help me change the toilet in my parents’ house and she did the whole job; except when it got to the wax ring, “No, can’t do it.” Pretty disgusting.

HOLLIS: (overlapping voices) No, it’s so disgusting looking. Yeah, but when you know how to – yeah.

TOM: (overlapping voices) But she was very proud of it. She’s the only 11-year-old that knows how to replace a toilet. (Leslie chuckles)

HOLLIS: Is that right?

TOM: Yeah.

HOLLIS: Whoa.

TOM: She did a great job.

HOLLIS: She was miles ahead of me at 11.

TOM: Hollis, your book is called “Trailer Trash: My Dubious Efforts Towards Upward Mobility.” You’re a delight. Good luck with the book.

HOLLIS: Thank you.

TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show coming to you from BookExpo America.

The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Let’s get to those calls.

LESLIE: Alright, we’ve got Blake in Connecticut. Blake, what happened? You were in the middle of some sort of concrete step project and then it rained?

BLAKE: Yep, exactly. I was doing a home project – by the way, I’m a home inspector in Westchester and Connecticut, so I appreciate this show.

LESLIE: Thank you.

TOM: Oh, great.

BLAKE: At any rate, we were doing a bluestone project where one of the steps got loose and the brick risers had gotten loose from the snow and ice from the year before and we put down a nice, high-grade coat of concrete; reset the bricks; put the bluestone back down; jointed it up and then it immediately started to rain. We covered it with a tarp but it rained all night. Came out the next morning; a lot of concrete had leached out onto the bluestone surface and the platform beneath it.

TOM: Oh, no.

BLAKE: And I know the bricks I can try to wire brush and it’ll come off a little bit. I’ve tried power washing but if you do it too hard on the bluestone it starts to flake.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

BLAKE: So I wanted to know if there is something that I can apply that will loosen up that concrete and bring it back to its former self before my wife stones …

TOM: Kills you? (Tom and Leslie laugh) You know, about the only thing you could try is muriatic acid. Have you gone that route yet?

BLAKE: I have not and I was considering it but I wanted – that’s why I put the phone call in; because I wanted to know if it’s something that I can safely do.

TOM: You can do it – well, you have to be very careful and let’s talk about what that means. It means you have to have chemical-proof gloves. You have to have not only goggles but a full face shield and, of course, have all your skin covered. And then, even doing that, I want you to do this very carefully; working one small area at a time because we don’t know what effect the color could have on this. So you have to go, really, about this very, very, almost experimentally to make sure it’s going to work. You know, when you spill concrete there are just so few things that you can do that don’t involve like grinding it off.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

BLAKE: I see.

LESLIE: And the muriatic acid, you almost always find it, for some reason, in the garden section of the home center. That’s where I always find it locally. And it does do the trick. It’s just you do need to be very cautious with how you apply it.

BLAKE: You pour it on and then wipe it off or do you wash it off with (inaudible at 0:14:17.5)?

TOM: You know what you could do is you could put it into a spray bottle and very, very carefully spray a little bit; work it with the wire brush; see what happens, kind of watch it do its work and then kind of move on from there.

BLAKE: Got you. Well, it’s worth a try. I’ll try it in a small, unobtrusive spot.

TOM: Now Blake, I’ve got to ask you; you said you’re a home inspector. How is the market now in Connecticut?

BLAKE: Well you know, I work Northern Westchester primarily but I live in Connecticut and I do about 10 percent of my business in Connecticut. I am one of the Bellwethers. I’ve been in this business as long as you were. I’ve done about 7,000 homes and when I get dead the business is gone.

TOM: Yeah.

BLAKE: So when I start to get busy that means that it’s turned around and I’m seeing it turn around. I’m actually busy now.

LESLIE: That’s great.

TOM: Well that’s great. So you’re seeing an upswing.

BLAKE: I am seeing an upswing and I’m seeing multiple bids on a house; so that’s good.

TOM: Well, that’s always a good sign. Now, in Connecticut what is the most common defect that you’re seeing in homes these days?

BLAKE: Well, I think it’s all water-related. It’s deferred maintenance on the exterior gutters that damage the soffits; soil and siding contact; not keeping the joints caulked up, let the paint get a little bit deteriorated and we see all sorts of water-related damage. That’s the primary thing I see.

TOM: And that’s exactly the same things that we see in so many other places of the country. Blake, thanks so much for stopping by The Money Pit and giving us some tips on what’s happening in Connecticut and we hope we helped you out with that project.

Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: Alright, we’ve got Linda in West Virginia who’s dealing with a stopped-up drain. What can we do for you today?

LINDA: Hey, guys. I’ve got a slow drain. Now I know there’s a formula out there and it uses vinegar and I think soda and I was wondering if you guys knew what the formula was to speed up a slow drain.

LESLIE: It’s a half a cup of each: a half a cup of white vinegar; a half a cup of baking soda. First you pour the baking soda down the drain, then you pour the white vinegar over it and you let it bubble up and do this crazy, fun, spritzing thing. Let that sit there for 10 minutes, 15 minutes; then you want the boilingest water that you can safely carry to this bathtub. Dump it down the drain; let that go through – maybe you’ll have to do one or two kettles worth – and that should do the trick. If you continue with this – do it once a week at first just to get things moving and then follow up occasionally with just hot water – it should clean things up naturally.

LINDA: OK, great. And that’s white vinegar; not the dark.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm. No, white; not salad dressing. (chuckling)

TOM: Otherwise it’ll smell really funny.

LINDA: Very good. OK, guys. Thank you so much.

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

LESLIE: Alright, we’ve got John in Florida. John, welcome to The Money Pit.

JOHN: Good day.

LESLIE: Hey, what can we do for you?

JOHN: I have a question that probably hasn’t been asked for a little while, in regards to polypropylene piping; the gray PVC piping that had the recall, oh, 15, 20 years ago.

TOM: Yep, I’ve got 20 seconds. What’s your question?

JOHN: I’m trying to find out whether it’s still active or inactive. I’ve got some problems in a house that I bought, oh, about a year ago that I’m having problems with the joints on the polyvinylchloride.

TOM: There is still active litigation going on about that. I believe the website is PVClaims.com and if you have it in your house – it’s one of the recalled ones – you definitely have some plumbing repairs in your future.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show broadcasting from the LA Convention Center here at BookExpo America to kick off our brand new book, “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.” We’ll be back with more, after this.

[audio timestamp: 0:17:44.3]

(theme song)

ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is brought to you by Citrus Magic; the all-natural, super-strong air freshener available in spray and solid form. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.

TOM: Making good homes better, 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 right now with your do-it-yourself dilemma. Before you pick up a paint brush pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. If you do, two things will happen. First of all, we’re going to give you the answer to your home improvement question and second, we may just give you a copy of our brand, spanking new book; it’s called “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure” and we’re here in Los Angeles, California at BookExpo America launching it.

LESLIE: That’s right and what we’ve done with “My Home, My Money Pit” is we’ve filled I think – what? – 250-something pages with great advice.

TOM: (overlapping voices) I know. I can’t believe we had that many pages in us. (laughs)

LESLIE: I could not believe it. Every time I was like, “I can’t believe we filled it out this much.” But it really is great. It’s filled with a lot of great advice and the fun and the humor that you’ve come to expect from us; all while getting good information to get you through your home improvement adventures. And you know, it really is going to be this homeowner’s manual that you wish that your house came with. It’s great.

TOM: Well, we’re taking your calls this hour at 888-MONEY-PIT and if we answer your question you’re going to get a copy of our brand new book “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure,” so pick up the phone; give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: That’s right and our book is published by Knack, which is a brand new imprint of Globe Pequot Press and another great new book coming out from the Globe Pequot Press is simply called “The Knack of Organization” and here to tell us all about it is author Emily Wilska.

Emily, welcome to The Money Pit.

TOM: Hey, so why has the idea of home organization gotten so popular? Is it that we can’t move and so we just keep overfilling our houses with all of our stuff?

EMILY: (chuckling) That could be part of it but you know what? I think it’s really that life seems to get more and more complex by the year …

TOM: Mm-hmm.

EMILY: … and that means we accumulate more stuff; we have more things to do; we just get busier and busier and the flip side of that is that it becomes more and more critical that we kind of take back control.

LESLIE: And is it true that you really need to have a philosophy or a thought process on organization to, you know, install it into your home or can you just willy-nilly start stacking things together?

EMILY: I really go for having a kind of master plan and (AUDIO GAP) doing a little bit of thinking about it beforehand. Because it can make things worse when, you know, you just go out to the store and buy a bunch of organizational products and bring them in.

LESLIE: And then try to fill them? (Tom chuckles)

EMILY: Mm-hmm. (chuckles) Sometimes that manages to make things even more disorganized, believe it or not.

TOM: We’re talking to Emily Wilska. She’s the author of “The Knack of Organization.”

So alright, Emily, I’m sitting home; I'm listening to this show; I’m looking around; I don’t like what I see because as far as the eye can see in my house I’ve got stuff and stuff and stuff. How do you get started? How do you take that first step? How do you do like sort of the first cut when you’re trying to get organized?

EMILY: Well, you know what I say is start by thinking about what really deserves to live in your home with you and, you know, that may mean chucking out kids and spouses too (Leslie chuckles) but I’m talking about stuff here. So …

TOM: Yeah, because what if you’re – if you’re like the organized one and your spouse is the packrat …

EMILY: (chuckles) Well, then you kind of try to meet in the middle.

LESLIE: Then there’s a discussion and then organizational tools. (Tom chuckles)

EMILY: Exactly, exactly. But really, with anything, kind of asking yourself “Does this thing belong in my home? Does it deserve a space in my life or not?” And if not, then it goes. It goes. And so taking a first path and really getting rid of anything that doesn’t bring value or pleasure to your life as you’re living it now; that’s always my step one.

LESLIE: And you know, Emily, I have to say I’m partly responsible for this. You know, with the home makeover shows that I work on, everything looks so beautiful at the end with the big reveal …

EMILY: Mm-hmm.

LESLIE: … I think it sort of falsely inspires a lot of the viewers to make their homes, you know, pristine. What can we sort of take away from these shows that, you know, and then install into our lives?

EMILY: Right.

TOM: Yeah, because if you ever look behind the camera you’d see the floor-to-ceiling pile that was shifted for the clean and pretty shots. (Emily chuckles)

LESLIE: (chuckling) That’s in the bathroom. (Tom chuckles)

EMILY: And you’d also see the crew of 12 who are there working to make things look so spectacular. But I think the really important thing to remember is that while it’s great to have a home that looks really beautiful – whether that’s what you see on TV or what you see in the pages of a magazine – being organized doesn’t mean that you need to have a totally beautiful, utterly pristine space. It just means that you’re surrounded by things that are useful and meaningful to you and that everything’s got a place to go. So …

TOM: Now is there an opportunity here for a professional organizer, if you really can’t get started yourself? Are there good people out there that can actually help you make that first pass?

EMILY: Absolutely, absolutely. The National Association of Professional Organizers, or NAPO, has about 4,500 members throughout the U.S. and Canada and a couple other countries in the world as well and you know, what we do is go in and work with folks on bringing order and organization to their lives.

TOM: Fantastic. Emily Wilska, author of “The Knack of Organization,” thanks so much for stopping by The Money Pit and good luck with your book.

EMILY: Thanks, Tom and Leslie.

LESLIE: Thank you.

TOM: You are listening to the Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show broadcasting from the 2008 BookExpo America. It’s a bookseller trade show and we’re here to kick off our brand new book, “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.” You’re going to see that on store shelves beginning next week.

LESLIE: That’s right, and in chapter five of “My Home, My Money Pit” we tackle two of the hardest-working rooms in your home: laundry rooms and mud rooms. And these are two rooms that are just no longer utilitarian spaces but these are the places that you’re using as hobby rooms, offices, even homework zones. We’re going to deliver the dirt on how to make over those places, next.

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(theme song)

ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is brought to you by Rheem water heaters. For dependable, energy-efficient tank and tankless water heaters, you can trust Rheem. Learn more at SmarterHotWater.com. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.

TOM: Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: And we’re coming to you from the Los Angeles Convention Center today at BookExpo America where we’re helping launch our brand new book, “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.” And it’s full of the great info you’re used to getting from us on the radio but we’ve somehow found a way to print it. Unbelievable.

LESLIE: (chuckling) We wrote everything down.

TOM: That’s right. You know, one of the fun things we did with this book is to include a sidebar called Songs to Work By in every chapter. So we’re going to give you a playlist. For example, if you were to turn to a project in chapter five we might recommend listening to Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” or “Waiting on the World to Change” by John Mayer or just about anything from Muddy Waters.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and those, of course, go great with our chapter five which is all about laundry rooms and mud rooms. And speaking of those two very busy rooms in every home, we’ve got some tips for planning a super-productive and useful space because I know my laundry room isn’t just for laundry anymore. So many of you are using those spaces for tons of other ideas, so when you’re planning yours make sure you think of other tasks that you might be doing in there; like a hobby or a craft, gift wrapping, if your kids are doing homework while you’re doing a chore. You know, think creatively about how you can best use that space so everybody can have a good area to do whatever it is that they’re working on within there. You know, you can add a paper roller for art or wrapping. You can put chalkboard paint for any creative expression or just even a list of chores. Add more counter space to give you a workspace or your kids an area for homework. And even give yourself some extra lighting just to make sure that anybody who’s in that space can actually see what they’re doing properly.

TOM: 888-666-3974. Call us right now with your home improvement question and you might just go home with – well, you’re kind of already home but we’ll send to your home a copy (Leslie chuckles) of “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.”

Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: Alright, we’ve got Bob in Texas standing by who needs some help with an electric water heater. What can we do for you, Bob?

BOB: Well, I have an idea that makes sense to me but sometimes I’m the only one that it makes sense to.

TOM and LESLIE: (chuckling) OK.

BOB: When we use our dishwasher, by the time the dishwasher fills the hot water is just getting to the dishwasher and, you know, everything goes on and we’re washing dishes in cool or cold water. And what I want to do is put a tankless water heater just prior to or adjacent to the dishwasher and then by the time the hot water gets there it will overcome the tankless one and we’ll be washing dishes in hot water.

TOM: Couple of things. First of all, dishwashers today very often have their own electric water heater built into them to boost the water temperature. So the idea that you need to serve up hotter water to that is not exactly solid. If you have an older dishwasher it might not be the case but most dishwashers today will up the temperature of the water and don’t rely on simply the temperature of the water coming off the water heater.

BOB: OK.

TOM: Conceptually you’re onto something because tankless water heaters, though, are so small that you can, in fact, zone your house in the sense that you could have multiple …

LESLIE: More than one.

TOM: Yeah, multiple tankless water heaters. And the problem that’s most annoying that this solves is not so much the water at the dishwasher but the water that you have to waste out of your shower, for example, in the morning because maybe your bathroom is so far away from your water heater that it just takes too long to get there.

Now, the only thing bad going for you here, Bob, is that there’s no such thing as a good electric tankless water heater. If it’s a gas water heater, fine; but in terms of electric, the technology is just not there. Those units are very, very expensive to run. So if you had a gas …

LESLIE: And very energy inefficient.

TOM: Very energy inefficient.

BOB: Oh.

TOM: So if you’re concerned, if your dishes are not getting clean, the smartest thing, frankly, that you could do is replace your dishwasher with a more modern one.

LESLIE: Energy Star-rated appliance.

TOM: Yeah, absolutely.

BOB: Alright, I see. I hadn’t thought about the electric side of it and we do not have gas available.

TOM: Yeah, unfortunately, gas water heaters – gas tankless, fantastic; electric, not so much.

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

LESLIE: Alright, we’ve got Abby in Ohio who’s dealing with a squeaky floor. Tell us about the problem.

ABBY: I have a second duplex, two-story, and wood floors upstairs that squeak and I don’t know how to get rid of those squeaks.

TOM: What kind of flooring is squeaking? Is it plywood or is it hardwood?

ABBY: Hardwood.

TOM: OK. Well, if it’s hardwood it’s a little more difficult because obviously you have to do something that’s not going to look offensive, but here’s what you do. Frankly, wood floors are squeaking because they’re moving; so you need to make them tighter. The way you do this is you find the loosest, noisiest areas first; then you find the floor joist directly under that and …

LESLIE: And do that with a stud finder.

TOM: Yes, with a good-quality stud finder you’ll be able to identify that. Then there are two ways that you can fix these loose boards. Probably the easiest thing to do is to get some #10 or #12 galvanized finish nails and you want to pilot out a hole that’s a little bit smaller than the nail with a drill and then drive that nail, at a slight angle, downward into the wood. Counter sink it below the surface and then fill the head and that actually will smooth out the floor problem because it’ll tighten up those boards and quiet them.

ABBY: Oh.

TOM: Then the second way to do it is to actually drill a hole, counterbore the hole and then plug it but that’s a lot more woodworking involved and you end up having a …

LESLIE: And you’ll see that wood plug.

TOM: Yeah, you would. You’d have to refinish the plug.

ABBY: Oh, OK. Right.

TOM: Do you follow us?

ABBY: Yeah, I do.

TOM: Yeah. But the good thing to know about this though, Abby, is that it’s not a structural problem.

ABBY: OK.

TOM: Floors are always expanding and contracting.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) It’s just an annoyance. (Abby chuckles)

TOM: Right, and for those of you that have plywood, it’s easier. With the plywood you can peel back the carpet and use case hardened drywall screws and tighten that plywood up by screwing it all down to the floor. The nails are what makes the noise in the plywood.

LESLIE: And you know what, Abby? We’re going to give you a copy of our “My Home, My Money Pit” book and on page 15 there’s a diagram right there that shows you exactly how to do that toenail (ph) trick Tom was talking about.

ABBY: Oh, great. Great, thank you.

TOM: Up next, the kitchen is the one room that delivers the best return on your home improvement investment. We’re going to teach you how to remodel that room, next.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: The Money Pit is brought to you by Behr Premium Plus Ultra Exterior paint and primer in one with advanced NanoGuard technology to help you save time and money while preserving your home’s exterior finish. For more information, visit Behr.com. That’s B-e-h-r.com. Behr products are 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 and we want you to be able to listen to The Money Pit whenever you want and wherever you want to and you can do this by simply downloading our very free podcast at MoneyPit.com and you can also take our advice and go with our brand, spanking new book, “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure” and you can carry this bible with you wherever you go and look up anything and everything before you leap into that home improvement adventure.

TOM: Available at bookstores everywhere beginning next week and we’re promoting the book here today at the Los Angeles Convention Center at BookExpo America where we’re pleased to report that they are flying off of the trade show floor.

Now you can fly on over to our website at MoneyPit.com, if you have a home improvement question, and e-mail us by clicking on Ask Tom and Leslie. We’ve got one here from Robert in Georgia.

LESLIE: He writes: “We moved into a small, 19-year-old fixer-upper. We’re doing most of the work ourselves with family help. The kitchen has a subway-tile backsplash which is in good shape, but the counter needs work. We want to clean, restore, regrout and then seal. Any advice we would absolutely appreciate.”

TOM: Well, there’s certainly a lot of things that you can do with a counter. In terms of regrouting and restoring, you know, if it’s that bad you might want to think about carving that grout out – don’t you think, Leslie? – any maybe regrouting.

LESLIE: Well, and that’s not a terrible thing. A grout saw easily does the trick. Remove all of that grout as best you can. I would try to clean the tiles first just so that you’re not getting things into the substructure; whatever might be underneath that.

TOM: Yeah, you don’t want to grind in more grit; more dirt.

LESLIE: Yeah, so clean the tile as best you can; get rid of that grout. Then once everything is sort of dried out and cleaned out then you can regrout. Make sure you sort of float that grout on at a 45-degree angle and get it into all of those nooks and crannies and if you’re concerned about the color of the grout and constantly having to clean, seal immediately once it’s dry if you’re going with a white or even think about tinting the grout or choosing something in a different color just to give it a little bit more definition; maybe to give it a new look if that’s something that you’re into and then you also don’t have to be so concerned about dirt and grime.

TOM: Alright, the next one is from Christie in Grass Valley, California. Christie says: “I recently moved into a brand new home. Whenever I turn off my faucets I hear a clunk in the pipes. (Leslie chuckles) I’m going to ask my contractor about this but want to be prepared in case I get the usual, ‘Don’t worry, lady. That’s totally normal’ response.” (Leslie chuckles) Is it totally normal? Well, no; not if the pipes are installed properly. I will tell you this. What’s going on here is called water hammer. Christie, water is very heavy; it weighs about eight pounds per gallon. So as it runs through your pipes it builds up some centrifugal force and when you turn the valve off what ends up happening? The water keeps going and sort of hits a wall and it shakes the pipes. Now, why is that normal? Well, because if your pipes were properly installed then that would not happen.

LESLIE: If they were clamped to the wall securely.

TOM: If they were tightened up and clamped to the wall securely that would not happen. Correct. So two things: first of all, have your contractor come back and secure all of those pipes so they don’t rattle; and secondly, he can install what’s called a water hammer arrestor, which is sort of a shock absorber for your plumbing system, and that’ll do the trick.

LESLIE: Alright, E from Bayside writes: “I have 1950s asbestos cement house siding and some of the pieces need to be replaced. Can I get replacement pieces? If so, what company makes them?”

TOM: Actually, several companies. I see them in the home centers all the time and remember, if you have asbestos siding, it’s – you know it’s not necessarily a terribly bad thing because it’s cement asbestos. It’s held inside of a …

LESLIE: If it becomes crumbly, then it’s an issue.

TOM: But it wouldn’t because it’s inside of a cement binder. So you can use the replacement tiles and really live with that. Yes, you’ve got to paint it but remember, it’s never, ever going to rot.

Well, that’s about all the time we have for this hour of The Money Pit. Thank you so much for spending it with us. We’re broadcasting here from BookExpo America to launch our new book, “My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.” I want to send out a special thank you to the publisher, Globe Pequot Press, for hosting us here at this beautiful booth here in LA.

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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