Transcripts

Transcript For June 9, 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)

Hi, this is Tom Kraeutler and thanks for listening to the show. Hey, I wanted to take a moment to tell you about a cool contest we’re running right now with our friends at Therma-Tru. It’s called the Ugliest Door in America contest and two of our listeners could win a brand new, completely installed entry door worth up to $5,000. Entering is super easy, too, at MyUglyDoor.com. So if your front door, back door or patio door is looking a little worse for wear, log onto MyUglyDoor.com and you can enter to win a beautiful new entry door from Therma-Tru. That’s MyUglyDoor.com.

[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 now with your home improvement question. Call us now with your do-it-yourself dilemma. We know that you’ve got some projects lined up for this weekend. We’re here to help you get the jobs done.

Hey, here’s something that you might want to avoid when you’re tackling those outside home improvement projects: the whine; the bite; the ouch; the itch. The mosquitoes.

LESLIE: What is that? Working with me? (chuckles)

TOM: (laughing) See when I said “whine” you just assumed …

LESLIE: I thought immediately it was me. (chuckles)

TOM: You assumed it was you. No, I’m talking about mosquitoes. You know, they’re back and they’re definitely trying to take a bite out of your backyard fun, but we can help you make that backyard a no-bite zone because this hour we’re going to have some tips to help you do just that.

LESLIE: Yeah, and along those lines, if you learn how to properly water your yard you can actually help to keep those mosquitoes away. Coming up a little later this hour we’re going to tell you how to water so that you actually grow grass, not a bigger water bill and a larger amount of mosquitoes to annoy and bite you all summer long.

TOM: That’s right and the only thing that grows when you water your sidewalk is the size of your water bill.

LESLIE: True.

TOM: And we’re going to have some tips on even more ways to enjoy those backyard spaces by learning the basics of outdoor kitchen design. Now these outside kitchens are getting super popular but you just can’t take the stuff that’s designed for an indoor kitchen and hook it up outside – well, you could but it probably wouldn’t last that long. So we’re going to have a great guest coming up at the bottom of the hour. Kevin Ireton, the editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine is going to join us with nine essential tips for building your own outdoor kitchen.

LESLIE: And we’ve got a great prize for you all this hour. It certainly is an all-encompassing home improvement prize. It’s the 12-volt lithium ion-powered drill driver from our friends over at Ryobi. You can do pretty much every home improvement project with this. It’s worth 79 bucks but it could be yours for free.

TOM: So pick up the phone. Let’s get to it. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.

Leslie, who’s first?

LESLIE: Wanda in Texas needs some help redoing some cabinets. What kind of project are you working on?

WANDA: I’m considering redoing my cabinets in the kitchen and in the bathroom and I heard of this project while listening to one of the do-it-yourself shows. It’s called liquid sandpaper and I was just wondering if you’ve ever heard of the product and if so, do you recommend it.

LESLIE: Well what type of cabinets are they – are they solid wood, are they laminate? – and what are you trying to do to them? Do you want to restain them or do you want to paint them?

WANDA: I want to paint them and they’re solid wood.

LESLIE: Hmm.

TOM: Well, you use liquid sandpaper a lot. We’ve talked about that before.

LESLIE: Yeah. I’m just trying to think, you know, if they’re solid wood and you want to paint them, pretty much what you need to do is really give them a good cleaning because you want to make sure you get off any grit and dirt and yuck that’s been on them over the years of usage, especially in a kitchen environment.

WANDA: Yeah, I know there’s a cleaner for that; the TPS or TSP – is that what it’s called?

LESLIE: TSP. That’s perfect. Then the liquid sander, what that is you put it on with a sponge applicator or you can brush it on and it just sort of grits up the surface just enough; you know, rather than sanding it down to get to raw wood. But it does sort of open up the finish on the wood itself so that it’s a lot more tolerant to whatever you’re going to put on it; in this case it would be a primer. And you want to make sure you use a very good primer and then you want to go ahead and use a high-quality paint as well.

WANDA: I see. And you take out the doors and do you need to do the inside of the doors?

TOM: Not necessarily. It’s up to you but, you know, it may look nicer that way because when the door is open it’ll all be the same color.

WANDA: Exactly.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, or what you can do – first of all, when you take off the doors you want to either leave the hinges on the doors themselves or on the cabinet base and then label every cabinet to every door exactly where it came from; like A-A, B-B. This way you know exactly where things go and you’re not trying to be like, “Oh, which hinge matches up to what?” and you know exactly how things go. Now for the backside you can either take some fabric on some cardstock, just so it’s nice and thick or even some pretty wallpaper and you have like a nice surface to adhere to and then use upholstery tacks just to – so when you open the door you’ve got something pretty on the inside. Or you can use …

WANDA: Oh, that’s a great idea.

LESLIE: … rolled up cork so you have someplace to put little notes or even chalkboard paint.

WANDA: That’s a wonderful idea. Thank you for that.

TOM: You’re welcome, Wanda.

LESLIE: You’re so welcome.

WANDA: OK, I appreciate that.

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

LESLIE: Jim in New York, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?

JIM: Well a fella did some cement work in my front yard …

TOM: OK.

JIM: … and he put down mortar. He was filling in some cracks, you know, and the mortar is so bright compared to the cement and I don’t want to put paint on it but I would like to, you know, just tone it down where it – you know, as it is it’s glaring at you, you know?

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

TOM: Yeah, it’s hard to be strategic on this and just recolor the areas that were patched. What might be a better solution might be a concrete dye.

LESLIE: There’s a great website you should check out. It’s called ConcreteSolutions.com; all one word – ConcreteSolutions. And they have all of the dyes, the tools, the products, the instructions on how to do it and everything is very reasonably priced. I mean you can do simple things and you can go ultra creative and make some really beautiful, almost artistic installations with the concrete. It’s totally up to you. Since it’s sidewalk you probably just want to make things uniform, but they have great products there.

JIM: You know, I love you guys. (Tom laughs) Thank you very much and I’ll be listening.

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

LESLIE: You are tuned to the Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Hey, pick up the phone and give us a call with your home repair or your home improvement question 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

Up next, mosquitoes; they can take a real bite out of your backyard fun but you know, there are a few simple things that you can do to totally reclaim your yard and your summer season. We’re going to give you the buzz on those tips after this.

[audio timestamp: [0:06:57.4]

(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: Well, if the last building inspector that showed up in your house ran out the door screaming, that’s probably not a good thing. Maybe you should call us because this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. We’re going to give you a tool to help tackle some of those home improvement projects around your house because one caller this hour is going to win the 12-volt lithium ion drill driver from Ryobi. It holds a charge four times longer and you always have power when you need it. It’s lighter, it’s more compact so it’s totally easy to handle. It’s worth 79 bucks. If you want to win it you must call us right now and have a home improvement question and be willing to come on the air. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Yeah, pick up the phone; give us a call; tell us what you’re working on. Maybe you’re getting ready to get outside and enjoy all of this beautiful, almost-summer weather that we’ve been experiencing across the country. And if you’re doing so and getting outside, you might be noticing some pesky little pests ruining pretty much any outdoor activity, especially if you’re me. I get bit by mosquitoes like crazy. I swear they just love me. I don’t know about you, Tom, but I’m always walking around with welts because, of course, what do I do soon as I get a bite?

TOM: Well, Leslie is one of their favorite flavors, I hear.

LESLIE: I hear. Yeah, thanks. (Tom chuckles) But anytime I get a bite I immediately start scratching so you really want to prevent the mosquitoes forming and coming to life in your yard before you get to the scratching phase. And it’s true, mosquitoes only need a few days and freestanding water – that can be in a bucket, a kiddy pool, a toy turned upside down – to go ahead and then lay their eggs and then they wreak havoc on your backyard. So to prevent this, eliminate any areas of standing water that you’re going to find around the yard including clogged gutters, flower pots, birdbaths, kid play toys. Even the amount of water that collects in a plastic bottle cap – you know how tiny that is? – can be a breeding ground for hundreds of mosquitoes. So get rid of that water and then you’ll see immediately what a difference you will have in mosquito population in your own backyard.

TOM: And you know, there’s another backyard pest that’s not a nuisance but it can be pretty dangerous. In the next edition of The Money Pit’s free e-newsletter we’re going to talk to you about why you might be concerned about fire ants and we’re going to give you some tips to help get rid of them. If you don’t get the e-newsletter go to MoneyPit.com right now and sign up today. It’s free; comes out every Friday morning. No spam. We guarantee it and I think you’ll find lots of useful information there. Again, that’s the Money Pit’s free e-newsletter at MoneyPit.com.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show where you can also call in your question right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: Randy in Texas needs some help with a brick project. What happened?

RANDY: Well, I have recently downsized houses and I’ve got this place that was built, I guess, in the late 70s and it’s got a neat fireplace in it that goes through – it’s double-sided. It goes from the living room area into the dining room area and I guess whoever had the place before me decided they didn’t like the brick look and painted it all white.

LESLIE: Yay! Terrible. (Tom chuckles)

RANDY: Yeah, it’s nice and ugly now and I’m trying to decide whether I want to just take it down to the brick or put on some slate tile or something like that that would make it look better and I just know that I need to get that paint off before I can do anything to it. So I’m trying to find the best way to get that paint off of there.

LESLIE: How much time and energy you got? (Tom and Leslie laugh)

RANDY: I got all kinds of time and energy-wise; well, it depends on what day you catch me. (Tom chuckles)

LESLIE: I tell you there is not a thing out there except professional sandblasting that’s going to get that paint off.

RANDY: Alright. That’s what I was afraid of.

TOM: Yeah, you might just want to think of a new decorating scheme. (laughs)

LESLIE: Can’t you adhere a slate or some sort of stone facing on top of the paint?

TOM: Sure, what about one of those Owens Corning products? That would look good.

LESLIE: You know, that’s true. Owens Corning came out with a new interior product. They had one outside called cultured stone veneer but there’s an interior version of it that’s far lighter weight and it’s made – I mean it’s not real stone. It’s like compressed concrete to make it look like real stone and the color is all through it and it comes sort of in a swatch of different colors to make up this beautiful tonation and they do river rock and flagstone and it installs super easy and that’s a great application for a fireplace.

TOM: And the thing is, Randy, if you did go through all of that work to remove the paint you might find out that there was a reason that they painted it to begin with.

RANDY: Right, that’s the other thing I’m afraid of.

TOM: Yeah.

RANDY: Now what do you have to do to make that product adhere to it, then? I mean do you use a regular mastic?

TOM: It’s a mastic adhesive. It’s very lightweight, it’s easy to do and it’s easy to cut and I think that that’s probably the best solution for you.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and their website gives a ton of very detailed directions including what type of adhesive and, you know, how to apply it; depending on which cultured stone you choose. But make sure you look at their interior product.

RANDY: Alright, well I appreciate your help very much. Thank you.

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

LESLIE: Kim in New Hampshire, welcome to The Money Pit. What’s going on at your money pit today?

KIM: Hi, I have a closed-in porch but it’s attached to a mobile home but it’s not really attached.

TOM: OK.

KIM: It’s like one roof but …

LESLIE: So the roof connects the two pieces but the main body of the porch is not connected.

KIM: Yeah.

LESLIE: OK.

KIM: But we have to keep lifting it up every couple of years because it’s on cement blocks right now with the …

TOM: And they keep – what? – sinking in the soil?

KIM: Yeah.

TOM: Yeah. Well, that’s because it doesn’t have a foundation. So that’s not uncommon.

KIM: Is there like a more permanent way to …?

TOM: Yeah, if you had the ability to dig down into the soil there and you would want to get at least, if you could possibly, three feet below the soil …

KIM: OK.

TOM: … and you poured some concrete footings and then you had a column that went down right to that that would support it without moving. Because it’s on top of the soil, with rain and everything, it’s going to continue to move.

KIM: OK. Yeah, that’s great advice. Thank you so much.

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

LESLIE: Dorothy in Illinois, welcome to The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?

DOROTHY: Yes, I was basically calling about a problem I’m having in my dining room.

TOM: OK.

DOROTHY: I’m living in a home that is about 65 years old and I decided that I hated the wallpaper in the dining room and thought that I would just remove the wallpaper. I just didn’t realize the problem I was going to get into. First of all, I had to go through seven layers of wallpaper.

TOM: Wow.

DOROTHY: Once I got all the wallpaper off I realized that as I was taking the final couple layers off …

TOM: OK.

DOROTHY: … actually what was underneath that I thought was drywall was actually plaster.

TOM: Hmm. Do you know if the plaster is on wood lathe?

DOROTHY: Yes, it’s on wood lathe.

TOM: Wow.

DOROTHY: And pieces of the plaster have fallen off with the wallpaper.

TOM: Mm-hmm, yeah that doesn’t surprise me.

DOROTHY: So now I have these holes and my concern is how do I repair the holes so that I can paint or re-wallpaper.

TOM: Mm-hmm. Well, you’re going to obviously have to repair the plaster and the best way to do that is with a plaster mix. You can use spackle but if you got real plaster and mixed it up it’s probably going to adhere better than the spackle would to the old plaster.

LESLIE: Is there any prep that needs to be done to the edge of this, you know, tear in the plaster, if you will, to make sure that it’s susceptible?

TOM: I would probably – because you don’t know what’s on that surface, I’d probably sand it a little bit as a final step before I patched it. But here’s a really important step after you get it all patched up. I would recommend that you prime the entire wall with a good-quality oil-based primer; not a water based one – oil-based primer. Because that’s going to seal that in. You’re going to have different levels of porosity on that wall. Some is going to be absorbent than others and if you don’t prime it you’re going to find that the paint on top of that is not going to have an even finish.

DOROTHY: OK.

TOM: So repair it with plaster and then prime it and you’ll be good to go.

LESLIE: Time to talk flooring with Vince in Colorado. What’s going on at your money pit?

VINCE: Well, I have a galley-style kitchen and – I guess it’s a galley-style. It’s long and kind of narrow.

LESLIE: Long and narrow.

VINCE: It’s about 200 square feet. I did measure it and – so anyway, I’m looking at flooring options and we’ve been looking at laminate flooring.

TOM: Yeah, it’s a great choice for a kitchen.

VINCE: One of my biggest things was I had a local company here that they provide installation as well and they had some material that I was interested in and they sent one of their installers out who was actually a contractor and he went through the – looked at the flooring and walked around on it and checked it out and he said it wasn’t flat enough and he suggested pulling up the existing linoleum floor and pulling up the subfloor and using a leveling compound and his bid before installation of the floor was about $1,600 and then another, I think, 400 more with the installation and then I would buy the materials.

TOM: Wow. How old is your house?

VINCE: Well, that’s what I was wondering because it’s not that old. I think it was built in ’82 if I’m not mistaken.

TOM: Man. I tell you something. I put laminate floors down in lots of houses including in my 122-year-old farmhouse …

VINCE: Oh, wow.

TOM: … and those floors got more waves in than the Atlantic Ocean. (Leslie chuckles) And it laid over it just fine. I mean I can see where it sort of bent over the saggy parts …

VINCE: Right.

TOM: … or the parts that were sort of humped but it worked just fine. It was very durable; especially the lock-together kind. And so unless your floor is grossly out of level …

VINCE: Yeah.

TOM: … then I don’t think you need to go through all that and, in fact, you can go to the website of the manufacturer; you can look at the installation instructions and they will tell you exactly what the tolerance is that they recommend. It’s usually going to be like, you know, an eighth-inch out on four feet or something of that nature and if your house was built in 1982 it’d be very unlikely that you had a seriously out-of-level floor. The worst thing that you could have is perhaps a floor joist that was crowned and maybe is a little high in one place, but it sounds to me like what this guy is recommending is total overkill and perhaps just an opportunity for him to get another job out of you.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) For more work.

VINCE: That’s kind of what I was thinking.

TOM: Yeah, you know what? If it smells like it, it probably is.

LESLIE: Alrighty, Money Pit listeners, coming up next we are going to have for you nine rules for outdoor kitchen design that you’re going to want to follow because they will make sure that your outside eatery looks great, works right and lasts a super-duper long time. Stick around.

[audio timestamp: 0:18:08.7]

(theme song)

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.

TOM: Call us now with your home improvement question. Call us with your do-it-yourself dilemma. Call us if you love to cook outside because that’s what we’re going to talk about next. You know, we’ve all seen the photos of the sleek cooktops and the mahogany ice chests that look like they have no business living outside exposed to the elements year round. In many cases they don’t.

LESLIE: Well, if you’re even thinking about planning an outdoor kitchen you need to remember that the key word here folks is “outdoor.” That’s why we’ve got Fine Homebuilding editor Kevin Ireton joining us to outline the essentials of longlasting and practical outdoor kitchen design. Do those even go hand in hand, Kevin?

KEVIN: Well, they do but of course it takes money. Now, when I put in a light over my grill I thought I was, you know, living high on the hog. (Tom and Leslie laugh) These days we’re publishing outdoor kitchens in our magazine that look better than the kitchen I’ve got indoors.

TOM: Wow.

LESLIE: And they’re full rooms. They’re sort of these outdoor hangout zones with firepits and the most amazingly well-stocked kitchen in the world. So how do you start? What kind of materials do you even lean towards to make sure you’re getting something that’s durable?

KEVIN: Well, you are exactly right. Key word is “outdoors,” so you’ve got to make sure that whatever materials you use outside are going to be bulletproof; whether it’s the sun, the rain or freeze-thaw cycles in the north. You can’t use laminated materials outside because they’re going to come apart. You want to stick with vitreous tile, stone, concrete, stainless steel or tropical hardwoods.

TOM: Now Kevin, when you use these materials outside, I mean I would imagine you also have to take drainage into account. A flat surface may not necessarily be one that wears the best if it’s outside because the water’s just going to hang there. So do you have to sort of build in a slight pitch even to, say, workspaces?

KEVIN: You sure do. You want every surface that could possibly get wet – even if it’s under a roof you’re going to get windblown rain, so you want to slope of about ¼-inch for every two feet.

LESLIE: Now if you’re under a roof, though – even if it’s just some sort of like covered area not protected on all sides – do you sort of associate the design with your interior kitchen and then what do you do about placement and smoke coming into the house?

KEVIN: You’ve got to tradeoff you have to deal with. If you build right next to the house then you can take advantage of the gas lines there; electricity is going to be there; you’ve got a wall that you can put light fixtures on. And in that case you do want the design to kind of match up well with the house. Sometimes running the same flooring material out the door, if it’s covered by a roof, you can get away with. Other times, having an element like a shelf that can appear to run inside and match up with one outside helps tie the two together. But you do have to worry about smoke from the grill. That’s a big one. So if it’s outdoors the wind is going to get at it so you’ve got to make sure that it’s downwind of the house and any seating area that’s outside.

TOM: We’re talking to Kevin Ireton. He’s the editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine. Their issue on newsstands now has a great article about building a practical outdoor kitchen. Now Kevin, these are great tips for while you’re building the kitchen. Let’s say the winter comes around. How do we make sure that the products that we put in can stand the whole winter so that they’ll be ready to rock and roll next summer again?

KEVIN: One of our experts says you’ve got to have a sink outside. So if you have a sink then you’re going to have to drain those water lines; otherwise they’re going to run risk of freezing. You also want to shut off any gas lines and you want to, you know, close up those – get all the food out of there; close up the cabinets well because, of course, you know, dust and critters can get into those outdoor cabinets.

TOM: Do you recommend wrapping the appliances and that sort of thing with protective covers?

KEVIN: I think it’s a good idea. I mean the sun and the rain and the snow is just going to beat that stuff up.

TOM: But there are two schools of thought on that, Kevin, because you know, for years I used to see people, for example, wrap outside air conditioning compressors in the winter but then a manufacturer told me once that that actually can void the warranty because it promotes condensation.

KEVIN: Tom, my air conditioner is covered right now. (Tom and Leslie chuckle) I better check on that. I had never heard that. But it does make sense. I mean those units are designed to be outside. You know, a lot of the grills at least do come with a cover; so that implies, to me, that some protection is a good idea.

TOM: Well, if your air conditioner is still running I wouldn’t complain then.

Kevin Ireton, the editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine, thanks for providing us some great tips on longlasting and practical outdoor kitchen design.

If you want more information on an outdoor kitchen you can pick up the latest edition of Fine Homebuilding’s Great Kitchens issue – it’s on newsstands now – or you can also go to their website at FineHomebuilding.com.

Thanks, Kevin.

KEVIN: Thank you.

LESLIE: Hey, you know what the best accessory is to your beautiful, brand, spanking new outdoor kitchen?

TOM: What would that be?

LESLIE: How about a nice, green lawn.

TOM: (chuckling) That would work.

LESLIE: Yeah, nothing’s going to look better than a green lawn with your new kitchen. So when you water your lawn are you actually helping your grass grow or only your water bill grow? Coming up, we’re going to tell you how to get the most out of your outdoor water usage.

TOM: And here’s something else that might look great outside. How about a $5,000 makeover? Well, you can win one with Therma-Tru’s Ugliest Door in America contest available right now at MyUglyDoor.com. We’ll have the details, next.

[audio timestamp: 0:23:51.8]

(theme song)

ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is being brought to you by Defence by Havahart. Defence is a powerful, ready-to-use odor repellent formulated to protect your shrubs, ornamentals and landscaping from damaging rabbits and deer. Defence dries odorless to humans and it’s from Havahart, the company committed to caring control for pets and wildlife. For more info, go online to Havahart.com; H-a-v-a-h-a-r-t.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 hey, is your front door looking perhaps a little worse for wear or maybe you have a back door or a patio door that’s stuck all the time; maybe it’s been patched up one too many times? Well, if so, you need to go to MyUglyDoor.com right now and enter the Ugliest Door in America contest sponsored by Therma-Tru Doors.

LESLIE: Yeah, that’s right. This is really exciting. Therma-Tru Doors is launching their fourth annual search for the ugliest door in America. They’re going to pick two grand prize winners who are going to receive Therma-Tru door makeovers with a retail value of up to $5,000.

TOM: Wow.

LESLIE: If you want all the details there’s a great website to go visit; it’s MyUglyDoor.com.

TOM: And there actually are two ways to enter. You can write an essay about why you think you have the ugliest door in America and send it in with a couple of pictures of your door or you can produce a one-minute video. Details are at MyUglyDoor.com. Enter today and you can read about the winners from past years. And you know what? It’s called the Ugliest Door in America contest but let’s face it; some of those doors were not the ugliest doors I’ve ever seen. So hey, you may have a chance to win if perhaps you have just a little bit of an ugly door on your house. They may send in a crew that will replace it with a beautiful Therma-Tru door worth up to 5,000 bucks. Details at MyUglyDoor.com.

Let’s get back to the phones. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Who’s next?

LESLIE: Donna in California needs some help with a remodeling project. What’s going on?

DONNA: Oh, we’re remodeling our kitchen and my husband would prefer it if we did not replace all the kitchen tile. He just wants to add onto the existing tile to extend the bar. So needless to say, we’re trying to find grout that matches some grout from quite a few years back.

TOM: It’s very difficult to get grout to match because even if you had, you know, the original bag of grout that you put in, obviously, with all the wear and the tear and the cleaning of the tile over the years it does tend to discolor and if you put new grout in that new section it would be dramatically different. Now the good news is, you know, give it a year or two it’d probably end up being the same, but the other thing that you could do is, if you did clean the old grout and then put the new stuff in you could probably stain it using a concrete stain.

LESLIE: Well, yeah; or it’s like a grout dye or a grout tint, they call it, and you can apply it right to existing dried grout and it totally, you know, paints it.

DONNA: Oh. Well, where would I find that kind of product?

LESLIE: You know, Donna, there’s actually a great online resource you should look at and it’s simply titled GroutDye.com and when you snoop around the website you’ll see there’s a color chart and I think they offer something like 17 or 20 colors; they’re custom-mixed at the time of order so you know that everything is fresh and the colorant is going to be really adherent and stick to the grout. And it goes on with either a toothbrush or a special applicator bottle and it seems like it’s a really easy product to apply and it should give you the results you’re looking for.

TOM: Yeah Donna, just make sure you follow the manufacturer’s instructions on that because you want to make sure that that old grout is super-clean before you put this on so you get good and even adhesion and absorption from the old and the new and then it’s all going to match.

DONNA: Excellent, excellent. Thank you guys very much.

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

LESLIE: Jerry in North Carolina, how can we help you today?

JERRY: I have a basement that is damp and I want to put drylock on the concrete block walls down there. The previous owner had painted it.

TOM: OK.

JERRY: Do you have some sort of a recommendation as to getting that paint off the wall?

TOM: Well, couple of things you can do. First of all, the reason you have a damp basement needs to be addressed and putting a water-resistant paint or sealer on the walls is not the only way to address it.

LESLIE: It’s like the last step, actually.

TOM: Yeah it is. It’s the very last step. It’s not the first step. But you know, what you’re doing, Jerry, is not that unusual. Most people want to try to seal those walls, as if they could eventually allow your house to float but that ain’t going to happen. So what you want to do is look outside and look at the grading and the drainage around that foundation perimeter. You want to make sure that the soil is sloping away from the walls on all sides and then the other thing you want to do is look at the gutter system; make sure it’s clean, it’s free-flowing and it’s moving the water away from the house. Now that doesn’t mean dumping it into the two-foot-long splash block that’s typically at the corners of everybody’s house. If you have a damp basement problem you need to put extensions on those leaders (ph) and get them out away from the house. Now, if you’ve done those things that’s going to reduce the volume of moisture.

Back to your paint question. I would simply suggest that you wire brush to get the loose paint off so you don’t have any flaking paint and then you prime the walls with an oil-based primer. The primer is designed to stick to the raw concrete; it’s designed to stick to the old paint and it’ll give you a neutral surface and then you could put a topcoat over that. But I would follow those steps in that order. Start outside then work to the inside and I think if you do those both you’re going to find that place to be a lot drier moving forward.

JERRY: OK, well I thank you very kindly.

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

LESLIE: Hey, if you haven’t yet, it is definitely time to crank up that sprinkler system to get your beautiful lawn looking lush once more. But when and where and how much water you use on your lawn can mean the difference between a full, green lawn or an empty wallet for you. Here’s what you need to know.

You want to water early in the day, which is going to prevent evaporation. Then make sure you adjust all of your sprinkler heads so that you avoid watering the driveway and the sidewalks and remember that you should use a timer on your sprinklers to limit the amount of water usage to only what is actually needed.

TOM: Yeah, good point because the only thing that grows when you water your sidewalk is the size of your water bill and the only thing that leaks is your wallet. So it’s important to water accurately.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Up next, we’re going to tackle some e-mail questions and this hour they’re all about the outside of the home. Now is a great time to get out there and tackle some of those projects. We’re going to get to that, after this.

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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: 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 Fathers Day is the perfect time to start a new tradition with your kids; home improvement projects. Do it together. You know, we tackled a project this past weekend. Me and my boys, we put in a garden fence. That’s a fun project. Doing those sorts of things with your kids creates memories that can last a lifetime. If you’d like a list of projects that I think might be easy to tackle with your kids, go to my column on AOL -- it’s at MoneyPit.AOL.com – and we’re going to give you some tips on projects that you can tackle with your kids that will deliver some good home improvements and some great memories all at the same time. It’s at MoneyPit.AOL.com.

LESLIE: And you know what? They’re also such great confidence boosters and who doesn’t live spending time with their dad doing great projects on the weekends? So it’s a good, win-win situation for everybody all around.

And when you’re not tackling home improvement projects and you’re surfing the web in your next free moment, go to MoneyPit.com. You can look up everything we’ve ever written; type in a topic; research any project you might be thinking about working on or even tackling right now and you can also e-mail us a question. You can click on the Ask Tom and Leslie icon and shoot us an e-mail like Debbie did in Brooklyn who writes: “I have a fiberglass exterior door which was stained. I believe it was done improperly in the first place. It seems to be flaking or fading in spots and needs to be redone. Can it be stripped and then restained or should I just paint it at this point? If so, what the heck can I do?”

TOM: Interesting question. I actually happen to know that the folks at Therma-Tru Doors who actually invented the fiberglass door like over 25 years ago, they patented a special stain for fiberglass and I remember talking to the researcher that developed it and learned the stain that you use on a fiberglass door is actually quite different than, say, the wood stain which is typically available in stores. And the reason is because the stain for the door has to have less pigment than the stain for the wood, which makes sense because fiberglass doesn’t absorb. So I suspect, Debbie, that your previous painter may have used an improper stain on that door.

Now the good news is because the fiberglass is not absorbent it’s easy to strip off all of that stain with an appropriate paint stripper or a stain stripper, so you should be able to get most of that off and then restain the door. You might want to go to Therma-Tru.com and see if you can order up some of their stain or find it at another location because it is a very special stain that’s used for fiberglass doors. But the cool thing is that when you do it right, man, it looks just like wood; looks fantastic. I love those Therma-Tru doors because they look just like wood and it’s super-durable.

LESLIE: Alright, we’ve got another here from Debbie in McCordsville, Indiana who writes: “When it rains here the rain overshoots the gutter installed on our eight-year-old house. The rainwater pours – imagine a small waterfall –

TOM: (chuckling) OK.

LESLIE: – off the roof onto the drive/deck/front door area. Gutters aren’t blocked by leaves or other clutter and the gutters do have guards over them …

TOM: Aha.

LESLIE: … but even when the guards were not in place rainwater waterfalls were an event in most rains.

TOM: I suspect, Debbie, that you have a very steep roof and you have a very small gutter.

LESLIE: Like small gutter as in narrow in protruding from the house?

TOM: Yeah, right; as in, perhaps, a four-inch gutter when this house may, in fact, call for like a six-inch gutter and when you put gutter guards on top of that they work great but they do tend to reduce the amount of flow into the gutter. So all that volume of water coming down is just going to bounce right off them. So this is a situation where you probably need a new gutter or certainly a new gutter design.

LESLIE: Alright, hope that helps, Debbie.

TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Thank you so much for spending this hour with us. Gosh, we covered a lot ground but the show continues right now online at MoneyPit.com. You can go there. You can listen to our podcast. You can download past shows. Search the transcripts to your home improvement questions. It’s there 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help you out.

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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