Transcripts

Transcript For October 27, 2007, 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:

(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 now with your home improvement question. Call us now with your do-it-yourself dilemma. Soup to nuts, floorboards to shingles, from rugs to bugs, we’re here to help you with your home improvement projects, your home maintenance projects, your do-it-yourself dilemmas. Pick up the phone right now and call us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.

Hey, you got any skeletons in your closet?

LESLIE: Ooh.

TOM: Well, it’s Halloween so of course I’m talking about Halloween (Leslie chuckles) skeletons. How about clutter? If your family is like most, certainly if it’s like mine, closet space is coveted.

LESLIE: High commodity?

TOM: (chuckling) Hot commodity. Very costly. Very limited edition. (Leslie chuckles) So that’s why, this hour, we’re going to give you some tips on ways that you can free up some space in your closet and make room so that you can really organize yourself.

LESLIE: And since it is Halloween, like Tom mentioned, also this hour, you know I always seem to be the victim of Halloween pranksters. I think it’s because I pick on the school kids that hang out near my house. I should probably learn to hold my tongue (Tom chuckles) but, you know, bad for me; good for you guys because I’ve totally learned some tricks to cleaning up all of those eggs and toilet paper that seem to find their way to my home this time of year.

TOM: Plus, when was the last time you took a look under the hood? The stove vent hood, that is. You know, it gets pretty darn grimy and nasty under there and it can definitely be a fire hazard. This is Fire Prevention Month so we’re going to give you some tips on how to get it clean and staying safe.

LESLIE: And also, it wouldn’t be The Money Pit without a prize giveaway. We have something great for all of those DIY-ers who love to pack heat. That’s right. We’ve got a power tool arsenal for you because one caller today is going to win a brand new Ryobi, four-piece combo kit with those fantastic new lithium ion batteries. It’s worth 260 bucks. So this is a huge prize but you’ve got to be in it to win it so pick up those phones.

TOM: Call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. You must have a home improvement question and be willing to come on the air and ask us to qualify for that great prize this hour. We’re giving away the Ryobi four-piece combo kit with lithium ion batteries; worth 260 bucks.

Leslie, who’s first?

LESLIE: Lynn in Rhode Island’s got cleaning on the brain. How can we help? What’s dirty?

LYNN: (chuckling) Well, the shower tiles, you know, occasionally get that mold on them.

TOM and LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

LYNN: And I was wondering – someone once told me half Clorox, half water; which seemed to work well. But I wondered if that’s safe for the tiles or not.

TOM: Oh, you definitely can’t hurt the tiles.

LESLIE: You can hurt your hands first.

TOM: Yeah. You’re going to get your hands irritated and it might be tough to breathe in there but you’re not going to hurt your tiles.

You know, if you do that once a year it’ll really get in there and do a good cleaning, brightening job that would do it. But seriously, you have to have a very well-ventilated area and you have to use rubber gloves and certainly want to protect your eyes because you don’t want to get that solution into your eyes or under your skin. One of the ways that you might want to think about doing this though is getting a spray bottle and filling it up – I don’t know if I’d go 50/50 but I might go 25 percent bleach and 75 percent water – spraying it on there; letting it sit for a few minutes and then rinsing it off. It will brighten them up quite nicely.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm. And at this point, Lynn, once you get that grout to a clean enough state that makes you happy, if it’s super-bright and you’re happy with its progress, go ahead and put a sealer on that grout because that’s going to make it far more resistant to staining and cut your work down.

LYNN: Oh, OK. What type of sealer?

TOM: Silicone sealer. A silicone grout sealer.

LYNN: Oh, OK.

LESLIE: And you can even find an applicator in the home center, Lynn, that looks almost like a nail polish bottle with like a roll-y foam sponge on top. You just put the silicone grout sealer in there and then you can roll it on in between the – on grout lines so you don’t have to worry about getting it everywhere.

TOM: Yeah, all the guys that are listening going, “Oh, yeah, yeah. I know what that is.”

LESLIE: They’re like, “I know that one.” (Tom and Lynn laugh) “The nail polish bottle.”

LESLIE: Well, thank you very much. That’s very helpful.

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

LESLIE: Alright, we’ve got José from Kansas City, Missouri on the line who’s got a garage door situation. What’s happening?

JOSÉ: Well, every winter, typically when it’s 10 below, the garage door decides that it doesn’t want to work and this is the outside panel on the garage door and the remote openers decide that they’re not going to work. I guess they want us to get out and freeze. (Leslie chuckles) One more piece of the equation is when we do get out and walk in the house and push the panel button on the inside of the house it does open.

TOM: José, let me throw a dart here. It sounds to me like what might be happening is as the door tries to come up it’s getting stuck because when the temperature drops like that the lubricants dry out; you can get some moisture in the hinges and it seizes and it might be that the safety reverse mechanism on this opener is basically thinking that something is stuck and so it’s shutting itself off. So you probably could replace the remote as well as well as the panel on the outside [to keep out] (ph) on the inside but for the cost of doing that, if this garage door opener, you suspect, is more than say three or four years old, you’d be better off replacing the whole opener. Because obviously part of the control circuit is breaking down and the cost of those repair parts is going to be close to the cost of replacing the whole thing. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a disposable society and this is a situation where just buying a replacement opener and keypad is probably not going to do it.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm. But you know what? Also, if you’re in a situation where you need to adjust the sensitivity of the mechanism that senses if something is blocking the door, you don’t want to forget to put it back when the weather warms up or mess something up where it’s going to sense something in a situation where it should.

JOSÉ: There goes the cat.

LESLIE: Exactly.

TOM: Exactly. (laughing) José, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Peggy in Florida, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we help you with?

PEGGY: A few months ago I had a handyman come in to take the vents down or clean the vents that are up in my ceiling; you know, where the air and the heat come out of.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

PEGGY: And what I – after – he did. He took them down and he said they were full of mildew. So I went and I bought three new vents and had them put them up but before he put them up he said there was a lot of mildew in the surrounding area on the wall where the vents go into. So I gave him some X14 and told him to spray it and see what happened, which he turned the air conditioning off, of course, and I didn’t notice it right away but I – not too long after I noticed that I was getting this smell that seemed to me like something was burning. So I called – every time the air conditioner tripped in. And as you know, it was quite hot so we were getting – it was tripping in quite a bit. So I called my air conditioning man and he went up. He checked it. He said he couldn’t find anything wrong. He checked the compressor. Nothing wrong. So I’m wondering if it could have been when the handyman sprayed that area with the X14; could that be what’s causing the burning smell.

TOM: Well, it’s impossible to say. You know, there’s no flame in the air conditioning system that’s going to cause that so, you know, I can’t a situation where, unless there was an electrical short or something, that you would have anything that was like burning. But I will tell you, if you have a lot of mildew and dust that’s building up inside the ducts that can have an odor in and of itself. And while you clean the area that you can see, no doubt there’s going to be some additional debris inside the ducts. This might be one of the rare times when we recommend that you have all of the ducts cleaned in the house.

And then the second thing you should do is look at the filtration system that you have on this, Peggy, and make sure that it’s a whole-house system; not just one of these thin, fiberglass filters. I’d put in a whole-home air cleaner that gets mounted to the return duct so that all of the air that goes through the house is properly being scrubbed and a whole-home system can be much more efficient than the standard, thin fiberglass filters because they can take out even virus-sized particles.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

TOM: And those two things together – clean the ducts and then have a proper filtration system on it – is the best way to reduce the amount of debris inside the ducts and probably have …

LESLIE: And odor.

TOM: … the area smell a whole lot better. Yeah, exactly.

PEGGY: So in other words, what you’re saying is that I should have my ducts cleaned.

TOM: Yes, I think you should have your ducts cleaned and I think that you should have a better filtration system; a whole-home electronic air cleaner is the best way to go.

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

PEGGY: Thank you.

LESLIE: You are tuned in to The Money Pit and you make The Money Pit everything it is so give us a call right now with your home repair or home improvement question 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We love to help. You know how it is. Give us a call at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

Now, here’s four words that never work for me: one size fits all. (Leslie chuckles) If your closet, though, is a one-size-fits-all affair, it probably doesn’t work so well for everyone in the family but there is a solution. We’ll tell you all about it, next.

[audio timestamp: 9:41]

(promo/theme song)

[audio timestamp: 12:37]

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 and the number here at The Money Pit is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. If we talk to you today on the air, you could win a four-piece lithium ion combo kit. It’s from the folks at Ryobi. It’s worth 260 bucks. It’s from their brand new addition to the Ryobi One+ line. It’s got those awesome lithium ion batteries. They’re far lightweight. What comes in this kit, Tom? It’s pretty awesome, right?

TOM: It’s great. You’ve got an 18-volt drill; a circular saw; a recip saw; and, of course, the always-included 18-volt flashlight, which actually came in very handy the other day. I had to put a toilet in at my dad’s house.

LESLIE: (chuckling) A little dark back there?

TOM: And it was a bit dark back there. Looking out for those water lines. You know, making sure that I turn the right ones on and the right ones off; adjusting those flush valves. It came in handy. And what I like about the lithium ion batteries is they are very, very light. So it’s easy to handle those things.

If you would like to win it though, you’ve got to pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. This kit’s worth 260 bucks. We’re giving it away to one caller drawn at random this hour on the program.

LESLIE: Alright, and if you are our lucky winner, you might be able to put those tools to use right away because we’re talking closet space; organization; probably a shortage of space in most situations, if you’re like me or Tom. And if you find that your closets are one size fits all and it’s not working for you – you know, most closets, when they’re built or put together – however you started with your closet – the rods are usually put at a standard five-and-a-half feet off the floor and they might now work for everyone in your family.

And our friends at AARP have a great tip for creating a closet rod that everyone in your family can reach; big, small, sitting down, standing up. It’s something called an add-on extension rod and this rod hooks on to the rod that you already have and then just hangs lower. So you don’t have to do a ton of work or you can add a second rod. There’s some great ways to make it work. And like I said, it works for people who are small; people who are tall; and if you overgrow that one just pull it down and deal with the one you’ve already got.

TOM: And there’s another option. If you want a bit more of a permanent solution you can buy what’s called a pull-down or swing-down rod. These are rods that are installed at the same height as the normal rod but with a pull of a cord or a touch of a button or sometimes you just disconnect a handle, the whole rod pulls right down; sort of down to chest height or waist height so you can easily put your clothes on there and then swing the rod back up into position.

If you want some more great closet organization design ideas you can head on over to the AARP website at AARP.org/HomeDesign or you can pick up the phone right now and call us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: Now we’ve got Richard in New Jersey. What’s happening at your money pit?

RICHARD: Well, when I go away in the winter I’d like something to notify me when my gas burner goes out and the pipes start to freeze. I’ve had that trouble a couple of times.

TOM: Well, there’s a solution for that. It’s called a freeze alarm, Richard, and there are a number of different models out there. Do you happen to have a centrally wired alarm system in your house?

RICHARD: No, but they want – that’s the only way that I’ve been able to settle this is they wanted 250 and then it’s a monthly fee. I just wanted some unit by itself.

TOM: Well, there is a unit by itself and again, it’s called a freeze alarm. There are many different models. There’s a website called ProtectedHome.com that has eight or ten different models of this and basically they can be hooked up to a phone line so that they call you when the temperature in the house drops to whatever you set it at. If it gets close to freezing and it seems like the power has gone off or the gas has gone off and the temperature drops, this alarm will phone you and tell you that, essentially.

RICHARD: Very good. Thank you very much.

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

LESLIE: Mary Louise in Nebraska, welcome to The Money Pit. What can we help you with?

MARY LOUISE: I have some cracks in my foundation and I don’t want them “meeses” to come into my house.

TOM: The “meeses,” huh? (chuckling)

LESLIE: (chuckling) “Meeses.”

MARY LOUISE: Yeah.

TOM: Alright. Well, you know, the “meeses” can be kept out through a number of things. Cracks are only one place that mice can get into your home. But in terms of repairing these cracks, one way to do that would be simply with a silicone caulk to make sure we minimize the amount of water that’s getting in there. In your part of the country, if you keep the water out of a crack it’s always a good thing because you get a lot of freezing and expansion and that can worsen the cracks.

Are these cracks vertical or horizontal, Mary?

MARY LOUISE: Up and down. (chuckling) But they go both ways.

TOM: Up and down. That’s vertical.

LESLIE: Vertical.

MARY LOUISE: They go both ways, actually.

TOM: OK, but they’re small? They’re small cracks?

MARY LOUISE: They’re small and some of them are bigger. I have a crack between the house and the driveway; a small crack in there.

TOM: OK, well that’s just normal movement. But other thing that you can do to reduce the chances of rodent infestation would be to make sure that you don’t have storage against the house that can create a nesting site. This could be firewood or garbage cans or any of those sorts of things that creates storage areas.

MARY LOUISE: And I was wondering if I should use more of a surface bonding cement or something on them?

TOM: The best way to fix the cracks is simply by caulking them. You don’t have to resurface the entire foundation unless you want it to look better.

MARY LOUISE: OK.

TOM: If that was the case you would use a stucco mixture but I think just sealing those cracks up is fine.

Other things that you can do to cut back on the chances of rodent population would be to make sure you don’t have nesting sites around the house; to make sure that your food in the house is stored in sealed containers; especially pet food. And if you want to put something down to protect them and to protect your house from getting regular infestations put down some bait – some mice bait – and make sure that if you have pets it’s contained inside a protected bait station so that the pets can’t get to it but the mice can.

MARY LOUISE: Thank you very much.

LESLIE: Alright, now we welcome Kermit from Tennessee. What’s going on at your money pit?

KERMIT: My wife and I have three little girls and the gentleman I work for, his family offered us an1,800-square-foot home for $31,000.

LESLIE: How much work needs to be done?

KERMIT: Yeah, we’re getting it for like 20-some-thousand less than it appraises for.

LESLIE: OK.

KERMIT: But it has no central heat in there; flooring has to be updated; kitchen needs more cabinets; needs new windows. I mean you name it, it needs it. It’s an old home.

LESLIE: OK.

TOM: Is the house under repair or was it never finished? Why does it have no heat and air conditioning?

KERMIT: She just always used electrical heat; 220 that you plug in.

TOM: Oh. Oh, OK.

KERMIT: We actually had to install baseboard heat to get the appraisal done.

TOM: Oh, alright.

LESLIE: OK.

KERMIT: And we’re excited about it but – you know, of course we’re on a budget with the three girls. So we’re wondering what should be the first few things that we do because we’re going to have about $6,000 or $7,000 that we can spend up front. Everything else is going to be when income taxes roll around.

TOM: OK.

KERMIT: What would be the most important thing to do upfront to where like in a year or two we’ve got some equity where we can refinance or second mortgage to maybe finish out the rest of the repairs all in one go?

TOM: Well, let’s start with the basics. Structurally speaking, you have a good roof; you’ve got good siding so we don’t have to worry about the building getting leaks?

KERMIT: Yeah. Siding needs pressure washing. The rest is probably good to go for at least another five years.

TOM: Maintenance I’m not concerned about, OK? Inside the house, let’s talk about the home improvement projects that give you the best return on investment. That would be kitchen and bath. You mentioned that the kitchen is a bit tired?

KERMIT: It just has no cabinets.

TOM: Alright.

KERMIT: It’s a huge kitchen. It’s an 11x14 with very little cabinet …

TOM: Well then I think that’s definitely the best place to start. With those three beautiful girls you’re going to need a lot of cabinets (chuckling) …

KERMIT: Oh, yeah.

TOM: … to store all your dishes and food and what not. So I think the kitchen’s probably a great place for you to start. Now, you know, in terms of the cabinets, certainly they’re – this is a project if you’re a bit handy you could do it yourself. There’s lots of great cabinets that are available at home centers that are not real expensive that look pretty darn good. You know, places like Home Depot and Lowe’s and IKEA …

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

TOM: … all have great cabinets these days.

LESLIE: I will say, Kermit, avoid those thermal foil cabinetry; the ones that are like super-white. It’s a heat-shrinked covering on an MDF-framed cabinet and they look great and they’re inexpensive but give them a few years and they’re going to yellow and you’re going to be really sad and there’s not much you can do about that at that point. So splurge a little bit more and go for something that you know is going to stand up.

KERMIT: I think she’s wanting something she can stain herself and finish.

LESLIE: OK.

TOM: Well then, you could use an – you could use a unfinished wood cabinet and do the finishing work yourself.

KERMIT: What about like the flooring and like central heat and air; things like that?

TOM: Well you said you had …

LESLIE: You’ve got to do what’s going to make you guys comfortable first …

TOM: Yeah.

LESLIE: … I would say.

TOM: And you – I thought you said you had heat installed.

KERMIT: Well, it’s got baseboard heat.

TOM: OK. Well …

KERMIT: I didn’t know – you know, if central heat and air makes that big of a difference, you know, for like home value or not.

TOM: As far as value is concerned, I would say in your part of the country having a central air conditioning system is certainly going to have a big comfort level and give you some return on investment if it comes time to sell that house. But I would start with the basics. You’ve got to – I would put a kitchen in before I would put in something that could possibly be considered a luxury; you know, certainly a …

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, like air conditioning.

TOM: Like air conditioning. I would concentrate on your kitchen. I’d just put in a basic set of kitchen cabinets; a basic flooring; take a look at those bathrooms; get everything sort of basically functional and then you could do the central air later on; just down the road a piece.

LESLIE: And you know, Kermit, if you’re looking for a tick list, have you had the house inspected by a home inspector?

KERMIT: No, that we haven’t.

LESLIE: Well, you should do that. It’s worth the couple of hundred bucks. Get someone to come into the house. Go to ASHI.org, which is the American Society of Home Inspectors. Find somebody in your area. Have them come in and they will put together an entire report on your home: what’s working; what’s not working; what needs to be fixed. And then you can even have a conversation with this person at that point and say, you know, “What’s imperative and what can wait?” This way you kind of understand what needs to be done as far as – you know, as to what is just a bonus.

KERMIT: Well, that makes sense to me. I appreciate it.

LESLIE: You’re so welcome. Enjoy the new house.

KERMIT: Thank you.

LESLIE: Stick around. We’ve got more great Money Pit information coming up after this, including if you find that you need to have some special cleanup situations after those Halloween tricksters have perhaps paid a visit, well we’re going to have some solutions to get you back to spotless state when we come back.

[audio timestamp: 22:47]

(theme song)

ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is being brought to you by – well, by us. Get a $1,000 guarantee that the contractor you hire gets the job done right with your new Money Pit American Homeowners Association membership. And get $50 in Zircon tools if you join in the next 30 minutes. Call now. 866-REAL-HOME. That’s 866-REAL-HOME. Now here are Tom and Leslie.

TOM: If you’ve ever bought a power tool just to fill up a spot on your pegboard, you are in the right place (Leslie chuckles) because 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.

And you know what, Tom? I love this time of year because it means I’ve got lots of candy kicking around the house. (Tom laughs) I just love sweets. I’ve got such a sweet tooth; especially for sugary anything.

TOM: You know, in our house, this time of year we always take the candy that’s been collecting from the last 12 months and dump it. (chuckling) It’s a good chance …

LESLIE: (gasping) Dump it? As in give in back out again?

TOM: No, no. Absolutely not.

LESLIE: (laughing) Oh.

TOM: No. You know, we try to control the sweets, with three young kids around. So there’s always a bunch of it left over and, no, this is the time when we purge; we throw it out and make room for the new stuff.

LESLIE: Yeah, well you know, while that candy is sweet and delicious and just, mm, feels so good in your tummy, the pranks that go along with Halloween really aren’t the funnest. And if you find that you’ve got a Halloween mess which involves cleaning up toilet-papered trees, egged windows, smashed pumpkins, we’ve got some tips to help you out. You know, a hose and a branch trimmer; they can come in very handy to remove those toilet-paper streamers that end up super high in those trees. If you’ve got egg on your house, you want to clean it as immediately as you can to when those pranksters run away and an ammonia solution is going to work. And even though the egg is an organic material, those eggs can really damage exterior surfaces. And if you find that you’ve got a sidewalk or a drive with a smashed pumpkin, clean it up as soon as you can because the pumpkin itself can be a slippery mess and you don’t want anybody to fall down.

TOM: We’ve got more Halloween tips and tricks for you online. Find out how to scare the ghosts and goblins away from your house so you don’t have to deal with that messy cleanup. Just visit MoneyPit.com and search Halloween to see everything we’ve ever written about this creepy, crawly holiday.

Back to the phones right now. Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: Next up we’ve got Bernard in Pennsylvania. What’s happening at your Money Pit?

BERNARD: When I moved into the house the basement was not used and what the previous owner did is up on the rafters he put strips of insulation; you know, to keep the cold air from coming up into the house?

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

BERNARD: I’ve since finished the basement, right, and what I have left is to cover up the ceiling. And what I want to do is just put, you know, just simple wood planking just to cover up the ceiling. And my question is do I need to remove that insulation before I cover up the ceiling or can I just cover up the ceiling with the insulation in place?

TOM: When you say insulation strips, is like a foam board across it or is it fiberglass?

BERNARD: Yeah, it’s fiberglass. Fiberglass pink strips.

TOM: Oh, OK. So it’s bats.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) So it’s like a batting.

BERNARD: Yeah, in the rafters. Yeah, exactly.

TOM: In between the floor joists. Well, there’s no reason to remove it. I mean generally you don’t insulate the space between the basement and the first floor.

BERNARD: Uh-huh.

TOM: But I will tell you, it probably makes the first floor a lot warmer having done that. So I don’t see a good reason for you to remove it. I think that you could put the ceiling finish right on top of that.

One thing you might want to consider though, for a ceiling finish option though, is a drop ceiling because that will allow you to remain – that area to remain accessible …

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

TOM: … which is important …

BERNARD: I see.

TOM: … especially for wiring and plumbing and things like that. A lot of mechanicals run through that particular space of the house.

LESLIE: And Bernard, the drop ceilings today aren’t just those, you know, foam panels that are lacking in a ton of character. This railing system itself, the supports, really easy to put up. All you need is the laser level so you know everything is straight and easy to go. And the foam panels that pop in, they can look like vaulted ceilings, coffered ceilings; they can look like pressed tin. I mean there’s a ton of different patterns and items available.

BERNARD: (overlapping voices) Oh, OK. Yeah, I wasn’t aware of that. Yeah, that’s what I was trying to keep away from; you know, the old, simple, white, you know, kind of dull-looking one. But you’re saying they have different options.

TOM: Totally different today. Can look like an old-fashioned tin ceiling. It can look textured. A lot of cool options, so take a look at that.

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

BERNARD: Great, thank you.

LESLIE: Brian in Florida wants to talk decking. How can we help?

BRIAN: Yes, I’ve got a 16x30 deck on the back of my house. It’s 2x8s; 16-inch hung (ph) center with 5/4x6 planks running on it. And I’m wondering if there’s a product I can use to overcoat that and to (AUDIO GAP) porcelain tile on top of it to tile that deck area.

TOM: Tile the deck area.

LESLIE: Ooh.

TOM: Boy, there’s an idea.

LESLIE: I feel like you’re going to get too much movement and too much fluctuation and instability from the joists and the decking to make a tiled surface sustain.

TOM: Yeah, you know, Brian, if you wanted to make this a tile deck it would be built completely differently. First of all, it would be – there would be plywood over it; not the 5/4. The plywood would have probably a fiberglass surface on it. These outside decks that are, you know, the kind you see in restaurants where you can sit outside over a roof, over a finished space below, they’re usually made of a fiberglass decking material and then on top of that you can put the tile. But just to create tile as a standalone like that, I don’t know, man. I don’t think that that’s going to hold up very well.

LESLIE: Are you looking for a different look or you’ve got your heart set on the tile?

BRIAN: Well, I’m looking to change the appearance and what I’m doing I’m tiling the kitchen and den that abut to a concrete patio that’s covered by the roof of the house and then this deck, it extends from that another 16 feet out.

LESLIE: Now, do you have – is there a change in height from this potential tiled patio up to the wooden deck surface or do they sort of flow into one another?

BRIAN: There’s about a half-inch drop so I’ve got, you know, on top of the existing surface I’ve got a half-inch to play with. So I was wondering if you could go over it with – over top of the 5/4 with ply and then, you know, (INAUDIBLE) tile on top of that.

LESLIE: I think you’re going to get too much movement and with movement you’re going to see a lot of cracking of the tile and it’s just not going to stay and it’s not going to look great for you. What could be a good solution is a lot of companies are offering teak or exotic hardwood decking tiles which are wood tiles on, you know, 20x20 backings. They interlock together. It’s perfect for Florida because they drain really well, so if you were to put this just sitting on top of your concrete patio then even continuing over your deck surface it will sort of unify everything. They come in long plank styles. They even come in, you know, diagonal shapes or hexagonal shapes to give it some interest or, you know, alternating almost parquet-style, which would then give you an entire wood deck surface but also solve that solution of that concrete patio.

BRIAN: Now, how good are those next to a pool area?

LESLIE: Oh, they’re fantastic.

BRIAN: OK.

LESLIE: Because a teak or a hardwood is naturally moisture resistant and they’re also naturally termite and insect resistant so it’s perfect for Florida.

BRIAN: OK, thank you very much.

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

LESLIE: Wow, lots of great calls this hour and more coming up, including information involving your stove’s vent hood. You know, you’ve got your kitchen and your stove is with you on every cooking adventure, but you really don’t give it too much credit. You’re always like, “I did a great job with that.” But your oven is working over time for you so show your appreciation and keep it in tiptop shape. We’re going to tell you how, after this.

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(promo/theme song)

[audio timestamp: 34:30]

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. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

And you know the number by heart by now. But in case you’ve forgotten, to tell you again it’s 1-888-MONEY-PIT. You need to ask us a home improvement question on the air and you know why you want us to ask the question on the air? It’s because …

TOM: Why would we want to ask a question today, of all days, on the air, Leslie?

LESLIE: Well, because I happen to think today’s prize totally kicks the booty.

TOM: It does.

LESLIE: It’s a four-piece lithium ion combo kit. It’s from Ryobi. It’s worth $260. It’s brand, spanking new. All of the tools are packing way more power, longer run time and they work with this new lithium ion battery technology which maybe you were shying away from because it’s a little pricy but it’s all working together and this is totally free. And if you get this kit and you’ve already got the Ryobi sets at home you can use these batteries on any of your existing One+ tools. So it really is the gift that keeps on giving.

TOM: Call us now. If you get on the air we throw your name in the Money Pit hardhat and then it’s the luck of the draw. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.

LESLIE: Alright, Tom. When was the last time you took a peak under your hood?

TOM: Well, I changed the light bulb there a few days ago, actually.

LESLIE: Are you talking about your car or your stove?

TOM: No. (laughing) My car.

LESLIE: Interesting. Because I’m talking about your stove and I can guarantee it’s been a long time since you poked your head under there. Maybe your kids or your wife have been poking around in the kitchen but I don’t – you don’t strike me as …

TOM: Are you insinuating that I don’t clean up in the kitchen? (laughing)

LESLIE: No, I imagine you clean but you don’t strike me as a cooking type of guy.

TOM: Nah. No, I’m on the consumption side. (Leslie laughs) Not on the generation side. (chuckles)

LESLIE: Well, for the people who are around their kitchens a lot, whether you’re eating or actually doing the cooking and the work in there, you might want to pay a little bit extra attention to your stove’s vent hood. It’s working there for you and the reason you really want to pay attention to it is because the grease and the grime that you generate while you’re cooking, it tends to build up under your vent hood on those filters and it can build up pretty quickly. So you really want to make sure that you give it regular attention.

You want to clean those standard filters with a degreasing solution; rinse them well with warm, soapy water or you can even, if you’ve got those metal ones, you can put them right in your dishwasher on the top rack and let the dishwasher do the hard work for you. If you find that your stove vent hood has those activated charcoal filters, you want to replace those filters on a regular basis. Pay attention because it could be a potential fire hazard. We’re not kidding.

TOM: Good tip. Need more home improvement tips; more do-it-yourself dilemma solutions? Call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: Going to Nebraska where you can find The Money Pit on KCNI and we’ve got June. How can we help?

JUNE: I have a question about Formica flooring. It looks like a wood floor but I set a sack of garbage on it and guess what? It leaked and I have a bump. I have two bumps where it leaked into a crack and will this go down or what do I need to do?

TOM: It’s a laminate floor?

JUNE: Yes.

TOM: And it’s a Formica laminate floor?

JUNE: Yes.

TOM: That’s very unusual because I actually have a Formica laminate floor and I’ve actually …

LESLIE: And they’re like indestructible.

TOM: I immersed it in water and haven’t been able to get it to swell.

JUNE: Really?

TOM: So what I’m thinking is that what’s swelling is the subfloor underneath; not the actual laminate itself.

JUNE: OK.

TOM: And is this one of the older Formica floors that you had to glue together? How long …

JUNE: No, it snapped together.

TOM: It snapped together. OK. Because I’m wondering if you can get enough tiles out and disassemble enough tiles to be able to address the floor underneath because I suspect it’s not the laminate but it’s the subfloor. And so you need to get to …

JUNE: OK, I have a couple of pieces left over so that would work, wouldn’t it?

LESLIE: Oh, yeah.

TOM: If you can get – right, if you can sort of disassemble the floor – that’s the advantage of the snap-together floor – if you can disassemble it to the point where you can get to the subfloor, you can correct the subfloor and then reassemble it. You may not, in fact, need any tiles if you can get them apart correctly.

What I would suggest that you do, June, before you start taking things apart, is to take a dry-erase marker – the kind you use on the wipe-off boards – and number the actual floor pieces – you know, one, two, three, four and so on – so that when you take them apart you’ll be putting them back together exactly how they came apart.

JUNE: It’s just two pieces, so …

LESLIE: Oh, that’s great.

TOM: (overlapping voices) Well then, that’s easy. You only need two numbers that way.

JUNE: Yeah. One, two.

TOM: (chuckling) OK.

JUNE: OK. Thank you so much.

TOM: You’re welcome, June, and thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show.

Up next, we’re going to reach into our listener e-mail bag. We’ve got a question here from a gentleman in New York who says his frame home was built into 1917 and he has extended his dining room to be over an outdoor porch and now it’s freezing. I think this is a very common problem because a lot of us are trying to find ways to extend our living space and perhaps get outside for a little bit longer part of the year. We’re going to have some heating solutions for those screened-in porch areas after this.

[audio timestamp: 39:47]

(theme song)

ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is being brought to you by – well, by us. Get a $1,000 guarantee that the contractor you hire gets the job done right with your new Money Pit American Homeowners Association membership. And get $50 in Zircon tools if you join in the next 30 minutes. Call now. 866-REAL-HOME. That’s 866-REAL-HOME. 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.

And you, our Money Pit listeners, are you finding that you’re in a situation where you’ve got a growing family? Do you feel like you’re running out of space and your house is getting more and more crowded? Well, we’ve got some help because in our next Money Pit e-newsletter we’re going to have some practical ideas for multifunctional furniture that’s going to help make a room for your entire family to enjoy. We have our free e-newsletter. It comes to your inbox every Friday. If you’re not already signed up you should do so right now at MoneyPit.com.

And while you’re on our site, which is super useful, if you find that you’re a little apprehensive about picking up the phone or you really need an answer to a question, you can shoot us an e-mail by clicking on Ask Tom and Leslie. And we’ve got one here from Jim in Brooklyn who writes: “My frame home was built in 1917.” I love it. “I extended my dining room over our outdoor porch but it’s just plain and it’s cold in there. What can I do to insulate?

TOM: Well, if you’ve done a really good job extending this – and what I mean by a good job, it means that you’ve actually created framed walls; you have proper windows; you’ve eliminated those maybe single-pane windows that were there before. So you’ve really treated this like a true exterior wall – then you can insulate it in a traditional way, which means to put insulation in the walls and as well under the floor.

The problem with extending a room like this is that you have all of these surfaces – the floor surface and the wall surface and, in many cases, the roof surface –

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

TOM: – that’s exposed to the environment. So …

LESLIE: So it’s pretty much exposed on all sides all around, essentially.

TOM: Which means that you really – it becomes very difficult to extend the core heating system of the house to overcome that because it needs a lot of BTUs of heat in the winter; needs a lot of BTUs of cooling power in the summer to remain comfortable.

So, you’re probably better off, in this case, after you get done insulating, with adding additional heating out there. Now, if it’s a space that stays relatively comfortable for a good part of the year so you only have to heat it for a very short period of time, we recommend, believe it or not, electric resistance heat. Even though it is the most expensive to operate, it’s …

LESLIE: Mm-hmm. But if you’re not using it that often it sort of balances itself out.

TOM: (overlapping voices) You’re not using it that – right, because the install cost is so high to add an additional zone or to add an additional through-the-wall furnace. It’s a very low-install cost and if you’re only using it couple of months of the year, that is the most cost-effective way to do it. Now, if you do go electric resistance, make sure that you hook it up to a thermostat mounted on the wall. You don’t have to have just the on/off, on/off dials that are on the bodies of these things.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

TOM: You can have a traditional thermostat. It can even have a clock setback thermostat so it can only come on when you absolutely really need it and if it’s a dining area, you know, if you’re like most of us, you probably eat in your kitchen. You use a dining area …

LESLIE: Or in front of the TV. (chuckling)

TOM: Yeah, you use a dining area maybe just in the evening or when you have family or friends that come over and then you can set it to just come on when you need it.

Bottom line is, over the course of the year you’re going to spend the least amount on install and also the least amount on energy by doing it just that way.

LESLIE: Alright, Roger in McLean, Virginia writes: “Last weekend we were trying to track down a roof leak and discovered extensive water damage in our attic. The contractor that came over to estimate repair costs said that even though metal flashing had been used at roof details, recent heavy rains found their way into our home. What’s the best way to prevent it from happening again?”

TOM: Stop using metal flashing. Use the high-tech, flexible flashings like Grace Roof Detail Membrane which is self-adhering. It’s made for all of those twisty, bendy places that the metal doesn’t work so well. You can get some information on that product over at the Grace website which is GraceAtHome.com.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show.

Soup to nuts, floorboards to shingles, we are here 24/7/365 to answer your home improvement questions at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Well, (INAUDIBLE). I mean we do have to sleep occasionally, Leslie and I (Leslie chuckles), but we do have folks that stand by on the phones all the time to take your questions. If we’re not in the studio we will call you back the next time we are.

Another great source for home improvement information is our website at MoneyPit.com and while you’re there, check out the new store we put up. There’s all sorts of Money Pit fanwear there; some fun t-shirts, hats, mugs, totes, lots of stuff to help celebrate your love of home improvement.

LESLIE: Even poke a little fun at it, too.

TOM: Yeah, a bit. (chuckling)

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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END HOUR 1 TEXT



(Copyright 2007 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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