Transcripts
Transcript For September 8, 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:
(theme song)
[audio timestamp: 0:00:25.0]
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: The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Picking up the phone and dialing that number will put you in touch with us and we will help you with your home improvement projects. See how easy that is? (Leslie chuckles) See how simple this show is?
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) That’s what we love to do.
TOM: Very simple. The advice is free; it’s worth more than what you pay for it.
LESLIE: (chuckling) Which is nothing.
TOM: 888-666-3974. Coming up this hour, we’re going to talk about squeaky floors. You know, if you think they’re only good for one thing like knowing exactly when your teenager got in last night …
LESLIE: Ooh.
TOM: If you want to quiet those squeaks, we’ve got an insider trick of the trade that’s going to help you out.
LESLIE: And we’re also going be talking about, you know, how much time do you actually spend in your kitchen? Do you live in it? Do you …
TOM: A lot.
LESLIE: Yeah, totally. It’s everybody’s favorite room in the house. They always call the kitchen the heart of the house. Well, if you find you’re in there pretty much 100 percent of your time, why not make it a little bit homier? We can help you to create a kitchen that’s the perfect gathering spot for the entire family, in just a bit.
TOM: And if you ever wondered why there’s so much wasted space in closets, especially those walk-in closets, well it’s because closets are often thrown into whatever space is left over in a home’s floor plan. But there actually is a way to plan and design a closet properly. We’re going to talk about that with the editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine, in just a bit.
LESLIE: And we’re also giving away a great prize this hour. We’re giving away a set of three Pizzazz mirror squares from our friends over at MirrorMate, which are very beautifully framed mirrors that you can hang in groupings around the house, you can put them individually. They really do wonders to enhance the décor of your home.
TOM: They’re worth over 100 bucks. If you want to win it, you’ve got to pick up the phone right now and call us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT and you must have a home improvement question.
Leslie, who’s first?
LESLIE: Time to talk plumbing with Manny in Hawaii. Aloha. How can we help you?
MANNY: OK. Hi. I would like to know – I’ve seen on a television program where they’re installing some copper water lines.
TOM: OK.
MANNY: And instead of soldering, they’re crimping.
TOM: OK.
MANNY: And I didn’t know that was possible.
TOM: Yes.
MANNY: How is that …
TOM: It’s actually not called crimping; it’s called pressing. And yeah, they’re special fittings that fit on the ends of the copper pipe and then there’s something called a pressing tool, which basically surrounds it and does what, in effect, is like a crimp but it makes a mechanical weld. And it’s great; a lot of the pros are going to pressing tools right now. Ridgid makes probably some of the best ones in the business.
LESLIE: And Tom and I actually saw it demonstrated at the Builders Show and the technology is fantastic.
TOM: We actually got a chance to try out pressing.
MANNY: Well, I subscribe to the newsletter from Ridgid but I’ve never seen it on their newsletter yet.
TOM: Yeah, go to Ridgid.com and there’s a whole section there for pressing tools …
LESLIE: Pressing tools.
TOM: … and you can read about it.
LESLIE: Jan in New Hampshire, welcome to The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
JAN: Yes. A couple of years ago, we purchased a split-entry home and when we purchased the home, we asked the people if there was any, you know, water leaking in the lower level or any kind of …
TOM: And they said, “Oh no, Jan.”
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) “Oh, of course not.”
TOM: “There’s no water in the basement of our house.”
JAN: Yeah, right. So anyway, well, they said that there was some but they had it sealed and I’m not sure what they meant by that …
TOM: Mm-hmm.
JAN: … but they said since they had the whole lower level sealed, that they hadn’t seen any seepage. So …
TOM: Now this is not a houseboat that you’ve purchased, huh Jan?
JAN: No. (Jan, Tom, and Leslie chuckle)
TOM: Because that’s the only reason to seal the lower level of your house. Listen, are you still getting problems now?
JAN: Well, yes. What I’m having now is just – I mean, there’s carpeting down there and tile – not tile but, you know, this like linoleum-type tile? But in the walkway – in the hallway, we have a parquet floor …
TOM: OK.
JAN: … and this is the second Spring that we’ve gone through and each time it’s buckling. I mean, it just kind of buckles all up like it’s going to pop right off the floor and …
TOM: OK. Jan, you have a combination of issues here, OK? First of all, you have high humidity or moisture in your basement or your lower level and the way you address that is by improving the drainage conditions at the foundation perimeter. We’re talking about clean gutters, extend the downspouts, soil that slopes away from the house and a dehumidifier.
Secondly, you have inappropriate flooring materials in your basement. You mentioned carpet – bad idea, holds a lot of mold; lets it grow, especially in that damp condition. And parquet floor also is not a good idea in a very humid space because it will buckle. If you want a hardwood floor in a below-grade space, you have to use something called engineered hardwood, which is made up of multiple layers of hardwood glued together like plywood or you could use something like a laminate floor which is inorganic and is not going to be affected by the moisture.
So you have a couple of things to do here. The first thing I would concentrate on is reducing the moisture by improving the drainage conditions outside and reducing the humidity inside.
LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. If you need a hand with any home improvement project, pick up the phone and give us a call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
TOM: 888-666-3974. Up next, are your wood floors creaking and squeaking? We’re going to give you an easy solution, after this.
[audio timestamp: 0:06:07.8]
(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, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: And could you use 5,000 bucks for your next home improvement project? How about five grand for maybe your next anything? You know, vacation …
LESLIE: Yeah, I like that.
TOM: … new clothes, for whatever reason. We don’t really care. We just want to give you the money if you win the sweepstakes going on right now at MoneyPit.com. Right there, you will find the My Home, My Money Pit Home Improvement Adventure Game and Sweepstakes. Plus, there are over 200 other prizes from companies like EasyWater, who have fantastic water softeners and big, beautiful storage sheds from Lifetime Products and even some wall-hanging hardware from our friends at Monkey Hook. It’s all there right now at MoneyPit.com.
LESLIE: Yeah, and if you’re entering into that contest and you win, say, the $5,000 grand prize, maybe you want to take a dollar or two of that prize and go run to the store and pick up some oil soap because that is exactly what you might be able to silence that squeaky floor with. Just take that soap and place it in between the joints of your wood floors to stop that creaking and the creaking is really the dry boards rubbing against one another or the boards against the sub-floor; something’s moving and causing the squeaking. So that soap could lubricate the wood and it actually cleans the floor at the same time, so you’re getting two projects for the price of one.
TOM: And if the squeaky floor is under carpet, here’s another trick of the trade. You can actually use a stud finder to locate the floor joist under that and then drive a finish nail right through the carpet into the sub-floor and then into the floor joist. Now, when you’re all done, you’ll see a little dimple in the carpet; you just grab the nap of the carpet and pull it up past the head of the finish nail and then it’ll disappear below the floor and stop the squeak all in one step.
888-666-3974. If your floors are squeaking or your toilet is leaking, give us a call; we’ll help you out.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Norma in Indiana, welcome to The Money Pit. What can we do for you?
NORMA: I’m wanting to know if I could put my washer and dryer in the garage. Well, I know I could do it but how do I keep it from freezing? My garage is insulated but it’s not heated.
TOM: Well, you know, that’s not so uncommon. You could put it in the garage and in the very, very cold months you have to be concerned about those pipes. Now, if the pipes are in the wall between the house and the garage and not in an exterior wall so it’s heated on one side, then it would be less likely.
If I was going to put it in the garage, Norma, I’ll tell you what I absolutely would do and that is I would have a shut-off valve on there – a single lever shut-off valve on the washer supply so that you could, with one throw of the lever, very easily turn the water off to the washer. And this way, if it did get so cold out there that it froze, then you would not have to worry about water leaking out other than what was in the hose itself, going from the wall to the washing machine.
NORMA: All I would need is a shut-off valve for extremely cold weather then?
LESLIE: Well, I would turn it off any time after I use it.
TOM: Yeah, exactly. I would turn it off all the time.
NORMA: (overlapping voices) Yes.
LESLIE: You know, just in case.
TOM: Yeah, because if those hoses ever burst, and they do burst, you’ll flood that whole garage out. Norma, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Marie in Rhode Island needs some help in the kitchen. What can we do for you today?
MARIE: Listen, I was wondering – I can’t find anything that will clean all the grease and gunk off my walls …
TOM: Mm-hmm.
MARIE: … and my cabinets.
TOM: OK.
MARIE: And I was wondering maybe if you knew something real good that, you know, I could use?
TOM: Are you familiar with a product called Simple Green?
MARIE: No.
TOM: It works very well; widely distributed, environmentally friendly. Works on cabinets, works on glass, works on mirrors, works on walls. That’s probably a good first step. If you find that the grease or the dirt is so thick that you need something heavier, then I would tell you to use TSP. That’s just something that you use like, for example, if you have smoke on the walls and that sort of thing. TSP stands for tri-sodium phosphate.
MARIE: Oh.
TOM: It’s available at hardware stores and home centers and you can mix it up.
LESLIE: Yeah, it’s like a paint-prepping product.
TOM: Yeah, it really …
MARIE: Called TSP?
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Mm-hmm.
TOM: (overlapping voices) TSP, yes. Mm-hmm.
MARIE: Oh, OK.
TOM: But I would start with the easy stuff first; Simple Green works really well.
MARIE: Oh, well, that’s good. I’m going to try that then.
TOM: OK?
MARIE: If it works that good, OK. And listen, thank you very much and I listen to your show every weekend.
TOM: Well, thank you very much.
MARIE: I enjoy listening to both of you.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Alright, Marie.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Thank you.
TOM: Have a great day.
MARIE: OK. Bye.
TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show and you can reach us, just like Marie did, at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Heading over to my neck-of-the-woods, Long Island, New York to chat with Steve about moisture. What can we do for you?
STEVE: My wife and I are about to purchase a home that, you know, the previous owner had a flood in the basement from plumbing.
TOM: (overlapping voices) OK.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) OK.
STEVE: And that was repaired. However, they have carpet in their basement and apparently, the flood happened about six months ago.
TOM: Mm-hmm.
STEVE: And we had a mold inspection done and there was some mold found in the basement. I was wondering if you could offer some advice as the best way to remediate that?
TOM: First, get rid of the carpet.
LESLIE: Yeah. That carpet that was ruined is still there? Get it out.
TOM: Carpet in the basement is a real bad idea, Steve, because it’s essentially mold food. You know, not only can the backing be food for mold but all the dust and the dirt that gets stuck in carpet is great food for mold.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: So it’s a really unhealthy material to have in a below-grade room.
LESLIE: So get rid of that; think about an alternative flooring for the basement. A great option is laminate, just because it’s made for high-moisture environments. I mean, it’s sitting on a concrete sub-floor, you’re going to get constant moisture wicking through so get something that’s not going to produce mold when exposed to those moist situations; laminate flooring.
If you’re dead set on having some sort of hardwood, you can go with an engineered hardwood because the base of that is actually made from sort of a plywood material that’s alternating layers of the graining on the wood, so it makes it structurally stable for a moist environment and then there’s a thin veneer on top that actually is that hardwood you like – or tile. And then you can always sort of warm up the area with area rugs, throw rugs, bring your color in there.
And then you really want to look at the outside in to control moisture; you want to look at your gutters and your downspouts. You want to make sure that there are enough gutters on the house and that the downspouts are free-flowing and you want to make sure that where those downspouts deposit the water is not right up against your foundation wall. You want those downspouts to go out three feet, however far – bury them, get them away from the foundation and get that water away.
Roberta in Wisconsin has the perfect question for this time of year – regulating heat, because you don’t want to be overheating and spending energy dollars. How can we help you?
ROBERTA: Hi. I own a home that’s at least 100-years-old and it has the old radiator heating in it which is fine with me except that upstairs, it gets so hot by the end of the day …
LESLIE: Oh, yeah.
ROBERTA: … that, you know, it’s almost like you’re sleeping in the summertime. But downstairs it’s much cooler so I just wondered, do most radiators have a way to regulate it that you don’t have to have it quite so hot upstairs and is it able to do it safely?
TOM: Roberta, do you know if this is a hot water or a steam radiator system?
ROBERTA: No, it’s a hot water.
TOM: Hot water system?
ROBERTA: Yes.
TOM: Yes. Probably in the best possible scenario – and this would involve a home improvement project – you would zone your house so that you had two separate loops. Now, it would be worth having a conversation with your heating contractor about whether or not you could zone the second floor radiators because what that would do is that would put them on a second thermostat and you could regulate the heat perfectly then on both floors.
Now, if you can’t zone them, there are flow valves on the radiators and you could start partially turning them off.
ROBERTA: I see.
TOM: So there’s two ways to control that.
ROBERTA: And that could be done safely?
TOM: Oh, absolutely.
LESLIE: Oh, yeah. And you can also, if you have ceiling fans in the room, you know there’s a switch on the fan that controls which direction the blades run?
ROBERTA: Yes.
LESLIE: So in the winter months, you would want them to run so that they’re pushing the heat down. Is that correct, Tom?
TOM: Yes. Yeah, because the heat rises so you reverse the fan blade direction so it pushes heat down.
LESLIE: This way you can keep the temperature a little bit cooler, you know, so it’s not so hot upstairs but still warm enough downstairs and it’ll just help keep circulating the heat around for you.
ROBERTA: I see. Well, thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Talking ceiling repair with Doreen in the Bronx. How can we help?
DOREEN: Well, I had a leaky ceiling. What happened was I had a – my washing machine had overflowed. It’s upstairs – my washer.
LESLIE: OK.
DOREEN: And it had overflowed and it came down through the floor and into the ceiling in the living room downstairs. I did fix it; I got some of that tape – that joint tape and I got it fixed but what I forgot to do was sand it and now it’s like really uneven. It’s like …
TOM: Yeah.
DOREEN: Is there a clean, neat way to get that done without all the powder going everywhere?
TOM: There is a machine that you could rent that basically sands drywall; it has a vacuum attachment to it.
DOREEN: Oh.
TOM: But if you don’t have that, you may be able to kind of do this as a two-hand. What I would do is I would take a block of wood and wrap sandpaper around it so you have a flat surface to work on and then with a vacuum hose in one hand and the sander in the other, you can try to minimize the dust that way.
LESLIE: Just make sure you wear a dust mask because you – and safety goggles and a hair net, for that matter …
DOREEN: Right.
LESLIE: … because you don’t want this dust getting everywhere.
TOM: And by the way, while we’re talking about it, I think it’s USG just came out with a reduced-dust spackle and it was pretty cool because I saw a demo of it and it was not nearly as flaky as the traditional spackle mix. So I think the manufacturers are getting smart on that and if you’re doing a big project, then that’s something you could look into.
DOREEN: Well, that’s a little late for me now but … (Leslie and Tom chuckle)
TOM: Yes, it is. But for those that are just tackling those jobs now.
DOREEN: At the rental – the equipment rental place and see if they got that sander with the vacuum attached.
TOM: Yeah, that might be the way to go.
DOREEN: Alright. Well, thank you guys very much. And I just started listening to your show and I’m really learning a lot of stuff, so thank you for that, too.
TOM: Well, thank you so much. Good luck with that home improvement project. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Lots of great home improvement information always here at Team Money Pit and we want to help you get the best use of every inch and nook and cranny in your house and you might not be doing that with your closets. Because closets, they’re usually an afterthought; the last thing that somebody sort of says, “Hey, there’s an odd space. Let me slap a door on it. Boom. Closet.”
TOM: Well, we can change all that with the tips that will turn your closet into a carefully planned haven for your belongings. That’s coming up when we interview the editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine, next.
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(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: 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 at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. And call us now, especially if you have a question about how do you fit more clothes into your existing closet, something we’re all challenged with these days as it becomes harder and harder to buy bigger houses where a lot of us are stuck kind of in the homes that we are now. We continue to pick up more stuff and try to fit it into the same space and sometimes we need a little help to get that done.
And we’ve got a guest coming up now that can help us do just that. He is Kevin Ireton, the editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine. Did you ever wonder why there’s just so much wasted space in your walk-in closet? Well, that’s because the most common design crime in closets is the lack of proper planning. They are usually afterthoughts thrown into whatever space is leftover in the home’s floor plan.
LESLIE: Yeah, it’s always like, “That didn’t work; let me try this again.” And actually there are ways to design a closet that is going to create a proper entrance, different zones and even storage solutions that are going to take into account those black holes known as corners, so you can get everything in there and not have to donate all of your favorite clothes to Goodwill.
So we’ve got Kevin Ireton, he’s Fine Homebuilding’s editor, and he’s here to help us get the skeletons out of our closets, folks. Welcome, Kevin.
KEVIN: Hi Leslie. Hi Tom.
TOM: Hello.
LESLIE: So Kevin – I mean, being a girl, obviously I have a lot of things that I like to cram into my closet and I tend to, rather than properly organizing my space, I give away a lot of stuff. If I haven’t worn it in six months, it goes to the Goodwill or a friend or whomever. How is it so that I can really figure out a space where I can keep things, you know, so I’m not looking for something six months down the road that I gave away but properly use my space and pick the right space?
KEVIN: Leslie, what you need is a well-designed closet and that means you’ve got to plan ahead and the first thing you’ve got to ask yourself is whether you’ve got room for a walk-in closet. So the question is how much room do I need for a walk-in closet? And the answer is it needs to be at least four feet deep and seven feet wide.
LESLIE: That’s huge.
KEVIN: If you don’t have that much space, you’re better with a more traditional reach-in closet.
TOM: Because you’re wasting a lot of space if it’s not four-by-seven. Basically, it takes so much space up for the racks that you would get more efficient space if you made it not walk-in, Kevin, is that correct?
KEVIN: Exactly. I mean to walk in, you have to have circulation space; you have to have space to stand. And if that space is in the closet, then it’s space that you can’t use for storage so it’s kind of a tricky trade-off.
LESLIE: Well and it seems like these are all really good solutions or a space solution in a new build or new construction, where you can really plan this initially. But if you’re dealing, especially with an older home – you know, Tom and I both live in very old homes that have weird nooks and crannies, so how do you even look at the right space in the house?
KEVIN: The first thing to do is to send your kids off to college and colonize their bedroom for a closet. (Leslie and Tom chuckle) Then you’ve got lots of room to work …
TOM: Quick before they come home, right?
KEVIN: (chuckling) Exactly. But you’re right, Leslie. In that case, if you’re having to make use of smaller spaces, then I think you want to look at other storage solutions besides the walk-in closet.
TOM: Well, what about good lighting? Isn’t that some something that we can always improve upon, Kevin, and aren’t there some new technologies to do that in closets?
KEVIN: There are a couple of really cool things when it comes to putting light in a closet. I mean, first of all, again think about it ahead of time. Your three main choices are: an overhead light, recessed light or wall sconces; but wall sconces are tricky in a closet.
TOM: What about the lighted closet rods and tubular skylights and those sorts of things?
KEVIN: The lighted closet rod is one of the coolest things to come along and it is just that – it’s the actual rod that you hang your clothes on but it’s designed so that it has a light built into it. So it’s giving great illumination right where you need it to try to see, you know, where that Hawaiian shirt wound up. (Leslie chuckles)
LESLIE: Well …
TOM: Yes. I say it helps you sort out the browns from the blues from the blacks.
KEVIN: Exactly. And tubular skylights are another great option. A lot of times, you know, closets are on the interior of a house so they’re located where you can’t have a window and yet bringing in some natural light is a good way to go and the tubular skylights allow you to funnel light from elsewhere on a roof into an interior space like a closet. Obviously, it won’t work if you’re getting dressed before the sun comes up.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
KEVIN: You’ve got to have a backup option but for the rest of the day, it’s great light.
LESLIE: What about accessories? You know, shelving or storage components – is it sort of a good idea to sort through all of your belongings first to get an idea of what you’ve got to solve rather than running out and buying a ton of things and then trying, you know, to make square pegs fit in round holes?
KEVIN: Absolutely. Everybody’s design needs are going to be different. I mean, some people need two closet rods – one over the other – because they don’t have a lot of full-length things like robes and dresses.
LESLIE: Or gowns.
KEVIN: Other people have lots of shoes that they need to accommodate or you might want shelves for your sweaters. It really depends on your needs and your particular wardrobe so you should customize it for what you have.
TOM: Kevin Ireton, editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine. Thanks so much for stopping by The Money Pit with tips on how to get the most out of our closet space. If you’d like some more information, Fine Homebuilding magazine is on newsstands now; info also available at FineHomeBuilding.com. Thanks, Kevin.
KEVIN: Thank you, Tom. Thanks, Leslie.
LESLIE: Always nice to share some time with Kevin. Alright, folks, when you’re not thinking about renovating your closets, it’s probably because you’re busy cleaning the kitchen or making dinner because you live in your kitchen – doing homework with the kids, searching online, writing a grocery list; you are always in there. So we’re going to give you an easy way to make your kitchen more of a living room, right after this.
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(theme song)
ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is brought to you by Therma-Tru, the nation's leading manufacturer of fiberglass entry and patio door systems. Choose the brand more building professionals prefer and add up to $24,000 to the perceived value of your home. For more information, visit ThermaTru.com.
TOM: 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 should pick up the phone and give us a call because we’re giving away a set of three Pizzazz mirror squares this hour. They are worth more than 100 bucks and all you have to do to get in on this prize giveaway is pick up the phone – very easy to do – and give us a call at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Ask your home improvement question on the air, get the information you need to get the job done and maybe win a prize.
TOM: It’s as simple as that. 888-666-3974. Now it’s time to talk about kitchens. You know, most kitchens today are used for much more than just cooking and eating. They’re homework centers, they’re home offices, they’re even a place just to hang out and relax; I know they are at my house. So what can you do to make your kitchen even more inviting? Well, here’s a little trick of the trade. You can put living room furniture into your kitchen, you know, something like an overstuffed chair for guests to sit in while you’re cooking and chatting or a small chest of drawers to store linens or china can create a very cozy, welcoming kitchen space. It’s inexpensive; it’s easy to do and it’ll make that place a whole lot nicer.
888-666-3974. Call us right now with your home décor question.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Charlie in Virginia wants to remove some wallpaper. Well, how can we help?
CHARLIE: I bought a new house and of course my wife is having me repaint basically everything.
LESLIE: Of course. You have to make it yours.
CHARLIE: It looks like in the dining room that there used to be some wallpaper but the original owners decided that they were going to paint over that wallpaper and I can see little places where they tried to tear it away.
TOM: Yeah, that’s a new style of wallpaper, Charlie. Painted paper. (Charlie chuckles) Yeah, you know, it makes it a little harder to pull the old stuff off but you’re right in considering doing just that. At this point, though, especially with paint on top of it, I can see no other option but to rent a steamer and even renting a steamer is going to be probably more of a challenge than if it wasn’t …
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: … painted to begin with because all that paint fills in the pores of the paper; makes it harder for the steam to get through.
LESLIE: Yeah. You’re going to have to, I think, score that paper – not with one of those tools that crazily scratches it all up, only because when you go to peel it off at that point, you’re going to be peeling it off in many different pieces. So if you take a matte knife and just do long seams, you know, not cutting in too deep because you don’t want to damage the wallboard behind it but you do want to open up some areas, especially through the paint, to allow that steam to saturate through to the glue through the paper because that’s what that paint is doing; it’s blocking you from getting that moisture to loosen up that paper.
CHARLIE: Now how am I going to be able to do this without – I mean, you say without cutting the wallboard beneath but that seems like a pretty hard challenge.
LESLIE: Well, you know, don’t be too aggressive with it; don’t just dig into it and cut down. Be as gentle as you can because once you do get off all of that paper, you’re still going to be left with some damage to the wall behind it, some paste you’re going to need to work off with either a little bit extra steam or even some vinegar or some soapy water. I’ve even heard that like a fabric softener and water helps to get rid of some wall covering paste residue. So a lot of those things in combination.
And once you get through to that, there’s going to be some areas where you are going to have to, you know, re-spackle and sand. So if you do get some cut marks occasionally, that’s OK but you don’t want to find yourself in a situation with now you’ve got the paper off and you’re dealing with all these stripes that you’ve got to repair.
TOM: Now, Charlie, after you get the paper off and you get the walls cleaned up and repaired as best as you possibly can, the next step is really critical and that is that you have to apply a primer to the entire surface. And we would recommend, in this situation, an oil-based primer. It’s going to give you great adhesion and it will create an even surface so that when you put the next coat of paint on it, it flows nicely, it covers nicely and it looks great. But don’t skip that primer step after you get all this done; that’s really important.
CHARLIE: OK. Just so I understand, I’m taking a box cutter and I’m scoring long, vertical scores in it as opposed to taking one of those tools?
LESLIE: Once you start steaming, if you do long cuts you can start pulling away in that section and you end up with longer pieces and a better, manageable section rather than all these little pieces that you’re trying to pull off and deal with.
TOM: This is a little bit learn-as-you-go, Charlie.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: You’re going to have to get a sense of …
LESLIE: See what’s working.
TOM: … how much steam or what’s working, what’s not working; try to get into a rhythm. It’s not an easy job but, you know, it is the right thing to do; so good luck with that project.
CHARLIE: Thanks a lot.
LESLIE: Well, if you find that you listen to The Money Pit just to see if you can answer the home improvement questions that we get asked …
TOM: Yeah and then you yell at the radio when you think we got them wrong? (Leslie and Tom chuckle)
LESLIE: It’s just like watching Jeopardy. (chuckles) Well, now you can test your home improvement knowledge and maybe win 5,000 bucks for your next home improvement project at MoneyPit.com.
TOM: That’s right. Going on right now, the My Home, My Money Pit Home Improvement Adventure Game and Sweepstakes. We’ve taken our advice and put it into a book called My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide To Every Home Improvement Adventure and to celebrate, we’re giving away $5,000 cash and lots of fun home improvement products with our first-ever home improvement game.
LESLIE: Yeah, we’re giving away dozens of other prizes too, including five EasyWater water softening systems and those are worth almost $1,300 each. We’re giving away two Lifetime sheds, a Lifetime trailer and the trailers are worth more than $1,500 each and we’re giving away 100 packs of those monkey hooks, which are going to help you hang anything on your walls and they’re so crazy because they sort of grip behind the drywall and they can hold up to 75 pounds. So you can start decorating and decorate to your heart’s content.
TOM: And don’t forget the very valuable Money Pit t-shirts and tote bags, all available if you go to MoneyPit.com and play the My Home, My Money Pit Home Improvement Adventure Sweepstakes going on right now.
LESLIE: And while you’re online pondering your home improvement questions, you can e-mail us a question. When we come back, we’re going to jump into the e-mail bag and we’re going to tackle one about floors and walls. Which should you tackle first when it comes to home improvement projects? We’ll answer that for our listeners when we come back.
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TOM: And it’s just about that time that most of us start thinking about buttoning up our houses, getting ready for the winter but before you do, it’s also a good time to care for those screens that have been battling the elements all summer long. We’re going to tell you what to do in the next edition of the free Money Pit e-newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber, sign up right now at MoneyPit.com. It’s free.
LESLIE: And while you’re signing up for that Money Pit e-newsletter, go ahead and click on the Ask Tom and Leslie icon and you can e-mail us a question if you’re feeling too shy to pick up the phone at the moment. And we always jump into our e-mail bag every hour of the show at this point. Now I’ve got one here from Deborah in Cedarhurst, New York who writes: “We just bought a house and would like to paint and finish the wood floors before we move in.” I assume she means paint the walls; then finish the floors. “Which do you advise us to do first? The floor guy says he should do his work first and then the painter says he should do his work first. Who’s right?”
TOM: Well, I think that gravity wins out here and I don’t know how you would approach this but I would rather do the walls first and the floors last. Now, it’s true that if you’re going to sand the floors, you could get some dust on the walls but that’s easy enough to fix. But if you do the floors first, then you’re going to have to completely tarp those down like perfectly while you do all the painting work and that’s going to be ladders and spackle and sanding and, you know, just a lot, a lot of stress. And you know, Leslie, when you do those floors you really should be careful with them for the first couple of weeks.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: You don’t want to put a lot of pressure on them.
LESLIE: Because they’re a little delicate.
TOM: Yeah, they are.
LESLIE: And let me tell you, we spent so much time and energy putting down that beautiful fiberon decking at our summer home …
TOM: Right.
LESLIE: … and then we had the house painted and the painters swore up and down, “Oh, I promise I’m not going to get anything on the deck.” Well, I spent the last weekend of summer scrubbing off every last bit of paint off of that deck so don’t do it – walls, then floor.
Alright, we’ve got one here from Sarah in Toledo who writes: “I saw you guys on Fox and Friends doing a segment on how to clean grout. Very helpful but I’ve got another problem: my husband left the grout on too long and it dried on the tiles. How can I get it off?”
TOM: You need a better tile-man. (Leslie and Tom chuckle)
LESLIE: Well, that one seemed like it was free.
TOM: Actually, there’s a product called sulfamic acid – sulfamic. It’s sort of like a paste and it’s designed to take that off. If it’s not too thick, that should do it, Sarah. It’s available in home centers and hardware stores.
LESLIE: Alright. And get your husband to do it a little bit better next time.
TOM: Well, I know you think you’re pretty busy and have no time for home improvement projects but if you’ve got 30 minutes, you can probably tackle one of dozens of home improvement maintenance tasks that we’ve got laid out in the chapter called 30 Under 30 in our new book, My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide To Every Home Improvement Adventure because home improvement projects don’t always have to take a lot of time if you know where to start. And that’s the topic of today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.
LESLIE: That’s right. Let’s see how many of these you can tackle all while waiting for that pizza to be delivered. (Tom chuckles) In fact, in less than 30 minutes, you can caulk your chimney crown which is one common area that’s a weak link in masonry chimney. It’s the crown area and that’s the cement area between the outside edge of the brick and the terracotta clay chimney liner. And when that crown cracks, water can leak down into the chimney and cause your bricks to freeze and break and it can really drive up some repair costs. And then if you inspect and caulk your chimney crowns yearly, this will help you maintain your chimney’s structural integrity.
So 30 minutes, a little bit of time, certainly not a lot of money can save you a ton of money down the road from a potential hazard in home improvement and we’ve got tons of tips there; all you can tackle in under 30 minutes. We’ve got 30 of them; they’re listed in a great chapter called 30 Under 30 in our new book, My Home, My Money Pit: Your Guide To Every Home Improvement Adventure. And that is available now in book stores or online at MoneyPit.com, so go get a copy right now.
TOM: Coming up next week on The Money Pit, we’re going to talk about fire extinguishers. They’re an important safety item to have in your home but do you know which type you need to use for which room? You have to make sure you get the right one or it won’t work. We’ll give you that tip next week on the program.
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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