#2363 – Aging Gracefully: Older Home Repairs | New Heat Pump Technology

Show Notes

In this podcast packed with home improvement wisdom, we reveal the reality of older home repairs, unravel the magic of heat pump technology, and uncover stealthy spots where your home’s energy is slipping away. Tune in for a mix of classic craftsmanship and modern energy-saving tips!

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Show Notes
Top Questions & Answers
Podcast Transcript

Older Home Repairs: The charm of buying an older home comes at the cost of commonly needed repairs.
Heat Pump Technology: New heat pump technology is the hottest buzz in home comfort and energy savings.
Finding Wasted Energy: Discover the hidden hideouts where your home is wasting energy.

Podcast Transcript

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0:00:29	TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles. This is the Money Pit Home Improvement show. I’m Tom Kramer.
0:00:34	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
0:00:58	TOM: And we are heading on into the holiday season. If you’ve got a project you want to get done to fix up home sweet home before your friends and family take over. Reach out to us with your questions. Or, for that matter, anything else you’d like to get done now or plan for the warmer weather ahead? You can reach us by calling 1-888-Money-Pit or go to moneypit.com/ask and click the blue microphone button. Coming up on today’s show, if you’re shopping for a home, buying an older home can be a good deal, but only if you’re ready for the restoration and repair that comes along with the job. We’re going to share tips for handling the top old house to dos.
0:01:11	LESLIE: And heat pumps have long been a good option for heating and cooling homes where natural gas just isn’t available. But new developments in heat pump efficiency may be making these systems even less costly to operate. We’re going to dig into the new technology in a bit.
0:01:25	TOM: And if you guys haven’t been surprised by a big electric bill. We’re going to share the most common places. Energy is wasted, including spots we guarantee you have never thought of.
0:01:35	LESLIE: All right. But first, we want to know what you are working on as we speed toward the holiday season. You got some last minute fix ups to tackle before Turkey Day. Well, you can make your to dos our to dos when you reach out with your questions.
0:01:48	TOM: You can do that right now at 1888-Money-Pit. It’s 888-666-3974. Or go to Money Pit icon slash ask and click the blue microphone button for the fastest possible response. So let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s first?
0:02:03	LESLIE: Brenda in Michigan, you’ve got the Money Pit. How can we help you today?
0:02:06	CALLER: Yes, hi. Were just wondering, we have a basement that we’d like to remodel. And the only problem is that right now it currently has a golden carpet. It has paneling in the walls. And we had a termite problem. So we want to know, what would you put first once he got everything all out because the termite problem. Has been corrected. What kind of walling material could you use? That would be anti-termite, anti-mold resistant in moisture and it’s against a black basement. What would you recommend?
0:02:38	TOM: So first of all, what you would do is you would frame the wall out away from the block wall. You don’t want to attach anything directly to the block wall because you need to have sort of an air space between the wall and the concrete block so that it can breathe. If there’s moisture that gets in, the wall can evaporate. In terms of what kinds of materials you use, you’re going to use either steel, steel framing or you’re going to use a pressure treated steel plate. That’s the bottom piece of wood, the bottom two by four, and then typical traditional two by fours on top of that in terms of the wall covering. There’s a type of drywall called dense armor, which is like fiberglass face as opposed to paper face. And that’s a good option for a basement, because this way that paper face can’t feed on mold problem in terms of the termites. If the home is properly treated, you shouldn’t have to worry about those. It’s not like you need to worry about building a termite proof basement down there. The termite proofing is the application of the right pesticides that keeps them at bay. Typically today they use a type of pesticides called an undetectable pesticide that goes in the soil at the foundation perimeter. As the termites pass through that, as they go to the nest, they pick it up and spread it to the rest of the insects and the nest, calling germ warfare. And that wipes out the whole colony. And those treatments are effective for ten years plus. So if it was done, you should have to worry about that. Just concentrate now on the best materials for finishing that basement.
0:04:00	CALLER: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
0:04:02	LESLIE: All right. We’ve got Steve in New York who’s dealing with a stinky water heater. What is going on?
0:04:07	CALLER: So recently I had a plumbing outfit come in and replace the water heater because it went it was old. So it went and okay, after they came and replaced the water heater, for some strange reason, my water smells like the sponge sits for an extended amount of time. Yeah, like that. So, yeah, I’m not drinking it, but nevertheless I am showering and it’s just a little strange. So I went in and I changed the whole house filter and it seems to have subsided that a little bit, but not a lot. So is there like some kind of treatment I can do or something or. it make sense to me to bring the water here?
0:04:54	TOM: Is it only the hot water, the smells, or is it the hot and cold?
0:04:57	CALLER: You know what I hear tell you? Yes. To that.
0:05:01	TOM: Well, we’re talking about municipal water here. City water. Not well water.
0:05:05	CALLER: No, no, no, no. Well.
0:05:07	TOM: Oh, it’s well water. Okay, here’s what you need to do. You need to do a water test and find out exactly what’s in that water, because some condition has changed. The whole house, water filter is great, but you may need some additional treatment to deal with that, to deal with that taste and that smell. I don’t know why, but something is different than what it was before. I think the water heater issue is probably not causing this. The only way that water heaters affect the odor of water is when you have an anode rod that wears out inside it. But since it’s a brand new water here, that’s clearly not the case. I suspect this is the water supply itself that’s smelling. And just for your sanity and your safety, I would recommend that you have a water test done. And if you can do it before the filter so that the water that you’re testing has not already passed through the filter. normally if you have municipal water, the water company would be doing it. But since you have well water, this is kind of on you. Do you have any other treatment on this water, aside from the fill from the filter?
0:06:08	CALLER: No, no. Like I said, I had no problem. I was drinking my water as it was. There was no smell. There was there was no discrepancies, actually. But ever since they put the new water heater on, it’s like, what the heck is that smell?
0:06:25	TOM: Well, I suspect they’re not connected, but I would definitely do a water test. Just because it smells good and tastes okay doesn’t mean it’s good. There are things that could be in that water that you can’t taste and you can’t smell. So that’s where you have to start with this problem. Steve okay.
0:06:37	CALLER: Thank you. And thank you for what you guys do.
0:06:40	LESLIE: Do you love learning about home improvement on our podcast? Well, we love bringing you all the latest tips and tricks.
0:06:45	TOM: And if you want to make us smile, leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Just go to Money Pit dot com slash review.
0:06:54	LESLIE: Patricia in Louisiana is on the line with the same question How can I help you today?
0:06:57	CALLER: I have listened to a program that you guys had done just a little while back and somebody was asking about putting gutters on the side of a manufactured home. Well, I it was sunny because I had actually done that. And it does not work very well because most of the siding on a mobile home is corrugated, so it really doesn’t work really well. And they put these really skinny gutters on well in the areas that it didn’t exactly go flush to the metal siding. There has been runoff that’s gone down and just in a few places. So it’s not horrible. But I’ve tried to clean it and I’m afraid to push on it too hard because obviously the corrugated aluminum bends and I’ve used a product that you guys also suggested, which is a spray that actually gets rid of mold and mildew and stuff like that in the side of buildings. That works fabulously, but it did not clean off the staining from the rain. And I was wondering what I could use to either cover the staining or I’m afraid of painting anything for fear. It looks like I’ve painted the side of a mobile home.
0:08:11	TOM: Right, Right. So a couple of things. I’m glad that the spray and forget that we recommended work so well.
0:08:16	CALLER: It was wonderful.
0:08:17	TOM: So there are house cleaners that are out there that are a little more corrosive. the reason that works so well is that the spray, if you get work so well, is because basically it’s kind of like a mold decided kills the mold and mildew, and then it just sort of falls off. The house cleaners are more like old fashioned sort of soap and water and that sort of thing. One that I used to recommend a lot that works pretty well is called Joe Max Chioma actual find it at a home center or a hardware store, and that’s a house cleaner that you might be able just to mix up a really small batch of it and see if that will take out that stain. It also occurs to me that the stain could be like an erosion of the finish. So it may not be a stain that’s on top of the siding. It might actually be sort of some siding, some of the finish of the siding deteriorating. In that case, obviously, there’s nothing that you can do about it short of painting. Well, why are you reluctant, though, just to paint the whole side of the.
0:09:07	CALLER: Of the house? Because I don’t have that kind of money at hand to do. I’m actually selling my lakefront property. And this is the really cool little mobile home that I put on it. And I just I’ve spent so much money on these two acres recently that it became a money pit, but a good one. It’s a nice one But it’s just everything I have is gone into this place. And to be quite honest with you, I have tried to use like those sponges that have a little bit of rough on the other side. one side for the other side is abrasive, and I’ve tried to use that in the color of the stain does not change at all. Whether I use a little bit of baking soda not super abrasive, but abrasive. it.
0:09:51	LESLIE: Sounds like it’s either a chemical reaction or some of the finishes changed due to sun fading. that’s what it seems like rather than something you can clean.
0:09:59	TOM: Yeah, that’s a really good point.
0:10:01	CALLER: Not in this. Fine. It’s I actually have a carport. And so some of it you can just see where it’s been runoff from the little teeny tiny gutter that they put up alongside of these mobile homes, which I’m not kidding you. It’s not even a half inch wide.
0:10:18	TOM: So here’s what I would suggest you do. Take a picture and post it to the Money Pit’s Facebook page. It’s Facebook.com. Slash the Money Pit. Give us a little bit of history and we’ll take a look and get you an answer. So I’m good.
0:10:31	CALLER: Thank you very much.
0:10:32	TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
0:10:36	LESLIE: Well, have you shopped for a home lately? they’re growing dramatically more expensive. And boy, are they seriously getting more and more expensive. But you may not know that they’re also getting older. In fact, the average age of a home in the United States today is 39 years. And if you’ve been shopping for a home and put off by those higher prices, older homes are definitely presenting a more affordable option. But you do need to keep one thing in mind. Older homes mean more maintenance.
0:11:04	TOM: That’s right. guys, before I started hosting the Money Pit, I spent 20 years as a professional home inspector. And in that job, you kind of develop almost an uncanny ability to predict what might be wrong with a home and what home repairs were needed, sometimes without even setting foot in the door. It wasn’t like a magic trick, but the result of having done thousands of inspections and seeing the same home repair problems over and over again based on the house age. And once you know the age of a home, the construction shortcomings and the needed home repairs are pretty consistent.
0:11:35	LESLIE: Yeah, and that’s why one of the first things you should do is get a good home inspection done. You want to make sure you go with the inspector, make sure you pay close attention. It’s a great opportunity to learn how everything works in the house and if problems are found, you might be able to renegotiate that purchase price to cover the cost of those repairs. So definitely an important part of the process here.
0:11:55	TOM: Now, if you can’t negotiate the repair costs, you could also consider a fixer upper loan. Now, one possibility that’s very popular is an FHA 203k loan. It’s a type of mortgage that lets you borrow the purchase price and the construction costs based on the post renovation value of the property. So in other words, when the home is totally fixed up, it’s going to be worth more. And that’s the number that they use to determine how much to loan you. If you want more tips, you can simply search home repairs by house age. It’s a post that we wrote on Money Pit account for just this topic. We list all the top projects for homes from the year 1900 to the present.
0:12:33	LESLIE: We’ve got Patrick in Kansas with us, who’s got a question about solar lighting and timing and all kinds of transformer. What kind of lighting situation do you have over there, sir?
0:12:43	CALLER: I have 25 year old low voltage wired landscape lights. I have a lot of them. I have four separate transformers, probably close to 100 lights altogether. The thing of it is they’re old and I have a short somewhere on one or two because the transformers keep tripping. I’ve torn out some of the fixtures that were totally rusted and rotted. I’d like to have some others that are operational. I know everyone now is going to the solar ones. My question is, do you have solar lights that you can control on timers or something like that? I doubt it. The reason why I like the wired ones is I can control when they come on, when they go off. And some times of the year I don’t even turn them on at all. So my fixtures work. The problem is with the wiring and some of the connections, the electrician that installed them originally on the connections, just use plain wire nuts. My guess is some of those are failing and I know they make wiring that’s now made to be placed underground or even underwater. I could use those. The problem is, chasing all these down is going to be a problem. So my question is, what would be your suggestions to try to eliminate some of the old fixtures and then go fix your two fixtures and try to locate the problem and chase it down? Really, no way. On a low voltage system to use any detector as far as I know. Or should I look to do something with the solar? It’s going to get expensive with solar, though. And again, my big issue is how do I control them? I want a lot of control over them.
0:14:23	TOM: Well, wow, with over a hundred fixtures and all of those zones, that is quite a challenge. But given the fact that they’re 25 years old, I think it might be time to think about replacing those fixtures. look, the Short’s going to be out of fixtures. It’s not going to be mid-stream at the Wire unless you happen to like cut it with a shovel or something like that. But that means rewiring or at least rechecking all those connection points for every single fixture. And chances are you’re going to do that. But maybe the short is deeper in the fixture. In the fixture itself is what’s faulting. So I’m just wondering if it’s worth all of that effort, given the number that you have. I am not aware of any solar lights that will work on zones like that where you can create patterns. And frankly, I’m pretty disappointed with the solar landscape lights that are out there. They seem to be inexpensive and don’t last very long and not very bright. certainly the market’s getting better for that. We’re starting to see much better opportunities because of battery technology for good lighting. But on the control circuit side, I don’t see that changing. So I think, look, you’re probably better off replacing those with new landscape lights. Make sure the LED lights now they’ll be brighter than before. You’ll probably have more options. And just rejoice in the fact that the lights that you had last the 25 years. I think that’s a heck of a lifetime for those fixtures to have gone that far. Good luck with that project and thanks for reaching out to us at moneypit.com/ask.
0:15:47	LESLIE: Jan in South Carolina has got a question about covering a patio. Tell us about your project.
0:15:52	CALLER: I want to build a patio cover. I want to know if I should come out from this office. The people I’ve talked to that are going to maybe rebuilding it, want to come off the house, go underneath the surface and come out that way. There’s a corner were perpendicular. I guess the sun sets are going to be perpendicular to the roofline. So perpendicular, if that’s the word I’m using. So I just want to know if I should or could come off this outfit or do I need to come back and gets the house.
0:16:20	TOM: So, Janet, I think this kind of project, you have to be very careful about how you build it, because I’ve seen more built poorly than built correctly. The idea of attaching it underneath your soffit is basically the first sign that it was kind of an amateurish project because normally you wouldn’t attach a roof under soffit like that. But I’ll tell you what you would attach under that and that would be a removable awning. there are really nice awnings today that can extend out ten or more feet that are mounted on the wall, an exterior wall. And with the touch of a remote control, extend out and cover that whole dining area, the patio, really effectively. And I think that is much more likely to give you enjoyment, will have less maintenance hassles and improve the value of your house, then trying to put together any kind of a roof structure over that. If the option is just to make a patio cover, I think that’s probably a much more attractive way to go and probably less expensive. What do you think, Leslie?
0:17:20	LESLIE: I think in order for certain is far more customizable. You can have a come in, come out depending on the weather. You can pick an interesting fabric that’s going to work nicely with the house. truly, awnings are lovely and really, do you know, a wonderful job of just updating the facade of the home. So I feel like that’s a better way to go for sure. Well, the heat pumps have long been an optimal choice for heating and cooling homes where natural gas is not available. But new developments in heat pump efficiency may be making these systems even more efficient and less costly to operate than gas.
0:17:54	TOM: With us to talk about that is Kyle Murray. Kyle’s the business development manager for Bosch Home Comfort. Welcome, Kyle.
0:18:00	KYLE MURRAY: Thank you.
0:18:01	TOM: Heat pumps have always been a very popular option in mostly southern climates that have mild winters, but not so much in northern climates, where natural gas was more available and less costly to operate. But I’m hearing that’s changing now with the new technology that you guys are introducing. Tell me about it.
0:18:20	KYLE: Yeah. So over the last ten years, we’ve started developing what are called cold climate heat pumps. In cold climate heat pumps, who will work in northern climates. Usually heat pumps were sold south of the Mason-Dixon Line in the southern part of the United States. But now, with the advent of cold climate heat pumps, they’re now sold at Northern Climates and Canada as well.
0:18:44	TOM: That’s amazing. Now, is the cost of a heat pump system going to be comparable to what a gas system would cost? Or is this going to be a more a more expensive investment on the part of the initial sort of setup?
0:18:57	KYLE: Well, it really depends on whether it’s a ducted system or a Douglas system and whether what you’re talking about, whether it’s new construction or existing construction. But as a replacement, so like if you have an air conditioner in a northern climate, you should always replace it with a heat pump because it is not that much more costly as the air conditioner is and it does heating and cooling. So is that kind of a misnomer that they call them heat pumps? Because they’re both heating and cooling both.
0:19:25	TOM: Yeah, people do get confused about heat pumps. The analogy I usually use is something that most people can relate to. Everybody knows that if you take a window air conditioner, it blows hot air on the outside and colder on the inside. If you turned it around and shoved the hot air side back into the house, it’s kind of like a heat pump. It reverses a refrigeration cycle. Now, of course, that’s a very simple explanation. And what you guys are talking about is some very sophisticated – it’s inverter technology, right?
0:19:48	KYLE: All of our heat pumps at Bosch are inverter technology. And that inverter technology allows it to operate at the most efficient levels. So most systems, like when you have your furnace on your air conditioner, it’s on full blast or it’s off, right? Our systems go through 80 different cycles so that it’s constantly cycling to try to find the right level for the system that the inverter and the compressor to operate at.
0:20:13	LESLIE: So since it’s kind of always searching for this optimal level, how important is it to make sure that you’re maintaining a certain level of service so that it does do that well?
0:20:23	KYLE: Well, heating a cooling system should be serviced over time. a lot of times we ignore those and you should always win, especially as the weather starts getting colder. Take a look at your system. When’s the last time you serviced it and whether or not it’s been serviced in the last year or two, then you should definitely do that to keep it operating at a system efficiency.
0:20:43	TOM: We’re talking to Kyle Murray. He is the business development manager for Bosch Home Comfort about some brand new heat pump technology that makes heat pumps a great choice for really any climate from far south to far north. Kyle when we have a traditional heat pump that we had maybe up to this point in time, use of that thermostat is really important, right? Because heat pumps only maintain a certain differential between what it set out and what the actual temperature is. And if it got colder than that, it would always kind of kick on the electric resistance heat that was a backup sort of built in system to a heat pump. How does that change with the inverter technology? Do we still have the backup resistance heat or is that no longer necessary?
0:21:27	KYLE: Well, it depends on the envelope of the building, right? So if it’s a super insulated house or a well-insulated home, depending on your climate, heat pumps that we sell right now goes down to about minus five Fahrenheit. And the mini splits go down a little bit below that. But with the Department of Energy cold climate heat pump challenge, nine manufacturers, including Bosch, are working on what’s called cold climate heat pumps, which will operate down to -15 Fahrenheit, which in most climates will allow you to not need a backup system.
0:21:59	LESLIE: Now, all of these systems are scaled on the SEAR rating, which is the seasonal energy efficiency ratio. So what are you doing to sort of ensure the energy efficiency of these new units?
0:22:12	KYLE: Well, with the new rules from the Department of Energy, the minimum serious 14 year, all of our inverter heat pumps go from anywhere from 15 sear up to 21 sear. And those are the highest efficiencies on the market. And the products are all ducted or ductless.
0:22:35	TOM: So both ducted and ductless systems are available at these super-efficient sear levels, correct?
0:22:42	KYLE: That’s correct.
0:22:43	TOM: Exciting new technology from Bosch Home Comfort. If you’re interested in learning more, you can go to the Bosch website, which is Bosch-HomeComfort.com.us. Kyle Murray, the business development manager for Bosch Home Comfort. Kyle, thanks so much for stopping by the Money Pit. This is really exciting technology and I think it’s going to be very meaningful for folks as they look for new heating and cooling options going forward, especially for those of us in the north.
0:23:09	CALLER: Great. Thanks for having us on.
0:23:11	LESLIE: All right. Get this. Heading to Tyler, Texas, to talk to Tyler, who happens to be doing a project in his bathroom right now. Let’s see if we can interrupt him.
0:23:19	CALLER: Yeah, it’s funny. I’m under a sink while you guys are calling me. That’s awesome.
0:23:22	TOM: Oh, that’s perfect.
0:23:23	CALLER: Awesome. So, yeah, my question was, in word scenario, does a homeowner need to worry about building permits when doing work on their house? Or if they hire somebody, What do they need to check to make sure that their person they’re hiring is pulling permits for?
0:23:38	TOM: Yeah, that’s a great question. So generally speaking, if you’re doing a repair, then you don’t need a permit. But if you’re doing a replacement, then you do need a permit. So I in terms of a contractor, if a contractor is working on your house, I think the same rules apply. If it’s a repair, like if a plumber comes in to fix a leak in the pipe, that’s a repair. If you’re making an improvement, like let’s say you’re replacing your water heater, that’s an improvement and that needs a permit. So it really comes down to something as simple as that. But you know, what you might do is give a call to the local building department office. And I like to do this without giving them my address to go. I can at least can figure out what the answer is going to be before I–
0:24:21	LESLIE: Sneaky, sneaky.
0:24:22	TOM: Before I move on. Well, they’re just sneaky. They want to know where you are so they can watch your house. I learned that trick years ago when I was trying to replace a shed, and I thought, Well, it’s just a shed. Somebody just drove by the house and said, Oh, that’s like you have to have a permit for that. So I applied for it and it took like months. It’s a shed, for Christ’s sakes. It’s a shed. it shouldn’t take that long, but it did. So I’m just a little more careful about what I say when I talk to those guys. And but listen, I’m not say that. It’s not to say that having a building room is a bad thing. When you have an inspector from the town, look at these things. They’re really good at making sure that it was done right. we had a heating system done about a year ago, and one of the pipes that was put in was wrong, and I didn’t know that. But this guy knew the specs and he called it out. My contractor had it fix it. So I think there’s a benefit for that.
0:25:10	CALLER: Makes sense. Makes sense. Well, yeah. Thank you for the phone call. I appreciate it.
0:25:14	TOM: I have to point out that your name is Tyler and you live in Tyler, Texas. How’d you pull that off?
0:25:18	CALLER: It wasn’t by design. It just happened.
	TOM: Well done sir, well done.
0:25:21	CALLER: Thank you. Well, I appreciate health program. It’s always informative and very entertaining. So thank you for the phone calls off of it.
0:25:29	TOM: Take care, Tyler. Well, guys, when you peel open the electric bill every month, does it give you a sticker shock? sometimes figuring out how to reverse that trend starts with a good understanding of where all that power is going, especially because a good portion of that juice may be going to places you are not even aware of.
0:25:47	LESLIE: Yeah. So to help, here are three areas where we see a lot of wasted energy. First off, let’s talk about vampire appliances. These are the things that are always plugged in and are drawing energy, whether you are using them or not. So the solution here is using a power strip. You turn it off when the appliances are not being charged or used and you turn it on when they are ends, that vampire usage there.
0:26:08	TOM: Now, let’s talk about energy hogs. These are the big appliances like dishwashers and clothes washers and dryers and ovens that have insatiable appetite for electricity and can definitely drive up your bill. Some tips there. Run the dishwasher, run the clothes washers only at full capacity. Select low heat for the dryer, and don’t use the electric heat to dry the dishes in the dishwasher. It’s really not necessary. Secondly, replace any old appliances. These usually are not energy efficient. If they are not listed as Energy Star appliances, it’s time to upgrade them.
0:26:41	LESLIE: All right. Now let’s talk about lighting and ceiling fans. When it comes to lighting, a lot of people make the mistake of using lights to brighten an entire room. But efficient lighting only provides lights to specific areas such as the couch, the chair, the kitchen table, a workspace all of that stuff. Solutions here are using lighting only in rooms that you’re in. And for a specific purpose like that task lighting, switching out incandescent bulbs for LEDs. the costs really have come way down to purchase. So it’s a great investment. The last a lot longer and it costs a lot less to operate and also replace your old switches with occupancy or vacancy sensors. That’s really great for your kids rooms, great for basements, great for the bathroom, places that the children and other people love to go in, turn everything on and then leave and leave everything on. So it’s a great way to just automatically turn everything off with a time sensor this way, nobody sitting there in the dark. And they’re definitely going to be saving some money.
0:27:37	TOM: I tell you what, those occupancy sensors definitely were a change of life for us here at my Money Pit, because I was no longer reminding the kids, like every day, sometimes three times a day, turn the lights off in their rooms. It just happened automatically. And for a while they couldn’t figure out why, like they thought something was wrong and Daddy had to fix that and like, it is fixed.
0:27:58	LESLIE: You’re like, I fix the problem. It was you. You guys were the problem, right. Now, we’ve got Eden in Arizona on the line. Who’s got a question about a garbage disposal? What’s going on.
0:28:07	CALLER: My question is that every time we turn on the garbage disposal, the sink that is next to the sink, that has the disposal in it, it has all this yucky stuff come up through the drain into that vent. And we had a guy come out to address the garbage disposal for a different reason, and I hope somehow that would fix that, but it’s still doing it. So basically I turn on the garbage disposal and everything that’s in the garbage disposal goes into the other thing. So it’s really gross.
0:28:40	TOM: So if your garbage disposal, they do a double sink and the disposal is backing up into the other sink, that means that that main drain line is somehow obstructed and the water is trying to get down there. But it just can’t. And because it can’t, the only place it has to go is back into your sink. And because the drain in that side is the path of least resistance, it’s going to bubble up there and bring all of that gunk that the garbage disposal ground up. So this is a situation where you’re going to have to clear that drain. Now, it is a little trickier when you have a double sink because you have to block one sink so that your air, so that when you actually use a plunger, it doesn’t just try to like push air out that side. So you block, say, disposal side and you could put like a rubber jar opener or something like that across that sink and hold it in place while you plunge the other side to see if we can get that pipe moving. Now, if that’s not enough to clear it at that point, you’ll need to have a drain cleaning service come in. But if it’s properly cleared, it should not be backing up into the opposite sink. It’s just a simple matter of fixing a clogged drain.
0:29:44	LESLIE: Mora reached out to Team Money Pit and she says I have a fiberglass door installed onto our shed and it’s clear the contractor did not use a primer. Now the paint on the door is scratched off due to the bikes going in and out of the storage room. How can I correct this? Are there any options and how to get that paint to adhere any better?
0:30:03	TOM: Yeah. I think the problem here is not that the paint needs to adhere better because the paint you used wasn’t designed to adhere. when you have fiberglass, you absolutely have to use a primer because the paint you put on top of that, if it’s not a primer, it’s just not going to stick. think of Primer as the glue coat, right? That’s what really bonds to these smooth surfaces like fiberglass. And then once it does, you can put a traditional paint over that. That’s not a primer and it will stick to the primer. So in this case, you have to remove all that loose paint, maybe even all the paint that’s on there, and then repainted Primer first and then the top coat.
0:30:40	LESLIE: All right. Now, Jenny wrote in saying, Our downstairs neighbor is complaining of footstep noise. How can we soundproof our hardwood floors beside adding carpeting?
0:30:49	TOM: Yeah, unfortunately, there’s not a lot you can do here. And frankly, I don’t have a lot of a lot of sympathy for folks that live on the first floor of a two story or multistory building.
0:31:00	LESLIE: You know what you’re getting into? Yeah.
0:31:02	TOM: You’re going to stay and you’re going to have noise from above. Now, if you wanted to be a really good neighbor, Jenny, what you could do is get area rugs and put those like a runner down an area where maybe you have some foot traffic like a hall and then maybe an area road for some of the other areas. But really, that’s all you can do at this point to try to soundproof that floor is a major construction project. Whether it’s done from the floor side of the ceiling side is way beyond the scope of what anybody should be expected to do.
0:31:27	LESLIE: Yeah. Jenny and you can even go ahead and use rug pads under an area rug. They’re going to help them from sliding and from a trip hazard. Plus they give a little extra padding and then you can just maybe wear slippers. I don’t know. And also I’ll just go deeper and maybe keep a quiet time after nine or ten. Just be considerate.
0:31:46	TOM: Well, when it comes to designing a new floor for your home, there are more options than you can imagine. And Leslie has ideas on how you might combine some of those wood flooring styles for a totally new look in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.
0:32:01	LESLIE: Yeah a great flooring project really can enhance any room. So when it comes to flooring, I like to use a product that’s going to be super durable for the space that I’m putting it in. But I also like to take it one step further. When I’m looking at the flooring materials, I like to make sure that the planks of wood are available in different widths. Now why I do that is because I like to create a focal point within that space. This works great in a four in a hallway, pretty much anywhere where you have a little bit of open floor space that you’re not going to cover with an area rug because essentially I make what looks like an area rug out of wood in the middle of the room. Now what I like to do is use a wider plank throughout, and then I choose an inset area and using even the same exact flooring finish material, but just at a different width, I can create that border. Maybe it’s a space that’s three by five, and then I do one plank that’s a thinner with and then you know, something that’s different. Maybe in the interior I put a herringbone pattern or a diamond pattern or something, anything. But it really creates this beautiful focal area. And again, walkways, hallways, the four year, all of these spaces really work beautifully for this technique. It’s just something a little different. It makes that space feel unusual and special, and it’s really not terribly expensive to do so. And again, it’s something you can do yourself. You can have the pros do it. It’s a great way to just make that space totally. You.
0:33:29	TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement show. Coming up next time on the program, temperatures are dropping. And when that happens, pipes can freeze, they can rupture and they can leak, potentially causing thousands of dollars of damage. We’re going to share the best ways to make sure that doesn’t happen to you on the next edition of the Money Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
0:33:50	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
0:33:51	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
0:33:53	LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

	(Note: The above referenced transcript is AI-Generated, Unedited and Unproofed and as such may not accurately reflect the recorded audio. Copyright 2023 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.)