#2393 – Soap Opera: Best and Worst Laundry Detergents | Great Kitchen Layouts

Show Notes

Learn about laundry, layouts, and longevity on today’s show, as we discuss the best and worst laundry detergents, kitchen layouts that maximize space and functionality, and how the age of your home influences needed repairs. Tune in for all this and more home improvement questions and answers!

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Podcast Transcript

Laundry Detergent: If clean laundry is an ongoing drama, you may need to use a better detergent.
Kitchen Design: When updating your kitchen, be sure the layout offers improved functionality.
Home Repairs by Age: Find out how the age of your home can determine when you’re likely to need certain repairs.

Ask Your Home Improvement Question

Do you have a home improvement or decor question? Call the show 24/7 at 888-MONEY-PIT (888-666-3974) or post your question here.

Podcast Transcript

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00:00:24	TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:00:30	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:00:31	TOM: And we hope you guys are having a great weekend. If you are thinking about taking on a home improvement project or you’re in the middle of one, well, we would love to help. You can reach out to us with your questions. We’re here to inspire you, to educate you, to give you some tips. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, make sure you don’t become a do-it-to-yourselfer. You know, get it done right the first time so you can get on to enjoying your space. You can reach out to us at 888-Money-Pit. That’s 888-666-3970. Or post your questions to moneypit.com slash ask. Coming up on today’s show, Consumer Reports is out with their list of the best and the worst laundry detergents. We’re going to share which detergents do the best job removing stains and which are barely better than water when it comes to getting rid of all that gross stuff.
00:01:18	LESLIE: And are you thinking about updating your kitchen this summer? Well, repeating its existing layout can be tempting. But the real kitchen of your dreams probably includes updated functionality and flow. So we’re going to share some tips for kitchen layouts that are going to make it a lot easier on the cook.
00:01:34	TOM: And do you guys know how old your house is? Well, you should, because if you know the age of your home, you can stay ahead of problems that are common to its vintage. We’ll explain what to look for.
00:01:44	LESLIE: But first, are you dreaming about a project that you’d like to tackle this spring? Well, if you can dream it, you can do it and we can help.
00:01:51	TOM: So reach out to us with your questions. Again, the number is 1-888-Money-Pit. Or for the quickest response, just post your question at moneypit.com. By clicking the blue microphone button. Let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s up first?
00:02:05	LESLIE: Debbie in Louisiana is on the line and has a roofing question. How can we help you today?
00:02:09	CALLER: We’re getting ready to put a new roof on our home. And we’re going back and forth between a regular roof and a metal roof. And I’m fighting the price is double for a metal roof. In the long run, am I going to recoup my money out of that if I go to sale?
00:02:27	TOM: Yeah. That’s a great question. So how long do you see yourself living in this house?
00:02:32	CALLER: Probably minimum 10 years. Okay.
00:02:35	TOM: So from a longevity perspective, the metal roof is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime kind of a roof. If it’s done right, you’ll never have to re-roof it again. But then again, if you’re going to only be in that house for 10 years, your roof is going to be just fine even if you were to use asphalt shingles. Does it add value to the house? I think it definitely makes your house easier. To sell compared to one that doesn’t have a metal roof because it is a much more durable roof. So it’s kind of a nice feature. But whether you’ll get a dollar-for-dollar replacement for that is highly unlikely. So what you get out of it is a more durable roof. It will protect the house more. But I don’t think you’re going to get 100% of that money back when it comes time to sell. And if you’re only going to be there for 10 years, which is about half the life of an asphalt shingle roof, it may not make economic sense for you to spend the extra money on the metal roof.
00:03:27	CALLER: Okay. Does it make much of a difference on energy consumption?
00:03:31	TOM: Possibly. The new metal roofs have a low-E paint finish on them. So what happens is they’ll reflect some of the heat, which is important down in Louisiana, off of that roof. And it’ll make it a little bit less expensive for you to cool the house. But then again, lighter roof shingles can do some of the same thing.
00:03:47	CALLER: We’re talking a difference between $8,000 and $16,000.
00:03:52	TOM: Yeah. No, it doesn’t surprise me. I mean, I think it’s probably worth every penny. It’s just… I mean, it may not be worth it to you because you’re not going to be there more than 10 or so.
00:04:00	CALLER: I do appreciate it very much.
00:04:02	TOM: You’re welcome, Debbie. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. Thank you.
00:04:07	LESLIE: Ryan’s on the line and has a question about a driveway. What’s going on?
00:04:11	CALLER: I have rubber marks in my asphalt driveway. I look like some people were doing burnouts.
00:04:19	TOM: Who’s burning rubber in your driveway?
00:04:21	CALLER: You got a teenager? Yeah, we just bought the house. And the previous people must have had some big parties or something. So I tried a degreaser and a power washer, but it didn’t come out. And I’m clueless. I can’t find anything else.
00:04:37	TOM: I don’t think you’re going to get those out. I think you’re probably just going to have to let them ride until you decide to seal the driveway again. So it’s a bit cold now, but, you know, come spring, maybe spring or fall, this would be a good project. And that’s to reseal the whole driveway and just kind of cover them over. I don’t think you’re going to be able to clean. I don’t think you’re going to be able to clean asphalt. It’s hard enough to get oil stains out, but if you’ve got burn marks in it, I just don’t see it happening.
00:05:02	CALLER: Oh, okay. That’s good to know. And is sealing the driveway, is that something I could do myself or should I hire a professional?
00:05:08	TOM: Yep. Well, either way, you definitely could do it yourself. You know, you can buy good quality sealer products at your home center, like Home Depot and Quikrete makes some. And what you’re also going to buy is like an oversized squeegee. It’s like the squeegee the size of a big old push broom. And you need to make sure. You know, if there’s cracks, there’s products that you use for that. You make sure it’s nice and clean. Then you kind of start down one end and work your way out and give it a good day or two in the sunshine to dry up real nice and harden, and you’re good to go. It’s something you have to do every couple of years when you own an asphalt driveway because the road salt, the ice, you know, it really wears on it, as does the sun. And it’s going to shrink, it’s going to crack, and the surface is going to wear off. It has to be resealed.
00:05:49	CALLER: Okay. Is there a specific product, Tom, that you’d recommend?
00:05:52	TOM: I would look at the Quikrete products, Q-U-I-K-R-E-T-E. I know those guys. They’re really good. Their formulations are really awesome. I saw, in fact, when I saw your note coming up here on our caller screen, I was wondering if it was a concrete driveway because I just came back from a trade show. They showed me a resurfacer product that was absolutely amazing. You know, we get a lot of calls from folks that have old, deteriorated concrete surfaces. And they always try to put, like, you know, more concrete on it or more cement on it, and it peels off. They came up with this resurfacer product, and what they did is they did, like, a tensile strength test. And they did a lot of tests on it where it’s basically applied to concrete, and then they try to pull it apart, right, try to pull the resurfaces off the concrete. This stuff was so strong, it actually took chunks of the concrete in aggregate with it when they tried to pull it apart. So, I mean, that’s good chemistry right there. You know, and so that’s what I mean.
00:06:41	CALLER: I trust those formulations, and I think they put a lot into them to make sure that you have good adhesion and good performance out of All right. Well, thanks so much. I listen to you guys all the time. I’ve learned a ton from you both.
00:06:52	TOM: All right. Well, we’re glad we can help you out, man. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY. Money Pit.
00:06:57	LESLIE: Hey, are you tired of living in a money pit? Well, we’re here to help. And if you want us to help out, it would be awesome if you could leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Just go to moneypit.com slash review. It’s only going to take a minute, and it means the world to us. Claudia in Massachusetts online has a question about insulation. How can we help you today?
00:07:15	CALLER: I’m working on doing some upgrades to my father’s house, and his attic has some insulation. And it’s falling down in parts. And I wanted to find out, first of all, how do I know if it’s… I mean, it seems like a simple enough job to do it myself, but I don’t know if it’s safe to do it myself. The house was built probably in the 1950s, and he bought it in the late 70s. So I’m not sure. Can I just remove the parts that are falling off?
00:07:47	TOM: So you said the insulation is falling down or the ceiling is falling down?
00:07:52	CALLER: The insulation. The insulation.
00:07:54	TOM: The insulation where?
00:07:55	CALLER: In the attic. Okay. And the attic is… It’s like a modified Cape Cod, and he has a fan in the attic, a big attic fan that he uses to cool the house in the summer. So I don’t like the idea of insulation. It’s just kind of like hanging in parts. Where is it hanging from?
00:08:13	TOM: Is it in the roof rafters? Is it in the walls, the knee walls? Where is it?
00:08:16	CALLER: It’s in the roof. So it’s really the… The roof is… It’s a really steep roof on both sides. Right. And that’s effective. Effectively, it makes up the walls of the space. Right.
00:08:27	TOM: So there’s no drywall. It’s just the exposed insulation, is that what you’re saying? Exactly. Exactly. So that’s not uncommon, but I will say that when you have that type of a cathedral ceiling, it’s called, you have to leave some space for ventilation. So if those were two-by-eight rafters, you couldn’t put eight inches of insulation in it. You’d have to put six-inch deep insulation, so you have some space behind it for ventilation. The fact that it’s falling off, it sounds like… It might be a paper face or a foil face tab that very often… Yeah, paper face. Yeah, it’ll just deteriorate over time. It’s not designed to be a permanent ceiling surface. So probably just through exposure over the years, it’s become dried out and weak. And that’s why it’s dropping down. So it’s not a hard thing for you to replace. The other thing that you might want to consider, though, is adding spray foam insulation to that space. And if you did that, it would make an enormous difference on the energy efficiency of the home. And you can do it because… Because it’s not finished now. So it’s fully exposed. If you did it with spray foam, you would basically be spraying foam into those rafter bays. And in some cases, like what I did at my house, I covered the rafters because I wanted thicker insulation. And it made an enormous difference in that space, in the entire house, by using spray foam. Because spray foam will expand and seal in addition to insulate. So, you know, that’s kind of a bigger improvement. You can just fix up the insulations there now. But if you really want to do something that’s going to last for the ages, spray foam would be the right way to go.
00:09:55	CALLER: Is spray foam something that… Would I have to have someone come and do that? Oh, yeah. Or is that something that I can do on my…
00:10:00	TOM: Yeah, it has to be professionally applied. There’s special trucks where it’s kind of like a two-port formula, and it’s mixed together at the truck. And you have to have guys that are very used to applying it. It goes on very, very thin, and it expands. It has like a 50 to 1 or 100 to 1 expansion ratio.
00:10:15	CALLER: Oh, wow.
00:10:15	TOM: So it goes on as a thin coat, and then it expands and fills the space. We used Isonene, which is probably the largest manufacturer. It’s the largest manufacturer of spray foam in the country. And those guys did a fantastic job in our house. In fact, if you go to moneypit.com, there is an e-book there, a free e-book called The Money Pit Guide to Insulation. There’s actually pictures of my house and the spray foam as it was being applied in that guidebook. And you can compare and contrast the different types of insulation and actually show you some utility bills from before and after to see what effect it had.
00:10:47	CALLER: Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the help.
00:10:50	TOM: Well, good luck. You’re a good daughter taking care of your dad’s house.
00:10:53	LESLIE: I try. Thank you. Well, Consumer Reports is out with their list of the best and worst laundry detergents. And they found that the best detergents did a great job of removing common stains like body oil and dirt along with grass and blood. But the worst detergents were barely better than plain water when it came to their stain-removing power.
00:11:13	TOM: You know, these guys really do a great job with their testing. And I thought it was interesting to learn exactly how they tested the efficiency and the power of laundry detergents. Well, first off, they choose. They choose their stains carefully. They want to choose ones that are very hard to remove so that they can detect real stain-removing power among the different detergents they’re testing.
00:11:31	LESLIE: Now, they used cold water because most modern washing machines are designed to operate with cooler water temperatures than those traditional top loaders of the past. And then they washed swatches in two identical washing machines with each detergent and then allowed those swatches to air dry.
00:11:47	TOM: And to see finally how much of the stain remains on each dried swatch, they use an instrument called… A colorometer that measures color intensity. And then they compare it with the stained swatches that were laundered using only water. So, pretty sophisticated system that they put all of these stains through to make sure they’re determining exactly how well these detergents work or don’t work.
00:12:11	LESLIE: Now, here’s what they found. The top three best-performing detergents were Persil ProClean StainFighter and TidePlus Ultra Stain Release. Now, they both excelled in stain removal. Especially… Especially for those tough stains like blood and grass. And Kirkland Signature Ultra Clean Liquid is praised for its value because it performs well against body oil and salad dressing. I feel like anytime we eat anything that’s like oil-based in the house, the kids, like, ruin a shirt every single time. And I just struggle to get it out. So, perhaps this Kirkland one is for me.
00:12:41	TOM: Now, on the flip side, the worst-performing detergents included Sun Triple Clean, which is a liquid. Then you have Arm & Hammer 4-in-1 Power Packs, which are pods. And finally, True Earth Eco Strips, which are sheets. Now, the Sun Triple Clean was criticized for poor overall performance, while Arm & Hammer’s 4-in-1 Power Packs struggled with basic stain removal. And the True Earth Eco Strips received low scores for cleaning tough stains.
00:13:08	LESLIE: Now, bottom line, guys. Consumer Reports says it’s important to think about performance rather than marketing hype when you’re choosing your laundry detergent. So, to help, you’re going to find a comprehensive guide with ratings for 70. That’s a lot. 70 different detergents. On ConsumerReports.com. So, you can kind of read all the reports, see what does what, and decide yourself.
00:13:28	TOM: Yeah, and they had all sorts of different subcategories. Leslie, it was interesting. They had, like, detergents for those with sensitive skin and that sort of thing. So, they really did a great job here. And if you think about it, if you’re shopping for something like a detergent, you don’t know if it’s going to work or not when you’re just walking down the supermarket shelves and trying to pick one out, right? So, you’re trying to find one that you think is affordable. But, heck, if it doesn’t work, you’re wasting your money. So, it makes sense to take some time. Go to ConsumerReports.com. Take a look. Look at their guide and really know which detergent is going to be best for you.
00:13:57	LESLIE: Bruce in Oregon is on the line with a woodpecker question. What is going on at your money pit?
00:14:02	CALLER: Well, we have a house that’s got cedar shake siding on it, and it’s aged nicely. But woodpeckers have recently realized that between the lower shakes where they come together, sowbugs can crawl up behind a perfectly good shingle. And they seem to drill right through that good shingle. They can get it. But that moist little bug. Wow.
00:14:25	TOM: Well, that stinks. And you’re right. They’re looking for food. That’s why a woodpecker pecks, because he’s trying to find a meal. So, one thing might be to treat the siding to stop these bugs from kind of getting in there. Another thing that often works, but it’s kind of annoying, and that is that if you, around the area of the siding, can hang some tin pie plates. That sort of flop in the breeze, maybe in the area where they love to sort of congregate. Or the other thing that seems to scare them away is if you were to take a big black plastic garbage bag, like a big hefty bag, and cut it into strips, but sort of leave the top of it intact so it would sort of flutter. That also will dissuade them. And I think you have to break their habit, Bruce. And those two tips can do that. Now, if you want to try something natural, but if you were to mix up a hot sauce, or maybe pick up an oversized bottle of it at the supermarket and mix it with some water, put it in a pump-up garden sprayer and spray down the siding, just make sure when it’s done it’s not going to discolor the siding. If they get one taste of that, they will not go back for any more of those bugs. I can guarantee you that. So, there’s a couple of ways to try to dissuade them, but you’re going to have to break their habit. Otherwise, you’re going to keep going for that easy meal right below the lip of the cedar.
00:15:46	CALLER: I’m not kind of wild about making the house smell like a strong blueberry base. I’ve tried owl images, you know, the fiberglass kind of replicas. They’ve actually perched on those at times. So, they’re pretty…
00:16:04	CALLER: So, they’re so terrifying.
00:16:07	CALLER: And I’ve tried some of the things waving in the breeze. Do you have a suggestion for a siding treatment that won’t be quite so obvious to visitors to our home?
00:16:18	TOM: Well, look, Bruce, if you don’t want to try the hot sauce, and I’ve… I personally would give it a shot because I think it’s going to be very inexpensive, and I don’t think it’s going to stay around and, like, make your whole house smell like a restaurant. There are two other things that you might want to think about. BirdBegone has a woodpecker repellent kit that has very good reviews on Amazon, but it’s not pretty. It’s kind of along the same line of the tin pie plates and the plastic hefty bag sort of wafting in the wind, but they’ve used different types of balloons and streamers that… are very shiny, which is what kind of freaks them out. But they do say that once the woodpeckers have left the siding, you can remove these. So, you’re not talking about a permanent addition to your house. And there’s also some chemical repellents for woodpeckers, although I have to say that I have not seen very good reviews on them. It seems to be 50-50, and they’re kind of expensive. So, that’s sort of where we’re at with that. You’ve got to sort of break that cycle, and I think you may have to put up with some unattractive decorations. while you’re working on that, but I would give those a shot because they’re not very expensive and you’ve got nothing to lose.
00:17:28	CALLER: Well, I’ve tried squirt guns, and that works while I’m home. But I’ll tell you, I think I actually started the cycle when we put suet out, and it seemed as though the animals sort of demanded equal parts of suet and fiber, and they got the fiber from our cedar shingles. So, we stopped doing the suet, and it went down some, but it’s still here. So, thank you for your advice. I appreciate it.
00:17:53	LESLIE: Jim in Washington is on the line with a question about hot water, and it not getting there fast enough. What is going on?
00:17:59	CALLER: The house is a little less than 30 years old, and it’s not really that things have changed that much, but trying to get hot water to the kitchen sink and to the upstairs master bath takes quite what feels like quite a bit of time. So, I’m looking at putting in a… a recirculating pump out near the hot water heater with a crossover sensor valve for the furthest run from the hot water heater, which is upstairs. Okay. The kitchen, I don’t know if it needs a separate sensor or not, and I don’t know, but I imagine it’s on a different leg, if you will, of the run. Okay. So, it’s on a different leg from the hot water heater. It just… I don’t know, because we weren’t here when the house was built.
00:18:56	TOM: It’s possible, depending on how the piping is arranged. What kind of… What kind of a pump are you thinking about putting on? There’s one made by Watts. Yep.
00:19:06	CALLER: It’s a Watts 500, 800, I think, is the number that seemed to get the best reviews. So, I guess, basically, I’m concerned whether… Is that a good pump? Evidently, it must be okay.
00:19:18	TOM: It is. Those guys… Those guys really know what they’re doing, and they were out early with this product. And what I like about the Watts system is this. There’s a timer on it or a thermostat on it, so you can basically control when it runs. So, what you do is you set it up so that, you know, if you get up the same time every day and, you know, pop in the shower at, I don’t know, 6 a.m., 7 a.m., you have this kick on, you know, a half hour ahead of time, so it purges all the cold water out of the pipes and is then hot when… Basically, before you need it. So, when you step in the shower, it’s on. So, that means that you don’t have to… You don’t have to run that loop of hot water all the time, which, if you think about it, would drive up your heating costs because you’re heating more water than you would have to. So, you set it up according to your own personal schedule. Now, there’s another way you can go, and this is something you might think about doing if your water heater is, you know, maybe at or beyond a normal life cycle. Rheem just came out with a new water heater that’s called the Performance High Efficiency Tankless Gas Water Heater with built-in recirculation. They actually added the recirculation element to the water heater itself. So, much like the way that Watt system works, where there’s a crossover valve at the farthest fixture away, you would do this with the Rheem unit. And then the water heater is sort of taking over here, and it’s a really smart one. It has a smart technology built into it, so it actually sort of starts to manage or measure your patterns of water usage. And when it kind of gets used to where you want the water to be hot, it supplies it before you need it. So, I think that’s kind of a cool technology, sort of the next level of that. And they’re not terribly expensive for, I mean, the fact that it’s tankless, so you never run into hot water. They’re at Home Depot for around $1,300 or $1,400 right now. So, I think for a good water heater, that’s not a lot of money to pay, especially if it has this built-in technology. So, those are two options for you that could both work well.
00:21:05	CALLER: Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that information.
00:21:08	LESLIE: Well, if you’ve been frustrated by the layout of your kitchen, now is a great time to take on that renovation project. The hardest part, though, can be figuring out where to start. Well, first, it’s easy to kind of stick with the same old, same old when it comes to the design, but thinking outside of those old boxes can definitely bring inspiration on a brand new and even more efficient kitchen layout. For example, changing the location of the sink or adding or even removing an island to free up more space and getting strategic with your lighting to make sure that you have both task and accent lighting. I mean, there are so many possibilities that you can really change how you use that kitchen every day.
00:21:46	TOM: Now, to help you find an experienced design pro that can help, the National Kitchen and Bath Association has a certification program. And to become an NKBA certified kitchen and bath designer, pros must have at least five years of design experience and they have to complete at least 60 hours of continuing education. So, these guys really know what they’re doing.
00:22:05	LESLIE: Now, the pretty nice thing about working with a pro designer is that you can pretty much wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. So, the sky is essentially the limit there. And seeing beautiful kitchen designs and showrooms or websites, that can definitely be fun, but it can also be overwhelming. So, the skills of that design pro can make the difference and help you achieve all that’s possible for your specific space, all while potentially saving you the money, time, hassle of, you know, trying to figure it out on your own.
00:22:35	TOM: And worse, the mistakes that happen when you get it wrong and have to redo something. So, all good reasons to involve a pro at that point in the project.
00:22:44	LESLIE: Well, as long as there have been homes, there have been home repairs. But if you know the age of your house, you can stay ahead of those problems that are common to your home’s age because homes of a similar age are going to have similar issues.
00:22:56	TOM: Yeah, that’s a great point. In fact, we have an entire post dedicated to this on our website called Home Repair Tips by Age of House. You can find that at moneypit.com.
00:23:04	LESLIE: All right, but before you go and invest in an older home or update your home, it’s important to determine the age. Now, knowing how old your home is is going to help you understand how that building was put together as well as the materials that can potentially be problems later. So, to find out, you can research public records at the local building department, the tax assessor, or even the registrar of deeds.
00:23:26	TOM: Yeah, and here’s another way to figure out the age of a home. It sort of comes from my home inspector tricks of the trade. If your home has the original plumbing fixtures, like a toilet, for example, you can remove the lid and look at the underside of it. Toilets are almost always date stamped by the manufacturers as they sort of roll off the assembly line. The date is usually expressed either as a very clear four-digit number, like 1954, but it might also be preceded by a letter and have just the last two digits. So, for example, I’ve seen these as M54 or S54. And other plumbing fixtures, like sinks, also have the dates stamped in somewhere into their castings. On the underside of a kitchen sink, for example, a cast iron kitchen sink, which is a very common porcelain old kitchen sink, you’ll find that they actually affixed a date stamp to that. And basically, when they poured it, it sort of reversely showed what the actual number was. It’s sort of part of the mold and how they do it, but it’s amazing considering the technology it was back in the early day. So, if you look for dates on your fixtures, you may get an idea. And also, look for inspection stickers. I would often find inspection stickers on electrical panels that will show me the dates that the house was inspected. Again, another indication of how old it is. Those stickers stay on there for decades and decades, so it’s interesting when you find an old house and you can tell exactly when it was inspected.
00:24:47	LESLIE: Yeah, you know, as the saying goes, they don’t build them like they used to. But if you know when your house was built, this is going to give you a good idea on what home repairs you might be needing to do to keep that home in tip-top shape.
00:24:59	TOM: Absolutely. Really helpful information. I mean, when I was a home inspector, I was able to predict the failure of different building components just by knowing how old that house was. And my clients found that really useful.
00:25:10	LESLIE: Lori’s online and has a lighting question. What can we do for you?
00:25:13	CALLER: Over the weekend, I went into the closet and discovered that the transformer for my fluorescent light fixture in my closet was smoking. Oh. Wow. So we got, yeah. Not good. We got the power killed and the unit taken off. Okay. Then I went to the store to find a replacement.
00:25:32	TOM: Mm-hmm.
00:25:33	CALLER: I had a two-round fluorescent light fixture. One was a 22-watt, one was a 32-watt bulbs in this center of a 11-foot long by, say, 52 inches wide closet. I’m trying to figure out how much light I need, figuring on going with LEDs for energy savings. And I’m sitting there staring at ceilings of light fixtures with so much light, I can’t judge. It’s talking to me in lumens and it’s saying this is the equivalent of one 75-watt bulb or two.
00:26:15	TOM: Yeah. Well, this is a closet. So, I mean, I say you really can’t have too much light, right, Leslie?
00:26:20	LESLIE: I mean, I guess it depends on your comfort level with lighting. If you, you know, some people are very light sensitive and get ocular migraines, so you have to be careful that you don’t over-light it. But I think it’s a basis
00:26:31	CALLER: of what was in there before. One’s 32 watts, the other one’s 22. And both were on at all times.
00:26:38	TOM: Why’d you have them on all the time?
00:26:39	CALLER: Whenever I was in the closet, they were on.
00:26:41	TOM: Oh, okay.
00:26:42	CALLER: What I’m saying is that I didn’t have a choice of just lighting one of the two bulbs. Or a dimmer or any of that? No.
00:26:49	LESLIE: And that provided sufficient lighting? You didn’t have dark spots? You didn’t have any areas where you couldn’t see? I did have dark spots. You did?
00:26:58	CALLER: Yeah. At the corners of the room because it’s in the center of the room. It’s long and skinny. So the two dark corners.
00:27:06	LESLIE: I think a good solution is forego the electricity altogether and go for a wall-mounted item that you can put up yourself that’s battery-operated that will have an occupancy sensor on it that knows when you’re coming and going or even ones that you can just turn on. Mr. Beams, they manufacture a couple of different battery-operated lights that will run for ages and ages and have a ton of lumens that’ll give you the brightness you need.
00:27:32	TOM: If you want to try to determine how many lumens you had there before, a 22-watt circular bulb, which is maybe the size of your smaller one, that’s roughly about 1,000 lumens.
00:27:47	CALLER: Okay.
00:27:48	TOM: So that kind of gives you a ballpark. But the LED lights are going to be so much brighter than the old fluorescents that you had. They’re going to be safer to run. And cleaner, I feel like. Yeah, and cleaner. And you already have the wiring there, but if you wanted to go and put like one fixture up where you had the wiring and then go to the deepest, darkest corner of that closet and put in a couple of Mr. Beams battery-powered LEDs, I’ve got one of those in my closet. And I’m telling you, it really works well because sometimes I go in there, you know, and there’s a light on in the room where the closet is, but when you open the door, you really can’t see into it. And as soon as I open the door and stick my head in there, boom, the light comes on and I can see just fine. So you might even want to do a combination like that so you don’t have those dark spots and you can really see what you’ve got there. Go to mrbeams.com. It’s a manufacturer that specializes in battery-powered LED lights. And the lights that I put up, the batteries last for an entire year. It’s amazing when you see that they’re battery-powered and how much brightness they come on with. They’re really super bright and they’re not expensive, you know, like $30, $40 a light. And then you can find them at lots of different, you know, retailers and so on. But, you know, get one and test it out. You’ll be really surprised with how bright it is.
00:28:58	CALLER: Okay, thank you so much because, like I said, after trying to look at all the fixtures, and I was seeing 80, 120, you know.
00:29:06	TOM: Yeah, it’s like you get like snow blind, right?
00:29:08	CALLER: I came home with a headache.
00:29:10	TOM: Yeah, I hear you. All right, well, I think that what makes the most sense is for you to put in one decently-sized LED fixture and then if you’ve got some dark spaces, pop a couple of the battery-powered ones in there and I think you’ll be well covered.
00:29:21	LESLIE: Okay, well, thank you so much. Michael in South Carolina reached out here to Team Money Pit and says, I live in a townhouse with a steel I-beam that runs through the basement through all the houses in my row. This I-beam seems to carry a lot of noise. When I’m down in the basement, I can hear the conversations that my neighbors two doors down are having. How can I insulate the I-beam so that sounds don’t travel so much? That is kind of amazing.
00:29:45	TOM: Yeah, and I do find it somewhat unlikely that it’s the I-beam that’s actually carrying the sound. The problem is more likely traced to the walls that are between these buildings, the way they were constructed, including the possibility of openings around light switches and outlets and places that wires go through. So what we’re trying to do is to insulate up to and including the joints the I-beam goes through and then add a second layer of drywall over all of that. Now, before you add that second layer of drywall, there’s a type of isolating soundproofing glue that goes in between called green glue. It comes in a caulk tube and you apply the green glue and then put the drywall on top of it and it makes a big difference because it won’t be able to transmit the sound. There’s another way to go, too, and it’s a type of drywall that’s called quiet rock. It’s sound-resistant drywall and you put it over the existing drywall, but you have to pay extra attention, of course, still to the outlets, the lights, the switches because that’s where the sound sort of sneaks through and there’s actually soundproofing material that you can put behind them. It requires you to unwire those outlets and switches and then pull the box out of the wall and you put this clay-like stuff behind it. It’s kind of a lot of work, but it does make them much more quieter than they were before. So some good ways to deal with that, but you kind of have to track it down step by step. You can either add the second layer of drywall, you can use the quiet rock, or you can start soundproofing all those lights and outlets and switch spaces because that sound’s going to find its way through.
00:31:12	LESLIE: Or, I mean, you could just stop, you know, fighting with the kids when you’re in the basement and yelling at people. I mean, you could just monitor your whole life when you’re downstairs.
00:31:22	TOM: Right. So when you were talking about that story about the time you went to the beach, so how’d that end? Because I didn’t hear the end of that. You mind telling me?
00:31:31	LESLIE: I was really interested in that story you were telling the other day. What?
00:31:35	TOM: What’s going on there?
00:31:38	TOM: Well, good news. Daylight savings time is going to end very soon. But aside from just setting our clocks forward, now is also a great time to take on a few more simple home maintenance tasks. Leslie explains in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word. Leslie, what do we need to know?
00:31:53	LESLIE: Yeah, you know, this is the perfect time for smoke detector maintenance. You want to change those batteries and you want to test for proper operation. Now, if your detector detectors are more than a few years old, you should think about replacing them and make sure to use a dual sensor detector when you do, because that’s going to pick up both small smoldering fires and flash fires. Plus, the newest detectors have 10-year batteries built in, which means you’re going to be good for a decade. Also, you want to check carbon monoxide detectors, and if you don’t already have them, you want to add at least one near bedrooms. Some heat sources and faulty appliances can generate the silent killer and threaten your family’s safety. So it’s important to have them, and it’s important to have them where they will wake you up and get you out of the house. What’s more, if a carbon monoxide detector sounds the alarm, don’t ignore it, don’t disable it, don’t think, I can’t smell it, so it’s faulty. These detectors go off for a reason, and you should immediately open the windows, get your family out, and call in the pros to find the source of the problem. Definitely do not take a chance and just think, meh, it’s nothing, because it might not be.
00:32:58	TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Coming up next time on the program, we’re going to talk about garbage disposers. You know, they’re one of those appliances that once you own one, you never want to be without it again. But if you don’t have one, there are a few key features that can make a big difference if you’re ready to take that step. We’ll share tips on what you need to know on the very next edition of The Money Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:33:23	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:34:23	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
00:35:23	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 2024 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.)