#2406 – Brush Up on Tips to Paint Like a Pro | Is Your Home Too Airtight?

Show Notes

In this episode, we cover a trio of crucial home improvement topics. First, we share top painting tips to achieve a flawless finish. Next, we discuss maintaining healthy indoor air quality without sacrificing energy efficiency. Finally, learn about installing a front door that looks great and increases your home’s value and security. Tune in for these and other answers to questions from homeowners like you!

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Show Notes
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Ask Your Home Improvement Question
Podcast Transcript

Painting Tips: Avoid painting predicaments by brushing up on these tips to paint like a pro.
Ventilation: Energy efficiency is great, but can your home be too airtight for healthy living?
Front Doors: Learn how to install a welcoming front door that provides curb appeal, value, and security to your home.

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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00:00:28	TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:00:34	And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:00:36	TOM: Hope you guys are having an awesome day. Are you ready to take on some home improvement projects? Well, whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or you’re going to hire a pro, we are here to help you get those projects done. If you’ve got a question about a project you’d like to tackle, give us a call right now at 1-888-Money-Pit or post your questions to moneypit.com slash ask. Coming up on today’s show, painting is a popular project and one that can be made a lot easier if you know just a few tricks of the trades that pros use every day. We’ll share those trade secrets in just a bit.
00:01:11	LESLIE: And for a home to be healthy, it’s got to breathe. That’s why ventilation is important. But if your home is energy efficient, could it potentially be too airtight for healthy living? Yeah, we’re going to explain in just a bit.
00:01:25	TOM: And replacing your front door is a project that can increase both your home’s value and its curve. Not to mention its security. We’ll share tips on how to get that project done.
00:01:34	LESLIE: But first, we want to know what you want to know. What are you guys working on this beautiful spring weekend? We are creeping into May. It’s going to be summer before you know it. So let’s get your homes in tip-top shape so you can actually maybe enjoy a summer weekend or two without doing projects. Give us a call and let us know what you are working on.
00:01:52	TOM: Reach out to us right now at 1-888-Money-Pit because if you do, not only will you get the answer to your home improvement question, but we’re giving you a chance to get a job. We’re giving away a great product from our friends at Daich Coating. It’s the Spreadstone Decorative Concrete Resurfacing Kit. You guys have an ugly section of concrete. Maybe it’s a porch. Maybe it’s a patio. This is the solution. It’s a stone coating system that completely restores it, and it just looks absolutely beautiful. So you can do it in a weekend. We’re giving one away on today’s program. It’s worth $155.
00:02:24	LESLIE: Hitting up the East Coast today, we’ve got Dawn on the line who’s got a question about her garage. What’s going on?
00:02:29	CALLER: Well, when the house was built, there was a trim put around both garage doors, which electronically open and close, but at the very bottom in each corner, there’s a space. It’s about one and a half to two inches. Mice come in and out of there, so I put some steel wool in there, but I need to add a piece of the trim to the bottom of both corners because water comes in when it comes in a certain direction, and I can’t figure out whether I should get a piece of the trim and cut it and glue it up there or screw it up there or replace the whole thing.
00:03:06	TOM: Okay, so when you say trim, there’s several different pieces of trim that go around a garage door. There’s the jam, which is like the side pieces, and then there’s the weather stripping, which goes on the side piece and against the door, and then there’s the molding at the outside, which is like a very wide trim, like casing, called brick mold.
00:03:27	CALLER: So what are you referring to?
00:03:29	TOM: I mean more like weather stripping. Okay, so the weather stripping between the side jam and the door itself. So you’re going to have a hard time getting a small piece of that stuff to stick, so I would say your options are to replace the entire vertical piece, which is not that big of a deal to do, or if you were to try to cut a new piece in, what you’d have to do is make that at least a foot or two long, and you’d have a seam in it, and you would basically have to go to the pieces there. Now, cut it clean about a foot or two off the ground, then put another piece in, because you can’t just put an inch and a half piece in, because it’s not going to stick. You can’t nail it. It’s just too small. So I’d replace the whole piece of weather stripping. Okay?
00:04:12	CALLER: All right. Easy enough to do. Thank you so much, sir and Leslie. Have a great day. You too.
00:04:18	TOM: Take care. Bye-bye.
00:04:20	LESLIE: Let’s head on down south to Florida, where we’ve got Scott on the line, who wants to do some bathroom reconfiguration. What’s going on?
00:04:27	CALLER: Hi, guys. Hi, guys. My daughter has a master bathroom with a stand-up shower and a toilet, and she wants me to try and flip those two. So, in other words, move the toilet drain to where the shower is and vice versa. But, of course, it’s on the first floor, and it’s a concrete slab. So I’m not doing the work myself, but I’m looking at and asking you guys if it’s something that you think is worthwhile cost-wise, if it’s going to cost me more, more in headaches, getting someone to come in and chop up the concrete to go ahead and flip all that plumbing, and then I can redo the finishing touches, obviously, when they’re done.
00:05:09	TOM: Well, you know what, Scott? I’m sure you’re a great dad, but you and I wouldn’t take on that project. I just don’t think it’s worth it. It’s a massive job. Massive. It would be hard if you had a wood-framed floor to do this job, but with concrete, as you say, you’ve got to break it all out, and you’re going to break out a lot more than what you, you think, to simply move that toilet drain over a couple of feet or however many feet you’ve got to move it. It’s a big job, yeah. It’s a really big job. What is wrong with the configuration now that she dislikes it so much?
00:05:43	CALLER: So when you walk in, the toilet is right to the right-hand side when you walk in, and the shower is in the back wall, and it’s a lot of wasted space in the shower is really what it comes down to. There’s so much. It’s like half the space of the shower is really, really like a shelf as opposed to being usable. So I might just reconfigure that for them and put a second shower head in. That might be more efficient use of the space, would you think?
00:06:08	TOM: Yeah, possibly. I’m in trouble envisioning what the layout is right now, but I’ll give you an example. When I moved into my last house, we had a bathtub on the first floor, which, of course, we never used. So I turned that into a shower and a closet, and we use both now a lot. So I think those sorts of solutions make more sense, but moving, flipping the position of a toilet and a shower drain is just a huge job, and I can’t imagine it would be worth it.
00:06:34	CALLER: Yeah, I appreciate the advice. Thanks so much for calling.
00:06:37	TOM: Now you can blame us, Scott, and not take the blame for yourself.
00:06:42	CALLER: Thank you so much for taking my call.
00:06:44	TOM: Take care. Bye.
00:06:45	LESLIE: Hey, are you a fan of our podcast? Well, leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and we’ll be doing a happy dance. Plus, it helps us keep the show going and growing. Just go to moneypit.com slash review.
00:06:57	TOM: Well, we’re all spending a lot of time outside now, but if your concrete porch or patio needs an update, we are giving away a great product that can do just that.
00:07:05	LESLIE: That’s right. We’ve got the Spreadstone Decorative Concrete Resurfacing Kit. Now, it’s a pre-mixed factory-tinted stone coating system that locks onto the concrete, and it’s going to produce a surface that’s super durable, but really nice to look at. Application is really fast and simple. You don’t have to be an artist. You just roll on the coatings, and you’re going to get a beautiful new stone surface. Plus, it comes in five great colors, so you’re going to find something that works for your home. It retails for $155, and it can cover 100 square feet of space. Make sure you check it out at deichcoatings.com. That’s D-A-I-C-H-coatings.com.
00:07:43	TOM: That Spreadstone Decorative Concrete Resurfacing Kit from Daich Coatings is going out to one listener drawn at random. Make that you. Reach out to us right now with your questions at moneypit.com slash ask, or call us at 1-88-Money-Pit. That’s 888. 666-3974.
00:08:00	LESLIE: Got Nancy from Little Rock on the line, who’s dealing with some plumbing issues at their money pit. What’s going on?
00:08:05	CALLER: We’ve got a 22-year-old house, and about a month ago, only the cold water in the master bathroom got a real bitter taste, and even a tiny sip is just enough to really make you feel sick. I’ve just quit using it, but for drinking, I will get my water out of the hot water tap before it gets hot, and that’s what I’ll use to rinse my mouth and everything, brushing my teeth.
00:08:37	TOM: What about the other faucets in your house? Do they have the same issue?
00:08:41	CALLER: None of the rest of them have any problems like that at all. They seem to be going just fine. The upstairs bath, the kitchen, the hall bathroom, don’t have any issues with the taste of the water.
00:08:55	TOM: You have an ice maker with a water line, too? Anything there that’s unusual?
00:08:59	CALLER: Yes, the ice maker, just all of a sudden here, a few weeks ago, I started getting almost blue ice cubes.
00:09:09	CALLER: Oh, wow.
00:09:11	CALLER: I poured the ice out, and I threw away the blue ice cubes, and then I poured the ice out, and it ran, and I got clear ice cubes, but I poured them out and got some more, and it seems to be doing fine. I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen it come back.
00:09:28	TOM: That’s very unusual. I’ve got a couple of ideas, but I’m not convinced that they’re absolutely right. I think what I would do here, are you on city water or are you on well water? We are on city water. All right, so I would report this to the water company and request that they test the water at your house, and secondly, I think you should test the water by hopping online and finding a good comprehensive water test kit. They’re not expensive, and they’ll test for a whole host of contaminants, and test that water and see what comes back, and if you ever see something odd again, like with the nasty tasting water, if you taste that cold water, it tastes really bad right away, grab some of that water, send that in for a test. I would do a little research on your own by testing the water to see if we can figure out what’s going on because it certainly doesn’t sound right. I don’t think, I mean, sometimes fixtures deteriorate and you get more metal, and you get more metal leach into the water. I don’t know that that’s happening here. It wouldn’t hurt to replace the fixture in the master bath, but I’d really be concerned about what the condition of the water is in the whole house, so I would start right there.
00:10:38	CALLER: Okay, thank you very much.
00:10:40	LESLIE: We’ve got Kenny from Ohio on the line who’s dealing with a new house and some interesting things going on there. Tell us about it. Also, congrats.
00:10:48	CALLER: It’s a two-story house, and when I’m downstairs looking up at the ceiling of the second level, I can almost see the outlines of all the stairs, studs, and I’ve looked up online, and I think it’s something that might be called ghosting, and I’m just not sure what to do with it and just looking for some advice.
00:11:05	TOM: Yeah, it’s called ghosting, and basically what it is is if you think about what happens to warm air, it rises, right? So if you have dust in the air or if you like to burn candles or do a lot of cooking and you get some smoke that gets into that air, it’s going to stick to the cooler parts of the ceiling above, and the bottom of the joist is going to be cooler than the drywall itself, especially when you’re talking about a floor structure that’s between two heated areas of the house. Sometimes you’ll see it at the second floor as well if you don’t have enough insulation between the floor joists. Now, in your case, you can’t really insulate, so it’s really just going to be a maintenance issue for you. So what I would say to do is when you’re ready to paint that ceiling, I would prime it. Make sure you use a good quality primer because that will seal in anything that’s there, and then a good quality top coat that’s a ceiling paint. You don’t want to use anything that has any sheen to it or you’ll have other issues. You’ll see like nail pops and cracks and weird things that happen when the drywall was installed, but if it’s flat, you won’t see that. But make sure it’s a washable flat. And this way, what you could do is you could take a clean sponge mat, hold it upside down, get it damp, and literally wipe the ceiling down when that starts to build up.
00:12:22	CALLER: Oh, well, that’s fantastic. That’s doable for me. I appreciate it.
00:12:26	TOM: All right, good luck, Kenny. Thanks for calling us at 1-888-Money-Pit.
00:12:30	LESLIE: Well, when it comes to painting, the pros that do this every day perfect their techniques over time and develop a level of expertise that most of us who just paint once in a while probably won’t ever pick up. But we’re going to share some of those pro painting secrets to give you a hand.
00:12:45	TOM: Yeah, and let’s start with a key element of any paint project, the primer. Primer is what makes sure that paint sticks and can also hide whatever you’re trying to cover up. The tip is to tint that primer. You can choose a gray or a color that’s similar to the finished paint and compare it to the plain white primer. It may do a better job of covering that existing paint color so the finished coat will be more vibrant and will require fewer top coats.
00:13:08	LESLIE: All right, now, if you’re wanting to avoid those ugly brush marks, the secret to a finish that’s free of lap and brush marks is mixing a paint extender. It’s also called a paint conditioner into your paint because this does two things. First of all, it slows down that paint’s drying time. So that’s going to give you a longer window to overlap. Overlap those just painted areas without getting those ugly lap marks that you can sometimes see. You know, when you paint over a dried part and it kind of darkens the color, it’s definitely noticeable when it happens. Second, that paint extender is going to level out the paint so brush strokes are virtually eliminated. I mean, it’s pretty amazing. Normally you brush on the paint and you can see all the lines from the brush, but with the conditioner, it’s like glass. Like it’s really lovely.
00:13:48	TOM: All right, let’s talk about how to make sure we don’t leave a lot of paint behind on the floors and furniture. This one might surprise you, but I can tell you this, pro painters do not use bed sheets as drop cloths and neither should you. Thin sheets just don’t stop splatters and spills from seeping through your flooring and plastic contains the spills, but it keeps the paint wet for a long time. So what happens? You end up walking through the wet paint and then you track that all over the house. So what’s the solution? It’s canvas. It’s not slippery and it’ll absorb splatters. It’s still a good idea to wipe up large spills, but with a canvas, it really does a great job. So get canvas drop cloths when you’re doing the painting. Now.
00:14:24	LESLIE: How about when you get the paint on the brush? There’s actually a trick to that too. So to get the most mileage out of a single fill up and make fewer trips back to that paint container, pros kind of take on this load and go approach. Now they load the bottom inch and a half of their brush with paint and then tap each side against the inside of the container to kind of knock off those heavy drips and then they start painting. But a homeowner kind of takes this load and dump technique when they’re doing it. They kind of drag that loaded brush along the sides of the container and then kind of wipe off all the paint. It really doesn’t do any good to just dunk your brush in the paint and then immediately take it off the brush.
00:14:59	TOM: And finally, let’s talk about painter’s tape. If you want to stop paint from bleeding through, do a thorough job of adhering the painter’s tape before you start. So after you apply the tape, just run a putty knife over the top to press it down for a good tight seal. And with that, you should be good to go for a very successful painting project.
00:15:18	LESLIE: Heading over to Connecticut, well, we’ve got George working on a flooring project. Tell us about it.
00:15:22	CALLER: Well, I have a family room. It measures. It’s 26 by 16, and it’s over a dry basement. Okay. And I was thinking of putting in wood flooring and replacing the wall-to-wall carpet. Okay. And I was wondering if you had any ideas of how to proceed and what kind of wood flooring would you recommend?
00:15:41	TOM: So do you want to use natural wood flooring or do you want to use a product that’s like a vinyl plank that looks like wood or a hybrid stone that looks like wood or even a ceramic plank that looks like wood? Yeah.
00:15:53	CALLER: I think it would be better. It’s better to go with natural wood. I think that would be a bigger return when I go to sell the house. Sure.
00:16:00	TOM: Yeah. So I don’t see any issues with you using a pre-finished hardwood. You know, there are lots of great brands out there, and the finishing today, and the factory finishes are terrific. You know, they’re really more durable than you can put on your own if you did natural and sanded it and then refinished it. So I would look at the pre-finished wood products. Many of them are much easier to install also than traditional hardwood floor. And so you could take a look at LL Flooring. You could take a look at Mohawk is in the hard surface flooring business now and choose one of them. And you mentioned the basement is dry. That’s good. If you had a real damp space, I’d be more concerned about warping. But the most important thing will be for you to get that subfloor ready. So once you pull the carpet out and you pull the tackless, which is the little spiky strips that help you stretch it around the perimeter out, what I would recommend you do is the floor was probably nailed down. It’s probably, you know, probably a plywood subfloor was probably nailed down. That’s correct. I would put screws in every sheet of plywood. I would use the probably two and a half inch drywall style screws that you put in with a drill or a driver. And I would go, you know, near the nails and I would re-screw, re-secure every board because what that’s going to do is prevent any movement or squeaks in the future. The last thing you want to have happen is you do this and then you find a noisy spot after it’s under the hardwood.
00:17:18	CALLER: One thing to consider is the room is pretty much perfectly square except for in front of the fireplace. So, you know, I hesitate to use anything that would, you know, where you’d have short strips of wood. It’d be nice to be able to get, you know, eight or eight foot strips for a lot of it because it’s all going to show and there’s no closets to hold the, to hide the short pieces. Is there anything that would, that I could look for or any brand that would give you longer strips?
00:17:45	TOM: Not that I’ve seen, but I think it’s so important to pay attention to the pattern. And that’s something that a skilled hardwood installer would be looking for. But there’s no reason that you can’t do it so that you avoid, you know, when you take every box out, it’s going to have about the same mix of wood lengths in it, board lengths in it. And you want to make sure that you’re alternating those seams and that you’re alternating the short pieces with the longer pieces as you go. And I think if you do that across the whole floor, you may be conscious of this, but I don’t think it’s going to be noticeable.
00:18:11	CALLER: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Some very good information.
00:18:15	LESLIE: All right. Now we’ve got Belinda who wants to talk electricity. What kind of electrical work are you doing over there?
00:18:20	CALLER: I live in a house that was built in 1928. 71. So there were no GFI outlets then. And little by little, you know, I’ve been adding them. So my question is, I have a couple more, you know, that I want in bathrooms and all. When a GFI outlet is added, does it need its own circuit breaker or is it okay if they splice it into an existing wire?
00:18:46	TOM: No, it does not need its own circuit breaker. In fact, the ground fault breaker is a circuit breaker. Now, if you’re using a circuit breaker, there’s two types of GFCI devices that are most common. One’s built into the outlet and the other one actually is a circuit breaker with a ground fault circuitry built into it. With an older house, typically you’re just going to replace the outlet with one that is a GFCI outlet. And an electrician that knows what they’re doing should be able to handle that. I always suggest that you test it yourself by using the test button. And if possible, there’s a little electrical tester that’s in the shape of a plug that tells you a lot about the circuit breaker. There’s a lot of information. All you do is stick this thing in and it has lights on it and the lights will tell you if it’s grounded. It’ll tell you if the polarity is reversed, which means the wires have been put in backwards. And it’ll also enable you to test the ground fault outside of the breaker itself, which is a better test. It’s kind of like what happens if you have a bad appliance plugged into it. So it’s definitely something that can be done after the fact and you don’t have to do it at the breaker itself.
00:19:51	CALLER: Oh, okay. So it does… It doesn’t need its own dedicated line down to the circuit breaker. Okay. And this tester you’re saying is something I should buy to have in my own toolbox in my house?
00:20:04	TOM: Yeah, it’s called an outlet tester. Yeah, they’re like, I don’t know, 10 bucks. They’re really cheap. It looks like a small plug, you know, three-prong plug. And you just plug it in. You’ll see there’s lights on it and a little push button. And when you read the instructions, you’ll see it’ll tell you if everything’s wired right.
00:20:17	CALLER: And then the way to test my GFI outlet that I have, you just press that red button.
00:20:21	TOM: Yeah, it should click off. Right, and be dead, basically.
00:20:24	CALLER: Thank you.
00:20:26	TOM: Well, guys, an energy-efficient home can save homeowners big on energy and cash. But since they’re so airtight, they often require extra ventilation to make sure you’re maintaining a healthy indoor air environment. And that’s where mechanical ventilation steps in. Now, it seems counterintuitive to think that we have to let air into a building when for hundreds of years, we’ve done nothing but chase out the drafts.
00:20:49	LESLIE: Yeah, so homes of the past were kind of naturally leaky and leaden up. And that ventilation definitely helps get rid of contaminants, ranging from chemicals in the building material and furniture to germs and toxins. But new energy-efficient homes don’t have those little gaps and voids where those drafts could slip through. And as a result, we have to strategically bring fresh air inside without undoing the home’s efficiency.
00:21:13	TOM: Right, so if you want to bring fresh air in without wasting energy, there are really two approaches you should consider. First is a heat recovery ventilation system. Or HRV. It pulls in fresh air while exhausting stale air, but it allows the heat found within that stale air to preheat that incoming fresh air. So basically, as an added bonus, you use less energy bringing outdoor air up to room temperature. It does require a fan to run continually. Now, the next option is an ERV, or energy recovery ventilator. It does everything an HRV does, but it goes a little further. It captures humidity from the air, and an ERV is generally better for warmer climates. So how do you decide between the two? Well, it really depends on your moisture levels. If your house is more humid in the winter, an HRV is a better choice. Bottom line, pick your best option, and you’ll enjoy much cleaner and healthier air.
00:22:05	LESLIE: Taking a local call from Steve in New York who’s dealing with a heating question. What’s going on?
00:22:10	CALLER: I used to have a steam heat system in my house with the old radiators. My house is probably from the 1890s, and I was thinking about the radiators that have been removed and have been heating with just a direct heat system. You know, one of them gas volume, and I was thinking about trying to put forced air in the house, but I have no way to get through the bottom of the first floor to like the second floor because I have like soap plates in the wall. I was wondering if you got any ideas what I can do for a heat system instead of putting steam back in here because I’d like to put central air in the house too.
00:22:42	TOM: Right, so you want to have a ducted system where you can have heat and air. And you say that you used to have these steam radiators, but you took those out. That’s kind of a shame because steam radiators and steam, steam heat in general is a pretty warm and wonderful way to heat a house.
00:22:56	CALLER: Well, I still have the radiators downstairs, and I could put them back, and that was my other question too. Should I just go back to the steam radiators and the steam boiler and just forget the air condition?
00:23:06	TOM: To restore the steam heating system, you would have the benefit of warm, moist, and comfortable heat in the winter. Your air conditioning system would be a separate ducted system. Now, there’s two ways to do this. You can use a traditional ducting system, which would run in through your walls, or you say it’s difficult, of course, because of the way the walls are constructed now. But in some cases, I know I have a house that’s a little bit older than yours, and when I put in air conditioning, we were able to run them ducts in closets and places like that, so they weren’t quite so obvious without going through the walls itself. But there’s another system I’d like you to look into called SpacePak, spelled P-A-K, S-P-A-C-P-A-K.com, SpacePak.com. This is a system that is a high-velocity, low-volume design. So the ducts of a SpacePak system are only like three-and-a-half-inch or so tubes, and they can be inside wall and floor cavities very easily. You don’t have to have the big ducts. And what they do is they move air through at a faster speed. That’s why they’re called high-velocity, and they still do a great job of cooling the place. So that’s another option for you in terms of getting air conditioning. But again, it’s a separate system than the heating system that you have now. And of course, the third option is just to go with ducts all the way, and putting in a forced-air system won’t be as comfortable as the P-A-K. But it would be less expensive than two systems. But you’re going to have to find a very talented HVAC contractor that understands this is an old historic home, and they can’t just go tearing things wide open. It’s got to be creative and strategic about how they get the ducts into each place in the house.
00:24:37	CALLER: Do you recommend a baseboard electric heat at all?
00:24:39	TOM: No, it will cost you an arm and a leg, especially in New York. It’s the very most expensive way to heat a house.
00:24:45	CALLER: Okay, I thought the electric baseboard came down in price, but I guess I’m wrong on that.
00:24:49	TOM: It’s not the baseboard that comes down in price. The equipment is cheap. It’s electricity that costs
00:24:53	CALLER: you an arm and a leg. I thought they were cheap on the run today, but I guess I’m wrong.
00:24:56	TOM: Yeah, no. All right, Steve, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. Yeah, thanks, bye.
00:25:03	LESLIE: Heading to the northwest of Montana where Dave is on the line. He’s got a question about sealing countertops. How can we help you?
00:25:11	CALLER: I have granite countertops myself, and I’ve talked to the people that install granite countertops around here, and they all say it’s a rock. It doesn’t need to be sealed. And they have no product that they’ll sell me. I guess maybe they want to come into my house and do it themselves.
00:25:31	TOM: Yeah, well, I mean, my experience, and Leslie, you can share yours, but my experience has been that granite does, in fact, need to be sealed, especially when foods like coffee or tomato sauce or things like that get spilled on them because they stain. They absorb the colors of those stains, and so the sealant’s on the granite. Yeah, it’s stone, but it doesn’t mean it’s not going to absorb whatever falls upon it. So, yeah, I think it does need to be sealed, and sure, you just do it yourself sealing products, and there’s professional sealing products, but it’s definitely a surface that has to be sealed.
00:26:09	LESLIE: And they are supposed to be resealed, and the lighter the color, the more often they are supposed to be sealed. Granite is a harder surface than marble, so it requires, like, a different type of sealant and a different sort of type of frequency to sealing. Um, I don’t do my granite countertops as often as I should. I’ve had them in the house 16 years. I’ve probably sealed them three times. I think the recommendation is every two to three years. And I notice little spots where it does, you know, chip out or the things where the sealant’s wearing. Um, but Tom’s right. If it’s a lighter color, you need to make sure that it remains sealed constantly because oil and sauces and wine will stain the heck out of it if it’s not sealed.
00:26:54	TOM: I think the secret is to choose a granite top that looks like oil and sauces and wine. And then you’re kind of covered, right? Yeah.
00:27:01	CALLER: Yeah. So is there something, uh, some kind of a product that you recommend that has a certain additive or a certain chemical makeup that would be best to use? Because, uh, uh, I mean, I’m not going to pay these guys a lot of money to come out every couple years. I’ve had it done, oh, two or three times in the last year. In the last 10 years. Yeah. And, uh, so it tells me that it does need to be done if they’re coming out to my place to do it.
00:27:32	TOM: So, uh, there are a number of commercial products that are perfect for do-it-yourselfers. One is called Granite Gold. Uh, the product’s been around a long time. I don’t know if, uh, what you’ve been using, Leslie. Have you done this yourself? Have you hired somebody to do it?
00:27:47	LESLIE: I know. I have the company that, you know, installed the granite all those years ago come and do it. And they always reprimand me for not doing it.
00:27:54	TOM: Well, of course, because they need the work. But you can be the judge of that. There’s a lot of consumer products that are available that would do a fine job if nothing else for maintaining it before having it professionally done. I don’t think there’s anything to be lost by doing it yourself. You know, you could pick up a bottle of Granite Gold for, like, 20, 25 bucks and probably do your whole tops. Well, I’ll look into that. All right. Well, listen, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us. It’s a good question. A lot of folks are confused by that, so we’re happy to address it.
00:28:23	LESLIE: Well, if you’d like to take on one remodeling project that can increase the value of your home and improve curb appeal for years to come, installing a new front entry can do both.
00:28:33	TOM: Yep. Surveys show that installing a new front entry to your home can deliver a dramatic boost in what homebuyers think your home is worth. And that leads to a lot more interest at the time of sale.
00:28:46	LESLIE: Yeah. Now, doors are available in wood or steel, but new fiberglass entry doors can look so much like real wood that it’s totally hard to tell the difference. Now, they’re also far more energy efficient than both wood or steel doors. And often they come with multi-point locks that make them almost impossible to break into. True.
00:29:06	TOM: But installing a new door is not for the inexperienced home improver, and it’s best left to a pro. Removing the old door opens your home up to the elements, and you get surprises like rot or insect damage that are often found. Plus, home security or electrical wiring all require special care. And pros know how to install, install a door that won’t shift and become hard to operate no matter how much settlement your home goes through or no matter what the weather might be. And this way, you’ll get many years of hassle-free use. We did this improvement to my home probably 10 years ago. We removed steel entry doors and we put in fiberglass doors. And like you said, Leslie, we’ve got the multi-point locks, which is kind of like, I think of it as like a bank door, right? You have pins at the top of the door, pins at the side of the door, really big heavy hinges. And then the fiberglass, I haven’t touched it with a paint brush in over 10 years now because it just holds the paint really well. And it looks like a wood door. So for all those reasons, we really love our doors. Plus, I’ve got a feature called a venting side light. So think of it as like a, like a half-wide screen door. You know, it’s a regular side light, but when you open it up, there’s a narrow screen in there, which just serves as a nice way to ventilate the house. So all good reasons to consider upgrading or updating your home’s doors with a fiberglass.
00:30:23	LESLIE: John wrote into Team Money Pit and says, my house was built in 1976. And whenever the cold water is running, there’s a pulsating in the water pressure and the pipes shake. This just started today. And I’m wondering what might be causing this problem.
00:30:39	TOM: Well, John, when pipes start to make those sorts of noises, the shake, the rattles, the rolls, the banging, it’s almost always caused by the same thing. And that is that the pipes are loose. Now, over time, the brackets that support those pipes and hold them against the framing of your house. And you’ll see this in the basement or crawl space most commonly because they go through the walls. Obviously, you can’t see there. But in those areas, those brackets get loose and the pipes start to move. And that coupled with the fact that water as it moves through the pipe is very heavy. So that weight sloshes around and causes the pipes to have some minds of their own sometimes the way they shake and they rattle. So what you need to do is pick up some additional pipe clamps and go ahead and strap those pipes down and tighten them up. Or maybe you could even tighten up the ones that are there now. Sometimes the nails, the nails will back out a little bit and loosen up. But if you secure those pipes against the frame, I think that the noise will go down considerably, if not completely.
00:31:33	LESLIE: All right. Now, Cindy wrote in saying, my dog loves running the fence line with the other dogs on all three sides of us. She kicks up quite a mess. What’s the safest thing to put around the perimeter of the yard that won’t hurt her paws or cause her to slide and get hurt? Well, it’s nice that you have some fun dog neighbors that your pupper loves to play with. I mean, I think you’d probably could really benefit from some sort of, not exactly like a moss, but like one of those low plant things that are almost walkable that you can find in any local garden center that’s great for your area of the country and your zone and your, you know, amount of sunlight. But they’re low, they’re green. They work really nicely to kind of just fill the space, but they’re super durable. So I imagine that would be great. The other thing I would suggest is turf. We have a turf yard. The dog can’t mess it up at all. Even the kids can’t mess it up, which makes me really happy because they were both doing terrible things to the yard and now they don’t. Yeah.
00:32:30	TOM: You want to watch out though for paved or sandy surfaces because they can get too hot for your pet to walk uncomfortably and watch out for tiny pebbles or thorns or gravel that can get caught in between those paws to make sure your pet play area also includes grass because that is the perfect product for pets to romp in. And as Leslie said, if you get turf grass, well, it’s even easier.
00:32:52	LESLIE: The turf is excellent. I mean, it does get hot. So I’m not going to lie. Like that could be your area of concern, especially with the pup if you get a ton of sunlight in the backyard. But it’s warm. But I mean, we’ve never had issue with it. We didn’t use the black sort of rubber pellets in between it. We used sand. So it does keep it on the cooler side. It’s not like when you go to the kids soccer game on a turf field and it’s just on fire on your ankles. And because I have a small yard, it wasn’t terribly expensive. So maybe you even just do a channel of turf around the three sides of the yard. But definitely, as Tom said, nothing hard. Nothing that could definitely, you know, hurt the pup. We don’t want that.
00:33:27	TOM: Hey, here’s a question. Is it weird, though, seeing the bright green turf grass like in the middle of winter?
00:33:34	LESLIE: No, it’s better than the muddy dirt areas in the summer. And it’s not like I have it out front. Now, believe me, I have some friends who live, you know, in different parts of the island and they know people who’ve put it on the front yard. And that’s weird. It’s because it’s bright and it’s green all the time. So definitely keep it in the backyard. That’s like your little secret.
00:33:53	TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Hey, guys, thank you so much for spending this part of your spring weekend with us. Now that you’ve listened, you can spend the rest of the weekend working on the projects that you’re trying to get done, hopefully with some of the ideas that we passed on to you. But if you’ve got questions or maybe you’ve got a project we didn’t cover today, you can reach out anytime at 1-888-Money-Pit or just post your questions at moneypit.com slash ask. Until we talk again, I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:34:18	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:34:19	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
00:34:21	LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

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