#2416 – The Buzz About Backyard Bee Hives | Cool Roofs Lower A/C Costs

Show Notes

Today, we explore a special type of roof that helps keep your home cool. We’ll also discuss the buzz around backyard honeybee hives and, if you’re hosting an open house, how to stage your home to attract buyers. Whether it’s a renovation, repair, or home décor, listen in for more expert tips and inspiration to help with your next home improvement project!

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Podcast Transcript

Bee Hives: Backyard bee hives are all the buzzy for producing homemade honey and beeswax.
Cool Roofs: Keep cool and save on energy costs with cool roof technology.
Home Staging: Market your home to interested buyers with these important home staging tips.

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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00:00:22	TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:00:34	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:00:35	TOM: Are you guys enjoying spring? Are you in the midst of tackling some spring home improvement projects? Sprucing up that outdoor space, the indoor space, the kitchens, the bathrooms. Maybe you’re building a shed. That’s a project that I’m actually taking on, sort of. It’s not really a shed. It’s more of a greenhouse. We’re having some fun with that. It’s just a time when you can get outside and have fun with lots of projects. So if you’re in the midst of one or you’re thinking about starting one, or you’re dealing with a repair or a redecorating issue inside your house, we would love to help. Just reach out to us with your questions at 1-888-Money-Pit or head on over to moneypit.com slash ask and click the blue microphone button to post your question. Hey, coming up on today’s show, have you guys ever heard the term cool roof? As in, hey, that’s a cool roof.
00:01:19	LESLIE: Those are only words you would say, Tom.
00:01:22	TOM: Well, fair enough. I am an aficionado of building material, so I might be able to help you out. You might say that. You’re right. But I’m talking about a type of roof that actually keeps your house cool in the summer. We’ll share details on that just ahead.
00:01:35	LESLIE: All right. And if fresh local honey sounds good to you, you might be surprised that you don’t have to pay to go any further than your own backyard. Backyard honeybee hives are becoming very popular, so we’re going to share the buzz just ahead.
00:01:48	TOM: And it’s open house season. If your home is going on the market, holding an open house is a good way to draw in some potential buyers. But keeping them interested takes some careful house staging. So we’ll share some tips on how to do that job, right?
00:02:00	LESLIE: But first, do you need some help with a renovation, a repair, a decor project? Well, whatever it is, we’ve got some expert tips, ideas, and inspiration to help you avoid all that home improvement perspiration when it comes to improving your spaces.
00:02:14	TOM: So reach out right now. That number again is 1-888-Money-Pit. That’s 888-666-3974. Or go to moneypit.com slash ask.
00:02:24	LESLIE: Pete in Ohio is on the line and wants to talk about some new lighting. What’s going on?
00:02:29	CALLER: My wife and I would like to install canned lights on the first floor of our two-story home. And I’m just wondering what kind of project would I be getting myself into?
00:02:42	TOM: Do you like to fish, Pete?
00:02:45	TOM: Do you enjoy casting a rod? Yeah. Hooking a fish? I ask you that because the challenge of installing canned lights in a finished ceiling is that you have to fish wires through those. To get power where it needs to go. So first of all, does that room have any overhead fixture in it right now? Yes.
00:03:04	CALLER: So there are three or four lighting fixtures in these areas where we’d be putting the canned lights.
00:03:12	TOM: Three or four lighting fixtures there already. So would you want the canned lights on a completely separate switch?
00:03:18	CALLER: No. No, they can all be. We can use the existing switch, the existing line.
00:03:25	TOM: Okay. So here’s what you need to do. Obviously, you have to light it up. You have to lay out the lights. And you want to be careful not to put one where there’s going to be a ceiling joist above it because that makes it really hard. So make sure you know where they are. Next, you’re going to have to get power to that light. The lights would all be connected together in series. Then you have to get power into that line. And you also have to get a switch into that. So it’s not an easy project for somebody that doesn’t do it all the time. Electricians know the tricks of the trade and can assess it pretty quickly. And know kind of what to expect. So that, I would not consider that a very basic electrical project. It’s more of the advanced state. You need some advanced tools in the way of the fiberglass rods that are used for fishing. Those wires through. And you need to get it right. So you’ve got to get power. You’ve got to get switch. And you’ve got to get a circuit that goes to all those lights. And because you’re working in a finished room, all of that becomes more difficult. I mean, for example, going from one fixture to the next where you’re in the same bay, space between those ceiling joists. Easy. But going perpendicular to that means you now have to drill through those joists. Right? Not so easy. So there’s a lot to be done. And you want to do this with a minimum amount of destruction of your ceiling. So this might be something you really ought to hire a pro for. All right. Thank you very much. Oh, you got it, Pete. Good luck with that project. Call us anytime. Thanks.
00:04:49	LESLIE: All right. Time to talk cedar siding with Lynn in New Hampshire.
00:04:52	CALLER: Tell us what’s going on. I have a house that the town says was built in 1750.
00:04:58	CALLER: Oh, cool.
00:04:59	CALLER: And I don’t know how old the siding is. I purchased it in 2009, and the siding was old then. I did have it washed and bleached to get all the little stuff that was growing on it off. And I was thinking this year that I would protect it with something. I remember my dad came to use a cuprinol. But someone else said I didn’t need anything. But I thought I would check and see what you thought on how I should preserve it.
00:05:27	TOM: Sure. So first of all, cuprinol. Cuprinol is a fine product. It’s a wood preservative. But I don’t know how much UV protection it has in it. And that’s really what we want to do here. Yeah, cedar is naturally resistant to insects, but it’s not resistant to the sun. And so if you expose it, the cedar shingles will crack and split. So we do want to protect it. So I’ll give you two options. If you just want to put something that’s totally natural on it that doesn’t change the color at all, you could do boiled linseed oil. Boiled. Make sure the linseed oil says boiled because if it just says linseed oil, it won’t dry. But, for example, I have cedar shingles on the house that I live in, built in 1886, not the original cedar shingles, but we put them on new about 30 years ago, I think, maybe 40 years ago, and I didn’t have to touch them for 20 years. The linseed oil did such a good job protecting them. It didn’t really change the colors or anything, and it worked really, really well. So that’s one option. The other option is if you want to stain them, you would use a solid color stain, but you would use a primer first. So generally with cedar, we recommend an oil-based primer because the tannins in the cedar can break down the bond between the paint and the shingle itself. So by priming it, it seals in the tannins, and then you use a solid color stain. Now, stain comes in semi-transparent and also solid color. I never recommend semi-transparent because it has less pigment in it. Solid color is still going to let you see the grain of the wood, but it has more pigment, and hence it lasts longer. And if you do it that way, you’ll probably have stain that lasts you a good 10 years. So those would be your options, either to do boiled linseed oil or to do solid color stain on top of an oil-based primer.
00:07:09	CALLER: Right. Well, that’s two steps. It doesn’t sound as good to me as the one step for the 20 years.
00:07:14	TOM: Well, yeah, okay. I mean, it’s two steps, but it’s two steps for a purpose. The primer is an incredibly important material in painting. Everybody loves to skip the primer step, and they pay for it, because the paint doesn’t last, and it peels off, and then it gets really expensive. But if you just want to do the boiled linseed oil, you could do that. I would pick up some, a small container, everything you can buy, buy the half gallon. Of course, it goes up to five gallons, but buy a half gallon of it, go back, back side of the house where it’s not too obvious, and, you know, go ahead and paint yourself a few shingles, see if you like the color and what it looks like.
00:07:46	CALLER: So it will protect it from water, and you said, and the UV light? Yes.
00:07:51	TOM: Okay.
00:07:51	CALLER: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
00:07:54	TOM: You’re welcome, Lynn. Good luck with that project. Okay, bye-bye. Bye.
00:07:57	LESLIE: Hey, there. We hope you’re enjoying this episode of our podcast. If you are, you know what would totally make our day is if you leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
00:08:06	TOM: Absolutely. Just go to moneypit.com slash review and let the world know how much you enjoy our home improvement tips and tricks, and you might even win a copy of our book.
00:08:18	LESLIE: We’ve got Rochelle from Delaware on the line who’s dealing with a crack in the floor. Tell us about it. Welcome.
00:08:24	CALLER: Hi, Leslie and Tom. It’s so great to be here. It’s great to hear from you. I purchased my home about 14 years ago, and when I purchased it, the inspector said that there was a slight crack in the concrete slab that my house is on. So over the years, the crack has probably gotten wider. So there is a dip in my kitchen floor. I had a contractor come out. He said that they would be able to put foam into the floor and level the floor out. So I’m trying to find out if there are any other options that I have to correct this problem because it’s very annoying, and I’m concerned as the years go by that it’s getting wider. So that’s where I’m at.
00:09:25	TOM: All right. So a couple of things come to mind. First of all, this contractor that you talk with, was he talking about trying to level the floor or just adding like a floor leveling compound to sort of smooth out the dips that are there now?
00:09:39	CALLER: He’s talking about adding a foam solution where they would pump it into, they would inject it into the floor, and it would fill the cracks where the slab is cracked at. Okay. And he said that. What that would do is it would level the floor out eventually, and it’s really pricey. I mean, he wants $5,000 to do that. No, no, no.
00:10:09	TOM: No, no, no. Yeah. You don’t want to do that. So listen, what really bugs me about these guys is they’re talking about serious structural issues for which they have zero education typically. And he’s talking about using an injection system where you basically inject underneath the slab. And try to lift the slab. And that’s not always the right thing to do. It might be that all you need to do here is use a floor leveling compound, seal the crack for sure so no water gets in, but use a floor leveling compound to flatten out that kitchen floor before you put a new floor down. And then you won’t see it. It’ll be underfoot. But if you really want to know what’s going on, and you really want to know how to fix it the right way, don’t call a contractor. Call a structural engineer. Have it inspected by an engineer. The engineer will be able to determine whether or not this is active. And then that’s continuing to move or inactive, in which case it’s really a cosmetic issue. And most importantly, if it does have to be fixed, the engineer will specify exactly what has to be done to fix it. At that point, you can call contractors and say, essentially, I want you to follow my engineer’s recommendation to make this repair and get prices. You’ll be able to compare apples to apples because they’re all selling you the same thing. And then the last thing you do is after the repair is finished, you have the engineer come back and basically document that it was done correctly. And then this way, if you ever. If you ever sell the house in the future and that comes up, you’ll be able to show that you have sort of a pedigree on this. You identify the problem. You had it inspected by an engineer. They told you what to do. You hired a pro. They fixed it right. Here’s the proof that it was done right and no issue.
00:11:43	CALLER: Thank you so much. I love your show. I listen to you guys every Saturday. And thank you so, so much. I really appreciate your feedback and have a great day.
00:11:55	TOM: Thanks very much, Rochelle. And by the way, if you could go to our podcast and leave us a review to that effect, that would be totally awesome. We’re on all the different podcast channels or just go to moneypit.com slash podcast. And you can choose whatever your platform is and walk you through how to do that. Thanks so much.
00:12:11	CALLER: I’d be happy to do that. Thank you so much, Tom and Leslie. Have a great day. And thank you very much.
00:12:16	TOM: You’re welcome.
00:12:17	LESLIE: Well, cool roofs, also referred to as white roofs, have special coatings and colors that will reflect the sunlight and then emit the heat more efficiently. than a traditional roof, thus keeping it cooler in the sun. And according to the Department of Energy, cool roofing technologies can be implemented quickly and at a relatively low cost, making it a fast-growing sector of the building industry.
00:12:41	TOM: Now, according to Energy Star, Americans spend about $40 billion annually to air condition their homes. Traditional roofs absorb 90% or more of that incoming solar energy. So the higher the roof temperature, the harder the air conditioning system. has to work to keep those interiors cool.
00:12:58	LESLIE: Now, in contrast, cool roofs can substantially reduce the roof surface temperature, sometimes by up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. And thereby, that reduces the annual air conditioning use by as much as 15%. Now, this is going to help to reduce your energy costs because your attic’s going to be cooler. The ducts are going to be cooler. It’s going to improve occupant comfort in the house, cut those maintenance costs, and then, of course, increase the lifespan of the roof. So win-win all around.
00:13:27	TOM: Now, when you’re constructing a new roof, or if it’s time for your roof to be replaced, you really should consider cool roofing as a viable cost-saving option. To learn more, check out the Energy Saver page website at energy.gov slash energy saver. You’ll also find an Energy Saver one-on-one video on cool roofs, along with a downloadable Energy Saver Consumer Guide to Cool Roofs fact sheet. That website, again, is energy.gov slash energy saver.
00:13:54	LESLIE: Brian in Louisiana. You’ve got the news. You’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
00:13:58	CALLER: Got about a 72-year-old home and its own piers. The other night, I had heard some banging going around underneath there. Well, long story short, it was a raccoon, and it was chasing a cat under or something, but it busted my home water line. Oh, no. Yeah. So the problem was I wasn’t here when it happened, and so it ran for Friday night. Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, three, I come back, and it’s ended up to where part of my house has sunk down a little bit. Now, I’ve tried to get underneath there myself, and on my north side of my home, it’s up about two feet, but as I got closer to that water line, the house is only about six or seven inches under, you know, so I can’t get to it. I’m going to have to dig to get to it, but my question was is, I don’t know if that, if, I’m kind of reluctant about calling my insurance company. I don’t know if they would cover that.
00:15:02	TOM: Yeah, if it’s, I think, actually, they would if it’s a sudden dispersal of water like that is usually the term, sudden dispersal, you know, if it was a slow leak over time, but I think they may very well cover that. I can’t be sure, but I would definitely make the call or at least talk to your insurance agent.
00:15:20	CALLER: I know what I’m concerned about is, I’ve had two or three people tell me that. Well, you know, if you call your insurance company, what they’re going to do is, if they don’t cover it, or if they try and get out of it, that they’re going to end up dropping you, you know.
00:15:34	LESLIE: I mean, people have claims. You have to file a claim. Like, it happens. That’s what the insurance is there for.
00:15:40	TOM: It’s a pipe break, and whether it was caused by an animal or not, it’s a sudden dispersal, so I think it is covered. Oh, yeah, the hot water just dropped.
00:15:51	CALLER: I mean, you know, when I came back, I saw water. I saw water from on the driveway, and I went, what the heck? I went inside, and I tried to turn the faucet on hot water. It was just nothing, you know, and then I put two and two together. It didn’t take long.
00:16:06	LESLIE: I mean, if the raccoon did it on purpose, then it’s another story.
00:16:10	CALLER: Well, I mean, I didn’t pay him to do it, you know.
00:16:16	TOM: Exactly. That was an act of domestic terrorism. I had trapped three of them. They got your name. You got a reputation. Yes, they do.
00:16:25	CALLER: They got it etched in their home underneath there.
00:16:29	TOM: Let me give you a suggestion here. Okay. Because you have such a mess, and you have so many things that have been affected by this, what you might want to do is hire a public adjuster. Now, a public adjuster works for you. They file the claim on your behalf with the insurance company, and they don’t miss a thing. They don’t miss a coat of paint. They don’t miss a washer, a nut, a piece of sandpaper. They get it all in there. And then they negotiate the settlement with the insurance company, and they work on a percentage of the claim. So they get paid through the claim process, but they find so much that they end up covering their cost. And you could talk with a public adjuster about how to make sure you don’t, if possible, look like a bad risk for them, because you’re going to have new plumbing when this is all done. But you might very well get a lot of this covered as part of that. I mean, I wouldn’t mess with trying to get a raccoon out on my own. And I wouldn’t do that water pipe on my own. You can talk to your insurance agent, if you have an independent insurance agent, or you could also talk to an attorney. These guys are all over the place. Just make sure that they’ve got a good reputation and talk with one. See if they’re not going to take the job unless they think that you’ve got a claim, because that’s how they get paid. Public adjusters are licensed by the Louisiana Department of Insurance. And so that would be a good place for you to start. You could probably get a list of licensees. Okay.
00:17:52	CALLER: That’s great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I needed to know, man. I’m so glad that y’all are here.
00:17:56	TOM: I listen to y’all all the time, you know. Well, we’re happy to have you, and we’re glad we’re able to help you out. All right? So you take care now, and good luck with that project.
00:18:05	LESLIE: All right. We’re heading out to Michigan, where we’ve got Mary on the line, who’s got a water problem. What’s going on?
00:18:10	CALLER: Well, we got a big puddle of water in the basement. I called over three people for estimates, and one of them was very high. It was like 80,000. And I said, yeah, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Wow. And then the next one was like 60, and so this one was 30, 34,000, I want to say, yeah. But he said that my walls were shifted one inch, and that right now I don’t have to do the work, but they’re not going to stop, you know, shifting. And this house was built in the late 70s. It has good bones. I really do think so.
00:18:43	TOM: Did you see any evidence of movement? Did you see cracks, or a wall was at a level, or anything of that nature?
00:18:48	CALLER: I didn’t see it visually, but there are cracks in the wall.
00:18:51	TOM: That’s pretty typical. Are they horizontal or vertical cracks? Vertical. Did you hire this guy for $34,000?
00:18:56	CALLER: Yeah, because I asked him, I said, so first it was just the walls, and then he said, well, your water problem is, you know, you need to do this. So, yeah, they dug the whole corner, you know, like, I want to say 70 feet. I mean, 70 running feet. That’s what they charged me for. And so while they were there, I said, there’s a crack at this window, and he said he can probably temporarily fix that. And I said, well, how about if we put an egress window? So they did. They did the egress window. That alone was $8,000, because they had to build big on the outside. And so now that’s an exit for me out of the basement, which, you know, I can use it to finish the basement in the future. But I feel like the whole wall thing was a sham. And then they recently reached out to me and said, hey, you know, let’s make an appointment to come out and inspect. And I said, whoa, whoa, inspect what? You guys guarantee your work, don’t you? You said you guarantee your work for, well, it looks like something. You know, 20 years. And they’re like, yeah, but we have to come out and inspect in case there’s debris and stuff to clean up. And I said, well, do you charge for that? They’re like, yeah, $150. I said, no.
00:20:05	TOM: So my two cents, based on what you’ve told me, is that these guys are shameless. And unfortunately, they’re the least shameless of the three contractors you talked to, because the first guy started at $80,000. But truth be told, let me just ask you one qualifying question. When did the basement flood? Was it after rainstorms, heavy rain?
00:20:23	CALLER: Yes.
00:20:24	TOM: When you have water that gets into a basement that’s consistent with heavy rainfall, it’s not caused by a rising water table. A rising water table takes weeks and months, and it’s usually seasonal. And so if you have a rising water table, that’s the reason you do the type of repair that these guys did, which was to dig out the foundation perimeter, lay in drainage pipe, probably have it pointed towards a sump pump. And then when that pump fills up, it collects water and pumps out. They always tell you that this is going to protect your walls. What they don’t tell you is that the reason the walls are potentially damaged or become weak. It’s because you have all that water that collects at the foundation perimeter outside your house, and the soil around those walls is very wet. And so when it freezes, it pushes inward and causes those cracks, or it loosens the soil and causes a shift. And guess what? That did not change one iota by virtue of the system that was put in. If you think about it, the water has to go past there to get to those drains, right? So you’re not intercepting it before. You let it run past. So while it’s unfortunate that you had this done, I don’t know, maybe some folks will see it as a positive if you go to sell the house. But what I would tell you is this. Make sure that you are taking care of the essential drainage issues outside, which are always, number one, the downspouts. The gutters have to be clean. You have to have enough gutters based on the square footage of roof. You need one spout for every roughly 600 to 800 square feet of roof surface. And they can’t be overflowing. That water’s got to go down the spouts. And then it should be going out at least six feet, in your case, from the foundation perimeter. Now, you could do that. You could do that over top the soil and let it drain. Or you could run it into a solid PVC pipe, bury it just under the surface, and let it come out to daylight somewhere else. By that, I mean the pipe comes out of the earth. And the reason I want you to do that is I want you to know it’s working. And to that point, what I’d also like you to do is an inspection, your own inspection. So you can pay yourself $150, OK? I want you to do your own inspection. Next time it’s raining out really hard, grab your umbrella, go outside, and look at that roof and watch what happens. Follow the path of water from the time it hits the ground. Watch the roof until it gets out. And you want to look to make sure none of those gutters are overflowing. You want to make sure the downspouts are moving that water away. And you want to look at where that water runs from there. Because sometimes, based on the configuration of the soil, it could run backwards into that basement area. You really want to keep that first six foot of area around the foundation as dry as possible. So you do that by running the downspouts out. The second thing you do is if it does happen to be flat or it’s settled or worse yet, if it’s pitched inward towards the house, you add clean, filled dirt there. Not topsoil. Not mulch. Not anything that’s too organic. You add to that grade with clean, filled dirt, which packs really well. And then once you establish a slope of about six inches over that six feet, then you could put whatever you want over that. If you want to grow grass, you put topsoil. If you want to just mulch it or whatever, that’s fine. But establish the grade first. So now you’ve got a positive slope away from the house and you’re controlling the roof water. That will do a lot to stop this house from leaking and protect the foundation all in one sort of weekend’s worth of work.
00:23:22	CALLER: Yeah. I think. You are correct. And one other thing I wanted to mention, the sump pump that I had was very small for a 1900, like I have a ranch. It’s 2,000 square feet above and 1900 in the basement. And he said that one sump pump on one side didn’t do the job. So I did have him put a huge sump pump in, you know, with a battery backup.
00:23:43	TOM: So is the water still coming in? Is the sump still running mostly after heavy rain? Yeah. It’s predictable. It’s very predictable. Yeah.
00:23:52	CALLER: Yeah. Now I feel. I feel stupid. I should have just done it outside. Well, don’t feel stupid.
00:23:56	TOM: Listen, there’s a lot. I talked to a lot of people that are in the exact same position as you are, and I’m sorry for that. But all I can do is keep telling the story over and over again. If your basement leaks after rain, it’s not a high water table. You don’t need sump pump systems. You just need to fix your gutters and your grading. I’ve been seeing this game that these waterproofers play forever. It’s just because it’s very profitable. Nobody makes money extending downspouts. They make money selling these expensive repairs you don’t need.
00:24:22	CALLER: And you know how that downspout leak? I had my roof done, and one of the tarps knocked off one of my downspouts at the bottom.
00:24:32	TOM: Oh, and you didn’t realize that that was off?
00:24:35	CALLER: I didn’t realize that until after the basement work was done. I said, this thing came off. And I go, the water must have been. That’s what brought the water in. Oh, well, anyway.
00:24:45	TOM: Well, sorry. Sorry. It’s an expensive life lesson. But now you’ve helped many other people. And that will not be. Not. I don’t want to be a victim of that kind of fraud. Because that’s what it is. It’s fraud. They tout themselves as experts. They have no education in that space. They’re tradesmen trying to make a living. I get that. But they’re not doing it based on an honest assessment. They’re doing it to wind their own pockets, which they’re very good at, unfortunately.
00:25:11	CALLER: Oh, there’s a lot of them out there. And I’m being women, like my daughter and I live together. And, you know, being two women in the house, owning a house. Yeah. And having people come over to give you estimates. So my realtor is so nice. He’s like, his name is Esteban Rubio. He’s with Keller Williams. But I got lucky with him. He’s recommended really solid people. And nobody ripped me off, you know. But before that, the plumber, when we first moved in, I didn’t ask him. We don’t want to go into that story. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s a field you want to, yeah, that’s a ripoff field. Yeah.
00:25:49	TOM: All right. All right. All right. Well, that helps you out, Mary. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-Money-Pit. And reach out anytime if you have more questions, okay?
00:25:57	CALLER: I would like to listen to some of your other stuff that people have talked to you about.
00:26:02	TOM: Subscribe to the Money Pit Podcast at moneypit.com slash podcast. And we do two new episodes a week. Awesome.
00:26:08	LESLIE: I can’t wait.
00:26:09	TOM: All right. Take care.
00:26:10	LESLIE: Well, if fresh local honey sounds good to you, you might be surprised to know that you don’t actually have to go to the farmer’s market to get some. You actually don’t have to go any further than your own backyard.
00:26:20	TOM: That’s right. That’s right. Backyard honey. Honeybee hives are actually becoming a very popular hobby. Honeybees, for the most part, are actually quite docile. So don’t get me wrong. If you mess with them, they’re going to mess with you. But they do have stingers. But they die when they sting. So they’re not really motivated to do that unless they really feel threatened.
00:26:37	LESLIE: All right. So what’s the attraction of backyard beekeeping? You know, if you love fresh, delicious local honey, I mean, that should be enough to entice you. You should also know that the hive produces beeswax, and you can use that to make candles, lip balm, furniture polish. I mean, really a ton of things that can be made with the wax itself. And it really isn’t that hard for you to get started on beekeeping. You can actually order everything that you’re going to need online, and then you can have it delivered right to your door, including the bees. But the first step is really picking out a good spot for the hive in your yard.
00:27:12	TOM: Now, one big factor is protection from the wind. You want a spot that’s sheltered by trees or a fence or a higher part of your yard. And you also want a spot that gets plenty of sunlight, which provides warmth to the bees. A south-facing spot will ensure that the bees get the sun for most of the day. So that’s always a good choice.
00:27:31	LESLIE: Richard in Wisconsin is on the line with a lighting question. How can we help you today? Yes.
00:27:36	CALLER: I would like to know where a person could find a floor lamp or a table lamp with a dimmer switch on it instead of the three-way switch, where you could have one bulb and it would last longer, I know, than a regular. Three-way switch.
00:27:51	TOM: Well, certainly you can find lamps that are capable of having dimmer switches. I think it would be unlikely for the lamp itself to have the dimmer. It’s more likely that the lamp, you want to get one that’s not on three-way and put it, plug it into a dimmer switch. There are, for example, floor switches that I’ve seen that are on like a slider. It’s almost a foot switch where it slides from full brightness, you know, down to the dimmest setting. And it’s basically just ramping up and down the power that’s going to that lamp. So I think you want to find a. Standard floor lamp. And then you want to find a second dimmer switch that you can plug it into. So there are portable, so to speak, or plug-in dimmer switches as opposed to the kind that are wired in to the wall, Richard. And that would be the solution to that problem. They’re very inexpensive. And I’m sure you’ll find them online or an electrical supply store. So take a look. And I think that is the solution.
00:28:42	LESLIE: Well, it’s open house season right now. And if your home is on the market, your realtor will no doubt be scheduling one soon as a great way to get a lot of potential. Buyers right in the door. But before that happens, you need to make sure that your house is ready to be seen.
00:28:56	TOM: Well, first, buyers need to be able to envision how they’ll live in your space. So clearing clutter is a great place to start. And you can also open up rooms by removing larger surplus furnishings.
00:29:07	LESLIE: Now, buyers aren’t going to notice if your home is spotlessly clean, but they are going to notice if it isn’t. So make sure you hire a cleaning service to make sure it sparkles and neutralize any funky odors by shampooing your carpet. And keep litter boxes. If you’ve got a kitty cat clean touches like maybe a new towel in the bathroom or a beautifully set dining table, that also makes a great impression. And don’t forget about the outside. Trim the lawn, weed the landscaping, prune shrubs, add some flowers, just step up that curb appeal. All of these things definitely don’t go unnoticed. But if they’re not done, they know.
00:29:42	TOM: And here’s the hardest one to do. Once the day of the open house arrives, leave, leave, go out the front door. Don’t turn back. Get in the car. Take a drive. Buyers will ask more questions and take more interest if you’re not sort of hovering around. And your realtor can highlight the positive features of your home without you in the background. So it’s a much more genuine approach. So don’t be there for the open house. Make a plan. Go to lunch. Do whatever. But don’t stay there. And by the way, that also applies to your home inspections. As a guy who’s done 6,000 home inspections, I can tell you, there’s nothing that you can add to that conversation that’s going to change the work that I have to do. So if you have a home inspection that’s going on. Yeah, leave for that, too. Much better outcomes all around.
00:30:23	LESLIE: Jenny wrote in to Team Money Pit and asks, I’m remodeling my bathroom and I just found a beautiful clawfoot tub that I absolutely love at a recycling center. My problem is that the porcelain is worn and there are rust marks near the drain. Is there a way to paint it?
00:30:39	TOM: Ah, well, that’s quite a fine, Leslie. I mean, those clawfoot tubs are absolutely beautiful. It’s so expensive when you buy them new today. So dealing with the porcelain, though, is a challenge. Having it. The porcelain replaced or restored is a very costly process. I’m going to give you a much easier solution. It’s not exactly paint, but it’s kind of like paint. It’s an epoxy product called Ecopel, E-K-O-P-E-L. And the way Ecopel works is it’s a two part epoxy. You must follow the instructions to the letter for this to work properly. I did this exact project I’m about to describe to you. And I converted a tub that was probably like a 1950s, very sort of cool. Cool looking bathtub. And it was very, very worn and even painted before. And I completely restored it with Ecopel. So the way it works is you mix the Ecopel together. It’s two parts. You have to do certain preps to the surface of the toilet, surface of the tub. Excuse me. And the reason I said toilet there is because the way you prep it is you use Lysol toilet bowl cleaner and you spray it on the tub surface because it etches it and helps it get ready to take the Ecopel.
00:31:44	LESLIE: That’s interesting.
00:31:44	TOM: Yeah, it works really well. I didn’t realize that there was such an acid in that material until I splashed some. I’m like, oh, yeah, that hurts. So it did work quite well. But anyway, so once it’s prepped, then what you do is you mix this part together and they’ll give you parameters where what temperature the room has to be and how long you have to stir it for and how long you have to wait for it to start to chemically process and then how long you have to stir it again. You follow all of that. But basically the way this stuff works is you pour it over the lip of the tub and you let it flow down into the tub. And it’s sort of through the principles of surface tension stays together and it will go down the tub and it will run towards the drain, which you now at this point have blocked off, except in this case, you don’t have the tub installed yet, so it’s even easier. You would block it off anyway, but it runs down there. And then you do the other side and you just kind of walk away for about 24 hours and leave it in a warm room. And man, it came out so good. It looked like this came out of a showroom. So Ecopel, good find. E-K-O-P-E-L. It’s available on Amazon.
00:32:45	LESLIE: All right. That’s awesome. Good luck with that beautiful tub, Jenny. Now, Laura wrote in saying, we bought a propane grill just before selling our home and we only used it once. When we moved into our new home, we found a natural gas line available for the grill. Is there a way of getting this propane grill to work with natural gas? I feel like the cost to convert is going to be more expensive than getting yourself a new grill now.
00:33:09	TOM: Yeah, I think so. So the burners are different than gas. Valve is different. You probably could. You could convert the propane grill to a gas grill. But I mean, look, they don’t last a terribly long time. I know this one is newish at this point. I think I would use it as a propane grill for now. And then when you’re getting ready to replace it, then you can go ahead and buy a gas grill at that point and install it. Because you can’t, the conversion kit is probably going to be more money than it’s worth. It can probably cost you at least $100 or $200. And you’d be a good halfway towards the cost of a new grill at that point, right, Les?
00:33:46	LESLIE: I mean, I think so. Unless you went out and bought some ridiculous, amazing kitchen outside grill kind of thing, then maybe we should talk about converting.
00:33:55	TOM: Well, if you’ve got that kind of a budget, then you probably don’t have to think twice about throwing away that grill. Or better yet, donating it to somebody.
00:34:01	LESLIE: I mean, you could even sell it. There’s so many options to share it around the community. But like Tom, I say just use it as a propane grill until it’s time for a new one, and then go natural gas.
00:34:11	TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show on a beautiful spring day. We hope that you guys are enjoying. Enjoying your homes this beautiful weekend. If you’ve got questions about projects you want to get done, or repairs you have to make, or you’re stuck on one, remember you can reach us 24-7 at moneypit.com. Until next time, I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:34:28	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:34:30	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
00:34:31	LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

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