#2420 – Eco Oasis: Natural Inground Pools | Spot Roof Leak Clues | Tools to Make Paint Projects Easy

Show Notes

In this show, discover the beauty of eco-friendly natural in-ground pools. We’ll also share tips on spotting roof leaks early and how the right tools can make painting projects a breeze. We’re here to help you plan, save, and avoid mishaps with answers to these and other home improvement questions!

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Show Notes
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Ask Your Home Improvement Question
Podcast Transcript

Natural Inground Pools: Transform your yard into an eco oasis with a natural inground pool.
Roof Leaks: Find out the clues for spotting a roof leak before it becomes a problem.
DIY Painting: Advances in tools make big painting projects faster and easier for any DIYer.

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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00:00:19	TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:00:37	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:00:38	TOM: Happy to be here to help you guys with your home improvement projects, your home repair projects, your home remodeling projects. What about decorating projects? Are you working inside? Are you working outside? We make DIY doable. So reach out to us right now with your questions at 1-888-Money-Pit. That’s 1-888-666-3974. We’ve got a great show planned for you. First up, if you’d love to have a backyard swimming spot, and this is the year you’re going to do something about it, because that’s one of those projects we dream about for, like, years, and then we decide, okay, it’s time. So if you have decided it’s time, we’re going to share a very neat option over traditional chlorine pools. We’ve got the scoop on how to build natural in-ground pools that are pond-like, absolutely gorgeous, and earth-friendly.
00:01:24	LESLIE: And with all the summer storms a lot of us have been experiencing, around the country, most of the time when there’s a leak, by the time you notice it, that water’s just dripping through the ceiling somewhere. But roof leaks actually start forming a lot earlier than that. So we’re going to share how to catch leaks in the making just ahead.
00:01:41	TOM: And the summer sun breaks down painted surfaces like siding and trim, which lead to expensive painting projects. Wagner sprayers make it possible for DIYers to tackle these big painting projects with ease. We’re going to highlight some of the latest advancements that make DIY painting.
00:01:57	LESLIE: But first, we’re here to help you plan and help you save some money and help you, you know, not get into so many home improvement troubles as you tackle projects, maybe for the first time, or maybe you’re just thinking about starting a project and you kind of are stuck with where to begin. Well, whatever it is, Team Money Pit is standing by to lend you a hand.
00:02:15	TOM: Reach out to us right now with your questions. The quickest way to get a response is to go to moneypit.com slash ask. Click the blue microphone button and record your question. It will come right to us for a response. Or you can call us at 1-888-Money-Pit, 888-666-3974. Let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s up first?
00:02:36	LESLIE: Andrea from Ontario, Canada is on the line with a mold question. How can we help you today?
00:02:40	CALLER: My question would be regarding black mold. And it’s sort of behind my sink between the sink and the backsplash. There’s a little bit of space. And this black mold settles in. There’s a lot of moisture, obviously. We’re running the water and it splashes. So behind and around the sink, as well as around my tub. I tried bleach. I scrubbed it. We, at one point, took out the caulking and re-caulked it. But it came back. So I’m at a kind of a loss what to do with this.
00:03:13	TOM: Mold is going to grow any place that you have an organic material, which could be drywall, or it could also be, believe it or not, soap scum. It can have organic matter in it, and that can feed mold. And so you have a condition there. That’s going to be prevalent to mold regrowth. Even when you clean it, it’s going to come back. You’re not going to permanently prevent it unless you change the environment, the climate that exists in that particular area. So with respect to the tile area, let’s deal with that first. When you re-caulked, did you pull all the old caulk out?
00:03:48	CALLER: Pulled it all out. Dug it all out. It was actually our contractor who said keep it very dry, bone dry. He called it. And then once we had it all dried out, then he came back and put a layer of this white material. I’m not exactly sure what it was, but he finished it off.
00:04:08	TOM: Okay, so you’re not quite sure what the product is. Here would be the steps. When you pull the old caulk out, you need to spray the joint between the tub and the tile with a bleach solution. That’s going to kill any mold spores that are left behind. Then after that’s dry, one additional step, fill up the tub with water because it makes it heavy and it pulls it down. And then you caulk it. And when you caulk it, you want to use a product that has mildewcide in it. Now, DAP, for example, has a caulk that has an additive called microban. And microban will not grow mold. It will prevent it from growing. And so if you use the right product and you take the step of treating it with a bleach solution first before you apply it, that helps it to last as long as possible. But again, if you don’t control humidity conditions, eventually it will come back. As for the sink, the same advice applies. You not only have to clean it, which takes away the visual, but you have to spray it with a mildewcide. And so you could mix, say, a 10% to 20% bleach solution with water and then let it dry. And that will help prevent it from coming back.
00:05:12	CALLER: I’ll try that.
00:05:14	TOM: All right. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:05:18	LESLIE: Harrison, Kansas. You’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?
00:05:21	CALLER: Hey, I have some tree roots in my yard. They’re growing close to the surface, and they’re exposed to where when I mow, I have to kind of mow over them or around them. Right. And just don’t know what to do. What would be the best way to get the yard back where it needs to be? And what do you guys think?
00:05:41	TOM: How much do you like that tree?
00:05:44	CALLER: You know, I’m not that committed to the tree.
00:05:47	TOM: It’s like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. You know, once it grows, you can’t really cut them back. They’re there for a purpose. And so you have to figure out a way to live with it or, you know, create a bed around it or mulch around it or maybe, you know, have it be less lawn and more, you know, like a mulched bed or something of that nature. But even if you add soil over it, it’s still going to kind of keep continuing to grow up and pop through it. So that’s just the nature of the beast when it comes to a big, healthy tree like that. Eventually, depending on the type of tree, it’ll eventually come out of the ground like that and start to impact your lawn.
00:06:22	CALLER: Put a bed around it. Yeah.
00:06:24	TOM: Maybe. Maybe a nice circular bench around the tree, you know, or something of that nature.
00:06:29	CALLER: Oh, that’s a good idea.
00:06:30	TOM: Yeah. You can find those. They basically are sold like so that they split in half and you can put them around the tree. And depending on the diameter of the tree, you want to try to get one that’s, you know, that fits right. But it could be really an attractive feature. You got to roll with it, you know, figure out a way to make it look like it was always supposed to be there. You’re waiting all these years for those roots to pop up so that you can put a bench around
00:06:50	CALLER: Yeah, I wanted to do that. Yeah.
00:06:52	TOM: That’s right. Okay. There you go. That’s the spirit.
00:06:54	CALLER: Sounds great. That’s a good idea. I like that. Thank you.
00:06:57	TOM: All right. Good luck. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:07:01	LESLIE: Hey, Money Pit podcast fans. You want to help us out? Well, go ahead and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and we’re going to give you a virtual high five. Plus, you’ll be helping us spread the word about our show. Just go to moneypit.com slash review. Martha in Ohio is on the line with a leaky door and a leaky window. What is going on?
00:07:21	CALLER: We had some sliding glass doors in our family room. That’s paneled and we had them taken out and we wanted just a picture window in there. So when they came to do the picture window, they took the door out, the sliding doors out and, you know, the foundation was like, oh, maybe a block or two up and the, you know, door had been left empty down lower. So what they did was they took two by fours, I think it was, wood and built up. To the block level and then proceeded to put in the supports for the window. So now when it, I made a flower bed out there and now when the ground gets real saturated
00:08:06	TOM: and water tends to puddle there, collect, it runs under the wood, through the wood. Not surprised. And well, so it sounds like instead of building the foundation up with concrete block, which is what they should have done, they sort of filled it in with wood framing. Is that correct? Yes.
00:08:22	CALLER: Yes. Yeah.
00:08:23	TOM: Probably wasn’t the best choice.
00:08:24	CALLER: Can we steal that or do we need to?
00:08:25	TOM: Just start over. Well, you know, it’s kind of hard to advise that you seal something that was never done right to begin with. I mean, it really should have been a concrete block. But having said that, if you are going to trap that much water against the foundation, whether it’s a wood patch or a concrete block, it’s still going to leak. You just can’t hold that kind of water against the foundation. We advise against this all the time, Martha, because those sorts of planters and anything else that holds water against the house is just not a good idea. Especially in an area like… Ohio, where you’ve got a pretty significant freeze-thaw cycle. Because of that water that saturates the soil, that soil freezes. It’s going to push inward on that wall and weaken the basement wall. So I would recommend if you are going to have a planter that you’ve got to have some drainage in there so that the water does not puddle up. Because if you do trap it against the wall, regardless of how that wall is built, even though it wasn’t repaired correctly, it’s going to leak and it’s going to cause damage. So I think the issue really is what you did after the fact more so than what they did to… Install the picture window, okay?
00:09:26	CALLER: Oh, okay. Okay. Good luck. Thank you so much. Have a nice day. You’re welcome.
00:09:32	TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:09:36	LESLIE: Well, there’s a new trend in alternative swimming pools, and it’s not the saltwater pool either. It’s called the natural swimming pool, and it’s kind of a high-end pond in your backyard. Now, rather than chlorine, these pools are using natural living ecosystems to actually clean the water. And that keeps it healthy for swimming. It’s sustainable. It’s eco-friendly. I mean, they’ve been very popular in Europe, where they’ve been kind of going on for about 30 years.
00:10:04	TOM: Yeah, and here’s how they work. A natural swimming pool is actually made up of two separate but side-by-side sections, and the water circulates between them. The first is the swimming area, and the second is known as the regeneration zone, essentially a very shallow water garden. Now, aquatic plants rooted in substrate. Act as a biological filter by removing bacteria and contaminants from the water and taking in nutrients, depriving algae of what it needs to flourish.
00:10:34	LESLIE: Now, when it comes to the shape and design of these sort of natural pools, the shape is entirely up to you. Now, that pool can be organically curved like a real pond. It can be rectangular like a pool. So it’s kind of up to you. But whichever way you go, it’s going to have this beautiful, natural look. Now, when you’re in the pool itself, you have to kind of keep in mind. That to balance this natural ecosystem that’s going to clean this pool for you, that regeneration zone, it has to be the same size as that swimming area. Otherwise, you’re not going to get filtration.
00:11:04	TOM: Now, the initial construction costs are going to be comparable to a regular swimming pool. So it’s not a budget move, but maintenance costs can actually be hundreds of dollars lower with no chemicals to buy and very minimal electricity to use. Plus, a lot of homeowners do end up spending a lot on landscaping around the pool to create the feel of a real pond. That part comes out of the while you’re at it budget. You know, it’s always that part when you get done and go, hmm, well, while I’m at it, let’s put some landscaping here. But look, there are beautiful pools and in the right setting with the right design, they look good, they function well, and you don’t have to deal with that nasty chlorine smell that gets on you, gets on your face and your eyes, makes everything red, your clothes stink, they fade, and lots of reasons to try to avoid that. Of course, it’s important, you know, for health, but this is another way to have clean water that doesn’t rely.
00:11:55	LESLIE: Now, we’re heading over to Tennessee where Steve wants to talk about water heating. How can we help you?
00:12:00	CALLER: My water heater seems to be going out. It’s about five or six years old, and I’ve been hearing commercials on your show about taking this water heaters and other forms of, like, water heating solutions, and I was just wondering, is that, you know, costly or, you know, is that a better way to go than putting another tank in?
00:12:17	TOM: Okay, so you see the water heater’s going out. Is this a gas water heater?
00:12:20	CALLER: It’s electric.
00:12:21	TOM: It’s electric, and it’s going out. So what’s happening to it? It’s leaking. Oh, it’s leaking at five or six years? Really? That’s just plain bad luck, Steve. Yeah, I know. So, all right, well, let me ask you this question. How long are you planning on staying in your current house? Is this the house for a while? Oh, yeah, it’s forever house, hopefully. Generally, I would say I wouldn’t hesitate to install a tankless water heater, except, and this is a big except, tankless water heaters that are powered by electricity don’t work that well. They don’t save you that much money. If you have the ability to power it with propane, for example. Then it’s more realistic. But if you’re planning on powering it with electricity, then it’s not. So in that case, your options are to replace it with a standard tanked electric water heater, or you can use a real new type of electric water heater called a heat pump water heater. Heat pump water heaters are more expensive, but they’re much, much, much more efficient than a standard electric water heater.
00:13:17	CALLER: Are those costly?
00:13:18	TOM: Yeah, they’re more costly than a standard water heater. You know, you’re probably looking at maybe around $1,500 for one. Plus installation. So they’re much more expensive, but they’re far more efficient.
00:13:28	CALLER: That’s what I’ll do then. I thank you for answering my question.
00:13:30	TOM: Sorry to hear about that leak, and hope we’ve helped you get back on track. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:13:38	LESLIE: Beth in Texas is on the line with a painting question.
00:13:40	CALLER: How can we help you today? I had four columns on the front of my house, and I live downtown in an old neighborhood that has beautiful 150-year-old oak trees. I have these four columns, and the wood rots out. The columns sit on concrete. And last time I had them fixed, which was about 10 years ago, they put like a plastic or some kind of a block that’s the same size as the column. It’s a barrier, kind of. A moisture barrier, maybe, between the concrete and the pole. So then time passes, and here comes the rot again. And so I said, oh my gosh. So I dug out the rot again. And I went to Home Depot, and I got some of that product. It’s a product that, you know, you can fill in with… Like a Bondo. Right, right. It’s some kind of… It has wood in it, but it’s plastic. It’s something… I don’t know what it is. Anyway, I did that. And of course, my wounds were so deep, I could only put, you know, about a fourth inch in. And it took me forever to fill up the little holes. And so I finally got it to the edge, and I sanded it. It looked pretty darn good. And so I painted it. And then I put the first coat on. And I said, oh, this paint’s kind of thin. I’ll put another coat on. So in the meantime, here comes all this pollen from these giant oak trees. And all this stuff that falls from the trees on my freshly painted wood. I started crying. Oh, no. I literally started crying. Because I didn’t know what in the world to do about paint. I mean, that stuff just sucked it up like a sponge. And so, I mean, I didn’t know what to do.
00:15:16	LESLIE: All right. Well, where are you now with the comms? Are you at a point where you need to replace them again? Are you trying to just figure out a fix?
00:15:22	CALLER: Well, actually, what I… What I did is I went back and I lightly sanded. I waited for a while. And then I sanded it lightly. And then I put another top coat on. And I don’t know. I still have little… I don’t know what it is. It’s not yellow pollen, but it’s something, you know, it’s kind of… My paint is bumpy. It’s not nice like it should be after all that work.
00:15:44	LESLIE: Well, here’s a couple of solutions. You do need to sand it if you want to get the surface nice and smooth again. That’s truly the only thing that’s going to get rid of the pollen that sort of is… That sort of embedded itself into that wet paint. Then once you get a nice smooth surface on that column again, what you want to try to do is… And I know it would be a pain in the butt, but it’s going to be super-duper duper helpful. If you can get some paint tarps, plastic, canvas, whatever. If there is a way to sort of build a tent in these tarps around, you know, the area to keep the pollen from sort of wafting in there while the paint is drying and while you’re painting, you know, it’ll be unsightly while the process is… It’s happening just because your beautiful front of your home will be draped in tarp, but it will actually help to keep the air circulating behind it to actually dry the column paint, but it will keep things from landing on it. So I would look into a way to do that. You know, they make all sorts of little prop poles and different things that work for tarps, but also, you know, a couple of good clips. Maybe you’ve got, you know, an overhang there or something that you can clip onto without damaging a gutter. So, you know, that really could do the trick. Now, fast forward. So a couple of years down the road, when you end up with such an amount of rot again, you might want to consider replacing the columns with an architectural composite column. Now, in a lot of cases, because your wood column is actually a support, correct? Yes, ma’am. So what you might end up doing is they might replace that wood column, since you’ve done that before, they might replace the wood column with some sort of post that would be metal, that would be structural, and then there is an actual decorative wrap that looks exactly like the same type of fluted column or whatever type of column you might have that wraps around that support pole and then is a composite. So once it’s painted and finished, you won’t have to paint it again for a long, long, long, long time because it’s not made of an organic material. It’s not going to take that moisture up that you’re getting from the concrete and it’s going to simply clean up with, you know, soap and water. So, you know, keep that in mind for down the road. And they would do that, you know, column at a time and make them structural. So there are ways to get around it, but you’re going to have to sand again.
00:18:00	CALLER: I know. It didn’t look too bad, but it didn’t look too good either.
00:18:05	CALLER: But thank you so much. I’ll try those tips, all right?
00:18:09	TOM: Beth, it sounds like you got your work cut out for you on that job. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:18:15	LESLIE: Jeremy in Pennsylvania is dealing with a leaky basement. What can we do for you?
00:18:18	CALLER: I have a finished basement that has block foundation and I have a small leak that it’s not pulling up water or anything like that. It just kind of causes me some moisture problems. It just smells kind of musty and damp and things like that.
00:18:35	TOM: Where’s the leak?
00:18:36	CALLER: The leak is in at the, whenever I, before I finished it, it was at the corner of the slab and the block wall. Okay. And it seemed like it was coming up from underneath. I sealed it, I think, inadvertently with dry lock. And I don’t think that that necessarily did, and I didn’t know if there was another thing that I could do without gutting the basement completely because I have, you know, laminate floor down and drywall up. If there’s anything I can do from the outside.
00:19:07	TOM: Jeremy, when, does it get worse after heavy rain?
00:19:10	CALLER: It has before, it hasn’t gotten much worse, no.
00:19:14	TOM: But it seems somewhat consistent with how much rainfall you get outside. Correct. Yeah, okay, so listen, the good news is there’s nothing you need to do inside to fix this. The problem’s outside. I would suspect, because this is in a corner, you may even have a downspout near that area of the house. But generally, if you have a leak against the foundation wall like that, it’s caused more by drainage than it is by anything like a rising water table. So if you look outside the foundation in that area, you’re going to probably see that you’ve got a blocked gutter, or you have a gutter that doesn’t have enough downspouts, or you’ve got downspouts that are discharging too close to the house. When you have a moisture problem, you really want to move those spouts out four to six feet, or perhaps you could have some grating that’s too flat and not sort of allowing water to run away. That first four to six feet around the house foundation perimeter is really the most critical. And if the water is allowed to sit and collect that close to the house, what’s going to happen is you’re going to get that moisture come right back down into the basement. So the solution is to fix the drainage outside, and the inside will fix itself.
00:20:15	CALLER: Yeah, I think it’s probably a combination of the two. I have a gutter right there in that corner, and then I think my grating is, I think it actually, it comes towards the house as opposed to running away from the house.
00:20:25	LESLIE: Oh, that’s a double whammy.
00:20:27	TOM: That’s a recipe for a flood right there. Yeah.
00:20:29	CALLER: Yeah.
00:20:29	TOM: Start by getting the downspout out. Just put an extension on that leader, and you may see an instant result. Okay.
00:20:35	CALLER: Terrific. Thank you so much.
00:20:36	TOM: You’re welcome, Jeremy. Good luck with that project.
00:20:39	LESLIE: Well, by the time most of us spot a roof leak, the water is usually just pouring through the ceiling somewhere, and that’s kind of too late at that point. That roof leak actually started forming a lot earlier than that. We’re going to share how you can catch leaks in the making in today’s roof review tip presented by RoofMax. Now, there’s a lot of ways that roof leaks can form, but the vast majority of leaks happen at the points where the roof sections intersect. Now, this is where the roof gets the most movement in terms of expansion and contraction, and all of that movement can definitely lead to a leak.
00:21:12	TOM: Yeah, and here are some prime areas for that to happen. Roof valleys is one. This is where different sections of roof come together. They typically form sort of a V where this happens, and they’ll either have metal flashing that lays at the bottom of the V, or the shingles will overlap and sort of lock together. Now, because this area is where water collects on its way to your gutters and an intersection of two big sections, we will frequently find that leaks form here when the flashing or the shingles wear out from all of that movement.
00:21:43	LESLIE: Now, let’s also talk about plumbing vents. Have you ever noticed all those little pipes that kind of stick out of the roof? Well, those are the plumbing vents, and they share a very common form of rubber. They’re called rubber-sealed flashing. It’s kind of like a boot that goes over the vent and then under the shingles. Now, the problem there is that that rubber seal is going to wear out just because it’s exposed to sunlight, and then that can leak, and that usually shows up in the bathroom or the kitchen ceiling just below that vent.
00:22:07	TOM: Yeah, that’s really common. So lastly, let’s talk about chimneys. If you have a brick chimney that goes up through the roof, the flashing system is made up of two parts, which we call flashing and counter flashing. They form sort of a sliding joint that allows for normal movement of the chimney due to wind. But unfortunately, when these flashing systems leak, lazy repairs are often common, like troweling roof cement on top of the whole thing, which lasts like a month instead of properly rebuilding the original flashing.
00:22:37	LESLIE: Now, all of these situations can definitely cause big leaks, but they’re really easy for a pro to spot early. Companies like RoofMax offer a maintenance package that focuses on the most leak-prone areas of your roof, and RoofMax’s experts will inspect your roof and then make minor repairs to the most common issues, and that’s going to protect your home.
00:22:56	TOM: And that’s today’s roof review tip presented by RoofMax. A RoofMax treatment restores flexibility in waterproofing protection of an aging asphalt shingle roof, extending its life by as much as 15 years. RoofMax treatments come with a five-year flexibility guarantee, and they’re purchased through a nationwide network of factory-trained and certified dealers who also apply the treatment. You can learn more at roofmax.com. That’s roofmax, roof, M-A-X-X, dot com.
00:23:26	LESLIE: Mary in Wisconsin, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we help you with today?
00:23:29	CALLER: I’m redoing my basement, and I’m wondering about flooring. It has had a rubber-backed carpet, which has been taken up, so we’re down to the concrete, and I’m just wondering what would be a good thing to put back down on the floor there.
00:23:45	TOM: So, rubber-backed carpet was kind of popular at one point in time, but, generally, speaking, we don’t recommend carpet for basements because they’re so damp. You can build up a lot of debris down there that can cause allergic reactions. You get dust mites and all that sort of thing that will nest in the carpet. So, I would look to a smooth surface material. So, your options might be laminate floor, which is beautiful. It could look like hardwood floor or tile. It’s made of different composite materials. It’s a very, very tough surface. And it floats. It’s not glued down. It floats on top of the floor. Or you could choose a special type of hardwood floor called engineered hardwood. Now, solid hardwood would not be recommended for a basement because it’s too moist, but engineered is made up of different layers of hardwood. The guts of it kind of look like plywood, but the surface, it looks like a regular hardwood floor. You can’t really tell the difference once it’s down. And I think that would be a good option as well.
00:24:46	LESLIE: I really like the carpet down there. Use area rugs. You’re just going to be sad. It’s just going to cause a lot of problems. It’s going to make you feel yucky. It’s going to feel damp down there.
00:24:55	TOM: And it’s a very dated look today, too. I mean, things have changed in terms of decor. And I think the solid surface of a laminate floor or an engineered hardwood floor would be much more common today.
00:25:07	CALLER: Is there something feasible in a price range, though?
00:25:10	TOM: Yeah, I mean, laminate floor is really affordable. You can get that for as little as maybe four bucks a square foot.
00:25:16	LESLIE: Yeah, you know what? Go online. I’ve seen laminate flooring just south of two dollars a square foot. So there’s really some great options that are very affordable out there. Okay, thank you.
00:25:26	TOM: Mary, thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:25:30	LESLIE: Tim in Maine is on the line with a flooring question. What are you working on?
00:25:33	CALLER: I bought an old house and I ripped up the carpet in one of the rooms to find really old pine boards. So I paid to have them professionally finished and they look amazing. And my question for you is, there are gaps under the trim around the entire room, upwards of a half an inch. It’s pretty noticeable and there’s a lot of them. And I was wondering what my options were for taking care of those gaps.
00:26:02	LESLIE: So this is between that first board and your baseboard piece, correct? Yeah. So what you can do, and of course, I don’t know what the style of your baseboard is, and perhaps at the bottom of your baseboard, is it just flat, straight? You got a clean edge?
00:26:15	CALLER: Yeah, it’s your standard white sort of baseboard.
00:26:18	LESLIE: You know what you can do? Is you can do either like a quarter round or a shoe molding and they come in a variety of sizes and those can be painted to match your baseboard or stained to match your baseboard.
00:26:28	TOM: Or even they could be natural oak and match the floor.
00:26:31	LESLIE: Yeah, it’s another way to go. And then you’d use that to sort of bridge the gap between the baseboard and the floor. So it sort of just covers over that. And you can get it in a half inch depth, which isn’t terribly gigantic, but that’ll cover your whole area. So it sort of acts as like an application onto the baseboard. It attaches one side on the baseboard and the other side sort of rests on the floor. So it’s, you know, L-shaped with that quarter round between. Or you can do a different type of molding. I mean, there’s a ton of different kinds of moldings, whether it’s a shoe molding, either a square or a quarter round, depending on the look and the style of the home. And then you can use that to bridge the gap.
00:27:06	CALLER: Okay. Is there anything, there’s no type of like putty or filler or caulk or anything that I could put?
00:27:13	LESLIE: You’re going to have too much movement in the floor and it’s going to, whatever you put in is just going to break out and bounce out. And it’s going to be a disaster that you’re constantly fixing. And this is going to be such a minimal addition. That’s truly going to cover up this, you know, opening that’s bothering you and you won’t even notice it. Okay. All right. Thanks so much for calling the Money Pit. Well, it’s summertime and that’s when all of that blazing sun starts to give you a nice tan and makes you want to go to the beach, but it also does some bad stuff to you guys. It can start to break down those painted surfaces like your siding and your trim and that can lead to big and expensive painting projects. And it is super-duper easy to just get overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of a project like that. But one company has made it their mission to create the tools that DIYers need to take on those big painting projects with ease. And that’s Wagner.
00:28:06	TOM: Yeah, they’re a brand that’s actually been a household name for over 50 years. Wagner has a really big range of products to tackle all sorts of painting needs. Like they have these very versatile Flexio sprayers and their high efficiency airless sprayers. Now I was working with the airless sprayers on some big projects around my house. We needed to paint the garage and man that project went so much faster with this Wagner airless sprayer. I am never going to go back to brushing big surfaces like that again.
00:28:36	LESLIE: Yeah, and it’s not just paint sprayers. Wagner also offers heat guns, paint rollers, steamers and more. And they’re constantly innovating to provide solutions. That simplify the process and actually make these DIY projects doable.
00:28:50	TOM: So when you have a big painting project on your to-do list, remember the name Wagner. Check out their entire line along with lots of helpful videos covering every imaginable project at wagnerspraytech.com. It’s wagnerspraytech.com.
00:29:05	LESLIE: Beverly in Missouri, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?
00:29:08	CALLER: Well, I have a house. It’s just been built a year and a half ago, but I have a covered patio. And my builder put cedar posts up there. The rest of my trim is all white. So I wanted to cover or paint the cedar. But he’s telling me I can’t do it because I’ll rot them out. And that doesn’t sound right to me, but I’m not sure.
00:29:31	TOM: So what would you, in a perfect world, Beverly, what would you like to see in those cedar posts? Would you like them to be white and match the rest of the house?
00:29:38	CALLER: Yeah, all of my trim is white. And so I would rather them be white. They’re a year and a half old now. So… They’re starting to turn the cedar look and get all dark. Right.
00:29:48	TOM: Are they kind of decorative? No. Okay. So here’s what I would do. The first thing, I’m going to recommend a staining process. So the first thing you’re going to do is prime them with an oil-based primer or a solvent-based primer. And then you’re going to stain them. And I would use a solid color stain. And a solid color stain is not going to look like paint, so it won’t tend to peel. It’ll fade over time. But it’ll soak in really nicely. And you can get a white stain, a solid white stain, and it’ll look quite attractive. Painting wood does not cause it to rot. It prevents it from rotting.
00:30:22	LESLIE: It just requires a lot of repainting.
00:30:24	CALLER: Yeah. I mean, he said if I covered it or painted them, that it causes the moisture to hold to the base, and then they rot.
00:30:32	TOM: I would disagree with that. I think if you stain them, you’ll find that they’re quite attractive and that the moisture will work in and out just fine.
00:30:39	CALLER: Good. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.
00:30:43	LESLIE: Axel wrote in to Team Money Pit saying, I want to replace the toilet in an old home, and I want to know what’s the best kind of toilet to replace it with. Should I get one with the low-flow option, and what about those toilets that have two flush options? There are a lot of choices out there. And I mean, you think you’re just getting a toilet, but.
00:31:02	TOM: Yeah. There really are a lot of options, and there’s a lot to think about. But here’s my two cents. So first of all, definitely go low-flow. Now, if you’ve been around for a while, you know that when low-flow toilets first came out, that didn’t flush very well, that’s all behind us literally now because now the traps are bigger. That’s sort of the internal piping of the toilet. They’re bigger, they’re glazed, so there’s no obstruction. So they work and they work well. In terms of the double flush valve, so it’s sort of half flush, full flush. And yes, you are going to save water by doing that. The only considerations I would give are really two. Number one, those toilets tend to be a little bit more expensive. And secondly, when those valves fail, and they will because it’s a part designed to wear out, it’s going to have certain life expectancy, I have found it a little more difficult to find replacements because those valves have to be basically matched to that manufacturer. Whereas most fill and flush valves fit universally across all sorts of toilets. So there definitely are some considerations. There may be some inconvenience when it comes time to replace those valves. But other than that, I say go ahead and definitely go low flush. And if you really want to have dual flush, why not? I think it’s especially important the more people you have in your house, because the more people you have in the house, the more water you’re apt to save.
00:32:19	LESLIE: Yeah. And if you definitely get the dual flush, you have to explain to everybody what the difference is and make sure they use it properly. All right. Now we’ve got one from Linda in Texas who says, I need help getting water spots off of a shower door. She says our water is very hard. And as soon as I clean the doors, the stains come right back. Yeah.
00:32:40	TOM: So obviously a water softener will help, Linda. So if you’ve not considered that, it’s probably a good time to do it because I’m sure this isn’t the only place you’re getting hard water deposits. You often get them all in the fixtures. They will clog the shower heads and reduce the water flow and so on. So water softener, definitely an option. But here is a less expensive alternative or maybe an interim step. And that is a product called Rain-X. Now Rain-X is a product that you buy typically in an auto supply store because it’s- For cars, right? It’s for cars. Yeah. It’s for windshields. And when you clean your windshield really well and you apply Rain-X to it, the water beads off of that, the glass, like you can’t believe and just completely flows off the windshield. So I’ll always put that on when I’m washing the car or when certainly before I’m going on a big trip. And if you go into a storm, man, what a difference it makes. But it can also be used on some shower doors. I say some because- I don’t know if there’s going to be an adverse reaction to the plastic your particular door is made from, but I suspect it won’t be. I think it will work. So try it out. Try it out in the section. And basically you have to clean the door well, and then you dry it. And then you put the Rain-X on with a damp cloth. You let it dry to a haze. And then you take another damp, clean cloth and you buff it off. And then you let it sit and let it dry. And the next time you take a shower, you will notice a big difference in how much water is stuck to that door.
00:34:08	LESLIE: Yeah. Just please, please, please do not- Do not get it on the floor. Be super careful because it can be very, very slippery.
00:34:13	TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Hey guys, thanks so much for joining us on today’s program. We hope that we gave you a tip or two to help you out with the projects that you’re doing around the house. But remember, we are a resource for you 24-7. So anytime you got a question, we will try to get you an answer. The number here again is 1-888-Money-Pit, or better yet, post your questions to moneypit.com slash ask by clicking the blue, microphone button. Until next time, I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:34:42	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:34:44	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
00:34:46	LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

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