#2438 – Home Improvement Myths | Drywall Repairs Done Right | Programs to Cut Utility Bills

Show Notes

On today’s show, we dispel common home improvement myths, provide easy fixes for wall imperfections, and discuss ways to cut down your energy bills with utility company programs. Are you struggling to keep up with your home’s demands? We’ve got your back, so tune in to hear expert help and advice!

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Ask Your Home Improvement Question
Podcast Transcript

Home Improvement Advice: Separate fact from fix-tion by debunking these home improvement myths.
Drywall Repairs: Master the art of making drywall repairs the right way with these easy steps.
Energy Savings: Save money and energy with programs to help reduce your utility bills.

Ask Your Home Improvement Question

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

Podcast Transcript

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00:00:24	TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:00:34	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:00:36	TOM: Hey, you guys have a project you’d like to get done? You need help solving a DIY dilemma? Well, reach out to us right now with your questions, because that’s what we do here on The Money Pit. We help you take on the projects you want to get done around your house. Whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or you’re hiring a pro, we want to give you the advice that you need to get that project done right. So give us a call right now at 1-888-Money-Pit. That’s 888-666-3974. Or better yet, you can post your questions to MoneyPit.com slash ask. Coming up on today’s show, when it comes to the topic of home improvement, there’s often more bad advice than sage wisdom. And that bad advice can really spread like wildfire. We’re going to tackle some of the most common tales that help separate fact from home repair fiction.
00:01:23	LESLIE: And do you find that wall cracks and holes and nail pops are giving away your home’s age? Well, those walls could probably use a little TLC right now. We’re going to share some tips on how you can fix them yourself, coming up.
00:01:35	TOM: And with the very hot summer, was your electric bill a real shocker? Well, believe it or not, utility companies are required to offer programs to help you use less of their product. So we’re going to have some advice on how to best take advantage of that.
00:01:48	LESLIE: But first, do you feel like you’re in a constant game of tug-of-war with your house and maybe your house is winning? Well, whatever projects you’ve got on that, you know, tug-of-war rope out there, you guys, whatever you are working on that’s totally pulling you down, we can help you rise up and finish those projects in, you know, record time and hopefully save you some money and really get you to that home of your dreams sooner than you think.
00:02:11	TOM: So call us right now. That number again is 888-666-3974. Or go to MoneyPit.com. Just click the blue microphone button for the quickest possible response. Let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s first?
00:02:25	LESLIE: Heading out to Texas, we’ve got Leroy on the line. What’s going on at your money pit?
00:02:28	CALLER: All the AC vents in the house work just fine. We’re blowing out, you know, cold, you know, fast air, except for our one back bedroom, which is our smallest room. Right. Barely any air blows out of it. And I don’t know what might be going on with the ducting up there or, you know, like I said, barely any air blows out there. And that, you know, smallest room should be getting the coldest. But it’s actually getting the hottest.
00:02:48	TOM: Is that the farthest room away from where the air conditioner is located? No.
00:02:52	CALLER: It’s probably the second closest. Really?
00:02:54	TOM: Huh. If that’s the case, there’s no reason you should be getting such a reduced airflow. You definitely, to me, it sounds like you have a kink in there somewhere. There’s a blockage for some reason. Is there any way that you could get the register off? And sometimes with a flashlight and a mirror, you can look down the whole line of the duct and see if there’s anything obvious that’s blocking it. I can’t imagine what it is. But if it got kinked, maybe when it was first put in. Who knows? It could have been like this since day one. That would definitely cause this problem. If it’s the second closest to the air conditioner, you should not be having restricted airflow.
00:03:26	CALLER: Right. And that’s what I was kind of thinking. But I figured I’d ask somebody that knows a little bit more about the stuff than I do.
00:03:32	TOM: The other thing is where it comes off the air conditioning, you want to try to follow the ducts at that point because sometimes there’s dampers where you can control flow. And there’s a small chance, I will say, not a big chance, a small chance that you could have a damper on that line. That’s partially shut. Sometimes they put dampers online so that they can adjust the amount of air going to different parts of the house. If you see the damper, it’s going to be inside the ducts. You won’t see the actual damper, but you’ll see the axle on which the damper operates. And the axle is going to have a flat on the end of it. And if the flat is perpendicular to the duct, it’s closed. And if it’s parallel to the duct, then it’s fully open. So look for that. And it’ll have a little handle on it, usually with a little hand-tightened nut on there, too, to stop it from breaking. So take a look for that as well. And if it turns out that you can’t find it, sometimes it’s easier to run a new duct than it is to try to fix the one that’s there. So that’s another option. Right.
00:04:26	CALLER: No, I understand. Yeah, no, I’m going to have to go give those options a try. Good luck, Leroy. Thank you. Y’all have a good day.
00:04:33	LESLIE: Well, this is the time of year to be outside enjoying your property. But Grace is on the line with some issues with a patio that needs restoration. What’s going on?
00:04:41	CALLER: We have a patio that’s 40 years old. It’s concrete. It has soldier. It’s bricking all the way around it. But some of the portions have raised and are actually a little dangerous. And some of the portions also have just turned color. In short, it’s an ugly patio.
00:05:01	TOM: What are our options and whom do we call? Well, Grace, I mean, I think the good news is that the fact that you’ve got a patio with a soldier’s edge around it is nice. Now, for those who are wondering what that is, that’s when you take brick and you stack it vertically and use it as a border for, in this case, the patio. And apparently, they’re broken off and they’re falling apart and they’re somewhat dangerous. But the fact that it’s there is kind of cool. I would investigate the possibility of actually doing a restoration job on that where you basically remove all the loose brick and re-mortar it in place. You may need to have a mason do that. But in terms of the concrete that’s left, Leslie, there’s so many nice finishes to that today. You know, you have the terrazzo coatings, for example, that are absolutely beautiful and other options. I think that between restoring the soldier course and then refinishing that patio surface, I think that could look pretty nice.
00:05:51	LESLIE: I mean, I think it could look really nice. And especially if there’s something, you know, special about that brick. If it’s, you know, antiqued or dated back to a certain, you know, time period when the home was built. Like, that’s really special and deserves being preserved. It’s interesting, you know, you hardly ever hear that term, soldiering or soldiered. And I think that applies to pretty much any sort of tile. It’s like a pattern. So brick, tile, and it’s when everything stands on edge like a tall, stand tall like a soldier. And then if you were to, say, do a soldier pattern on a tile wall, they’re all stacked, you know, vertically and horizontally so that everything’s in line. Like, there’s nothing that’s offset.
00:06:29	TOM: Yeah, you don’t overlap the joints. Yeah.
00:06:31	LESLIE: So, I mean, it’s really a lovely pattern. And the fact that it’s with this brick is really special. And I think for the top, you know, you’re right. Daich Coatings has so many different applications that you can use to give a nice finish. It can have a nice, solid, durable surface. It can have, you know, a texture, a pattern. It can look like marble. It can look like terrazzo. It can look like so much. So that’s definitely an option. And I think with, you know, a little bit of work here, you can really have something super special.
00:06:56	TOM: Absolutely.
00:06:58	LESLIE: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Holy moly, you guys, it’s August. How many of you have people going back to school already? Maybe you’re working on some back-to-school projects to make the house a little bit more education-friendly, a dedicated workspace for the little guys and girls. Whatever you’ve got going on, maybe you’re just wrapping up a wonderful summer season and thinking about those perfect fall temp projects, we are here to give you a hand. Give us a call at 888-Money-Pit. 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.
00:07:33	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.
00:07:45	LESLIE: James in Mississippi is on the line and has a question about cutting a hole in a deck and putting a pool in, which oddly is something that we did on an episode of While You Were Out and did not go so well.
00:07:56	CALLER: So what’s My wife wants me to cut a hole out of our deck and put one of these inflated pools in there. It’s an eight-foot pool and stands about, I don’t know, two, three feet tall. And it lands on a slope. I’m just trying to figure out how it’s a break to get it to where it’ll sit and not get damaged.
00:08:20	TOM: Or can I do that? What could possibly go wrong? A lot. You know, I mean, if he wants to cut the hole in the deck, all right, so first let’s take this in pieces, right? Decks are designed to carry the floor. Yeah, well, we’re going to end up in pieces designed to carry the floor. So you’re going to have to pull the decking off. You’re going to have to reframe this structure. You’re going to have to make a square opening to fit this pool. You said inflatable pool. So just remember, you’re going to be committing a lot to this inflatable pool. And if it turns out that it gets a hole in it and you can’t find another one that exact same size, you’ve got a big mess to deal with there. But let’s say you can do that, okay? So you frame out the decking. Now you have the square hole. You mentioned it was on a slope. Well, that’s not going to cut it because this inflatable pool is going to slide right down under the deck as soon as you fill it with water because the ground is sloped below. So you’re probably going to have to build up like a platform under that to support this inflatable pool. So it’s quite a big investment in time and energy to have this pool sit inside this deck. You might want to think of some other options. You know, if you want to pool in a deck, you know, get a hot tub. But make sure the deck is framed properly no matter what you do. If you’re cutting it apart to stick in this inflatable pool or if you’re putting it on top, water is very, very heavy. It’s eight pounds of gas. It’s a gallon. It adds up really quick. So you got to make sure your deck is framed properly and strong enough to support it.
00:09:43	LESLIE: Well, when it comes to the topic of home improvement, there’s often more bad advice than sage wisdom out there. And that bad advice can spread like wildfire.
00:09:52	TOM: Oh, so true. And for those of us in the role of trying to provide the best advice, we often need to help separate that fact from fiction, which is why we thought it might be fun to get to the bottom of some of these very common household myths.
00:10:04	LESLIE: All right. Here’s a good one for the first one. When using a garbage disposer, water must always be running. True or false?
00:10:11	TOM: I can’t tell you how many times in the years I was a home inspector that I was testing a garbage disposal and the homeowner would be so alarmed and come running into the kitchen saying, no, no, no, you have to run water. You have to run water. You’re going to break the disposer. Oh, my God. I’m like, no, not really. Because disposers have bearings built into them. And those bearings are going to spin that disposer regardless of whether water is there or not. Now, what the water does help do is move the food through the disposer. So water is helpful for that. But you don’t need to necessarily run water when you run a disposer because it runs just fine without it.
00:10:46	LESLIE: I don’t know. I tell you, I still turn it on. I know that I don’t need it, but I still do. All right. Pre-rinsing dishes before you run the dishwasher. And I know this is probably a point of contention in a lot of people’s house.
00:10:58	TOM: Yeah, absolutely.
00:10:59	LESLIE: And the way you load the dishwasher. But that’s another topic.
00:11:02	TOM: Well, I think it’s generational in the sense that the older generation dishwashers didn’t have the ability to sense how dirty the dishes are. But the newer ones have a fancy device called a turbidity sensor. And the turbidity sensor basically measures sort of how dirty that water is, how muddy that water is, and adjusts the timing on the dishwasher accordingly. So unless you’ve got a lot of chunks of food on it, I mean, I don’t think you should be dumping that down your dishwasher because it doesn’t really have a built-in disposer that’s going to grind it up. But in terms of just the sauces and the soft stuff, I don’t think it’s necessary to take that off of the dishes before you put them in. So I’m no to pre-rinsing.
00:11:40	LESLIE: And I’m a yes. In fact, I kind of put them in like already kind of washed, which is such a dodo move of myself.
00:11:45	TOM: But, you know, it’s funny because you know that you’re not going to change no matter how logical and accurate the argument might be. People just get used to this. So, I mean, you’ve got to account for that and just let people do what they want to do.
00:11:59	LESLIE: All right. For DIY projects in your own home, do you need a permit or not?
00:12:04	TOM: Well, just because you’re doing a project yourself doesn’t mean you can automatically skip the permitting process. I mean, things like painting, sanding, putting up molding, those sorts of improvements generally don’t require a permit. But if you’re adding outlets, if you’re changing a stove from gas to electric, if you’re replacing windows, if you’re moving a wall, adding a door, you definitely need a permit. And also, if you’re building a deck, you know, one of the things that I used to hear about all the time is people that had just built a deck. Over the years, never got a permit. When they went to sell their house, all of a sudden, it doesn’t line up with the building department records and you got a problem. I mean, you could actually be required to take some of this stuff apart, to tear down a deck, for example, if you didn’t have a proper permit before you started. So, better to be safe than sorry. Ask your local building department. Otherwise, you can risk fines or have that sort of problem when it comes time to sell your house because you may not be able to get a certificate of occupancy.
00:12:52	LESLIE: Yeah. And I can’t tell you how many times when I was thinking of moving, I’d look at a house and I’d be like, oh, there’s a bathroom in here. It wasn’t on the listing. They’d be like, oh, yes, and it’s not on the listing for a reason. And you’d be like, oh, okay. Well, maybe there’s something wrong with it. Well, you know, it’s like at some point, somebody’s going to have to pay the piper and get a permit and get that CO.
00:13:13	TOM: You know what? Because they want to be able to claim an additional bathroom in the house for valuation purposes, right, when the appraisal because number of bathrooms has a big effect on that. But they don’t want to be on the CO. Right.
00:13:25	LESLIE: But at some point, somebody’s going to do some work or something’s going to happen. Yeah. Somebody’s going to be like, well, you either got to get rid of that or now bring everything up to code or whatever, get that certificate of occupancy.
00:13:34	TOM: That’s a good point. So you want to be careful if you are buying a house and you discover things like that. Require the sellers to make sure everything’s up to code before you buy because otherwise you might get stuck with it.
00:13:44	LESLIE: That’s very true. All right, last one. When it comes to heating and cooling systems, bigger is better? I mean, that obviously is going to make you more comfortable, right?
00:13:51	TOM: Not necessarily, especially when it comes to air conditioning. If you put an oversized air conditioning unit like central air in your house. Yeah, the house may cool off quicker with a blast of frigid air. But the air conditioner will shut down before it has a chance to remove moisture from the air. And that’s going to result in the interior space feeling cold but also clammy, kind of moistury, wet. And that’s a problem. So not very comfortable to live in a place like that. Plus, you could definitely grow mold as a result. And likewise, an oversized furnace that quickly pumps out heat and then shuts down is very inefficient. It’s going to turn on and off quickly. It’s kind of like a car engine. In stop-and-go traffic, it’s a big fuel hog, so you want to avoid that as well. You want to right-size your air conditioning system and right-size your heating system so that you don’t overpay for expenses and you don’t create an uncomfortable environment.
00:14:39	LESLIE: All right, all excellent tips. We’ve got Margie dealing with some uneven concrete. What is going on over there?
00:14:45	CALLER: Okay, we bought this place about three, four years ago. It had a concrete floor on one side of the garage. And on the other side, for some reason, they had a wooden floor. Well, the wooden floor started to rot. Yeah. So I replaced it last year with concrete. Okay. The guy told me, don’t paint it or anything for about a year.
00:15:09	CALLER: Mm-hmm.
00:15:10	CALLER: So I’m getting ready to do that, but I don’t know whether I should do that because the other side, the older one, it’s peeling, not peeling, but grainy. Right. And you can sweep up a lot of time.
00:15:26	TOM: Okay, yeah. So I think this is a good cause for an epoxy coating across both floors. They’ll look uniform, and the epoxy will seal in the minor deterioration you’re talking about on the older side. So the way epoxy floor coating works is it’s like a paint, and it’s always in two parts, sort of called a part A and part B. And you clean the floors, you clean both floors, and most of the epoxy products have a cleaner included in it that you mix with water. So you clean both floors, let them dry thoroughly, and then you mix up the epoxy, and you apply it much the same way that you might apply paint. Now, the additional step with epoxy is they usually have like a color chip that’s a decorative element that gives you a little more traction on the floor and helps to hide dirt that you sprinkle over the epoxy while it’s wet, and then it sinks in. And it looks pretty cool when it’s all done. I’ve used a product from Daich Coatings, who is one of our sponsors. And it worked very, very well on my basement, even though it’s designed for garages. You can really use it on any concrete floor. But I was able to do a large basement with this, and I was really happy with the results. And the durability is amazing. I mean, the thing hasn’t scratched or chipped or anything since we put it down. So I think that’s a good solution where you’ll be able to coat both the new and the old floor, have them look very uniform. And it’ll also be a lot easier to clean once you have that epoxy surface on it. It’s very easy to clean that with a broom. Whereas trying to clean over concrete is a little bit difficult because it has so much friction.
00:16:59	CALLER: The guy that poured my concrete in the new side said, maybe you ought to have another hopping of concrete over this. And I thought, I don’t know if that would stick, you know.
00:17:11	TOM: You’re wise to consider that because you can’t put new concrete over old concrete. There’s a special type of material called a resurfacing concrete that’s used for that. And Quikrete makes one called ReCap. And the difference is that these resurfacing products are specifically designed to stick to old surfaces. But unless your surface has got, I don’t know, pretty significant sags or that sort of thing, you just explain that it’s kind of being worn, I think you could probably go right to the epoxy step. But if you wanted to put a new surface on it, then you would use ReCap from Quikrete. And that would give you a surface that’s similar, although it’s not going to match exactly to the other side. And it also doesn’t address the ability of the material to be cleaned. It’s a lot easier when it’s all epoxy.
00:17:56	LESLIE: All right, bye. Kathy from Ohio is on the line with a weird problem.
00:18:01	CALLER: The toilet in our upstairs bathroom makes a squealing noise when we run our washer on the utility floor. Now, it hasn’t always done that. It started doing it recently. And we had a plumber here who told us that something wasn’t properly vented. But I don’t understand why it would suddenly happen. I don’t think our venting has changed. And I’m not even sure how plumbing is vented. So we are looking to solve that issue. If you can help us with it, I’d be grateful.
00:18:32	TOM: Well, to your last question, Kathy, plumbing is vented because basically when you flush water down your pipes, you have to have some air that falls behind it so that it doesn’t back up. It doesn’t sort of drag. And that’s what the venting does. It lets the air in and also lets the sewage gases get out. Now, in terms of why this is happening, I’m a little bit confused by this, Leslie, because typically when you get a squeal, that’s on the supply side. That’s on the water supply side. And when it comes from a toilet, it’s almost always caused by the fill valves. Now, if the plumber is attributing this to having something to do with the venting, he may be seeing in the toilet that sometimes you get gurgling in a toilet when it’s not vented well. And if the water inside the tank goes down, maybe, and it’s got a bad fill valve, it tries to fill itself back up and it squeals. And that would account for the fact that it’s happening now and it hasn’t happened in the past. It’s just sort of a developmental thing. But I would be curious to know what the plumber thought the solution was because you can’t just say, well, it’s got a problem, but I can’t fix it. That’s what you’re there to do. And there’s lots of ways to address venting. If it hasn’t happened before and it is a vent issue, it also could be a blockage somewhere down the line. So there’s more unanswered questions here than questions. But I will tell you that normally those squeals have to do with valves. And they usually have to do with toilet valves because when they don’t fully open, they’re going to squeal a little bit as the water goes through. And copper plumbing will telegraph that sound all over the house. So you can hear it in every single room even though it’s happening up there in the bathroom. Well, drywall repairs are some of the most common home maintenance chores that we have to take on as homeowners. But if you don’t do them properly, you’re going to be doing them again and again and again. So here’s what you need to know to make wall repairs the right way. Yeah.
00:20:17	LESLIE: Now, the three most common types of repairs that you’re going to be working on are nail pops, holes, and cracks. A nail pop is going to result when a nail that’s loosened up over time starts to back out of that drywall. So what you do there is you simply tap it back in and then drive a new nail next to it. But you want to make sure that you overlap the head of the old nail to the new nail. And then you spackle that area and smooth and allow it to dry well because that new nail is just going to kind of hold that old one in place. Now, after that, you sand, touch up the area, you’re all good. You can also use drywall screws instead of the nails because it’s never going to back out. There’s no chance that screw is going to find its way out.
00:20:52	TOM: Now, the best way for a homeowner to fix a wall or ceiling crack is to use a strong perforated drywall tape. Now, this type of tape has large squares. It’s almost like screening material, and it kind of looks a bit like netting. Now, you apply this first to bridge the gap in the crack. Most of these repair tapes have some adhesive to them, so they stick on that crack. Then you can apply a generous amount of spackle or mud over that tape or ceiling crack. Now, once the area is dry, it can be sanded. You may need to use another layer or two of tape. Spackle this time very thin, and then you can prime it and repaint it.
00:21:26	LESLIE: Now, for a hole, you’re going to need a scrap of drywall, a leftover piece of window screening, some joint compound, and just a couple of common tools. Our favorite patching method includes a great tip. You want to cut the hole to fit the patch, not the other way around, even if it does mean that you’re making the hole a little bit bigger. Now, this method is definitely foolproof, but when it comes to working with the joint compound, you’ve got to remember that that’s like a skill. It’s almost like an art there, so you want to make sure you’re applying thin coats. Don’t fuss with it too much. After two or three strokes, leave it alone. Let it dry. You know, you’re going to have to layer it up if you need to, but let it dry very well between each coat, and then sand it all smooth and paint it, and it’s as good as new.
00:22:08	TOM: Yeah, you don’t want to overwork the spackle. You don’t want to put on too much or too little. It’s kind of like a happy medium, and don’t work it too hard because if you do, you’ll be doing it more and more over and over again. It just won’t look right when it’s done.
00:22:20	LESLIE: All right. Vito in California, how can we help you today at the Money Pit?
00:22:23	CALLER: I have a 4×8 bathroom that I’m trying to put this used flooring on, and it’s a plywood floor, raised floor to begin with, and I don’t know what to use. There’s no more sticking on this used plank that I’ve got, so do you put plastic underneath, or what do you put underneath?
00:22:43	TOM: So it sounds like Vito is trying to use like an upcycled product here, old flooring that he wants to put down in his bathroom. But he can’t. It’s not going to stick. So I think what you have to do here is use a floor adhesive. There are various types of floor adhesive products. There are floor adhesives for wood. There are floor adhesives for tile. And I think what you’re going to need to do here is to clean the subfloor very, very well, as much as possible, and then apply the new flooring with an adhesive. Now, one thing that’s really important about floor adhesive, and that is the trowel. It’s a grooved trowel. It has like notches in it or sort of like little triangles cut out of it so that when you put the adhesive down, it sort of stands up a little bit. And that helps it adhere better to the flooring product. Just do keep in mind, though, that it’s very difficult to remove these products once they set. So make sure you’re sure that this is the way that you want to go because, you know, there are so many new floors that are out there today that are rated for bathrooms that are 100% waterproof. There are a lot of good choices. There’s a lot of inexpensive choices. But if you found a floor that you love and you just need to adhere it, then flooring cement is going to be your friend in this case.
00:23:54	LESLIE: Janet in South Carolina, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
00:23:58	CALLER: Got a question on options other than tile to put around bathrooms due to some staining.
00:24:07	TOM: So options other than tile for a bathroom wall. So I think, Leslie, first we have to consider durability here. And if you don’t want to go tile, then I’m thinking probably a surround, one of these pre-made surrounds is probably the way to go, right?
00:24:22	LESLIE: I mean, they’re going to be the best way to go. They’re clean. You know, they’re seamless except at the corners. So you have a nice, smooth, solid wall that’s, you know, virtually leakproof except for the areas that you attach to, floor, sides. So the wall itself is going to be great. And they do come in a variety of colors. They can look like they have tile pressed into them. You know, I mean, lots of different ways to use it. Yeah.
00:24:44	TOM: There’s a little bit of skill required to install them because they’re not going to fit perfectly out of the box. Sometimes you have to trim the width. And, of course, they have to be glued in place and you have to be caulked at the bottom. But I think that’s a really good, inexpensive, effective option for you if you don’t want to go with tile.
00:24:59	LESLIE: So was your last electric bill a complete shock? I mean, believe it or not, your electric company wants you to save some money. And most have energy-saving programs that are going to help you do that. So here’s an example. Some utility companies help homeowners power down through periods of high demand with pricing plans that will reward your off-peak use. Plus, a lot of utilities offer a menu of rebates on improvements that can help you trim power or help you go green at home.
00:25:28	TOM: Now, you can also consider adding your own energy monitor. These are very simple to install and they work with your current electrical meter to provide real-time info on energy use and cost. So this gives you the information that you need to know on how to best trim your own energy usage. We have one of these systems installed in our house. And I’m always surprised to learn what’s really using the most electricity and sometimes it’s not what I think.
00:25:51	LESLIE: We’ve got Jeff in Illinois on the line who’s dealing with a new money pit to him. And sadly, it stinks of smoke. Tell us about what you’ve got going on there. I imagine you have a lot of projects.
00:26:01	CALLER: Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. Well, I’ve washed the walls twice and the ceilings. And I think I’m near ready to paint. But some of the interior has brick. And I’ve washed and scrubbed them and power washed them as best I can. And, you know, they still smell. And I’m just trying to think, well, is there a spray or something that I can put on them? Or can I seal it to, you know, reduce the smell? What can I do?
00:26:35	TOM: Yeah, well, when you have brick, you have a surface there that’s very absorptive. And so that smoke is not on the surface. You can’t reach that. I don’t care what you wash it with. You’re not going to reach that.
00:26:46	CALLER: Or as much as you pressure wash in your home.
00:26:50	TOM: Exactly. Right. Well, that’s got to be, yeah, that must have been interesting, pressure washing inside the house. But where is the brick? Is it a fireplace? Or what are you talking about?
00:26:57	CALLER: No, it’s actually, you know, it’s a mid-century modern house. And it’s got brick inside. It’s got quite a bit of brick. And fortunately, there’s some tile floors. So the pressure washing isn’t too bad. Too bad, yeah.
00:27:12	TOM: So these are brick walls then?
00:27:14	CALLER: Yeah.
00:27:16	TOM: Brick walls. Okay. Well, here’s what I thought is, Leslie, and you tell me what you think. But I’m thinking he’s got to seal this here. I mean, we always tell folks that when you have smoke, you clean as much as you can. But then you have to prime everything. So you mentioned walls and floors. And, you know, I was talking with somebody not too long ago who, you know, got rid of the carpet and washed, but it still smelled. I said, well, you got to, what did you do to the floors? They didn’t do anything. I said, you got plywood subfloors. I said, you got to prime those floors with oil-based primer to seal in those floors because they soak up that odor. So you have to seal this brick surface. Now, you know, I’m not saying you have to paint the brick. I mean, you may want to try some clear sealants on this. I’m not even quite sure what product to tell you to use because typically when, you know, when there’s a house fire, for example, you know, they have the smoke. The special professionals that come in and they clean these surfaces, they basically spray everything down with what is essentially like an industrial sealant. But on brick, if you want to preserve the look of the brick, then, of course, it’s got to be something clear, right? If you don’t care about the look and you want to paint them and then you can just prime it with a good solid masonry primer and that’s going to help a lot and then paint the new color over that. But I think this is a matter of sealing it, not washing it out. You can’t wring the smoke odor out of that brick no matter what you do and how much water or chemicals you throw at it.
00:28:31	CALLER: Ah, okay. All right. Well, okay. Then I’ll just have to try to find a way. I’ll just have to find a nice clear sealant because I like the, you know, the texture and the color of the brick. Sure. Yeah.
00:28:42	CALLER: It’s really nice.
00:28:43	CALLER: And the walls extend to the exterior so, you know, there’s some, you know, visual… Synergy.
00:28:50	TOM: Yeah. Some synergy between the colors. Yeah. Right. The blend of the exterior. Yeah. It sounds beautiful. So, I mean, listen, you say you got a money pit but, you know, for us that’s a term of endearment and there’s a lot to love about this house. And so, hopefully, you know, you’ll be able to get these odors under control and it’ll start to fade away and you can start to focus on the future. Gotcha.
00:29:10	CALLER: All right. Well, I better go put my rubber gloves on and get back to work. How’s that?
00:29:16	TOM: All right, Jeff. Hey, good luck, man. Yeah. Thanks. Bye. Take care. Bye-bye.
00:29:21	LESLIE: I mean, if he hadn’t just told us about this big project, I’d be wondering, what’s this line of work?
00:29:29	LESLIE: Mike from Maine reached out to Team Money Pit and says, I have about a two-inch grill. I’m going to put it in my garage floor. What is the best material to use to fix it? Also, there’s an oil stain in the concrete from some car repairs that I did last winter. Is there a way to get that out?
00:29:44	TOM: So, first, I don’t think the oil stain and the crack are related.
00:29:47	LESLIE: No, they’re not. But you should definitely fix one first before you fix the other.
00:29:51	TOM: Yeah. Yeah, you definitely need to fix both. So first of all, you have to keep in mind that garage floors, even though they’re concrete, are not really part of your home’s foundation. So if you told me you had a two-inch crack in your foundation, I’d be much more concerned than having a two-inch crack in your garage floor. What that means to me is that probably when the floor was first installed, the base of it was not properly prepared. I mean, for one thing, very often because the garage floor is the last thing that goes in, there ends up being a lot of construction debris and other various things that will decay over time and cause voids in the soil. And then with the cars moving in and out of the garage, that floor eventually cracks and sort of just presses downward. And again, since it’s not part of the home’s foundation, it’s pretty much detached from the foundation, it’s not that much of a concern structurally, but it could be a tripping hazard and that sort of thing that you need to be concerned about. So the other thing is to fix this, you need to use the right material. So the first step is to clean that crack out of any debris that’s in there, got anything growing through it or anything like that, clean that out. And then you’re going to need something called a backer rod. Now. A backer rod is sort of like a foam straw. It’s kind of like those pool noodles that the kids use in the summer, but thinner. And it comes in different diameters. You want to buy one for a two-inch crack. You probably buy one that’s two and a quarter, two and a half. And you stuff that in the crack, and you want it to be maybe a half inch below the surface of the concrete floor when you’re done. The reason you’re doing this is so that you don’t have to waste a lot of repair material that will fall deep into the crack and really not do anything to help you solve the problem. And once the backer rod is in place, then you can use a repair compound. Now, you can’t just put mortar in there or concrete, certainly. You need to use a product that’s designed for repair, otherwise it’s not going to stick. So Quikrete makes a product called Vinyl Repair Compound that works very well. I’ve used it myself. You chip away anything that’s loose in that crack. You clean it out. There’s actually a concrete cleaner etcher that you can use to make sure you’re really cleaning it well. Then you install the backer rod. And you apply it by building up. You build up layers. Follow the directions. I think you can put a good half inch in at a time, but you might need to do it in multiple coats. And when you’re done, you will have a smooth concrete floor once again, and you’ll have a repair that will not chip away any further.
00:32:12	LESLIE: All right. Now we’ve got Mike who says, I have a small lake cottage in Connecticut built in the early 60s. The ceiling has roof rafters and wooden planks, but no insulation. The roof is maybe 10 years old now. How do you suggest insulating that ceiling?
00:32:24	TOM: Yeah, very common problem because we love those cathedral ceilings, but there’s no insulation. So your best option is to do this when you replace the roof, and that is after the old shingles are removed, you can put two inch thick, rigid, extruded polystyrene foam panels right over that deck. You stagger the joints. You’ll have to put two by twos on top of that to hold a new layer of plywood, and then you can re-roof accordingly, and that will give you some insulation and also preserve your roof. Yeah.
00:32:53	LESLIE: I know it’s a lot of work, but you got the beauty of a cathedral ceiling and you want to keep that, right? Yeah.
00:32:58	TOM: It’s a lot of work, but it’s a trade-off for the beauty. This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Hey, guys, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program and that maybe you’ve picked up a tip or two to help you make your home more comfortable, more beautiful, more useful. If you’ve got questions about projects that you’re involved in or ones that you want to take on, remember you can reach us 24-7 at MoneyPit.com. Until then, the show does continue online. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:33:24	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:33:25	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
00:33:27	LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

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