Show Notes
In this episode, learn how to choose firewood that maximizes heat and safety, discover the smart way to shop for a new furnace before an emergency strikes, and find out how to grow fresh veggies and herbs indoors all year long. Make your home cozy and efficient plus get more home improvement advice on today’s Money Pit!
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- Firewood: Fuel your fire right with facts for choosing great firewood.
- Furnaces: Cut costs and stay warm by buying a new and more efficient furnace.
- Container Gardens: Enjoy herbs and vegetables all year long with an indoor container garden.
Top Questions & Answers
- Roofing: Insurance should cover damage from the leak in the seam of Steve’s flat roof, including fixing or replacing the ceiling, insulation, and roof, plus applying a mold inhibitor.
- Woodwork: Paula needs to repair old woodwork throughout her home. It’s a lot of work to replace it all, so we suggest cleaning, priming, and painting the molding.
- Heating: Virgil’s new energy-efficient furnace in his vacation home stopped working and everything froze. He should contact the contractor and the manufacturer to check the recommended venting installation.
- House Leveling: The main beam under the house is broken and the kitchen is sinking. Diana gets advice for bolting a new beam to the existing one instead of raising the floor.
- Plumbing: The basement toilet gurgles and won’t flush all the way. Rick should have a professional drainage company find and clear the blockage.
- Cleaning Concrete: What’s the best way to clean a concrete fireplace hearth? Sharon can scrub it with a TSP mixture, let it sit, and blot it dry or else consider a concrete stain.
- Flooring: John has no access to heat a small room over the crawlspace. He can either break through the wall to create space to insulate or add a layer of insulated subfloor.
- Windows: The seal is broken on George’s tinted glass window. We recommend replacing it with an ENERGY STAR-rated window with the right glass and coating.
Ask Your Home Improvement Question
Podcast Transcript
Read Transcript
| 00:00:24 | ANNOUNCER: The MoneyPit is presented by Super Flapper by Fluidmaster. Now, here are Tom and Leslie. |
| TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. | |
| LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. | |
| 00:00:31 | TOM: Happy ho-ho home improvement time. If you’re working on getting your place ready for the guests that are going to be there at any minute and you have a few questions about a project you want to get done, reach out to us right now at 888-Money-Pit. But better yet, now’s the time we start thinking about all the things we want to do in the year ahead. Maybe enjoy some of the projects we’ve completed and think about what we want to tackle next. Maybe you got an inside project you want to get done because we’re going to be stuck inside for a couple more months here as the winter plays out. Or you got some projects you’re planning for the spring. Whatever is on your to-do list, you can put it on our to-do list when you reach out to us with your questions. Let’s talk about it. You can reach us at 1-888-Money-Pit. That’s 888-666-3974. Or just go to moneypit.com slash ask. Coming up on today’s show, you know, a warm fire from a wood stove or a fireplace can add some comfort to a chilly winter day. But did you guys know that not all firewood delivers the same level of heat? That’s not something we usually think about, right? Wood is wood and you light the wood on fire and it gets hot. But depending on the type of wood, you’re going to get more or less heat. So we’ll share some tips on how to select the best firewood for your comfort and your safety coming up. |
| 00:01:48 | LESLIE: And speaking of heat, whether your furnace is shot or you’re just ready for a more efficient upgrade, a new furnace should never be an impulse buy. But too often, that’s exactly what happens because that furnace gives out in the middle of winter and you’re in a jam to kind of get something. So we’re going to explain how you should be shopping for furnaces the smart way. |
| 00:02:07 | TOM: And the colder it gets, the more expensive it is to pick up fresh herbs and veggies. But you can have fresh, healthy foods year round by growing your own with a veggie container garden. We’re going to tell you the plants that grow best inside and more just ahead. |
| 00:02:21 | LESLIE: But first, it’s the ho-ho home improvement season. Let’s get started. So we want to help you create your best home ever. What are you working on? Are you just too busy in holiday mode and you’re kind of thinking of stuff for the next year? Well, whatever it is, let us know how we can lend a hand. |
| 00:02:35 | TOM: Reach out to us with your questions. You’ll get the answer to your home improvement question. And today we’re giving away a copy of my new book, Home Maintenance for Dummies. Check it out at moneypit.com slash dummies. But I’ve got one copy going out to one lucky listener. Reach out to us right now with your questions. Again, that’s 1-888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:02:54 | LESLIE: Steve in North Carolina, you’ve got the Money Pit. What can we do for you today? |
| 00:02:57 – 00:0 | ANNOUNCER: I’ve got a cabin way out in the woods here in North Carolina, and I built a bathroom onto it. And this years ago that I’ve done this, we put a flat roof over the bathroom, and the seam leaked during the last storm very, very badly. When I removed the tiles, and I used… You know, the pink insulation in the roof. What do I do? |
| 00:03:28 | TOM: So all that has to be torn out. Now, you mentioned it was because of a storm. Is this cabin insured? Do you have a homeowner’s policy on this? |
| 00:03:35 – 00:0 | ANNOUNCER: I do, yes. |
| 00:03:36 | TOM: You know, that storm damage should have been covered by your policy. If you haven’t filed a claim, I would definitely do that because it’s probably covered. Now, since you had such a bad leak, obviously all that has to be taken out. So you’ve removed the ceiling, you have to pull out all that insulation. You need to wear appropriate briefings. You need to wear appropriate briefings. You need to wear appropriate protection. You’re doing this and try to control that area because with all of that mold, you don’t want it to get into the house, right? So that’s why it’s kind of a job for a pro. But I mean, if I was doing it, I would depressurize the room I’m working in so that there was good ventilation and everything was like blowing out, right? So I would make sure that I manage that, pull out all the insulation. You’re going to need to spray down all of the inside surfaces with a mold inhibitor. There’s many good commercial products on the market that do that, and you’re going to have to replace that roof. Now, you said it was a flat roof. That’s the least favorite type of roof, I would say, because if there’s going to be a leak, it’s going to happen a lot quicker on a flat roof than any other kind of pitched roof. But you’re going to have to replace that. What kind of material did you use? Did you use roll roof on it? We did. And see, that was my mistake. Yeah. Roll roof is not designed for flat roofs. Roll roof, you got to have at least about a 212 pitch for it to work right. And so, you really need to use like a rubberized bitumen or something like that, but choose a material that’s designed for flat roofs when you replace this. But I think you know what’s ahead of you, Steve. You just needed me to say it. You got to tear it all out. And listen, if you can get coverage because of the storm, maybe it won’t cost you as much as it might have, okay? |
| 00:05:12 – 00:0 | ANNOUNCER: Okay. All right. Good luck with that project, Steve. Listen, and before I let you go, I wish y’all would let the trailer music play a little longer. I love your story. |
| 00:05:22 | TOM: All right. Well, thanks very much. We appreciate that. I got to put that on the website. A lot of folks love that tune. Really? Everybody loves it. You don’t even know we have like |
| 00:05:30 – 00:0 | ANNOUNCER: additional verses to it. want to hear the whole thing. All right. Thanks very much. Have a great day. Okay. Thank you. You too. Bye-bye. |
| 00:05:39 | LESLIE: Paula in Ohio is on the line. Paula, what can we do for you today? |
| 00:05:42 | CALLER: Me and my husband have an older house. It was built like in 1950. And the woodwork through the whole house, it’s all interconnected. The door frame, everything. And we want to sell the house. So we’re trying to find what would be the best and the cheapest solution to fixing that woodwork without having to replace it all. |
| 00:06:04 | TOM: So what’s going on with the woodwork? Is it just worn? Is it just heavily painted? I mean, |
| 00:06:10 | CALLER: what exactly is your problem with your woodwork? Yeah, it’s worn. It’s like, I think somebody that lived there before us had a dog that some of us can chewed on. And it’s like, we would… You can’t replace parts of it because you can’t get the stain to match. And we don’t really know |
| 00:06:27 | TOM: what to do to make it look better to get it ready to sell. So is this molding kind of like fancy molding in terms of if you were to fill in some of the grooves and the digs in it, could you paint |
| 00:06:39 | CALLER: it and have it look halfway decent? Or do you think you have to replace it? I think some of it, |
| 00:06:43 | TOM: we’d have to replace it. Okay. Well, I mean, I think that’s kind of what you’re up against. If it’s painted now, you’re going to probably want to replace it with a paint grade molding. And I think if the areas that are really damaged, you mentioned dog damage, even if it’s chewed on, then you may just want to pull that piece off and replace it. But I mean, a coat of paint can do wonders with something like that. I don’t know if there’s a way to kind of decorate around it. And it would be an awful lot of work to replace all that trim, certainly a possibility, but it’s a big job to pull all the trim off and replace it. So I think all you can really hope to do at this point is to clean it up, prime it, because that will give you a better paint finish. And then just put a top coat of paint on it and kind of call it a day. Leslie, do you have any other suggestions or do you think that’s about it? |
| 00:07:26 | LESLIE: No, I really think priming it and painting it really is the best solution, because once you get into replacing all of the trim work, I mean, first of all, it’s a tremendous expense and it’s a lot of work and you end up cutting and mitering and it can be more complicated, whereas paint is a simple fix for now. At least you can start there and see if it’s something that you like and can live with and work with decor-wise. And if not, then you can at least explore the future option. Yeah. |
| 00:07:49 | TOM: Okay. Great. Does that help you out? That helps me out a lot. All right. Good luck with that project. |
| 00:07:54 | LESLIE: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. Hey, are you tired of living in a money pit? Well, we’re here to help. And if you want us to help out, it would be awesome if you could leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Just go to moneypit.com slash review. It’s only going to take a minute and it means the world to us. Virgil in South Dakota, what can we do |
| 00:08:13 | CALLER: for you today? Hi, I’ve got an old home that I am restoring and renovating and remodeling. It’s an old house that I’m renovating and it’s over a century old. And part of the process has been installation of a relatively high energy efficient furnace. And I just got it started and was away from the home for a while, came back and everything froze solid. The exhaust had developed a plug of ice and the furnace would not run. Oh, that’s not good. No, that’s for sure. Anyway, the contractor that installed it rerouted the pipe so it goes through a heated room instead of up in the attic. And so I have it going above the lay-in ceiling over on bathrooms. So I’ve got probably a foot to a foot and a half of inch and a half exhaust pipe sticking out of the side of the house. And I’m wondering, am I going to have a problem with that? |
| 00:09:13 | TOM: And if so, how can I prevent it from happening again? That’s a good question. In this situation, I would turn to the manufacturers making sure that you follow the recommended installation instructions for this type of a system. With a high efficiency furnace, what happens is you take so much heat out of that exhaust gas that what’s left is mostly water vapor, like 80% of it or more is water vapor. And so that’s why you have to be able to have a way to deal with that. Now, if that pipe is in a heated area, if it’s insulated, that’s going to stop the ice from forming. But of course, it’s dangerous if it does form, because if you can’t exhaust the gas, then that’s going to shut down the furnace, which is a safety switch, basically. So to me, I would make sure first that the contractor has installed that venting consistent with the manufacturer’s recommendations, which I’m sure you can find on their website. There are very detailed instructions on that sort of thing. And secondly, I would just watch it now and see what happens. Time is going to tell. |
| 00:10:14 | CALLER: Kind of a vacation home, and I’m not there for a good part of the time, so I can’t be out checking. |
| 00:10:19 | TOM: Right. Yeah. Do you have a smart thermostat for that house? |
| 00:10:22 | CALLER: No. There’s no internet there. |
| 00:10:23 | TOM: Oh, that’s too bad. I was going to suggest that this would be a great application for a smart thermostat that can monitor the temperature in the house, just so we’ll know if it’s working or not. |
| 00:10:31 | CALLER: My other choice might be if I put in one of those smart outlets that turns on at 35 and off at 45. And if it turns on at 35, maybe one of the neighbors should see a flashing red light or something. |
| 00:10:42 | TOM: See a light. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Listen, I think that you need to work with the contractor and the manufacturer. Yeah. To figure out why this is happening. But I do suspect that that venting has to be run through a heated area, and it’s got to be better insulated. Okay? |
| 00:10:58 | CALLER: Well, he did have it insulated, and it was in the attic, which is totally unheated. So he did move it down to a heated area, and I can even move the temperature up a little bit by lifting one of the tiles and only unsealing in the winter. |
| 00:11:12 | TOM: All right. Well, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:11:17 | LESLIE: Now, we’re going to chat with Diana in Arkansas. This is Diana, and we’re going to talk to her a little bit about what she’s been doing in the last couple of weeks. We’ve got a super old house that’s acting a little strangely. What’s going on? |
| 00:11:23 | CALLER: My husband says that there is a main beam underneath this house that is broken, and it is allowing it to settle in my kitchen. My refrigerator is taking a different list, and it’s not too far from that beam. How would we go about raising this house or whatever and replacing that beam? |
| 00:11:50 | TOM: Okay. So if you have a broken beam, the way that that type of repair is generally done is, first of all, if the beam is just cracked and we want to kind of reinforce it so it doesn’t settle or move, what will often happen is a contractor will put a new beam next to it and bolt it to the old beam. That’s called a sysker beam. And in that way, you’re not really replacing it as much as you’re just kind of beefing it up. And that’s a smarter way to do that because, frankly, there’s no wind might just taking it out. Now, if the house is broken, there’s no way to fix it. So if you’re going to have a house that’s settled, you may or may not want to do anything to try to raise those beams. Generally, we recommend you don’t raise a floor because everything’s connected to it, the walls and the pipes and the plumbing and the electrical wires. So you kind of leave it in place. But reinforcing that beam in place is the best way to attack that. And that’s not a terribly complicated job, but you can’t just have anybody do it. You need to have a contractor that really knows what they’re doing because you’re going to want to get those beams on both sides. You’re going to want to make sure that it’s connected to the other side. You’re going to want to make sure that there’s any seams in there that they have to be over a piling, for example, where there’s support. And then you have to have bolts that go all the way through from the new beam and the old beam and back to the new beam and the other side and then sort of bolted together. And then that’s going to make a really strong repair and reinforcement. Do you know why the beam cracked in the first place? |
| 00:13:09 | CALLER: Leslie Seghouette, MD, MD, You know, I have no idea. The house was originally just a four-room house. Tom Kraeutler, MD, And then it has been built on and built on. Leslie Seghouette, MD, And so I have no idea, supposedly. |
| 00:13:26 | TOM: Tom Kraeutler, MD, Might have skipped the structural stuff there. Well, I think that by reinforcing that beam is the right way to do it. So thanks so much for calling us. Good luck with that project. And if you have any more questions, |
| 00:13:37 | LESLIE: let us know. Leslie Seghouette, MD, Well, a warm fire from a wood stove or fireplace is the hallmark of the season, but you need to be careful when you choose firewood. Now, the wrong fuel can damage your wood-burning stove, and it can leave dangerous creosote on the walls of the fireplace chimney. Now, you want to make sure that you never burn trash or driftwood or treated woods, and you always want to use seasoned wood for the best heat release and minimal creosote buildup, and that’s going to help prevent the chances of a |
| 00:14:05 | TOM: chimney fire. Tom Kraeutler, MD, So let’s talk about that. What exactly is seasoned wood? Well, freshly cut wood contains up to 45% water, whereas seasoned wood, which is wood that sat out there Tom Kraeutler, MD, for a while, is only going to contain 20% to 20%. Leslie Seghouette, MD, Now, the harder the wood, the better. So that’s why you want to burn woods like oak or maple and not pine or fir. The harder the wood, the longer it burns, and the more heat it actually gives out. |
| 00:14:33 | LESLIE: Leslie Seghouette, MD, Yeah, and you also want to make sure that that wood is dry. It has to have been cut at least six months before you use it, a year is even better, and it takes that much sun and wind to remove all of that excess moisture for free, and that’s going to make that wood prime for heating. |
| 00:14:48 | TOM: Tom Kraeutler, MD, Yeah, and splitting it helps, too, because the more surface area, it means more evaporation can occur. |
| 00:14:53 | LESLIE: Leslie Seghouette, MD, Rick in Delaware is dealing with some plumbing issues. Tell |
| 00:14:56 | CALLER: us what’s happening at your money pit. Tom Kraeutler, MD, Okay, I have a bathroom in the basement, and the toilet won’t flush all the way. Leslie Seghouette, MD, Okay. Tom Kraeutler, I’ve dealt with it before with a toilet snake, and it took care of it, but it seemed like it’s probably something different now. It just spins around, and then it gurgles. |
| 00:15:21 | TOM: Leslie Seghouette, MD, So it sounds like a blockage, then. This is not a problem with the flush valve or the fill valve in the toilet. That part works. It just doesn’t drain. Is that correct? |
| 00:15:29 | CALLER: Tom Kraeutler, MD, Right, because I filled a five-gallon bucket, actually, and poured it down, and it still wouldn’t go down. |
| 00:15:35 | TOM: Leslie Seghouette, MD, Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, you’ve got to get to the bottom of it with this blockage. You said you tried a snake, but how far did that snake go down? |
| 00:15:44 | CALLER: Tom Kraeutler, MD, It didn’t go down too far. I guess it’s the standard snake. Leslie I don’t want to put another snake in there. |
| 00:15:54 | TOM: Tom Kraeutler, MD, You’re going to have to have that actually professionally cleaned out by a sewer drain cleaning company, like a router-type company, because whatever blockage you’re experiencing there is obviously beyond the reach of that snake. Don’t feel bad. I’ll tell you a funny story about what happened to me. It was on the morning when one of my kids was being christened. And of course, when you have that, you have family coming over, you don’t want to have a bathroom emergency, you don’t want to have a bathroom emergency, you don’t want to have an emergency. Well, the toilet just would not flush. It would not go down. And I was very frustrated, but I was absolutely positive that I knew, because I am a home improvement expert, so I know this stuff. I knew it was the willow tree and the roots outside the window. So I said, oh, darn it. I got to go get a shovel, got to go expose the pipe, break it open, get those roots out. And of course, I head out there, virtually in my Sunday best, although I think I changed, to get that pipe exposed. And I could not find the problem, and I was scratching my head, and I figure, okay, it’s between this hole and the toilet. So I pull the toilet off, I flip it upside down, and it turns out that one of my darling children had flushed a toy down there. It was a toy telephone that was lodged in this place. And I’m looking in the bowl, and I’m looking at the bottom and saying, there’s something blue there. There’s nothing that’s supposed to be blue in that toilet. It was a toy phone, and that’s what had blocked it. So some home improvement expert I was, there I was with a big hole, big pile of dirt and busted open sewer line that had nothing to do with it. I pulled that phone out there, put it back together, and the day went on as planned. |
| 00:17:23 | CALLER: Tom, let me ask you a question, though. Could it be anything with the vent pipe? |
| 00:17:28 | TOM: Yes. The gurgling means it’s struggling for air, and so it could be a blockage of the vent pipe or the drain pipe. And in either event, you have to have the right tools. Now, drain clean companies will probably just want to snake down there both ways and call it a day. If they’re really perplexed, they can run a camera down there. There’s line cameras that they can snake in and actually see what the block is. Tom Kraeutler, The Drain Clean Company, All right. So I think that’s what you’re going to have to do here. And unfortunately, we hate to call a pro if we can fix it ourselves, but this is just a specialized repair, a specialized piece of |
| 00:17:57 | LESLIE: maintenance you got to get done. Good luck with that project. Well, it’s the perfect time of year for the fireplace. So Sharon in Ohio is on the line with a question about cleaning the hearth. |
| 00:18:06 | CALLER: What’s going on? I was calling to find out what’s the best way to clean a fireplace hearth that’s like a concrete, all one concrete block. Got kind of smoky, did it? Not smoky so much. It looks like, I’ve only been there like less than a year, but it looks like they set their drinks there. |
| 00:18:22 | TOM: Oh yeah. Right. Okay. So what kind of floor do you have around this hardwood or carpet or what? It’s carpeted. Okay. So here’s what I would do. First of all, you’re going to need to get a tarp, like one of those blue vinyl tarps and put it around, put it over that carpet up against that, because it’s just going to get a little drippy. But I would use TSP. It stands for Trisodium Phosphate. It’s a powdered cleaner and it works really well on concrete surfaces. So you mix this up, follow the label directions, and then you’re going to apply it to the concrete. And I would use like a scrub brush for that. And you want to make sure you protect your eyes because you don’t want the stuff flinging off into your eyes. And then you let it sit for a little while. And then you kind of have, in your case, you’re going to have to sort of blot it to rinse it and, you know, wring out the rag and blot it some more. But you’ll find that it will lighten the whole thing up and hopefully it will take out those stains. If it doesn’t take them out completely to your satisfaction, the other thing that you could consider doing is using a concrete stain. It’s like a wood stain, but it’s designed for concrete. They have all different sorts of colors and patterns with that. And I don’t think that that would be affected by the heat, being the fireplaces right nearby. But I think you could probably get it into a whole different color. I mean, if you like gray, you could probably use a gray stain, for example. |
| 00:19:42 | CALLER: Oh, that sounds like a better idea. Let’s work with that. |
| 00:19:45 | TOM: Well, try cleaning it first. It may not be that big of a deal. It might come right up. But TSP, you’ll find it in the paint department at home centers and hardware stores, okay? |
| 00:19:53 | CALLER: Yeah, okay. TSP. And then what’s the concrete paint called? Is there a… |
| 00:19:58 | TOM: It’s a concrete stain. It’s a stain, not a paint. It’s a stain. All right. Gotcha. It soaks in. Okay? |
| 00:20:05 | LESLIE: Thank you so much. |
| 00:20:06 | TOM: Well, I hope that helps you out, Sharon. Yeah, me too. You’re very welcome. Good luck with the project. |
| 00:20:09 | LESLIE: Great. Thank you. Well, now that we’re in the midst of winter, having a solid, dependable heating system is critical. But if your furnace is shot or maybe you want a more efficient upgrade, a new furnace should never be an impulse buy. But too often, that is exactly what happens because the furnace gives out in the middle of a cold night and you got to kind of make a decision quick. So, Tom, let’s talk through some of the things that you should be thinking about so you’ve got a smart plan in place. First of all, is a broken furnace ever worth repairing or is it better to replace it? |
| 00:20:40 | TOM: It depends. I mean, some parts of a furnace are easily replaced, but if the furnace is older and has a serious defect, like a crack in its heat exchanger, replacement is always the rule. I used to find a lot of furnaces that had cracked heat exchangers, which is basically sort of the guts of the furnace and it separates the combustion gas from the air, the forced air that’s blowing around it. There’s a crack in that part. You can get combustion gas into the house air. That’s why you always have to replace it. So, it really depends on what’s going on with the furnace. |
| 00:21:09 | LESLIE: All right. Now, what if the goal is to save energy? How do you determine when it makes sense to replace, just to lock it in? How do you lower those heating costs? |
| 00:21:16 | TOM: So, increased energy efficiency, I think, Leslie, it always makes a good case for buying a newer model, but you definitely want to weigh all the factors carefully. I mean, how much you spent on the old furnace projected monthly savings on a new one and ongoing potential repair costs. And also important to check right now are all of the different tax benefits and rebates that are available. Now, there are federal programs and there are state programs and there are local programs. Make sure you investigate because if you buy a higher-efficient, more efficient furnace, you definitely could reduce the cost significantly. |
| 00:21:47 | LESLIE: Now, if you do decide to buy that new furnace, what should you be looking for as a buyer? |
| 00:21:52 | TOM: So, furnace efficiency is measured by a rating system, and it’s called AFUE. It stands for annual fuel utilization efficiency, AFUE for short. The minimum AFUE in the U.S. is 80%. They want to keep saying that. It’s a fun word. But the top-performing furnaces are going to actually measure up to 97%. That means only 3% of the energy escapes through the flue. So, the higher the AFUE |
| 00:22:18 | LESLIE: rating, the more money you’ll save. We may have just coined a new term for energy efficiency. We did. Now, is furnace shopping kind of a good time to reconsider the type of system you have? You know, changing the type of energy that you use? I mean, that seems like a big expense unless |
| 00:22:36 | TOM: you’re going to really save a ton of money. Yeah, it is. I mean, you have to really think about when it makes sense to consider a few things. You know, you have to really think about when it makes sense to consider a few things. ______ a little sometimes behave differently to fuel distribution changes like electric to oil to gas. I mean, years ago when we only had electric resistance heat and some particular lousy hearings pamp tech, I mean, you know, some pretty lousy heat pump technology. It may have made sense to make that change. But today, electric heat can be actually really efficient with the inverter technology that heat pumps have. So, it’s tougher to make a decision to switch off of electric. In fact, I have oil www.audio.com.au |
| 00:23:35 | CALLER: Audio is a production of Iowa Public Television which is solely responsible for its content. Audio on Audio |
| 00:24:34 | CALLER: So there’s no heat except for the air transfer. |
| 00:24:36 | TOM: Like a foyer, yeah. Okay, so I’ll give you two options. First of all, you really should have access to this crawl space area if there’s a way that you can provide it by breaking through that block wall and putting in an access space. I can see a lot of reasons to have that, but in this case, you’d be able to insulate that space fully from below. Now, if you can’t do that, another thing that you could think about doing is you could put an additional layer of insulation above that floor. There is a type of subfloor that is designed for basements, and it helps make cold basement slabs warm and comfortable. It’s called Dry-Core Subfloor, and then they have a version called Subfloor Plus. Okay. The thing that’s unique about this product is they have an air gap technology that keeps the subfloor part of it up off the floor underneath. Now, in your case, Ron, you’re not going on top of concrete, although I’m thinking this could work as well because the Subfloor Plus has a layer of insulation under it. So this would help put not only some air space but also a layer of insulation between the present floor and your two cold feet as you’re feeling it right now. It’s not exactly how it’s designed to be used, but I think it may work. As I said earlier, it’s typically used on a basement floor that’s very cold and you want to finish it, and it makes it nice and warm and cozy. It stays up off the concrete surface so you don’t get any dampness or moisture. |
| 00:26:02 | CALLER: That’s great advice. I actually have my back door in a similar situation. It is on a concrete slab and it’s cold also, but I will make access to that front crawl space. It is a great idea. I am a contractor, and I tell you what, I love your show. I get a lot of good tips from you guys. Keep up the good work. |
| 00:26:20 | TOM: Well, thanks very much, John, and good luck with that project. Let us know how you make out. Thank you very much. Bye now. |
| 00:26:25 | LESLIE: Well, if you’re missing having those fresh vegetables around during these cold winters, container gardening is a solution for growing your own produce right now. Now, if you grow houseplants, you’re already doing a form of container gardening, but with the right light, the soil, and the pot type, you can grow herbs and even some veggies all year long. So for the best results, you’re going to need a location with good lighting, and sometimes that’s as much as six hours of direct sunlight a day for certain veggies. You’re also going to need room for those containers that are much bigger than those of a typical houseplant. They need to be about 18 inches in diameter and about 18 inches deep, and you do need to plan for watering, too. I mean, these are things you can’t forget about with them. |
| 00:27:07 | TOM: Now, if you’re wondering what you can plant, there are many, many options for vegetables that will thrive in container gardens. You know, Burpee, the seed company, they even have a whole section of their website that breaks out all the veggies that will grow well in that type of space. So take advantage of resources like that and think about growing some veggies in containers. I mean, start small. Just pick one or two plants. You’ll really be surprised. You’ll be surprised at the results. |
| 00:27:30 | LESLIE: We’ve got George on the line who’s dealing with a window issue. What’s going on? |
| 00:27:34 | CALLER: This house that we’re living in was built in 2002. We just bought it a year ago. I’ve got one dual pane of glass. The outside is bronze-tinted glass, and the inside is clear, and it’s E1. It’s ruptured, you know, water inside of it and everything else. And then the other one, same thing, bronze-tinted E1 clear glass on the inside, and it doesn’t have water in it, but you can tell that it’s ruptured because there’s dust inside along the bottom. Now, we live in Henderson, Nevada, in other words, Las Vegas, where it gets hotter than heck. |
| 00:28:21 | TOM: You’re right. In an area like Henderson, Nevada, in the Las Vegas area, it gets really, really hot in the summer. So you need a really good quality window that’s not going to let that solar gain in and drive up your air conditioning expenses. So what you’re going to want to do is simply this. You’re going to want to replace that with an ENERGY STAR rated window. Now, the reason I say ENERGY STAR is because it’s going to be thermal pane. It’s going to be insulated gas. It may have argon or another insulated gas inside. And it’s going to have a low emissivity coating, and that’s really important. Because the low emissivity coating is the coating that takes the air out of the room. It takes the UV rays of the sun and bounces them right back outside and does not let them pass into your house. And working together, that’s going to keep your house comfortable at the same time. So you do want to replace the glass. You want to make sure it’s an ENERGY STAR rated window that you put in there, and that’s going to solve this. |
| 00:29:14 | CALLER: On the other window, all the windows on that side of the house, we put a bronze tint. Not a bronze tint, but a 35 rated. |
| 00:29:25 | TOM: Well, I think you have tint on them. Because we’re trying to achieve the same thing that the emissivity coating does for you. I don’t think you need the tint necessarily to cut back on the solar gain. If you have the right glass with the right coating, you’ll be good to go. George, I hope that helps you out. We’ve got to move on. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:29:45 | LESLIE: Gabriella in Chicago wrote to Team Money Pit asking, I live in an apartment with hot water steam heat. The paint on the wall above one of the units is peeling and has dark specks that look like mold. Is that caused by the heating unit? If so, what can I do to fix it or stop it from happening? Oh my God, you live in the most humid, hot city apartment ever of life. Right, Tom? |
| 00:30:04 | TOM: Yeah, I don’t think it’s mold. I really don’t. What I think is happening here is that moist air is basically striking cold surfaces and then it’s condensing. And so it’s leaving, usually it carries up dirt from the air with it. And when it hits those cold surfaces, it leaves streaks. So you can check this very easily. Just go up there and try to wipe it away. I think you’ll find that it will go right away. In terms of the peeling paint, if the paint is peeled, it’s got to be removed. You can’t fix that. You’ve got to get rid of all of the loose paint and then prime it and repaint it. Now, if this is near a window, as many radiators are, and you put, say, cellular shades on that window, you will find that will go a long way to reducing the amount of condensation that you get because that warm air won’t be striking cold glass. It’ll be striking the surface of the shade. And that’s going to slow that down and result in less deposit. And that’s going to slow that down and result in less deposit of dirt into that space. |
| 00:30:56 | LESLIE: I mean, I just find, like, I remember living in Manhattan, and when the heat would come on, it would be so hot and so humid that sometimes you’d have like a luau party in the winter just because it’s hot. So I get it. You’re feeling all toasty and warm over there. |
| 00:31:09 | TOM: Now you know why people in the city always leave their windows open in the winter, right? Because they can’t control the heat. I know. What a waste. Well, it’s pretty well known that poinsettia flowers, while beautiful, can be dangerous if eaten. But it turns out that other holiday flowers are actually far more toxic. Leslie has tips to keep you and your pet safe in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word. Leslie? |
| 00:31:31 | LESLIE: Yeah, you know, you want to keep your holiday free of emergencies by keeping a few holiday plants out of reach or maybe even just out of your house altogether. Now, holly, it’s definitely very festive, and those prickly leaves can kind of be enough to keep the kids away, but you don’t want to leave any room for error when it does come to the holly plant. Consuming just one or two of the holly berries can cause a pretty bad tummy ache and eating as few as 20 can kill you. So you want to be careful with having those around for the kids and the pets. Mistletoe, that’s another deceptive holiday plant. It goes hand-in-hand with romance for sure, but it also goes hand-in-hand with diarrhea and nausea and blood pressure problems. How romantic is that, you guys? Wow. And sometimes if you eat the berries of the mistletoe, you could die. So definitely not romantic there. So keep it hung high and, you know, get a fake one if you can. Amaryllis, Paperwhite narcissus, both are gorgeous and so holiday flowery wonderful, but they can cause heart arrhythmia and convulsions if the bulb is digested, and pets are especially susceptible to these flowers, so you want to keep them far, far away from those hungry and curious animals. Now, if you do think that one of these plants was eaten, call your local poison control center, plan to be asked the name of the plant, as well as the exact parts and the amount that was consumed, also be prepared to provide the approximate time when it was eaten, the age of the person, the weight, the condition that they’re in. This is super critical. And they’re going to ask similar questions when you call animal poison control. Yes, there is a poison control for animals as well. So have all that information handy. Stay calm and listen and follow directions. |
| 00:33:11 | TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show on this holiday weekend. Are you guys getting ready to refresh your home with some new decor in the months ahead? But maybe you’re not sure if your budget is ready to handle that hit? Well, we’re going to share five ways you can save lots of money decorating your home sweet home on the very next edition of the Money Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:33:32 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. Remember, you can do it yourself. But you don’t have to do it alone. |
| (Note: The above referenced transcript is AI-Generated, Unedited and Unproofed and as such may not accurately reflect the recorded audio. Copyright 2024 Squeaky Door Productions, Inc. No portion of this transcript or audio file may be reproduced in any format without the express written permission of Squeaky Door Productions, Inc.) |
Leave a Reply