#2482 - Home Improvement Resolutions | Basement Bathroom Drainage

Show Notes

On today’s show, we’re discussing home improvement resolutions that stick, the ins and outs of adding a basement bathroom, and our favorite DIY hacks to make your projects a breeze. Plus, we’re here to help you get unstuck on any project, so listen in for answers to more questions from DIYers just like you!

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Podcast Transcript

Home Improvement: Nail down the new year with home improvement resolutions you can actually keep.
Basement Bathrooms: Smart drainage solutions for basement bathrooms will help you go with the flow.
DIY Hacks: Fix it fast with 4 favorite home improvement hacks to get things done quickly and easily.

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.
	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:00:31	TOM: Welcome to Home Improvement 2025. If you’ve got a question about a project you want to do, maybe it’s a reno, maybe it’s a repair, maybe it’s a major remodel, we would love to talk to you about just that. Reach out to us with your home improvement questions, your renovation questions, your decor dilemmas at 1-888-Money-Pit, or post your questions to moneypit.com slash ask by clicking the blue microphone button. Hey, coming up on today’s show, every January, we like to set resolutions to build better habits. But, you know, all those good intentions often fade before the holiday decorations are even packed away. So we were thinking, what if self-improvement and home improvement were connected? Think about it, right? Whether your goal is to lose weight, get organized, or save money, we have some ideas on how your home can
00:01:23	LESLIE: help you stick to those New Year’s resolutions. And if you’ve got a basement space, adding a bathroom can make that space much more usable and boost your home’s value. But gravity being what it is, bathrooms that are below grade need some special considerations in order to drain. So we’re going to share what you need to know to make sure your bathroom will,
00:01:43	TOM: you know, go with the flow just ahead. So to speak. Plus, we love home improvement hacks, you know, like the simple tricks of the trade that help us all get stuff done. So we’ve picked out four of our favorites to share in a bit.
00:01:55	LESLIE: But first, is there a project that you are stuck in the middle of, or really even one that you just can’t seem to get started? Well, that’s when you call us because getting you unstuck is what we do. We’re like that virtual WD-40, you know, because it doesn’t matter what the question is, we’re good for a thousand and one uses.
00:02:12	TOM: Well, all right. If you’re ready to take on some home improvement around your house, give us a call right now at 1-888-422-4222. 1-888-Money-Pit or post your questions to moneypit.com slash ask. Let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s first?
00:02:24	LESLIE: Heading out to Minnesota where we’ve got Dan who’s working on a metal roof. What’s going on?
00:02:28	CALLER: Hey, guys. Yeah, I’m kind of pondering what to do for a metal roof. I have some leaks going on in the old nail holes and I pulled off the nail holes out of work and I put new screws still leaking. So I didn’t know which to do it or if I could put metal over the top of it and put two by four. Two by fours or two by threes and then put more metal or if like the rafters would even like hold that much weight.
00:02:56	TOM: The leaks that are occurring, do you have any idea whether they’re occurring near seams in the roof, near like where maybe a metal pipe comes through? I don’t know if you have a wood stove in that shop or something of that nature because often that’s what causes, that’s where leaks are going to come through. They’re going to come through in areas where there’s a gap because of a flashing issue like that.
00:03:15	CALLER: Okay. Yeah, there’s a couple of the seams where it’s leaking where they didn’t overlap it quite as much back in the day than what they do now. Yeah, even like the new build, it was still built like 20 years ago. It’s got that pro panel and it leaks on the sides.
00:03:32	TOM: I wouldn’t recommend putting a second layer on this, but what I might consider is taking off the roof that you have now and putting on a simple metal roof above that. This is only a shop. Maybe you don’t want to put a lot of money into it, but you could use corrugated metal panels. Metal roofing is incredibly durable when it’s installed correctly. And when you overlap the panels, you need to put a long strip of silicone caulk in there because that’s going to help seal those gaps. Because it sounds to me like, I know you’ve really replaced the nails with screws and you probably sealed those holes, but the gaps are probably, the overlap’s probably where the water’s getting in. Okay. Awesome. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. You got it. Good luck with that project, Dan.
00:04:10	LESLIE: All right. Now we’ve got Sylvia in Pennsylvania on the line with a flooring question. How can we help you today?
00:04:14	CALLER: I am moving from Pennsylvania, moving further south to get away from the snow. I don’t know if it’ll be South Carolina, Georgia, or Florida, but I am going to build myself a house and it’s going to be a small house. I’m wondering about in-floor heating, but I would like to have a terrazzo floor. So can you put in-floor heating and cooling in a terrazzo floor?
00:04:38	TOM: So first of all, congratulations on your plan. That sounds really exciting. Secondly, in terms of the floor, first of all, the floor can be heated. It can’t provide your cooling. You’re going to have to have a central air conditioning system for that.
00:04:49	CALLER: I was wondering about that, because I was wondering too, because cold settles, and I’m thinking your floor would be cold, but nothing else would be.
00:04:56	TOM: So in terms of the heated floor, yes, there is a way to run PEX piping, which is a cross-linked polyethylene hot water piping through underlayments that would go under tile. In fact, they make a specific type of plywood that’s actually channeled out for this very purpose, where the plumbing sort of lays inside tracks. In the plywood, and then the mud floor, whatever you’re using underneath the terrazzo goes on top of that. So certainly you can do that. It’s a pretty big project, but if you’re set on having this kind of floor, you can definitely do it, but it will be a more expensive heating system than other types.
00:05:37	CALLER: Well, I’m not really set on the terrazzo, but I was thinking of it. And because it would be easy to clean, it would be just… From living in Florida, I am familiar with terrazzo floors, and I just thought that it was a possibility. I have not decided exactly yet.
00:05:57	TOM: I’m just gathering information now. Yeah, the answer is you could put hot water heat through your floors pretty much with any type of material, including that. So definitely an option for you, Sylvia. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us
00:06:10	LESLIE: at 888-Money-Pit. So Fletch sent us an email, and it seemed like he had a leak that was going on, and maybe going into the basement, but there was something else happening, right?
00:06:21	TOM: Yeah, we got back to him, and he couldn’t come on the air, but I think it’s a really interesting story because like so many people that get leaks in the basement, first thing they do is call basement waterproofers. And the basement waterproofers were very happy to come and charge him tens of thousands of dollars to eliminate his problem. They talked about having to seal basement walls from the outside, all that sort of thing. He had done everything that we generally advise for this. He had replaced his gutters. He had good gutter guards in there. The thing was, he thought it was continuing when they got heavy rain, which would indicate a gutter problem, but then it turned out there was no rain for two weeks. They still got the leak. And so he turned to these waterproofers, and we’re going to charge him all this money, but luckily he didn’t take the bait and figured out on his own what it was.
00:07:05	LESLIE: What was it?
00:07:06	TOM: Turned out it was his refrigerator water line, the ice maker line. Had a slow leak in it. That was causing the leak in the basement. Had nothing to do with rising water tables and sump pumps and all of this other stuff.
00:07:18	LESLIE: Do these water lines tend to kind of just wear out very quickly?
00:07:22	TOM: It can happen. Yeah, it can happen.
00:07:24	LESLIE: And it’s not like it’s something you can see?
00:07:26	TOM: Sometimes it’s the saddle valve, which is a valve that clamps on the side of a cold water line and pierces it and provides that extra line of water connection into the refrigerator or the freezer that causes that. But in this case, it had nothing to do with waterproofing. And once again, these guys try to sell you without really considering what they have to sell is the solution to your problem or not. So happy to hear that he figured
00:07:50	LESLIE: that out. Saved himself a boatload of money. Hey, are you a fan of our podcast? Well, leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and we’ll be doing a happy dance. Plus, it helps us keep the show going and growing. Just go to MoneyPit.com slash review. Fran in Tennessee is on the line, and her French door has developed rot. What is going on?
00:08:10	CALLER: Well, we live in a 150-year-old house, and over the years as we’ve moved in here, we’ve done repairs and modernized some things. So we had a French door put in the dining room. It’s covered in a metal flashing around the outside. But we didn’t realize at the outset that it was a composite door. And over the years, it has developed rain rot. It’s the only thing I can, you know, it has just fallen away at the bottom about six to eight inches up. We covered the door with a four-by-eight piece of plywood to keep it in place. We’ve been working on it for a long time. We keep rain off of it. But we don’t know what to do. Is it repairable, or would it be best just to replace the entire door?
00:08:54	TOM: This is screaming replacement to me. I was afraid you were going to say that. Well, listen, you’ve already covered it with a sheet of plywood. So, I mean, if you called me and you said, listen, I got a hole in my door because it’s rotted out, and it’s a few inches from the bottom, I would tell you there’s different materials that you can use to fill those rotted holes back in with that are sort of like packing a pack in a cavity. You know, there’s two-part epoxy patching materials. You mix them together, you put it in there, you sand it, and then you can, you know, prime it and paint it. You can use auto body putty for stuff like that too. And you press it in there, let it dry again, sand it, paint it, and good to go. But at this point, it sounds to me like this door has given you all the years of service it has to offer. And I would think about getting a new door. And I would tell you specifically, Fran, to look at the new fiberglass entry doors that are out there, because they could look like a painted door, or they could look like a beautiful wood door. You know, there’s lots of qualities of that fiberglass today where it looks pretty darn good. And the nice thing about it is it’s completely impervious to water, and it’s five or six times more energy efficient than wood. It does. And thank you for talking with me. I appreciate it. I hope that helps you
00:10:02	LESLIE: out. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. Hey, guys. Happy New Year, everybody. You know, as we dive into a fresh start, many of us are setting goals and resolutions to improve ourselves, but what about improving our homes? I mean, after all, our homes play a big part in how we feel and
00:10:19	TOM: function day to day. Exactly. And a well-maintained and organized home can make life so much easier. And it can even save you money in the long run. So today, we’re talking about New Year’s resolutions
00:10:31	LESLIE: for your home. Easy updates and maintenance tips that can definitely make a big impact. All right. Well, let’s start with energy efficiency. Now, one simple resolution could be tackling those drafty windows and doors. But if you’re a homeowner, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re doing the right things. You can add weather stripping or caulking. You know, you want to seal up those leaks because that can significantly cut down on your heating and cooling costs. Plus, think about upgrading to a smart thermostat. They are a game changer for both comfort and for your energy bills.
00:10:58	TOM: Another great resolution is decluttering. Start small because we know it can be an overwhelming project. Maybe just do one closet or your kitchen junk drawer. Clear out items you don’t need and donate or recycle the rest. You’ll be amazed at how much lighter and more organized your home will feel.
00:11:14	LESLIE: Yeah. And while you’re organizing, don’t forget about safety. You want to test your smoke and your carbon monoxide detectors. Replace the batteries. Also, look at your fire extinguishers. They’re only going to be useful to you if they’re charged and they’re ready to go.
00:11:27	TOM: Yep. Good point. Here’s another idea. I want to take a closer look at your home’s exterior because winter can be rough on roofs. It can be rough on siding. You get real high winds that can tear off pieces. Make a resolution to inspect for any damage once that weather warms up and then tackle those repairs before they get worse. And here’s a trick. You can do a lot of this inspection with a set of
00:11:49	LESLIE: old binoculars or even with the zoom set on a camera. And you know what, guys? Why not take everything a step further and give your curb appeal a refresh? Even a small upgrade, just like painting the front door or updating or even adding outdoor lighting or sprucing up that landscaping
00:12:05	TOM: can make a huge difference and make your home more inviting. And don’t forget about your appliances. I mean, you need to resolve to give them some TLC. You’re going to need to give them some TLC. For example, clean your dryer vent. So, so important. A big source of house fires is dryer vent fires because that lint is very flammable. Flush your water heater, check your HVAC system filters. These are little maintenance tasks that can definitely extend the life of your appliances, improve efficiency, and help them run safely.
00:12:32	LESLIE: Yeah. So whether you are boosting your home’s energy efficiency or organizing your space or even tackling those little maintenance projects, setting New Year’s resolutions for your home is a great way to kick off the new year. You can start with just one or two small goals. And before
00:12:47	TOM: you know it, you’re going to see big improvements. Yep. And the best part, these resolutions are ones you can actually keep. If you want some more ideas and step-by-step tips, head on over to MoneyPit.com. You’ll find tons of information to help you tackle your home improvement goals. So
00:13:03	LESLIE: here’s to a happy and home-improved new year. Leroy in Delaware is on the line with a
00:13:08	CALLER: flooring question. What can we do for you? I have a question on the laminated flooring. Number one, is it a solid color all the way through? And number two, where I would be using this as chairs with rollers on them? And I was wondering if you thought that would hold up
00:13:27	TOM: with being a chair that had rollers on them? All right. So first of all, is the solid color all the way through? No, that’s not the way laminated floors work. So the way laminated floors work is you have different types of composite materials, and then you have the wear layer, which is essentially sort of a photograph. And then you have the wear layer on top of that, which can be textured so it can look like stone or feel like stone, I should say, or wood boards. Now, this textured sort of wear layer surface, it’s available in different levels of durability. Some floors are designed for light use. Some floors are designed for commercial use. If you buy a tougher floor, one of the better quality floors that’s designed for the heavier use, I don’t think you can have any trouble with those chairs on the rollers. Now, are all the chairs and rollers, or is this like a desk chair situation?
00:14:22	CALLER: Actually, it’s a kitchen table with four chairs and rollers.
00:14:25	TOM: Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, I think that a laminated floor is a good choice for that. But like I said, you got to buy a good quality one. Okay. Thank you. You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:14:36	LESLIE: We’re sticking to the East Coast with Dawn in Connecticut, who’s dealing with some termites. What’s going on? How do you know you got them?
00:14:43	CALLER: We took down a wall to replace our oil tank. And when I took the wall down, up there in the ceiling is about eight foot section of the little grooves that they make. And I could see the very dusty granules of what they chewed out. There’s one deep spot, but mostly it’s all the tunnels and it covers a good area.
00:15:10	TOM: All right. And so, do you know… Do you know for a fact this is termite damage? Because it could be carpenter ants or something else.
00:15:17	CALLER: No. Yes. And it’s very old. I bought the house in 82 and it was built in 52. And I could see these marks on the cement in the basement. I asked what they were and they said it was termite treated. Yeah. And so, that was over 40 years ago, but I never saw any damage until I opened up this wall.
00:15:37	TOM: All right. Well, considering the fact that it’s gone 40 years now without any seemingly additional damage in terms of shifting of the building parts, it sounds to me like you’re talking about floor joists. Is that correct? The floor beams of the floor above?
00:15:50	CALLER: Yes. Right at the foundation.
00:15:52	TOM: All right. So, what we would recommend in a situation like this is to sister that floor beam. And a sister is basically when you take a new floor beam, so this could be a two by eight or a two by 10, and you attach it to the damaged one. Okay. And you do so, if at all possible, across the entire length of that floor beam. So, if it’s going to be a two by eight or a two by 10, it’s going to be a two by 10, it’s going to be a two by 10, and you’re going to be able to put that beam continuously with no seams. Yes. And what I would do is I would cut it to fit. Okay. And then I would test fit it, make sure it works. Okay. And then I would put some construction adhesive on it. You could kind of do like an S-shaped deposit of adhesive all up and down that beam, slip it in place, and then screw or bolt the new beam to the old beam. Okay. And this, in effect, creates a brace, a very, very strong brace that will be stronger than the original beam.
00:16:43	CALLER: I’m wondering about that. And the minor areas, should I just do a wood hardener and a filler? Because it’s very thin in the minor areas.
00:16:52	TOM: Yeah. That’s not going to do any good. It has to be totally a cosmetic repair, so it’s completely not necessary.
00:16:59	CALLER: Cosmetic unnecessary. Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, because I’m getting all different kinds of… I thought about replacing that board, but I’m asking Tom and Leslie, because they’ll steer me the right way. Thank you. Thank you so, so much.
00:17:14	TOM: It’s not a replacement. It’s a reinforcement, and that’ll do it.
00:17:16	CALLER: That’s what I meant, sistering it.
00:17:18	TOM: There you go. Good luck.
00:17:19	LESLIE: All right. Thank you so much. We’ve got Jack in Louisiana now, who’s taking on a kitchen project. Let’s work on this together. What’s going on?
00:17:26	CALLER: Our kitchen has laminate top, the countertop does. Okay. And it’s got an oven top in place, cut out in it already. Okay. I’m replacing it with a full oven, a double oven my wife wanted.
00:17:41	LESLIE: Which, by the way, is every person’s dream. If you love to cook, that double oven is like heaven.
00:17:47	CALLER: The go-to, yeah. She’s been wanting this for a long time. So the problem I’m facing is we don’t want to replace the countertops at this moment. And I know cutting laminate from the top is quite could be a disaster. So I’m trying to figure out the best way to cut the laminate on top so it stays smooth.
00:18:06	TOM: Mm-hmm. Right. So a couple of things come to mind. First of all, you may be able to take that whole countertop off, turn it upside down, because that’s the best way to cut laminate so that the direction of the saw blade goes into the laminate and doesn’t chip it. Does that make sense?
00:18:22	CALLER: Yes. But the problem with that is the laminate actually goes off the countertop, up the wall for the backsplash too.
00:18:30	TOM: All right. So the other thing that you might consider doing is, like I’ve done this with duct tape, a really thick, sticky duct tape. I put that down first where I want to cut, then I draw the line over the duct tape, and then I cut and leave the duct tape there. Then I put the tape in place. That protects the edge of the laminate from splintering as much as it
00:18:48	CALLER: does. Okay. So what would you use as a cutting tool?
00:18:51	TOM: So you’d have a couple of options. I’d like to try to make at least the main cut with a circular saw. But beyond that, I would try to cut it with an oscillating tool. So oscillating tools have a wide variety of blades. The number of teeth that you select for this is really important. The finer blades have many teeth compared to the coarser blades. The oscillating tools have the ability to cut either at a 180-degree straight angle or you can turn it into a 90-degree angle if you have some tough areas to kind of get into. But an oscillating tool could work wonders in a situation like this, help you get into those tight spaces and do a relatively clean cut. Once you get used to handling it, because it is a different type of tool, but once you get used to handling it, it actually will cut very cleanly and very smoothly.
00:19:35	CALLER: So you’re saying use a finer tooth then?
00:19:38	TOM: Yeah, definitely finer tooth in both cases. So you could use a circular saw blade, I mean, you could use a jigsaw, but that’s a bit more difficult to keep on the straight and narrow. For that, if I was going to use a jigsaw, I would probably try to attach a fence to the countertop first so you had like an edge to hold against. Makes sense. And the fence you could attach, by the way, with double-faced tape. You don’t have to screw it and damage the old countertop that way.
00:20:01	CALLER: Okay. That makes sense.
00:20:03	TOM: You got a circular saw, you can use a jigsaw, or you can use an oscillating tool. They’ll all help. Sometimes I found that you got to use more than one. You start with one, you finish with another. And by the way, when you decide which tools you want to use, since you’re cutting off that piece of the countertop, you can make a test cut first. See how it goes and make some decisions based on the success or failure of that test cut.
00:20:21	CALLER: That’s a genius idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that.
00:20:24	TOM: All right. Then let’s stop there. It doesn’t get any better than genius.
00:20:29	CALLER: That helps. You got a lot of experience in this and I appreciate you calling me.
00:20:33	TOM: All right, man. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. Thank you.
00:20:38	LESLIE: Well, if you’ve got a basement space, adding a bathroom can definitely make that space much more usable, but it also can add to your home’s value. But here’s a problem. A below-grade bathroom, you need to get it to drain properly, and that is not an easy task. The biggest issue is how you transport the waste from the basement bath up high enough so that it flows into the home’s main sewer or septic system.
00:21:01	TOM: Yeah, but there are a couple of options. So first, if the existing waste line is actually below the basement floor, you might be able to tap into it. Now, this is frequently, the case if you have a home that’s a bi-level, you know, where the rear of the home is like level with grade. But for this to work, the drain lines definitely need to be exposed, which could require breaking up that basement floor. Now, when gravity isn’t going to work for you, the next option is to install what’s called a macerator or an up-flush toilet. Now, a macerating toilet sits on the basement floor and activates on flush, and then it grinds the waste and pumps it up to the main waste line. Now, you know, there’s one bram, Leslie, that you’re going to want to be careful about. I’ve heard of over the years that sort of has made a specialty out of making these up-flush toilets. It’s called Saniflo. So they’ve got a good website, saniflo.com, that’s F-L-O.com, drop that last W, so you can see the options that are available. So they’re pretty attractive toilets given their job, but it basically is like a regular toilet, but sort of a box that sits below it that does all that heavy lifting. Now, the other option is to install what’s called a sewage ejector system. This is set flush with the basement floor, and it can drain both the toilet as well as fixtures like a shower or sink. Now, it’s similar in appearance to a sump pump, except unlike a sump pump, it is totally sealed and vented. And when it’s full, it automatically kicks on and pumps that waste up to the home’s main waste line, where again, gravity takes over. Now, because these require excavation, they’re definitely more work to install and probably more expensive
00:22:36	LESLIE: than macerating toilets, but it is an option. All right. So the bottom line here, guys, is that basement bathrooms are totally doable, but it all starts with that plumbing. It’s got to be right if you want gravity to be your friend.
00:22:49	TOM: Absolutely. Because if gravity is not your friend, it’s going to be a heck of a mess down there.
00:22:55	LESLIE: All right. Now, we’ve got Sue from Ohio on the line. Welcome to the Money Pit. How can we
00:22:59	CALLER: help you today? Yes. We had a wooden wheelchair ramp built for my father, and it was the treated lumber, and wanted an idea or what product we could use to kind of keep the ice and the snow off of there without damaging the wood.
00:23:13	TOM: You know, there are different types of salts that can be effective to prevent snow and ice. What you want to do, though, is make sure that you not use sodium chloride or rock salt. You want to use calcium chloride. Calcium chloride is less corrosive. It has less of an impact on plants and on pets, but does just as good a job of keeping the snow and the ice off. What I would suggest is you take this calcium chloride and you mix it up with playground sand, the kind of sand that you might put like in a sandbox, and create sort of a mixture that you can keep handy so that whenever you do get a little bit of ice and snow, you can spread the salt sand mixture down and keep that ramp clear. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Good luck with that project,
00:23:59	LESLIE: Sue. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. All right. Now, we’re going to catch back up with Dot in Arizona, who we gave some ideas on her kitchen remodel, and we want to hear from her. All right. Thank you.
00:24:08	CALLER: How it went, Dot? What’s going on? Our electrician came and he ended up chiseling out a hole in the concrete slab and running conduit through it and made our path through what used to be a peninsula, turned it into an island floor,
00:24:21	TOM: so we got it all solved. Oh, that’s great. So in other words, you were trying to put down laminate floor and you were wondering how to get the wiring from one side of the kitchen over to the island, which by its very nature is an island, so you had to do that in a way that would be invisible. Well, that was probably a lot of work for the electrician,
00:24:38	CALLER: but I’m glad it worked out. It did. It worked out great. He did a super job, but I listened to your show and I appreciate you guys.
00:24:43	TOM: All right. Take care. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-88-Money-Pit.
00:24:48	LESLIE: Well, we love life hacks here at The Money Pit. You know those shortcuts to help you get that stuff done? So we have picked our favorite four home improvement hacks to help you around the house. Now, I love this first one. Do you ever drop a small object like an earring or a fastener and you can’t find it? Well, you can cut a pair of stockings and put it over the end of the house. This way, it’s not going to get sucked up into the vacuum, but it is going to get sucked up from
00:25:14	TOM: wherever it’s hiding and you can pick it right up off that pantyhose. That’s a great idea because these fasteners, for example, often will fall, in my case, like between the baseboard molding and the floor or something like that, where you just can’t grab them. So great idea. Now, next up, if you want to drive a nail and you want to avoid sore thumbs caused by the number of strikes that hit your fingers, there’s an easy hack. Just take that nail, stick it through a piece of cardboard, you hold onto the cardboard to get the nail started,
00:25:42	LESLIE: and you can do that injury-free. All right. I love that one. Now, if you find it difficult to make a straight clean job of caulking around a bathtub or a window, you can use painter’s tape to mask off the areas where you don’t want to get the caulk. I mean, it does take a little bit longer than just going freehand,
00:25:59	TOM: but it will look a lot better when you’re done. Hey, and that reminds me, speaking of caulk, here’s another hack. You may know that when you caulk, it’s often very handy, to wet your finger and use it to smooth out the bead of caulk. Now, that works well for latex caulk, but it doesn’t work for silicone because it’s like sort of stickier and your finger just sticks to it and it doesn’t really act as a nice smooth trowel. However, here’s the hack. If you apply liquid dish soap to your finger first, it works perfectly. It slides easily over that silicone caulk. It doesn’t impact the caulk whatsoever and it leaves you with a nice clean bead.
00:26:34	LESLIE: All right. Now, lastly, here’s one of my other favorite hacks to help you avoid paint drips. You can stretch a large rubber band around a paint can and then use it to wipe away excess paint on the brush to prevent that paint from collecting in the rim of the can. So, you want that rubber band to sort of go over the opening of the paint can. So, this way when you’re dipping your brush and you’re just kind of wiping it off and you’re not clogging
00:26:56	TOM: up the rim, it’s really a great tip. Yep. Great ideas. Here’s one more paint can trick. When you put the lid back on the paint can, store it upside down. It seals out any air that could possibly leak
00:27:07	LESLIE: into that can and dry out the paint. All right. Now, we’re heading out to Wisconsin where Kumi has a question about mold. What can we do for you today?
00:27:14	CALLER: It’s like on the walls and it started at the bottom of the wall. It’s like black mold. In some areas, it’s somewhat green, but most of it is black. And I was trying to get the basement refurnished. When the guy came and started it, he had to stop because the mold is coming through the
00:27:29	CALLER: panel and you can still see it at the bottom. Yeah. Now, this is a home that you own,
00:27:33	CALLER: Kumi? No, I’m renting.
00:27:34	TOM: You’re renting it. Okay. So, this is the landlord’s problem. This isn’t your problem. And it’s a potentially serious problem depending on how much of it is there. That type of mold that you describe is what’s known as stachybotrys, that sort of blackish-greenish mold. And in some cases, it can cause an allergic-like effect on people, could make you not feel very well. People that are really sensitive to molds can get super sick around it. Removing it is possible, but there’s a process to it. It’s not just a matter of tearing out the old walls or scrubbing it away. Because if you do it incorrectly, you can release those mold spores, they float around the air and they can get up into the parts of the house that don’t have mold and kind of contaminate it. So, I would take some pictures of it. I would send a letter to the
00:28:31	CALLER: landlord and let him know what’s going on. And he’s got to address it because this is a potentially very serious problem. And he’s got to address it. And he’s got to address it because this is a very serious problem. And he’s got to address it. And he’s got to address it. You can’t let it continue.
00:28:38	CALLER: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I noticed that since I moved here, asthma run in my family, but I never had asthma. And now I have asthma. I have bronchitis.
00:28:48	CALLER: You may be living in a sick house. Your dog seems quite happy, though.
00:28:52	CALLER: They even said that it could be dog hair.
00:28:55	CALLER: No, no. If you’ve got that kind of mold, you’ve got a serious problem, you need to put them on notice that they’ve got to fix it. Jimmy, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:29:04	LESLIE: Jay Rodin, who listens on Spotify and says, My four-step stoop is sinking under the breezeway to my house. I’m looking for ideas on how to fix this and stop it from happening again.
00:29:16	TOM: Settling masonry stoops, I’m going to presume that this is a masonry stoop, is pretty common. And the reason for that, Jay, is because if you think about it, the soil for the house is excavated from around the house. And then after the house is built, it’s pushed back and it has to settle. And then the stoop has been built on top of that sort of unsettled soil, or at least soil that’s not nearly as compacted. And then you add poor drainage to the mix, like if you have gutters that dump water around there, it starts to rotate. And that’s what you’re calling settlement, we call it rotation. Now your options for repair would include, of course, removing and replacing the entire stoop, big project. You could also build a wood stoop and steps in place of, or in some cases, on top of the old stoop. But lastly, if the settlement is less than, then maybe an inch, maybe a little more than an inch or so, you can use a product like Quikrete’s ReCap and add a new layer of cement or ReCap product, I should say, on top of those old steps, on top of the stoop. You have to be very careful about the way you trowel it out. But basically, you would have it higher up in the back than it is in the front to get those steps in the stoop level. And the reason you want a product like ReCap is because it’s designed to adhere, to stick to old concrete. If you try to do this with regular cement, it just won’t work. It’ll look great for about a couple of months, and then it’ll just start cracking up and breaking off, and you won’t have achieved a single thing. But ReCap sticks very, very well. It’s designed to do just that. So there you go, three options
00:30:50	LESLIE: to straighten out that settling stoop. All right, now we’ve got Jose from Texas who wrote in saying, we have a 38-year-old house with a detached garage. My question is, is it better to do roll-in insulation or spray cellulose insulation in the attic? The
00:31:06	TOM: garage attic is about 800 square feet. So it sounds like Jose is getting ready to heat this space. Otherwise, you wouldn’t really need to use insulation, but I think either will work fine. Roll-in insulation may be easier for you because it’s a fairly small space. And what I would do is I would put insulation first, put it parallel with the ceiling joists that are holding up the drywall. Then I would put a second layer perpendicular to that. And I think your total inches on that, given your area of the country, probably should be somewhere around 12 to 15 when you’re done. I think that’s the simplest way to tackle that project.
00:31:47	LESLIE: Yeah, Jose, when you do blown-in, there’s a lot of upfront costs. You’re going to be getting in materials. You’re going to be getting in equipment. So there is a larger expense there. So if you’re looking to do this but be cost-effective about it, definitely do the roll-in insulation. That’s the best way to warm up that space.
00:32:02	TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. So glad to join you here in one of our first shows of 2025. Hey, if you guys have questions, we’re going to be here today, tomorrow, and all year long to answer them. So reach out to us anytime at 1-888-Money-Pit or post your questions to moneypit.com slash ask. Just click the blue microphone button. We take those callers to moneypit.com slash ask and move you guys to the top of the funnel in terms of getting back to you. So it’s the quickest way to get back to you. So if you have any questions, we’d love to hear about it. But remember, if you’ve got questions, we’d love to hear about it. But for now, that’s all the time we have. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:32:42	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:32:43	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
00:32:45	LESLIE: 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 2025 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.)