Show Notes
In this episode, we share a foolproof plan to keep your home running smoothly during power outages, bust some of the biggest home improvement myths, and offer tips to avoid caulk that cracks and peels. Got a home project on your mind? Listen in for expert DIY advice!
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- Power Outage: Batteries, backups, and beyond: how to prep for power outages.
- Home Repair Myths: Get your DIY projects done right by knowing home improvement facts vs. fiction.
- Caulk: These smooth and seamless strategies make it easy to caulk with confidence.
Top Questions & Answers
- Wall Cracks: Leslie’s wall started cracking after the home next door was torn down. She gets tips for checking the outside area and repairing any inside drywall cracks.
- Water Heater: Ken has a big water heater in a small space, but an electric tankless water heater would not be efficient. We recommend a heat pump water heater instead.
- Roofing: Can Catherine install new roofing on top of the old barn board? That would be fine if the sheathing is solid and with the proper underlayment.
- Gutters: Eric finds out that he does need to install gutters, regardless of whether his home has a basement or sits on a concrete slab.
- Door Repair: What type of saw blade should be used to cut down a door? Carol gets instructions on the right way to cut a wood door to avoid chipping.
- Crawlspace Vent: Is it okay to close the crawlspace vents? Chris finds out why it’s a bad idea and when to keep the vents open to help moisture evaporate.
- Pet-Proof Flooring: Bruce needs ferret-friendly flooring after his pets damaged the carpet. Engineered vinyl plank is affordable, attractive, waterproof, and durable.
Ask Your Home Improvement Question
Podcast Transcript
Read Transcript
| 00:00:15 | TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:00:22 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:00:24 | TOM: It’s been very cold in this part of the country. Maybe it’s been chilly in your neck of the woods. If you’re looking for some ways to warm your space up or make your heat work better, or maybe just plan and dream ahead for warmer months to come and the projects you want to tackle, those are all great things for us to talk about because that’s what we do. We’re here to help you, to inspire you, to educate you, to build confidence, to guide you, to coach you along so you can take on these projects yourself. The first step is reaching out to us with your questions. Now, the best way to do that is to go to moneypit.com slash ask. There you will find a blue microphone button. When you click that, you can record your question. It will come right to us and you will be at the headline for an answer. You can also call us at 1-888-Money-Pit, 888-666-3974. You’re listening to episode 2495, 2495 by podcast. |
| 00:01:25 | LESLIE: And you can listen when you want by following the show at moneypit.com slash podcast. Coming up on today’s episode, power outages can strike without warning, especially with winter winds and spring storms on the way. So we’ve got a plan for you to power through when your power is down coming up. And when it comes to the topic of home improvement, there’s often more bad advice than sage wisdom. And that bad advice can spread quickly. We’re going to tackle some of the most common tales and help you separate fact from home repair fiction. |
| 00:02:00 | TOM: Well, it’s been one of those weeks at my house, Leslie. You know, folks think that nothing ever goes wrong, right, with our places. They’re always perfect all the time. Not true. I had a leak coming from the second floor bathroom. In fact, my wife was upstairs taking a shower and I just heard this black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black sound. I’m like, what the heck is that? And sure enough, it was a leak coming through the ceiling. And so it turned out that some of the caulk around the tub had pulled away. So I had to take all the old caulk out. And it got me, it got me thinking about some of the ways that we tell folks to caulk. And we usually talk with them about certain types of caulks to use. And I’m going to share a way that you can use the most durable caulk possible and get a perfect job every single time in just a bit. I think you’ll find this very interesting tip if you’ve ever had to |
| 00:02:48 | LESLIE: take on that project yourself. All right. But before we do everything that we’re promising you, this show really is about you guys. So we want to help you take on your next home project. Maybe you’ve got a DIY dilemma, a decor project, or perhaps you’re just dreaming of those warmer days and you want to start planning an outdoor living project. Well, we can help. |
| 00:03:08 | TOM: Reach out now with your questions. The number is 1-888-Money-Pit or go to moneypit.com |
| 00:03:12 | LESLIE: slash ask. Let’s get to it. All right. Now we’ve got another Leslie on the line. I love it when a Leslie joins us. What’s going on? |
| 00:03:20 | CALLER: I live in a hundred-year-old house. I live in a hundred-year-old house. I live in a hundred-year-old row home. It’s a habitat home, completely refurbished. And it’s a row home and they tore down the terrible dilapidated home attached to mine. But now I’m noticing a lot of settling on the side where the other home was. And I’m concerned about the settling because I’m getting some serious-looking cracks in a corner on the side. |
| 00:03:53 | TOM: It’s inside where the home was torn down. So when you say you see settling, are you talking about like the soil, the grating is like sagging outside that wall? It’s inside where I’m seeing the cracks. When you see cracks, you’re calling that settling. Is that right? Yes, that’s what I mean. I just want to make sure I understand what we’re talking about. Okay. So first of all, yes, when they tear down a house, you got to make sure that the soil that remains is compressed. It’s packed. And very often that doesn’t happen. Because the earth-moving machines just push dirt back in there. And yeah, they may run over at a time or two, but it’s just not the same. And so I would definitely, just as a basic step, take a look at that outside edge of the house and make sure, in a best-case scenario, Leslie, your soil, we want it to slope away from that exterior wall so that we’re not allowing water to collect up near your house. Because when the water collects too close to that house, it can disturb the footings. It can make the foundations a little less stable. And that can potentially lead to some cracking and shifting. Now that said, the fact that you’ve got cracks and walls and corners doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a terrible problem going on, because that’s typical to any house. Are your walls made of plaster or are they made of drywall, where all the walls are placed? All the walls were replaced. Okay. So we’re talking about cracks in drywall, not cracks in plaster. So if you have cracks in drywall, the mistake that people make is they use their walls as a base. |
| 00:05:23 | LESLIE: Audio on Audio Water Heating, what’s going on? |
| 00:05:53 | CALLER: Space in our house is at a premium. We have a big old water heater in there, and I wanted to find out what are the benefits or the cost of problems with getting a tankless water heater, because we don’t, it’s just my wife and I, we don’t use both bathrooms, we don’t use all the things at the same time. We just feel like we’re heating all this water, keeping our water hot all the time. |
| 00:06:14 | TOM: Right. And so is this a gas water heater? No, it’s electric. Ah, okay. All right, so that changes the answer, and here’s why. If you were asking me about gas-fired tankless water heaters, I would tell you this is absolutely a no-brainer. You definitely should do that, because they’re incredibly efficient, and while they’re a little more expensive up front, they last a lot longer, too. But you can’t get that efficiency out of an electric tankless water heater. They exist, but they’re not efficient. The only kind of electric water heater that gives you efficiency is a heat pump water heater that uses heat pump technology. The same way heat pumps will cool and heat homes, it uses that kind of technology. But again, they’re very expensive. A very simple and inexpensive way to sort of manage the cost of running that electric water heater is to install a 240-volt timer on it. So think of the same kind of timer that you’d use for a light, except much bigger. And essentially, the way it works is you would set this to come on, say, a couple of hours, or maybe just an hour before you wake up in the morning so you have plenty of hot water in the morning. And then you would go off. The tank’s going to still stay pretty warm throughout most of the day. Then you have it come on again, you know, around the late afternoon, sort of dinner into the bathing that you might do before going to bed hours. So let’s say you have it on. Let’s say you get up at 8 in the morning. So I’d turn it on at 7. I might turn it off at 9 or 10. And then I’d leave it off all day long. I might bring it back on at, like, say, 5 o’clock, and then maybe turn it off again at 10 o’clock. So by the time I’m done, I’m really only heating that water maybe 8 hours. So that’s going to make a big difference in the cost to run that water heater. |
| 00:07:52 | CALLER: I see. All right. Well, good. That’s the kind of information I need. I appreciate your help. Thank you. |
| 00:07:56 | TOM: All right. Well, good luck, Ken, and have a great day. |
| 00:07:59 | LESLIE: Do you love learning about home improvement on our podcast? Well, we love bringing you all the latest tips and tricks. |
| 00:08:04 | TOM: And if you want to make us smile, leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Just go to moneypit.com slash review. |
| 00:08:12 | LESLIE: Heading up north to New Hampshire, where we’ve got Katherine on the line, who’s got a roofing question. I mean, it’s a roof of a barn, but roof nonetheless. So what’s going on? |
| 00:08:20 | CALLER: I have an 1890s barn, 30 by 40, that needs a new roof. It has about one-inch thick barn board going across the rafters. And I’m wondering if I can put either shingles or a standing seam metal roof right on top of the barn board, or if I need to put plywood or some other type of sheathing on top of that barn board before I apply the shingles. |
| 00:08:47 | TOM: Well, that sounds like a really beautiful building. And I’ll tell you, as long as that sheathing is solid sheathing and not spaced sheathing. So in an old building like that, sometimes you have sheathing that’s spaced upon which you would nail, like, a cedar shingle roof. If that’s the case, you need to plywood that roof so you have solid sheathing. But if that barn board is continuous, solid, thick, one-inch thick wood, and if that’s the case, you need to plywood that roof so you have solid sheathing. If there’s no major damage in it, there’s no rot or big warped sections or anything like that, there’s absolutely no reason that you cannot go right on top of that. Of course, you’re going to use an appropriate underlayment, like a heavy tar paper or something of that nature. But you could shingle right over that without having to add plywood sheathing. Plywood’s not going to add anything to that but weight. So I think you’re good to go. |
| 00:09:31 | LESLIE: All right, now we’ve got Eric in Michigan on the line who’s got a question during a construction project here about an eaves trough. |
| 00:09:37 | CALLER: The question is eaves troughs. Yes or no. When you’re building, does it make a difference if it’s on a concrete slab or if you have a basement? Just your thoughts whether to install eaves troughs or not. |
| 00:09:51 | LESLIE: Yeah, Tom, I mean, I’ve never heard this term before. What is an eaves trough? Do we have those here? |
| 00:09:57 | TOM: Yes. You say gutter, but in Michigan, they say eaves trough. |
| 00:10:01 | LESLIE: Ah, the famous tomato, tomato, gutter, eaves trough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| 00:10:06 | TOM: Your question is, do I need gutters? And yes, you do. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a concrete slab or if you have a basement because the gutters are going to manage the water to the foundation perimeter, which is important in both cases. Now, if you let a lot of water run off your roof, even if you’re on a slab, you’re going to find that as the soil gets very wet around the foundation, you’ll have more settlement and get some cracking. And also, in some cases, if there’s a heavy rainfall, you get so much water that because concrete is so hydroscopic, it absorbs water like crazy. You can actually pull that water up into the living space of your house. Now, you’ve got mold issues and everything else. So, yes, you do need gutters. And if you have basements, well, if you don’t have gutters, you’re just waiting for a flood to happen. You’re ready for it because it’s going to happen. So, yes, put gutters on the house. Put downspouts on the house. Make sure they are extended at least. This is new construction, so I would say at least four or five feet away. And when they do the final grade, do a little bit higher of a grade than they are required to by code. Because it settles. And it settles quickly. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the minimum grade just turn flat like within six months to a year. And now you’ve got no drainage at all and the water is just sitting there. So, that water management is really, really important, Eric. And that’s why I think you definitely should have eaves troughs around the roof edge of your house. |
| 00:11:25 | LESLIE: That’s fancy. I’m going to start using that every day of my life. Oh, that eaves trough is overflowing. |
| 00:11:31 | TOM: Use that in a sentence in your general conversation. |
| 00:11:34 | LESLIE: Hey, kids, keep those tennis balls out of the eaves trough. |
| 00:11:37 | TOM: There you go. |
| 00:11:41 | LESLIE: Heading over to Ohio where we’ve got Carol on the line who needs some help making a door fit. |
| 00:11:45 | CALLER: I just wondered what’s the correct type of blade and saw to use. I need to saw off the bottom of a hollow door to fit in my house because it has narrow doors more than what other houses have. |
| 00:11:58 | TOM: Hey, Carol, so that’s a pretty basic project. And I’m glad you called because I’ve got actually a couple of tricks of the trade that would help you for this. First of all, you want to take the door off the hinges. That’s super important. Off the hinges. And then lay it down on a couple of sawhorses. Next, you want to take some tape like I would use the blue painter’s tape. And you want to put that along the bottom of the door where you’re going to cut. Now, a little tip on this. When you have that door flat on the sawhorses, it becomes harder to tell what the top of the door is and what the bottom of the door is. So don’t cut the wrong side of the door. But you put the tape across the bottom of that door and you can draw your line where you want to cut it on the tape. Put the tape on the front and the back. And here’s why. Because as you start to saw this, what will happen is the wood will start to chip out along that edge and it will get rough. And depending on what kind of door this is, you know, whether it’s made of like a plywood or whether it’s solid, you could get some chips and some splits. And by putting the tape there, it protects it and minimizes that. In terms of the type of saw, if it was me, I would use a circular saw. If you don’t have a circular saw, you can use a fine-bladed cross-cut saw, hand saw. But again, just go very slowly and make sure you stay to that line. Don’t rush it or you’ll get a really, really rough cut. Now, one more thing. I don’t know how much of this door, how much shorter you want to make this door. But because it’s a hollow core door, there’s going to be, I’d say, I don’t know. What do you think, Leslie? It’s a solid wood in the bottom of that door. And after that, it’s going to be hollow. |
| 00:13:39 | LESLIE: Yeah, I was going to say, what do you have to fill in? Like, do you need to put in a piece of something? |
| 00:13:44 | TOM: Yeah, if she cuts too much, you’re going to find that it’s going to actually be hollow. So here’s what I would do. If I cut through it and it was hollow, you’re going to have to fill that back in. And the best way to do that is to take that chunk of wood that you just cut off and remove the facing of the door from both sides. What will be left will be the filler. And just fit that in the space that you pulled it from. And then you’re going to have to glue it and clamp it or just nicely tack it in place with a couple of brads while you glue it. And then when it’s all done, sand it. And then make sure you paint it and seal it because that’s an open, now exposed edge. You want to seal that. Otherwise, you’ll get kind of weird, maybe some weird warping of that door. So you want to make sure you finish that bottom edge as well. All right. So good luck with that project. Well, guys, we’ve all seen the news stories about entire communities that have gone without power for decades. We’ve all seen the news stories about entire communities that have gone without power for days at a time. If a bad storm leaves you without power, though, what should you do? What’s the first thing to do? What’s the second thing to do? How do you survive without power for potentially a great number of days? |
| 00:14:48 | LESLIE: Well, first, here’s something you should not do. You shouldn’t be using candles. You should be investing in some good flashlights with bright LED bulbs. You want to keep them handy and always in the same spot. And remember to check those batteries often. Yep. |
| 00:15:01 | TOM: And if your power goes out, power down appliances. And don’t restart them until the electricity has been restored for at least a half an hour, especially if you have a power outage in the summer and you’re running air conditioners. Because air conditioners run under pressure, and those compressors can fail if they go off and on and off and on. So basically, if the power goes off, turn your thermostat all the way up so the air conditioner doesn’t come back on, wait till the power restores, and then bring it back up. This will give the utility company time to re-stabilize the power grid and avoid another blackout. And you won’t ruin a very, very expensive compressor in the process. Yeah. |
| 00:15:36 | LESLIE: And speaking of ruining things, let’s talk about your groceries. Everything in that refrigerator and freezer, remember, once that power goes out, that fridge and freezer becomes like a cooler. So try not to open that door. Don’t open the fridge. Don’t open the freezer. Don’t be staring at it all willy-nilly like my teen boys, being like, what am I going to eat? I should keep this door wide open. Don’t do that. Keep those doors closed. Eat what’s in the fridge first, the freezer later. Remember that frozen items can last several days if you do not keep opening the doors. |
| 00:16:07 | TOM: And also, and we hear it with virtually every storm, be careful with your generators. Never leave a generator running in an enclosed space. Never run a gas-powered generator indoors. Never run it in even an open garage. Very bad idea. And avoid cooking with charcoal or propane, again, in any enclosed area. There have been cases where folks had generators running in garages. And guess what? They got sick inside the house because those fumes found a way in. So be very, very careful with generators and always run them outside. They’re designed to run outside. You don’t have to worry about them getting wet or getting snowy. Take them outside and run them that way, and you will stay safe and enjoy power at the same time. |
| 00:16:48 | LESLIE: We’ve got Chris in Arkansas on the line. What is going on at your money pit? |
| 00:16:52 | CALLER: Well, Leslie, I’ve been wondering on my crawl space vents. I’ve heard that they’re not really useful, and they’re best to go ahead and just close them up. I was wondering if that’s a good idea or a bad idea. |
| 00:17:08 | TOM: Yeah, I think that’s a really bad idea, and here’s why. The crawl space vents are there for a reason. In fact, they’re mandated by building code. Now, they have a sliding cover on them so you can have the louvers open or close. What I generally suggest is that you want to have the crawl space vents fully open in the spring. The spring, the summer, and the fall. In the winter, when the temperature really starts to drop, then you should close them. But in the spring, the summer, and the fall, leave them open. It helps the moisture that’s going to be present in the crawl space evaporate to the exterior by mixing with drier air from the outside. The other thing that you could do is, I don’t know what kind of crawl space surface you have there, but if it’s dirt, you ought to be covering it with plastic, so big sheets of polyvisqueen plastic, for example. That prevents the moisture from evaporating up off the soil. And the reason we’re trying to control moisture is because if you let the moisture condense on the wood framing in the crawl space, you’re going to get mold or rot. And you can also make the insulation damp, which renders it somewhat ineffective, even if it’s just a little bit of dampness. So for all those reasons, I recommend you keep them open in the three warmer seasons. |
| 00:18:19 | CALLER: Does that help you out? It did most certainly, and I sure appreciate it. I love the shows. |
| 00:18:24 | TOM: Alright, thanks so much. Hey, did you guys know a burglar enters a home every 30 seconds? That’s crazy. But that’s why we are excited to partner with Vivint Home Security. Money Pit listeners can get their award-winning, smarter, simpler home security system right now starting at just a dollar a day. |
| 00:18:42 | LESLIE: Plus, all of our listeners get free professional installation with a signed agreement. Restrictions apply, but don’t wait. You must call now at 800-586-9606. That’s 800-586-9606. |
| 00:18:59 | TOM: Pick up a Vivint system starting at just a dollar a day with free professional installation. Again, that number is 800-586-9606. |
| 00:19:07 | LESLIE: Well, when it comes to the topic of home improvement, there’s often more bad advice than wisdom. And sadly, that bad advice gets around. True. |
| 00:19:15 | TOM: And for those of us in the role of trying to provide the best advice, we often need to help separate 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. So, Leslie, kick us off. What’s first? |
| 00:19:30 | LESLIE: All right. Here’s the first one. When using a garbage disposer, water always must be running? True or false? |
| 00:19:36 | TOM: This is a firmly held belief by many folks. In fact, you know, in the years I was a home inspector, I had sort of my, you know, my regular routine. And it included going to the kitchen sink and switching on the disposer. And about every other time, the homeowner would come see me. Sailing into the kitchen saying, what are you doing? You’re ruining my disposer. You have to run water. Well, no, actually, you don’t. Think about it. The disposer is not using the water to lubricate itself, right? That would be silly. It just doesn’t work. The disposer is designed to run off ball bearings. Now, what the water does is it pushes the food through the disposer. But you do not have to run water necessarily when you run a disposer. It will not burn out or anything of that nature. What the water does is helps. It helps move the waste through the disposer blades and down into the drain below. |
| 00:20:27 | LESLIE: Well, I know that is a correct statement there, Tom. I still run the water right at the very end just to make sure everything’s kind of gone all the way down. |
| 00:20:33 | TOM: Yep, that’s wise. Okay, how about this one? You should always pre-rinse your dishes before running the dishwasher. |
| 00:20:39 | LESLIE: I’m going to say that depends. If you’ve got a newer dishwasher, and by newer, I mean probably 10 years or, you know, around there, they’re sort of made with sensors that, you know, run more efficiently and optimally if it can kind of read how dirty those dishes are. And I think you pre-rinsing kind of tricks it. |
| 00:20:56 | TOM: Yeah, that’s actually called a terminity sensor. It measures sort of the muddiness of the water, and it will lengthen the dishwasher cycle to kind of make up for, you know, a very, very muddy load of dishes. So, you know, if you had, say, dishes that were just chock full of gravy or Italian sauce or something like that, and it’s just seeing all of this muddy water, it’s going to run it longer. So you don’t necessarily have to pre-rinse your dishes. And now I know that even having said that, folks will never give up the pre-rinse, but you technically don’t have to. |
| 00:21:26 | LESLIE: All right, now for DIY projects on your own home, you don’t need to bother with the building permit. I feel like a lot of people think that, and I think that answer is not true. Just because you’re doing that project yourself doesn’t mean that you can just skip that permit process. It depends on the project. So if you’re painting, if you’re putting up crown molding, those things don’t require a permit. But if you’re adding outlets, changing a stove from electrical, changing electric to gas, replacing windows, moving a wall, adding a door, things like that, you for sure need a permit. Now, if you’re just confused and don’t know if I need a permit or don’t need a permit, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Ask your local building department. Otherwise, you are risking fines. You may have a big problem when it comes time to sell your home because you won’t be able to get a certificate of occupancy because you have a project that’s not documented and you never reported it. |
| 00:22:16 | TOM: Yep, for all those reasons and more, always smart to get a permit. |
| 00:22:19 | LESLIE: All right, now here’s one more. When it comes to cooling and heating systems, bigger is better, right? |
| 00:22:25 | TOM: Yeah, everyone wants to make sure the system is big enough to keep them comfortable. But the truth is, oversizing a system won’t work as well as a system that fits the house just right. For example, we often see this with air conditioners. People want to have the biggest air conditioner possible. But if you oversize your AC unit, it will cool off the house quicker than a properly sized system. But because it’s not running long enough, the result will be a lot of moisture in the air and you will have a cool house, but you also have one that’s very cold and clammy and damp and maybe moldy. So that’s why you want to have one that’s correctly sized. Same thing kind of applies to an oversized furnace. It will quickly pump out the heat and then shut off and then repeat. It’s very inefficient when it cycles like that. The ons, the offs, the ons, the offs. That really costs a lot in energy. So get the right size. Not one that’s too small. Not one that’s too big. And you will be very happy because that’s the way those systems are designed to work. Well, it’s been one of those weeks at my house. I found a leak coming from the second floor bathroom and I had to re-caulk my bathtub. But I’ve got a game-changing tip from that project to share with you that will keep your caulk looking perfect for many, many years to come. |
| 00:23:39 | LESLIE: All right. Before we get to Tom’s tip, let’s talk about the basics here. Your step one is to remove the old caulk. So you can use a utility knife. Carefully cut away that old caulk. You want to make sure to clean that area thoroughly to remove any residue. Once you’ve done that, clean at the surface. You want to wipe down the area with rubbing alcohol or a bathroom cleaner to ensure that you have an area free of mold and soap scum. And then you want to tape the edges. Apply painter’s tape along the edge of the tub and the wall to create a clean line for the caulk. |
| 00:24:12 | TOM: Now, when it comes to selecting caulk, you have basically two formulations. One is latex, which makes it water-based and very easy to clean up. It’s also very easy to work with because once you caulk it, you can basically wet your finger or if you have a caulking tool, I have one that has sort of like a rubber paddle on it. If you wet it, it will easily smooth that latex caulk along. But if you’re working with silicone, the advantage is silicone lasts for many, many, many more years than latex. And it simply won’t get moldy. But the application is a lot harder because it doesn’t sort of trowel, whether you use a finger or a tool as well, unless you know a trick. And here is the trick. What you want to do is if you want to use your finger to sort of smooth out the caulk or if you want to use like a caulking tool, you have to dip it in soapy water first. So you take your dish soap, and I usually mix about half dish soap and half water. So it’s kind of a thick, soapy solution. And I will dip my finger in there, and then I will smooth the caulk, and it just skims along perfectly. And you can also do that with your caulking tool. The fact that you have that soapy solution will basically solve the problem of the silicone sort of sticking to the caulk tool and giving you kind of a lousy appearance. And I’ll tell you, when I was all done, I was pretty impressed with how clean it came out. I haven’t done that too often. I knew the trick for quite a while now, but I hadn’t had this opportunity to really test it. And man, did it work terrifically. So remember, you can dip your finger, dip your caulking tool into a soapy water solution using dish soap and water, and that will enable you to use your favorite trowels, which are the digits on your hands, and get nice, clean lines. Now, once the caulk is applied and you’re satisfied with it, then you can pull away that painter’s tape. And you want to do that before the caulk dries. That will give you a super clean edge. And then just let it dry. Let it cure per the manufacturer’s instructions before using the bathtub, which today, actually, the caulks that we use today, the silicone caulks, they’re actually ready to stand up to moisture inside of a half hour to an hour. So it’s really a good time to use that type of product because, again, especially in the bathroom, you want a caulk that’s not going to develop mold, and the silicones definitely won’t do that. |
| 00:26:30 | LESLIE: Bruce in Tennessee has some furry friends, and I mean some ferret furry friends, and needs some help picking flooring. What’s going on? |
| 00:26:38 | CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got seven ferrets. I’ve got seven ferrets that are taking a hard line on my carpet, and I want to replace it. And I thought, well, I might want to try something different. |
| 00:26:48 | TOM: Seven ferrets, huh? Yes, sir. So you’re looking for ferret-proof flooring, Bruce? Something like that. Yeah, some ideas. Absolutely. Sure. Well, I mean, so you’re basically looking for a pet-resistant floor, and that rules out natural hardwood and, of course, carpet. But you’ll be happy to know that there are a lot of synthetic products today that are perfect. One that comes to mind is called Engineered Vinyl Plank. It’s one of the newest flooring products on the market. And I got to tell you, this stuff is really amazing because it looks just like the real thing. It looks just like wood. They’ve just done so well with the technology behind making Engineered Vinyl Plank that it ends up coming out looking, you know, just like the real deal. And it’s also pretty affordable. So you might want to take a look at the products that are available in that EVP family. The other one to think about is laminate. But I guess if I was thinking about laminate versus EVP, I’d probably go with EVP because it’s 100% waterproof. And I think it might be a bit more durable. You can go to a place like Lumber Liquidators, to one of their showrooms, and take a look at some of the samples. I think you’d be surprised with how good-looking this stuff is. And it certainly would be something that could take a lot of punishment, takes the wear and tear, as well as, of course, it’s not going to deteriorate in any way if it gets wet. |
| 00:28:11 | CALLER: What kind of installation are we talking about with it? |
| 00:28:14 | TOM: It’s pretty much DIY. I mean, you could hire a pro, but it’s got a tongue-and-groove seam. It’s sort of a lock joint like most of those products do. It’s floating, so you don’t have to glue it down. You basically go edge-to-edge. If you have baseboard molding, I would go within about a quarter or three-eighths of an inch of the baseboard molding, leave a bit of a gap, and cover it with shoe molding so you have some expansion and contraction. Okay. It’s pretty easy to do. You’ve got to make sure the floor is pretty flat. If you’ve got a lot of dips and waves in the floor, there are certain tolerances that each manufacturer will specify for those products, and just make sure you’re within those tolerances. But I think if you take a look at the EVP flooring, that might be a good solution for you and for your ferrets. And I will tell you, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten a question about ferret-proof flooring. |
| 00:28:59 | CALLER: Well, I think one of the reasons I was looking at the vinyl or the laminate, I’ve seen some friends, believe it or not, there’s a lot of good ferrets, like Facebook groups out there, and there’s thousands of us that talk back and forth. And I think I’ve seen some folks take that vinyl or laminate and kind of, you know, heat it and give it a little bit of a bend up on the edges and then put the molding, you know, maybe an eighth inch from the floor or something, and give it almost a tub effect in the room. |
| 00:29:26 | TOM: You mean kind of have it, like, bend up? I wouldn’t do that. Yeah. No, I think you’re asking for trouble. There’s no flooring manufacturer that’s going to warrant that. It’s only designed to be installed flat. I mean, people get creative with stuff like this, but that’s definitely outside the scope of how that material is designed to be used. |
| 00:29:43 | CALLER: That’s what I’m thinking. That’s why I wanted to ask you guys. I figured you guys would know, but it’s just kind of a, I think what people are thinking is, I don’t know, pet-proofing or spill-proofing, shall we say. |
| 00:29:52 | TOM: Yep, I hear you. Okay. |
| 00:29:53 | CALLER: I’ll look for that. And you said lumber liquidators as well, right? |
| 00:29:56 | TOM: Yeah, they’ll have it. It’s EVP, engineered vinyl plank, okay? Sounds great. Good luck. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PET. Thank you, sir. Well, Carrie in Sacramento, California wants to put her house in vacant mode, Leslie. |
| 00:30:10 | LESLIE: All right. So Carrie says, I have a 105-year-old house on our property that’s currently unoccupied. While the electricity and plumbing are still on, what’s the best way to prepare the house for a vacancy or storage to minimize potential damage while it remains empty? |
| 00:30:25 | TOM: First up, turn the water off. Turn the water main off. Keep the heat on, maybe not as hot as you might normally, but if you leave the heat too low, it’s going to get very damp, and can get moldy inside of that house. And keep the lights on a cycle so that the house remains secure. That’s a good place to start. The biggest enemy of a vacant house, though, are those active water lines, because if they crack, if they break, boy, what a mess that can be. |
| 00:30:50 | LESLIE: All right. Carrie, I hope that helps you out and you’re able to have some peace of mind. |
| 00:30:55 | TOM: Well, if you’d like to try out a non-toxic natural wood stain, you might want to take a look at what’s stored in your kitchen cabinets, because coffee, tea, and water, tea, vinegar, different types of nuts, even berries can be used to stain wood, and the results are pretty amazing. Leslie tells you how in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word. Leslie? |
| 00:31:16 | LESLIE: Yeah, you know, there’s lots of ways that you can create your own stains, and it can be a fun project that’s also safe to do with the kids. So here’s a few examples. If you want to make a black tea stain, this is really a simple way to stain wood. You boil tea bags in two cups of water until you have a deep tea concentrate. Then simply brush that hot water onto the wood. The tannins in the tea are going to react with the wood, and that can provide a range of colors. Different teas and tea quantity is going to give you a different shade on that natural wood stain. So you kind of have to practice and see where you get something you like. Now, you can use coffee to make a stain. You want to brew some super strong coffee, let it cool, then apply with your favorite brush or rag. This natural wood stain really has to soak into the wood, so you want to check it 10 minutes after you apply it, by wiping a section clean of the coffee. Not dark enough for you? Let the coffee sit longer. Now, you can use walnut hulls to make a homemade wood stain. Black walnut hulls, if you soak them for several days, will create a beautiful dark wood stain. So to get the best results, it’s helpful if you grind those walnut shells into a powder with a sturdy food processor or some other chopper. You want to boil the water, then add the walnut shells, and let that mixture steep. Strain the mixture before you apply it to the unfinished wood. Now, you can also use pennies or steel wool. Do this by making white vinegar or lemon juice, because that can work really well as a stain. And then when you add that metal into the mix, it really activates everything. For example, if you add pennies to white vinegar and let it sit for a few days, that handful of pennies is going to produce a beautiful pale Caribbean blue. You can also soak steel wool in vinegar to get a reddish stain. I mean, obviously, one’s a patina, one’s the rust. You’re getting that natural color from those two metals. So it’s really great. If you do that steel wool with a combination of tea, coffee, or turmeric, and that steel wool, it’s going to get a darker black stain into that vinegar solution. You can also add a bit of salt, because that can help increase the acidity and speed up the whole process. One tip, though, when you’re making the stain this way, it’s kind of a chemistry experiment. So make sure you write down what you did to get that color that you like, or just plan on making enough to complete that entire project at one time. |
| 00:33:33 | TOM: Yeah, it seems to me like you might do this if you had a smaller project to do. But if you were staining, like, an entire set of kitchen cabinets, you’re probably not going to mix it up on your own. But maybe a table or a chair or something small like that. It could be a really cool way to make stain from scratch and get some really interesting effects. I love that patina idea with the pennies. I’m going to try that. |
| 00:33:54 | LESLIE: Oh, it’s such a pretty color, blue, too. |
| 00:33:56 | TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Coming up next time on the program, you know, while most folks focus on their landscape, and how it looks, they may not be focused on what we call their light scape. You know, with the right combination of low voltage lighting, there’s a whole new view awaiting you. We’re going to walk you through those options on the next edition of the Money Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:34:19 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:34:20 | TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself. |
| 00:34:22 | 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.) |
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