Buying a Wood-Burning Stove, 2013's Color of the Year, Home Office Organization, and more

Buying a Wood-Burning Stove, 2013’s Color of the Year, Home Office Organization, and more

TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Standing by to take your home improvement project questions. We’d like to talk with you about the do-it-yourself dilemmas, the direct-it-yourself dilemmas. Do you know what a direct-it-yourselfer is? It’s somebody who wants to direct the project themselves. Maybe you don’t want to pick up the tools, you don’t want to drive the nails, you don’t want to cut the boards. You want to pay somebody else to do it but you just don’t know where to begin? The place to begin is by dialing us at 888-666-3974 and let us review the project with you. We’ll give you some tips and some advice to make sure it comes out as perfectly as you dream it to be.

We’ve got a great show planned for you. First up this hour, we’re going to talk a bit about wood-burning stoves. You know, they can add a real charm to your home in the winter. But if you’re thinking about adding one as a main source of heat, there are some things you need to consider to make sure it really makes economic sense. We’ll walk you through the step-by-step, in just a bit.

LESLIE: And also ahead, does the new year have you looking at your dÃ©cor with some new eyes? Well, maybe you’re noticing that it needs a pick-me-up. Well, the Pantone Color Institute has unveiled the trendiest color of 2013 and we’re going to tell you what that is and how to use it to update your dÃ©cor.

TOM: Also ahead, all homeowners are always fighting the problem of clutter. I know that I am and especially in my house, there seems to be a lot of paper clutter. So we’ve got some solutions on how you can eliminate that, coming up in just a bit.

LESLIE: And also this hour, one caller chosen at random is going to get a gift that will make winter a little bit more bearable. It’s a package from Snow Joe, including a snow broom and an electric snow thrower. Man, that’s for all your snow-cleaning needs. It’s a prize pack worth $119.

TOM: So, pick up the phone and give us a call right now with your home improvement question. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Alright. Now we’re going to head over to Indiana and chat with Cassandra about a pilot light that keeps going out. Tell us about the situation.

CASSANDRA: Yes, hello. We have a manufactured home and we’ve only been in here about 11 months but every time the wind gets really strong, it blows out our pilot light on our water heater.

TOM: Oh, that’s annoying.

CASSANDRA: And my husband goes to work and then I’m here all day with no hot water because I don’t know how to turn it back on.

TOM: Hmm. OK.

CASSANDRA: And we were wondering if there’s a way we can just prevent that from happening.

TOM: OK. Well, perhaps some water-heater pilot-lighting training is in order for you, so at least you can have the warm water without waiting for your husband. But I suspect what’s happening here, Cassandra, is that the pilot light is weak. It might be dirty, it might be obstructed and it’s not strong enough, so that’s why when you get a little bit of wind down the vent pipe, it blows out. So I think that this can be corrected with some service of that pilot line.

CASSANDRA: OK. And it just – we’d just need a new pilot line? Who do we call for that? Do you â€¦?

TOM: The next time you’re going to have your heating system serviced, I would have them replace the pilot line at the same time.

CASSANDRA: OK.

TOM: Alright? It shouldn’t be very expensive.

CASSANDRA: OK, wonderful. Thank you so much.

TOM: You’re welcome. Cassandra, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. And get your husband to show you how to light that pilot, will you? Not that hard.

LESLIE: And would it be your heating maintenance company to look at your water heater or would that be a plumber?

TOM: Yeah. And typically, your water heater does need a little bit of cleaning because, remember, as that gas burns, you â€¦

LESLIE: Well, you get a lot of rust, right?

TOM: Yes, that’s right. You get a lot of rust that flakes off the baffle, which actually goes up through the middle of the water heater. The purpose of the baffle is to slow down the flow of gases out so you get more heat out of them. But that baffle is sort of sacrificial in that it rusts and those flakes fall down, sit on top of the burner and build up. So it is an area that needs to be cleaned from time to time and certainly, the pilot light and the thermocouple need to be occasionally replaced. And that’s what I think Cassandra needs to do here.

LESLIE: Danny in Texas has a question about leaky pipes. What can we help you with?

DANNY: I have a house that’s about 55 years old. It has galvanized water pipes. There are leaks on the hot-water side. On the cold-water side, if I turn the valve off at the hot-water heater, it seems to hold the water pressure.

My question is: should I replace all of the pipes or just the hot-water pipes?

TOM: Well, if you have galvanized water pipes, it’s only a matter of time. Typically, here’s how you go about replacing that type of piping system. First step is to replace everything that’s accessible. So, I would not distinguish between hot and cold pipes; I’d replace them all, because it’s going to be less expensive for you to have the plumber come in once than twice for all that. Secondly, you replace – if you have a galvanized water pipe that’s the main – you replace that next. And then thirdly, whenever you have walls torn open in your house and do any renovation whatsoever, when you find a pipe you replace it then.

So you do all the easy stuff first; then you typically do the main and then you do the vertical risers, because they tend to rust the least.

DANNY: OK. So basically, what you’re saying is if it’s there, get it out.

TOM: If it’s there, get it out, because it’s probably 60-plus years old right now and what happens is they will rust internally, they’ll close down kind of like a clogged artery. Those pipes, if they’re an 1/8-inch thick, they can add about 8 times that much rust to it, so you essentially can close down to a really tiny hole in that pipe.

And then the other thing that happens is it actually breaks through the outside surface. It’ll leak a little bit, Danny, and then it’ll kind of – the mineral salts will dry on the surface and kind of scab it over and then with expansion and contraction, it’ll start to leak again and again and again. So those pipes are at the end of a normal life cycle and they really should just be replaced. And I wouldn’t differentiate between hot and cold at this point. If it’s accessible, I’d have them all done at the same time.

DANNY: OK. About how much should I expect this to cost?

TOM: Well, it really depends on how many pipes you’ve got there and how hard it is to get to everything. But just get a couple of different bids. You might want to go to ServiceMagic.com and post your job there. You get contractors that compete for it that way and you can also check their references and their records and their licenses and all that sort of thing, through those folks at ServiceMagic.

DANNY: Well, very good. Well, I greatly appreciate your advice here.

LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. Now you can call in your home repair, home design, home dÃ©cor, improvement. Whatever you are working on at your money pit, we are here to give you a hand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

Up next, wood-burning stoves are hard to resist this time of year but are they worth the expense? We’re going to help you weigh the pros and the cons, after this.

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: The number here is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Dialing that up will get you the answer to your home improvement question and an opportunity to win this hour’s prize, which has been provided by our friends at Snow Joe. It includes a snow broom with a foam head, so you can push snow off your car without the risk of damage. And you’ll also get the Snow Joe Plus Snow Thrower for your walkways.

The package is worth $119. You can check those products out at SnowJoe.com or call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT for your chance to win.

LESLIE: Susan in New York, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?

SUSAN: I don’t know if you can mention a brand name. So we got this basement waterproofing system thing installed a couple years ago.

TOM: OK.

SUSAN: And it’s supposed to help your house. In fact, it’s made our house settle, because they jack-hammered around the inside walls downstairs and dug up outside. And it’s like my house is settling worse than it was. Is there any way to slow it down?

TOM: Well, first of all, most of the time, those types of waterproofing systems are absolutely and completely unnecessary. I know that they’re typically sold with a lot of pressure and a lot of promises and had we talked to you a couple of years ago, we’d have told you absolutely to not do it.

Now that you have done it, I don’t think that anything that they did would make it worse. That said, though, if you still are continuing to get a lot of water that collects around the foundation, that water, although it may be draining down into this drain-tile system on both sides of the foundation, that actually could be loosening up some of the soil and causing an excessive settlement.

Think about it: when you walk across the yard when it’s dry, you walk on top; when it’s wet, you sink in. Your house does the same thing and these subsurface drainage systems, all they do is they let the water run down along the foundation, collect it and then pump it out. What we generally advise is that you take the steps to improve the drainage condition at the foundation perimeter, so that you slope the soil away from the house, you clean the downspouts, you extend them out away, so that water never, ever gets a chance to collect at the foundation perimeter. It stays away from the house; it never gets anywhere near the basement. And that makes the basement a lot more stable, as well as drier.

SUSAN: Alrighty. Thank you very much.

TOM: Well, it’s about this time of year, every year, that homeowners look at their heating bill and try to come up with one way or another to warm their houses without emptying their wallets. Wood-burning stoves are still a very popular solution. And most people are suckers for a crackling fire in the winter months but you do need to weigh a few things before you jump in and buy one.

For example, it’s not going to save you any money if you buy an inefficient stove. So look for the EPA and the UL certifications on any stove that you’re considering.

LESLIE: Also, get the right size for the space that you have. Too big or too small can actually waste energy. You also need to figure the cost of wood into your budget.

Generally speaking, though, the harder, heavier and denser the wood, the more heat you’re going to get out of it.

TOM: And if you’d like more tips on how to choose the right wood stove for your home, as well as other ways to inexpensively heat your home this winter, take a look at MoneyPit.com. The info is right there, including a good article on pellet stoves.

LESLIE: Now we’ve got Mary in New Jersey who’s dealing with a very Northeast winter problem: icicles. Tell us what’s going on at your money pit.

MARY: Well, we had a new roof put on and we had a 72-inch ice shield put under the shingles. So, we have no water coming in but we’ve noticed a lot of icicles along the house.

TOM: Yep.

MARY: Some are 5 feet long.

TOM: And they’re pretty, too, huh?

MARY: Oh, yeah. Beautiful sight.

TOM: Yeah. So what’s your concern, Mary?

MARY: Well, one person said probably the insulation is not enough in the attic and another person says if you put too much insulation, you’ll have a problem, too.

TOM: Nah.

MARY: So I don’t know who to believe.

TOM: You’re on – you’re barking up the wrong tree. First of all, the icicles that are forming have nothing to do with the ventilation or the insulation in your roof; it’s just a natural occurrence of the meltdown of the snow and the ice on the roof rolling over the gutters. And when it gets to the gutter space or the overhang area, that is not over the heated area of the house, obviously, so there it tends to freeze. So water runs down and it freezes there and it does drip over the edge and form those beautiful icicles.

The fact that you put the ice-and-water shield in was a good thing, because what that’s doing is that’s stopping that ice from forming what we call an ice dam, where the water strikes it and backs up and gets under the shingles and then leaks into the house.

So, there’s really nothing wrong with your roof because you’ve formed ice. That’s very, very normal given the winter that we’ve had in this country.

MARY: Well, I’ve noticed some of the other houses and none of the other houses either had icicles or if they had them, they weren’t as long as ours.

TOM: Yeah.

MARY: We have a lot of trees around the house. Maybe that – I don’t know if that â€¦

TOM: Well, the amount of sunlight you get is going to affect the melt rate but I wouldn’t be too terribly concerned about it, as long as they’re not going to fall off and hurt anybody. It’s hard water; it’s pretty stuff. So I would just live with it, OK?

MARY: OK, yeah. It is a beauty.

TOM: Alright.

MARY: OK. Thank you so much.

TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

I thought for a moment she was going to say, “But I put ice-and-water shield on the roof. How come I still get icicles?”

LESLIE: You know, it’s funny. One of my husband’s favorite chores this past winter season was tackling the ginormous icicles that would get on that lovely, little overhang.

TOM: Oh, is he an icicle breaker?

LESLIE: He is. We’d get these icicles – pretty big, scary-looking ones – on the overhang, like right above our front door. So if I didn’t answer the door fast enough, it’s like, “Whoa, watch out.”

TOM: Yeah, well, there you have to, right. Yeah.

LESLIE: But it was his favorite thing to do.

Terry in Tennessee needs some help with a retaining-wall problem. Tell us what’s going on at your money pit.

TERRY: Yes. I have a leak problem from a drain on my back end of my house. I have a full basement and it’s heated and cool but I use it as a garage/work area, et cetera. From my garage, there’s a retainer wall that goes past the end of my drive? It’s about 20 yards long. I have two drainpipes at the bottom of that.

And when it rains, well, mud is coming out, so undoubtedly it’s stopped up. And I’m hoping that you can give me the name of some apparatus without digging out the whole entire back of the retainer wall.

TOM: So the mud gets from behind the retainer wall and then comes out the bottom of it on the low side and what? Runs down your driveway or something?

TERRY: Yeah, the retainer wall is right at the end of my driveway, coming up from the street to the end of the house.

TOM: So, the solution here would have been in the way the retaining wall was built to begin with. Because behind the retaining wall, it sounds like there’s a lot of dirt sort of pressed right up against it. The way to build this is dig down around the retaining wall, probably about 2 feet behind it. And then you’re going to have stone that is about 12 inches away from the retaining wall. Behind that, you’d have filter cloth and then behind that, you’d have soil. I’m talking vertically now.

So, up against the retaining wall, you have stone. Right behind the stone, you have filter cloth. Right behind that, you have the soil. And so, if you don’t have something like that and you’re getting a lot of dirt that’s just basically turning into mud and running through the wall, then that’s going to happen.

Now, I guess your question is: is it really worth it to regrade the area behind the retaining wall to put in the proper type of drainage stone and so on? Or do you just put up with cleaning your driveway every once in a while? I mean for me, if I bought into a house that was like that, I’d probably clean the driveway every once in a while.

TERRY: Yeah. Well, it’s almost a constant thing when it rains. But when the drainpipe – of course, it was put all the way around the house: the proper drainage factor, like the drainage pipe; the gravel over the pipe; the cover over that. So it was all done that way, as far as having that done.

TOM: Right.

TERRY: It’s just, over time, it’s – the house is 17 years old. Well, it started to leak and some way or another, it filtered down into the drainpipe, which drains past my driveway or it did at one time, anyway.

TOM: Well, you could always rerun those downspouts so that they’re not discharging that close to the house and keep them well away. That could help you a bit, as well. But it really comes down to how that soil is put together behind the wall, if that makes sense to you.

TERRY: OK. OK. Well, that was my question and I thank you so much for your help.

TOM: You’re welcome. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us in 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Ben in Illinois is on the line and is having some issues with a water heater. Tell us what’s going on.

BEN: Over a period of time, my hot-water stream would keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And then it got to the point where you turn the hot water on, it would just barely trickle. I disconnected the discharge pipe on the discharge side of the hot-water heater and found that the lime had built up so bad in the pipe, coming out of the top of the hot-water heater, that there was just a very tiny hole there.

TOM: Right.

BEN: At that point in time, I didn’t know what else to do. I just took a very large screwdriver and tapped that limestone out of there. Of course, that fell to the bottom of the hot-water heater. It’s been fine for about four-and-a-half years. It’s getting to the point where I’m going to have to do it again.

And I’ve talked to retired plumbers in that and they told me that what’s causing that is a reaction between the copper pipe and the metal that is on top of the hot-water heater. And I was told that there was like a nipple that you screw on top of the hot-water heater and then connect your copper pipe.

My question is: what type of metal is that that goes between the copper pipe and the metal coupling on top of the hot-water heater?

TOM: Yeah, Ben, all you want to do is head to a plumbing supply house and ask for plastic-lined nipples. That actually is going to create the sort of the bi-metal protection or insulation between those two pipes. And that will stop that corrosive effect that you’re seeing and of course, they’ll stop the pipe from clogging as a result of that.

BEN: Alright. Well, I sure thank you for your time and your advice.

TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Up next, have you ever felt your home’s dÃ©cor might be, say, a little dated? We’re going to tell you how you can change that by adding the trending color of 2013, after this.

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: On air and online at MoneyPit.com. Give us a call right now with your home improvement question. The number is 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Catherine in Tennessee is on the line with an outside painting project. Tell us what you’re working on.

CATHERINE: OK. It’s painting the house on the outside. I have wood-shingle siding and I want to know, is there a stain that’s equivalent to an oil-based paint so I can add linseed oil to protect the shingles?

TOM: OK. You don’t have to get quite so complicated, Catherine. You don’t have to invent your own finish by using linseed oil and stain on top of that. When you stain shingles, you typically prime them first and then you put a solid-color stain on top of that. That gives you excellent adhesion that will protect the shingles and result in a color that can last 8, 10, even 15 years.

I have a cedar-shingle house and I did just that and my house has been – hasn’t been repainted in probably close to 15 years right now, because the siding never needed it. The stain held perfectly.

LESLIE: That’s great.

CATHERINE: OK.

TOM: And by the way, you know what we had before that, for about 20 years? Linseed oil.

CATHERINE: Right.

TOM: So, you’re right.

CATHERINE: That’s what I used before, with oil-based paint, and it helps to preserve the paint job so â€¦

TOM: Right, yeah.

LESLIE: Right.

TOM: Well, linseed oil is great but technology’s caught up and if it’s properly primed and properly stained, you can get a very beautiful, long-lasting finish on the wood siding.

CATHERINE: Oh, OK, OK. Fine. Thank you very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Catherine. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Well, the wait is over for all you trend-watchers. Pantone’s 2013 Color of the Year has been unveiled and drumroll please. It’s emerald green. That’s right.

You know, the annual color proclamation is closely followed by the design industry and as expected, this year’s jewel tone already made a big splash on fashion runways. And now it’s showing up on tons of products for your home.

TOM: Now, emerald isn’t as sort of in your face as last year’s vivid-orange color trend. It’s also a departure from the yellowish greens that have been popular for a decade. But the Pantone Color Institute says this green is the color of growth. It also symbolizes riches and renewals, which sounds like a pretty good economic plan, as far as I’m concerned, for 2013.

LESLIE: Yeah, it’s true. They were saying that the color really is to help motivate the country into a revival, if you will, so hopefully it works.

TOM: All these years in a recession, all it took is green paint.

LESLIE: Right. All it took was somebody saying, “Hey, the color of the year is green.” No.

But seriously, guys, even if you are a trendy person, you’re probably not going to run out and paint your home emerald green. But adding a few touches that can be changed out easily is truly a fun way to stay on top of the latest home fashions. Think about throw pillows, vases, wall hangings, picture frames, little boxes for your tabletops, area rugs. You can paint a section of a wall. You can even add live plants; those are emerald green, as well. So there’s really a lot of great ways that you can bring these colors into your home.

TOM: It’s as easy as that. And contacting us with your home improvement question is also easy. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Steven in Texas, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?

STEVEN: We are buying an Earthship. I don’t know if you all know what that is but it’s going to be in Taos, New Mexico. And we wanted to build a secure, concrete dome that would act as our living room and dining room area. I couldn’t think of a way to pour concrete in a dome shape and we wanted to have it to be a green roof, so it needs to be load-bearing, as well.

TOM: Interesting question.

STEVEN: If you ever saw Lord of the Rings, you know the hobbit homes? They were just like hills?

LESLIE: Yes.

TOM: Yeah.

STEVEN: Yeah. But that’s kind of the look we’re going for. So, I wasn’t sure of a good way to have a load-bearing, concrete dome: a good way to build that. We looked into ICF blocks but we couldn’t find any that were curved.

TOM: Yeah. I don’t think ICF is the way to go. ICF, of course, stands for Insulated Concrete Form and they’re an excellent product for exterior walls but I don’t think they’re designed to curve. Typically, you build a form that’s in the shape of that dome first. Then, of course, you have to have a reinforcing rod laced throughout that form and then the concrete is poured right around that, usually in layers.

Steven, can I ask – why are you so interested in the dome shape?

STEVEN: It’s going to be a bed-and-breakfast when it’s all said and done and we just want it to be really eye-catching from the outside.

TOM: Well, you know there’s â€¦

STEVEN: In the lobby, Earthships in the area are really beautiful and have really geometrical shapes and we thought it’d be really pretty.

TOM: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it certainly will be. It’s just going to be a bit of a challenge and you’d better find a darn good mason to work with on this because it’s going to be a high-skill and high-expense part of the project. But it sounds very exciting. We’d love to see it when it’s all done.

STEVEN: Alright. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

TOM: You’re very welcome, Steven. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Up next, if your home office looks like the place where old papers go to die, we’re going to tell you how to kill the clutter, after this.

ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is brought to you by Stanley Tools, your trusted name in quality hand tools. To learn more about their complete line of quality tools and everything for your tool box, visit StanleyTools.com.

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. Pick up the phone and give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT.

We’ve got a great wintery prize up for grabs. We’ve got a prize pack from Snow Joe, including the Snow Broom. Now, it’s going to let you push the snow off of your car with a foam head and that foam head is not going to freeze or scratch your car. And I think the benefit of the Snow Broom is that you’re pushing the snow away from you rather than with that little, dinky brush pulling the snow right on top of your head and down your sleeves and into your gloves. So it really is a great prize.

You’re also going to get a Snow Joe Plus Electric Snow Thrower. Total value of this prize pack is $119. You can see all the products that they’ve got, at SnowJoe.com. But give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT for your chance to win.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

LESLIE: Sandy in North Carolina needs some help removing wallpaper. How far into the process are you, Sandy?

SANDY: Well, I’ve already done one room but my biggest issue was that there was a lot of the glue residue left on the walls.

TOM: Hmm. Yeah.

LESLIE: Have you tried fabric softener and water? I know it sounds weird but it’s an excellent wallpaper-paste remover.

SANDY: Oh, yeah? No, I haven’t tried that.

LESLIE: It’s worth a shot. I mean otherwise, if it’s not too, too much and you’re just dealing with a little bit of texture and residue, you could lightly sand that away, too.

TOM: Yeah and if you use the fabric softener on your walls, it smells lemony-fresh.

SANDY: And that won’t sink into the sheetrock and stuff that’s under the â€¦

LESLIE: Well, I’m not saying like super-saturate it.

TOM: No, don’t saturate it. Don’t saturate it. But you can spray it on – some people do a diluted solution of it – and get more of the paste off. And then a light sanding with a very fine sandpaper, like 200-, 220-grit. And then you want to prime the wall with a good-quality, oil-based primer and then you can paint it. And if you follow those steps, it’s not as smooth as new drywall but it’ll be acceptable.

LESLIE: It’ll get there. And then don’t pick a paint that has any sort of a sheen if you don’t get it super-smooth. Because if you pick something – I wouldn’t even go eggshell; I would go flat.

TOM: Yeah, just get good-quality flat. Otherwise, any little bump in the wall, when the light hits it, it’ll show.

LESLIE: You’ll see everything.

SANDY: Right. So it’ll show the imperfections more with that.

TOM: Yeah, exactly. If you use something that’s got a shine to it, it’ll show the imperfections.

SANDY: OK. OK, sounds great.

TOM: Alright. Well, good luck with that project, Sandy.

SANDY: OK, thanks. I appreciate your help.

TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Richard in Missouri wants to take on a flooring project. And how can we help you?

RICHARD: Yes. I’m remodeling an older house and it’s a concrete floor.

TOM: OK.

RICHARD: And I’m thinking about putting laminate lined – going to put laminate flooring in the kitchen and tile in the bathroom. Does it have to be perfectly level and if it does, how would be the easiest way to do that?

TOM: Well, it doesn’t have to be perfectly level; it has to be somewhat flat. I mean the laminate floor will take a certain level of unevenness in the floor. But the nice thing about laminate is there’s a very thin layer of insulation underlayment.

LESLIE: Like a foam sheet.

TOM: Yeah, like foam sheeting that goes underneath it. And then you lock together the pieces and the whole thing floats on top of the concrete floor, so it’s a perfect solution for covering a concrete floor. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s completely level; it just can’t have any kind of huge bumps in it.

LESLIE: Like you can’t put it over the dog’s toy.

RICHARD: Whoa. You’ve seen my work before. Well, that was my main question because I – it’s fairly well level but it’s just not perfectly level.

TOM: Yeah, well, I put laminate floor in a very old, 1886 house that was very unlevel – uneven – and it did bend and twist with the floor but it’s not supposed to do what I did with it. So it will take a little bit of unevenness but for the most part, just make sure it’s as flat as possible.

RICHARD: OK. And fill all of the – what’s the best stuff to fill the cracks with?

LESLIE: Oh, you want to use an epoxy patching compound. You can’t go ahead and put concrete over concrete because it’ll never stick. You know, when we redid our basement floor, we pulled up the carpeting and the concrete underneath was just a mess: crumbling and falling apart and uneven. And we used something called Abocrete from a company called Abatron?

TOM: Yeah, correct.

LESLIE: I always get the company name confused. But Abatron is their website, as well, so you can find out all of the epoxy patching compounds that they have. And that will self-level, it will smooth out the floor and it will stick very, very, very effectively to concrete and that’s the best way to go about it.

RICHARD: OK. That was my question. I sure appreciate it.

TOM: Well, if your office seems to be the place where papers show up and never leave, getting a scanner could help improve the organization.

Now, there are many types, from small-document scanners, which are great for bills and receipts, to full-size scanners that often come set up to double as a copier.

LESLIE: Yeah. You can actually use that scanner to rid your home of all those bills and mail that you think you might need one day but you probably won’t. You can actually store all that paper clutter digitally and then reclaim your home office space.

Also, if you get a regular-sized scanner, you can actually scan your children’s artwork or their homework for safekeeping. And then that portfolio that you’ve got shoved behind somewhere, filled with every piece of art from preschool, can sort of go the way of the dodo.

Now, remember, you’ve got to back it all up and then you can actually start enjoying a clutter-free 2013.

TOM: 888-666-3974. Delivering clutter-free home improvement advice if you call us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Keith in New York, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?

KEITH: What I have is I have an oil-fired boiler system. Does hot-water baseboard heating and also heats my hot water. And I have a well. And my question is whether I can actually divert water off of the well system, from the boiler, and put in an electric hot-water heater system, because oil is so expensive now.

TOM: So you want to stop heating your domestic hot water in the boiler and instead heat it via an electric water heater?

KEITH: Yes, whether it’s just a regular hot-water heater or an instant-hot. And that doesn’t concern me but I want to try using a little less oil.

TOM: You absolutely can do that. And when it comes to choosing the right electric water heater, you want to make sure that you’re choosing one that’s as energy-efficient as possible. And they do have some electric water heaters that are heat-pump water heaters today. And they use a fraction of the electricity that the traditional tank water heaters use but they’re more expensive.

If you get a good-quality heat-pump water heater, you’ll be very happy, because that water will be far less expensive than what you’re – what it’s costing you now to run the boiler with the oil. I understand what you’re saying: it’s a very inefficient way to heat your house.

Now, the other thing that you can do is – do you have a storage tank on that boiler?

KEITH: I have a pressurized storage tank that serves the domestic water. I don’t know if that’s â€¦

TOM: Right. Is it – look big? Is it like 30, 40 gallons?

KEITH: It’s 40 gallons, yes.

TOM: It’s oil-fired?

KEITH: It’s oil-fired, yes. Comes directly off the boiler.

TOM: Oh, OK. Yeah. When you say “directly off the boiler,” it’s separate from the boiler or it’s – the hot water is heated through the boiler?

KEITH: No, it’s separate from the boiler.

TOM: Oh, OK. Yeah, alright. So, yeah, then my original answer applies. You can replace that with an electric water heater: either a standard one or a heat-pump unit. If you can’t afford the heat-pump unit and you’re going to use the standard electric water heater, make sure you put it on a timer, because you don’t need to run it 24-7. You could set it to go off in the middle of the night.

KEITH: Oh, OK. Yeah, that’s – yeah, that’d be very good.

TOM: OK?

KEITH: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Keith. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Still ahead, tips to keep rodents from using your home as their winter getaway. We’ll tell you how to avoid this pest problem, after this.

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Hey, is this the year you’re going to keep that resolution you made to save money? Well, if so, we’re going to help by giving you energy-saving tips on MoneyPit.com. Just search “saving energy.” You’ll get some tips on saving water, saving electricity, keeping the heat inside, all in one convenient click. And if you don’t have to pay for the energy, you get to keep more of your hard-earned dollars.

LESLIE: That’s true. And if you’re the type of Money Pit fan that likes to have special attention, why not post your question on the Community section of The Money Pit?

And here we go. We pick some out and we answer these e-mails right here. And I’ve got one from Dylan in Colorado who wrote: “A party guest left a red-wine stain on my light-colored carpet. Is there a way I can get rid of it without replacing the rug?”

Well, Dylan, this is probably a dried stain, so you want to make sure that you have some cold water, white vinegar and some baking soda. And you want to go ahead and do about a cup of cold water to a cup of white vinegar. And then take a little bit of that and pour it into a separate dish and take that baking soda. And you want to sort of add it to the vinegar-water mix – the smaller amount – until it gets a consistency almost like frosting? You want it to be pasty but you want it to be smooth and you want it to be fairly thick.

So go ahead and put that on that stain and really let it sit there. Now, once it’s sitting there, that should really do a good job of pulling out that stain. And you have to make sure you use cold water, because warm water is going to set that stain a little bit more.

Take a clean, white cloth – a damp one – and go ahead and kind of push that powder – that paste – into the carpet. And once it’s in there, you’re going to scoop it up a little bit, then rinse it away with the clean water and vinegar and that should really do the trick. And next time, tell those holiday guests to watch where they’re standing with their wine.

TOM: Well, you may have noticed signs of little visitors by now. We’re talking about mice and other little rodents that happen to work their way into your house. Leslie has got advice to help keep those furry creatures away, in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.

LESLIE: You know, the best piece of advice that I can actually give you is to keep a clean house. Mice, rats and pretty much any other rodent will make their way into your home to keep warm. But if they find a buffet waiting for them, they’re not going to leave anytime soon. So make sure you sweep up crumbs and you store your dry foods, like cereal or even pet foods, in plastic containers.

Rodents, they’re not picky. I had a pest-control pro once tell me that he found rats in a homeowner’s garage, who were feeding on the grease and drippings among the lava rocks in the gas grill.

TOM: Yuck.

LESLIE: Aughh. It is so disgusting. And you know what? If it happens, you need to make sure that you completely sanitize that grill, because – I actually would just chuck it. But you can actually sanitize it very well and cook again, another day, on that grill. But you might want to think twice about that.

You also want to make sure you keep your trash covered, empty your indoor containers often. You can cut down on nesting sites around the house, like wood piles, stacks of newspapers, cardboard boxes. Those are kinds of things that the rodents really like to just sort of nestle into, so keep those items off of the floor and keep them far away from the foundation outside of your house.

Now, mice can actually squeeze through places as small as a dime, so seal up potential spaces with steel wool. And pay attention to areas around pipes, vents and ducts, because those are great places for them to sneak into.

Poisons that are designed to eliminate rodent infestations? They work pretty well, as long as you follow the instructions. And then make sure you keep your kids and your pets away from it. So let’s make sure you don’t have some unwanted visitors this winter season, guys.

TOM: And with that bait, there are these devices called “bait stations,” which are big enough to let the rodents get into but they’ll prevent the cats and the dogs from getting in there, too. So, if you’re going to use baits – the poison baits – make sure you put them inside of bait stations.

Well, coming up next week on The Money Pit, if you’ve resisted converting your home into more of an open floor plan because of load-bearing-wall issues, we’re going to help you with that when we teach you how to cut up the walls of your house to let the light in, on the next edition of The Money Pit.

I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself …

LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.