Show Notes
- Outdoor Kitchens: Cooking up plans for an outdoor kitchen? Get the recipe for successfully designing a great outdoor dining space.
- Spring Gardening: The best soil produces the best gardens in bloom. We’ve got all the dirt on how to prep for springtime gardening.
- Hardwood Floors: Refinishing hardwood floors can be worth the effort. Learn how to restore the shine.
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
Plus, answers to your home improvement questions about:
- Exterior Painting: Barry keeps repainting the arbor outside his house. He should make sure the surface is scraped clean and use an oil-based primer and paint.
- Radon Testing: Are radon tests necessary? We agree it’s a good idea and tell Sandra how radon testing and remediation are done.
- Shower Floor: The floor under a fiberglass tub squeaks whenever Jeff showers. The tub probably wasn’t installed correctly, but the problem is more annoying than structural.
- Heating System: Should Amber convert from hot water baseboard heat to electric baseboard heat? We warn her it will be very expensive and suggest getting a new oil unit with zoned heating and controllable thermostats instead.
- Laminate Flooring: Do you need special underlayment for laminate flooring? Joe should see what type of underlayment is recommended by the manufacturer.
- Garden Beds: Where is the best location for a raised garden bed? Courtney should look for a wide open space with no obstructions and full sun.
Podcast Transcript
Read Transcript
| 00:00:31 | TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles. This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:00:37 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:00:38 | TOM: Here to help you take on the spring projects on your to do list. You can slide them right over to US when you reach out with your questions at one 888-MONEY-PIT or Head to moneypit.com/ask and click the blue microphone button. Hey, coming up on today’s show, Outdoor Kitchens. They have never been more popular, but cooking and dining outside does require sort of a special recipe of its own. So we’re going to tell you everything you need to know to plan and build your own outdoor kitchen. |
| 00:01:05 | LESLIE: And are you ready to prep your garden for a season of delicious veggies and beautiful flowers? Well, the first step is to get the soil ready. We’ve got all the dirt on garden soil prep just ahead. |
| 00:01:16 | TOM: And hardwood floors are one of the most desirable floors around for both durability and the value they add to home. But the finishes do wear out, and when that happens, they need to be restored. So we’re going to walk you through the easiest way to get that project done. |
| 00:01:29 | LESLIE: And you need some help with the renovation repair or springtime decor project. Well, we’re here to help you create your best home ever and tackle your to do’s with confidence. So give us a call. Let us know what you are working on, or maybe you’re not working on it just yet, but you are dreaming of tackling that project. So give us a call now before you start that project so we can help you be, you know, ready and prepared and have all the supplies and everything that you’re dreaming of checked off. So you’re ready to start and tackle it and finish it in no time. |
| 00:01:58 | TOM: That number is 1-888-666-3974, which also happens to spell 888-MONEY-PIT. Or you can go to money.com slash ask and click the blue microphone button. So let’s get to it. Leslie, lots of folks working on projects today. Who’s first? |
| 00:02:14 | LESLIE: Barry in Texas is on the line with a painting question. How can I help you? |
| 00:02:17 | CALLER: Well, I have an arbor outside my house. The beams of my house extend out from the roof and it makes an arbor outside. And I’ve had a painted it a couple of times and the paint keeps wearing off. And I’m afraid the wood’s going to start rotting. And I’m wondering if I should do something special to protect the roof, to protect the wood, like maybe put some water seal on it, or I even thought about maybe putting some metal stripping it, but I thought that might get wet and make it right even worse. I just really want to protect that wood. |
| 00:02:52 | LESLIE: Well, I think, first of all, let’s talk about the process of which to properly paint exterior wood. Now to start, you want to make sure that you’re getting off anything that’s sort of peeling and not sticking. So if you can, you want to either scrape some of it away, but without damaging the wood. So you can also use a chemical stripping agent, which would take the paint off of the wood and get as much of it off as you can and then get it nice and smooth, you know, sand, any rough areas if you’re stuck with them. And then I would use an oil based primer and an oil based paint if you’re allowed in your area because that’s truly going to adhere. The trick is that Wood’s got to be bone dry before you go ahead and paint it, because if it’s slightly wet, nothing is going to adhere properly and that truly will help out a ton. |
| 00:03:33 | CALLER: Okay. So just use oil based instead of latex paint. |
| 00:03:35 | TOM: Yeah, but Les Leslie said you’ve got to get down to the wood because if you’ve got multiple layers of paint on there, it’s just going to keep the laminating between the surface of the paint, especially being in such a wet location. So you want to get the old paint off, make sure it’s super dry, an oil based primer, let dry real well and then a good quality topcoat. And I think you’ll find you’ll get a lot more years out of that surface before you have to do this again. |
| 00:03:57 | CALLER: Okay. She also said that it sounded like she said I needed to get down and smooth the wood. But this is it’s rough cedar. So, I. |
| 00:04:05 | LESLIE: Mean, only if you’ve got areas where, you know, where you’ve got unevenness from any paint that might not come off just so you’re not seeing like that, that sort of like rippled edge of the old paint with the new paint. That’s truly the only places that I would do it. |
| 00:04:18 | TOM: And you can also use a wire brush, too, if it’s a rough. That’s what I just want to just we just want to make sure you get rid of everything that’s loose there. You really get down to an original surface so you have something that can really bite the new paint confide in to see the primer is kind of the adhesive here and that’s why it’s such an important step if you do a good quality primer that’s going to really bind to the wood and bonds, the paint and try to keep the whole system together because it really is a system we don’t think about paint as being a system, but it is |
| 00:04:46 | TOM: the binder sticks to the wood and the paint, the topcoat sticks to the binder. |
| 00:04:50 | CALLER: Okay, great. So. So oil base primer top with oil based paint. |
| 00:04:53 | TOM: Got it. Good luck with that project. Mary, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. |
| 00:04:58 | LESLIE: Sandra, you’ve got the Money Pit. How can we help you today? |
| 00:05:01 | CALLER: Oh, hello. My question concerns, would you recommend a read on test for a house? Our home is a two story house on a hill and the lower level, which is completely furnished, is two sides underground and it has two sides ground level. And if we have a radon problem, can something be done to correct that? We’re in the Pacific Northwest, about 60 miles south of Seattle. |
| 00:05:27 | TOM: And do you hear about high radon levels in that area coming up? |
| 00:05:30 | CALLER: Occasionally, I don’t, but I’ve never talked about it with anybody. So I saw something in the paper recently that suggested people have this test. |
| 00:05:39 | TOM: Well, it’s certainly a good idea. So order a radon test kit. You can probably find one online. The type you want is called charcoal ad absorption ad. So RB ad, not ab adsorption. And it’s a type of test that you’ll put in the home for anywhere from about 3 to 7 days. You open up this charcoal canister or this charcoal packet, depending on the type of test you leave it in the lowest living space or whatever, the lowest area, finish living space. As you leave it there for that period of time, you seal it back up, you send it off to a lab. They’re going to give you a result if it comes in at four pictures per liter of air or higher, then that’s the action guideline, after which point you would want to consider some sort of remediation. Now you ask the question, Well, how do I do that? Exactly? And the answer is, it’s harder when the whole space is finished, but it’s not impossible. Generally, the way rate on is mitigated is by a system called a sub slab ventilation system, where they basically run pipes below the surface of the lowest slab and pull the gas out of the soil and then discharge it outside. So it’s a matter of figuring out where to get that pipe into the slab and where to discharge it out, you know, with the least amount of disturbance, but a good rate on mitigate or can do this even in a finished house. |
| 00:06:54 | CALLER: Oh, my gosh. It sounds quite complex. |
| 00:06:57 | TOM: Well, it’s pretty straightforward, but you’ve got to start with the test. So I would do that first. |
| 00:07:01 | LESLIE: And that’s only if they find something. |
| 00:07:02 | TOM: Yeah, exactly. |
| 00:07:03 | CALLER: Uh huh. Okay. Are there areas in the country where you’re more likely to have radon? |
| 00:07:08 | TOM: Yep. If you go to the EPA website, EPA dot gov slash radon, there’s information about radon zones across the entire country, including contact information for your local state area. |
| 00:07:23 | CALLER: Oh, all. |
| 00:07:23 | TOM: Right. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. |
| 00:07:27 | LESLIE: Jeff in Georgia, you’ve got the Money Pit. How can we help you today? |
| 00:07:30 | CALLER: So I’ve got a home that I bought recently. It was built in 2006. However, it has a two. Both bathrooms have a fiberglass or an I guess it’s a fiberglass insert tub from one of the tubs if you while you’re taking a shower, if you move around say there’s a loud squeak and pop that you kind of hear almost as if it’s binding and the way that it’s mounted or the way that it’s inserted. So I don’t know of a way to get under there to secure anything or I don’t know of a way to an relieve some of that stress. What can we do? |
| 00:08:07 | TOM: What it means to me, Jeff, is that the tub was not put in correctly by the builder with those fiberglass tubs. The best technique, because you’re right, they are very flexible. So what the better pros do is they will put a loose mortar mix on the floor. So like take a bag, a quick treat, mix it up, maybe a little looser than they normally would. Then they’ll spread it out on the floor where the tub is going to be set and then they’ll like push the tub kind of into it. If you think about it as that dries, it gives you support across the underside of the entire surface of that tub, and that stops the flex that you’re now experiencing because as you use it over the years now, your house is about ten years old. So lots of showers have happened between now and then and it’s starting to loosen up a bit. I will say that I’ve rarely heard it actually cracking and breaking through, so I would tend to think it’s more of an annoyance. It is rather, rather difficult, if not impossible, to do anything about that. Now, you know, if you could get access to that area under the tub, you know, you could inject some foam in there or something of that nature. But even doing that, I would perceive very carefully because if you if you didn’t get it in in just the right way, sometimes those foams can expand and push up, you know, so I think I would just kind of live with it and not really try to fix it, but I think that’s exactly what’s happening. |
| 00:09:35 | CALLER: Well, I think what you’ve done is you’ve moved one of our projects to the top of our list. So if we were the replacing the tub insert and or the flooring and everything in that bathroom was something that we had really thought about doing. Okay. Now we thought we had a little more time. |
| 00:09:53 | TOM: Well, I wouldn’t disagree with that. I don’t think this is an emergency. I think, you know, it’s it sounds like it’s kind of an emotional emergency because it’s plugging the heck out here, which we sympathize with. But, you know, I don’t think this is a this is an urgent matter, but certainly it’s another reason if you’re planning on remodeling your bathroom to get it done. |
| 00:10:12 | CALLER: I think that definitely moved it up a little higher. All right. Good. That’s for sure. Listen, I appreciate it. I love you guys. You guys have definitely helped me out a million times. |
| 00:10:21 | TOM: So happy to do that. Good luck with that project. Let us know how it comes out. 888-666-3974. Well, outdoor living spaces are super popular right now, and that includes outdoor kitchens. But there are definitely some key differences between designing an indoor and an outdoor kitchen space. So let’s start there. First of all, powering an outdoor kitchen does come with plenty of considerations, considering that nothing is protected from the elements. Then you’ve got plumbing to deal with. It’s got to be set up to easily be drained in the off season. And even the appliances you choose, like the refrigerator, for example, have to be rated for outdoor use. |
| 00:11:00 | LESLIE: So the first step, guys, when you’re planning this outdoor kitchen space is to think about the location. Now an existing patio that’s going to be a great foundation for your outdoor kitchen space. You can add counters and a grill without making any structural modifications. Decks on the other hand, you might need to add some support. Now you’re going to want to pick a location that’s not too far away from your home so that you’re keeping those back and forth runs minimal and the side of the house can be an ideal spot. There’s no need to excavate trenches for gas or run any additional electricity lines, and outdoor kitchens are almost always the most social of spots. So you want to make sure a grill smoker is not going to blow in the direction of those family and friends. We’re hanging. |
| 00:11:42 | TOM: Out now. Need to think about electricity and plumbing. So when it comes to electricity, you’re definitely going to need at least some lighting for test lighting or for appliances. And you also need to include ground fault outlets, those GFCI outlets that will have the set that the test and reset buttons on them. They’re going to protect you from shocks. |
| 00:12:00 | TOM: Now your option is to put in a ground floor outlet at every location, or you could put in one ground fault circuit breaker at the main panel. That’s a much better way to go because this way, if something trips, you know exactly where to go. It’s inside the house and you can address it. Now, when it comes to outdoor plumbing, you don’t need outdoor plumbing for anything. That’s not a requirement, but it sure is a nice thing to have stainless steel sinks work best outdoors because they don’t corrode. And unless you plan on washing dishes or vegetables outside, you really only need a cold water supply. It’s important, though, to install a shut off valve inside the house so you can easily drain that line in the winter. |
| 00:12:35 | LESLIE: All right. Now let’s talk about your options for cooking. Now, most of your outdoor kitchens are going to include a gas or propane grill. Now, with gas grills, you’re going to also need to plan to run a natural gas line or plan to use a propane grill that’s going to run on a tank. And it’s also really important that these grills be placed no closer than three or four feet away from the house. And refrigeration, that’s a great option. You can get under counter units. They’re popular for an outdoor kitchen space. They’re out of sight, they’re protected by the counter, and they’re handy for storage. And some even come with automatic ice makers and frost free features. I mean, we’re really making a great space for these outdoor kitchens. |
| 00:13:13 | TOM: But listen, we’re spending a lot more time outside now between the warm spring months and the summer and even into early fall. So why not splurge a bit? And if you’re thinking about splurging and wondering how expensive that splurge is going to be, well, look, there is some money involved here, but the nice thing is that the research shows that outdoor kitchens do deliver a return on investment about equal to their costs. So you will hopefully get that money back when it’s time to sell the house. So one splurge now. Enjoy it all season long and you’ll still get some of that value back when it comes time to sell. Although if you keep making these improvements may never want to sell right. |
| 00:13:52 | LESLIE: Amber and New Hampshire is on the line with some heating questions. How can we help you try? |
| 00:13:56 | CALLER: I was wondering if it was worth the expense of converting an oil heat system with baseball here to an electric baseball heating system for a three unit apartment building. |
| 00:14:12 | TOM: Wow. Are you independently wealthy, Amber? |
| 00:14:15 | CALLER: Oh, no, no, no. |
| 00:14:18 | TOM: It’s going to be really, really expensive to heat with electric if you’re right now heating with an oil fired hot water boiler. Hot water heat is clearly the best heat and it would be a tragedy for you to eliminate that. Now, I’m guessing that you asking this question because you want the tenants of those apartments to pay their own electric bills and cover the heat. |
| 00:14:43 | CALLER: Yes. Because right now it’s all yeah. It’s all metered separately now anyhow for electric. So I figured, you know, right now they’ve got the windows open and the, you know, oil heat is cranking. And I mean, they’re conscientious. But, you know, I think that it’s an old building and it’s the oil tankers starting to show its age or need to be replaced and then the boiler will be replaced. I’m thinking long term maintenance is, you know, is probably less. |
| 00:15:12 | TOM: Well, I hear you, but it’s going to be a lot more expensive. I mean, you know, I wouldn’t be in New Hampshire. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up paying 500 $600 a month electric bills per unit because it is very, very expensive to use electric heat. So I would encourage you to keep the hot water heater. I would encourage you to make sure it zoned separately for each unit. If you have really old equipment, it would be worth replacing that equipment with new energy star rated equipment. If you’re going to have to replace the tank anyway, you could do that. At the same time, the efficiency today of new units compared to those that are, you know, even sometimes ten years old, let alone those that are 20 or 30 years old, is astronomically more efficient. |
| 00:15:56 | TOM: The new stuff that’s out there today. So I would never tell you to an ditch the hot water baseboard. There’s got to be a better way to solve this in terms of people wasting your heat that you’re paying for with your hard earned dollars. You know, maybe you have to control the temperature in the units and make it so they can’t change that temperature. And this way they’ll never be opening in those windows again. There’s some imbalance there. You’ve got to deal with the actual imbalance issue. But I don’t think tearing out all that good hot water baseboard system and replacing it with electric is the answer for you with gas. |
| 00:16:31 | CALLER: I mean, it makes sense to churn, to convert to gas and. |
| 00:16:34 | TOM: You get an option with gas and gas is more desirable than oil. C Definitely is getting an option for that and compare prices, but I would never get rid of the hot water ever. |
| 00:16:44 | CALLER: Okay. Because on our system about split heat systems are going to have built in air conditioning as well, sort of popping in the air conditioners and their windows. |
| 00:16:53 | TOM: Well, then they can pay the electric bill for the air conditioning. You can split the electric and let them pay for the air. I don’t see any reason that can’t be done. Okay. |
| 00:17:01 | CALLER: Well, that’s true too. And have the in-wall you know that. Good. So call it a split system. I don’t know what that is, but. |
| 00:17:07 | TOM: If it’s electric power in there, you have the electricity split among those apartments, then they’re paying for the air conditioning. |
| 00:17:15 | CALLER: Right? So right now they put the window air conditioners and if. |
| 00:17:19 | TOM: They got to plug that in and they’re paying the electric bill. So one way or the other, whether it’s a built in unit or not, if it’s electric, they should be paying for it. |
| 00:17:27 | CALLER: Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much. |
| 00:17:29 | TOM: You’re welcome. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT Season two of the Profiles podcast is out now. Just go to L4 Soaring Dot.com Slash Profiles s l l flooring dot com slash profiles. Profiles podcast is all about tips and advice to give professional contractors, builders, remodelers, renovators, designers, decorators. If you’re in the business of improving and building, you’ll learn a lot from the experts we talked to on the Profiles podcast. Again, go to L.A flooring dot com slash profiles. |
| 00:18:01 | LESLIE: Joe in Ohio, you’ve got the money pit. What can we do for you today? |
| 00:18:04 | CALLER: I got a question for some bamboo, lamb, laminate or snapped together flooring and somebody told me I needed to have a special underlayment that that goes with the bamboo compared to just the regular underlayment that you can use on the other free floating floors. |
| 00:18:27 | TOM: Well, first of all, let’s just clarify. You mentioned two materials. You mentioned bamboo and you mentioned laminate. Now, laminate is not bamboo. You could have a bamboo pattern and laminate. But are you talking about real bamboo here or are you talking about a laminate for. |
| 00:18:40 | CALLER: I think it’s a laminate because it snaps together. It’s about a little bit over a quarter inch thick by five and a quarter inch wide. |
| 00:18:49 | TOM: Okay. So laminate flooring, depending on the manufacturer, often has a type of underlayment that they recommend, and it’s usually a very thin like I’d say maybe like about an eighth, a 3/16 of an inch thick, spongy kind of material. I have seen it as sort of a roll of white, what looks like sort of white foam, the kind of material that you might, you know, pack dishes in if you’re moving, you wrap it around, it around. I’ve also seen it where it’s attached to the back of the board. So typically there is some type of soft underlay the material that goes down and it just gives the floor a little bit of give as you’re walking across it. So that’s kind of what you’re looking for. I would go back to the manufacturer that made the product, find out exactly what underlayment they recommend, and then just use that. |
| 00:19:33 | CALLER: It sounds good. We’ll have to look at the box and see what who the manufacturer is. There you go. Somebody gave me 130 square foot of this laminate flooring, so. |
| 00:19:43 | TOM: Oh, fantastic. |
| 00:19:44 | CALLER: Yeah, yeah. It’ll go right. It just be the right fit for our kitchen also. |
| 00:19:49 | TOM: All you got to do is pick up the underlayment. You’re good to go. That’s a fun. Do it yourself, project. Listen, Joe, just remember this. When you get close to the to the edge of the room, don’t go right up against it. Make sure you leave about a quarter of an inch, at least between the laminate and the baseboard molding. And then you cover that gap with shoe molding. A lot of times folks go too close and then as the floor starts to expand, it sort of buckles off and there’s not much you can do about it. So leave a little bit of gap. It’s called a floating floor for a reason. Okay. |
| 00:20:17 | CALLER: Thank you much. I appreciate you folks. |
| 00:20:19 | TOM: Mara, thanks so much. We appreciate you as well. Joe, good luck with that project. |
| 00:20:22 | LESLIE: Well, if you’re hoping for a blooming spring garden, prepping the soil now is a vital part of having a successful and beautiful spring garden. So here’s where you start now. First of all, you want to pick a sunny spot. Now, you might be tempted to choose a spot in the yard that’s most convenient for you. However, many times, the most comfortable place in the yard is not the most productive plants need. Full sun to grow well, which means the area should receive at least 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. |
| 00:20:49 | TOM: Next, you want to clear away any debris, either trash wise or weed wise. Your best preparation of garden soil really starts with a totally clean slate. So get rid of the weeds, clear out any debris like branches, dead plants, trash. Get rid of those weeds. No matter how young they are. This is going to help keep your garden free of these very pesky intruders in the coming months. |
| 00:21:11 | LESLIE: All right. Next, you want to loosen up that soil, no matter the type of soil that you’re using, it’s crucial to break up that top layer before you plant anything. Now, a garden tiller is going to make this job a lot easier. Or you can grab a shovel and loosen it by hand. Either way, you need to loosen up that top foot of soil so that the new roots can grab a hold. |
| 00:21:30 | TOM: Now, when the soil is ready, it’s time to test it. So pick up a test kit at a local home center or garden center and check the soil for the right nutrients. Very easy to do. It’ll help you determine what kind of soil you have and what you need to add to make it more receptive to plant and vegetable growth. You want to aim generally for a peach level of about 6.5 for the best results. |
| 00:21:50 | LESLIE: All right. Now, next, you’ve got to add compost to the soil, and that’s going to give plants the needed energy that they’re going to use throughout the season. And compost is also going to help that soil hold water, which can be useful during the hot, dry patches of the summer. Now you can buy your compost or you can create your own compost pile and you want to mix in the compost, the top layer of the soil for an even texture. And that’s going to create the best and most successful base for these plants to thrive and grow and really look amazing. |
| 00:22:18 | TOM: And finally, the fun part, right? You want to choose which plants to grow. |
| 00:22:22 | LESLIE: Yeah, you’ve done all the hard work. Now you have the fun. |
| 00:22:25 | TOM: So now you want to get down to business. So first thing you want to do is choose the plants you want to grow. Remember how much space they need, you know, take the information from the nursery in terms of what the spacing is. I always think when we plant our garden at the beginning of the year, they look so sad and so sparse, and by the end, I’m building eight foot tall trellises to hold up the tomato plants from falling over on the cucumbers or something like that. So they do grow. Just remember that. And following the space advice is really, really important. But you know what? Kids are going to start now and you’ll be good to go. And I don’t know where you live in the country, but in our part of the world, you know, we have veggies really through well, definitely the end of September and sometimes into October depending on a warm the full season is. |
| 00:23:09 | LESLIE: So you have to deliver time. |
| 00:23:11 | TOM: My neighbors have come to expect on a healthy supply of tomatoes. |
| 00:23:15 | LESLIE: I’ll just say, speaking of delivery, do you deliver to Long Island? Because I might be expecting some as well. |
| 00:23:20 | TOM: Absolutely. |
| 00:23:21 | LESLIE: If I order by noon, though, will it arrive the same day? |
| 00:23:24 | TOM: And you have prime, right? You have money per prime. |
| 00:23:28 | LESLIE: Courtney in Rhode Island’s looking for some gardening tips. What can we do for you? |
| 00:23:32 | CALLER: I’m trying to find a spot for my raised garden bed. I’d like to put it behind the house, which is the north side. And I remember last year the spot being full sun, but last week I noticed it was completely shaded. How can I tell where it was going to? Where a good spot will be, you know, when it comes time to plant. |
| 00:23:49 | TOM: Yeah, I think you’ve just. You’ve just told yourself, you know, it depends on how high the sun is in the sky. And right now. |
| 00:23:55 | LESLIE: It’s a seasonal thing. |
| 00:23:57 | TOM: Yeah, and it’s a seasonal thing. So in order for you to get full sun for the longest period of time, it has to be in a more wide open space with no obstructions and the north side of the house is generally not the best place to put a garden because it typically is the cooler side of the house. And, you know, I had a situation when I first moved to my home that was like that where we had a spot that I always use in the garden. And, you know, because we lived there, my family lived there before that. I kind of did notice how big the trees had gotten, but I did notice that my garden was getting smaller every year until I was like, Duh, I got to move the garden. |
| 00:24:29 | TOM: And once we moved it to a full Sun Southern spot, the garden production pretty much doubled and tripled. So I think that you basically have to get it somewhere else other than the North if you really want to have a long season here. |
| 00:24:41 | CALLER: Gotcha. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. |
| 00:24:45 | LESLIE: Well, hardwood floors, they add beauty, durability and value to a home, but they do need to be refinished from time to time. And here’s how to best get that project done. First of all, how do you know if your floors really need to be refinished? Well, there’s a simple test, actually, that can give you some indication of how badly they’re worn. First of all, you want to go to a high traffic area where the finish takes the most abuse and then pour a tablespoon of water onto the floor. If that water forms beats, then the floor is still properly sealed. If that water takes a few minutes to seep in and then only darkens the floor slightly, the finish is only partly worn and should be refinished soon. But if that water soaks right in and leaves a dark spot, it is definitely time to do that project. |
| 00:25:29 | TOM: Now, that is a big project to do, by the way, refinishing a floor. It’s a job that takes, you know, a lot of effort. And while you might be able to do it yourself, it’s probably not one that you may want to do yourself, because it starts with removing all of the furniture in the room, of course, cleaning the floor and then removing the old finish and removing the finishes. An area where we constantly see well-meaning DIYers get themselves in a jam. Now pros are going to use floor standards for that part of the project. Even if you were to rent one, it takes a lot of practice to get the skills to use it. And one slip up means you’ll be staring at deep, ugly gouges for all the days you have left in your home. Now, if the floor finish is only slightly worn, it doesn’t have any big dings or denser scratches or cracks. You could simply buff the floor with a sanding screen you’d use like a floor buffer would. You’d also have to rent, but instead of the buffer, you would use a screen underneath that. And what that does is just sends off the upper surface of the finish and gets it ready for the next coats, which is a much easier and far less potentially destructive wage for your floor for the finishing that follow. |
| 00:26:32 | LESLIE: Yeah. Now next comes the refinishing part after it’s sanded. Now, this really is a big job and you got to do it right. If you’re retaining the floor, the color you see in the store is really the color you’re going to see when you apply it to your floor. Now, the age of the floor, combined with the old finish, means absorption rates are going to vary and a pro will know how to apply the stain to keep everything looking nice and more importantly, looking even. Plus, the finishes that pros apply are often much tougher than what you might find in a home center or even the paint store. They’re going to dry quickly and get you back into your newly refinished rooms as quickly as possible, which, trust me, you’re going to want, because this is a big, long process. |
| 00:27:14 | TOM: It really is. Now, in terms of applying the finish, the way that’s usually done is with a lamb’s wool mop. Now, lamb’s wool is a piece of material that has absorbed sight on one side, a smooth side in the back. If this gets wrapped around a wood applicator, which kind of looks like a wet mop that you might sponge, mop that you might buy to do your kitchen or bath floors, that sort of thing. But this is designed specifically to hold that lamb’s wool and you dip into a paint tray that’ll be full with the urethane, and you start mopping it on and working your way out. You cut in the outside edges like normal, and you work your way to the door, close the door behind you, and then don’t go back into that space for at least a day, if not longer, because it always takes longer to dry than what it says on the can. You’re going to have to do a couple of coats when you’re done. You can have a floor. It’s going to last you, you know, several more years. Now, I did this, Leslie, to the house that we bought last year, and we had 1906 floors that were fur floors and an open fur, but they were attractive, except they were really, really worn. And I did hire a pro to do the work, even though I could have done it myself. Because, listen, it was an awful lot of work to be done. I wanted it done quickly. Plus, these guys had all the tools. They even had a specialized sander that was designed to go underneath the radiator. So you didn’t have to do that part by hand. And they really did an amazing job. The before and afters were just stunning. And so I’m a firm believer in not always doing it yourself. If there’s good reasons to hire a pro in this case, that’s exactly what I did. Even though I could have tackled the job by myself. |
| 00:28:45 | LESLIE: Yes. Sometimes it’s better to let somebody else do it, Tom. That’s a that’s a big, messy project. Yeah. Richard wrote in saying, I had a leak in a second floor bath that got the ceiling very wet and the room below. I’m getting conflicting opinions whether I need to replace the ceiling, where it leaked the stain right out and the drywall doesn’t look damaged. |
| 00:29:04 | TOM: Yep, that’s a good question. Now, just to clarify the situation, you don’t have to replace the drywall if it’s not become damaged itself. And really any surface that gets wet, people worry about mold, Leslie, a lot. But unless it stays wet, then you don’t have any issue with mold because once that water dries out, there’s nothing really to feed. It needs that water to after kind of survive. So in your case, Rich, what I would do is I would prime that ceiling with good coat of primer, and then I would paint it because if you don’t put primer on, the stain will come through. But if that water had set behind that ceiling for a long period of time, the ceiling would become swollen or deformed. That’s the reason that you replace the ceiling. It’s not anything to do with mold. It’s really just that it doesn’t look right. So in this case, it sounds like you got the problem fixed pretty quickly because it didn’t cause that kind of long term damage to the surface. It’s just a stain. So prime it, paint it and move on. |
| 00:29:57 | LESLIE: Now, Charlotte wrote in saying, I’m thinking about adding a heat pump to a house that I’m in the process of buying in western Pennsylvania right now. The home has a gas furnace, but no central AC. I like the idea of having one system that does both, but I appreciate your opinion. |
| 00:30:11 | TOM: Well, first of all, an electric heat pump is still going to be far more expensive to run than a gas furnace. And to add an air conditioning, even with a heat pump, you’re going to have to redo your ducts. So I think you’re much better off if you’re ready to replace the existing furnace is to go ahead, make that replacement and then modify the dux to support a central air conditioning system. Today, you can do this with very efficient air conditioning systems and very efficient heating systems. You know, your furnaces today can the efficiency is going to be in the nineties and frankly, as close to 100 as they get. I mean, I’ve got a system that is probably 95% efficient and it’s just awesome. The heating bills have gone way down since I made that upgrade, but I would not give up gas heat to go to heat pump. You can’t get efficient heat pumps. They’re still not going to compete and they’re pretty expensive to run. |
| 00:31:01 | LESLIE: So, Tom, at this point, if Charlotte is at the stage of considering really upgrading the entire HVAC system in the home, do you start thinking of the extra bells and whistles like whole home humidifiers, you know, anything like that? Is this the time to kind of consider that? |
| 00:31:15 | TOM: Well, yeah, because installing that sort of thing after the fact requires modifying the docs. I’d rather see you plan that in now, even if maybe you don’t have the budget for it. You could configure the ducts that those systems could fit in, but I would consider definitely a humidifier. And if you can do that, you also should consider a whole house air filtration system, or I should say maybe more efficient air filtration system than just the standard fiberglass filters that come in electronic air cleaner, for example, would be optimum that can take out not only dust, but even virus sized particles from the air. So while you’re at it and I always say those are the four most expensive words in home improvement in this case, you’ll spend more if you do that part of the project later. So do it all at once. |
| 00:31:55 | LESLIE: All right, Charlotte, I hope that helps you out while you’re at it. |
| 00:31:58 | TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Hey, guys, thank you so much for spending a bit of your day with us. We hope that we’ve given you some great ideas, maybe some inspiration to avoid the perspiration when it comes to planning and tackling your home project, especially your spring home projects. This is just such an energetic time of the year to get outside, to do projects outside that you project inside, whether it’s a deck, a patio, simply a painting project, whether it involves driving nails or picking up a paintbrush. Now’s the time to get it done. And we will be here for you, as always, to help you get those projects done. When you reach out to us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT or post your questions always at moneypit.com/ask. Until then, I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:32:39 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:32:40 | TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself. |
| 00:32:42 | LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone. |
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(Note: The above referenced transcript is AI-Generated, Unedited and Unproofed and as such may not accurately reflect the recorded audio. Copyright 2023 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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