Cool Solutions to Heat-Proof Your Home | Landscape Planning for an Outdoor Oasis | Draft Detectives: Is Your Home Insulated Enough? |Ep #2308

Show Notes

Reducing Heat Indoors: Feel like you’re living in a hothouse? Get cool solutions for reducing the heat in your home.
Landscape Planning: You don’t need to be a pro to plan a lovely landscape. Find out simple tips on how to start.
Proper Insulation: Is your home insulated well enough? Learn what it takes to stay comfortable and save on energy bills.

Plus, answers to your home improvement questions about:

Exterior Painting: Blowing pollen has stuck to Beth’s newly painted columns. She should sand the surface smooth again and surround the area with tarps to protect it until a new coat of paint dries.
Refinishing Kitchen Cabinets: Randy wants to match the colors on his painted kitchen cabinets. We’ve got tips on how to stain, repaint, or reface them.
Lawn Care: Why won’t one area of the lawn grow? We tell Deb to get a soil sample tested to see if it needs different treatment than the rest of the lawn.
Wall Insulation: Do you need a thermal barrier on cinderblock walls? We give Rick info on using Tyvek and how to insulate walls to prevent moisture and mold.
Door Weatherstripping: The insulation is wearing out on John’s double storm doors. He can look for similar weatherstripping to replace it.
Squeaky Floors: Donna’s concerned about her squeaky kitchen floor. It’s annoying, but not a structural problem, and we tell her how to find the cause.
Light Fixtures: How hard is it to split the electrical wiring to install two bathroom light fixtures? It’s fairly easy to do, but Gary should call an electrician for the job.
Ridge Vent: Mary just doesn’t like the ridge vent that was installed with her new roof. We explain that it’s doing exactly what it should for proper ventilation.
Painting Cedar Siding: Paint is flaking off the cedar siding on Frank’s home. He should use a wire brush to clean it off and then use an oil-based primer before painting it again.

Do you have a home improvement or decor question? Call the show 24/7 at 888-MONEY-PIT (888-666-3974) or post your question here.

Podcast Transcript

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0:00:36	TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles. This is the Money Pit Home Improvement show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
0:00:42	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
0:00:43	TOM: And we are here to help you take on the projects you want to get done around your house. What are you working on? Is it your deck, your patio, your porch? Are you working on some projects inside a sprucing up the yard? Well, whatever’s on your to do list, we’re here to help you create your best home ever. You can reach out with your questions, and we’ll help you get those projects done. The number here is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Or you can post your questions at Money Pit, AECOM slash ask. Just click the blue Microphone button. Coming up on today’s show, as we approach the hottest days of summer, one of the keys to avoiding excessive heat and staying safe, cool and comfortable in your home is to limit the amount of heat that actually gets into your house. So we’re going to share a few surprisingly easy ways to do just that. And whether you have a green thumb or you need to hire out the job, creating a simple landscape plan is a great way to get started. Stepping up your outdoor space. We’ll share tips on how you can plan a beautiful exterior for your home. And also ahead, did you know that up to 90% of homes are under insulated and very likely your home is as well. Spring’s a good time to find out what you’ve got and what you need. We’ll share how to do that project in just a bit. But first, we want to hear from you. We’re here to help you tackle your to do’s with confidence. So help yourself first. Reach out to us by going to moneypit.com/ask and clicking the blue microphone button.
0:02:08	TOM: Let’s get started. Leslie, who’s first?
0:02:11	LESLIE: Beth in Texas is on the line with a painting question. How can we help you today?
0:02:14	CALLER: I had four columns on the front of my house and I live downtown, and old neighborhood has beautiful hundred 50 year old oak trees. I have these four columns and I had the wood rots out from the bottom, sit on concrete, and at last time I had them fixed, which was about ten years ago. They put like a plastic or some kind of a block that’s the same size as the column. It’s a barrier saying that the moisture barrier maybe between the concrete and the pulp. So then time passes and it comes around again. And so I said, Oh, my gosh. So I dug out the rod again. I went to Home Depot and I got from that product that, you know, you can fill in with like a bond. Oh, right, right. It’s sometimes it has wooden, but it’s plastic. It’s down the well, there’s anyway, I did that and course my wounds were so deep that it only put, you know, layer about a 14 inch in and it took me forever to fill up the little holes. And so I finally got to the edge and I said did it looked pretty darn good. And so I painted it. And then I put the first coat on. I said, Oh, this paint kind of thing. And so I put another coat on. So in the meantime, here comes all this pollen from these giant oak trees and all this stuff. It falls from the trees. I’m not freshly painted wood. I started crying. Oh, no, I cried because I didn’t know what in the world to do about paint. I mean, that. Such as sucked it up like a sponge. And so, I mean, I didn’t know what to do.
0:03:47	LESLIE: All right, well, where are you now with the columns? Are you at a point where you need to replace them again, or are you trying to just figure out a fix?
0:03:53	CALLER: Well, actually, what I did is I went back and I slightly standard. I waited for a while and this and it lightly and then I put another topcoat on and I don’t know if I still have blue I don’t know what it is. It’s not yellow pollen, but it’s something, you know, this kind of mud paint is bumpy. It’s not it’s not nice like it should be after all that work.
0:04:15	LESLIE: Well, here’s a couple of solutions. You do need to sand it if you want to get the surface nice and smooth again. That’s truly the only thing that’s going to get rid of the pollen that’s sort of embedded itself into that wet paint. Then once you get a nice smooth surface on that column again, what you want to try to do is and I know it would be a pain in the butt, but it’s going to be super duper duper helpful if you can get some paint, tarps, plastic, canvas, whatever. If there is a way to sort of build a tent in these tarps around, you know, the area to keep the pollen from sort of wafting in there while the paint is drying and while you’re painting, you know, it’ll be unsightly while the process is happening. Just because your beautiful front of your home will be draped in TARP. But it will actually help to keep the air circulate in behind it to actually dry the column paint, but it will keep things from landing on it. So I would look into a way to do that. You know, they make all sorts of little poles and different things that work for tarps, but also, you know, a couple of good clips. Maybe you’ve got, you know, an overhang there or something that you can clip on to without damaging a gutter. So, you know, that really could do the trick. Now, fast forward to a couple of years down the road. When you end up with such an amount of rot, again, you might want to consider replacing the columns with an architectural composite column. Now, in a lot of cases, because your wood column is actually a support correct?
0:05:40	CALLER: Yes, ma’am.
0:05:41	LESLIE: So what you might end up doing is they might replace that wood column since you’ve done that before. They might replace the wood column with some sort of post that would be metal, that would be structural. And then there is an actual decorative wrap that looks exactly like the same type of fluted column or whatever type of column you might have that wraps around that support pole and then is a composite. So once it’s painted and finished, you won’t have to paint it again for a long, long, long, long time because it’s not made of organic material. It’s not going to take that moisture up that you’re getting from the concrete and it’s going to simply clean up with, you know, soap and water. So, you know, keep that in mind for down the road. And they would do that, you know, column at a time and make them structural. So there are ways to get around it, but you’re going to have to sand again.
0:06:29	CALLER: Now, I it didn’t look too bad, but it doesn’t look too good either. But thank you so much. I’ll try those tips. Right.
0:06:38	TOM: Beth, it sounds like you got your work cut out for you on that job. Thanks so much for calling us at 88 Money Pit.
0:06:44	LESLIE: Randy in Illinois is on the line with a kitchen cabinet question. How can I help you today?
0:06:48	CALLER: Yeah, I recently purchased a home and it had some of all wood cabinets and kitchen, and they’re half bisque color and they’re half a little lighter color, depending on which part of the cabinet you look at. And I’m trying to figure out a way to get them back to either all one color or the lighter version.
0:07:09	TOM: What’s the material that your cabinets are made out of?
0:07:12	CALLER: I believe it’s oak, but it could be pine.
0:07:14	TOM: Well, assuming that the oak is finished. One of the issues that you’re going to have is that you can’t really stain it and change the color. So you’d have to either painted or you’d have to sanded down. Since most those cabinets are covered with veneer, it makes it also difficult for you to be able to send enough of that finish off to have it accept stain. So your resulting options would be to refurbish the cabinets, which is adding new veneer to it, or to paint the cabinets to get that consistent look.
0:07:44	CALLER: Okay. Okay. That sounds good. I’ll do that. Thank you very much.
0:07:48	LESLIE: Deb in Wyoming, you’ve got the Money Pit. How can we help you today?
0:07:51	CALLER: Yeah, I’ve got some trouble with an area of grass right in the middle of my yard. It’s probably 20 by 20.
0:07:58	LESLIE: The yard are the problem area.
0:07:59	CALLER: The problem area is probably 20 by 20. Oak.
0:08:02	LESLIE: That’s a big.
0:08:02	CALLER: Problem. Yeah, and the lawn is pretty big and it grows really good all the way around this area. And it only it’ll grow. Maybe, you know, an inch or two and then it kind of heads out and never really gets green. We put extra water on it and we fertilized it and created just like the rest of the lawn. But it just doesn’t look good. And seems funny that this would be just in one area. Well, it could be.
0:08:35	LESLIE: You know, that that area, for whatever reason, has a different balance than the other parts of your lawn itself. And therefore that the seed that you’re using is reacting differently to the soil than the other areas. So you might want to take a couple of soil samples from the problem area and have those tested. Sometimes the home centers sell little kits. Sometimes you might have to contact your local building department to find out who you can do that with. But you can have a soil test done pretty easily and inexpensively. And once you know exactly what’s going on with the soil in this area, I mean, that could be, you know, enlightening to have this information because you could be using the wrong seed, you could be using the wrong fertilizer. That will tell you exactly what type of fertilizer, when, how to water it. That’s really the key here. And that should clear up a lot of this problem.
0:09:24	CALLER: Okay, that sounds great. I’ll give it a try. Deb, I.
0:09:27	TOM: Hope that helps you out. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
0:09:32	LESLIE: Brook in Pennsylvania, You’ve got the Money Pit. How can we help you today?
0:09:35	CALLER: Well, yes, I have a question about a bedroom wall. I’ll tell you real quick what I have. It’s a cinder block wall, and on the outside of it is a stone facing. And then on the inside, they just had four ring strips and then plaster. So no insulation and a very cold in the winter. So what we’re doing, we’re tearing down the plaster, we’re going to frame it out, we’re going to play it. I guess it’s Art 19, I think it is in there and then drywall it. But my question is, we were talking about putting a thermal barrier on to the block itself. And I guess I have a couple of questions or concerns. A, is it going to be worth it? Is it going to raise the R value any and D, there’s not really going to be an air cavity. It’s just going to be the thermal barrier on the wall and then the insulation is going to be touching that. So I’m kind of afraid it’s going to act more of a conductor.
0:10:30	TOM: Well, what you might want to think about using there is Tyvek.
0:10:34	CALLER: On the inside.
0:10:34	TOM: Yeah, the insides vapor permeable. So I think it’ll allow everything to breathe, but it’ll keep some separation between the block and the frame. And by the way, you’d be wise to leave at least an inch there in between and not have it up against the block. Because you really don’t want to have an organic material like wood and certainly not drywall that close to a very damp source, which would be the concrete block, because concrete blocks are a very high risk topic. They suck up a lot of water and especially, you know, periods of bad weather. So you do want to have a bit of a space there. But I think that I would cover the block first with Tyvek, then I’d frame up against that. Now, another option to kind of kill two birds with one stone is consider spray foam insulation. If you did spray foam insulation, you could frame the wall and then you could spray into the framing right up against the block wall and then it would be cut flush with the wall and you would put your drywall right on top of that. The spray foam has the advantage of being able to not only insulate but seal a draft roof at the same time, we recently added spray foam insulation to our entire home. Now we have an existing home much like you. And of course, it makes it difficult to get into the walls. But what we did was we put it in the box beams, which all we all were around the sort of the perimeter of the basement crawl space. And we added it to the attics and just those areas without even doing the walls because we weren’t opening the walls at this time made a huge difference in the energy efficiency of the house. So big fan of ICE, anything I see any as a result of that experience? Okay.
0:12:08	CALLER: Yeah. I didn’t even think about anything like that after I have to check into that. Do you know, I guess I have to look that up online or whatever. There’s somebody around my area.
0:12:16	TOM: I’m sure that there will be ice. Nene is a Canadian company, but they have dealers all across the country.
0:12:21	CALLER: Now, if I didn’t do that and I just I’d put the frame and the stone up to the block wall. You said to leave an inch. How what would you recommend? How would you do that?
0:12:30	TOM: I would just simply frame the wall out away from the block. Okay. And don’t attach the frame wall to the block wall, because I’ll tell you some of the worst cases of mold infestation we’ve seen is when you have wood framing attached to block walls and drywall, which is essentially mold food. In fact, one of the thing you might want to consider is to not use drywall on that wall, but use something called dense armor, which is a fiberglass faced drywall product. So without the paper face, you don’t have food to feed. The mold makes sense. All right.
0:13:01	CALLER: Well, thank you very much.
0:13:02	TOM: Well, now that the hottest days of summer are just ahead, it’s a good time to talk about how to avoid excessive heat and stay safe, stay cool and comfortable in your home. Now, with temperatures like this, there are actually lots of things that you can do to limit the amount of heat getting into your house. Let’s talk about a few. Now, step one, keep those blinds and curtains closed, especially on the south and west sides of your home. This is where you get the most direct sun. Now, another way to do this is to invest in smart window coverings. These are a lot less expensive than you might believe. They run off apps and they can automatically go down and close the blinds during the hottest parts of the day. Keep those window coverings closed during the day. You’re going to significantly reduce the amount of sunlight and heat that is your home. And all the heat that you keep out is less that you have to pay the air conditioning. Speaking of air conditioning, adjust your thermostat during summer. You can actually save up to 10% of your energy bills by turning your thermostat up 7 to 10 degrees from its normal settings for 8 hours a day. Ideally, of course, when you’re away. You can do this manually or you can set your smart thermostat up to do this automatically. Next, let’s talk about protecting your power, because the inevitable power failures are going to happen and you can avoid those by investing in a whole house generator to make sure you always have power, even in outages caused by extreme weather. Another option is reflective window films. These are pretty cool. I’ve had these on a vehicle that I owned once and I found it amazing because, you know, in the summer your car gets in the middle of a parking lot with a shake. It’s like super hot. Well, that never happened to my car after I put these reflective window films on. They weren’t tinted. They were almost perfectly clear. So it wasn’t like, you know, I was some sort of celebrity hiding behind the tent. And what they do is they actually pass out the UV rays from the light, So they don’t reduce the light, but they reduce the heat and they’re very, very effective now in the House. They also have the added benefit of keeping the furniture from fading, the carpets from fading, the artwork from fading. And so on. So because they’re blocking that U.V., it really makes a big difference. And then lastly, think about limiting the use of heat generating appliances. We’re talking about ovens, dryers, other appliances that create heat. You want to run those at night, not during the day. And if there are electric and other benefits, running them at night is sometimes in some areas of the country. We have smart metering where you’re charged less in off peak hours, the electricity that you’re paying for. So lots of good reasons to think about when you’re running those appliances. But all told, if you follow a few of these simple steps, you’ll reduce the heat in your house and also reduce the cost of getting rid of that heat by paying for air conditioning.
0:15:42	LESLIE: John, Florida, you’ve got the money, but how can we help you today?
0:15:45	CALLER: I have these double doors, storm proof doors. They’re made out of fiberglass and they have a steel piece that goes down in the middle. And the insulation has receded from where it’s supposed to be. And I’d like to know where I would find this stuff to replace it with.
0:16:01	TOM: So these are metal storm doors, John.
0:16:02	CALLER: I know they’re fiberglass. The metal rod that goes down the middle. There’s a metal piece that goes from top to bottom in the metal and that has insulation in it. And it seems to receded at the bottom of the door. At the top of the door.
0:16:17	TOM: Oh, I know what you’re talking about. Yeah, that’s the ashtray goal, which is the piece in between. And that piece of insulation typically will pull back at that at the upper corner in the lower corner of the door, you should be able to find maybe not that exact type of insulation, but one that one that’s similar in a weather stripping supply center. So hardware store home center, you should be able to find either rubber or a heavy felt weather stripping that could replace that original one. That was part of the manufacturer. Because sometimes with older doors like that, it’s hard to get the exact part right. And the doors have no labels or anything that tells me who the manufacturer was.
0:16:57	TOM: Yeah, I know. And that’s a part that’s the piece of weather stripping that typically does wear out first. So I would think about being creative. You’re not going to be able to find the exact part, but you’ll find something very similar that you should be able to make work.
0:17:08	CALLER: All right. I think that’s.
0:17:10	TOM: Interesting. Thanks so much for calling us at 88 Money Pit.
0:17:14	LESLIE: Okay. Let’s welcome Donna from North Carolina with some squeak and floor is what’s going on.
0:17:18	CALLER: We have a 13 year old home in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was purchased as new construction. We have squeaky floors, wood floors, primarily in the kitchen in front of the sink. Originally, we there were shims placed between the choice to even the floor after we moved in. But after a first frost, there were raised areas of flooring, particularly in the kitchen, and some of the shrimp shims were removed to even the floors once again. Currently we’re selling our house and my concern is that when the purchase, the purchaser employs a home inspector, that the squeaky floors would be so obvious that we would need to resolve the problem. And I wondered what you would suggest we do.
0:18:07	TOM: I was a home inspector for 20 years and I’ve never ever in those 20 years reported squeaky floors as a structural problem.
0:18:15	CALLER: Okay.
0:18:16	TOM: So on that point, I don’t think you have a lot to worry about unless you have somebody that really doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Sometimes if you get an inspector that is really under skilled, they will take the mine. New normal occurrences of a home and turn it into a major issue. But that said, it is kind of annoying and trying to figure out why it squeaks. Requires you understanding which part of that floor assembly is moving because it’s evidence of movement. So if there’s movement between the subfloor and the floor. Joyce Underneath that could be one source. Or if there’s movement between the finished hardwood floor and the subfloor in the floor. JOYCE That’s another type of movement. You can you can deal with all of this if you were to be able to identify where from the top side, from the kitchen side, the floor, JOYCE are underneath that area that’s loose and then you can drive what’s called a trim screw, which is about as wide as a finished nail with proper prep, which means you have to pre drill the floor, but you can drive a couple of those into the hardwood floor to kind of tie it all together. And once you do that, you’ll find that you’ll quiet it down quite a bit. And the size hole that you’ll have to fill is no more than the width of a finished nail.
0:19:34	CALLER: Okay. So the key is finding the joists, I would guess floor.
0:19:39	TOM: And there’s a way to do that, too. And you can do that by measuring it out. Or you could simply get a stud finder or a stud sensor. They have them today where they’re good enough where they can actually see through two or three inches of building material and find the floor joists below. With great precision, Stanley makes a number of very good quality and inexpensive stud sensors that that can do that.
0:20:01	TOM: But don’t panic. A squeaky floor is pretty much typical, and it’s not indicative of a structural issue. Right, Leslie?
0:20:08	LESLIE: Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s just more annoying. And I think one of the benefits of you saying, you know, you seem to have so much knowledge of the shims and what’s going on there. It makes me feel like you have access to the thing. So it should be fairly easy for you to get to the bottom of.
0:20:20	CALLER: All right. Well, thank you so much for that information. It’s encouraging.
0:20:24	TOM: Well, guys, whether you’re updating or starting your yard from scratch again this spring and summer, you can get things growing in the right direction by making sure you have a landscape plan. Now, the biggest mistake homeowners make with landscaping is not having an exact that it clearly defined plans because for the best results, you want to approach a project like a pro and consider what the space will be used for and by whom. Then you want to prioritize your wish list. You want to weigh the needs against what you like to have. I always say there’s that moment where you have to trade off what you have to have against what you’d like to have, and also be honest about how much time you’re willing to spend on maintenance, because even the best landscape plan is going to fail if you can’t put in the upkeep time and the effort required to keep it looking great. And then finally, consider the budget, which has to include both your initial landscape investments and that ongoing maintenance, and make sure the landscape plan includes the practical, like the locations of water and power lines, the drainage patterns and the view you’re going to see from the indoors. If you consider those few simple things, you’ll end up with a beautiful landscape that you’re going to enjoy for many, many years to come.
0:21:32	LESLIE: Heading out west to Hawaii, where Gary has an electrical question. Aloha, Gary. How can we help you?
0:21:37	CALLER: Aloha. Thank you guys very much. I have a situation in my bathroom where I actually want to take an existing wall light and I want to remove it and then create a situation where I have a light on either side of the mirror. So I’ve got this one electrical feed coming out of the wall. And what I want to do is I want to kind of splice it so that I can take one wire off to the left of one wire off to the right of the mirror. And I’m trying to find out if there’s easy way to do that or if basically there’s a kit that might help me do that because I’m not an electrical I’m not electrical genius here.
0:22:24	TOM: So because you’re an electrical genius, I don’t want you to try this yourself, okay? But I will tell you that it’s a fairly easy project that any electrician could do this for you, since you have power going through the one fixture, it’s very easy to split that off into two separate fixtures and use the same switch that the other fixture was on. So it’s a really simple project, but I don’t want you doing it yourself because if you want to tackle a plumbing project, you can get wet. If you want to tackle the electrical project, you could get dead. So we don’t want to try that yourself. All right. You got to use common sense.
0:22:55	CALLER: Okay. Okay. Very good. I appreciate the advice. Yeah. Thank you very much.
0:23:00	TOM: All right. Thanks so much for calling us at 88 Money Pit.
0:23:03	LESLIE: Mary in Massachusetts is on the line with a rich vet question, How can we help you today?
0:23:08	CALLER: My house is 70 years old and time it needed to be re shingled, so the roof explained. Now they use that ridge vent and they open the center of the roof. And it was great. And I was happy with the shingles, but I do not like that ridge vent. When I attic. It’s like having an open window. Is there a way I can close that?
0:23:29	TOM: No. That is doing exactly what it’s intended to do and exactly what it has to do. Mary. You know, we all grew up with homes that were grossly under ventilated. But if your attic is as ventilated perfectly, it should be the same temperature as the outside. It is not a condition space. It is unconditioned. So the heat is trapped at the floor level where you have insulation. But the ridge vent is designed to let air out of the attic where it’s most likely to exit. So for example, if your house is ventilated perfectly, the wind is going to blow over the roof. It’s going to depressurize the ridge and pull air out of the attic from that space. It pulls out moisture in the wintertime and pulls out heat in the summertime. And the other half of that are soffit vents that the overhang these work together as a properly ventilated roof. So you’ve just never experienced a properly ventilated attic. But that is exactly what ridge vents are supposed to do. And I would not change them because if you do, you’re going to have a number of issues to crop up. Number one, you’ll have moisture that will build up in the attic. And what that will do is make the insulation far less effective. If you had just 2% moisture to fiberglass insulation, it loses about a third of its resistance to heat loss. Secondly, in the summertime you have excessive heat which will make cooling the house that much more expensive. So I wouldn’t do a thing. Hmm.
0:24:50	CALLER: Okay. I was curious. I’m not thrilled with it, but I guess I have to live with it yet.
0:24:55	TOM: Get used to it. It’s doing. It’s doing its job, Mary. Okay. Thank you. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. Well, do you know that up to 90% of homes are under insulated and it’s very likely that your home is as well. And that’s why spring is a really good time to go up in the attic and find out how much insulation you actually have, because it’s very likely that you’re going to need more. Now if you do need more. Anna-Kat expanding balloon insulation is specially designed for your attic insulation project in new or existing homes and projects. You can do yourself. You can rent an adequate machine at Lowe’s and if you buy ten bags of insulation, the first 24 hours of the rental is free. Another reason to do this is because there’s a new Inflation Reduction Act tax credit that’s available in 2023. You can receive tax credits up to 1200 dollars annually based on qualifying insulation products that can be found at Lowe’s. Now the Advocate system is engineered specifically for insulating addicts and tapping your attic with Owens. Corning’s advocate system can save you 15 to 20% in energy costs. Now, if you go to Lowe’s, there’s an easy chart to tell you how many bags are needed per square foot. You just load the machine with the attic, cat pink, loose, fill fiberglass insulation and go ahead and blow it on in. And here’s an insider pro tip. Contractors tell us that setting of rulers or yardsticks in the coverage area can help you guide the coverage depth. So this way you’re getting it nice and even you’re adding a warm pink blanket to the entire space. You start saving money and improving comfort. From day one, the project gets done.
0:26:39	LESLIE: Now we’ve got Frank on the line who’s having an issue with paint on his siding. What’s going on?
0:26:44	CALLER: Frank It’s all eye pressure wash and it’s all coming off. It’s like no one ever primed it before or anything. And I don’t know if the paint was stained, and I’m not really sure what a little black was. Is he a shipwright? I mean, I’m really I don’t know. I’m lost.
0:27:01	TOM: So we’re talking about siding shingles here, not roofing shingles, Correct?
0:27:05	CALLER: Right. See the shingles? Boy said shingles.
0:27:08	TOM: So the paint’s coming off after you’ve power, wash them. So you probably didn’t have good adhesion to begin with. Yep.
0:27:13	LESLIE: A paint is going to come off when you pressure wash. That’s just how it goes.
0:27:16	TOM: Well, that’s true. And well, depending on the veracity of the pressure washer. But also if the paint wasn’t applied well, if it wasn’t primed properly, then it’ll come off even that much more quicker. So what I would recommend you do is to get rid of any loose paint that’s left behind. You’re probably going to have to break those shingles, probably brush them with a wire brush, make sure you really get anything that’s loose off of that. Then you’re going to need to prime the entire shingles surface with an oil based primer because that’s going to give you maximum adhesion. The primer. One of the qualities of the primer is that it really sticks to the substrate. Then after it’s prime, then you can put a top coat of paint over that. But that’s the process and there’s just no shortcutting. And especially if you’ve got adhesion problems with the paint that you’ve taken off, you can’t put good paint over bad paint. You’ve got to get rid of all the bad paint, private property and then repaint it and you’ll be good to go.
0:28:13	CALLER: Frank Okay. I have heard some people tell me that you could use stain Well.
0:28:17	TOM: You could use stain as well, but only if all of the old paint is off. Otherwise it’s going to look, you know, pretty bad. Now, if you use stain, you still have to prime it. I’ve got cedar shingles on my home and I primed it first and then use the solid color stain over that. And between the two of them. The last time I did it this way, it lasted about 15 or 17 years. So but you got to prime it. No matter what you do, you got to prime it.
0:28:41	CALLER: Okay. And an oil based fire. Okay. Thanks a lot.
0:28:45	TOM: You got it, Frank. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
0:28:50	LESLIE: Whatever you are working on, we can lend a hand. Jack wrote in saying We own a 1920s era tract home with floor structure issues in both the baths and the kitchen. House is in need of a complete and major remodel with new kitchen and bath. What are the best steps to take to ensure we plan for the right work to be done the right way?
0:29:11	TOM: You know, first of all, that sounds like a really great project, Jack. And you were correct to be concerned about starting and ending this the right way. My best advice would be to suggest that you enlist the help of an architect. Residential architects are a terrific resource to help with laying out the spaces of a project. And this way, when it comes to hiring the contractor, you’re already better positioned because you’re going to know exactly what the project is going to entail. You’ll have a specification that includes the scope of the project, the time frame, the budget, and you can be sure that all the contractors are bidding sort of apples to apples that the architect can also help with planning for tricky spaces as well as very specific rooms like kitchens and baths, and also give you some good advice on any work that might require or any kind of structural consideration, including sometimes you need to have an engineer step in to tackle those parts of it. So good place to start would be with professional organizations like the American Institute of Architects, which offer specific certifications in many areas to its members. So I think that’s the best way for you to get going on this project and make sure it comes out right.
0:30:16	LESLIE: All right. Now we’ve got a question here from Cat, who has a home with multiple large windows. She says they let in a ton of natural light and we love it. However, with that light comes added heat. We’ve heard about the window film and it claims to block the heat while allowing light through. Does it really work to reduce the heat without restricting the amount of light?
0:30:36	TOM: Yeah, you know, that’s a pretty common problem. And the window film today is just amazing stuff. I mean, it can block very specific parts of the UV light that comes through, including the parts that generate heat. But remember, it’s a two way street. You know, those windows are going to be blocked from excessive heat this summer, but you’re also going to have any sunlight warming you in the winter. I remember one time, let’s say if you remember as we had a question from a lady who had was really upset because she had replaced all her windows and she always was used to sitting in this one chair at her kitchen table. And now she’s cold because she no longer felt the heat in the winter, the sun coming through. I’m like, Well, that’s kind of part of the job, but it’s all a deal. That’s right. Yeah. So just remember that. But in terms of blocking the light, no, the window films today, they’re not just the dark ones it used to see on the streetcars, for example. These are kind of a wide variety of densities. They can be perfectly clear, have no blocking whatsoever and tell you what else they’re good for, and that is to protect your furnishings. Right? Less.
0:31:40	LESLIE: Oh, my goodness. It really does help a lot because if you’ve got, you know, a nice piece of upholstered furniture sitting by a window and that sun is beating in all day, you’re going to notice that certain sections of that sofa or furniture or whatever it is that gets subjected to that light all day, it’s going to be a different shade and there’s really nothing you can do about it. The sun is bleaching out that fabric. So when you add these films or change the glass in your window, when you replace a window, you are definitely doing the service of protecting the furniture, which is a big investment. Your floors, the drapes. I mean, so much stuff gets bleached out. So there’s benefits all around.
0:32:17	TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement show coming to you on a beautiful spring weekend. At least we hope it’s beautiful where you are that you’re inspired to take on projects both inside and outside your house. Because if you get stuck, if you need some help, if you want us to lend a hand, that’s what we do. You can reach out to us. 24 seven at 1-888-MONEY-PIT or post your questions at moneypit.com/ask. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
0:32:43	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
0:32:44	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
0:32:46	LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

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