Eco-Friendly Flooring Options, An Easy and Inexpensive Way to Clean Your Shower, Stop an Insect that's Killing Ash Trees Across America, and more

Eco-Friendly Flooring Options, An Easy and Inexpensive Way to Clean Your Shower, Stop an Insect that’s Killing Ash Trees Across America, 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.

Well, Earth Day is next week, so we’re going to share with you a hot trend in flooring that is eco-friendly, durable and great-looking. And also, being that it’s Earth Day, we want to share with you a lot of green cleaning tips. So we’re going to give you some advice on an easy and inexpensive way that you can keep your shower from growing mold and mildew, without a ton of scrubbing. I know it’s spring-cleaning season but let’s cut back on the cleaning somewhere.

Also, Arbor Day, not too far off, guys. We’re going to tell you about a bug that’s destroying ash trees across America and tell you what the experts are weighing in on a way that we can help stop the infestation.

And if you’ve got spring-cleaning chores on your to-do list this weekend, we’ve got a great prize pack up for grabs from our friends at Casabella. It’s worth 50 bucks and that’s going out to one lucky caller who reaches us with their home improvement question. So what are you waiting for? Pick up the phone, give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT for help with your projects and your chance to win.

TOM: 888-666-3974. Give us a call right now. You will get the answer to your home improvement question and an opportunity to win that great set of cleaning tools from Casabella going out to one lucky caller we speak to this hour, 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Charles in Ohio is on the line and is dealing with some dogs that like to just eat away at the yard. What’s going on?

CHARLES: I was wondering if there’s an economical way to fix my problem I’m having in my backyard. I have a fence that’s square-shaped in the back of my yard, if you count the back of the house. I have two dogs and they like to run from one side of the house to the other, leaving a mud path – hardened, baked path – from one side of the house to the other. And I’m looking for a way to fix that that would be easy on my pocketbook.

TOM: OK. So, can we control the dogs so that they won’t wear it out again if we restore the lawn?

CHARLES: No. The dogs, they – any time they see anything come across in front of our house, they like to run from one side to the other. So without chaining them up, which defeats the purpose of our fence, we like to let them run free.

TOM: You know what? A couple of things come to mind, one of which is that the kind of grass that you have there – I was thinking, Leslie, that something like a zoysia grass might be a little bit tougher.

LESLIE: It is very, very durable.

Now, the other thing I was thinking – is this directly in the front of your house or is it on the side of your house?

CHARLES: The fence is in the back of the house, so basically it’s a big smiley face from the left side of the house to the right side because they run around the – my deck.

LESLIE: I was going to say if there’s a way to make a slate pathway or some sort of stone that obviously would change the look of the yard itself but would give you an area that’s not going to be constantly scratched away at.

CHARLES: That sounds very feasible.

LESLIE: And that’s not difficult to do. You can completely create a pathway using some edger or you can get remnants of slate at any sort of stone yard. You can think about a ton of different ways to do it. Pavers. You can pick a price point and stick to it.

CHARLES: That sounds great. Will the dogs, because I put stone back there, stay off of that and create a new path or will that not affect the dogs at all?

TOM: I don’t think so. I think the dogs want to run against that fence, so they’ll probably try to get as close to it as possible.

CHARLES: That sounds great. I sure do appreciate it. I’ll look into some stone work then that – where I can make a smiley face going – back of my house.

TOM: Alright, Charles. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Juanita in Texas is on the line and needs some help with a kitchen-cabinet painting project. How can we help you?

JUANITA: I have wooden cabinet and it had oil-based paint on it. And I put some water-based paint not knowing what I was doing and I want to remove the water-based paint. How do I do that?

LESLIE: Now, Juanita, when it came to prep work, did you remove or prep that surface of the existing finish on the cabinets in any way? Or did you just go ahead and apply the new paint to the old?

JUANITA: I just applied the new paint to the old.

LESLIE: Now, I think that’s what the problem is and not so much about water-based over oil-based. The issue is with the oil base, you’re dealing with a sheen, so you’ve got a slippery surface on the cabinet there. And then you’re dealing with years of use, so the kitchen cabinets are going to be a little dirty and slippery themselves. So, when you put the new paint on top, it didn’t really have anything to adhere to and just sort of slicked right off. So I imagine it’s probably peeling and rubbing off in areas, right?

JUANITA: Uh-huh.

LESLIE: So what you want to do at this point is – I mean because you’re dealing with different mixtures of paints here, you might want to invest in a stripping agent. One that I like to use when it comes to cabinetry is called Roc Miracle and it’s R-o-c Miracle. Comes in what looks like a turpentine can. And you apply it because it’s kind of – I would take all the doors off.

Did you do the boxes, as well?

JUANITA: No, I did not take the doors off.

LESLIE: OK. It might be easier for you, just because you’re going to be taking off the finish, to just unscrew the cabinet door from the hinges and leave the hinges on the box themselves and sort of label it. If you’ve got one door off, put a tape on the back that says “A” and put a piece of tape on the inside that says “A,” just so you know exactly where they go back to. It makes life a heck of a lot easier.

Lay them down on a flat surface, apply the stripper, let it sit there. Then you’re going to scrape it off. You’re going to give them a light sanding, clean them off well. And then I would personally use a very good-quality glossy paint because that’s going to adhere well at that point. And it’s going to give you a good finish that’s very cleanable.

JUANITA: Alright. I appreciate it.

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

LESLIE: Coming up, we’re going to tell you about an invasive insect that’s destroying the ash-tree population across the United States of America. We’re going to tell you everything that you can do to make sure that these bugs are stopped, so stick around.

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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. Give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT.

Now, one caller who gets on the air with us is completely chosen at random and you guys are going to get a great head start on spring cleaning, with storage and cleaning products from our friends over at Casabella.

It’s a prize pack worth $50. You can check out all of their cleaning products at Casabella.com or pick up the phone and give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT for your chance to win.

TOM: 888-666-3974. Let’s get back to those phones.

Leslie, who’s next?

LESLIE: Now we’ve got Dawn in Florida who appears to be a texture junkie looking to retexture a ceiling.

Dawn, I think this a first. How can we help you?

DAWN: My house is about a year-and-a-half old and when they textured the ceiling, it’s a light orange peel, same thing they did on the walls. And they said it would be easier and more economical to do that than to try to do a slick coat on my ceiling. I don’t think that’s true. Instead now, a year-and-a-half later into it, then I noticed that you can still see the mud marks.

Well, I’ve been doing a lot of research on painting and they have all this Venetian plaster and all these different techniques. And I often got to wondering if I could do that on a ceiling - the same wall technique on a ceiling.

TOM: What does the ceiling look like right now? Like how deep is the texture that you have?

DAWN: Very light. It is a very light orange peel but you can still see the tape and the mudding. Late at night, I look up there and I’m like, “I can still see the lines where the drywall goes together.” So, you can definitely see it raised.

TOM: I’m concerned that even if you do put the Venetian plaster kind of paint on that, that it might not be thick enough. Because if you can see the tape and the mud, it means that the ceiling was never properly spackled. And if it wasn’t properly spackled, you’re likely to see that through no matter what you do.

DAWN: Well, what do you think I should do? You think I should hire somebody to come in and just redo my ceilings? It’s not a very big house. It’s actually an ICF-construction house. It’s got solid concrete walls with rebar. And so it’s very solidly built and I went through a lot of trouble to have it done so a hurricane couldn’t blow me away. But I want it to look good on the inside, as well.

TOM: ICF stands for Insulated Concrete Forms, for those in our audience that have never heard that term used. And it’s a tremendous way to build a house because it is hurricane-proof. Literally, all the things that get thrown around in a hurricane will not pierce the outside of the house. You’d be surprised how quick a 2×4 could be jammed right through a building that’s made with wood siding or even vinyl siding. Could be even worse.

And the ceiling itself, if it wasn’t completely spackled, I’m concerned that if you put anything on top of that, it’s going to show through. So I would suggest then – what you might want to do is to sand – have somebody come in and sand those areas that are not properly spackled. Do a good job spackling them and then lightly sand the whole thing, put a good coat of primer over it and then – because this is a repair, it’s not going to be as smooth as if it wasn’t a repair. So then you could use a plaster paint – a Venetian plaster or a textured paint – as a final step. Does that make sense?

DAWN: OK. Well, I think we’re on the same page and I appreciate it.

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

Well, as the weather warms, we see more and more insects out there and they are not only annoying, they actually cause millions of dollars in damage every single year. And they can really decimate certain species of trees and plants.

Case in point: the emerald ash borer. This bug has killed tens of billions of ash trees in 12 states and 2 Canadian provinces. And the dangerous part is that it might not be obvious that a tree is infested but as it dies, large chunks of it fall off. Now, because ash trees are a popular tree species, they often choose to line roadways and this puts pedestrians and cars at risk.

In fact, there was a report recently that a school bus in Ohio actually had a tree fall on top of it, injuring five students and the bus driver. Wow.

LESLIE: The emerald ash borer was actually first discovered in Ohio in 2003. Now, these trees can be saved if the infestation is caught in the early stages. One of the early signs is when you see a lot of woodpeckers hanging around this particular tree, because they actually feed on the ash-borer larvae.

Now, other signs are going to include the tree’s canopy thinning, shoots sprouting up at the roots and bark that’s splitting. The insect itself is a bright, iridescent green and it’s about a ½-inch long. So if you see it, say something.

TOM: But if you do suspect an infestation, you might want to consider reporting that to your local county extension office or contact a qualified landscaper, because insecticides can actually be used to treat ash trees. As long as they are at least 50-percent healthy, they can apply the insecticides and kill the ash borer beetle.

LESLIE: Keith in Illinois is on the line. How can we help you today?

KEITH: I have a one-and-a-half-story house that has a – on the second floor is the – well, the rooms are basically half-heights. They’ve got the – in the middle, they’re full height but on the edges, they’re not. That’s where the closets are at.

During certain times of the year, the trusses tend to expand and it lifts the drywall in the edges and causes it to curl along the seams. And the builder wanted to put crown molding up there to prevent that. And what I had wanted to do, obviously, was prevent the action completely. It had been recommended before to add ventilation above the attic to get good airflow through there. The builder has said that by adding additional venting, which would be – I would consider the side vents. He said that would actually ruin the venting system that’s already in place, which is in the eaves.

Do you have any additional recommendations for that?

TOM: Well, a couple of things. First of all, truss lifts happen when the trusses shrink and they pull up in the middle of the room and that’s why you get the ceiling cracks, correct?

KEITH: Yes.

TOM: And the ventilation you have right now, do you have continuous soffit venting?

KEITH: Yes.

TOM: And do you have ridge venting down the peak of the roof?

KEITH: Yes.

TOM: Well, you’ve already got the best ventilation system out there. So as long as it’s working properly, it’s not blocked, there’s no point in putting additional ventilation in there.

KEITH: OK.

TOM: Now, is it possible for you to get above the trusses, down like right above the ceiling?

KEITH: Well, I can’t get above that area. I mean it’s boxed off and of course, they have it insulated but they do have the Styrofoam blocks that prevent the insulation from blocking the truss vent. No, unless I cut through the top of the roof, I cannot get above the ceiling there.

TOM: Well, if the trusses were installed correctly – which, of course, isn’t going to help you – there are some L-shaped truss clips that they would have installed that could have prevented this problem, that help as the roof expands and contracts. The reason I asked you if you could get to them is because they may be able – you may be able to install them after the fact.

But if you can’t get to them, then I’m afraid there’s really not an easy solution to this. If you were to add a second layer of drywall over what you have and you were very careful to make sure that the seams didn’t line up with the seams you have now, you may create a roof that’s strong enough – or a ceiling that’s strong enough – to not show cracks like it is. I would also glue the new layer to the old layer. But again, I would overlap those seams, so to speak. Does that make sense to you?

KEITH: Yes. So they don’t line up.

TOM: And that might make it strong enough. Because right now, there’s no strength in the seams; you know, it’s just the paper.

KEITH: Yeah.

TOM: So that’s going to be the weakest part of the ceiling structure. If you were to put a second layer of drywall and glue across that, then I think you would have a really, really sturdy ceiling and it would be unlikely that it would continue to crack.

KEITH: If I could stand on the – because I can get in the attic and get up to where the 2x4s come together in the truss. Would I be able to screw in a bracket there? That’s what you’re suggesting to basically strengthen that joint?

TOM: Keith, if you can get on top of the drywall, so to speak, those trusses are going to be attached to interior walls in some places, correct?

KEITH: Yes.

TOM: So what you would do is you would have to detach them from the interior walls and you would put an L-clip in place of the nails. The clip is attached to one side; there’s a slot on the other. And that allows the truss to move up and down and it will relieve some of that uplift and cracking.

Now, when you do that, you might see – over the next year, if the truss starts to try to move again, you may see some nail pops that occur. And if that’s the case, you want to punch them up and through to kind of relieve the pressure and then patch the drywall.

But I do think by the time you go through all that work, that it might be an easier solution just to put a second layer of drywall on. Because your problem is primarily with the seams and that’s going to be the easiest way to fix that.

KEITH: Yeah, it does sound like it. Alright. Thank you very much.

LESLIE: Michelle is on the line from Los Angeles, California with a cleaning question. How on Earth did you spill some glue on your floor? Tell us about it.

MICHELLE: Well, this is an interesting story. My fiancé and I just bought a condo and it needed some renovations. We weren’t planning on buying a fixer-upper; it’s just how it worked out. And one of the things was the floors.

He decided that he would install them himself; he’d done it once before. And so these floors required a glue, which a lot of folks like – we know a lot of people and people were like, “Glue? I never heard of glue.” But that’s what the lady that we bought the floors from said, so we got this really intense glue.

And he kind of slammed through these floors pretty quickly and now I have this glue in fingerprint and bulges on top of the floors. It’s really terrible. And I’m just wondering – we’ve tried – the turpentine works but it takes the finish off. That’s what you’re supposed to use to get it off your tools and off your hands and stuff? But it takes the finish off the floor. We’ve tried these 5505 wipes that are like $20; that didn’t work. Those are the recommended product - the anti-product to the glue. We’ve tried something called Goof Off or Goo Off or something like that. I don’t know if you have a trick but this glue is really intense.

TOM: I think what you’re going to have to do is try to get it off as best as you can but you – just buy into the fact that you’re going to probably want to refinish these. And it’s not that big of a deal, by the way. What you could do is get everything off and then what I would do is I would sand the whole surface. And you could rent a floor buffer with a sanding screen. It’s not like a caustic, rough belt sander.

MICHELLE: Sure. But I don’t think with a sanding screen …

TOM: No. You put a sanding screen on it and it abrades just sort of the upper surface of the floor.

MICHELLE: OK.

TOM: And then once you get that all abraded and even if you have to sand down deeper in the areas that are really bad, it’s OK. Because you get it all abraded and you get it all roughed up just a little bit with the floor buffer and the sanding screen. Clean it up really good so you have no dust and then you get some urethane – clear urethane. You want to use semi-gloss. And you apply that with a lambswool applicator.

Now, that kind of looks like a mop for a kitchen except there’s lambswool on the end of it. And you essentially pour a little urethane in a paint tray and you mop it on very carefully and very smoothly, working out of the room. And then give it a day or two and it’ll dry and you should be good to go.

Now, the one other thing I would do is check with the manufacturer of the hardwood floor to see if there’s a specific floor finish that they recommend for refinishing, because I’m not quite sure what they did initially.

MICHELLE: Thank you very much.

TOM: You’re very welcome, Michelle. Good luck with that project and congratulations on your upcoming wedding.

Hey, if you survive the home improvement, you’ll survive the marriage, OK?

MICHELLE: We’ve been living together five years, so this kind of thing is not new, honestly.

TOM: It’s nothing, huh? Alright, Michelle.

MICHELLE: Thank you very much.

TOM: Take care.

LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. Still ahead, an easy way to keep your shower clean without a ton of effort. You’ve got to love that. The Money Pit continues, after this.

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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.

LESLIE: Hey, guys, right now, you can enter The Money Pit Green My House Sweepstakes. We’ve got some great prizes up for grabs. The grand prize is an ENERGY STAR-qualified refrigerator from Amana. There’s also a high-efficiency washer from GE offered as our first prize. And we’re going to have five Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostats as second-place prizes and finally, a household worth of energy-efficient light bulbs as our third-place prize. That’s a great prize.

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

MICHAEL: We’re trying to remove paint from a concrete floor and we’re not sure what type of paint it is. But the paint thinner and the really high-dollar paint removers have no effect on it. We painted on top of it and the paint that we put down on top of it was made for concrete and it’s supposed to be the high-durable paint but it just will not stick to it. You can just wipe it off with your fingernail.

TOM: Wow. What kind of top-quality concrete paint did you put down? Was it an epoxy paint?

MICHAEL: Oh, you’ve got me there.

TOM: Was it a two-part? Did you have to mix two parts of paint together to get there?

MICHAEL: No, sir. Well, they did the mixing at the store.

TOM: A couple of things. First of all, I would give it another shot with a good-quality paint remover. We’ve had very good success with Rock Miracle, which is one that is a pretty good paint stripper. So you want to get as much of that old stuff off as you can.

But in terms of the concrete floor, the sort of state-of-the-art way to finish a concrete floor today is with epoxy paint. And there’s a number of manufacturers that make this. Rust-Oleum makes one, QUIKRETE makes one, a few more manufacturers make them.

The way epoxy paint works is it’s a two-part mix. You get a can – a gallon – that’s short-filled; it usually has about two – about three-quarters paint and then an air space. And then you get a quart can that’s got the hardener. And you dump the hardener into the gallon, stir it up and then you apply that as the paint. And they usually also come with color chips that you can put in there to give yourself some texture, some finish to it. And then through chemical reaction, it will dry.

And you will find that the epoxy paint is a lot stickier than, certainly, a latex paint is. And so I would do the two things: I would strip off the paint that’s coming through – the one where you feel like you don’t have a good base – and then I would consider putting an epoxy paint down on top of the whole thing. Because I suspect that the paint that you did put down may not be that durable.

MICHAEL: Alright. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

TOM: Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Now, I’m one of those people – I know this is weird – I actually love spring-cleaning time. You know, it’s really a great time of year to freshen up your entire home. Plus, as gross as it may sound, both of my kids have had pink eye, so it’s really a great opportunity for me to open those windows and clean everything and get everything out of the house.

But there’s one thing that I do not like cleaning and that’s the shower. It’s a tight space and unless you want to clean it while you’re actually taking a shower, which doesn’t sound like fun to me, you’re probably going to end up getting soaking wet.

There is a solution. It’s called Wet & Forget Shower and it’s a weekly spray that you actually spray in your shower. And it’s going to do all of the cleaning work for you.

TOM: Yep. It’s really easy to use. You just spray it on today and you rinse it tomorrow. There is no scrubbing involved and there’s also no bleach or ammonia. And it has a very fresh vanilla scent. I mean seriously, cleaning your shower has never been easier.

This product also won’t scratch or dull as it cleans and you can use it, really, on everything in the bathroom: the surrounds, the fixtures, curtains, glass, tile, just about anything.

You can pick up Wet & Forget at participating Ace and Do it Best retailers or online at WetAndForget.com. That’s Wet – A-n-d – AndForget.com.

LESLIE: Alright. Now we’ve got Ed in Tennessee on the line who has a question about a crawlspace. How can we help you today?

ED: I’m thinking about putting my dogs in my crawlspace. I’ve got a large crawlspace and I was wanting to – they’re big dogs and I was going to take and build beds out of treated lumber and put shavings in them – cedar shavings. And just wondering if there’s something I haven’t thought about doing that, if there’s a downside to it.

TOM: Well, are they housetrained? Are they going to treat the crawlspace like the backyard, so to speak?

ED: They’re housetrained.

TOM: As long as they’re going to keep it clean down there, my friend, I don’t see any reason why you might not want to do that. It certainly will be cool and comfortable for them in that space in the summer.

ED: That’s what I was thinking, so …

TOM: You know, it’s pretty much like leaving them outside except they’ve got a little shade.

ED: Right.

TOM: But as long as they’re not going to cause any problems in there and use it as a bathroom, then I wouldn’t worry about it.

ED: Alright. Well, thank you very much.

TOM: Ed, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. Still ahead, we’re going to share some details on a durable and beautiful flooring option that also happens to be eco-friendly. We’re going to tell you everything you need to know about bamboo floors, after this.

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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. The number here is 888-MONEY-PIT, 888-666-3974.

Now, one caller this hour is going to have a cleaner and more organized home, thanks to a giveaway from Casabella. It’s a prize package that includes five products. Got some really cool gloves that’ll help you clean your blinds.

Check them out and all of their other cleaning products at Casabella.com. It’s a prize pack worth $50, so pick up the phone for help with your home improvement project and your chance to win.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

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

REBECCA: We have a tree root that has grown into the foundation of our home. Did not realize it until we took the floor up. And we’ve got the tree down and the stump actually ground down so, obviously, the roots are still underneath the house. We have a lot of problems with the room that was damaged by the tree root, where it came – it has a big hump in the middle of the room. We’ve kind of covered it with furniture; it’s our media room. Used to be the garage of the house but it was enclosed when we bought it.

We have a lot of problems when it rains. Water, mud comes underneath the rug. And I was wondering if there is a way that we could somehow patch the floor or if we need to get someone to jackhammer up the cement floor that’s in here – because, again, it was the garage at one point, so it’s poured cement – or what we can do to kind of help the problem: if we have to repour the entire section, if we could dig up just that one section and maybe patch it up or what.

TOM: Well, first of all, there’s no reason you couldn’t cut out that one section and repour just that one section.

In terms of the water issue, I suspect what’s happening is the water is collecting somewhere outside of that area and it’s finding that the path of least resistance. So it’s pushing down around your foundation, under the floor and up into the garage. So you need to try to track down what that issue is. It’s probably a drainage issue somewhere outside those walls, either with gutters or downspouts or for some reason you’re getting too much water that’s collecting in that area. I would look to that as a source of the water.

But in terms of the floor, you can jackhammer it up in just a section and cut down – of course, remove all those tree roots. Because here’s the thing: now that the tree is dead, those roots will continue to rot away and you don’t want to have voids under that slab. Once the slab is up, you want to dig out as much of those roots as you can. And then you can put stone in there and repour that and cover it all up.

So those are the two things I would do: I would remove the area where the bulge is, remove the tree roots and repour it. But also look to the source of the water because I think that what’s happening is you’ve got a symptom there. The tree root is not causing the water to come in; it’s just following the path of least resistance and working its way in at that spot.

REBECCA: OK. Thank you.

TOM: Well, the most popular topic that we are asked about on the program, literally, year after year – and it makes sense – is flooring. I mean it’s the biggest surface in your house. It takes a lot of wear and tear. And if you’re looking for an eco-friendly flooring option, you might want to consider bamboo.

Now, this is a new trend that we’re seeing here and I think it’s going to be here to stay. It’s a very strong material. It looks like hardwood but it’s a renewable resource, so you can feel good about the choice. It’s something that’s really on all of our minds this month because of Earth Day.

LESLIE: It’s also really easy to maintain and keep clean. All you have to do is give it a daily sweeping and a weekly damp mop and that’s going to do the trick. And the good news is that bamboo is just a little more water-resistant than wood flooring, so you’re not going to end up with as much warping. The price is also comparable to hardwood and you can refinish bamboo flooring in a really similar way to wood if it does become scratched or damaged.

So do the Earth a favor. Check out bamboo flooring and then you’ll be giving a nod to the Earth, this Earth Day, in style.

TOM: Good advice. Let’s get back to the phones, 888-666-3974.

LESLIE: Robert in Florida, you’ve got The Money Pit. I understand you’ve got a countertop question for us.

ROBERT: My Formica countertops are starting to come unglued. And I’m trying to find out what a good glue would be to use to make sure that they are fully cemented back into place. It’s not a large section. It goes up about 8 to 12 inches at a time. I do have some C-clamps that I can use to fasten them down.

TOM: As long as it’s the countertop that’s coming unglued and not you, Robert, we can help.

What you want to do is use contact cement. Now, the area that is separated, with contact cement what you want to do is try to actually separate that area as much as you can because you’re going to kind of work in there. So if you can peel up the loose area, maybe put a piece of wood in there or something as a spacer to really have some area in there, do that.

And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to pick up some contact cement. And contact cement is available as – in either water-based or solvent-based. The solvent-based works a lot better. So a small container of contact cement – not rubber cement, by the way – contact cement, specifically used for laminate. You brush it in there and as the name implied, it dries on contact. So you keep it separated while it’s drying, OK?

And then once it’s dry – which just takes 15, 20 minutes – then you will pull out your spacers and press that laminate back down in place, working from back to the front. And you can put a towel over it or even a rolling pin works good and roll it down really, really good and really, really tight and that’ll hold it. But the contact cement is what you need. Any other type of adhesive that you – will not work.

ROBERT: OK. So nothing like maybe LIQUID NAILS or anything like that would …

TOM: No. In a pinch, for a tiny edge, yes. But if you have a separation like that, contact cement. That’s what it was done originally and that’s what will work. Just make sure you clean it, remove any debris that’s in there and be generous with the cement. Don’t make it lumpy but get good coverage, OK?

ROBERT: OK, great. Thanks a lot for your help.

LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. Still ahead, a noisy sprinkler system is the trouble for one Money Pit listener. We’re going to help him out and also tell you how you can make one spring-cleaning chore a little easier, after this.

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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, don’t forget to “like” us on Facebook and you’ll get a chance to enter our Money Pit Green My House Sweepstakes. We’ve got an Amana refrigerator, a GE HE – that’s high-efficiency washer – and a few other great prizes up for grabs. You can visit MoneyPit.com and click on the Facebook icon to get started.

LESLIE: And while you’re online, you can head on over to the Community section of MoneyPit.com and post your question there, just like Jim in South Carolina did. And Jim writes: “I had a sprinkler system installed a couple of years ago. And every time it changes zones, the pipe under my house knocks. How do I keep the pipes from knocking every single time my sprinkler system changes zones?”

TOM: Well, I’ll tell you what, Jim, that sounds like what we call “water hammer.” And let me describe what water hammer is. Water is very heavy. If you’ve ever picked up a gallon of milk, for example, that’s similar in weight to water. You’ll find that it weighs 8 pounds. So if you think about it, when you turn your sprinkler system on, those valves come on very quickly. The water is under pressure and that water is running, running, running, running really quickly through the pipes. It’s running through the supply from the street, it’s coming into your house, going through the main water valve and then heading out to the sprinkler system.

And then when those valves in the sprinklers shut instantly, that water has a certain amount of inertia as it’s moving forward. And what it’ll do when it stops short like that is that inertia will pull the pipe – physically pull the metal pipe – with it and cause that pipe to bang. And that’s what’s called “water hammer.”

So what we need to do to stop that is install what’s the equivalent of a shock absorber to take that inertia and sort of back it off. So, that’s called a “water-hammer arrestor.” And the water-hammer arrestor is like a tank that has a valve inside of it. It’s like a tank and it has a sort of rubber valve inside of it that compresses that water against air. And that absorbs that shock very, very effectively and will catch that and not cause the pipes to shake.

Now, the other thing that you should do, just to make sure that it doesn’t damage the pipes, is systematically go through all of the supply pipes in your basement, everything that’s accessible, and make sure that they are securely attached to the floor joists above them. Because if they’re not, then you have more things to rattle.

The thing about metal pipes is, man, if you tap on it in one place, you’ll hear it completely on the other side of the house because they carry the sound like crazy. So, install the water-hammer arrestor – that’s something that should be done by a professional – and then secure all of the loose pipes. Make sure you use proper pipe clamps for that. If you attach the pipes properly to the floor joist and you use the water-hammer arrestor, you won’t be bothered by that banging noise any further.

Well, your kitchen exhaust fan is an appliance that should not be ignored. It does need a thorough spring cleaning, just like everything else around your home. And Leslie has got the how-to on how to do just that, in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.

LESLIE: Well, kitchen or circulating exhaust fans are kind of in that better-than-nothing category, as far as an air-cleaning appliance is concerned. But that doesn’t mean they should not be kept at their peak efficiency so that they work as best as they can.

Now, you want to remove both the metal and the charcoal filters in the exhaust fan. You can go ahead and soak the metal screens and then replace any of those charcoal filters about every six months. When you can, wipe away the grease from the underside of the hood and replace the light bulbs. And keep extra ones on hand because you’ll always run out of those bulbs when you least expect it and then they’re really kind of hard to find. So buy some extras, keep them around because there’s very specific ones per each exhaust fan.

If you do that, it’s going to do the best job that it can to keep your kitchen steam-, odor- and grease-free.

TOM: Good advice.

Hey, coming up next time on The Money Pit, if you have a septic system that isn’t working right, you will know it immediately. But we’re going to have some tips on what you can do to maintain it so you will keep the flow, 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.

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