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

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: And we are here to help you with your home improvement project, your do-it-yourself dilemma. Pick up the phone and help yourself first. Call us, right now, at 1-888-MONEY-PIT because we live to talk home improvement.

Coming up on today’s program, as the days get shorter and the nights get longer, it’s a good time to think about adding security lighting to your home. But to do that project, you usually need to hire an electrician to run wiring. Well, no more because there’s a new motion-activated spotlight on the market that can deliver over 200 lumens of light and it runs off – check this – batteries that last a full year. We’re going to have details on this super-easy DIY project, just ahead.

LESLIE: Plus, getting rid of trash is easy but getting rid of hazardous trash, not so much. We’re going to have advice on the easiest ways to purge your home and garage of things like old paint, pesticides, even home electronics, coming up.

TOM: And a gravel path can help you channel foot traffic in a way that’s friendly to your garden and your wallet. But installing one isn’t quite as easy as just dumping out a wheelbarrow full of stone. We’re going to get step-by-step advice from our friend, Roger Cook, from This Old House.

LESLIE: And if you call us now at 888-MONEY-PIT, you will get the answer to your home improvement question. Plus, this hour, we’re giving away a great prize to one caller drawn at random. It’s the Ring Video Doorbell Pro worth $249.

TOM: Yep. And it lets you see and speak with visitors at your door, from anywhere, using your smartphone, tablet or computer. It’s going out to one caller. Make that you. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT, 888-666-3974.

Leslie, who’s first?

LESLIE: Scott in Missouri is on the line needing some advice on a rental property. How can we help you with that?

SCOTT: I’ve inherited some rental properties from my late father. They’re in pretty bad shape, needing roofs. And when you look at them, you can see the roofs starting to bow in. And I was wondering who I can get with to find out the building codes for rental properties.

TOM: So, probably the best thing for you to do is to hire an independent, professional home inspector. And you may have to do some interviewing of the home inspectors to find one that’s particularly savvy and experienced with commercial inspections, because that’s what you’re talking about. And there are specialists that are out there. And they can review this property with an eye towards identifying a punch list for you, of elements that will probably have to be repaired or replaced to make those apartments safe and viable for tenants.

You know, if you go the route of having contractors do these inspections, you’re basically letting – you’re kind of letting the mouse into the cheese house, so to speak. Because they’re just going to find stuff they want to sell you to fix. You understand what I mean?

SCOTT: Yes.

TOM: This way, you’re better off with somebody who’s an independent inspection professional who just wants to give you the right advice. And that, in the end, is going to save you money and give you the ability to make good decisions on what has to be done.

SCOTT: Yes. Who can I talk to to find the building codes and the standards for rental properties?

TOM: That would be the building department of your local municipality. And they’re going to have a set of codes that they apply to just rental properties in their jurisdiction. And it’s not necessarily going to be up-to-date building code: the same code that you would have if it was, say, a new construction. They’re going to have some safety codes that they’re going to want you to apply to your house. So we’re talking about things like, in an apartment, making sure that the windows operate so you can get out in the event of a fire and making sure you have smoke detectors in – covering every bedroom and making sure you have a carbon-monoxide detector and things of that nature.

So, they’re going to have a set of standards for their area. You need to get that list from the building department. But to the major, many bigger areas that could need repair or replacement, that’s what a home inspector would help you with. And you can find one by going to the website for the American Society of Home Inspectors at ASHI.org – A-S-H-I.org.

SCOTT: OK. Great. Well, I appreciate the information.

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

LESLIE: Linda in Ohio is on the line and needs some advice on purchasing a generator. How can we help you? By the way, great idea.

LINDA: Is it possible to use a generator when you live in an apartment?

TOM: So are you talking about what kind of generator – like a portable generator or a standby generator?

LINDA: (inaudible at 0:04:53) standby if my power goes out.

TOM: So, for an apartment, you have to understand that a standby generator or a whole-house generator is something that’s permanently installed, Linda. So the answer would be no. That said, you could use a portable generator but of course, you’d have to run wires – extension cords – from the generator itself into the house. So it’s not very convenient.

There is something called a “transfer switch” that can work for a portable generator where it’s kind of like having a mini-electrical panel inside. But again, it’s something that requires some installation. And generally, when it’s an apartment, you can’t do that. So, the only thing you could really do would be to have a portable generator: one that you took out of storage, put outside – because you can’t run it in the apartment – and then run extension cords in to try to deal with that short-term, hopefully, power outage.

LINDA: Wow. That sounds like it would be difficult.

TOM: Yeah. It’s not the best answer but I mean it’s – see, because generators are something that are permanently installed into the building’s sort of core electrical system? And that’s why it’s real important that they be done correctly. You can’t – when you install these transfer switches inside, they have technology built into them to prevent what’s called a “backfeed,” so that electricity doesn’t go back through the wiring and can hurt a lineman, for example, that’s working on the power lines. So, you can’t really run it without the transfer switch and that has to be permanently installed. And the generator itself is a very big appliance. That said, a portable generator is much smaller.

Now, if you just want to power a couple of things, you could use a very small generator. Generac has one that’s called the iQ that’s 2,000 watts. That’s under 1,000 bucks and will power a fair number of household items: small appliances, lights, that sort of thing. But you have some options there. But again, you have to use an extension cord.

LINDA: OK. Well, thank you.

TOM: Alright, Linda. Good luck with that project. 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.

You guys, Halloween is a week away, which means Thanksgiving is four weeks away, which means Christmas is eight weeks away. Holy moly, guys. I’ve already ended the whole year. What are you working on? Let’s quickly tackle those projects before it’s 2017. We’re here for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

Just ahead, fall is a great time for garage and yard sales. But if you’re in the mood to purge, getting rid of what’s left over may not be quite so easy. We’re going to have tips on how to avoid the hassles of throwing out hazardous items, next.

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

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Pick up the phone, give us a call. We would love to talk with you about your home improvement project. And if you are the one lucky caller that gets selected out of the Money Pit hard hat this hour, we may send you the Ring Video Doorbell Pro. It lets you see and speak with visitors at your door, from anywhere, using your smartphone.

It’s worth 249 bucks. Going out to one caller drawn at random. We’d love for that to be you. All you’ve got to do is call us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Now I’ve got Ken on the line who’s dealing with some water leaking. What’s going on?

KEN: I have an enclosed patio and when it rains, it – you see it’s flooded it. It comes in underneath the wall where the patio is.

TOM: And how is that water getting there? Is it sort of running down the yard to that space? Is it overflowing from a gutter? Is it driving rain? What are you seeing, Ken?

KEN: Near as I can tell, it’s because this patio seems to be in sort of a pit.

TOM: In a pit? Yeah. OK. So what you’re going to have to do is you’re going to have to manage that water and stop it from getting to those walls. The way you do that is with something called a “curtain drain.” Basically, it’s a trench that you dig at some point in that slope where you can intercept the runoff of the water. And the trench is about 12 inches by 12 inches. There’s 2 or 3 inches of gravel in the bottom of it and then gravel that surrounds a pipe. And then you collect water in that trench. You can have, actually, grass on top of it so that you don’t really see it when you’re done. You collect water in that pipe and then you run it off somewhere.

You have to intercept that flow and stop it from getting close to those walls. You know, anything you do to the walls themselves will be kind of a stop-gap measure, whether you try to reseal them some way or the other. I think the water will always find a way through. But if you can interrupt the flow so you don’t get quite the volume of water, that, they think is going to solve it for you, OK?

KEN: Alright. So would that be necessarily right up next to the patio or could it be out in the yard out there?

TOM: It could be a little ways away.

KEN: Alright. And that’s what you call it?

TOM: Yep. A curtain drain.

KEN: Alright. Well, I’ll look into that and see what I can figure out. And I appreciate the help with that.

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

LESLIE: Nadine in South Dakota, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?

NADINE: So we have these old, decrepit wood floors. And I was just curious, is it possible to put a skim coat of concrete over it to get that Home Depot concrete-floor look?

TOM: So you have wood floors right now?

NADINE: Yes, we do.

TOM: What kind of wood floors? Are they hardwood floors?

NADINE: Yeah. They are. They are like – we went to the lumber store and just got pine and then over the pine, we put an industrial epoxy paint over them.

TOM: OK. Yeah. It would be kind of a sin to cover up those wood floors, as opposed to sanding them. But if you wanted to cover them and you wanted to have that sort of a concrete-like finish, probably what you want to do is put down a mud floor, much in the same way as you would if you were putting tile down.

You would have to nail a wire mesh to the floor and then on top of that, there would be a mixed up sort of a concrete-mud mix. Not concrete, because it doesn’t have aggregate in it, but it’s like a mud mix. Then that’s troweled out and made nice and smooth and flat. And then on top of that, you could put whatever you wanted: tile or any other kind of a floor finish.

But have you considered something like laminate? Because you could put laminate right on top of that old floor. It’s a floating floor. It locks together. It’s very easy to install and it’s very, very beautiful and super durable and I think probably less expensive than trying to get that kind of concrete finish that you’re going for.

NADINE: Like a laminate as in an engineered hardwood floor? Or like a laminate like old-school classic floor?

TOM: That’s different. So I wouldn’t call it a “plastic floor” and I wouldn’t call it an “engineered hardwood.” Here’s the differences. You’re kind of at two extremes. Now, engineered hardwood is a solid hardwood that’s made of layers, like plywood where the top layer is real wood. And that’s fine. And you can use that, alright? That’s another good option.

Now, laminate is the same kind of laminate you might have on a countertop, except it’s 20 to 30 times more tough because it’s thicker. And what they can do with laminate is they can actually create a surface that has depth to it. It has grooves to it, it has ridges. You can feel the different sort of lines of the wood knots and the grain of the wood. Or if it’s stone, it can have kind of a rough stone texture to it. You can have a lot of texture on the surface and they really have done a great job with making that today where it’s quite a beautiful floor and there’s many different kinds of it. It can look like hardwood, it can look like stone, it could look like vinyl, it could look like tile.

So, if you’re not familiar with it, you ought to look at what laminate is out there and what’s available. I think that’s going to be a much better option for you than trying to turn this into a concrete floor.

NADINE: And the laminate can go directly over the hardwood floor? What kind of prep work is that?

TOM: It can. Yep. It floats. You put a thin underlayment underneath it and then you lock it together. It sits right on top of that. And then you trim it between the floor and the baseboard.

NADINE: Cool. Thank you so much. That’s a great idea. I never thought about it, so I’ll take a look into it. I appreciate it.

TOM: Yep. Take a look. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Well, fall is the season for garage sales, yard sales and just a general cleanout before the winter really kicks in. And that’s all fine except when it comes to getting rid of what’s left over, especially if that trash if considered toxic.

Now, what’s considered toxic might surprise you.

TOM: I mean paint, for example. We put it on the walls of our kids’ rooms, right? But most authorities consider getting rid of that extra paint to be toxic. So you can’t put paints and paint strippers or car oils or other chemical wastes out with your household garbage. Instead, you have to look for household-waste drop-off sites, generally set up by the city, to get rid of stuff just like that.

LESLIE: Yeah. I know for us, it’s called STOP – Stop Throwing Out Pollutants. That’s what it stands for and I think they do it one Saturday a month. And it’s kind of a fun event. You wait in line, they take all the stuff out of your trunk. You see all kinds of weird things, like tires and paints and weird jars of stuff that you’re like, “What is that?” Like if it was my house …

TOM: You don’t even want to know what’s in it.

LESLIE: Wait, I think of my dad building model airplanes when I was a kid and I see a weird jar and I’m like, “It’s turpentine?” So that’s where you go.

Now, you guys, another item that’s considered toxic: batteries. And the best bet is to check with big-box retail stores where many of them offer the return-to-vendor boxes that are specifically for recycling those items. And speaking of retailers, the EPA says old computers, TVs and other electronics can be dropped off at so many national retailers for safe disposal. And that can include Best Buy and Staples, so you want to check around next time you’re in the market for some new office supplies or computer items. You might be surprised that they could take it back right there.

TOM: So don’t let us dissuade you from cleaning out your house this fall. But just make sure you get rid of that stuff in the right way.

888-666-3974. If you’re trying to check off a home improvement project that’s on your list, the best way to do that is to call us, right now, 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Sandy in South Dakota is on the line with a funny smell coming from the basement. Tell us what’s going on at your money pit.

SANDY: Our basement is – got a real bad, musty smell to it. And we’ve had fans going down there all summer long, we’ve had a dehumidifier going year-round. And I can’t get rid of the musty smell. I don’t know what to do with it.

TOM: Alright. Well, there’s a couple of things that you can do.

First of all, the musty smell is because you have an excessive amount of moisture and humidity down there. So we want to do some things to try to reduce that amount of moisture. You’re going to start outside your house and examine your gutter system. You want to make sure that you have gutters, that the gutters are clean and free-flowing and that the downspouts are discharging 4 to 6 feet, minimum, away from the foundation.

SANDY: They do.

TOM: They do. Alright. And then after that water discharges, does it run away from the wall?

SANDY: It runs away from the house, yes.

TOM: So, I’d like you to take a look at those gutters in a heavy rainfall, just to make sure they’re not becoming overwhelmed. Because that usually is a source of many moisture problems.

If the gutters are working well, then we need to look at the grading around the house. The soil should slope away and drop 6 inches on 4 feet. And that soil grade should be made up of clean fill dirt, not topsoil, not mulch or grass. You could have a little bit of topsoil and grass on top of it but you have to establish the slope, first, with fill dirt. And the reason you’re doing this is because you want rainfall that hits to run away from the house and not sit up against the house. That slope is really, really important.

If that’s done, then going down to the basement area, we could make sure that the walls are properly sealed with a damp-proofing paint and then a dehumidifier on top of that. But the dehumidifier has to be properly sized for the basement space and it has to be drained – set up with a condensate pump so that it drains outside.

And those steps together are usually going to take out as much moisture as you possibly can.

SANDY: OK. Thank you.

TOM: Alright, Sandy. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Jeff in Louisiana is on the line with a question about weeds. What’s going on?

JEFF: Yeah. Well, I was building a flower box, on the back side of the house, for my wife. But outside, where the flower box is going to be, we had spurge. I don’t know if you all know what spurge is but it’s a ground covering and it’ll have small, maybe a light – like lilac-color buds on it. But we’ve tried to kill it with all kinds of stuff. But how do you kill that and make it stay gone? And the reason why is because we don’t want it to get in the flower box. But at the same time, we’d like to kill it all over the yard.

TOM: So, what does this look like exactly? Does it look more like a moss or is it a plant growth?

JEFF: It’s a – I guess you’d call it – it’s a ground cover but it’s got runners, like …

TOM: Almost like vines?

JEFF: Yeah, yeah. But it comes out like little patches. They’re a little round and they have a centralized root. And they just grow from there.

TOM: Here’s what I would do: I would use Round-Up on that. Round-Up is very effective as a weed killer or a plant killer. But the thing that you have to be very careful about using it is you can’t let it get it on any of the good stuff that you want to save. So the way you do that is you create kind of a funnel to shoot it through.

So, an easy way to do this is to take, say, a gallon plastic milk jug and cut off the bottom of it. And then put that over the plants that you want to get rid of. And then spray the Round-Up into it. It stops the drift of the Round-Up from getting anywhere else and touching anything but exactly where you want to have it touch. And that will get into the roots of the plant and then cause it to die off and then you could pull out the rest of it. Does that make sense?

JEFF: Fully understand. Well, I sure appreciate it.

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

LESLIE: Now that it’s so much cooler than it was a few months ago, it’s a great time to take on a garden project that will set you well up for spring. And one of those projects might be building a gravel garden path. We’re going to share the step-by-step, next.

MARILU: Hi. This is Marilu Henner from The Marilu Henner Show. And I’m obsessed with these guys. You’re listening to The Money Pit, my buddies Tom Kraeutler and Leslie Segrete.

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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: Well, fall is a great time to think about getting replacement windows. But while window repair is generally a do-it-yourself job with a pretty good chance of success, when it comes to replacement, we advise most of you go pro. The law of gravity combined with a stiff wind can create a very undesirable outcome when you’re trying to wrestle that window into place.

LESLIE: Yeah. And besides the drama of all the smashed glass, an important part of a new window project involves making sure that the replacement window fits properly.

Now, since almost all replacement windows are made to fit the old window openings, getting this wrong can put a real crimp in your project.

TOM: And one way to un-crimp whatever home improvement project you’re working on right now is to call us. We’re here to help you get that done at 1-888-MONEY-PIT, 888-666-3974. Give us a call, right now, for the answer to your home improvement question.

LESLIE: Mike in Iowa is on the line with an insulation question. What can we do for you today?

MIKE: I’m looking to put some fiberglass insulation up in my attic. I have access to some 6-inch that’s faced on one side and it has foil on the other. Could I lay that down in my attic without having any problems?

TOM: You already have existing insulation there, right, Mike?

MIKE: Yeah, I’ve got 10 inches in my ceilings.

TOM: The answer is no and here’s why: the foil face is a vapor barrier and if you put a vapor barrier in there, you’re going to trap moisture. Now, a very common scenario is people put that up in the attic, they leave the vapor barrier facing up but that’s actually wrong. The only place a vapor barrier belongs is against the heated space, which would be under the 10 inches of insulation you already have there.

So, the foil face is not a good thing. Now, I will say that you – if you really want to be frugal about this, you could probably pull that foil off and lay the unfaced batt perpendicular to what you have right now. It’ll be a bit of a messy job, because it sounds like it’s older insulation, so you’re going to have to protect yourself with dust masks and safety glasses, long sleeves and all of that.

MIKE: I don’t care to do that. But right now, in my attic, at one time I had a flat roof. And right now, I’ve got rolled tar – or not tar paper but rolled shingling up in my attic floor. That’s probably acting as a vapor barrier, I would guess, today.

TOM: It probably is, yeah. Because it would stop humidity from getting through it. The problem is that it traps it in the insulation and when it does that, the insulation doesn’t work well. Insulation that’s damp does not insulate, so that humidity is working against you.

MIKE: I have wood heat and it takes a lot of moisture out of the house. That’s probably in my favor, I would guess.

TOM: I would think so. Now, you want to preserve that wood floor? You want to use all of that wood floor space?

MIKE: I’d like to use as much as possible, yes.

TOM: Well, why don’t you do this? Kind of a way to kind of have your cake and eat it, too, is to carve out an area in the center of the attic that you reserve, basically, just for storage. And then you add unfaced fiberglass batts on top of the wood floor to the other areas. Yeah, it’s not perfect having that whatever floor covering you have in between but I still think it’s going to add some insulation to that space and help cut some of your energy bills. And unfaced fiberglass batts are not that expensive and pretty easy to handle.

MIKE: OK.

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

LESLIE: Well, if you’ve worked hard to create the perfect garden, you don’t want trampling feet damaging your handiwork.

TOM: Both functional and beautiful, a gravel path can help you channel foot traffic in a way that’s friendly to your pocket and your garden. Here to give us some tips on how to do just that is This Old House landscaping contractor, Roger Cook.

Hey, Roger.

ROGER: Thanks for having me.

TOM: So here’s a project that most folks feel like they can accomplish. They open up a bag of gravel and dump it out on the ground and call it a “path.” But it’s a lot – there’s a lot more to it than just that.

ROGER: And I’ve heard it called a lot of other things, too. Well, it is easy. But it still needs to be done in the right, thoughtful way to get it done right.

TOM: Otherwise, it’s just going to become a pile of stone that’s just wet and muddy and has weeds growing through it and can be quite a mess.

ROGER: Right. And that’s why the first thing I do is dig out 4 to 6 inches deep. It’s not a massive dig but a little bit of one. And you’re just trying to get the roots out or anything that’ll interfere with the pathway. Once that’s done, I’ll lay in a piece of soil fabric, which is landscape fabric that keeps the soil from getting into the rest of the walkway.

TOM: OK. Now, does that actually stop the weeds from coming through?

ROGER: It will stop weeds from coming up, to some extent. Yes, it will.

Once that’s in place, I put in some pack. And that is a mix of stone dust and three-quarter stone. And I pack that down really tight. That’s going to be my base.

TOM: So even though it’s gravel, when you look at it and walk on it, there’s really a denser layer of gravel underneath?

ROGER: That’s right. And that’s what we’re going to put on next. Usually, on the top, I like putting in a small 3/8- or ¼-inch stone called “pea stone.” It is a nice little stone. It’s round and it makes a little bit of a noise when you walk on it. And it makes for a really simple, easy garden path.

LESLIE: Once you’ve got all the pea gravel in place, what’s keeping it in that pathway? I mean I know you’ve prepped and dug down a bit but I feel like the pea gravel just likes to move.

TOM: Yeah.

ROGER: Well, it does. And in the most natural state, you kind of exist with it. And every two or three years, you put a little more. But there is a way to hold it in place. You could use any sort of barrier. You could use steel edging, you might even use a Belgian stone or bricks. Set in the ground to hold that stone in place.

TOM: Now, Roger, if you’re trying to determine what kind of path that you’d like to have – because these can be sort of meandering, they can be very natural-looking – is there any easy way to kind of lay that out and kind of be able to stare at it before you actually stick a shovel in the ground?

ROGER: Yeah. I love to use a hose – a nice, flexible hose -because you can bend it, turn it, do whatever you want with it and you don’t end up with all orange dots all over your lawn trying to figure it out.

TOM: Yeah.

ROGER: That’s what I use is a hose.

TOM: Helps you visualize it really, really well.

ROGER: Yep.

LESLIE: What about if you want to be a little bit more creative rather than just a pea gravel or a different kind of stone walkway? Is there any, you know, new, creative DIY materials that we can use?

ROGER: You could pick anything you want it to and set it right into that 3/8 stone and just have the stone be between it. You could use a piece of flagstone for this – it would probably work well – bluestone, granite, anything. Even a few bricks scattered and it would work really well.

TOM: So kind of mix it in the same way we might choose some decorative tile on a wall. We could put in some pieces of flagstone or brick to kind of give it some additional personality.

ROGER: Right. Some points of interest in the walkway itself.

TOM: Great idea. Roger Cook from TV’s This Old House, thank you so much for being a part of The Money Pit.

ROGER: You’re welcome.

LESLIE: Alright. You can catch the current season of This Old House and Ask This Old House on PBS. For local listings and step-by-step videos of many common home improvement projects, visit ThisOldHouse.com.

TOM: And This Old House is brought to you on PBS by Lumber Liquidators. Hardwood floors for less.

Coming up, the turning leaves may be beautiful but not when they turn up in your gutters. We’re going to have some tips to simplify the cleanout, after this.

FEMALE ANNOUNCER: Date night is a big night for us. Just me, my husband, some candles and time alone, finally. And Sean added his own flair: he installed a Caseta Smart Lighting System by Lutron. He makes a big deal out of taking out his phone and the lights come down low. Very romantic. I think I married the right guy.

MALE ANNOUNCER: Caseta by Lutron. Simple to use, simple to set up. Learn how you can win a $5,000 smart-home upgrade, at OurLifeUpgrade.com. No purchase necessary. Ends 12/15/16.

ANNOUNCER: Today’s Money Pit is presented by Caseta by Lutron. Simple to use, simple to set up. Learn how you can win a $5,000 smart-home upgrade, at OurLifeUpgrade.com. No purchase necessary. Ends 12/15/16.

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.

And we’d love to hear from you, so give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT. Now, we’re going to help you with whatever it is you are working around your house but we’re giving away a super-cool prize this hour. It’s the Ring Video Doorbell Pro.

Now, this is a doorbell that’s going to let you see and speak to all the visitors that pop up at your house, whether you’re at home or in Tibet. I don’t know where you’re traveling to this holiday season. Who am I to judge? You could be going halfway around the world and you could be sitting wherever you are, in that place in the world, and you’ll hear “ding-dong” and look at your phone and you’ll be like, “Hey, neighbor. Nah, don’t feel like answering the door right now.” But how cool is that?

It’s a great prize. And it’s valued at 249 bucks but it’s going out to one lucky caller drawn at random. Give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

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

RHONDA: Hi there. Yeah, a couple of years ago, we had a moisture problem in our crawlspace. I live in a townhouse-style condo and as a result, the adjoining wall down in the crawlspace – it has drywall on it and it’s got some mold. And I’m not sure how to get rid of that.

TOM: OK. So, we’re talking about crawlspace areas in a condominium form of ownership?

RHONDA: Yes.

TOM: Typically, that’s – you have to check your public offering statement but generally, that part of the structure is owned by the association. And therefore, the association bears a responsibility of maintaining it. In most multi-family forms of ownership, in a townhouse/condominium kind of ownership, generally, what you own is inside sheetrock to inside sheetrock.

RHONDA: OK.

TOM: And this is important to know because, for example, when you insure your home, you know, the insurance you purchase has to cover things like paint and kitchen cabinets and flooring, carpets, stuff like that.

RHONDA: OK.

TOM: But it doesn’t cover the wall or the floor structure because that’s covered by the association.

RHONDA: Oh.

TOM: So if you’ve got a mold problem in the common area – that’s called the “common area”; in other words, the area that’s common to the entire association – they are responsible for addressing it and that’s why you pay monthly maintenance fees.

RHONDA: Really? Yeah.

TOM: So make sure you know who owns what before you start messing with this.

RHONDA: OK.

TOM: And especially in a multi-family situation, if you’ve got mold that’s festering in a crawlspace, that can get up into the units and really affect a lot of folks. So I would first address this with the association. I would address it in writing.

RHONDA: OK.

TOM: Include pictures so you’re documenting it. And then ask them to have a professional take a look at it.

RHONDA: OK.

TOM: And by the way, by professional, I mean industrial hygienist: somebody who’s an expert in mold, not the local handyman that’s going to come down there and try to scrub it away and in the process, distribute it to the entire unit.

RHONDA: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate your help.

LESLIE: Well, as the days get shorter, it’s a good time to think about adding security lighting to your home. But to do this, you usually need to hire an electrician to run wiring. Well, now there’s a new, motion-activated spotlight on the market from Mr. Beams. And it can deliver a super-bright light. And it runs off batteries that will last a full year.

TOM: Yep. It’s called the MB360 XT LED Spotlight. And it provides a brighter light, a wider coverage area and a pretty cool design to help you increase home security. Now, it’s actually motion-activated and it can deliver 200 lumens of light once it is activated. The reflector face is actually a big part of that design, because it creates a very wide coverage area of about 600 square feet to light those larger areas.

LESLIE: Yeah. And the coolest part is that it’s battery power. So you don’t need to hire an electrician, because it’s totally wireless, and you can install this yourself in really just a few minutes. Each set of alkaline batteries provides about a year of light with your average use of about 8 to 10 activations a day.

TOM: And because it’s wireless, you can install it not only on your home to cover porches or walkways or driveways but even on a backyard shed for added security. The MB360 XT LED Spotlight delivers surprisingly bright light anywhere you install it. It sells for just 24.99 and it’s available at major retailers, like Home Depot, Lowes, as well as at Amazon. You can learn more at MrBeams.com or call them at 877-298-9082.

LESLIE: James in Ohio is on the line with a heating question. What can we do for you today?

JAMES: Yeah, hi. I was calling in – I have an older home built in 1968. And I was wondering if it’d be easier to install an electric furnace, instead of having the baseboard heat, or possibly getting an – one of the outdoor units that mount high on your wall.

TOM: Do you have natural gas or propane or oil in your area?

JAMES: Maybe natural gas?

TOM: Yeah, that would be the way to go. If you’re going through the trouble of putting a furnace in, I would definitely not put in an electric furnace because that is the most expensive way to provide heat to your house. I would suggest a high-efficiency, natural-gas furnace. The installation expense is going to be similar if you’re putting a new furnace in but the ongoing cost to run it will be a lot lower.

JAMES: Will I incur more cost because – for the ductwork? Because I have plaster walls instead of drywall.

TOM: Well, if you’re going to put an electric furnace in, you’re going to have to do the ductwork anyway. So, the ductwork is there whether or not you use an electric furnace or a gas furnace. And it really depends on how creative your HVAC contractor is but that’s a fixed cost. If you’re going through the trouble of ducting out your house, which is going to add to its value, I definitely would recommend gas.

And typically, the gas companies don’t charge to bring gas up to your house, so they’ll bring the line up and put a meter in because now you’re going to be their customer forever and they’re very happy about that.

JAMES: OK. Well, I thank you very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, James. 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.

Just ahead, it’s called “fall” for good reason. We’re going to share tips to care for your gutters so that they can take care of keeping water away from your home, after this.

MALE ANNOUNCER: Caseta by Lutron. Simple to use, simple to set up. Learn how you can win a $5,000 smart-home upgrade, at OurLifeUpgrade.com. No purchase necessary. Ends 12/15/16.

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: Pick up the phone, give us a call, right now, with your home improvement question or post it to our website at MoneyPit.com. That’s what Sarah did in Virginia. Sarah has got a problem I have to say she created herself. But let’s see what we can do to help.

LESLIE: You’re definitely right about this being a self-created problem, because here was what Sarah wrote: “I’ve never cleaned out my gutters in the 12 years that I’ve lived in my home. There aren’t a whole lot of trees around but my gutters and roof are unusually high and very difficult to reach. The last big rainstorm, I noticed sheets of water falling from the gutter on one side of my home. What could be causing this? And what’s the best way to clear it considering the difficulty of reaching the gutters?”

TOM: So the question is: was this the first time she had sheets of water falling off her home or was it the first time she noticed having sheets of water?

LESLIE: And maybe it takes 12 years to accumulate the, you know, 3, 4 inches of leaves? I don’t know.

TOM: Maybe there’s just really tiny trees and they just build up very, very slowly. But obviously, you’ve got to clean your gutters, Sarah. Come on.

Now, look, most of us don’t want to get up on ladders and do this ourselves. Hire a pro. There are guys that specialize in this. They show up and inside of 20 minutes, all the gutters are clean or the leaders are flushed out.

The one thing that you can do at the same time, though, is make sure you extend those downspouts away from the house so that you don’t have any water that collects at that foundation, causing cracking and stuff like that. You may have gotten away with this for 12 years but I certainly don’t recommend it going forward, because not cleaning those gutters can cause a lot of structural problems in the house. Just not a matter of the water just flying off the top of your roof; it’s a matter of that water washing out the soil that’s holding up the house. So, make sure you take care of that and do it quickly.

LESLIE: Yeah. It’s amazingly easy. I will tell you I use a gutter-cleaning service because I can’t be up on a ladder cleaning everything. I’m all by myself in a house with these kids. And I think I pay around 400 bucks for the year and they come 6 times and the guys are – I mean it’s a great deal considering you’re on a ladder with a bucket and a glove and you’re cleaning things out. I don’t want to do it. Let these guys do it. They come and they’re done super fast. And truly, we started doing this after we had the flood in the basement due to a clogged downspout, which the shoemaker’s kids have no shoes. The home improver’s house has a flood in the basement from clogged gutters. So, hence, get the pros to come do it.

Next up, Joe in Florida writes: “I’m about to put my house on the market. How can I find out what is required for a certificate of occupancy on my home, so I can make any required repairs or upgrades before the home changes hands and before any home inspection is performed?”

TOM: Yeah. That’s a good question. So, first of all, to the certificate of occupancy, you would find that out from your local municipal authorities. And what you should understand, Joe, is that the requirements for a CO are not the same as they would be if it was a brand-new house. So it’s not like you have to bring everything up to current building code. It’s usually limited to things like smoke detectors and windows and doors that open and close and lock and stuff that’s sort of general safety type of things.

As to the home inspector, I would recommend, if you’re putting your house on the market, that you hire a home inspector first. Have that house inspected so you have a pretty good idea of what it’s going to look like in the eyes of a potential buyer’s inspector later on down the line. Because I’ve got to tell you, I was a home inspector for a long time. And when we go in for the buyers and we find out that there’s big problems, there is a lot of drama in the deal at that moment that you don’t really want to have to deal with. So trust me, it’s well worth spending a little bit of money on a home inspector to get that done upfront, so at least you kind of have a really good sense as to what’s going on. If it’s something that broke, you can fix it or you can disclose it and just not have to deal with it.

LESLIE: Yeah. Either way, it’s good to get that information upfront so you’re prepared and then you can take any approach you choose.

TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Thank you so much for spending this beautiful fall weekend with us. We hope we’ve given you some tips and advice on how to take on some of the projects you’d like to get done around your money pit. But remember, if you still have questions, you can call us, 24/7, at 888-MONEY-PIT or always post your questions to the Community page at our website at MoneyPit.com where the show continues online.

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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