The Hidden Risk of Power Tools, Making Sure Your Tap Water's Safe

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

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: And we are here to help you with your home improvement project. We want to solve those do-it-yourself dilemmas. We want to lend you a hand so that you can get started by taking the right steps towards finishing your home improvement projects. Whether you are under construction or you’re just dreaming and designing of the projects to be, give us a call and let us help. We’re here for you at 888-MONEY-PIT, 888-666-3974.

Coming up this hour on the program, you drink it, you cook with it, you bathe in it but are you sure it’s safe? We’re talking about tap water. It can be deceiving because it looks and tastes harmless even when it’s not, which is why it’s a good idea to test it and find out. We’ll tell you how.

LESLIE: And also ahead, the latest in laundry multitasking. We’re going to tell you about a new washing machine that can do two loads at once and a dryer that opens two ways. It’s going to help you make washing-day chores a lot easier.

TOM: And we all know power tools can hurt you in an instant if you’re not paying attention but are yours causing slow, potentially serious harm over time? There’s a new health risk among DIYers that got medical experts talking and we’re going to talk about that, coming up.

LESLIE: Plus, I’ve been tackling a little project in my own house that managed to turn itself into a big project, as they always do. You know how it goes.

TOM: Yes, I do. We’re going to get the inside scoop on Leslie’s laundry-room redo later this hour. But before she describes her home improvement hurdles, we want to help you with yours. So call us, right now, with your questions at 1-888-MONEY-PIT, 888-666-3974.

Leslie, who’s first?

LESLIE: Vincent in Pennsylvania is dealing with some vintage electricity. What’s going on over there?

VINCENT: I have an old house; it’s about 100 years old. It has knob-and-tube wiring and we’ve lived in it for about eight years. We took all the major appliances off the – they have their own line, like the A/C and the refrigerator and the stove, but we’re still getting – we’ll just be hanging out in the bedroom or in a room or whatever and the lights will just kind of get bright and then dim and then normal again for no apparent reason. And we’re wondering if we should be concerned about that. It seems to be happening more than it used to.

TOM: Well, it certainly could be tied into a default in your electrical wiring. It could also be tied into a problem with the transformer outside the home. But if you are on knob-and-tube wiring, I would encourage you to get off of all the knob-and-tube circuits. The problem with knob-and-tube wiring is actually several.

First of all, it’s not a grounded wiring system, nor is it groundable, so that makes it potentially unsafe. And second to that, you know, the reason for the knobs and the tubes is to sort of string that wire in midair. You can’t insulate around or over knob-and-tube wiring because it becomes a fire hazard. It’s designed to be always out in the – have air circulating around it to keep it cool.

So I would tell you to get rid of all of the knob-and-tube wiring. It absolutely has to be done; it’s just not a safe wiring system.

VINCENT: Is that – I mean all the house, we spent a lot of money on wallpaper and how – and what does that entail?

TOM: Well, you certainly can rewire your house without tearing your walls up, if that’s what you’re concerned about. First, you’re going to disable the knob-and-tube wiring and then you’re going to run new circuits through those walls. Electricians have ways of snaking that wiring up through those cavities with a minimal amount of disturbance.

VINCENT: OK. So they don’t have to punch holes in the wall?

TOM: Yeah. In a minor way. You may have some repairs to do but it’s not like they’re going to go in there and tear all your walls open to do this job.

VINCENT: Right. And is that – that sounds expensive.

TOM: Potentially. But at least you could make a dent. Maybe do a little bit of the house at once and then sort of try to break the project up. But knob-and-tube wiring is just not a safe wiring system.

VINCENT: Oh, OK.

TOM: Sorry I can’t give you better news but it’s just not safe.

VINCENT: Alright. Well, thanks anyway. Thank you.

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

LESLIE: Amy in Michigan is on the line with a condensation question. How can we help you?

AMY: I live in a house; it’s about 15 years old. And every winter, I have the same problem. I’ve been here for three years but I have condensation on the inside of my windows. I think they’re pretty decent windows. I know when we had the home inspection, the guy said these are really good windows. Just wondering what I can do to control it.

LESLIE: Now, when you’re talking about this, this is in your living room, you’re saying?

AMY: It’s actually in just about every room of the house. It’s worse in my bedrooms and it’s gotten – it seems like it’s getting worse in other areas of the house.

TOM: Well, the reason that your windows condense, Adrienne, is because they’re not insulated properly. I’m going to presume that they’re thermal-pane windows. Is that correct?

AMY: They are.

TOM: They’re thermal-pane windows but they’re not very good thermal panes, because the windows are super-cold. So what happens is when the warm, moist air inside your house strikes them, it condenses.

So what can you do at this point in time short of replacing the windows? You could take some steps to try to reduce the volume of moisture that’s inside the house.

AMY: OK.

TOM: This might include taking a look to make sure that your outside drainage is done properly so that you’re not collecting water.

Do you have a basement?

AMY: We do.

TOM: OK. So you want to make sure that you have gutters on the house, downspouts that are clean, downspouts that are extended away, soil that’s sloping away from the walls. That sort of thing reduces soil moisture. Dehumidification in the basement can help. You can either do it with a portable or a whole-house dehumidifier.

LESLIE: Depending on your heating system.

AMY: Right.

TOM: Making sure that your bath fans are exhausted outside, making sure that your kitchen range hood is exhausted outside. Those are the sorts of things that will reduce the volume of humidity in the house.

But I think until you get better-quality windows in there that are better-insulated, you’re still going to continue to have this to some degree, because it’s just sort of the nature of the beast. If it’s really cold outside and it’s really warm and moist inside, that condensation is going to form, the same way it happens in the summer when you go outside with a glass of ice water and you get droplets on the outside.

AMY: Sure.

TOM: It’s just the nature of the condensation.

AMY: Why does it seem worse when I have the blinds drawn or the blinds are down and closed? And then there’s more condensation on the windows.

TOM: Because the windows are probably colder when the blinds are down. The warm air inside the house is not getting to the glass as readily. So the windows are probably a little colder when the blind’s down; you have less air circulation across it, so you’re not drying off some of that moisture, probably, as quickly as you would have.

AMY: Oh, OK. Yeah, that makes sense.

TOM: So do what you can to reduce the amount of humidity inside the house and then keep an eye on them. But I think, eventually, you’re going to want to think about replacing your windows and you can do that in stages. Start in the north side first, because that’s going to be the coldest side of the house and the side that will give you the best return on investment.

LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. Now you can call in your home repair or your home improvement question 24 hours a day, 7 days a week right here at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

TOM: 888-666-3974.

Up next, power tools can be dangerous but there’s a new danger you may never have heard of. We’re going to have tips to keep you safe, after this.

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TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show where home solutions live. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Hey, are you feeling guilty about all that time online? Well, make it count. Head on over to MoneyPit.com where you’ll pick up tips and answers for all your home improvement projects, not to mention fun features and sweepstakes. It’s your round-the-clock guide to your money pit, all online at MoneyPit.com.

LESLIE: Dreama in West Virginia is on the line and could be dealing with a structural issue. Tell us what’s going on at your money pit.

DREAMA: Yes. I purchased a house about 13 years ago and the house is approximately 30 years old. And all of a sudden, last year, in the load-bearing center wall, I started getting a crack. And now, within a year, that crack has gapped approximately a ½-inch wide and it’s also – I noticed another room has a crack now. So I had a local handyman look at it and he suggested that I put in three piers – columns – to support the center wall.

And I guess my question is – I haven’t had an official, large construction company look at it yet. I’m getting ready to do that but I wanted to educate myself a little bit more. What would you all suggest?

TOM: How long have you been in this house?

DREAMA: Thirteen years.

LESLIE: And this is new.

DREAMA: Just started about a year ago.

TOM: See, here’s the thing. If you call a contractor, you’re going to get a contractor’s solution, which is to hire them to do something. What I would suggest you do first is to get an independent expert opinion, not necessarily an opinion from a contractor. So your options on that are two: one is low-cost; one, I would say, is moderate cost.

The low-cost option would be to find a local professional home inspector. You can go to the website for the American Society of Home Inspectors. That’s at ASHI.org – A-S-H-I.org.

DREAMA: OK.

TOM: And you can put in your zip code. They’ll shoot back a list of certified professional home inspectors in your area. You can call from that list, find somebody that’s experienced and have them look at it. Because they’re just there to find out what’s going on and what caused it and what it’s going to take to fix it.

The second way to go, which is the moderate cost, is to actually hire a structural engineer. Now, why may you want to do that, Dreama? Well, you might want to do that – if this is a fairly obvious problem, you want to certainly preserve the value of your house.

DREAMA: Right.

TOM: And if you have a structural engineer look at it and write a report as to what’s going on and what it’s going to take to fix it and then you actually give that report to a contractor and say, “This is what I want you to do,” and then you have the engineer sort of recertify that it was done correctly. It’s kind of like having a pedigree that the repair is done correctly and then kind of sell with your house, so to speak.

Problem with contractors is that they’re not structural engineers; they’re just handy guys and they think that they have the expertise to fix stuff like this and they just don’t. They don’t have the schooling, they don’t have the education, they don’t have the training. And so, that’s not necessarily the best way to go about dealing with a situation like this.

I am a little concerned that it happened over this past year, because it sounds like it’s active and we want to get to the bottom of why it’s active and why it’s showing up all of a sudden.

DREAMA: Well, someone had mentioned that it’s a possibility – we’ve had a lot of dry – several dry summers and – because that could cause a settling in the foundation. Is that possible? I’ve never heard of that before.

TOM: No. I mean there are some expansive soils that behave differently when they dry out a lot but listen, there’s going to be a lot of opinions. Every neighbor you ask is going to have a different one. What we’re trying to do is move you towards an expert opinion so you really know what you’re dealing with.

So, as I said, contact a professional home inspector or a structural engineer. Get the assessment. It’s well worth it. Your home is a big investment. We want to make sure it’s protected, OK?

DREAMA: I hadn’t thought of a home inspector. Thank you very much.

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

LESLIE: Alright. Heading down to Texas where Robert has got a flooring question. What can we do for you today?

ROBERT: Well, I laid engineered hardwood down, about just a little under 700 square feet.

TOM: OK.

ROBERT: And the problem is is the top 3-millimeter layer is starting to peel up on a few of the boards. When I say a few, I’ve got about eight pieces where the corners are starting to peel up and then about two pieces where the actual side is starting to peel up. I would almost describe it as bubbling up.

TOM: That’s odd.

ROBERT: My question to you is: should I submit a warranty to Lumber Liquidators? Or should I wait and try to fix the problem myself?

TOM: Well, it’s not supposed to delaminate, which is what sounds like is happening here. So I would go ahead and contact the manufacturer or the retailer, in this case, and get their feedback. They’ve got technical experts that could look at this and determine what’s going on. But certainly, when you buy engineered hardwood, you shouldn’t be facing delamination, which is what sounds like happening. Is this going down – did this go down on top of a concrete floor?

ROBERT: Yes, sir. It went on top of concrete and I glued it down and I let it acclimate for actually a month-and-a-half. I was delayed on laying it.

TOM: Did the manufacturer instruct you – were there instructions on how to attach it to the concrete floor?

ROBERT: Yes, sir.

TOM: And did it say to glue it down?

ROBERT: They said to glue it down and the recommended glue actually has a sealant in it.

TOM: Alright. Listen, I would reach out to them. I don’t think it should be happening.

Well, you do everything you can to make sure that you don’t lose a finger or burn yourself while working with those power tools, right? Well, we hope so. But here’s a scary fact: only half of do-it-yourselfers do anything to protect their ears, which can actually have serious consequences.

LESLIE: Yeah. And the fact is that ongoing exposure to noise that’s 85 decibels or higher can actually damage your hearing. And 85 decibels really isn’t that hard to come by. Circular saws and chainsaws, they come in at over 100 decibels. And even electric drills, power lawn mowers, weed trimmers and band saws all start to enter that unsafe zone.

TOM: Now, hearing loss from loud noise happens over a long period of time, so you might not even realize it’s happening. But if you use these tools on a regular basis, you may be speeding up that hearing loss.

LESLIE: Yeah. But there’s good news, guys. You can actually slow the damage. So, you want to invest in hearing protection for loud jobs. Talking about ear plugs and noise-reducing earmuffs. That’s going to do the trick. But there’s also electronic ear protection that lets you listen to the radio or music instead of just that muffled sound of your power tools that are coming through the headphones.

TOM: Yeah. And this way, you don’t have to miss any of The Money Pit when you turn on those saws.

888-666-3974. We don’t want to miss your home improvement question, so call us right now. We are here to help.

LESLIE: Mike in North Dakota is on the line with an insulation question. How can we help you?

MIKE: So, we’ve got a – I recently purchased, last fall – living in a very cold environment up here in northern – North Dakota – a cabin of which – the trunk of it was built in 1940. It’s quite old. Some of it was recently updated but the cabin itself is never, I guess, built or updated to be a four-season building. So, in the wintertime, they had an external pump that provided water to the place. They would close all the water off, drain the pipes off with an air compressor and basically close it off.

Well, we are ultimately going to retire to that and add on to the cabin that stands today. But I’ve now got this problem of trying to figure out how to insulate from the floor up. And it’s nothing but 2x4s and plywood that keeps us between a little bit of carpet and frozen tundra. So I’ve got to figure out how to insulate this entire thing so that water pipes, toilets work, all of these other things all year round versus just in July up here.

TOM: Are the walls exposed?

MIKE: The walls are not exposed, I guess, if I’m understanding what you mean by that. There is insulation in the walls themselves. It’s not real thick but a pellet stove is sufficient to heat this small place warm. The rest of it is, I think, just blown insulation that was done well after the fact, into the ceiling. But there is nothing at the floor and a crawlspace under the cabin is only about a foot-and-a-half or so worth of thickness. It’s pretty hard to get under there. It’s just a 2×6 or 2x4s of plywood – ½-inch plywood.

TOM: OK. So, what about the attic? Is that – like can you see the underside of the rafters?

MIKE: Can’t. Can’t get in there at all.

TOM: Yeah. You’d probably have to cut an opening to get in there.

MIKE: Yes. That’s exactly what we’re looking at. At best, I can see in there through an outlet that I could remove.

TOM: OK. So given your location in North Dakota and the limited amount of space you have to work with because you have smaller structural members – you mentioned 2×6 floor joists and that sort of thing – what I would think about doing, if I possibly could afford it, was to use spray-foam insulation.

If you use spray-foam insulation, you’re going to end up having expose those walls. It might involve you removing drywall and that sort of thing to get to this. But it would be well worth it because you can get a higher R-value per inch with spray foam that you could with fiberglass.

Just as important, when you use spray foam, you not only insulate but you weatherproof, as well, because it seals out drafts which, of course, you get a lot of. If that was the case, you could spray-foam the walls, spray-foam the underside of the rafters and potentially, depending on the access issue, which you mentioned, spray-foam in between the floor joist into the crawl space.

The difference in that cabin will be nothing short of dramatic, because it’s just so darn effective when you use foam insulation.

MIKE: Interesting. And this – so this would be done, I would assume, after. Because I’ve got to have a brand-new well drilled, as well, about 50 feet down into fresh water. And that, I think, tunnels underneath the existing structure. So after we get that done, I’m assuming, is when we would do all the spraying to account for bringing the well in.

TOM: I would think so. You would want all your plumbing done before – and your electrical done. You know, we did spray foam in our home, which is over 100 years old, this past year and before we actually had the – Icynene come in and do it, I actually took time to sort of tidy up all of the wiring and run any plumbing I had to run and just kind of did sort of maintenance things. Because I knew that once they put the foam in, I would have to deal with cutting that foam out if I needed to do anything over and above that.

So, yeah, you’re going to want to do any of that updating before you have the foam sprayed. But look, if you’re going to open the walls up to do this, there’s never an easier time to do all that work than right then and there.

MIKE: Right, right. OK. Well, great. I absolutely appreciate the input. This is going to turn into, I think, a [fairly good science project] (ph) but I needed a good starting place, so I appreciate your help.

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

LESLIE: Well, thank you so much for calling The Money Pit.

Alright. Up next, we’ve got new advances in appliances that are making laundry duty a little easier to bear. We’ll tell you more about it when The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show continues, after this.

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: Hey, so here’s a problem that many of us run into. You need your lucky shirt for a job interview or your favorite workout outfit or you need your kid’s uniform and it’s dirty. Do you go ahead and run a full wash load for just one item? Well, you probably do and you waste a lot of water and energy.

Enter LG. They’ve got a solution now. It’s a mini washer built into a pedestal. It’s called Twin Wash and it actually does a mini load separate from the main load.

LESLIE: And we learned about it recently at the Consumer Electronics Show, from LG’s John Taylor. Check it out.

JOHN: People do so many loads of laundry. We want to really find ways to have more convenience and more flexibility, so we’ve introduced Twin Wash, which is a second mini washer that’s actually in the pedestal of the front-load laundry.

TOM: Now, that’s really interesting. Now, you’ve designed this for delicates, as I understand?

JOHN: It’s for delicates, so it’s for your workout clothes, any sort of small load you’d like to do that’ll keep it separate from your main load.

TOM: Now, is this built into a new LG appliance or is it available as an add-on?

JOHN: What’s really cool about is you can add it on to any LG front-load washing machine. So, the new front-load washer is absolutely stunning and has a lot of great, new features, as well. But it’s also backwards-compatible. So, those who have already purchased an LG front-load washer will be able to use this.

LESLIE: Yeah, it’s super-awesome. Actually, LG also has a new dryer on the market with a unique function. It’s got a door that opens in two directions: from the top, like a chute, so you can actually just toss the wet laundry in really easily; then from the side, like a door, so you can scoot dry clothes into your basket.

TOM: You can learn more about the newest LG washers and dryers at LG.com. And check out the entire LG podcast, along with dozens of other top-product podcasts, all online at MoneyPit.com.

LESLIE: Andrew in Idaho is on the line needing some ways to soundproof a room. Tell us what room. What’s going on?

ANDREW: Hi, Tom. Hi, Leslie.

LESLIE: Hey.

TOM: Hi.

ANDREW: I’m having some problems. I’ve got four roommates. We’re all friends.

TOM: And you want to stay that way.

LESLIE: Now.

ANDREW: Yeah. And I just got a new job. I work at 3:00 a.m. in the morning.

TOM: Oh, man.

ANDREW: A lot of them stay up until 3:00 a.m. in the morning.

TOM: OK.

ANDREW: And I was just wondering if there was any quick and efficient ways I can soundproof, say, my bedroom to be able to sleep at night.

TOM: Yeah, now, where is your room in relation to the noise? Are you like at the end of the hall or anything like that? Tell us about it.

ANDREW: We’ve got three steps; there’s three different levels.

TOM: OK.

ANDREW: And I’m in the tallest level. You walk down a flight of stairs; they’re mostly in the living room. And then if you take another corner from going down those stairs, you’ll go into their rooms.

TOM: OK. So, sound transmits, as you know, pretty quickly and pretty aggressively. If you want to quiet it in your room and you’re willing to do a little bit of work, you can make it a lot softer by improving the walls.

There are a couple of ways to do this. One way is to use a product called Green Glue, where you essentially put the glue on the walls and then put a second layer of drywall on top of that. And that second layer, with the Green Glue in between, sort of isolates it.

That said, it’s expensive to – because you need 2 tubes of Green Glue for every 4×8 sheet of drywall and we’re talking about these big tubes, not the little caulk tubes. The ones that are humungous. And so you put a lot of Green Glue and a lot of drywall and of course, you’ve got to spackle, you’ve got to paint; you’ve got to do all that. That’s the first way to do it.

The second way to do it is to use a product called QuietRock, which is kind of like a laminated drywall that already has the glue sort of in it and whatever else they do to stop sound transmission. And again, with that you put a second layer on your existing walls.

And the QuietRock is about, what, 35, 40 bucks a sheet, Leslie? Something like that?

LESLIE: Yeah, it – I mean it’s pricey but it does the trick.

TOM: Right.

LESLIE: Andrew, are you renting?

ANDREW: It’s kind of hard to explain. One of the couples just got married and they bought this house.

TOM: OK.

ANDREW: And they’re – I’m renting the room, technically.

TOM: How do you feel about improving their house, even though you’re a renter?

ANDREW: They’re fine with it because they’re wanting to do the same thing for their rooms, so …

TOM: OK. Yeah.

ANDREW: For the Green Glue, do we have to worry about texture?

TOM: No, no, no. It’s all between.

LESLIE: Well, that goes in between the two sheets of drywall.

TOM: Right.

LESLIE: It sort of acts as the sound barrier behind that new sheet of drywall that you’re putting on. If you go with the QuietRock, which is the second option, you don’t need that Green Glue but you are adding a second layer of drywall.

TOM: Right. Now, there’s one other important thing I have to mention, Andrew, and that’s this: technically, to soundproof a room, you really need to get to the electrical boxes and other penetrations of the wall from behind it, from the inside. And of course, that’s impossible to do in a finished house.

So, even though you’re going to quiet it, you’re not going to do as good a job as you could because if the wall was wide open, you’d go from the back side and you would be wrapping the electrical boxes that are special, almost like a clay-like kind of a material that you press around the box with the QuietRock, that seals in all of those gaps so that no sound gets through there.

So you can’t do everything but you can do a pretty good job.

ANDREW: OK. Yeah, we were just wanting to do a little bit of changing just so people talking in the living room and stuff, it won’t come into the bedrooms.

TOM: Mm-hmm. Well, unfortunately, it’s not a simple fix; it’s basically taking all of your stuff out of your room and re-drywalling the whole thing. You can put heavy drapes up, you can put carpets on the walls – I mean hang wall coverings, things that like – that will soften it from a décor perspective. But realistically …

LESLIE: But it’s not going to do what you really want it to do.

TOM: Right.

ANDREW: Well, I will definitely look into that Green Glue. I do have some sheetrock experience.

TOM: Alright. Well, then, maybe it’s a good project for you. It’s either that or earplugs, my friend, OK?

ANDREW: Alrighty. Thank you, guys.

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

LESLIE: Thanks so much for calling The Money Pit.

Coming up, even if you’re drinking purified or bottled water, you probably still use your tap water to cook, bathe and clean, which can have serious consequences if that water is contaminated. Is yours? We’ve got ways to find out, after this.

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

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

Hey, I get it, not everybody wants to talk to on the radio. Maybe you call yourself “radio-shy.” Well, you can still win big right here on The Money Pit. All you have to do is like us on Facebook, because we know everybody likes Facebook.

Now, you’ll get the news and the updates all on our upcoming sweepstakes. It’s really easy. Just head to Facebook.com/TheMoneyPit, click Like and you’re in the know.

Now we’ve got Gwen in Virginia on the line who needs some help protecting her kitchen wall. How can we help you?

GWEN: I actually saw this product at a show: an invention – female inventors’ show that was being aired – was being taped in Chicago. And this lady, she had a product that you take it and it just sort of sticks to the wall. She had it in different colors, that it would blend in with your kitchen wall or if you wanted to have a stainless-steel look – but it was just a piece of material that went behind the trash can, that when you hit – when you would step on the flip tops, it would hit up against that area and would not damage the wall.

And then when you decided that you want to either move your trash can to another area in the house or you were tired of that particular pattern, you could just peel it off. It didn’t mess up the paint but it protected the wall.

LESLIE: So it was like a sticker.

TOM: That’s interesting. I’ve got a couple of ideas for you on that.

First of all, you don’t need an invention; you could simply put a small piece of clear Plexiglas on the wall using double-sided tape. Or the second thing you could do, which is even easier, is you could add a bumper to the top of the garbage can so that when it comes up, it doesn’t scuff the wall. You could use a felt-tip bumper on it.

LESLIE: Or even if you go to childproofing – in the childproofing section of any baby store, you’ll find that rubber edging that you can put on coffee tables and things. And you could put a piece like that right on the edge of the garbage can.

GWEN: OK. Thank you.

TOM: Well, U.S. water supplies are some of the cleanest in the world but that doesn’t guarantee that your water is safe. In fact, depending on when it was last tested, even your supplier may not know about problems in your water supply.

LESLIE: Yeah. Even scarier is that water contamination, it can’t be seen, smelled or tasted. There is good news, though. You can actually test your tap water inexpensively and pretty easily.

TOM: Yep. Just start by contacting your water provider. They’re required, by law, to make consumer reports available and these reports detail the results of water testing in your area. Now, even if the results come back clean, you might want to note the testing date on the results. If it’s been more than a year or so, you might want to take a few more steps to make sure your water is still safe.

LESLIE: Yeah. You know, next, you can hire an independent, certified lab to test your tap periodically. And this can be done for as little as $30 and it covers threats ranging from lead to pesticides to bacteria and even radon.

TOM: And finally, you can treat any problem with a water-treatment system. You want to find one, though, that’s approved by the National Sanitation Foundation, which is an independent evaluation organization.

888-666-3974. If you’ve got a question, soup to nuts, floorboards to shingles, plumbing, electrical, whatever it is, we’re here to help, 888-MONEY-PIT.

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

JED: I was just calling because I had some condensation issues in my sunroom. When we moved in, I noticed that there was no leaking from the roof but it seemed like there was some condensation marks coming down one of the walls.

TOM: OK. And so, in this sunroom, you have thermal-pane, insulated-glass window walls? Is that what we’re looking at here?

JED: Yes. They had replaced all the windows, as well, too.

TOM: Alright. And so, when the warm, moist air of your home settles against that cold glass, that’s when you get the condensation?

JED: I do – I did notice it on the windows, as well, but I also noticed it on the drywall. Could it happen on the drywall, as well?

TOM: Well, it’s possible but it’s certainly not as common as it being on the glass itself.

JED: OK. Since I did notice it on the glass – since we had also replaced the furnace and we put it in one of those whole-home humidifiers.

TOM: Right.

JED: And when it got really warm outside – because Iowa changes its temp by 50 degrees some days, from one day to the next – I did notice the condensation on the windows, so I turned that down.

TOM: OK.

JED: And I haven’t actually seen the condensation but it looks like there’s little kind of streak marks of just a drop going from the top of the ceiling to the top of the window pane.

TOM: Look, if it was a leak, I think you would know it; you wouldn’t be so unsure about it. I think it’s most likely condensation. And controlling humidity inside the house can help this, as can replacing all that glass. But of course, that’s a big expense. And this is very typical in sunrooms because, unfortunately, a lot of them are just not as well-insulated as they really need to be, especially if you’re in a cold climate where you get a lot of – a big temperature swing like that.

So I would say that managing the moisture inside your house is probably the best that you can do right now, from an expense perspective. If you have the opportunity to cover any of these windows with cellular shades, that can actually reduce it quite a bit, too, because it sort of adds a layer of insulation between the house and the glass.

JED: I guess I’m not as familiar with cellular shade, as well, but …

TOM: Yeah, they’re sort of tubular shades. I mean if you look them up online, you’ll see. As they go up and down, they sort of unfold and they have sort of an air chamber inside them.

LESLIE: So you have a piece of fabric and then you have a piece of fabric and it creates this sort of honeycomb/hexagon little shape that’s all stacked up. It’s essentially a shade that goes up and down, just like any other style of window shade. But when it’s down fully, it has this air pocket within that honeycomb, so you’re creating another area where that – the heat difference will stop.

TOM: Yeah. Because the warm, moist air, as it circulates inside your house, will strike that cold glass and chill and release moisture and then potentially drip. If you have these honeycomb-type shades up – these cellular shades – that warm, moist air will strike the shade and it won’t necessarily hit the glass as readily. And that can result in less condensation drippage.

JED: OK. So is that something you put on seasonally or come off and on or you put it up permanently?

TOM: No, they’re actually quite attractive. You’d probably put them on and leave them on. You’ll find it’ll help you control your heat in the summer, too, because you won’t have – I know those types of rooms can be very, very warm in the summer. And if you had the shades, you could reflect some of that back out.

JED: Really kind of a dual use. You learn something new every day.

TOM: Alright, Jed. And that’s what we try to do. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Up next, you want to take a field trip to my house? Well, a virtual field trip, guys, alright? I don’t have room for all of you; I barely have room for the three of us.

Well, I’m going to tell you guys what I learned from my laundry-room makeover, when The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show continues.

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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: Well, if you learned it here on The Money Pit, why not pass it on to the next generation of do-it-yourselfers? Head on over to MoneyPit.com for tips on teaching age-appropriate home improvement skills to your kids. It’ll pay off when they get older and you’ll have an extra set of skilled hands to help you with those home improvement projects.

LESLIE: Alright. And you can also post your home improvement question on The Money Pit page, just like David from North Carolina did who writes: “I purchased my home two years ago. I had a home inspection done, which came back fine. But now it appears the house has foundation problems. The walls are cracking and the nails pop out of the drywall. What should I do?”

TOM: Well, many homeowners presume incorrectly that drywall cracks and nail pops indicate a serious foundation problem. Most likely, they do not. All homes are going to expand and contract and this movement can be quite normal.

Now, if you’re concerned, you do need to hire a structural engineer to review the home. But you could also contact the home inspector that originally inspected the home and let him or her know your concerns. And invite them to come back and take a look at your home and sort of discuss what they think is going on. But I wouldn’t panic just yet. You’ve got plenty of time to do that later. Drywall cracks are pretty, pretty normal.

LESLIE: Yeah. And David, if you want to fix those nail pops, you just drive another nail right next to it so that the head overlaps the old one. It’ll drive it back in and then you put a little spackle over it, sand it, good to go.

TOM: Well, as Leslie and I know all too well, even the most seasoned home improvement pro hits snags in projects. Leslie has got a renovation story that will remind you to measure twice and cut once, in this week’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.

LESLIE: Yeah. You know, it’s more like measure twice, order new washer and dryer once. Well, in my case, anyway.

So it all started a few weeks ago when I noticed that my laundry was coming out of the washer wetter than usual, like almost soaking wet. Turns out that the washer motor had burnt out and it would cost about 400 bucks to – plus labor to get the part and replace it.

So I said, “Forget it. I’m just going to replace the washer and while I’m at it, the dryer because they’re both eight years old and front loaders are amazing and I’ve been wanting them anyway. And while I’m at it, I’m going to reorganize my very uncharacteristically messy laundry room in the process and I’m going to blog about it, so you’re all going to see it. Easy enough, right?”

Well, I go to the store, I order the washer and dryer. I’m super-excited. I take everything out of the laundry room. And not only do I take everything out of the laundry room, there is like a built-in storage unit that the previous owners had had in there that I was using, that I just demolished and took out. So there’s no putting any of this stuff back.

Now, the front loaders arrive a few days later. I’m super-excited. I can’t wait. The guys don’t even attempt to bring these things into my house. They’re like, “Oh, yeah. That’s not going to fit. We’re not doing it.” Not only do they say it’s not going to fit, they write it in my file for P.C. Richard so that now I can never order another washer or dryer in these dimensions.

TOM: You’ve been tagged.

LESLIE: Completely. I’m blacklisted at P.C. Richard’s.

Anyway, I didn’t even realize that there was just such a slight difference and it wasn’t going to make the turn in my 100-year-old house. So I looked at some other front-loader options but I ended up having to order my same top loader that I had before, because that’s all that’s going to fit.

Painting is finished now. There’s a lot that’s still going to happen. I’ve got all of my organizational things on order from The Container Store. Should be here any day. I’m really excited.

You know, it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve been teaching my six-year-old about repairing drywall, painting, how to properly use a roller. He didn’t do any cutting-in but he’s got it; he’s working on it.

So if you want to stay tuned, check out Money Pit’s social-media pages, check out my web page: LeslieSegrete.com. We’ve got a lot of stuff on there about the process of organizing a laundry room and of course, what not to do in the process.

TOM: Be careful teaching Henry about the paint. I did that with my kids when they were young and my oldest son kicked a paint can all the way down the stairs. It was quite a mess.

Well, coming up next time on The Money Pit, it’s one of the first things people see, so don’t let a sagging gate drag down the view of your house. We’re going to teach you how to secure your fence properly, on the next edition of the program.

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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