Hosts: Tom Kraeutler & Leslie Segrete
(NOTE: Timestamps below correspond to the running time of the downloadable audio file of this show. Text represents a professional transcriptionist’s understanding of what was said. No guarantee of accuracy is expressed or implied. ‘Ph’ in parentheses indicates the phonetic or best guess of the actual spoken word.)
BEGIN HOUR 2 TEXT:
(theme song)
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: Call us right now with your home improvement question; call us right now with your do-it-yourself dilemma. Before you pick up the hammer; before you pick up the saw pick up the phone and call us because we’re here to help you get the job done. 888-666-3974.
Coming up this hour, if you live in the parts of the country that get that annual freeze/thaw cycle you know that it does a number on your concrete sidewalks and driveways. Water can get in to these small cracks and it freezes and expands and really just gets worse over time. So we’re going to have some tips to help you fix those cracks once and for all.
LESLIE: And if it seems like you’re taking on that outdoor project and a whole bunch more, one additional project you might be thinking about is painting your house. We’re going to have a tip for prepping surfaces that’s going to go a long, long way in creating a great end result, but you might just need a pro to do it. That’s OK. Hey, keeps you off the ladders.
TOM: And speaking of pros, we’re going to invite one on the program later this hour. It’s our friend Andrew Dan-Jumbo, your former cast member from While You Were Out. He’s here to talk to us about his brand new show called the Take Home Handyman. I love the concept. He sort of stalks the aisles of home centers – for all the right reasons, that is.
LESLIE: Yeah, and suddenly we see more and more women at the home centers (Tom laughs). Do you think they’re becoming do-it-yourselfers? No, they’re looking for Andrew.
TOM: Well, he’s looking for folks that might need some help with their home improvement project and then he gets to go to the homes of those folks and help them get the job done. We’ll get the details when Andrew joins us just a bit later in the program.
LESLIE: And hey, if you’re not lucky enough to run into Andrew Dan-Jumbo at the home center to get his help, you are lucky enough to tune into Tom and I every, single weekend because we sort of do the same thing right here; of course, without the stalking part. (Tom laughs) Unless you really want it. I mean we’re willing to do that for you. So, give us a call at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. We’re even going to help you get your projects done and maybe give you a cool prize just for calling and asking your question on the air. This hour we’ve giving away a prize pack from Live Eyewear. It’s two pairs of safety glasses including a tinted pair for all of your new outdoor work you’re going to be doing this spring season. It’s worth 70 bucks.
TOM: So give us a call right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
Leslie, who’s first?
LESLIE: Ramona in Wisconsin is getting ready to enjoy the outdoor space. What can we help you with?
RAMONA: We’ve got an outside fountain and it comes in sections and the part where the water is …
TOM: OK.
RAMONA: … is leaking right now but I – we can see – I’ve sealed it before.
TOM: What are you sealing it with, Ramona?
RAMONA: I sealed it with that liquid cement …
TOM: OK.
RAMONA: … and it did just fine for a couple years.
TOM: OK, so you want to stop this from leaking.
RAMONA: Right.
TOM: I think what you’re going to need here is an epoxy paint.
LESLIE: And you can get it in a gray tone if you’re dealing with a natural gray, concrete-looking fountain. So you can have it in a neutral-looking tone so it doesn’t look as if you’ve painted it.
RAMONA: OK, thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome, Ramona. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Looks like John in Maryland is looking for some new windows. How can we help you with the process?
JOHN: Yeah, I have an older home that I’m trying to refurbish and it does have some really inefficient double-hung wooden windows that are leaking. They’re very inefficient to start with. I’m trying to buy some new ones but I’m wondering how to measure for the new ones; the replacement windows. Do you measure from the outside edge of the glass or the outside of the actual wooden frame of the window or …?
TOM: No, here’s what you do. Now imagine that if you’re going to put these replacement windows in you’re going to remove the sashes; that’s the part that slides up and down.
LESLIE: The operable pieces.
JOHN: Correct.
TOM: So the new window basically goes from inside jamb to inside jamb; side to side and top to bottom. So that’s how you measure it. But what I would recommend you do is choose the window first; go to the home center or the window company and get the specific instructions on how they want you to measure windows because they’re going to tell you exactly where to put that tape and how much wiggle room to give yourself because, generally, you’re going to order a size that’s maybe a quarter-of-an-inch less or so just in case the old window is a little bit out of square; it’ll help you get the new window in.
JOHN: I see. So each company may have a little bit different …
TOM: Slightly, but generally speaking, it’s inside jamb to inside jamb. But I know that these window companies have specific advice that they will give you. It’s either …
LESLIE: Oh God, they spell it out.
TOM: Yeah, and that will just be the easiest thing just to make sure you’re very comfortable. And by the way, you may even want to ask these folks to come and do the measuring for you. This way they’re responsible if it doesn’t fit.
JOHN: I see. That’s a good way to do it. OK, well thanks a lot. I appreciate it.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT and replacing old, double-hung, single-pane wood windows is certainly a good thing to do.
LESLIE: This is The Money Pit and now is the home improvement season. It’s just right; the weather is warming up all across the country and we’re getting you outdoors. So give us a call with your home repair or your home improvement question, whatever you are working on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
TOM: 888-666-3974.
Up next, are the porch and sidewalk cracks driving you crazy? Are they making a dangerous tripping condition around your house? We’re going tell you how to fix them once and for all, next.
ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit is brought to you by Aprilaire, makers of professionally-installed, high-efficiency air cleaners. For more information go to Aprilaire.com. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.
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 you should pick up a phone and give us a call now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT because if we talk to you on the air this hour you could win a great prize. We’re giving away two pairs of safety glasses, which is perfect for what you guys are out there doing; home improvement projects where you’ll want to have protective eyewear. And they’re from our friends over at Live Eyewear. We’re giving away specifically designed safety glasses. One is made to fit over prescription glasses so that you can actually see what you’re working on and the still protect yourself and make a pretty fabulous project. They’re worth 70 bucks. Give us a call now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT for your chance to win.
TOM: 888-666-3974.
Well, if you’re enjoying the fine weather we have across the country and you’re taking stock of your outside surroundings for the first time this spring, you’re probably noticing that the cracks may really have done a number on your concrete driveway and sidewalks over the winter. Cracks in concrete, though, can be easily fixed with a flowable urethane sealer available at home centers or hardware stores. This is a repair material that’s specifically designed to flow into those cracks, fill the voids and prevent, most importantly, any further water from getting down there. If you stop the water from leaking into those cracks you will stop them from getting any worse. They’ll just kind of go dormant. They’ll stay very stable and you won’t have to worry about them again. If you don’t fill them in, though, the water will continue to go in there and when it freezes in the winter it will lift those cracks more and more and more. So, the solution to repairing the cracks in the porches and the sidewalks is flowable urethane, available at home centers and hardware stores everywhere and it definitely is a do-it-yourself job and it will prevent you from taking a trip on those very unsafe sidewalks this spring.
888-666-3974. Lots of folks standing by waiting to ask their question. Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Alright, now we’ve got Mike in Texas who’s got a question about a whole-house fan. Tell us what’s going on.
MIKE: Hi, Leslie. Yeah, I guess – I’ve got a ranch-style house here in Texas and I was wondering about a whole-house fan. I was told by the AC techs down here that I don’t really want to do that because of mold and pollen issues, but we kind of like the windows open and we kind of like the lower energy costs.
TOM: I think there is absolutely no reason you can’t do a whole-house fan. It would be a great idea. Let’s make sure that we understand the difference, though, between a whole-house fan and an attic fan. Now, a whole-house …
LESLIE: People get confused so easily.
TOM: Yeah, they do. A whole-house fan gets mounted – in a ranch it would be probably in the hall and pointing, of course, into the attic and then you have to also install, Mike, exhaust venting because you’re going to turn the whole-house fan on; you’re going to open a few windows around the house and it’s going to draw a breeze from the outside into the whole-house fan, up into the attic and then out through the exhaust ducts. And by doing that, what I’ve found is you can actually delay the use of your air conditioning system on the start of the season and at the end of the season it will actually buy you some months perhaps when you don’t have to run the air conditioning. So that will save you some money and anytime you have a cooler day or you just want to move some air because it’s rather still outside, you can skip the air and flip that on.
Another little trick of the trade, though, is when you pick one of these up make sure you install it on a timer switch because then when you go to bed at night and it’s a bit warm, you can set it to run for an hour and it’ll cool the house off while you’re falling asleep and then it’ll go off automatically; you’ll be done.
MIKE: OK, great. I guess one other question on that. So if I put it in like a room of the house that doesn’t have any external windows and it gets really hot, that would work as well as a hallway?
TOM: No. No, no, no. You put the fan in the hallway, because it’s centrally located in the house, and then you open windows where you want to have the incoming air.
MIKE: OK.
TOM: OK? And it’ll draw from the windows into the hall and then up through the fan and then out.
MIKE: Very good. Alright, thank you.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Lola in Pennsylvania, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?
LOLA: Yeah, I was calling about the gutter on the north side of my house.
TOM: OK.
LOLA: [Thought of] (ph) replacing it. Is there anything that can actually, truly remove the black mildew that forms on it every year?
TOM: Yeah, sure. You can clean it with a house wash material. There’s a product on the market called Jomax; J-o-m-a-x. It’s a siding wash and it’s specifically designed to attack those stains and that’s a product that you could mix up and use to clean them with.
LOLA: With a power washer.
TOM: You may not necessarily need to use the power washer. You need to spray this stuff on first because if you just try to blast off the mildew …
LESLIE: You’re just washing away the material itself that’s cleaning.
TOM: And you get some of the roots, so to speak, that stay behind and it comes back just as quick. You need to treat it first. So you need to use a house wash like Jomax or a bleach and water solution; spray it on there; let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes and then you can use the pressure washer to blast off the residual.
LOLA: Oh, and it will totally come off?
TOM: Yes.
LESLIE: Oh, yeah.
LOLA: Thank you.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Well, it’s spring swarm season everywhere in this country and Pat in Hawaii is dealing with termites. What can we do for you?
PAT: Well, I have a condo that I take care of. It isn’t one that I live in.
TOM: OK.
PAT: But anyhow, we’ve got termites in the kitchen cabinets.
TOM: Oh, boy.
PAT: I have talked with our pest control people here on the island and they say there’s very, very little we can do about it other than taking the cabinets out and having them put in a house that’s being exterminated and, you know, just to set in there while they’re tenting it. And that’s, you know, a very costly process. We did buy some stuff called Terminate and we took all the drawers out and every wood surface, because some of it is covered with plastic. We rubbed this – it’s like a foam; we put on rubber gloves and rubbed it all over the wood and it just dried; it didn’t have a smell. But we were just wondering if there’s anything at all that we can do.
TOM: Well, the first thing you need to do is you need to get the termite identified. If it’s a subterranean termite this is an easy problem to fix because if it’s subterranean then basically what you’re going to do is – and this has to be done by a pro – but you would treat the soil around the outside foundation perimeter because the termites are going to have a connection, probably, through the wall. And if they’re infesting the cabinets you can also bet that they’re inside the wall doing damage there as well.
PAT: These condos are up off the ground; they’re above carports. So no, it isn’t that kind of a termite. We were told that they probably came with the cabinets from the local supplier.
TOM: Then they may be a drywood termite and he’s right; typically, when you have that kind of an infestation that you tent the home and you fumigate it and that’s how you get rid of those infestations. So, any type of treatment that you do to this may be somewhat effective but it wouldn’t be as effective as doing it correctly. It’s not uncommon, in your part of the country, to have to do this from time to time.
Pat, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Now we’ve got a drywall question from Toby in Connecticut. What’s going on?
TOBY: I’m working on several rooms and I have drywall put up and what I’m interested in discovering is what’s the best product to put on the walls as a primer. I’ve seen several different brands and oils and latex and kind of curious what your opinions are what the preferred product would be.
LESLIE: Are you painting or are you wallpapering?
TOBY: I will be painting it once the primer is up.
LESLIE: Well, I think any sort of – depending on the room, I think any sort of primer like a KILZ or a Zinsser primer, whether they’re water-based or oil-based. If you’re dealing with a bath or perhaps you’ve got a moisture situation, an oil base is going to be a better primer and then a latex topcoat. But those are probably the two best brands as far as coverage. And is there anything special when you’re dealing with raw drywall, Tom, that would make it a better primer?
TOM: No, I think if it’s raw drywall you’re probably fine with latex. You don’t have to use oil. Oil is very effective if you have, you know, an unknown wall surface or maybe it’s really dirty; really smoke-stained or something of that nature. If you have a real tough stain you can use oil but with just raw drywall, I think a latex is fine and you’re very smart to put that on because what’s going to happen is that’s going to give you a nice, even base and you will actually see an improved finish for the topcoat of paint because you’ve primed. A lot of people try to skip that but that’s really a foolhardy thing to do. You need to put a primer on …
LESLIE: Well, you’ll spend twice as much on paint …
TOM: Absolutely.
LESLIE: … trying to get the coverage.
TOM: And the primer makes the paint stick. Remember, primer has different qualities than the topcoat. It’s really there to adhere well to the surface and give you a nice, smooth finish, that’s not permeable, for the top paint to adhere to.
TOBY: OK. So simply follow any of the manufacturers’ recommendations and that should get me the desired finish.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and if you’re going with a deep, dark color, go ahead and get a tinted primer because that’s going to cut down on your topcoat coverage.
TOBY: Right. OK. Excellent, thank you.
TOM: You’re welcome, Toby. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Greg in Virginia, welcome to the program. What’s going on at your money pit?
GREG: Hi, well we have a house that was built in 1981/82 …
TOM: OK.
GREG: … and what we’ve noticed is that in the front foyer the walls are cracking. It seems like the vertical portion of the foyer is cracking and there are places around the window frames that are cracking diagonally.
TOM: Well, homes are going to crack and they do crack over time and the places that you’re describing these cracks coming off of windows and doors is not that unusual. Do you have any evidence that it’s an active problem; in other words, that the cracks are getting worse over time?
GREG: Yeah, actually, basically what happened was about eight years ago we had a hailstorm and the roof got damaged and we had the roof replaced and we put on gutters. Since we’ve put the gutters on the cracks have seemed to have gotten worse.
TOM: Since you think it’s an active problem I would definitely have the home evaluated by a professional. I would suggest a qualified, professional home inspector or an architect or a structural engineer.
Secondly, when it comes to repairing those cracks, very frequently we find that people don’t repair cracks adequately and hence, they open up again and people think they’re moving when they’re really not. To repair this properly, we would recommend that you use fiberglass seam tape, which is a very open sort of mesh-like pattern. And you can apply this on top of the crack and then spackle over it with two to three coats and that’s a very strong tape …
GREG: OK, thank you.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Well, with all of you calling in to The Money Pit, I bet your number one request would be to get Tom and I to come to your house and help you with this home improvement debacle, dilemma, project that you’ve got going on and while Tom and I can’t be there like we want to, we’ve got a guest coming up who can. We’ve got Andrew Dan-Jumbo, who is also known as the Take Home Handyman, joining us and he’s got DIY horror stories and he’s going to jump in to help you save the day; so stick around.
(theme song)
ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is brought to you by Citrus Magic; the all-natural, super-strong air freshener available in spray and solid form. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.
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 know many of our listeners have fallen into this trap. You’ve got an unfinished do-it-yourself project that just never seems to get done. I’ve got a garage that is on the third year of a siding project.
LESLIE: (chuckling) You know …
TOM: But eventually we’ll complete all four sides.
LESLIE: We get so many of these calls here at The Money Pit, you know, and usually it’s a husband and wife duo where one is ratting on the other – usually the wife on the husband – and they’re saying, ‘Oh, I wish I wouldn’t have started this. I’ve really bitten off more than I can chew.’ Well, our next guest, who is a good friend of mine, has seem them all and is on call to save the day. Da-da-da-da da-da! When your unfinished project just needs to get done stat, we’ve got Andrew Dan-Jumbo from TLC’s Take Home Handyman joining us on the program. Welcome.
ANDREW: Hey, guys. How you doing?
TOM: Excellent. So Andrew, tell us about Take Home Handyman. Does somebody get to take you home to finish those projects?
ANDREW: That’s the general idea, yes, yes. I don’t get, necessarily, always to pick who it is but we basically – you know, we sort of – we prey upon people in Home Depot and we find out if they’ve got any interesting projects around the house and, if they do, I volunteer my services and I help them select materials and tools and I take them – we get back to the house and we try to get as much as we can done in a two-day timeframe. It’s basically sort of to show the folks at home what can be done in a weekend.
LESLIE: Now are you looking for the person who’s got the most confused look on their face (Tom laughs) and the most random group of equipment in the shopping cart?
ANDREW: Exactly, yes, yes. I always find the person who’s got the easiest project; that’s the idea. (Leslie chuckles)
TOM: So you’re sort of a professional home improvement stalker but with good intentions.
ANDREW: Yes, yes. People, you know, once they get over the shock of being stalked in the first place (Tom laughs); it’s kind of a disconcerting thing. (Leslie chuckles) You know, and it’s been a really good format because, as Leslie will know, you know, when we were doing While You Were Out we’re walking around these stores; people are always approaching us for ideas on how to do things around the home and this is really – was the springboard for the show. It’s the same kind of idea.
LESLIE: Or generally trying to take us home with them to finish the project.
ANDREW: Yes. The difference being on this show [we take them home and] (ph) I don’t really do the work and I actually show them how to do the work. I’m trying to give them the know-how and tips on how to do this work and I sort of step back. Whilst they’re finishing off unfinished projects in the home I will then do a little something for them on the side that’s kind of like a surprise for them.
TOM: We’re talking to Andrew Dan-Jumbo. He is the Take Home Handyman. His show airs Saturdays at 11:00 on The Learning Channel.
And so, Andrew, why do you think so many people get themselves in this position of getting projects started that they just can’t finish?
ANDREW: Again, I’m going to reference shows like While You Were Out and Trading Spaces. There are many makeover shows. They’ve made it look very easy. They’ve made a lot of these craftsy projects and a lot of these building projects seem very easy and some of them are, but it does help to have all the right tools and people get very – I think get very ambitious early on and they quickly run out of enthusiasm for the project (Leslie chuckles) because often it’s, you know, a lot harder than they anticipated. And so, you know, you go to these homes and they have like two dozen half-finished projects around the house and it’s a shame because they need only a little bit of help to get them finished and a little bit of sort of like motivation to get these things done.
LESLIE: Is there a common theme in the projects that you’re finding that people just sort of give up on or do they really just run the gamut?
ANDREW: It’s pretty much everything. One of the things I’ve seen people think across the board they can do really well is painting and I just go to so many homes where I’ve seen electrical outlets and light switches just thick with paint. People will roll …
LESLIE: And you know how angry that gets me.
ANDREW: Yes, take the screw out; remove the plate (all chuckle) and then paint around it. It’s like it’s amazing the destruction people do with paint and nothing really surprises me anymore. But I just – I think people just need to slow it down a little bit; take a little bit more time. And you know, when you go to the hardware stores there’s people there that will give you plenty of advice if you just take the time to ask them.
TOM: Well, the next time you’re strolling through your neighborhood Home Depot, if you notice a handsome young man stalking you from the end of the aisles, don’t be afraid; it could Andrew Dan-Jumbo, the Take Home Handyman, looking for the next victim – I mean candidate (Leslie chuckles) for his newest show, Take Home Handyman.
Andrew, thanks so much for stopping by The Money Pit.
ANDREW: My pleasure, guys. It was a lot of fun.
TOM: Take Home Handyman airs Saturdays at 11:00 a.m. on The Learning Channel.
LESLIE: I love that Andrew Dan-Jumbo. I worked with him for five years and I have to tell you; I miss him daily and tons of women across the country right now are being like (Tom laughs), ‘I hate you, Leslie Segrete. You got to hang out with him all the time.’ Well, let me tell you, girls; he’s as charming in person as you think he is. I hate to say it.
Alright, well if you are thinking about some projects and maybe you’ve got one at home that requires heavy-duty stripping, sandblasting – I know it sounds messy and kind of dangerous – it could be your best option. But is it a do-it-yourself project? We are going to answer that question right after this.
(theme song)
ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is brought to you by Rheem water heaters. For dependable, energy-efficient tank and tankless water heaters, you can trust Rheem. Learn more at SmarterHotWater.com. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.
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: The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. Give us a call right now with your do-it-yourself dilemma and if you are a DIYer you know that it’s very important to wear safety glasses. But for those of us who have prescription glasses sometimes that’s a bit of a challenge. Well, we’ve got the solution because if you call with your home improvement question we will toss your name into The Money Pit hardhat for a pair of safety glasses from Live Eyewear that are specifically designed to go over those prescription glasses. They’re worth 70 bucks so call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT for your chance to win.
LESLIE: Now here’s a project that you’re definitely going to have to put those safety glasses to use should you choose to tackle it on your own and it’s sandblasting. Now sandblasting, it’s an effective way to remove years upon years of layers of paint buildup from just about all types of surfaces, especially brick or stone. I mean it really is one of the only ways to tackle that. But this type of job, it can be dangerous and you really do need the skills of a professional with the proper equipment and the know-how to get the job done. Using a pro for your sandblasting job, it’s going to ensure a smooth outcome. We’re not talking dings and pocks and divots of areas where you went ‘Waaaa!’ (Tom chuckles) and got crazy with the sandblaster. So you want to make sure that everything is nice and smooth and a pro can really help you do that and that’s going to make sure you house is ready for a perfect new paint job, which you can do yourself.
TOM: 888-666-3974. Pick up the phone right now and call us at 888-MONEY-PIT with your home improvement question. We’re here to help.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Taking a call from Michigan. Sandra, welcome to The Money Pit. What can we do for you?
SANDRA: Well, I have a question about my gutters. It’s really hard to get them clean and I do it twice a year and it needs to be done twice a year. But they’re rather high; they’re about 20 feet up and it’s scary and I’ve got the electric lines going and you’ve got to try to dodge those and trust somebody to hold the ladder. (Leslie chuckles) And I’m wondering if there’s anything that I can do that would just kind of ease that up or help with not having to do it so often or – I mean twice a year is not extremely often but it’s scary.
LESLIE: No, no, and it’s totally understandable because you’re getting up into the heights like you mentioned and if you feel uncomfortable it’s easy to be nervous up there. There’s a couple of options. One – you can hire a gutter cleaning service. They’ll come to your house four times a year; that’s how much – you know it costs anywhere from 200 to 600 bucks, depending on your area, and they’ll come in and they’ll just do it for you so you don’t have to worry about it. Or clean them out and then go ahead and get a gutter guard system. Don’t go for those screeny-type ones because they tend to just sort of macerate all of the leaves and then that can get stuck and mushed down into the downspouts and that is a whole other mess. The ones that sort of look like – Tom, are they like a louver that comes over and like lips over the edge?
TOM: Yeah, they work on the principle of surface tension so the gutter cover goes over the gutter up under the roof shingles and what happens is as the water comes down the roof it sort of hangs on the gutter cover and then falls into the gutter but the leaves wash over the top. There’s different models of it – some of them are flat; some of them are louvered – but they work the same way and they actually work very, very well. The only time I see a problem with that type of gutter cover is if you have a very, very tall pitch on your roof it gets a lot of velocity and that water coming down, it could wash over the top. But for the most part it works very, very well.
SANDRA: Sounds like that’s something I might need to look into.
TOM: Yeah, well if you do it once and do it right you don’t have to do it again. OK?
SANDRA: OK. Thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Doug in South Carolina, what’s going on at your Money Pit?
DOUG: Yeah, I was wondering if you can – if a leak inside the house can be caused by insufficient gutter size and, basically, what we have is a two-story great room and the water seems to leak down the wall in the great room and then kind of leak down onto the floor and it almost runs down the wall. And I’ve been up in the attic and the rafters, the roof rafters, seem dry. The only thing I think it can be coming from is the gutters, maybe, are not sufficient to hold the water.
LESLIE: Well, it could also be that there aren’t sufficient downspouts for that expanse of wall.
DOUG: OK.
TOM: Yeah, you need one downspout for about every 600 hundred square feet of roof surface. Assuming we’re talking about a six-inch K-style gutter, which is sort of your average gutter size, you …
DOUG: Yeah, it’s the average gutter size.
TOM: You need one downspout for every 400 to 600 square feet of roof surface and yes, if your gutters are blocked or if you have insufficient spouts, the water can back up in the gutters and get in under the roof. Ice & Water Shield is one of the roofing underlayment products that will stop that from happening – it’s made by Grace – but it’s not easy to put this on after the roof is up. So the first thing I would do is make sure you have adequate downspouts for this.
DOUG: OK, good. That’s what I – maybe I’ll put a downspout right in the – because it’s actually picking up – the one valley is picking up two sides of the roof; so you’re right …
TOM: Yeah.
DOUG: … I may not have enough gutter.
TOM: Yeah, then you can just add an additional spout and you may have to repitch the gutter so it goes down to both sides. But when you get situations where one roof is dumping to the next, very often that last spout is not picking it up. And the other thing that you could do is you could replace the four-inch spout with a six-inch spout. You may have to do a little fancy aluminum work to make it fit but you could just make a bigger downspout and that will cart more water away. But one way or the other you need to make sure that that gutter system is draining everything the roof is dumping on it.
DOUG: Sounds better than replacing a ceiling inside. (Leslie chuckles)
TOM: Absolutely. Doug, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
You are tuned to the Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show.
Up next, it’s time to jump into the e-mail bag and ask a question that’s older than I am: ‘Is there a way to solve the problem of aging laminate countertops?’ We’ll tell you what to do, 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 and if you like to base your home improvement projects on research, here’s a stat for you. Research shows that making a simple change to your home’s exterior, like changing out the front entry door, can add tens of thousands of dollars in perceived value to your home. Folks are going to think it’s just worth more because it’s all about your home’s first impression. And if your front door is lacking in the looks department, we may have some help for you.
TOM: That’s right because we’re about to launch the fourth annual Ugliest Door in America contest sponsored by Therma-Tru Doors. We’re searching for the worst looking doors in America and if your door ends up being one of the two ugliest front doors in the country you could win a brand new front door entry system worth up to $5,000 from the folks at Therma-Tru.
LESLIE: Yeah, and you can enter right now at MyUglyDoor.com. You can either send in a short essay with some photos or you can be creative and make a short video. All of the details and all of the rules are available at MyUglyDoor.com.
TOM: And while you’re online, hop on over to The Money Pit website at MoneyPit.com and click on Ask Tom and Leslie and shoot us an e-mail question. Let’s get right to those now. We have one from Margaret in Ravenswood, West Virginia and Margaret says she has a laminate kitchen countertop that is 18 years old and starting to show wear. Well, I say it lasted a long time with 18 years.
LESLIE: Yeah, a lot longer than you would think.
TOM: She says there’s also a seam where the top joins that doesn’t match up very well. She’s considering having the countertop refinished. ‘Do you think this would be a good idea or am I just wasting my money?’
LESLIE: Now I’ve never heard about refinishing a laminate countertop because the finish itself is so thin on laminate. When she’s saying refinishing she might be talking about completely relaminating the surface itself, which is a great option.
TOM: Right.
LESLIE: It gives you a wonderful opportunity to choose a completely different look, color, pattern. Plus, if you go through a distributor like Wilsonart or Lamin-Art, you can get longer-length pieces – or even Formica – that you’re not going to have to get any seaming and you can get a better-looking job.
TOM: And laminate is a fantastic material. I mean it’s been around since – I think since around the 30s, when we really started to see a lot of use of this across the country. And unfortunately though, you can’t refinish it but you can relaminate it and that is absolutely the best option here, Margaret.
LESLIE: Alright, Margaret, enjoy your new counter.
TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show where we hope our home improvement solutions get you breathing a bit easier, which is something that you wouldn’t be doing if you didn’t clean your humidifier. That’s the topic of today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.
LESLIE: Yeah, I know. You think they’re doing a good job for you in your house so you just ignore your humidifier and it’s going to continue to keep doing that great job. Well, here’s a news flash. If they’re not maintained, humidifiers, they can get clogged and stop working or, worse yet, distribute mold or bacteria throughout your entire home. So, hey, clean it. Clean your humidifier as often as recommended by the manufacturer. One trick of the trade is to soak the evaporator pad in a white vinegar and water solution and humidifiers often get clogged by the mineral salts that are left behind as your water evaporates and that vinegar is going to melt all of that mineral salt that’s left behind. You want to make sure you rinse it really well, though, or you’re going to find that your entire house starts to smell like an antipasto (Tom chuckles) and then you’ll be hungry quite more often than you bargained for.
TOM: Great advice. 888-666-3974 is the number you can call 24/7/365. The show continues online at MoneyPit.com. That’s about all the time we have, but coming up next week on the show, as the weather gets warmer, you’re going to be spending more time outdoors with your kids. So we’re going to have some tips on how to make sure the playground surfaces your kids are jumping on are safe.
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.
(theme song)
END HOUR 2 TEXT
(Copyright 2008 Squeaky Door Productions, Inc. No portion of this transcript or audio file may be reproduced in any format without the express written permission of Squeaky Door Productions, Inc.)
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