LESLIE: Marie in Florida finds The Money Pit on WWBA. And you’ve got a question about a big porch.
MARIE: I have this big porch and it’s like the whole … almost the whole length of the back of the house. And it’s kind of getting old and it’s kind of like I don’t use it because either it’s too hot or it’s too cold. And I’m thinking what should I do. Maybe you can give me some advice. The screens are kind of getting a little deteriorating and I thought, well … I just thought maybe you could …
TOM: So you want some redecorating advice for your porch. Is that what you’re saying, Marie?
MARIE: Exactly.
TOM: Alright. Well, Leslie, what do you think? First of all, a big porch is a rarity so I would encourage you to preserve it.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Yeah, a big porch sounds wonderful.
MARIE: Doesn’t it? And you know, it goes off the living room and it goes off the kitchen and then even the bedroom.
LESLIE: Well, Marie, I think there’s a couple of things you can do. You might want to, in the area where you have screens – and you say the screens are coming out a little bit – maybe you want to get somebody to rebuild those frames for the screens, so that they put nice fresh screening on there. And then, make it so that that panel with the screens on it is able to be removed. So maybe there’s just sort of nailers or supports that go on the inside or the outside that are removable so you can take that screen away. And maybe even have a framed piece of glass so if the weather turns and you want to make it more of an indoor room, you can pop those pieces of glass in there as well. Or just keep it strictly screened in.
And then, Tom and I always recommend something that’s really interesting and it’s a heated fan; which is a ceiling fan that heats and cools. And it’s great for exactly this type of application, like a covered porch, because you can turn it on and control the heating thermostat and make it as warm under there as you like or even use it as a straight cooling fan. So that will extend your usage of that area a lot.
MARIE: Okay. And it’s a heating fan? I never heard of it.
TOM: It’s basically a ceiling fan that also has heating coils in it so it can cool you in the summer and then the heating coils can be flipped on and it’ll blow warm air down in the winter or in the cooler months. So, it’s a nice way to get a little extra space, a little extra comfortable time out of that porch when it just starts to cool off a bit.
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