LESLIE: Joe in New York needs some help with a flooring project. What’s going on at your money pit?
JOE: Well, I’ve got a problem with the parquet floor in the house. The house was built in 1908 and the floors used to be covered with broadloom and we never noticed the difference then but since we’ve taken up the broadloom and had the floors sanded and scraped, the parquet floors – the various slats – are nailed in three places because the slats – they’ve got three nails; one on either end and one in the middle. It’s always the nails on the end that are coming up.
TOM: Mm-hmm. Describe this flooring to me. It’s strip flooring or it’s squares?
JOE: They form a square but they’re strips.
TOM: OK. And each one of these strips is nailed down?
JOE: Right.
TOM: OK.
JOE: In three places.
TOM: Is it possible for you to use what’s called a trim screw? A trim screw is a screw that is very, very narrow at the top. It’s used in carpentry and it’s about as wide at the top as a finish nail. And if you use a trim screw instead of the nails, once you put it in, once you drive it in – and use a very small Phillips-head screwdriver bit, usually on a power drill, to drive these in – it will be permanently secured down. Problem is that the hole that this nail is in has just worked itself so loose that it’s going to continue to push the old nails out. But if every time you pull a nail out you replace it with a trim screw, this is not going to happen to you.
JOE: Yeah. Alright, thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome, Joe. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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