Show Notes
- Building a Shed: If you need outdoor storage solutions, get 4 pro tips for building a backyard shed.
- Energy Bills: Seeing your energy bills go up? Watch out for these 4 factors that drive up costs.
- Anti-Slip Surfaces: Using an anti-slip coating can prevent dangerous slips and falls on indoor and outdoor surfaces.
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
Plus, answers to your home improvement questions about:
- Reclaimed Wood Floor: Tim needs a clear finish for his reclaimed wood floor. We suggest a durable oil-based polyurethane with a finish that hides scratches.
- Patio Makeover: After removing a deck, Fonda wants to redesign the remaining cement pad. We have ideas on using brick pavers for a patio makeover.
- Basement Walls: Bowing basement walls can be a severe problem affecting the structure and value of Rob’s home. He needs to call a structural engineer.
- Shower Grout: Replacing grout is a headache, but Victoria finds out she can just try to match the area that’s falling out instead of regrouting the entire shower.
- Efflorescence: Jerry’s basement is dried out but he still has efflorescence on the cement walls. A mix of hot water and vinegar will remove the mineral deposits.
- Replacing Sod: After the sod failed, Catherine wants to reseed the lawn. She should get the soil tested first to find out what kind of fertilizer she needs.
- Plumbing: How can defective Kitec plumbing be replaced? The only solution is for Elvis to replace any pipes that are accessible before they get worse.
- Patio Doors: If your sliding doors or windows are sticking, Steve is a master carpenter with a suggestion on what to use instead of white lithium grease.
Podcast Transcript
Read Transcript
| 0:00:32 | TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles. This is the Money Pit Home Improvement show. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 0:00:37 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 0:00:38 | TOM: Here to help you get the projects you want to get done around your house. So you need help solving a do it yourself dilemma. You got a court challenge. You want to tackle a project you don’t know where to begin or it’s the worst part. You start a project with all the good intentions and then you got stuck because you ran to something that was unexpected. Well, that happens. And if any of those describe the state of your home improvements, you can reach out to us with those questions and we will do our best to get you moving again. Couple of ways to do that. You can call us at 888-MONEY-PIT or just go to moneypit.com/ask and click the blue microphone button. Coming up on today’s show, are you guys overflowing with your tools, pool toys, lawn chairs, or kids’ bikes? Well, then you might be ready to build a shed whether you want to store that overflow or create the perfect man cave or she shed or we shed. Shed products are more popular than ever. So we’re going to have some pro tips to help you do it, right? |
| 0:01:32 | LESLIE: Yeah. And maybe will come up with like a new nickname for a different type of shed. I feel like they just definitely need one. |
| 0:01:39 | CALLER: It’s a. |
| 0:01:39 | TOM: Great. We definitely will. |
| 0:01:41 | LESLIE: Also have guys, are you shopping for a new home or apartment? If so, the Department of Energy says just for parts of that home can cause your energy bills to skyrocket. So we’re going to share those tips just ahead. |
| 0:01:53 | TOM: And did you know that slips and falls caused more than 1 million visits to the emergency room every year? We’re going to share a super durable new anti-slip product that can make both indoor and outdoor surfaces safer and a lot more attractive. |
| 0:02:06 | LESLIE: But first, we know taking care of a home can be a combination of love, pride and heart stopping fear. But we promise to help you plan, save your money and spare you from all those home improvement snafus. So reach out with your questions. And together we’re going to help you create your best home ever. |
| 0:02:22 | TOM: So reach out right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. or go to moneypit.com/ask. Click the blue microphone button and record your question for the fastest possible response. Let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s first? |
| 0:02:35 | LESLIE: Tim in Iowa has a wood finishing question. How can I help you? |
| 0:02:38 | CALLER: Oh, I’ve got an old house. It’s got four floors. I’ve acquired some freaking reclaimed fur flooring to put it in an addition and to try and mash up the rest of the house. Question I have this is going to be the first floor that I read, you know, redo in the House. I kind of wanted to whenever I do, I want to do it in the rest of house. But the question I have is on the clear finish. I know a lot of different companies are making a water based clear. And my second question is whether, you know or as far as durability, whether it’s something that that product would be durable. And then also, I have a couple of dogs that I’m worried about, nail scratches as far as Sheen goes. I know the shinier it is, the easier, the more scratches you can see. So I’m curious if there’s anything out there that shines good and will resist scratches. |
| 0:03:32 | TOM: Yeah. I mean, I have always felt that oil based floor finishes are key. Any time I’ve tried is a water based floor finish, it doesn’t seem to have the durability. So I would definitely recommend an oil based floor finish like a polyurethane in terms of sheen. I think that semi-gloss is what you want, not high gloss, because that does show not only does it show scratches, it shows on dirt easier, but semi-gloss or satin is a nice color to have. So I think the answer is oil based satin polyurethane is the solution. |
| 0:04:04 | CALLER: Is there any kind of a two part epoxy, one that’s even more durable than the polyurethane or. |
| 0:04:09 | TOM: There are there are two parts finishes like that. Professional floor installers do use those, like when they do like sort of gym floors and that kind of stuff. But it’s not sort of an over-the-counter purchase. You’d have to go to a flooring finish supply company. |
| 0:04:24 | LESLIE: Well, yeah, and that’s going to have to be applied in a manner where you’re really thinking about ventilation and, you know, protection of yourself because that’s a fairly caustic material. |
| 0:04:34 | CALLER: All right. Thank you very much, guys. |
| 0:04:35 | TOM: You’re welcome. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. |
| 0:04:40 | LESLIE: Fund in South Dakota. You’ve got the Money Pit. How can we help you today? |
| 0:04:43 | CALLER: We are demolishing our old deck that leads to an old patio at the ground level. And the old patio has two substrates. You lead down to a plank patio. It’s like wood, a two by sixes, I think, which is an awful shape. It’s probably 30 feet by three feet and then it butts up to it. Pretty substantial cement pad that’s 20 feet by 20 feet. And we know we’re going to demo the wood pad. But it’s the question is, what do we put in? Do we have to top up the old cement pad, which is in great shape because it’s so substantial? Or can we put in another cement pad next to it? So the new patio, can you go over the old cement with something and stamp it or make it just. And then the other problem is it’s square. And I would like the new patio at the ground level to be rounder and curvier. |
| 0:05:41 | TOM: One idea that I have straight off is to go over the old patio with brick pavers. And if the patio is flat and strong and solid, there’s no reason you can’t put pavers on top of that. And so you could basically create a do almost a patio makeover by preserving the concrete and putting brick pavers right over the concrete. They’re all going to assemble together. You won’t see them when they’re done there. You mentioned changing the shape, of course, a little more complicated because you’re going to have to build up to the edges. Part of the patio would be over concrete and part of the patio would be over traditional built of stone, if that’s possible. But if you want to avoid changing the shape, then it becomes a very easy project to do it with brick pavers. And of course, you have lots and lots and lots of choices on shapes and colors and all of that that you go with. |
| 0:06:30 | CALLER: And on the side, that’s not cement. What’s under the brick pavers on. |
| 0:06:35 | TOM: The side, that’s not cement. What’s under the brick pavers is this first of all, you dig out obviously all the grass and that sort of thing. Then you put down about 4 to 6 inches of gray gravel. You can’t that down really, really, really Well, then on top of that, you lay some sand, get that nice and flat. On top of that you put the brick pavers and then you put additional sand in between. But tamping them properly, preparing that ground and tamping that stone really well is critical because if you don’t, it gets all roly poly over the years and we’d start to grow up through it. |
| 0:07:09 | CALLER: All right. Well, thank you. |
| 0:07:10 | TOM: You’re welcome. Find that. Good luck with that project just in time for summer. Eight, eight, 86663974. |
| 0:07:17 | LESLIE: Hey there we’ll be your enjoying this episode of our podcast if you are you know what would totally make our day is if you leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:07:26 | TOM: Absolutely just go to money pit dot com slash review and let the world know how much you enjoy our home improvement tips and tricks. And you might even win a copy of our book. |
| 0:07:37 | LESLIE: Now we’ve got Rob in Iowa, whose basement walls seem to be coming in on themselves. What is going on in your Money Pit? |
| 0:07:44 | CALLER: I’ve got some baseballs that are heating in and I need a permanent solution that’s not going to bankrupt me. Okay? Basically what I’ve got is I’ve got some wall anchors that have been installed about seven years ago. I’ve been keeping those tight. And the walls are still heaving yet. We had a drought here in Iowa last summer. Yeah, this year we’ve had quite a bit of rain. So walls are falling in up to two inches quite a little word. |
| 0:08:12 | TOM: Yeah. If your walls are voting two inches, Robyn, fortunately you’ve got a very serious problem on your hands that is not only impacting the structure of your home, but also the value of your home. And if the walls have gotten that bad, you know, we are well beyond the do it yourself fix stage. I can provide you some basic information about why this might be happening. Generally, the reason walls will heave is because you get a lot of water that collects around the foundation perimeter, especially if you don’t have terrific drainage, If the drainage is flat, if the gutters are dumping there, the corners of the foundation, which is where most gutter contractors leave them, that water collects into the soil and in the wintertime it freezes, expands, and then slowly but surely sort of ratchets that wall out. Now, if yours have gone to the point where they’re two inches out of plumb, this is a problem. So the way I would address this and I would I would do it very specifically and very strategically is as follows I would retain a structural engineer to examine the problem and specify a repair. It’s very important that you just don’t call a contractor for this because if they don’t have the pedigree of a of an engineering degree, it’s not going to hold water when it comes time to sell your house. So I would hire an engineer to analyze the problem and design the solution. And you could talk cost concerns with your engineer and options and all of that. Once you have that plan in place at that point in time, you can make the decision as to whether or not you going to do it yourself, which may be more possible with the plan than not, or whether or not you’re going to hire a pro. But however you get it done, the third and most important final step is to have the engineer come back and examine the work and then give you an additional letter that says, yes, I you know, I identified this problem and I designed the fix and I inspected the fix and it’s done correctly. And there’s nothing further to worry about because ultimately, if you go to sell your house, the buyers are going to bring up the issue. You want to have that sort of pedigree in your hand so that you can prove that it was a repair, that, yes, was structural in nature, but was repaired correctly. Does that make sense? |
| 0:10:20 | CALLER: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a very interesting approach I want to throw at you. And that is the wall and your system that’s installed was warranty. And the owner of that company came out and said that, you know, he’ll warranty the system. He’s willing to put in like three more anchors, which in my mind is an admission of liability. Do I let him do that or do I need to get the structural engineer first? |
| 0:10:48 | TOM: Is this wall anchor contractor or a structural engineer? I doubt it. Stop the repair process. Get the engineer. If the engineer thinks that’s a good idea, then that’s a different story. But warranty doesn’t necessarily mean we put more in. If the product failed and your walls continued to grow as a result, then you know it’s liability depending on where these walls were when he first put the system in and guarantee that they were going to stop the walls from buckling in his wall, his liability could be significant, but I would get the engineer in first. And let’s get some good, impartial expert advice here from somebody that does not have a system to sell you. I don’t want you to get advice from somebody that some of those contractors give you advice from people that you know because they sell the system. Yeah, you know, you got a problem. I’m just the guy to fix it for you. You know, that’s not really good. Expert independent advice. So go to the engineer first, Rob, and then you could deal with the contractor issue after you have the information. |
| 0:11:45 | CALLER: Okay, great. |
| 0:11:46 | TOM: Thank you. Good luck. Thanks so much for calling us at 88 Money Pit. |
| 0:11:50 | LESLIE: Well, homeowners have always had sort of a love hate relationship with backyard sheds. You know, we love the extra storage space, but we hate the way they look. And building one is not as easy as it seems. And maintaining a shed is a job that just feels like it never ends. But whether you’re a little tight on outdoor storage or you want to build a shed or a man cave or a white shed or whatever else we’re going to call it, there are four important things to consider. |
| 0:12:13 | TOM: Yeah, that’s right. So first, let’s keep the costs in mind because the average cost to build a shed is somewhere between about $803,000, depending on the materials you choose and whether you choose to DIY it or to hire a pro. But whether you decide to hire a professional or are you going to go it alone, there are a few basic questions you need to ask yourself before you start shopping. So, for example, think about the size and the style of the shed. You need something simple and utilitarian, or you want something like decorative and frilly and cool looking. There are a lot of different styles and sizes out there. You want to evaluate your home property, determine the best style for your needs. Now, one trick is to make the design sort of fit in is to choose a style that matches your home’s roof line. If your home has a gabled roof building a shed with a barn style roof is going to look out of place. |
| 0:12:59 | LESLIE: Now, if you have a tight budget, you can design a simple shed that gets the job done without all of those frills. And if you’ve got extra wiggle room, you can look for added features such as Windows, to help bring in light integrated shelving inside decorative trim on the exterior. Or you can go all out man cave or and add electricity, heating, plumbing. I mean, why not if you’re doing it? |
| 0:13:19 | TOM: Yeah, and let’s talk about permits. I know that you hate to get permits, but check local building codes. Determine if you need one to build your shed on your property. There are really two or three types that could apply. Building mechanical and zoning. The building permit is just that. That’s for the structure. Mechanical would be if you’re going to run electricity or plumbing to it and zoning, well, that’s important because it’s going to dictate how many accessory buildings, which is exactly what a shut is you can have on your property and how close it can be to the property line. You want to find out after you’ve finished the project that’s going to come down because it violated some crazy building or zoning ordinance. Right? So. So investigate now before you start to build that shed, this way you will be able to get right to enjoying it when you drive that last nail. |
| 0:14:01 | LESLIE: Victoria from Arkansas is on the line is having a grout issue. What’s going. |
| 0:14:05 | CALLER: On? Well you know grout this grout that grumpy, grubby grout. Yeah, grout. You know, I hate grouting. It’s real tough. But this is with granules in it. But there’s just a couple of small areas where it’s fallen out. The grout. Okay. So do I still need I mean, this is a pretty tall shower. Do I still need to pull out all the ground from the top to the bottom, or can I just grab those few little particles that fell out? |
| 0:14:32 | TOM: No, you can definitely regrow out those areas where the grafts popped out. And I know what you’re talking about. That’s happened to me as well. Do you have some of the grout available from the original group? |
| 0:14:43 | CALLER: Any chance? No, because I bought this house about four years ago, but I found the same type of grout. But it is kind of like a sandy grout. Are you familiar with that? |
| 0:14:52 | TOM: For a shower, you typically don’t use sandy grout. That’s usually in a floor. We have a wider joint. You want to basically use a shower style grout, which is more of a powder than a sand grout. You could find this in home centers. It’s really inexpensive. Unfortunately, even the smallest package is going to be enough to do about three showers worth. |
| 0:15:10 | CALLER: Can I use the grout in the tub? |
| 0:15:12 | TOM: Depends on the color. You know, if the color matches, it’s really just a matter of getting the color right. I’ll tell you what I did when I crowded my shower in my have like a bathroom, you know, tub and shower all together. In the last time I it that what I did is I actually bought like three different groups. One that was like a little bit lighter, a little bit darker, one that I thought was pretty close. And I mixed up just a tiny bit of each to check, double check the color, because when it dries, it has a completely different color sometimes. And then, you know, I was able to find the one that worked best. And in our case, we did take out a lot of the old grout. But our goal there was to really do the whole shower for you just to do a little patch there. You don’t really have to do that. |
| 0:15:54 | CALLER: Oh, thank God. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I’m really grateful that you guys called me back and saved me all that time and aggravation. |
| 0:16:01 | TOM: Oh, you’re so worth it. |
| 0:16:03 | LESLIE: All right. We’ve got Jerry in Massachusetts on the line. Who needs some help cleaning the basement. What can we do for you? |
| 0:16:08 | CALLER: I’ve got some efflorescence on the cement walls in the basement. For years, I built the house. I didn’t put gullies up. I had overhangs and then it started developing. Somebody told me, Hey, it’s because you don’t have any gullies. So I put them up right away and it didn’t get any worse. But I’d like to clean that white efflorescence off and I didn’t want to use muriatic acid. |
| 0:16:32 | TOM: Now you don’t need that at all. It’s really simple. First of all, the as the stains that you have there for us, this is just lime is mineral deposits that are left over when water comes through the wall and evaporates. So what you can simply do is brush that off as much as you can. You can use a stiff, a stiff flick wall brush for that, and then just use water and white vinegar together. Hot water and white vinegar will melt the salts. |
| 0:16:57 | CALLER: You’ll have to write it down after the. |
| 0:17:00 | TOM: No, only if you don’t want your house to smell like a salad. I’m not worried about that. |
| 0:17:05 | CALLER: But white vinegar to do it. |
| 0:17:07 | TOM: Yeah, white vinegar does it. It’ll melt the salts. It’s a really good solution. |
| 0:17:10 | CALLER: I thought that, but I just want to check with you guys first. |
| 0:17:13 | TOM: Divided by the gallon. You mix it with some hot water and just, you know, brush it down. |
| 0:17:17 | CALLER: I’ll try. That should work. Thank you very much. |
| 0:17:20 | LESLIE: All right. Now we’ve got Katherine in Arizona on the line, who’s dealing with an issue with SOD and Arizona is pretty darn hot. So tell us what’s going on. |
| 0:17:28 | CALLER: I live actually in the mountains in Arizona. And so our issue is not the heat but the cold. And so what we’ve had happen is that we laid sod about eight years ago and unbeknownst to us novice homeowners, it had mesh netting on the backside of the roll and I don’t know if we were supposed to remove that or something, but now the thaw did not take to our climate and it has died and we would like to recede or lay down some new sod or something like that. But in order to prepare the soil until it and all of that, I just don’t know what to do because there’s this mesh. |
| 0:18:04 | LESLIE: Netting. |
| 0:18:05 | CALLER: All over the ground and in some areas is exposed. In some areas it isn’t. And I just wondered what your advice would be. |
| 0:18:12 | TOM: So the sod never really beat, so to speak. It never really grew through the mesh netting and connected with the soil below. |
| 0:18:19 | CALLER: Not, not really. I mean it did in some areas, but it just did not grow well for our climate. It couldn’t handle the winters, it just wouldn’t recover. |
| 0:18:28 | TOM: Well, I mean, the first thing I do is a soil test. You can, you know, sometimes are county extension services and or services like that. We’ll do the test for you or have a landscaper do the test, but you need to know what’s in that soil and how to adjust the patch to get it just right to recede. |
| 0:18:45 | LESLIE: And fertilize correctly. And right now, other words, you might not be giving it the stuff that it needs that it won’t grow. |
| 0:18:51 | TOM: Yeah, you’re working blind. Now, the other thing to keep in mind is that the best time to do this is not the beginning of summer. The best time to do this is in the fall when it’s a little cooler out. Because even if you did everything right and it started to grow, the intense heat that follows a month or two down the line will burn it out and kind of ruin all the good work that you did. So I would spend the summer getting the information that you need to kind of come up with a plan. Now, in terms of whether or not you remove the old site or not, if it’s really loose and disconnected and not really knitting and sort of sitting on top. And in that case, I would take it out and then prep the soil below. If it has connected, then I would leave it. Now if you have site, is it weedy, Is it also weedy? |
| 0:19:37 | CALLER: Catherine There are lots of weeds so it’s not so much the sod that’s the issue, but it’s the plastic mesh netting that was on the backside of the side that’s there. And I just don’t know, can we kill with that there or is that going to get all caught up in the tiller? |
| 0:19:51 | TOM: I think you probably can. I mean, in my experience, those types of barriers are designed to stay there and not be removed and just they just sort of deteriorate naturally away. |
| 0:20:00 | CALLER: Okay. |
| 0:20:01 | TOM: So I don’t suspect that that would be an issue because otherwise, how would you ever lay it down? |
| 0:20:06 | CALLER: Right. Right. Yeah, I don’t I don’t know. I didn’t know what was supposed to be common, just that it hasn’t degraded at all. After eight years, it’s still totally there. |
| 0:20:16 | TOM: Well, here’s an idea. One of the things that you could do is you could rent a seeding machine that slices the lawn. There are machines out there that will actually slice it and drop the seeds sort of into the slits, and that will cut through it. But really, before you do any of that, the first thing you do is do a soil test and see what’s going on there. |
| 0:20:33 | LESLIE: Yeah, this way. You know how to feed it, how to take care of it when it’s going to want to be seeded. I mean, that will really answer a lot of questions for you. |
| 0:20:40 | CALLER: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. |
| 0:20:41 | TOM: Yeah. And if the site if you decide to leave the site in place and if it gets really weedy, one thing you could do something called a roundup restoration. You can spray roundup right on the side and kill the side and actually leave it in place and then put the seed right up into the dead grass. It will hold it really well and it will sprout. And the roundup will not prevent the new seed from taking root. |
| 0:21:01 | CALLER: Huh? Okay. Okay. |
| 0:21:03 | TOM: It’s called a roundup restoration. |
| 0:21:05 | CALLER: All right, that makes sense. |
| 0:21:07 | TOM: All right, Kathryn, good luck with that project. Let’s hope there’s some more green in your future. |
| 0:21:10 | CALLER: Yes, I hope so. Thank you. |
| 0:21:12 | TOM: Eight, eight, six, six, 63974. |
| 0:21:15 | LESLIE: Well, if you’re looking for a new place to live, you’ll likely be considering things like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, how much storage space is available, as well as your rent or your mortgage payment. But according to the Department of Energy, including the estimated cost of your future energy bills, is also a very important consideration. |
| 0:21:34 | TOM: Yeah, and here’s why. The annual energy bill for a typical single family home is $2,060 a year. So the energy efficiency of your future home is definitely an important consideration. Now, the Department of Energy says four aspects of your home’s future energy needs is going to play a key role in reducing those costs. So let’s go through some of these appliances. Now. An appliance use makes up a significant portion of your electric bill. For example, if you have a refrigerator that save from 20 or earlier, a new Energy Star certified model is going to cost more upfront, but it’s going to use just half of the electricity of that old appliance. |
| 0:22:09 | LESLIE: Now, Windows also have a big impact on the effectiveness of your home’s heating, cooling, lighting, even ventilation, which account for 40% of a home’s energy use. Now, if your windows let in too much hot air, your central air conditioner is going to run longer to cool your home in the summer and then your furnace is going to be working harder in the winter months. And when you’re shopping for a home, look for double paint windows with low e coatings and good quality weather stripping. |
| 0:22:33 | TOM: Now soft insulation, properly insulated walls and floors and attics are definitely going to help keep your home or your apartment comfortable in any season. Now, most homes simply don’t have enough insulation, but fortunately that’s pretty easy to remedy and frequently a DIY project. So be sure to check the insulation levels in any home you’re considering. And if you can just insulate one area, add more, make it the attic. It really has a great return on investment. |
| 0:22:58 | LESLIE: Yeah, and when it comes to the cost of heating and cooling, this is the biggest energy expense in any home. So one easy way to cut costs is to look for a programable smart thermostat. Now these can automatically raise and lower temperatures in your home based on a schedule as well as the occupancy. So you’re never fully heating or cooling a home when nobody’s there. |
| 0:23:17 | TOM: And lastly, one of the most important things to do when buying a home is to get a very good quality home inspection. Trained and certified inspectors can help you identify those big energy wasters and save you from those hidden repair costs. You can find a good home inspector at home Inspector dot org. That’s the website for the American Society of Home Inspectors. |
| 0:23:36 | LESLIE: Elvis from Texas is on the line. He is in the building and he has a question about plumbing. Elvis, welcome to Fresh Air. |
| 0:23:43 | CALLER: My wife and I had a house built, started back in early 2005, and it’s in Lubbock. Houses are made on concrete slabs dumped before they poured to slab they put in. They all the plumbing was installed. And instead of copper plumbing, which was in kind of short supply back in 2005, the going thing down was called chaotic. I think it’s failed at the U.S. and it’s a double walled plastic part with aluminum in the center. Instead of regular connections, it uses understanding a bronze connector and we’ve had a couple of small problems with the plumbing. But I think that I’ve read that the bronze can cause the zinc application and the copper. And I’m wondering if there’s been any studies done, if there’s different settings, it can be replaced. If the plumbing has to be replaced, it’d be very labor intensive to go underneath a house and we get down to fairly low. Leonard Maybe zero. And I don’t think I’d want any plumbing overhead where it could freeze or if you have any suggestions or thoughts. |
| 0:24:48 | TOM: Yeah, all Elvis. The problem with high tech from plumbing is that you suspect the leak. The fittings will leak. Now, what’s interesting is that high tech starts with PEX, which is cross-linked polyethylene, which by itself and as installed today is actually an excellent plumbing pipe with fittings that don’t leak. But the high tech system has definitely had a history of leaking. In fact, there are many class action lawsuits over that product that are active and going on around the country. You certainly should investigate those that you may qualify to join. Unfortunately, your solutions only include really replacing it. And what I would advise you to do is to only replace it where it’s accessible. I mean, I wouldn’t create the emergency of the emergency doesn’t exist, so I’m not going to tell you to tear open your walls and pull the plumbing out and start from scratch. But I would say that if you do happen to be doing a bathroom renovation or you open a wall and you find Ketek, it should be sort of a matter of course where you always replace it because it’s not going to get any better. It’s only going to get worse. |
| 0:25:50 | CALLER: Not news on it here, but kind of what I suspect. |
| 0:25:52 | TOM: Unfortunately, that’s the case. Every once in a while we get a building product like that, and I’ve seen that happen many times over the years, and there’s just no way to make it better because at its core, it’s a defective system, okay? |
| 0:26:03 | CALLER: No way to just replace the fittings. It’s going to be the pipe itself. |
| 0:26:06 | TOM: People have problems. That’s correct. So I would attach it to a plumbing, to copper piping or to traditional PEX piping. |
| 0:26:12 | CALLER: Okay. So I can talk to some local plumbers and discuss it from that. |
| 0:26:15 | TOM: But Exactly. I hope that helps you out. Thanks so much for calling us at 88 Money Pit. |
| 0:26:20 | LESLIE: Well, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, floor surfaces contribute directly to more than 2 million fall injuries each year. And most fall injuries in the home happen at ground level, not even from an elevation. |
| 0:26:33 | TOM: So to help make these surfaces safer, you can apply an anti-slip coating. And there’s a new one out from our coatings partner, which is coatings that makes your services safer and it makes them look better at the same time. |
| 0:26:46 | LESLIE: Now it’s called Track Safe Anti-Slip Color Code, and it’s the newest addition to date coatings Track Safe Anti-Slip Product Line. Track Safe is a great choice for all kinds of potentially slippery surfaces around the home. You can use tracks safe on stairs, porches, walkways, pool decks, or even garage and workshop floors. |
| 0:27:05 | TOM: Yep. And once to ply track safe forms a tough, attractive and slip resistant barrier that really stands up. Plus, it also gives surfaces that are worn a refreshed new look and protects them from weather and foot traffic. |
| 0:27:16 | LESLIE: Plus, it comes in five colors and it’s really easy to apply as a paint. You just roll on two quick coats of color coat followed by a coat of date track safe Anti-Slip sealer and your surfaces will look great and be safer than ever before. |
| 0:27:29 | TOM: Track Safe Anti-Slip Color code from Dash coatings is available at Home Depot, Lowe’s and Dash coatings dot com. That’s Dyson aic h coatings AECOM. |
| 0:27:39 | LESLIE: Steven, Pennsylvania. You’ve got the Money Pit. How can we help you today? |
| 0:27:42 | CALLER: I was listening to a program I guess about a week ago, and you were talking about a caller that was having trouble with her patio door. And Tom had recommended using white lithium grease to loosen it up and make it fly easier. An old carpenters trick. I’m a master carpenter pledge, not lithium grease or silicone or any of that. The downside of lithium grease and silicone is the attractor pledge does not. And the trick on it and it’ll work on sticky windows as well is you over sprays spray it heavily either slide the door back and forth or move the window up and down a few times, wipe the access off and you have a patio door or a window that will move freely like it’s sliding on butter. |
| 0:28:28 | TOM: That’s a great suggestion, Steve. We appreciate you calling that in. Now, I wonder how long that will stay around, especially with a patio door given its exposure to the elements. Any experience on that? |
| 0:28:38 | CALLER: Six months? Easily. Really? |
| 0:28:39 | TOM: All right. Well, that’s fantastic. Good advice. Thank you so much for calling in, Steve. We appreciate. |
| 0:28:43 | CALLER: It. No problem. You guys do a great job. I listen to you all the time and appreciate what you do out there. |
| 0:28:50 | TOM: And you see, she’s a carpenter, so that’s a professional opinion. Thank you so much. Have a great day. |
| 0:28:56 | LESLIE: Alex in Florida reached out. The team Money Pit writes, I have a four year old central air conditioning system. It works well, except for the front room of my house. It’s always about five degrees hotter. Any idea why and how I can fix this? |
| 0:29:09 | TOM: Yes. So here’s the situation. You have to remember a couple of things. When it comes to AC design, the amount of AC that you put into a particular space is going to depend on what the heat gain is for that space. So, for example, if the front room of your house happens to face south, that’s going to need the most air conditioning. Now that’s is something that should have been addressed when the home was built since obviously the house is up and it’s difficult to make those changes. Now, I’m going to give you a couple of other suggestions, one of which is this Try to figure out where the return path is for this air, because to clear house properly, you have to not only send air out the supply ducts, you have to send it back to be recalled, recalled the return ducts. Now, if you have a return duct in the room, that’s best. But if you don’t, and maybe especially if that room is closed off by a door or some other partition from the rest of the house, you want to either leave that door open or undercut that door by basically taking it off the hinges and slicing off about an inch to an inch and a half off the bottom of that door. So there is a path for that air to be drawn back out of that room and back to the system. You can also take steps to reduce the solar gain, which is probably worse than the windows by adding some curtains there or shades. But get the blackout, shine the blackout shades, actually do a really good job actually reflecting all that light back and certainly not letting it get through. And that will be helpful as you try to improve the cooling situation. And finally, you could contact your HVAC contractor and find out if the ducting system is controlled by damp or sometimes it is now damp or is kind of like a block. It’s like a paddle. It’s around inside the ducks and it closes it off, right? So if it happens to be partially closed, which can happen just because you didn’t know it was there, simply repositioning, it could make a world of difference. And you can also consider adding a booster, which is an electronic fan that helps speed up the amount of air that comes into that register. And that’s sort of be like the last step if all else fails, because we certainly don’t want to add something that’s going to cost you to run, but sometimes that is an effective solution. So, Alex, I hope that helps you out. I’m sure down there in Florida you were overheating before the rest of us here in the northeast. But if you get it figured out, well, that’s all good for the rest of us as well as well. |
| 0:31:23 | LESLIE: All right. Now, Sue in Rhode Island wrote in and she’s planning a bathroom remodel and she says, I’m considering replacing my tub with a walk in shower. Will doing this decrease the value of my home? I think that’s an interesting question because as we’re all aging and life changes are happening, you know, a walk in shower is really helpful for a lot of people. |
| 0:31:40 | TOM: Yeah. And I think if you eliminate the bathtub completely, it depends on a few things. First of all, you’re definitely going to limit the interest in buyers in the future. I don’t think it will decrease the value of your home, but you will have fewer interested people because they would think, Hey, I really do need a tub, because if you’re a young family, you want to the top, Right? Right. And if you’re older, sometimes soaking the tub is good and everybody likes a good soak now and again. So it definitely has an impact. What does the market call for in your area and what the homes in your area that would be sort of your competitors if you sold your house? What do they have? I think a realtor would be good to talk with about this because they had seen a lot of houses and they have a good sense as to what it takes to make your home attractive. |
| 0:32:20 | LESLIE: All right. Good luck with that, too. Everybody loves a brand new bathroom, though. So that’s always also a thing to keep in mind. |
| 0:32:25 | TOM: This is the Money Pit Home Improvement show. We are just about out of time. I want to take a moment to thank you for listening to today’s edition. We hope that we have given you some tips and ideas to help you with projects around your house. Remember, you can reach out to us 24 seven by going to moneypit.com/ask and clicking the blue microphone button for the fastest possible response. |
| 0:32:45 | TOM: I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 0:32:46 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 0:32:47 | TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself. |
| 0:32:49 | LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone. |
| (Note: The above referenced transcript is AI-Generated, Unedited and Unproofed and as such may not accurately reflect the recorded audio. Copyright 2023 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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