#2444 –Painting Brick? 4 Reasons Why It’s a Solid No | Home Builder Upgrades

Show Notes

Today, we’ll give you four reasons to reconsider painting your exposed brick, and if you’re buying a new house, we reveal which builder upgrades are worth the investment and which ones you should DIY. Also, get advice on illuminating dark corners of your home. Plus, listen in for answers to home improvement questions for all kinds of DIY projects!

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Painting Brick: Before painting your exposed brick, find out 4 solid reasons why you shouldn’t.
Home Upgrades: When building a new home, find out which upgrades make sense and when to DIY.
Lighting: Expert tips shed light on how to brighten a home for style and safety.

Ask Your Home Improvement Question

Do you have a home improvement or decor question? Call the show 24/7 at 888-MONEY-PIT (888-666-3974) or post your question here.

Podcast Transcript

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00:00:24	TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:00:29	TOM: Here to help you take on those DIY dilemmas that you might want to tackle around your house. If you’ve got a project that you want to get done, or one that is, or one that’s in the midst of getting done, and maybe you got a question about what the next step is, or maybe there’s a project that you don’t want to do yourself, you want to hire a pro for, we can give you guidance on all that and more. Just reach out to us with your questions at 1-888-Money-Pit, that’s 888-666-3974, or post your question to moneypit.com slash ask. Coming up on today’s show, if you live in a brick house or have exposed brick walls elsewhere in your house, you may have been tempted to paint it. Well, we don’t think that’s a very hot idea. We’ll share four reasons why painting brick is a project that you’ll see
00:01:20	LESLIE: soon regret in just a bit. And if you’re buying a new home, builders do offer a lot of options for you to choose from, but sometimes it can be cheaper for you to do these projects on your own. We’re going to look at which upgrades make sense to buy from the builder and which you could be doing DIY just ahead.
00:01:37	TOM: And if you’re like most of us, you probably have at least one poorly lit room in your home. We’re going to share some expert lighting tips to help brighten your day.
00:01:44	LESLIE: But before we get to what we want to talk about, we want to hear what you want to talk about. So whether you are planning a small decor project or diving into a huge renovation, we have got you
00:01:55	TOM: covered. That’s right. From fixing leaks to sprucing up your space, we are here to help you every step of the way. So reach out to us right now at 1-888-Money-Pit or better yet, post your questions to moneypit.com slash ask. Just click the blue microphone button.
00:02:10	LESLIE: Let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s first? All right. We’re heading out west to
00:02:14	CALLER: Wyoming where we’ve got Pammy on the line who’s got a question about lighting. What’s going on? I screwed in a light bulb, an LED light bulb. After about a week, I heard this really high-pitched squeal. Not really a squeal, just a sound. And then now my light switch doesn’t work.
00:02:35	TOM: Huh. Is the light bulb on a dimmer or is it on a toggle switch?
00:02:39	CALLER: No, it’s just a plain old flip up and down switch.
00:02:42	TOM: Can you take the light bulb out and try it in another fixture to make sure the bulb’s okay?
00:02:46	CALLER: I already did all that stuff. Put an what’s the other light bulb? Incandescent. Put that one back in and the light switch
00:02:54	TOM: doesn’t work no matter what. Oh, okay. Well, this makes it easy then. Yeah, you got a problem with that light switch. It might just be the luck of the draw that the switch went bad. When it did, it may have nothing to do with the fact that you put an LED in. You’re just going to need to replace that light switch. That would be the appropriate next step. If it’s not something you’re comfortable doing yourself, you’ll have to have an electrician do it for you, but it’s a pretty straightforward replacement. Of course, you have to turn the power off and make sure absolutely that it’s off with a testing device. Then you can go wire for wire
00:03:23	CALLER: from the old switch to the new switch. Okay. Yeah, I don’t want to get a
00:03:26	TOM: zinger in the process. That’s right. No, we don’t want you to get a zinger either. That’s why I told you to test the bulb and make sure it was not the bulb, but it was the circuit
00:03:35	CALLER: itself. I would definitely replace the light switch. Yeah, and why did it do that?
00:03:39	TOM: You know, light switches wear. I don’t think it had anything to do with the replacement of the LED bulb from the incandescent bulb. I think it just happened when it needed to and that’s it.
00:03:47	LESLIE: So I’d replace that and take it from there. Okay. Thank you. All right. Good luck with that project. Toodle-oo. Bob in Illinois is on the line and working on a kitchen makeover. What can we do for you?
00:03:57	CALLER: Oh, we’ve got kitchen cabinets. They’re probably close to 30 years old and we’re wanting to remodel our kitchen and I’m wanting to strip them down and I was just wondering what was the best way, what to use to do it with.
00:04:07	TOM: Well, the good news is that 30-year-old cabinets are usually very, very well built. You can’t really strip down a 10-year-old cabin because they pretty much fall apart. But if it’s a 30-year-old cabinet, you can definitely strip it. Now, what do you want to do after you strip it? Do you want to paint it or do you want to go with like a clear coating?
00:04:26	CALLER: I’d like to go with a clear coating on it, maybe put a calm finish on it or something.
00:04:30	LESLIE: And what’s on there now? Are they just stained or are they painted?
00:04:32	CALLER: No, they’re just stained.
00:04:34	TOM: It’s hard to change the color of a stained cabinet. I’m just telling you, just be prepared for that. But what you might want to do is use a good quality stripper like Rock Miracle, for example, is a good one.
00:04:47	LESLIE: Yeah. Another thing that’s good to do is head over to your local mom and pop paint shop because sometimes there are newer products that are out there. I was just getting some wallpaper paste, but in that section, there were some really nice paint strippers. They apply a little differently, they go on more easily, they work more quickly. So I always just pop into the shop to sort of see what they’ve got in there that they’ve worked with. But Tom and I have both used Rock Miracle, and I like that because it goes on more like a paste, so you can really see where it is, you can see it start to work. And I guess it depends on how much stain is on there, how dirty they are. I would start by giving them a good cleaning, then make sure they’re dried very well, then put the stripper on them, follow the directions, and you’re going to want to use a wire brush and a paint scraper, and that’s going to get that finish off of there. Now, it’s important to work on them on a flat surface, so take all the doors and drawer fronts off, label them as you take them down with a piece of tape on the backside of the cabinet, and then you can take the cabinet door and one on the cabinet box itself so that you know exactly where things go. I’d leave the hinges on the box side so that you can have the doors flat. These are things that are just tricks of the trade that will help you be more successful. And if your doors are full overlay, are they or are they not?
00:06:02	CALLER: Are they what now?
00:06:03	LESLIE: When your cabinet door closes, do you see any of the cabinet box around it, like a frame, or does the door cover it?
00:06:11	CALLER: Yeah, it does. It flushes up against the frame of the cabinet.
00:06:15	LESLIE: So that’s a big difference. It’s all a blessing and a curse, because then you can ignore the box, or you can also work on the box while it’s in place to strip that down as well. And in that case, the Rock Miracle is really good, because it’s really thick, so it’ll stay on in a vertical position as well. So those are some good things, and you may have to apply it more than once, depending on how well adhered your stain currently is. I mean, you really got to see. And then keep in mind that depending on the species of wood, the type of color that you might get from the stain that you’ve selected to go on there might be a little different. So you might want to work on a backside or a smaller area, just so you can see how it will react and what color you’ll actually end up with.
00:06:56	TOM: Thank you, Deb. You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:07:01	LESLIE: Now we’ve got Lisa in Tennessee on the line, who’s dealing with a home she bought without having an inspection first. Let’s hear what’s going on.
00:07:08	CALLER: Hi. Well, first of all, let me just clarify that my husband is the one who bought the home, and he bought it before we were married. So I just kind of ended up buying the home, and I inherited it whenever I moved in and married him.
00:07:18	TOM: See, now, if you were married, you never would have let him do that without a good home inspection.
00:07:22	CALLER: Exactly. Okay. We have some spots. We have carpet in a few of our rooms, and each of the rooms, there are some sunken spots. Look, you can walk across, and it sinks, kind of gives weak you, and then the rest of the time, it’s okay. There’s other places that are just fine. And I’ve had somebody go underneath and check for structural damage, water damage, or termites. They can’t find anything. They say it’s okay. So beyond ripping up the carpet and just seeing what it is, do you have a suggestion on what that could be?
00:07:54	TOM: Well, just to find the sunken spot, like when you step on it, is it soft or something like that?
00:07:59	CALLER: Yes. It’s kind of spongy almost, like it just sinks. It gives weak you.
00:08:02	TOM: And you can get underneath, and you can look up, and you don’t see any decay or anything of that nature?
00:08:07	CALLER: Well, as far as I know, now, I’ve not been under, and my husband, we’re not either one able to get underneath, just due to health conditions. And so we’ve had other people, others go under and look, and they’ve all said structurally it looks sound. Didn’t see any termite damage. We don’t have any water damage underneath. So don’t really know what it is that’s causing it.
00:08:27	TOM: And how many areas across the floor do you see these sunken spots?
00:08:30	CALLER: Well, you can’t actually see them. It’s just when you walk across them. But I would say…
00:08:33	TOM: You feel them? You feel them. Exactly. I mean, I wonder if it’s something as simple as the padding breaking down under the carpet. Maybe it’s not a structural problem. Well, listen, the only way you’re going to know is we can’t really guess. You’re going to have to pull that carpet down. You’re going to have to pull that carpet back. It’s not a terrible project to pull that wall-to-wall carpet up and then have it re-tacked down. If you’re really concerned about it, that’s what I would do.
00:08:54	CALLER: Right. I’ve been looking to get new carpet anyway, so that might be a good excuse.
00:08:58	TOM: Well, there you go. Now you’ve got a great excuse. Okay. Now, let me tell you something. When you pull that carpet up, Lisa, if you evaluate that floor, how old is this house?
00:09:06	CALLER: Oh, gosh. See, I’m not even sure. Probably back in the 80s.
00:09:09	TOM: Okay. So it probably has a plywood floor, and it was nailed down. It was done in the 80s. What you want to do is you want to have the installer, or you can even do this yourself. Take some drywall screws. Those are those long, black, case-hardened drywall screws. You drive them in with a drill driver, so you do it automatically, and you screw that plywood to the floor while the carpet’s up, and that will quiet the floor and prevent any future squeaks that could occur.
00:09:34	CALLER: Okay. Sounds great.
00:09:35	TOM: Because the nails will loosen up over the last 30-plus years, and once you have that carpet up, that’s a golden opportunity to do that.
00:09:42	CALLER: All right. Well, these are some things to definitely look at. Yes, sir. Thank you so much.
00:09:46	TOM: Okay. Thank you, Lisa.
00:09:47	LESLIE: This is The Money Pit. Thank you so much for joining us here. We’d love to give you a hand with all of your projects, so whatever you are working on, reach out so we can lend a hand. Hey, Money Pit Podcast fans. You want to help us out? Well, go ahead and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and we’re going to give you a virtual high-five. Plus, you’ll be helping us spread the word about our show. Just go to MoneyPit.com slash review.
00:10:13	TOM: Well, do you have any surface area that you’d like us to talk about? Yes, we do. Well, if you have any surfaces around your house that are concrete or masonry and just don’t look so hot, maybe they’re pitted, maybe they’re cracked, maybe they’re worn, well, there’s a product out from Daich Coatings called Spreadrock Granite Stone Coating that you can apply right on top of those old surfaces, and it looks amazing. Now, this Spreadrock product is actually a layer of rock that can be applied easily to floors or walls, and we’ve got a three-gallon container of Spreadrock to give away to one lucky listener to The Money Pit.
00:10:44	TOM: We’ll put your name in the Money Pit hardhat, and we could be sending you this $150 product from Daich Coatings. It’s available at daichcoatings.com, at homedepot.com, or at lowes.com, and it really does a great job of sprucing up those outdoor surfaces or even maybe your garage or your basement or your laundry room. Anything that’s made from masonry, this product can go right on top of. The number here is 1-888-Money-Pit, 888-666-3974.
00:11:11	LESLIE: Adam in Rhode Island is on the line with a leaky skylight. What’s going on?
00:11:15	CALLER: I have a bay window in my bedroom that is below a skylight, and for a while, it started to create those brown stains on my ceiling, but for the most part, the biggest problem was there was a leak in the bay window. So my father and I went up there. We put a new flashing kit on the skylight, and it seemed to help the problem, but it did not eliminate the problem. Okay. And I had a contractor friend over who took care of it. He took a look at it as well, and he noticed that if you go out on the outside, the bay window abuts the gutter where the gutter attaches to the roof above it. And it’s his opinion that there should be perhaps some like six to eight-inch gap there between where the gutter meets the house and where the bay window starts. So it’s his opinion that the bay window might have been improperly installed.
00:12:04	TOM: So it sounds like the bay window was up too high. Is that what you’re saying? So it basically goes right up under the gutter? Right.
00:12:10	CALLER: Right. There’s certainly no separation between the soffit, but there’s also no separation from where the gutter meets the house either.
00:12:17	TOM: All right. And does the bay window have its own roof on it, or is the roof sort of built into the soffit structure?
00:12:22	CALLER: No, it’s under the overhang.
00:12:24	TOM: Oh, it is under the overhang. Okay. Is it possible that the gutter is overfilling, and perhaps the water’s backing up through the gutter, getting into the soffit and running into the bay?
00:12:35	CALLER: I thought that at one point, and I have gone up and checked, and the gutters are clean.
00:12:40	TOM: Okay. And where this is on the roof, is there sort of a long stretch of roof that goes down before it hits the skylight?
00:12:48	CALLER: Yeah, I guess. Oh, maybe 10 or 15 feet.
00:12:52	TOM: So I’m going to give you a trick of the trade, and this might solve it. You might be getting so much water against that skylight that it’s just sort of forcing its way in. One thing you might want to do is to try to put a diverter on the roof right above the skylight. And see if this works. It’s really easy to do, so there’s kind of no reason not to try it. But you take a piece of aluminum in the shape of an L, and you basically attach it to the roof, and you essentially want to intercept that flow of water down the roof and have it run around the skylight and around the bay window. So you’re slowing the volume of water that’s coming down that roof, you know, running full steam towards that skylight and that bay window area, and running it around that space. And all you got to do is tack that onto the roof. The roofing shingles, put some silicone caulk to help seal the edge, and see what happens.
00:13:42	CALLER: So you’ve caught the edge of the L with silicone, and how do you affix the aluminum to the…
00:13:48	TOM: Yeah, you could simply nail through the shingle. Okay. And with like a roofing nail. But with the caulk will help seal it. And basically you’re capturing that water as it’s running down the roof, and it’s sort of running right around that skylight-bay window-roof combination. All right. Sounds good. I’m willing to try it. Good luck, Adam. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:14:13	LESLIE: Well, if you live in a brick house, or maybe you have exposed brick inside your home, have you thought about painting that brick? You’re thinking, this is sensible choice, I can make a lot of changes in the space by just changing the color. But if you do paint that brick, you’re actually causing some more harm and hassle than you might realize. So here are four reasons why painting brick is a problem. The first one is that it’s a project that we think you should skip.
00:14:38	TOM: Yeah, that’s right. So first of all, when you paint a brick, you destroy bricks’ breathability, so to speak. Now, paint will trap moisture, and that prevents the brick from breathing and causing damage. And that moisture inside can freeze, and that will allow the brick and the mortar to expand and crack and really start to degrade and compromise its structural integrity. So when you seal the brick, it’s really not a very good idea. The only time I recommend putting any kind of sealer on a brick is when it’s vapor permeable. This would be sort of a clear sealer that you might put maybe on a chimney, but you definitely don’t want to paint it.
00:15:13	LESLIE: Now, another reason is that paint is eventually going to peel, because as those bricks degrade, the paint will peel, and that’s going to make the house look neglected. And then that could really be an indicator that there’s deeper damage. It’s also going to give you some loss of historical value, because when you paint historic or decorative bricks, it does destroy their value. It can cause damage. So you want to make sure that you’re not going to paint the brick, and that’s going to cause damage. And it really just doesn’t look great. And then that perceived value is also affected. So there’s a lot of reasons why the value is affected when you do paint.
00:15:44	TOM: And you know what we always say about paint, what comes next? Repaint. It’s true. It doesn’t last long. It does peel quickly, especially on bricks. But also, it’s really hard to reverse, because it doesn’t all come off, right? It’s soaking deep into that. So removing paint itself, if you decide you don’t like it, it’s costly, it’s risky, and it potentially damages the brick even further. So for those reasons and more, we think painting brick is really not a good idea, and one that you should definitely try to avoid.
00:16:11	LESLIE: Now we’re going over to Eunice in Arkansas, who has a retaining wall that thinks it’s a chameleon. It’s changing colors. What’s going on?
00:16:18	CALLER: Part of it is the part that’s turning white, powdery-looking is the part that’s exposed to the weather. And it’s kind of spreading. It looks like it’s, you know, the whole thing, you know, it’s going to fall apart. It’s going to fall apart. It’s going to fall apart. It’s going to fall apart. It’s going to fall apart. It’s going to fall apart. So it will eventually turn white. I don’t know if it’s oxidizing, or it’s moisture from the ground is making it change colors or what?
00:16:50	TOM: And that’s exactly what’s happening, Eunice. What you’re seeing is called efflorescence, and essentially, water from the ground pulls up because those concrete blocks are very hydroscopic. So, water pulls up, and then as the water evaporates, it leaves its mineral
00:17:31	TOM: www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com
00:18:14	TOM: www.audiocast.com
00:19:02	CALLER: www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com www.audiocast.com and that they likely use calcium chloride to help the cement set up and that it could be having an effect on this epoxy. We’re using a very good quality, a name brand, it’s not a box store quality, it’s a quality, quality product that we’re using.
00:19:55	TOM: Okay, have you turned to the manufacturer to ask the question as to what might be going on?
00:20:00	CALLER: Well, we have asked and the calcium chloride did come up as a possibility, but they don’t really know what to do about that.
00:20:09	TOM: So you did talk directly to the manufacturer, not the retailer, about this?
00:20:12	CALLER: The retailer actually talked with the manufacturer about it.
00:20:16	TOM: I would go right to the manufacturer and speak with them directly about this. I don’t like going through the middleman because, you know, not that I don’t trust the retailer to do this, you can never be sure if they’re actually talking to the right guy and they could be talking to a… You see, they could be talking to a field rep who thinks he knows the answer and maybe he doesn’t. I mean, obviously, the first thing that came to mind was moisture. Was the floor thoroughly dried before you started this whole process?
00:20:41	CALLER: Yes, it was. We made certain it was very dry in there and used big box fans after we had scrubbed the floor real thoroughly. The big box fans were used and the doors were opened to let the air circulate through and it was very dry.
00:20:56	TOM: Both times, the paint that you put down, was it from the same batch? No, different batches. I’ve never heard of an epoxy floor not adhering, so this is an unusual situation and it’s one that I would turn to the technical experts at the manufacturer. As you mentioned, it’s a major brand. They have folks, chemists, that basically are standing by to take questions like this. Most of them do. If you have difficulty identifying the right people to talk to, if you email us to show at moneypit.com. With the details, perhaps some photographs and the name of the manufacturer, I’m certain that we could quickly get through to the right person for you. There’s a chemical reaction going on here that’s causing this issue and we’ve got to get to the bottom of it.
00:21:38	CALLER: We’ll do. All right. Thank you.
00:21:41	TOM: Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. That’s an unusual situation and there’s got to be a reaction going on between that floor. Yeah.
00:21:51	LESLIE: You know, I’ve heard of instances where a previous homeowner maybe put like a water-based sealant or a water-sealing on a concrete and-
00:21:58	TOM: Or a silicone. Yeah. And you don’t see it. I was thinking about a silicone sealer. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they put a silicone sealer down on the concrete, that could impact it as well. Right.
00:22:05	LESLIE: And then you might not know it’s there.
00:22:07	TOM: But I mean, that’s what the pre-treatment is supposed to deal with. You know, the idea of using the acid etch products that all the epoxy floors come with. The epoxy, they come with an acid etch and it sounds like that’s what Judy did. So let’s hope she can get to the bottom of it.
00:22:21	LESLIE: Well, if you’re buying a new home, most builders will offer you a wide range of options that you can add when the home is being built. Now, these can include upgraded flooring, decks, patios, fireplaces, and a lot of other options. And while it is tempting to order everything you want when the house is being built, it might actually be more cost-effective to determine which projects that you can do later and maybe even would cost less.
00:22:45	TOM: Yeah, that’s right. So the best place to start is to think about the improvements that would be difficult or, you know, it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be more complicated to add later. For example, in the first home we bought, we bought from a builder. It was brand new and the builder offered a fireplace option as well as upgraded floors and interior trim. Well, we went with the fireplace because that would have been super difficult to add or not impossible after the fact, but we passed on the hardwood flooring and upgraded trim and I added those myself a few months after we moved in.
00:23:12	LESLIE: Yeah, and you also want to consider the return on investment. You know, upgrading insulation or spending on an upgraded kitchen or bath will also add long-term value and deliver a better return on that investment, but for projects like a deck, landscaping, low-voltage lighting, there’s really no reason that you should be having the builder do those because you can probably do them for less. Exactly.
00:23:34	TOM: So you’re better off settling into the new home and coming up with a plan and then bidding those jobs out to find the best pro at the best price.
00:23:42	LESLIE: Here’s a great reason to reach out to Team Money Pit. First of all, we’re going to help you with your project, but second of all, we’ve got a great prize up for grabs. Yeah. We’ve got the Spreadrock Granite Stone Coating available. It’s an actual layer of rock that you can apply very easily to the floor or the walls. You can use it inside or out to resurface your porch, your steps, patios, walkways, garage floors, even a bathroom or a basement, and it’s available in seven colors. It’s impact-resistant, super-duper-duper durable. It’s $149.95 for a three-gallon size, and you can find it at daichcoatings.com, homedepot.com, and lowes.com. But this Spreadrock Granite Stone Coating could be yours if we pull your name out of the Money Pit hard hat.
00:24:26	TOM: Make that you. The number is 1-888-Money-Pit. That’s 888-666-3974.
00:24:32	LESLIE: Well, if you’re like most of us, there are likely some areas of your home that are just not well lit. Good lighting is important. Not only is it going to make your home look bigger, but it actually makes your home much safer. First of all, in your living and reading areas, you obviously need plenty of floor lamps and table lamps, but here’s a common mistake that leads to injury. You want to make sure that those lamps point toward the activity, not at you.
00:24:57	TOM: That’s right. Now one area where direct lighting is super important is the kitchen. So if you have one main overhead light source, consider adding additional pendant light fixtures above the work surfaces.
00:25:08	LESLIE: Now if you’ve got a room that’s tough to fill with natural light, like maybe it only has one window, an easy fix is to place mirrors in strategic places to help bounce that light around the room.
00:25:19	TOM: And if someone you love has vision problems, well, you can take advantage of high contrast colors. For example, you could put a dark switch plate on a light wall and choose bright colors for furniture and accessories.
00:25:31	LESLIE: All right, now we’re going over to Michigan where Linda’s on the line and wants to add on to a farmhouse. How can we help you with that?
00:25:37	CALLER: Well, I have about a 100-year-old farmhouse and the only bathroom is upstairs. It’s a two-story farmhouse. And I want to age in place. So I want to add another bathroom downstairs and also I inherited a doll collection from my mother and it’s stored in all the storage and all the rooms, so I kind of want to bring it into one room and add another room for that and hobbies. People have been suggesting that I just, oh, just add a, break up one of the rooms in the house and just put a bathroom in any old place. Well, that’s a good question. That’s a good question. But the rooms are really well proportioned. There’s good cross ventilation. I don’t want to have a mess. I want to have some style to the additions. So people have suggested that I go to either an architect or a drafter or interior designer. I don’t know. I’m not sure what that process involves and how many I should go to or…
00:26:43	TOM: Well, I think that you hit the nail on the head and that is to hire an architect because essentially you want to make sure that whatever you do to this house flows and maintains its structural integrity as well as its design integrity. So an architect can help you do just that. Selecting where to put that bathroom will be a balance of compromises trying to decide where it fits best in the design, where the plumbing is now, what it would take to get to the plumbing where it needs to be for this particular bathroom, and then how best to design those rooms for your collections and that sort of thing. The architect can handle with the structure and the mechanical systems. Once that’s done, then you can consider bringing in an interior designer to help lay it out, choose colors, choose furniture, and make it work for you visually.
00:27:28	LESLIE: Well, and I think the other good thing about bringing in the architect is they may have an interior designer that they work with. You can bring in your own. They’ll be able to sort of work together to help you specify the right materials for the right areas. So it really is a strong partnership.
00:27:42	CALLER: I see. Now, do I talk or consult with two architects? Or do I just go with one and get the designs?
00:27:52	TOM: What I would do is I would bring in one or two or maybe three architects to see the property, tell them what you want to accomplish, find out how they work. You get a feel for them, and they get a feel for you, and then you make a decision based on that.
00:28:07	LESLIE: I think you meet with somebody. You meet with two or three architects, as Tom suggested. Just get a feel for them because you’re going to know if you want to work with them. You’re going to know how well you communicate back. You’ll sort of spitball ideas there during that meeting and get a really good sense of how much they’re understanding you. And whoever you feel the most comfortable with, I think, is what’s going to lead you to the right decision. And then you’ll start drawings. Okay.
00:28:32	CALLER: I did get a card from someone. He’s this person, but his card says he’s a drafting consultant.
00:28:44	TOM: You don’t want to draft her. Okay? You want an architect. You just want an architect, a good quality architect. So focus on that first. You could take … Usually, they’ll have books that show some of their past projects. You can see what kind of work they do. You’ll figure out through a process of elimination which one you’re most comfortable with, and that’s the person that’s going to get the job. But they’re well worth the investment because they’re going to make this process easy, and you’re going to be assured that it comes out exactly as you plan. If you go right to the contractor step, they’re just going to … You’re going to be able to squeeze this bathroom in wherever they think it fits, and you’re not going to be happy with it. So get the architect. They’re well worth their investment. Okay.
00:29:23	CALLER: Great.
00:29:23	TOM: Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit.
00:29:28	LESLIE: Ron reached out to Team Money Pit saying, I have a small ranch-styled home that’s about 50 years old. When I take a shower and water is used in another part of the house, the hot or cold water decreases in the shower. How can I fix this problem?
00:29:43	TOM: Oh, that is so frustrating when that happens. And the reason is because there’s not enough incoming water pressure. So as a result, pressure will drop either for the hot water or the cold water when it’s used elsewhere in the house. So you get less pressure in your shower, plus you get a big change in water temperature in that the shower causes a surprise cold or hot water blast that’s pretty darn uncomfortable. So how do we fix this? Well, there’s a smart little device called a pressure balance valve. This won’t stop the pressure from fluctuating. But it will keep the balance balanced. It will keep the volume of hot and the volume of cold the same, and this will help you avoid some of those unpleasant shower shock moments when the water turns super cold or sometimes even super hot. Secondly, you might want to have the water company or plumber check the water pressure at the main. If it’s less than 50 pounds, there may be a number of ways to increase this and therefore reduce or eliminate the problem.
00:30:44	LESLIE: All right. Hope that helps you out, Ron. Now we’ve got Nancy who says, my laminate flooring is severely bulging after only six months. A plastic underlayment was used. The contractor has 40 years’ experience and has never seen this before.
00:30:59	TOM: I love when contractors quote their experience like that. Well, I’m glad you have 40 years’ experience. You weren’t installing laminate floor for 40 years because it’s only been around for maybe 20. But I digress. Let’s talk about why this is happening. So moisture can get absorbed from the air or from the subfloor. Or even from heavy mopping and that can cause swelling. Another reason that bulges can occur is temperature fluctuations as the temperature changes. So does the humidity level, which can cause the planks to expand and contract. Improper installation, probably the number one cause is the fact that contractors don’t leave enough gap between the laminate and the walls. You need to leave, I’d say at least a half inch gap between the floor and the wall and you can cover that with shoe molding, but you want to leave that space so that the floor can expand. And not sort of like hit the framing of the wall and then start to bulge up because it’s got nowhere else to go. You also might have issues with a subfloor that’s not level or maybe didn’t allow the flooring to acclimate before installing. It’s got to sit around for maybe one to two days to get used to the temperature inside your house and the humidity levels before it gets installed. So unfortunately, these are the many reasons that the floor swells. There’s no way to fix the floor once it swells though. So this is a problem. This is a situation where the flooring has to be removed and reinstalled. Now, if the flooring just has like a lock joint and there’s no adhesive used in this, that actually could be a good thing because what that would allow you to do is to reinstall the same pieces that you take out.
00:32:31	LESLIE: Yeah. And you know, Nancy, you may want to sort of reach out to the manufacturer. Perhaps there’s a warranty issue or perhaps they can help you really determine what caused this. Because if in fact it is the builder’s fault, this can kind of help you get some recourse there to get it repaired, or at least you’ll know what the proper next steps are.
00:32:49	TOM: You’re listening to the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:32:52	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:32:53	TOM: Thank you so much for spending this part of your day with us. We hope you guys have an awesome Labor Day weekend and you have our permission to take time off from home improvements because it is Labor Day, you know, you shouldn’t be working on Labor Day. You should be celebrating all the projects that you completed this past year and thinking about what you want to tackle in the days and the weeks and the months ahead. And we will be here to help you with those projects every step of the way. But for now, that’s all the time we have. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
00:33:20	LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
00:33:21	TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself.
00:33:23	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 2024 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.)