Show Notes
In today’s show, we’ll walk you through pro tips for painting your home’s exterior, a quick solution for deck-building without digging concrete footings, and attic insulation advice for a more energy-efficient home. Tune in for these and other expert insights to make your next home improvement project a breeze!
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- Exterior Painting: Prep like a pro when planning your next exterior painting project.
- Building a Deck: An easy pedestal support system cuts the hassle of digging deck footings.
- Attic Insulation: How to know if you have enough attic insulation to keep your home warm and energy-efficient.
Top Questions & Answers
- Kitchen Sink: Jim wants to insulate his kitchen sink to keep the water warm. We’ve got some ideas on how he can create a way to do it.
- Worn Flooring: Dorothy’s engineered flooring is worn in spots. It’s not designed to be refinished, so she’ll need to replace it or install new flooring over it.
- Insulation: Joe’s new home has spray foam insulation in the attic. We explain why he doesn’t have to worry about ventilating the attic.
- Heat Pump: How often does Ruth’s electric heat pump need to be serviced? We recommend servicing it once a year, and she should consider a heat pump with new technology for colder climates.
- Plumbing Leak: Stan’s got a ceiling leak from defective pipes. If the leak continues, he needs to open the ceiling to repair or replace the plumbing.
- Concrete Floor: Can Nadine cover an old wood floor with a skim level of concrete? It’s a shame to cover the wood, but a mud floor or laminate flooring are two options.
- Water Temperature: Brrrrr! The shower water gets cold when the toilet flushes. Brad should install a pressure balance valve to regulate the mix of hot and cold water.
- Garage Renovation: Esther wants to convert a long, skinny garage by switching the doors to the long wall. It’s a big job that requires structural changes to the load-bearing wall.
Ask Your Home Improvement Question
Podcast Transcript
Read Transcript
| 00:00:23 | TOM: Cost to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:00:29 | LESLIE: An I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:00:30 | TOM: What are you doing this fine November weekend? If you are getting ready to fix up your house in anticipation of family and friends coming over for the holidays, that would be a great topic for us to talk about today on the MoneyPit. So reach out to us at 1-888-Money-Pit, 888-666-3974. Now, if you’re working outside of the house, there’s still a lot of time to get projects done before it gets too, too cold out there, we’d be happy to help with that as well. Basically, whatever’s on your to-do list, you can slide it right on over to ours by reaching out to us at 1-888-Money-Pit. Coming up on today’s show, if you’d like to paint the exterior of your house to boost its curb appeal or to change a color you don’t like or to refresh a dilapidated paint job, fall is a perfect time to get this project done. But painting an entire home? Well, that’s a big project. It requires proper planning, preparation, and tools, so we’re going to share some pro tips to help you get the project done right, just ahead. |
| 00:01:23 | LESLIE: And also ahead, do you love the look of a deck over a patio but dread the hassle of digging and pouring those concrete footings? Well, there’s now a much easier solution, thanks to the pedestal support system from Bison. We’re going to explain how that works, helping you save money and avoid all of that back breaking work. |
| 00:01:40 | TOM: And do you want to make your home more comfortable and energy efficient? Well, if you want to do that, start in the beginning. In the attic, we’re going to explain how to determine if you’ve got the right amount of insulation that keeps things cozy all year long. |
| 00:01:52 | LESLIE: But first, let us help you make your home everything that you dream it can be. We’re here to share impartial expert tips and tricks to manage your money pit at every stage in your home improvement adventure. |
| 00:02:04 | TOM: So reach out to us right now at 1-888-Money-Pit, that’s 888-666-3974 with your home improvement questions. Let’s get started. Leslie, who’s first? |
| 00:02:14 | LESLIE: All right. Heading out to Arizona. We’ve got Jim on the line. What’s going on at your money pit? |
| 00:02:18 | CALLER: It’s a pretty simple product that I’ve not seen. |
| 00:02:22 | CALLER: It’s like a typical house with a kitchen sink and two bowls and a kitchen sink, a small |
| 00:02:28 | CALLER: one and a large one. In a smaller one, we typically will put soap and warm water in in the morning to wash the morning dishes. And then by an hour, that water is soapy water. I got to thinking. There’s got to be some kind of an insulating blanket that you could buy or manufacture or somehow create to keep that water warm and that waste water warming it up again. |
| 00:02:59 | TOM: That’s an interesting idea. I don’t think there’s a commercial product for that. I’ve never seen it. But if you happen to have a very cold under cabinet area, I could see where that could potentially be annoying. So your challenge would be just simply to insulate this as much as possible. Now, along the back wall where the back of the kitchen sink is located, there’s a little piece of foam insulation that you could add to the cabinet if you could add a piece of foam insulation, which is available in all sorts of thicknesses. So it depends on what you have and how you can get it back in there. You’re probably going to have to cut it in pieces. That will help a little bit. On the bowl itself, one idea that I would have is you may be able to spray this with foam insulation like a Great Stuff. Now there’s two different types of Great Stuff. One is designed to expand and one is designed not to expand. And if you use the one that doesn’t expand, it’s not going to last. It’s not going to stretch your cabinet frame or anything like that. It’s the kind that’s designed for windows and doors because what would happen is people would use the expandable foam insulation in a window or door cavity and then it would swell so much, it would expand so much that the window gets stuck shut where it was. So if you use the kind that’s designed for windows and doors, you may be able to get that. It’s pretty sticky stuff. It may be able to adhere to the underside of that sink. So I think this is going to be an experiment to see if you can figure out something that works. Now the question doesn’t have a straight forward, this is the product designed for that because it’s just not something that I think you’re going to find available. So you’ve got to get creative, which means you’ve got to form your own insulation. And lastly, you could just take a piece of fiberglass blanket, maybe one that’s encapsulated on both sides. There’s different types of encapsulated insulation and create your own blanket around there and maybe with a series of zip ties, hold it in place. So I think you’re going to have to design your own, sir, okay, because I don’t think it’s available commercially. |
| 00:04:43 | CALLER: So maybe I just get some blanks. I think you’re going to have to get some blue board and glue and… |
| 00:04:46 | TOM: And go for it. Yep. All right. Good luck with that project, sir. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. Bye. |
| 00:04:53 | LESLIE: All right, heading south to Florida where Dorothy is on the line. What’s going on at your money pit? |
| 00:04:57 | CALLER: Well, I have engineered flooring and I want to redo it. It’s worn in spots and nobody seems to be able to tell me what to do with it, how to refinish it. |
| 00:05:09 | TOM: So engineered flooring, Dorothy, is not a product that’s designed to be refinished. It’s not like hardwood floor where you can sand it because it doesn’t have as thick of a surface. Engineered flooring is made up of layers. It’s more like plywood where you have different types of wood that are glued together and it gives you dimensional stability and it’s good for damp locations, but it’s not necessarily designed to be refinished. So this may be a case where you need to remove and replace rather than refinish it. Okay. Now, there are a lot of different types of flooring that are available today aside from the engineered hardwood floor. You might want to take a look at the engineered vinyl plank, which can look just like wood or many other materials, but it’s completely 100% waterproof and you may even be able to install this on top of the old floor and not have to worry about even taking it up and avoiding the expense and the hassles of having to do a tear out. Is this engineered hardwood on a cement slab? |
| 00:06:07 | CALLER: Yes, it is. Yeah. |
| 00:06:08 | TOM: So it’s going to be hard to get up because it’s probably glued down. That’s how they usually do that. So you may want to look at the engineered vinyl plank. Take a look at lumber liquidators or as they go now, their new name is LL Flooring and look at all the beautiful engineered vinyl planks. I put down two of those floors in one in the kitchen and one in the laundry room and they really have worn very, very well and they’re not expensive either. |
| 00:06:28 | CALLER: Oh, okay. All right. I’ll check that out. |
| 00:06:31 | TOM: Good luck, Dorothy. Thanks for calling us at 1-888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:06:34 | LESLIE: Thank you so much. You know, we love hearing from our listeners and if you want to make our day, leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. |
| 00:06:42 | TOM: You know, it really helps us know what we’re doing, right? Yes. And how we can improve our show for you. So just go to MoneyPit.com slash review, MoneyPit.com slash review and you might even win a copy of our book. |
| 00:06:54 | LESLIE: Joe in Rhode Island, you’ve got the Money Pit. What’s going on with your insulation? |
| 00:06:58 | CALLER: Well, we built a new home and it’s two by six construction with a truss roof. And I used open cell sprayed in insulation and they come in and then they shave it all down to the studs. |
| 00:07:14 | CALLER: Yep. |
| 00:07:15 | CALLER: So we have a completely sealed envelope of the structure itself. |
| 00:07:19 | CALLER: Okay. |
| 00:07:20 | CALLER: Now, it’s a truss roof so there’s really no attic but there is a space up there. Okay. When you sheetrock the whole ceiling and close that off, do I need to be concerned with some sort of ventilation in the attic space? |
| 00:07:36 | TOM: No, not at all. Not at all. Where did they insulate in the attic? Did they insulate under the roof itself or? |
| 00:07:40 | CALLER: They insulated the roof right to the plywood roof. |
| 00:07:43 | TOM: Yeah. Nope. You absolutely do not need to ventilate a spray foam house and here’s why. Because basically now, that attic is a conditioned space. I have a spray foamed attic. It’s terrific because it’s pretty much the same temperature as the rest of the house all the time. It used to be that it was super hot in the summer and really cold in the winter. Now it’s pretty much even, Steven. And the fact that you use spray foam means that it expanded and sealed all little cracks and gaps and crevices so you’re not going to have any problems with drafts getting in there. So you do not need to ventilate that roof. No. |
| 00:08:15 | CALLER: How about we have a mechanical equipment up there. I have the air conditioning unit up there. Yep. No concerns with that in that space either? No. |
| 00:08:25 | TOM: It’ll even work better because now when it’s trying to cool in the summer, it’s not going to be doing so in an attic space that’s 110 degrees. |
| 00:08:32 | CALLER: All right. I was concerned because there’s absolutely no ridge vent, no soffit vent. Yeah. No. |
| 00:08:37 | TOM: That is done correctly. And we have to start thinking differently. No. That’s right. Now we use attic ventilation when we use products like fiberglass because we have to manage the moisture. But with spray foam ventilation, that is not an issue. That is now a conditioned part of your house just like any room in your house. Okay. You may not have heating ducts up there, but it does not need to be ventilated. Fantastic. All right. That’s a good choice. All right. All right. Very good. Good luck, Joe. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:09:07 | LESLIE: All right. We’ve got Ruth on the line from St. Thomas, Pennsylvania. You got us all excited. We were going to the Caribbean, but we’re sticking in the Northeast. I know. How can we help you today? |
| 00:09:16 | CALLER: Well, I have in my house. That’s how we heat through that. And somebody told me that I have to have that serviced every winter for the heat pump. And in the spring, I have to have the air conditioner serviced. Is there any truth to that? Because someone else told me that if you have an electrical heat pump, you don’t have to have it serviced every year. So I was just wondering. |
| 00:09:46 | TOM: So you do need to have it serviced, but just once a year, because it’s pretty much going to operate the same in the heating system and the cooling system, and they test both systems as part of the normal service. The difference between the heating and the cooling is one valve called a reversing valve, and it basically reverses the refrigeration cycle. Okay. And that can be checked as part of the summer AC service. So I don’t think you have to do it twice a year. You certainly have to do it once a year. But living in Pennsylvania, heat pump is probably a very expensive way for you to heat. I will tell you there’s new technology out there now in heat pumps that are designed for northern climates. Bosch Home Comfort is a manufacturer of many of these inverter heat pumps that can actually handle heating when the temperature is like minus five or minus 10 outside. And they don’t cost more to operate than what a gas furnace might be. Okay. So there’s certainly a good option for those that don’t have access to gas, for example, for the heating, where you can get air conditioning in the same system at a very, very affordable cost. So that’s something to keep in mind for when it’s time to upgrade the system. But for right now, I’d say servicing it once a year is the hot ticket. |
| 00:10:59 | CALLER: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. |
| 00:11:01 | TOM: All right. Well, good luck with that project, Ruth. Bye. |
| 00:11:04 | LESLIE: Well, if you’d like to paint the exterior of your home to boost its curb appeal, or maybe change a color that you’re just not liking anymore, or just to give it a refresh, fall is the perfect time to get this project done. But painting an entire home is a big project that does require proper planning, preparation, and tools. And in most cases, it really is best left to a pro. But we do have some tips on a few factors that will affect your project’s budget. |
| 00:11:29 | TOM: Now, first, understand that, according to Angie, painting an average home can cost between $2,000 and $5,000. Now, pros are going to provide estimates primarily based on the area of walls or siding that they’re going to paint. Now, if you’re going to paint an entire home, you’re going to have to pay a lot of money for the construction, not necessarily the home’s square feet. And that pricing is going to be based on a few factors, including the type of siding and the height of the building. Now, wood and vinyl generally cost less than brick and stucco to paint. And also, the taller the building, the higher the price is going to be. Those harder to reach areas require extra equipment and take more time to set up and clean up, which all add to the cost. Yeah. |
| 00:12:03 | LESLIE: And like many projects, however, there’s a lot more than the price to consider. You’ve got to think about the quality of the finished job. I mean, that’s really going to depend heavily on the cost. It’s going to depend heavily on the quality of the workmanship and the quality of the materials. You know, painters that do take shortcuts on the required prep, like scraping and sanding away that old finish, may deliver a job that lasts just a fraction of what it should or could last. Yeah. |
| 00:12:25 | TOM: And likewise, failing to use a primer as well as choosing a cheaper paint can result in a lower quality finish that’s just not going to stand up. Now, when it comes to paint, labor is the biggest part of the expense. So be sure to always insist on using the best quality paint for a long time. It’s not going to be a long lasting finish and you won’t have to repaint quite as frequently. It’s actually a very small part of the overall budget. Yeah. |
| 00:12:49 | LESLIE: And finally, get some cost estimates here. You never want to take a quote without that pro coming to your house. You always want to get at least three quotes. Always ask for their references and check their painter reviews. Take the time to inspect their previous work, including recent and work that’s done years ago. I mean, if you see that they did a house maybe five, six years ago and it’s a short drive or walk from where you are. Yeah. Or work with somebody local, take a look, see how it’s holding up. |
| 00:13:15 | TOM: Because all the projects look good when they’re first done, right? But you want to look at a house that’s several years old, that’s how it’s really going to stand up. So good tip, Leslie. |
| 00:13:22 | LESLIE: Stan in Massachusetts is on the line dealing with some issues with the ceiling. Tell us what’s going on. |
| 00:13:27 | CALLER: I’m looking to get some advice about a leak we have received in our ceiling in our kitchen because of defective pipes that were installed going back 20 years now. We’ve had several leaks that have been repaired. We don’t know whether to close up the ceiling. We don’t know if the ceiling tile or not. We’re concerned that the same pipe is in there and it could be having a hairline crack at any point in time. So just not sure how to proceed. Yeah. |
| 00:13:50 | TOM: It sounds like it’s a frustrating situation. I’m not quite sure what kind of pipe leaks you’re talking about and whether it’s something that is just representative of some general deterioration of your plumbing system. Like for example, some homes in the country have these pinhole copper leak, copper pipe leaks. |
| 00:14:08 | LESLIE: That’s like so common where I live. Yeah. |
| 00:14:11 | TOM: Because of the acidity of water, it starts to develop really thin walls of the copper pipes, sometimes holes in it, and those folks end up replacing those pipes. I always say whenever the ceiling’s open or the wall’s open, replace everything you can because eventually you have to replace all the plumbing. So I’m not really sure what kind of plumbing problem you’re talking about here. But generally speaking, if you’ve not had a leak in a few months, then I would go ahead and close it up. I mean, I don’t know what else to tell you at this point. If you tell me that this is a problem that is just happening all over the place. Then maybe, you know, this is a different conversation. But if it’s always leaking in this one place, maybe you should just open the ceiling up there once and for all and replace that piece of pipe in the area that’s leaking, see what’s going on. But that’s kind of the way I would approach this. |
| 00:14:55 | LESLIE: Nadine in South Dakota, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today? |
| 00:14:58 | CALLER: So we have these old decrepit wood floors. And I was just curious, is it possible to put like a skim coat of concrete over it to get that like, you know, like that Home Depot like concrete floor look? Yeah. |
| 00:15:10 | TOM: Do you have wood floors right now? |
| 00:15:11 | CALLER: Yes, we do. |
| 00:15:12 | TOM: What kind of wood floors? Are they like hardwood floors? |
| 00:15:15 | CALLER: Yeah, they are. They are like, we went to the store and just got pine. And then over the pine, we put like an industrial like epoxy paint over them. Okay. |
| 00:15:24 | TOM: Yeah. I mean, it would be kind of a sin to cover up those wood floors as opposed to sanding them. But if you wanted to cover them and you wanted to have that sort of a concrete-like finish, probably what you want to do is put down a mud floor much in the same way as you would if you were putting tile down. You would have to nail a wire mesh to the floor. And then on top of that, there would be like a mixed up sort of a concrete-mud mix. Not concrete. It doesn’t have aggregate in it. But it’s like a mud mix. And that’s troweled out and made nice and smooth and flat. And then on top of that, you could put whatever you wanted, tile, you know, or any other kind of a floor finish. But have you considered something like laminate? Because you could put laminate right on top of that old floor. It’s a floating floor. It locks together. It’s very easy to install. And it’s very, very beautiful and super durable. And I think probably less expensive than trying to get that kind of concrete finish that you’re going for. |
| 00:16:16 | CALLER: Like a laminate as in like an engineered hardwood floor or like a laminate, like old school, like plastic floor? |
| 00:16:22 | TOM: That’s different. So I wouldn’t call it a plastic floor and I wouldn’t call it an engineered hardwood. Here’s the differences. You’re kind of at two extremes. Now engineered hardwood is a solid hardwood that’s made of layers, like plywood where the top layer is real wood. And that’s fine. And you can use that, right? That’s another good option. Now laminate is the same kind of laminate that you might have on a countertop except it’s 20 to 30 times more tough because it’s thicker. And what they can do with laminate is they can actually create a surface that has depth to it. It has grooves to it. It has ridges. You can feel the different sort of lines of the wood knots and the grain in the wood. Or if it’s stone, it can have kind of a rough stone texture to it. You can have a lot of texture on the surface and they really have done a great job with making that today. It’s quite a beautiful floor and there’s many different kinds of it. It can look like hardwood. It can look like stone. It could look like vinyl. It could look like tile. So if you’re not familiar with it, you ought to look at what laminate is out there and what’s available. I think that’s going to be a much better option for you than trying to turn this into a concrete floor. |
| 00:17:22 | CALLER: And the laminate can go directly over the hardwood floors. What kind of prep work is that? |
| 00:17:25 | TOM: It can. Yep. It floats. You put like a thin under laminate underneath it and then you lock it together, sits right on top of that. And then you trim it between the floor and the baseboard. Cool. |
| 00:17:34 | CALLER: Thank you so much. That’s a great idea. I never thought about it. So I’ll take a look into it. I appreciate it. |
| 00:17:39 | TOM: Yep. Take a look. |
| 00:17:40 | LESLIE: So do you love the look of a deck over a patio, but you don’t want to have to deal with digging and pouring concrete footings to kind of hold it all in place? Well, now you don’t have to. |
| 00:17:50 | TOM: The new Bison Level Up Adjustable Deck Pedestal Joist Support System transforms how ground level decks are built by eliminating the need for concrete footers and posts, saving time, labor, and money. |
| 00:18:00 | LESLIE: With us to describe how it all works is Jennifer Johnson, the Business Development Manager at Bison. Welcome, Jennifer. Hi. How are you? So I have to say, this is an awesome product. Yeah. |
| 00:18:12 | TOM: I mean, for anybody that’s ever tried to build a deck at the ground level, it’s a harder project than you might think. I mean, I think folks think, well, you just like nail the beams together and throw a couple of bricks under the corners and you’re good to go. Well, that’s not the way to do it. And that’s why so many of them fall apart and decay and they don’t last and they just look terrible. But this is a super clean, easy, and affordable way to create a foundation system for one of those decks. So talk to us about it. How does it work? |
| 00:18:38 – 0 | JENNIFER: So it’s a revolutionary system that utilizes pedestals, adjustable pedestals, so you don’t have to dig the concrete footers or posts. And you can build a deck substructure directly onto these pedestals. There’s an attachment that attaches to the wooden joist, so you build the substructure and you can basically build a deck in a day. It eliminates that backbreaking labor of having to dig footers, fill them with concrete, wait for that to dry. You can really do this all in one day. Yeah. |
| 00:19:08 | TOM: And so the way this works, it looks like it sits right on grade. Is that correct? The base of the pedestal? Yes. |
| 00:19:14 – 0 | JENNIFER: So you can build it over an existing concrete slab or pavers. You don’t have to demo them, so there’s time saved there. Or you can build it directly on the soil. So we suggest that you take that top layer of grass off. But then you can put some gravel down, build right over that. Really easy to build. |
| 00:19:33 | LESLIE: I mean, the way the bison footing or pedestal sort of comes together is so interesting, too. You know, all the different components that allow you to height adjust, so you’re leveling your deck as you’re building it, but also how it just kind of wraps around and secures that joist. It’s just so intuitive and it’s awesome. |
| 00:19:51 – 0 | JENNIFER: Yeah, it’s very easy to use. There’s four basic components that make up a pedestal system, so you just stack them together. The joist top attachment wraps around and is fastened directly into the joist. Then the weight of the deck holds everything in place, so it’s not going to move. It’s also a very forgiving system. So as you’re building it, you can continue to make adjustments to height and to slope. And we do sell some additional accessories. So if you need additional height in certain areas, we sell height adjustment couplers that can be screwed into the pedestal system. We also have slope levelers that you can add underneath the base of the pedestal. And you can compensate for up to 8% slope. |
| 00:20:32 | TOM: I see the way this works is the base sits on grade or an existing patio, for example, or a concrete slab. And then the top of the pedestal, you rotate, right, like a big screw to raise or lower. And then above that is where the floor joists get attached. And you have options on how you can attach this. Is that about right? Yes. |
| 00:20:51 – 0 | JENNIFER: It’s a telescoping pedestal. So you twist it by hand. You don’t need any tools to raise or lower it. It’s a really easy way to attach it. It’s really easy to use. The joist top attachment, you bend up the flap, and then that is what gets fastened into the wood joist. |
| 00:21:03 | TOM: You know, I can think of another application for this. I built a deck about two years ago now where after it was done, even though it was built to code, there was too much bounce in the middle of that deck for me. I really wanted it to be stiffer. And so I had to run another girder down the middle and support it by concrete and traditional basically piers. I could have slipped a couple of these, two or three of these under that beam I built, and it would have been perfect to take the flex out. Absolutely. |
| 00:21:29 – 0 | JENNIFER: It certainly would have worked for that. What’s great too is you can use these in conjunction. If you have a traditional deck that’s already been built and you want to add to it, you could use the pedestal system to add to that deck. |
| 00:21:39 | LESLIE: So now it comes as a kit. So does that sort of set in stone, you know, initially how large of a deck that you can build? Is there a certain amount of distance between these that are required? Can you kind of add on? How can you make it so that you could get the deck size that you want? |
| 00:21:55 – 0 | JENNIFER: Yeah, the kits are modular. So you can use one kit or you can use as many kits as you want. One kit is going to allow you to build an eight foot by 10 foot deck using two by six lumber. So, you know, depending on the size of lumber you use will also dictate the size of your deck. We do say minimum of eight feet by eight feet just to avoid any tipping hazards, but you can go as big as you want. So you can use as many kits as you want. You just build them side by side. You don’t even attach them together. This is really designed for free floating decks. So we suggest that, you know, it doesn’t get attached to the home or to any other structure. |
| 00:22:31 | TOM: You know, it also occurs to me that because it’s an engineered polymer, you’re not really at risk of weather, right? No freezing issues. It’s not going to grow mold. It’s really a kind of set it and forget it thing once you get it in place. |
| 00:22:43 | LESLIE: It’s not going to degrade? |
| 00:22:45 – 0 | JENNIFER: Absolutely. Yeah. These are really heavy duty pedestal systems. They’re made out of an engineered polymer, so they’re going to last for years, years and years. Each pedestal holds up to 750 pounds, but they’re weather-free, mold-resistant, so they’re going to last a long time. |
| 00:23:01 | TOM: Product is called the Level Up Deck Pedestal System. It’s made by Bison. It’s available at Amazon, HomeDepot.com and select Home Depot stores as well as Tall Lumber. Jennifer Johnson, the business development manager for Bison, thank you so much for stopping by the Money Pit. |
| 00:23:16 | LESLIE: Thank you. Brad in Tennessee is on the line with a home that probably has the best practical joke already built into it. He flushed the toilet. The shower gets cold. Why do you want to change that? |
| 00:23:29 | CALLER: Well, because my four-year-old son seems to think it’s more of a joke than it’s a real thing. |
| 00:23:37 | TOM: Than his parents? Yes. That is the problem. All right. So the shower valve itself, right, there’s an easy solution to this, first of all, Brad. It requires you to change the shower valve into something called a pressure balanced valve. Now, I know you don’t have a pressure balanced valve because your water temperature is changing when you draw off water, in this case by flushing the toilet. It would probably also happen if you ran other fixtures in the house, but it’s because you have a differential in the pressure or the mix, as you say, between the hot and the cold. What a pressure balanced valve does is it keeps that mix the same regardless of what happens to either the cold water supply or the hot water supply, so you can have more or less of either temperature of water, but the ratio of the mix together doesn’t change. You may get less pressure when you flush that toilet after this valve is installed, but it won’t be a shock, okay? It won’t change the temperature dramatically. That’s what a pressure balanced valve does, and it sounds like you don’t have one, and that would be the solution. Excellent. |
| 00:24:43 | CALLER: Excellent. Well, I will run out and get one. All right. |
| 00:24:46 | TOM: It’s a bit of a project. You may not be able to install it yourself. You know, it’s pretty much you have to run out and get one. You may not be able to replumb the shower valve there. You may need a plumber to help you, but it definitely will solve this. Okay. |
| 00:24:57 | CALLER: Well, excellent. At least I know where to start now and where the joke ends. |
| 00:25:00 | TOM: All right, Brad. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit, and we are confident that your four-year-old will find something else equally amusing to bother his parents with. |
| 00:25:11 | CALLER: I’m sure he will. Thank you so much. |
| 00:25:14 | TOM: Well, if you’re looking to cut down on energy bills and keep your home more comfortable all year long, one of the best places to start is your attic. But how do you know if you’ve got enough insulation up there right now? |
| 00:25:25 | LESLIE: Yeah, you know, that’s a great question. The amount of insulation you need is going to depend on where you live and your local climate. Insulation is measured in what they call R-value, which is the material’s resistance to heat flow. The higher the R-value, the better the insulation. For most areas, an attic should have an R-value between 38 and 60, so R-38 and R-60, which is around 10 to 14 inches of insulation. |
| 00:25:50 | TOM: Now, a quick way to check if you need more insulation is by taking a look across your attic floor. If you can see the tops of your ceiling joists, you probably don’t have enough. You can also use a ruler or a tape to measure the depth, but even if your insulation is level with the joists, it’s often a very good idea to add more to maximize your energy efficiency. |
| 00:26:11 | LESLIE: Yeah, and when you’re adding that insulation, you want to remember that it needs to be fluffy in order to properly insulate. If you’re squishing that insulation down by placing storage on top of it, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re not helping yourself out at all. If you do need an area for storage, you want to dedicate a space near the attic opening and fill those joists up to the top, but not beyond, and then go ahead and add more insulation to the areas that you’re not using for storage. |
| 00:26:35 | TOM: So if you’re seeing high energy bills or you have rooms that are too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter, now is a good time to check your attic insulation and consider adding more. It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to save energy and improve the comfort in your home. |
| 00:26:52 | LESLIE: Now we’re heading to South Dakota, where Esther has a garage question. What can we do for you today? |
| 00:26:57 | CALLER: Well, we have a long, skinny garage with one door, and I would like to extend the cement floor, of course, and loosen all those bolts that fasten it to the cement and turn it on its side and put two doors or a double door on this long side so we could fit two doors or two cars in there. |
| 00:27:21 | TOM: So you want to take the door from the end of the house, where it just basically opens up to this long, extra-long garage, and you want to swing the doors over to the side of the house so you can have room for a double door. Is that correct? Yeah. |
| 00:27:34 | CALLER: I just want to turn the garage. I would leave the hole on the end. You know, I would make that into a sliding door instead of overhead doors so it wouldn’t get in the way of the trams up on top. But someone said that they didn’t think that that way then the tracks would be going parallel with the stringers across the top. |
| 00:27:51 | TOM: So your first challenge here, before we talk about your doors, because that’s the last thing that you have to deal with, the first challenge is you have to actually structurally change that long side of the house to be able to have these two, now two large garage doors in it. So that is going to require rebuilding those walls, and is this a two-story house on that side? Okay. |
| 00:28:15 | CALLER: No. This is not an attached garage. This is a freestanding garage. |
| 00:28:19 | TOM: So on that long side, though, is that with where the roof sits? Yes. The roof rafters come down on that side? All right. So that is a load-bearing wall, Esther. So it has to be reframed for a standard garage opening. That’s a big job. This is not just a matter of moving the tracks over and, you know, knocking out a few two-by-fours. This is a big job. You’re going to have to have a header across that, which is a beam that’s going to support that roof. |
| 00:28:42 | CALLER: Now, would it be better to have one wide, wide door with the beam across or two separate doors with a column in? |
| 00:28:50 | TOM: Just as much work. Doesn’t matter. Oh. Okay. Big job. Not a do-it-yourself job. A job for a pro. Frame that out. And then you could, you know, perhaps you could preserve, you know, the old garage door and move it to one side, but I got to tell you, garage doors are a real pain in the neck to take apart. They got about a million pieces to them, and they’re a lot easier to put together when they start all disassembled and are built in place. |
| 00:29:14 | CALLER: Well, we have turned garages before. They’re different places where we live. |
| 00:29:19 | TOM: All right. So this is a project that you are very familiar with, except in this case, you’re going to have to reframe that exterior wall, and that is the bigger part of this project. Okay. Esther, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:29:33 | LESLIE: Jeannie reached out to Team Money Pit saying, a couple of weeks back, you mentioned a homemade natural way to freshen carpets. Can you walk us through those steps and ingredients list again? |
| 00:29:43 | TOM: Yeah, sure. Jeannie, here’s a quick guide to making and using a natural carpet deodorizer. We came up with. So the first thing is to gather the ingredients. You’re going to need about two cups of baking soda, about a half a cup of salt, and then either a quarter to a half cup of dried mint leaves or lavender buds, so you have a little scent. Combine the baking soda, combine the salt, and stir in the dried herbs for a fresh scent and extra deodorizing power. Now, next, you want to vacuum the carpet thoroughly to remove the dirt. Once it’s vacuumed, then you simply sprinkle that mixture evenly on the carpet using a sifter. You’re going to want to use a sifter for better distribution, especially in those high traffic or odor-prone areas. Then we like to let it sit. I would let it sit for a half hour or so, and once that’s done, you can vacuum it again thoroughly to remove the mixture, and this is going to leave your carpets smelling surprisingly fresh and clean. It’s also not harmful to the carpets. Sometimes when you steam clean, it can be horrible, but this is really an easy way to maintain them and have them smelling great all year long. |
| 00:30:46 | LESLIE: All right. Now, Pam wants to know, is it possible to insulate the outside of a house to stop condensation on a basement wall? It seems to be mostly on the north wall and only happens where the concrete is above ground. |
| 00:30:58 | TOM: Yeah. You don’t want to insulate the outside of the basement wall. What you want to insulate is the interior of the basement wall, and there actually are special insulations for that. It could be something as simple as a Dow Styrofoam board, or there are fiberglass insulations that have vapor barriers built into them. And if you do that, then you’re going to want to insulate the outside of the basement wall. Then that warm, moist air inside the basement is not going to be able to condense on the cold basement because it won’t be able to reach the cold foundation, and you won’t have the condensation issue any longer. |
| 00:31:28 | LESLIE: All right. I hope that helps you out, Pamela. Stay cozy. |
| 00:31:31 | TOM: Well, are you guys ready to update the faucets in your kitchen or your bath? Well, if so, you might want to give a serious look into hands-free faucets. Leslie explains why in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word. Leslie? Yeah. |
| 00:31:44 | LESLIE: You know, hands-free faucets, they’ve been around in commercial use for decades, but today you’re finding more and more being designed for the home, and they do provide quite a number of advantages. For one, you don’t need to worry about your hands being dirty or soapy or full. They’re also great for keeping the germ count down. Less hands touching less surfaces, and that’s something that can come in really handy with a household full of kids, pets, even elderly relatives. Some other advantages are saving water. The faucet isn’t going to be running while you’re soaping up your hands. You’re not going to forget to turn it off and walk away. It’s great for people with limited hand mobility. It’s great for the chef of the house because you’re not reaching for the faucet with those chickeny hands. I always feel like, oh, my gosh, I’m doing everything, and then I’m touching the faucet, and I’m trying to get things, and then I feel like I have to bleach everything after. So that’s definitely helpful there. And it’s also great for kids who just can’t reach. All they need to be able to do is touch or wave at the faucet, and they’ve got the faucet, and they’ve got water to wash their little hands. Now, those touchless faucets are installed just like a standard faucet, and most also have the traditional hot and cold valves, which you can adjust for the desired temperature. The one change here is that they do have a battery pack, which operates that hands-free sensor. So these hands-free faucets, they’re not more difficult to install. They offer a ton of benefits that you’ll not find in a traditional kitchen or bath faucet. So if you’re out there to update a bathroom or a kitchen space, definitely consider it. |
| 00:33:14 | TOM: I’m This is the Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Coming up next time on the program, do you guys use your garage as a workshop or some other sort of hangout spot? Winter can make that difficult. So we’ve got some tips on how you can add heat to your garage and turn it into a year-round comfortable workspace on the next edition of the Money Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:33:35 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:33:36 | TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself. |
| 00:33:38 | 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.) |
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