Show Notes
Join us today for tips on transforming your yard into a dog-friendly paradise and choosing the perfect BBQ grill as summer sales heat up. We’ll also discuss an easy-to-clean Epoxy Floor Coating Kit for your concrete floors and share expert home improvement advice with other DIY callers just like you!
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- Pet-Friendly Spaces: Get some fetching ideas on how to design a dog-friendly yard.
- BBQ Grills: Check these hot tips on what to look for when buying a new BBQ grill.
- Epoxy Floors: Discover the beauty of easy-to-clean epoxy floor finishes.
Top Questions & Answers
- Painting Siding: Can you paint vinyl siding? Michael learns specific steps to properly clean, prime, and paint his vinyl siding, plus recommendations for colors and applications.
- Wood Playground: Erin’s wood swingset is cracking and turning black. Pressure-treated wood is not the best option, but she can scrub the surface and use a solid color stain.
- French Drain: Standing rainwater is affecting the walls of Andrew’s home on a hill. He needs to build a French drain to divert water around the house.
- Ceiling Paint: Can Blair use water-based paint over the oil-based paint on her deck ceiling? We recommend priming it first and then using a solid stain or a flat paint.
- Mold Control: Dan gets advice on how to reduce moisture and prevent mold by ventilating and dehumidifying his unheated pole building.
- Floor Moisture: Water is coming up from the concrete slab under the laminate floor. Michelle should check the outside drainage and install a fan with a humidistat.
- Soundproofing: Jerry wants to convert an upstairs bedroom into a movie room and gets tips on adding soundproofing drywall or Green Glue noise-proofing sealant to the ceiling.
- Fascia Board: Martin wants to fix the fascia board that’s separating between her porch ceiling and the overhang. It’s easy to resecure it with screws instead of nails.
Ask Your Home Improvement Question
Podcast Transcript
Read Transcript
| 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. | |
| 00:00:30 | TOM: What are you guys working on? Maybe you’re just taking a break because of this August heat we’re all dealing with right now. It is that time of year where it just seems difficult, Leslie, to motivate to do work, especially if it’s outside. But you could do stuff inside. You could be planning for the fall to be cool enough. But if you’ve got some projects on that to-do list and need some inspiration to get started or some information, reach out to us. That’s what we do. We’re here at 1-888-Money-Pit, 888-666-3974. Or for the fastest possible response, just go to moneypit.com ask and click the blue microphone button. Coming up on today’s program, we’re going to talk about how you can transform your yard into a dog friendly paradise. We’ll talk about secure fencing for shady spots and fun play areas. We’ve got all the tips that you need |
| 00:01:24 | LESLIE: to keep your furry friends safe and happy. And also ahead, are you ready to step up to a new barbecue grill? Well, with lots of end of summer sales popping up, we’re going to share |
| 00:01:34 | TOM: what you could be looking for in your brand spanking new grill. Are you tired of trying to keep your concrete floors clean? We’re going to share an epoxy floor coating kit that can transform your garage, your laundry area, or your basement into an easy to clean, durable space. |
| 00:01:48 | LESLIE: But first, we want to know what you are working on. So, even though it’s super hot out and maybe you’re not thinking of projects around the outside of your house, perhaps you’ve got something going on inside, or you’re dreaming about all of those fall projects you’ll be tackling. Well, whatever it is, inside or out, hot or cold, the Money Pit |
| 00:02:03 | TOM: is standing by to help you out. The number here is 1-888-Money-Pit. That’s 888-666-3974. |
| 00:02:10 | LESLIE: Let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s first? Heading on over to Tennessee, where we’ve got Michael on the line, who’s looking to take on a painting project. I understand you want to paint some siding. Can you tell us a bit about it? |
| 00:02:20 | CALLER: Yes, ma’am. It’s a vinyl siding, and I understand you can paint aluminum siding, but I didn’t know how well vinyl siding would take to that. |
| 00:02:28 | LESLIE: Now, vinyl siding is a little tricky, Tom, because you’re probably going to need a special |
| 00:02:31 | TOM: primer to make things really stick. So, if you want to paint vinyl, there’s a specific set of steps you need to go through. First of all, you’ve got to make sure it’s clean, right? That applies to any painting project, whether it’s wood or aluminum or anything, it’s got to be clean. So, it has to be free of mold, free of mildew, anything else, chalky buildup. Then, you need to identify a primer and a paint. And I would say within the same manufacturer family. So, if you’re going to go with Benjamin Moore, use both a Benjamin Moore primer and a Benjamin Moore paint, same thing with Sherwin-Williams. Now, the primer is a really important step here because that helps the paint stick to the surface. And because you can’t really rough this up like you would some surfaces, that’s going to give you good adhesion. And the second thing is you need to choose the right paint. Now, the major manufacturers have a lot of products that they recommend. They call them vinyl-safe colors, and they’re generally lighter colors because the darker the color, the more opportunity there is for the siding to overheat and warp, and that affects the adhesion. You’re going to need a couple of coats, and applying it, you have options. You can use a paint sprayer or a roller, but you’re going to end up needing a brush around all of the edges. So, we have the paint that has the right technology here to paint vinyl siding, but you have to follow the right steps. My recommendation for you, would be to start this on, say, the side of the house, so you can kind of, you know, get the system down as it may be, and then move to the remaining sides. Well, thank you so much. Well, you’re very welcome. Good luck with that project. |
| 00:04:02 | LESLIE: Erin in Ohio is on the line and needs some help with the playground. What can we do for you? |
| 00:04:06 | CALLER: I have a swing set, swing set slash play set. It’s made out of treated wood, and it’s about 10 years old. The flat surfaces, they’ve turned black and the wood is cracking. I’m wondering how I can best clean that up. |
| 00:04:20 | TOM: Well, the best thing to do is to use a wood cleaner, but let me ask you this. Is it pressure treated, this wooden play set? |
| 00:04:25 | CALLER: I believe so, yes. |
| 00:04:27 | TOM: Because, you know, pressure treated lumber is sort of fallen out of favor as a play set because of the chemicals that are in the pressure treated lumber, leaching out of the lumber, getting into the soil, and so on. So, I’ll just give you a bit of a warning on that, but if you want to clean this, Flood makes a product called Flood Wood Cleaner that works really well. Basically, you wet the lumber down, you apply the wood cleaner. You let it set for 20 or 30 minutes. You don’t let it dry. You may have to re-moisten it again, and then you kind of scrub it clean. You can use a pressure washer after that to scrub it clean. It does a pretty good job of brightening up the finish, taking away the dirt and the grime and lifting up any of that old gray sort of oxidation that settles on the wood or the black oxidation that settles on the wood. You can find that at most homesteaders and hardware stores. And again, it’s called Flood Wood Cleaner. |
| 00:05:12 | CALLER: Okay. Once I have it clean, then am I better, do you think, to stain it or paint it? |
| 00:05:17 | TOM: No, you’re better to stain it. What you want to do is use solid color stain as opposed to semi-transparent stain because it’ll last a lot longer. The solid color tends to fade a little bit better and doesn’t peel like paint would. |
| 00:05:31 | CALLER: And the same thing, we have a swing, like a porch swing that I’d like to put on there as well. Same thing then with that to clean it up. It’s been outside for some time. |
| 00:05:40 | TOM: Yes. If it’s natural wood, that’s a good product to clean up with. And the same advice applies to the porch swing. Now, is that also a good product to clean up with? Is that also made out of pressure-treated lumber or is that something different? |
| 00:05:49 | CALLER: No, it’s about the same age. I believe it is. |
| 00:05:52 | TOM: All right. So again, use the solid color stain. |
| 00:05:54 | CALLER: Okay. Very good. Thank you. |
| 00:05:55 | TOM: You’re welcome, Aaron. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:06:01 | LESLIE: Hey, you want to make our day? Well, go ahead and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and we’ll be jumping for joy. Plus, you guys, your feedback helps us make the show even better for you. Just go to moneypit.com slash review. Heading on over to Wisconsin where Andrew keeps getting some flooding in the yard. What’s going on over there? |
| 00:06:19 | CALLER: Hi, Leslie. I have a house that’s in a hill and the backyard is kind of surrounded by a retaining wall. And what I’m seeing is standing water kind of sitting after heavy rain in that basically like pit of a backyard. And I think it’s affecting the basement walls, getting water penetration. |
| 00:06:37 | TOM: So what have you done to try to alleviate anything so far? |
| 00:06:39 | CALLER: You know, I thought that there were some runoff off the gutters. The water is coming down pretty fast. It’s actually overshooting the gutters. But I think that it’s really, that’s a small aspect of what could be solving the problem since the water that’s actually hitting the pit doesn’t really have a way out other than down into the ground. |
| 00:07:00 | TOM: Let’s just talk about sort of total water management for this situation. So first of all, I’m presuming that the retaining wall is holding back some higher land. And then that when you get to the bottom of the retaining wall, that’s sort of where your yard starts to form and run downward towards your house. And there’s a gully there or something where the water seems to, to accumulate. Is that about right? Yeah, that’s about right. If we’re able to move the water around the house, could it travel on down by way of gravity towards a street or another property? |
| 00:07:27 | CALLER: Yes. If I can, that’s why I was thinking maybe a French drain. If I can bring it to the side of the house, I think it could get around it. |
| 00:07:36 | TOM: Okay. Yeah, that’s kind of where I’m going. So building a French drain, typically you build a trench. It’s maybe 12 inches wide, maybe 12 inches deep or so. You’d put a little stone in the bottom of it. You’d put a perforated pipe, you’d put filter cloth and then more stone over that. And then you would cover it with soil and then you would put grass or whatever other yard covering you have. Now that’s a lot of work. There is an easier way and it’s a product that’s called Easy Drain. And it’s sort of like a pre-made drain system. It consists of an internal pipe, which is surrounded by aggregate. Instead of stone, the aggregate kind of looks like styrofoam peanuts. And then around that, encapsulating the entire tube now is a filter cloth. So this comes in sections and they lock together. So all you need to do is to dig the trench and make sure it’s pitching from the low part around your house to a point where it could come back out the daylight where the end of the pipe can be drained. And that could be on the side of your house if you have good grading there. So it’s going to continue to run down towards the street, you know, or it could be, you know, farther to the street or it could be in the street if your town will allow you to do that. But with this type of system, it’s a lot easier than having to do all the labor of, you know, moving the stone around and the filter cloth and the dirt and the planning, it’s a lot easier too. So that’s called Easy Drain. |
| 00:08:59 | CALLER: Yeah, I’ve never even heard about that as an option. And that’s part of the problem is knowing what my options are. So that’s something for me to look into. Thank you. |
| 00:09:06 | TOM: Now, the second thing I want you to look into, just so we don’t leave anything unchecked here, is your gutter system. Make sure your gutters are sized properly so you don’t get overflow during heavy rain. Make sure the downspouts are clean and absolutely make sure the downspouts are extended out away from the foundation four to six feet. If you have them too close to the house, that’s definitely going to contribute to the standing you mentioned that you’re seeing on the foundation wall. May not be all of it, but it certainly is contributing to it. And especially if you see it get worse with rainfall or snow melt. So clean gutters extended well away from the foundation. |
| 00:09:41 | CALLER: All right. Thank you. |
| 00:09:42 | LESLIE: Well, if you’re a pet owner, you know your pets love to spend time outside. But some outdoor surfaces can be uncomfortable or even unsafe for your pets. So to help, we’ve got some tips to help you create a dog-friendly yard that both you and your pup are going to love, courtesy of the National Association of Realtors. Now first up, let’s talk about creating a secure space. Fencing is key. You’ve got to make sure that fence is tall enough to prevent jumping and secure enough to prevent a dog digging underneath. And speaking of digging, dogs love to dig. I mean, my dog loves to find a spot under a bush and dig a giant hole and sit in it for the whole day. But it really can wreak havoc on your landscaping. So one solution is to kind of just designate a digging spot. It could be a sandbox filled with soft sand. That’s a great option. And then you can encourage your dog to dig there by burying toys, treats, kind of like let them know this is their spot. |
| 00:10:37 | TOM: Now another thing to consider is picking dog-friendly plants. You want to avoid plants that are toxic to dogs, like azaleas, lilies, and daffodils. And instead, go with safer options like marigolds and sunflowers and snapdragons. Also consider installing pathways where your dog tends to run. This not only protects your lawn, but it gives the dog a clear path to follow. And it’s also important to plan for shade and water. You know, dogs can overheat very quickly, especially in summer. So plan to provide some shady spots with trees or a canopy and always have fresh water available. So for example, you can add a small kiddie pool that’s sort of a fun addition for pets to cool off in. |
| 00:11:14 | LESLIE: And if you want to go to the extra mile, consider adding some enrichment features like agility equipment or even a small play area. This can keep your dog entertained and active. Also think about using pet-friendly mulch like cedar chips, which are less likely to stick to fur and paws. And also remember, creating a dog-friendly yard doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice on style. With a little planning, you can have a beautiful yard that’s also safe and enjoyable for your furry friend. |
| 00:11:41 | TOM: For more tips on making your home pet-friendly, take a look at our website at MoneyPit.com. |
| 00:11:46 | LESLIE: Now we’re going to talk to Blair in Virginia, who’s taking on a painting project. Tell us about the ceiling you’re working on. |
| 00:11:52 | CALLER: I pulled out my power washer and decided to clean off the deck and the walls and the ceiling. And now the ceiling needs to be repainted. And it was originally painted with an oil-based paint. I would like to not use oil-based. I would like to go over it with a water-based. But I don’t have oil-based paint. I don’t know, first off, if I can do that, and what would be the best brands to look into. |
| 00:12:14 | TOM: So the first question is adhesion. What’s the ceiling made out of? Is this a drywall ceiling, a wood ceiling? What is it? |
| 00:12:20 | CALLER: It’s a wood ceiling. |
| 00:12:21 | TOM: What kind of wood? |
| 00:12:22 | CALLER: It’s just a plywood. |
| 00:12:24 | TOM: The first thing I would do, now that you’ve got this all cleaned off, is I would prime it, and I would use either an alkyd primer, which is water-based, or I would use an oil primer. Just the primer. The primer, it’s important that it sticks really, really well. And it’s also important that it adheres to whatever was there initially. And through the life of that ceiling, it may have had different paints, different finishes on it. We want to make sure we get primer on there that’s going to have a real adhesive effect. Because once you get primer that sticks really well, then you could put latex ceiling paint or any type of solid stain or something like that on top of it. But you’ve got to use a good quality primer. That’s really critical. So do the primer first. On top of that, since it’s wood, you could use something else. You could use solid stain, or you could use exterior paint. I would stick with a flat, though, if you’re going to use the paint. |
| 00:13:14 | CALLER: Right. Right. Okay. So as long as I prime it well. |
| 00:13:17 | TOM: You would probably be more tempted to use that than oil-based, but honestly, oil-based works better than anything else. I just repainted my entire house. And I have a cedar house, and we use solid stain, which I’m always promoting on the radio show because it has the most pigment in it. But what I don’t mention is that we had to prime this, prime the entire house, and the last time we did this, we had to prime the entire house. You know when the last time was I painted my house? When? Fourteen years ago. Fourteen years because I used oil-based primer back then and solid stain. And I did the same thing all over again because I want to get another 14 years out of it. But that’s what you’ll get if you do it right. Okay. |
| 00:13:53 | CALLER: I can do that, Dan. Thank you very much. |
| 00:13:55 | TOM: Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:14:00 | LESLIE: Now we’re heading over to Nebraska, where Dan’s on the line with a mold situation. What’s going on? |
| 00:14:05 | CALLER: I put up a pole building three years ago. And it’s… Oh. It’s 48 by 36 and 10-foot side walls. And I finished off about 700 square feet on the inside. And she rocked it, put R-30 in the ceiling, R-19 on the walls, and it’s got a 4-inch slab concrete base to it. And this spring, I went out there and I had mold all over everything, and I don’t know what’s causing that. The first two years… The first two years, I never had a bit of problem. |
| 00:14:41 | TOM: Well, it’s been a very wet year. Now, you have no heat in this building, I presume? |
| 00:14:45 | CALLER: I heat the bathroom, which is about 8 by 10 during the winter here in Nebraska. And the rest, I don’t heat. |
| 00:14:53 | TOM: Well, look. Mold needs three things to survive. It needs moisture, it needs air, and it needs food. And all of those things are available in that pole building. Your walls are made of drywall, I presume? |
| 00:15:07 | CALLER: Yes, sir. Sheetrock. Mm-hmm. Yeah. |
| 00:15:09 | TOM: All right. Well, I’m going to take a look at that. All right. Drywall, yeah. So the paper face on that is terrific mold food. And you have moisture there, and you have plenty of air, and you’re not heating it, so the humidity is always pretty high, and that’s why you’re growing mold. So you need to at least ventilate that building if you’re not going to heat it to keep moving the air through it so the humidity doesn’t become quite as high. But at this point, if you’ve got all that mold, it has to be treated. |
| 00:15:35 | CALLER: Yeah. And I’ve done that. I’ve gotten that all out of there right now, and I put a dehumidifier in there just to … |
| 00:15:44 | TOM: Okay. Well, that’ll help. |
| 00:15:45 | CALLER: And it took me like two and a half days, and I got it down to like 30%, so it came right down. Do I need to seal the floor, the concrete floor in there? |
| 00:15:56 | TOM: I don’t think that that’s necessarily the cause of the problem. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to seal the floor, but I think that this is just a condition of the fact that you’ve got a damp building. Yeah. You’ve got a damp building there with no central heating system, with plenty of drywall, plenty of moisture, and plenty of air. So just because of the conditions, the mold’s going to grow. Now there were other ways that you could have constructed these walls. For example, there’s a product called Dens Armor, which is a fiberglass face drywall that’s specifically designed not to grow mold because it’s not organic. But with paper face in an unheating building like that, I’m not surprised that it grew all. I am surprised it took two years, but it might just be that it was just so moist this last year that it really took off. |
| 00:16:42 | CALLER: How do I go ahead and vent that building? |
| 00:16:45 | TOM: Well, what I would do is I would probably have a fan in there that was based on the humidistat so when the humidity got really high that it would kick on and draw air out of that building. Kind of like having an attic fan but on a humidistat instead of a thermostat, right? That plus the dehumidifier should help you keep the moisture to a minimum. Okay. But keep an eye out for mold because, you know, once it gets started, then it really can take off quickly and it sounds like that’s what happened in this case. So if you catch it sooner than later, you’re going to be much better off. Yes. |
| 00:17:17 | CALLER: I want to try to eliminate it completely, so I’ll try that. |
| 00:17:22 | TOM: All right. And when you do find the mold, when it gets there, you make sure you treat it properly so that you kill the mold spores. Don’t just try to scrub it off because it’ll come right back. You got to treat it to kill the mold spores, then clean off the rest. All right, Dan. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. So Leslie, my sister called me about a week ago and told me a very interesting story. She was awoke by her smoke detectors at 3 in the morning. Okay. And evacuated the house and called the fire department and the police. They came and they checked. They found no fires, but they did check with their meters and found some evidence of a gas leak. And so we’re thinking, well, why would the detectors go off if there was a natural gas leak? I mean, we’re glad that they found it, but who knows? So the fire department checks for the gas leak and they go up and down and in and out. They check every line. They find it, then they can’t find it, and they find it, they can’t find it. So finally they go, we’re going to have to call the gas company. Gas company guy comes out and he smartly isolates every pipe from the meter to every appliance because they were all separate. And he found that, in fact, one of the lines was leaking because they turned everything else off and watched the meter and they could see the meter move, meaning they were consuming gas, right? Right. So they’re like, okay, you got to call a service man. So she calls her HVAC contractor, who turned out to be a really good guy. And he affirmed that the gas company did all the right thing. He looked into it and it took him a while, and same thing, sensed it, didn’t sense it, sensed it, didn’t sense it. Finally he moved his meter up close to the underside of the floor from the basement and picked up a stronger sense there and he went to move a pipe, which is a soft, flexible gas line, and he heard . So guess what? 20 years ago when that house was built, the contractor had nailed through the floor into the flexible gas line and that house had had that minor gas leak for 20 years. |
| 00:19:11 | CALLER: For all those years? |
| 00:19:12 | TOM: All those years. That was the last time anything was done to that floor was when it was built. And so they found it, they replaced the pipe, but what a crazy story. Wow. |
| 00:19:20 | LESLIE: But I wonder what made that alarm go off at that time. Was it just a higher concentration of the gas? Like why not before? |
| 00:19:29 | TOM: I honestly don’t think it had anything to do with it because it’s not the time. I mean, it’s not the time to be detecting methane. Natural gas is methane gas underneath it all. The detectors are just not designed to do that. So I think it was just kismet. She had put the last set of detectors in in 2019, so I told her to replace them all, which she did. And it worked out. But I mean, the funniest part was she’s outside her house at three in the morning and they got four fire trucks rolling up to her house. The neighbors are all corralled down the street because they had a barrier set up because now it’s a gas leak, right? They’re all trying to figure out what the heck’s going on. If you knew my sister, you would know. It’s very unlike her. |
| 00:20:03 | LESLIE: She does not like being the center of attention, especially in the middle of the night. |
| 00:20:09 | TOM: Yeah, exactly. So anyway, it worked out. |
| 00:20:11 | LESLIE: Well, I’m glad they found it. What a weird thing, huh? |
| 00:20:14 | TOM: You got it. |
| 00:20:16 | LESLIE: Michelle in Minnesota is on the line with a bathroom floor thing is all I can call it. What is going on? You’re getting moisture coming up through the floor? |
| 00:20:24 | CALLER: Yes, it’s a laminate floor. This is my third summer in this house. And it’s the first time that I’ve had this issue. And it was started around the warm and humid days. At first, I thought maybe that it was my toilet leaking because I had a new toilet put in last summer. But the plumber did come out and pull the toilet and it didn’t look like it was leaking or that the seal was broken on it. So we’re thinking that it’s condensation from the concrete slab coming up between the slats of the laminate flooring. |
| 00:20:58 | TOM: So the laminate flooring is on top of a concrete slab? Correct. |
| 00:21:01 | CALLER: Yep. |
| 00:21:02 | TOM: What’s this doing to the floor? Is it causing it to deform in any way or is it just showing up as a stain? |
| 00:21:08 | CALLER: It is not buckling or anything along the edges. He thinks that maybe it’s a rubber flooring, more of a rubber based flooring rather than a wood. And so it has not curled the edges or anything like that. It just seeps up as moisture and it comes like beads up right along the edges of the laminate. |
| 00:21:31 | TOM: Do you have air conditioning in this bathroom? |
| 00:21:33 | CALLER: I do not. No. Yeah. |
| 00:21:35 | TOM: I was thinking cooler moist air against a warmer floor could cause additional condensation. So look, if you want to reduce the moisture that’s coming up through the bathroom, there’s a couple of things I can suggest. First of all, you want to take a look at the grating and the drainage conditions outside that bathroom because the slab, if it’s getting very wet, is extremely hydroscopic. So all the moisture in the earth will be drawn into the slab and that’s going to wick up and show up in your bathroom apparently. So take a look at your gutters and downspouts. Make sure they’re clean and free flowing and the spouts are extending four to six feet from the house. Get all that roof water away and then take a look at the angle of the soil and make sure that that’s sloping away. Now, do you have a fan in this bathroom? Yes. That is helpful. You might want to think about replacing the fan with one that has a built-in humidistat because that’s convenient on a couple of fronts. First of all, when you take a shower and you leave the bathroom, turn the switch off, it’ll actually stay on until all the moisture is properly vented out of there. And if it does get humid on its own, then the humidistat will kick the fan on and also dry it out. They’re not terribly expensive. I know Brone makes a good one. There are a number of manufacturers you can find this from. And keep an eye on the floor. Some laminate floors stand up very well to moisture. I’ve seen laminate floors that are going to be submerged and they don’t seem to be affected by it. But others will buckle just like hardwood would. So just keep an eye on it. And if it ends up that it does have to be replaced, I would paint that cement slab underneath with a couple of coats of epoxy paint to kind of seal in and stop the moisture from evaporating through it into the room. Mm-hmm. Okay. But only if you get that far. I mean, I wouldn’t tell you to tear up the floor now. But if you have to replace it, just make sure you seal the slab at the same time. |
| 00:23:22 | CALLER: Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. That’s good. Good. Thanks. |
| 00:23:29 | TOM: Well, if the grill you’ve been using all summer long is starting to look a little worse for wear, now is a good time to think about replacing it. We’re starting to see a lot of end of summer sales cropping up, so it’s not hard to get a pretty good deal. Right. |
| 00:23:41 | LESLIE: But what makes it so confusing is that there’s so many options available. So to help you sort out the best, we’ve really boiled this down to three issues. Yep. |
| 00:23:50 | TOM: So first you need solid hardware. You want to look for stainless steel hardware and a solid aluminum body. These grills are most durable. It can take the heat really, really well. |
| 00:24:00 | LESLIE: All right. Next, you want to check the burner design. You want to look for an H-style burner because that design is going to provide a more even distribution of the heat. And you want to make sure that the burner is made from stainless steel. If it’s not, you can expect to have to replace it in a couple of years. |
| 00:24:15 | TOM: And last, check the warranty. Shop for a warranty that covers all parts of the grill, including the burner and the valves. You know, some so-called lifetime warranties only cover the grill body, which has no moving parts. And you want to make sure that the grills are made from stainless steel. And almost never breaks down. Now, heat warranties like that, because they make out like it’s a big deal, and it really is a big fat nothing. Yeah. |
| 00:24:34 | LESLIE: With those warranties, you really, really have to read the fine print. And you know what? If it’s confusing, just ask the questions. Jerry in West Virginia is on the line with a soundproofing question. How can we help you today? |
| 00:24:45 | CALLER: The second floor master, we want to convert into a movie room. However, it’s over our son’s bedroom. He’s six years old. And what I’ve noticed is the volume. There’s like nothing. No sound barrier between the first and second floor. So like when I hear my wife reading him a bedtime story, I can hear it very plainly upstairs. |
| 00:25:08 | TOM: And that’s typical because there’s no insulation in those walls. So you will get some sound transmission. If you want to try to soundproof those walls or the ceiling, there’s a number of ways to do that. There’s a type of drywall that you can apply as a second layer that will be quieter. |
| 00:25:31 | TOM: It’s called quiet rock. To do that, you probably have to take out the old drywall. The other issue is that wherever you have a gap in those walls for electrical outlet or light switch or anything like that, they have to be sealed properly to deliver the soundproofing. And then there’s another way to do this where you put a second layer of regular drywall on the first layer that’s already there. You use a material called Green Glue, which provides sort of a sound insulation barrier between the walls. And then you put a second layer of drywall between the two rooms. So by improving the drywall between the surfaces, you can reduce some of the sound. But I don’t know. You said movie room. If it gets pretty loud in there, it’s probably not going to stop all of it. Yeah. |
| 00:26:10 | CALLER: We were kind of hoping to do some type of cork floor upstairs. I thought there may be something that would help. |
| 00:26:17 | TOM: Well, I mean, that’ll help a little bit. But the drywall of the ceiling below is where you’ll really have a chance to stop it. Okay. |
| 00:26:22 | CALLER: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your help. And I love your show. I listen to it all the time. Yeah. |
| 00:26:26 | TOM: Good luck with that project. And with all the work you’re doing to your new house, call us back anytime, 888-666-3974. Well, if you have concrete floors in your home, such as in maybe a garage or a laundry area or a basement, you know they can be very difficult to keep clean. Now, we faced this problem in our house, and we solved it by applying an epoxy finish from Daich Coatings. It’s called the Diehard Maxx Industrial Strength Epoxy Floor Coating. And it’s a low odor and zero VOC epoxy that sticks like crazy to interior concrete floors, and it makes them impact resistant and abrasion resistant, as well as very easy to clean because floors that are concrete just don’t sweep well unless they have a really great coating. Yeah. |
| 00:27:13 | LESLIE: And so it makes sense that the first step in this kit is a cleaner because that’s going to loosen the dirt and it prepares the floor for the epoxy, and the epoxy is a two-part coating that you mix and apply. And then you add these decorative acrylic flakes to the drying epoxy, and that gives you a slip-resistant finish. It also looks really, really great. And that finish requires just one coat, and then it effectively hides any imperfections on that concrete surface. Once it’s all cured, it’s resistant to water, salt, chemicals, and it truly transforms that surface into one that’s very durable and, I mean, super easy to clean. |
| 00:27:50 | TOM: The Diehard Maxx Kit covers 200 floors. It’s 150 square feet, and it’s available in gray and tan. It retails for $127, but it’s on sale this summer for $99 through September 30th at Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Daich Coatings websites. |
| 00:28:07 | LESLIE: Now we’ve got Martin on the line who wants to talk about fascia boards. That is an excellent design detail on the exterior. What can we do for you? |
| 00:28:14 | CALLER: The fascia boarding that connects the ceiling of my porch roof to the overhang has separated. It’s a little bit of a mess. It’s a little bit of a mess on the ceiling, and I want to know if I need to, do I need to rip that out and replace it, or can I just seal it and maybe put a larger molding over it? |
| 00:28:31 | TOM: Well, if the fascia board is loosening up, then I would tell you to re-secure it. And that’s actually not an unusual thing to happen because the nails that hold that are usually going into the ends of the rafters behind it. They tend to expand and contract a lot, but what I would do is I would tell you to re-secure it, but do it with screws, not with nails. If you use long screws like two and a half inch case hardened drywall screws or wood trim screws, that will pull that fascia board back in tight, and it’ll be impossible for it to loosen up again. So don’t think of it in terms of something covering it. Just put it back where it was, but use screws instead of nails, and it won’t come out again. Okay? |
| 00:29:09 | CALLER: And do I do that by going under the molding? |
| 00:29:11 | TOM: Well, you want to try to get that fascia board re-secured in. So if that is going to require you to take off a piece of molding to get to it, then that’s what you do. But you want to get to the original fascia and tighten it up. Okay. |
| 00:29:22 | CALLER: I can do that then. Thank you very much. |
| 00:29:24 | TOM: All right, Martin. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-Money-Pit. |
| 00:29:29 | LESLIE: Frances wrote in to Team Money Pit and is asking, should cold air returns be open or closed when using central air conditioning? My house is 20 years old, and I’ve been using the cold air returns in winter, but closing them in the summer. Is this the right sequence? |
| 00:29:43 | TOM: Actually, no, Frances. The cold air returns need to be used regardless of whether you’re using the cold air returns. Whether you’re in the heating mode or the cooling mode. So let’s think about this. The supply ducts that are providing the airflow into your spaces, whether it’s in the heating mode or the cooling mode, doesn’t matter, that’s pushing air in. |
| 00:30:01 | LESLIE: The return ducts bring the air back to be either reheated or recooled. Mine doesn’t even have an option to close. And I wonder if that’s just because I only use my ducted system for cooling. |
| 00:30:14 | TOM: Yeah, that’s right. Actually, there’s no reason to have a louver to close. One of the things I used to do as a home inspector is make sure that those were all connected and working. There’s a really simple way to do that. Just take a tissue and hold it to that return duct when it’s running and either cooling or heating or just in the fan. You should see that tissue stick right to the surface of that return duct, indicating it’s got good airflow being drawn back into it and returning back to the system. So you definitely want to keep those open year round for those reasons. |
| 00:30:42 | LESLIE: I mean, I think mine even may have a decorative grate over it that looks like louvers you could do, but they don’t move. |
| 00:30:48 | TOM: They can have like the slots, you know, the slits in them. But they can have actually louvers like the supply registers have that you can physically open or close. |
| 00:30:57 | LESLIE: All right. Hope that helps you out, Francis. Now, David wrote in saying, I pulled up old carpet in a home we’re moving into next week, which revealed gorgeous hardwood. All right. Lucky you. Except that the hardwood is covered in staples and rust. What’s a quick fix for fixing this up before we move in? I don’t want to take on sanding and refinishing right now. Okay. |
| 00:31:15 | TOM: So first of all, you know, carpet makes an amazing. Amazing drop cloth that’s on those floors for 10, 20, 30 or more years. I have just done a big project that had carpet that was, I’d be embarrassed to tell you how old this was, but I’m sure 30 years is an understatement. But this carpet came up and underneath we found floors and these floors were discolored. They had lots and lots of nails and staples in them. So we pulled up everything we could and then we had the floor sanded and they are absolutely drop dead gorgeous as a result. If you saw the before and after, you just wouldn’t believe it. So if you really want good looking floors, I’m telling you, you really ought to invest in having them sanded. Now, if they’re not in bad shape, you could pull out as much of that hardware as you can find. And then what you could do is you could rent a buffer, like the kind you use to wax floors like in a commercial building and sanding screens, which are kind of like window screens with an abrasive surface. You can abrade the surface of these floors, which will take off, you know, just the outer layer of floor finish. It’s a bit messy. You’ve got to vacuum up a lot. You’ll have to do some handwork along the way. You’ll have to do some sanding on the edges. But if you get it off and the floors look pretty good, then you can just urethane from there without having to do the full sanding. Yeah. |
| 00:32:23 | LESLIE: But David, I 100% recommend you tackling this before you move in. And if sanding and refinishing fully is the option, do it now before you’ve got to move furniture around, wait for time to cure. It’s a big mess. |
| 00:32:35 | TOM: You’ve been listening to the Money Pit Home Improvement Show, and we are so glad that you’re spending this warm summer afternoon with us. We hope we’ve provided you some valuable tips, advice and ideas to tackle projects you’d like to get done around your home. |
| 00:32:50 | TOM: If you’ve got questions, remember, you can reach us not only during the show, but 24-7 at 1-888-Money-Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler. |
| 00:32:58 | LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. |
| 00:32:59 | TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself. |
| 00:33:01 | 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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