Live from New England Part 1

TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show coming to you live today from Providence, Rhode Island. We are at JLC LIVE. This is like tool school for thousands of construction pros who come here to learn about the latest tools, products, techniques and more for their residential-construction businesses.

LESLIE: Yeah. You know, there’s remodelers here, home builders, contractors and a lot of other folks from the leading industry experts through live, on-floor building clinics, demonstrations. You can learn a lot just by coming right to this event.

TOM: Yeah. There’s a lot of manufacturers here that are rolling out the hottest, new products. And we are here to take it all in, broadcasting from the center of the action, courtesy of Tando Building Products.

Tando is a new way to think about exterior siding. It’s just a beautiful product. It’s sort of replaced that traditional wood and stone with materials that are really gorgeous and long-lasting. And homeowners can mix cladding for shakes and stone that looks realistic, needs very little maintenance. It’s completely impervious to moisture and of course, it’s easy to install. You can learn more at TandoBP.com. We appreciate the opportunity to sit here with the folks at Tando and do this broadcast today.

And you can participate, too. We’re going to take your calls, your questions to 1-888-MONEY-PIT, 888-666-3974.

LESLIE: Alright. We’re going to jump into a call right now. We’ve got one from Kathy in Delaware and she’s on the line with a question about gutters.

Kathy, how can we help you?

KATHY: I’d like to know what type of gutters would be best for a two-story Colonial house.

TOM: Well, Kathy, I mean you can use a standard gutter. The key is that you want to make sure you have enough downspouts. Now, typically, the normal, average gutter is called a 4-inch “K-style gutter.” And that downspout will handle about 400 to 600 square feet of roof surface per spout. The issue is making sure that you have enough spouts so that those gutters don’t back out.

I’ll give you a trick of the trade, though. I think you might be better off stepping that up to a 6-inch gutter. I did that when we remodeled our home and I found that the spouts got clogged a lot less frequently and you needed fewer of them to move the water through. But gutters are really important because if you’re not managing that water, you’re going to have landscaping that gets washed out, you’re going to have basement problems. You can get floods. So many things can happen without a good set of gutters, so it’s smart to ask the question.

With a two-story Colonial, laying that out is a little tricky because, usually, you have a big roof surface that drops to a one-story roof over the garage. You want to make sure when that happens you add all of that surface together to make sure you’re not overwhelming those downspouts. And then at the end of the downspout, make sure – you don’t want the installer to just drop it out to a splash block. You want to run it out about 4 feet so you’re moving away from what we call the “backfill zone,” where the soil is replaced after the house is built. Because that tends to settle a bit and we want that water to keep moving away from the house.

Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

If you’re thinking about taking on a tile project this spring, choosing the right look is only part of the project. So just ahead, we’re going to have some tips on how you can choose the best type of tile for your home.

LESLIE: Plus, direct from This Old House, Tom Silva and Kevin O’Connor will be stopping by to fill us in on a brand-new season of This Old House that was filmed in Motor City, Detroit, Michigan. Brought to you by Proudly Propane. Clean American energy.

Back with that and your calls to 888-MONEY-PIT, after this.

(theme song)

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: On air and online at MoneyPit.com. And today, we are in Providence, Rhode Island at JLC LIVE. This is a huge trade show here for our industry. It’s kind of like tool school for the builders, the contractors, the remodelers. They are checking out the new products, the new techniques. They are learning how to improve their skills and their business. And we are here courtesy of Tando Building Products, from their beautiful, new booth here which we’ll tell you about in just a minute.

But you can participate, as well. Pick up the phone and give us a call, right now, at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

If you’d like to step up the look of your home’s exterior and keep it watertight, Tando has just released two new composite products called TandoShake and TandoStone. They’re new alternatives to shake and stone that are longer-lasting and they need very little maintenance. Plus, they are much, much easier to install.

LESLIE: That’s right. Joining us now with the details is Ralph Bruno, the president of Tando Building Materials.

Welcome, Ralph.

RALPH: Thank you, Leslie and Tom.

TOM: So, thanks for hosting us here in the Tando shack. You’ve got the beach shack set up here on the floor of the trade show. We are surrounded by beautiful walls. I was just telling Leslie before the show, I’m looking at this Beach House Shake product that you came out with. And the best way to describe this to the audience is this looks like cedar that just come out of the box.

RALPH: Exactly. And that was the intention, Tom. We were looking at Tando to create a product that was virtually indistinguishable from real cedar.

TOM: And that’s exactly what it looks like. I personally have put up more cedar than I want to remember, you know.

RALPH: Yep.

TOM: It was a project, actually, that my dad and I did many years ago on our family house. And I swore I’d never nail another shake after I was done with that. And this is exactly what it looks like.

LESLIE: The trick is keeping it looking this way.

TOM: And a lot of times, folks will ask us, “How do we do that? How do we accomplish that?” And of course, you know the steps: you’ve got to seal it, you’ve got to prime it, you’ve got to stain it. It’s just a lot of work and it’s a process that has to be repeated over and over and over again.

RALPH: Exactly. And that’s really where Beach House Shake fits the consumer. Once this product’s installed, there is virtually no upkeep. Whether it’s their residence, whether it’s their summer beach house, they go back to that house and they just open the door and go back in. There’s no painting, staining, scraping or replacing shakes. It’s in once and there’s a lifetime warranty against rot and decay.

LESLIE: And I think that’s what’s really important. You have homeowners who want these looks that really do require a lot of maintenance if you go with the natural material. And you’re offering them a way to have that look without all of that extra work. And I think what’s interesting, Ralph, is that we’re all seeing a big spike in the trend of mixing materials on the exterior of the houses. Now, how is Tando helping homeowners achieve that look?

RALPH: And that’s a great question, Leslie.

So, while Beach House Shake is a new product, it fits in the family of other shakes that we have. But we also have a stone. So the exterior of the house now is much more mixed materials. Stone is on the bottom and you have shakes up in the gables and dormers. And then whatever type of siding they want to use in the middle – it could be a fiber cement, it could be wood, it could be vinyl, it could be stucco – most homes now will have those different textures, different colors, different materials to really bring out that curb appeal of the house.

TOM: And you mentioned that you can have stone on the bottom of the house. This material actually can be in contact with the ground and that’s something you can’t do with any other type of siding material. Is that correct?

RALPH: Correct. And TandoStone is wonderful. Our two plants – one is up in Quebec and one’s in Miami, so we know both heat and snow very well. And our plant in Quebec is under a lot of snow most of the year, right? And so even if there’s snow load on TandoStone, you don’t have to worry about the snow because our products are impervious to moisture.

TOM: And Leslie, I’m reminded of the many questions we get from listeners about ways to treat that 18 inches to 24 inches of foundation that sort of shows on everyone’s house. And there’s not a lot you can do with that. But this is a great option.

LESLIE: Yeah. Ralph, you’re really lucky. You’re producing beautiful products that really give the homeowner so many choices. And this Beach House launch, the shake is so beautiful. I love that you actually have duplicated sort of that saw cut, so you really see every little detail in every piece of that shake. I mean this really is a slam dunk for you guys.

RALPH: Yeah, thank you, Leslie. And we’re thrilled that you guys are here. We’re also thrilled that this show is in Providence. Because when you start thinking Beach House Shake, the New England coast comes to mind. And we’re getting some great feedback on the launch of the product here at the show.

TOM: And I love the fact that you guys are all like – you’re wearing it, too. You’ve got – you’re up here with your Hawaiian shirts on, your khakis and you’re looking like you’re ready for a party.

RALPH: And we haven’t scared anyone away despite that.

TOM: Ralph Bruno from Tando …

LESLIE: Don’t give Tom one of those shirts.

TOM: Ralph Bruno from Tando Building Products – debuting, at the new JLC Show, the Beach House Shake – thank you so much for stopping by The Money Pit.

RALPH: Thank you.

TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. Here to take your calls at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Alright. Next up, we’ve got a call here from Ed who wants to talk about a wet basement.
Welcome, Ed. How can we help you?

ED: My two-car garage has a through-and-through crack through the middle of the garage concrete. I can see dirt. I estimate the slab to be 3 inches and maybe more but I don’t know whether I have to get an engineering review before I try to solicit contractors. Or am I over-thinking this?

TOM: So you have a crack that’s in the slab of the house, the slab of the floor. Now, that part of the floor is not structural. So, I am not that concerned about failure. Typically, what happens in that situation is that when the house is built, they refill the garage area. And sometimes, the soil there is not compacted or it can have construction debris in it. We’ve seen tree stumps in there. And over time, that settles and you’re going to get sort of these areas underneath that have nothing in them and then you’ll get a crack that develops.

So, the question is: how bad is the crack? Now, if it’s – if there’s a lip there where you can trip on it, then it’s kind of an issue; you’re going to have to tear that out. If it’s just a crack that’s open, you can easily fill that. You’re going to want to use an epoxy patching compound. There are special materials designed for repairing epoxy that are going to – I’m sorry, repairing concrete – that are going to expand and contract and they’ll definitely stay in place. And you should be good to go.

Thank you so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

Well, we’d love to talk with you at 888-MONEY-PIT. But if you’d like to get some advice from a pro, one on one, and get that advice from an app that lets you video-chat with a pro advisor that’s got years of experience in their field, one on one, the DIYZ advisor can answer questions about home repairs, remodeling or craft projects or even offer tips to help you plan your next big home improvement.

LESLIE: And the best part of that service is, for a limited time, it’s free. While you’re on the app, you can browse a large library of how-to projects with step-by-step videos. And the videos are not only really well done, they’re designed so that you can watch just one step at a time, which really is so helpful. It makes it so easy to follow while you’re actually working on the project.

TOM: Plus, you’ll find lists for the tools and materials that are recommended, by project. And you can even shop for them right through the app.

Download the DIYZ mobile app today for free in the Apple App Store for iPhone and Google Play for Android. Or learn more at DIYZ.com. That’s D-I-Y-Z.com.

LESLIE: Linda from Rhode Island is on the line with a landscaping question. How can we help you at your money pit today?

LINDA: I’m looking and getting quotations on installing a natural-gas generator for my home, which would cover the entire house. However, my problem is in my yard, there are three different locations where every year, after the snow and you are – it’s spring, there is an indentation in the ground which is round, approximately 36 inches in diameter, where it completely sinks. And every year, I just fill it in with topsoil and cover it with grass seed and that takes care of it for the summer. But in the spring – and this has gone on to the last 10 years anyway.

So my concern is I was informed that it would – oh, the weight of the base of the generator would go anywhere from 1,200 to 1,400 pounds. And I don’t want to have a base and then it just disappear into the ground if there were any other spots in that location or that would cause …

TOM: Well, it’s certainly a valid concern and I am a little bothered by the fact that you’ve had to do this every summer. One thing I would tell you to do is that whatever area that you choose for the generator install, I would treat it the same way as I would if, say, you were building a patio. What you would do is you would excavate out about 12 inches. You would add a compacted gravel and you tamp it down mechanically so that it’s really solid, as if it was going to be sort of supporting a patio. And then you would sort of bring it up right from there, probably almost to the surface. And then you can add some more finished mulch or gravel on top of that and then set the base for the generator. Because I think that that would probably make it as much – as stable as possible.

Now, Leslie, you have a generator, as do I. I have not seen much erosion or settlement around me. What about you?

LESLIE: I mean generally, they’re building this base specific for your generator. So it’s made to sort of hold the weight of it and it’s all in the right materials. And so, for me, mine is almost like a wood 4×4 platform-y surround filled with stone. I haven’t seen any movement. I haven’t seen pretty much anything of anything. The generator really is self-sufficient, you know. Outside of my annual service call, I don’t see anything moving or changing, which really is exciting. You don’t have to do much.

TOM: Yeah. And I’m seeing the same thing. So I think I would just be – care about where I put that. And if you want to do some further investigation on what’s causing it, you might want to have a civil engineer come over and do a survey of your property and just make sure there’s no other obvious cause of that.

Usually, that has to do with the way the water is designed to drain around the property. If you have a lot of erosion there, that could definitely lead to it.

Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Alright. Now we’ve got a call on the line from Vincent in Texas with a fencing question. Not the sport. I’m assuming this is a yard fence or some sort of landscaping issue.

Vince, how can we help you?

VINCENT: Yeah. I’m putting up a chain-link in front of my house. Where my house is, it’s in the dip. And the street – both the street – goes up on each end.

And I’m about four blocks from the lake. And we had a lot of rain and the water level is up. And when I’m about 14 inches down, I’m hitting water. Is there a special cement or how should I do that when setting the post?

TOM: Yeah, that’s a really good question. And it’s actually a problem that I have faced before. In fact, many years ago, when my oldest son was working on his Eagle Scout project, it was a bridge. And we were building this bridge across a stream. So guess what we hit when we tried to dig the footings? The building inspector wanted the footings to be 3 feet deep, which was reasonable. But as soon as we got about half that distance, we were in water.

So, we were able to dig the hole out but Leslie, guess what happened? Every time we took a shovel out, it filled back up with water. So, the building inspector was like, “Well, I can’t inspect the hole unless it’s dry.” I’m like, “Well, unless you want to block off this stream, we can’t achieve that.”

So I got the engineers involved and here’s how they told me to solve it and I think it was a really good solution. What they told me to do was to mix the concrete outside of the hole. So, mix it in a wheelbarrow or mix it – sometimes, what I like to do with a bag of QUIKRETE is I’ll dump it out on a piece of plywood and kind of throw a little water on it and then use the shovel to keep turning it over and over and over until it gets just the right …

LESLIE: Right. And that way, you can control the consistency, I feel, more easily. Because you’re not adding too much water, because you’re looking at it.

TOM: Yeah. And I find it’s actually easier to mix that stuff when it’s on a flat surface than if it’s in a wheelbarrow, because you keep hitting the sides of it, right? And you end up with these spots in the bottom that are like dry powder.

LESLIE: It’s like baking a cake but a very dense, more solid, heavy cake.

TOM: Yeah, exactly.

So, after you mix it, then what you do is you pour it into the footing and you do that. And as you do that, the water will push up out of that hole and it will be replaced by the concrete.

Now, you may have to brace the post, depending on how loose it is. But I would make the concrete kind of as stiff as I could. And then once it’s displaced from all the water, then you should be good to go. It will cure underwater, by the way. A lot of folks don’t realize that. But these materials are designed to cure, even if they don’t have any air around them.

LESLIE: That is true. And it really is meant for that specific purpose. The ones that you mix right in the post hole, the ones that you mix on a flat surface, they’re made for that consistency, to provide you the strength and the durability and I think the convenience. So it really is a great product for putting in a fence. And hopefully that helps you out, Vincent.

TOM: And by the way, Vince, you ought to also make sure you call 811 before you start this project.

LESLIE: Oh, good point.

TOM: That’s that national toll-free number that they will come out and mark where there are underground utilities and such, in the ground of your house, and make sure you don’t hit it. Because that could be very, very dangerous if you did.

LESLIE: And there really are, Vince, so many things underneath the ground that you don’t know about. It could be as simple as a cable line but it could be a water line or a gas line. And it could service your entire neighborhood. And if you cause some sort of an issue, it is your fault and you will have to be responsible for the repair, which could be very costly. So that free call to 811 will save you a lot of headaches.

TOM: Yeah, yeah. Good point. And remember, the service is free, so there’s no reason not to do it.

Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on air and online at MoneyPit.com, broadcasting to you from Providence, Rhode Island, the scene of JLC LIVE, a great trade show featuring lots of new products and practices and tips and techniques.

Courtesy here today from the folks of Tando. They have a beautiful Tando Beach Shake that they’re releasing. Looks just like real cedar but doesn’t need any maintenance. If you’d like to learn more, you can go to TandoBP.com.

LESLIE: Alright. Just ahead, the team from This Old House has just premiered first of 10 new episodes based in Detroit, highlighting very cool urban-renewal projects fueling Detroit’s resurgence. Tommy Silva and Kevin O’Connor are joining us next with all the details, brought to you by Proudly Propane. Clean American Energy.

Back with that and your calls to 888-MONEY-PIT, after this.

(theme song)

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Broadcasting to you today from the Tando booth here at JLC Live New England. This is a trade show that’s designed to, for and about building pros. So if you can’t find your contractor today, they’re here with us and it’s amazing. I think there’s like 10,000 pros here checking out the latest in new products, one of which is right here in the Tando booth: the TandoShake Signature Stain.

They’ve got six stain colors. It’s a beautiful, true, kind of a semi-transparent wood stain. It gives you very rich color and great protection against fading. You can visit TandoBP.com to learn more.

But right now, we’d like to talk with you about your home. So what’s going on? Give us a call, right now, at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Leslie? Who’s next?

LESLIE: We’ve got Ed in Delaware on the line who’s dealing with a wet basement, which we all know can be a huge problem.

What is going on, Ed?

ED: I purchased a home back in 2015 of August. And about three months into it, I lost power in the basement and it turns out I had some moisture in the electrical outlets. Those outlets have since been closed off and I was told I had to get them rewired. But apparently, there was some moisture coming in somewhere.

But ever since I purchased the home, I’m – there’s this odor that radiates from the basement and it’s just like a chemical odor. And it comes upstairs and literally gets in everything that’s – the clothes and everything. It goes with you to work and it stays in the clothes. I just can’t seem to get rid of it.

TOM: Well, Leslie, this sounds a lot like just a basic, basement dampness or humidity issue. Because you can get algae growth, mold growth, mildew growth and that can have a strong odor that’s associated with it. So I would guess that the best thing for Ed to do is to take all the steps that we typically advise for reducing that, which begins with gutters, right?

LESLIE: Yeah. You know, you really need to make sure, Ed, that you’re doing everything you can to keep the moisture from getting into your house in the first place. So Tom is right: gutters are the first place. Because if your gutters are either non-existent or not free-flowing or are just in a situation where they’re depositing all the water right against your foundation, all of that water – guess what? – is going to end up coming in through your basement. And you’re not going to see, sometimes, physical water but you’ll feel the effects of the moisture, of the humidity. And sometimes, in worst-case scenarios, you will see water. So you’ve got to be careful with that.

So what you want to do is make sure your gutters are in good shape. You want to make sure that everything is free-flowing, that everything is connected and working well. If that’s the case, look at how far that gutter is depositing the water next to your foundation. If it’s right next to the foundation, you want to get it away. Get those downspouts where they deposit 3, 4 feet away.

So it really is important that you work on that. If you can handle that, you’ll be able to keep that moisture out of the basement.

TOM: Well, alright. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Well, the team from This Old House has gassed up the trucks and headed on out to Motor City. The first of 10 new episodes based in Detroit has just premiered. And the series is going to highlight Detroit’s unique architecture and the very cool urban-renewal projects that are now fueling the city’s resurgence.

LESLIE: To learn more, we’re pleased to welcome two of our very favorite home improvers in the world: general contractor Tommy Silva and host Kevin O’Connor from This Old House.
Welcome back to The Money Pit, guys.

TOM SILVA: Thank you, guys. Always good to be here.

KEVIN: Thanks, guys. Great to be back.

TOM: So this must be a very fun project for you. Kevin, give us an overview of the projects you’re working on in Detroit.

KEVIN: So we’re working on two projects out in Detroit. One for the homeowners where we’re going to be helping them out, doing a lot of the work. And the homeowners are going to end up moving into the house. And then there’s a second project that we’re doing. It’s a collaboration with the city, Quicken Loans and Home Depot. It’s called Rehabbed & Ready. And we’re just going to follow that progress and we’re going to show a very quick renovation and then sale of a house.

So, effectively, while we’re out there, we’re going to take two houses that were abandoned and make them livable for families.

LESLIE: Now, is this the first time you guys have been out in Detroit?

KEVIN: This is the first time that This Old House has done a project out there, yes. Ask This Old House has traveled and we’ve done some work out there. But we have not done a full-blown renovation, so this is a first for us.

TOM: And there’s a lot of history there in Detroit. Now, the first project is what you call the Russell Woods Project. And that’s a brick home that was built in 1939. So, Tommy, did that have good bones but it pretty much needed everything else?

TOM SILVA: That had great bones. And the architecture of the house is absolutely amazing. And back in the 30s and the 40s, I mean the craftsmanship out there was amazing. You’ve got a good, solid structure with beautiful brickwork. On inside, you don’t have skim-coat plaster over glue board; you actually have wire lath and multi-coats of base coat and then a skim coat built up. And not only the walls, all the casings, the crown moldings and all three floors, from the basement to the second floor, are all plaster. There’s beautiful, ornamental plaster everywhere.

LESLIE: And that’s really interesting, because you’re finding such beautiful architecture, Tommy.

And then, Kevin, from a sales standpoint and a neighborhood standpoint, you’re rehabbing these neighborhoods that were completely ignored and reviving a city.

KEVIN: Yeah, well, it’s amazing. At one point, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America and that’s when they were building all of these houses. And in fact, single-family houses – now, unfortunately, it’s fallen on hard times and nearly a million people left the city over the last three decades, leaving behind all these houses. So, there are literally tens of thousands of these homes that are empty and that’s a huge problem. So, getting them either torn down, if they’re beyond saving, or fixing them up and getting families back into the houses, that is really the resurgence of Detroit: one house at a time, getting people back into the city and into those great, old houses.

So, knocking off two of these is a good project for us and a lot of fun.

TOM: Tommy, we were talking about the beautiful plaster work in that home. I think folks don’t recognize how much better some of those old homes were made than what we have today. The lumber that was available, the materials that were available, just in many ways were more durable than what we typically get with, say, comparing plaster to drywall.

TOM SILVA: Oh, absolutely. These houses – the sad thing is a lot of these houses were abandoned for six, seven, eight, nine years. And we went in there, other than the fact there was some damage from water from the plumbing and maybe little holes in the roof here and there, the plaster itself is in great shape. There was peeling paint but there wasn’t any major cracking, unlike you would see in a house with board and skim coat. They just were stronger and better and the structure is heavier. The material is a good, solid heart-pine material. It was amazing when we opened it up and had to reclaim (ph) for some of the ceilings and the plumbing.

LESLIE: Tommy, did you find, especially with the house that you were reselling, to sort of maintain that historical integrity and the look and the architecture, did you have difficulties keeping within a certain price point, to keep it in that incentive for resale and at an affordable price?

TOM SILVA: Well, this house was in a historical district. And one of the stipulations that you do when you buy these houses is that you have to abide by the historical integrity of the exterior of the house. So, there were beautiful, weathered, glass windows that were steel. And we found this lady, Ann, and her husband, David Baxter, that repaired all the stained-glass windows in the front of the house and they were absolutely beautiful.

And being in the historical district, when you buy the house, you have up to nine months to fix the house, repair it and live in it. And if it’s not in a historical district, you have six months to do it.

TOM: Kevin, let’s talk about the next project you worked on, which is the one termed Rehabbed & Ready. Now, this is not a project that you guys are actually building; you’re kind of following it along. How is this one a bit different?

KEVIN: Well, it’s different in a couple of ways. Believe it or not, it’s a lot worse than the house that Tommy was talking about. Because this one had been abandoned for 10 years. And as you guys know, houses don’t like to be empty. The elements take their toll. Unfortunately, so do looters and squatters. So, all of the heating-and-cooling equipment was stolen. All of the plumbing was stolen. They smashed through the walls and the ceilings to pull the copper out. They tore off the casings around the windows to pull out the lead weights. A lot of damage done to the house. So, very, very much in disrepair.

And one of the big differences is while they are auctioning off houses – like the one, Russell Woods, the homeowners who work on them – they’re also taking houses and they’re putting them into this cooperative between the city, Quicken Loans and Home Depot. The city donates the property and then Quicken Loans and The Home Depot put up the money and they do a very fast renovation – basically, back to the studs, 90 to 100 days, full-blown renovation – and then they put it on the market. They sell it for a loss – they’re going to spend more money fixing it up than they’re actually going to sell it for – but it will be a transaction on the real estate books, which is critical, and we’ll get a new family into that house.

And so, we’re going to follow that, from the demolition all the way to the sale, and show people another way to bring these houses back and to get families into them and to sort of start repopulating Detroit.

TOM: No one tells a better story about homes, the neighborhood, the people that live in them, the entire restoration, the entire rebirth than the team at This Old House. All new episodes are premiering nationwide now on PBS.
Tom Silva, Kevin O’Connor, thank you so much for sharing the Detroit project with us and best of luck for continued success with all the This Old House projects.

KEVIN: Thanks, guys.

TOM SILVA: Thank you, guys. Always good to be here.

TOM: And by the way, if you head on over to ThisOldHouse.com, you can catch behind-the-scenes web videos. That’s got to be a lot of fun. You want to see what happens when the camera’s not rolling? Well, at least when they don’t know it’s rolling. You go on over to ThisOldHouse.com and check out the behind-the-scenes web videos.

And This Old House and Ask This Old House are brought to you on PBS by The Home Depot. More saving, more doing.

Up next, if you think the best way to save time and energy cutting the grass is to set the mower as low as possible so you won’t have to mow that often, you might be surprised to find that that could actually end up being more work for you in the long run. We’re going to tell you why, after this.

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TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: We’re broadcasting today from Providence, Rhode Island where we are attending JLC LIVE, an event put on now for many years by the folks at Hanley Wood. We are surrounded by builders, remodelers and lots of amazing, new products for your home, courtesy of the folks at Tando Building Products who make some amazing siding products themselves, right, Leslie?

LESLIE: I mean they really do. Tando is sort of the master at creating siding that is durable, really gorgeous and best of all, you know, a copy of a real thing. So the maintenance is just phenomenal because you really don’t have to do any.

TOM: Now, for the rest of you that have to deal with maintenance, give us a call, right now, at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Well, most people don’t really give their grass-cutting much thought, Leslie, but I think they should. Because if you do it right, you’re going to have a beautiful, healthy lawn. But if you do it wrong, you’ll end up with lots of weeds and kind of a dust bowl.

So, here’s what you need to know, presented by Greenworks Tools.

LESLIE: Well, first of all, you want to avoid scalping your lawn. Now, a scalped lawn is vulnerable to diseases and weed infestation. Taller grass develops deeper roots, which creates a lawn that can better withstand drought. The general rule is to never remove more than one-third of the total grass-blade length in a single cutting.

TOM: Yeah. And you want to avoid mowing in the same direction each time, because you want to avoid compacting the soil and creating ruts. So to keep your mowing blades sharp and get the best mowing results, you also want to sharpen those blades at least a couple of times during the mowing season, which is not a difficult DIY project. Just kind of follow the guidelines from the manufacturer and make sure you remove the mower blades and then reattach them securely after it’s sharpened.

LESLIE: And that’s today’s Lawn Care Tip, presented by Greenworks Tools, makers of the new Greenworks Pro 60-Volt Mower that combines a powerful, 60-volt lithium-ion battery with brushless-motor technology to really give you ultimate power, performance and durability. You can mow up to a half-acre on a single battery charge. And it has a 21-inch steel deck with a 3-in-1 design for versatility and a faster mow time and most importantly, hassle-free operation. No cord, no gas, no maintenance.

TOM: The Greenworks Pro 60-Volt Mower retails for 399 and includes one lithium battery and a charger. It’s available at Lowe’s and Lowes.com.

We’re available, right now, for your calls to 888-MONEY-PIT. Broadcasting today from JLC Live in Providence, Rhode Island, courtesy of our friends at Tando Building Products. We’ll be back with more, after this.

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TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island today where we’re attending JLC LIVE. It’s an event put on now for lots of years by the folks at Hanley Wood. And we’re surrounded by builders and remodelers and lots of amazing, new products for your home, courtesy of the folks at Tando Building Products who make some of the most beautiful siding that we’ve ever seen.

LESLIE: That’s right. It really is an amazing event. And Tando is so wonderful because they are truly presenting a brand-new product for them. It’s a Beach House Shake, which looks so gorgeous and really does give you that beach-y, coastal feel. So, we’re so happy to be broadcasting with them from this wonderful event.

TOM: Now let’s jump into The Money Pit Community on the brand-new MoneyPit.com. And we’ve got a post here about a two-bath house. Leslie, what’s going on?

LESLIE: That’s right. This post says, “I have a two-bath house and I’d love to have a laundry room closer to my kitchen. Presently, there’s a bathroom just across the hall that would make a great space for this. Should I give up that bathroom and convert it to a laundry room?”

TOM: Wow. You know, I understand your frustration but that would be a very expensive remodeling project and here’s why. Because home values are determined, in part, by the number of bathrooms you have in a house. So if you were to give up a full bath for a laundry room, that’s going to cost you big time. It would also make your house kind of the odd man out in your neighborhood. A lot of times, folks are looking at many similar houses to yours when they’re shopping for a new house. And if the differentiator, even if you have a beautiful house but you’ve only got one bath, that could really put you out of the mix there and be very expensive in terms of home value, right?

LESLIE: It really is true. And I mean just even thinking about answering this, like I would love an extra bathroom over a more convenient laundry room. And I feel like a lot of people who are shopping for a home would probably feel the same? So I think to give up a bathroom for a laundry room really doesn’t make that much sense, unless it’s a large enough bathroom that it can kind of accommodate everything.

Maybe there’s a closet or a different spot that could work to create this laundry space. But I would start to look at other locations rather than giving up that bath.

TOM: And remember, you can stack full-size washers and dryers today, so you don’t need to put them side by side. We did that in a second floor of my house. We had a smaller, sort of that third or fourth bedroom kind of thing that maybe could be a master-bedroom closet. But we – it was a bedroom and we actually created that – created a laundry room out of that space by stacking the appliances.

So, I hope that helps you out and gives you some direction on that project.

LESLIE: Alright. Next up, we’ve got a post here from Robin in New Jersey who writes: “Do you have any tips for keeping your mattresses fresh and clean?”

TOM: Well, I guess a mattress cover would be a good place to start, right?

LESLIE: It’s true. Mattress covers are very, very helpful. I think it’s important for people to realize that you shouldn’t always keep your mattress covered with your sheets or that mattress cover. I like to take the sheets off, take the mattress cover off every so often and sort of let that mattress air out. I do like to spray Lysol on it just for freshness. I also rotate my mattress if your mattress will allow it. I don’t do it every three months but every so often, I’ll remember to flip it over or twist it around so that the head becomes the feet, vice versa, just to give it some movement. And that really does help it.

You also want to make sure that you wash that mattress pad regularly. Vacuum around your mattress and even the box springs to pick up any settled dust. And you can, occasionally, settle – sprinkle baking soda on that mattress. Leave it there for a few hours, vacuum that up. Those are all really simple tricks that you can do. But those work for deodorizing and freshening up a lot of things, from upholstery to carpeting, as well.

TOM: I love that tip about the baking soda. I didn’t know that. See? People think we have all the answers. I didn’t have that one but that’s why I have Leslie.

LESLIE: That’s why we’re a good team.

TOM: And we have taken this team on the road today. We have been broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island, the scene of JLC LIVE, a great trade show that is attended by builders and remodelers across the country. This is kind of the best of the best. The guys that come here really care about their businesses, care about the products they install. And that’s why we are so psyched to be here with the folks at Tando Building Supply, who launched the beautiful, new Beach House Shake at this trade show. And I tell you, it is drop-dead gorgeous. Looks just like cedar.

I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself …

LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

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