Hosts: Tom Kraeutler & Leslie Segrete
(NOTE: Timestamps below correspond to the running time of the downloadable audio file of this show. Text represents a professional transcriptionist’s understanding of what was said. No guarantee of accuracy is expressed or implied. ‘Ph’ in parentheses indicates the phonetic or best guess of the actual spoken word.)
BEGIN HOUR 1 TEXT:
(promo/theme song)
TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles. This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: Time to get out the tools and get to work. What do you want to tackle in your house? Is it your floors? Is it your walls? Is your roof leaking? Is your floor squeaking? Do you have a plumbing job to do? You want to do some redecorating? Maybe a … you …
LESLIE: Or maybe you’re looking for ideas on a next project. Maybe you’re short on ideas. We’ll help you get work to do.
TOM: Hey, maybe you’re going to … you’ve counted on … you’ve carefully calculated and your anticipating a tax refund.
LESLIE: Yeah, what do you want to do with that refund? I hope it’s a big one.
TOM: (overlapping voices) We can help you … we can help you spend that. (laughing) Call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Home improvements are usually a great investment; especially if you let us help you get them done.
Hey, is your coat closet a mess? Is your entryway floor piled with boots and bookbags to the point where you forgot what color the floor is? It might be time for one of the hottest new projects out there and that is a high-tech mud room.
LESLIE: Well, as the name does imply, it is the dirtiest room in the house. But these entry rooms are a popular part of new floorplans. That’s right, they’re actually planning on making a specific room to be the mud room; both in new homes and in rehabs.
TOM: You can have a mud room, too. It doesn’t have to be a room. You just need a place to sit and take off the shoes and the coats and pegs to get all that stuff off the floor and store it away.
Coming up this hour, we’re going to talk to the editor of Fine Homebuilding magazine, Kevin Ireton, about the popularity of mud rooms and what every good mud room needs. A great article about mud rooms in this month’s edition of Fine Homebuilding.
LESLIE: And also, this hour, we’re going to be giving away a Peerless two-handle lavatory faucet. It’s worth $65 and it goes to one lucky caller who asks their question on air. So get to the phones, everybody.
TOM: 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Let’s get right to those phones, Leslie.
LESLIE: Mary in Florida has a plumbing question. What can we do for you?
MARY: Hi. We just love listening to your show. Y’all have given us so much help with our post-hurricane projects. But right now, what we have going on is we replaced our old sink with a new sink. And there was a difference in the depth of the sink, so that caused some drain line to have to be replaced and all that. When we reattached the icemaker coming from the side of the water supply …
TOM: Yep.
MARY: … it’s a copper tube.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
MARY: We ended up having to put a saddle clamp on it.
TOM: Yeah, saddle valve, okay?
MARY: Saddle valve, right. Excuse me.
TOM: Mm-hmm.
MARY: So, now we can’t get any water to the icemaker.
TOM: Huh.
MARY: And we’ve made sure that there’s no debris in the saddle valve and it’s tight, so …
LESLIE: And the line’s not clogged in any way?
MARY: No, ma’am.
TOM: And when you put the saddle valve on, did you turn the T handle all the way in so that it pierced the pipe?
MARY: Yes.
TOM: You did?
MARY: Yes.
TOM: You turned it all the way in and you turned it all the way back out and you still can’t get any water out of it?
MARY: No. The saddle valve did pierce the pipe when you put it in, right?
TOM: Ah-ha. (laughing)
MARY: It’s a joint project here. (laughing)
TOM: The way the saddle valve works is the first thing that happens, Mary, is you clamp it to the pipe by tightening up the clamps.
MARY: Oh, okay.
TOM: But it doesn’t actually ….
MARY: It was already pierced, I’m told.
TOM: Well, no, no, no. There’s no way you got it back in exactly the right spot.
MARY: Oh, okay. Alright.
TOM: The way a saddle valve works is you put it on the pipe and it clamps on the pipe.
MARY: Okay.
TOM: And then, when you actually turn the valve in the first time …
MARY: Uh-huh.
TOM: … that actually pierces the pipe and starts the water flow.
MARY: Okay. Well, we get just … we got just a few drops and then it stopped.
LESLIE: So it’s not pierced totally through, then.
MARY: Oh, okay.
TOM: Yeah, because she’s probably half on … you’re probably half on, half off the old hole or something like that.
MARY: Oh, okay. So it’s just not lining up exactly right.
TOM: And is it a brand new saddle valve?
MARY: Is it a brand new saddle valve?
MALE VOICE: Yes.
MARY: Yes.
TOM: Okay. It sounds to me like it’s just not installed right. Or perhaps …
MARY: Okay.
TOM: … it may be a defective valve. But I’m kind of leaning toward, Leslie, it’s not installed correctly.
MARY: Oh, okay.
TOM: So you might want to reset that. Turn the water off … yeah, turn the water off and then reset it.
MARY: Okay, that’s great.
TOM: Alright, Mary?
MARY: Thank you so much for your help.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-666-3974.
LESLIE: Bruce in Florida’s having a problem. The paint isn’t sticking to your walls. Tell us what’s going on.
BRUCE: (laughing) I bought this condominium down in Florida – oh, about two or three years ago. And I didn’t really pay much attention to the trim on the house. And so I went and bought some new latex paint – semi-gloss paint – and put on all the doors and all the trim. And now it’s all peeling off.
TOM: Oh, no. Did you put a primer on first?
BRUCE: No.
LESLIE: Hmm.
TOM: Hmm.
BRUCE: Washed the woodwork pretty good and put this latex …
LESLIE: Did you let it dry really well?
BRUCE: I think. (laughing) I think. But now I …
TOM: But perhaps, on second thought, I didn’t. (laughing)
BRUCE: I put the … if you hit your thumb nail against it or anything sharp, it just …
TOM: Well, listen, Bruce. If it’s not sticking, it’s not sticking. And nothing we’re going to be able to tell you is going to make it stick and go back to where it was. You really have to strip this off. And …
BRUCE: And how do you do that? (laughing)
TOM: How do you do that? Well, there’s a number of ways to do it. I mean if you can get as much off, obviously, with hand pressure as you can, with a paint scraper. You could use a chemical stripper. There are a lot of nontoxic strippers out there, as well, today …
BRUCE: Okay.
TOM: … that are available. But once you get the paint off, the next step, I think, Leslie, is going to be to prime.
LESLIE: Yeah. And if you do prime, you’ll be really happy. Because what happens with priming is it sets up for that paint to stick really well …
BRUCE: Alright.
LESLIE: … and make sure that you get the best adhesion. Plus, if you have any knots that stick out in the wood or something like a discoloration on the wood, it will cover that up and make your paint better to hide it.
BRUCE: Alright. Okay.
LESLIE: So there’s many benefits.
TOM: What we know of the chemistry of paint, you can either get a paint that has a lot of color in it, that it’s the finish coat that makes it look really good. Or you can design a paint that sticks really well. But you can’t design a paint that looks really good and sticks really well at the same time.
BRUCE: Oh, wow.
TOM: That’s why you need primer to sort of neutralize whatever surface is there and set up the proper adhesion for the next coat, which is the color coat, that makes everything look really good. But most people want to just put the one coat on and forget the primer. And that’s the big mistake because then you end up in situations where – especially in Florida where there’s a lot of humidity and a lot of moisture – it takes less effort on the part of that paint to peel right off the door. And it’s certainly going to do that, as it has in your case.
So, you’re going to have to start again from scratch here and don’t skip the primer step. Okay?
BRUCE: I can hardly wait.
TOM: (laughing) Bruce, thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. As Bruce runs off with paint brush in hand. (laughing)
Well, you know, everyone just wants to get to that paint. Just want to paint it right away but you can’t skip the step.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Yeah, it’s not just an upsell. (laughing)
TOM: That’s right, you know?
LESLIE: It’s not like that impulse buy at the counter where they’re like, ‘Can I interest you in some primer?’
TOM: (overlapping voices) Yeah. Right.
LESLIE: It’s like you need the primer.
TOM: It’s not … it’s not the equivalent of, ‘Did you want an apple pie with that (laughing) … with those fries?’
LESLIE: (laughing) ‘Would you like that a la mode?’ No, you need the primer.
TOM: And what we’ll be having for desert tonight. No. You’ve got to have the primer. Buy the primer first, then you buy the paint. That’s the way it works.
1-888-MONEY-PIT is the way this show works. Pick up the phone right now and call us with your home improvement question. Sometimes we make less work for you; sometimes we make more. That’s the risk in calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Bobbi in Tennessee, you’re an interesting caller. You’re a carpenter. Tell us about yourself.
BOBBI: Well, I am a female carpenter; have been one for the last 15-20 years. And there’s not very many of us out there.
LESLIE: What’s your specialty?
BOBBI: Well, scaffold builder, actually.
TOM: Oh, interesting.
BOBBI: (chuckling) Yes. (laughing)
TOM: Does that job have a lot of ups and downs? (laughing)
BOBBI: Oh, yes. More ups than downs. Unfortunately.
TOM: Yeah, well, as long as you don’t come down quickly. So how can we help you, Bobbi?
BOBBI: Yes. Well, my question is I have a well going into my home; water well. And … which contains a lot of lime in our water. And my question is what can I do to help prevent lime buildup in the lines going into the house?
TOM: What kind of lines do you have going into the house, right now? What kind of plumbing lines are they using for that? Is it a plastic line?
BOBBI: Oh, I have PVC.
TOM: You have a PVC. And has lime buildup been a problem in the PVC pipe?
BOBBI: Well, my neighbor … we have had to take his toilet up and replace it because they had a lot of lime buildup in the toilet itself; in the trap.
LESLIE: In the trap, but …
BOBBI: And so we had to take his toilet up and replace the toilet. And we’re looking at how can we prevent that from happening to us.
TOM: Well, I don’t think you can prevent it on the supply side unless you put in a filtration … a water conditioning system. You put in a water conditioning system with a filtration unit, you may be able to reduce the amount of particulates inside the water. But, you know, when it’s pressurized like that, you have to catch it once it gets inside the house.
BOBBI: Oh, okay. Yeah, I was hoping we could be able prevent it from actually getting in. I didn’t know if we could put an inline filter before it actually gets to the house itself or …
TOM: No, you put it right inside the house. Now, have you ever had this water tested?
BOBBI: No.
TOM: Well, that would be a good thing to do. Because, this way, you’ll know what you’re dealing with. And depending on how the water test comes back, you’ll know exactly what kind of filtration system to put in.
BOBBI: Okay, yeah. Because I was looking at possibly putting in an inline filter before it actually came into the house.
TOM: Well, it doesn’t matter where you put it but, generally, you’re going to want to put it inside the house because, this way, the equipment’s not going to become deteriorated by the outside, by the environment.
BOBBI: Yes. Because right now, the shower heads themselves are starting to get lime buildup in those.
TOM: Yeah, well, the way to deal with that is you take them apart and you soak them in a little vinegar and water.
BOBBI: Vinegar and water?
TOM: Yep. That’ll melt that lime deposit right away.
BOBBI: Oh, okay. Well, yes, I haven’t heard that. This is all new to me because I just moved to Tennessee and I’ve never had this problem before. (laughing)
TOM: Well, home improvement is always a new adventure, Bobbi.
BOBBI: Yes. (laughing) Yes it is.
TOM: Well, think of the bright side. If you ever want to replace your roof, you could easily build your own scaffold and get up there and do it. (laughing)
BOBBI: Oh, that is true. And do the work myself, so I’m good to go.
TOM: There you go. Bobbi, thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
Well, if spring time has you thinking of making some major changes to your home, don’t grab the sledge hammer or chainsaw just yet.
LESLIE: You can actually make a big difference with just a little change. We’ll tell you how, next.
(promo/theme song)
ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit is brought to you by Pella Windows and Doors. The Pella Windows Your Way Sale is going on now. Visit us at www.pella.com. Or call 1-800-TBD-PELLA today for a free consultation. Pella. Viewed to be the best.
TOM: So, are you decorating challenged? Well, you know, you don’t have to do something as drastic as knock down a wall to get that whole new look. You could just paint walls a different color, rearrange furniture or change the lighting to make the room look dramatically different. In fact, what you ought to think is lightscape.
LESLIE: That’s not nice, Tom.
TOM: Well, you know, some folks may not be comfortable with choosing colors and things of that nature. But you know, you don’t have to do something as drastic as, perhaps, knock down a wall to get that whole new look. You could just paint the walls a different color, rearrange furniture or just change lighting to make the room look dramatically different. I like to think of it as lightscaping.
LESLIE: Ooh, I like that word.
TOM: You like that? Lightscape. Just like a landscape complements your home’s exterior, arranging a light scheme can improve your home’s interior. Here’s what you need to know.
You want to mix and match task lights – now, those are the lights that may be, say, on your kitchen counter or over your desk – with feature lights – the kind that, maybe, feature art or the kind that you might have in the soffits above your kitchen cabinets – along with the room lighting to come up with a perfect mix. And if you use dimmers, you could actually control that balance and come up with different scenes. You can have the dining scene and the party scene and go crazy.
LESLIE: Yeah. And it could even be as simple as changing the lamp shade that you’re using. Because certain lamp shades only allow for a certain amount of light to get through. So it could be as simple as that. And if you’d actually like a bit more color but you just don’t know where to begin, here’s a little tip that can help you decide.
Use a compass to find out which way the windows in your room face. Then follow the sun. Your house – the quality of light in each individual room – will change and impact which colors work best, depending on the amount of sunlight it receives. So that’s always a good place to start.
TOM: You know, that’s a great point because so many times when you see the light and you’re making that choice of paint color, you’re looking under one level of light. But as that sun moves across your house, the light is changing all day long. So you really need to get a sense as to what that’s going to look like over the course of that eight to 12 hour day.
LESLIE: Yeah. And of course, whatever the lighting conditions are in the home improvement center, you’re almost never going to duplicate them at your house anyway. So it’s always good …
TOM: Unless you have mercury vapor overhead lamps. (laughing) You know, in your bathroom.
LESLIE: Yeah. Of course not. Well, speaking of bathrooms, we’ve got a great prize this hour and it’ll give you a fresh look in your bathroom. If you call us now and ask your question on air, you could be eligible for this. We’re going to give away a Peerless two-handle chrome lavatory faucet. It’s worth $65. It features a charming teapot-inspired design and the lever handles also come with a set of porcelain inserts that can coordinate with any d
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