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: What are you doing? Working on a home improvement project perhaps? Well, call us first at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. From coast to coast. From plumbing to paneling. From landscaping to new laundry rooms. That’s what we do. We’re here to help you get the job done.
You know, it’s been a very, very wet spring and, in fact, you might be surprised to learn that there could, in fact, be a sponge under your roof shingles. That’s right.
LESLIE: Ooh, a sponge.
TOM: It’s a sponge. It soaks up all of the water that gets through the roof shingles and pretty much stays there indefinitely. Well, if you have felt under your roof like most of us do – you know, tar paper – that’s exactly what this product seems to be doing. There are some new synthetic alternatives that fortunately have just hit the market. We’ll be telling you about the new, improved roofing systems coming up in just a bit.
LESLIE: And this spring might feel more like winter in your part of the country but it’s not too early to start thinking about how you’re going to cool your home this summer. Now is the perfect time to give your air conditioning system a good once over. We’re going to tell you what it takes, coming up.
TOM: And if you call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT, not only will you get the answer to your home improvement question but you might get a chance at winning a great Ryobi One+ tool because we’ve got a pole pruner to give away. It’s one of Ryobi’s new lawn and garden products. It’s worth 100 bucks. If you want to win it you have to call us now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT and be willing to come on the air and ask your home improvement question. You can also go to our website at MoneyPit.com and e-mail us a question by clicking on Ask Tom and Leslie.
Leslie, who’s first?
LESLIE: Heavy (sp) in New York has a heating issue. What’s happening? Tell us about it.
HEAVY (sp): What I wanted to know is my breaker switch keeps cutting off periodically. And I was wondering – it’s a 20-watt breaker.
TOM: Twenty amp, mm-hmm.
HEAVY (sp): And can I change it up to a 30? Will that stop it from breaking all the time?
TOM: It will but you might burn your house down in the process, Heavy (sp). (laughing)
HEAVY (sp): You’re kidding.
TOM: No, it’s doing its job. If you have a 20-amp breaker – you said 20 watt. I know that you mean 20 amp. If you had a 20 amp breaker, the breaker is designed to turn the electrical circuit off before the wire heats up and causes a fire. So if you have a number 12 wired circuit, number 12 copper wiring is rated at 20 amps. So if you pull more than 20 amps the breaker trips because it’s saying to you, ‘Heavy (sp), you’re putting too much current on the circuit. You need to move some appliances around, turn off whatever you’re using because I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to trip and save your house.’
Now, for you to take that out and put a 30 amp breaker in there would let that wire heat up and potentially cause a fire. So the solution here is to try to figure out why it’s pulling more than 20 amps. And if you have a …
LESLIE: Yeah, did you just put in a new appliance? Have you changed something within the electrical system of your house?
HEAVY (sp): Yeah, I did. I did. The lighting. I had fluorescent lights and then we put in these halogen tract lighting all the way through. And that even – they burn so hot it’s like it add heats. (chuckling)
TOM: Twenty amps is a heck of a lot of amps to pull out of a lighting circuit. I suspect that something else might be wrong here.
What you’re going to want to do is have an electrician come in, put an amp probe on the circuit. They can do that from the panel. It basically hooks around the wire and it reads what – how much current’s going through it. And then turn all the lights on in the circuit. Everything you’ve got on that circuit turn it on all the way. See how much power you’re pulling. It’s also possible that there’s a short here somewhere that’s causing this to trip. But this is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed. The solution is clearly not putting a bigger breaker in. That would just very dangerous.
HEAVY (sp): I was about to do something very stupid. (Tom and Leslie laugh) Thank you. (laughing)
TOM: Happy to help you, Heavy (sp). Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Kevin in Florida, welcome to The Money Pit. What’s going on at your house?
KEVIN: At the present time I have a project that I need to do pretty soon. I have to replace the baseboard trim on all my floors to – a pipe burst that I had in my home; that soaked everything.
TOM: Well, it’s a bad reason – it’s a bad reason but it’s a good project.
KEVIN: Right. But my problem with trim is this. I have tried for years. Cutting my trim, when I come to corners – inside corners, outside corners. Regardless of what it is, when I have to put the [45 in, the joint went to] (ph) or a corner comes together, I can never get the corners to match. It’s always – I always wind up with a V either at the top or the bottom no matter how I try to cut this. I’ve tried it with mitre boxes. [I’ve bought] (ph) the compound mitre saws.
TOM: Alright. Kevin, Kevin, have you ever – have you ever learned how to do a coped joint?
KEVIN: A coped joint. No, I recently purchased a book that explains to get a coping saw.
TOM: Right. It starts with a coping saw. That’s right. (Leslie chuckles) And the coped joint – and now we’re talking about the inside corner here. That is the secret …
LESLIE: Right, you can’t do this one on the outside ((inaudible)).
TOM: Yeah, this doesn’t work on the outside but it works on the inside. And let me give you the radio explanation, assuming – I mean because you can’t see what I’m talking about, I will explain to you how it works. You take one side of the baseboard and you don’t do anything to it but just nail it to the wall. So that’s easy. The only thing you have to be careful when you put baseboard moulding in is that underneath the drywall, the drywall stops. There’s usually a little bit of a gap. Just make sure the baseboard ends up fairly flat; it doesn’t tilt in. If it tilts one way or the other, that’s one way to have a gap.
Now, the side that’s going to go against that, you basically cut that at a 45-degree angle and then you follow the cut line and you cut all the material away that is – that makes up that 45. You sort of cut it back the other way so you end up with a thin edge. And that’s what we mean when we say a coped joint. And then when you press that against the piece that’s solid, it comes in nice and tight and it never shows a gap. And that’s the way you install moulding.
KEVIN: OK, so one corner would remain flat without a 45.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
KEVIN: Shouldn’t cut a 45 on both pieces.
TOM: And the other one has a normal 45 except that you’re going to take that coping saw and cut everything away that makes up that 45-degree angle except for the very fine line between it and the surface. And once you cut that away, follow the curve of the – of whatever moulding you have at the tap. If it has an ogee design – whatever it has – when you press that up against the other piece it’s going to be nice and tight.
And here’s one more trick of the trade. If you have a piece that’s, say, like 10 feet long, you want to make it like 10 feet and a half inch. You want to make it a little bit long so that when you put the moulding in, it ends up sort of bowing out in the middle a little bit. And as you press it against the wall, it expands and makes that joint even tighter and it will never, ever come out.
KEVIN: Alright, thank you very much.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Difficult to explain a coping joint …
LESLIE: Yeah …
TOM: … but I think we did a pretty good job.
LESLIE: And you know what? Moulding can be difficult but once you’ve got the patience to sort of tackle this project, it really does do an amazing amount of benefit to the room. So take the time, do it right and buy a less expensive baseboard so if you make a mistake you can have plenty of lumber to work off of.
TOM: You know what one of the greatest tricks of the trade is that I ever heard about the coping saw?
LESLIE: Yeah, let me hear it.
TOM: Take the blade out and turn it the other way. So normally, when you buy a coping saw, it comes so the blade will cut on the pole stroke.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: Take it out and flip it around so it cuts on the push stroke, just like a handsaw. You have a lot more control when you’re trying to trimming.
LESLIE: Yeah. Interesting. You know what? In snooping around the web, there’s NWRenovation.com and they have visual pictures of each step of coping. So if you got lost, you can look it up.
TOM: There you go, Earl (ph). Thanks again for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Mel in New York is trying to tackle some bathroom odor from the sink. How can we help?
MEL: OK, it’s something that’s been, you know, developing over time. And I didn’t want to use any corrosive material or anything else to pour down there to get rid of it. So, you know, there’s like a tube leading to that trap and I used alcohol, which seemed to have gotten rid of most of the – looked like a fungus actually growing on the tube leading to the trap.
TOM: Yeah, it’s drainage gunk. (chuckling) It’s nasty stuff that forms in there.
LESLIE: Is it a sink that you use often or do you rarely use this room?
MEL: It’s in the downstairs bathroom. It’s used completely all the time.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) All the time.
TOM: OK.
MEL: Every morning and night.
TOM: Yeah. Well, what happens is you get some deposits inside the pipe. And if you want to clean it out, what I would recommend you do is take the trap off, which is under the sink. That’s the U-shaped part of the pipe. And you’re going to find that that trap is probably coated with all sorts of deposits from the water and everything else that’s gone down there; you know, the toothpaste and everything else that goes down – the soap scum. All of that sort of sticks to the side of the pipe and it needs a good solid cleaning. Or you could get a drain brush, which is a like a long sort of snaky, flexible brush and clean it out from the topside. But that will probably get rid of most of what is causing your odor.
MEL: Oh, great.
LESLIE: And you know what, Mel? If you want to maintain it, Roto-Rooter has an enzyme sort of liquid that you mix into hot water and you pour it down all of your drains once a month. And that maintains keeping that gunk at bay and keeping that odor down and just sort of naturally breaks things down. It’s not hazardous for your system at all.
MEL: Well, that’s good advice.
TOM: Mel, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: You are listening to The Money Pit.
So, Money Pit fans, do you want to get your outdoor retreat ready for Memorial Day? It is right around the corner. Well, we can help. Call in your home repair or your home improvement question 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
TOM: 888-666-3974.
Coming up, roof leaks cause major structural damage, right? We know this is true.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Yep, ding, ding, ding.
TOM: But you might not know is it may not be the shingles that cause the damage.
LESLIE: Ooh.
TOM: There could be another part of your roof system that causes even more harm to your house and home. We’ll tell you what it is and what to do about it, next.
(promo/theme song)
ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit is brought to you by Aprilaire, makers of professionally-installed, high-efficiency air cleaners. For more information, go to Aprilaire.com. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.
TOM: Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: Call us now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. Because if you do, you’ll get the answer to your home improvement question and a chance at winning a great prize. We’ve got a Ryobi One+ pole pruner to give away today. It is an 18-volt pole pruner. It’s very small and light but very powerful. It’s great for trimming small branches and limbs. It’s worth 100 bucks and comes with a battery and a charger that can be used in any Ryobi One+ tool. If you want to win it, call us now. 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: And you’ve got to ask us a question on air, folks. You really got to be willing to talk to us because not only do you get the cool prize; you get the answer to your question. So it’s a win-win situation.
And your question might be, ‘What’s that weird stain on my ceiling? Where’s all this water coming from? I’ve got a leak but what do I do about it?’ Well, most likely your roof is at fault. But don’t be so quick to blame those shingles. Well, if it’s not the shingles, then what the heck’s wrong with my roof? It’s most likely the fact that you’ve got traditional roofing underlayment; also known as tar paper and 30-pound felt. It’s a really outdated material that’s still used today on roofs all over the place and you might even have it already there. And it’s outdated because it tears easily and it easily absorbs water. And that means that if water’s getting underneath your roof’s coverage, it’s going to stay pressed against the wooden decking for weeks. Or worse yet, it’s going to find a way and that water is going to get into your home and could cause some major structural damage.
TOM: You know, that’s right. It takes only 25 percent moisture content in wood to awaken the decay organisms. And that’s what really starts the trouble because you get mold that follows right after that. And there are better underlayments out there that can actually solve this problem. For example, Grace has a synthetic underlayment called Tri-Flex Xtreme. It’s synthetic and it’s slip resistant wet or dry, which is very cool if you’re a do-it-yourself roofer or if you’re a professional roofer. It’s nice to have a product that you’re not going to sort of slip and break your neck with working on a roof. It can also be left exposed to the elements for up to six months. Now, that’s kind of cool because you know, technically Leslie, when you put tarpaper on a roof, if it rains you’re supposed to replace it. How many times have you ever …
LESLIE: I have never seen that done.
TOM: Yeah.
LESLIE: And as far as I know, I can’t control the weather. So … (chuckling)
TOM: Last time you checked.
LESLIE: Last time I checked I had nothing to do with it. (chuckling)
TOM: As all-powerful as you are. (chuckling) Well, you know, this stuff can be left out for six months, which just makes it much more practical because if you’re doing a roof and you get a rain, you can just sort of not worry about the water getting through it and then go ahead and complete your roofing shingle project after that. And that’s just pretty cool.
LESLIE: Yeah. And some other cool tips are that the Tri-Flex, it’s super strong; it’s not going to tear away from nails or any of your fasteners even in really high winds. If you want some more information on Grace’s family of weather barriers for your roofs, for windows, doors, even decking, visit www.GraceAtHome.com.
TOM: Or call us now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Bill in New Jersey, how can The Money Pit help you?
BILL: OK, yes. My problem is I have – the top half of my house is vinyl clad aluminum siding. And the past couple of years I noticed it’s – and the bottom half is cedar shakes. And I notice the siding is like bleeding down onto the shake. In other words, is there any way that could be treated? The siding?
LESLIE: What are you seeing on the shakes? Are you seeing paint or are you seeing black stains?
TOM: (overlapping voices) Yeah, I know what he’s talking about. He’s got, basically, painted aluminum trim or painted aluminum siding and it’s bleeding off of that out of the cedar. That’s because the paint is deteriorating through, you know, just the wear and tear of the rain – acid rain; exposure to the sun and so on. So the paint’s surface is deteriorating and it’s releasing. It’s kind of chalking down on top of the siding.
So the only solution there is to repaint the siding. And you can do that. You can clean, prime and repaint the siding. But then, of course, after you’re done you’ll have to clean and prime and paint the cedar or sustain it as well.
LESLIE: The cedar as well.
TOM: But you have to start with the siding. The siding is – the finish is basically wearing out on that and that’s what’s going on.
LESLIE: Do you want to use a paint sprayer to put the paint on the aluminum siding?
TOM: It’s a lot easier and you get into the nooks and crannies a lot easier, too. Yeah. I think it’s going to – yeah.
LESLIE: And looks more uniform, I bet.
TOM: Absolutely.
BILL: Is there a special paint?
TOM: No. Actually, you know, a standard house paint will work very well on aluminum siding. Get it clean, get it dry, prime it, paint it and you’re done.
Bill, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
BILL: Thank you very much.
LESLIE: Talking to Janine in Pennsylvania. What’s happening at your money pit?
JANINE: Hi. Yeah, we’re in the middle of redoing our bathroom. And it’s actually just an investment house. And the bathtub is a really ugly, robin egg blue. (chuckling)
TOM: OK.
LESLIE: Hey, I like that color. (chuckling)
JANINE: It’s nice for not for myself. (chuckling) And – not this decade (inaudible). (Leslie chuckles) We would like to know of a product to cover that.
TOM: Well, you can – you can recoat your bathtub. You can refinish the porcelain on it. But what I’ve found was that most of the products that are commercially available for that – unless you’re taking the tub out and having it completely reglazed, the do-it-yourself products are not that durable.
LESLIE: They look good for patching. But in a big situation, it doesn’t really stay as nicely; it doesn’t look as smooth. I mean unless you are like a master applicator of this stuff, it really needs to be done by a pro.
TOM: You might be better off trying to decorate around it. You know? I mean keeping the blue and changing the colors.
JANINE: Oh, it’s bad though. (chuckling)
TOM: That bad, huh?
JANINE: It’s bad.
TOM: Well, you know, replacing your bathroom’s always a good investment. It gives you good resale value. So that might be your next choice.
JANINE: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.
TOM: You’re welcome, Janine. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Stewart in New Jersey, you are on The Money Pit. What can we do for you?
STEWART: Hi. I have an old bungalow-type house. It’s about 100 years old. And the cement foundation is buckling outwards on about one-and-a-half sides of the house. But only half of the house is sitting on half of the foundation. Is there a way I can fix it myself?
TOM: Hmm, that sounds like a pretty serious problem, Stewart. Is there a basement associated with this foundation or is it a crawl space?
STEWART: Nothing. Neither.
TOM: So somehow – so is it a slab?
STEWART: Yes.
TOM: Alright. So somehow, the foundation wall has twisted and the house is inside of it?
LESLIE: Whoa.
TOM: That’s a pretty serious issue. Normally what you have to do in a case like this is you have to rebuild that part of the foundation. But before you can do that, you have to support the roof structure and the weight that’s being applied to it using a technique called needle beaming. Basically, what happens is there are beams that are put through the load-bearing portions of that side of the wall that take the weight off the foundation so that the foundation can be dug out, straightened out and then basically repaired.
Is it the foundation that’s bent or is it the walls that are bent?
STEWART: Foundation.
TOM: Alright, then it has to be replaced. That’s the right way to do this. It’s a pretty complicated job, I have to tell you.
LESLIE: So how is that done? Is the entire home then lifted off the slab?
TOM: Not the entire home; just the area where it’s attached to the foundation you have to take the pressure off so you can replace that area. Because imagine what’s involved here. You have to dig out the area deep enough to be able to get a footing in and then get the wall rebuilt so it comes up perpendicular under the wall where it’s supposed to be. And the only way to do that is to temporarily contain the weight of that exterior wall.
STEWART: So a professional would have to do this work?
TOM: Absolutely.
LESLIE: Oh, yeah.
TOM: Way beyond the do-it-yourself. Unfortunately, Stewart, it’s a job for a pro and you want a pro to do it. And if you’re smart, you’ll have a structural engineer design the repair because if it ever – if you ever want to sell this house, it’s always better to have sort of the pedigree certification of someone who’s licensed to do this. And a structural engineer can prescribe the exact type of repair that you’ll need here and then inspect it after it’s done and you’ll have that documentation in case there’s any question about whether or not it was done correctly. You can be rest assured it will have no negative impact on the value of your house if you have an engineer involved.
Stewart, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Hey, Money Pit listeners. Green is the word and one of the best forms of air conditioning is actually free. We’re going to teach you a green homebuilding trick to keep you naturally cool and comfortable, next.
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ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit is brought to you by Ryobi, manufacturer of professional feature power tools and accessories with an affordable price for the do-it-yourselfer. Ryobi power tools. Pro features, affordable price. Available exclusively at The Home Depot. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.
TOM: Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. What are you doing? What are you working on? You know, putting in a new smoke detector – easy project. Moving a bathroom – hard project. (Leslie chuckles) Somewhere in between, call us now. 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Alright, folks. Before the break we were talking about green forms of air conditioning and this truly is the greenest form to keep you cool naturally. You want to know what it is?
TOM: Absolutely.
LESLIE: Plant trees, of course. If you plant some deciduous trees on the south and the west – either/or; you can do both to be really helpful on those south and west sides of your home – you’re going to create instant climate control. They’re leafy trees so that leafy shade is going to keep your home cool in the summer because it’s going to offer a lot of shade. And when it’s bare and budding in the winter months, it’s going to help let that sunshine in to keep that house warm and your energy costs down. So with a little planning and a lot of pruning, you’re going to be saving a lot of energy dollars, naturally.
TOM: Great tip. You want more tips just like that, you can visit MoneyPit.com and you can even have our tip of the day show up on your website for free. We give you all the code right there on MoneyPit.com.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Bruce in Texas finds The Money Pit on KEEL. What’s going on at your money pit?
BRUCE: Was wondering about some cracks in my chimney. And I’m not sure how it’s made or put together or whatever. But (inaudible) last two or three years, I had some people come in and level my house up. And I don’t think it helped it at all.
LESLIE: Where are you seeing the cracks? Is it a brick chimney? What is the chimney made out of?
BRUCE: Yes, ma’am, it’s brick.
LESLIE: Are you seeing the cracks in the mortar or across the brick itself?
BRUCE: Well, mortar mostly but I have seen it across the brick.
TOM: And are you seeing these up near the top of the chimney or is it down near the bottom?
BRUCE: I’d say half the way down.
TOM: Well, that’s kind of unusual. It’s not unusual to have cracks up near the top. There seems to be a lot more movement of the chimney up there. But if you’ve got them halfway down like that, that could be a little unusual. You also mentioned that your house was out of level and you had some work done. Did you have a structural engineer involved in this project, Bruce, or did you just hire a contractor and let him go to it?
BRUCE: No, sir.
TOM: I suspected that. That probably wasn’t the best way for you to go about this because, you know, contractors can often have a little bit of knowledge and sometimes that can be a dangerous thing.
BRUCE: Yeah, you’re right.
TOM: What I would recommend is that you get an independent professional opinion on the structural condition of the house and the chimney; taking into account this repair work that was done and the present condition of the chimney. The least I would do – the actual least I would do – is hire a professional home inspector that’s an independent inspector that can take a look and give you a sense as to whether or not these cracks are serious or not. If you are really concerned and you want to get a true expert opinion, you want to go to a licensed structural engineer. That’s going to cost you a lot more than a home inspector but that’s the way to find out what’s going on. I would not take a chance by speaking to contractors or anybody else that’s employed to do repair work. You want an independent professional opinion when you have serious structural issues like this.
Bruce, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Rick in Florida, what’s going on at your money pit?
RICK: Well, I have a question about some stains on some aluminum flashing on the side of a house.
TOM: OK.
RICK: Actually, these are – it’s town houses. They’re two-story townhouses; about three years old. There’s no gutters and there’s about a six-inch aluminum flashing on the side. And it has these black stripes – black stains – on it. It’s kind of a [textured, you know, aluminum] (ph) and we can’t get the stains off. And we were wondering if you guys had any ideas.
TOM: So the flashing – you say it’s the edge of the roof. So it’s the drip edge flashing that overhangs the roof?
RICK: Yeah. Well, it’s the side. Basically, you know, you have the roof and then you have about a six-inch aluminum side …
TOM: Right.
RICK: … where you normally would be – there’d be a gutter but there’s no gutter there. So the water runs right off the roof and kind of runs down that flashing.
TOM: OK. So that – it’s probably painted aluminum. It’s probably – I think you’re talking about the aluminum trim.
RICK: Yes.
TOM: What you could try is an oxygenated bleach in an area like that; you know, any of the typical house wash materials.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) And when you use that oxygenated bleach, do it on a sunnier day because if you can get some sunlight to that area, that helps to activate that oxygen and help it clean even better.
TOM: Yeah, but here’s the trick. Remember that the paint is weak and faded. So you can’t scrub too hard or you’ll scrub right through it. If that’s the case, then you have no choice but then to repaint that; which can totally be done even if it’s an aluminum trim piece. You should prime it and then you’d have to repaint it. But I would use an oxygenated bleach. Actually, Flood makes a house wash that is – that works well for this. Don’t they, Leslie?
LESLIE: Yeah. One that’s really nice is – it’s called DEKSWOOD Cleaner and Brightener. And it works great for all different kinds of siding and wood that’s sort of aged and things that are looking a little bit grayed and weathered. And it goes on really easily and it really does a good job at restoring and freshening and brightening. It works great on vinyl siding, composite materials. It’s worth a shot.
RICK: OK. Yeah, I tried using bleach with a pressure cleaner and I used bleach which is like a 5-to-1 concentration of bleach.
TOM: Right.
RICK: And it really didn’t touch it. And then I went up there with Soft Scrub and that kind of knocked it down a little bit but you can still kind of see it.
TOM: Well, try the oxygenated bleach and see if that works. If not, I’m afraid you’re looking at a repainting job here.
RICK: We’ll give it a try. Appreciate your help.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: In Tennessee you can find The Money Pit on WFHG like Herb does. What’s happening at your house?
HERB: Yes, ma’am. (clearing throat) Now I’ve got a house made in about 1958 and on the foundation – I guess it was block and it’s been painted probably eight (chuckling) – no telling how many times and …
LESLIE: (chuckling) A lot, I bet.
HERB: … it seems like even after we scrape it and repaint it, it gets moisture in behind it and bubbles up. But it’s not reactive, I don’t think, with the type of paint we’re using. So what would you suggest?
TOM: Is this paint coming off on the inside of the wall or the outside of the wall?
HERB: The outside of the lower foundation.
TOM: OK. Well, if you have a lot of coats of paint on there, then you’re not getting any adherence here and that’s why it’s coming out.
LESLIE: Because it’s only sticking to the old paint, not to the concrete.
TOM: Right. And so, what you’re going to need to do is you’re going to need to get that paint off of there and strip that paint off of there. And then I would recommend an epoxy paint, Herb. Not anything else but epoxy. Because epoxies are the only ones that are really going to stick to the concrete block. And if you do that – if you get the old paint off and use an epoxy paint on the outside after that – now you have a half a chance of having a real durable surface that’s going to work for you for the long haul. And whatever you can do to improve your drainage around that area is going to lessen the amount of water that’s being drawn into the concrete block as well. So …
HERB: That’s what I wondered; if it’s – do you think it’s as much as what’s being drawn into the block …
TOM: Oh, absolutely.
HERB: … as what’s hitting the surface?
TOM: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
LESLIE: Oh, yeah. More so even because it’s coming in from underneath …
TOM: Right.
LESLIE: … and deteriorating what is holding on the new paint, which is all the old paint. So if you can control the moisture – you know, check your gutters. Do you have gutters? Are they clean?
HERB: Yeah, we’ve got gutters but I might put an extension top on maybe one of them that …
TOM: That’s a good idea, Herb. You know, concrete is very hydroscopic. If you had a concrete column that was six inches in diameter solid concrete and you had an unlimited source of water below, water would run up that concrete column to a height of 5,000 feet before the weight stopped it.
HERB: Wow.
TOM: So that’s how strong the force of capillarity is with concrete.
HERB: The key is going to be the epoxy paint.
TOM: That’s right.
HERB: And it won’t take long to know if I’ve got it applied right, will it?
TOM: (laughing) No.
LESLIE: (chuckling) No, you’re right.
TOM: No, it won’t.
HERB: (laughing) I’ve got an air compressor so I may wear out an air drill using a wire brush on the end of that. I know that’ll get down to it.
TOM: Better you wear out the equipment than you wear yourself.
LESLIE: Than your elbow. (chuckling) Exactly.
HERB: Yeah.
TOM: Herb, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Well, we are deep into spring. Summer is around the corner and spring might seem too early to think about your air conditioner. But actually, it is the perfect time. So up next, we’re going to give you the step-by-step instructions for your spring AC checkup, after this.
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TOM: Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. Thinking about tackling a carpentry project? Call us first? Thinking about tackling a plumbing project? Remember, you can’t sweat PVC pipes. (Leslie chuckles) No, those you have to glue together. Any questions along those lines?
LESLIE: I think the melting would be a big clue. (chuckling)
TOM: And the odor would sort of set it right off. Call us now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Because we’ll give you a great prize if you do.
LESLIE: Yeah, that’s right. One caller we talk to this hour is going to win a Ryobi One+ pole pruner. It’s a brand new addition to the Ryobi One+ line and all of the tools within the whole One+ system can be interchanged with the same battery and charger. So there is no more clutter around your workshop and your toolbox is nice and light because it’s only one or two batteries. Totally kicks butt. And it’s got a telescoping handle that’s going to allow you to reach five feet above your head. Give us a call now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT for your chance to win.
TOM: You must be willing to come on the air and ask your home improvement question. Don’t just call and say I want to win the prize, OK?
LESLIE: ‘Hey Tom and Leslie, can I get that prize?’
TOM: Yeah. It doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to work for it.
LESLIE: ‘But that’s my question.’
TOM: We need a question. No, we need a real home improvement question.
LESLIE: ‘What kind of tool can I use to prune the trees outside? Oh.’
TOM: ‘Should I paint my house red or white?’ (Leslie chuckles) No, no. A real home improvement question.
Alright. Summer is almost here, so …
LESLIE: Yay.
TOM: … it is a good time to get your air conditioning system working. And you may be thinking, ‘Well, it worked last year so it should work fine this year.’ Well, you know that Murphy’s law means it may not work fine this year and …
LESLIE: (chuckling) On the hottest day.
TOM: On the hottest day when you have a whole bunch of your close, personal friends or they used to be …
LESLIE: And a lot of ice cream.
TOM: They used to be your friends before they came over to your hot house. Now, they don’t like you anymore.
LESLIE: Can I tell you? Where we got married had no air conditioning …
TOM: Really?
LESLIE: … and when we booked the place – you know, months before our August wedding – and they said, ‘There’s no air conditioning,’ we were like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine. Whatever.’ That was the hottest day ever. (Tom chuckling) So I can relate.
TOM: It’s all about relevance. See …
LESLIE: Exactly. ‘No. Yeah, that’s fine.’
TOM: … in January air conditioning is not relevant. In August, it is.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) August? Yeah.
TOM: So before it turns to be even June or July or August and your AC goes down, you really need to think about getting it serviced. Not only will you make sure it works; you’ll make sure, more importantly, that it works efficiently. Because most of the time it is going to come on. But if you’ve had a refrigerant leak, for example, over the course of the winter, that means that the air conditioning has to run longer to cool the house as much as it did before. And the longer it runs, the more money it’s going to cost for you to cool that house.
So, you need to get a professional service. The kind of things that need to be checked include: the controls, the refrigerant levels, all of the electrical components. You want to make sure that the evaporator and condenser coils are clean. This is the coil inside …
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: … the air conditioner and the coil outside. Because if the coils are dirty they cannot exchange the heated and cooled air properly. And so they have to be really, really clean. There are also filters to be changed and there’s a bit of calibration to be done to the thermostat. So those are all things that you really can’t do on your own.
LESLIE: Now, Tom, that’s all for a central system. What if you have a window unit? Should you bring those in for service as well?
TOM: No, in window units there’s really – it’s really not worth the expense unless it’s a really, really big – like a through-the-wall kind of heat pump sort of unit.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: So in a window unit we really don’t recommend that because they’re just – it’s just too expensive for the labor. But for a central system, you know …
LESLIE: You have to do it.
TOM: … to spend 100 bucks, 150 bucks to have the service done, it’s definitely a good investment. It will make sure the system’s working properly and efficiently and it will save you money over the long haul. So, don’t wait in line. Call them now. You’ll have your cooling system working perfectly by the time the first hot day rolls around.
Call us now if you have a home improvement question. We’d love to talk with you. 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Rob in Washington has a call for The Money Pit. How can we help you?
ROB: I just built a new house and we’ve moved in – there for about a year or so. And we’ve noticed that the floors – it’s kind of drafty on the floors and they’re really cold. And I was wondering if you have any recommendations for adding some type of insulation barrier for under the house in addition to the insulation we have down there right now, which I don’t think is doing the job.
TOM: You have insulation in the floor joists now under the house?
ROB: Correct.
TOM: And do you know how thick the insulation is?
ROB: I’d say it’s probably eight inches.
TOM: Well, that’s pretty good. The other thing that you could do – is this over a dirt or a concrete floor?
ROB: This is dirt.
TOM: Well, what you want to do is you want to make sure you cover the soil with a vapor barrier. Cover it with plastic sheeting; as few seams as possible. And the reason for that is because you’re going to get a lot of moisture that’s going to evaporate off the soil floor and get into the insulation. And when you take insulation and you make it damp, it loses its ability to insulate. In fact, if you add just two percent moisture to eight inches of insulation, it’s going to lose about a third of its r factor. So that’s why it’s important for that to be dry. So I would suggest that you try to dry the area out, add a vapor barrier, make sure you have ventilation on the sides of the foundation. And that will help and get that insulation as dry as it possibly can be.
ROB: Great. Well, I’ll go try it, make it happen.
TOM: Give it a shot, Rob. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: You are listening to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show.
Up next, we are going to help one listener solve a problem that has the toilet doing very mysterious things. We’re going to help him out, next.
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ANNOUNCER: This segment of The Money Pit is sponsored by Angie’s List. Need work done around your house and don’t know who to call? You don’t have to guess who’s good and who’s not. Angie’s List has thousands of unbiased reports on local service companies with details from real member experience. Call 888-944-5478. Or visit AngiesList.com.
TOM: Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: Call us now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Find out what iPoders everywhere are discovering; the ease and the convenience of listening to The Money Pit where and when you want. In fact, all of our shows are available to download. You can even search our shows by topic and get the home improvement information you need when you need it; all available for free at MoneyPit.com. And while you’re there, how about clicking on Ask Tom and Leslie just like Patrick did.
LESLIE: Alright. Patrick says: ‘When I flush my toilet it will fill up but it continues to fill up. There are times when I have to open up the back and pull up the lever to shut off the water. How can I fix the toilet from running and running without doing it manually every time?’ Oh, this is an easy one, Patrick.
TOM: Manual toilet. I never thought of that. (chuckling) You know, this is an easy one. And simply, what’s happening here is the fill valve has completely worn out inside that toilet tank. It just needs to be replaced. It’s completely worn out. It’s not working anymore. You know, the chemicals in the water actually sort of degrade the parts of the fill valve.
LESLIE: Yeah, and if you use bleach cleansers, it does a lot worse.
TOM: Right. So what you need to do is you need to turn the water off, you need to flush the toilet, let all the water drain out then simply replace the fill valve and, while you’re at it, the flush valve. Total parts expenditure here, Patrick, we’re talking about 15 bucks. Not hard to do. Available everywhere, these parts.
LESLIE: Alright. Good home improvement.
TOM: OK, even we recognize that we cannot possibly solve all your home improvement problems and questions. And sometimes you might actually have to hire a handy man. When doing so, there could be unnecessary trips to the hardware store that can waste time and raise your costs. So how do you make sure your handyman is totally tooled and ready for your project to get done the minute he walks in the door? Well, Leslie has the answer in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.
LESLIE: Yeah, folks. If you’ve got to hire a handyman, don’t be ashamed. Even I do it sometimes.
TOM: No! (chuckling)
LESLIE: Sometimes I just don’t feel like doing the work myself. You know? It’s like we talk home improvement all day. Sometimes you’ve just got to leave it up to somebody else.
So if you’re paying a handyman – especially by the hour – make sure that you’re giving them the thorough information up front. It’s going to save you time and it’s going to save you money. You want to make sure you meet with this handy person first and lay out, in detail, everything that you need to have done and all of the materials that are needed to be secured before the project begins; whether you’re going to get them, they’re going to get them. Find out all these details. And get them in writing. Get in writing who’s going to bring the materials, who’s going to do the cleanup, what happens if there’s bad weather. Check their references and include a maximum time frame and cost for the completed job. If you get everything done up front, you’ll be saving a lot of dollars and the project is going to go much more smoothly.
TOM: And let me add to that great advice by suggesting that you may find it difficult to get your handyman to actually give you something in writing sometimes if it’s a small project.
LESLIE: Make them.
TOM: No, well there’s a better way to do it. And it’s a less controversial way to do it.
LESLIE: OK, what is it?
TOM: And that’s simply …
LESLIE: You know I love controversy.
TOM: … that you reverse document what you’ve asked the handyman to do. So, you can sit down after you have the meeting with the handyman and send him a little note. Say, you know, ‘Dear, Mr. Handyman: Per our conversation I understand you’ll be here next Tuesday to replace my toilet for a fee of 350 bucks.’ And you kind of reverse document what the …
LESLIE: This way you’ve got everything written down.
TOM: Yeah. You know? And if then he gets there a week later and says, ‘Oh no, I said it was 450,’ you can say, ‘No. I even confirmed it with you by e-mail and you didn’t say anything then.’ So you know, you kind of – that’s the way to do it because maybe they’re not the best communicators and you can kind of reverse document and help the whole situation.
LESLIE: And it’s intimidating a lot of times, sitting down with this person.
TOM: Yeah.
LESLIE: So think about it before you get in person with this person.
TOM: Good advice.
If you need more tips like that you can always jump onto our website anytime of the day or night. It’s MoneyPit.com. While you’re there, check out the Listen section. This is where we keep all of our shows. They’re all available for you to listen to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also subscribe for the free Money Pit podcast, currently ranked the number one home improvement podcast …
LESLIE: Whoo-hoo!
TOM: … in all of iTunes. That’s all the time we have.
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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END HOUR 1 TEXT
(Copyright 2007 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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