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 2 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: The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. What are you working on? Are you getting your house ready for company? Are you getting your house ready for family? Are you getting your house ready to sell? Gosh, it’s a tough market right now.
LESLIE: It went from being such a hot market to sell a house in to being a place where gosh, do you really want to sell.
TOM: Do you know there’s even homes that are being sold at auction today? It’s actually becoming a pretty popular way …
LESLIE: I can’t imagine that.
TOM: … to sell houses. Yeah, you set your minimum price and it goes up on the auction block and people come and they buy it that way.
So no matter what kind of home improvement project you want to tackle – do you want to move and fix up a new house? Do you want to fix up the one that you’re in? Call us right now. 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. We can tackle any home repair question because we don’t just play home improvement experts on the radio (laughter); we actually have a little bit of a pedigree.
LESLIE: That’s right. We’re actually both out there doing all of these things everyday and learning tips and shortcuts and trying to bring all of those, you know, fun bits of wisdom to you all out there to go and do your own home improvements in a bit more quick and efficient way.
TOM: So call us with your home improvement question at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. If you do, you’ll get the answer to your home improvement question and a chance at winning a great prize because this hour …
LESLIE: Ooh, it’s a pressure washer.
TOM: This hour, we’re going to give away a pressure washer. That’s right. You’re going to be pressure-washering everything. See, a pressure washer is a very addictive tool. You start with a …
LESLIE: They – you don’t know how much you need one until you have one.
TOM: You do a little sidewalk first and then you’re on to the driveway and the next thing you know, the entire house …
LESLIE: You’re going to be the nicest neighbor because all of a sudden you’re going to do your sidewalk and you’re just going to keep going (laughter) because you’re having such a fun time with it. Your neighbors will love you.
TOM: And you’ll get a $600 water bill next month. (laughing) But you’ll have fun in the process. This pressure washer is from Husky. It’s worth 169 bucks. It’s going to go to one caller this hour. So call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT and you’d better have a home improvement question because that’s what we do.
Leslie, who’s first?
LESLIE: Tim in Nebraska, are you in your crawlspace?
TIM: Yes, I am.
LESLIE: (laughing) What’s going on in there?
TOM: I think this may be one of the first calls we’ve ever gotten direct from a crawlspace.
TIM: Direct from a crawlspace.
TOM: Alright, what’s going on, Tim?
TIM: OK. I have a 70s-style ranch house and they did not put a basement under it. When I purchased it, I put a basement under half of it and the other half is still a crawlspace with a sand floor.
TOM: OK.
TIM: I get a lot of musty smell, moisture. I have a wood floor up on my – right above it – and it has a tendency to buckle during the summer when it’s high humidity.
LESLIE: Ooh, because it’s humid.
TOM: Mmm, right.
TIM: And I want to know if there’s an easy cover to put over this sandy floor.
TOM: Absolutely. Yeah. You want to use viscuine; use plastic sheeting as heavy as you can get and with as few seams as you can get. Because a lot of the moisture that you’re sensing in the air evaporates up from the soil. So you want to get some plastic sheeting and put it down across that surface.
Let me ask you this. Is the crawlspace area open to the finished basement area?
TIM: Yes, it is.
TOM: Alright. And the basement area is finished?
TIM: Semi.
TOM: Alright. Because what I was going to say is if you can isolate the crawlspace and you still have a high humidity issue there, what you could do is you could purchase a crawlspace fan which basically fits inside the standard 8×16 concrete block opening; except that when you wire it up, you wire it to a humidistat; not a thermostat or simply a switch. And what a humidistat will do is it will come on when it gets moist and damp down there and will draw some cooler, drier area from the outside throughout the crawlspace and take that moisture with it away.
TIM: I have a dehumidifier, right now, hooked up and it – it’s just constantly running.
TOM: You know, the other thing that he might want to try, Leslie, is a whole house.
LESLIE: Yeah, a whole house dehumidifier is a great option if you have forced air or central air heating. Do you?
TIM: (inaudible) do.
LESLIE: You do? Well, this is a great opportunity for you. You can get a whole house dehumidifier installed which will remove 90 pints of water from your home per day …
TIM: Oh, wow.
LESLIE: … which is two of those huge buckets of water that you see at the water cooler at the office. And that will really do a great trick. And it works on demand to rooms that need it more. It senses which rooms have more humidity. So it’s constantly measuring levels of humidity and removing the proper amount of moisture per that room as it calls for.
TOM: Yeah, Tim, you might want to go to Aprilaire.com; April-a-i-r-e.com. They make a whole house dehumidifier and there’s a dealer locator on their website. You can find someone local to install it. It has to be installed by a pro. But it really works well at taking the moisture out of a home and it actually is so effective that your air conditioning won’t need to work quite as long and nearly as hard once that moisture is removed from the air.
OK, Tim? Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Lot of people have prepping for winter on their mind like Dorothy in Chicago who listens to The Money Pit on WYLL. What’s going on with your furnace?
DOROTHY: Oh, we were trying to figure out – Tom had said that (inaudible) talked about the importance of changing your filter every month. When we take the filter out, it doesn’t seem – it doesn’t show that it’s screening out anything.
TOM: So it’s not dirty at all?
DOROTHY: No, it doesn’t appear to be.
TOM: Well, it may not be installed properly. Are you using the right size filter, Dorothy?
DOROTHY: Yes, I believe so. My husband takes care of that.
TOM: Well, the other thing to check is to make sure you put it in with the proper direction. If you’re using one of those paper fiberglass filters – those cardboard-framed fiberglass filters – which, by the way, are not the best kind of filter to use but it is the least expensive – there’s an arrow on it that indicates airflow. And if you put it in backwards, it may not be doing the job that it’s supposed to do. You need to know that the air is going to come from the duct, usually into the bottom of the furnace, if that’s where it’s mounted – near the furnace. And make sure that the arrow on the filter points inwards.
DOROTHY: OK. Now, would price make a difference in the quality of the filter?
LESLIE: Oh, of course.
TOM: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, if you’re going to buy an inexpensive one – the one’s that’ll cost a dollar or two – they don’t do as good a job as having, for example, an electronic air cleaner. Aprilaire makes a really good one called the Model 5000 that was ranked tops by Consumer Reports for the last two or three years I remember. And I think that even takes out virus size particles. So you can get, you know, ones that basically heave the pebbles out and ones that’ll be so efficient that you can’t get any virus particles through it.
LESLIE: Microscopic particles.
TOM: Yeah, exactly.
LESLIE: And then that, of course, in turn makes all of your machinery – the furnace, your air conditioning – all of that run more efficiently.
TOM: Yeah, especially if you have any respiratory issues; if you have any allergies or any of that sort of thing, I would invest in a better air cleaning. We put one of those Aprilaire Model 5000s in our house and we have it just in the air conditioning system because we have a hot water heating system. But we turn that on even in the winter to let the air sort of run through the duct system because it does such a good job of scrubbing the air. So if you change your filters regularly or if you improve the quality of the filter, Dorothy, I think you’ll find that the house will stay cleaner and it’ll be a lot easier to breathe.
Dorothy, thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Tennessee’s on the line and Eddie’s got some leaking bricks. What’s going on?
EDDIE: I have a home that is just absolutely leaking at the foundation and was wondering if you all would know something that would fix this. It’s coming in at where the floor and is the brick outside. It’s exterior brick.
TOM: OK.
EDDIE: And it’s coming in at the floor. And was wondering if there’s some way to fix that.
TOM: So what’s happening is you have a brick home and the water is getting in between the brick and the wood structure and then coming out and leaking water on the first floor or in the basement?
EDDIE: It is a first floor, yes.
TOM: On the brick exterior wall, Eddie, are there weep holes? Are there places where there are gaps in the brick for the moisture to escape?
EDDIE: Uh-huh. There are. It’s like on a corner of the house.
TOM: Because what I suspect is that there’s some either break down in flashing or there’s some gap in the brick structure. Mortar could be missing or a place where water’s getting in that wall, falling and then leaking before it has a chance to run out the weep holes. And we’ve got to identify where that gap is.
Now if you say it’s near a corner – is this entire home brick or is it just the first floor? Describe the exterior finish to me.
EDDIE: Single floor – it’s one floor – and it’s entirely brick. The house is approximately 29 years old.
TOM: Alright. So what I suspect is that there’s a gap in the brick wall or there’s a crack in the brick wall or a place where mortar is missing. And I would carefully examine, up on a ladder, all of the space around the corner of the house where you see the leaks coming in. And I think you’re going to find that there’s a breakdown there somewhere. Now, once you identify it, it should be easy enough to fix. But it sounds to me like the wall is built correctly because you mentioned it has weep holes. But there’s still a space where the water is getting in and if it’s not coming in the roof area, it’s got to be coming in through a crack or a crevice in the construction of the brick wall itself.
Alright, Eddie. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
OK, Money Pit listeners. Coming up, late summer lawn care tips. We’re going to tell you why your grass always goes brown at this time of year and what you can do to fix it.
LESLIE: Get green spray paint; a lot of it.
(promo/theme song)
ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit was 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: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show, standing by for your phone calls at 1-888-MONEY-PIT; 888-666-3974 for the answer to your home improvement question; for the solution to your do-it-yourself dilemma. If you’re a do-it-to-yourselfer, we can help you, too. If you get yourself in jams over home improvement projects, call us right now. 1-888-MONEY-PIT. We don’t judge. We just try to help you get out of those home improvement challenges.
LESLIE: Hey, you out there with the green spray paint. I wasn’t serious. Put it down. Keep in mind, most climates, folks, have dry, warm heat spells which are going to cause your grass to go brown. But there are other factors that contribute to why your grass is changing that beautiful shade of green to a dry, scratchy shade of brown. Some of the problems could be if you’re mowing the lawn too short, if you’re mowing in the same pattern every time you mow the lawn or if you’re refueling that mower on the lawn and splashing some gas all around in the lawn. If you’ve got any of those problems, make sure you change the direction each time you mow and make sure you refuel on your driveway or a concrete surface. Or if you’ve got all grass, just throw a piece of plywood down there and put the mower up on top and then refill on there.
If you’ve got poor soil or compacted soil or if you’re walking all over the same spots over and over again, causing the soil to compact and that grass to dry out, try to aerate your soil in the off season and don’t over-traffic one area. Take a walk around the other parts of your yard. Explore. Remember, it’s your space. Learn every nook and cranny.
And also, if you find that your lawn has insects or diseases, try to be aware of the symptoms that lead to why these bugs or these diseases are happening. And then you can accurately diagnosis and treat these problems; often with a fungicide or an insecticide. And with all of this and a little bit of water, you should have a beautiful green lawn all over again sans that green spray paint.
TOM: Hey, coming up in the next issue of our Money Pit e-newsletter, we’re going to have three more reasons why your lawn may be brown this time of year and how to bring that grass back to life; including one problem very common in new construction. Man, that would really stink. Get a brand new house, you want a green lawn and it’s brown. You want the solution, sign up today at MoneyPit.com for our free Money Pit e-newsletter. Again, that’s at MoneyPit.com and it is free.
LESLIE: We’ve got another free thing this hour. Why don’t you tell them about our great prize, Tom?
TOM: That’s right. It’s the new Husky 1800 PSI Electric Pressure Washer. It is a powerful unit that runs on 120-volt household current; loaded with great features; makes it easy to tackle all kinds of home improvement projects from cleaning patios and sidewalks to lawn and furniture. It’s going to make it a very easy job to keep your house looking very clean and very spiffy and it’s worth a lot of money.
LESLIE: That’s right. It’s worth $169 but it could be yours for free. So call us right now at 888-MONEY-PIT for your chance to win.
TOM: Let’s get back to the phones. 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Next up, we’re talking to Susan in Tennessee who listens to The Money Pit on WETR. And you’ve got a water management issue. Tell us about what’s going on at your house.
SUSAN: Well, I have stucco on the exterior that’s a (inaudible) type of stucco and it goes below the ground.
TOM: OK.
SUSAN: And my neighbors – we all have the same type of homes and they’ve been told that they’re going to have water damage …
TOM: Mm-hmm.
SUSAN: … eventually …
TOM: Yeah.
SUSAN: … if they continue to have mulch against the stucco.
LESLIE: Oh, yeah.
SUSAN: And so some of them have put in a few inches of rock – stone, pebbles and such – and then their – then their mulch. Others have said they need to just totally remove all the mulch and put in stone only. There’s only one company in town that does that. I was wondering if it’s possible to do it on my own. The company in town says they want to cut it off on an angle …
TOM: Right, because they don’t want to cover the foam siding, which is basically what you’re describing. You have exterior insulated foam siding; it’s known as EFS or EIFS. And the particular brand that you mentioned and other forms of foam siding have been associated with water problems; with water leaking in through that stuff. So, I’m really uncomfortable with EIFS – any form of EIFS, whether it’s self-draining or not – as a siding material. So, I think the company that’s suggesting that this be trimmed so that it’s not being covered probably has your best interest in mind. That’s not something that you ought to do by yourself, but I think that’s kind of the right idea.
If you do some searching, on the internet, about this EIFS material – E-I-F-S – I think what you’ll find is a lot of heartache across the country with people that have had many, many problems. It’s been associated with homes that leak. It’s been associated with homes that grow mold. It’s just not a good product. I have a structural engineer who’s a friend of mine who had the best quote I ever heard about this. His name is Bob. He says, ‘That stuff was leaking on the drawing board.’ (chuckling) So, that’s definitely something to stay on top of, as far as the maintenance is concerned, and I think you’re definitely thinking correctly with keeping the moisture away from it as much as possible.
SUSAN: But does it matter if there’s a few inches of stone before we put the mulch in?
TOM: Well, I think the idea here is that it’s in contact with the grade; so the moisture’s going to be sucked up into it. I think that’s the concern. And if you can have an air gap between the siding and the grade, that’s probably the best way to keep it dry. I have some concerns about it, Susan. Anything you can do to keep the water away is a good thing.
Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Well, we’re on our way to West Virginia where Mike listens to The Money Pit on WCHS. And you’ve got something going on in your refrigerator. Tell us about it.
MIKE: Well, basically, I have water building up in the bottom underneath the two vegetable crispers. It’s clear, clean water. There’s no drain plug in the bottom for it to drain out into a pan or anything. It does have an icemaker.
LESLIE: It sounds like something is freezing in the bottom near where the pan is and then it’s cooling; you know, it’s breaking down in the refrigerator because it’s not maintaining it’s freezing temperatures. What do you think, Tom?
TOM: You know, self-defrosting refrigerators usually dispose of the water via a tube or a drain channel that’s inside the refrigerator. And it goes to a pan that’s usually in the bottom of the refrigerator where the water will evaporate. But what happens is either that tube or that channel gets clogged and the water never quite makes it down to the evaporator pan and it backs up and leaks inside the refrigerator. And in some cases, it can get so bad that it’ll actually leak out the front door.
What you need to do is to pull everything out of the refrigerator and locate this drainage tube and then get it unclogged. Or if it’s slipped out of place or something, stick it back in. But it sounds to me like the drainage tube is definitely not getting the water all the way down and it’s backing up inside the refrigerator and that’s why you’re seeing that water. It’s not a big deal to fix.
MIKE: So would it be on the back?
TOM: Yeah, it’s probably going to be in the back and that’s why you’re going to have to really search for it. You may have to empty stuff out but think of it this way – you’ll be able to clean the refrigerator (chuckling) while you’re at it.
Mike, thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Well, the couple that does home improvement together, hopefully, stays together. Now we’ve got Randy and Cindy together from Pennsylvania. What can we do for you both?
RANDY: Well, we’ve been remodeling our kitchen and we have some old tongue-and-groove paneling that we’re trying to wallpaper over.
TOM: OK.
RANDY: We’ve tried liners and primers and different things and it still seems to telegraph through the wallpaper.
TOM: Yeah, I imagine it would. If it’s tongue-and-groove paneling, doesn’t it have grooves in it that …
LESLIE: It’s got dimensional texture.
TOM: Yeah.
RANDY: Right.
TOM: Well, you’re never going to have a wallpaper that’s thick enough to cover that and there’s nothing that you could really put on the paneling, in terms of a paper underlayment, that’s going to – going to stop that.
LESLIE: Yeah, unless you want to fill all of those ridges with …
TOM: Yeah, but even that. I would rather see you skin it with some thin drywall or, better yet, take it off. Because I don’t think you’re going to find anything that’s going to allow you to cover that with wallpaper and have it not show through, guys. I think that this tongue-and-groove paneling is going to be way too dimensional for you to cover with paper. You need to think about …
LESLIE: You’re always going to see it through.
TOM: Yeah, you’re going to need to think of some other options. Does this go all the way up the wall or does it go halfway up the wall?
RANDY: Goes all the way; floor to ceiling.
TOM: Well. Have you thought about removing it? Will it come off?
RANDY: Not very easily.
TOM: You might want to just experiment with how difficult it might be to remove this. Because if it’s just nailed on, the wall repair is not going to be that significant. If it’s glued on …
LESLIE: If it’s glued on, that’s a different story. (chuckling)
TOM: Yeah, then you’re going to have to skim it with another piece of drywall on top of it. But I don’t think you’re going to find anything that will cover something as dimensional as tongue-and-groove paneling and not show through with wallpaper, guys. OK?
Randy and Cindy, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Hey, Money Pit listeners, what do you do when you find yourself caught in a nasty summer storm but you’re away from your home-sweet-home? Well, what do you do? We’ve got the solutions, next.
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ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit is being sponsored by Peerless. If you’re putting in a new bathroom or kitchen faucet, Peerless can help you with every step including the hardest one – getting that old faucet out. For a complete undo-it-yourself guide, visit the Peerless faucet coach at faucetcoach.com.
TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: And we are like a power washer for your home improvement to-do list. We’re giving one of those away this hour, too. It’s the Husky Pressure Washer. It’s worth 169 bucks. So call us right now if you’d like to get in on a chance to win that great prize.
So, let’s say you’re stuck in a major summer storm. Want some safety tips? Here we go.
Best advice: stay inside. If you are out, get inside a vehicle with a steel roof. Don’t take shelter in small sheds or under isolated trees because they’re lightning targets. Stay away, also, from towers, fences, telephone poles or power lines and avoid contact with water, appliances, metal objects and anything else that conducts electricity.
LESLIE: If you’re out on the water – say, on a boat or if you’re swimming – go immediately ashore, take shelter and get as far away from the water as you can. If you’re in the woods, make sure you take shelter under the shorter trees. The tall ones are just reaching out like an antenna. So be careful. And make sure you squat low to the ground on the balls of your feet with your head in between your knees. Don’t lie flat; you’re giving yourself more surface area for that lightning to attract. And please, stay off of the telephones; just one last time.
TOM: Don’t become a target. Call us right now for the answer to your home improvement question at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Next topic – aluminum siding with Frank in Louisiana. Tell us about it.
FRANK: Yeah, I have a question. I have a home that’s probably about 18 years old. And the recent storm we had, there’s about three pieces – siding – probably 15 foot up – it’s a two-story home – fell off. I thought it was vinyl siding but it’s aluminum siding. The way it looks, do they have to remove all the siding on that whole side? Because it’s interlocked.
TOM: Yeah. And it’s going to be really hard, if not impossible, for you to get replacements. Do you have the pieces that fell off?
FRANK: Yes, but they twisted and bent.
TOM: Yeah.
FRANK: We had about 100 mile an hour winds …
LESLIE: Whoo!
FRANK: … that time.
TOM: Wow.
FRANK: And that’s what I told my wife. The insurance company came out and they said, ‘Well, that’s easy to fix’ and they gave us a little check for $200. I told my wife, I said, ‘If it was vinyl, it would be so easy.’ I said, ‘But aluminum siding, I think they’re going to take it all off.’ The way it’s laid – it’s interlinked.
TOM: Yeah, a siding mechanic might be able to do a repair job on that. But if you say the pieces are all damaged and they’re all, you know, warped and twisted, you may not be able to find replacement siding for there.
FRANK: That’s my concern because I can’t find anybody that sells aluminum …
TOM: Yeah, I would not accept that check from the insurance company and sign off on anything for 200 bucks because you may have to reside that part of the house.
FRANK: Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of; it was going to be very costly. (chuckling)
TOM: Yeah, you’re on the right track, Frank. Sorry to hear that that happened to you but you’re correct. And you know what? It’s a good time to re-side anyway.
FRANK: You’re right. (laughing)
LESLIE: (laughing) Well, you know, necessity makes it a good time.
FRANK: Thank you for your help. I appreciate it.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Now we’re going to talk to Mike in Florida who’s working on some tiles. Tell us about your project.
MIKE: Yes, I’ve got a lot of tile work in the house that we’ve just had put in and I’m wondering about the best way to seal the grout so that dirt doesn’t get caked down in it. Because you can’t ever get it out.
TOM: Yeah, and you’ve got to seal it now before you get any dirt in there.
MIKE: Yes, that’s what I’d like to do.
LESLIE: So you haven’t done anything at this point, at all, to seal it?
MIKE: No.
LESLIE: There’s a couple of great applicators. There’s one that looks like it has a nail polish brush on the end; it’s like a squeezable bottle with a very tiny brush on top. And there’s another that’s a squeezable bottle with a sponge on a roller. Both are excellent applicators because they get that sealant exactly where you want it; right on the grout line.
TOM: Yeah, and the best sealants are the silicone sealants, Mike. Those are the ones that I’ve had the best results with. So I think you’re definitely on the right track. With the right tools and the right sealant, you will not be having to clean that grout very soon.
LESLIE: Alright. Well, every toolbox needs what we like to call the dirty dozen; twelve must-have tools.
TOM: Up next, a chance to check your list against ours and see if you have everything you need to take on just about every basic home improvement project.
ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is sponsored, in part, by Behr From Home; where you can select from over 3,700 paint colors and order samples online for home delivery. For more information, visit Behr.com. That’s B-e-h-r.com.
(promo/theme song)
ANNOUNCER: This portion of The Money Pit is being sponsored by Metal Roofing Alliance. We call metal roofing investment-grade roofing. Because in your lifetime, a metal roof will save you money and add value to your home. To find a Metal Roofing Alliance contractor or to learn more about investment-grade roofing, visit www.metalroofing.com.
TOM: Welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. The website, MoneyPit.com; home of the free Money Pit e-newsletter. Call us now if you have a question about your home improvement project and need some help solving that do-it-yourself dilemma.
LESLIE: So if you’ve got a list that’s chock full of your honey-to-do list projects, we’ve got some things that you must have in your toolbox. That’s right, it’s the homeowners dirty dozen; the 12 must-have tools to tackle just about anything that’s on that list. Here we go. You ready?
A cordless drill; a hammer; an angle square for marking and checking corners; a multi-head screwdriver; a pry bar; a utility knife; a 25-foot tape measure; an adjustable wrench; a chalk line; a circular saw; and a level.
Tom, do you have any others that we missed?
TOM: No, that pretty much is going to get you through most of your home improvement projects. I would say, however …
LESLIE: And demolition projects, a little bit.
TOM: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you know, the nice thing about the cordless tools today is that once you sort of buy into one line – like the Ryobi One+, for example – you can buy their cordless drill and those same batteries will fit circ saws and everything else in the house.
LESLIE: And that’s great, also, because as you expand on your skill set or you find more and more projects to tackle around the house, you’re able to do so without having to buy so many more things to add to your workshop.
TOM: Exactly.
So, you want to know what to do with those tools? Call us right now. We’ll help you get through those home improvement projects at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. And we may give you some more tools to get the job done because, this hour, one caller’s going to win the new Husky 1800 PSI Pressure Washer. It is a powerful unit that runs on 120-volt household current. It’ll have you fixing up and cleaning up that lawn furniture and the driveways and the sidewalks. Once you get started, you won’t know where to stop. You may have a $1,200 water bill the next month, but you know …?
LESLIE: (chuckling) But everything will be sparkling clean.
TOM: Sparkling clean, exactly. So call us right now. It’s worth 169 bucks.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Having a water feature in the house can be very relaxing; until it goes wrong. And that’s exactly what’s happening with Lindsay in Louisiana. What’s happening to your water fountain?
LINDSAY: Well, we have a wall fountain and we treated it, painted on dry lock. That didn’t work; it wouldn’t hold water. Then we put a product on it called EPDM and it’s still leaking.
TOM: This is a water fountain – what is it; outside your house or inside your house?
LINDSAY: Yes. It’s in a courtyard.
TOM: OK. Well, EPDM is an elastameric roofing product that you would think would work. But it sounds to me like if you’re trying to create sort of like an outdoor water feature and this old one is not working, Leslie, what I’m thinking she might want to do is fiberglass.
LESLIE: Well, a fiberglass could be great. It depends on what the interior of this water feature is made out of. If it’s something that you can see into and you want to continue seeing into it, the fiberglass might work well because you can get almost a clear finish to it so you might be able to see through it. If it’s something where you can’t really see into the basin, you might want to think about getting a plastic fixture that sits right in and acts as a separate bowl within …
TOM: Like a liner almost?
LESLIE: Exactly.
TOM: Yeah, mm-hmm.
LINDSAY: OK, we thought about that.
TOM: That’s probably the two options that you might have, Lindsay. If you want to pick up the fiberglass material, you can usually buy that at an auto supply store because it’s used in body repair as well.
LESLIE: Or a boating store even.
TOM: Or a boating store as well. Yeah.
Alright, Lindsay? Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.
LESLIE: Tom, one time we were doing an episode of While You Were Out down …
TOM: Uh-huh.
LESLIE: … in South Carolina. And I’ve made tabletops out of resin where, you know, you can put different things in it and then it seals up on top of this little – you know, almost like concrete. You build a foundation for it; you fill it with the resin; you put stuff in it; it dries; beautiful tabletop. All I could find was boat resin.
TOM: Boat resin?
LESLIE: Boat fiberglass.
TOM: Right.
LESLIE: And so I make the tabletop; put it on there. It’s very yellow; it’s not really drying in the same way; it’s not curing properly. All of a sudden, the entire thing curls up on itself and like hurls itself off of the tabletop. And we watched this reaction happen over a few hours and everybody (laughter) was laughing hysterically at this monstrous frisbee that we made. And of course the project failed miserably.
TOM: Oh, man.
LESLIE: So it always makes sense: buy the right product.
TOM: I was thinking that maybe there was a hardener that you didn’t put in or something.
LESLIE: No, we put the hardener in. Everything was fine. It just didn’t stick.
TOM: Just didn’t stick.
LESLIE: We were putting fish bones and fishing lures (laughter) and maps – you know, we wanted to make it a nautical theme tabletop. It became the nautical frisbee that broke into a thousand pieces.
TOM: Alright. Well, do as we say; not as we do. (chuckling) The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Now we’re talking to Walt in Florida. You’re thinking about tiling your floor. Tell us about what’s down there now and what you want to do.
WALT: Yeah, what I have now, I have linoleum down in the kitchen.
LESLIE: OK.
WALT: And I was thinking could I take tile and put it over that?
TOM: Sure. Are you talking about ceramic tile or vinyl tile?
WALT: Ceramic.
TOM: Well, you don’t want to glue directly to the linoleum because it’s not going to stick. What you’re going to want to do is put in
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