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. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Reach out and touch the experts. (chuckling) I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: Making good homes better. Do you like that?
LESLIE: I like that one.
TOM: (chuckling) Reach out and touch the experts. We are the experts here to answer your home improvement questions. To help solve your do-it-yourself dilemmas, all you’ve got to do is pick up the phone 24/7/365 and call us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. You can also log onto our website at MoneyPit.com. It’s a great hour. It’s a great idea. Making good homes better every single day.
Coming up this hour, are you considering hardwood floors for your home? It’s a great investment and it may even add more value to your home the longer you have them. We’ll tell you why in just a bit.
LESLIE: Plus, cooler weather. It’s the prime time for carbon monoxide poisoning because you’re closing yourself in and you’ve got lots of heat sources. We’re going to tell you how to protect your family from this silent killer.
TOM: And in just a few minutes, we’re going to hear from an expert with Roto-Rooter who also happens to have a side job. (chuckling) He is a ghost hunter.
LESLIE: I just love this story. It’s like how does one become a ghost hunter? It’s very interesting.
TOM: He’s a professional ghost hunter. In fact, he’s the star of Ghost Hunter on the SciFi channel and he’s also a plumber. So we’re going to talk to him about, of course, scary plumbing problems. (chuckling) He’s going to tell us what he sees when he peers down a drain to find out what or who might be clogging it.
LESLIE: Well, I guess both are pretty scary situations; a ghost and sometimes the thing that comes back out of your toilet. Both can be quite frightening so I guess he’s the man to call.
Also this hour, we’re going to be giving away a DAP prize package; more like a DAP prize crate. It comes with so many things worth more than $170. It’s complete with everything you need to winterize your home against that cold air infiltration; the number one reason that your heating bills go through the roof. So you could be the lucky winner.
TOM: Call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT because one call we choose at random this hour will be the winner. 888-666-3974.
Leslie, who’s first?
LESLIE: Randy in Roswell, New Mexico. That’s right, Area 51. (chuckling) Your circuit breaker keeps going out. Are you sure it’s not the aliens?
RANDY: Oh, it could be.
LESLIE: (chuckling) What’s going on? Tell us when it happens.
RANDY: I have – it’s actually a circuit breaker on an electric water heater. And it’s about two years old – the water heater is – and it’s got the two electrical heating elements on it.
TOM: OK.
RANDY: And on the top – on the top heating element, it’s got a little circuit breaker tied to it. And that – and I – and it keeps popping all the time, kind of randomly. So I changed that breaker, which that didn’t change anything. It still just kind of pops whenever it wants. Some days it will pop everyday and then sometimes it will go three, four days before that breaker pops out. And I – no rhyme or reason to it.
TOM: Well, have you considered the fact that the circuit breaker could be doing exactly what it’s intended to do? Which is to protect the unit from overheating or protect the wiring from overheating.
RANDY: Yeah, that’s what I thought it might be.
TOM: Right. So we need to figure out why that’s happening and it’s probably in – you said this is a circuit breaker that’s built into the heating element?
RANDY: Yeah, it is.
TOM: Alright. Have you ever put an amprobe on the wires that are feeding the water heater to see how much power they’re pulling?
RANDY: No, I have not.
LESLIE: Because maybe it’s surging every so often. It could be something with your power provider.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Yeah, that might be a good place to start.
The other thing that you can do is – it may be the control circuit inside the water heater itself. Have you replaced the bottom coil as well?
RANDY: I haven’t actually replaced the elements themselves. I just replaced that breaker.
TOM: Oh, well now we’re getting somewhere. You might want to think about replacing the elements. Because if the elements aren’t performing properly, it could be pulling more power than it needs to.
RANDY: Oh, OK.
TOM: Yeah, that’s what I mean. The breaker’s probably doing what it what it’s supposed to do and that’s to stop the thing from catching fire. I would replace the elements. That’s probably going to fix the problem.
Randy, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.
LESLIE: In Florida, Mike listens on WCCF. What’s going on with the toilet in your house?
MIKE: Well I tell you, I don’t know. (chuckling) It’s got – every time we flush it, you get two to three bubbles the size of oranges coming up …
TOM: (chuckling) OK.
MIKE: … and it pops and they go – they spray all over. (laughing)
TOM: Ugh, yuck.
MIKE: Not good, no!
TOM: Mike it sounds like you’ve got a venting problem there.
MIKE: Ah. That could be that maybe they got plugged after Charlie went through here.
TOM: There’s not enough air getting into that line. And so, that’s where you’re getting all that gurgling from.
MIKE: Oh, OK.
TOM: So you need to figure out what’s going on with that vent. You get that vent unstuck, then the toilet should flow properly. All that water goes down and it’s pulling – wants to pull air behind it and there’s no air available so it bubbles up because of the pressure.
MIKE: Oh OK, so it would be my vent stack is what you’re saying.
TOM: That’s what you need to fix. OK?
MIKE: OK?
TOM: Alright Mike, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Linda in Tennessee’s got a situation with the paint in her home. What happened?
LINDA: Yes, I’m trying to cover up some smoke and water damage that the previous owners have had. I’m in the process of totally remodeling everything. I’ve used the latex KILZ; put about five coats on the ceiling and the walls. I’m still having a lot of bleedback.
LESLIE: I think that’s your first problem; because you used the latex of the KILZ primer which is a great product, but you’re dealing with something as serious and heavy and as damaging as smoke and water damage. So there’s a lot of adhesion problems and coverage problems that you’re not going to fix with the latex.
TOM: What happens is you get a chemical reaction between the actual stains and the paint and that’s what pulls through. So latex KILZ was the wrong thing to do.
LINDA: Well, what should I get? (chuckling)
LESLIE: Oil based.
TOM: Yep.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm. It’s going to be real stinky and take a while to dry but it’s going to do the best of covering up those stains and that smell.
TOM: The latex KILZ is perfect for dirty walls and things like that but when you have real serious stains, you’re always better off using the oil based KILZ.
Linda, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Jos
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