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:
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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: Call us right now with your home improvement question at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974. Is there a little fall fix-up going on in your money pit? We’d like to help. We can’t pick up the paint brush but we can help you if you pick up the phone and call us right now at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Coming up this hour, if you haven’t done it yet, you no doubt will be in the next few weeks. What are we talking about? Well, turning on your heating system, of course; except for those of you in states like Florida and Hawaii who are snickering right now. (Leslie chuckles). Please keep that to yourself.
Well, you know, before you do turn on that system, it’s a good time to make sure you have a fire extinguisher on hand because heating season is also fire season. But how do you know if you have the right kind of extinguisher? Do you know there’s an alphabet soup code that’s on the outside of those extinguishers and if you don’t understand it, you’ll end up with the wrong one and it won’t work in an emergency. We’re going to help you sort it out in just a bit.
LESLIE: And also ahead, with the weather getting cooler, everybody’s thinking about energy and electric water heaters, they certainly eat up a lot of energy. So this hour we’re going to share tips on a simple device that can stop wasting all of the energy and your energy dollars, by the way.
TOM: And if you are redecorating a kid’s room on a budget, we’ve got some great ideas to help you reduce, reuse and recycle furniture and keep you safe at the same time.
LESLIE: And going on right now at MoneyPit.com, we’ve got your chance to win $5,000 towards your next home improvement project or really anything you want to spend it on, truly.
TOM: Yeah, you don’t have to prove home improvement to get the prize. (chuckles)
LESLIE: Not at all. All you’ve got to do to win that great grand prize is go to My Home, My Money Pit and play our fantastic adventure game and sweepstakes.
TOM: Yeah, and all you need to do is answer a few easy, true-or-false home improvement questions and if you get them right, you’ll be qualified to enter to win the cash or one of over 200 other prizes. Now, if you get online and don’t know the answer, well, call us; we can help because that’s what we do. 888-666-3974. Let’s get right to those phones.
Leslie, who’s first?
LESLIE: Bob in New Jersey, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?
BOB: Hi. I had a question about removing some kind of glue that’s underneath the floor in the basement. I had a water problem and when I tore up the plywood floor that they had down, they had firring strips on the floor, glued to the floor and nailed to the floor, and I’m having a problem getting the glue off. I could scrape it somewhat but I’m not totally getting it off. I just wanted to know if you have some kind of solvent or something and the second part is what I can put down on the floor after I get it cleaned up.
TOM: So you had plywood – you had firring strips and then plywood on top of the floor?
BOB: Yes.
TOM: On top of the concrete floor?
BOB: Yes.
TOM: Man, that’s a mold problem waiting to happen right there.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
BOB: Mm-hmm.
TOM: Yeah, you know, I have not found any kind of miracle product that will melt glue away. Generally, it’s a real hard job of using a cold chisel to chip it off and frequently sharpening it so you get it as smooth as you can. But what I would suggest you think about doing is using a floating floor, rather …
LESLIE: Like a laminate.
TOM: Yeah, like a laminate or if you really want wood, it’d have to be engineered hardwood. But a laminate would work really well here because you’d put an underlaminate down, which is very soft and a bit spongy.
LESLIE: So it’ll sort of even itself out over these chunks of adhesive.
BOB: Mm-hmm.
TOM: Exactly. As long as you can get it reasonably flat and you put the underlaminate down first, you’ll find that you’ll be able to put the laminate floor then right down on top of the underlaminate and that unevenness will just disappear, because the floor locks together and becomes sort of one continuous plane, Bob, and you won’t have to worry about it after that.
LESLIE: Taking a call from South Carolina where Janice has a question about plumbing. Janice, how can we help?
JANICE: Hi. We’re expanding our house and it seems like all the contractors that are coming in, adding on to the new bathroom and an area like a wet bar, they want to put in this plastic tubing with these rings around it instead of using copper. And I’m wondering – and I’ve looked at a lot of different houses and even the new builders are starting to put this – it’s like a plastic tube …
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Is it called PEX?
TOM: (overlapping voices) Yeah, it’s called PEX. It stands …
JANICE: OK.
TOM: Yeah, it’s PEX, which is short for cross-linked polyethylene and it’s a very, very good piping system that’s really making the rounds now throughout new construction and remodeling. It’s much …
LESLIE: It’s easy to join together.
TOM: Yeah.
LESLIE: It’s flexible; it installs far easier. If you ever need to make a repair in an awkward space, it sort of helps to do that without having a lot of renovation involved.
TOM: Yeah, it’s good stuff.
JANICE: OK. And the rings that, you know, hold it onto where the pipe is connected to – I mean, those will last for …
TOM: Yeah, you know, there were some problems with different types of plastic plumbing over the years but PEX doesn’t seem to have any of those issues and there are a lot of really qualified people that are looking into it and recommending it and writing about it. We did an interview with the editor, for example, of Fine Homebuilding magazine and those guys are tough.
I mean, they don’t give the recommendations very easily and they were raving about this stuff. So I wouldn’t have any concerns about using it. It’s a lot easier to use than copper. It’s going to last indefinitely. You don’t have to worry about acidic water causing holes in the copper pipes; a whole bunch of plumbing issues are eliminated by the use of PEX.
JANICE: Great. Alright. Thank you very much.
TOM: Alright, Janice. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Give us a call with your fall fix-up question. We can help you get your energy dollars in your pocket where they belong and tighten up your house to keep you nice and toasty this winter season. Give us a call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
TOM: Up next, not all fire extinguishers are created equally. You need to know which one to use and if you don’t, it’s just not going to work. We’ll help you sort it out, 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. Welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: Call us right now at 1-888-MONEY-PIT because one caller we talk to on the air this hour is going to win a $200 prize pack from the fine folks at DAP, which basically includes everything you need to winterize your home; like this product, Seal ‘N’ Peel, which I love because it’s removable weatherstripping. You can basically caulk your windows shut in the winter, seal out the drafts and peel it off in the spring.
The number again is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: I have to tell you, I turned everyone in my mom’s apartment building in Manhattan on to that Seal ‘N’ Peel caulk because their windows are super-duper drafty and as long as they leave one undone, they’re fine as far as escaping goes – if they ever needed to, God-forbid. But they are all addicted to it so DAP, you owe us one.
But seriously, with the winter season arriving, you’re really going to be using your fireplace more, getting your heating systems going and this is the time of year that more residential fires occur. It’s the heating months and if you don’t have a fire extinguisher in your home, it is definitely a worthwhile investment, regardless of how much it costs – and get more than one.
But you have to make sure that you get the right type of extinguisher for different types of fires because a fire extinguisher that breaks out in your kitchen might be different than the one you would need for a fire in your living room.
TOM: Exactly. So to know which type to buy, you need to look for the letters indicating the type of fire they can put out. Here’s how you sort it out: A is for wood or cloth, B is for flammable liquids and C is for electrical fires. Now, if you want to cover it all, simply purchase a multi-purpose extinguisher rated A-B-C. Then, just make sure you go over the instructions for use and keep it handy.
LESLIE: Yeah. And get more than one. We keep one by our fireplace and we keep one in the kitchen and I keep one in my workshop. It is a safe investment so spend your money wisely.
TOM: 888-666-3974. Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: William in New York needs some help with soundproofing. Tell us what’s going on.
WILLIAM: Hi. I have a house that used to be on a very quiet street but now I get a great deal of traffic noise. I replaced the original house window. I had a storm window and I understand that it is a type of window that does absorb the noise. It helped a little bit but I’m just wondering if there’s anything else that I can do to keep out as much of the traffic noise as possible.
TOM: William, you know, there’s a new class of drywall out there that’s designed to be very, very silent; it’s sound-engineered so it suppresses the sounds that you may be hearing from the street. Now, I think in the future you’re going to find more and more homes, especially those in busy areas or homes that have specific needs like home studios and media rooms and places like that, that use this product. It’s called Supress and it’s sound-engineered drywall. It basically goes up much the same as regular drywall would …
WILLIAM: Yes.
TOM: … but it’s engineered to reduce sound dramatically.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: It’s very, very effective stuff.
LESLIE: And it comes in different thicknesses and the half-inch thickness is the one that you would use to sort of upgrade your apartment so you don’t – you can sort of sheath over your existing drywall.
WILLIAM: I see.
TOM: The website is SupressProducts.com. S-U-P-R-E-S-S Products.com or there’s a telephone number where you can get some additional information and that is 800-456-4061.
WILLIAM: Alright. That sounds good.
TOM: Alright?
WILLIAM: (overlapping voices) Thank you very much.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Alright, William. You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Leo in Florida has a question about carpeting. What can we do for you?
LEO: Yes. The other day I heard you had a program on and it was about a guy that wanted to put glue-down carpet in a dry basement and you all just told him that that was not a good idea and all because of the algae or fungus or something. And I was wondering, couldn’t you put an algaecide or a fungicide in the paint and then paint the floor and then possibly throw some powder down too before you glue the carpet down?
TOM: You can and that might work for a little while but the bottom line is that, you know, mold is a very, very common occurrence in basements because they’re below-grade spaces and why would you want to lay mold food down on top of …
LESLIE: In a moisture-ridden space.
TOM: … that moist environment? Yeah, exactly. So we don’t like putting carpets in basements. There are a lot of fine flooring products out there that are much better choices than carpet. Now, if you want to have carpet, use an area rug on top of something like a laminate floor …
LEO: Right, right.
TOM: … or an engineered hardwood floor.
LESLIE: Or tile.
TOM: Use an area rug that can be taken out and cleaned occasionally but don’t put in wall-to-wall carpet on top of a jute backing. Just a bad idea.
LEO: OK. Thank you.
TOM: You’re welcome, Leo. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
And that was not what Leo wanted to hear. (Leslie chuckles) Sorry, Leo. Carpet in basement – bad idea.
LESLIE: Time to talk to Nancy in Delaware about sewer flies. What’s going on?
NANCY: Oh, hi. Well, we have had sewer flies in the basement and they’re coming up into the kitchen and the bathroom. And this house is about 90 years old and last summer we had them bad. And we tried the bleach and the Pine-Sol …
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
NANCY: … and we thought we had it licked. We even covered the drain in the basement.
LESLIE: When you covered the drain in the basement, you mean with tape, so you know that they were coming from that drain itself?
NANCY: No. We got a regular stopper put in.
LESLIE: OK.
NANCY: But now they’re back.
LESLIE: Well, Nancy, the reason why you end up with sewer flies is because they love organic debris. They like to eat it. They like to find it. That’s in all of the drains in anywhere in the home and that’s what they feed off of and then they come up into your house and you know that they’re sewer flies because when you crush them – not that you’re hurting them or you’re killing them or trying to be friendly – but when you do squish them, they turn to dust. You end up with this powder-like residue; that’s how you identify them as the sewer flies.
NANCY: Right.
LESLIE: And what you really need to do, Nancy, is find out exactly where they’re coming from. So what you can do is you can take some tape and put the tape over the drains that you suspect that they’re coming from and let it sit for, you know, a day or so and then pull it off and you know exactly where they’re coming from because you’ll see them on the back side of the tape.
And then the reason that you’re not getting – you know, you’re not having success in getting rid of them is because you need to use one of these sort of biochemical products that are meant to get rid of that organic debris. The bleach isn’t going to do it; you need something that’s made to go into the drain and get rid of all of that debris that sits in the there that they eat.
NANCY: OK. I appreciate that.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Now, we’re going to talk to Liz in Colorado that’s dealing with a venting issue. Tell us about the problem.
LIZ: We have a microwave with one of those charcoal vents.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm. Built right into it.
TOM: Yes.
LIZ: Yeah. And what we’d like to do is get an exterior exhaust.
TOM: OK. That’s a much better option.
LIZ: Yes. The problem is it sits about 30 inches above the microwave, which I understand that’s the right level, so we’re probably going to need a different kind of microwave or just a main exhaust. But from that level, that 30 inches, you still have about four feet up and then we would have to make a six foot bend to get to the outside because of the …
TOM: OK. So this is on an interior wall, essentially, and you need to figure out how to duct it through the structure to the outside, correct?
LIZ: Exactly.
TOM: OK. Not a problem. You can do this but you have to do it with metal ducts.
LIZ: Metal ducts.
TOM: You can’t do it with plastic ducts; it’s very, very dangerous. You have to have these ducts made. Probably the best person to do that would be a heating contractor because they make duct work up all the time. They can make it in various sizes and you want it to basically, you know, go right from the exhaust port of the microwave up through the house and out. You want to curve it so it’s not right angles, it’ll be nice and smooth, and then you terminate it on the outside wall. So it’s definitely doable but I would do it with solid metal ducting.
LESLIE: Mort in New Jersey needs some help with a flooring situation. What’s going on?
MORT: Yeah, I’m sanding an old oak floor and I’ve collected all the sawdust and I want to mix it with something to fill the cracks. What do you recommend mixing it with?
TOM: Well, why do you want to put the same sawdust back in there? You might be better off with a good quality crack filler because if you mix it with – you know, oftentimes when I was doing woodworking projects, I would mix the glue – mix a little bit of yellow glue in with sawdust and put it in there but that’s not going to stain the same as the rest of the floor and …
MORT: Yeah. And it’s also really hard to work with glue. We tried that.
TOM: Right. Exactly, exactly. I would use a regular wood filler with that. I wouldn’t necessarily put the wood sawdust back in there. I mean, if you use a good – like a Minwax wood filler or something of that nature or Elmer’s has a really good one that dries very quickly, you can press some sawdust into the top of that and affect the color but at least it’ll be easy to sand and it will stain properly and finish properly.
MORT: OK. Thanks, Tom. Thanks a lot.
TOM: Alright. Mort, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Sometimes you’re better off not creating your own product …
LESLIE: Well …
TOM: … where one exists that does a fine job.
LESLIE: And the only thing I’ve ever heard of mixing the sawdust with is like a white glue or a wood glue …
TOM: Yeah.
LESLIE: … which is then also going to take the stain in an odd way. Your best bet is just a stainable putty.
TOM: (overlapping voices) I’ve done it in small projects. Yeah, little cracks and railings and things like that but not for a floor. That’s probably not the best use of that technique.
LESLIE: Bob in Tennessee has some questions about energy efficiency. What can we help you with?
BOB: Yes. My wife and I are going to scale down. The kids have left the nest now and …
TOM: Alright.
LESLIE: (chuckling) Freedom, whoo!
BOB: Yeah, right. Got grandkids coming though. But I’ve been trying to figure out where I can find information to build an energy-efficient home for our area because, you know, in the future I feel like energy is going to be our biggest cost in a home and we just want to be comfortable as we grow older and have a good, warm home.
TOM: Well, Bob, it’s a big question and the best way to narrow it down is probably to start with a really good website and that is the Energy Star website.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: EnergyStar.gov. And you can find out what it takes to build an Energy Star-rated home there. There are programs that will help you or the builders in your area do just that. In terms …
LESLIE: And it breaks it down region by region so you really understand what is a beneficial build in your area over another area, so you’re not doing something that’s not going to help you where you live in Tennessee.
TOM: I’ll also recommend …
BOB: Right.
TOM: … a specific type of building technology called insulated concrete forms or ICFs. Basically, instead of using a wood-frame wall, what these walls are – they’re stacked-up hollow, foam blocks. They kind of look like big LEGO blocks.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
BOB: Mm-hmm.
TOM: And the walls are stacked up and then the inside of it is there’s poured concrete …
LESLIE: Poured concrete.
TOM: … and rebar put inside of it and when the home is done, it uses two-thirds the amount of energy of a standard home and it’s also very quiet and completely storm-resistant. I really like that technology and it doesn’t have to look like a concrete house. It can look wood-sided or whatever way you want it to look.
BOB: Well, I appreciate it. I’ll check it out.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: You are listening to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. We’ve got some fun advice for you, especially if you are a dumpster diver and love to save some cash and the planet. If you’re looking at furnishings, you really want to be careful about which vintage pieces you choose for your kid’s room. We’ll tell you why, next.
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ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is brought to you by Rheem Water Heaters. For dependable, energy-efficient tank and tankless water heaters, you can trust Rheem. Learn more at SmarterHotWater.com. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.
TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show where we make good homes better. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. And you know, here at The Money Pit, we get a lot of calls about hard water, mineral deposits on glasses, soap not sudsing up as good as you want it to be and then not coming off your hands as good as you want it to also. Well, if hard water is causing you hard work around your house, how would you like to win a $1,200 softener to solve it once and for all?
Well, you can win that and learn about our brand new book, My Home, My Money Pit, by going to MoneyPit.com and playing the Home Improvement Adventure Game and Sweepstakes and it’s sponsored by our friends at Rinnai.
TOM: There are over 200 other prizes like water softeners from EasyWater; big, beautiful storage sheds from Lifetime Products; and wall-hanging hardware from Monkey Hook; plus a grand prize of 5,000 bucks. So have some fun and test your home improvement knowledge at MoneyPit.com. You can play everyday this game at MoneyPit.com.
888-666-3974. Let’s get back to those phones. Who’s next?
LESLIE: Nancy in Colorado needs some help with carpeting. What can we do for you?
NANCY: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. We have an outdoor carpet on a patio. Our home was built in the ’70s and I …
TOM: Mm-hmm. It was popular back then, wasn’t it, Nancy?
NANCY: I think maybe so.
TOM: Not such a good idea today, though.
NANCY: No. I haven’t even told my husband until I made the phone call that I was even thinking about wanting to do it.
TOM: OK. Now the idea is out. How can we help?
NANCY: Well, do you have suggestions on how to take it off the concrete patio pad?
TOM: Well, the carpet comes off easy; it’s the glue that doesn’t come off so easy. (Nancy chuckles)
LESLIE: And the remnants of the carpet.
NANCY: Yeah.
TOM: Yeah, exactly. You know what you’ll probably end up doing here is taking the carpet off, getting and scraping as much glue as possible off of that old slab and then I would use an epoxy paint. And you can do a really good job painting a slab and have it look very, very attractive today and that will kind of hide all of these sins. And in fact, there are some cool techniques where you can sort of paint the appearance of carpet on …
LESLIE: Or even tile.
TOM: Yeah, or tile on slabs and have it look really attractive.
NANCY: OK. Yeah. Well, I …
TOM: Aren’t there like stencils for that, Leslie?
LESLIE: Well, there are over-size stencils. I think the website is ConcreteResources.com and there are large stencils that you can get for an entire concrete patio that will help you. But you can lay out a tile pattern with tape and you can use the grayness of the concrete or even you can paint a gray basecoat – let that dry – to create a grout line and then you can create a beautiful terra cotta-look tile.
NANCY: Oh, that sounds great.
LESLIE: I mean there are ways to do it. As long as you get proper concrete paint and prep the surface properly, you can really make something very, very attractive.
NANCY: OK. Well, thanks for your encouragement. I appreciate it.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Heading over to Texas to chat with Levi about a deck project. What’s going on?
LEVI: Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my call. I was calling because I have an – I have a wooden deck, of course, and wooden fence and it was never sealed or stained or anything like that. And so now what I have is a couple years of weathered, old, gray wood look and I’m wondering how do I bring that back, refinish it to …
LESLIE: How old is the stuff we’re talking about? How many years has it been sitting there?
LEVI: I really couldn’t say. I bought the house and none of it was sealed or stained when I bought the house and I’ve lived here for two years.
TOM: So you like sort of the fresh, pressure-treated green look? Is that what you’re looking to get back, Levi?
LEVI: Yeah. I’m just looking to, you know – I know I can sand it down and get back down to the fresh wood and …
TOM: But you know what? Listen, if you do that, it’s not going to last for long. You’re talking about oxidation on the surface of the wood. What we would recommend is that you apply a stain to that wood. You can either go with a semi-transparent, which will show more green or a solid color.
And then, choose the color of stain that you really like. I mean, if you want a green color, fine; if you want it to be gray or brown or deep red, mahogany, you can choose that color and that’s going to protect it and the color will stay that way for quite a few years.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm. If you want to give it a shot before you go ahead and apply, you know, a solid stain or a semi-transparent; if you want to see if you can sort of get the gray out of the weathered wood – I mean, I don’t know if this will work on something that’s been weathered five years or more – Flood makes a product called the Wood Cleaner Premium Wood Cleaner and Brightener. And I believe you roll it on, you let it sit on there and then you rinse it off but it does a great job of sort of getting that gray out and I know it works fantastic on wood that’s aged a year or two years. So it’s worth it to give it a shot. You know, it’s one product that you invest in; give it a whirl and see. And if it works, then you want to go ahead and put some sort of sealant on there, a natural-looking stain; something just to protect it from UV, mold, moisture, everything.
If it does not work for you, go for the semi-transparent or the solid, depending on how you want it to look. I mean you can pick a color that’s, you know, as natural as you like and that’ll be the best way to make it look as good as it can be.
LEVI: OK. Thanks a lot. I’ll give it a shot. I appreciate it.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Hey, Tom.
TOM: Yes?
LESLIE: I got a great tip for you, especially if you’re thinking about decorating one of your kid’s rooms.
TOM: OK.
LESLIE: And all of you out there, if you’re thinking about working on a kid’s room or a baby’s room but you’re short on cash, as we all are, but you want cute pieces of furnishing, it’s a smart idea to go to vintage stores or tag sales and pick up a good, used piece. But you want to make sure that you keep in mind a few tips when you’re shopping or even dumpster diving behind your favorite design store.
You don’t want to get anything that’s old or has chipping paint on it, especially if you think it might be lead-based paint. It’s super-dangerous for kids. And you also want to make sure that you stay away from furniture with out-of-date latches and hardware; you know, like chests or even cribs – especially cribs and high-chairs.
TOM: Yeah, good point. You know, you can check out the Consumer Products Safety Commission website at CPSC.gov for a list of recalled items but don’t be afraid to salvage those old pieces. You will save money and the planet at the same time.
888-666-3974 is the number you need to know to save yourself some home improvement headaches. Up next, would you like to know how to save half the cost of running your electric water heater? We’re going to give you that answer, right after this.
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ANNOUNCER: The Money Pit is being brought to you by Guardian Home Standby Generators, America’s choice in power outage protection. Learn more at GuardianGenerators.com. Now, here are Tom and Leslie.
TOM: Making good homes better. Welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete. And it is fall fix-up time and you should be thinking about sealing up your home for the winter and saving those energy dollars and keeping you nice and toasty. Well, if you’re working on that, pick up the phone and give us a call at 1-888-MONEY-PIT because we have a great prize for you.
We’ve got up for grabs a $200 prize pack from our fine friends over at DAP. You are going to get all the weatherstripping and caulk you need for your entire house and then some; maybe even your neighbors’. Get the Good Neighbor Award of the Year quick, before 2008 runs out. One caller who gets in on the air with their question could win this great prize from DAP. The number here is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
TOM: 888-666-3974. You know, another way to save energy: control your hot water heater. You know, electric water heaters are the most expensive way to produce hot water but if you add a simple 240-volt timer so it only heats water when you need it, like early in the morning, the rest of the day the timer will turn the heater off and that will save you a lot of energy dollars. Do you have some other areas of your house that are costing you big energy dollars? Let’s talk about it – 888-MONEY-PIT.
Leslie, who’s next?
LESLIE: Going down to the basement with Stacy in New Jersey. How can we help?
STACY: I’m wondering if there’s an alternative to running a dehumidifier all the time. Is there something that we can have installed that will vent to the outside? It’s a finished basement; it just smells of mildew all the time.
TOM: Sure. How is your house heated and cooled, Stacy? Do you have a forced air system?
STACY: Yes. We have central air and heat.
TOM: And what about the basement? Is that covered by the central air system?
STACY: Yes.
TOM: Alright. Well, this is good then. What you can do is you can install what’s called a whole-house or a whole-home dehumidifier. It actually gets installed into the HVAC system and it runs 24/7 to maintain the proper humidity, not only in the basement but throughout the entire house. Mm-hmm.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Throughout the whole house. And it even, Stacy, will kick on more often within the basement zone, where you end up with the most moisture and I think in tests it removed 90 pints of water a day; one of the products – one of the whole-home dehumidifiers from a company called Aprilaire.
STACY: Aprilaire?
TOM: (overlapping voices) Yes.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Mm-hmm.
TOM: Yeah, Aprilaire.com. Now, the other thing that you can do, Stacy, is to take some steps to reduce that humidity by looking outside your house and making sure your gutters are clean and free-flowing and that the grading around the house slopes away from the walls because, typically, basements get really humid because they have poor drainage conditions around the outside that allows the water to sort of saturate the foundation and then that water evaporates into the basement.
So, it’s really a two-step process. Outside, you can improve the grading and drainage so you try to keep it as dry as possible and then inside, add a whole-home dehumidifier and you’ll find that the home gets real dry and real comfortable very quickly.
STACY: Oh, perfect. Sounds good. Well, thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome, Stacy. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Now we’re going to talk to Chuck in Indiana about a basement problem. What’s going on?
CHUCK: Yes. I have a – our home is fairly new; it’s only about seven years old. But in the back – what we call the back room, the storage room area – it’s just concrete wall and concrete floor but we have furniture back there and it seems to have – I guess it’s mold, what I call – that forms at the bottom of the furniture legs. And we have central air; we have a dehumidifier back there and the basement is actually dry all through and I don’t understand why I still get this mold that seems to be on the legs. And I have the furniture sitting on pieces of carpet, also.
TOM: (chuckling) Well, see, now therein lies your problem. You don’t want to put …
CHUCK: Oh, that’s the problem?
TOM: Yeah, you don’t want to put the furniture on top of the carpet because the carpet is mold food. You’re probably encouraging the mold by doing just that. See, what happens with the carpet is – first off all, generally it has an organic back like a jute back; secondly, it traps a lot of dirt and dust and skin cells and other things that mold can feed on.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and it sucks up the moisture.
TOM: And it sucks up the moisture. So with all that going against you, you’re probably feeding the mold problem. So I would get rid of that carpet. I would …
LESLIE: Now, Chuck, is it just carpet pieces or do you have the whole floor carpeted?
CHUCK: No, it’s just pieces of carpet because it’s a concrete floor and I thought probably the moisture from the concrete floor would be causing that on the furniture.
TOM: Well, the moisture from the concrete floor is getting sucked into the carpet …
LESLIE: And then sitting there.
TOM: … and that’s giving you a nice moisture source from which the mold to grow. So I would get rid of the carpet. You know, if you want to put some wood blocks or concrete blocks or something that – make sure you have a little air on that furniture.
LESLIE: Get those plastic furniture blocks that, you know, even like those glide and slide pieces; get those little furniture bottoms; some of them are rubber, some of them are plastic. This way, you get something that matches the leg of the piece of furniture that you have and it’s inorganic so you’re not going to transfer the moisture and then cause mold to grow.
TOM: Now, is the furniture wood or what is it that’s …
CHUCK: Yeah.
TOM: So you’re going to want to treat that mold that’s on it right now and to do that, you can simply mix up a bleach and water solution – about one part bleach and about four parts water. Spray it on there, let it sit just for a little while and then wipe it clean so you get rid of anything that’s growing on there right now.
CHUCK: Alright. Thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome, Chuck. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show and here’s a great idea for you: an exhaust fan in your bathroom. You know, they are super-efficient but only if you’ve got that fan venting to the outside. If you don’t, all that moist air is just going to be trapped in your attic and then you’ve got problems. We’re going to help someone with that exact situation, next.
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TOM: Making good homes better. Welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: Are you thinking about greening up your heating system? Want to save some money this heating season? Have you considered hydronic heating? You know, hot water heating? If you have, you need to check out my new AOL column: hot water heating, is it worth the switch? You can read it online right now at MoneyPit.AOL.com.
LESLIE: And if you’ve got some general heating questions or energy efficiency questions or even making your house energy-efficient for the fall, head over to MoneyPit.com, type in anything in our search box and you can find articles that we’ve written and segments from the show that you can listen to and get all of those answers that you want.
And if for some miraculous reason you can’t find your answer there and you need to have your question answered immediately, you can e-mail us by clicking on the Ask Tom and Leslie icon. We get lots of questions and we’re going to jump into the e-mail bag right now.
And we’ve got one here from Ben in Burlington, Connecticut who writes: ‘Our house has two bathrooms: one with an exhaust fan and one without an exhaust fan. I went up into the attic to see if I could add an exhaust fan to the other bathroom and I noticed that the existing fan is venting into the attic. I’d like to have both bathroom vents to the outside through the roof. My question is whether or not it’s OK to run both fan ducts through the same roof vent.’ At least he knows there’s a problem with it venting into the attic.
TOM: You know, I think it’s probably OK but you might want to go with a slightly larger vent. Typically, when you run two ducts together, the duct that it goes into is stepped up from there so if you try to take like two four-inch round exhaust ducts and put it into one four-inch tube, that could be a problem. But if you stepped it up to like an eight-inch duct and then fed that outside, that might be OK. So I think you just need to make sure it’s big enough so you don’t get any kind of back pressure on that ventilation system.
LESLIE: Okie dokes. Janet in Laporte, Colorado writes: ‘I live on the bottom floor of a fourplex. Under my apartment is a large crawlspace; basically, an unfinished basement. I want to insulate the floor because I freeze in the Colorado winter. My apartment stays cool in the summer, which is great. If the floor is insulated, will I lose that summer coolness? I’m assuming it stays cool because of the crawlspace.
TOM: I doubt that. I think it stays cool because of the rest of the insulation in your house and you definitely – if you have an unfinished crawlspace or an unfinished basement, it’s a good idea to insulate that floor. That’s going to save you a lot of money in the winter. It’s going to increase your comfort, Janet, as well.
LESLIE: Is it something she’s going to have to do from the basement to the underside of her floor itself or is that something that can be sprayed in?
TOM: You know, it could be but I would just use unfaced fiberglass batts and they would be sort of supported in place with the wire springs that go like in between the floor joists and they’ll just sort of hang there and they’ll do a really good job.
LESLIE: Alright, Janet. Make sure you speak with your landlord because this is probably something that they should be doing for you. If not, make sure you get the permission so you don’t go ahead and step on anybody’s toes.
We’ve got a last one here from Sam in Pittsburgh who writes: ‘We recently purchased and have renovated a 10-room, 80-year-old house with garage, basement and apartment. We had central air and heating installed but our energy bills are sky-high. How can we save money?
TOM: I would have – if I had a house that big, Sam, I’d have it inspected by a professional home inspector or, better yet, an energy evaluator that can really look at every element of the house and give you a detailed report which identifies and prioritizes where you’re losing most of the energy. Then you’ll know what to do first and it’ll definitely end up with increased comfort and reduced energy expense.
LESLIE: Hope that helps, Sam.
TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show. Thank you so much for spending this hour with us.
The show continues online at MoneyPit.com and while you’re there, why not play the My Home, My Money Pit Home Improvement Adventure Game and Sweepstakes? You can answer a few home improvement questions. They’re simple true-false questions. If you get them right, you’ll be qualified to enter our sweepstakes and win $5,000 in cash to use for your home improvement projects and/or, I should say, one of over 200 other prizes; all there online at MoneyPit.com.
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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(Copyright 2008 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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