LESLIE: Mike in Pennsylvania has a question about flooring. How can we help you?
MIKE: I’m a frequent listener and I enjoy your show a lot.
LESLIE: Thanks, Mike.
LESLIE: Thank you very much.
MIKE: I had a question. I’m renovating a 100-year-old farm house, more or less …
TOM: OK.
MIKE: … and I’m down to the floors. The downstairs floors are pretty decent maple hardwood; a living room, a dining room and a hallway. But local refinishers wanted anywhere from $2.50 to $2.75 a foot to revarnish them; refinished and revarnished.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Wow, that’s a good business. If this radio thing doesn’t work out, I’m in for that one. (chuckles)
MIKE: Well …
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) (chuckles) You’re in for the floors?
MIKE: Yeah, well I did it with laminate for about $1.25 a foot, so it was kind of a no-brainer.
TOM: (overlapping voices) I bet. OK.
MIKE: But I’m down to the radiators now. I’m questioning – you know, this is an old radiator hot water system …
TOM: Right.
MIKE: … and it has some rather large radiators which weigh hundreds of pounds, actually.
TOM: Yeah.
MIKE: And they sit on – the smaller ones sit on four corner feet; the longer ones have two feet in the middle.
TOM: (overlapping voices) Right. Yes.
MIKE: And I’m wondering what I can put under those feet. I think they’re going to sink into the laminate over time.
TOM: Yeah, well they might. You basically …
MIKE: And I wondered what I could put under the feet to protect that.
TOM: Well, you essentially want to – you want to sort of create your own coaster for that. Now, you can do that out of laminate material; that would be the easiest thing to do. And if you choose your pattern carefully, it’ll be fairly invisible when it’s put down. But if you cut something out of the laminate material to slip under that, that will give it some protection; and of course, if you do it to all the legs equally, you won’t impact the slant on the radiator.
MIKE: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Alright, thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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