Episode #2029: How to Add Attic Flooring | Easy Way to Get Rid of Tree Stumps | New Service Provides Expert Help for DIYrs
In this escapade …
Adding flooring to your attic can make it a perfect arrange for storage. But doing so the wrong way means that you could weaken your formation, squash your insularity, or find yourself with one foot embed firmly through the ceiling below! Tom& Leslie share gratuities on attic flooring that works well .
Wouldn’t it be nice to have dwelling professionals accessible by telephone or chat whenever you need them to walk you through a project? We tell you about a new due service that settles knowledgeable, neutral professionals exactly a call or sound apart to give you the answers you need.With all the recent summer squalls, did you need to have a tree or two taken down? What about the STUMP? We’ll share 4 easy alternatives to make it disappear.
Plus, provide answers to your residence better a matter of, removing vinyl tile, installing a brand-new thermostat, foundation moisture, sealing sketches in your residence.
Do you have a home improvement or decoration question? Call the show 24/7 at 888 -MONEY-PIT ( 888 -6 66 -3 974) or post your question here.
Read Transcript
TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: Hey, are you in the midst of a home improvement project? Are you various kinds of stayed? Don’t know what to do next? Don’t know if you should do it yourself or you need to get some help? Well, we are here to pick up the slack, give you some doctrines, some counseling, some tips-off to help you save money, save hour, save hassle and get those hassles done. Help yourself first, though, by picking up the phone and impart us a call at 1-888-MONEY-PIT, 888 -6 66 -3 974.
Coming up on today’s show, we’re going to talk about attic flooring. You know, contributing the right flooring to your attic can make it a great place for storage. Then we do a good deal of sort of shifting of material as we move towards fall, right? We get rid of the summer stuff, start to pull out the winter stuff and the tumble material. And if you need a floor in your attic because you don’t have enough space, that is awesome. But if you try to work on this flooring and you get it on the wrong way, you could weaken the structure and squash your insulation and find yourself with one hoof embed securely through the ceiling below. We don’t want that to happen, so we’re going to have some gratuities for you on how to install attic flooring that works and works well.
LESLIE: Plus, wouldn’t it be nice to have home professionals available whenever you need them, to help walk you through a project or maybe help you find a pro to get that job done?
TOM: Hey, wait a minute. Isn’t that “what were doing”?
LESLIE: Well, yes and no.
We’re going to talk to you about a brand-new due service that introduces knowledgeable, neutral professionals really a click or a call away enabling you to get the answers that you need.
TOM: And with all the recent summer hurricanes, did you have a tree or two taken down? Well, what about the stump? We’re going to share four easy options to make it disappear.
LESLIE: But more importantly, we are here to help you with all of your residence improvement projects, your decoration assignments, your planning jobs. Whatever it is you’ve went in mind for your coin cavity, we are here to lend a hand. So give us a call.
TOM: The count here is 1-888-MONEY-PIT, 888 -6 66 -3 974.
Let’s get started. Leslie, who’s first?
LESLIE: Ed in Delaware is on the line with an separation question. How can we help you today?
ED: I’ve got a house improved at about 1950. It’s masonry brick and there’s about a 1-inch air chink between the inner part of the masonry and the drywall. No insulation. Patently, I just wanted to segregate that but I have a couple of questions around it. One would be since it’s a true-blue masonry mansion, it’s not bricks over a stud chassis. It’s brick.
TOM: Right.
ED: The joists rest in pockets in the brick. If I put insulation around there, am I going to have rot troubles on the end of a joist?
TOM: How are you going to insulate the wall?
ED: With a low-pressure foam.
TOM: Mm-hmm. OK. Well …
ED: Or such was my thought.
TOM: Yeah.
ED: It’s very rough in there, so I don’t thoughts I can do any kind of blown-in insulation.
TOM: Mm-hmm. Right, yeah. You don’t have a whole lot of space.
I’ve got to tell you, typically, believe it or not, those gaps are not insulated where you have that simply very narrow space in a brick wall. And what tribes typically concentrate on would be insulating the attic additional well, so to speak. I imply having 15 to 20, 25 inches of insularity in the attic is actually far more effective because that’s where most of the hot loss occurs.
To your original question, whether that will contribute to any degeneration of the joists that are sitting in pockets, I doubt it. But I merely don’t think you’re going to get much of a return by trying to insulate that cavity, because you don’t have that much cavity to shield. And it conveys the amount of R-value you’re going to get in there is going to be reasonably small to begin with.
ED: That’s genuine. Area of the question- and I can solve this by closing the vault and the attic, which I haven’t gotten completed hitherto- is that there’s literally a breeze that blows up and down there depending on the direction that the wind blows.
TOM: Right.
ED: So, at the least, I want to close that off so I don’t get air infiltration, for example, through the few plugs that are in the outer wall.
TOM: Well, that stimulates feel. I think that’s a good idea.
ED: But I was recollect, even if I can only get an inch in there, that’s an inch versus nothing.
TOM: If they’re not decomposing now, I don’t think it’s going to happen when you segregate it. You’re not going to be doing anything that’s going to contribute to any sweat there. I just think that if you were to seal those drawings from below and focus on insulating in the attic the areas you can get to- I don’t feel like you’re going to get a lot of return from what’s left, which is just this very narrow space in that exterior wall that’s solid masonry, otherwise.
ED: OK.
TOM: So why not do it in stages? Why not just do the- close the drafts firstly and meet what happens?
ED: Yeah.
TOM: Because the hardest part of this is, apparently, getting into that wall. But if you shut the drafts and you find out that maybe you don’t have such an issue anymore, you will have saved yourself a lot of aggravation.
ED: Well, that is true, peculiarly since the wall is open at each joist. So I’d have to cut into the ceiling and seal that anyway, otherwise I would be insulating the floor, which does make it …
TOM: Right, accurately. That’s a lot of work, so I would stumble in stages and insure what the result is.
LESLIE: Joan in Massachusetts is on the line with a inexplicable radio crackling that could be connected to an LED light. What’s going on at your Money Pit?
JOAN: Oh, I’m so happy to talk to both of you. I learn so much from listening to your demo every week, so hoping you can answer my question.
TOM: Well, thank you.
JOAN: I’m going to be moving into a house and I had an electrician invest Lotus Super Thin LED lights in my ceilings, in four offices- actually five. And then they’re tied into Ariadni C* L 150 -Watt Lutron Dimmer Switches. And when I turn the radios on in any of those rooms with- and into an AM station so I can listen to your testify, I get static. And so the electrician had never heard of that before and so I’m kind of looking for some helpful information to correct the situation.
TOM: What kind of radio do “youre using”? Is it a portable radio? Or is it- or your stereo or …?
JOAN: I’ve got one portable one that I’ve carried around simply to see if that’s altered and that is, very. But then I’ve got really kind of AM/ FM radios in the various areas, because I like to listen to AM radio most of the time.
TOM: Often, if you have a static like that or an interference with any kind of appliance, it’s generally the floor. There’s frequently something that’s off with the grinding arrangement for the electrical panel or the tours themselves, so that’d be the first thing I would check.
JOAN: OK. So it could affect every apartment if the ground is off in the panel?
TOM: Yeah, right or if somehow it’s unplugged. And that actually could potentially- be potentially unsafe, as well, so I would start by looking at the ground.
JOAN: And look at the anchor wires in each office, very, or …?
TOM: Yeah. And right- and one thing that you could do that’s really easy is you could use an outlet tester to check all the shops in those chambers. And that’s a really simple way to tell if it’s floored or not anchored, because there’s a illuminate string that comes on. And if it’s not footed, you’ll see it immediately.
JOAN: Yeah. So could it be anything to do with the dimmer swaps?
TOM: No, I don’t think it’s the switchings themselves, because these are all made consistent and I don’t have anybody else across the country that’s complaining about this type of odd thing.
JOAN: Hmm. And that …
TOM: But I would suggest that you are searching for grinding and that almost always will do it. If it’s a metal casket, it might be shielded if it’s not floored. So, it really need to use that factor checked out. Alright?
JOAN: Yeah, because even if I going to be home the cellar- I had him install a couple of those fluorescent sunrises and it happens down there, too.
TOM: It’s not just where you have these dimmer products.
JOAN: Right. OK. Alright. Well, great.
TOM: Yeah. The other thing that you could do is you could get an outside AM antenna and get the radios cultivating from that feeler instead of the one that’s built in, so there’s another option there.
Alright. Good luck with that job. Thanks so much for announcing us at 888 -MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: David in Alaska is on the line with a few questions about a foundation. What can we do for you?
DAVID: Yes. What I’ve get is a daylight basement. It’s made out of Quad-Lock with a porch slab. And I’m getting a lot of sweat in on the- coming in from the outside. I settled the BITUTHENE over the Quad-Lock and over the statu and I’m still getting a lot of irrigate inside the house. In the wintertime- so when it’s bad, we have to run at least one, maybe two, dehumidifiers( inaudible ). Yeah, dehumidifiers.
TOM: Does it seem to be consistent with maybe the warmer temperatures in the winter, like where maybe it’s starting to melt a little bit? Or is it the same all the time?
DAVID: Yeah, pretty much the same all the time. And the BITUTHENE was closed with a heat artillery all the way down over the foothold. But I don’t know if that’s where my problem’s at- that the house is close to 20 years old.
TOM: Typically, when you get high humidity and high moisture like that, it’s because of drainage. The water “re going to have to” defrosted, the snow has to defrosted, then it gets into the concrete one space or the other. And it gets extorted through because concrete is very hydroscopic. It actually drenches up a great deal of moisture and then it vaporizes to the inside spaces.
If your sewage is in good condition on the outside- in other words, in the spring or the summer, you want to make sure that your soil around the house, if at all possible, has a good downgrade away. So that when that blizzard are now starting to melt, that water guides in that direction; it doesn’t fall down along the foundation where it could become drawn into the house. And then, of course, you also want to make sure that your troughs are clear and free-flowing and all that. Doesn’t sound like that’s as much of an issue for you in particular.
Now, you mentioned you were rush a dehumidifier. What various kinds of heat do you have in this house? Is it obliged aura or what various kinds of heat is it?
DAVID:[ For your stove ?]
TOM: So it’s not – you don’t have a furnace – you don’t have warm air that’s blowing through it. It’s not ducted?
DAVID: No.
TOM: What I would recommend in that vault opening is a better-quality dehumidifier.
David, take a look online at the dehumidifiers that are made by Therma-Stor- T-h-e-r-m-a-S-t-o-r. They have two symbols. One is called Ultra-Aire and the other one’s called Santa Fe. They’re either free-standing or they’re designed to be suspended from the ceiling. I have one- I have an Ultra-Aire that I be utilized in my basement, which tend to get mute even if they are I have good sewage healths on the outside. And it’s been very effective for us. And it basically drains into a sump spout and it makes out a surprising extent of sweat from that seat every single day.
So, that might be a good answer for you. I just asked you those earlier questions to make sure that anything that you can do physically to make sure water’s not accumulating around the house is done. And it sounds like that might be the case. So the next step would to be install a good-quality dehumidifier. OK?
DAVID: OK. Is it energy-efficient?
TOM: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes, perfectly. Alright, David? Thanks so much for calling us at 888 -MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Well, the right flooring can spawn your attic the excellent place for store stuff. But the wrong flooring could result in a explosion. Now, if you’d like to take on this project, here are a couple of things you’ve got to keep in mind.
First of all, for the best part, lofts are not designed to be used as storage gaps. They’re part of that fresh, underbelly organization of a home that keeps the whole house together and then protects it and you from these components. Now, because of this, installing a floor to an attic always involves some rank of commotion of that organization, so you’ve got to be smart about how you do that.
TOM: That’s right. So, first up, keep in mind that the scaffolds- the flooring- doesn’t not have to be plywood. You know, if you think about it, trying to maneuver those big 4×8 membranes of plywood or familiarized rope board- the OSB- up to an unfinished attic “re kind of” like trying to fit a square peg into a round flaw. So, to oblige the number of jobs easier, what I like to do is to use a circ fathom and trimmed the plywood membrane in half firstly, so I have two 2-foot by 8-foot divests, which are a lot easier to handle.
Now, the other option is to skip the plywood flooring altogether and use dimensional log. For lesson, you can pick up 1×6 Number 3 spruce. It’s kind of a step up from what I would call the pallet-quality wood but it makes a fine, usable, sturdy storey in an unfinished attic seat. You may have a board or two that you kind of have to work around, a big knot, that kind of stuff. But it’s truly inexpensive and so easy to maneuver.
LESLIE: Now, putting flooring in an attic is also going to require some level of trade-off between the areas that you storey and your attic’s insulation. Now, most homes are going to have insulation that’s piled higher than those flooring joists, which is good. But you need to understand that this insulation can’t be squished or it’s only not going to do the same job shielding. So, one option is to floor an neighborhood less than the entire attic: simply a small section around your attic-door opening. This room, you can preserve that maximum quantity of attic separation in other regions of the space.
Now, another inventive alternative is written specifically for utilize as attic flooring and it’s called Attic Dek. Now, Attic Dek is specifically designed to be an attic-floor organisation. And it consists of 16 -inch of 24 -inch squares that attach to the top of your ceiling joists.
TOM: Yeah, I like this option. The divisions are durable, they’re lightweight, they’re easy to handle. They kind of look like flooring grates but they accommodate plenty of ventilation, which is good for the insularity below. And they fasten with really a few screws and pretty much give you a safe, stick storage pulpit in precisely half-a-day’s worth of work.
So, lots of options. But remember, as the saying get for specialists, first do no harm, I think it applies to attic carpenters, as well. Don’t go up there and start trimming beams and cutting storeys and cutting material out of the way. You’ve got to work with what you have. Just don’t make it worse by squishing the isolation or shattering part of the structure.
LESLIE: Sean in Texas, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
SEAN: I have pitch-black various kinds of like peel-and-stick tile but it’s real dense. It’s real thick-witted and it’s real brittle. And it’s on a concrete storey and I cannot get it up. I’ve tried a scraper and everything, a chisel and a hammer. And I didn’t know if there was an easy way to get it off.
TOM: Why are you trying to get it off the concrete flooring? Can I ask what the finished flooring is going to be?
SEAN: I have no idea but this tile is coal black and my part house is cedar on the inside.
TOM: OK. Because it may not be worth the provocation of going it off. What you might want to do is to kept another floor over that. For example, laminate floor is beautiful. It comes in hundreds- hundreds- of different blueprints. And some of the patterns can look like tile or stone or marble and a good deal of the patterns can look like hardwood. And it’s a swim storey and it could lay right on top of that old-fashioned, nasty-looking black tile. And you might just be better off make that.
I don’t interpret what you’re going to gain from make that tile off. You’re right: the cements are very, very hard to release, because they get imbedded in the concrete. You’ll end up with a bumpy, bad skin-deep. Even if you were to get it off, I don’t know what you would do with it. So if it was my house, I would leave it alone and introduced a new floor right on top of it.
SEAN: So, yeah. And we had settled the waft floor in the living room. And I queried my partner if she wanted it in the kitchen and she said no. She wanted me to take up the old tile. OK. So I’m all about glad wife, glad life, right? So I remembered, “Yeah. Ain’t no problem. I know merely the person to call.”
TOM: Yeah. Well, “re told” that we “ve given you” some good advice, which is that you should really think about a drifting floor in the kitchen, as well. And take a look at the laminate.
Or you know what? If she doesn’t like the laminate, there’s another thing you could do and that’s announced “engineered hardwood.” So engineered hardwood is suitable for a kitchen because the way it’s built is instead of being sort of solid hardwood, it’s kind of like plywood in that it’s made of different beds. But from the top surface, it glances just like a solid board of oak or maple or whatever category you have selected. And that’s another way you could have a real wood floor in that kitchen and be absolutely beautiful.
Just make sure that you pay attention to the durability ratings on it. I would probably go for one that’s rated commercial, time because the kitchen’s going to take so much punishment. But you don’t have to worry about sheds and things like that. Because it’s engineered, it’s never going to swell up on you.
SEAN: OK. What about the- she had brought up the idea of ceramic tile. Can I situated that over it maybe?
TOM: You possibly could if you use the right adhesive and if that existing tile is really clung well to the age-old concrete floor. You are capable of go right on top of that with a ceramic tile. But recollect, it’s going to be pretty cold and that’s why the timber storey or the laminate flooring- which is able, by the way, definitely sounds like ceramic tile- would be a much more warmer various kinds of feel underfoot.
SEAN: Awesome. Thank you so very much.
TOM: You’re welcome, Sean. Thanks so much for announcing us at 888 -MONEY-PIT.
Well, if you have questions about your residence jobs, you can always reach out to us. And some number of you will get through and get your answer. But for the remainder that don’t, we’ve got a great service to tell you about. It is called Dwelling and it is the brainchild of our next guest, Nick Ornitz and his partner, Shannon. They are both Harvard MBA students and reflected, “Hey, we’ve got a matter of how to fix stuff around the house. I gamble other beings do.” So they figured out a space to set up a due assistance to provide those answers.
Welcome, Nick.
NICK: Thank you very much, Tom. It’s a pleasure to be on the evidence today.
TOM: So, huge intuition that you guys are doing this, because there’s a lot of folks that need a little bit of tack. And it’s hard to get expert, independent opinion. Is that what you’re hoping to provide?
NICK: Exactly right. We’re looking to enable homeowners to connect with professionals virtually, to get advice as to what is truly wrong with an issue at home and how they can fix it themselves.
LESLIE: Now, how did you come up with this idea? I mean I imagine coronavirus had something to do with this. Not so sure about people wanting to come into their houses. But this is like telemedicine for the members of this house. Where did this come from?
NICK: Exactly right, Leslie. The project actually came before coronavirus. And with coronavirus, we intensified our offering in expanding it to more homeowners. But the idea really started out when I was a kid. And at home, I was helping with home upkeep issues and looking for guidance on how to fix those issues but not having an easy root or easy room to connect with pros, other than having them come in person.
And then, when I started working I looked into how technology is changing in the home. And it’s changing a lot of aspects, from smart-alecky gadgets to even how you answer your doorbell, but not the path that you connect with a professional.
TOM: Now, what’s the ache point that most of the kinfolks that use your service are trying to solve, Nick? Is it they just don’t know where to start?
NICK: It’s genuinely two things. One, where to start, like you mentioned. And the second is the cost of actually having a pro come in person, get improve first practically to diagnose an issue and solving things on their own, causing them the authority to do that.
LESLIE: So , now, how does this work? Whatever the problem is, you now connect with somebody. Am I simply always establishing you what’s going on through my camera on my phone? What’s the process?
NICK: A great question. So, the process is you first go to our website and then you have an option to submit either a written entreaty or planned meter for a video chat. And if you defer a written asking, you’ll take photos and a illustration or video of such issues. Then a qualified professional will review it, give you guidance as to what is wrong and how to fix it yourself, even including information around the parts and implements you are able to need. Or if you schedule the video chat, you are eligible to have that discussion one on one, live, with the pro.
TOM: How do you have chosen your pros for such projects? I meditate one of the values of a service that does help with the diagnosis, before the actual pro is accomplished, is the fact that there’s somewhat of an independence. You know, if you call a plumber, you’re going to get a solution that requires a plumber. If you call a carpenter, you’re going to get a solution that requires a carpenter. How do you help provide that expert, independent lead to really zero in on what’s necessary for this project?
NICK: Yeah, big question. The first article is that all the pros that afford virtual admonition through Dwelling don’t recommend themselves for any in-person advice. And so their place is really to try to recommend answers practically and not be biased to saying, “You need myself to come in person.”
And then where we find pros to work with us is through a errand seek online, as well as reaching out to modified merchants for professionals that then apply. They do a diagnostics evaluation through our platform and then a short interview to understand their skills and background, as well as what sells they specialize: if they’re plumbers, contraption technicians, general handyperson or other.
LESLIE: What are some examples of projects that you’ve find these pros help out with?
NICK: They truly wander from small issues to big-hearted and some that actually have been showcased( ph) on your indicate. Small patterns includes issues such as a feeing toilet or leaky faucet. And then some big examples include devices that are malfunctioning or even the hot water that’s not working. Some outside-of-the-box patterns include a homeowner that was having an ant infestation and wanted to know how to remove them humanely. Or another example is a homeowner that had even killed their grass by leaving the yoga mat out and wanted to know what to do.
TOM: As shocking, as you can believe, even I’ve done this myself. I’ve left the trash-can lid on the grass for all of 20 minutes and entirely wiped out a 2-foot-square circle.
NICK: It’s a terrifying vision but fortunately, it stretches back pretty quickly.
TOM: That obviously happens, yeah.
Well, it’s a cool work. Can you talk to us about the kind of the due simulate and what it costs to participate, Nick?
NICK: So, today, homeowners have the option to either sign up for a subscription to a monthly plan at $15 a month or an annual plan where you offer $10 a month. With those means, you get unlimited either written or video-chat askings. And then if you’d prefer not to have a subscription, we do enable homeowners to do one-off seeks in our pay-as-you-go option, which is $ 25 for each request.
TOM: That’s awesome.
Hey, Leslie, I think this could be our retirement job.
LESLIE: Seriously.
NICK: We’d be honored to have you.
LESLIE: I’m like a little after-hours project.
TOM: Exactly. We’d get paid for all of our friends and family that request us after hours. We were just talking today about all of the questions we’ve gotten from people that know us, only between the time we got- between now and the last time we recorded a substantiate together. It’s crazy.
Alright. So, Nick, this is a great idea. Thanks for stopping by and telling us about it. Best of prosperity. I think it’s really admirable that you guys are both Harvard MBA students and work now MBA now, and are venturing out to try to identify a real pain point for homeowners and find a sustainable solution. It seems inexpensive. It sounds like it makes a lot of sense for you guys and for the homeowners and others that take advantage of it. So, thanks. Good job.
NICK: Thank you very much, Tom and Leslie.
TOM: Nick Ornitz, thank you so much for stopping by The Money Pit and good luck with Dwelling. It’s a great service.
If you’d like to learn more, check out the Dwelling website. It’s at HelloDwelling.com. That’s HelloDwelling.com.
LESLIE: Well, a tree in your countryside can be a thing of charm. But after it’s gone, the stump it leaves behind really isn’t that neat. Now, it’s a stumble luck, it can damage your lawn mower as you try to go around it, it’ll attract insects. And let’s face it, sawn-off cases time don’t look great. So, stump removal really is your only option.
Now, there’s nothing easy about stump removal but if you’re willing to trade-off waiting time for outlay, there are a number of ways to eliminate those stumps for very little cost. Here are a few different methods that you can choose from.
TOM: Now, the most common method of stump removal is grinding. But that job is about as far away from DIY as you can possibly get. You need to hire a tree busines. They use a very specialized machine called a “stump grinder.” It kind of resembles a shocking machine from a fright movie. It’s genuinely an awfully large-hearted, strong machine. Basically, it features sort of side-by-side spinning, circular grinding blades the hell is plunged into the ground again and again and again. They chew up the stump and reduce it to sawdust. It happens fast but it’s expensive. The average overhead for get a stump ground out is about 300 horses and it can go as high-pitched as 1,000 or so. And if you’ve went various stumps to deal with, you can pay an hourly frequency but it’s pretty expensive.
Another option for the hearty do-it-yourselfer, of course, is to dig out a medium- to small-size stump themselves in an afternoon. You want to dig around the stump. You can be utilized a pointed scoop to disclose the springs and extend the hole a few feet out from the stump to give yourself room to ploy. You cut through all those exposed beginnings. And it helps to have a variety of tools on hand to been through that pact grime, because you’re going to have different-sized springs. Good tools for this part of the project would be a lopper, a pruning understand, an ax, a digging disallow and a lot of sweat equity. It’s going to really be a lot of work to get it out but you could eventually do it.
Now, you’ve got to continue until the seed ball is cut free. And then you’ve got to fill the hole, which was currently six meters the sizing you started with, with grime and regrade it. So, an upside, in terms of less expensive but a great deal of work and a great deal of disturbance.
LESLIE: Alright. Now, there is another option. You can be utilized a liquid stump-removal product. And these generally contain potassium nitrate, which will speed up the microbial process of rotting. Now, they may be in liquid species or in a pulverization, to which you’re going to add water. And you want to make sure that you retain children and domesticateds apart while this chemical is doing its work.
So, you purchase the product, you take a chain discovered and then cut off the stump as close to the ground as possible. And then drill numerous 1-inch openings, 10 inches deep into the top of the stump. And drill a few cases more flaws slanting inward from the side of the stem. These are going to provide air to help fuel that decomposition. Then go ahead and pour the chemical into those top excavations according to the directions of the product that you’ve got. Then is moving forward and plow that stump with a tarp and you’re going to wait about 4 to 6 weeks, because that’s how long it’s going to take for that stump in the wood to become spongy.
TOM: Yeah. And then you time chop out the softened grove with an ax and you fill the hole with grunge. Depending on the dimensions of the the stump, you are able to need to repeat the steps.
Now, I did this successfully the last time I had to get rid of a stump. But I had one included overhead I didn’t count on. I entirely burned out my 20 -volt DeWALT drill, because it probably was a bit undersized for drilling those 1-inch holes.
LESLIE: Oh. Those are big holes into …
TOM: Yeah. I probably pushed it, you are well aware. I didn’t move 10 inches deep but I vanished fairly deep. And it precisely deplored and all of a sudden, I noticed that there was an curious flavor and there were triggers coming out of my tool. So, I figured, well, that was that. I did position it to good use, though.
LESLIE: Kathy in California, you’ve came The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
KATHY: In our rental, we have a big wall of brick where the fireplace is. And it’s a obscurity reces. And I was wondering if we would be able to paint that brick without a whole lot of trouble, to enliven it up in that corner?
TOM: You can depict it but you’d better be sure it’s what you want to do.
Right, Leslie?
LESLIE: Yeah. I intend coating brick is- it’s kind of irreparable. Once you gave the draw on, because the brick is so porous it’s just going to get sucked into every little interior crevice and cranny of that brick. So should you ever decide that you would like it to be brick again, it’s a lot of depriving and sandblasting. It’s a big to-do. So you want to make sure that that’s something you really want to do. If it’s simply the ugliest brick ever, I get it.
KATHY: Well, it’s the only way to lighten up that area that I can think of.
LESLIE: It’s a region?
KATHY: It’s a corner of the living room but it’s one wall of the living room. It’s the whole wall right up next to the sliding-glass door. So all the way over to the sliding-glass door it’s all brick, from floor to ceiling.
LESLIE: Have you thought about putting reflects, like an miscellaneous group of reflects, or lending a different ignite fixture? There are highways that you are eligible to gleam the room with decoration.
KATHY: I hadn’t thought of the mirrors. That might be a good idea.
LESLIE: If you do a charming collection, almost like a little gallery assemble of different size and shape mirrors and desegregating metals and “ve got something” certainly purposeful and entertaining and creating a moment, that’s a great way to do it.
KATHY: There’s no electrical in the ceiling.
LESLIE: You don’t need electrical in the ceiling. There are plenty of pendant lamps that plug into an outlet that you can use as swag that- is that what it’s announced, “swag”?
TOM: Yeah.
KATHY: It’s still called “swag”? Yeah.
LESLIE: Right? Swag[ the word]( ph )?
TOM: Yeah, I think so.
LESLIE: You can do something like that and there are really great ways to do that. So you plug in a flame fixture and then suddenly, you have a beautiful mini-chandelier or something. There are so many. If you look online for a decorative flare fixture with a plug-in, with a plug, you’ll find so many.
KATHY: OK.
LESLIE: And then make sure you can get one of those things that looks a lot like a scrunchie, that you wrap over the electrical rope itself so it secretes just the wire. It’s really easy to do.
KATHY: Alright. I’ll think on those rows, yep. Easier than painting.
LESLIE: There’s even sconces that are plug-in. So you can create a whole, little gallery thing with reflects and plug-in sconces and really brighten up that space.
KATHY: OK. Thank you, guys.
TOM: Alright. Good luck with that projection. Thanks so much for announcing us at 888 -MONEY-PIT.
LESLIE: Alright. Now, Steven posted a few questions and he writes: “My door has a metal threshold that was previously connected to the cement foundation using glue. The threshold has come loose and there’s a large crack in the cement that expands the entire thicknes of the door, from jamb to jamb. I’d like to avoid buying a whole new door just for the threshold.”
TOM: Yeah, I get that. You know what? If he does buy a whole new door, the pins will probably still line up with the cracking, right?
So, what I would do firstly is I would crowd that hit. You want to make sure that you use the relevant produce for that. You could probably use QUIKRETE’s Re-Cap for that, which is super strong and it basically stays unusually, are you all right to aged concrete. So, take the saddle out and complete the damaged concrete first.
And then after that, what you should probably do is add some fixings to secure that down. And even if you have to drill some new depressions in a different place in the saddle, what you could use is a kind of fixing called a “Tapcon fastener.” It’s kind of like a screw for concrete. When you buy Tapcon fasteners, they usually come with a masonry part. And you drill out the concrete with that immensity fleck and you’ll use a different chip, by the way, to go through the aluminum , not the masonry flake. And then you use the screw and bolt it right into the concrete. And with a sill like that, you could probably use a pan-head screw and it will stiffen it right down to that concrete face. And you’ll be good to go.
LESLIE: And you know what, Steven? They’re so helpful, Tapcons. I imply this is sort of certainly supplanting, you are well aware , no other mode other than lead shields of putting something up in concrete, into a flooring that’s concrete or stone, into brick. This truly will give you a good grip into those faces without having a lot of additional steps.
Now, I know this has happened to me before. And Tom, remedy me. I settled wire in to sort of certainly help it adhere into that pin flaw. Is that remedy?
TOM: Well, if the hole gets too wide sometimes because of the masonry bit, sometimes you have to fill it with something. And putting a small piece of wire in there, it operates just perfectly for that.
LESLIE: Alright. Good.
Good luck with that, Steven.
TOM: After the long summertime, is your outside furniture gaping a bit dirty or rotten? Leslie has tips for the most efficient way to scavenge away the clay and grime, in this week’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.
Leslie?
LESLIE: Yeah. You know what? There’s going to be a specific approach, depending on the material of the furnishings that you have outdoors.
So, let’s start with plastic furniture. They can get discoloured pretty easily and they do end up looking really just nasty. So, what you need to do here is you can make a really great cleaning solution yourself. And you might even have all of the stuff, right now, in your home. So, you want to mix dish soap, Borax, and a 1/2 -cup of peroxide into 1 gallon of liquid. Then go ahead and use a nylon clean. And this lane, you can scrub down those furnishings and bath them well. And that does a really good job of coming rid of all that grime off of the plastic furniture.
Now, if you have metal furniture, it’s genuinely just going to be soapy water and some elbow grease. It’s going to take a lot of your personal persuasivenes there to help with that cleansing, so you do have to put in some endeavour. Now, you can also remove any rust and discolorations with sandpaper or even a wire clean. And then is moving forward and prime the furniture and repaint those recognizes. And this will help you avoiding any further rusting that occurred exactly on those spots.
Now, timber affording, you really do want to wash that with oil soap, like Murphy’s Oil Soap, and then cause it baked really well.
And you know what? You can do it right now, at the end of the season, and then store it away. So as soon as the warm condition comes back, that furniture is going to look great.
TOM: Excellent advice.
This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Coming up next time on the programme, we’re going to talk about happenings versus story. When it comes to home improvement projects, there is always a lot of stories that are out there. But in our view, they lead to myth-stakes( ph ). So we’re going to straighten out some of those common ones, on the very next edition of The Money Pit.
I’m Tom Kraeutler.
LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.
TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself …
LESLIE: But you don’t have to get it on alone.
( Copyright 2020 Squeaky Door Productions, Inc. No segment of this transcript or audio register may be reproduced in any format without the express written authorization of Squeaky Door Product, Inc .)
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