Focus 580; Home Care and Maintenance

Good morning welcome to focus 580 it's our morning talk show. My name's David Inge. Glad to have you with us as we begin another week's worth of programs we're also pleased to have here with us for the first hour of the show today Hanks piece from the speech Home Inspection Service. He is on the program every month. It's always a Monday the third Monday of the month and we do these shows to give you a regular predictable opportunity to call in and ask questions about home maintenance. Maybe there's a problem and you need to fix something you're not quite sure how to go about it. Something you want to change something you want to do so everybody like any and all of that. We're happy to have the questions. Ahead knows a lot about all the various pieces and parts of the single family home. So if it has something to do with the basement of the attic with the roof or the gutters with windows doors with siding with insulation and with heating with cooling any and all of that is certainly fair game here in Champaign Urbana where we are. The number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that would get any place that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. So

you have questions for you give us a call I know Hank will do his best to give you an answer. Well thanks for being here. Oh it's always good to be back. We got a fax or maybe I guess that came in by a letter. From a listener down in southern Illinois I'm not all that far from effing him explaining that they were playing planning on replacing their electric air conditioning and gas furnace which is over 900 years old and they just were interested in having some discussion of the options for four furnaces and air conditioning these days I know that you had a chance to to look at the letter we faxed it to you. So for the benefit of these folks what can you tell them. Well one of the things that they wanted to do was to get the furnace out of the house so they had more room in the area in which it was and they asked about a unit. It was made by a man of that MTS entirely outside it is a combination gas furnace an air conditioner and the only thing you connect up with is

the ducts. The return and supply ducts in the house. I've seen a number of them in operation they seem to work quite well. Another option is to put a unit in the attic where you put a horizontal furnace in the attic you still end up with a pad mounted air conditioner on the outside but you can put the furnace in the attic unhooked in duct system and there's at least one brand of them that uses very small ducts with high velocity not a relay b duct work could be pulled through a standard 2 before wall. And then they have a special muffler section at the end discharge to reduce the noise or noise. I have that kind of system for my air conditioning you know or my house is hot water heat so the boiler is in the basement there is no duct work and I mounted this unit in the attic and run cooling in to the ceilings of all of the rooms. Now of

course air coming in the ceiling is much better for cooling it is for heating. So either one of those would be a good possibility. They noted that their unit was something like 18 or 19 years old in that period of time we have about doubled the efficiency of air conditioners. We may have made 10 percent efficiency gain in furnace is but air conditioners really have doubled. Any air conditioner let that hold had an s e e r seasonal energy efficiency ratio of about 6. Well that is 6 BT use of cooling per watt of electricity as of January 1 of 0 5. All new woods are required to have a minimum OS the car of 12 which is a crude doubling of efficiency. So that may be a good reason if they want to gain the space. They can

go either to an attic mount unit or to the one that's mounted on a pad outside and both seem to work very well. Is there some way of saying in general way what sort of energy savings you might expect if you had an older air conditioner like that say it's a it was 20 years old and you replaced it with oil only if you figure out what portion of your electric bill was due to cooling. You could about cut it in half or so. Yes I I had one that was about 15 years old and I threw it away even though it worked because I use air conditioning a lot. If you don't use air conditioning very much it may be more difficult to justify. I'm afraid I'm one of these people who turns them on and me and off in October. Yeah if you only air condition when it's 95 plus outside. No it probably won't be to do it but if you use air conditioning regularly.

Probably the most economical thing you can do with little air conditioners for a little way. OK well I hope that that helps these folks who have who wrote in. And if they have further questions they can. They can always give me a call. All right very good. Our guest this morning here in this part of focus 580 Hank speaks from the space Home Inspection Service. He is on the program every month we do these shows on home maintenance. If you have questions you can call us at 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We have a couple of callers here ready to go and we'll start with someone listening this morning in Champagne and that is line number one. Hello. I have another question about the high velocity air conditioning. Yes. I also have hot water heat. And I I never want to live without hot water heat I never want to live with a forced hot air. I really don't like the way it feels. But I wondering whether you how what your experience with noise. And drops with the high velocity system.

Well the system that I have and which I think is the most popular of that kind has a about a three foot long muffler section that attaches at each outlet and the noise really is very minimal. I was surprised once when a animal got in the attic and chewed up one of those I had or run it for a while without a muffler section and that made a huge difference. Yeah but you don't think it's any any more noise than the standard. Well I will say any more but that it certainly is an objectionably noise. Yeah yeah and it has a consistent noise you don't hear it cycling on and off too much. Well depends on the sizing of your unit. If you have an oversized air conditioner it will cycle if you have one properly size or slightly undersized. With my knee as then the add virtually doesn't cycle at all because I live in a. I live in a small house of only 13 hundred square feet and then the other question is. Thinking of updating this hot water system which is very old and I'm wondering whether

I can retain the radiators that I have or whether I have to go through getting rid of the radiators and putting on another no reason at all why you can't continue to use the existing radiators. You just replace it with a boiler that has high efficiency. OK thanks very much. All right thank you. Let's go find Number two this is the next caller in Urbana. Hello. Yes hi I have a the exhaust fan in my attic with a thermostat controlled wonder what temperature I should set that for in the summer. Oh I would probably set it some more around a hundred. OK you're going to have that much temperature difference by the time you'd be putting how much insulation is in the attic. Yeah it is reasonably well insulated 100 should do fine. Oh and if it's not recently insulated you might set it down to 90. OK very good thank you. And to someone here on cell phone they're on the road line number for a pillow.

How much you mean. I'm in the in the middle level we have a week in a row and right now it's about a square. Like area of Yemen that we can be and my first question is certainly to have made how much that would cost to repair. And the second question my husband who no. One knows he could do it himself. Well I don't see a reason why I can't if he's a good do it yourself or an A. As far as an estimate No you'd have to call a contractor there's no real way of because of there's two factors One is the extent of the damage to the interior finish and the second is the actual repair a leak. Ah there's vastly different costs depending on what the causes. OK. I think you know me well thanks and I call other people who are listening are certainly welcome to call if you have questions. Homemade it's questions that's what we're doing here this morning we do it every month with Hanks piece from the speech Home Inspection Service 3 3

3 9 4 5 5. That's the Champaign-Urbana number. We do also have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Since we have before we're talking to a little bit about cooling and we're now coming into the cooling season. Maybe I'd ask you to go once more tell that. Give the method for assessing the efficiency of your cooling and has to do with Get yourself a couple of thermometers. Well yes generally speaking you can check and see whether your system is working properly by putting a thermometer in the return air and another one in the outlet closest to the air or air handler. If you have a relatively new system say within 5 years or so the temperature difference between these two leaders ought to be about 10 to 12 or 13 degrees. If you have an old system one of these

ones is 20 years old I contend should be replaced anyway. The temperature difference may be as high as 20 degrees. Anything. Less than 15 is probably a cause for suspicion. Now let's make the assumption that you have changed the filters on the air conditioner before you do this. Because if you restrict the air flow through the system with a clogged filter then even on a modern system the temperature drop will be high. So if you start out by changing the filter then checking the temperature of the inlet and outlet of the system and see whether is working. If you are getting a less than 10 degrees on a modern system or less than 15 degrees on an old system you may need to have a service could you maybe a little bit low on freon in the system. OK all right let's stop with some of the folks here. Let's go to champagne. The line number one. Hello.

I had an old house and the upstairs toilet. We have to plant it maybe once a week sometimes more. And also the it seems like that the water pressure up there is a lot. It's low compared to the. The House and which I guess may not be that shouldn't have anything to do with the toilet operation. OK because it will still continue to fill the tank. The difference being if you have a shower up there you may not get a very strong stream out of the shower right. How's that aid if we are looking undoubtedly at galvanized iron piping which can accumulate a coat of. Minerals on the inside and about the ONLY to do with that is to replace the piping. There's no good way of getting the minerals out of the pipe.

House that age probably was in existence for quite some time before we had municipal softening system. And the accumulation of minerals was fairly common. As far as getting the toilet probably there is a partial blockage someplace and it's going to take a plumber to go through and clear out the pipes and make sure that there is nothing stuck. I think one of my classics on that was that we found we found a couple of kids toys that had been flushed down the toilet. Caused periodic blockages and. The child contended here that since they lived in the sewer he was just sending him back home. This was the ninja turtle as I recall I remember. So there are there are things like that that do happen. Something is dropped into a

toilet. It may not always cause a problem but will occasionally hang something up and then you have a you have to plunge the toilet. OK so so that let me get this straight the galvanized piping humilation of minerals that could affect the. The ability to flush. No no it will affect the trial or it will not affect OK the ability to flush. OK. And if you have a low pressure shower you might check many of the showers these days have flow restrictor is in them for water conservation and all it takes is a little bit of sand in the system to reduce it even further. OK well the shower works fine. Oh OK. All right. Thanks. All right very good and let's continue we'll go to Charleston this is next caller's line number two. Hello. Hello. I have a couple of questions. One is that we're in the process of having our hot water heater

changed right now and have copper piping going into the hot water heater for the gas to deliver the gas. Yes and I've heard that there are problems with gas. And copper piping. Well that is a subject of considerable debate for instance champagne Urbana do not permit copper pipe. Decatur want to let you use anything else. And the gas for both. All three cities come from the same Pappa pipeline. The theory being that there is a certain amount of sulfur in the gas that we get here and eventually a coating of copper sulfide can build up on the inside of the copper pipe. And if it flakes off a flake may loosen then get in a valve and not allow a valve to shut off completely. However the same thing can be said if you get a particle of rust out of a steel pipe and so I think that this is. Hate to say it but I think it was mostly to make more work for the plumbers union.

So the houses was built in 67 this is should we think about changing the pipe in any case or just route. As long as everything is working fine I would. OK OK the other question that I have we also have hot water heat and with no air conditioning so there's no duct work in the house and we've been thinking about putting in air conditioning and had heard about a split system where there's there is a piping that. Into each individual room and not Dr. work. Do you know about the system. Yes but it takes a separate unit for each room when that gets kind of expensive. I think you know how big a house do you have. Eleven hundred square feet. Well that you might be able to go with that. Basically it's the equivalent of a window air conditioner except instead of sticking through the

window they just run a pipe through the wall to an outside unit. And so that's basically it. Be but but is it possible to get different units that go in different rooms from the same outside system. Yes so that that's probably what we would be looking at. You can you can do that or they may have separate units outside one for each one. But yes that would be a possibility the other possibility to say is to put the an air handler in the attic which is the YAML system right. Yeah and generally speaking you have a little less noise with them but in the rooms but that don't have very much duct work to run in a house that size to put it in the attic. As long as the ducts are well insulated it's not really a problem. OK. Thank you very much and thank you and we'll go next to back here to Urbana for another call in line 3. Hello.

Hi I also have a question about toilet. I noticed because I had to google the handle from the inside just for a coincidentally when the toilet is going on that there is a leak. It is like a spray coming with from the mechanism at the top. And and that you know it doesn't affect anything at all with in the ceramic bowl. But what it is spraying every time when it's filling up. Is that a problem. Not really. Will it get worse. Quite possibly it will be when you get a spray inside the usual problem is it sprays up against the bottom of the lid and drip softly edges. Yeah right but it's not dripping on the outside. But you're saying it could it could it could it eventually it could This would require the replacement of that valve. Right and until that happens we don't have to worry about it. No. And if we thought about doing it ourselves. So we went over to like Lowe's and we were looking at

what they had but nothing looked exactly like what was already in the Poyet. So that then we hesitated and said you know we could do it ourselves. Basically they've improved it. They don't look quite alike. But as they function the same way. So it doesn't have to look at. Back you like with them. No certainly dying OK and we don't have to do that until we start to see the liquid the water on the outside of the bank. Yeah okay great. OK thanks a lot I think yes I think that if if somebody decided they wanted that that they flush mechanism of the toilet need to be replaced and they weren't sure they could do it themselves this is not a terribly expensive repair so if you do if you decided to have a plumber come do it. What would you expect it but you can also if you are reasonably handy they sell kits that replace virtually the entire mechanism inside the toilet tank and that's that's relatively easy to do. OK as long as you know how to turn off the water. Back out all the

bolts lings like this yes can be done ok even you could do it even me. Well then it have to be really really easy. Even I could care less if the plumbing is just well never mind. I will talk about that let's go to line number one for another car and that's Urbana. Hello hello hello good morning Hank. I have it on you. The humidifier in the basement instead of just having a choice of low or high. It hasn't. There is a. Numbers presumably percentage of moisture. I'm wondering what weather you have to be taking into account the outside air temperature and the amount of humidity or what the the number that you can just suck it out which is good that you can pretty well set anything in the 40 to 50 range usually works pretty well. 40 to 50. OK thanks very much. OK and even if you are if you had a damp basement would you say go for the maximum setting. I don't know if you're bringing it down into that 40 or 50 razor shouldn't be a problem. OK that's also something that I'd want. Among the many things I learned from you

and this was I think just in response to somebody who called and had to do with where in the basement you're going to put it. I guess I was thinking well if there was one area that seemed there there was the most damp. I want to put the dehumidifier right beside the damp spot. And you said no it doesn't work that way it doesn't make any difference where you put it. Humidity moved by vapor pressure not air movement and it will go the. He made a fire without a problem. We had a research house here at the university and we put a humidifier and a dehumidifier in the far corner of the lower level of a four level house. It really didn't make a bit of difference where it was. Can you put it where the dehumidifier can drain into a floor drain so you don't have to keep emptying the tank and that's that was the thing that really sold me on the idea of a put it where it's going to be easiest to drain the condensate and right where otherwise where you put it it doesn't matter.

It makes no difference it's the same way that if you turn on a vaporizer in a child's room in the winter time you'll get the humidity everywhere in the house. Well we're about midway through this. Our focus 580 is something we do every month. Our guest is Hanks piece from the speech home inspection service and if you have questions about home maintenance and can be any of the kinds of things we've talked about we've talked a little bit about air conditioning but it can also be a furnace question and fact. Summer is probably the time if you need to buy a new furnace. July is probably a good time to do that as it probably is the summers when you want to do that and you want to get your air conditioning in the winter I guess or you don't want to get either one at the peak season for right. The air conditioner you stick to spring and fall. Yeah. OK. So if you're thinking about furnace and you have questions we can do that or anything else. Gutters or roofing windows siding any and all of that. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 we do also have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us and that is a hundred

to 2 2 9 4 5 5. You mention gutters one of the most important things as we approach our spring rainy season is to be sure that we have extensions on the downspouts that carry the water away from the house on a crawl space House they should be at least three feet away from the house and a basement at least five feet away from the house to a point where the water keeps running away not back toward the house because this is where we run into problems. And in probably two thirds of the leaky basement calls that I get can be taken care of by adding downspout extensions or adding some dirt around the house to make sure that there is a slope away from the foundation. And that includes under the deck. Sometimes we build his deck and we get some settlement after it is built and then we end up with a moat around our castle at least and under the deck that

needs to be filled or you're going to have problems forever. How is there a way to figure out how many downspouts you should have not. Well yeah you really need one for probably every. 400 fair square feet of rough would be a good rule of thumb but it all depends on how your house is configured where there are valleys and so on. So basically and the other thing is many of the installers have this tendency of run that out right down to the ground so when you put in the extension not it's flat saw a foot off so I want that extension to be sloped to the water cruelly runs away not backs up through the joints. OK. Well we have some of the folks here lined up in radio was there something else that you want. The in fact the lines are full so we'll get right back into it and we'll start with someone in Champaign line one. Hello sir call there an champagne wine when I had but I couldn't hear you.

Well go ahead we got you now. Yeah I've I've got a problematic railing. I decided I wanted an arc railing on my back so I had that made and found out that it is very difficult for somebody to make it what we did with took out a piece of white oak which is good for exterior and cut it and then bent it and glued it together. My problem. Yeah everything folding except I can't cope. This thing with anything that will stay. We've been using a vera thing and I've had recommended recommendations that I want to a Euro thing. Well the thing is a euro thing. OK so it's one and the same yes. What's happened then as the sun gets to it and I don't know if I need some of the particularly Dennet I have used the total wood protection and you recommend that I had to do some driving to get it and it's beautiful it's on cedar and I found out my brother's been using on his deck for 20 years.

Do you have any ideas or I call this an experimental Grayling and I think I'm still in that stage. OK well. I presume the means of failure is that the coating is peeling off correct. Yeah OK. Generally speaking on something that's exposed and I don't know if you've done the bottom of the rail or not but it tends to absorb moisture. We try not to get a an absolutely waterproof coating. This is why we've been using the water repellent and so on it probably a stain or a water repellent instead of the euro thing would probably last longer. How about total wood protection product. I think it I think it probably would help considerably and use that instead of the euro thing.

OK I thought I would have to get all of the Europe thing off its state on the vertical but there are as I didn't want to. That's not unusual because you don't have good drainage off the horizontal. Yeah it's an art but I don't have any fast as a vertical so I said I stripped the whole thing down. Well you don't if you're not having a problem on the ballast. I probably wouldn't bother with them but I would know it's metal already. OK it's just and it's a metal that's got a metal top that this would arc screws to. I just having trouble keeping I keep it sealed up on top. So if I went to the total would care protection on this should I sand off the remaining very thing. Yes. OK. Well when I think I have you on the phone I do landscape I do a lot of older homes and drainage is always an issue and I think there are a couple problems. One is they go with the small gutters and the small downspout and you're right they don't get it. They run them all the way to the ground on the new home. If the

contractor would be so kind as to just put a slip under the sidewalk we have to or under sidewalks and it's a mess. But when I tell people they've got to clean their gutters out four five six times a year they look at me like I'm from Mars. I say well just walk out some time when it's raining hard and just look at your gutters and they're just they just don't accommodate the water that comes off the roof you know. Illinois weather produced some very heavy rainfalls for a few minutes. Yeah and I remember when we used to have discussions with the window and door manufacturers that they would design their windows and doors to withstand a rainfall rate of four inches an hour. And he would never rings four inches an hour. Well unfortunately in Champaign-Urbana for one or two minutes we get rainfall rates at 15 inches an hour. Yeah what what I've been successful in doing. You know we kind of dig out a bowl under the downspout and 45 in the roof and vinyl and then we run

that out and we cover it with gravel so that the debris that comes out of the downspout people can clean up. I just don't thank for that. Everyone that I've seen where they took a tile up go down. But it's just a matter of time before it doesn't work. That's true and I can't let you go in I think in the similar approach I've taken all the gutters off my house and I dug a trench under the grippe beds lined it with plastic filled with gravel. But a pipe. Perforated pipe down it and carry it away and I haven't cleaned a gutter in 15 years. That's great. Now I have you know that I don't work came from putting a underground RUF so under under the storm about it. But you actually dig and angle it away from the house but your roof vinyl and then put your soil back so you can have your plants but you got that training. Yes water barrier that was developed by Bill rose here at the university. Well obvious to do that but I think that would be great. Thank you

for a new home. Well I've taken up enough time. I appreciate your information. OK well thanks for that. Well that sounds just like this sort of sort of like your plan although he doesn't have it in his plan he doesn't have a tile in there's never the tile in there until he just lets it so noun but he makes it go out a couple of feet before it soaks down. So as long as you get it far enough away from the foundation then it should go ahead and percolate into the soil and not then cut right it should go in probably down to the footing drain and be carried away that way. Well we have some other folks here ready to go in next what's up with somebody in champagne and that's line do. Hello hello. Yes I had a question about employment Axel. My 5 year old he dropped the bar so down the toilet and we crunch and plunge and plunge and it flushed one time after that and now it doesn't really washing go through anymore.

Yeah you'll probably have to get a plumber to run a stake through it and knock it loose or chop it up enough so it goes through. Oh that's it that's it. OK great thank you know things that that would not eventually just dissolve. Well it would but it would take you're not you're not flushing it now if you had all children are going to be water going past to dissolve. OK OK gallbladder that let's go to Chicago line for a while I got a brick for flip through the mid twenties I guess you mean. Yes and No and nor Oh it's a trick hop right on the top and I think I think you answered the question before. Yeah I think you got to galvanized pipe this picked up mineral deposits and so on. In Chicago Water you never want to know what is going to pick up and there's nothing much you can do that much you can do about it short of replacing the pipe.

All right then. Thank you. OK thank you. Let's go to Lafayette. The line number three that's next low. It will do you suggest pitching a gutter along the roof. It should have a little bit of pitch to it yes we have to be careful we don't get it so much that the gutter comes out from behind the drip edge on the rough. But yeah you know there's a 40 foot gutter is going to take more pitch than you usually have up there. Really that more than I see I get everyone in town and they all seem to be absolutely square on. OK they work much better if you get a little bit say half inch pitch to the plane through the gutter. It works much better and even if it comes below that recline I suppose you could use an extra sheet of outright or you know a strip of aluminum tucked under the drip edge and in the gutter. I know you keep urging the slope away from

my house. But what's a person to do when even an inch or two would more fill next to the house would bring it up against the well you have to greet a swale about 3 or 4 feet out from the house so that that surface will run away. Yes we do not want the soil to be within certainly no less than four and preferably at least six inches below the sighting. I don't have that. Well you have to make a trip she do. It's going to take some major regrading Yes this is a problem we have the builders tend to set the houses too low. They should come out of the ground one more concrete block and they can tender Well people don't like the house sitting up high. Well that may be true the first time buyer but after someone has fought the problem that you have but it's an easy sell for the second time buyer. So you're suggesting we

do some major digging around you form a swale something you can mow through shallow grades go down to that and then sell that out to the street or whatever your grade system is thank you. Let's go to Belgium Ovide Danville y one. Hello good morning sir. I'd like to make a suggestion to the gentleman that had the problem with the Finnish speaking on the white oak rail. OK I might suggest another way to handle the problem would be to take off to finish up sand it properly and then really give it a good oil coating and you'd have to recoat that regularly because it will work off the ridge but why don't being closed ring type right. It'll it'll stand up to the weather pretty good but you'll have to keep sanding the problem a person is going to have is the glue joints that were put into the White Oak will probably fail with the water over time shouldn't be used. What about it much better.

Well yeah but with that it's a lot easier to get white oak here than it is teak product well you can get teak It's not difficult at all. You just have to have a supplier and I will mazed as I go over to England and see many of the two hundred year old houses with Tudor detailing and that is still in good shape. Oh yes quite why don't come out to a broader hardly at all. But you do have to keep replacing the finish on it because it never will completely stick and if you if you put your things on it the it's going to move enough. There's always going to sprout up your finish and it's always going to be flaking off. That's the problem with the wood movement over the period of time we're going to want model moisture a little weather a little heat and the profit finishes just staying in place cracking off. Yes you are absolutely correct. We tend not to take into consideration the movement of our building which aerials with changes in temperature and humidity.

The person probably also has it attached fairly from which the metal which earned your pie and priming and time it will spread those portions because the wood itself is moving in many different directions. Mainly and generally better let's get on. Thanks for the GO other questions are certainly welcome we have about 15 minutes left in this part of focus 580 with Hanks piece from the speech Home Inspection Service is on the program every month always on Monday the third Monday of the month. If you want to mark that on your calendar and if you have questions about home maintenance you call us here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5. We're coming in the point of the year now where probably more people are going to be doing outside painting. And maybe again people will be thinking that you know looking at this whole oil base latex question now I'm sure that most people if they had their way they probably would use the latex paint because yes I would just for the reasons that it's a much easier to clean your brushes and get it off

you and is is that truly are you going to get it as good a finish with that. Yes you can be. There have been considerable improvements in the latex paints you can put latex over oil but please never put oil over latex. OK. Because it won't because it will be different from real permeability. OK. But yes nowadays we have manufacturers will guarantee latex paint for 20 years. I'm not sure that I believe it but. They seem to have some basis for making that statement. And so yes I would definitely consider a latex paint course. I never advised painting vinyl. There are special paints made for repainting aluminum siding and I know that there are some manufacturers who say we'll just use our good latex paint. I found that the one of the paints that are made specifically for

metal siding last a lot better and most of the manufactures Pittsburgh for instance makes one that I usually use and for a matter repainting metal and that seems to work very well. Well that I guess I guess another question that we've had from people from time to time who are thinking about putting siding on. Or maybe you're placing an old product and that is you know what you like better your metal or your vinyl and I guess one of the things that you would say to people is way off you're going to get vinyl siding. You better like the color as Absolutely because you cannot change it if you want to change it after that. You're going to have to rip it off and you have to put Well you know there are some products that claim work on vinyl siding but I've never seen one that I thought worked well. Yeah. So so that one thing that you cannot do. You would say from your experience you can't paint it right. There are other other advantages that the vinyl has.

However Well one of the major problems with vinyl is the fact that it expands and contracts more than any other building material we have on the job. So that means that it cannot be fastened down tightly you have to nail it in the slot and holes so it can move or else it will buckle snap crackle and pop as the sun goes around the house. And this sort of thing so you have to take into account the movement of vinyl with changes in temperature. OK. Well let's talk with some of the folks who got someone over in Bloomington Indiana next. And that would be line for toll free line. Hello. Yes. Yes go ahead. Question about. Want girls. We do not have a perimeter drain. We're putting it on the pussies. Within a foot of the top of the ground are we on the right track. Yes you might want to lay plastic under the gravel that extends down under the grain so that any water that does curricle down through can't soak in but rather has to go

to lead drain tile. OK. But otherwise yes you certainly are on the right track. All right now up close to the house that we have to be after houses built offices there are some restrictions. Well basically you have to be closer live the drip line off the roof. OK. If you can get that plastic all the way to the foundation under Lee. If you take your gravel fill back to the foundation that's fine. All right thank you very much. Very good. Have somebody next cell phone here in champagne. Hello. Hi I don't have a question. We're going to be installing there we hope to install a Utility thingy and have liked some advice as far as what we should be looking at as far as you know. The plumbers and what we had to have like you know what they should. Right in their bid and where you want to put it. Well we were contemplating either

the laundry room is on the first floor and so we're thinking of putting it near there or alternatively in the garage depending on if they can extend the lines that far we don't know that. Something more to I would suggest you try not to put it in the garage a lot too. OK because that's where you have a chance of freezing the both the supply lines and the trap. OK so why don't I have not the best place but ok. OK then you will find it more useful. At least most people find it more useful in the laundry room. OK that depends on how much outside work your husband does. Dumping paint into it or something we have at the well that's kind of the way. That's both painting and then. But then also with the kids they tend we need to soak their clothes a lot you know so you need to wash the dog and all this sort of thing right. So yeah it's a bit where you know we kind of looked over at the you know the Big Three Percenters

stuff and look that they have not a lot of variety of thinks they have like plastic ones and we didn't really see a deep weed like that deeper metal one. And of course like my. It ought to have an oral cast iron one that is not I think deep in and you never see those anymore. So our options are those our only options are basically unless you get somebody to custom build one which is very expensive. But in general the cast plastic ones work pretty well. They do ok help but their life expectancy. The plastic ones. They're pretty durable. Yes I can't say I've ever seen one that I thought died of old age. OK OK well that's good. And then as far as what should we be asking the plumbers as far as like the certain kind of. I gotta tell us as far as the piping.

They're going to you and what about it. You set a trap. Is that going to be also needed especially if it's in a lot rollers and anything green requires a crap. OK so all that and generally speaking in these days this will be part of the plastic drain lines. Okay okay and then do they typically do you find typically if they have to expand the pipes in the area they add on another thing or do you never know you're not pulling the plug on everything at once. OK so that should be that should be OK and so the end then how much generally do these things run do you have an idea. No it all depends on the Plumber you use and exactly how much pipe he has to do in the house. Get a couple of bids. Get a couple a bit ok and most of the guys around here are pretty reputable. We're not we're not from this area so we're not really sure about. We were just going to go through the phone book in college few folks.

OK if you call my office number I can tell you two or three people that I would call. OK well that would be. When you're in the phonebook Yes. BS alarm Inspection Service. Great well wonderful. OK well thanks for your help. All right very good thanks for the go will go on again here next to you someone in also in Champaign this is lie number two. Good morning. We have about 10 15 year old house with lots of double on Windows with the sage weights and cords and of course they are breaking or broken. Is there a way of fixing that without opening them up and remaining new chords so I seem to remember there being some kind of a friction strip type thing that can be inserted in the tracks. Yes. One of the local big box stores used to carry him but I haven't seen him for some time. But yes there is a window fixture kit. Which uses a spring loaded metal tracks that serve as weatherstrip and so on.

You pull the existing windows out line. These are jam liners really and put those in and they also have the spring loaded pulleys at the top with a cable that will help you raise the window again and this sort of thing. As they say the the brand that I've used most is called a window fixer kit that's available it's made by some aluminum company in a Quaker State aluminum in Pennsylvania and they seem to work quite well. If you decide you want to really repair what you have the old house Journal had a wonderful article on how to take them apart fix them and put them back together. And again if you call my home number I'll give you a citation in it. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Well it sounds like in either case if you're going to replace the old cords and weights you have to pull the trim off the window. If you're going to add to some curve off in order to

get the sash out right in the other case though it sounds like you're going to have to pull the window out either way. That's right. You can't it's not something you can stick in there without doing some major deconstructing of the wind. That's correct you're going to have to hold at least the interior trim and the parting read. OK very good. Well again if somebody wants to call real quick here we might get one question in the time that remains. Let me go but I was going to ask about the painting we were talking about pain and you said as far as you're concerned you would much rather use latex then use an oil based paint. You talked about how you can go one way you can go latex over oil but not oil over latex. Right. OK well if you have if you have bare wood that has never been painted. Would you say use a primer first. Absolutely and I would before I would any even a primer on. I would touch sanded it whimsical palm Sanders and just go over it very rapidly

because the sunlight deteriorates to the cells on the surface of the wood. So if we take off that surface layer of cells then the pink sticks much better. OK so that I know this is the tip that you have mentioned many times over the years and that you just it doesn't. We're not talking about doing a lot of sanding but just as if you can write right before you're going to paint over it. Just run it over the surface a little bit you'll get a better it will adhere better. Right because the ultraviolet in the sunlight tensity deteriorate to surface paint stick to the surface but the surface doesn't hang on very well. And if you're if you're going to paint repaint it already painted surface and you've done what you can do to scrape it get loose paint off maybe here and there you've gone down to where you got a little bit of bare wood. Can you use a primer and use a primary again rather than just going over it with your guy any time you've got it. Where would I like to get a coat of primer on it before you put a finish coat. So what exactly is the is the difference with what has got the primer got it in the right hand it trades

better into the wood so that it locks on better on an. So that's the basic purpose of the primer. So then basically you've got the primer sticks to the wood and then you're your next quote I think sticks to the primer. Right. OK so there's the real clue to getting good outdoor wood. But as I say Remember we don't want to have something that produces a totally impervious coat this is where we run into the problem with the urethanes that any moisture and there will be some moisture get into any outdoor wood you've got to have a way out so it doesn't push the surface off in the process. So that's why were you were using the water repellent not the sealers that sort of thing. Do most paints now commercial paints that are for outside have some kind of something in it to discourage mildew

growth a lot of them have and you can do a paint store can put in an additive they have a mildew inhibitor additive that they can put in if the paint doesn't. But there's nothing really this could do to keep mildew from occurring in damp places like on the north side of the house. This kind of thing. Right. Well we're just by the point we finish up here and the last thing you'd like to leave with folks change your conditioner fill change the filter change the filter and when it once the maple trees have finished with those spinning things then get your gutters clean your gutters right thank you very much Hanks piece from the space Home Inspection Services on this program once a month on the third Monday at 10 o'clock. And we take questions on home maintenance.