November 23, 2025 • 45 mins
**Unmasking the Secrets of Home Improvement with Gary Sullivan**
Ever wondered what really goes into refinishing hardwood floors or tackling those mysterious home issues? This episode of "At Home with Gary Sullivan" dives deep into the DIY dilemmas that homeowners face every day, offering expert guidance that balances professional standards with practical reality.
Gary fields calls from homeowners struggling with everything from refinishing red oak floors to testing for asbestos and mold. With his trademark blend of technical knowledge and real-world experience, he helps listeners understand when to tackle projects themselves and when to call in the professionals.
**Timestamps and Key Takeaways:**
12:05 - Refinishing hardwood floors: The difference between drum sanders vs. orbital sanders and when to use each
18:30 - Asbestos testing options and when remediation is necessary
25:40 - Professional mold testing vs. DIY kits and the "10 square foot rule"
32:15 - Repairing damaged particle board furniture with wood hardeners and epoxy
41:20 - Gas fireplace maintenance and proper log stacking to prevent soot buildup
The conversation about wood refinishing particularly stands out, as Gary walks through the different approaches to bringing floors back to life without compromising their integrity. His explanation of "refreshing" versus completely refinishing offers hope to DIYers intimidated by drum sanders.
Ready to tackle your own home improvement challenges? Listen now for practical solutions that could save you thousands while giving you the confidence to maintain your biggest investment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Well the weekends upon us walking. You're at home with
Gary Salvin.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
This's hours brought to you by Jaws, the just Ad
Water System and the Jaws Holiday Caddie Pack is back.
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com and again everything basically on their website you can
(00:59):
get at twenty percent off. Again, it's Gary at jallscleans
dot com. All right, happy to take your call and
as we talk a little home improvement on the weekend.
It's eight hundred eight two three eight two five five.
Grab a line and let's get right back to the
phone calls.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
What are you saying. Let's go to Robert. Robert welcome,
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Gary.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Really appreciate your show and it's full of information. I've
got a house that has some red oak floors that
are in pretty good condition. I'm considering refinishing them myself.
My curiosity comes in when I read about the drum
sanders and really taking the grit off of the floor.
(01:44):
It seems a little more advanced, but I've been reading
a lot about the square or rectangle orbital sanders that
they've got that seems to be more entry level or
user friendly.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
A little more user friendly, I think also you kind
of try to factor in and I think you already
have You told me the floor was in decent shape,
so you're kind of looking at refreshing it, so I
would feel even better about that.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
So with the orbital standard that I guess my question
might be it starts with kind of a higher grit
and it's not really that aggressive where you can kind
of clean the surface and then and then refinish it
from there.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, it depends what your description of refinishing is. So
the refinishing, a total refinishing would be almost using, you know,
getting pretty aggressive with it. You'll use a stage of
different grits. You're basically taking the finish off, you're taking
the stain out, you're sanding those boards down. And with
(02:52):
a regular drumsander, you know, that's more aggressive. So the
you know, keeping it level, keeping it smooth, is a
little bit more difficult if you're using an orbital sander,
and the floors, you know, even just in decent shape.
(03:12):
There's another way of refinishing that some people use. I'm
not saying you have to do this. You can take
it all the way down just like you can with
the drumsander. But if you wanted to just use the
very very fine grit and kind of go over that
surface and not compromise the stain and reseal that floor,
(03:35):
that's an option.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Too, Okay.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
So by doing that, it just kind of takes up
maybe some of the very finite little marks in there,
and then you just reseal it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes, so a lot of times that your floor, you know,
it starts looking a little dirty, it starts having scratches
in the f and it starts looking a little warm,
but it hasn't really compromised the wood, It hasn't really
compromised the stain. And then you would just go over it,
(04:12):
you know. I mean I'm talking to a very light grid.
I'm talking four and five hundred grid with an orbital sander.
If you want to get more aggressive, you can use
an orbital sander. It's just more forgiving than a drumsander,
because you're covering, you know, an area and not just
running a streak down the center and trying to keep
(04:33):
that wood flush.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I hope I'm explaining it well enough.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah, no, I follow you on that. So when another
question I've got is I'm a little confused when they
say I was reading they say, you know, ceiling and
then recoding with you know, polyurethane or whatever it may be.
What's the difference between the tours that's won the same,
if you will, I.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Would say, I would say they're one and the same.
I mean, if you are, there are some products out
there like Bona has made where the seeing is really minimal.
It's more of a cleaner and a restore, if you will.
And then the next step would be going through that
we just did with the you know, five hundred grit,
(05:20):
just kind of scratching that surface and coming back with
another coat or to a euthane.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Just to refreshing or bring it back to life.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Sometimes in new wood or a new floor. Sometimes back
in the older times when you used all solvents, they
would dilute the first solvent varnish or euthane by like
ten percent. But and maybe they're calling that to seiler,
but I would say, if you're just if you're doing
(05:51):
the surface and just going to you know, reapply the
the eurethane two coats. I don't know where the sailor
would come in your your your wood will be sealed
with the protectant.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
And then one last question. You know, there's a couple
of little spots where it seems like it's it's the
red oak is kind of gray, and I don't know
if that's maybe some water damage at the entrance or
things like that. Would that require a deeper sand if
you will, to get that out.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, yeah, And if it's right at the edge, you
might take a look at an edge or cyander to
rent those where you're just up against that. But usually
graying of wood is either caused by sun or water.
We see some of that fading of the stain and graying.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Of the wood.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And some of the more modern homes were a huge
transom windows right above the entry door, and you got
a nice wood foyer, and maybe you don't have the
greatest glass in there to block some of the U
V ray and we do get some discoloration. I just
went through it at my house trying to match up
some stain in a dining room versus that fouryer and
(07:11):
it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
We tried, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, that's that's one of the areas that I was
talking about, is a back bedroom you know that had carpet,
you know, for one hundred years and then it was
pulled off years ago, and it's just kind of it
feels flat and a little discolored. Not necessarily from the sun,
I wouldn't think, but maybe just years of being under
a carpet.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Well, and this is another thing to think about. Wood
floors are really tricky. In fact, wood with stain and
protectants are really tricky because when you go buy paint,
you're buying, you know, sunshine yellow, and everybody's sunshine yellow
is the same. When you're dealing there with stains, you
got people standing you know, red oak, white oak, maple,
(07:57):
and those stains all look different. They they all look
totally different, so trying to blend them together can be challenging. Also,
when you have something in a carpet would be a
little bit abrasive, especially.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
With a lot of walking on it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
You pull that up, it's kind of been protected by
the sun, but maybe the little wear on the surface
of that or also even the type of varnish or
euthane that was used, you know, it comes in flat
satin semi gloss. I've even seen eggshell gloss, and you
can use the same colorant, the same stain out of
(08:36):
the same can on the same type of wood and
they won't match just because the reflection from the finish.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Sure, So okay. And then if I decided to go
down the route of a professional, do they generally charge
like per square foot per project? Generally speaking? How does that?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
How much that work? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yes, they would generally charge that and just get somebody. Well,
I'll tell you what I did not do my four
year and I had a local fellow who'd been doing
it for thirty years. And man, he he was really good. Gosh,
he was really good. And he did measure anything give
(09:16):
me a price, so I'm sure he was just measuring
it by the square foot at that point.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Okay, well, perfect, Well, I appreciate your insight on that.
Your show is wonderful, and thank you. I always appreciate it,
listening to it every Sunday morning while I'm out doing
my daily walk.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Very good, Thank you, thank you, very appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I have a great Thanksgiving Take care all right, and
again our phone number is eight hundred eight two three
eight two five five, Grab a line sharing you'll be
up first. You're at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
If you don't have a list of things to do
around the house, Gary will find something for you At
one eight hundred eighty two three talk You're at home
with Gary sullivantor.
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Speaker 6 (12:14):
Today.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
All right, back at it we go talking a little
home improvement and always invited in talk about your project.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Let's get to Sharon. Sharon welcome.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, I have a question.
Speaker 7 (12:51):
I'm looking for somebody in the Cincinnati area that check
for asbestos, mold and rad off. I have ASBESTUS in it,
and I know our I know our kitchen bottom tile
has as I know it's pretty much ASBESTUS. And I
(13:14):
know it has a black underlayment under there, and I
know there are few spots where we had waterlely and
and it might have mold in our house.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So what are what do you want? Do you want
to have it tested or are you going to have
them do the job? Or how extensive are you going
to get.
Speaker 7 (13:37):
Initially test it? Initially test it and then uh, and
then I'll make a decision from there what I'm going
to do.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Well, I was going to say, you can get a
mold or an asbestos test kid yourself and literally you'll
just get a piece of the tile, crack it and
mail it in and they'll tell you whether it's asbestos. Now,
there are people that will test for all those There's oh,
(14:09):
I don't know. There's Environmental Testing is the name of
one company. I think there's one called home Works, and
there's also one called Mold Inspection in Testing. So those
are three just off the top of my head that
will test for mold, and I'm sure they can test
(14:32):
for asbestos.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
That's very simple as far as raid on. A lot
of those.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Companies will do the Big three. Okay, I had mentioned
environmental testing. There's one called Dayton Environmental Testing and does
the Greater Cincinnati area. Dayton Area Rainbow Restoration is another one.
They do the asbestos rate on and mold testing, so
they do the big three. Some of those also do
(15:00):
the remediation and some of them don't. So that's why
I asked.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That question.
Speaker 7 (15:08):
Then, because I know, so I can go up in
the attic and take a sample of that loose insulation
and see if it's and put it in an envelope
and send it off and see if it's.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Asbestis or not sure, anything that you suspect would be asbestos,
you would just put it in this envelope. You can
get them on Amazon even, and to just mail it
in and they'll give you, you know, the properties of
what you're wanting tested, what's in it. But the reason
(15:41):
I also ask, and I want to bring this up too, Sharon,
before you get your self all you know stirred up
about asbestos. Asbestos is dangerous when it is airborne, Okay,
in a floor. It gets airborne when you tear it up,
and it requires certain precautions when you're removing asbestos in
(16:07):
a home. But there are also a lot of new
modern flooring that can go directly over that asbestos floor
which will keep it from becoming airborne and will not
be harmful.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
Well, I kind of don't want to do that because
there's more than one layer, Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Well, I mean that's up to you. That's up to you.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I'm just giving you that option because you can use
a luxury vinyl tile over that. You could use a
a laminate flooring over that, where you would just go
directly over the flooring.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
But I get it.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
If you got multiple layers, that's a whole other thing.
And if you do have that tested by the envelope,
remember to get all of the layers, you know, you know,
crack that area or maybe a closet or something where
you can get a sample of both the floor coverings
and even some of the glue in that envelope so
(17:09):
that they're testing be hard.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
Because that wouldn't be hard because we already have a
place to go home in our tile anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Okay, all right, Well that would be my suggestions, and
those would be a couple of the places that could.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Help you with that.
Speaker 7 (17:29):
Okay, thank you, because I just always wonder, because you know,
I'm not working with a contractor, and I just wonder
where do people.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well there's people that believe me, they just they just
do the testing. And there are those are the kind
of like home hygenous companies, And then there's people that
do the testing and do the work. And then there's
some people that you know, don't like that because they're
testing and they're telling you what's in it, and then
they're telling you how they're going to fix it.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I don't know that's one stop shop. That's kind of
up to you. But again, they usually do the big three,
which is mold, asbestos, and radon.
Speaker 7 (18:09):
Okay, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
You're quite welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Take care there are there's a couple of things, you know.
I just mentioned the asbestos. There's also some home test
hits that I don't recommend, and I'm not talking about
the asbestos one. The asbestmos ones are pretty straightforward. It's
a laboratory that has created a retail package and an
envelope that you're simply putting it in their envelope and
(18:34):
mailing it to that lab and then they're doing it
that way. You're doing this site work, which you know,
in her case, doesn't sound like it's difficult.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Radon, No, I.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Think I'd rather have a professional company test that. Radon
levels vary and it depends whether you're testing it properly.
To test for radon properly, you should turn off any ventilations.
You should make sure your windows are closed up because
that's going to dilute a round. If you truly want
(19:06):
to know what's in your house or what would depend
potential for it to be in your house, you see,
you close everything and you turn off the air exchange units,
and then you'll get a true rate on reading mold. Yeah,
there's spores. You're always going to have a mold reading.
It's just a question.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Alli. All right, we'll continue with your calls. You're at
home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Time to get your hands dirty with Gary Sullivan. Give
them a call at one eight eighty two three talk.
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Speaker 2 (22:21):
All right, back at it, we go at home with
carry salmon talk a little home improvement. Certainly encourage you
to give us a call. Our phone number is eight
under it.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Eight two three eight two five five. Just doing a little.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Thing on a mold and air sampling test, and that's
really how they test mold. I had mentioned I wasn't
really all that excited about mold testing with a little
Petrie dish is because mold's going to grow in there,
because there's mold spores everywhere. And if you put a
(22:57):
little sponge in there, that's organic material. You put water
in there, that's the combination mold's going to grow. Now,
whether you have a serious mold issue, there are little
test kits, a little swab I think it's ten minute
test hit. It'll just strictly tell you whether you have
(23:19):
dangerous mold or not. If you have mold in a
lot of cases, you can smell it, you can see it.
Normally you're going to find that in basements, cross spaces, attics, bathrooms,
some of it if left unchecked, those colonies of mold
(23:45):
spores will continue to reproduce and continue to grow, some
people being very allergic to it, some people being not
so allergic to.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
It, but should be addressed.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
And when you get a professional company out there, they'll
do it a little bit differently. They've got different test
hits and monitors. They will be able to give you
an exact types of mold they found. There's over three
hundred species of mold. Penicillium probably me and the most.
(24:20):
You know, the highest percentage of mold sports would be penicillium.
I'm not going to say they're not harmful. All mold
can be harmful. You can be allergic to penicillium. So
you know, having the different types of mold, because there's
some that is debilitating quite honestly, not to scary you,
(24:43):
but there are rule of thumb. Can you take care
of that removal yourself? Well, you can do anything right,
just like paint. Can I paint that?
Speaker 6 (24:52):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
You can paint that now, whether you should or not.
Rule of thumb is, if you have more than ten
square feet of mold, you should leave it to a
professional company, you know, to come out, do the mold testing,
do the air sampling, do the removal, the remediation, the
(25:16):
whole works and get that peace of mind. And many times,
whether it's just ventilation or whether you clean up the mold,
there's even that odor exit product of the AQM where
it'll take mold spores out of the air before they
begin to start colonizing. But remember the active ingredient is water.
(25:40):
That's why I'm always preaching that. You know, water is
our biggest enemy in our home. It rots, wood, it stains,
it creates. It's the secret sauce to have mold grow.
And you know that's what we gotta be careful of,
always trying to seal up our house and keep it
(26:00):
as water tight.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
As we can. All right again, it's eight hundred and
eight two three eight two five five.
Speaker 8 (26:07):
I'll welcome, thank you for taking a call. Gary, sir.
I've got some four year old press board furniture. In
the bottom where that rests on the ground has been
the outside lamb and it's been peeled up and there's exposed.
It's the press board underneath. I found a product called
(26:28):
Stainable bondo. It's a min wax product, and I was
going to trial some of that on and prior to that,
I was given some thought perhaps to using some wood
hardener on that that press board just to make a
solid surface. What's your experience done with wood hardener on
(26:49):
press board? And then if you have any experience with
this sustainable bond product.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, well, so tell me that press board is it
has it swelled?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Is it flaking?
Speaker 8 (27:04):
It been?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
What is it?
Speaker 8 (27:06):
The outside? There's probably a layer of a lamba bind
it to the press board. Maybe I know it's a
thirty second or sixteenth thick, and then you know the
press board it so and over the years the furniture
has been you know, not treated well, and the back
corners the lamba has chipped away probably about three four
inches about an inch tall, and it's exposing that press
(27:31):
board underneath. Okay, yeah, so that's the task.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So the press board is mixtures of glue, so it's
not all woods. So the wood hardeners it will help
to a degree. But the way you describe it to me,
where it's kind of compromised, there's some divots out of
it's pulled some off, it's broke down a little bit.
If you're looking at you know, trying to patch that
(27:57):
in and stand it out to get it to match.
Number one, know that it won't look like the lambinate.
All right, it'll come close, you might be able to
come close, but a lamin will usually have a grain
in it, and you're not going to get a grain
in bondo. Okay, So it does bondo in a lot
of wood patch materials out there, whether you know it's
(28:22):
an epoxy wood a POxy, which is probably the best
you can use, but bondo will do fine too. I'm
not here to tell you it's not what I would do.
If you want to give it a try, just get
some of that bondo. It is stainable. Know that the
kind of stain you get is just not going to
have the variations that you're going to have in a
(28:43):
laminate because those are like pictures, really is what they are.
Lamon is compressed paper and then that last piece has
got the grain in the color, and then plastic goes
on top of that and it's compressed and it's glued on.
So we'll get a color. It won't look like paint.
You'll probably have to use. You probably guess and probably
(29:05):
do it more than once.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
You might answer. And what you might even do.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Is get a piece of wood, I don't care what
kind of wood you use, and just put a layer
of bondo on it, just you know, maybe eight ten
inches long, and play with it. You know, if you
got it looks like wanting to me. And you get
some min wax wanted stain, put a little on there,
hold it up and you say, oh, heck no, that's
not even close. I need to have some red in there.
(29:35):
And maybe you get a little mahogany stain and you
mix that in there with the wanted stain, so you
got you're gonna have to play with it. It's it's
not like color cards with you know, with paints where
you just get you know, walnut tree color and it's
they're all the same. So so you're probably you know,
it'll take stain to answer your question. It will take stain.
(29:57):
You won't have the variations, but you might have it
close enough. But if it's in the back might be
good enough.
Speaker 8 (30:03):
Yeah, And that that is the case here. It isn't
a back, and as you said, sometimes it ain't going
to be perfect. It'll be good enough. You know you
mentioned epoxy, hadn't thought about a little different product, But
what was your thinking there? Some kind of just a
generic two part epoxy and kind of trow it into
the uh into that particle board, is what you were thinking?
(30:24):
Or how would you address that?
Speaker 9 (30:26):
I wonder, Well, the epoxy wood that I was speaking of,
that is it's just a very pliable.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Wood putty is what it is.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Okay, so you would not even know that it's an epoxy.
In other words, it's not a true epoxy where you're
mixing hardener and resin. It's an epoxy fortified wood patch
would be the best way to.
Speaker 8 (30:55):
I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
So it's as.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I had another thought too. You know, there's many different
kinds of stains. There's a semi transparent stain, which you
know most of us shoes with the min wax may
wear staining woodwork, the front door, whatever. But they also
make a solid color stain, which I'm always against. But
this would be a really good spot to use a
(31:21):
solid color stain. So what a solid color stain is
is it's the color of wood. Unlike brown paint. It's
a true color of walnut. You don't care if you're
going to hide wood grain because there is no wood
grain and you can brush that on, So that might
(31:45):
be better than using a semi transparent. Semi transparent can
go on there, but what do you highlighting? You're high
lighting a flat pack. So you know, maybe just using
a solid color stain or a varnish stain is what
it's called. It's got to protecting in there, and it's
the heavier body that might be better. Or if you want
to use a stain, a gel stain would be kind
(32:08):
of the meat you halfway point that gel?
Speaker 8 (32:11):
Would that be water based or oil based?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Uh? Probably be a solvent based, Yes, solving base. They
make a.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Gel stain in a water base in a mid wax product,
I think they do, but uh, the general one you
get in a yellow label would be a solvent.
Speaker 8 (32:27):
Based in the in the yellow labels solvent based. Yeah,
that's okay. You know, I'm wondering that going back to
that playing that that stainable bindo or I'm at the
epoxy the packs who would leave all like a glossy
finish that would have to be torn down right to
make the stain adhere to it.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
No, it'll be it'll be just it'll look like just
regular wood patch. It really will. Okay, yeah, yeah, no,
it really will. Just it'll just be. It'll be it'll
have a higher degree of hardness to it.
Speaker 8 (32:59):
Higher degree hardness. That's quite the hardness of that would
hardener product, but something it'd.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Be more substantial though, Like if you were going to
try and make that wood a pox on a piece
of dry rotted wood, you wouldn't necessarily have to scrape
away all the dry rotted wood, which is kind of
like what we would be talking with particle board. That
liquid wood hardener would just solidify the fibers in that cement.
(33:27):
But see that's where we getting away from being like
a particle board. It's no fibers chips, you.
Speaker 8 (33:34):
Know, you bring a point up. I got a wood
window that the real bottom has some well let's call
it dry rot out of a better term your experience.
I noodled on the internet university, and the suggestion typically
is to remove that compromise or that dry rotted wood.
(33:57):
And that's why I bought the wood hardens product, was
to harden the surrounding wood, and then the thought being
to apply bono again a wood filler. But I'm wondering
if you ever had an experience trying to repair wood
with would harder.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've used it multiple times. I don't
know about window frames, but I'm thinking of a door frame.
I know I've used where the bottom six inches had
a little bit of peeling paint, and once I got
into it, it was you know, it was dry rotted.
I scraped some of the dry rotted wood out. You
don't necessarily have to, but I wanted to have a
(34:36):
good patch, so I scraped it out and then used
the uh liquid wood hardener to create a good base,
and then came back with the wood of pecks pox
to make the patch.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
To make the patch, okay, use with a POxy then okay.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah. There's a website.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
It's called abatron Aba tro o N and it's got
wood epox and it's got the liquid wood and you
can read up on it.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
But that's not appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, it's really good stuff, and it's designed to be
used really even in historic comes where you need really
big patches, like at the bottom of a column or
like a bomb. I wouldn't be able to tackle that.
But these two are real fine products and they work together.
Speaker 8 (35:25):
Yeah, but trying. Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Yeah, yeah,
very good. In fact, I bought a kit from Now
I'm thinking back on it. I did purchase a kit
from that, but trying to do a trial on recurring
that wood frame. So thanks for reminding me about that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Okay, good, good, good, pretty good. All right, Thank you
much for the call. Appreciate it. All right, Well, give
you the phone number. It's eight hundred A two three
A two five five. You can join us. We're talking
about your home and you're at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
Helme for your home is just a click away and
Gary Sullivan online dot com.
Speaker 10 (36:02):
This is at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
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Speaker 2 (38:42):
By the way, if you missed our conversation with Paul
Abrams from rotor Router on different fall and winter projects,
small projects, a preventive maintenance if you will, which you
can get on the website rotoruter dot com. But we
had a discussion for about fifteen minutes that is available
to you via podcast if you go to the iHeart
(39:04):
app and just click podcast at home with Gary Salvan
you can take a listen lot of good things that
we need to be mindful of this time of year
that can save you maybe a service call from a plumber,
so check that out or wherever you get your podcast,
you can pick it up.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
All right, let's go to James. James, Welcome.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Gary. Yesterday you were talking about gas logs. My gas
flogs are about seven years old and they and I
was I never knew that's the reason why the suit
or whatever you call it, we develop on the grass.
I've cleaned it many times. So I started looking at
buying some logs and it seems like they come in
(39:49):
twenty four inches and thirty that's kind of easy to
figure out, but is there. I didn't know there was
that much involved in buying logs, and indicated yesterday it
seemed to be a lot more complicated than it should be.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, no, let's just kind of back up a little bit,
because we didn't really talk about buying logs.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
We talked about stacking logs.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
And there's multiple things that cause soot in a gas fireplace,
and one of them, quite honestly, is the logs not
being properly stacked the way it shows in the manual.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
So you need airflow through that to get the flame
through that to keep it burning clean. Other things that
cause that soot to accumulate on the logs is you know,
it could be the gas pressure. It could be the
burner alignment, it could be those types of things where
that flame on that pilot light isn't blue, it's yellow.
(40:55):
It's just not burning hot enough.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
But one of the things that I was emphasizing yesterday, James,
is if you can even go online and pick up
the manual for those particular logs, and a lot of
them even stacked the same, and look at the diagram
and you know, restack the logs, that that may very
well help. Taking a paintbrush and dusting the soot off
(41:21):
the log itself may help, but looking at the flame
is really the key. If you see a yellowing of
the flame more than that, you know, nice blue flame,
it probably needs to be surfaced serviced. Maybe it's the
burners clogged a little bit. Maybe it's not getting enough
(41:42):
oxygen that I don't know. That's why you would have
it serviced.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Okay, But I would have to assume. Logs have a
life cycle like everything, So I you know, I don't know,
seven years, five years, ten years.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Well, i'll tell you what. I think. The logs in
my home were over fifteen years old.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I think. What so when this was installed brand new,
I didn't know there was a science of stacking those.
But I understand what you're talking about because I'd moved
them and I could see the flame change. So I
changed out the little charcoal fake you know whatever, the
lava rock, and I put glass beads in there. I thought,
(42:27):
I thought the glass beads would be better than the
black lava rock, and I did research if they're compatible,
but it appears that what I saw that they are compatible.
How would I Okay, I was thinking that the lavas
(42:47):
the rocks were causing the suit, the suit to be built.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Up on the l I don't think so, because they're not,
you know there the lava rock. It just kind of
adds to the ambiyond and not really you know, the
flame or anything that guess filters through it and it
just and it glows when it gets hot enough, so
it looks like embers.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
That is the purpose of that.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Okay. Well, I never really liked the logs, to tell
you the truth. I think they're kind of they are expensive,
but I never liked the log design that they put
in there.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
So I, well, there you go. That's your answer.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Well, when I get those, you're telling there's there's going
to be a diagram in there how they're stacked.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, for the most part, there is yes, yes, And
if you're looking at them in the store, they'll be
properly stacked. You can ask them that. You can take
a look at the manual, but my.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Experience is yes, there is a diagram on exactly how
to stack that log, and like I said, there's some
universal ways of stacking the logs too.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Don't get too hung up on that. Get the kind
of log you want and the look you like and
go from there. All right, James, thanks much for the call.
I appreciate if you'd like to join us, Ralph and
Alex you'll be next. Our number is eight hundred eight
two three eight two five five. You're at Home with
Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
Home Improvement one oh one with Gary Sullivan every weekend.
Classes began at one eight hundred eighty two three top.
You are at Home with Gary Sullivan
Well the weekends upon us walking. You're at home with
Gary Salvin.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
This's hours brought to you by Jaws, the just Ad
Water System and the Jaws Holiday Caddie Pack is back.
It's got the kitchen clean of the bathroom cleaner, disinfectants,
all kinds of things, and it's twenty percent off and
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(00:59):
get at twenty percent off. Again, it's Gary at jallscleans
dot com. All right, happy to take your call and
as we talk a little home improvement on the weekend.
It's eight hundred eight two three eight two five five.
Grab a line and let's get right back to the
phone calls.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
What are you saying. Let's go to Robert. Robert welcome,
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Gary.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Really appreciate your show and it's full of information. I've
got a house that has some red oak floors that
are in pretty good condition. I'm considering refinishing them myself.
My curiosity comes in when I read about the drum
sanders and really taking the grit off of the floor.
(01:44):
It seems a little more advanced, but I've been reading
a lot about the square or rectangle orbital sanders that
they've got that seems to be more entry level or
user friendly.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
A little more user friendly, I think also you kind
of try to factor in and I think you already
have You told me the floor was in decent shape,
so you're kind of looking at refreshing it, so I
would feel even better about that.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
So with the orbital standard that I guess my question
might be it starts with kind of a higher grit
and it's not really that aggressive where you can kind
of clean the surface and then and then refinish it
from there.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, it depends what your description of refinishing is. So
the refinishing, a total refinishing would be almost using, you know,
getting pretty aggressive with it. You'll use a stage of
different grits. You're basically taking the finish off, you're taking
the stain out, you're sanding those boards down. And with
(02:52):
a regular drumsander, you know, that's more aggressive. So the
you know, keeping it level, keeping it smooth, is a
little bit more difficult if you're using an orbital sander,
and the floors, you know, even just in decent shape.
(03:12):
There's another way of refinishing that some people use. I'm
not saying you have to do this. You can take
it all the way down just like you can with
the drumsander. But if you wanted to just use the
very very fine grit and kind of go over that
surface and not compromise the stain and reseal that floor,
(03:35):
that's an option.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Too, Okay.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
So by doing that, it just kind of takes up
maybe some of the very finite little marks in there,
and then you just reseal it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes, so a lot of times that your floor, you know,
it starts looking a little dirty, it starts having scratches
in the f and it starts looking a little warm,
but it hasn't really compromised the wood, It hasn't really
compromised the stain. And then you would just go over it,
(04:12):
you know. I mean I'm talking to a very light grid.
I'm talking four and five hundred grid with an orbital sander.
If you want to get more aggressive, you can use
an orbital sander. It's just more forgiving than a drumsander,
because you're covering, you know, an area and not just
running a streak down the center and trying to keep
(04:33):
that wood flush.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I hope I'm explaining it well enough.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah, no, I follow you on that. So when another
question I've got is I'm a little confused when they
say I was reading they say, you know, ceiling and
then recoding with you know, polyurethane or whatever it may be.
What's the difference between the tours that's won the same,
if you will, I.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Would say, I would say they're one and the same.
I mean, if you are, there are some products out
there like Bona has made where the seeing is really minimal.
It's more of a cleaner and a restore, if you will.
And then the next step would be going through that
we just did with the you know, five hundred grit,
(05:20):
just kind of scratching that surface and coming back with
another coat or to a euthane.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Just to refreshing or bring it back to life.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Sometimes in new wood or a new floor. Sometimes back
in the older times when you used all solvents, they
would dilute the first solvent varnish or euthane by like
ten percent. But and maybe they're calling that to seiler,
but I would say, if you're just if you're doing
(05:51):
the surface and just going to you know, reapply the
the eurethane two coats. I don't know where the sailor
would come in your your your wood will be sealed
with the protectant.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
And then one last question. You know, there's a couple
of little spots where it seems like it's it's the
red oak is kind of gray, and I don't know
if that's maybe some water damage at the entrance or
things like that. Would that require a deeper sand if
you will, to get that out.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, yeah, And if it's right at the edge, you
might take a look at an edge or cyander to
rent those where you're just up against that. But usually
graying of wood is either caused by sun or water.
We see some of that fading of the stain and graying.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Of the wood.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And some of the more modern homes were a huge
transom windows right above the entry door, and you got
a nice wood foyer, and maybe you don't have the
greatest glass in there to block some of the U
V ray and we do get some discoloration. I just
went through it at my house trying to match up
some stain in a dining room versus that fouryer and
(07:11):
it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
We tried, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, that's that's one of the areas that I was
talking about, is a back bedroom you know that had carpet,
you know, for one hundred years and then it was
pulled off years ago, and it's just kind of it
feels flat and a little discolored. Not necessarily from the sun,
I wouldn't think, but maybe just years of being under
a carpet.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Well, and this is another thing to think about. Wood
floors are really tricky. In fact, wood with stain and
protectants are really tricky because when you go buy paint,
you're buying, you know, sunshine yellow, and everybody's sunshine yellow
is the same. When you're dealing there with stains, you
got people standing you know, red oak, white oak, maple,
(07:57):
and those stains all look different. They they all look
totally different, so trying to blend them together can be challenging. Also,
when you have something in a carpet would be a
little bit abrasive, especially.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
With a lot of walking on it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
You pull that up, it's kind of been protected by
the sun, but maybe the little wear on the surface
of that or also even the type of varnish or
euthane that was used, you know, it comes in flat
satin semi gloss. I've even seen eggshell gloss, and you
can use the same colorant, the same stain out of
(08:36):
the same can on the same type of wood and
they won't match just because the reflection from the finish.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Sure, So okay. And then if I decided to go
down the route of a professional, do they generally charge
like per square foot per project? Generally speaking? How does that?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
How much that work? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yes, they would generally charge that and just get somebody. Well,
I'll tell you what I did not do my four
year and I had a local fellow who'd been doing
it for thirty years. And man, he he was really good. Gosh,
he was really good. And he did measure anything give
(09:16):
me a price, so I'm sure he was just measuring
it by the square foot at that point.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Okay, well, perfect, Well, I appreciate your insight on that.
Your show is wonderful, and thank you. I always appreciate it,
listening to it every Sunday morning while I'm out doing
my daily walk.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Very good, Thank you, thank you, very appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I have a great Thanksgiving Take care all right, and
again our phone number is eight hundred eight two three
eight two five five, Grab a line sharing you'll be
up first. You're at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
If you don't have a list of things to do
around the house, Gary will find something for you At
one eight hundred eighty two three talk You're at home
with Gary sullivantor.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
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Speaker 6 (12:14):
Today.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
All right, back at it we go talking a little
home improvement and always invited in talk about your project.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Let's get to Sharon. Sharon welcome.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, I have a question.
Speaker 7 (12:51):
I'm looking for somebody in the Cincinnati area that check
for asbestos, mold and rad off. I have ASBESTUS in it,
and I know our I know our kitchen bottom tile
has as I know it's pretty much ASBESTUS. And I
(13:14):
know it has a black underlayment under there, and I
know there are few spots where we had waterlely and
and it might have mold in our house.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So what are what do you want? Do you want
to have it tested or are you going to have
them do the job? Or how extensive are you going
to get.
Speaker 7 (13:37):
Initially test it? Initially test it and then uh, and
then I'll make a decision from there what I'm going
to do.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Well, I was going to say, you can get a
mold or an asbestos test kid yourself and literally you'll
just get a piece of the tile, crack it and
mail it in and they'll tell you whether it's asbestos. Now,
there are people that will test for all those There's oh,
(14:09):
I don't know. There's Environmental Testing is the name of
one company. I think there's one called home Works, and
there's also one called Mold Inspection in Testing. So those
are three just off the top of my head that
will test for mold, and I'm sure they can test
(14:32):
for asbestos.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
That's very simple as far as raid on. A lot
of those.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Companies will do the Big three. Okay, I had mentioned
environmental testing. There's one called Dayton Environmental Testing and does
the Greater Cincinnati area. Dayton Area Rainbow Restoration is another one.
They do the asbestos rate on and mold testing, so
they do the big three. Some of those also do
(15:00):
the remediation and some of them don't. So that's why
I asked.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That question.
Speaker 7 (15:08):
Then, because I know, so I can go up in
the attic and take a sample of that loose insulation
and see if it's and put it in an envelope
and send it off and see if it's.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Asbestis or not sure, anything that you suspect would be asbestos,
you would just put it in this envelope. You can
get them on Amazon even, and to just mail it
in and they'll give you, you know, the properties of
what you're wanting tested, what's in it. But the reason
(15:41):
I also ask, and I want to bring this up too, Sharon,
before you get your self all you know stirred up
about asbestos. Asbestos is dangerous when it is airborne, Okay,
in a floor. It gets airborne when you tear it up,
and it requires certain precautions when you're removing asbestos in
(16:07):
a home. But there are also a lot of new
modern flooring that can go directly over that asbestos floor
which will keep it from becoming airborne and will not
be harmful.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
Well, I kind of don't want to do that because
there's more than one layer, Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Well, I mean that's up to you. That's up to you.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I'm just giving you that option because you can use
a luxury vinyl tile over that. You could use a
a laminate flooring over that, where you would just go
directly over the flooring.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
But I get it.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
If you got multiple layers, that's a whole other thing.
And if you do have that tested by the envelope,
remember to get all of the layers, you know, you know,
crack that area or maybe a closet or something where
you can get a sample of both the floor coverings
and even some of the glue in that envelope so
(17:09):
that they're testing be hard.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
Because that wouldn't be hard because we already have a
place to go home in our tile anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Okay, all right, Well that would be my suggestions, and
those would be a couple of the places that could.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Help you with that.
Speaker 7 (17:29):
Okay, thank you, because I just always wonder, because you know,
I'm not working with a contractor, and I just wonder
where do people.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well there's people that believe me, they just they just
do the testing. And there are those are the kind
of like home hygenous companies, And then there's people that
do the testing and do the work. And then there's
some people that you know, don't like that because they're
testing and they're telling you what's in it, and then
they're telling you how they're going to fix it.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I don't know that's one stop shop. That's kind of
up to you. But again, they usually do the big three,
which is mold, asbestos, and radon.
Speaker 7 (18:09):
Okay, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
You're quite welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Take care there are there's a couple of things, you know.
I just mentioned the asbestos. There's also some home test
hits that I don't recommend, and I'm not talking about
the asbestos one. The asbestmos ones are pretty straightforward. It's
a laboratory that has created a retail package and an
envelope that you're simply putting it in their envelope and
(18:34):
mailing it to that lab and then they're doing it
that way. You're doing this site work, which you know,
in her case, doesn't sound like it's difficult.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Radon, No, I.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Think I'd rather have a professional company test that. Radon
levels vary and it depends whether you're testing it properly.
To test for radon properly, you should turn off any ventilations.
You should make sure your windows are closed up because
that's going to dilute a round. If you truly want
(19:06):
to know what's in your house or what would depend
potential for it to be in your house, you see,
you close everything and you turn off the air exchange units,
and then you'll get a true rate on reading mold. Yeah,
there's spores. You're always going to have a mold reading.
It's just a question.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Alli. All right, we'll continue with your calls. You're at
home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Time to get your hands dirty with Gary Sullivan. Give
them a call at one eight eighty two three talk.
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Speaker 2 (22:21):
All right, back at it, we go at home with
carry salmon talk a little home improvement. Certainly encourage you
to give us a call. Our phone number is eight
under it.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Eight two three eight two five five. Just doing a little.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Thing on a mold and air sampling test, and that's
really how they test mold. I had mentioned I wasn't
really all that excited about mold testing with a little
Petrie dish is because mold's going to grow in there,
because there's mold spores everywhere. And if you put a
(22:57):
little sponge in there, that's organic material. You put water
in there, that's the combination mold's going to grow. Now,
whether you have a serious mold issue, there are little
test kits, a little swab I think it's ten minute
test hit. It'll just strictly tell you whether you have
(23:19):
dangerous mold or not. If you have mold in a
lot of cases, you can smell it, you can see it.
Normally you're going to find that in basements, cross spaces, attics, bathrooms,
some of it if left unchecked, those colonies of mold
(23:45):
spores will continue to reproduce and continue to grow, some
people being very allergic to it, some people being not
so allergic to.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
It, but should be addressed.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
And when you get a professional company out there, they'll
do it a little bit differently. They've got different test
hits and monitors. They will be able to give you
an exact types of mold they found. There's over three
hundred species of mold. Penicillium probably me and the most.
(24:20):
You know, the highest percentage of mold sports would be penicillium.
I'm not going to say they're not harmful. All mold
can be harmful. You can be allergic to penicillium. So
you know, having the different types of mold, because there's
some that is debilitating quite honestly, not to scary you,
(24:43):
but there are rule of thumb. Can you take care
of that removal yourself? Well, you can do anything right,
just like paint. Can I paint that?
Speaker 6 (24:52):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
You can paint that now, whether you should or not.
Rule of thumb is, if you have more than ten
square feet of mold, you should leave it to a
professional company, you know, to come out, do the mold testing,
do the air sampling, do the removal, the remediation, the
(25:16):
whole works and get that peace of mind. And many times,
whether it's just ventilation or whether you clean up the mold,
there's even that odor exit product of the AQM where
it'll take mold spores out of the air before they
begin to start colonizing. But remember the active ingredient is water.
(25:40):
That's why I'm always preaching that. You know, water is
our biggest enemy in our home. It rots, wood, it stains,
it creates. It's the secret sauce to have mold grow.
And you know that's what we gotta be careful of,
always trying to seal up our house and keep it
(26:00):
as water tight.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
As we can. All right again, it's eight hundred and
eight two three eight two five five.
Speaker 8 (26:07):
I'll welcome, thank you for taking a call. Gary, sir.
I've got some four year old press board furniture. In
the bottom where that rests on the ground has been
the outside lamb and it's been peeled up and there's exposed.
It's the press board underneath. I found a product called
(26:28):
Stainable bondo. It's a min wax product, and I was
going to trial some of that on and prior to that,
I was given some thought perhaps to using some wood
hardener on that that press board just to make a
solid surface. What's your experience done with wood hardener on
(26:49):
press board? And then if you have any experience with
this sustainable bond product.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, well, so tell me that press board is it
has it swelled?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Is it flaking?
Speaker 8 (27:04):
It been?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
What is it?
Speaker 8 (27:06):
The outside? There's probably a layer of a lamba bind
it to the press board. Maybe I know it's a
thirty second or sixteenth thick, and then you know the
press board it so and over the years the furniture
has been you know, not treated well, and the back
corners the lamba has chipped away probably about three four
inches about an inch tall, and it's exposing that press
(27:31):
board underneath. Okay, yeah, so that's the task.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So the press board is mixtures of glue, so it's
not all woods. So the wood hardeners it will help
to a degree. But the way you describe it to me,
where it's kind of compromised, there's some divots out of
it's pulled some off, it's broke down a little bit.
If you're looking at you know, trying to patch that
(27:57):
in and stand it out to get it to match.
Number one, know that it won't look like the lambinate.
All right, it'll come close, you might be able to
come close, but a lamin will usually have a grain
in it, and you're not going to get a grain
in bondo. Okay, So it does bondo in a lot
of wood patch materials out there, whether you know it's
(28:22):
an epoxy wood a POxy, which is probably the best
you can use, but bondo will do fine too. I'm
not here to tell you it's not what I would do.
If you want to give it a try, just get
some of that bondo. It is stainable. Know that the
kind of stain you get is just not going to
have the variations that you're going to have in a
(28:43):
laminate because those are like pictures, really is what they are.
Lamon is compressed paper and then that last piece has
got the grain in the color, and then plastic goes
on top of that and it's compressed and it's glued on.
So we'll get a color. It won't look like paint.
You'll probably have to use. You probably guess and probably
(29:05):
do it more than once.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
You might answer. And what you might even do.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Is get a piece of wood, I don't care what
kind of wood you use, and just put a layer
of bondo on it, just you know, maybe eight ten
inches long, and play with it. You know, if you
got it looks like wanting to me. And you get
some min wax wanted stain, put a little on there,
hold it up and you say, oh, heck no, that's
not even close. I need to have some red in there.
(29:35):
And maybe you get a little mahogany stain and you
mix that in there with the wanted stain, so you
got you're gonna have to play with it. It's it's
not like color cards with you know, with paints where
you just get you know, walnut tree color and it's
they're all the same. So so you're probably you know,
it'll take stain to answer your question. It will take stain.
(29:57):
You won't have the variations, but you might have it
close enough. But if it's in the back might be
good enough.
Speaker 8 (30:03):
Yeah, And that that is the case here. It isn't
a back, and as you said, sometimes it ain't going
to be perfect. It'll be good enough. You know you
mentioned epoxy, hadn't thought about a little different product, But
what was your thinking there? Some kind of just a
generic two part epoxy and kind of trow it into
the uh into that particle board, is what you were thinking?
(30:24):
Or how would you address that?
Speaker 9 (30:26):
I wonder, Well, the epoxy wood that I was speaking of,
that is it's just a very pliable.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Wood putty is what it is.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Okay, so you would not even know that it's an epoxy.
In other words, it's not a true epoxy where you're
mixing hardener and resin. It's an epoxy fortified wood patch
would be the best way to.
Speaker 8 (30:55):
I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
So it's as.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I had another thought too. You know, there's many different
kinds of stains. There's a semi transparent stain, which you
know most of us shoes with the min wax may
wear staining woodwork, the front door, whatever. But they also
make a solid color stain, which I'm always against. But
this would be a really good spot to use a
(31:21):
solid color stain. So what a solid color stain is
is it's the color of wood. Unlike brown paint. It's
a true color of walnut. You don't care if you're
going to hide wood grain because there is no wood
grain and you can brush that on, So that might
(31:45):
be better than using a semi transparent. Semi transparent can
go on there, but what do you highlighting? You're high
lighting a flat pack. So you know, maybe just using
a solid color stain or a varnish stain is what
it's called. It's got to protecting in there, and it's
the heavier body that might be better. Or if you want
to use a stain, a gel stain would be kind
(32:08):
of the meat you halfway point that gel?
Speaker 8 (32:11):
Would that be water based or oil based?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Uh? Probably be a solvent based, Yes, solving base. They
make a.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Gel stain in a water base in a mid wax product,
I think they do, but uh, the general one you
get in a yellow label would be a solvent.
Speaker 8 (32:27):
Based in the in the yellow labels solvent based. Yeah,
that's okay. You know, I'm wondering that going back to
that playing that that stainable bindo or I'm at the
epoxy the packs who would leave all like a glossy
finish that would have to be torn down right to
make the stain adhere to it.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
No, it'll be it'll be just it'll look like just
regular wood patch. It really will. Okay, yeah, yeah, no,
it really will. Just it'll just be. It'll be it'll
have a higher degree of hardness to it.
Speaker 8 (32:59):
Higher degree hardness. That's quite the hardness of that would
hardener product, but something it'd.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Be more substantial though, Like if you were going to
try and make that wood a pox on a piece
of dry rotted wood, you wouldn't necessarily have to scrape
away all the dry rotted wood, which is kind of
like what we would be talking with particle board. That
liquid wood hardener would just solidify the fibers in that cement.
(33:27):
But see that's where we getting away from being like
a particle board. It's no fibers chips, you.
Speaker 8 (33:34):
Know, you bring a point up. I got a wood
window that the real bottom has some well let's call
it dry rot out of a better term your experience.
I noodled on the internet university, and the suggestion typically
is to remove that compromise or that dry rotted wood.
(33:57):
And that's why I bought the wood hardens product, was
to harden the surrounding wood, and then the thought being
to apply bono again a wood filler. But I'm wondering
if you ever had an experience trying to repair wood
with would harder.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've used it multiple times. I don't
know about window frames, but I'm thinking of a door frame.
I know I've used where the bottom six inches had
a little bit of peeling paint, and once I got
into it, it was you know, it was dry rotted.
I scraped some of the dry rotted wood out. You
don't necessarily have to, but I wanted to have a
(34:36):
good patch, so I scraped it out and then used
the uh liquid wood hardener to create a good base,
and then came back with the wood of pecks pox
to make the patch.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
To make the patch, okay, use with a POxy then okay.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah. There's a website.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
It's called abatron Aba tro o N and it's got
wood epox and it's got the liquid wood and you
can read up on it.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
But that's not appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, it's really good stuff, and it's designed to be
used really even in historic comes where you need really
big patches, like at the bottom of a column or
like a bomb. I wouldn't be able to tackle that.
But these two are real fine products and they work together.
Speaker 8 (35:25):
Yeah, but trying. Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Yeah, yeah,
very good. In fact, I bought a kit from Now
I'm thinking back on it. I did purchase a kit
from that, but trying to do a trial on recurring
that wood frame. So thanks for reminding me about that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Okay, good, good, good, pretty good. All right, Thank you
much for the call. Appreciate it. All right, Well, give
you the phone number. It's eight hundred A two three
A two five five. You can join us. We're talking
about your home and you're at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
Helme for your home is just a click away and
Gary Sullivan online dot com.
Speaker 10 (36:02):
This is at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
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Speaker 2 (38:42):
By the way, if you missed our conversation with Paul
Abrams from rotor Router on different fall and winter projects,
small projects, a preventive maintenance if you will, which you
can get on the website rotoruter dot com. But we
had a discussion for about fifteen minutes that is available
to you via podcast if you go to the iHeart
(39:04):
app and just click podcast at home with Gary Salvan
you can take a listen lot of good things that
we need to be mindful of this time of year
that can save you maybe a service call from a plumber,
so check that out or wherever you get your podcast,
you can pick it up.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
All right, let's go to James. James, Welcome.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Gary. Yesterday you were talking about gas logs. My gas
flogs are about seven years old and they and I
was I never knew that's the reason why the suit
or whatever you call it, we develop on the grass.
I've cleaned it many times. So I started looking at
buying some logs and it seems like they come in
(39:49):
twenty four inches and thirty that's kind of easy to
figure out, but is there. I didn't know there was
that much involved in buying logs, and indicated yesterday it
seemed to be a lot more complicated than it should be.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, no, let's just kind of back up a little bit,
because we didn't really talk about buying logs.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
We talked about stacking logs.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
And there's multiple things that cause soot in a gas fireplace,
and one of them, quite honestly, is the logs not
being properly stacked the way it shows in the manual.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
So you need airflow through that to get the flame
through that to keep it burning clean. Other things that
cause that soot to accumulate on the logs is you know,
it could be the gas pressure. It could be the
burner alignment, it could be those types of things where
that flame on that pilot light isn't blue, it's yellow.
(40:55):
It's just not burning hot enough.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
But one of the things that I was emphasizing yesterday, James,
is if you can even go online and pick up
the manual for those particular logs, and a lot of
them even stacked the same, and look at the diagram
and you know, restack the logs, that that may very
well help. Taking a paintbrush and dusting the soot off
(41:21):
the log itself may help, but looking at the flame
is really the key. If you see a yellowing of
the flame more than that, you know, nice blue flame,
it probably needs to be surfaced serviced. Maybe it's the
burners clogged a little bit. Maybe it's not getting enough
(41:42):
oxygen that I don't know. That's why you would have
it serviced.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Okay, But I would have to assume. Logs have a
life cycle like everything, So I you know, I don't know,
seven years, five years, ten years.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Well, i'll tell you what. I think. The logs in
my home were over fifteen years old.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I think. What so when this was installed brand new,
I didn't know there was a science of stacking those.
But I understand what you're talking about because I'd moved
them and I could see the flame change. So I
changed out the little charcoal fake you know whatever, the
lava rock, and I put glass beads in there. I thought,
(42:27):
I thought the glass beads would be better than the
black lava rock, and I did research if they're compatible,
but it appears that what I saw that they are compatible.
How would I Okay, I was thinking that the lavas
(42:47):
the rocks were causing the suit, the suit to be built.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Up on the l I don't think so, because they're not,
you know there the lava rock. It just kind of
adds to the ambiyond and not really you know, the
flame or anything that guess filters through it and it
just and it glows when it gets hot enough, so
it looks like embers.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
That is the purpose of that.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Okay. Well, I never really liked the logs, to tell
you the truth. I think they're kind of they are expensive,
but I never liked the log design that they put
in there.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
So I, well, there you go. That's your answer.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Well, when I get those, you're telling there's there's going
to be a diagram in there how they're stacked.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, for the most part, there is yes, yes, And
if you're looking at them in the store, they'll be
properly stacked. You can ask them that. You can take
a look at the manual, but my.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Experience is yes, there is a diagram on exactly how
to stack that log, and like I said, there's some
universal ways of stacking the logs too.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Don't get too hung up on that. Get the kind
of log you want and the look you like and
go from there. All right, James, thanks much for the call.
I appreciate if you'd like to join us, Ralph and
Alex you'll be next. Our number is eight hundred eight
two three eight two five five. You're at Home with
Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
Home Improvement one oh one with Gary Sullivan every weekend.
Classes began at one eight hundred eighty two three top.
You are at Home with Gary Sullivan
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