June 6, 2026 • 40 mins
Gary shares his expertise on the top mistakes homeowners make, from ignoring small leaks to neglecting routine maintenance. He also talks about the importance of knowing your house and being aware of its needs, especially when it comes to areas like the attic and crawl space. These often-overlooked areas can be breeding grounds for mold, mildew, and other issues that can lead to costly repairs if left unchecked.
Gary also delves into the world of DIY projects, discussing the pros and cons of tackling tasks like pressure washing and moisture control. He emphasizes the importance of educating yourself on the proper use of power tools and equipment to avoid causing more harm than good. Additionally, he highlights the dangers of ignoring small leaks and the importance of addressing them before they become major problems
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, best time a day I get to say, good afternoon.
Welcome to our number four and you're at home with
Gary Sullivan taking you to the up to the one
o'clock our. Feel free to join us. It's uh five
one three seven, five hundred. Happy to talk about what
you're working on. And let's get right back to the
founds in Donald Welcome, Hey Donald. I guess we're not
(00:30):
going to get to Donald. We'll move on, well, move
on to nowhere. Earlier today, I was talking about, you know,
what are the big issues that homeowners have? What are
the mistakes that homeowners make? And I compile a this
(00:51):
earlier this week really of what I think some of
the just crazy things that people do. And you hear
me talk a lot about water, and of course that's
gonna get right into my list of mistakes. But before
we get to that, let's let's get to Dan and
(01:13):
I'll come back and i'll cover common homeowner mistakes.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Dan welcome, Good morning, Gary. I want to have a
quick carpenter bees. I have a good solution WB forty
bred in the hole. Ny'll back out and drop dead.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yep. I'll tell you another one. There's a bunch of them.
Out there. There really are, and I like that one.
I haven't done that, but I had a lot of
people talk about it. You can also, when you're talking
about traps. If you take a brown paper bag, I'm
talking about a three pound like a lunch bag, pack
your lunch and rolled up in a ball, put some finish,
(01:57):
put some fishing line on it, and hang it to
where that hole is. You'll be amazed. They'll think it's
a wasp nest, which is a common predator to the
carpenter b And that's another one that works. But yeah, yeah,
that what you say is very accurate. Do you got
(02:22):
a lot of them? Dan, or have you had a
lot of them?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I've had quite a few through down two three years.
I just find the whole, stick the little plastic deal
in there and spread and boy, they just start backing
out and they'll drop dead.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Was there more than one in there?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Sometimes there are? Sometimes there's a couple.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Huh, yeah, because I follow them.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I watch them when they land and go to their hole,
and then I just take my WB forty stick my
little plastic deal in there, spread more here. They come
back back when out and they drop dead.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Do you patch it up? Afterwards or yes, sot up.
Huh okay. So I would imagine the w D forty
not only chases them out of there, I'm guessing it
might sterilize that whole also, or.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think so, I think it does.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yes, So when you do that and you patch it,
they never come back and redrill through the patch or anything.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Right, No, No, they don't.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Huh okay.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well that's a good tip. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
All right. I missed you on our local station. You
went off, but then I got you on your next
wherever you're broadcasting.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
So okay, all right, Dan, thank you, Yeah, so you too.
Thank you. By one of the things that I'll tell
you, you know, we we do this show this hour all locally,
so you know, if you've been trying to get through
the of the national show, which we do from nine
(04:01):
to noon, you can try now and maybe get into
just the local show. It's a seven fIF all right,
feel free to grab a line. One of the things
we were speaking of common homeowner mistakes, all right, the
number one ignoring small leaks. What a shocker, a dripping faucet,
(04:27):
a minor roof leak. And you know what's really amazing,
These things can get you into big trouble. And the
amazing thing is is how do you ignore a minor
roof leak? If you have a minor roof leak, there's
gotta be telltale signs that you're seeing, maybe staying on
(04:48):
the drywall ceiling, if you ever get up in the
attic just to have a quick look. The install insulation
can be wet, which is rendered almost useless. So a
minor leak is I know, I know, just the A
(05:08):
lot of people just try to ignore it. The dripping faucet.
It's costing you money, I guarantee you, and it could
be causing other issues. A damp basement. How many times
have we talked about that from a standpoint of unhealthy
air damage to the joice which would be structural issues.
Those things are little, tiny nuisances that can cost you
(05:36):
a lot of money. So in my top ten items,
that's still number one is those small leaks, no matter
how small, water is your number one enemy.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Tom Welcome, Yeah, Gary, I love your show, And I
had a question. It's more just to get your thoughts
on the wedd and forget shower. Yes, the question would
be is if I know it works very well? In
the shower and take your home. But in the research
I've done it, I guess you could use it on
the shower in the r V. I just wanted to
get your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I imagine you could. I've never checked to see if you could,
but yeah, it's and I have you used it before.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Tom, not on the not on the not on the
r V, And I guess I think it would be
fine on the shower itself, but I think more of
the concern would be the the the grey water tank
would be more concerned from the research on the line
it said it's fine online, But I just, like I said,
I was just wanting to get your thoughts on.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, I think you'll I think you'll be fine, but
I'll be honest, I've not researched, you know, on a
gray water tank. I was when you were asking me
that I was thinking on surface materials and things like that.
That certainly isn't going to be an issue at all
on the gray water tank. I don't know. I'll tell
you how to find out really super fast for absolute sure.
(07:05):
I mean, I'm thinking you're probably fine, but if you
go on Facebook and look and just put in wet
and Forget crew, and they have their people, their technology
people manning that on a regular basis, seven days a week,
and they will quickly give you that answer.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Okay, we'll do all right. But uh yeah that's all.
I was curious. But but yeah, thanks for thanks for
your show and love your show.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You're quite welcome. Thank you. Take care. Yeah, in fact,
it is a very safe product. But you know, when
you get into graywater, I'm not real sure. So they
will for all folks if you want to follow that
wet and Forget crew. I follow it and I get
little tips on where people are using some of the products,
(07:56):
and I will say, oh, that's a good question, but
they won't. They were spawned to him quickly, and that's good.
That's good. Let's take a break and don You'll be
up first, So don't go anywhere. If you'd like to
join us, do so. It's seven hundred at home with
Gary Salvan right here in fifty five krc DE talk station.
(08:18):
Well we got you covered here at fifty five krc
DE talk station. Got the house, you got the garden,
got the call, the car, and you get a call.
We can help you out with those brodects are you
sure about that. Yeah, I am doing it for a
long time. I'm telling you we got you covered absolutely,
and you can doll us up. Happy to take your
(08:38):
calls regunning your home up to the one o'clock hour
and let's go to don Don Welcome.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Hey Gary, thanks for taking my call. Been I just
I just had a new concrete driveway installed and it's
got all kinds of issues. Even I'm working through my
builder and he said, yeah, it was not up to
his standards, and the concrete sub wants to come in
and do some modifications. So it's got one of those
(09:10):
where they integrate curbs on each side of the driveway
and then it comes up to probably a forty by
almost thirty foot apron and so the curbs are a mess.
They're you know there, it looks like a snake. You know,
they're not straight, and we've got issues with control joints.
(09:32):
The driveway cracked the day they installed it, and we
had paid extra to put you know, four inches of
stone underneath extra rebar the wire, and so the sub
is trying to come up with some options. He wants
to cut out the curbs, put some rebar in and
(09:53):
then pour new curbs and to tie it together and
then try to clean up some of the cosmetic issues.
Another parts of the driveway were my wife and I
like to have me tear it out and redo it.
Just trying to get your your your opinion on into
a way to kind of go back and clean this
(10:13):
mess up short of tearing it out.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
In all honesty, don that that's a really difficult question
to have me answer without seeing it. But I'll answer.
First of all, is your builder helping you through this?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, he's working with the the sub so he's working
directly with the concrete company, not me.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So have you told him what you would like to
have done.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, we spoke yesterday. He said, here are the solutions
that the concrete company wants to do, and I said, well,
I want to make sure one of the options is
to tear it out and start from scratch, because we
spend a lot of money on this.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And that's right.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
You know, we just sort of spent on a fortune
renovating our house, and you know, we tore out the
old one because it didn't look nice. This one looks worse. So, uh, one,
I guess one question maybe you could answer is what
he's proposing is to saw out the curbs, take their
the machine they used to do it, And like I said,
(11:26):
they want to drill horizontally into the slab, put in
rebar to tie that to the curbs so they don't
settle differently. But I'm still afraid that a couple of
years down the road, it's just going to be a mess.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, try to get it resolved then, exactly. And if
it was screwed up by him the first time, how
do you know it's not gonna be screwed up a
second time?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
No, I'm kind of with you. I'm not trying to
avoid your subject done but that I'm sure you're honked
off about it, and you should be. And the builders,
you know, I mean, you want to give people a chance.
That's that's what I used to always say. I'm going
to give you a chance. In this case, I mean,
I don't know what that cost you, but I guarantee
(12:13):
you it was a pretty penny. And so you know, technically,
if you busted out that curb and you drilled in
with rebar and they extended out and the curb was
put on, it would that work? You know, I'm thinking, Yeah,
I probably would, okay, but you don't know that. Neither
(12:38):
do I for sure. And five years from now, if
it starts falling apart, you're not going to be talking
to anybody except to a new contact company on the
other stuff, what what else is wrong? So that that
part makes sense, that yeah, that that probably work.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well. It was. They did use a saw for the
control joints, and most of them look good, but there
were where they overran where they were supposed to go
and they chipped out concrete and then that's yeah, and
then it's a really wide apron. So I guess when
(13:18):
they broomed it, you know, they had on a long
pole and they would just drop it into the middle.
So every place they dropped it from both sides, you've
got this ridge of concrete where you could see where
the broom hit. And it's you know, if it was
like this a light, you think it would just wear
out over time, but these are you know, it's got
to be an eighth or a quarter inch some places,
(13:39):
and then I don't know if you could grind it,
but then you worry about it getting smooth, and now
you know, it becomes a slip hazard. But yeah, you know,
there's and then there's other places where they tried to
correct the curb and now you got the concrete horizontal
(14:00):
surface messed up. Where the concrete they were trying to
use to clean it up now is onto the you know,
the driveway, and that looks a mess. There's only two
sections of the whole thing that they did a nice job.
It was a small walkway to screen porch and then
a little walkway to the stair. Everything else just it's horrendous.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So okay, so that doesn't sound good to me. So
when you told the builder, like I think an option
might be teared all out, what was his response?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He said, I'll go talking with the concrete company.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, was the guy that he's talking to. Was he
on the job site?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I don't know. So this is the second home for me.
It's down in North Carolina. We just went down this
past week just this check progress, and we saw the concrete.
That's when this issue really came up. So we don't
know if he was, like the head guy was on
it's such a sloppy job. I can't imagine they had
(15:07):
their a crew on it. And this is a company
that you know, and this is a very respected builder
who does you know high end jobs.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Well, I would think that respectable builder would be an
advocate for you. And again I'm a I'm kind of
apologizing because I can't see it, and I hate to
critique something I can't see. But based on what you're
telling me, and with the power of the respectable builder,
you know, I would maybe already have I would take pictures,
(15:37):
document everything else, and then the next time I sit
down with that guy, I'd say, any type of patch
they're going to do, whether they grind it down or
they resurface, it is never going to be as stable
as that first slab day pull poured, It's not. And
you know that that's that's an issue for me. I
(16:03):
just got rid of a patch driveway, and now I'm
going to have another patch driveway, and I would document
every picture, and I would go through that builder and
I would put my pressure on the builder. He's your advocate.
His name is on that property. You know, Joe Smith
(16:25):
Holmes built my home and look at this driveway he did. Yeah,
and you know, I've been through a couple of these
with and not on driveways, but on different things. And
the bottom line is what you bought was a new,
(16:48):
perfectly done driveway, and this is unacceptable. And if they
grind the bumps out, it's going to be smooth and
it's not going to have the same texture and it's
not going to look right. And if they resurface it
instead of four inches a concrete, now I have four
inches of concrete and a half inch skim coat. Well
(17:08):
I don't want that. Yeah, and so and again I
can't see it. I don't know how bad it is.
So what I would do if I were you and
taking it from me who can't see it, is document
each thing, sit down with the builder and say look
at this. Now, this is how are they going to
(17:32):
fix this? Well, concrete from different loads sometimes doesn't even match.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And if they're just gonna patch the crack concrete cracks,
I get that, but it shouldn't crack the next day.
So how was how was the curing done? Did they
add too much water to it? Is it's soft on
the top? Is it gonna spawl next year? I don't know.
But whoever did this certainly screwed up this whole job.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
And just one one other thing is that you've got
like kind of a nice flat apron at the top.
This sits up on top of a dune, so the
driveway is pretty steep. It's probably got a ten foot
rise and then it and then it turns and goes
to the flat apron. And the crack was right at
the where it crested down. So I'm thinking, you know,
(18:23):
kind of the concrete's got is still wet because the supervisor,
the construction supervisor, told me they cracked by the end
of the day they poured it. So I'm thinking it
was just the gravity's pulling this thing down.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Just separated so they can make it in different thickness
is a slump rating on the concrete for grading. So
I again, I would, without saying it, I would document
absolutely every little thing that is not what you would
(18:56):
consider properly installed concrete. And I would go to that
builder and say, listen, your name's on this house, and
now I own this house and people are going to
see this. You cannot be proud of this concrete work.
And let's go through them one by one. And you know,
(19:22):
all I'm trying to do is get what I paid for.
Let's see where it goes.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I appreciate that. That's great, great advice.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
All right, Well, good luck. Let me know how you
make out. I hope he's a receptive to be your advocate,
is really what I'm asking. I had a problem with
toile floor not long ago, when the installers screwed that
job up so bad. They laid it kind of wrong,
and I caught that they had growling all over walls.
I mean, it was terrible. And I got to the
(19:55):
manager or the president of that company who came out
and I said, I'm not here to just wine. I'm
here to correct the problem you created. And you know,
we run into some of those things sometimes, and let's
see where you get. You got you got nothing to
lose at this point. You know you need him to
(20:17):
be your advocate. He's hiring them, So good luck to you.
All right, twelve thirty it is. Our phone number is
five one, three, seven four nine fifty five hundred. You
can join us. Love to talk to you about your
home project. No guests today, so it's you and me
and we'll continue. You're at home with Gary Salvin right
(20:38):
here in fifty five care see de talk station. All right,
back at it we go. Twelve thirty five. Donovan's car
show is coming up at the top of the air.
In the meantime, we're talking about your home. Feel free
to join us. It's eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five going through the most commons mistakes homeowners
make and talk about leaks. Ignoring a drippy faut and
(21:02):
a leak in the roof, even if it's just minor,
I'm telling you leave yourself open to damage mold structure
repairs also, and if you haven't done this, I would
really recommend it. Skipping routine maintenance. One thing I've picked
up doing this show for a long time is nothing
(21:24):
gets anybody less excited than doing maintenance. You don't really
see a problem. I mean, it's hard enough to get
home otors inspired to correct the problem like a small leak.
Skipping a routine maintenance, not changing your furnace filters. I know,
it's so basic and so important, and especially as we
(21:50):
go into a time of year where it's going to
get real hot. If you've got a two story home.
I'm not saying it's just in two story homes. It's
say a home and you haven't changed the filter in
the air handler for six months. That filter is impeding
(22:10):
airflow and when you get away from the air handler
to the upstairs and down the hall, and you've got
a dirty filter in there and you're impeding the airflow.
I'm telling you that that air handler is going to
work harder than ever to accommodate that thermostat. It's going
(22:32):
to keep running and running and running because it can't
get the air through the filter, which is going to
decrease the life of that furnace. And it's a simple job.
Changing a pleted filter out every sixty to ninety days
is a perfect solution. You can you don't have to
(22:54):
get the Altra allergen filters if you don't want. You
can get a four dollars pleted filter. It changed on
a regular basis. I've preached and preached for years. Cleaning
gutters with clock gutters, uh, spilling over the gutter, the
water right on your foundation, a potential for leaks in
(23:17):
the basement. Inspecting calking around windows again critically important. If
you have calking that has cracked, maybe separated between brick
and a wood window or a replacement window, it's vulnerable
(23:40):
to moisture. Again, wind driven rain's gonna get in there
in between the walls. Rod can occur, mold can occur,
and certainly it's going to shorten the lifespan of the
windows and the doors. So that's another thing is a
(24:03):
common mistake, and they're really there are things we talk
about on a fairly regular basis. Just start making this list,
and I'm going like, these are the things when people
call and start asking a question about something, I'm always
talking about the source. You got to get to the source.
(24:23):
You got to find out why. And those first two
things that I wrote down are the whys for a
lot of the problems that home owners have. The next one,
I know you'll know, and that's the grading and drainage
(24:43):
around your home. And owning a home isn't for the
week of heart. I mean, there are some issues that
have to be taken care of, and they're not always inexpensive.
Yours aren't always in a can for ten dollars. You
(25:04):
got poor grading and drainage around your foundation. It's going
to allow water to collect right on the foundation, which
is going to lead to a basement leak problem, foundation
movement and mold issues. The same kind of thing. Water,
it's water. And then the other one. And again I
(25:30):
make a joke about not all home and I make
this joke a lot. Not all home repairs can be
resolved with a can of something for ten bucks. Some
of them can, but long term probably not. So then
it comes down to do it yourself. Projects that are
(25:55):
beyond your skill level. We all have a level of
skill ill and then we either don't have that level
of skill or we're physically unable to perform that task.
I got all kinds of kind of horror stories about
(26:17):
people that have shared with me on that. But if
it's beyond your skill level, I would certainly and you
hear me profess a lot about getting quotes to have
that done. Maybe if it's not a simple one, but
you can get an idea, maybe even over the phone,
(26:38):
of what's that going to cost me? If I have
you fix or replace a disposal because I can't get
on my knees underneath the cabinet, what's that going to cost?
Or if it's a bigger problem like roofing work, getting
a couple estimates on what that's going to cost and
(26:58):
have it explained to you and make an accurate assessment
of whether you can do that project or you cannot.
And if you're dealing with a professional, maybe there's something
they can do which is a temporary fix if finances
(27:19):
are an issue. I think really being honest with ourselves
on what projects we can tackle in terms of knowledge,
and I'll tell you what the information that's out there
now you know the YouTube's the AI. You can get
a lot of information on how to do it, but
(27:44):
so many people are either not physically able to really
do that project, or even with that information, doesn't really
make sense to them to do that project. And if
that's the case, and if that's the answer you're getting,
don't screw around with it. You're going to end up
(28:05):
spending more money than if you had just reached out
to a pro to get it done. And many stories
to prove that. The other thing is in the house,
and we've spoken about this multiple times too, is know
your house. When there's problems. Your house is talking to you.
(28:30):
Peeling pain at the bottom of a jam is telling
you there's water getting behind that jam, ice dams we
had this winter. It's telling you that you probably have
inadequate ventilation, or maybe we ought to calk around ceiling
lights where maybe warm air is getting up in there
(28:53):
and causing condensation and mold. But there's there's also things
your house is telling you. And then there's things that
are just basic knowledge that everybody should know. And I'm
talking about shut offs. People should know where the water
(29:18):
shut off is. Everybody in your home, ten year old
kids and up. They can be a help in emergencies
knowing where the guest shut off is, knowing where the
electrical shut off is, knowing where the water shut off is,
knowing what a sump pump is. It's basic home knowledge.
(29:43):
And again, I think that can be very important that
everybody kind of knows exactly how that house works, and
shut offs underneath toilets and underneath vanities, and I also
talk about the areas you can't see how important that is.
(30:07):
I'm talking about addicts and crawl spaces, and these are
common mistakes. Remember I used to word common mistakes that
people make, so they emphasize a lot of the things
that I've had conversations with people about. So we'll talk
about addicts and crawl spaces next. If you'd like to
(30:29):
join us by phone, do so. You're at home with
Garry Salvin right here, I'm fifty five care see the
talk station all right? Back here we go twelve forty
eight and talking about the most common mistakes homeowners make,
and again put together a little list through this week.
And I'm telling you as you've heard, because we just
(30:53):
went through about six of them. I guess a lot
of them is caused by our worst enemy as a homeowner,
and that's water and neglect. So we talked about a
lot of things that you can kind of keep an
eye on that you can see that there is a problem.
(31:15):
Then there's a couple areas in our home that you
need to even take a bigger effort and find the problem.
And it's in an area that you may or may
not be able to inspect. And maybe you get a
handyman to help you or someone to observe two areas
(31:37):
of your home, the attic and a cross space. These
areas often will, especially in the attic, will reveal maybe
roof leaks or the booter around the vent pipe or
(31:57):
flashing see. But when most people will get up in
the attic and they'll see mold on the underpart of
the roof of the in the attic, and they'll go like, oh, mold,
how do I kill mold? When the real question is
(32:18):
how did mold grow in my attic? Remember, there's mold
spores everywhere, Yet mold doesn't grow in everybody's attic. So
we'll get to killing the mold. But how did that happen?
Was the bathroom vent fan venting into the attic? That's
(32:44):
not the way it's supposed to be. Are the soft
vent's clocks so we don't have good ventilation in the attic?
Is our energy bill going higher because the the installations
all matted down? Now it's a clump. Uh. Those are
(33:09):
all things you can find in an attic. You might
even find where some wildlife is at one time had
taken up some residence in your attic. Kind of paying attention,
that's important. And the other side of that coin is
the cross space. Again, not a place a lot of
(33:33):
us want to crawl into, but remember a cross space
is usually mother Earth, the foundation, the choice, and the subfloor.
Now we all know flooded basements. We talked about the
gutters just a minute ago. If you get that and
(33:56):
you get a cross space instead of having a flooded basement,
you may have puddles in a crawl space with all
that organic material and mold sports, you're gonna have mold
all over the joist and subfloor. You can certainly have rot,
you can have insects, you can have issues with mold
(34:18):
to a point where it's difficult to breathe. I'm not
trying to scary. I'm just telling you these are common
mistakes people make to just ignore it until it becomes
a crisis. And in a crisis, as I would say,
a crisis for a cross space is maybe someone in
(34:39):
your home starts getting very sick because that unhealthiness will
spread out throughout the home. Well, I think you're getting
my point, and I'm not here to just scary into things.
But of all the questions that we take, so many
of them just rea late back to lack of maintenance
(35:03):
in our homes, and a lot of them are tough
to look for those maintenance issues as described, but there's
also things that we do because of skill level. I
was talking about earlier, knowing can you do that job? Who? What? Guy?
And maybe gals don't like running a pressure washer. It
(35:26):
seems like everybody loves a pressure washer, everybody, but pressure washers,
if they're not properly used, can cause a lot of problems.
Vinyl sighting, I talk about uh weit and forget products
to kill the mildew, the green mildew on the side
(35:48):
of sightings. But a lot of people just like I
get my pressure washer out there, I'll clean that baby off,
and you might. But I'm telling you a lot of
people when they use a pressure washer, they won't use
a cleaner. They'll just literally blast it off. You can
blast mildew off with a pressure of water, right, Yes,
(36:10):
guess what, you didn't kill it. The spores are still there.
Some spores are still there. It'll start growing again. If
you're doing it and you're shooting a pressure washer at
three thousand psi and you're shooting it straight up. You
can flip vinyl siding off your house. You can get
water behind the vinyl sucking. You get one that's a
(36:36):
fifteen degree nozzle and thirty five hundred square foot pressure washer.
You can do damage to mortar joints. You can certainly
do damage to wood decks. I've seen it. You'll create
that fuzz on the top of the board. You go
to stain it, it'll all be blotchy. You can blast
(36:57):
around the window with a pressure washer. You can mess
up the end of seals and certainly do damage of
the roof too. So there's a place for pressure washers.
I remember one time I was telling people and now
I explained it a little further about not using pressure
washers on pressure she would and people call up, say,
(37:19):
I just hired a deck company and they're gonna stain it,
and that guy used a pressure washer. Well, let's just
hope he knew what he was doing, because you can
do it probably with a to be safe, forty degree nozzle,
maybe a twenty five twenty four hundred psi eighteen inches away.
(37:46):
And you can probably clean it with a cleanser too.
I always talking oxygen a bleach. Use your pressure washer
as a rinsing agent, not as a cleaner, because if
you create that, as I said, and you come back
to stain it, those little fuzzes on the surface, they
(38:07):
will stain darker than the wood because they're less tentse
and you'll have a mess. So pressure washers, if you're
going to use them, read about them and talk read
and if you want to google proper way to use
a pressure washer on a wood deck or whatever you're using.
But educate yourself. And then the last one, and we
(38:33):
talk about this also, is just the moisture control. The
humidity control inside your home. Over the next three to
four months, humidity will be more of an issue inside
our homes than it has been as we come out
of the cooler months where humidity inside our homes is dry,
not wet. But our goal in the summertime is fifty
(38:56):
five percent or less. Once you start getting into the sixties,
mildew and molt can grow in a basement. Basements will
be more humid than you're upstairs. But if left unchecked,
it creates what they call a stack effect. So it
starts an a basement, it comes up the stairs, it
(39:17):
does the living quarters, it goes upstairs, it goes to
the bedrooms, and then all of a sudden you're uncomfortable.
But the house is unhealthy. If you start running sixty
sixty five, seventy percent humidity inside your home. Again, there's
mold spores everywhere. Your house is made of organic material.
(39:39):
If you're storing stuff in paper boxes, they're gonna be
molding and you're gonna be breathing that. So I've got
a couple more, but we'll save those because we do
a show on Sunday also, and it's just common mistakes
people make, So save your questions, and maybe tomorrow you
(40:00):
can dial us up and we can give you some
advice on how to control that. Good Lord Willing, Danny
and I will be back tomorrow for more at Home
with Gary Sullivan
Well, best time a day I get to say, good afternoon.
Welcome to our number four and you're at home with
Gary Sullivan taking you to the up to the one
o'clock our. Feel free to join us. It's uh five
one three seven, five hundred. Happy to talk about what
you're working on. And let's get right back to the
founds in Donald Welcome, Hey Donald. I guess we're not
(00:30):
going to get to Donald. We'll move on, well, move
on to nowhere. Earlier today, I was talking about, you know,
what are the big issues that homeowners have? What are
the mistakes that homeowners make? And I compile a this
(00:51):
earlier this week really of what I think some of
the just crazy things that people do. And you hear
me talk a lot about water, and of course that's
gonna get right into my list of mistakes. But before
we get to that, let's let's get to Dan and
(01:13):
I'll come back and i'll cover common homeowner mistakes.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Dan welcome, Good morning, Gary. I want to have a
quick carpenter bees. I have a good solution WB forty
bred in the hole. Ny'll back out and drop dead.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yep. I'll tell you another one. There's a bunch of them.
Out there. There really are, and I like that one.
I haven't done that, but I had a lot of
people talk about it. You can also, when you're talking
about traps. If you take a brown paper bag, I'm
talking about a three pound like a lunch bag, pack
your lunch and rolled up in a ball, put some finish,
(01:57):
put some fishing line on it, and hang it to
where that hole is. You'll be amazed. They'll think it's
a wasp nest, which is a common predator to the
carpenter b And that's another one that works. But yeah, yeah,
that what you say is very accurate. Do you got
(02:22):
a lot of them? Dan, or have you had a
lot of them?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I've had quite a few through down two three years.
I just find the whole, stick the little plastic deal
in there and spread and boy, they just start backing
out and they'll drop dead.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Was there more than one in there?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Sometimes there are? Sometimes there's a couple.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Huh, yeah, because I follow them.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I watch them when they land and go to their hole,
and then I just take my WB forty stick my
little plastic deal in there, spread more here. They come
back back when out and they drop dead.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Do you patch it up? Afterwards or yes, sot up.
Huh okay. So I would imagine the w D forty
not only chases them out of there, I'm guessing it
might sterilize that whole also, or.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think so, I think it does.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yes, So when you do that and you patch it,
they never come back and redrill through the patch or anything.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Right, No, No, they don't.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Huh okay.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well that's a good tip. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
All right. I missed you on our local station. You
went off, but then I got you on your next
wherever you're broadcasting.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
So okay, all right, Dan, thank you, Yeah, so you too.
Thank you. By one of the things that I'll tell
you, you know, we we do this show this hour all locally,
so you know, if you've been trying to get through
the of the national show, which we do from nine
(04:01):
to noon, you can try now and maybe get into
just the local show. It's a seven fIF all right,
feel free to grab a line. One of the things
we were speaking of common homeowner mistakes, all right, the
number one ignoring small leaks. What a shocker, a dripping faucet,
(04:27):
a minor roof leak. And you know what's really amazing,
These things can get you into big trouble. And the
amazing thing is is how do you ignore a minor
roof leak? If you have a minor roof leak, there's
gotta be telltale signs that you're seeing, maybe staying on
(04:48):
the drywall ceiling, if you ever get up in the
attic just to have a quick look. The install insulation
can be wet, which is rendered almost useless. So a
minor leak is I know, I know, just the A
(05:08):
lot of people just try to ignore it. The dripping faucet.
It's costing you money, I guarantee you, and it could
be causing other issues. A damp basement. How many times
have we talked about that from a standpoint of unhealthy
air damage to the joice which would be structural issues.
Those things are little, tiny nuisances that can cost you
(05:36):
a lot of money. So in my top ten items,
that's still number one is those small leaks, no matter
how small, water is your number one enemy.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Tom Welcome, Yeah, Gary, I love your show, And I
had a question. It's more just to get your thoughts
on the wedd and forget shower. Yes, the question would
be is if I know it works very well? In
the shower and take your home. But in the research
I've done it, I guess you could use it on
the shower in the r V. I just wanted to
get your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I imagine you could. I've never checked to see if you could,
but yeah, it's and I have you used it before.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Tom, not on the not on the not on the
r V, And I guess I think it would be
fine on the shower itself, but I think more of
the concern would be the the the grey water tank
would be more concerned from the research on the line
it said it's fine online, But I just, like I said,
I was just wanting to get your thoughts on.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, I think you'll I think you'll be fine, but
I'll be honest, I've not researched, you know, on a
gray water tank. I was when you were asking me
that I was thinking on surface materials and things like that.
That certainly isn't going to be an issue at all
on the gray water tank. I don't know. I'll tell
you how to find out really super fast for absolute sure.
(07:05):
I mean, I'm thinking you're probably fine, but if you
go on Facebook and look and just put in wet
and Forget crew, and they have their people, their technology
people manning that on a regular basis, seven days a week,
and they will quickly give you that answer.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Okay, we'll do all right. But uh yeah that's all.
I was curious. But but yeah, thanks for thanks for
your show and love your show.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You're quite welcome. Thank you. Take care. Yeah, in fact,
it is a very safe product. But you know, when
you get into graywater, I'm not real sure. So they
will for all folks if you want to follow that
wet and Forget crew. I follow it and I get
little tips on where people are using some of the products,
(07:56):
and I will say, oh, that's a good question, but
they won't. They were spawned to him quickly, and that's good.
That's good. Let's take a break and don You'll be
up first, So don't go anywhere. If you'd like to
join us, do so. It's seven hundred at home with
Gary Salvan right here in fifty five krc DE talk station.
(08:18):
Well we got you covered here at fifty five krc
DE talk station. Got the house, you got the garden,
got the call, the car, and you get a call.
We can help you out with those brodects are you
sure about that. Yeah, I am doing it for a
long time. I'm telling you we got you covered absolutely,
and you can doll us up. Happy to take your
(08:38):
calls regunning your home up to the one o'clock hour
and let's go to don Don Welcome.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Hey Gary, thanks for taking my call. Been I just
I just had a new concrete driveway installed and it's
got all kinds of issues. Even I'm working through my
builder and he said, yeah, it was not up to
his standards, and the concrete sub wants to come in
and do some modifications. So it's got one of those
(09:10):
where they integrate curbs on each side of the driveway
and then it comes up to probably a forty by
almost thirty foot apron and so the curbs are a mess.
They're you know there, it looks like a snake. You know,
they're not straight, and we've got issues with control joints.
(09:32):
The driveway cracked the day they installed it, and we
had paid extra to put you know, four inches of
stone underneath extra rebar the wire, and so the sub
is trying to come up with some options. He wants
to cut out the curbs, put some rebar in and
(09:53):
then pour new curbs and to tie it together and
then try to clean up some of the cosmetic issues.
Another parts of the driveway were my wife and I
like to have me tear it out and redo it.
Just trying to get your your your opinion on into
a way to kind of go back and clean this
(10:13):
mess up short of tearing it out.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
In all honesty, don that that's a really difficult question
to have me answer without seeing it. But I'll answer.
First of all, is your builder helping you through this?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, he's working with the the sub so he's working
directly with the concrete company, not me.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So have you told him what you would like to
have done.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, we spoke yesterday. He said, here are the solutions
that the concrete company wants to do, and I said, well,
I want to make sure one of the options is
to tear it out and start from scratch, because we
spend a lot of money on this.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And that's right.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
You know, we just sort of spent on a fortune
renovating our house, and you know, we tore out the
old one because it didn't look nice. This one looks worse. So, uh, one,
I guess one question maybe you could answer is what
he's proposing is to saw out the curbs, take their
the machine they used to do it, And like I said,
(11:26):
they want to drill horizontally into the slab, put in
rebar to tie that to the curbs so they don't
settle differently. But I'm still afraid that a couple of
years down the road, it's just going to be a mess.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, try to get it resolved then, exactly. And if
it was screwed up by him the first time, how
do you know it's not gonna be screwed up a
second time?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
No, I'm kind of with you. I'm not trying to
avoid your subject done but that I'm sure you're honked
off about it, and you should be. And the builders,
you know, I mean, you want to give people a chance.
That's that's what I used to always say. I'm going
to give you a chance. In this case, I mean,
I don't know what that cost you, but I guarantee
(12:13):
you it was a pretty penny. And so you know, technically,
if you busted out that curb and you drilled in
with rebar and they extended out and the curb was
put on, it would that work? You know, I'm thinking, Yeah,
I probably would, okay, but you don't know that. Neither
(12:38):
do I for sure. And five years from now, if
it starts falling apart, you're not going to be talking
to anybody except to a new contact company on the
other stuff, what what else is wrong? So that that
part makes sense, that yeah, that that probably work.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well. It was. They did use a saw for the
control joints, and most of them look good, but there
were where they overran where they were supposed to go
and they chipped out concrete and then that's yeah, and
then it's a really wide apron. So I guess when
(13:18):
they broomed it, you know, they had on a long
pole and they would just drop it into the middle.
So every place they dropped it from both sides, you've
got this ridge of concrete where you could see where
the broom hit. And it's you know, if it was
like this a light, you think it would just wear
out over time, but these are you know, it's got
to be an eighth or a quarter inch some places,
(13:39):
and then I don't know if you could grind it,
but then you worry about it getting smooth, and now
you know, it becomes a slip hazard. But yeah, you know,
there's and then there's other places where they tried to
correct the curb and now you got the concrete horizontal
(14:00):
surface messed up. Where the concrete they were trying to
use to clean it up now is onto the you know,
the driveway, and that looks a mess. There's only two
sections of the whole thing that they did a nice job.
It was a small walkway to screen porch and then
a little walkway to the stair. Everything else just it's horrendous.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So okay, so that doesn't sound good to me. So
when you told the builder, like I think an option
might be teared all out, what was his response?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He said, I'll go talking with the concrete company.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, was the guy that he's talking to. Was he
on the job site?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I don't know. So this is the second home for me.
It's down in North Carolina. We just went down this
past week just this check progress, and we saw the concrete.
That's when this issue really came up. So we don't
know if he was, like the head guy was on
it's such a sloppy job. I can't imagine they had
(15:07):
their a crew on it. And this is a company
that you know, and this is a very respected builder
who does you know high end jobs.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Well, I would think that respectable builder would be an
advocate for you. And again I'm a I'm kind of
apologizing because I can't see it, and I hate to
critique something I can't see. But based on what you're
telling me, and with the power of the respectable builder,
you know, I would maybe already have I would take pictures,
(15:37):
document everything else, and then the next time I sit
down with that guy, I'd say, any type of patch
they're going to do, whether they grind it down or
they resurface, it is never going to be as stable
as that first slab day pull poured, It's not. And
you know that that's that's an issue for me. I
(16:03):
just got rid of a patch driveway, and now I'm
going to have another patch driveway, and I would document
every picture, and I would go through that builder and
I would put my pressure on the builder. He's your advocate.
His name is on that property. You know, Joe Smith
(16:25):
Holmes built my home and look at this driveway he did. Yeah,
and you know, I've been through a couple of these
with and not on driveways, but on different things. And
the bottom line is what you bought was a new,
(16:48):
perfectly done driveway, and this is unacceptable. And if they
grind the bumps out, it's going to be smooth and
it's not going to have the same texture and it's
not going to look right. And if they resurface it
instead of four inches a concrete, now I have four
inches of concrete and a half inch skim coat. Well
(17:08):
I don't want that. Yeah, and so and again I
can't see it. I don't know how bad it is.
So what I would do if I were you and
taking it from me who can't see it, is document
each thing, sit down with the builder and say look
at this. Now, this is how are they going to
(17:32):
fix this? Well, concrete from different loads sometimes doesn't even match.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And if they're just gonna patch the crack concrete cracks,
I get that, but it shouldn't crack the next day.
So how was how was the curing done? Did they
add too much water to it? Is it's soft on
the top? Is it gonna spawl next year? I don't know.
But whoever did this certainly screwed up this whole job.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
And just one one other thing is that you've got
like kind of a nice flat apron at the top.
This sits up on top of a dune, so the
driveway is pretty steep. It's probably got a ten foot
rise and then it and then it turns and goes
to the flat apron. And the crack was right at
the where it crested down. So I'm thinking, you know,
(18:23):
kind of the concrete's got is still wet because the supervisor,
the construction supervisor, told me they cracked by the end
of the day they poured it. So I'm thinking it
was just the gravity's pulling this thing down.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Just separated so they can make it in different thickness
is a slump rating on the concrete for grading. So
I again, I would, without saying it, I would document
absolutely every little thing that is not what you would
(18:56):
consider properly installed concrete. And I would go to that
builder and say, listen, your name's on this house, and
now I own this house and people are going to
see this. You cannot be proud of this concrete work.
And let's go through them one by one. And you know,
(19:22):
all I'm trying to do is get what I paid for.
Let's see where it goes.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I appreciate that. That's great, great advice.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
All right, Well, good luck. Let me know how you
make out. I hope he's a receptive to be your advocate,
is really what I'm asking. I had a problem with
toile floor not long ago, when the installers screwed that
job up so bad. They laid it kind of wrong,
and I caught that they had growling all over walls.
I mean, it was terrible. And I got to the
(19:55):
manager or the president of that company who came out
and I said, I'm not here to just wine. I'm
here to correct the problem you created. And you know,
we run into some of those things sometimes, and let's
see where you get. You got you got nothing to
lose at this point. You know you need him to
(20:17):
be your advocate. He's hiring them, So good luck to you.
All right, twelve thirty it is. Our phone number is
five one, three, seven four nine fifty five hundred. You
can join us. Love to talk to you about your
home project. No guests today, so it's you and me
and we'll continue. You're at home with Gary Salvin right
(20:38):
here in fifty five care see de talk station. All right,
back at it we go. Twelve thirty five. Donovan's car
show is coming up at the top of the air.
In the meantime, we're talking about your home. Feel free
to join us. It's eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five going through the most commons mistakes homeowners
make and talk about leaks. Ignoring a drippy faut and
(21:02):
a leak in the roof, even if it's just minor,
I'm telling you leave yourself open to damage mold structure
repairs also, and if you haven't done this, I would
really recommend it. Skipping routine maintenance. One thing I've picked
up doing this show for a long time is nothing
(21:24):
gets anybody less excited than doing maintenance. You don't really
see a problem. I mean, it's hard enough to get
home otors inspired to correct the problem like a small leak.
Skipping a routine maintenance, not changing your furnace filters. I know,
it's so basic and so important, and especially as we
(21:50):
go into a time of year where it's going to
get real hot. If you've got a two story home.
I'm not saying it's just in two story homes. It's
say a home and you haven't changed the filter in
the air handler for six months. That filter is impeding
(22:10):
airflow and when you get away from the air handler
to the upstairs and down the hall, and you've got
a dirty filter in there and you're impeding the airflow.
I'm telling you that that air handler is going to
work harder than ever to accommodate that thermostat. It's going
(22:32):
to keep running and running and running because it can't
get the air through the filter, which is going to
decrease the life of that furnace. And it's a simple job.
Changing a pleted filter out every sixty to ninety days
is a perfect solution. You can you don't have to
(22:54):
get the Altra allergen filters if you don't want. You
can get a four dollars pleted filter. It changed on
a regular basis. I've preached and preached for years. Cleaning
gutters with clock gutters, uh, spilling over the gutter, the
water right on your foundation, a potential for leaks in
(23:17):
the basement. Inspecting calking around windows again critically important. If
you have calking that has cracked, maybe separated between brick
and a wood window or a replacement window, it's vulnerable
(23:40):
to moisture. Again, wind driven rain's gonna get in there
in between the walls. Rod can occur, mold can occur,
and certainly it's going to shorten the lifespan of the
windows and the doors. So that's another thing is a
(24:03):
common mistake, and they're really there are things we talk
about on a fairly regular basis. Just start making this list,
and I'm going like, these are the things when people
call and start asking a question about something, I'm always
talking about the source. You got to get to the source.
(24:23):
You got to find out why. And those first two
things that I wrote down are the whys for a
lot of the problems that home owners have. The next one,
I know you'll know, and that's the grading and drainage
(24:43):
around your home. And owning a home isn't for the
week of heart. I mean, there are some issues that
have to be taken care of, and they're not always inexpensive.
Yours aren't always in a can for ten dollars. You
(25:04):
got poor grading and drainage around your foundation. It's going
to allow water to collect right on the foundation, which
is going to lead to a basement leak problem, foundation
movement and mold issues. The same kind of thing. Water,
it's water. And then the other one. And again I
(25:30):
make a joke about not all home and I make
this joke a lot. Not all home repairs can be
resolved with a can of something for ten bucks. Some
of them can, but long term probably not. So then
it comes down to do it yourself. Projects that are
(25:55):
beyond your skill level. We all have a level of
skill ill and then we either don't have that level
of skill or we're physically unable to perform that task.
I got all kinds of kind of horror stories about
(26:17):
people that have shared with me on that. But if
it's beyond your skill level, I would certainly and you
hear me profess a lot about getting quotes to have
that done. Maybe if it's not a simple one, but
you can get an idea, maybe even over the phone,
(26:38):
of what's that going to cost me? If I have
you fix or replace a disposal because I can't get
on my knees underneath the cabinet, what's that going to cost?
Or if it's a bigger problem like roofing work, getting
a couple estimates on what that's going to cost and
(26:58):
have it explained to you and make an accurate assessment
of whether you can do that project or you cannot.
And if you're dealing with a professional, maybe there's something
they can do which is a temporary fix if finances
(27:19):
are an issue. I think really being honest with ourselves
on what projects we can tackle in terms of knowledge,
and I'll tell you what the information that's out there
now you know the YouTube's the AI. You can get
a lot of information on how to do it, but
(27:44):
so many people are either not physically able to really
do that project, or even with that information, doesn't really
make sense to them to do that project. And if
that's the case, and if that's the answer you're getting,
don't screw around with it. You're going to end up
(28:05):
spending more money than if you had just reached out
to a pro to get it done. And many stories
to prove that. The other thing is in the house,
and we've spoken about this multiple times too, is know
your house. When there's problems. Your house is talking to you.
(28:30):
Peeling pain at the bottom of a jam is telling
you there's water getting behind that jam, ice dams we
had this winter. It's telling you that you probably have
inadequate ventilation, or maybe we ought to calk around ceiling
lights where maybe warm air is getting up in there
(28:53):
and causing condensation and mold. But there's there's also things
your house is telling you. And then there's things that
are just basic knowledge that everybody should know. And I'm
talking about shut offs. People should know where the water
(29:18):
shut off is. Everybody in your home, ten year old
kids and up. They can be a help in emergencies
knowing where the guest shut off is, knowing where the
electrical shut off is, knowing where the water shut off is,
knowing what a sump pump is. It's basic home knowledge.
(29:43):
And again, I think that can be very important that
everybody kind of knows exactly how that house works, and
shut offs underneath toilets and underneath vanities, and I also
talk about the areas you can't see how important that is.
(30:07):
I'm talking about addicts and crawl spaces, and these are
common mistakes. Remember I used to word common mistakes that
people make, so they emphasize a lot of the things
that I've had conversations with people about. So we'll talk
about addicts and crawl spaces next. If you'd like to
(30:29):
join us by phone, do so. You're at home with
Garry Salvin right here, I'm fifty five care see the
talk station all right? Back here we go twelve forty
eight and talking about the most common mistakes homeowners make,
and again put together a little list through this week.
And I'm telling you as you've heard, because we just
(30:53):
went through about six of them. I guess a lot
of them is caused by our worst enemy as a homeowner,
and that's water and neglect. So we talked about a
lot of things that you can kind of keep an
eye on that you can see that there is a problem.
(31:15):
Then there's a couple areas in our home that you
need to even take a bigger effort and find the problem.
And it's in an area that you may or may
not be able to inspect. And maybe you get a
handyman to help you or someone to observe two areas
(31:37):
of your home, the attic and a cross space. These
areas often will, especially in the attic, will reveal maybe
roof leaks or the booter around the vent pipe or
(31:57):
flashing see. But when most people will get up in
the attic and they'll see mold on the underpart of
the roof of the in the attic, and they'll go like, oh, mold,
how do I kill mold? When the real question is
(32:18):
how did mold grow in my attic? Remember, there's mold
spores everywhere, Yet mold doesn't grow in everybody's attic. So
we'll get to killing the mold. But how did that happen?
Was the bathroom vent fan venting into the attic? That's
(32:44):
not the way it's supposed to be. Are the soft
vent's clocks so we don't have good ventilation in the attic?
Is our energy bill going higher because the the installations
all matted down? Now it's a clump. Uh. Those are
(33:09):
all things you can find in an attic. You might
even find where some wildlife is at one time had
taken up some residence in your attic. Kind of paying attention,
that's important. And the other side of that coin is
the cross space. Again, not a place a lot of
(33:33):
us want to crawl into, but remember a cross space
is usually mother Earth, the foundation, the choice, and the subfloor.
Now we all know flooded basements. We talked about the
gutters just a minute ago. If you get that and
(33:56):
you get a cross space instead of having a flooded basement,
you may have puddles in a crawl space with all
that organic material and mold sports, you're gonna have mold
all over the joist and subfloor. You can certainly have rot,
you can have insects, you can have issues with mold
(34:18):
to a point where it's difficult to breathe. I'm not
trying to scary. I'm just telling you these are common
mistakes people make to just ignore it until it becomes
a crisis. And in a crisis, as I would say,
a crisis for a cross space is maybe someone in
(34:39):
your home starts getting very sick because that unhealthiness will
spread out throughout the home. Well, I think you're getting
my point, and I'm not here to just scary into things.
But of all the questions that we take, so many
of them just rea late back to lack of maintenance
(35:03):
in our homes, and a lot of them are tough
to look for those maintenance issues as described, but there's
also things that we do because of skill level. I
was talking about earlier, knowing can you do that job? Who? What? Guy?
And maybe gals don't like running a pressure washer. It
(35:26):
seems like everybody loves a pressure washer, everybody, but pressure washers,
if they're not properly used, can cause a lot of problems.
Vinyl sighting, I talk about uh weit and forget products
to kill the mildew, the green mildew on the side
(35:48):
of sightings. But a lot of people just like I
get my pressure washer out there, I'll clean that baby off,
and you might. But I'm telling you a lot of
people when they use a pressure washer, they won't use
a cleaner. They'll just literally blast it off. You can
blast mildew off with a pressure of water, right, Yes,
(36:10):
guess what, you didn't kill it. The spores are still there.
Some spores are still there. It'll start growing again. If
you're doing it and you're shooting a pressure washer at
three thousand psi and you're shooting it straight up. You
can flip vinyl siding off your house. You can get
water behind the vinyl sucking. You get one that's a
(36:36):
fifteen degree nozzle and thirty five hundred square foot pressure washer.
You can do damage to mortar joints. You can certainly
do damage to wood decks. I've seen it. You'll create
that fuzz on the top of the board. You go
to stain it, it'll all be blotchy. You can blast
(36:57):
around the window with a pressure washer. You can mess
up the end of seals and certainly do damage of
the roof too. So there's a place for pressure washers.
I remember one time I was telling people and now
I explained it a little further about not using pressure
washers on pressure she would and people call up, say,
(37:19):
I just hired a deck company and they're gonna stain it,
and that guy used a pressure washer. Well, let's just
hope he knew what he was doing, because you can
do it probably with a to be safe, forty degree nozzle,
maybe a twenty five twenty four hundred psi eighteen inches away.
(37:46):
And you can probably clean it with a cleanser too.
I always talking oxygen a bleach. Use your pressure washer
as a rinsing agent, not as a cleaner, because if
you create that, as I said, and you come back
to stain it, those little fuzzes on the surface, they
(38:07):
will stain darker than the wood because they're less tentse
and you'll have a mess. So pressure washers, if you're
going to use them, read about them and talk read
and if you want to google proper way to use
a pressure washer on a wood deck or whatever you're using.
But educate yourself. And then the last one, and we
(38:33):
talk about this also, is just the moisture control. The
humidity control inside your home. Over the next three to
four months, humidity will be more of an issue inside
our homes than it has been as we come out
of the cooler months where humidity inside our homes is dry,
not wet. But our goal in the summertime is fifty
(38:56):
five percent or less. Once you start getting into the sixties,
mildew and molt can grow in a basement. Basements will
be more humid than you're upstairs. But if left unchecked,
it creates what they call a stack effect. So it
starts an a basement, it comes up the stairs, it
(39:17):
does the living quarters, it goes upstairs, it goes to
the bedrooms, and then all of a sudden you're uncomfortable.
But the house is unhealthy. If you start running sixty
sixty five, seventy percent humidity inside your home. Again, there's
mold spores everywhere. Your house is made of organic material.
(39:39):
If you're storing stuff in paper boxes, they're gonna be
molding and you're gonna be breathing that. So I've got
a couple more, but we'll save those because we do
a show on Sunday also, and it's just common mistakes
people make, So save your questions, and maybe tomorrow you
(40:00):
can dial us up and we can give you some
advice on how to control that. Good Lord Willing, Danny
and I will be back tomorrow for more at Home
with Gary Sullivan
At Home with Gary Sullivan News
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