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August 10, 2025 • 45 mins
Your calls and Gary's expert advice.
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:30):
All right, tw weekends upon us. Welcome you're at home
with Gary Salvan. This that was brought to you by
Roto Ruter and uh boy, I ever wish you had
a plumbing expert right there in your pocket. I think
we all do. Rotor Ruter plumbing and water cleanup is
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(00:51):
become your ultimate plumbing companion. It's got DIY videos on it,
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dot com. So you get a plumber in your pocket.
How about that? All right, another weekend, getting a few

(01:14):
things done around the home. Thanks for joining me. Let
me give you the phone number. You got a question
something to talk about in terms of maintenance and repair
for your home, be happy to take those calls. Danny's
on the board, ready to take your call. It's eight
hundred eight two three eight two five y five and
we'll get things rolling on the weekend. One of the

(01:38):
things I'd like to just kind of open up today
with is we haven't talked about decks for a while,
and probably because the weather hasn't been real conducive to
maybe even using the deck. It's been awfully odd where
I'm at, but certainly not conducive to maybe working on
a deck, building a deck, sealing a deck. And I

(02:00):
guess one of the things that just a couple of tips,
just a couple of tips when working with pressure treated wood,
if you're in the process of building a deck or
maybe replacing a few boards on the deck, I'd highly well,
a lot of people don't realize there's probably about I'm
going to say ten twelve different types of pressure treated wood.

(02:23):
Kind of do your research too about what kind of
pressure treated you would you want to use it. To
be very basic, the two most common type I guess
that you're going to find in a big box store,
which doesn't always have the greatest inventory, is a ground
contact and non ground contact pressure treated would I say,

(02:45):
people maybe gravitate to a non ground contact mainly because
it's less expensive, and I wouldn't recommend that. I would
always recommend get the ground contact pressure treated wood. It's
got a little bit more pressure treatment, more treatment in
it into the wood, into the yellow pine, and you

(03:09):
know when you think about it in the fall, if
you got a big deck and you're surrounded by trees
and all those leaves fall on the deck and then
it rains and it kind of gets that soupy almost
like ground contact, right, it holds the water. So I
would definitely, you know, if you're in a position where
you're getting ready to buy the wood, do your research,

(03:29):
find out what kind of pressure treatments in that wood.
What type of type of would you want. But I'd
get the ground contact pressure treat would always use a
hot dip galvanized or stainless steel fasteners. There is a
type of pressu tree we'd called ACQ, which is especially

(03:50):
corrosive to regular steel. So your joicehangers, you know, you
want to again a hot dip galvanized or a stainless steel.
Same with the screws, otherwise you could have a corrosion
issue after you built the deck. Never good. And also
we talk about this for years, is wet pressure treated lumber.

(04:15):
Let it dry out before you try to seal it.
The fibers in that wood are filled with moisture from
the pressure treatment. In fact, a lot of pressure treat
what actually has a green tint to it. It could
take a few weeks, a few months for semi transparent stains.

(04:36):
That's a good time frame to look at for a
solid color stain. One year, don't cheat one year. And
if you really want to see for sure when that
wood is going to be available to absorb that semi
transparent stain is just take a little spray bottle, a

(04:57):
little misting bottle of water. Just spray it on there,
or a able to spoon a water Put a little
doll up of water on that and see what happens.
See what happens. See if it soaks into the wood.
If it soaks into the wood within a minute, you're
good to go. Go ahead and apply the stain. If
it still kind of stays on there like a newly
waxed car, time out, You're gonna have to let it

(05:17):
age a little bit longer. And one thing I started
talking about this year because I'm hearing more and more
people doing it, maybe budget concerns. You know, the deck
is that's shown its age. But I really don't want
to tear the deck down. I don't want to replace
all the floorboards, but I do need to replace a

(05:39):
couple of boards. And if I use a ground contact
press tree wood to replace that board. You know, again,
if it's a semi transparent stain, I may not be
able to stain that for three, four, five months. Maybe
I'll be lucky in two weeks, but I doubt it.
I doubt it. So you might consider a kiln dride

(06:06):
pressure treat wood. It's a KD at is what it is.
And by having it killed and ride it's pressure treated,
but it's dried, it's gonna save you from the warping
the shrinking, and you can stain it right away. Sure
it costs a little more, but that option is out

(06:28):
there for you. So if you're replacing a board, taking
an old board up and then again using that kil
and dride and you can kind of blend it in
right away. And the last tip is if you're doing
pressure treated wood and it you know it has been
pressure treated, it is not a kiln dried, you want

(06:50):
to butt that wood up as tight as you can
because it's gonna shrink when it dries out. That pressure
treated wood will shrink and you'll have the gaps in.
So just push it up right and as tight as
you can. And then also you know you've got two
sides of that would too. If you look at the

(07:12):
end of the board, it's you got the crown that
goes up, and you turn the other way, the crown
goes down. So if you visualize like a cup, if
you turn the cup upside down, that means the crown
would be at the top. They should all be going
the same way, and they all should be crown up.

(07:34):
If you do crown up, crown down, crowd, you're gonna
have a tripping hazard because as it dries out, it'll cup,
or it'll crown a little bit more. And if it's cupping,
those edges will be a little bit higher. It won't
be a level surface. So all the same way, crown up,
all right. So there's a couple tips for decking. If

(07:56):
you have a question on when to seal, what do
you in terms of ceilings, what to clean it with?
If I use a solid color stain, how do I
make sure it doesn't peel. I'd be happy to take
those calls. Like I said, it's been a while since
we've talked about decking, so we can kind of do
that today along with any other home improvement questions. You

(08:18):
may have Our phone number, as always is eight hundred
A two three, A two five five. As we got
also into a conversation yesterday, I want to pass that along.
It's a good tip I try to almost remind folks
and anybody I'm talking to, is the importance of really

(08:38):
changing the air filter in the air conditioner and when
it's time the heating system. And there's different kinds of
filters there too, So we're kind of giving you some
options and maybe a little bit of education in case
you're not familiar what's out there, but a pleated filter,
you got a flat panel filter and a pleted filter,

(09:00):
or without a question, your pleated filters are the they're
the best. There's different degrees of best too in terms
of filtration, but always get a pleated filter. It's got
more surface material to do a better job for you.
And instead of changing them out every thirty days, you
change them out every ninety days. And they're also ratings

(09:24):
on pleated filters. It's called a MIRV rating. And you
know you can get a MIRV rated filter five, eight, nine, ten, fifteen.
You get a MIRV rating of a twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen.
That's a very very very good filter. Might pay twelve
bucks for it. But some of those filters can filter

(09:46):
out spores mildew spores, I mean virus spores down on
like zero point three millichrons and that's a small, small
little piece. As a MRV five maybe not so much,
but more air will pass through a murph five filter.

(10:06):
So if you're have a really big time heat wave
and you're having a hard time cooling them back bedrooms,
maybe you get a lower MIRV rating during those rule
hot times a year and then use your ultra alergiens uh,
you know in other times of the year. All right,
let me give you the phone number one more time.
We'll take a break and then we'll kick things off
with your calls. Grab a line. It's eight hundred eight

(10:30):
two three eight two five five.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
At home with Gary seliv Time to get your hands
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(13:34):
Twenty one minutes after the top, they are taking your
calls regarding your home projects. It's eight hundred eighty two
three eight two five five and Jimmy you lead us off. Welcome.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Hello, Yes, sir, yes, thank you.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
This is Kenny Walls. Oh, Kenny, I've got a question.
I've got a question about cross space encapsulation. And I've
got a property in central Alabama where the humidity is
obviously very high, also also on a lake, so I've

(14:13):
my wife has been noticing some kind of moldy, missed
musty odors on the main floor. So I had two,
actually had four companies come out and give estimates, and
they all suggested encapsulating the cross base.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Humidity.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
Humidity was very high, but I had a couple of
questions about that. We've had some cupping on the hardwood
floors in the on the main area, which most companies
most of the four or three of the four said
that that was due to the high humidity beneath. And

(14:53):
when I say say high humidity, it was measured about
eighty five to eighty seven in the cross at that side.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
And I'm sure that's what it's you know, from is
that humidity that, Yeah, normally we should be running around
fifty five percent. So just to give you an IDEA
weird thing about humidity too, is once it starts in
an area, it kind of grows. I mean, it just
grows up into the house. And I don't know what
your you know, first floor is in terms of humidity,

(15:23):
but it can be it can start getting up around
sixty five seventy percent too and start being a little uncomfortable.
I mean, the best uh the best to you amidifiers,
the air conditioner. So maybe you don't have that problem yet,
but eventually it probably will get to that point, Kenny.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
So yeah, yeah, so we're all going to we will
pursue this, but I had a couple of questions about.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Moving through.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
So the air conditioning system. We replaced two heat pumps
last year, so they're they're in good shape. But the
house was built in ninety nine and it was it
has insulation on the you know, below the floor in

(16:10):
the cross space. Okay, both companies that I'm looking at
that I'm serious about, said remove that insulation because you
don't need at all. Value is probably not going to
be there. Do you think that's a good.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, yeah, so the whole house, you know, the encapsulation
product is just that you know, if there's any venting
in the cross space, they'll usually clean that up and
close that off. There probably is no venting. If that
house was built in ninety nine, they'll use like a
fourteen gage heavy insulated plastic which will go above the

(16:44):
ground the dirt floor if you will, and up the
sides of the wall. So your insulation is kind of
like it becomes a conditioned place, but not. It won't
be air conditioned or anything, but you'll have that moisture
and check, you'll have the temperature and check, and you
won't need that insulation on the underside of the roof.
And as long as are they putting in a sump

(17:06):
well too, or is there no standing water or where
are you on that?

Speaker 4 (17:10):
No, there's there's no standing water, So it's it's bring
that state good. But they were looking at the the
guy that built the house as a young guy, but
he did evidently a very good job. He did build
some vents into the foundation, okay, And they're going to

(17:30):
try to draw and from my understanding, that was originally
designed to bring air in, right.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
If there's some mechanism to pull air in and to
pull air out. So if you have a vent, unless
there's a strong wind, it's not going to bring any
air in. And where people sometimes make the mistake is
if it's eighty percent humidity outside and that air is
coming into the cross space, you know, what have you
really gained.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
Sure, Well, one of the proposals had vent I had
fans actually keeping the events there instead of closing them,
but having fans drawing it out, drawing air out.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, I mean both are acceptable. I will say that
for uh cross space encapsulation, most of them are closed out,
closed off, but there are still some where the events
are open. And as long as there's a mechanism to
pull the air in and to pull the humid air
that's already in that cross space out and you get
a little cross ventilation, that's fine. But you know, again

(18:35):
the other thinking is, well, the air's humid outside maybe
I don't know, fifty percent of the time, sixty percent
of the time. I don't want to do that. And
another thing is they also have it where the humidity
you know, they're controlled by humidistat when the umity gets
to a certain point in that cross space, it automatically

(18:56):
turns on. So both of them are acceptable. So you're
not going to a really quote go wrong. I kind
of like to just seal them off and just have
it as an encapsulated space.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
Okay, all right, and we'll put in a demidifier in
there as well. Is there a dimes worth of difference
between a seventy pint and one hundred pint demidifier. No,
just get the.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Right and the biggest thing is just to make sure
you get the right square footage for it. And of
course the hundred pint is probably going to do a
larger square footage, but I would buy it in terms
of the square footage more so than the pints. All right,
I hope that helps. Thank you very much for the call.
And you're at home with Gary Sullivan.

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(22:43):
Before we get to the phone's here, I just want
to spend a couple of minutes and talking about that
crawl space in the whole house encapsulation. When we got
to the point of a do you midifier, remember a
couple of things. Number when deumidifiers are, they're expensive to operate.
And you've also heard me talk about an easy breathe

(23:06):
for basements. That's an air exchanging unit. It's a controlled
air exchanging unit. And I bring that name up because
of if you live in an area with a lot
of humidity outside, you might bring small amounts of air
in and pull out small amounts of air. And as

(23:29):
you bringing in small amounts of era, it's being conditioned
by the air conditioner. See you're not getting into that
whole humidity range that I was talking about in terms
of being a problem. So in a cross space, you
already got the vent, so you got the hole for
the easy breathe, which is an apparacid's free standing, plugs

(23:50):
in and it's pulling air out up through a vent
and outside, and then that air is being backfilled, if
you will, through just opening of doors and you know
the regular coming and going in a house. So it
is a controlled ventilation, and that might be it's like

(24:15):
the cost is like a running a forty what light bulb. Okay,
so it's minimal, it's not one hundred percent like it's
going to, you know, bring your humidity to be perfect control.
And humidity is a system, but sometimes I used to
use it to humidify it and I don't need one

(24:36):
anymore because of other things that I've made adjustments and
in terms of the humidity in my house. So just
give that some thought. I'm just want to throw that
out there, all right. Our phone number if you'd like
to ask a question is eight hundred eight two three
eight two five five and Steve Welcome.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Hi, Gary Hope. We're all having the best day ever.
We're trying sure that I have a we have a
ranch built about nineteen sixty one, and it's time for
a new roof finally after several decades. So we're getting
the roofing and gutter quotes. This first had two part question,

(25:18):
but one is about just general ventning of our attic
slash cross space. You know, one roofer just gave a
standard quote with ridge vent. We currently have about four
old small box vents about I want to say about
one by one box fence on the south roof. The
other one one's old swirling vents that you know, turn

(25:42):
with the wind or something. Yes, he says, the build
of our house, the ridge vents won't work. There's something
about the crown of the roof when you look from
underneath that doesn't work well with that. So have a
question about which direction to go there, and then I
have questions about the whole house.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, So the first the first question I guess is
you know, between the turbine vents and the shoe box vents,
is the most important or the equally important part is
the inflow of air which comes through the soffits. So
the softa venting. Do you know if there is soft

(26:27):
in venting in that roof?

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yes, I mean it looks like it, but we haven't
had really the facip pulled off of it.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
But yes, okay, So that's that's fifty percent of the solution. Okay.
So as I was just talking about in terms of
controlled ventilation in an attic, and attic kind of works
like a chimney. You've got to give it a place
to exhaust the heat. So let's say it's ninety degrees

(26:59):
outes today. That's hot outside, but that's considered cool air
because the attic temperature is probably one hundred and thirty
hundred and forty in an unventilated attic. So with those
soft events, which is fifty percent of the solution, it
replaces and gives permission to the heated air in the

(27:21):
attic to go out. Whether it's a ridge vent, whether
it's a turbine vent, whether it's a shoe box vent,
gable vents. If you're bringing air in that air will
be able to escape. Be like a chimney. Right, hot
air rises, cooler air replaces it. If you don't have

(27:41):
that replacement air, it doesn't matter really what you put
up there, because without replacement air, it won't leave. The
hot air won't leave because mother nature won't allow a
vacuum to happen. So I would say, if you had
good soft inventing, either one's fine. I think the shoebox

(28:05):
vents are hidden a little bit more. It doesn't look
quite as industrial. It doesn't matter whether the turbine's moving
to refresh that air in the attic, because if you
don't have replacement air coming in, it doesn't matter. And
if you have replacement air, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Oh I'm sorry to talk, but the one contractor claims
that he'll lower the average temperature that's up there, and
it kind of acts like a hot walk or bottle
on the house in the dog days of summer. We
can tell that better ventilation will improve the amount of
work that our air conditioner has.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Oh, there's no question you've got to have it ventilated.
I'm just saying, if you got soft inventing, you can
use either vent you want. I just would say a
shoebox vent would probably be a little less industrial looking,
but either one's fine. You just got it. So there's
a formula, okay, and it's for every square foot of

(29:06):
footprint of the house, not the size of the house,
but the actual footprint of the house. For every three
hundred square feet, you want one square foot of uninterrupted
ventilation split fifty to fifty from intake. Soffit, I'll take
turbin ventor shoe box vent. Then you can take that

(29:28):
one hundred and forty degree temperature in the attic and
bring in ninety degree temperature in your attic temperature probably
be about one hundred and five somewhere in that area.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Okay, Well, thank you for that. And the second part
of my question about the the missus must have is
a whole house, and she grew up with one. Loves
how you can you know, in those in between her
days and open up the windows and quickly ventilate the
inside of the house. Both roofers so far are like

(30:02):
I've asked them to quote the exhaust and they're they're
down on that and they basically want to just tell
me you just to vent it into the attic and
then it'll is that okay to vent that in the attack?

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Is that going to cause Yeah, a whole house fan.
So it's you know, right usually in the center of
the house or in a hallway or something, and you
open the windows, and the most important part of that
is the same as the attic. It's fine to vent
it into the attic, and then if it's properly vented
in the attic, it's going to push that hot air

(30:39):
out too. I mean, they can almost be used in concert,
but you got to size that whole house fan. There's
a way to size them, Like if you got a
a two thousand square foot home with eight foot ceilings,
you'd probably want somewhere between a CFM of five and

(31:00):
six thousand. So you know, you've got to be careful.
Bigger is not always better. Just got to make sure
its size properly. But yeah, right right in the center
of the house into the attic is fine. That's very acceptable.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
And one finally commented though that that the vents that
would sit in our hallway, they said, you've got to
get like a magnet cover or something come with in
somepen ones come with like an insulated something that covers it.
So we don't get the heat or cooled down from
the right.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
So you're putting it exactly right. So let's reverse seasons here,
you know it. Let's say it's twenty degrees outside again,
that attic temperature is probably going to be thirty thirty
five degrees or less with good ventilation. And if you've
got a square hole in the ceiling, which might be

(31:53):
two foot by two foot by two foot or whatever,
it'll be sizable. With metal louvers, you're going to lose
a lot of heat from your house, so you got
to seal those off. You're not going to use a
whoiles fan in the winter anyway, right right, So yeah,
you do have to. You definitely have to weather strip
that in the wintertime. And and and you know you

(32:15):
can't use it all the time in the summer either,
because that same thing can hold true. We're just talking
about wednes ninety degrees outside and bringing that and it
works nice. They're wonderful. I had a home that head
one in. I liked it too, but I did feel
like I was probably losing a lot of energy come
days like today. I mean you could turn it on
at night, I mean it would feel good at night

(32:38):
but when you get into you know, areas where there's
a lot of humidity, and you know it can be
a different ballgame. So you definitely would have to winter
rise it, no question about that. And you know on
really hot days if it's not being used, you'll feel
heat penetrating through that.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Okay, well great, thank you so much for all the
scary Thank you.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
All right, Steve, have a good weekend. Appreciate it. All right,
let's take a break. We'll come back. We got Rick, Sam,
Ingrid and David and if you'd like to join us
do so. We're talking about your home and you're at
home with Gary Sullivan.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Help for your home is just a click away at
Garysullivan online dot com. This is at Home with Gary Sullivan.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
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Speaker 5 (34:08):
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(35:56):
we go twelve minutes before the top of the hour
in uh busy weekend. If you're having a good one,
as we talk a little home improven, let's get back
to the phones, and we got Rick, Rick, Welcome, Thank
you for answering.

Speaker 6 (36:08):
Gary, you are a wealth of information.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Thank you, my friend.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (36:13):
I have an eighteen by four front entrance concrete slab
and it's been painted more times than I care to remember.
And I've heard you talk about that roller rock, and
I'm going to try it okay, but I don't know
what exactly I need to do for a successful finish.
Some appealing, some parts I could never get off, and

(36:37):
do I stand it all off or grind it.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
You're going to be most successful rick with as much
of that present finish removed as possible. And there's two
ways of doing it. You can either grind it off,
which sounds horrible but it's not that bad. You have
to get to a tool rental and you know, get
it looks like a big buffer, only it's got a

(37:02):
a screen and a diamond screen where it's going to
just scratch that paint off or chemically remove it with
different types of you know, a paint stripper along those lines.
But you're going to be most successful if you remove
it to make sure that the roller rock, which is
a coating thicker than paint, certainly more durable than paint,

(37:24):
and it's going to have to grab and bite onto
that concrete. So removing the old finish, I would say,
would be key.

Speaker 6 (37:33):
So if I use a chemical, what would you suggest
I use far a chemical?

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Well, I'll tell you what. There's there's only one that
does multiple different types of paint. We just had a
guest on yesterday from Dumont Global and they have a
test kit and it's got a little bit of four

(37:58):
different types of strippers and you find out which one
will remove that particular paint because I don't know if
we got regular paint in. I don't know if it's oil,
I don't know if it's lead based, I don't know
if it's the old milk paint. I mean, we got
a lot of different coating, so it will. You'll get
this task kit. They're about fifteen bucks, well worth it

(38:20):
because most strippers now they sell it as it's going
to remove everything, and no strippers remove all different types
of paint. So you got to identify what's on.

Speaker 6 (38:31):
There all right, So I have to get it right
down to the original concrete finish.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
Ideally everything has to.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Come off ideally okay, ideally Otherwise you're putting a coating
on a paint or on another type of coating, and
if that old coating it's going to fail before the
new stuff does. The new stuff's only as good as
the what it's on. So ideally you would grind it
off or you would strip it off.

Speaker 6 (39:00):
Okay, And once I do the roller rock, is that
it is there something additional that needs.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
To be it'll be over it. So there's a couple
of different ones they have, and I would encourage you
to go to that website. There's one called roller Rock,
there's one called Spreadstone's.

Speaker 6 (39:18):
Thought roller Rock would be the easiest for someone who's
not too adept.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Okay, Well, Spreadstone roller Rock are pretty close in terms
of you roll it on. I mean once you grind
it off or get it off that that you're ready
to go. It's good and clean, and the surface is
you know, it's it's prepared, you're ready to go. Two
coats rolled on, I think there's two hour dry time

(39:43):
between them, and then you want to put a sealer
over it. So there's three steps.

Speaker 6 (39:49):
And the same company makes the sailor for the roller Rock.
You could get them together.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yes, so they have I think the Spreadstone, when I
think comes in a kit. Uh. And I'm not saying
you should do that, I'm just saying it comes in
one Their Their website is dice It's d k I
ch codings dot com.

Speaker 6 (40:13):
Okay, does the spread Stone go on easy?

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Like the same same exact way? Oh, good, good good,
same exact way, Gary.

Speaker 6 (40:23):
Thank you a million. I listened to you every week.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Thank you, sir, appreciate it. Have good weekend, Take care
all right.

Speaker 5 (40:30):
Uh yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
The sealer that goes over UV resistant seiler roller rock
will will have a lifespan, uh you know, fifteen years plus. Yes,
you can use a snowshell on it. Uh. The seiler
called track Safe is the one I would recommend roller
rocks fairly slip resistant to track Safe is totally slip resistent.

(40:54):
The sealer would be applied about every five years and
it's a beautiful finish. Five different colors in the roller
rock Spreadstone's got a few more extra ones Ingrid.

Speaker 7 (41:07):
Welcome hither Gary, Hi, thank you for taking my call. Hither,
And I'm calling to ask you. I have an old
deck that's about fourteen by fourteen. It's green treated stained.
It's just warping on the corners and I've decided I'm
tired of staining it because it doesn't last very long.

(41:28):
Because there's a lot of dogs and a lot of
traffic on it. I'm wondering I'm thinking of going maintenance free,
and I'm wondering if you would recommend anything.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah, And there's a lot out there now and.

Speaker 7 (41:42):
I guess it, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 6 (41:46):
I was gonna say.

Speaker 7 (41:46):
I looked only at one place and it.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Was you know, it's just a big box store.

Speaker 7 (41:51):
And I was overwhelmed. I'm like, I have no idea,
and I just left.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
And there's so many brands out there. There's a moisture shield,
there's decorators, there's tracks, they're timber tech. But I've been
watching this pressure dreeated movement that started probably in the
late seventies and then that you know, back then it
was like, oh, you put this down last forever, you
never have to worry about it. You're wrong, and it
requires a lot of maintenance, as you know, and I

(42:17):
guess nothing's forever. But they started this composite decking, which
is wood flower and plastic, and that did okay, but
it really wasn't the holy grail, you know. I mean,
after a while it turned looked like concrete. It looked bad,
and they absorbed dirt and scratched. And now now being

(42:39):
the last probably ten or fifteen years, they started using
a capped composite. And the cap composite that's the ticket,
because it's still the wood flower in the plastic. But
they've put a PVC liner or a polyethylene liner over

(43:00):
the composite. Okay, so it's protected from the sun. It's
scratch resistant, fade resistant, pretty much, wear resistant for the
most part. Your better brands, like your moisture shield, your
timber Tech, your trecks decorators. You're talking twenty five year
warranty on it. It is beautiful, it's beautiful. It depends,

(43:24):
you know, it gets down to how much you want
to spend, you know, depending on how how beautiful it is.
There's even some out there now that has like a
heat shield in it. Wood gets hot, so will the
cap con posit. A lot of people think it gets
too hot. I think it's very comparable to wood. But

(43:45):
there's some you know, a dark canyon brown's gonna be
pretty hot if it's a western or south facing so
you might look in where it has some sort of
radiant bounce off. In other words, it's not going to
get super hot, and it'll talk about that on the composite.

(44:06):
But a cap composite is what you're looking for. Take
a look at the timber. Yeah, timber Tech or tracks
would be good brands to look at.

Speaker 6 (44:18):
Gary.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
All right, have a good weekend, Take care, all right,
grab a line. We got plenty of time to take
your call at eight hundred and eight two three eight
two five five. When we come back, we got Sam
Joe Ed and if you'd like to join us, love
to have you. We'll continue. You're at home with Garry Sullivan.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Help for your home is just a click away at
Garysullivan online dot com. This is at Home with Gary Sullivan,
m hm.

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