(00:00:00) Minnesota public radio's coverage of issues related to education is made possible in part by a major Grant from Ashland Oil Incorporated and it's super America stores throughout the region. Good morning. It's now five minutes past eleven o'clock. Welcome to midday. My guest in the studio is Gary Branson and he's an encyclopedia of practical knowledge on all your home fix up projects and household repairs. Thanks for coming in today. Gary good to see you. Gary. Branson is contributing editor of workbench magazine and author of several books everyday home repairs recycling for the home finishing a basement complete guide to recycling barrier free housing for the handicapped and a guide to Home Centers and lumber yards. Now. If you have a home repair question for Gary Branson, you can call us in the Twin Cities at 2276 thousand or toll free anywhere you hear this program at one eight hundred two, four two 2828. Those numbers again are 2276 thousand or toll-free. 1-800-221-9460 Donald with you this morning. Ring on. Midday and Gary. Let's start out. First of all, I imagine that there are a lot of people who jumped on the homeownership bandwagon with the latest round of interest rate cuts and maybe are having kind of an eye-opening experience. Maybe they're finding some few problems here and there that they maybe weren't expecting or are a little bit confused about what to do about them. Is is that your expectation and are you going to have a market for all of the books you put out now? (00:01:24) Well, we hope to obviously they have market for the books. We have found I was a building contractor before I got into the business of writing about it Bruce and we used to go to the hardware shows National Hardware shows in Chicago at McCormick Place in 1977. I started going the show when I started handyman magazine Family Handyman by the time I went to my last show there a couple of years ago. I believe that thing is probably quadrupled we've seen the thing this whole remodeling thing as the housing stock of America ages. You find more and more in the home repair. We also find that house has settled in the first two years after they're built the moisture gives moisture has given up from the lumber and building components. And therefore you have to go around and recall can weather strip and make sure everything's tight it when I was about two years old. So that's about the age how far you get before you have to start doing a few fix up things. (00:02:21) You think people are more willing to do fix up projects themselves nowadays where maybe in the past they would have someone come in and (00:02:27) do it. Well, I believe that's true. The one of the things that's happened. There's been a tremendous advance in technology as far as building materials. We went from cast iron pipe where you had to thread with tap and die up to Copper where you could sweat solder up to Plastics where you could solvent weld when I was young we had only oil-based or asphaltic type cock products today. Of course, we have the silicones and acrylic latex has and sell acrylic latex is with silicones 25-year caulks once your product is drying it. Place these products are guaranteed the last 25 years. They're easier to use their water clean up. The paint is another primary example almost all boil based paints of almost gone by the wayside for the homeowner. (00:03:13) This is a question. It's always come to my mind is a lifelong apartment dweller. How do you know when you know, whether a project is suitable for a do-it-yourselfer and one that really needs a professional in there. I mean people don't want to get themselves involved in a project on a Saturday afternoon. For example, that's going to figuratively paint themselves into the corner and they can't get out of it. They find that they need some some professional help whether it be electrical or Plumbing. I mean what kinds of projects do you think really still require the (00:03:43) professional? Well, I think if you get into anything concerned with anything major in the plumbing field electrical most especially and heating air conditioning, those are technical jobs highly-trained where you have codes building codes that are very strict. Following many instances unlike say painting 94% of all homeowners do some or all of their own painting. They may not like the ladders on the outside and don't want to do that but they will paint the bedroom or repaint the kitchen. So that is one of the things where the homeowner feels pretty confident. I have of him or herself as you get into the more technical things furnace problems air conditioning problems electrical problems, then if you don't have the expertise and the only one that knows that is the individual homeowner here herself because there is no way for the magazine editor for example to gauge their level of expertise so that we just we tell them, you know up front you can find code books at the library. If you don't know the code maybe you should save your money someplace else and go hire an electrician (00:04:50) Gary Branson is a contributing editor of workbench magazine and he's a home repair expert he joins us in the studio on midday today Gary the as always happens when you're in here the Sport is lighting up. So we'll get to some listener calls here for in a moment. But let me ask you one other question before we do that. What are the most important things homeowners should do now to take care of things before winter really sets in we've had some kind of cold weather and some snow in this region, but winter has not arrived in Earnest yet. I don't think you could say what last-minute preparations for winter should homeowners be considering this afternoon. (00:05:24) Well Caulking and weather stripping and an insulation check our are really to your advantage. We estimate we've done some work with dabbu make a cock product or series of cock products including a new removable caulk if you have loose Windows, you can put that removable con between the window Sash and frame and strip it back out in the spring and open or any time you want to open the window those cock products. They figure that you can save three to eight percent on your heating bill simply by stopping the heat leaks. That's a primary thing. Of course, you should have your furnace tuned and be sure it's in good working order going into the winter. Time if you haven't done that for two years you probably ought to think about that weather stripping around all your windows and doors. Those are the things that you ought to check and then we check the insulation in the Attic. Sometimes you may have missed something. We did a thing on Helix, for example, where we showed that people, you know, they blow in the insulation in the attic and maybe the insulation is entitled around say a chimney and fireplace chimney that penetrates through that e and you get a little void here a little void there and those little boys can add up so you should take care to plug all those up and and be sure you have a complete and monolithic thermal blanket up there. So it's (00:06:37) uninterrupted when I was growing up in northern Wisconsin, you would often see people put plastic sheeting on the outside of their Windows nowadays. It seems to be going on the inside with some of these newer products that you can actually, you know, use a hairdryer and with this big sheet up on the inside of the window use a hairdryer it shrinks up looks really nice. No Distortion as you look out, is that a good idea to those? Pretty well, (00:07:00) they do indeed what you can do with the I'm thinking 3M product at use the heat gun on you can use a double edged tape to tape that to the window then hit it with a heat gun and it'll it'll tighten up and Shrink so that it's drum head tight across there. You can overlap the window unit completely anything you do to the glass itself ignores the cracks between the sash in the frame so that that's where the air leaks in and this thing can overlap the whole window unit. You can see out it is not a barrier to escape in case of a fire or other type of emergency and you can always remove the thing anytime you want to and they're very (00:07:36) inexpensive. You don't see any problem with condensation on that (00:07:40) membrane. Well, there should not be well what happens is that you have a possibility of having any time. You have a cool surface, of course most normally if you've got any kind of a build up there you will you've got some kind of a moisture problem in your house. You should deal with you maybe should (00:07:54) dehumidify Gary Branson has joined us on midday today. He's a home repair expert. Let's go to Telephone calls. Good morning. You're on midday. Well, thank you. I have a 35 year old house and I did some upgrading I thought put in a bay window and replaced all the other windows to get rid of the maintenance from storm windows now. However, I find that as soon as the temperature gets below freezing. I'm getting moisture condensation on those windows and it disturbs me because I'm invested a lot of money and they're beautifully finished. I was told that an air exchanger might cure the problem and that's a fairly good investment or should I get storm windows again? They're just double paned their double pane pillow windows I or was I sold or did I buy the wrong type of window? I live alone. There are a lot there on top of a lot of hot showers. I don't do a lot of heavy cooking and this moisture problem. It does, you know, it builds up and in the very cold weather last winter. I would get a nice build up even about an inch up from the frame. Well Gary that sounds like a common problem in our cold weather region here that kind of building up of moisture inside the structure in the wintertime, especially when you're dealing with tighter houses these days. How do you deal with that (00:09:22) problem? Well brusett the tighter house is the problem. What happened is when you had the old leaky windows in the house that moisture instead of forming on the window and forming ice or condensation would just simply pass through the unit. Now, you've got a good tight unit. And Pella is a Superior Window curiously some of the Premier windows in the United States are made within a stone's throw Palace maid down in Iowa and Anderson of course of Bayport, and and so we've got some of the best window companies in the world right here. So there's nothing wrong with your window. What you've done is got a tight window there now, and there's no place that moisture to pass out if you We go back to Pella oil or to the installer and make sure usually we had little air holes at the bottom to let some of that moisture Escape they were called weep holes as in crying weeping. They let the moisture out and without any great sacrifice in thermal value. You could get rid of the moisture in between and I would have somebody check and make sure that the that is functioning properly. That would be the first thing if you have a moisture build-up that's excessive on there. You do have moisture coming from someplace. This may be simply from a little cooking or from a hot shower can put a lot of moisture or even a toilet stool that stands with the lid up if you have standing water in there that can evaporate and help add your problems. So we urge people to wipe down the after you take a shower bath use your after you dry off with a towel wipe down the tile wipe down the tub take the towel out of the bathroom area and into a laundry or basement or someplace to get the moisture out of there leave the lid down on your toilet stool to help retired the evaporation there if you still have a problem Even in even opening a wind or slightly for a few minutes will usually let that moisture pass out. He's trying very hard to pass out. And that's why it's going to that window moisture tries to equalize itself. So if the your humidity is very dry outside on a cold day when the relative humidity is low then high moisture inside wants to join their water always seeks its own level whether it's a flowing river or moisture. So that's what it's trying to do and as it would be a very last resort to put an air to air heat exchanger in there and try to win it that way that's very expensive solution. I would put a dehumidifier in there before that and then just put the humidifier up until you just get the moisture off the windows and then leave it at that level so it doesn't get too dry. You (00:11:41) know, let's see what else is on the minds of the listeners this morning. Thanks for joining us on. Midday. You're on the air. I got a question a while ago there were plans on how to make some wooden clamps. These are basically steel threaded rods. And for the life of me, I don't know what happened to the magazine. I don't wish magazine. Is there any way of finding Out how to get a hold of those plans. (00:12:02) Well, you could go to the library or you could what magazines do you take sir? Where do you think your (00:12:06) son? I don't remember which magazine I read it (00:12:10) in. Uh-huh. You could argue can always if you look at the cheap way to do that is check out the library go to the newsstand and just take the inside. There's a list of the editors in the people who work on the book and there will be a phone number there and you could call that a tutorial office. I would the first thing you do is call workbench magazine in Kansas City or family handyman is right here in out on the Strip on 494 and call them and ask them if they have the plan and if not where they might have seen it because we used to read each other's Magazine still do I don't know where you might have seen that because so many of them the wood magazine for example down in Iowa is a is a shop magazine that deals in that sort of thing. So workbench Popular Mechanics does an awful lot of friend of mine writes the Rosario Capital still does the shop things up there and he might have done it. So it you would have to just call around and check the library for Issues and see if you can (00:13:09) find it Gary Branson is our guest on midday today a home repair expert in an author of several books on the subject. Go to another listener call. Thanks for joining us on. Midday. You're on the air. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning morning about four weeks ago the was shut off from the street in my house on our street because of sewer work. And since that time, I've lost water pressure, but only in two places the the bath in the master bath and the sink in the my 3/4 bath. Is there a way I can rebuild this water pressure inexpensively. (00:13:45) Well, how old is your house sir? 30 years old. It may be that when they shut that water down you might have had some lime and mineral deposits in that pipe and they were coated on the inside of the pipe and when they shut the water pressure off the that softened and dropped off when they put the pressure back on and it hit that softened mineral accumulation it just Delusion plug part plugged up part of your pipe so it should not it sounds like you have a partial problem in the water pipe itself just to those outlets and probably you will have to have a plumber do that unless you if you have Plumbing skills, you might take that apart and see whether you can check out that pipe and see whether it or not. It is plugged off times you clean it. It may be plugged that it may be that you knock some of that mineral deposit loosen it and it went up to the faucet area. So you might be able to do it by removing and cleaning (00:14:38) faucet maybe a little screen in the aerators. I'm sure it (00:14:41) could be something as simple as (00:14:42) that. Okay. Let's go to another listener call. Thanks for joining us on. Midday. You're on the air. Hello. Hello. I have a question about inflamed my attic. I'm currently starting to do that. And what I have is two by four Trust Construction. Yes 2x4 Joyce's right. Now. I have three and a half inches of fiberglass insulation there now, I'm just wondering what would be the best way to working around those those trusses because they're like, you know, like Big W right area ha ha. Well, I was more interested in using fiberglass all (00:15:16) well the fiberglass of course is torn up into little up Tufts and blown into the attic and that's the best way in my estimation to do that. If you work with bats, you have to trim and cut around all those things three and a half inches of insulation is not enough you may be aware that there's hassle between the state of Minnesota and the installation companies right now for overstating our values the thing has yet to be resolved but in Minnesota, we generally guard that you should have about 12 inches of insulation where that it permits some time had a construction doesn't permit because you've got to low at the eaves and you can't fill that adequate insulation without plugging the area between the soffit and the inside so there's no air flow and we don't want that. So the best thing to do in that case to get a good blanket in there and you can blow to any depth that the leaves will permit is to call a blowing insulation company incidentally. I've often found And that people would go out and they're going to save money by bats and Carl around the in attic and do this themselves often times. If you would call and check with one of the major installation companies, you'll find they'll do it cheaper than you could by the insulation. Is that right? That's (00:16:20) true. Yes Gary. It's been many years. Now since the energy crisis of the 1970s when people a lot of people decided that he costs were going up so high that it really made a lot of sense for them to go in and insulate their homes and better than they were at the time. I'm wondering now how some of that older insulation is holding up is this something that lasts and lasts and lasts or does it have to be renewed from time to time (00:16:44) ordinarily most of your installations are inert and they have fiberglass for example will not support combustion, which is a good thing obviously doesn't support or a rodent rodent infestation or pest infestation of rats or mice or whatever won't nest in the stuff because it's too nasty the fiberglass (00:17:03) make some scratcher right itch I should say (00:17:05) fiberglass normally doesn't settle a whole heck of a lot. Well, you get a little bit of settling so ordinarily your insulation is good for the life of the building and you might check it out from time to time and see I mean from year to year. This isn't some you have to do often and just take a ruler up there and check the depth and see how much settling you got in. You might want to go in with another 3/4 inches. If you have a (00:17:27) home improvement or home repair question for Gary Branson, you can give us a call here at Minnesota Public Radio in the Twin Cities at 2276 thousand or toll free anywhere you hear this program at one eight hundred to four to 2828 those numbers again 2276 thousand or toll free in the region that one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight another listener question now on. Midday, you're on the air. Thanks for waiting. Yeah. Thanks. I've got a about a 13 year old dishwasher that over the last couple of years have gotten Rusty or and Rusty are looking inside and I'm wondering if there's anything I can do about it and what the cause of that might be. (00:18:04) It's getting rest your inside. Well, of course, they age of the appliance 13 years, you're approaching the useful life of the dishwasher. The other thing is that you may have if you live in an area where you have your own water system, you may have some Rust and heavy mineral content in that water and that may be contributing to your problem. There's not much that I know of that would that would take that rust out is the rest does it appear to be a sediment from the water or is (00:18:31) it it's kind of like the inside of the dishwasher is just gradually gotten more and more stained looking. It's kind of a white enamel. So normally but it's just got this. It's gotten Browner and Browner as as time has gone on and (00:18:46) I'm well you could of course go to one of the things we like to urge people to do. If you have a problem that and you don't know what cleaner to use material to use to clean it go to any janitorial supply house and tell them the problem. They'll give you a cleaner that's industrial strength that will solve your problem. People are not aware. They think they're stuck with whatever they can buy off the grocery store shelf and that isn't true. You can go to just look in the Yellow Pages of your phone book under janitorial supply house. Give him a call. Tell him you got this problem and asked him what they have the for cleaner and you might try to clean it up. I would tell you a remind you though that 13 years for that dishwasher is getting close to the useful life of the appliance. So you might want to replace it. (00:19:25) Is it kind of like a car where it will begin to rust and once it starts it's hard to arrest. (00:19:29) Well you get yeah, it should not be with the enamel finish in there. You ordinarily would not expect that. The rest is from the container itself, Maybe. Dishwashers it may be that you know, that's 13 years depending on how much usage how many people your and your family and how much you see to gets you maybe have just chipped that thing up enough that water can get into there and it ran (00:19:51) rusted Gary. Branson is our guest today on midday. Hello. Thanks for waiting. You're on the air. Hello. I have a big old Victorian house and I've been worrying about what would happen if our power went out for an extended period like it did town in southern Minnesota last winter in the Halloween blizzard and I've been trying to decide whether I should do something like installing one of these new little gas stoves that are kind of cute with a little gas log or whether I should do something like maybe get a generator that would kick in if the electricity was (00:20:32) out. Do you live ma'am? You see have an older Victorian house. Do you live in the Twin City area? Are you out in the (00:20:37) country? Very small town of ways out of the Twin Cities. (00:20:41) Uh-huh. What is your experience with power loss there have you have you ever had to (00:20:45) suffer had an extended outage but them at home suppose allow those people balance southern Minnesota had well, of course, there is the great (00:20:53) exception to the rule and and living as I do in the Twin Cities whenever I've lost bar. It's been a very short-term thing. They're obviously these utilities are so good at what they do that when we have an extended eyes were really mad because we don't expect trouble of the telephone or the electric is supposed to be there we watered but you could check with your own power company down there and and ask him what the recommend station might be for standby power. It would be quite expensive to wire into your house a standby generator and I would think that would be you know, that would be a bit of an extreme to go to it was being done quite a bit. We were getting a lot of that brown out in New York, for example for while those home generators were were very popular, but they're very expensive and you have to wire them in and then they We run a few things you get a little lights and maybe you can run your furnace and that's about you know, maybe keep your refrigerator going. (00:21:44) How about a little supplementary heater as she suggests maybe a gas heater of some (00:21:48) kind if you have gas there or there are a number of heaters are there, of course the end or kerosene heaters. I don't recommend that you use a combustion Appliance, even though they say they're safe, but it could be used as a backup. And if you go to one of the Builders Square One of the you know builder supply houses and check out the heaters available there that kerosene heaters have been very popular in there. So a lot of my just don't believe in using combustion product inside and uh non-vented inside the (00:22:17) house, right? I remember those were very popular in the early 80s the kerosene heaters have kind of fallen off a bit in popularity of they (00:22:25) not well they have they we were all looking for some kind of a way to beat the power game, right and the energy and of course turned out there hasn't been a way that was very cost-effective the but they have found Those you know, what we always suspected burning a any kind of a substance such as kerosene inside the house with no vent. It's not the best thing to do. And as we tighten up the house that we talked earlier Bruce, those are tighter. Now, they're not very forgiving of we put the all these pollutants into our house and they're in your house is probably more polluted than it is outside this in the street for that. Very reason (00:23:01) you're listening to midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Bruce McDonald. My guest today is Gary Branson. He's a home fix up expert. Let's go to the phones again. Thanks a lot for waiting. You're on the air now. Yeah. My question is fiberglass insulation. I was going to the store to buy some and it had on their face tan done faced and I was wondering what what what does that mean? (00:23:21) Well faced fiberglass insulation means that it has an inside coating that serves as a vapor barrier most often. The facing on fiberglass is a craft paper and that is intended to be used in new construction. If you are going to use it in new construction between the studs. Our ceiling joists, you can staple that face at Kraft paper face across the joists are studs and former Vapor Barrier there that must be done very carefully to get an effective baby bear. If you're just adding insulation. You always want to buy the on faced a fiberglass because you do not want to add a vapor barrier in the middle of a pile of insulation. You see the vapor barrier should be on the warm side. So if you put a vapor barrier if he had six inches of insulation and they faced insulation bats on top of it. You could get some condensation there cause you some heating problem. So that's the difference if it you pay much more for the faced in insulation. If you're adding it a top existing insulation, you don't need it and not only don't need it. I don't want it. (00:24:20) How does that Vapor Barrier worked as it do you actually get condensation on the surface of that paper on the inside of the wall (00:24:29) ordinarily would not because you it is to the warm side of the vapor barrier itself is warm all it does moisture as we mentioned earlier is trying to escape from a loan Australia from high to low moisture is trying to equalize itself. So it'll go right through the wall right to the building materials that's called the fact that the rate at which it transfers is called the perm Factor the rate at which it permeates those building materials. We put the vapor barrier you may recall in older houses that don't have Vapor Barrier. We always got peeling paint on the outside that was because the moisture came through the wall hit that paint barrier couldn't go any further and what peel the paint off now we put the vapor barrier in there keeps your insulation dry. And it also keeps your insulator your exterior siding from peeling (00:25:13) Gary. Let's go to another call now. Thanks for thanks for waiting. You're on. Midday. Hi. I'm calling from Winona and I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the blown in type of insulation that's made of I understand shredded newspaper that's been chemically chemically treated and how deep can you blow that in an attic where there is no Vapor Barrier, I believe there's some kind of a code on that and also what about settling with that material. I presume it. Be worse than with fiberglass, but just tell us a little bit about this different kind of insulation. Thanks. (00:25:45) Okay, cellulosic insulation has been around forever and it's made out of cellulose which is paper by products wood wood pulp often shredded newspaper waste we utilized waste newspaper in the community by putting it through a shredding process and you have cellulosic insulation because paper would support a Vermin such as mice or insects or that sort of thing and also would support combustion, which you don't want to do we treat it with boric acid to make it fire retardant. They don't call it flameproof, but it is it burns more slowly during the big energy crunch. We had a problem people ran out of boric acid because it was in short supply and the demand great and they used the wrong kinds of insights of acid to treat it. And as a result they acid corroded some of the wiring in that somehow there were twenty two house fires in Denver that were attributed to the use of that defective cellulosic product. Right if it's done, right and I'm assuming that most of it today is so I would be very careful to company. I bought it from as far as settling it should be no worse than then any other to my knowledge you get some slight settling with it. It doesn't have quite the springy quality that you expect in the fiberglass where fiberglass is available. I urge people to use fiberglass (00:27:07) a lot of insulation questions today. You can tell people are thinking of that it with this. So whether that we've had in the last couple of weeks, I'm wondering Gary we've talked a little bit about the issue of caulking putting up some of these plastic membranes on Windows and that type of thing to kind of tighten your house. How do you make the decision whether it makes sense to actually put in new windows really state-of-the-art windows? They're they're rather expensive but they're very very good. How do you come up with the how do you make a rational decision on where to just use some of these stopgap in the literal sense methods here and actually go out and put in a new window. (00:27:46) Well, the loss of heat loss through windows can be Troublesome and it does take because windows are are fairly expensive component. It does take quite a long time to get a payback if your payback is limited only to dollars if you're thinking how much gas our power. Can I save as opposed to the old window? There are other things such as the Comfort level if you have a drafty house, you may be willing to pay the heating bills in there, but you're sitting around and I'm a little uncomfortable because I'm moving air in the drafts in there. So that's the other thing. You've got to consider the Comfort level. If you can stop the drafts, you not only get a payoff in your heat loss and and lower energy bills, but just to comfort of the home the baby crawling on the floor type of things. So those are things if your windows are in good condition, there isn't any wood rot. There seems to be no Decay or that sort of thing in the wood and the any appear to be tight and functioning. Well, you probably can. Innovators Windows possibly strip them and repaint them lubricate them and put new weights into an extra thing and they'll serve perfectly fine. If that is not the case and you've got major deterioration in the window units, then it probably pay to go with the new unit and you will get those other benefits. They are more energy efficient and they are more airtight. There's not much air loss through their (00:29:09) 26 minutes now before noon on. Midday, you're listening to Gary Branson a home fix up expert. Let's go back to the phone's Gary and see what else what other kinds of fix-up and renovation questions are out there. Thanks a lot for waiting here on midday. Hi. I'm this is another installation call and I understand you might have covered this earlier, but I just started listening. We have blown insulation in the roof of our in the Attic of our home and I'm wondering I've heard that the R value at 32 drops in half for that installation. I'm wondering How do you determine if it's worth replacing your attic insulation with fiberglass or a better? (00:29:49) What do you have in there now, sir? (00:29:50) It's a cellulose blown (00:29:51) cellulose. Well, it's obvious. Well, we'll start by saying the gentleman before just talked about cellulose and you can in case there's any question you can install cellulose on top of fiberglass or fiberglass on top of cellulose. You can mix the products that with no penalty. The thing as far as the adding more insulation are 32. Is it a bit light in Minnesota? We end this part of the world we at this latitude we want about an r44 in there. So you're a little bit light on the insulation in and you might try to bring that up if you're Remodeling and that bring that up from 32 to 40 for one of the things we're having a flap right now between the state is that the R value is measured it's a measurement of of the rate at which heat escapes through a material and it is calculated in a laboratory and hope the state's listening because They're at odds right now with Owens Corning fiberglass. It is done in a laboratory and it is only meant as some sort of a guideline to to tell you what the heat resistant so you can compare one material cellulosic to its with its Argos, right? If you do that in control conditions and you control the temperature you can establish an R value for that in a laboratory, which doesn't mean much when you put that in an attic in Minnesota and gets to 35 below zero that heat the thermo the thermodynamics of the law is that he travels too cold and it will travel whatever route possible up down sideways whichever and it will also the rate of transfer will depend upon the differential between the inside the outside. So obviously if you want to keep it 70 degrees inside and it's 40 below or 40 degrees outside the rate of air transfer heat transfer is slower than it would be at 40 below. The heat transfer rate speeds up, you know Gio geometrically as you get colder outside so that it is not fair to say to the insulation company while you advertise this at are 40. And in fact, it's our 15 when it's 40 below. Well that that's to do with thermodynamics and they're not really trying to mislead. You have to have some kind of a guideline and that's what the government mandated tell us how we can compare cellulosic to to fiberglass to something else and that's why they do what to do (00:32:15) another listener call now on midday. Thanks a lot for holding on there. You're on the air. Good morning. I wanted to find a we're building a cabin up in Northern cold Northern Minnesota and our contractors talking about using a wood foundation of permanent would foundation with impregnated cyanide would I just wondered what the advantages and disadvantage was that over masonry (00:32:37) is Well, the advantages are several starting with the fact that it would Foundation is cheaper foundation and then masonry most cases it also where you have Frost and even all those sorts of things. It doesn't crack as as readily as a monolithic product like like concrete will do it is also a warmer Foundation. You can work that foundation in very cold temperatures when it gets to be problematic to do masonry work. So you can install this thing in the wintertime or or or anytime it extends. The building season is warmer. And then if you ever want to finish off that basement you have wood walls to insulate and put g rock or whatever on rather than masonry walls where you have a little tougher time. You have to further this first strip them out and and that sort of thing we when I was at handyman magazine we checked out a house that was built in Wisconsin more than 30 years previous and They dug up the firewood foundation in that house to see how it fared over 30 years. There was absolutely no deterioration. If they're properly done they're perfectly (00:33:46) fine. Is that right? Even Foundation 30 years old presumably the technology of wood sealants and so on was not what it is today, but it's (00:33:54) true. We worked quite closely with osmosis and and the people who make the outdoor wood products that started out up at coppers company because birds are down south down but they have injection material copper sulfate being one of the materials that they inject in there and they both retard rot on the wood helps to keep the water from entering and also helps to firm and prove it you don't get the insects term. I snatched sort of thing and if they're if they're properly constructed, they they work very well and they're long lived and they're easy to as I say if you ever want to finish that baseman off you got all the wood walls to work with her. (00:34:34) Gary Branson is my guest today a home fix up expert back to the phone's. Thanks. Waiting you're on the air on midday. Hello. Well, we'll punch up the next flashing light. We've got a whole board full of flashing lights here to choose from so we'll go to the next one. Thanks a lot for waiting. You're on midday with Gary Branson. Hi, I'm back again. I had a second part to my question. I asked earlier about inflating the attic and using fiberglass insulation. I'm interested in putting a floor above the inflation. I installed so I have some way of accessing the internal parts of the attic when I need to do some maintenance work. What do you suggest about putting? It's a Trust Construction again and putting two by fours across an 8 foot span, sir. Is that going to be a an okay way of doing it or should I build another trust system underneath that? (00:35:25) I don't understand your question of 2x4 across eight foot. (00:35:28) I havenít I have a 2x4 trust system at hold, you know for the for the roofing (00:35:34) right, but where's a feet came coming and I (00:35:37) the spam in the center area of the attic. Oh, I see just want to put a flowing across that whole There and I'm not sure what the best way to do that if I should just build a trust system to hold up the floorboards in the center there so I can nail and you know some cheating. (00:35:54) Well, you should if you are just using this as a walkway or some sort of thing or did you anticipate using it for story every light storage? You'd want to keep it very light because you're loading up there wouldn't be take too much to deflect those. Two by fours and and get and get a little cracking of your wall board or whatever is below one of the problems. Of course, if you try to go directly on the 2x4 is that you cannot put more than three and a half inches Insulation at your new floor is going to it's going to flatten that down and you only have three nepotistic so you could cut some two by fours and say Jack that up another six or eight inches, whatever you want your insulation depth above the existing 2x4 in your court in your truss and then put your plywood above that you follow what I'm saying, you would you would raise put spacers to buy for spacers and Spike those to the existing trust. And so that you get your floor up above your (00:36:52) insulation. You're listening to midday on the news and information service at Minnesota Public Radio. Gary Branson is the guest today. Let's go back to the phones and another listener question for Gary Branson. Thanks for waiting. You're on the air. I'm looking to put some motion lighting and outside my home and run the wire to an existing switch. My question is and I have a two-story home. My question is how do you run the easiest way to run that wire through the wall, the wall has insulation and through the ceiling because the ceiling is between the upper and lower floor. (00:37:25) You want to fish a wire through there? Right? And this is going to be a permanent installation of a motion (00:37:31) detector motion lighting actually (00:37:33) outside. Yeah. Alright, so this yeah, you probably can rent at rental places, if you know about electricity and can handle wiring is such as adding an outlet. Are you and having trouble doing that yourself? You can rent a fish tape from Tool Rental outlet and that lets you what you do is boreholes to their run the fish tape through the walls and and out the hole grab the wire and pull it back through and thread it like the thread through a needles eye and if you know enough about electricity to do that yourself, you can do the wiring just thread the wire in that way. Otherwise you could do the thing where you're running a wire alongside a joy stir mop border piece of trim or something of that nature to conceal it. There's another way of you use a plastic cover and put the it's called on the wall wiring wiremold. And you can do that. If you can't if you don't have an Avenue where you can fish the wire through see if you can make a path through all of this Labyrinth of wood framing and pipes and water. All is in that wall and get a fish tape through there. You can do it that way or you can run this on the wall wiring and running it on the surface and it's not a bad-looking way to solve your problem without having to go through the wall Gary. (00:38:48) What about some code considerations here now can a person a non-professional do this kind of electrical work without violating the electrical code and does he or she have to have it (00:38:59) inspected as you go down to the you know, if you're adding on an electrical box, I believe the code Minnesota is although a lot of it is never inspect. I believe the code is that you should have it inspected. We might also point out here Bruce and important thing to remember when all people like me or telling you to do your own wiring without giving it much thought and it's easy. You should remember that if you create a fire hazard in your house, you may void your insurance. And you may have a catastrophic fire here could be very disastrous in terms of how life and limb as well as property loss and the insurance company is not going to pay you to burn down your own house. So you want to be sure that thing meets code and it's best when you do an addition like that to have go down get a permit and have the electrical inspector come by. They're really very friendly fellows in most cases and they'll tell you what you do right and and inspect it out. So it'll be very sure that your (00:39:50) code so it gets back to that issue of knowing what what you're qualified to (00:39:54) do. That's exactly right. And you do have the problem people are not aware. They go in and Cobble these things together and they think you know, we're going to say 50 bucks and the next thing you know, you got a house fire in the insurance company May and may inspect that and decline the payment on your claim because you set your own house on fire literally boy. (00:40:13) That's an important Point. Let me ask you one related question. A lot of older houses have the old two-prong outlets. Now does it make sense for someone is it from a safety standpoint? To have that all converted to three prong now, (00:40:28) it would be we have now so many of the appliances and tools and that are two prong and so the double insulated at the at the tool and that so that you're usually all right with that most of that stuff if it was run with Green Field, which is a metal cable flexible cable, that should be all grounded through the metal cable itself and you actually have a two prong there, but you do have the ground wire going, you know through the city through the cable system itself if you need a third and you know, I let if you want to use a tool it's got a plug on her Appliance. You can either get an adapter in there or install the three prong unit just take out your two-prong receptacle and put a three-prong model in there. They do make a little pigtail ground. You want to ground that box because even though their system appears to be grown then the next thing is you want to make sure that the box your grounding to is in fact grounded and not Set on the end of a row mix running yesterday a little complicated most of the places like budget powerbuilder Square these kind of places have people on duty who are electricians and can and can guide you in that if you have any doubt again have it done by (00:41:39) electrician. Gary Branson is the guest today on. Midday. We've got a lot of calls here in just a little bit of time left. So let's get back to the telephone and find out what else is on the minds of the listeners today. Thanks for waiting. You're on the air. Good morning and thank you for the program. I have a house that I painted on the outside last year has wood siding. I washed it with a soap chlorine and water solution and I sand it down the loose paint cleaned all that off. I put an oil based primer on it and then covered it with a latex paint and some areas. I've got some blisters and it was painted and dry weather and I did notice that there are some Places on the wood where the paint has bridged the underneath part of the top lap onto the surface of the other. Do you have any idea what's causing that blistering and how I can eliminate it? (00:42:39) Well, it's difficult without inspecting it. If you look go back to your toe blistered area and peel off a paint chip and see if the failure where did the pain failed between the old surface the old sanded surface and oil primer between oil primer and the new (00:42:57) latex that fails between the bare wood and the and the paint layers? (00:43:03) Okay, if you're between the oil-based primer and the wood that's where you're getting your failure or there are the original paint. (00:43:11) It'll take off the original paint (00:43:12) too. Okay, one of the things that happens when you repaint your house, you put a new couple of coats of new paint on their primer and paint and as that new paint shrinks as it dries it shrinks and actually pulls the old paint lose. You think when you sand it and wash it now that you got all the old paint off, but in fact, it may be very Loosely adhered and you know, the paint maybe say 30 years old as a example and then as your new paint coat dries it shrinks and it just literally pulls that old stuff off and that may be what you're experiencing if it's spotted I would think it's that sort of thing if you're feeling is General over the whole house. You may have some other kind of problem like moisture there. Another thing we might point out on lap siding where the two layers are two pieces of citing one overlaps the other the crack where the to meet should never be filled with paint people often mistakenly believe that if we just fill that with paint, it'll make a better, you know, it'll be more Proven everything. Well, the edge of that siding is made to have a drip edge. So that water will not run back up under the siding the rain water coming off the house. The second thing is that where that joint is made where the two overlap that's a perfect ventilation point to let moisture Trapped In The Wall get out and if you fill it up with paint, you've sealed up your ventilators so that there's no moisture coming out of there. Now your pain will start to peel from the moisture trapped in (00:44:36) there. We have about five minutes left of the broadcast and a full switchboard here. So let's move on to the next caller. Thanks for waiting. And what is your question for good? Thank you, sir. My I don't have a question. I wanted to the man to give some advice to people regarding water heaters. (00:44:55) In what respect sir? (00:44:57) I read something in a newspaper. Mr. Fixit call him several weeks ago months ago and it bothered me. There was no mention of what TNT valves are for proper valving or if you should even turn it on or off before you service it and I know that there's a lot of people that do that. Hopefully I've told you enough right now and you can run with it and hopefully give some people some good advice some some technical advice on water heaters Gary (00:45:31) well here again, you know, you have to you have to judge your own ability before you start you're working with the water supply as well as a power supply either electric or gas depending on how your water heater is fired. If you want to get into that, I would first of all I'd you know check with your National Electric Code your local codes there you obviously want to shut down the power supply. Do that day if it's a electric device or gas supply you want to shut those off you want to shut the water off depending on what you're going to service. You may have to drain your water out of the thing the good step-by-step repair book that I could send it to is the time-life books. They've got a very excellent set of I updated several other books, but not that particular one. So that gives you a step-by-step guide to doing the things that you probably shouldn't could do yourself and with an admonition to if you get any farther than that you ought to call somebody that really knows their business and calling a professional but they give basic Repair and and fix it, you know maintenance guides for the water heaters there and I would recommend the book to you. It's like I know 1495 or something. (00:46:50) Okay, we'll go to another listener call. Thanks for waiting. You're on midday. Yes. I have a family room fireplace and it's set in a brick wall that goes from floor to ceiling and I don't have a mantle on it. And I want to have a mantle I would wonder what the proper way of anchoring a mantle to a brick wall. Like that would be (00:47:10) well, there are a number of masonry connectors that you could use to Anchor put anchor bolts into that drill in get a masonry bit and drill in there and their number of plastic and Lead anchors that you drive into the wall after you bore the hole into the masonry figure out where you would want your mantle try to determine how much weight you're going to have there and how much support you would need you can get that some advice of your measure than And take it to your hardware store and tell him you know, I want to support a 4x6 or four by eight wood mantel or whatever. It may be and that's 8 feet long and they could tell you how many anchor bolts will need in there. Then you just bore in with an oversized bit into that masonry at that level put in a drain in either a plastic or a LED plug and then you could screw the bolt right into that plug and it expands as you screw the bolt into the plastic or LED will expand in the masonry and make it super tight. Then the whole perfectly (00:48:12) well Gary looks like we have time for one more question. Let's give it a try here. Thanks for waiting here on midday High. I have an older home that stucco and during the avocado green years. It was painted. I'm wondering if I can just have it sandblasted to return it to its natural color, or do I have to have it re stuck out in addition to that? (00:48:30) Well, you may have to sandblast it to take it off. You probably should get a hold of a stucco company and ask their advice there. We do not we meaning in compassing quite a few people but I've read and I've been familiar with Donnelly back from the time. I was in a business and their major stuck old contractor on Twin Cities and nobody that to my knowledge recommends that you paint stucco this far north that supposed to be a masonry product is supposed to be left unpainted. They do paint in California, but when you have a cold temperature as we do that's not advised and I think you'd probably have to sand blast take it off and then have it read ashed. They just come back and put a new cement coat over the top of the old one. That's the way to do it. And if your stucco is dingy, you should try to power wash it and get a good masonry cleaner from a janitor supply clean it down. If that doesn't bring it back bright then called on layer one of these other stucco companies and get it re dashed and don't paint it because that paint will almost always peel On stucco and gold Minnesota climate and we have the water transfer through the wall and all things we talked about earlier. (00:49:37) Well, Gary Branson, thanks a million for coming in as always loads of good advice and many more questions than we have time for answers, but we'll certainly have you (00:49:43) back. I appreciate him always enjoyed being here. Thanks Gary Branson. He's a (00:49:47) contributing editor of workbench magazine and author of several books on home repair and home fix up. He's got a new one out right now for the Popular Mechanics 101 quick Home Improvement tips. So it sounds like Gary that the public library or your local Lumberyard would be good resources for people. That's right. Thanks again for coming in. Midday on Saturday is sponsored in part by the oriental rug company specializing in sales and service of handmade oriental rugs and located in Minneapolis at 50th and Bryant.