Episode 1582
Fall Project Planning-What seasonal projects you should start now
Now that we are getting late in the summer, its time to start thinking about those late summer and fall projects! What needs to be done around your house? Lets dive into some of the great projects that make sense this time of year and how some of them can save you some serius money. All that and MORE in this episode of Around the House!
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Mentioned in this episode:
A new kind of decking and siding from Millboard
For more information about the latest in decking and cladding head to https://www.millboard.com/
Baldwin Hardware
Transcript
[00:00:22] Eric Goranson: No. Am I better getting rid of a lot of that? Do I really need it or am I better just going up the store and buy a, a bolt or two when I need it? Versus trying to dig through and find something that might work. I might be better off these days to just get rid of that whole thing, sim to scrap metal and, uh, let it live another day into a car or something else that it's made into.
[:[00:01:00] Eric Goranson: Vacation. Thanks for joining us today with this hour, brought to you by Root Quencher and root quencher com. If you have trees, shrubs, bushes that are on a slope or out there that you're wasting a ton of water trying to get water into those roots Root Quencher is the answer where it puts the water right at the roots.
[:[00:01:41] Eric Goranson: And these are plenty of projects you can be tackling. You know, the first one I wanted to talk about today. Is that house painting deck staining? You know, once uh, we start getting things to cool down just a little bit where maybe you're not getting into those super hot or super humidity days, those are [00:02:00] great times to be house painting or deck staining.
[:[00:02:29] Eric Goranson: And the level of prep is what's gonna happen. So sometimes if you've got a finish that's failing on a deck, you really need to sand it down and strip it. Or if you're going with a solid color over the top, You know, what else do you need to do there? You know, 'cause areas like that, if you're gonna repair it for all of you wood deck people out there, you know, those are, those are challenges you have.
[:[00:03:11] Eric Goranson: The stuff that's meant to cover up an ugly beat down deck. If you wanna get a year out of it maybe, and do that, follow the directions and it's good, but just keep in mind you're not stripping that off of there easily. And when it fails is the time that you have to replace that deck. So it's kind like your last Hail Mary.
[:[00:03:50] Eric Goranson: And when it fails, it comes off in chunks and it takes wood with it. It's just not a beautiful thing. So be careful with those deck restoration products that are super thick with [00:04:00] some texture to 'em. Um, be careful. 'cause once it's on there, you're gonna, it's not worth the time to remove it. You're just gonna end up putting on a new deck.
[:[00:04:29] Eric Goranson: Do you still need to put a primer on something where you have adhesion issues or other problems like that? Absolutely. So do not skip a step thinking that you're buying a paint and primer all in one. If you need primer, please buy the primer. You will have a better paint job and you'll have something that works a lot better.
[:[00:05:14] Eric Goranson: I don't like cheap paint because it doesn't last. It chalks up. It doesn't cover well, and so many times if you save 15 or 20 bucks a gallon on paint, You're gonna spend that in additional paint 'cause it has less coverage. And so you could have bought the better paint to begin with because it just goes farther.
[:[00:05:54] Eric Goranson: If you're dealing with, you know, the brand that's the. In their lower end stuff, [00:06:00] you're gonna have old technology and lower expectations. There's reasons why it's cheaper, and, uh, just something to consider. You know, uh, in the, in the game of price, scores between paint companies stick with a better product.
[:[00:06:37] Eric Goranson: No matter what grade of product, the waxes or whatever they have in there, they just get washed right off here. So it just does not last. So it's a product that I don't recommend here, but maybe in your area it does work. But, uh, here where we get a lot of rain and we have a lot of heat, it does not work well.
[:[00:07:19] Eric Goranson: Northwest. So just understand what works in your zone and kind of your area, and you'll be much more comfortable with what you have going on. Yeah, and one more important tip as far as painting around the house. Make sure that you get out there with some really good caulking and do all the caulking and prep work.
[:[00:07:51] Eric Goranson: And water will always cause damage if it's getting in there. So make sure that you've got that stuff all sealed up and ready to go. And when it comes to quality caulking, [00:08:00] you need to find the good stuff. This is not something you want to use. The cheap painter ssk. I like using the Sashco branded stuff.
[:[00:08:31] Eric Goranson: One little quick trick too, you can jump online and grab a deck inspection form and walk around and make sure that you're not missing something, but make sure that you've got all the right brackets, fasteners. If things are nailed together, that is always my first thing that I go, uhoh, what's going on here?
[:[00:09:14] Eric Goranson: And there's even some other bolts that go through where you can attach it differently. So make sure that you're following building code in your area and that you've got that. Deck overbuilt on the structure while you're doing that stuff because if you gotta pull up stuff and replace it, now is the time to do it.
[:[00:09:46] Eric Goranson: I.
[:[00:10:08] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to The Round The House Show. This is where we help you get the most outta your home through information and education. I've been talking about fall projects today, but first I wanted to get you lined up here. On a couple things. First off, if you wanna find out more about the show, head over to around the house online.com has all the information about the radio show, the podcast, or even the television show.
[:[00:10:55] Eric Goranson: To double check that roof to make sure it's gonna hold up through the wintertime. It doesn't matter if you're [00:11:00] in Florida or the, or, you know, in the south where hurricanes can come in to, uh, up in the northeast or west coast where snow could be an issue. It's a great time to make sure that everything's dialed in for winter.
[:[00:11:31] Eric Goranson: I'm gonna be doing this here shortly. It's something that I'm gonna be working on, is I'm gonna be putting in a harness system up there where I can tie off every time I go up there. It's gonna be a much safer situation for me because I've got some roof, uh, sections that are really easy. I've got some that are a little steeper, and boy, it'd be sure nice to be able to tie off on it and be a little safer.
[:[00:12:08] Eric Goranson: Good time to get it all cleaned out and ready to go. Now here's one that is a big one that I wanted to talk more about, and you start looking at it, building a storage shed and getting rid of clutter. Now clutter is something that unless you're moving every couple years, for most people it's a battle.
[:[00:12:42] Eric Goranson: No. Am I better getting rid of a lot of that? Do I really need it or am I better just going up the store and buy a, a bolt or two when I need it, versus trying to dig through and find something that might work? I might be better off these days to just get rid of that whole thing, send it to scrap metal, and, um, [00:13:00] let it live another day into a car or something else that it's made into, instead of having, you know, two buckets of hardware that I never get to the bottom of.
[:[00:13:25] Eric Goranson: Is that stuff even worth that much? So that's another thing, you know, getting rid of clutter, cleaning it up leaves for a healthier environment, because guess what? You don't have all that junk laying around that you have to dust. And, uh, getting rid of other stuff can be good. Donate it to your favorite charity if you don't like it.
[:[00:13:59] Eric Goranson: So [00:14:00] I have almost got need to create a, a storage shed for just my stuff for the television show. Which is kind of important. So these are things to consider, but I tell you what, having some space and, uh, not having your storage jammed to the hilt all the time is worth the extra time. So clean out that clutter.
[:[00:14:36] Eric Goranson: But, um, you know, these are things to keep an eye out on, but I think that really, you know, building a shed and, uh, creating that space and building it right can be a much more, a smarter solution. Sometimes those cheapy sheds, especially the metal ones, can be. It could be not as durable. So these are things that uh, if you want it to look like the house, spend the time and build it.
[:[00:15:17] Eric Goranson: For you and that you're not cutting off utility easement to anybody else. Um, I've seen some issues where people build these beautiful sheds and the utility comes in and goes, Hey, you built that over a right of way. So now, uh, or you built it under our power lines or whatever. And then you've got issues.
[:[00:15:59] Eric Goranson: [00:16:00] Now, this time of year is another one. Here's another great tip for you here that is, uh, a fun one driveway repair. Now is the time to really get after this, before the weather turns. And again, this is one of those things that, uh, I always recommend. You know, whether we're coming into, it's a great time to fix those potholes.
[:[00:16:37] Eric Goranson: Just a little bit of curb appeal. There are some great products and we're gonna do a shoot here one of these days with the artex. I'm gonna skimm coat my exposed aggregate walkway, come up to the house. It's a little dated. I don't like the exposed aggregate 'cause it's always dirty and it's always showing the moss and the mildew and things like that.
[:[00:17:16] Eric Goranson: And what these are is, uh, think of a, of a carbon fiber bar with two little tiny round. Dumbbells at the end, and you can actually fasten those broken pieces together so they're all the same. And then do the Skimm coat over the top and you've got now things tied together so they don't move. And then the skimm coat makes sense.
[:[00:17:51] Eric Goranson: But I tell you what, you can really clean that up. Now the other thing is, if you're gonna be actually working on it, you're trying to flip it and you're, uh, you know, trying to [00:18:00] move on to your next house, this can be an also good thing that you can go through and, uh, and get that skimm coated and looking good.
[:[00:18:29] Eric Goranson: Round the house, we'll be right back after these important messages. Don't go.[00:19:00]
[:[00:19:31] Eric Goranson: And speaking to that, we're gonna talk about, uh, kind of those seasonal changes for where you are at here in a second. But, uh, I wanted to, I wanted to kind of go on a little rant here for a second 'cause I just got off the phone with a buddy who's a contractor of mine. I tell you what, it has been a challenge out there.
[:[00:20:12] Eric Goranson: Not here to bash on a specific company, but it's just something that needs to happen out there. We've gotta really get some of this stuff straightened around companies. Please take your time and make it so that you create information that we can consume. And I had to go to the inner depths of this website to find installation instructions.
[:[00:20:54] Eric Goranson: Make it easy to find, make it so you got the people putting it [00:21:00] incorrectly. And I'm seeing that more and more aware they're, they're hiding that information on their websites. So any of you guys out there listening that are tuning into the show, please make your information easy to consume for us because there's no excuse to make it six or eight clicks deep on a website and getting lucky to find information.
[:[00:21:39] Eric Goranson: We've been talking fall projects here, and one thing we were starting to talk when we went to break was driveway repair. It's a great time to recoat that driveway. Doesn't matter if it's concrete and you wanna put some sealer on it, or if it's gonna be a, uh, Driveway that's asphalt that you need to seal, whatever.
[:[00:22:11] Eric Goranson: Getting your house ready for those seasonal changes. For many in the US that means, hey, we're cruising into hurricane season and we've gotta make sure that our house is ready for hurricanes. Maybe it's, uh, like here on the West coast where we're getting ready for rainy season for me, you know, in the summertime we don't see rain for a few months and it's a good time to get those dry projects done so you can get that.
[:[00:22:52] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that's a huge one. That's how you get foundation damage no matter where you're at in the country. Making sure that that goes down into a [00:23:00] storm drain system, which is maybe a b s pipe that's underground, that goes, you know, 10, 12, 16 feet away from the foundation and then downhill away from the house, making sure that you've got those water issues under control.
[:[00:23:30] Eric Goranson: So you can have a company that comes out and gets that thing dialed in once or twice a year. Listen to them. They will tell you what they think, the, uh, what they think those intervals should be. If you're in the south where it's, you're using AC most of the time, guess what? That, that AC system probably needs to be maintained a couple times a year.
[:[00:24:05] Eric Goranson: You can catch things before they break that keeps you from having a service call that's insane out there. And nobody wants to pay for expensive service calls, especially on a Sunday night where you're paying double time or triple time or whatever to get people out there, it always seems that's the time that that stuff breaks.
[:[00:24:40] Eric Goranson: It's something you should take a look at. Can you build your house for what it costs today? Can you replace it if you were to have a catastrophic event? Is your stuff covered? I have been buying online with one of the major national companies, and then I brought it to an agent who's a buddy of mine, and he [00:25:00] said, wow, you have the complete wrong insurance on your automobile and uh, you're better on your house, but you really need to get this stuff dialed in.
[:[00:25:36] Eric Goranson: Which means some water overflowed someplace and came into your house from the outside versus a pipe break inside your house, which we know is not a flood. That is water damage. So making sure that you have the right coverages for everything. And if you've got something like I have expensive tools, making sure that I have got the coverage for that.
[:[00:26:17] Eric Goranson: Where are you at? If it's summertime, we're spending a lot of time outside, you know, doing stuff out in the heat, you know, and, and fall can be that same, but this is a good time to get that air testing done. So, uh, Run some air tests on the inside and the outside of your house. See if there's mold, see if there's issues.
[:[00:26:53] Eric Goranson: Or it could be the, uh, the different stuff. I was talking with, uh, my friend Caroline Borowski, [00:27:00] former co-host here of the show, and she was talking about, um, you know, people out there. A common problem that we're seeing is in the prepper community that we're seeing issues. Where they're bringing all these things inside your house to store, that would be used later.
[:[00:27:35] Eric Goranson: So air testing is king. Make sure you're good. And the cool thing is, is that if you get mold or, or like sewage gases or something that comes up, you could actually start to track it down. And so if you've got a high mold content inside, but it's not high outside, then maybe you've got a problem that you haven't located yet and it's time to catch it or track it down.
[:[00:28:14] Eric Goranson: So these are all things that you can do that, uh, to really test and make sure that you've got a safe environment for you and your family. So, Air testing inside and out. Uh, and actually you can get a hold of Caroline over there at, uh, my Healthy Home. She's got it as well over there for air testing.
[:[00:29:05] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to The Round the House. Show this for We help you get the most outta your home through information and education. Thanks for joining us today. Hey, if you haven't caught the television show that is around the House Northwest shown right here in the Portland, Oregon market, you can catch it over on YouTube.
[:[00:29:39] Eric Goranson: We went out to, uh, Leatherman tools and uh, that video has been taken off and going viral, which has been great. Well, today we've been talking about those fall projects, stuff you should be doing around the house before we get into winter. Another one is, an important one is to make sure you're dialed in, that you've got everything insulated and ventilated.
[:[00:30:20] Eric Goranson: If it's wet, you pull that wet car in the garage, it's drying off, you've got extra high humidity. I have seen in the rainy seasons, people get all the stuff just mold everywhere inside their garage. So when you have that brand new home, make sure that they've put in ventilation. Make sure that they've got either an E R V or some kind of ventilation in there, like a bath fan that gets that air outta there.
[:[00:31:09] Eric Goranson: Ventilation in the eaves for that or soft events. And so all of a sudden they're pulling conditioned air outta the house and it's costing 'em more money to run than it was before. So be very careful with what you're doing on ventilation, especially with powered attic ventilation that, uh, you need to make sure that you are able to make up that C F M when you turn it on.
[:[00:32:00] Eric Goranson: So I want to have that. Basically hermetically sealed between the condition space and the attic space. So when you're pulling air, you're pulling it from the, uh, vents and not from the condition space because, uh, like I said earlier, that's, that's a bad recipe for mistakes. So really think about having good ventilation where maybe you've got, uh, wide open soffits and weight wide open ridge and you've got air moving through there and swap it out.
[:[00:32:48] Eric Goranson: Now, in many cases, you know 60 to 80% of your air is coming up through those 'cause heat rises. So a lot of that temperature that you have in that air or the air in your crawl space ends up. [00:33:00] Swift up through the floor into your home, and that is why that you see in many times, you know, if you walk into an old house and they've had cream carpet for a long time, you'll see the dirt where the, the cream carpet is darker around the walls.
[:[00:33:33] Eric Goranson: So what I wanna see is a crawlspace. I wanna make sure that you've got proper ventilation and that you've got six mil plastic down or greater. That is, uh, seamed and taped and everything is looking good down there. If you are going to be, uh, encapsulating that crawl space, then you need to seal it up and then have a dehumidifier installed and really have that hermetically sealed up where no moisture's coming [00:34:00] through, and then you're just trying to get rid of the trapped moisture that's in there.
[:[00:34:26] Eric Goranson: Now, if you've got a basement, awesome, make sure that you've got that humidity under control down there and then don't have any cracks or you don't have any, um, really places that water is starting to seep through. So really pay attention. If you've got cracks, mark them on the wall to make sure you see if they're moving or not.
[:[00:35:03] Eric Goranson: When they get the right tools. Now, if you're, you know, almost contractor level, absolutely you can do it. If not, you can hire a foundation professional to come out. But like we talked about in earlier episodes, before you hire that foundation expert, if you're gonna do that, make sure that if you've got cracks and things like that, that, uh, I'm gonna say it again even though I said it a few weeks ago.
[:[00:35:46] Eric Goranson: So that is the key right there. And these are great things. And again, like I've said earlier, don't be afraid of having to jack your house up and put another foundation under it. It's rare. Rarely do you have to do that unless you're moving the house. Um, generally speaking, you can [00:36:00] do any of those foundation repairs that have to jack the house up and while you're still living in it, now, you can't live in the house When they're jacking it up, you're almost better to dig down.
[:[00:36:32] Eric Goranson: And there's so many new ad mixes out there for concrete where you can add stuff in that makes it waterproof and things like that, so you don't get that humidity coming through it. It's almost like a closed cell concrete where stuff won't go through it. So there's a lot of different things you can do out there.
[:[00:37:06] Eric Goranson: If you ignore foundation issues, you're going to have to pay more later for them to get that fixed. So that's a good one right there. And now's the time too, if you're gonna be doing any, uh, minor kitchen remodels and stuff since we are in barbecue season. It makes a lot of sense to be able to do the kitchen stuff right now because you've got a few months left.
[:[00:37:50] Eric Goranson: Less than load, you know, one of the trucking companies like that. So we're gonna see some shortages for a while. Anytime that you take one of the major trucking companies and [00:38:00] eliminate them from the marketplace here in the United States, we know that that's gonna be an issue. So, um, make sure you plan for that.
[:[00:38:29] Eric Goranson: And, uh, now they're having to use other companies that were already busy. And so anytime we lose one of the big three of the shipping companies, it's gonna be a problem for us. So expect for the next four to six months. Some shipping issues. Um, it's just like I saw that, uh, big fire down, uh, this last week in Sherwin at Sherwin Williams at one of their factories.
[:[00:39:11] Eric Goranson: So, but uh, again, these are things that you should plan for. Make sure you have all those building materials on site before you start the project so that way you can start it and finish it and not be waiting on parts. Alright everybody, well thanks for tuning in around the house. Hour number one. Hour number two, if you're dog.
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