Episode 1686
My top 10 Home Improvement Myths: Bathroom Edition
There is a lot of bad information on the web on bathroom remodeling. Today we are going to dive in and try to set the record straight on the most common mistakes people make when tackling that project.
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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
[00:00:24] Eric Goranson: If you're out there watching on Facebook or Instagram, be really careful. With the advice you're getting from some of these people, because this was a great example, I'm typing out my stuff and the algorithm of what we're going to talk about today. And the algorithm starts showing up some, some bathroom videos, doesn't have it screwed on correctly.
[:[00:01:04] Eric Goranson: I really appreciate you guys tuning in, whether it's on the radio or the podcast. Thanks for joining me. We have got a big show ahead here today in this first hour. We're going to be talking about home improvement myths, our bathroom addition. These are things that maybe you thought you might be able to fix.
[:[00:01:40] Eric Goranson: Well, if you want to get ahold of us here at the station, get a home improvement question, give me a call at 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44. That number again is 8 3 3 2 3 9 4 1 4 4. And if you want to check out our website, that is around the house online in a course, we're all over social media. You can find all my [00:02:00] videos over there at the around the house online as well.
[:[00:02:20] Eric Goranson: So if you've missed it on the TV show, you can catch that over and around the house online. We've got the videos over there and you can catch it there with all the links. So that's a great place to find it. Let's talk a little bit about some of these bathroom myths of repairs and stuff within the bathroom now bathrooms take a lot of abuse You've got water.
[:[00:03:00] Eric Goranson: Maybe it's been there for five. You just don't know how it was done. Maybe this was a project you did last year and all of a sudden the tile is coming loose and coming up. And this is where the problems start to occur. And this is a sign of bigger problems underneath. With my experience, most of the time when the tile is coming loose, it's because there's water getting under the tile.
[:[00:03:38] Eric Goranson: So the water, it's like concrete, the water will soak in, right? It goes down in there, gets around it. And that's why you have liner systems or you have different things underneath there to keep the water from going through the tile grout and everything else and getting down into the subfloor. We're getting down into the basement or the floor below.
[:[00:04:17] Eric Goranson: And here's where the problem lies. It's not so much about taking the tile up, getting the clean, fixing it, putting it back down again. The problem is creating a waterproof area that doesn't let water leak back underneath it because when you tear the tile up generally, unless it was just poorly put down to begin with 99 percent of the time when you pull that tile up, you're actually tearing up the waterproof membrane underneath it.
[:[00:05:01] Eric Goranson: That is like a roof. It has to be just a waterproof area and then some. And any water that gets down underneath is going to cause a problem. And so that's where one of those big issues is, is it's really very hard to get in there and be able to pull that out and still maintain that waterproofing and then put it down and make it look good again.
[:[00:05:46] Eric Goranson: And at that point you're chasing it. You might as well just do the whole thing. And I don't like to create more work for people, but I also don't want to create a moldy problem where it's always smelly in there because you've got nasty water building up underneath that tile. And it just [00:06:00] starts to get well, punky on you.
[:[00:06:24] Eric Goranson: Now, as you're doing this, here's one other thing that's, uh, we'll talk more about it. And now let's just throw this in here. We're just gonna throw it in here now. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna drag this one out into the next hour. Let's hit this right now with this and we'll talk about it more in the next hour.
[:[00:07:04] Eric Goranson: Or they'll just red guard a coat or not even do anything and just start laying tile. The problem is how this is constructed. So you think about it, first off, people are not installing that drywall correctly to begin with, even if you use a moisture. Tolerant drywall like the green board. That's still not a good product.
[:[00:07:43] Eric Goranson: And the problem is when you put in new drywall, like this light drywall, you need to be screwing it, gluing it and everything else to the studs. And you're going to need twice as many screws if you did it per spec than the regular drywall. So these are where those [00:08:00] issues really come in. First off, rarely does anybody install the drywall correctly.
[:[00:08:25] Eric Goranson: If you have to go with one of the foam board systems, I think that's better. And that way you can just get it in there, get it done and be done with it. So whether or not you're using Sluder, we are decks or whatever brand you're using, just make sure that you've got something that is super waterproof.
[:[00:09:02] Eric Goranson: It's one thing to have water, but when you're dealing with steam, that's a whole different material. So we want to make sure and do that correctly. So when we come back, we'll talk a little bit more. Let's wrap up this discussion right here on repairing that shower floor and doing it correctly. If you want to find out more about around the house, like I said earlier, head over to around the house online.
[:[00:09:41] Eric Goranson: Woggly faces. Should I be allowed to be so hot?
[:[00:10:11] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the Around the House show. This is where we help you get the most out of your home through information and education. Thanks for joining us today. Hey, make sure you check us out over at AroundTheHouseOnline. com. You can find the phone number, the videos, all the stuff we've been working on over there.
[:[00:10:44] Eric Goranson: But I'm gonna, I'm just going to call this out. If you're out there watching on Facebook or Instagram, be really careful with the advice you're getting from some of these people, because this was a great example. I'm typing out my stuff and the algorithm of what we're going to talk about today. And the [00:11:00] algorithm starts showing up some, some bathroom videos in this guy shows up on there.
[:[00:11:24] Eric Goranson: And like we were talking about earlier, that is not how you properly do it. Just make sure that you're taking the time to do these things right, because showers are so expensive to do, even when you're doing it yourself. So you just want to make sure and go do it once and do it right. So you don't have to go out and buy the materials again in two years or two months, whichever fails first.
[:[00:12:02] Eric Goranson: When I'm doing this one, I like to limit sound in the bathroom. So if I'm putting a new shower system in, taking it down to the studs. I don't mind putting in a little rock wall insulation in behind it because now I can cut the sound down. Now I can keep the heat in the room a little bit better and it just makes for a great situation.
[:[00:12:38] Eric Goranson: So it's something to think about. I like doing that as well in the bathroom. If I've got the walls opened up, I insulate that space because, boy, it's sure nice when you're in there to be able to take a shower, not wake up the whole house, or go into the bathroom in the middle of the night. You can shut the door and put a solid core door on it.
[:[00:13:11] Eric Goranson: And we'll talk about why here in a little bit, but depending on what the room is, it might need an inch or so on the bottom of that. Which is a big space, which can let sound out. We'll talk about why here a little bit later in this show, but it's an important one. So, just something to think about. Now, if you have a fiberglass tub shower, now this can be repaired.
[:[00:14:07] Eric Goranson: So that way that's supported and it's not sitting there cracking worse. So if you can get underneath it and do it great, and then what you're going to need to do is get in there, grind out the crack. You're going to need to go in there with fiberglass mat, that up, patch it. There's a lot of prep work in this because you got to get all the soap and all the cleaners and everything off of it, all the waxes.
[:[00:14:46] Eric Goranson: You can go in there and paint that and touch that up and or just repaint the whole thing into a bright new white. And then what I do is let that cure and then you can use waxes or anything on the wall system to keep it a little bit cleaner. Don't put it [00:15:00] on the floor cause you're going to make it slippery.
[:[00:15:17] Eric Goranson: It's not a bad time to do it, but you can save it. That is one of the shower systems. That you can save if you're careful now the acrylic ones. Yeah, those are a little harder You're not going to make that look really good And so you'll have to take a look and see how that is How it's built the easiest way to figure out how that shower system is built Is to take the trim off around the shower valve and then you can take a look and see if that's fiberglass Or a molded acrylic and how they make the mold acrylic is they actually take This acrylic sheet they heat it up and use a vacuum and they vacuum it into A mold to get that where the fiberglass they have a mold and they put layers of gel and fiberglass resin And a fiberglass mat and build it that way and so that's the [00:16:00] two different ways.
[:[00:16:21] Eric Goranson: Make sure that you put a good grout in there. Maybe you put one in that doesn't need sealing, like some of the Ardex products out there that I like. That's a good way to go. You can really take some time and go through and get that all dialed in and it's going to look like a million bucks when it's done and it's going to stay cleaner.
[:[00:16:55] Eric Goranson: That's a great place to put that. And then you know how to clean that up and make it look good. [00:17:00] And it's a good little project, good little DIY project that'll look good. And when it's all done, put a really nice high grade sealer on it. That's going to be one of those things that will last a long time for you.
[:[00:17:29] Eric Goranson: They are about the bottom third of the range of materials out there. So that is your budget basement stuff. So if you want to find something higher quality, you're going to have to go into your local plumbing retailer. Your local plumbing store where all the plumbers go to, not the home center. You have to go into a kitchen, a bash showroom, one of those kinds of places that have that stuff.
[:[00:18:18] Eric Goranson: And in the, if you have to do it twice, it's going to save you money. So talk to the experts, lean on them, and they shouldn't steer you wrong. All right, everybody, we'll be back after these important messages. We'll continue talking. About my home improvement myths bathroom addition just as soon as around the house returns.
[:[00:19:13] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the around the house show. This is where we help you get the most out of your home through information education Thanks for joining us today. If the if you're a first time listener to us today Thanks for tuning in if you want to find out more about us head over to around the house Online.
[:[00:19:46] Eric Goranson: And if not, don't worry, you can still get ahold of us. I'll get back to you and see if I can answer those questions for you. Our next one here is, do I need a bathroom fan? If I have a window in the bathroom and my [00:20:00] answer right there is going to be yes. Now this is one of those myths and sometimes building code will say, Oh, you got a bathroom.
[:[00:20:32] Eric Goranson: Yes, we do. And I don't follow the traditional belief that we used to see out there as well. That said, okay, if you have one square foot, you need one CFM, a fan, and now CFM is cubic feet per minute. So I always take that as like. per minute one basketball. So, my, I've changed how I do it now. So, I try to go with a larger fan.
[:[00:21:16] Eric Goranson: And that bath fan needs to go all the way outside. That fan has to go outside the building. Not just up into the attic, where you're going to grow mold up there, or going up into a vent up there, where you're stapling on the side, that's going to do it. So you need to put in, follow your local building code, but in most cases, they are going to want a flex duct that is insulated, that comes out of that, and goes all the way to the outside.
[:[00:22:03] Eric Goranson: Then you have a dripping wet floor either around the fan on the ground, or it can be, of course, dripping around the grate and now start soaking into the drywall on the ceiling and you've got a drywall repair. So you want to make sure and use an insulated duct, but always follow your local code. Cause your area, they might be doing something different or require something different.
[:[00:22:40] Eric Goranson: And earlier we were talking about having that space under the door. You need to have a good space under the door in there because that's makeup air. So what I want you to do is to be able to take all that air coming out of the floor, the hallway or whatever that's out there, bring that into the space so it can feed that.
[:[00:23:19] Eric Goranson: I've got all this air going over the top of it that's cooling it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put in a vent for makeup air, basically pulling it out of the hallway so I can grab more air out of there, not underneath the door to make up for that. So I can do an offset vent. It'll still give me the privacy of the room, still help with the sound, but I'm going to pull the air in there, so I don't have to pull as much across there and have that cold spot on the floor, but it's very fascinating when you look at stuff to see how that goes and how that works and how much that will do, and it's going to make it so it's easier cleaning in the shower.
[:[00:24:12] Eric Goranson: I like the Brown, new tones. I like the big brands out there. My personal opinion. I like the Panasonics for build quality better. I've just had better luck with them, but if you're doing a remodel, the, the nicer newer ones from Brown are really cool. Because you can get them with a remodel type unit where you run the power.
[:[00:24:51] Eric Goranson: So that is a great way to do it. If you're trying to get that bath fan in there. So that's another one just to think about right there. And another thing too, is when you're doing [00:25:00] this. Take a look. Do you need to have a light? Do you need to have a heat? What is going to be doing it? What's going to be dialing it in?
[:[00:25:23] Eric Goranson: And that's been one of the things that I thought was absolutely amazing with fans out there is the new bath fans that you see out there. You barely hear they're on. And I actually had a complaint with a homeowner here a number of years ago that they thought it was so quiet. That they wanted to have a little bit, they wanted to have a little bit of cover when they were in the bathroom.
[:[00:26:02] Eric Goranson: That way, uh, make your guests comfortable, if you know what I mean. And that'll keep you going there. So that's another one of those. So that's just one of those things of making sure that bath fan is dialed in. And take a look at the options. There's a lot of them out there. Now on a side note, uh, if you're doing that bathroom remodel, you're adding stuff in there.
[:[00:26:38] Eric Goranson: These guys make a great product, and it's basically a fan blower on a timer, and you design it around your shower system, and it has different nozzles that blow across the shower walls, and basically, in 10 minutes, you can dry your shower. And so that's really nice. Keep things nice and dry. And then if you want to save some money, take a look at this one as well.
[:[00:27:20] Eric Goranson: You can wire them in. So you've got them hardwired. These are all things that I think are really worthwhile. So take a look at that. AMBA products is who makes those and they're just a great company. They have a lot of finishes so they can actually match a finish for you. So, if you have a specialty Breezo finish that's Breezo finish, or you have specialty hardware, they can actually, got a good chance of matching that for you, so they can make that match.
[:[00:28:05] Eric Goranson: And so you always have a fresh towel, which is really nice. And after a while, you're like, I probably should watch this, but they smell fresh because it warms them up. And who doesn't like in the wintertime, especially a nice warm towel and you can control it. And it also gives off a little heat in that cold room.
[:[00:29:16] Eric Goranson: most out of your home. home for information education. Thanks for joining us today. Like I always say, if you want to get ahold of us, head over to around the house online. com or you can give us a call at 833 239 4144. That's 833 239 4144. We've been talking about our home improvement myths bathroom edition, and here's the next one here that I wanted to dive into because this is an important one right here and we've got a long enough segment.
[:[00:29:59] Eric Goranson: That is [00:30:00] bound to fail. And here's why you want to put down, you don't want to do that. You want to actually prep that and do it correctly. Now there's a lot of different systems out there. So there are uncoupling membranes, which you put down, which is a plastic layer. So what you would do is depending on the system you're using, you'd either prime that plywood and then put down the mastic or mortar, lay down the rules of uncoupling membrane, let that dry.
[:[00:30:54] Eric Goranson: So many times when you get into pre 1970s homes, they were not engineered. There was not an engineer [00:31:00] that went over that house plan. You just had somebody draw it up and they built it, or they bought a canned set of plans, and off they went. The problem is that you can have bouncy floors because of spans, because of whatever.
[:[00:31:30] Eric Goranson: So these are things you want to be careful with. So first off, make sure that the structure can handle it and you'll be good to go. That's the first thing because otherwise the rest of it doesn't matter. So make sure that you've got that structure part handled before you get any further. And if you need to go through and stiffen things up, I've gone through and doubled up two by eights and floor joists and things like that in a bathroom just to see if I could take some of the spring out of it without having to go in and add other stuff.
[:[00:32:17] Eric Goranson: So I actually decided okay, I'm gonna use some floor levelers. So we actually set my membrane down, my decoupling membrane, and I wanted a heated floor. So I used the Ardex, their Ardex system that I could put the, my wire down for my heated floors. And then over the top of that, we poured floor leveler. So that leveled the floor out a little bit and it worked out really well.
[:[00:33:00] Eric Goranson: It'll really help dial it in and you'll be good to go now one of the other things here That I really want to talk about and this is an important one here and there's a myth with this And I have not seen, I have not seen the data to prove it, so I will say if somebody wants to show it to me, I have no problem being wrong, but we have people out there that have hard water and maybe it's you.
[:[00:33:43] Eric Goranson: And then when it dries, when you're washing, it sticks to things and it'll etch into glass. It'll etch into everything and really will ruin stuff. So before you go do that bathroom, deal with your water. But one thing that I've been really troubled with. Is some of the new water treatment [00:34:00] methods out there, and some of them are this either electronic based or filter based, and I want to see data like test results to see if some of these systems work.
[:[00:34:34] Eric Goranson: I don't want to bet on that. If I'm putting a water treatment system, That is snake oil, and I'm not saying they're all snake oil, but there's a few of them out there that I look at and go not buying it guys. I'm not buying it. So you might want to make sure that you do a water test meet with a water quality professional that will design a system around that water test.
[:[00:35:28] Eric Goranson: You want to make sure that you've got the right system that's going to take care of that and that you can test it before and test it afterwards. I go, yep, no hard water. So that's the thing. I want to see the lab results on the front end and the back end. Not that, oh, the hard water is still there. It's just not going to stick to anything.
[:[00:36:09] Eric Goranson: Hot water heater actually a water heater cuz it's already hot, right? That's another one of those things I always laugh about I say it too hot water heater department redundancy department. It's a water heater The thing is guys treat that water. These things are gonna last so much longer Your coffee maker is gonna last longer.
[:[00:36:48] Eric Goranson: And it is in good shape, but I can literally go a half mile away. And have some of the hardest water I've ever had in my life. It tastes good, but it'll destroy a house in no time. [00:37:00] And that sink, that faucet, all of those things get destroyed by that. So take a time and go through that and make sure that you test the water and save yourself a ton of time and energy and just have a healthier program when it's all said and done.
[:[00:37:33] Eric Goranson: Well, coming up next in the next show, we're going to be talking about. Our exterior edition of home improvement myths and some of the problems you see out there and we're going to tackle some stuff That's going to be pretty important In the next show. So hey if you're listening to us on the podcast And you know, you got a podcast player that you're listening to your favorite one.
[:[00:38:13] Eric Goranson: I'd really appreciate it any of those five stars You're helping somebody else out with their next home improvement project and hopefully we can keep them steered in the right direction because the last thing I like to see is people getting Hurt by bad advice out there and man With the expense of building materials out there, as we know, it's not really getting cheaper out there.
[:[00:38:51] Eric Goranson: And that way it'll last you for decades because I hate seeing good products get thrown away. Because of bad advice or you just didn't know [00:39:00] any better and I tell you what I've got stuff that i've had to throw away because i'm like that didn't go out is planned And anytime I can help you Not do that and waste that money.
[: