The next Stefan Good Day download with Doug and Jay Kirshner is made possible in
part by Keltren, which is the safe way for you to lose weight and
keep it off, and also by previagent keeping your brain healthy. Godam my
friend Tom Kreidler back from the Money Pit home improvement radio program. What better
day to discuss what you can be doing over the weekend. They comp with
some great ideas for home improvement on Friday. So Tommy is here and we
have letters and questions from those of you who listen to the program who are
fans of Tom. One of them is Gary who lives in Virginia, who
is talking about replacing floors yep, and looking for a recommendation from you.
The big kahuna that'll fix the problem. He's got three big dogs that are
wet and mouddy. Maybe he keeps them out on the porch one please?
All right? What does he doing? So you got options here? Gary?
I mean today there you could go with a rigid vinyl plank, right,
So that's just straight vinyl that looks like hardwood, or it could look
like stone, look like tile. It's good stuff, durable stuff and there's
even one that's even tougher than that, and that's called a stone hybrid,
the stone hybrid products. When I first started seeing these come out, Doug,
I had some samples and I threw them on a workbench and I could
slam them with a hammer and they wouldn't dent and they couldn't scratch and really
durable stuff. Yeah. Now, let's see yellow flooring. They have one
under the brand Duravana, and I've used that in about three let's see,
two kitchens and one laundry room so far. Inexpensive about four bucks a square
foot, and that kind of thing one hundred percent waterproof and really durable.
So that or the rigid vinyl plank, the luxury vinyl plank products that are
out there very similar. That works. About what I would not do is
I would not do laminate, and I certainly you know, wouldn't do anything
that was wood, even engineered, would because as tough as that stuff is,
with all those dogs in the mud and the moisture, it's going to
cut through the finish. Wow. All right, So there's some advice,
a word from the wise man when it comes to this. Speaking of wise
man, Tom is so good at coming up with content. This is what
radio stations love. These are the people that also are tuned into podcasts like
the money Pit podcast this week focusing on space eaters and whether they're safe or
not. Doesn't that depend on the fuel? Does it depend on electric versus
gas? What's the How do you meter this? Yeah? I think it
it depends a lot on the humans that are using them, because I think
you're right about that. Yeah, certainly people are putting certainly people are putting
incorrect fuel in. But I think the bigger issue is stuff that's simple,
like getting it too close to things that are flammable, right, or having
it become knocked over. An old space heater that that's knocked over and doesn't
have an automatic shut off valve a tip off valve so that when it tips
over it it goes off. These things are gonna be very, very dangerous,
and they cause a lot of fires, and they're all one hundred percent
preventable. They don't catch fire by themselves. It catch fire because people are
not using them, right, So you got to be super careful with your
space eaters. Yeah. Yeah, frozen pipes are nothing fun. There's nothing
fun about that either. Frank, Yeah right, you know, but you
know there's tricks in the trade for that that that can help. If you
you know, if it's if you've done nothing to your plumbing system to prevent
frozen pipes, you can always open your cabinets, your kitchen cabin doors,
your bathroom vanity doors. Let some warmth in there. Uh. And and
you can also think about running little bit of water at the end of the
run, so let them fit a water trickle out of a faucet will prevent
it from freezing as well. You know, we did in one of the
last minute one of the bump one of the barns Tom we put They just
put an electric sixty one light bulb on the end of an extension cord and
hung it over the place that was coldest, and enough heat coming from the
light bulb kept it from freezing. Yeah, as long as it's not near
anything that's going to be combustible. You know, the old days, we
used to find that people would put those balls in closets. Then they proceeded
to pile their crap up on top of the shelf right until it came in
contact with the bold And you know the rest of the story exactly, all
right, money pitch newsletter information bathroom renovations. I had somebody appraised praise my
house this week, and she said, this is a beautiful house, beautiful
property. Why didn't you put in a new bathroom or a new kitchen?
And I looked at the lady and I said, because I liked the kitchen
and I like my own bathroom with the bathroom right right. But she said
it would add so much more value to your home. Well, it also
would cost a lot of mind. It's interesting, I mean, how would
she how would she determine how much more value an upgrading bathroom versus the standard
bathroom would in her appraisal report? You know, yeah, yeah, all
right. So anyway, you do have some things about bathroom renovation. Is
there anything new there? Well, we talk about, you know, some
of the areas to focus on in terms of colors and the faucets and the
fixtures, making sure that their water sense certified, which, by the way,
those have become so much more functional. It used to be that you
had like a water saving shower head. It was a pretty lazy shower head
that wouldn't wake you up in the morning. But the water sets program,
which is similar to the Energy Stars. If you use Energy Star program does
a really good job of specifying falss, and fixtures that use a lot less
water would still perform and do a good job with their cleaning and flushing and
that sort of thing. Yeah, all right. Sign up for the money
Pit newsletter at moneypit dot com Forward Slash Newsletter. Same thing can be said
for signing up for the podcast Moneypit dot com Forward Slash Podcast. Tom Kreidler,
Here, my pleasure to have you on the air, Tommy. Thank
you. The next Stefan Good Day download with Doug and Jay Kirshner is made
possible in part by Keltren, which is the safe way for you to lose
weight and keep it off, and also by previagent keeping your brain healthy.