Today’s Homeowner Radio Podcast | August 6, 2022

This 7 days, understand how to clear outdated wallpaper and secure a wooden-framed shower window from h2o harm. (Sandy Knollenburg/simplyzel, Getty Photographs)


Hour 1

In Hour 1, listen to our tips for matching wood posts to vinyl, cleaning previous wallpaper, and far more.  

Matching Wooden Posts to Vinyl

Split screen of an elevated porch
Matching these picket assistance posts to the vinyl posts is as easy as making use of a coat of paint. (Photos by Doug May perhaps)

Doug May possibly has a wonderful view of the Blue Ridge Mountains on his protected back again porch. But, the watch of his porch is not as pleasing.

“The upper component has vinyl sleeves more than the best of the posts. Everything’s covered and it is good and clean and white. But down underneath, it is just force-taken care of wooden, with all the cracks and gaps,” Doug says. 

He wishes the picket assist posts on the ground to match the white vinyl posts on the porch above. What is halting him from covering the wood posts with vinyl is the diagonal wood braces. He’s nervous about the inconvenience of connecting the lots of vinyl parts on the diagonals and sealing them.

“What I want is the clean search and come to feel of the vinyl on the posts down below. Is there a way to do that?” Doug asks.  

Vinyl sleeves are expensive! If you want the posts to match, try this budget-friendly solution: 

Initial, thoroughly clean the wood posts and implement a coat of primer.

Then, use vehicle physique filler (like Bondo) to easy out the cracks. At the time that dries, evenly sand the posts. 

Then, caulk the parts the place the diagonal braces meet the vertical posts. 

Eventually, utilize two coats of acrylic latex paint.

Once you do this, no just one will know just one established of posts is vinyl and the other established isn’t! The acrylic paint will give it a shiny seem and seal the joints. 

If you come to a decision you want to protect the posts with vinyl, get rid of a person post at a time, which include the diagonal supports, and attach the vinyl sleeves to just about every piece. 

Miter cut the ends of the sleeves to in shape the diagonal brace posts, and carefully caulk each seam so drinking water doesn’t get in.

Really do not caulk the bottom of the diagonal brace parts where by the wood satisfies the submit. If drinking water were to get inside of the vinyl, you want it to be able to drain out and dry. 


How to Clean up Old Wallpaper

Old wallpaper
First wallpaper can keep an previous home’s overall look real to its age. (Picture by Sandy Knollenburg)

Sandi Knollenburg bought a 100-year-aged farmhouse in Bloomington, Ill., 5 decades ago, and she’s been renovating it minimal by tiny.

Proper now, she’s doing work on the stairwell location. The partitions that lengthen from the to start with ground to the next are lined in wallpaper from the 1960s.

Sandi enjoys the pattern, and the wallpaper is nevertheless in quite fantastic form! All it demands is a great cleaning.  

So, she wonders, “What’s the finest way to clean and maintain the wallpaper?”

Most contemporary wallpapers have an acrylic or latex coating that would make them washable and, in some instances, scrubbable.

More mature wallpaper is just basic paper, so you really do not want to get it moist. If you do, it will peel off the wall.

Try these options to get rid of the dust and dust: 

  • Wipe the wallpaper with a massive, dry sponge.
  • Use a vacuum cleaner.
  • Connect a microfiber fabric to a Swiffer-kind mop for really hard-to-attain spots.

To clear away skids and scuffs, use a gum eraser. You can purchase these at an artwork provide retail store.

A different solution is a dry Magic Eraser. If that does not operate, flippantly dampen it.


Hour 2

In Hour 2, learn how to reduce wooden rot in a shower window, remove sediment from drinking water, and extra.


Guarding a Wooden Window Body in a Shower

Fearful about h2o detrimental a wood-framed shower window? Protect it with tile. (simplyzel, Getty Visuals)

A caller requires tips on tiling all over a window in his shower. The wood frame sticks out a little bit, so
he cannot tile more than it. 

“What do you do to handle that to make it so that the drinking water is not harming that wooden and causing wooden rot?” he asks. “And much more importantly, (guarantee) that drinking water is not getting driving that and creating injury to the shower?”

A lot of more mature residences have this issue. Normally, at just one point in time, the bathroom had just a tub with a window previously mentioned it. Then somewhere together the way, a shower was installed. 

I have observed a lot of home owners place a shower curtain around the window, but not often does that very last prolonged.

To guard the wooden body from drinking water injury, encapsulate the window body with the tile. 

Prior to you lay the tile, be sure to caulk and paint the frame. Bring the tile up to the wooden and then overlap extra tile in excess of the window frame. This will shield the frame from the drinking water and give it a nice, pronounced look. 

If water can even now strike it straight, put in a waterproof window.

To wholly eliminate any likelihood of wooden rot, take out the window and switch it with a vinyl a person.  


Sediment in H2o

Sick of sediment in your h2o? It is time for a new h2o filter. (pixelshot)

Pablo Sandoval in Willow Creek, Calif., is ill of sediment in his drinking water. His residence draws water from a deep nicely and all wastewater flows into a septic tank. 

“For most of the 12 months, the h2o offer is very good, but just about every summer season we have a challenge with sediment that clogs aerators at sinks and showerheads. Additionally, the washing device normally takes without end to fill with drinking water. What can we do to alleviate these challenges?” he asks.

Sediment problems are much more recurrent in the summer time mainly because water concentrations are generally lower. There’s fewer water but the same quantity of sediment in the program, so it finds its way to the pump and into your residence. 

You are going to will need to have a perfectly drinking water contractor consider a seem at your pump. You may possibly need a new screening. 

Also, right here are two solutions to think about:

  • Have a drinking water well contractor set up a sand separator on your pump. This system employs centrifugal force to press dirt, sand and particles outward to the separator wall and downward in a spiral motion. The cleaned water then rises and returns back to your plumbing technique. 
  • Set up a sediment filter in your residence. There are quite a few diverse choices out there, but we suggest the Braukmann Reverse rinsing wonderful filter.

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Very simple Answers

This Simple Solution retains you from constantly refilling your kitchen area cleaning soap dispenser. (3 Echoes Written content Studio)

Enhanced Cleaning soap Dispenser — Kitchen-sink cleaning soap dispensers keep these a modest sum of liquid soap that it requires you to frequently refill the reservoir bottle. Here’s a far better selection:

  • Lift off the hand pump from the dispenser, pull off the plastic fill tube, and swap it with a long versatile quarter-inch-diameter tubing.
  • Feed the reverse end of the tubing down via the hole in the sink deck and position it in a significant jug of liquid soap.

Now you’ll in no way have to refill the dispenser just change the soap jug when it’s vacant. 

Watch: Cleaning soap Dispenser Filling Tip

Gutter on the corner of a house with vinyl siding
If you’re installing gutters on vinyl siding, run the drill in reverse for easy holes. (Garrett Aitken, Getty Photos)

Smooth Slice in Vinyl Siding — When employing a gap observed to drill by way of vinyl siding, run the drill in reverse. That way, the hole noticed will make a good clear hole with no rough edges.

Once you minimize as a result of the siding, change the drill to ahead and bore as a result of the wall sheathing.


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