Speaker 1 00:00:04 Welcome to the weekend. Warriors home improvement show built by bar lumber. When it comes to biggest small projects around the home, Tony ACORE, you've got the know-how and the answers to make your life just a bit easier yearly. They are your weekend warriors, Tony and Corey.
Speaker 2 00:00:24 Hey, welcome to the weekend. Warriors home improvement show built by Parr lumber. I'm Corey Valdez, and I am Tony Cookson. Thanks for tuning in with us today. We're going to talk about how failures we sound like we're announcing a boxing match or something this quarter. Yeah, house failures. This is an absolutely wonderful topic because of the, where, because of the place that we are in, in the world today, I feel like in the world today, we're in a place where so many things are made disposable, single use single use, and they continue to become less and less expensive so that you can afford to buy it and toss it and buy it and toss it and so on. Yeah, that's definitely true with a lot of things, especially like technology, you know, a new phone comes out every year. People just swap it out, buy new, you know, and the old ones you can't fix.
Speaker 2 00:01:26 I mean, you literally can't fix things as technology becomes outdated. It's outdated. You can't make it new. Well, not to mention technology is so vast, right. That you can't possibly be up on it enough to be the repair person for your computer, for your iPad, for your cellular phone. Totally. For, I mean, all of the stuff, uh, you mean, you know, how can you, I, my dad was a fix it guy. My dad was an electrician and he used to get TVs and radios and things that people that he knew owned that weren't working properly. And he would fix them on the side. Yeah. On weeknights and on weekends, like with like tubes. Yes. They had tubes, these TVs had these tubes and resistors and all these things and my dad would get out his soldering iron and he'd open up the back of that TV and he'd be poking around in there and he'd be like, yeah, that's a problem.
Speaker 2 00:02:26 I need to replace that G 26 right there. And uh, and this little R 12, and that should only cost me like $3 and 50 cents. And then, you know, it's no big deal. Right. And I was like, man, he knew how to fix stuff. Well, you know, you can't just pop the back off of your cellular device and jump in there with a soldering iron and fix it. It's just not the same anymore. Right. Right. And, uh, so anyway, the days of buying things that stop working properly and then get, and then stop working and then get fixed. Right. And then ultimately it's even funnier when they stop being able to be fixed and they can't be used for what they were intended for anymore. People used to repurpose it and then it, it got a new job. And then it did that separate thing, like a lamp that held eight, uh, light bulbs and then stopped working.
Speaker 2 00:03:24 They take the bulbs out. Now it holds eight candles. It becomes a candle holder. And then it's a candle holder until it becomes an antique. And then when it becomes an antique, they put it on a different table and it's now decoration. You know what I mean? I mean, there's, it has so many purposes, but, but these days, one of my favorite ones is the dish, uh, or sorry, the clothes dryer drum or the clothes washer drum, where they take them out and use them as fire pits. Oh, I seen that. Yeah. They look super cool. Anyway, I've seen big giant wheels used for fire pits. Yeah. There's lots of things people use for fire pits. Yeah. Full fire pit, you know, you can't, uh, can't go wrong, wrong with anyway. Well, so that's what we're going to talk about today. There's lots of things around your home that are the most common house failures.
Speaker 2 00:04:15 And I feel like you should prepare yourself. You should know that these things are going to fail. You should be prepared for it as with anybody. You know, when your roof starts leaking, you shouldn't be surprised because you've neglected it for years with of mosque growth. You know, if you look up on your roof and it's more green than it is, you know, it's original shingle color for years and years and years, it's going to fail at some point. So that's what we're talking about today. We're going to give you some tips on how to maintain some of these things so that you don't get caught on. I want to throw in one little caveat to the topic of the show. What is your calf? Some of the things that we talk about will only fail. If they're not properly maintenanced, there is an opportunity.
Speaker 2 00:05:01 Here's one that you're saying, there are things that will never fail. No, no. I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's not an automatic failure. You said we're going to talk about things that are automatically going to fail. That's true. But some of the things we're going to talk about, aren't an automatic failure. If they're properly maintenance, I'm going to give an example. I'm going to jump right into the list. Corey, we're going to start outside. We're going to talk about things outside your home. Things that need to be maintenanced regularly in certain situations. Here it is. Corey, a crack in the driveway, in the concrete driveway, a crack in the driveway. Should you expect your driveway to fail? Uh, well, no, not necessarily. Not at first. And if you see a crack in the driveway, has it failed? Well, no, it depends on the crack.
Speaker 2 00:05:52 Right? So if you leave the crack unaddressed, will it fail eventually? Yes. Okay. So you answered all my questions. Exactly. Like I figured you would. Here's the thing, what we're saying. If you have the beginnings of a failure and you leave it unaddressed, it will eventually become a failure. So there are opportunities to curtail at the very least postpone a failure, proper maintenance. Well, let's talk about the foundation crack or the, or let's talk about concrete cracks in general. You know, when you see a concrete crack in a foundation, let's say, you'll walk your house. We talk about this on the show. You, you know, you do your annual or whatever. Bi-annual just walk around your house and look at everything and maybe, yeah. Maybe call your neighbor over and have him walk with you. Hand me my soft drink and say, let's walk around.
Speaker 2 00:06:44 I'll tell me, tell me what you see. It's a good idea. Yeah. If you've got a, a somebody in your life, that's a weekend warrior, maybe like yourself. Sometimes they see things differently than in, just walk around and you see foundation cracks. What should you do in the event of a foundation crack? Because not all foundation cracks are, you know, concern worthy. You know, you're going to look at every single crack and go, oh my goodness, I need to call somebody to fix this. You know, some of them are literally just stress fractures that from when the concrete settles or when the house settles, they just happen. But they shouldn't be ignored, right? No matter what size they are, they shouldn't be ignored. Right? If they're, if they're small enough where you don't see any real space between them, I think you probably leave those alone for now.
Speaker 2 00:07:33 But if you start seeing a gap in them, you need to, to maintain that right away. In my opinion, um, I'm not a concrete professional, but there are, uh, concrete patch compounds that you can buy. You have to, you have to make sure that you buy the right stuff that will stick to existing concrete. If you buy just regular concrete and try to slather it in there, it's not going to stick. It doesn't do anything. It'll just fall right out of flake out. So they make this stuff that has special, um, you know, chemical compounds mixed in with the concrete mix. They even have, you know, patch. You can buy concrete patch, specifically designed for it. But yeah, you definitely want to get in there, clean it up, take like a wire brush, clean away that area and then patch it. Because the reason that it's cracking, you might not know it might be, uh, some, maybe some water issues under the foundation where it's coming away, you know that you have to Maine, or you might have to call somebody out to fix that.
Speaker 2 00:08:32 But if that ends up being the case, but if it's just the house settling, what happens with a small crack is the cold thought freeze cycle. And when you get water in there, so you have a small crack that's rain, it's rain, moisture, whatever. As the temperatures drop that water freezes, we all know what happens when water freezes expands, whoever left a Coke in your freezer by accident, oops and explosives, because, you know, liquids expand when they freeze. So it will make that crack expand. Not very much, but it will. And then as it thaws and freezes and thaws and freezes and thaws is over years, the crack gets bigger, but it is much, it's never gets smaller, right? It'll just become a bigger problem. So same thing happens when your foundation happens in your concrete patio or concrete walkways or driveway. Tony and I have actually seen like sidewalks and driveways that have huge caverns under them.
Speaker 2 00:09:38 Like I personally had one where there was a hole that developed in my, I rented a house many years ago and in the driveway it was a little hole. And when you walked over it, you could hear a hollow. It was, and I got my phone and I kind of stuck it down in that hole. The thing was massive in, you know, you're driving a 5,000 pound vehicle up on top of this concrete driveway every day, it's eventually going to fail, right? Because the water get developed a crack, the water goes in there, washes a little bit of the, you know, the underpinnings of that driveway away like erosion. We all know what erosion is. Same thing happens. You don't even see it. So you remember that one, you should tell that story. The winter Astoria. Oh yeah. We were walking down the, down the street in Astoria.
Speaker 2 00:10:26 Like we weren't quite downtown Astoria. We were a little out of town, but we were walking down the main drag fishing. Yeah. We had been down there to go fishing and we were headed towards dinner and we're walking down the main drag right on the sidewalk. And, uh, we, I come up to this, what looked like a hole, maybe the hole in the sidewalk was the size of, let's say a cut, a four inch round hole, four inch diameter hole. Yeah. And it was black. And I thought, oh look, and there's a hole in the sidewalk. That's weird. It's black. Right. It's funny too, because I was in that rental house. And I had told you that story, not too long before that. Yeah. And so when we saw this, it really caught our eye. So sure enough, we got closer and then turn the light on our phone and look down in there.
Speaker 2 00:11:10 I'm looking to see the bottom. You could not, it was literally cavernous underneath there. We were walking on a, on a concrete sidewalk that was suspended with no support underneath it. It was obviously, yeah. The concrete was attached to the building sort of, but there was nothing underneath it. I mean, we could have gone down with it at any moment. We were even dropping rocks down there and it's crazy, but it's, you know, stuff like that, where it starts off small and it's completely avoidable in. All you have to do is do that yearly maintenance. You walk around your house, just look at everything, you know, Tony and I talk about that all the time. You put your head down into your crawl space. You don't want to go down there, but you should at least look to see what's going on. Yeah. Are there, you know, rodent signs of rodents are, is there moisture?
Speaker 2 00:12:00 Is there water? Is there mold? Does it stink? You know, th those are signs of things that are eventually going to start making bigger problems for you, right? Yep. They're absolutely right about that. So what's another thing outside. We talked about concrete. That was great. What's another thing. Well, I'd like your foundation, Vince. I just mentioned poking your head down into your crawl space. You know, as you're walking around and you're looking at your concrete foundation, you'll probably, you probably have like most homes in the area foundation vents. Those are put in there so that the airflow inside of your crawlspace breathes, and it's not stagnant, gross moldy air. When you look at it, it looked to you like a, like an eight inch tall by 16 inch wide rectangle in the concrete with a screen in it. It's what it looks like. Just super common that's event.
Speaker 2 00:12:53 Doesn't even open. It stays closed, stays. Uh, the screen has got it closed off. Right? Right. So if you, you know, if you see one where the screen is missing, right. Or torn or torn, that is an invitation for rodents or even bigger animals like squirrels and possums, they can tear that out and get in there. Uh, a lot of times, if you have a, uh, like a cable company come out and install cable at your house, they'll cut little holes or they're tear it out. Sometimes they don't really even care. And they'll create these these problems. Uh, and you don't even know about it. So if you check it out, there are methods to close those off and just putting spray foam in there. Isn't one of them. No. So check it out. There's a, that we actually talked to Matt white from the killers, because I had this problem at my house.
Speaker 2 00:13:48 I had the, a bunch of foundation vents where that were ripped and I was getting rats in mice in my crawl space. So we had to set up traps. It's really gross. But he found all these foundation vents that were, you know, had little small holes in them. And then the mice would just peel. Yeah. They want to be under the house. There's a installation under there. And there's, it's toasty, smells like food in there. I don't know where it's coming from. Right. So they smell it. And he actually had this, uh, compound spray. It was like a spray foam that he used, but it had special stuff in it. But I've also heard a tip from somebody who said to use spray foam mixed with stainless steel, steel wool. Oh. So you put the steel wool in there and because rodents will eat right through spray foam, expanding foam.
Speaker 2 00:14:36 They don't care. But when they hit that steel wool, they will stop. If they chew through it. Right. They don't need it. Know they chew through it. But, but yeah, but they don't like to try to chew through metal. Yeah. That makes sense. I don't like, I don't like the feeling or the taste of metal up against teeth either. You know what I'm saying? Especially if you've got fillings, it's terrible zingers. Yeah. Anyway, that's a really good tip. I like that. What else is going on out there? You know, we talked about the foundation and how the foundation oftentimes is a negatively effected by, by ignoring the gutters or neglecting your gutters. And we cover this all the time. We're not going to spend a lot of time here. You got to keep your gutters clean. If you don't keep your gutters clean, then the downspouts will get clogged.
Speaker 2 00:15:21 The downspouts get clogged and water runs off. And when the RA, when the water leaves your gutter someplace, other than the downspouts, then it's landing on the ground in a place where it's not supposed to be. It's not intended to be there. And it's not properly managed from that spot. If your foundation, or if that water's coming down close to your foundation, it can undermine your foundation. A lot of water running off of the gutter, where it's not supposed to can undermine your foundation, a crack in your foundation. That's also being undermined, double as bad or undermining the foundation can cause that crack. Would you call that a double whammy? I would have very bad one. So it's, you talked about, you talked about proper maintenance, maintenancing the gutter and the downspout, as well as the roof, which I'm sure we'll start talking about it eventually.
Speaker 2 00:16:10 Well, and also the rain drains. So the rain drains on most houses are just piping around the whole exterior of your house and then they'll pop up and that's what your gutters go into. So the water comes through the gutters, down the downspouts, into the rain drains, and then out to some location, most houses right out to the street. You'll see the little pipe right at the gutter, a little hole where, when it rains, the water comes out that pipe, well, sometimes it doesn't come out. It doesn't come out because your gutters have been full. That that junk gets down into the downspouts. And then even it gets down into the rain drain and then eventually it just clogs. Yeah. You know, and sometimes you'll get rodents and things climbing up those and putting their little, you know, jackpots of nuts and all kinds of junk nests and things in there too.
Speaker 2 00:17:04 So you really gotta make sure that those are working. I recommend the next time you have a big rainstorm walkout to where your rain drains come out and watch it and just see. Or if you don't want to wait, you want to do it in the summertime when it's nice and sunny outside, put a hose up in the, in your gutter and then walk out to the street and watch the water come out. And if it's not coming out at your street where it's supposed to come out, it's coming out somewhere. Yeah. You need to go find it. And if it's coming out onto your foundation, that's terrible. Right. So I actually have, uh, somebody that I work with this happen too, they were, the water was gurgling bubbling out. Did this happen? You again, had to have your rain drains jetted, just like Fike less than a month ago.
Speaker 2 00:17:55 Right? Somebody else that I know this happened to where the water was coming down, their downspout and they walked outside. Why it just overflowing everywhere. So they said, oh shoot. My downspouts are Clarks. So they climbed up on a ladder, got up there, nothing. Right. It was all clean. Yep. So they pulled the downspout out and sure enough water was just coming right out of the rain drain. So it wasn't making its way down to the street. So that's a huge problem. Yeah, it is. And be honest with you, it costs about 500 bucks to have somebody come out and jet. And that, that number, that amount of money is relative because that depends where the water comes out at the street. How far back towards the house? How big is the house? How big is the footprint? How many feet of rain drain needs to be jetted?
Speaker 2 00:18:44 How many different, you know, approaches to the street? Does it have, do they charge by the foot? I mean, I think they charged by the amount of time that it takes. And the more, the more footage you have, the longer it's going to take, plus that's if the machine that they have or the jet that they have will work on your situation. I think that a hundred feet or 150 feet, you know, from one point to another might be a maximum for some machines. And again, I'm not a, I'm not a plumber and I'm not a, um, a water jet user or owner, but, uh, but I've had a lot of conversations about it. And I know that, uh, there are some limitations. I've had some luck running, you know, my hose with a jet, you know, like, uh, they have those connections you can put on the end of your hose that make like a straight stream.
Speaker 2 00:19:36 I've actually had luck running those up. My rain drains at the street level, running it up there and watching the gunk come out. And sometimes that'll clear that clock. Nice. No, it all depends on how far away it is. Totally. And how far you can go. I mean, you know, 150, foot's a long ways, what's it about, I'll tell you what, I'll bet you, that's a very common failure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I, I drive around my neighborhood and I see houses with trees growing out of your gutters. So, you know, darn well, they haven't cleaned. They haven't cleaned them. And all that stuff is just collecting the water. All that junk is going down those pine needles and you've seen it. They just call it. You know, whether you have large trees around your home or not, I'm here to tell you the number one thing to clog rain drain, what is it?
Speaker 2 00:20:22 Moss that's Moss. It's absolutely Moss because Moss will grow on the roof. Even if you have a Moss inhibitor strip, even if you have Moss inhibiting composition, roofing, you're still going to grow Moss. And if you don't treat them OSS, then it will die. Right. It does, it dies off. And then it comes back. If you don't sweep it off, you know, it'll come back. But, and then it rolls down. The roof drops into the gutter, the water, washes it over the downspout and it plugs up your rain drain like little caterpillars, this right, a little green, little green furry caterpillars. And, uh, it, it doesn't all come off the roof. You have to actually intentionally get it off the roof. But here's a good idea if you're cleaning Moss off of the roof, which is great. And I encourage you to do that. Um, don't just sweep it into the gutters because then it goes down the downspout and clogs the raindrop here.
Speaker 2 00:21:17 Don't do it. Mosses is a, Clogger a number one. Clogger, let's talk about fencing. Fencing is one of those common things where you know, a good fence will last 10, 15 years, 20 years a good fence. I'm seeing 25 years maybe right? Fence is only as good as its post. Anything longer than that, you probably know that it's going to fail at some point, but there are some things that you can do to prolong the life of your fence. I want to talk about those. We've only got a minute left in this segment, so we'll have to get to that. Most of them in the second segment. But the very first one that I want to tell you is that when you build your fence, put a top cap on it. Oh yeah. That's smart. A top cap is like a roof of a house, the water.
Speaker 2 00:22:03 It won't allow water to enter the end grain of your fence boards. It costs a bit more money, but in the long run, that fence is going to last way longer, way longer. You see a fence with the top cap, the fence boards look pretty good without they start rotting within a few years. You'll see it. It's really great. It's a really great tip. And I am already, as you're mentioning fencing, I'm already thinking of two or three more tips, which you're probably already thinking about. Let me tell you that I'm actually pretty excited about sharing those tips because offense is an expensive expense offense, expense, offense, expense, and a, you don't want to have to incur it. If you don't have to. We gotta take a quick break. When we come back more things on your home that will probably fail. When we come back, get us into Tony core. Your weekend warriors, don't go away.
Speaker 1 00:23:06 You're listening to the weekend. Warriors home improvement. Joe built by Parr lumber. Now here's Tony and Corey
Speaker 2 00:23:19 Hey, welcome back to the weekend. Warriors home improvement show. Thanks for sticking around today. We're talking about the most common things around your house that will fail house failures. We're not talking about, you know, your, your brother-in-law was a failure. I'm just kidding. Even if he does happen to come around the house, you know, we're talking about things around your house, that break and will eventually cost you way money. If you don't maintain them. Right. But we wanted to take a second. If you've ever, uh, listened to our show and you miss part of it, you can catch us on podcast. Wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you ever have any questions or comments, you can email us a weekend
[email protected] and we'd really love it. If you went and followed our, uh, uh, YouTube channel, if you go to YouTube and just search Parr lumber, uh, you'll see the weekend warriors home improvement show pop right up and you can follow us.
Speaker 2 00:24:11 We're making videos, content, putting that on there all the time. If you ever have any suggestions too, we'd love to hear those. So email us, we can
[email protected]. Also follow us at, uh, Facebook and Instagram at WW home show. Yep. We got some cool stuff on there. Cool stuff. All right. So we're talking about these house failures. And before the break we were talking about fencing and offense is very expensive. I don't know what the last time you built a fence was, but I mean, I'll be honest. They're probably just for material 20 bucks a foot, you think? Yeah. I mean, with lease with today's prices, I suppose. Are you talking about bill? No, no, no, no, no, no. Just material, just material, just material, probably 20 bucks a foot or more. That is expensive. I know fence builders that are getting between 80 and a hundred dollars a linear foot. No way. Oh yeah. He's got a hundred, much money. A hundred feet of fence. Just do the math. That's going to cost you an arm and a leg. I would much rather just put up a picture of me, you know, with no clothes on. And then I feel like no one would want to come on to everyone away. No one would want to come onto my property.
Speaker 2 00:25:27 And that's a way less expensive than building a fence. Well, I think for most people they'd want offense. Uh, so you'd probably never is definitely rather than offense. So you would want to extend the life of that fence for as long as possible so that it doesn't fail. And the number one thing that fail most are fence posts. Yeah. For fence posts. Do you want to use pressure treated lumber? It goes in the ground and you want to use pressure treated lumber at your moving parts. Say, if you have a gate you want to use six by sixes or four by sixes, that will give you a little bit extra strength when you're opening and closing that gate. A lot of people use four by fours, and it's just not enough strength to keep that gate from wobbling, that fence post back and forth. And if it's wobbling back and forth, water's going to get down in there.
Speaker 2 00:26:21 It's going to fill up with water. It's going to rot prematurely. And those are the first posts to go on. Almost every fence I've ever seen. Yeah. Here's something else I want to mention. You will encounter out there in the building material supply world, you will encounter multiple types of treated material. I can tell you from my experience, they make treated material that's intended for use on the surface of a deck for handrail. They call that elite decking. One manufacturer calls it elite decking. Well, another manufacturer might call it outdoor wood. Um, it does not have incising marks in it and it is not intended for ground contact, correct? You need to make sure that the, that the pressure treated material you're looking for is rated for ground contact. As a matter of fact, they, they will make a ground contact product and then they'll make a product that is rated for in ground use in ground structural in ground structural.
Speaker 2 00:27:19 That's right. So just make sure you ask the question. You want to know what you're looking for. If you're not buying something that's intended for use in the ground, then it's probably going to perform its performance is probably going to be reflective of that. Yeah. And I see a lot of fences where they'll put pressure treated posts in the ground, but then they'll use Doug for rails. And it's, it's usually okay because the fence boards are gonna ride out at some point right down the road. But if you really want a fence to last a long time use pressure treated rails. Um, the other thing I mentioned before the break was to use a top cap, a top cap, like I said, it's like a little roof over the fence itself and it'll keep water from penetrating down into the end grain of your posts and the end grain of your fence sports.
Speaker 2 00:28:09 Uh, another thing you can do is to put stain on the fence on both sides, uh, keep that maintained throughout the years, just put another coat on and it will prolong the life of that fence. I don't cost a lot and it's a lot of work, but you know, what's more expensive $20,000 fence or a hundred dollars in state. Yeah. If you come along five years after you built that fence and you can see those top caps are starting to curl and twist and jump up, replacing the top caps is a lot less expensive than replacing the fence, uh, sections or the post. So, absolutely. Uh, if you, if you decide that you don't like the top cap idea, it is imperative that you cover the top of your fence post in order to get that fence post to last, as long as possible, they do make these little metal caps looks like a little metal thin post cap.
Speaker 2 00:29:01 Yeah. Pyramid cap, not a, not a decorative post cap, just a little tiny little kind of like a beanie for your posts, beanie beanie, just a tiny little, a tiny little cap that just barely covers the end of the post. And they're pretty inexpensive and they get them for a couple of dollars, a piece I think, or three. Yep. Um, it's a good idea about the post itself. Tony is there, what, what are some things you can do to the concrete of a post to make it last one? Well, if you're building your own fence and you're pouring your own concrete around your fence posts, um, if you pour the concrete in there and tamp it down flat and it cures like that, and you've got this flat top on your, when it rains water will stand on the top of that flat concrete and where that water stands, it will just eat into the, uh, into the wood, right.
Speaker 2 00:29:50 In that spot. A lot of fence posts a rot through and break off right at the top of the concrete ball. Right. So what you can do is add in a little bit of concrete in the shape of a cone so that when the water lands, it falls away from the wood. And, um, and that will, that can save your posts from rotting out right at the top of the concrete. Yeah. Very good tip. Another one is to add a little bit of gravel in the bottom of the hole. So before you put your post down in the hole, take a little bit of gravel, maybe like two, three inches, you know, deep pack it down into the bottom and then set your fence post on that, that will allow any water groundwater that gets down to the bottom of that fence, post hole to drain away in, not soak up into the bottom of the post.
Speaker 2 00:30:38 So that'll prolong the life as well. Yeah. That's a very good idea. Absolutely. And the last one I'm going to say about fences is stainless steel nails. Yeah. Stainless steel nails are just a little bit more expensive, but if you're put on like us putting up a Cedar fence, especially a Cedar fence, if you used hot dip, galvanized or electro galvanized nails or Sheetrock screws, how often do we see that all the time? Yeah. That's another, you want any fastener use, want to make sure that it's rated for exterior use sheet rock screws. I see a lot of that interior grade screws where they just rust out and they're completely gone after a few years that has to do with the chemical reaction with the copper that's used in pressure treated lumber, but that's a different thing down the way. You just want to use exterior grade screws at least, or nails.
Speaker 2 00:31:34 But if you use stainless steel, you won't have the problem where the screw itself turns black. I see this all the time. People buy these beautiful fence boards. They put them up on this beautiful fence. It looks gorgeous, but they use hot tip galvanized or electro galvanized nails. And the next thing you know, there's two black streaks on every single fence board that are about four inches long it's because that so frustrating that galvanizing oxidizes and it stains the Cedar black and it looks horrible. So the only way to get around that stainless steel nails, and I'm telling you right now, or screws, it's not that much more expensive. It might cost you a hundred bucks more for the entire, if you grab a container of stainless steel nails or screws, and you look at the price, you will say, oh, wow. Yeah. But if you average it into the overall cost of your fence project, it it's almost a noticeable.
Speaker 2 00:32:33 Yeah. I, when I did my fence, I built a lot of fence too. I think I built about 150 feet total. The last fence I built and I did stainless steel, coil nails. I think I paid 150 bucks for the whole box and I had several coils leftover. So to me it was worth it. I didn't want to see any of those black pock marks all over my beautiful fence and you don't. And that's awesome about that. Yep. Hey, let's talk for a moment about an exterior deck. If you've got an exterior deck on your home now, Corey, you don't have one. I don't, I have pavers, right? You have pavers. And we'll talk about that too. Cause there's another thing there. But if you have an exterior deck on your home, it is unique in that. Oftentimes they don't have a cover that protects them from the weather.
Speaker 2 00:33:22 They don't have a roof, they don't have all of the things that your home has to protect it from the weather. Oftentimes they don't even have paint. These exterior decks, the surface of the deck is right out in the elements doing its thing 365. And you know what? It's not just going to last forever. It's not. If you go out and buy a brand new decking product right now, it might come with a 25 year warranty. Maybe if you went and got a new product, but even that is, it's got a lifespan, you know, decking in the time of owning your home. If you have a deck is likely to have to be replaced. Can you extend the life of it? If it's a wood deck? Absolutely. Cory, how do you extend the life of your wood deck to get as much time out of it as possible?
Speaker 2 00:34:13 Well, um, obviously the obvious answer is just to maintain it by putting new coats of stain and or paint. Um, I've seen painted decks last a very long time. Uh, but you have to maintain it. You have to, it's a lot of work. You gotta put, you know, scrape off or sand down the old stuff. If it's peeling and lay down a good coat of exterior grade floor paint, um, you gotta clean it. Yeah. You gotta clean it. Stain deck. Uh, you can do, you know, pen AFIN and different things like that. Penetrating oils in my opinion are better than water-based formulas. That's kind of sit on the surface of the deck, right? If you've ever seen a deck where the stain is peeling up, it's probably a water-based coating that has maybe not been applied properly. They're not terribly easy to put down without having it go awry.
Speaker 2 00:35:03 In my opinion, I like the penetrating oils like benefit, um, where you put them in and they just soak in and then you can add more down the road and it soaks in. Um, but yeah, maintaining it is key. Now, if you're talking about composite decks, really the only thing you gotta do there is clean it. Yep. That's right. Hose it down or whatever. But if we're talking about the framing, now there's a couple of things you can do with the framing of a deck to make sense and it's life. Yeah. So that it doesn't fail. First of all, that framing is going to want to have been treated. So if you have a ground contact, pressure treated material that that makes up the frame of your deck, then you're already heading in the right direction. Absolutely. And I've talked to deck builders that tell me the biggest failure on any deck is movement.
Speaker 2 00:35:55 So when you have a Joyce that sits in a joist hanger and it's, hangered on to a ledger or a tangled it onto a beam or something, if it's, if it's not cut properly and it's not nailed in properly, the decks, you're going to get movement, right. If you ever walked across the deck and you feel like it's shimmying that debt at that location where it's shimmy and back and forth, the nails are getting looser and looser and then water is entering in those locations and getting looser and looser. And then you're getting that freeze thaw cycle going on, making it worse and worse and worse. That is your number one fail point. So ensuring that you've cut all of your joists to the proper length and you're, you're not putting in a joist hanger with a quarter inch gap, and you're not putting your nails all sloppy in.
Speaker 2 00:36:44 So that's number one, cutting everything correctly, fitting it together correctly. The other thing is to make sure that you're using hot dip, galvanized nails, hot dip, galvanized, or Zemax hangers so that you're not having that, uh, corrosion problem, uh, in the third thing is to use, uh, uh, weather resistant barrier tape on the top. Joyce Joyce cover Joyce tape, Joyce tape deck protector core makes one, it's a asphalt based adhesive tape. That's, you know, about two inches thick or two inches wide. So when you lay it, what you do is you lay it over the top surface of the entire deck and it creates a barrier. So that water doesn't soak in to the deck boards or into the deck framing itself, because there's a big misconception about pressure treated, lumber, pressure treated lumber will rot. It absolutely will rot the warranty they give you. And all of that stuff, it's to slow down rot in the treatment that they put in there.
Speaker 2 00:37:46 It just slows it down. But if it is installed incorrectly, or if it's sitting in enough, water, water will soak in and it will rot eventually. So prolonging that life, especially if you're putting on a, a composite deck, why wouldn't you spend the 200 bucks for all that tape, put it over the top and it's going to, you know, extend the life of your $25,000 deck. Yeah. Uh, the, the via core product you're talking about is called deck protector, that deck protectors four inches wide, and that rolls about 75 feet long. They also make the same product. Trex makes the same product. Right, right, right. And that Trex is called joint tape or Joyce tape joyous tape. And that's about two and a half inches wide and probably a hundred, maybe 150 feet long. And that product is actually made with butyl rubber. So it's a better product.
Speaker 2 00:38:38 Trucks is, is a better product. Yeah, this is good. So anyway, that's, I recommend that those are great tips. Um, definitely make sure that, that you keep a finished, keep it clean and keep a finish on your w on the surface of your wood deck. And that will make it last. Let's talk about exterior windows, Tony. There's a lot of failure points on exterior windows that can happen if you don't keep your windows maintained. I actually have a crazy story about one of these things that I wrote down here is, and that's the weep holes I have on the back of my house. Wait, wait, wait. The polls, the wee polls, the weak poles or the weep holes, the weep hole. Okay. I'm familiar with those. It's a silly term, but it basically what it is is there's your window glazing, which is your, uh, insulated window unit.
Speaker 2 00:39:33 It's the two pieces of glass that are glued together with this tape. That's insulated insulating tape that goes around the middle. Anyway, that's the performing part of the window, right? Yeah. That's the actual glass part of the window. Now it goes into your, we're talking about vinyl here, vinyl windows, right. It goes into the window with this adhesive tape goes into the frame, into the frame, and then there's this snap bead cover that goes over that. Right. And what happens is water hits that window and it drains down right through the snap because a snap beads not waterproof, right? The snap is just there to hold the window in. Exactly. And or the trim, the window, it's a trim. It's like a beauty ring, right? So w the water is going to cascade down that window. And it's going to get into the frame of the window.
Speaker 2 00:40:20 It's going to, it's intended to, it's intended to it's into the frame, the channel of the frame. Yep. So there's these little holes at the bottom of the window that are called weep holes in the water comes out. Those holes. And as water comes in, it goes out that allows the window frame to drain. They're supposed to be there. That is the cycle of life. Right. I have seen many windows installed upside down where the weep holes are at the top. That's not helping anyone know, but that's neither here nor there. Uh, so last summer I was out on my patio, looking at my windows, my beautiful brand new windows. I just installed in the back of my house and carpenter bees or Mason bees, I'm sorry, these black Mason bees, which are amazing for the environment. They, they are excellent pollinators. So you want Mason bees, but they were using my weep holes as a home.
Speaker 2 00:41:12 Oh no. And they were filling all of the weep holes in the back of my house with their, their mud that they just pack in there and lay their eggs. So after they hatched and came out, I had to go clean out all of those weep holes. And I had to buy these little special things to go over them, to keep weight where they weaned six out, we pull covers, we pull covers. So it's a very technical term that happened. And on another occasion on our vacation home that we have, we had the house painted and the painters came out and caught all of the weep holes shut. So we actually had a huge problem because it's at the coast and water, wind driven rain. We're hitting those windows, filling up the window frames in literally spraying water inside of the house because they had nowhere else to go.
Speaker 2 00:42:07 Right. So after seeing what was happening, I ran outside to look sure enough, they were called shut. Oh, man, took a little knife, peeled out. There's these little covers on these windows in the water just comes gloving out. Yeah. So it's important to maintain those, or you're going to have problems down the road. So yeah, that is a good, that's a really great tip. I think most people look at those and just simply don't know what they are, but that's a really great tip. Well, window seals Tony. Now we talk about window seals. That was that rubber gasket. I was telling you about that, that separates the two panes of glass on a double pane window or the triple pane window. It's this little insulated little piece that goes in there. It's got like super, super spacer. Now I had a broken one and you helped me replace it.
Speaker 2 00:42:52 I'd never done it in my life. Yeah. So I learned a lot that day, but how, explain some to somebody how that happens. If you have that failure, you don't have to replace the whole window. No, absolutely not place that insulating unit. Right. I mean, in a vinyl, in a vinyl window, uh, it's assembled much like a door is assembled and they there, the frame is there. And the insulated unit, two pieces of glass separated by that spacer fastened together, sealed and full of air or argon or whatever it is that they put in there. And that insulated unit goes in. That's the performer. That's what does all the work that insulated unit, the frame just holds it and holds the window, holds the glass and holds it to your house. Right. And so, um, that's the performer. Well, sometimes those things fail heat and cold and heat and cold and heat and cold baseball.
Speaker 2 00:43:45 Yeah. Baseball. There's a lot of things that can cause the cousins to fail. And when it fails, moisture gets inside between those two pieces of glass in a fog set up. And then, uh, and I'm not saying like necessarily a solid sheet of fog, so you can't see through it. Maybe you just barely notice it. And you're like, man, this window's just not getting clean. It doesn't look, it doesn't look clear. I just feel like this is not getting, I can't quite clean this up. Well that that's a window. That's probably got a seal failure. And that piece of glass can be taken out. And as a unit, both, if it's a double pain, you have to take both pieces out. We are connected. It's one piece, it's two pieces attached, which is one piece. And you take that out and you can measure that the thickness, the height and the width, and you can have it replaced.
Speaker 2 00:44:35 You can have a, a new insulated unit created for you. Uh, you can order that at any par lumberyard. And, um, and, and then you can put that back in. It's a little, there's some nuances to it. You want, I, like I say, Corey, you and I did that. Um, you had to do it. I did broke this. We replaced one window and then down the road, well, did we break the same window? I think it was the same window again. I think it was the other one maybe. Cause one of the, the thing was about these windows is they're tall and they come down to the floor. They're only about eight inches off the floor. So according to code, those should have been tempered. Yeah, that's correct. And they weren't anything within nine inches of the floor or right. The teenagers of the floor.
Speaker 2 00:45:15 And there's two of them, one on either side of my fireplace and the one window was broken by my daughter. She was running through the house and she was using it as a springboard to run the other way. And she broke it that way. Luckily she didn't get hurt, but we found out quickly that it wasn't tempered. So we replaced it with a tempered unit. And then a year later when we were constructing in my house, the other window got broke accidentally maybe with a sledgehammer. Yeah. I don't know who could have done that. A rogue sledgehammer, but either way, we were able to replace both of them with safety. Yeah. And that saved you. Having to pull off the siding, having to mess with the sheet, rock, all of the things that you would have had to done, you didn't have to do. And, uh, and that worked out really, really good.
Speaker 2 00:45:59 So I'm glad we were able to do that. The last thing I would say about windows as we're coming to the end of our time, uh, you can expect that the screens on your operable windows will need to be replaced at some point or another. They just won't always last forever, unless you never opened those. Even if you don't open those windows, you know, cats get ahold of them, birds, the outside, all of that stuff. And, uh, it has to be replaced. Those screens won't last forever. You can actually, rescreen a screen yourself. It's not that hard. You by the window screen, you've all seen him rolls. You need a spline tool. In a rule of spline, spline tool comes has like two sides. One has a little concave. Uh, it looks like a pizza cutter and the other, side's like a littler wheel that you push it down in further, but it's not that hard, Tony and actually did a video.
Speaker 2 00:46:52 So you can go check that out on our YouTube channel. If you want to see how to rescreen a window screen, it's worth it. Especially if you have pets and they've scratched up your windows, maybe they're just old. Yeah. Um, but Hey, was that tiny pizza cutter? I do want to say we're running out of time, but if you, any part of this show, you have questions or comments. You can email us email. Me and Tony, uh, it's weekend
[email protected]. I'd love to hear from you. Yeah. This has been a pretty good show. I really appreciate you tuning in and checking this out with us. There are things at your home that will fail the more, you know, the, the less surprised you'll be when the time comes around. Thanks so much for tuning in, have a super great week. This has been another episode of your weekend warriors right here on the weekend. Warriors, radio network, take care.
