AL ROKER reporting:
This morning on
TODAY’S HOME
, fix now, save later. A little do-it-
yourself
work on those peeling
window
sills, the leaky
gutters
today can save you a lot of money down the line.
Deborah Snoonian
is the senior editor at
This Old House
magazine.
Deborah
, good to see you.

Ms. DEBORAH SNOONIAN (Senior Editor, This Old House Magazine):
Good to see you. Good morning.

ROKER:
All right. So you’re manning our telestrator, you’re ready to help us figure this out.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
I am.

ROKER:
Now, how important is it to tackle these issues now, because you know, a lot of — well, I’ll get to it later.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Right. The things that seem small — we always say
home repair
is sort of like your health…

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
…where if you let those things slide for long enough, you could end up with a much bigger problem on your hands. So it’s always better to fix a problem when it’s small before it gets out of hand and ends up costing you
big bucks
. So that’s what we’ll talk about this morning.

ROKER:
All right, so let’s started.
Gutters
, if you’ve got a problem, damaged
gutters
.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Right.
Damaged

gutters
or clogged
gutters
. This is a very common sight at this time of year.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
You know, leaves are clogging the glutter — gutter.

ROKER:
Sure.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
If the
gutters
are clogged like this or they’re leaking, water is going to not be able to run, it’s going to overflow and pool around your
house
‘s foundation, and that could cause leaks and
water damage
.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
So we’ll look at the next picture, too, for the fix, which is very simple. Clean out the
gutters
.

ROKER:
Right.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Now, this is not the same exact picture, but you get the idea.

ROKER:
Sure.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Get rid of all the leaves that are in here. Also, make sure to check that the
gutters
are pointed toward the down spouts so that they’re draining properly.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm. Right.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
And if you see any leaks, you can fix them with gutter sealant that you can get…

ROKER:
And how much does it cost to fix now?

Ms. SNOONIAN:
You can do this
yourself
.

ROKER:
Right.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
If you hire a pro, it’s going to cost you a couple hundred dollars. But if you don’t fix this now, you could end up paying $750 for new
gutters
.

ROKER:
Wow.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Or as much as $5,000 to repair
water damage
to your
house
.

ROKER:
And it’s especially important now, because if those
gutters
are clogged and you get that freeze, all of a sudden, you’ve got an ice damming along, the gutter backs up into your
house
and it’s a mess.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Exactly. That’s a huge problem in the wintertime. So definitely do the maintenance now. It’s going to go a long way.

ROKER:
All right. Let’s move on now to the peeling paint in windows.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Right. This is a wooden
window
. And if the paint is peeled and blistered like this…

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
…that means the water’s going to get right in and rot out that woodwork, especially on the sill, which sits flat and the water can pond there.

ROKER:
Sure.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
So for the fix, what you want to do, let’s see the next picture, very simple. Just scrape sand and repaint any
window
, a wooden
window
with a worn-out finish.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
The one precaution that you want to take if you do this
yourself
is if your home was built before
1978
, make sure that you are protecting
yourself
from
lead paint
dust.

ROKER:
Ah.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
And, you know, if you’re only working on the sill, which is this flat part here, you can just open up the
window
and do that from right inside the
house
.

ROKER:
Mm. How much are we talking to repair?

Ms. SNOONIAN:
If you do this
yourself
, you might pay up to $30 a
window
.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
But if you don’t fix this now, you could end up paying $200 for a pro to come in and restore that wood
window
.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm. Or if you have to replace it?

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Or up to $400 for replacement or even more. So that’s a big payoff you don’t want to make. And that’s per
window
.

ROKER:
OK. The next one, this is something I’ve got to do because I just noticed the other day. Cracked — well, not quite this bad, but cracked caulk.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Yes. This is pretty ugly here.

ROKER:
Although looking at this, I think the cracked caulk is not your only problem in this bathroom.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Yeah. There’s a lot of issues here with this bathroom. But the real problem besides that it’s ugly is that this lets water get behind the tub and the tile and that’s going to cause
water damage
and possibly even
mold growth
back there.

ROKER:
Oh. Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
It could get back enough that this tile wall could collapse.

ROKER:
Ooh.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
So what do you want to do? Very, very simple. You want to recaulk your tub.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
It’s something you can do in an hour with a $6 tube of caulk from the
hardware store
. Just scrape out the old stuff, clean that area and apply the new.

ROKER:
You don’t do it?

Ms. SNOONIAN:
And if you don’t do it, it’s a $6 tube of caulk, remember.

ROKER:
Right.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
But if you don’t do this now, you could end up paying $2500 to repair a section of the tiled wall or if you’ve got mold back there, you could pay up to $6,000 to fix that. So that’s a very small investment for a potentially huge payoff.

ROKER:
Let’s move on to worn-out wood floors.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Right.
See
here the protective finish has gotten all scraped away.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Again, when this happens, you know, water is the enemy of your
house
, no matter where it comes into the material. So either water is going to get in there and warp the wood…

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
…or the wood’s going to dry out and get cracked and splintered. So what you want to do, instead of letting it sit like this, is you’re going to do what’s called a screen and poly job. And this is where you take off just the very top layer of the finish, not all the way down to the bare wood…

ROKER:
Right.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
…and apply a new layer of sealant. And you can see how this floor is nice and shiny, you’re not seeing chipping or anything like that.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm. About how much would this cost to do?

Ms. SNOONIAN:
You can rent a machine
yourself
for a couple hundred bucks.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
A pro would charge you about $1.25 a
square foot
.

ROKER:
Right.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
But if you don’t fix this now, you could end up paying $5 a
square foot
for a full refinishing.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
So let’s say your
house
is 1,000
square feet
, that’s 5,000 bucks that you don’t want to spend refinishing your wood floors.

ROKER:
Absolutely. And then finally, overhanging tree limbs.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Yes. This is basically a disaster waiting to happen.

ROKER:
Right.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
Not only these tree limbs could fall onto the roof and go right through, squirrels love to climb down those tree limbs and get right inside your attic. And believe me, you don’t want them living up there.

ROKER:
No.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
They can gnaw through wires, ducts, all kinds of things. So the fix is simple, just get those trees trimmed back.

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
If they’re small enough, you can do it
yourself
. If you hire a pro, they’re going to charge you about $95 a hour.

ROKER:
But if you don’t do it.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
If you don’t do it, you could pay up to $300 or more to get rid of any critters in the attic…

ROKER:
Mm-hmm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
…or $
1250
is the cost of an average roof repair from damage from three.

ROKER:
Hm.

Ms. SNOONIAN:
So remember, what you want to do is fix problems when they’re small before they get out of hand and cost you
big bucks
.