Tom Kraeutler

Article / Updated 10-16-2024

Floor squeaks happen, and when they do, most of us just tolerate them as a part of the “charm” of living in an older house! But as annoying as squeaking floors can be, they have a rather simple cause and solution – and squeaks rarely indicate a structural problem forming under foot. No matter what kind of finish flooring you may have — carpet, vinyl, tile, or hardwood — unless your home is built on a concrete slab, underneath it’s wood. And it’s that wood that causes the squeaks — well, sort of. Usually, the squeak is a loose nail rubbing inside the hole it was originally driven into. Lumber that’s used to build homes contains a certain degree of natural moisture, which makes the wood easy to cut and minimizes splitting when it’s being nailed together. Unfortunately, as the wood dries, it shrinks — a natural process that can take years. When the wood shrinks enough, once tightly seated nails can loosen and rub when the wood flexes below the pitter-patter of foot traffic, creating the familiar irritating sound: a floor squeak. The good news is that floor squeaks aren’t as tough to fix as they are to listen to! They’re not difficult or expensive to repair, and with a little guidance, you can avoid the frustrating part of the task: actually, finding the cause of the squeak. Finding the squeak The first step in repairing a floor squeak is to find the nail that’s rubbing up against the wood floor — a task akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Here’s a trick that I use to pinpoint a floor squeak so that I can make a repair: Use a short length of garden hose as a stethoscope. Hold one end of the hose to your ear and the other end on the floor while someone else walks across the floor to make it squeak. Fixing the squeak If the problem is a loose subfloor (the wood floor beneath the carpet, vinyl, hardwood, and so on), the repair can get sticky depending upon the type of finish flooring you have. However, if access below is available (that is, you can get to the subfloor through the basement or crawlspace), installing a wood shim shingle between the subfloor and the floor joist is a quick and easy means of preventing the subfloor from flexing, and it quiets the squeak. Just squirt some carpenter’s glue on the thin end of the shingle and tap it in with a hammer. Most squeaks can be solved by driving an extra screw through the subfloor to the floor joists directly underneath the squeak. But when the floor is covered with wall-to-wall carpet, that can require taking the carpet up. Here’s a shortcut: take a 12d finish nail (use a galvanized nail — it holds better) and drive it through the carpet into the subfloor and joist below. You’ll find this leaves a divot in the carpet, which will no doubt have you (or your spouse) thinking you’ve just ruined the rug! Ah, but not so fast! Just grab the nap of the carpet above the divot and pull it up until the nail pulls through the carpet backing. Voilà, the divot will have disappeared right along with the squeak! Another means of quieting a squeaking floor by preventing it from flexing is a nifty gadget called a Squeak-Ender. It consists of a metal plate and threaded-rod assembly that’s screwed to the underside of the subfloor and a steel bracket. You slip the bracket beneath the joist and over the threaded rod; then you tighten a nut onto the rod to pull down the floor and close the gap. For more information on the Squeak-Ender, go to www.squeakender.com or call 586-978-3377. If access below is not available, after you locate the culprit nail, the next step is to create a better connection. Don’t use nails to make the repair — use screws. Just follow these steps: Locate the squeak using the method discussed in the preceding section. Locate the nearest floor joist under the squeak. The floor joist is the horizontal floor framing member that the wood subfloor is attached to. If the subfloor is exposed, this is easy — just look at the nails, which will line up over the floor joists. If not, you can locate the joist using a stud finder, an electronic tool used to locate wood studs to joists below walls or floors. Near the existing squeaking nail, drill a small pilot hole through the wood subfloor and into the floor joist. Drilling a small pilot hole in the floor joist makes driving in the screw easier. You can leave the old nail in place, or, if it’s loose, remove it using a nail puller or pry bar. Drive a construction screw into the pilot hole, through the subfloor, and so on. When working on a hardwood floor, countersink (recess) the screw head so that it can be concealed with hardwood putty. Use a putty knife to install hardwood putty. Touch up the floor finish with 400- to 600-grit wet/dry sandpaper. I recommend construction screws because they’re easy to drive and they grip like crazy. You can purchase screws with a finish head (like a finish nail), which makes them a particularly good choice when working on a hardwood floor. You simply countersink them slightly and place putty over them. A construction screw’s coarse threads and really sharp tip make it the perfect fastener for old, dry wood. The sharp tip gets through harder lumber more easily, and the coarse screw threads go in faster and hold better.

Article / Updated 10-16-2024

When basements leak, people panic. The good news about these unplanned indoor pools is this. While wet basements are often thought of as one of life’s biggest home repair headaches, basement water problems are generally easy and inexpensive to fix. Yes, that’s right–easy and inexpensive! The basement is one of the greatest untapped spaces in any home. Think about it — if you have a basement, it’s like having an entire extra floor to do with what you wish. That is, however, unless it’s a swimming pool! Damp, leaking, or flooded basements (or crawlspaces) can severely diminish the value of a house. They can lead to a host of associated problems like mold, rotted floor structures, insect infestations, and more. Worse yet, the cost of fixing a wet basement will generally be in the tens of thousands! Well, let’s stop right there so I can let you in on a few facts about fixing floods: Most wet basements are blamed incorrectly on the home having a rising water table. This is usually not the case. The top cause of a wet basement or crawlspace is a lack of adequate roof and surface drainage. Clogged or misdirected gutters, along with grading that directs rainwater toward the house foundation, cause almost all below-grade water leakage. For years, so-called waterproofing companies have caused panic among homeowners by advising that a failure to install expensive sump pumps and drains will cause foundations to crack, and mold to take over. These high-pressure tactics could not be further from the truth and are simply an attempt to make a high-dollar sale on a system that’s rarely needed. And the best news? Most wet basements can be fixed in a weekend using a few hundred dollars’ worth of materials at most. I’ll show you how. Where basement leaks wait to happen: Start outside In the 20 years I spent as a professional home inspector, it wasn’t unusual for me to be asked to inspect a house that had a below-grade water problem. On one such occasion, a young couple had received five-figure estimates from multiple waterproofing companies along with a heaping helping of fear that the home would disintegrate if they didn’t hire them. They’d called me to help them decide which five-figure-estimating company to hire. With that in mind, I walked up to the house, glanced up, and immediately saw a series of 1- to 3-foot trees growing out of their insanely clogged gutters! Problem solved. Mike drop. Tom out! Designing and cleaning gutters to keep water away The primary reason that basements or crawlspaces leak, flood, or just get damp, is that the home does not have a properly functioning gutter system. There are several common gutter failures that I see. Clogged gutters: The season is called Fall for a reason! Leaves, pine needles, and other tree droppings, along with the occasional tennis ball, regularly clog gutters. When that happens, gutters overflow, dumping all the rain that Mother Nature has to offer right along your foundation wall, where it has nowhere else to go but down and into your basement or crawlspace. (See Figure 4-6.) Too few downspouts: For standard five-inch gutters, a home needs one downspout for every 600 to 800 square feet of roof surface. Stand back and stare up at your roof and try to estimate if your home has this. Be sure to include any gutters on second-floor roofs that drain to first-floor roofs on their way to the downspout. If you are moving more water than that, you’ll need bigger gutters and spouts, or just more spouts. Downspouts discharging too close to the house: Gutter installers have a really bad habit I’d like to break. They typically extend the downspout discharge about a foot, and then into a splash block, which runs it out another foot. If you have any indication that there’s a water problem in your house, these need to be run out more like four to six feet. Improving your gutters and site drainage are the two most effective ways to correct a leaking, damp, or musty basement. But of those two, gutter improvements are far and away much more important than grading improvements. In my 20 years as a professional home inspector diagnosing basement and crawlspace leaks, I’ve found that gutters cause 90 percent of the problem, with grading causing the rest. So, tackle your gutter fixes first. They are more likely to solve the problem (see Figure 4-7) and are actually a lot easier to do than hauling dirt to add around your foundation! Making the grade to keep water away After leaking gutters, the second reason basements flood is when the soil around the house settles and prevents water from draining away from the house. Here’s why that happens: When a home with a basement or crawlspace is built, excavators dig a deep hole to allow the masons to start building a foundation. This hole is wider than the house so that contractors can access all sides to build the foundation. As the home nears completion, the excavators return to backfill the soil around the house and — hopefully — grade it to slope away from the foundation walls. As time marches on, however, that soil starts to settle and compact. The grade that initially was pitched to run away from the house, goes to flat and ultimately reverses to run water toward the house. Once that happens, rainwater soaks into the soil around the foundation, and if it rains hard enough, it shows up in the basement as a leak or full-out flood. Restoring a positive grade is not all that difficult. You’ll need to add soil along the foundation perimeter and grade it to slope downward about 6 inches over the first 4 feet away from the foundation. For this project, you’ll want to use clean fill dirt — not topsoil or mulch, which is too organic and will hold water instead of letting it drain. Aside from maintaining a positive grade, be mindful of anything that traps water along the house, like brick, stone, or wood landscaping. If you are trying to fix a leak, you can’t afford to have anything holding water too close to your house. Paths and patios should slope away from the foundation, too. A path or patio that slopes toward the home discharges water into the basement or crawlspace.

Article / Updated 10-16-2024

When the mercury drops, your water pipes become increasingly vulnerable and may freeze and burst. When water freezes, it expands, and the force of that expansion can split a copper pipe wide open. A burst water line can cause tens of thousands of dollars in damage and forever destroy personal possessions in the path of the raging water. The good news is that you can take steps to help prevent a burst pipe and the chaos that it causes. When the mercury drops, your water pipes become increasingly vulnerable and may freeze and burst. When water freezes, it expands, and the force of that expansion can split a copper pipe wide open. A burst water line can cause tens of thousands of dollars in damage and forever destroy personal possessions in the path of the raging water. The good news is that you can take steps to help prevent a burst pipe and the chaos that it causes. An ounce of prevention If you’ve ever experienced a frozen water line that did not burst wide open, consider yourself lucky! Before that luck wears out, it’s smart to take a few steps to prevent your pipes from freezing and keep water running all winter long. Turn on your faucets just a little. A faucet left dripping at the fixture farthest from the main water inlet allows just enough warm water movement within the pipes to reduce the chance of a freeze. Insulate your above-ground pipes. Pipes in unfinished spaces are most susceptible to freezing. Insulating these pipes prevents them from freezing during most mild-to-medium chills — even when faucets are off. Be sure to focus on insulating pipes in the crawl space, basement, attic, and any pipes that are located along exterior walls, such as a main water line and shut-off valve. Open your cabinets. If the pipes that supply water to your kitchen or bathroom sink faucets are prone to freezing, leave the cabinet doors open at night. The open doors allow warm air to circulate in the cabinet and warm the cold pipes. Install electric pipe heating cable. If you’re in an area where temperatures frequently drop below freezing, think about purchasing pipe heating cable, commonly known as heat tape. Heat tape is an electric appliance that is attached to copper pipe. When temperatures drop, a thermostat activates the heat tape and keeps the pipe warm to prevent it from freezing. Heat tape is also useful for thawing out a pipe that’s frozen. Heat tape must be used cautiously, and strictly according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Throughout my 20 years as a professional home inspector, I frequently observed heat tape being misused more often than being used correctly. It wasn’t unusual for me to find heat tape that got so hot, it singed wood framing or insulation! To prevent a fire, never overlap one section of heat tape on top of another and never add insulation to a pipe where heat tape is being used. Doing so can cause the heat tape to overheat and lead to a fire. Lastly, heat tape is not designed to be plugged in all the time. Once the pipe thaws, unplug the heat tape. If the same pipes in your home freeze over and over again, you are better off replacing that section of copper pipe with PEX, which can be rerouted through warmer areas of the home instead. I did this exact project in my home some years back. The water supply for our kitchen sink ran through the exterior wall and frequently froze in cold weather. To fix the problem, I disconnected the copper pipe, inserted a section of PEX tubing, and ran it inside the kitchen cabinet, where it never froze again!

Cheat Sheet / Updated 08-26-2024

Home maintenance is all about being prepared. If you spend a little time now buying ingredients for cleaners, putting together a toolkit, and staying on top of monthly maintenance tasks, you’ll not only prevent small problems from getting bigger, but you’ll also be ready to act quickly in the future if a big problem does crop up.