Is that dark patch on your basement wall harmless—or a hidden health hazard? This week, we’re breaking down what every homeowner should know about mold, moisture, and how to keep your home healthy. Plus, Nick Offerman shares memories from the Minooka, Illinois farmhouse where he grew up.
This Old House Radio Hour: The Terrifying Truth About Toxic Mold + Nick Offerman’s Farmhouse Wisdom + Easy Insulation Fixes
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The Home Depot supports This Old House Radio Hour. You know what makes the holidays feel special? It’s not just one big day, but a collection of moments, both simple and grand.
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I’m your host, Jenn Largesse. On today’s show, is that dark patch on your basement wall harmless, or a hidden health hazard? We’re uncovering what every homeowner needs to know about toxic mold and how to protect your family.
At the end of the day, a mold problem is a moisture problem. Given enough persistent moisture, mold will grow on just about anything.
Actor, comedian and carpenter, Nick Offerman, takes us on a tour of his childhood home in Manuka, Illinois, where he first learned the value of hard work and a lifelong dedication to craft.
That was the first thing I remember feeling like I actually contributed with my dad, like the two of us did it together. And I was like, all right, maybe I’m going to be more than a ballet dancer.
Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan is here to teach us how to create the perfect backyard run for your pup. All this plus we’re answering your home improvement questions at 877-864-7460. Coming up next.
Welcome back to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I’m your host, Jenn Largesse. Mold in your home can be more than an eyesore.
It can affect your health, your air quality, even your home’s value. Jason Earl from gotmold.com joins us with guidance on how to spot mold, how to test it safely and when you need to call a pro. Jason, welcome to This Old House Radio Hour.
Thank you for having me.
So Jason, is all mold bad mold?
No. Mold is nature’s recycling crew. It basically keeps our planet from drowning in dead leaves and wood.
It also gives us delicious things like soy sauce and cheese and life-saving medicines like penicillin and statins. So the problem isn’t mold existing. It’s really mold growing indoors where you live and breathe.
And which materials are maybe the most prone to retaining that moisture, promoting mold growth indoors?
Well, unfortunately, most homes in America are made of mold food, which is really why it’s such a big problem today. The worst offenders are anything soft, porous and absorptive, insulation, carpet, ceiling tiles, laminate flooring, and of course, mold’s favorite food, which is really drywall. So they act like sponges, they dry slower than mold takes to grow, while also providing the nutrients that it needs.
So essentially, we build self-composting buildings these days just to add water.
I was going to say, mold food. That term is going to stick with me here. I’m not going to be able to look at my drywall the same.
So what are the ideal conditions for mold to thrive?
Essentially it’s moisture, food, and time. 24 to 48 hours with damn conditions, and it will happily move in. At the end of the day, a mold problem is a moisture problem.
Given enough persistent moisture, mold will grow on just about anything.
Talk about the telltale signs. What are the signs that you do have a mold issue?
So any signs of dampness or water damage, such as discoloration, staining, blistering paint, of course, a visible mold growth, which can be rather subtle. But symptoms are often a dead giveaway. So an onset or worsening of allergies indoors is a clue.
People report headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, brain fog as first symptoms. Inflammation, autoimmune disease flare ups are often associated with mold problems. And interestingly, emotional dysregulation is also common.
Mold rage is real. In fact, a large Brown University study found a strong correlation between mold and dampness indoors and depression. But the first clue is often a musty odor, which is the byproduct of active mold growth.
A recent animal studies have found that the chemicals that comprise the musty odor are neurotoxic. So it’s also a health hazard in and of itself. By the time you see it, it’s been growing for quite some time.
And you said 24 to 48 hours, that is quite shocking that it can happen that fast.
At the 72 hour mark, according to the industry standard, you have to treat water damage materials as if they’re moldy, whether they are visibly moldy or not. And the real catch there is that water damage is very cheap to fix and insurance usually covers it. But at the 72 hour mark, insurance caps mold claims usually around 5 or 10,000 if they covered it all.
And it’s also 10 times more expensive. So it’s really important that people move quickly when it comes to water damage.
So what do you do if you discover mold in your home? What’s the first step you should take?
The first thing you want to do is diagnose the moisture problem. And if that’s above your capacity, then you want to engage a professional. Many times it’s actually caused by more than one source.
And one source can actually cause mold problems in multiple different locations within a building. But here’s the key. You want to engage a qualified assessment professional, not a mold remediator, like the old adage that you never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
Okay.
And so having a qualified assessment professional can be a good buffer between the remediators who may or may not have your best interests at heart.
So what’s the difference between remediation and removal?
Proper remediation includes removing materials that can’t be cleaned, but also fixing the moisture problem. It’s worth beating that drum because mold treatment is what people often pay for, not realizing that they’re not getting any proper remediation. They’re just getting sprays and fogs.
That’s what you want to avoid.
So what are some tools a homeowner or maybe even a renter should have to combat mold around their home?
The first tool and the best tool is really good information. And we happen to have a free e-book that we produce that’s available on our website. But in terms of doing your own initial assessment, everyone should have a very good flashlight.
When you shine it at an angle against a wall, you can often see colonies that would be otherwise unnoticeable. It’s also very helpful to look under furniture and behind furniture and other places that you just generally don’t look. Another tool that we recommend everybody to have and almost nobody does is a pin-type moisture meter.
This allows you to assess whether a wallboard or wood or even carpet is damp, and then you can figure out where a moisture problem really starts and ends. It’s a great tool. You can find it through many of the online retailers, although we generally discourage people from doing their own remediation.
For really small cleanups, you want to make sure you’ve got proper PPE. You want to have gloves. You want to have an N95 mask at a minimum.
Visible mold larger than a sheet of paper is really professional territory.
What are some of the misconceptions that people have about mold?
My favorite one is probably that people think you have to kill mold. Dead mold is still allergenic and potentially toxicogenic. And dead mold is actually one of the favorite foods of live mold.
And if you spray bleach on mold, it bleaches 97% water and 3% sodium hypochlorite. So the sodium hypochlorite evaporates. It leaves behind what?
Moisture.
Moisture. So you just added water to a water problem. The other one that’s really common is that people are worried about black mold and toxic mold, right?
This is what’s in the headlines. But there are plenty of toxic molds that are not black. And the musty odor is actually neurotoxic.
All molds produce that. Probably the most common one is if I ignore it, it will go away. No, it will not.
My favorite one is probably that people think you have to kill mold. Dead mold is still allergenic and potentially toxicogenic. And dead mold is actually one of the favorite foods of live mold.
And if you spray bleach on mold, it bleaches 97% water and 3% sodium hypochlorite. So the sodium hypochlorite evaporates. It leaves behind what?
Moisture.
Moisture. So you just added water to a water problem. The other one that’s really common is that people are worried about black mold and toxic mold, right?
This is what’s in the headlines. But there are plenty of toxic molds that are not black. And the musty odor is actually neurotoxic.
All molds produce that. Probably the most common one is if I ignore it, it will go away. No, it will not.
It will be patiently waiting for the next drop of moisture to begin to grow again.
At the end of each episode, we like to end with something called the simple fix, where an expert shares a quick tip to make your next job easier. Do you have a simple fix when it comes to mold remediation or removal?
The simple fix here is really to use your exhaust vans religiously during showers, but also for 15 to 20 minutes afterwards. It’s really the cheapest, easiest way to keep moisture and mold out of your home. Pair that with humidity gauges and you’ll always know if you’re in the safe zone.
Well, thank you so much. This was incredibly helpful and so informative, and we thank you for your expertise.
Thank you, Jenn.
That was Jason Earl. If you’re worried about mold in your home, go to gotmold.com for more information. Right now, we’re tackling your DIY and home improvement questions.
We’ve got an expert on site to help you get the job done right. Call us now at 877-864-7460. That’s 877-864-7460.
And we’ll match you with the right expert. Hello, you’re on This Old House Radio Hour.
Hi, this is Deanna Healy from Shanley, Georgia. I have a question about refinishing my floors.
All right, what’s your question today?
Thirty-three years ago, I refinished all my floors. They are red oak, perfect condition. But over the years, there’s certain places of the area of each room that has been worn out because of the traffic and then pest stage.
Do I have to redo the whole floor to make it look good or could I do spot refinishing?
That’s a great question. Well, to help answer your question, we have Zack Dettmore, a general contractor for the show here with us. Zack, you’ve heard this one before.
I have. I’ve attempted what she’s suggesting. And the issue with trying to repair the floor instead of sanding and doing the whole room has to really do with adhesion.
So the oil and finish on your existing floor has been cleaned with waxes and cleaners over the years. And the surface is really not prepped properly unless you sand it down. So what will happen if you don’t prep it properly is you’ll put a new sealer and clear coat over these areas that are affected, and effectively it’s just going to peel up and look even worse than probably what it looks like now.
Maybe not immediately, maybe it gets you a year, two years, but eventually it will peel up and it’ll look worse than it does now. My biggest fear with sanding this floor and not doing the whole room is where you have the new work coming in contact with the old work. It’s never going to be a consistent color match because the sun has been changing the color of not only the wood but it’s been changing that oil because over the years that oil has yellowed because of its exposure to UV light.
And it may look consistent with all the furniture in there, but once you put that new consistent color in the area that’s repaired, you will see a harsh contrast between the two. So it won’t really look good.
Both between the color and the sheen, the sheen changes quite a bit over the years. And so even if you had a certain sheen to start with and you put that exact same thing back on, that sheen has worn down quite a bit. When you look across the floor, you’re going to see the mismatch of the sheen as well.
Exactly. And I think it’s definitely a much safer bet as much as it’s more money and more energy to just do the whole room or just leave it as is.
Okay. Is there any way to sand it lightly and then put a new finish on on the old, where, sand the old finish off and then put a coat of the new finish on?
Some people do this. The issue is, it’s not a solution that’s long-term, it’s a solution that’s short-term, because there will be places where the new finish is on top of the old finish. In those places, it’s never going to adhere properly.
And eventually, it will start to flake up and you will see what Jenn is referring to, which is that sheen difference. Without seeing like the general damage of your floor, I can’t speak to whether that would look better than what you have or worse. But my hunch is if you’re going through the exercise of moving things out of the way, covering things because of the sanding and doing all that, it’s better to just do the whole room at that time, because then you know this is officially off your list or just live with it until you’re ready to take on that scope of work.
Because if you just repair those areas, you could certainly do it, but I wouldn’t spend a great deal of time and money on it because it will start to flake up at some point in the next coming years. Now, you’re probably really responsible and clean with your house, so it may get you one, two, three years, I can’t really say, and that might be good enough. But you would still have to enter into that project knowing that this is more of a band-aid and less of a permanent solution.
Or you can rearrange your furniture.
Well, thank you very much. You gave me good insight on what I need to do and good information and knowledge. I thank you guys very much.
Oh, thank you so much for calling. We really appreciate it.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
After the break, our experts answer more of your home improvement and DIY questions. Call us at 877-864-7460. That’s 877-864-7460.
Coming up on This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. Stay tuned.
The Home Depot supports This Old House Radio Hour. You know, here at This Old House, we love a big project, but as the holidays approach, our attention turns to getting the house ready for those special family moments. And if you’re anything like us, you believe it’s never too early to deck the halls.
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Welcome back to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I’m your host, Jenn Largesse. Right now we’re tackling your DIY and home improvement questions.
We’ve got an expert on site to help you get the job done right. Call us now at 877-864-7460. That’s 877-864-7460, and we’ll match you with the right expert.
Hello, you’re on This Old House Radio Hour.
Hi, this is Andy from East Greenwich, Rhode Island.
Hey Andy, what’s your question today?
Three years ago, we started the process of putting in an in-ground pool, and the company started with a patio behind our house, and we were going to connect it to the pool later on. They put in a low-voltage lighting around the fire pit, the lead stairs sitting inside, but maybe coincidentally or not, there was a lightning storm, and since then, I haven’t been able to get the lights to stay on. They keep on tripping every time I go to turn them on at the little junction box.
Well, we’ve got Heath Eastman, an electrician for the show, and Zack Dettmore, a general contractor for the show, both here to help. Zack, what do you think is going on?
I think I need some more information. Is this a gunite pool?
It has nothing to do with the pool. Sorry, it’s a patio put in by the same pool company.
Oh, yeah.
He’s just wondering if he wants to go for a swim.
Yeah, I was just more curious because I don’t have a pool in my house. I’ve got young kids. They don’t particularly care if the lights work or not.
Yeah, Andy, he wasn’t concerned about the electrical issue. He just wanted to go swimming.
You should probably talk to Heath if you actually want to fix your problem.
True, we’re more in the pool than we are by the fire pit these days.
Send me some pictures of the pool. Let’s throw it to Heath, see if he has an answer.
Good point. Hey, Andy.
So a couple of quick questions for you. So we have a pool, a patio, fire pit and lights around it and all the lights around it that stop working are low voltage, maybe landscape lights from the sound of it?
Yeah, they’re built into like a brick wall. They’re built into like the stairs leading into the house. They’re away from the pool.
They really don’t have nothing to do with the pool. It’s just the same company did it. Got it.
But yeah, but I can’t seem to get the lights to stay on. They like, as soon as I get a little junction box where all the, you know, it connects to, it immediately trips and won’t stay on.
So it sounds like if they’re low voltage, I’m assuming it’s there all the wires are going to an outdoor transformer that plugs into a receptacle on the wall somewhere? Okay.
Correct, yes.
So if that transformer plugs in, there are a few things we can check. So what happens is, you know, that transformer plugs into the 120 receptacle outside, comes to that transformer, usually goes to 12 volts to keep it low voltage, and then goes around to our landscape lights. If it went out during a thunderstorm, there are a couple of things.
That receptacle is controlled by a switch if you’re turning it on. Is that what I’m getting out of this? Okay.
So, typically that receptacle has to be GFCI protected. If it’s not uncommon for the GFCI to have an issue during a thunderstorm if something happens, it may be as simple as replacing that. But one of the ways to check that is to unplug that transformer, run an extension cord, and plug it in somewhere else.
If you plug it into a different circuit somewhere, maybe on a garage or another outside of a receptacle or run it through a window and plug it inside, you can at least see if the lights stay on that way. That will kind of help you isolate whether it’s a transformer issue or whether it’s that receptacle outside that’s giving you the hard time.
Okay. Yeah, I think I may have done that. So I think it might be the transformer then, if that’s the case.
Yeah, if you run that cord and plug it in somewhere else and it still trips or trips whatever it’s plugged into, then it’s probably time for the transformer. The other thing to do in the meantime, if you want to really rule the transformer out as being the issue, is take the wires off of the transformer, the ones that go to the landscape lights, so that there’s absolutely no load on the transformer whatsoever. Then try plugging it in and turning it on.
If it stays on, then you know you probably have an issue downstream with one of the lights or a wire or… I’ve seen something as simple as a bulb be bad and cause an issue, so… You can isolate it a couple of times and see what you get.
You’ll figure out whether it’s the lights, the transformer or the receptacle.
Perfect. That sounds like some great ideas. I’ll see if I can get those taken care of.
I think you got it.
Thanks, guys. All right.
See you later.
Anytime.
Thank you.
Zack takes all the credit.
Welcome to the pool anytime, Zack. Come on down.
All right.
Next time I’m in Rhode Island.
He’s on his way.
Wait a minute. He gets the invite to the pool and I don’t?
Yeah, exactly. Well, once you fix the lights, then you get to come.
It goes without saying, you’re invited, too. Of course. Everyone.
Pool party.
Well, good luck with it. Thank you.
See you, Andy. Bye.
Right now, we’re tackling your DIY and home improvement questions. We’ve got an expert on site to help you get the job done right. Call us now at 877-864-7460.
That’s 877-864-7460. And we’ll match you with the right expert. Hello.
You’re on This Old House Radio Hour.
Hi. My name is Nathan Alikonage, and I’m calling from Saline, Michigan.
Ah, our Michigander. Matt sneaks Michiganders in here every once in a while to make me happy. He knows I have a deep love for this state.
So what’s going on at your house?
So I have a little problem in my kitchen. So I have a cold spot underneath my dishwasher, and I just noticed it recently as the temperatures got really low. So I ventured down into my basement.
Right now, we’re tackling your DIY and home improvement questions. We’ve got an expert on site to help you get the job done right. Call us now at 877-864-7460.
That’s 877-864-7460. And we’ll match you with the right expert. Hello.
You’re on This Old House Radio Hour.
Hi. My name is Nathan Alikonage, and I’m calling from Saline, Michigan.
Ah, our Michigander. Matt sneaks Michiganders in here every once in a while to make me happy. He knows I have a deep love for this state.
So what’s going on at your house?
So I have a little problem in my kitchen. So I have a cold spot underneath my dishwasher, and I just noticed it recently as the temperatures got really low. So I ventured down into my basement.
It’s all opened up down there ceiling-wise, and I looked up and I’m missing some insulation up on top of where the wall sits on the concrete foundation. And it’s the only part of the whole basement that doesn’t have any insulation in there. So I’m trying to figure out if I should use a combination of board insulation and fiberglass insulation.
I’m not really sure what kind of R-value I should use.
And to help answer your question, we have Zack Dettmore, a contractor for the show, and Richard Trethewey, the plumber for This Old House.
Can you tell me a little bit about how old this house is?
1985, I believe, is when it was built.
Okay, so it’s a young house. And is the basement finished? Or you just have this framing sitting on top of like a concrete or block wall?
It’s partially finished. It doesn’t have drywall or anything in the basement, so it’s all concrete.
You can see the rim joists, right? You can see the workings underneath the dishwasher?
Yes, correct. And everywhere else has the fiberglass insulation.
I’m assuming, Richard, tell me if I’m wrong, in the 80s, it would be probably like a dimensional lumber rim joist that’s pressed to the outside of the structure and then the joists are terminating into it. So the insulation could be just pushed tight to that rim joist. Does that sound like what you have, Nathan?
Zack, it has to be that that building had insulation. I’m sure that there was a replacement of the dishwasher done and our contractor pulled the insulation out through it in the barrel. Doesn’t the rest of the house have insulation against the…
How about we answer the question without vilifying contractors, you know? Maybe a plumber threw out the insulation. How about that?
That’s what I mean. Well, that’s the contract. That’s the exact contract.
And so, and he needed to get at his pipes. He was the most important person. And the answer, the simple answer, I’m going to jump in and say is any insulation is better than nothing.
So it would be cut rigid, cut fiberglass or whatever, but you got to find some way to stop the boat from leaking through that rim joist.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Sure. That sounds great.
There’s pipes in the way that could freeze too. Every kits and sinkers is always in the outside wall and in peril.
I think if you can do a rigid that you’re able to tape or seal the perimeter of with a expanding foam, one of the reasons you’ll see a lot of people do either spray foam or rigid is because houses are drafty and you have that stack effect. So it wants to pull air in at the lowest point, and that could be like a drafty area. So if you have an open type of insulation like a fiberglass, if cold air is passing through it and you’re not draft stopping, then you could still get that chill.
But that would be my preference to have a rigid that you detail around. But if your basement is partially finished and you’re only going to be able to access some of it. Yeah.
I think my biggest question with the rigid board was when I looked it up, it said that it’s recommended that it be R20 for most of them, but a sheet of like four by eight is pretty expensive. So I wanted to know, is there an R value below that, that is preferable or that could be used, or does it have to be R20 to meet code?
So because you’re retrofitting this, you’re not going to have an inspector come through and criticize you for code. But I would say put as much insulation as you can afford, because it’s only going to benefit you.
Nathan, you could buy one-inch thick stuff. That’s what R for. Zack, I don’t know, is it four or five, whatever that is.
Yeah.
Right? And so, and literally, you could cut a series of them together and build that thing up to whatever thickness you need. All you’re trying to do is to stop the outflow or the heat leaving the building.
But to Zack’s point, no one’s going to inspect it. You’re just trying to stop the leak.
Sure. If you want to be frugal and you want to get the R-value, too, and the draft stopping, you could buy one inch, like Richard said, which might be the most affordable. Anything thinner than that, it’s really not going to be stiff enough to sort of hold its shape, you know?
Might snap it when you’re putting up in there. But you could get one inch, say, and then you could do a bat after it. So you’re going to get the R-value from the bat, and you’re going to get the draft stopping from the rigid, if that makes sense.
So you’re going to do a combination of the two?
Yeah, it does. And that’s what I considered as well, was putting the fiberglass up against the rigid and spray foaming too, just to make sure it’s nice and sealed up.
Yeah. I think you’re going to get a better ROI on comfort with less R-value and more air sealing than I would with just going with like an R30 bat that’s fiberglass. It’s not going to…
That R30 isn’t really accounting for the fact that air is able to flow through it.
Sure. Yep. That sounds great.
Zack, can you give us a 101 on what a bat is and R-value?
Sure. So a bat is a small animal.
It’s a little rodent with wings.
Comes out at night.
That’s right. And it’s also a piece of ash used to hit baseballs. Keep going.
A bat is what we call sort of like a loose insulation that is sort of typically placed between joists or between the studs, but it’s flexible and pliable and you can cut it. Whereas a rigid insulation, it comes in a sheet form typically and it’s much stiffer. You could basically step on it and not compress the fibers as much.
And our value, I think Richard can probably put a more eloquent terminology together, but that’s basically…
Didn’t you say? Yeah.
Keep going. I had the perfect answer and you screwed it up now. I don’t know what to say.
It’s gone.
Yeah, it’s gone forever. Our value is basically how we measure the thermal performance of insulation or a wall assembly. Or anything, I suppose.
The worst it is is at conducting the higher the R value.
Awesome.
So I would say, Nathan, get yourself some expanding foam and some rigid board and hop to it.
I will. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Thanks for calling. Right now, we’re taking your calls at 877-864-7460. 877-864-7460.
Hello, you’re on This Old House Radio Hour.
Hi, my name’s Scott. I’m calling from outside of Boulder, Colorado. Nice to talk to you today.
Hey, Scott, what’s your question today?
I live in an area with a lot of solar radiation. And so I have both a paint and trim question. I’ve been in my house for about 25 years and repainted about seven years ago.
Replace the trim with wood, a dark trim color paint, and it’s already peeling off and the trim is already separating. I’ve heard some things about reflective paint, and I’m wondering if there’s something that I can mix in to the paint so that I can replace the wood trim with PVC.
All right, we’ve got Zack Dettmore, general contractor for the show, and Mauro Henrique, the painter for the show, here to help. Zack, have you heard of this before?
Yes.
Yes, I have. I know all about this story.
So you have wood trim on your house and you want to switch to PVC, is that true?
Yes, correct.
Okay. But you want to maintain a dark color that’s below the LRV of the manufacturer’s specifications for the trim.
What do those letters mean, Zack?
Sorry. That’s the light reflective value. So when you use PVC, typically the manufacturer will have like a deck of colors that you can paint that trim, but they stop when the colors get dark.
So a navy blue, a black, gray, typically will cause the material to expand too much, or it will make that board so hot that it doesn’t exactly melt, but that paint is too warm and will fail.
Maro shaking his head yes.
A burgundy-driven dark green, and that’s exactly what’s happening. It’s peeling off like a heat gun.
Yeah, right. It’s peeling off because you already have PVC, correct?
No, it’s peeling off because the wood, it hasn’t adhered to the wood properly. In fact, even where the trim joints have come together, they have separated almost a half an inch in certain places.
Can we trace that to the light reflective value?
I believe so. When I repainted the house, I went with a darker trim before it was kind of a builder color, and their kind of press board trim had no problem with any of the paint. At least I believe that’s the case.
I’m not a paint expert. Maybe there’s some other thing I don’t know about.
We have a paint expert here on the line, Mauro. Which got?
Well, PVC doesn’t take well. Darker paint, darker than the medium max gray. No darker color is not going to take it.
And that paint is going to melt down, because we all know darker colors absorbs a lot of heat. And that the paint will fail immediately. If exposed to the weather, it’s going to contract and expand a lot, and the paint is just going to crack.
So in hot areas in the country, that is not applied. Darker colors for this type of material, it never works.
And this is in every type of paint?
It does not matter. If you go with a darker color, it’s going to happen the same thing.
My recommendation is, if you’re having problems with wood expanding and contracting too much because of solar heat gain, then you shouldn’t use PVC. You should switch to a fly ash based product for your trim boards. If you’re going to be swapping them out anyway, that product moves very little and you can paint it.
And I would be very surprised if you had movement with the darker color with a fly ash based product instead of a PVC. So that would be my recommendation.
What’s a fly ash based product?
I’m trying to avoid using names.
I’ve been painting a lot of that lately. In the last three years, I’ve been doing a lot of the ash wood, what they call.
Does it move, Mauro, or not really in your experience?
It moves very little, much less than the other products. But the most important that I love about years, two years, three years, you go by and the paint stays there.
Yeah, I did a project years ago with a pretty high sheen paint and it looks amazing to this day. Just no moisture gets behind the paint, so you have no failing issues. So I would think about that, Scott, if you’re open to it, if you’re not totally stuck on the PVC.
I’m not stuck on the PVC. I thought I learned years ago that that was the way to go. But I think I heard fly, like, swat the fly ash trim is a better alternative.
I can keep the existing paint and then my trim and paint look great. Is that right?
Absolutely.
You guys are worth your weight in gold. I’ve been trying to solve this problem for months. So thank you.
Getting to the new stuff. So it’s absolutely great. I love it.
I love it. Since I’m a wood lover, but since I start work with this new product, I’m putting on my own house. And it even has a little texture to it that helps out.
It’s not nice and smooth, you know, but that even works better for the paint to get a good grip and a good adhesion to it.
How expensive is it?
It’s not cheap.
It’s not cheap, my friend.
I’m sorry.
It has a little cost, but it’s in the world. It’s a great thing to have it.
Yeah, it’s good. Well, good luck with it. I think you’re going to love that product.
Maro, Zack, thanks for the generic recommendation. I’ll get to work on getting it done. Have a wonderful day, y’all.
Get it done.
My pleasure.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Thank you. Take care.
No thanks to me.
I’m out.
When we return, Nick Offerman takes us back to the Illinois farmhouse that raised him and where he discovered his love of woodworking. That’s coming up on This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM.
Welcome back to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I’m your host, Jenn Largesse. Coming up, Cesar Millan shares his secrets for creating the perfect dog run.
But first, we go to Manuka, Illinois, where Nick Offerman watched his father build nearly everything in their farmhouse, from furniture to the kitchen cabinets.
Hello, I’m Nick Offerman. I’m an actor, writer and a woodworker, and this is my old house.
I was 5 years old when my dad moved our house 3 miles down the road out in the cornfields. I was the perfect age to just have my eyes completely dazzled with wonder. Seeing a big old house drive down the road is pretty crazy.
Of course, I begged my mom and dad to let me ride in it, but they said no. My dad said, well, our friend Mr. Hart is going to tear down his house in exchange for building some cabinets. He will give me this house if I can get it out of here.
So for a feat that most people would just laugh at, my dad said, well, if I roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty, I can have this incredible house that’s way over my pay grade. My favorite memory is this big piece of cornfield where they had dug out and poured the basement. And this is in the 70s, long before the laser level, to properly create the foundation and then roll the house in and pop it down on the basement.
It’s crazy. It’s so heroic. Because of the excavation of the basement, there were big mounds of dirt that I got to play on.
And so it was this crazy wonderland, seemingly just for me. You’d get off the school bus on a gravel road, and it was right in the middle of a three-acre plot. And so it was set pretty far back from the road, and it had that solitary monolithic appearance, like in an Andrew Wyeth painting.
It was the perfect setting for me and my three siblings to go excitedly running up the driveway. It was very classic. When you think of a two-story farmhouse, it had a wonderful, charming sense of history to it, of a humble rural childhood in the 70s.
Like so many houses in my memory from my town of Manuka, traditionally the front door was seldom used because it led into something more formal. Ours led into the dining room. So coming in the front door, we’d be in the dining room and we would hear off to the right, the action of the house taking place in the kitchen.
Probably smell something cooking. Mom was just fantastic at cooking on a budget for a family of six. She and my dad would also bake bread every Sunday.
In this day and age with all the hustle and bustle, it’s become so rare for families to sit down to dinner together. I just think it was such a powerful lesson to me that if you just slow down and shut off all the distractions with a little bit of flour and yeast and water, you can have something come out of the oven that you can put butter on that’s as glorious as anything you can get in Paris, France. This house, I don’t know if it was maybe 100 years old.
Even though it had survived a move down the road, it held together famously. It was built to last. That’s a wonderful thing about using wood as your medium, is it has an organic flexibility to it.
In the wind, in the incredible storms of the prairie, it would certainly bend and sway and give and buck and creak. If it was windy out, sometimes you would feel like you were in the hold of an old wooden schooner, battling a storm, passing around the Cape of Good Hope, perhaps, lying there trying to get to sleep. A house that you could almost imagine swaying in the wind a little bit, like a cattail.
No AC. August was hot and humid, all the windows wide open with screens. It was all about fans and breeze, all the way to the depths of brutal, bitter winters, wherein we’d sometimes be under 12 feet of snow.
We had really incredible winters there. We had a wood-burning stove in the living room. The couch faced the wood-burning stove like it was the TV, and the TV was over in the corner.
When the winter would hit, we would hang blankets over doorways and reduce the heated portion of the house to a small an area as possible. And then when it’s time for bed, just bundle up and get under a few quilts. Mom was the next in a long tradition of ladies making incredible quilts, so we were well covered.
My dad is the kind of guy who any house like that, within the first few years, he had pulled all the trim, stripped it, refinished it and even took apart a lot of the casement window parts. I was like, there’s so many parts, seeing how the window weights worked with the pulleys and everything. Mom also is a seamstress, so she made clothes for us, but she also made curtains and linens for the house.
And so, they really put a lot of effort into a classic country farmhouse. I helped dad as much as I could. We built a grape arbor.
And then, around high school, he and I built a small barn that was big enough to house the riding mowers and it had a loft in it. That was the first thing I remember feeling like I actually contributed with my dad. Like the two of us did it together.
Everything up until that, I was his kid helping him. But that one, I had come into a little bit of muscle. I remember dad looking at me and doing that thing where you shake hands, but then you keep holding and the dad like feels the strength of your arm.
And I was like, all right, maybe I’m gonna be more than a ballet dancer. When I close my eyes to think about what image comes to me from that house, it goes into kind of a split screen. One is just the house.
It was blue, but then it was also red, because every few years we would scrape it and paint it. It was like an ongoing thing with scaffolding and all the kids scraping and painting. The other half of the split screen is the kitchen table.
That’s just the epicenter. We learned to cook. That’s where we took our sustenance, two or three meals a day.
And that’s where we sat down as a family together, for better or worse, every night. And the value of that, it’s the greatest thing that happened in that house. I’m 55 and I’m lucky enough I still got my mom and dad.
They’ve been so heroic to me my whole life because with hard work and frugality and understanding the values of a work ethic, they took this house and they were homesteaders. I always say it was like little house on the prairie in the 70s because our mom and dad instilled those values in us to pay attention to each other, that keeping up with our family and doing things for each other was more important than anything else out in the world. And that’s proven to be true.
That was Nick Offerman. His new book, Little Woodchucks, Offerman Woodshop’s Guide to Tools and Tomfoolery is out now from Dutton Books. At This Old House Radio Hour, no project is too big or too small, but some jobs call for a specialist.
Today we’re talking about building the perfect dog run. You know, a lot of people think that you need a huge yard, expensive fencing, or maybe a complicated setup to give your pup the freedom that they deserve. But the truth is, you just need to really understand what your dog needs.
That’s why we’re joined by world-renowned dog behaviorist, TV personality and best-selling author, Caesar Milan. He’s here to share his best advice on designing a dog run that keeps your pet exercised, your property protected and your household in harmony. Caesar Milan, welcome to This Old House Radio Hour.
My pleasure, my pleasure. As I always say, how can I help?
What a beautiful way to start an interview. So our question today is, is it possible to turn a regular yard into a run for your dog, even if you have maybe a small yard?
Yes.
Any space can be used. Being in any space, you know, elevator for us humans to the beach and they give us a space, it’s best to enjoy it when our physical energy is not there. So we can then practice resting, right?
So that’s what you want the brain to practice in a space like that. And that’s how they’re going to instinctually understand what that means. They’re not going to say four by four, twenty by eleven, you know, like they’re not going to say that.
They’re just going to experience as, how do I feel in this space? That’s why I’m always telling people, exercise, exercise, exercise, walk the dog, right? Because a tired dog is easy to adapt to the environment, the family, and the community.
So talk about the purpose specifically of a dog run then. Is it for mental stimulation and physical exercise, or is this a different kind of space?
Yeah, I mean, it can be an entertaining place, but it has to be done without the physical energy for the purpose of not destruction. If their dog has physical energy, digging, chewing, barking, is going to come across destructible in a place that you were set up for a different purpose. Any place that you’re going to leave the dog and supervise, it’s also very important that he’s tired.
Tired is the number one. And then supervision, so they learn how to use this space. That supervision part, it allows a dog to understand, every time I go in here, it’s for this purpose.
I can play by myself, I can grab this toy, put it here, but I can’t take it to a higher level. They have to understand that they have to play or move from zero to five. If the dog moves from five to ten, what you’re going to end up is having a destructive place that you created for the dog.
I know a lot of people when they’re creating a dog run, they’re thinking of some sort of enclosure in their yard, where if they are not maybe able to take their dog for a walk, or if they want the dog to spend more time outside, that the dog could be in that space. But you’re saying that the energy should be out of the dog before they enter that space, and then maybe that space should be dedicated for a different kind of stimulation.
Otherwise, it’s going to feel isolated and alone. So they don’t have to be alone, right? Because that’s another component that makes a dog anxious and confused and unhappy and chaotic, right?
To feel alone, they’re pack-oriented. So make sure the dog doesn’t feel alone and isolated.
And so what should our listeners know about potentially creating a dog run?
They shouldn’t be for pee and poop, number one, right? Because a dog doesn’t want to live what it smells like pee and poop. It’s not healthy.
It’s not happy. It’s not a good heart. And it takes hope away from them.
Animals will never, ever, ever do that. They’re very clean to where they live, you know, especially if they have puppies. They don’t want to attract others.
So what makes a dog happy? Well, beautiful structure, clean. It drives respect, love, exercise, discipline, affection.
And so in creating a space like this, how much do you have to take into account a dog’s personality, maybe? If a dog is low-energy, high-energy, that kind of importance, how much does that play into the design?
Well, those who rescue high-level energy dog is impossible to ask them to stay in one run without going, you know, crazy, without a long run. I’m talking now, I’m not talking about the medium-low kind of people that get dogs medium-low tank. I’m talking about the people that get the full tank.
Those people, to practice what you’re saying, they have to be at least three hours outside for the dog to say, yep, I got to my limit. I can wait over five hours. So it’s low, medium, high.
If you get a jog rustle, it doesn’t matter. Size is irrelevant. You need to assess and evaluate the energy and the position of the pack that that dog is born.
So it can be a back of the pack with a high level energy. Sensitive, but athlete. It can be a middle of the pack with a high level energy.
Happy or lucky, but active. And it can be a front of the pack, high level energy. That’s a police dog.
It’s like having someone like Usain Bolt. They have that kind of energy.
Are there ways to optimize a yard for a dog with low energy? Are there ways to stimulate them in the yard?
The nose.
Yeah.
So yeah, create things like this. Put food inside and then make it taller and taller or make it a wider food block it. So he practiced more like search and rescue.
Make him a search and rescue dog. And eventually, you switch the food for keys or for money or for something. So create three, four, five different scents that he is his job to go look for it.
Give him a job in a way.
Purpose. And what was the item that you just held up? What’s that called?
Oh, just take anything where you put pens.
Oh, okay. You know, it’s just be creative.
Be creative, grab whatever it is, a bucket, anything you can hide. You can hide behind a curtain. Somebody else can hold the dog and you can begin to do the search and rescue.
Right. And then you see, oh, my dog can find three times and then he’s done. All right.
All right.
It’s three is better than nothing.
Do you believe in designing obstacles or activities that engage dogs?
Yeah, like obstacle course?
Yeah, things that give them more than just a flat space.
Any challenge, any challenge that you give to a dog is going to be good. It’s like the equivalent of math for children. They have to figure it out, have to go from point A to point B.
You see it? And so it’s absolutely great.
The mental stimulation tires them out more than the physical.
It’s a survival thing, right? And you do that always after a long walk.
OK.
Make sure you put a backpack on your dog and walk for at least an hour. So the backpack makes the hour become two hours. Because now he has to carry this weight from point A to point B and come back, right?
Without any distractions. Completely focus, because that’s a mind thing. And then the body and the mind are moving forward and ignoring the environment.
And then you come back home and you tap it all out with agility, which requires the focus.
Is there any recommendations that you have for indoors? Because if you’re someone who is maybe getting a pet for the first time, what can we do to set up our indoors to make it more, I want to say, pet-friendly? I don’t know if that’s the right term.
Yeah. An introduction, right? Because you’re introducing the dog like a realtor.
Hey, this is the bathroom. They sell me the house. When you’re introducing a dog for the first time into your environment, do not let them explore from day one.
Do not let them go and make himself familiar.
This is a guided tour.
This is a guided tour. That’s correct.
A limited guided tour.
Usually for the first three weeks, certain rooms have limits such as your room, such as the kitchen. It’s important that he learns that somebody is the governor of this environment. This is something that is done by animals, the introduction of this new environment for the purpose of respect.
This is such a wonderful conversation and I’m so thankful that you were willing to have it. I think that there’s so much that can be learned for the way we interact with our pets in our home. And I think that some of the things that you’ve talked about today need to be the pillars that come before the modifications to the home, the addition of the dog run.
These are the things that come first and lay the foundation for them to be the right kind of experience. So I appreciate that.
Yep.
That was Cesar Millan. His smart dog collar system, Halo Collar, that provides GPS location, activity tracking and training support for your dog is available now. To learn more about Halo Collars, visit their website, halocollar.com.
We’re nearly at the end of the show, which means it’s time for The Simple Fix.
Hi, Jenn, it’s Charlie Silva, one of the contractors on the show. And here’s my Simple Fix. Ever need a quick measurement of something, but you don’t have a tape measure with you?
So what I’ve done is I know the measurement between the tip of my pinky to the tip of my thumb. It’s about nine inches. So you do a hang 10 on that piece of furniture starting, let’s say, on the left side.
And then you inchworm along pinky to thumb to pinky to thumb. And then you know what the measurement roughly is.
We’ll see you next week on This Old House Radio Hour. Our show is distributed by and co-produced by LAist Studios and APM, American Public Media. This Old House Radio Hour was created and produced by Ember20.
Listen to new episodes of the podcast every Tuesday on your app of choice. You can follow This Old House on all the socials. At This Old House, all one word.
We’ll see you next week.
Weight loss solutions are not one size fits all. HERS makes it simpler to get started and stick with a weight loss plan backed by expert guided online care that puts your weight loss goals first. These include oral medication kits or compounded GLP-1 injections.
Through HERS, pricing for oral medication kits start at just $69 a month for a 10 month plan when paid in full upfront. No hidden fees, no membership fees. You shouldn’t have to go out of your way to feel like yourself.
We’ll see you next week on This Old House Radio Hour. Our show is distributed by and co-produced by LAist Studios and APM, American Public Media. This Old House Radio Hour was created and produced by Ember20.
Listen to new episodes of the podcast every Tuesday on your app of choice. You can follow This Old House on all the socials. At This Old House, all one word.
We’ll see you next week.
Weight loss solutions are not one size fits all. HERS makes it simpler to get started and stick with a weight loss plan backed by expert guided online care that puts your weight loss goals first. These include oral medication kits or compounded GLP-1 injections.
Through HERS, pricing for oral medication kits start at just $69 a month for a 10 month plan when paid in full upfront. No hidden fees, no membership fees. You shouldn’t have to go out of your way to feel like yourself.
HERS brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatment plans that puts your goals first. Reach your weight loss goals with help through HERS. Get started at forhers.com/foryou to access affordable, doctor.
