Today’s Homeowner Radio Podcast | September 17, 2022

Hour 1

In Hour 1, listen to how to avoid wasps from swarming around fruit trees, strategies for cooling off a sizzling attic and extra.

Managing Wasps Around Fruit Trees

Wasps are swarming about the apple and pear trees in Valerie’s entrance garden.

“Each fallen fruit appeals to about 5 or extra wasps, these types of that I simply cannot (very well, I don’t WANT to) touch the fruit to transfer it away to lower my grass,” she claims. 

Valerie desires to know: “What time of working day ought to I decide on up the fruit?”

Wasps, as very well as bees, are captivated to the sugar in rotten fruit.

Really don’t spray any poison all-around the trees mainly because it won’t just kill the wasps —it will also kill honey bees, valuable pollinators that are dying at an alarming amount. 

However, there is not much you can do, other than:

• Decide on the fruit as quickly as it’s ripe. 
• Never allow it drop to the floor. We know it is extremely hard to stop each individual fruit from landing in the filth but look at on the trees frequently.
• Rake up the fruit on the ground with a very long-taken care of rake to steer clear of any stings. 

Bees and wasps aren’t as active at night or incredibly early in the morning, so pick up the fallen fruit then. 

For much more guidelines, examine How to Deal with Wasps in Your Lawn.

Cooling Off a Renovated Attic 

Leslie Trippe’s 1953 house in Huntsville, Ala., has a concluded attic place with two bedrooms and a lavatory. 

The ceilings are only 7 toes tall and angled in the bedrooms, plus there is no further area in amongst the drywall and the roof.

“When the wall or ceiling is touched the warmth can be felt coming by means of the drywall. We at present use moveable air conditioners to maintain the house cooler. Is there a way to neat off this house?” she asks.

This is a pretty frequent difficulty in attics that have been converted into living spaces. When people today are slowly and gradually renovating their home, they neglect to acquire into thing to consider how sizzling the attic can get.

Most of the time, it is pretty much unattainable to increase insulation with no carrying out some demolition. Any additional insulation in the house involving the drywall and the roof will assistance. 

See if any contractors in your location do blow-in cellulose insulation. It’s a combine of wood or paper-dependent products and glue that’s pumped into the cavities powering walls and ceilings. The contractor would have to have to lower a small place of drywall to pump it into the little house, but this can very easily be fixed. 

Aside from incorporating insulation, call an HVAC specialist and see if they can set up some zoning for your air conditioning program. This allows you to pump more air conditioning into sure regions. 

You can also devote in a ductless air conditioner. This has its individual separate technique that attaches to the wall. 

Hour 2

In Hour 2, hear our ideas on the greatest spot for a skylight, retaining drinking water from pooling on a patio, and much more.

The Very best Place for a Skylight

A hotline caller desires to use skylights for ventilation more so than sunlight. 

He would like to know: What route really should the skylights encounter: north, south, east or west? 

There is a good deal to take into consideration when inserting skylights. Get started by inquiring the place do you want the light-weight on the within. 

Then operate a plumb line up alongside the ceiling in the attic and see if you operate into any valleys or if the gentle tunnel will be extremely very long.

In terms of directional publicity, I really do not consider which is a major deal to fear about if you have a good quality skylight with shade capabilities. Just make positive it seems to be superior from the inside and does not have an affect on your home’s construction.

In usually situations, people really don’t put it on the entrance of the home for aesthetic purposes. They are frequently positioned on the north-experiencing roof airplane for the reason that it presents the most oblique light-weight, so you won’t get a whole lot of glare or heat develop-up.

If you are living in a northern weather, you might want to place them on the south-going through side for some additional heating. 

Get a glass skylight, not an acrylic one particular. Those people can lead to h2o problems and intense warmth if they never have the good curving or seamless flashing.

Halting Pooling H2o on a Patio

Fifteen yrs in the past, Jane Pierce’s partner utilized a concrete leveler to appropriate a small spot on her patio that was gathering h2o. 

“It’s held up really perfectly until finally now. It is cracking and chipping off. How can I take care of this?” she asks.  

Here’s how to deal with this:

• Chip away as significantly from the area as you potentially can. You never have to be way too intense with it — just get all of the substance which is separated from the initial patio. 
• Upcoming, get some Quikrete ReCap Concrete Resurfacer. Use Quikrete’s Concrete Calculator to establish how a lot of luggage you are going to require. 
• Then, combine it according to the directions on the deal and pour it on to your patio. 
• Use a significant rubber squeegee (about a foot to 16 inches large) to distribute the blend. Include the entire patio to make certain it’s stage. 
• In advance of it dries, drag a broom throughout it to include some texture for a slip-resistant surface area
• Now, you have a patio that seems brand new!

Observe: How to Give New Everyday living to an Aged Patio

If you never want to resurface the total patio, utilize a slender layer of Quikrete Bonding Adhesive in the small location, then stage it with Quikrete Concrete Patching Compound. 

Fixing a Trapped Deadbolt

How do you deal with a deadbolt that’s stuck in the locked situation? That is what Marlene Lauer in Neenah, Wisconsin, wants to know. 

She suggests, “We eradicated the doorknob, but could not move any of the parts to slide the bolt. We experimented with to choose the door off and that did not do the job. My son wishes to observed by means of the bolt. Is that our only choice?”

Ordinarily, a modest piece inside of the doorknob has broken and is lodged within, retaining it locked. 

Use a hammer to tap a screwdriver or nail punch to the proper and remaining inside of the keyhole to loosen the jammed element. Then, test tapping the screwdriver a bit with a hammer to loosen what is stuck within.

If this does not correct it, get in touch with a locksmith. 

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Easy Remedies

Simple Overhead Storage — Here’s how to make an overhead rack in your garage workshop, or get rid of for storing small-diameter pipe, slender moldings, and even fishing rods.

• Cut two 5-in.-very long items from a duration of vinyl downspout.
• Then screw the downspout pieces to an overhead ceiling joist, spacing them about 4 ft aside.
• Now, just slide moldings and pipes into the brief downspout sections. The pieces will be up and out of the way, but conveniently obtainable when you need them. 

Look at: How to Make an Overhead Storage Rack from Downspouts

Gluing Limited Cracks — When correcting a split chair rail, cracked baluster, or equivalent item, it’s complicated to apply glue simply because the crack is so restricted. Try out this:

• Wedge open the crack with a smaller flat-blade screwdriver.
• Then, squeeze in some glue and use a duration of dental floss to do the job the glue deep into the crack.
• Pull out the screwdriver, wipe away the surplus glue and clamp the maintenance.  

Observe: How to Deal with Break up Household furniture with Wooden Glue

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