00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. We've been talking about my home improvement myths. This is our bathroom edition. And you know something, I am going to call out another DIY influencer out there. Because it's been really bad watching some of this stuff. And I've been attacking this on social media. But I'm just going to call this out.

[00:00:24] Eric Goranson: If you're out there watching on Facebook or Instagram, be really careful. With the advice you're getting from some of these people, because this was a great example, I'm typing out my stuff and the algorithm of what we're going to talk about today. And the algorithm starts showing up some, some bathroom videos, doesn't have it screwed on correctly.

[00:00:42] Eric Goranson: It's not even corner blocked, right? When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know, but we've got you covered. This is around the house. Welcome to the round the house show. This is where we help you get. the most out of your [00:01:00] own through information and education. Thanks for joining us today, man.

[00:01:04] Eric Goranson: I really appreciate you guys tuning in, whether it's on the radio or the podcast. Thanks for joining me. We have got a big show ahead here today in this first hour. We're going to be talking about home improvement myths, our bathroom addition. These are things that maybe you thought you might be able to fix.

[00:01:21] Eric Goranson: He might be able to tackle, and we're going to start working with that and really dive into some of these to maybe I can help you. Take on that project and fix it right, without having to do it twice. Because, tell you what, sometimes you make that attempt and you're like, I think I got it! And you don't see if I can save you a few headaches today.

[00:01:40] Eric Goranson: Well, if you want to get ahold of us here at the station, get a home improvement question, give me a call at 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44. That number again is 8 3 3 2 3 9 4 1 4 4. And if you want to check out our website, that is around the house online in a course, we're all over social media. You can find all my [00:02:00] videos over there at the around the house online as well.

[00:02:02] Eric Goranson: We've got some links over there. And that will take you over to the nearly what 300 videos we have for around the house. This weekend is actually my one year anniversary here. This we're doing show 52 this weekend. So this is the basically our show next week will be season two of around the house Northwest.

[00:02:20] Eric Goranson: So if you've missed it on the TV show, you can catch that over and around the house online. We've got the videos over there and you can catch it there with all the links. So that's a great place to find it. Let's talk a little bit about some of these bathroom myths of repairs and stuff within the bathroom now bathrooms take a lot of abuse You've got water.

[00:02:39] Eric Goranson: You've got electrical You've got mold you got mildew you got all these different things happening in there And it can be quite the messy place and one of the ones that I wanted to talk about first Was trying to deal with repairing a tile shower floor. So what happens is as you walk into that tile, you know, floor, maybe it's been there for [00:03:00] 30 years.

[00:03:00] Eric Goranson: Maybe it's been there for five. You just don't know how it was done. Maybe this was a project you did last year and all of a sudden the tile is coming loose and coming up. And this is where the problems start to occur. And this is a sign of bigger problems underneath. With my experience, most of the time when the tile is coming loose, it's because there's water getting under the tile.

[00:03:20] Eric Goranson: And there always is. But the problem is it starts breaking down everything underneath it. Usually from a water leak. Now let's talk about a few basics here. Grout is generally not waterproof unless you're doing some epoxies and things like that. But 95 percent of the grout you see out there is not waterproof that people have put in.

[00:03:38] Eric Goranson: So the water, it's like concrete, the water will soak in, right? It goes down in there, gets around it. And that's why you have liner systems or you have different things underneath there to keep the water from going through the tile grout and everything else and getting down into the subfloor. We're getting down into the basement or the floor below.

[00:03:55] Eric Goranson: So these are things that you want to do. The problem is some people go, Hey, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to tear [00:04:00] that tile up. I'm going to replace it and not do the whole shower. I'm just going to do a patch. And let me be clear here, even for tile professionals, rarely can this be done correctly where you're not just buying a year or two and have to replay the whole shower again.

[00:04:17] Eric Goranson: And here's where the problem lies. It's not so much about taking the tile up, getting the clean, fixing it, putting it back down again. The problem is creating a waterproof area that doesn't let water leak back underneath it because when you tear the tile up generally, unless it was just poorly put down to begin with 99 percent of the time when you pull that tile up, you're actually tearing up the waterproof membrane underneath it.

[00:04:42] Eric Goranson: So now you don't have anything there. The bigger you take out of the tile, the more unwaterproofed area is, and you can't get the waterproofing back underneath the tile that's already laid down to tie those two in together. So it can be really tough to try to get something that's going to be waterproof down there [00:05:00] because that has to be super durable.

[00:05:01] Eric Goranson: That is like a roof. It has to be just a waterproof area and then some. And any water that gets down underneath is going to cause a problem. And so that's where one of those big issues is, is it's really very hard to get in there and be able to pull that out and still maintain that waterproofing and then put it down and make it look good again.

[00:05:22] Eric Goranson: So generally in that case, this is my recommendation is most of the time, unless you've got a real good artist in there, that's doing this, you're going to have to tear the shower out and start over because for the same, very same reason, you could go partially up the wall and say, okay. I've got this good enough, but really that whole shower floor is gonna have to come out and be replaced.

[00:05:46] Eric Goranson: And at that point you're chasing it. You might as well just do the whole thing. And I don't like to create more work for people, but I also don't want to create a moldy problem where it's always smelly in there because you've got nasty water building up underneath that tile. And it just [00:06:00] starts to get well, punky on you.

[00:06:02] Eric Goranson: So take the time. This is where it's a big problem and you're just going to have to redo the shower and do it correctly. And when you put it back in, use better materials than what it was used before. I like using. Like Weddy or Ardex or even Schluter, use a waterproof system in there and make sure that you get that in there correct.

[00:06:24] Eric Goranson: Now, as you're doing this, here's one other thing that's, uh, we'll talk more about it. And now let's just throw this in here. We're just gonna throw it in here now. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna drag this one out into the next hour. Let's hit this right now with this and we'll talk about it more in the next hour.

[00:06:40] Eric Goranson: People that use drywall behind a shower system, I think it's not recommended. And I see it because it's done most of the time poorly, especially with today's lighter drywall. So here's what happened. People go in there and this was really hot in the 70s and 80s. They'll go in there with drywall or [00:07:00] green board and then they'll put on a waterproof system.

[00:07:04] Eric Goranson: Or they'll just red guard a coat or not even do anything and just start laying tile. The problem is how this is constructed. So you think about it, first off, people are not installing that drywall correctly to begin with, even if you use a moisture. Tolerant drywall like the green board. That's still not a good product.

[00:07:24] Eric Goranson: It's just a little stronger But the problem is with these new light drywalls, they've inserted more air into the product, right? So it's lighter That's how they make it. It's not thinner. They just put more air into it. So there's Bigger spaces in between it. The problem is now is you have less material that is bonded to the paper.

[00:07:43] Eric Goranson: And the problem is when you put in new drywall, like this light drywall, you need to be screwing it, gluing it and everything else to the studs. And you're going to need twice as many screws if you did it per spec than the regular drywall. So these are where those [00:08:00] issues really come in. First off, rarely does anybody install the drywall correctly.

[00:08:05] Eric Goranson: And now you are betting everything. On that entire waterproofing system, you have no backup failure because if you get a little bit of water back there, this thing's coming down. It's going to be a hot mess. So, I would much rather see you instead of using drywall, if you have to go with a tile backer board, go with a tile backer board.

[00:08:25] Eric Goranson: If you have to go with one of the foam board systems, I think that's better. And that way you can just get it in there, get it done and be done with it. So whether or not you're using Sluder, we are decks or whatever brand you're using, just make sure that you've got something that is super waterproof.

[00:08:42] Eric Goranson: That's going to hold up to it. And if we've talked about, we've talked about this in the past, but if you're doing a steam shower, which is really hot now, you need to be using the vapor ready 85 from Weedy, because that is the stuff that is rated for vapor. Where the others really aren't because vapor, [00:09:00] you want to keep the vapor from going through there.

[00:09:02] Eric Goranson: It's one thing to have water, but when you're dealing with steam, that's a whole different material. So we want to make sure and do that correctly. So when we come back, we'll talk a little bit more. Let's wrap up this discussion right here on repairing that shower floor and doing it correctly. If you want to find out more about around the house, like I said earlier, head over to around the house online.

[00:09:21] Eric Goranson: com and you can find out more about us. And we've got our phone number over there, which is 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44. That's 833 239 4144. You can find us over there. Around the House, we'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. We're just getting started.

[00:09:41] Eric Goranson: Woggly faces. Should I be allowed to be so hot?

[00:09:56] Eric Goranson: So many people[00:10:00]

[00:10:11] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the Around the House show. This is where we help you get the most out of your home through information and education. Thanks for joining us today. Hey, make sure you check us out over at AroundTheHouseOnline. com. You can find the phone number, the videos, all the stuff we've been working on over there.

[00:10:24] Eric Goranson: And that's how you do it. And that's how you get ahold of me and the show. We've been talking about my home improvement myths. This is our bathroom edition. And you know something, I am going to call out another DIY influencer out there. Because it's been really bad watching some of this stuff. And I've been attacking this on social media.

[00:10:44] Eric Goranson: But I'm gonna, I'm just going to call this out. If you're out there watching on Facebook or Instagram, be really careful with the advice you're getting from some of these people, because this was a great example. I'm typing out my stuff and the algorithm of what we're going to talk about today. And the [00:11:00] algorithm starts showing up some, some bathroom videos in this guy shows up on there.

[00:11:05] Eric Goranson: He's got, we were talking about drywall. He doesn't have it screwed on correctly. It's not even corner blocked, right? And he's just going to put a thin Schluter membrane on it and put tile on top of it. And you're begging for that Schluter to do way more work than it needs to when you're trying to put that onto drywall.

[00:11:24] Eric Goranson: And like we were talking about earlier, that is not how you properly do it. Just make sure that you're taking the time to do these things right, because showers are so expensive to do, even when you're doing it yourself. So you just want to make sure and go do it once and do it right. So you don't have to go out and buy the materials again in two years or two months, whichever fails first.

[00:11:42] Eric Goranson: So you can get that knocked out. So that's a big one. Now, some of the things that I want you to do as you're building out the shower, that's cool. And these are little tricks while you're doing it. So we're going to little sidebar on this myths of can you, or can't you repair a shower floor when it's damaged, when it's made a tile, but [00:12:00] really what you want to do is here are my tricks.

[00:12:02] Eric Goranson: When I'm doing this one, I like to limit sound in the bathroom. So if I'm putting a new shower system in, taking it down to the studs. I don't mind putting in a little rock wall insulation in behind it because now I can cut the sound down. Now I can keep the heat in the room a little bit better and it just makes for a great situation.

[00:12:21] Eric Goranson: And if you have humidity issues and you're actually putting in a steam shower or something like that, you don't have to worry about the condensation in the back of the panel system or anything with it. So just putting that in there, I think is a really smart idea. And if someone's jumping on the shower and there's a bedroom next to it, you can really cut that sound down.

[00:12:38] Eric Goranson: So it's something to think about. I like doing that as well in the bathroom. If I've got the walls opened up, I insulate that space because, boy, it's sure nice when you're in there to be able to take a shower, not wake up the whole house, or go into the bathroom in the middle of the night. You can shut the door and put a solid core door on it.

[00:12:54] Eric Goranson: That's another trick right there. Get rid of the hollow corridor, put a solid corridor in there. One made of solid [00:13:00] wood. Again, these are things that you're going to have to do to keep it quiet. Now, the other little trick that I like to do in this as well is you're going to have to make sure you've got a nice big opening around the bottom of the door.

[00:13:11] Eric Goranson: And we'll talk about why here in a little bit, but depending on what the room is, it might need an inch or so on the bottom of that. Which is a big space, which can let sound out. We'll talk about why here a little bit later in this show, but it's an important one. So, just something to think about. Now, if you have a fiberglass tub shower, now this can be repaired.

[00:13:32] Eric Goranson: But here's where the issue is, and this is how I like to fix this. You really need to get in there underneath it to be able to fix it. Because what happens is, usually they weren't installed correctly. Or you just had heavy people in the house, or it just was a very thin flaw in the bottom of it. If you don't want to take the whole thing out, what I have done in the past is if it's not leaking and causing a moldy mess down there, but there's a crack in it, what I've done is come underneath [00:14:00] with spray foam and fill that space up in that void down there to support the bottom of the shower.

[00:14:07] Eric Goranson: So that way that's supported and it's not sitting there cracking worse. So if you can get underneath it and do it great, and then what you're going to need to do is get in there, grind out the crack. You're going to need to go in there with fiberglass mat, that up, patch it. There's a lot of prep work in this because you got to get all the soap and all the cleaners and everything off of it, all the waxes.

[00:14:27] Eric Goranson: And then you can go through there and do that. And then you can use an automotive style paint to paint the thing or have one of those companies come in that repaint bathtubs and showers. But really, if you think about it, that's a fiberglass unit. It's like a Corvette, right? It's got a gel coat with a color on top.

[00:14:46] Eric Goranson: You can go in there and paint that and touch that up and or just repaint the whole thing into a bright new white. And then what I do is let that cure and then you can use waxes or anything on the wall system to keep it a little bit cleaner. Don't put it [00:15:00] on the floor cause you're going to make it slippery.

[00:15:01] Eric Goranson: But there's ways to do that where you can keep that looking really good. So just something to think about. They can be repaired and many times you can repair those if it's a DIY project a lot cheaper than ripping the whole thing out. Now if you're going to rip the whole thing out, dive in and make it happen, make it look good, do a bathroom remodel.

[00:15:17] Eric Goranson: It's not a bad time to do it, but you can save it. That is one of the shower systems. That you can save if you're careful now the acrylic ones. Yeah, those are a little harder You're not going to make that look really good And so you'll have to take a look and see how that is How it's built the easiest way to figure out how that shower system is built Is to take the trim off around the shower valve and then you can take a look and see if that's fiberglass Or a molded acrylic and how they make the mold acrylic is they actually take This acrylic sheet they heat it up and use a vacuum and they vacuum it into A mold to get that where the fiberglass they have a mold and they put layers of gel and fiberglass resin And a fiberglass mat and build it that way and so that's the [00:16:00] two different ways.

[00:16:00] Eric Goranson: These things are built So those are some advice good advice taking care of the shower Also when you have the shower open up if you're putting in a shower door put some blocking in some wood in there So you have something nice to attach to so it'll be a lot less work that way And then make sure that you're staying up on your maintenance on the bathroom on that shower that you can go through there and seal any grout.

[00:16:21] Eric Goranson: Make sure that you put a good grout in there. Maybe you put one in that doesn't need sealing, like some of the Ardex products out there that I like. That's a good way to go. You can really take some time and go through and get that all dialed in and it's going to look like a million bucks when it's done and it's going to stay cleaner.

[00:16:36] Eric Goranson: And if you want to find out how to clean. That shower and get that grout looking good head over to our facebook actually head over to facebook Or you can just head over to around the house online and look at our videos And i'll make sure that we put that video up over there on cleaning grout because that's an important one And I'll put that up on the front page so you can find it over there.

[00:16:55] Eric Goranson: That's a great place to put that. And then you know how to clean that up and make it look good. [00:17:00] And it's a good little project, good little DIY project that'll look good. And when it's all done, put a really nice high grade sealer on it. That's going to be one of those things that will last a long time for you.

[00:17:11] Eric Goranson: Now, one thing I wanted to talk about here, just as a little side note on home improvement myths around your bathroom. Is just to think about if you're shopping in the home centers and I have no problem with the home centers, they are what they are, but you just need to remember when you're thinking about bathrooms, I don't care if you're looking at tile, you're looking at faucets, you're looking at everything else.

[00:17:29] Eric Goranson: They are about the bottom third of the range of materials out there. So that is your budget basement stuff. So if you want to find something higher quality, you're going to have to go into your local plumbing retailer. Your local plumbing store where all the plumbers go to, not the home center. You have to go into a kitchen, a bash showroom, one of those kinds of places that have that stuff.

[00:17:49] Eric Goranson: That's not in the box store. Even some of the Ferguson locations out there or build. com. You could take a look at those places and they will really show you what's out there because so [00:18:00] many times the stuff that's in the home center is there for price. Which is great for some people, but for you people out there that want to put in something a little bit nicer, a little bit more reliable, you might want to go to one of your local plumbing stores and talk to their experts and make sure that you're getting the right products for the house, because that'll be a better little trick for you there.

[00:18:18] Eric Goranson: And in the, if you have to do it twice, it's going to save you money. So talk to the experts, lean on them, and they shouldn't steer you wrong. All right, everybody, we'll be back after these important messages. We'll continue talking. About my home improvement myths bathroom addition just as soon as around the house returns.

[00:18:34] Eric Goranson: Don't go anywhere[00:19:00]

[00:19:13] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the around the house show. This is where we help you get the most out of your home through information education Thanks for joining us today. If the if you're a first time listener to us today Thanks for tuning in if you want to find out more about us head over to around the house Online.

[00:19:27] Eric Goranson: com we've been talking here about my home improvement myths about bathrooms or bathroom addition, some of the things that people wonder. And we're here to answer those questions for you. If you want to get ahold of us, give me a call at 833 239 4144. We might put you in a future episode of around the house show.

[00:19:46] Eric Goranson: And if not, don't worry, you can still get ahold of us. I'll get back to you and see if I can answer those questions for you. Our next one here is, do I need a bathroom fan? If I have a window in the bathroom and my [00:20:00] answer right there is going to be yes. Now this is one of those myths and sometimes building code will say, Oh, you got a bathroom.

[00:20:07] Eric Goranson: You got a window. You don't need to have a fan. Now that was great in 1960s with the technology we had then and what we knew about homes and not having these homes right now that are all. Really tight and really dialed in as far as how we've been making a more energy efficient and things like that. But we need to get those chemicals and fumes and moisture out of that bathroom.

[00:20:32] Eric Goranson: Yes, we do. And I don't follow the traditional belief that we used to see out there as well. That said, okay, if you have one square foot, you need one CFM, a fan, and now CFM is cubic feet per minute. So I always take that as like. per minute one basketball. So, my, I've changed how I do it now. So, I try to go with a larger fan.

[00:20:56] Eric Goranson: So, I want to go in a bathroom that has a [00:21:00] tub or a shower. So, any kind of a full bathroom like that. Even a three quarter bath, if you want to call it that. I still call it a bathroom these days. But here's the thing. You need to have that bath fan in there. And in most cases, building code says you have to put a timer on it.

[00:21:16] Eric Goranson: And that bath fan needs to go all the way outside. That fan has to go outside the building. Not just up into the attic, where you're going to grow mold up there, or going up into a vent up there, where you're stapling on the side, that's going to do it. So you need to put in, follow your local building code, but in most cases, they are going to want a flex duct that is insulated, that comes out of that, and goes all the way to the outside.

[00:21:40] Eric Goranson: And now you're probably asking, why a insulated flex duct? Because here's what happens in the wintertime, if you've got cool air up in that attic space. And you've got warm, moist air. What can happen is you'll actually turn the fan on, take a shower or bath. That cool, moist air will go up into that, hit the metal or [00:22:00] cold plastic, whatever it is, it will all of a sudden turn into water.

[00:22:03] Eric Goranson: Then you have a dripping wet floor either around the fan on the ground, or it can be, of course, dripping around the grate and now start soaking into the drywall on the ceiling and you've got a drywall repair. So you want to make sure and use an insulated duct, but always follow your local code. Cause your area, they might be doing something different or require something different.

[00:22:23] Eric Goranson: So follow your building code on that. But that is really how you get stuff dialed in on this, because really that fan is going to help you with indoor air quality. It is one of the biggest things that you can do as far as indoor air quality. I really like having a good a hundred plus CFM fan in there.

[00:22:40] Eric Goranson: And earlier we were talking about having that space under the door. You need to have a good space under the door in there because that's makeup air. So what I want you to do is to be able to take all that air coming out of the floor, the hallway or whatever that's out there, bring that into the space so it can feed that.

[00:22:56] Eric Goranson: If you have too small of an area under the door, and I know people like [00:23:00] privacy, so you want to make sure that you can move that air through there. Now in my house, I have a nice fan like that. It's going out. But my problem is now I have so much air going over the tile floor right by the door. The heated floor there doesn't catch up because I have almost like air conditioning.

[00:23:19] Eric Goranson: I've got all this air going over the top of it that's cooling it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put in a vent for makeup air, basically pulling it out of the hallway so I can grab more air out of there, not underneath the door to make up for that. So I can do an offset vent. It'll still give me the privacy of the room, still help with the sound, but I'm going to pull the air in there, so I don't have to pull as much across there and have that cold spot on the floor, but it's very fascinating when you look at stuff to see how that goes and how that works and how much that will do, and it's going to make it so it's easier cleaning in the shower.

[00:23:52] Eric Goranson: You won't have to go through a clean as much because when you have that hot moist environment, it is really [00:24:00] mildews growing on everything. Hmm. And that's more maintenance that you have to do. So take your time, get it dialed in. And that fan is a great DIY project that you can tackle depending on them. I like the Panasonics.

[00:24:12] Eric Goranson: I like the Brown, new tones. I like the big brands out there. My personal opinion. I like the Panasonics for build quality better. I've just had better luck with them, but if you're doing a remodel, the, the nicer newer ones from Brown are really cool. Because you can get them with a remodel type unit where you run the power.

[00:24:33] Eric Goranson: You can, of course, reuse the existing wire up there. So you just need a power wire to go up there. You don't have to have all the control wires. So it actually does it via Bluetooth. And so the switch in the wall is just actually controlling and sending it via Bluetooth. So you don't have to worry about running extra wires and fishing those up there.

[00:24:51] Eric Goranson: So that is a great way to do it. If you're trying to get that bath fan in there. So that's another one just to think about right there. And another thing too, is when you're doing [00:25:00] this. Take a look. Do you need to have a light? Do you need to have a heat? What is going to be doing it? What's going to be dialing it in?

[00:25:05] Eric Goranson: What's going to make this work better for you? So take your time and figure out what your plan is with that and really think about it. Put the right one in. I usually don't go pick stuff off the shelf on, on at the home centers because Those are not the quality that I like to put in, and it's not much more to get one that's going to be super quiet.

[00:25:23] Eric Goranson: And that's been one of the things that I thought was absolutely amazing with fans out there is the new bath fans that you see out there. You barely hear they're on. And I actually had a complaint with a homeowner here a number of years ago that they thought it was so quiet. That they wanted to have a little bit, they wanted to have a little bit of cover when they were in the bathroom.

[00:25:42] Eric Goranson: So other people wouldn't hear what they were doing if they weren't feeling maybe up to speed. So for that, take a look at some of the ones that have the Bluetooth options. You can play music and stuff in there. And somebody connect to their phone, put a little sign. If it's your guest bathroom or powder room downstairs where they can listen to some music, they can log into it, [00:26:00] give them the login on it and let them have fun with it.

[00:26:02] Eric Goranson: That way, uh, make your guests comfortable, if you know what I mean. And that'll keep you going there. So that's another one of those. So that's just one of those things of making sure that bath fan is dialed in. And take a look at the options. There's a lot of them out there. Now on a side note, uh, if you're doing that bathroom remodel, you're adding stuff in there.

[00:26:20] Eric Goranson: One other little thing, two little things that I would think about in a bathroom, and just another side note that's really not a myth, but, uh, Take a look at the Air Mata drying system, and they're not a sponsor of the show, but I do believe in it. I have it in my shower, and this is a air dryer, so you never have to squeegee your glass, so check out Air Mata.

[00:26:38] Eric Goranson: These guys make a great product, and it's basically a fan blower on a timer, and you design it around your shower system, and it has different nozzles that blow across the shower walls, and basically, in 10 minutes, you can dry your shower. And so that's really nice. Keep things nice and dry. And then if you want to save some money, take a look at this one as well.

[00:26:59] Eric Goranson: And they've been [00:27:00] a constant, a very frequent guest on the show, but take a look at, and this is an important one. Take a look at the drying your heated towel racks out there. Because I tell you what a good heated towel rack is really nice and it's worth the time to plug them. You can get them where they just plug into an outlet.

[00:27:20] Eric Goranson: You can wire them in. So you've got them hardwired. These are all things that I think are really worthwhile. So take a look at that. AMBA products is who makes those and they're just a great company. They have a lot of finishes so they can actually match a finish for you. So, if you have a specialty Breezo finish that's Breezo finish, or you have specialty hardware, they can actually, got a good chance of matching that for you, so they can make that match.

[00:27:46] Eric Goranson: Or you can just jump on Amazon and get a chrome one, or a black one, or a standard color there too, but take a peek at those. High quality stuff, I really like it, I think there's a lot of value to them. And it's going to cut your laundry on towels down by about half, [00:28:00] because instead of lasting two or three days on a towel, you can go over a week because they dry them out so quickly.

[00:28:05] Eric Goranson: And so you always have a fresh towel, which is really nice. And after a while, you're like, I probably should watch this, but they smell fresh because it warms them up. And who doesn't like in the wintertime, especially a nice warm towel and you can control it. And it also gives off a little heat in that cold room.

[00:28:19] Eric Goranson: So that's a good one as well. All right, everybody, we'll be back after these important messages and we're going to wrap up. Our bathroom addition home improvement miss just as soon as around the house returns. Don't go anywhere Welcome back to the around the house show. This is where we help you get the[00:29:00]

[00:29:16] Eric Goranson: most out of your home. home for information education. Thanks for joining us today. Like I always say, if you want to get ahold of us, head over to around the house online. com or you can give us a call at 833 239 4144. That's 833 239 4144. We've been talking about our home improvement myths bathroom edition, and here's the next one here that I wanted to dive into because this is an important one right here and we've got a long enough segment.

[00:29:41] Eric Goranson: We can actually dive into this a little bit. One of the things I'm always worried about, and I see this on social media all the time with people tackling projects, look at me, I'm doing my tile and they're sitting there with plywood rough floor and they're throwing mastic down and they're installing tile and something.

[00:29:59] Eric Goranson: That is [00:30:00] bound to fail. And here's why you want to put down, you don't want to do that. You want to actually prep that and do it correctly. Now there's a lot of different systems out there. So there are uncoupling membranes, which you put down, which is a plastic layer. So what you would do is depending on the system you're using, you'd either prime that plywood and then put down the mastic or mortar, lay down the rules of uncoupling membrane, let that dry.

[00:30:30] Eric Goranson: And then you'd tile over the top of the uncoupling membrane. So what that does is that lets that wood, which will expand and contract, that lets that stay there so it doesn't pop up tiles. Now that's another thing here as well, is when you're going over this, is that you really need to pay attention, especially in older homes, the bounce of the floor.

[00:30:54] Eric Goranson: So many times when you get into pre 1970s homes, they were not engineered. There was not an engineer [00:31:00] that went over that house plan. You just had somebody draw it up and they built it, or they bought a canned set of plans, and off they went. The problem is that you can have bouncy floors because of spans, because of whatever.

[00:31:12] Eric Goranson: And I don't buy into the, oh, they don't build them like they used to. Sometimes, with tile, the floor has too much give. And not enough structure and that moves is going to pop tiles. So over a year, you're going to be in there, putting tiles back on the floor, regrounding, trying to do repairs, maybe breaking tiles.

[00:31:30] Eric Goranson: So these are things you want to be careful with. So first off, make sure that the structure can handle it and you'll be good to go. That's the first thing because otherwise the rest of it doesn't matter. So make sure that you've got that structure part handled before you get any further. And if you need to go through and stiffen things up, I've gone through and doubled up two by eights and floor joists and things like that in a bathroom just to see if I could take some of the spring out of it without having to go in and add other stuff.

[00:31:57] Eric Goranson: So without trying to add more [00:32:00] plywood or change the height of the bathroom, because that can lead into transition issues going out to a hallway or into a bedroom or something like that. So something to consider. When you're doing that and then yeah, just take your time guys and do the stuff when I did my bathroom It was a little bit off.

[00:32:17] Eric Goranson: So I actually decided okay, I'm gonna use some floor levelers. So we actually set my membrane down, my decoupling membrane, and I wanted a heated floor. So I used the Ardex, their Ardex system that I could put the, my wire down for my heated floors. And then over the top of that, we poured floor leveler. So that leveled the floor out a little bit and it worked out really well.

[00:32:41] Eric Goranson: Just went around and used a spray foam to dam up some areas. So it wouldn't go into duct work or out of the doorway and stuff. And we. Created some dams to keep that in there and then just let the self leveler do its jang and boy Got it real dialed in gave us after that setup. It gave us a really good place to now set tile So take the [00:33:00] time on that.

[00:33:00] Eric Goranson: It'll really help dial it in and you'll be good to go now one of the other things here That I really want to talk about and this is an important one here and there's a myth with this And I have not seen, I have not seen the data to prove it, so I will say if somebody wants to show it to me, I have no problem being wrong, but we have people out there that have hard water and maybe it's you.

[00:33:24] Eric Goranson: I lived in a house that had this before and the hard water, the minerals and hard waters are kind of just a blanket brush of a statement, right? It could be lots of different types of hard water with the mineral content that's in there. Okay. But generally what it is, it's a soluble mineral that's in the water.

[00:33:43] Eric Goranson: And then when it dries, when you're washing, it sticks to things and it'll etch into glass. It'll etch into everything and really will ruin stuff. So before you go do that bathroom, deal with your water. But one thing that I've been really troubled with. Is some of the new water treatment [00:34:00] methods out there, and some of them are this either electronic based or filter based, and I want to see data like test results to see if some of these systems work.

[00:34:14] Eric Goranson: Oh, this works great. It makes the ions whatever. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. But here's the thing. I don't want to spend 60, 000 on a bathroom model to have a contractor come in and do my hall bath. And yeah, that's about the average of what a hall bath costs to do a nice bathroom remodel. If you pay a contractor to come do it.

[00:34:34] Eric Goranson: I don't want to bet on that. If I'm putting a water treatment system, That is snake oil, and I'm not saying they're all snake oil, but there's a few of them out there that I look at and go not buying it guys. I'm not buying it. So you might want to make sure that you do a water test meet with a water quality professional that will design a system around that water test.

[00:34:57] Eric Goranson: Because that is going to be the biggest defender [00:35:00] of that bathroom space for you. My myth in the bathroom on this, it's not really a sidebar, this is just what it is. Some of these water treatment systems that seem to be too good to be true, I think they are. That's my opinion. So if you're using something out there that works, and you're keeping it, all of a sudden you don't have those hard water deposits, maybe it's a salt based system, maybe it's some version of a reverse osmosis system, whatever it is.

[00:35:28] Eric Goranson: You want to make sure that you've got the right system that's going to take care of that and that you can test it before and test it afterwards. I go, yep, no hard water. So that's the thing. I want to see the lab results on the front end and the back end. Not that, oh, the hard water is still there. It's just not going to stick to anything.

[00:35:48] Eric Goranson: I'm not buying it. I think it will. So let's make sure that we are testing that water. We got it dialed in and it's looking good because otherwise you're just throwing the money away on the bathroom model. [00:36:00] So the first thing I want you to do before you do that bath, or even if you're replacing appliances, you're placing a washer and dryer, you're placing a dishwasher refrigerator.

[00:36:09] Eric Goranson: Hot water heater actually a water heater cuz it's already hot, right? That's another one of those things I always laugh about I say it too hot water heater department redundancy department. It's a water heater The thing is guys treat that water. These things are gonna last so much longer Your coffee maker is gonna last longer.

[00:36:26] Eric Goranson: All of this is going to save you money. So make sure I know it's not sexy But cleaning everything, including your silverware, your dishes, it all looks much better if you have good quality water. So, I have it at my house now. Luckily, my local municipality does a great job of taking that mountain water and treating it.

[00:36:48] Eric Goranson: And it is in good shape, but I can literally go a half mile away. And have some of the hardest water I've ever had in my life. It tastes good, but it'll destroy a house in no time. [00:37:00] And that sink, that faucet, all of those things get destroyed by that. So take a time and go through that and make sure that you test the water and save yourself a ton of time and energy and just have a healthier program when it's all said and done.

[00:37:15] Eric Goranson: So I don't recommend just going out and buying a filter, buying this stuff. Again, test it and then build it around it. That way you're not buying something you don't need and you're doing everything. Every dollar you're spending is going to fix the problem, not wasting other stuff you don't need. So that's my advice on the bathroom.

[00:37:33] Eric Goranson: Well, coming up next in the next show, we're going to be talking about. Our exterior edition of home improvement myths and some of the problems you see out there and we're going to tackle some stuff That's going to be pretty important In the next show. So hey if you're listening to us on the podcast And you know, you got a podcast player that you're listening to your favorite one.

[00:37:53] Eric Goranson: However, you catch us I appreciate you know, all you radio listeners out there. I love that you're supporting that station and [00:38:00] make sure to Help out those advertisers that are in this show. They're the ones that are keeping it on the air But if you're on the podcast player right now leave us review I'd love to hear it that helps us get our name out to other people out there as well So leave a nice review.

[00:38:13] Eric Goranson: I'd really appreciate it any of those five stars You're helping somebody else out with their next home improvement project and hopefully we can keep them steered in the right direction because the last thing I like to see is people getting Hurt by bad advice out there and man With the expense of building materials out there, as we know, it's not really getting cheaper out there.

[00:38:32] Eric Goranson: I want to make sure. And that's one of my goals with around the house here is to make sure that you tackle this project and you can be successful doing it without having to go out and spend too much money. But yeah, they were hiring it done. If you want to hire it done. Awesome. But if you want to tackle it yourself, my goal here is to help you get the right information so you can buy the materials once and do it once, right.

[00:38:51] Eric Goranson: And that way it'll last you for decades because I hate seeing good products get thrown away. Because of bad advice or you just didn't know [00:39:00] any better and I tell you what I've got stuff that i've had to throw away because i'm like that didn't go out is planned And anytime I can help you Not do that and waste that money.

[00:39:09] Eric Goranson: That's a win on our side All right, everybody. Thanks for tuning in around the house our number two coming up And you can always catch us on the podcast player. Just look for around the house show. Thanks for tuning into around the house Come on