Best of international Builder’s Show, Part 2 | Hour 2

like you and my house, yep, you can book. If you live, especially in the southern Greater Southern California area, you can book an in home design consul with me and T Just go to house Whisperer dot design. All right, we are today doing part two of our two part series this weekend of the Best of the International Builders Show, which wrapped up in Las Vegas this last weekend. We're

gonna get back to that list. Uh and it is a big list, so I want to take as much time as possible for it, but never gonna neglect calls. It's top of the hour, It's time to go to the phones. And uh so let's take a call or to you. I want to talk to Wayne. Hey, Wayne, welcome home.

have and some cities do. Some don't have a pull sheet or a procedure if you're going to abandon a fireplace in a house, a masonry fireplace in the house. Some do a lot don't, but it never hurts to check just to make sure, and it's not going to be like a big permit thing or anything like that. It's just that there are certain things they want to see happen. So that being said, I'll tell you the

things I want to see happen. What we've got to do is we have to deal with the fact that we're still leaving this ventilation, uninsulated moisture trap next to our house on what's going to now be the backside of a new wall. So here are the things that I'm most concerned about. I am concerned Number one, that we block off the entire chimney. That means up on the roof up at the top. I want to seal it off up there. I don't want rain getting in, I don't want bees getting in and taking up residence

in your chimney. And so I actually would love to create a sheet metal cap up there now. I don't want it to look like it's not the chimney because you're not demoing the chimney out. You still wanted to have that look on the outside of the house, you're just not using it now. So and I don't want to destroy it for anybody, including you, who might decide

to use it. In the future. So I just want to make sure that we've got a nice sheet metal cap on the top of the chimney, and that we seal that off with a weather sealed caul, and we don't just sit it there so that insects or bees can get inside. Feel it off at the top. No more rain, no more you know, humidity going down inside the chimney. That's number one. Number two is inside that firebox down at ground level. We want to make sure it's super clean, get it all cleaned up, don't leave

it all, you know, groedy. And we want to get some insulation in there, all right, insulation to keep air and drafts from rising up the chimney and causing back drafting on the back of the wall. Number three. Ideally, I don't know if your fireplace has an ash dump, like a little vent where ash can be pushed out to the to the outside. But ideally, since since we're since we are creating an open cavity of masonry in there that has for its entire existence, had the freedom

of air flowing through it to keep it dry. I don't want humidity building up inside that chimney and becoming a moisture problem. So I like the idea that down at the firebox, if there's not already an ash dump, going to the outside to you know, get.

it doesn't build up inside the chimney. Apart from that, the face of the firebox itself, if you are going to build building a wall in front of it, then I would probably just make sure that I would get a nice firm piece of wood or sheet metal over it and again seal it off to the face of the existing brick, so there are no drafts and no

heat transfer, no cold transfer, that kind of stuff. We don't have to worry about doing it, you know, we don't have to brick it in, and you don't have to worry about doing it in a way that's noncombustible because we're not there's not gonna be any combustion in that chamber anymore at all, and so that's you know, you just need to close it off to make sure that draft and moisture. Drafts and moisture and insulation are my main concerns about closing up an old fireplace that

we're going to leave in place. Those are my primary concerns. And of course, if there's a gas line going into it, you want to pull that out, Okay, not just cap it off inside. You want to pull that gas line out so that there's no chance whatsoever that even a broken gas pipe or a leaking gas pipe will fill that chamber with gas unbeknownst to you. So those are

the keys. Those are the principles involved in closing off a masony fireplace, and you can apply them to your situation as you see fit, and also check with the city to see if they've got a pull sheet on it. Great, thank you very much, You're very welcome.

I don't know. I think spring has sprung here. It's March, is it not, Yes, it is, And so we're only a few days away from spring officially beginning anyway, and I think it's like, I'm done, We're ready, let's go. Hopefully that'll bring us some more rain. I hope that's the case. Some spring showers would be very very welcome here. Not too much, too fast, just enough, you know, keep

our fingers crossed for that. We are talking about the International Builder Show, which just took place this last week in Las Vegas. I've got a list of some highlights for you, and we're enjoying going through that list because there's some cool stuff out there that happened this year. But right now I'm on the phone. I'm on the phone taking calls, and I want to do it again. Let's talk to Bob. Hey, Bob, welcome home.

the drain forward that changes about the toilet. So most toilets, or well all toilets in the US are either set up for three inch or four inch drain down below. And if we are designing a house blind, which is not something I do because I'm a custom home designer, so we've already had our clients select the toilet that they want. But and as a builder, you know, I

want to go for those specs. But if we're just working with a standard tract house which was designed blind, you know, without knowing who or what's going to get put in there. The standard offset off the back wall for a toilet drain to the center of the drain, not to the edge the center of the drain, either three or four inch, is twelve inches twelve inches off the back wall to the center of the drain, and most toilet manufacturers, because they want you to buy their toilet,

are honoring that. Now, sometimes it's a little less, sometimes it's a smidgey more, but believe me, toilet manufacturers want their toilet to fit on your existing setup and so buy and large the vast majority of them work with the twelve inch offset rule, So one foot off that back wall.

to go. So anytime you take the toilet off the floor and set it aside, replace the wax ring with a new one, and you should be good to go. My friend, Well that's what I'll do.

first floor. It doesn't matter. Coler has a city. I mean it is a it is a city.

terms of fixtures, plumbing fixtures is man. The technology has advanced so much. The sky truly is the limit. Every color imaginable, every shape, every functionality. And you know you've heard me talk now about the modern toilet, which Toto

designed and invented. Actually, you know, the self cleaning the day set up every luxury toilet, and you've probably experienced one, or at least walk by one or whatever in somebody's home or some business somewhere where you know, you just walk into the room, and the toilet lights up and it opens its lid, and you know, I'm shocked that most of them don't just talk to you like welcome,

have us seat, welcome home. But they are, they are pretty advanced, and yet all of that still obeying the old standard of twelve inch offset to the middle of the drain off the back of the wall because they want you to buy their toilet. Okay, I got more.

paying attention right now. Let's talk to Vicky. Hey, Vicky, welcome home.

on the premises and it's just a lovely house. But I don't know when I should be asking the roofers, and I don't want to be completely, you know, ignorant. So you have a couple of suggestions.

one kind of tile. There's a there's a row upside down, then there's a row right side up and upside down and right side up.

new tile roof on. The first strategy is where can we source tiles? Unfortunately, there are a lot of places, and so take the time, take the time to and a roofer is going to get this job, is going to take the time to source the right color, the right shade, the right shape of traditional Spanish tile, so that you've got a little pile of replacements on hand, because you know, you could expect up to ten percent breakage. Okay, ten percent is not an insigni It's not the whole roof,

but it's not an insignificant number. Okay, so not as not all of those tiles are going to go back on the house. But if you have a source of replacement tile, then you're way ahead of the game. At that point. This is a piece of cake because it's just the the conscientious removal of the tiles and then we're gonna strip back whatever is underneath it. If it's built in the fifties, there's going to be double sheets of fifteen pound or thirty pound roofing felt under there

that's cracked and old and aging. We're going to strip all of that off, and you want a roofer who's going to put down a new beautiful self ceiling membrane moisture barrier membrane on top of the roof, sheathing itself and then put the tiles back on, so the right roofing membran. So we're gonna put a twenty first century roofing membrane that's gonna last decades, I mean decades. It's gonna self seal around the nails, every nail penetration that

we put through it. We're gonna lay that under. I mean the day that they put the new membrane on without putting a single tile on the roof, that roof is watertight. You could go through them, onsoon with it and now have no more leaps.

don't want. I don't want you to to give in to a roofer who is like, yeah, you know, we don't do that, and nobody does that anymore, and that's just no, that's not true, or get you like well, you know, it'd be far less expensive to go with an S tile, which is a Spanish tile in which the the the mound of the tile is connected to the trough. That's what most quote unquote Spanish tile tracked homes these days are built with. But they are not authentic.

They are they are not the real deal. They are a simulation and I wouldn't want that to happen to your mom's beautiful Adobe house. So the point is source the right material ahead of time, before you even start the game, and then get the best membrane on there and a conscientious riffer who's going to take it all apart and put it all back together for you, and you are good to go.

of plastic up there. If it was cracked, then we could get up there with some silicone and kind of pump it along the crack and smear it over the top of the crack, just like you would do any kind of window celan kind of thing, and that would pretty much protect it from leaking and being a problem for you. It wouldn't necessarily stop that crack from spreading, but it would be a stop gap that you know, you could put up with for a long long time. However,

it wouldn't look attractive from down below. But there are ways of getting around that too. But you've got a chunk missing, something hit it and actually bust it out, a little piece something maybe flying through the air.

fix it. So the bad news is if there's a chunk missing, then it probably needs to be replaced. Now, the good news is those acrylic skylights, the bubble shaped acrylic skylights, they're not usually custom made, they're usually standard sizes, and they are the least expensive of all skylights. And so it really isn't a big deal to get up there. It's probably attached with a few nails through a curb that's standing up on the roof, or a couple of screws.

It's no big deal for a handy person or a contract or somebody to get up there on the roof and actually take that skylight off and replace it with a brand new one. And they're not that expensive. And so it's time to have somebody get up there and take a close look at it, Josie and just kind of see what it needs and if it needs to be replaced. You know, it's really not the end of the world because those are relatively inexpensive. You could replace it like for like for not a whole lot.

whenever I get the chance. Now, it's different if it's a vaulted ceiling and like a mid century house and we don't have any distance in between the skylight and the ceiling below. But most skylights are moving through an attic space of some sort. In other words, there's a

bit of a shaft there. What I love to do is come just a few inches below the skylight itself, and I love to put a rim of something a molding or a ledger, something just very low profile, blends in with the dry wall, and set on top of that ledger inside the house. Okay, a piece of diffused glass material like water glass or ripple glass or anything like that. Sometimes maybe frosted glass, so all the light comes through, but that we don't have a direct view

of the skylight itself. Why because they get dirty. The best, most expensive skylights in the world get dirty. And you look up and you're like, wow, it's like looking through the dirty windshield of a car that you can't easily get up and just you know, you can't turn the

wipers on. So a fool proof way of doing that is to come a few inches below and set your own panel in there to let the light through, but to fuse the view of the actual glass up above, so you never have to worry whether it's dirty or not. And if you really want to get fancy these days, right up above that little glass panel that you put in the shaft, you can run a little row of LED lights and have that skylight as a light source

at night. Amazing, All right, trying squeeze in one more call here, just one more, uh, Mary, welcome home.

concrete on there. Can I do that without demolishing the entire slabs of the stamp concrete?

this might make a slight difference to you. But just so you know, what I would do is I would get it all cleaned off, whether it's power washed, anything that we can do to rough up the surface again to neutralize it. And I would consider staining the concrete. Staining it okay, because the stain penetrates, it doesn't crack, it doesn't peel off. It'll be a modeled finish, which, you know, color wise, which is kind of in keeping with whatever this stamped you know, kind of stony look

is supposed to be. You can do it darker, it'll last long, longer. I'm not saying it's the solution, but I would never approach a stamped concrete job that has lost its luster with paint, and anybody who is is kind of leading you down the wrong path anyway. Think about stained concrete stains because they penetrate and they last longer and they look more natural anyway. Other than that, yeah, you're gonna have to pull it and replace it. Sorry,

it's just the way it goes. Yeah, stamp concrete. Shockingly, a lot of people found out last week my least favorite concrete finish of all and so and in the industry also pretty consistent.

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