Tag: home improvement

January 20, 2026 – There Outta Be a Better Way

January 20, 2026 /

I admit it, I am frugal. That is one way of saying that I really despise waste. A standard construction tube of caulking often contains way more material then a typical home owner project will use at one time. So the remainder of the tube becomes waste if it sits around too long.

I have tried every trick in the book to preserve the life of caulk tube remnants. I have put electrical tape over the nozzle. I have tried to embed nails and screws so that there is a channel when I come back to it. I have cut the nozzle shorter to pull the plug of dried caulk out. I have used large, screw on electrical connectors to act as a cap. They all suck.

Caulking is a love hate relationship. You want to believe that it is an ideal solution to a less than ideal situation. That being said, I find about a five year or less life with it in an outdoor application. My personal preference is to use as little as possible because if you are at the point where your hopes are on caulk, you are waiting to fail.

Certain projects typically can use quite a bit of caulk. I am thinking back to siding replacement I did a couple of years ago. In those cases, it seemed like I was going through it as fast as I could blink. But, because I despise waste, I want to make sure that I am purchasing the exact amount I need. Caulk will even dry up in an unopened tube and when you only use a squirt at a time, it doesn’t pay to keep it around.

Recently, I was doing a quick cleaning to get ready for a house showing. I hadn’t really spent any time in the apartment since the tenant moved out. It looked like it was in the need of TLC and when I looked at the vanity, I could see a gap between the top and the tile backsplash. I can’t remember if I ever mentioned this but we had to replace the entire floor a couple of years ago. The shower had leaked and it had rotted the structure. So, the vanity had to be removed and I suspect it shrank.

I thought that I would just quickly put a bead down. The more I can spruce up, the better the chances the buyer will be wowed, or at least not turned off. I had an open tube of kitchen/bath caulk. The best application for this is 100% silicone, that is not wholly important other than to say it is not water based. It requires mineral spirits to clean up.

In fact, I had two tubes. One was clear and the other is white, see picture above. The clear one had clearly given up the ghost. I determine that by forcing a nail into the small opening at the nozzle. If and when I pull the nail out and I get some still wet material, then I consider the tube viable. I would then set about trying to get at the good material.

The clear was clearly dried out, but the white was not. So, I set about poking and squeezing until it was flowing. If I can get away with it, I will cut half the nozzle off but that amount of opening causes a very wide bead. That tactic is not really suitable for a for a bath job unless you are OK with it all over the place. I was not.

Twenty minutes of poking and cleaning my hands and tools off with mineral spirits, I finally got it to flow at an adequate rate. Believe me, more than once I had this thought that I am spending way more money in time than just going to purchase a replacement tube. The nagging problem in my head is that this perpetuates the cycle all over again. I had to get it done quickly because I had 30 minutes before the showing so I persisted. Fortunately, I felt like the smell of bleach that I poured around the shower to try and subdue the mildew significantly overwhelmed the pungent, vinegary smell of silicone caulk or the petroleum smell of ‘Odorless’ Mineral Spirits.

The job got done and I screwed the electrical wire nut back on the nozzle. I know full well that the next time I want to do something like this again that this tube is likely shot at 3/4 full. I was lucky to get a second project out of this one as it is.

End Your Programming Routine: I used to keep a small tube of hand squeezable caulk. However, it also dried up. Just like we are buying half gallons of milk now, these things can almost cost as much as a standard tube. But, at least there is not so much waste. Now that we are moving to a newer house, I am expecting less home improvement projects. Maybe it is time to go back to the smaller tube?

June 10, 2025 – When It Is Too Good to Be True, It Is

June 10, 2025 /

Sometimes, people that pride themselves into not getting duped, do. That’s me. And, hindsight being 20/20, I should have known better. I am a little angry and I second guess the whole process even if it might be the overall right decision. Let’s get into it.

In 2015, we were going to paint the house. It was at this point that some rot was discovered and ultimately led to us putting Hardie-plank over the existing T-111. It was also at that time that the front window started leaking. It is hard for me to believe but it is true that adding something on the outside caused leaking on the inside.

Over the years I have tried various things. I caulked around the upper window once and that seemed to work for a year. We hired somebody that didn’t know what they were doing and caulked on the inside (that was never going to work and it wasn’t worth pursuing given they clearly didn’t know what they were doing). In 2023, I paid a contractor to completely tear off and re-flash the window. It still leaked.

We batted around the idea of changing that window into a bay window in 2018. It was something I thought about doing during my break from work in 2019-2020 but I ended up getting involved in completely remodeling the apartment instead. Finally, my wife decided that she wanted to replace the front windows.

Have you seen the TV commercials where you buy one and get the second one free? My wife called them. These are triple glazed, argon filled, UV coated and lifetime guaranteed. I knew that it was going to be expensive and any business that advertises on TV was going to be suspect. I knew there was a leak and so I gave an extensive line of questioning. The final answer I got was that they were going to own the leak. I am sold.

Most people, myself included would say that two windows for $10,000 was over priced. I wasn’t just getting new windows, I was solving a problem that I had already spent $7500 on. I was told that any rot repair would be done outside of the window contract but that there would be a per linear foot cost and would be performed as part of the installation process.

I should have known that this was too good to be true. As the installers were tearing out the window, they said that structural damage was beyond the scope of the contract. Any additional rot repair would have to be performed first. They could do the work but were not authorized to start at the point that the window is out of the house and it would be two weeks out.

The installer advised me to get some additional estimates, his was going to be Time and Materials one to three days. Do you have any idea what it would be like to get someone within two weeks time to do the work? The longer this process takes, the longer there will be a hole covered with OSB in my front room. I am not a fool, I knew that there was a risk to more damage, I was already planning on redoing the sheetrock on the south side of the wall anyway due to water damage (after the new window). We could have solved this problem in the ten weeks we were waiting for the window.

I think that it is worth re-iterating, I am not looking for something for nothing. I knew that additional rot damage would be on our dime. I am also not surprised that there was more damage. I guess what is disappointing is that when he said they were going to own the leak, I believe what he really meant was that they were going to make sure that their windows were not the source and take as little responsibility as possible. I don’t honestly believe that they are vested in solving the problem.

All of that linear foot nonsense was about the wood casing itself. Really? In my experience rot is rarely limited to superficial trim. And so I am beat. I got suckered into buying windows that are five times more expensive than the average window all because I believed what I wanted to believe.

End Your Programming Routine: My gut feeling with these outfits is always no and from now on it will be. About two weeks later my wife called in a shower outfit and got a quote for a $20,000 shower. I was smart and said no to that one. The product brands are good and nice and all but they way overcharge and under deliver. I guess you are never too old to learn another lesson. One I should have known before the salesman walked in the door.

May 5, 2025 – Impromptu Staycation

May 5, 2025 /

Today, I will talk about what I did last week. It was not really scheduled but I got a lot done by making the most of time. There were some honey-dos as well as some purely self-indulgent things that I chose to do. As a result, I feel good and I do feel rested unlike some of the amazing trips I have taken as vacation over the years.