Recipe for cleaning moldy walls

I got this recipe for a solution to cleaning moldy walls, like my concrete block garage walls currently are.

• 1 5 gallon bucket
• 4 gallons hot water
• 1 cup TSP
• 1 cup bleach
• 1 cup pinesol

Mix and then scrub the walls. Then they'll be ready for paint.

Great Granite Countertop Source

If you are shopping for granite countertops in the Seattle area, Import Stone has a great selection. While Pental probably has the best selection, they are too big and pricey. Import Stone is just the right size to not be overwhelming, but is big enough for you to find that unique special piece.

The folks there were very friendly and helpful, and we got an amazing and very unique slab from them.

Great Granite Countertop Installer

When we had our granite countertops installed, we used a great installer, Western Tile and Marble. They were very professional, and did a flawless job. They didn't make a fuss when we requested keeping the leftover bits (they had to make a second trip out to deliver the scrap pieces).

Additionally, we had ordered a marble-topped vanity from overstock.com that came with a chip in the corner. We asked for a price to have them take the square edge of the marble top (with the chip in it) and router the edge to make it rounded to get rid of the chip. They just decided to throw that in for free for us, and made a separate trip out to fix that edge. They routered the three sides of the marble top flawlessly right at our house.

I'd recommend them if you have any granite fabrication to do in the Seattle area.

Insulating Radiant Heat Tubing in a Crawl Space

I haven't been happy with the performance of my radiant heat system over my crawl space, so I've been spending some time re-doing the insulation job underneath.

The company I bought the radiant tubing system from recommended that I would only need to insulate my crawl space joists by simply stapling up sheets of thin reflective foil-bubble-foil insulation to the bottom of the joists, and then tape the seams between each sheet with some foil seam tape.

I did just that, but after a cold winter this year, I was not satisfied. My joists are 2x12s, and that left a lot of airspace between the tubing stapled to the subfloor, and the foil insulation stapled along the bottom of the joists. When I would go check the crawl space, the foil felt warm to the touch, but the crawl space was frigid, and it just seemed to me that a lot of heat was lost trying to warm up that airspace and the foil.

So now I'm going back and redoing each joist bay, and individually insulating it with both the foil insulation, and then regular fiberglass underneath.

My first task was to go back and re-do some of the stapling. My first time through I left the staples a little too far apart, and the tubing was starting to sag in between, so I went back and moved them closer (about 12 inches instead of 18). That made the tubing flush with the subfloor everywhere.

After that, I cut several 20"x48" strips of the foil (the roll comes in a 48" width), and began stapling it up about 1.5-2 inches below the tubing, in an upside down "U" shape. I got the 20" measurement by using the tape measure to figure the approximate amount I needed for the U shape between the joists. I could have cut a couple of really long strips that spanned the entire length of the joist bay, but at 20" I could have only gotten two strips, and would have had a wasted 8" strip leftover.

I stapled one side first, and then pulled the other side taut to keep it flatter, with a lower arc, and away from directly touching the tubing.

I used an electric stapler to make things go quickly. Of course, the chincy PowerShot stapler I used had to get a jammed staple, which cracked the plastic track on the bottom, ruining the unit. After a trip to Lowes, 45 minutes later I was back in business with a really good stapler made by Arrow. I bought the Arrow model because the whole chamber and track where the staples go is all metal, and not subject to cracking.

After finishing the first piece, I started stapling up the next piece, slightly overlapping the original piece by 1/2-3/4 inches. I continued down the joist bay like this - it took about five sheets per bay.

When I was done with the foil, I went back and used a foil tape (like the type used on ductwork) to tape the seams.

Finally, I used rolls of R25 insulation (not batts) underneath, and hung it up with insulation hanger wires (much easier than stapling everything).

NOTE: If you are using Kraft (paper) faced rolls of insulation, make sure the paper side is facing up. In a crawl space, it would be a fire hazard to have the paper side exposed. I prefer the ComfortTherm rolls, because they are wrapped in plastic and less messy to work with.

Fun times. Right :)

Shopping for a TempurPedic Bed

Shanna and I spent all day Sunday shopping for a new TempurPedic mattress. I wasn't looking forward to it at all - shopping for a mattress is like shopping for a used car, dealing with sales people, warranties, upsells, competition between businesses, etc.

Sure enough, I was right. Man, what an experience, 6 hours long.

First off, if you are looking for a TempurPedic bed, you should know that TempurPedic has very rigid policies regarding the pricing of their beds. There is a fixed minimum price for each bed that no merchant is allowed to go under, and there are also policies prohibiting any discounts, promotional deals (like free pillows or mattress covers), tax adjustments, or any other competitive practices. Failure to follow these policies is grounds for termination of the merchant's service agreement with TempurPedic.

That said, people are still trying to make a buck, and be competitive to get your business. I'll tell the story, but I won't mention the store names so as not to get them in trouble with TempurPedic (you could easily figure it out).

We started off at a major mattress store (I'll simply abbreviate it as SC), and got the typical mattress salesperson, asking us a lot of questions, demonstrating all the different features and mattress options, and generally trying to sell us on his establishment. He was a really nice guy, but I always get suspicious of sales people, because I know they read books on techniques for effective selling, and I always feel like they are stretching things for you.

For example, he mentioned that they had a 45 day return policy, but that he could "push that to 90 days for us". When I hear that kind of thing, I immediately think that the policy is probably 90 days to begin with, and he's just wording it to make it seem like he's doing us a favor and "extending it".

At one point, the sales person asked what our son's name was, and when we told him, he said "No kidding, that's my son's name too." I thought to myself, "yeah right, another sales trick".

He priced everything out for us, threw in two TempurPedic pillows, free delivery, told us it would be delivered in a couple days, and asked "So, how would you like to pay for this?". Of course we told him we just started looking, and wanted to try out a few other models at other stores in the area. He seemed upset, asked if there were questions we had that he didn't answer, or something we didn't like. We told him no. He then told us that they would beat anyone else's price by 5%.

So we then went to a modern furniture store that also sells TempurPedic (I'll abbreviate this one SK). We got a no-nonsense, no-pressure sales rep who basically just handed us a price sheet. They also threw in two pillows as well, free delivery, and were about two hundred dollars cheaper. The only downside was that delivery was about two weeks out.

After that, we had one other store to go to, (I'll abbreviate this one RTB), so we drove there and started talking with the rep. It complicated things a bit because they didn't have the model we were looking for, the "Deluxe", instead they had the "Solution Bed", which was closest to the Deluxe bed but with some tweaks, and was made specially for RTB. It was kind of like shopping around for home appliances, where you can't really compare apples to apples because Maytag makes a model for Sears, and a different model for Home Depot, and another one for Lowes, each with slightly different features and prices.

His quote was a couple hundred dollars more than SC, and when we showed him our other quotes, he got real defensive and pointed us to a printout of a memo sent by TempurPedic, outlining their firm pricing policies and guidelines. You could tell he was trying to abide by the agreement, but he still wanted our business, so he was going to throw in one free pillow and get rid of the delivery charge.

Of course that didn't compare, so we ended up back at SC, and they honored their agreement. We got the two free pillows, the 5% price beat, and scheduled free delivery. As we were paying for the mattress, the salesperson pulled out his cell phone, and showed us a picture of his son with the same name as ours, so I felt pretty bad for thinking he wasn't being straight with us.

So, I guess I got two things out of the weekend, 1) shopping around saved us some money, and 2) sometimes a nice sales person is just that, a nice sales person.