All Forum Posts by: Bob H.

@Daniel Suarez, as others have said, this a flashing problem, and @Jon H. is right that caulk alone is a Band-Aid. The pictures don't show this, but I think your house is like the one I bought 20+ years ago in California. It had extensive rot to all the trim in the back of the house. My guess is that you have horizontal lap siding, and that there is a trim board -- maybe a 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 -- above that door. Also, there is no flashing at the bottom of the last row of siding, adjacent to the trim board. So here's what happens: Water that hits the siding drains OK (with the possible exception of poorly sealed ends). The bottom of each siding plank overlaps the top of the one below. When the water reaches the bottom row of siding, however, it spreads out in the crack between that siding board and the trim board. Without flashing or adequate caulk, some water leaks behind the trim board, causing it to stay wet and rot, and some of the water leaks down onto the door frame.

The fix is this, if my guess is right about the construction of your house: First, remove the trim board above the door. You'll probably have to dig around in the caulk over some nail or screw heads to find the fasteners. If the trim board is rotten, cut a new piece. Then get a piece of Z-bar flashing, which vaguely resembles a Z when viewed from the end. One side of this Z flashing slips up underneath that bottom siding board. The main part covers the top of the trim board, and the other side of the Z extends down slightly in the front of the trim board. Now the water that flows down from the bottom siding board can't get behind the trim; it has to run out to the front of the siding. Don't caulk the top of the flashing to the siding; you want to allow drainage there. Also, if there is a chance of water draining from the bottom of the trim into the window frame, you need to caulk for that.

I have bought Roper and Amana and in recent years with no problems. 

Get the neutral ones, and tell us what you use. My wife has been lobbying for that at our house for years.

@Steven Epps, the kitchen tile doesn't have cracks. It's sound, but dark and ugly. It has a pitted surface by design and dark grout about 1/4" wide.

@John Teachout, last summer a neighbor and I, remodeling separate bathrooms, successfully stacked two wax rings -- one with the plastic insert and another without -- when reinstalling toilets that had been on sheet vinyl and are now on tile. 

@Bob Veitch and others, thanks for the great advice.

@Bob Veitch, I'm not familiar with utility board. Is that the stuff that I'd call Masonite or Home Depot would call "hardboard tempered panel"? Also, the grout joints are pretty wide. By "transposing," do you mean "telegraphing" -- allowing lines from the edges of the tile to show through the surface of the new vinyl plank?

In a two-story house I'm planning to sell, there is a variety of flooring on the first floor, installed over a concrete slab. The living room has laminate with some raised edges from water penetration. The master bedroom has different laminate with some edges that didn't lock together properly. The kitchen, master bath and laundry room have dark ceramic tile with built-in pits and fairly wide, dark grout. Finally, the half bath has sheet vinyl.

I'm considering having luxury vinyl plank installed throughout the first floor, and I think it would be a huge benefit to avoid removing all the existing flooring -- especially the tile. I would like to hear of your experience installing LVP over other flooring. I could see installing a leveling compound to fill in the grout lines in the tile if necessary. The tile and laminate seem to be very close to the same height. The sheet vinyl is thinner, of course, so I'm wondering what might be used to bring that floor up to the level of the adjacent laminate. Maybe a transition strip would make the leveling unnecessary.

Are there any important disadvantages of going over the existing flooring with a floating floor? I suppose glue-down vinyl plank would not be an option, but I'm not sold on the glue-down products anyway.

Craigslist is OK, but you'll get more response from Zillow.

@Sai T., other advice here is good, but to answer your question, I'm not familiar with 1/3 inch Hardibacker or other cement board. I've always seen 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch, so the latter would be right for your case. I suppose you could get by with something thinner, but it would be extra trouble.

Ideally, you would cut out the damaged drywall to a height of about a half-inch below the top of the new backsplash, replace the drywall with cement board and set your new tile on the cement board, using board tape on the seams between cement board and the drywall above it.

The coupling looks OK, assuming that it's designed for the outside diameters of the pipes, but the notch in the joist is bad. It weakens the joist significantly. I don't know the best procedure to compensate for the notch, but you need something.