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All Forum Posts by: Jeff Workman

Jeff Workman has started 4 posts and replied 11 times.

Post: Tree, shrub, drip system maintenance

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1

Hello, 

I moved to Arizona, and was looking to see if anyone has a recommendation of a person or company to do some basic, fairly small scale yard maintenance. Just drove by my rental in Las Vegas, and it looks like I'll need to replace a small (very small) tree and a couple other small plants and clean some drip lines no longer needed, and then ongoing periodoc maintenance thereafter.

Anyway, if anyone knows of a service provider they like for this kind of service, I'd appreciate it. Of any other kind of maintenance and repair providers, I'll make a note of it. 

Thank you!

Post: Metal railing without a cap

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1

The underside of it is attached to the balcony floor, so can't exactly get there. I could put it in the side, is about it. The new opening might just make it worse though in the long run, so donno lol. We'll see

Post: Metal railing without a cap

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1

Hello. Looking for some advice on the railing on my balcony. I don't see a lot of damage, but there was a missing cap on one of the posts, 1.25 inch diameter.  I also don't see that there is a drainage point, not until it gets to a crossbar several inches up. In other words, there may be some water trapped inside. I'm wondering if I shouldn't drill a small hole into the bottom of it to allow drainage, or not worry about it. 

I bought a new cap. But I could also leave it open for now until about 3 months of hot desert weather has passed, at which point at which point I expect the hot desert sun and metal rods to have dissipated all the water, then put the cap on.

Post: Grout cracks, fix, fill, or re-grout?

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1
Originally posted by @Jim Adrian:
Originally posted by @Jeff Workman:

@jim adrian

alright I'll take a look at the quarter round. the dude the just helped me install the sheet laminate in the bathroom recommended plastic quarter round against the bathtub to prevent the floor from lifting, so guess that stuff is useful for all sorts of things.  It seemed questionable to me though, like you're covering up an edge that water could be getting through, so you can't see what's going on behind/under it, unless you can be sure it's completely sealed behind it. (I have a tenancy to overthink things)

At the tub you want a sealant joint.  If you want a clean joint, put painters tape down on the floor and the tub about 1/4" (or more) from the corner each direction.  Apply sealant,  use finger or tool to smooth out sealant for uniform fill and look.  The remove tape. I would probably pass on putting the plastic quarter round here. I want to see the condition (shrinkage cracks) of my joints at the tub so I can fix them as needed.  You can use acrylic, polyurethane, silicone sealants or hybirds.  A 100% silicone is not paintable and no other sealant will stick to it other than silicone.  

 Hmm, well I guess this gets us to a new problem. I removed the old silicone from where the tub meets the sheet vinyl, and there is a very slight amount of peeling starting got happen  in one corner of the vinyl  there is also a gap, maybe a few millimeters between the vinyl and the tub. A decent, slightly oversized bead of silicone caulk barely covers the gap, and I could see that the new caulk was already being pulled apart from the vinyl a bit as the vinyl below it curled a little. 

Might need to consider some other options in other words. Maybe some floor adhesive will hold it down enough so it won't pull on the caulking (for a while anyway). Or I need something bigger or heavier than a line of caulking (like the quarter round). Or new flooring again. 

Post: Grout cracks, fix, fill, or re-grout?

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1

@jim adrian

alright I'll take a look at the quarter round. the dude the just helped me install the sheet laminate in the bathroom recommended plastic quarter round against the bathtub to prevent the floor from lifting, so guess that stuff is useful for all sorts of things.  It seemed questionable to me though, like you're covering up an edge that water could be getting through, so you can't see what's going on behind/under it, unless you can be sure it's completely sealed behind it. (I have a tenancy to overthink things)

Post: Grout cracks, fix, fill, or re-grout?

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1
Originally posted by @Marian Smith:

I have been pleased with Aquamix grout colorant sealant at home depot. It may be thick enough to bridge hairline cracks for aesthetic purposes. It looks good, not like paint. Grout should not have been used at change of planes but it can be used to fill the gap at baseboards...but it sometimes cracks if not on a slab. Do you have tile baseboards? Never ever use silicone caulk. Only use caulks that are paintable because nothing sticks to silicone and it is forever. And a pita. I don’t understand what you are caulking anyway on a floor unless your tile installer used the grout matching caulk under wood baseboards or you have tile “baseboards.”

Thanks, I'll take a look at the product. Where the old grout met the baseboards is where the vast majority of small cracks/gaps formed. it doesn't seem to like to stick to the wood (or the wood changed shape, one of the two). That's where I thought the silicone grout would come in handy. And no, the baseboards are a painted wood.  I've never tried "painting" grout before, so that might be an issue if I want to do that. The grout I have is 10 years old, so really I just figured I'd get a few more years out of this before I replaced it entirely. And yes, I'm pretty sure the original installer used a mixture of matching silicone grout and regular grout where the tile meets the baseboard... not UNDER the baseboards... rather where the tile meets the baseboard. The baseboards themselves go all the way to the base of the floor, so nothing goes under them. 

Post: Grout cracks, fix, fill, or re-grout?

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1

Ok, I tried scraping out the bad grout round the edges of the room, even places where it was just a small crack and filled in with a sanded silicone caulking (easy enough match, I still have the bag of original grout installed 10 years ago). Honestly the grout in the middle of the floor looks pretty good.... the cracks really are minuscule, I'm just being nit-picky. In terms of stains, it looks better now that it dried. (I was cleaning the tile when I started to look closer at the grout for all these other issues). I think I'm good for at least another few years before I need to worry about regrouting  :-). Depending on how awful the tenants are. 

@Jim Adrian, this might be unusual (had someone help me install some new laminate flooring the other day that mentioned it), but there is already a baseboard trim installed (baseboard and trim are synonymous in this case, correct?).  However, the baseboards are installed all the way to the base of the flooring, they're not installed on top of the tile. As it is, they just left small gaps,  1/8 inch or so, between the tile and the baseboard which were filled with grout (a mixture of regular grout and sanded silicone caulking I found). As mentioned, I scrapped much of this out and filled it with new sanded silicone caulking, and am currently crossing my fingers.

Post: Grout cracks, fix, fill, or re-grout?

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1

It's a sanded grout. So major chemicals it is. 

Alan, I actually tried applying some new grout on top, that's how I figured out there was silicone. Didn't know silicone caulking existed for this purpose, good to know. 

Is a silicone caulking usable for mid floor areas, or only recommended for caulking against the walls?

Thank you both!  

Post: Grout cracks, fix, fill, or re-grout?

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1

Hello all, I'm in the process of trying to fix up my house to get it ready to rent. I'm looking at my kitchen/entryway flooring and and would appreciate some opinions/suggestions on how to approach fixing up my grout in the kitchen/entryway. Google's a fantastic resource, but (in my experience) grout is a major pain and I'd appreciate any guidance before I go down a bad path.

 Anyway, I'd say there are 4 different types of problems I'm looking at:

1. general discoloration. It's not bad, I'd even just leave it like it is, but if there's a suggested product I'd give it a try. 

2. Cracks in "hard grout" where the wall meets the grout. It might not be appropriate to describe it as a crack, more like just a separation of the wall from the group. The separation is not large, maybe just a millimeter in width, but can be several inches to even a foot or longer in length. Can I use a painters caulking or some other type of caulking to fill these edges? Or try to fill it with some actual grout? Or scrape these sections out and re-grout entirely?

3. Deteriorating "soft grout" where the wall meets the grout. Most of the grout against the wall appears to be "hard grout", but there's some areas where I assume some sort of caulking is used instead, where I can feel the texture of it is softer. These areas have generally deteriorated faster. I assume I can just scrape out the caulking and apply a new caulking of similar tone. 

4. Cracks in the "hard grout" in the middle of the flooring (not against the wall). Not many of them, and they don't look deep, very hairline. I only saw a couple, generally where the grout meets the tile. 

Thanks again for any suggestions. Doesn't need to look perfect, just presentable, and hopefully not with a "fix" that will fall apart in 2 months :-)

Post: Las Vegas, NV

Jeff WorkmanPosted
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • Posts 11
  • Votes 1

Thank you everyone for the kind welcome!

Eric, to be more specific on the accountant/attorney question, I was more interested in it as a consequence of potentially structuring deals an partnerships. I don't imagine needing a frequent reference for legal questions, but on occasion when special questions arise.