April 6, 2010 AsktheBuilder Newsletter And Tips

What’s in This Issue?

Latest News
Chinese Drywall
Plastic Shims
Annual Spring Stain Solver Sale
Faux Painting Kitchen Cabinets
Gutter Guards
Latest Columns

I do product reviews frequently. Please read my Disclosure Policy to understand the relationship between me and the companies that make the products or offer the services I review.

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Latest News

I'll be on a plane headed West in a few hours for two weeks of R&R mixed with some high-powered business. A week from today, I'll be attending the spring conference with many of my close Internet entrepreneur friends. This next week will be spent visiting some National Parks and other scenic spots in the Southwest that I've not been to in over 40 years.

At the end of the trip, I'll be visiting one of my original subscribers. I've communicated on the phone and via email with Patricia for over 13 years, but never seen her. For years, I've promised to stop and see her. She's given me permission to do a video together, so I can't wait for that. I'll upload that video and share it once I'm back.

If you're a new subscriber, I try to always carve out time when I travel to meet you. I'm doing it again in Albuquerque, NM next week. I had planned for next Monday at a Starbucks, but that was before I looked at my itinerary.

It's impossible for me to be at that location that early in the day. I'll not yet have arrived in town. Sorry for the oversight! If you do want to get together next week in ABQ, email me and we'll figure out a time and place.

Chinese Drywall

This past week, Dave, a subscriber who lives in Florida, gave me a second heads up about the severe issue with Chinese drywall. Dave first brought this to my attention many months ago, and I broke that story here in the newsletter.

The latest news  is that houses with this material need to be gutted according to the most recent directive from the Consumer Products Safety Commission.

This drywall contains fly ash from Chinese power plants. The trouble is some of these plants burn high-sulfur coal and the ash has way too much sulfur in it. It then off-gases hydrogen sulfide which corrodes copper wiring, and just about any other metal found in homes like air-conditioning coils, gas piping, etc.

This drywall streamed into the USA a few years back when there was a huge demand to rebuild from back-to-back natural disasters. The Southeast part of the USA seems to be the hardest hit.

What a mess. I sincerely hope you don't have this product in your home.

Plastic Shims

Last month I was in Cincinnati, OH, getting my house ready to sell. While I was gone, a manufacturer sent me a sample packet of plastic shims to my office in New Hampshire. They're called Handi-Shim.

While pretty pricey compared to a bundle of traditional cedar shims you'd pick up a lumber yard, these can come in handy if you need to space things evenly. A traditional shim is a long wedge that gives you infinite adjusting capability. These plastic shims don't have that. They are flat and come in different thicknesses. You can make adjustments to the 1/32nd of an inch.

They're great in places where you can't afford a shim to compress or rot over time. I'm sure I'll use them in any number of places.

Annual Spring Stain Solver Sale

I've talked about this for weeks, and it's now time! Each spring, I have the biggest sale of the year on my Stain Solver. Last year you nearly crushed us with orders. Every person who was associated with AsktheBuilder and could fog a mirror was in the warehouse mixing, pouring and packing. You and us together made a sizeable contribution to the UPS Pension Fund!

If you're about to clean a wood deck, a composite-wood deck, a dock, etc., this is the product you need. Maybe you're hosting a graduation party or a wedding event at your home and need to make that grout in your tile floors look like new. Stain Solver is the magic product to do that. In fact, a close friend of mine calls the product Uncle Tim's Magic Crystals. It cleans anything water washable.

Carpet stains, red-wine stains, chocolate stains, etc. are easily removed. A woman two weeks ago told me it saved a special embroidered shirt. Her husband had tried every other stain remover with no luck. My Stain Solver made it look like new in a few minutes. I have thousands of success stories, many are at the Stain Solver website.

This sale only lasts a week, and it only happens once a year. If you're a seasoned subscriber, you know I'm not yanking your chain. You'll regret not buying it now.

This sale is a little different than last year's. This time you get rewarded the more you buy. Here's the details:

• You get 15 percent off the four-pound size
• You get 20 percent off the eight and sixteen-pound sizes
• You get 25 percent off the monster fifty-pound size

The sale ends Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 8 a.m. Eastern Time. I'll be sending reminders in case you don't open this email.

Faux Painting Kitchen Cabinets

Dixie Glover from Cowarts, AL emailed me a day ago. She asked:

I have some light-colored cabinets that are not real wood. I want to paint them to look like they are cherry wood. Someone has told me to use a rose/mauve/pink paint with a dark plum glaze over it. Do you think this will work or do you have any suggestions?

Dixie, faux painting like this can be done. I was lucky enough a few years ago to watch a master do this. His name is Gary Lord. There are many artists and master painters that can do what Gary does. Gary has several books you may want to read to help you.

The bottom line is you absolutely can produce this effect. How hard will it be? Well, it's absolutely going to take some practice. But that's the neat thing. You can practice on a cabinet door until you get the technique down, or choose to practice on a smooth piece of plywood. Once you get the colors and graining you want, then do all the cabinets. Take before and after photos so we can all see how it comes out. Good luck!

Gutter Guards

Several weeks ago, I mentioned that I'd be talking about spring tasks. You may think cleaning gutters is something for the Fall. In my experience of testing gutter guard products over the past 12 years or so, Spring is when most of them fail.

You see, deciduous trees produce flowers each spring that in turn, create the seeds. These flower blossoms rain down on roofs and end up in gutters. It created a huge issue at my Cincinnati house, and I was not alone. Over the years, I've tested MANY gutter guards, and I've never been paid to do a test. You can read all the columns about this at my website if you just type:

gutter guard

into my search engine.

For years, I tried to discover the gutter guard that wouldn't fail in this situation. I found it about three years ago. You can watch two videos that document this test. I apologize in advance about the tie-dye shirt in the one video. I happen to like bright colors and tie-dye.

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