where it starts to crack off -- vinyl where it starts to crack after 10 or 15 years. this window was built in the 1910 era and here's an old wood window. great. that is a great window. you just have to maintain it. you don't have to take it out and replace it. if you have -- if it leaks, what do you do? you get drafts, what do you to? -- do? you take the window out, you can reglaze, put new glass in it but you don't take the whole thick and throw it away. there's -- thing and throw it away. there's no need. take them out, take them to a reglazing shop, clean up the frame, tighten it up and put it back in. it's a green building practice, too, rather than requiring you to take this 100-year-old functioning thing and throw it away and put in some temporary vinyl clad thing that's going to last 10 or 20 years if you're lucky and have to throw that away again. now, it's possible by the way to take these windows and

increase the steps of the rabbit and put that thin double glaze in there. i've heard of people doing. that i've never actually seen it done but i hear it's possible. have you ever seen that done? where people put the dual glazing in existing -- >> we do it all the time. we try to -- the positive is that you cut down noise, but you can do the same thing with a lambnant window and you cut down energy loss. the problem is, like you said, unless it's a good window system, the seal will eventually fail and then you've got another problem on your handles. which is an unsuitly -- suit -- unsightly fagging of the window. >> so in many -- fog -- fogging of the window. >> so make sure the glazing is properly sealed and weather stripped and if you have noise or you're worried about temperature, put in some heavy curtains on the inside you can close. that's a wonderfully cheap,

easy, reasonable green solution. >> green. very green. >> very greefpblet exterior decks -- very greefpblet exterior decks require maintenance just like every other part. these desk and stairs need to be maintained and one of the things you have to do to maintain them is clean the space between the boards. and this should be done every once a year or every season. so if you fail to do that, water starts to get soaked up in all the debris that accumulates between the boards and then starts to rot in between there. so you have to keep that clean. once again that's a simple homeowner thing. you get a little saw blade or a pressure washer or just a saw blade is what i use. get down on your hands and knees and spend an hour and you get it all cleaned out. it's not a big deal. and if you fail to do that, you will be replacing your deck. >> one thing about stairs and really you have to -- if you're rebuilding a set of stairs, exterior stairs, what we try to do now is, if it doesn't have to be a usable space

underneath, in other words, if it could just be an exterior storage, you can build the stairs and shim them off a finish siding on the inside. so you're not like the situation that -- i don't know if you've shown them the stairs, but you can build exterior stairs so you allow water to pass through. you can have it drain out. obviously if you have stairs over a living space you have to water proof the stairs -- waterproof the stairs but a lot of energy is being spent trying to get exterior stairs waterproof when you could just let the water flow through. some of the stairs you're showing are good examples of those. >> we have another shot in a minute. here's somebody's exterior deck and stairs which they've been -- a couple of rails have been replaced. i want to point out, by the way, that the spacing between the guard rails on this deck or guards, as they're now called, are pretty wide and don't need the mod -- meet the modern

codes which they forum maximum space and it's easy to accomplish that before building a giant new stair and deck by using some kinds of fencing, whether it's metal fencing which you can buy at any hardware store or plastic fencing. just put it up and over the years renters and building owners have been held responsible to meet the standards of today's safety, especially for decks and stairs. so for those of you who have rental units, i encourage you to upgrade your stairs and your spacing so that you have good hand rails and spacing where people can't slip through because that's -- well, it's not in the code as a requirement. it comes up from the results of lawsuits and so on that that is really the expectation of a building owner. ok. here's one of those stairs we're talking about. talking about this meeting the wood frame building. will they -- well, they expand

and contract and settle and they always leak. you could build it so it couldn't leak with the right kind of flashing, it would be a real challenge. >> the way to do that is put the stairs and have things going around that cover that for the stucco so the stucco goes down on top. but basically the situations that we come across are ones where it's dying into the stucco and there's caulk eventually being used to keep it waterproof. >> just like this one. >> yeah. >> and what happens? the water gets in that, it's a wood frame wall. the water gets into the wood frame wall and run down and start to rot the material inside the wall. so that needs to be caulked clean -- cleaned very well and caulked every year until the owner gets it together to properly -- if ever, to knock out stucco and put proper flashing. that would be huge. so just maintenance by caulking is what you have to do. >> the other thing -- the other

situation we find with the stucco wall is if you go underhead and -- ahead underneath the wall, if you vent it and water gets in, the water will dry and it won't rot. venting is critical for that situation. exactly. >> so, here's one type of vent. we have a lot of vents. we're going to show some pictures. this is a little illume numb vent. there's benefits to using illume numb. it doesn't -- i lume numb. it doesn't runt and doesn't need any long-term maintenance. we're looking at long-term, 20, 30, 40 years when we're doing this sort of work. >> the advantage to vents is water can get in but it won't do the damage. if there's no ventilation, that's when dry rot starts and that's when that wall starts to fall apart. but if you have it vented and a little water gets in, it will be able to dry up and it won't -- dry rot won't grow. >> so, how far -- how hard is

it for you to insert these vents? you get a four-inch drill you can buy at any hardware store. it's not a big deal. you drill a hole, caulk it, stick it in and that's it. you're done. and you do this on the inside. if you can do it on the inside, you have caulking issues. this has a few other attributes i just want to point out. one is that it has very narrow spaces. so insects can't get in. and we're going to look in a second at holes in the building which is a serious problem where both water and insects get into buildings and the building code says maximum space something a quarter inch where you have meche covering a hole. -- meche covering a hole. this is -- meche covering a whole -- mesh covering a hole. that's good. the vinyl hides any damage to the wood which is a serious problem with vinyl siding by the way. you don't know what's underneath it. you can't see what's under it. it's all hidden. here's somebody's hand rail, a

pipe rail. some serious maintenance due on that. here's a brand new building, looking at the same problem. it does not flash. by the way, it doesn't have any hand rails yet. it's still under construction, i think. but, you know, people are building new problems in by not having the flashing done as we're talking about. let's talk just for a second about exterior mold and mildew. we talk about maintenance and preventing long-term problemsful. here's mold and maintenance issue. what do we do to take care of this? >> it's not an issue -- there's areas that you have to be careful about are on the -- tend to be on the north or northeast side of the houses where you're not getting any sunshine. if you're on the south or west side of the house and if it's a very well exposed east side, you're not going to have the problem either. but on the north side of the house you have to be careful

when mold starts creating and basically it's a maintenance problem. you have to scrub, it you have to power wash it off, scrub it, clean it. that's basically what you have to do. you have to maintain the north side of your house. >> so, what do you use to remove mold and mildew? people say bleach kills mildew. also, when you paint and when this gets repainted, there's a very simple additive you can get at the paint store, the mildew side that prevents the development of mildew and wherever you paint. do you use mildew sides in paints? >> we mix it in with primer. >> especially good for bathrooms? ok, good. we're going to look a little more at inside bathrooms. scrubbing it off, definitely. here's a hinge, an exterior hinge. it looks like it is rusting in certain areas of the hinge which are not designed for weather exposure.

exterior metal is a serious, serious problem. here's a hinge which is solid stainless steel. so stainless steel or brass or bronze or, you know, other similar materials which are designed to be exposed to weather are what you have to use for exterior. if you use anything that has galvanized or other it will -- unless -- thank you, unless it's hot dipped galvanize it will rust. people say it's galvanized but it's what they call electroplated galvanized. maybe it lasts for -- yeah. so, for exterior use, it's almost always wort the extra cost to use, you know, stainless steel bronze, brass or certainly hot tipped ga have a niesed at the lowest -- galvanized at the lowest cost and don't use an interior hardware on the outside of a building.

it won't last at all. you'll be back there. and the cost -- people say, i'm going to save some money by using cheap paint or cheap hardware or cheap something. the cost is not in the material. the cost is not in the paint. the cost is not in the hardware. the cost is in the time, the prep, the installation and all that work. so, i always say, buy the best equipment, buy the best paint can. the paint is cheap compared with the cost of the painting job. don't you think? >> don't buy the cheap caulking, bite expensive one. >> another common problem which homeowners can deal with, this is a little flour bed that goes right up to the -- flower bed that goes right up to the siding of the building. as they water it, unless there is a very clear water protective membrane between that little flower box and the siding, every time they watt tier they're going to water the inside of their wall.

the building code specifically requires that, to have a water protective membrane or be physically separated from the building. >> could you explain again how you would probably flash the -- [inaudible] with the stucco wall? >> if you're rebuilding the stair, if you're starting from scratch and going to put the stairs in, you want to put the stairs in first and you have two options. one is to put the stairs in first and run a regularlet around the stairs that the stucco comes down to. a reglet is an l-shaped piece of metal that you're waterproofing for the stucco that goes behind distribute stucco goes on top of. it's a piece of flashing and that follows -- they'll make it -- it follows the curves and the whole edge of the stairs. and so you can put that on there, the stucco paper comes down there and you would stucco on top that have after and then you have a little caulk joint

that is just something you have to maintain. it's not critical, that goes between the reglet and president stair. that will keep the stucco from cracking. >> here's an example of why we need to maintain a distance clearance between the dwround and the siding. you see this wood siding goes right down to the concrete sidewalk and it's rotting at the bottom. that rot is just going to run up through the wood and into the framing behind and once again -- now this is interesting. those are wood stairs in a wood structure. much better solution. they're also protected because they're inside. so they're not going to have as much of a problem. they still have a joint there which is a leak problem that has to be caulked. this is sort of an interesting exercise. as you walk down the street i want to you look at the buildings carefully and see if you can see the space between the buildings in san francisco. and here we have a space that's about 3 fourth of an inch or an inch or something like that --

3/4 of an -- 3 fourth of an inch or an -- 3/ of an inch or an inch, or something like that. you do a roof and your neighbor does a roof and you put a piece of flashing between the building and that keeps water out of that space between the buildings. water gets down there between the buildings and it's extremely difficult to repair dry rot inside that space. you have to take the inside wall out to get to it. we also see a couple of other things happening here. we see a down spout from a drain and those need to just be checked to make sure they're secure. they usually have lightweight connecters so you have to make sure they stay connected. here's a gutter at the top. people let their gutters fill up with debris. you need to clean a gutter out. how often? >> if you're near a pine tree, there's a lot of pines in san

francisco, the needles can fill up, you -- probably twice, at least twice a year. it depends on where -- how many trees are near your house and what kind of leaves they have. >> so if the gutter fills up or even just enough to block that little down spout there, that's enough to have the water overflow into some location where you don't want it to be. either underneath in the front or under in the back or something. and cause real serious problems. >> we just had a situation off of a street in the jordan park area of san francisco where the down spout was blocked up and it just went over the lip back under the siding and it rotted out the whole quarter -- corner of the house just because a lack of maintenance, a lack of failure to clean out the gutter. >> i put this in here because the stairs and various kinds of tile work can be so beautiful

and san francisco has so much lovely work. it's not impossible to maintain. all you have to do is scrub it and clean it and once every 40 years have someone come through and polish it and it's gorgeous. the lack of simple maintenance will cost serious problems. here's a metal grill, metal gate. i'm sorry to say we see these all over san francisco. i'm sorry to say we have to live in a place where people feel it necessary to lock themselves in and lock people out. this is rusting. it tells me a couple of things. it tells me it was not hot dipped when they made it. it was not hot dipped galvanized. somebody chose to paint it and the paint is not being maintained. it's hard to get in there with the wire brush and scrape the soul off but that's what you have to do. wire brush it. wire brush? >> just on the top.

[inaudible] >> it's really long-term problem. >> there's a house that we built, it's a great highway, and it's got a hot dipped galvanized gate. not similar but similar material and out there, out in the sunset, it's really -- even on hot tip galvanized, it's really rough. the salt air. wd-409 hinges, all the moving parts, the strike, everything you have to really maintain with oil, the wd-40 is a good example. and -- because they'll just lock up. freeze up. >> here's my favorite lubricant. i wish i had a bottle of it here. i go to the bicycle store and i buy lubricant for bicycle chains and bicycles. it has a much longer life than wd-40. wd-40 is thin. it's good for soaking into things. but the bicycle lock -- bicycle

lubricant you'll find has a very long life a6 c1 long life, and usually it has a little tiny toes on the end. this stuff is great. it is much longer life. it is good all over the house, and it does not smell. we can divide the world into people who like the smell and do not like it. here is another problem. we brought along -- this is not the same thing. this is a huge distribution register, but it looks similar. when you use something on the exterior of the building, it will rust. has to be maintained.

take robert brush, scrub it down, prime it tough. how much does it cost? >> $7. >> it is not very green, though. lawrence. >> here is somebody who saved $7 and put in an old or register for the heating system. jefit is beautiful, but the spas are too big, so insects can get in. but it's beautiful. >> that can be solved with a screen on the back. >> good idea. it's beautiful, good use of an old piece of equipment.

here at the bottom, brick veneer is falling off, water will run in the cracks. if it were my house, i would explore what was happening here. all these openings, they are to read meters and so on and are big enough for racoons to get in. these are big holes. water intrusion is a serious problem. everything about this building is well-maintained, lighting in the front, t.v. cameras. this kind of lighting is no longer allowed. the energy code says you have to have lighting that is high- efficacy, meaning lots of lumens

per watt. you can't just screw bulbs in any longer. it may not be done. i want to mention, it's not just the front of your building, it's your yard, too. the preventative maintainence would say, get some hot nails or screws or something designed for exterior use and screw them on. fix it before it breaks is the goal. everybody has a shed. the code says you can have a shed as long as it's not over 100 square feet of projected roof area. >> california code says 120

square feet. san francisco says 100. fire escapes need lots of maintainence. this requires a fire escape person or contractor to test it, lube it, maintain it. you have to keep it painted and scrubbed. wire brush. this is one of those folding ladders, which we used to approve. we still approve other folding ladders. what do you have to do? >> if any of you have a ladder you are depending on for eggress, you don't want to wait until there is a fire. there is a lever to pull, and

you should check it once a year to make sure it is still working, the bolts haven't rusted out, the mechanism still works. they're dangerous enough to use in a fire, but if they aren't working perfectly, there is more of a danger trying to use these ladders than there is running through fire. bucha>> you can climb down easi. my mother can. my wife can. >> if you are trying to get out with a toddler or a baby, forget it. >> for that reason, we no longer allow people to put those letters there and say it is

equivalent, because clearly it is not. >> it was the code for years. >> fire escapes are much better. they provide a spare and a handrail. and at that point, we expect the hard part will have a letter at the bottom. >> it is a bold. it could rust out. you have to make sure it is the cure. -- it's a bolt. it could rust out. you have to make sure it's secure. >> check it and fix it before it is a problem. and here is a wooden ladder. about six months ago, the board of supervisors passed a law that

said every wooden ladder must be removed. that follows the unfortunate death of somebody who fell backwards and died. you cannot use these, and i would never encourage somebody. i certainly could not climb one of these. who knows what is holding it on? rusty nails? let's talk about groups. we did not expect homeowners to get on the route to often, but sometimes you can get up on your flat roofs. what do you have to do for routine maintenance on those? >> you can always tell, if groups are starting to bubble, that is a sign, it protect the roofing membrane from the sun so

if there is none, ultraviolet light will be deteriorating, and it will start to bubble. all of the route jacks are the first signs of with a member in fails, so you want to check around those. all of those areas you have to check. anywhere there is penetration, those are the areas you really want to check. >> a flat roof like this with reflective coating needs to be recut it regularly. if you fail, the protection is gone and the roof deteriorate rapidly. it is not just silver paint, it is roof coating. so typically you need to hire the report to come back and apply a new coaching. you can say you want a uv- resistant coating, but it has to be compatible with what you have up there.

roofs need maintenance. call and ask. if you do not do that, the life is short and pepper sibley. go over it and fix it up, that is a good savings. >> if you go up there in your coaching is not peeling or bubbling, it is fine. the group is good for 30 years. it needs to repaint every 5. if it starts peeling, that means

it is time to do it. if it is solid, it is fine. >> you should climb into your well and clean that shock, those ducks. there is a drain out there. this is an endless source of leaks. there are all of these penetrations, so it must be kept immaculately clean. hardwood floors? here is what you do not do. you do not wash the floors with water. they get warped and water gets underneath the finnish and so on. there are special product. but the worst thing you can do is wash them with water. wipe them up. >> at most stores there is a

system called bona. it comes with a mop and a spray , and we recommend for all of the installation we do. >> good. we also talked about carpet cleaning, that is straightforward. but one thing wall-to-wall carpet can have done is have it restretched, and if it starts to fold and bubble and so on, you can't have people, and they can knock it back in and restart the carpet and get more time out of it. also, i have this done every few years, go round with blue tape, and every place you see a thing or death, you take this tape and say it needs a