Florida Home Problems

Start with the hinges, because a sagging door looks exactly like a swollen one. Open the door, look at the top hinge, and try tightening the screws. If one spins without grabbing, replace that single screw with a 3-inch screw so it reaches past the door frame into the framing behind it. That one change fixes a lot of sticking doors in about five minutes.

If it still rubs, find out where. Rub the edge of the door with a pencil or a piece of chalk, close it, then open it and look for the smudge left on the frame. That is your contact point. Sand just that area with 80-grit paper on a sanding block, a little at a time, closing the door to test as you go. Take off as little as you can. Wood that swelled in August will shrink again in January, and a door you sanded too far will rattle and let air through all winter.

When you sand down to bare wood, prime and paint it. Bare wood soaks up moisture like a sponge, which is what swelled the door in the first place. The top and bottom edges of a door are the spots painters skip most often, and in Florida those are the edges that matter. A coat of primer and paint there is cheap insurance.

Also keep the air conditioning running, even when you are away. Indoor humidity is best kept somewhere around 30 to 50 percent. Above 60 percent, wood doors swell, and mildew starts to find places it likes.

One thing to watch for. If the gap along the top or the side is clearly wider at one end than the other, or if doors and windows all over the house suddenly bind at the same time, that is movement in the house itself, not humidity. Sanding will not fix that, and it will come back. Have a licensed engineer look at it instead.

Most Florida houses built from the 1950s on are concrete block, and most how-to videos online assume wood studs behind drywall. Follow that advice on a block wall and whatever you hung will come down.

The workhorse anchor is a masonry screw, often sold under the Tapcon name. For a standard blue 1/4-inch Tapcon you drill a 3/16-inch pilot hole. If you buy the stainless steel version, which is worth it near the water, check the box, because stainless Tapcons need a larger bit. Drill about a half inch deeper than the screw will go, so the drilling dust has somewhere to fall. Then blow or vacuum the dust out before driving the screw. Packed dust is the number one reason these screws bind, snap, or pull loose later.

A 1/4-inch by 2-1/4-inch Tapcon is a good all-purpose size for shelves, cabinets and mounts. What matters is that at least 1 inch of the screw ends up buried in the block itself, not in the drywall in front of it. For something heavy like a large TV mount, step up to 3/8-inch sleeve anchors. If the item came with its own hardware, use the masonry hardware the maker specifies and follow their weight limit rather than guessing.

Block is hollow in the middle, with solid webs roughly every 8 inches. Your screw wants to land in the face of the block or in one of those webs, not in a hollow space. Tap along the wall and listen, or just drill and feel it. If you do break into a hollow spot, a 1/4-inch toggle bolt will hold there instead.

Many block walls have thin wood furring strips with drywall over them, so your drill goes through about an inch of drywall and wood before it ever reaches block. Measure that depth and add it to your screw length. And never trust the mortar joint between blocks. It crumbles.

You need a hammer drill, not a regular drill. A regular drill will smoke and quit. You can rent one for roughly 30 to 50 dollars a day at Home Depot or Lowe's, or buy a basic corded one for around 70 to 100 dollars.

Last thing. Do not over-tighten a masonry screw. When it snugs up, stop. One extra turn strips the hole and you have to move over and start again.

Do this walk-around once a year, and do it a day or two after heavy rain, when problems show themselves. Take a small flathead screwdriver and probe the wood you can reach, every 6 inches or so. You are not trying to stab it. Firm thumb pressure is enough. Good wood stops the tip cold.

Look hardest at the low spots and the cut ends of boards. Water travels down and then sits, so rot almost always starts in the bottom 6 inches of door trim, the bottom of garage door frames where the mower and the sprinklers hit, window sills, and the spots where two boards meet end to end. Peeling or blistered paint, a dark gray or brown stain, a soft spongy feel, or caulk that has pulled open are all early signs.

If the bad area is smaller than a dollar bill and less than about a quarter inch deep, this is a reasonable homeowner job. Dig out the soft material with a putty knife until you hit solid wood. Let it dry for a couple of dry days, then fill it. A wood filler such as Bondo Wood Filler works for small patches. For a spot that needs real strength, a two-part epoxy system like Abatron LiquidWood and WoodEpox is better, though it costs more and takes longer. Sand it smooth, prime with an oil-based primer, and paint. Then caulk the joint above the repair, so water stops getting in.

Wear a dust mask when you sand or grind out old painted wood, and work outside. If your house was built before 1978, the old paint layers underneath may contain lead, and you do not want that dust.

Stop if the screwdriver sinks in a half inch or more, if the wood crumbles in your hand, or if you find soft wood up at the roof edge. Rot in the soffit, which is the panel under the roof overhang, or in the fascia board behind your gutters, or in the rafter tails that stick out under the eaves, means water is coming in from above. That is roof work. Call a licensed roofer and have the source fixed before anyone repairs the wood, or the new wood will rot too.

Caulk is the cheapest protection on your house. A tube costs a few dollars and keeps water out of a wall that costs thousands to repair. The test is simple. Press the bead with your fingernail. Good caulk is rubbery and springs back. Old caulk is hard, chalky, cracked, or has shrunk away and left a visible gap.

Do not squeeze new caulk over old. It will not stick, and it will pull away within a year. Cut the old bead out with a utility knife or an inexpensive caulk removal tool, scrape the surface clean, and wipe it with denatured alcohol so the new bead bonds. If the gap is wider than about a quarter inch, push foam backer rod into it first. Backer rod is a soft foam rope sold in the caulk aisle. Caulk alone in a wide gap will sag and split.

For outside work, use a flexible exterior sealant that can be painted, such as Sashco Big Stretch, OSI Quad Max, or a good polyurethane. Skip the cheapest acrylic tubes, because they fail here in a couple of summers. Do not use 100 percent silicone outdoors anywhere you plan to paint, because paint will not stick to silicone. Inside a tub or shower, 100 percent silicone with a mildew blocker is the right choice.

Run the bead, then smooth it with a wet fingertip so it actually seals the joint instead of sitting on top of it like a worm. Work in the shade, on a dry surface, and check that no rain is coming for a few hours. Most sealants need longer than that to fully cure, so read the tube.

One important warning. Do not seal everything. The small slots at the bottom of window frames, called weep holes, and the gaps along the bottom edge of siding are there on purpose, to let water drain out. Caulking those traps water inside the wall and causes the exact damage you were trying to prevent.

If you would rather not be up on a ladder for this, caulking and sealing is regular work for Dominic. Estimates are free. Call or text 727-421-2344.

Color choice matters more than most people expect. Deep reds, bright blues and dark grays fade fastest, because those pigments hold up worst in sunlight. Light neutrals, tans, off-whites and soft grays keep their color for years longer. If you love a dark color, ask the paint store for one mixed with their more fade-resistant pigments, and know you are signing up to repaint sooner.

The paint itself is the other half. Use a 100 percent acrylic exterior paint rather than a cheaper vinyl-acrylic blend. Sherwin-Williams Duration and Emerald, Behr Marquee, and Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior all hold up well in this climate. Good exterior paint generally runs somewhere from 60 to 110 dollars a gallon depending on the line and the sale, and it is one of the few cases where the cheap gallon really does cost more in the end.

Prep decides how long it lasts, more than the brand does. Wash the walls, let them dry a full day, scrape and sand anything loose, prime the bare spots, re-caulk open joints, then put on two full coats. One coat over chalky old paint will not last no matter what you spend.

Timing matters here too. Do not paint a west wall at two in the afternoon in July. The surface can be over 120 degrees, and the paint skins over before it can bond to the wall. Follow the shade around the house, start early, and stop by mid-afternoon so the new coat is not still wet when the daily thunderstorm arrives. Check the forecast for at least four dry hours, look up the recoat time on the can, and do not paint a surface that is still damp from dew or from washing.

Interior and exterior painting is the main thing Dominic does. Estimates are free. Call or text 727-421-2344.

Mix it in a garden pump sprayer. The dish soap is what makes the mix cling to the wall instead of running straight off. Use a plain dish soap and read the label to be sure it does not contain ammonia, because bleach and ammonia together give off a dangerous gas. Never mix bleach with any other cleaner.

The method: wet down the plants and shrubs below the wall first, spray the wall from the bottom up so you do not get clean streaks running down, wait about 10 minutes, scrub stubborn areas with a soft bristle brush on an extension pole, then rinse from the top down with a garden hose. Rinse the plants again when you finish. Wear eye protection and old clothes, and work on a cool, shaded wall so the mix does not dry before it does its job. Keep bleach off aluminum screen frames and off anything you care about the color of.

If you would rather be gentler on your landscaping and your paint, there are two other options. Oxygen bleach, sold as sodium percarbonate or in oxygen-based outdoor cleaners, is much kinder to plants and works slower. Or use a no-rinse outdoor cleaner such as Wet and Forget, which is not a bleach product at all. You spray it on and let the weather do the work over weeks. It is easier on painted surfaces, but follow its label, and never mix it with bleach.

Do not paint over mildew. Paint does not kill it, and it grows right back through a fresh coat, sometimes within months here. Clean it, rinse it, let the surface dry a solid day or two, then prime and paint with a product that has a mildew blocker in it.

To slow the regrowth, cut shrubs back so there is 18 to 24 inches of air space between the plants and the wall, aim sprinkler heads away from the house, and keep gutters draining. In deep shade, expect to wash again every year or two.

If the growth is inside the house and keeps coming back after you clean it, stop cleaning and find the water. Something is leaking or condensing behind that surface, and a company that tests indoor moisture and mold should look at it before you clean again.

Here is the honest breakdown of what is safe to do yourself.

Driveways, sidewalks and pool decks are fair game. Bare concrete handles high pressure fine, and a surface cleaner attachment, which is the round housing that rides flat on the concrete, gives you an even result instead of the zebra stripes you get from waving the wand around.

Painted walls, stucco and wood need restraint. Stay under about 1,500 PSI, use the wide white 40-degree tip or the green 25-degree tip, never the red one, keep the wand about 18 inches back, and never aim upward under siding, into vents under the roof edge, or at window frames. Water pushed up under a lap joint has nowhere to drain, so it sits inside the wall. On painted surfaces, a cleaning solution and a garden hose usually beat pressure outright.

Never pressure wash your roof or your screen enclosure. High pressure strips the granules off shingles, and it breaks and shifts tile. Walking a Florida tile roof cracks tiles under your own feet, and it can void a roof warranty. If the roof has black streaks, hire a company that does low-pressure roof cleaning from a ladder or a lift. Screen panels will stretch and tear.

The real reason to hire this out is the ladder. A pressure washer wand kicks back hard when you pull the trigger, and running one one-handed from a ladder is how people end up in the emergency room. If your house is two stories, pay someone who has the right extension equipment and stays on the ground.

Whatever you clean, pick a cool part of the day, work in the shade, wear closed shoes and eye protection, and rinse your plants before and after.

Buy the right spline first, because that is the part people get wrong. Spline is the flexible rubber cord that pinches the screen into the groove in the frame. Pull a short piece of your old spline out and take it to the store to match the thickness. Most patio and pool cages use .140 or .160 inch. Too small and the screen pops loose the first windy week. Too large and you will not get it into the groove at all.

Then pick your screen. Standard fiberglass mesh, marked 18 by 14, is the usual choice and one roll does several panels. If you are near the beach and getting eaten alive by no-see-ums, step up to the finer 20 by 20 mesh, but know the tradeoff. It cuts your breeze noticeably and it clogs with salt and dust faster. If a dog leans on that panel, use pet-resistant screen there instead.

The method. Pry the old spline out with a flathead screwdriver and save it as a length reference. Lay the new screen over the opening with about 2 inches of overhang all the way around. Start at one corner and roll the spline into the groove using the concave wheel of the roller, working from the middle of each side outward and keeping light, even tension. Do not stretch it drum tight, or you will bow the aluminum frame. When all four sides are in, trim the excess with a fresh utility blade, cutting along the outside edge of the groove. Cut away from yourself.

One Florida note. Screen is meant to let wind pass through, and that is part of what keeps a pool cage standing in a storm. Before a major hurricane, some owners remove screen panels to cut down the sail effect on the frame. Replacing screen is far cheaper than replacing an aluminum cage. Check your insurance policy and your HOA rules before you do it, and never do that work once the wind has already picked up.

Salt settles on surfaces as a fine film, pulls moisture out of the air, and keeps metal damp around the clock. So the cheapest maintenance in a beach neighborhood is a garden hose. Once a month, rinse door hardware, hinges, railings, window and slider tracks, and the outside of your screen cage. Wash the painted walls of the house twice a year for the same reason, because salt film on paint holds moisture against the surface.

When you replace fasteners, upgrade the metal. Use stainless steel, and where you can find it, 316 stainless rather than the more common 304. The 316 is what marine hardware uses and it holds up much better near salt water. Hot-dipped galvanized is acceptable for heavier framing fasteners but will eventually rust this close to the Gulf. Plain zinc-plated screws from the bargain bin will be orange within a year or two.

Twice a year, wipe hinges, lock bolts, gate latches and garage door tracks with a corrosion inhibitor such as Boeshield T-9, or use a dry silicone spray. Dry silicone is the better choice on sliding tracks, because greases hold sand. Skip WD-40 as a long-term protectant, since it dries out and collects grit. A stiff, rusty-looking deadbolt usually just needs cleaning and lubricating, not replacing.

For your air conditioner, gently rinse the outdoor coil with a garden hose a few times a year. Turn the unit off at the thermostat first, spray from the inside out if you can reach it, and never use a pressure washer, which bends the thin fins flat. Coil cleaner from a hardware store is fine for heavier buildup. Leave anything beyond a rinse to the company that services the unit.

One thing to leave alone completely. Corroded outdoor light fixtures, outlets and boxes. Anything wired is licensed electrical work in Florida, and salt-corroded connections can be live and unpredictable even when they look dead. Call a licensed electrician and have them install fixtures rated for wet, coastal locations.

The reason to deal with it early is cost, not looks. Digging out a small soft spot and filling it with two-part epoxy is a modest amount of money in materials and an afternoon of your time, including drying. Waiting until the sill or the door frame has to come out means new trim, paint, and sometimes drywall and flooring repair inside the house as well. That is the difference between a few hundred dollars and a few thousand, from the same small leak.

While the wood is still solid enough to save, you also get to fix the cause cheaply. Water usually reaches trim through an open caulk joint above it, a sprinkler hitting the wall, a gutter that overflows, or mulch and soil piled up against the wood. Correcting those is usually free or close to it, and if you skip that step, the repair will rot too.

Check inside the house at the same spot. Look under the window for a stain on the drywall, paint that is bubbled, baseboard that is swollen, or flooring that feels spongy underfoot. Pull back a corner of the blinds and look at the bottom of the window frame during a hard, wind-driven rain. Any of those inside signs means water is already getting past the trim.

There is also a termite angle here. Termites in Pinellas County are drawn to damp wood, and a chronically wet sill is an invitation. If you find mud tubes on the wall, or wood that is hollow with soil packed inside it, stop and call a pest control company before anyone repairs the wood.

Stop and get help if the rot reaches the framing inside the wall, if the window leaks every time it rains, or if the soft wood is up under the roof overhang. At that point you need a licensed professional who does framing and window replacement, and if the water is coming from the roof or the flashing around it, that source has to be fixed first.

Hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, so do this work in May, when the stores are stocked and you are not standing in a line.

Water first. Clear the leaves out of your gutters, flush the downspouts, and add extensions so the water discharges 4 to 6 feet away from the house. A great deal of the storm damage in Pinellas County is water finding a way in, not wind tearing things off.

Yard next. Trim branches so nothing overhangs the roof or sits within about 6 feet of a window. Anything loose becomes a missile in high wind, so decide now where the patio furniture, planters, grill and trash cans will go, and make sure that place actually holds them. Check that fence posts are firm and gate latches catch, because a gate swinging in a storm takes out screens and cars.

Shutters and panels. Put them up once now, while the weather is calm and you have time. Label each panel with the window it fits, using a paint pen, and count your bolts and wing nuts while the hardware store still has more. A panel that does not fit is useless the day before landfall.

Know your shutoffs. Find the main water valve, the electrical panel, and the gas valve if you have gas. Show everyone in the house where they are, and keep any tool you need next to them.

Document everything. Walk through with your phone and photograph or video every room, including inside closets and cabinets, plus the outside of the house and the roofline from the ground. Keep your policy numbers with those photos, in a waterproof bag or a cloud folder or both. Insurance claims go far better when you have before pictures.

Supplies. One gallon of water per person per day for seven days, a week of any medications, batteries, a hand-crank or battery radio, cash in small bills, and a full tank of gas. If anyone in the house depends on powered medical equipment, register with Pinellas County's special needs program early, not when a storm is named.

Garage doors are the weak point on most Florida homes. If yours is older and not rated for wind, a garage door company can quote a braced replacement. That is worth pricing out in the off season.

Know the difference before you patch anything. The harmless cracks are thin, they wander, they often follow the lines of the block behind the stucco, and they do not change over time. The ones worth investigating run diagonally up from the corners of windows and doors, step like a staircase along the block joints, are wide enough to slip a nickel into, leak water inside the house, or have a rust-colored stain bleeding out of them. Rust means steel inside the wall, usually the beam above a window, is corroding and swelling. That one only gets worse, and patching over it hides the problem instead of fixing it.

For the ordinary hairline kind, here is the fix. Run a wire brush or the corner of a putty knife along the crack to knock off loose material, and blow the dust out. Widen a very tight crack slightly so the filler has somewhere to go. Fill it with a flexible patching compound made for concrete or stucco and tool it flush with a damp finger or a small trowel. A rigid cement patch tends to crack again right beside your repair, so flexible is the better choice here.

Matching the texture is the part people skip, and it is why patches show. Most Florida stucco has a knockdown or a sand finish. A spray texture can from the hardware store, held back about 18 inches and then flattened lightly with a damp trowel after a minute, gets close. Practice on a scrap of cardboard first. Then prime the patch and paint. On a wall covered in fine cracks all over, an elastomeric wall coating rolled over the whole surface bridges hundreds of hairlines at once, and that is what many painters here use.

When you are not sure, take a photo with a coin held next to the crack, note the date, and take the same photo in six months. Growth is the signal. If it is widening, leaking, or rust stained, have a licensed engineer or a block wall repair company evaluate it before you spend money on the surface.

Filling cosmetic hairline cracks and repainting is ordinary paint prep, and it is normal work for Dominic. Estimates are free. Call or text 727-421-2344.

Florida sliders live a hard life. Beach sand, lawn clippings and salt air all collect in that bottom track. So clean it properly first, and do not skip ahead.

Vacuum the track with a crevice tool, then scrub it with a stiff toothbrush and soapy water, rinse, and dry it completely. Wipe out the black paste you will find in there. That is old lubricant mixed with grit, and it works like sandpaper on your rollers. Then lubricate with a dry silicone spray, such as DuPont Silicone Lubricant or a dry-lube product. Wet oils turn into grinding paste within weeks.

If cleaning did not do it, adjust the rollers. At the bottom edge of the moving panel, near each end, there is a small hole or a plastic plug hiding an adjustment screw. Turn each one a quarter turn at a time with a Phillips screwdriver, alternating sides so the panel stays level, and slide the door to test after each turn. On most doors, clockwise raises the panel. If it gets worse, go the other way. What you want is the panel riding on its rollers instead of dragging on the track, sitting level, and meeting the latch evenly.

Worn rollers are the next step up, and this is where I would be honest with you about whether to keep going. Roller kits are not expensive, but the job requires lifting the glass panel up and out of the frame. A sliding glass panel can weigh well over 100 pounds, the glass is awkward to hold, and a drop is both expensive and dangerous. Have a second person, wear gloves and closed shoes, and do not attempt it alone.

If the aluminum track itself is bent or worn through, a stainless steel track cap kit screws and glues over the damaged track. It is a solid repair and far cheaper than a new door.

One habit worth keeping. Rinse the track with fresh water every month or two if you live close to the water. Corroded rollers fail years earlier near the beach.

Give yourself an hour, a notepad and your phone. Start at one corner and walk the whole way around the house, looking high and low. The point is not to fix anything today. It is to build a list and catch small problems while they are still small.

Caulk and seal lines. Press the caulk around windows, doors, hose faucets, and anywhere a pipe or wire enters a wall. Anything hard, cracked or pulled away goes on the list.

Wood. Probe the bottom of door trim, garage door frames, window sills and the cut ends of any outside boards with a screwdriver. Soft means rot, and small rot is cheap rot.

Walls. Note any new crack, chalky faded paint, and black or gray mildew film. Photograph anything you are unsure about, so you have something to compare against next year.

Where the water goes. Clear the gutters, flush the downspouts, and make sure they dump 4 to 6 feet away from the house. Check that soil and mulch are not piled against wood trim or siding. Aim sprinkler heads away from the walls. Trim shrubs back to leave 18 to 24 inches of air space.

Metal. Rinse and lubricate hinges, locks, gate latches, and the slider and window tracks. Gently rinse the outdoor air conditioner coil with a hose, with the unit switched off at the thermostat.

Lanai and screens. Look for torn panels, loose spline, and rust at the screws holding the cage together. Check that the screen door closes and latches on its own.

Inside. Test the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms and change the batteries. Run the bathroom exhaust fans and confirm they actually pull air. Look under every sink and around the water heater for stains or drips. Note any door that has started to stick, and any new crack at a wall corner.

Things to have a licensed professional handle rather than inspect yourself: the roof surface, any plumbing leak you find, anything electrical, and the annual service on your air conditioner. Do not get on your own roof to look. Use binoculars from the ground, or ask a roofer. A fall from a roof is the single most likely way this list hurts you.