Each year, thousands of Arizona residents email or call Rosie Romero’s radio show with questions about everything from preventing fires in their chimneys to getting rid of tree roots invading their sewer system. His goal is to provide answers that suit the specific lifestyle wherever someone lives in Arizona.
Q: Eleven years ago, I bought a plastic blister pack that contains three smoke alarms. I never opened it up to use the alarms. Can I use them now? Are they still good to install in my house?
A: You can’t install those alarms now, even if you’ve never opened the package. Ten years is the limit on the life of a smoke alarm. In that time period, the technology has improved significantly. So what you buy now will be a lot better than what is in your unused package. Always check the expiration date on the package label.
Q: I have an 18-year-old house that has been hard-wired with smoke alarms. There are about nine of them and many of them are about 15 to 16 feet up on the ceiling. I want to replace them now, but what do I do? If I change one, do I have to change them all? Do I have to hire someone to come in to work on the wiring for new alarms?
A: It’s probably time to replace all the alarms. Unless you feel confident about working on them while you’re up on a ladder, you probably should hire a contractor to do the job. Many security companies will do this kind of work. You might also call your local fire department to get some advice.
Q: I have about 200 square feet of ceramic tile flooring that I want to replace. Is there anything that I can lay on top of it without removing the old tile first?
A: If the old flooring is absolutely solid with no cracks on it, you may be able to put something very thin on top. However, it would be very difficult to put more tile or anything that’s very thick on top of the old flooring. The thresholds at doorways could end up about a half-inch taller than the flooring in adjoining rooms. You might have to trim all your doors to get them to open and close over the thicker flooring. You might even have trouble getting your current dishwasher out if you ever need to install a new one. It’s not impossible, of course, but sometimes it becomes harder to leave the tile where it is than it is to take it out.
Q: I have a 2,200-square-foot house that used to have a sunken living room, but we put a plywood structure down and then carpeted over it so that all the rooms would be at on the same level. Now we’d like to take all the old flooring out so that we can have a concrete subfloor throughout the house. How do we do that?
A: You’ll have to start by taking out the structure that you built in the living room first. After you empty the living room and any flooring on the slab, you have to ensure that you find no evidence of termite damage on the walls surrounding the slab. In fact, you might want to have a termite inspection and perhaps even treat the floor before filling in the living room just for safety’s sake. You may have to hire a contractor for this job because it’s possible you have to make some adjustments in the surrounding walls as well. Eventually, you’ll have to bring in an aggregate course of new concrete to fill in the hole you created.
