Home Improvement

Inquirer real estate writer Alan J. Heavens' home improvement column appears Fridays in Home & Design. See instructional videos at Al's Place. Go to philly.com/yourplace

I'm asked more home-improvement questions than questions about real estate, by a ratio of 4-1. When, in a "Your Place" column in a recent Friday Home & Design section, I requested help for a reader needing to replace a rusted dishwasher rack for less than the manufacturer's $200, I got 25 e-mails within two hours of the newspaper's hitting the front steps, and more are coming even as I write this. My every-other-Monday webchat on Philly.com welcomes all questions from noon to 1 p.m., but the 99 percent in this realm have to do with renovating, not selling or buying.

Two magazines sit side-by-side in the supermarket rack. On the cover of one is the smiling face of America's best-known home-improvement guru. Behind him is a lovely Victorian cottage with an attractive woman tending a beautiful garden filled with petunias and impatiens. On the cover of the other are two similarly familiar faces, armed with fishing gear and standing in water in poses reminiscent of Neptune. Which would you choose? Some folks would take the plunge with fishermen Steve Thomas and Norm Abram, cohosts of This Old House, the venerable PBS show watched by more than 10 million Americans each week.

When Tocana Development Inc. talks about a home-improvement center, it doesn't have your typical dusty hardware store in mind. The Toronto company plans a $20 million home and design center on the grounds of the former Liberty Bell Race Track. The center will house 35 stores in a complex rivaling the combined size of the two largest stores at some shopping malls. Tocana - short for "Toronto, Canada" - and its home-center project helped boost the amount of Philadelphia regional nonresidential building contracts in January nearly 14 percent over January 1987, according to statistics from the F.W. Dodge Division of McGraw-Hill Information Systems Co. Residential- construction contracts, however, were down nearly 50 percent from January 1987.

Depending on who you talk to, FHA's 203(k) program is either the answer to a fixer-upper's prayers or a curse. Hope Glover is withholding judgment. It's been nearly 1 1/2 years since the Philadelphia school teacher first saw the ad offering a HUD repossessed home for sale in East Mount Airy. According to the ad, the house was eligible for 203(k) financing. Glover knew just enough about the program to know that a 203(k) mortgage would provide purchase money as well as funds to fix up the house.

A Superior Court judge Tuesday ordered a Burlington County home improvement company and six defendants to pay more than $285,000 in restitution to defrauded customers and nearly $17 million in civil penalties, the Division of Consumer Affairs said. Authorities said the defendants sold consumers contracts with Williams Asphalt Materials L.L.C., a paving company that also operated under similar names, performed shoddy work, and failed to honor warranties to repair cracked and crumbling driveways.

Imagine for a moment that you have hired a home-repair contractor to put an addition on your home. You made a down payment of $10,000, and signed a contract that spells out the work to be done, when it will be completed and what it will cost. Then, on the contractor's first day, he removes a wall and the cabinetry in your kitchen and vanishes. You don't know what recourse you have. However, you do know where your money is - in his pocket. Unfortunately, incidents like this are all too common in Pennsylvania.

Imagine for a moment that you have hired a home-repair contractor to put an addition on your home. You made a down payment of $10,000, and signed a contract that spells out the work to be done, when it will be completed and what it will cost. Then, on the contractor's first day, he removes a wall and the cabinetry in your kitchen and vanishes. You don't know what recourse you have. However, you do know where your money is - in his pocket. Unfortunately, incidents like this are all too common in Pennsylvania.

I'm asked more home-improvement questions than questions about real estate, by a ratio of 4-1. When, in a "Your Place" column in a recent Friday Home & Design section, I requested help for a reader needing to replace a rusted dishwasher rack for less than the manufacturer's $200, I got 25 e-mails within two hours of the newspaper's hitting the front steps, and more are coming even as I write this. My every-other-Monday webchat on Philly.com welcomes all questions from noon to 1 p.m., but the 99 percent in this realm have to do with renovating, not selling or buying.

Home remodeling activity is expected to pick up later this year, the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University reported Thursday. Stronger pending home sales and continuing low interest rates are contributing to the rise, the center reported, with annual spending on remodeling expected to end 2012 up 5.9 percent from 2011. "Hopefully, we're finally moving beyond simple volatility in the home improvement spending numbers to a period of sustained growth," said Eric S. Belsky, the center managing director, said.

Inquirer real estate writer Alan J. Heavens' home improvement column appears Fridays in Home & Design. See instructional videos at Al's Place. Go to philly.com/yourplace

Antiques/Art/Crafts Annual Quilt Competition Diverse designs & intricate detail are featured in this show of competition quilts, on display in the Gazebo. Peddler's Village, Rtes. 202 & 263, Lahaska; 215-794-4000. 1/20. Miniature Charm Quilts "Charm quilts" are made up of different pieces of fabric cut in the same shape. Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center, 105 Seminary St., Pennsburg; 215-679-3103. Donations accepted. 1/20. Spring Garden Indoor Antique & Flea Market More than vendors offer vintage clothes & furniture, collectibles, antiques, glassware.

A Superior Court judge Tuesday ordered a Burlington County home improvement company and six defendants to pay more than $285,000 in restitution to defrauded customers and nearly $17 million in civil penalties, the Division of Consumer Affairs said. Authorities said the defendants sold consumers contracts with Williams Asphalt Materials L.L.C., a paving company that also operated under similar names, performed shoddy work, and failed to honor warranties to repair cracked and crumbling driveways.

I hadn't done much work on our house recently - at least not anything that would take me regularly to the home centers. This real estate market doesn't inspire major home-improvement projects. Most questions I receive from readers these days focus on how to extend the life of whatever - toilets, sinks, countertops, cabinets, furnaces - so they can defer buying expensive replacements. In my Nov. 14 "Ask Al" online chat, one reader inquired whether it would be wiser to buy a bigger house nearby than to add on to his current house.

May is typically designated Home Improvement Month, though houses require improving - maintenance and repairs and upgrades - the 11 other months, as well. Spending on home remodeling peaked nationally at $362 billion in 2007 and has declined since then in the face of high unemployment, tighter credit, and record foreclosures. Yet homeowners are still spending big bucks: Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies has projected the figure for 2011's second quarter alone at $130 billion.

Question: I would like to repaint my kitchen, but have a question. The walls have some mold on them despite the use of a dehumidifier in the basement. Is there an additive or special paint I can use to prevent mold and fungus buildup with the new paint? Answer: From what the experts - residential painters and remodeling contractors - say, you'll have to first determine the cause of the moisture that provides the medium for mold to grow. Although most paint manufacturers are producing products with mold-growth inhibitors - Zinsser, Sherwin-Williams, and Benjamin Moore, to name three - and designed for high-moisture areas such as kitchens and bathrooms, just covering over the problem isn't enough.