Home Improvement Show 04-18-26

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Good morning. Hey, we're back at it again, the Home
Improvement Show of the Midlands on one of three point
five FM and five sixty AMWVOC and around the planet
on the free iHeart Radio app. Good morning to you.
It's good to have you with us this morning on
this eighteenth day of the month of April. I hope
you're well. My name is Gary David. We haven't met.
Nice to meet you, and you're going to meet some

(00:33):
really fine folks in this hour that can help you
out when it comes to improving your home. James Carwell,
the owner of Freedom Plumbing, will be by to join us.
We're talking to Gene Harvey from Drip Ninja's and Summer
from Beaver Ruffigan Gettters. First up though, a guy that
can help you with those upgrades, Marcus Greenwell, the owner
of Lifetime Cabinets and Catatops.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
And we can bring it to your home.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yes, sir, you can do the catratops.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Start to finish. Granted Corts Cortz marble marble, yeah, Onyx Italian.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Oh yeah, you've been here recently.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, Italian marble. I just did a big Italian marble job.
Uh and and can you believe this the lady has
three small children and do an Italian marble. And you know,
I don't want to mention what restaurant, but there's a
restaurant over there in Harveston that's got some Italian marble
on their pass through where their food is and they're

(01:27):
an Italian restaurant.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
And made sauce stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, yeah, and they And that was the first time
I noticed that it was not a bad service to
use in a in a high volume area.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
You know, because you've been with us for years on
the program here and years ago it almost seemed like
we wanted to kind of shy away from marble. And
then suddenly, well wait, wait a minute, you know, and
we put marble in the last home Wen they'll put
marble countertops in there.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
And y'all didn't have any issues that, none at all.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, now we're we're we don't, you know, just slap
stuff all over the place and let it sit there.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
On the no, we had no issues at all with it.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
So, you know, it's becoming more and more popular. People
like the way it looks. I think that's one of
the reasons why the courts and the court sites are
so popular. Because they look like marble. So the courts
being the man made stuff. I know it sounds opposite.
Courtzite always has tout court Site sounds like it's the
man made stuff, but it's natural stone. Matter of fact,

(02:32):
it's a little bit harder than granted on the Yeah,
myam test or whatever they call it hard to scale. So, uh, anyway,
marbles becoming more and more popular.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Wow, they like to look funny. How that that did?
The trends changed. I mean a year or two back,
it was all about uh courtz Yeah, it really is.
I mean what do you what do you attribute that to?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Just because it looks like marble and it's non porous,
so you don't have the issues. Are the worry too,
you know, to spilling something and staining it because it
is a man made product, so it's non porous, so
it's it's hyper legitic. I don't know whatever that's I'm
making up worse now.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
But the right one.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
But I got lucky. You know, it is Saturday morning,
you know. Yeah, okay, so you know I'm I'm saying
stuff like, you know, it's not your mama's marble, you know,
like my mom's marble. The white tables beside the beside
the couch had that white marble on it, and it

(03:41):
was the finished The finishing processes were a lot less steps,
a lot less high powered equipment than they have now.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Okay, so that's that's the difference. I mean, marble is
still marble. Yes, that hasn't changed. Other nature makes marble
the way mother nature makes marble.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
But it's what you do after you extract it and
start to process it and turn into that finished product
is what's changing.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah. Yeah, high high speed diamond tip not not dimond tip,
but diamond pads and all that stuff. Lots of water.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
When it comes to fabricating. Is one more difficult than
the other when it comes to like cutting and such.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean the court site's the hardest, so
it's harder to cut. It takes a little longer to go.
But you know, as far as the you know, grantites,
they're pretty hard to so that would be equal to marble.
Marble's is probably the softest, not probably, it is the
softest side of all the the stones that we carry.

(04:40):
The courtz is on the hardest level of the granite,
and then quartzite.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Is the hardest period.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Okay, yeah, it's in between. Granted is like eight. I
think that's in the nine range compared to a diamond
ben ten.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
So it may take you, guys Enrique and the folks
and the fabrication shop a longer to cut through the
heart or stones. But the real secret is, of course
the very busy stones. I mean, when you've got a
lot of a lot of movement, a lot of action,
a lot of things going on, because then you got

(05:15):
to have a scene somewhere, you got to line up
with the line up with the backsplash. Yeah, and then
it gets really tricky. Yeah, And that's that's where you
separate the men from the boys.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
That's right. That's right, that's where that's where we sit
there and go over it, and then go over it
and go over it with people, and you know, and different.
A lot of decorators will come in there and say, oh,
I want to try to get this area on the slab,
on the on the backsplash, or on this main island,

(05:43):
and we try to accommodate that and make it flow
together at the same time.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
I don't know how you do that. I've seen some
some of the stuff that you've done for us and
for the other folks we know, yeah, and it's like, wow,
how did you pull that one off?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Takes a lot of head scratching.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
There's a lot of cipher goaling buena, no bueno, no boyna.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
No good, no good. But no, seriously, it really, it
really does take a lot of extra time and care
to do stuff like that, you know, and we do that.
I was looking at Atlanta Homes Magazine the other day
and I was looking at how they lined up their backsplash,
and I was slapping my head, you know, like that emoji,
like really, you know, you got this on Atlanta Homes

(06:27):
Magazine and you can't even line the veins up a
little bit, just a little bit. I mean, they didn't
even try. It looked like at of companies will do that.
They don't have time to just sit there and try
to worry about stuff like that. But that's how we
get to.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Awards seven times in a row still and save papers.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Bawl.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
This This makes me question though, because you know, when
when you shop with these guys at lifetime, because you
do everything in house, that's right in house, okay, nothing
is farmed out at all, you're able to very accurately
quote a price.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Does that price for a busier countertop with a lot
of movement? Does it does the because the fabrication is
going to take longer to figure that out. If I'm
just getting a you know, a plane basically, you know,
almost one color kind of thing, that's not a problem,
you know, chop it up, install it. But with some

(07:28):
of these, it's going to take a lot more. Even
before you start cutting, it's gonna take a lot of
figuring out how to do it to make it work.
So that would I'm guessing with that it's going to
increase the price.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
You would think so, but no, we do it. We
do the same H matrix on each really each job.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
So you can spend three or four times more between
the time you figured out and and you it's really
in the figuring it out that the time, right.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Once you figure out the layout, once you lay everything out,
that's that's the actual key. Now we just do it
same price. So if you were to get the level one,
it would basically, if you have a slab of stone
that you pick out, whatever that cost of that slab is,
I put the formula on it, and that's what it is.
That's why we know it's a fair price. You know,

(08:14):
we're not claiming to be the cheapest in town, but
you don't necessarily want to be the cheapest in town either, Yeah, exactly,
and uh so, and we take extra care, you know,
and like we'll go in there and remove people's countertops,
and you know, some companies won't even remove them. You've
got to remove them yourself. Really yeah, really yeah, yeah,

(08:36):
I'm not gonna name them, but there's some yeah whisper
we We had a listener I want to tell you
this story here came in last week and said they
were listening to us on the radio and that's the
reason why they came in.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
There they were just like I just love Gary and yeah,
thank you, yeah, and so thank you listeners for for
coming in and listening to the show. I talked to
Steve the Hot dog Man the other day too, and
he said that he's listening. He says that every other
week he hears us on the radio.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Hey Steve, I love you, hot dog bro.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
That's right right there by my chaping store too.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, I'm still trying to give to
the idea that you could spend three or four times
more on a particular layout than on another one. You
don't charge extra for it. Yeah right, wow, okay, yeah,
that's fantastic. I did not know that.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah. Good, And we're busy too, right now, so exact time. Yeah,
if y'all want something done, come on and get in line.
It's gonna take you six to eight weeks to get
something in so if you're in a hurry, just keep
that in mind. Go ahead. If you're in the plane
of stages of a cabinet remodel, right when you order
the cabinets, you need to order the stone. Okay. Now,

(09:54):
we don't do the cabinet part. We just do the
stone part.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
But and that may confuse people because it's in the name,
but that's how it goes back a long ways. When
you did do cabinet stone, you had done that a
long time.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
And we still we refer people out. So if you
call me up and say, hey, I need some cabinets,
and I can, I've got some guys on on call.
Sure they don't work for me, they have their own companies,
but you're preferred vendors. Preferred vendors.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, speaking of which preferred vendors, you guys work with
a lot of vendors around the area, you've got a
huge selection already. Yeah, on the on site. But when
we did our marble jobs several years ago, that particular
stone wasn't on the lot. But we didn't even have
This is how simple it is. Y'all were able to
send us pictures of and my wife picked, like, this

(10:40):
is the one I like, And I mean you had it.
It was. It was in the you head out and
shaping on the art in just a couple of days.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, that doesn't take long. It within a week easy.
I can have it there on the ground.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
At which time you go out and as the customer
and you look and make sure us exactly what you want.
So you're not committed until you actually see it and
approved it.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
That's right, That's right. We could have we could have
resold that to somebody else or sent it back, you know, so,
I mean, we don't like to send them back, so
we'll probably if it's you know, if it's pretty, we'll
keep it. It'll sell pretty quick, So I like hotcakes,
and I.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Suspect it goes with the volume that you guys do
that you're going to never run out of the remnants.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
No, I don't think so. I'm trying to sell them.
Y'all come get something. If you see me up there
on Monday or or Wednesday, come up there and see
if I've seen my brother today. This is a chapin noway, Yeah, ok,
haping one fifty three chapin road. Yeah, I go see him.
He'll he'll he's got approval to do what I do.
But uh, you will see me. I'll be there Monday

(11:41):
or Wednesday. Come home and see me. I'll see you
a remnant. I need to get rid of them. I
got thousands still do to cost. I could put it.
I got enough that I can put one on your
tree stump outside.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
You have.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Actually we just ground up our tree stumps.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, made a table out of it.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
That was when I our our youngest son of getting
ready to upgrade his his condo. And so you know
we're gonna be seeing you here soon. About remnants for
the kitchen, because that's a small kitchen, that's a condo kitchen.
There was great, that's great for that application. Or vanities
bathroom vanities.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, sir, and a dealer cost, yes, sir.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
And I thought I was just getting a good deal
last time.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Everybody gets this deal.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Okay, all right, so six eight weeks what you're looking
at this is that time of year.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So get come on in and get
get get signed up. Bring your measurements, just to sketch
out a little some rectangles on the paper, your kitchen measurements,
that's right, bring uh, bring some or bathroom our bathroom, yeah,
our table, yeah, the tables too. So we love our

(12:50):
job and we're having fun and we we just are
just very thankful for for everybody you know, coming in
and supporting us and telling us about this, you know
here and us on the show. So yeah, wagon has
been a huge hit. I had mentioned her interior design
She is interior designer and she is working today Piney

(13:12):
Grove today, Piney Grove for Fortyiina Road. If you go
see her, she'll take care of you. She can. You know,
she's got her color wheel, a paint wheel. If you
can tell him what color you got. We pick out
some stone pretty easy, right, He makes it easy.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
And your brother be out at the shaping.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Chapin Road out there over there by Steve.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Steve, I love some my dogs.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
Bro.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
It's just a reminder, all right. Mark's always good to
see him.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
See you.

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(14:02):
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Speaker 7 (14:10):
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Speaker 1 (14:49):
Welcome back to the Home Improvement Show of the Midlands
on one oh three point five FM and five sixty
AMWVOC and welcome in our buddy James Carwell. He owns
Freedom Plumbing. You know, these are the folks drive around
town to the big, red, white, and blue patriotic trucks.
Cambiss James, Good morning.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
My friend, Good morning Gary.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
I'm good, other than the fact that I'm thinking I've
got to turn my irrigation system on a few more times.
I mean, we ain't get no rain, and it's it's
been brutally hot at least uh and it will be
today but cooling down by tomorrow and the first part
of the week. But still it's a little crunchy out
there right now.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
Man, it's definitely a little crunchy. I think it was
almost I think my truck at one point is over
one hundred. It might not have been that outside, but
it was at least in the nineties. I know that.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Well, it's either way. I mean, it's that time of
year again. I know, we turn our irrigation system back on,
I don't know, maybe about a month ago, give or take.
So so you know, people are you know, you're having
to get out there and water that grass again. And
if you're you know, if you're fortunate to have an
irrigation system, great, but there can be issues things that
pop up. We want to talk about some of that today,

(16:01):
and specifically a way to separate your irrigation system from
your house water so you might not pay as much
to your local municipality. Is there a way to do that?

Speaker 4 (16:15):
There is a way to do that. Now, what I
would do beforehand is check to see what the fee
is for adding a new meter, and then check to
see what the rates are on that charge. So they're
going to charge it typically a different way than they
charge you for your homewater. So just look into the rates,
make sure it's going to make sense to do it

(16:36):
and actually save you money. Every municipality is different, so
just to ask some questions, get some numbers, make sure
it's the right decision for you.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
So we're actually, let's back up a manute. We're talking
about adding another meter on your home. It's just for
the irrigation.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
System, correct, And the reason to do that would be
typically if your municipality provides you water and also take
handle your sewer. What they do is they charge your
sewer based on your water usage. So if you have
one one meter and you irrigate your lawn, you're getting

(17:14):
charged on the sewer side, even though the water isn't
going down the drain.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
I could I could run my irrigation system every day.
I could run the water in my house every day,
but never flush a toilet, and I'm still getting charged
a sewer fee.

Speaker 4 (17:31):
Correct, and you're going to get probably a base feed regardless. Again,
all municipalities are different, but once you exceed a certain amount,
typically they're going to charge you more on the sewer
side than just the base rate. If there is a
base rate, then again they're all different. But yeah, if
you're running your irrigation, they're going to charge you for

(17:56):
you know, maintaining your sewer and treatment of the er
water even though it's not going down your drain. So
you run that thing like like it's been dry. You
run it sometimes twice a day just to keep keep
your line up. So all that water they assume is
going down the drain, but it's not as going in

(18:17):
your yard.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
So we're not talking about actually having to come in
and install different lines and this and that and breaking
things off this way. That was just just another meter,
is that right?

Speaker 4 (18:26):
Well, another meter. You do have to you know, disconnect
the line from the current meter and reconnect it to
the new meter. So there is a little bit of
work that goes with doing that, But again, it could
definitely save you some money depending on the municipality. There
was one municipality that I dealt with that seemed to

(18:49):
increase their rate on the irrigation side to make up cost.
So it was actually costing the customer more to have
a separate irrigation because they were charging a higher rate.
So again, you want to definitely look at the numbers
and make sure it makes sense. I don't know, I
know it's hard to tell how many gallons of water
you're going to use on irrigation, but a good way

(19:12):
to kind of look into that and probably take some
diagrams in math, but figure out how much you know
your irrigation heads are using gallons per minute and about
how long you run them, And do a little bit
of math and figure out how much usage you're doing
every time you cut it on and for how long
it could be well worth it to save the moneys.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
A couple of questions here. Number one, if you don't
want to divulge, just that's fine, I understand, or maybe
you don't remember whatever, but just just this is nothing
negatory towards a certain municipality. But do you recall which
municipality you were talking about where they were, you know,
kind of raising right over on this to cover up
for that. Because if someone's listening this morning, thinking I

(19:54):
want to do this, but they live in that municipality,
we don't want to have to waste our time.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
I don't recall the area, but not the municipality. I
don't even know if the customer told me the municipality.
He just said they were charging more on irrigation. He
was paying a ridiculous amount. But it was on the
northeast side of town. Yeah, so we disconnected that meter,
turned it off, and then reinstalled it to the original

(20:20):
meter that it used to be honest.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
But the municipalta has got to get involved because they
have to come out and put a new meter in
and then you know plumbers like Freedom Plumbing, you have
to come out and connect that line to that meter.
Is that the way that works or do they do
that too?

Speaker 4 (20:36):
No, Typically the city is going to stop at the
meter unless they have to do something on their end,
like a repair and it requires reconnecting. Then sometimes they'll reconnect,
sometimes they won't. It's again, it's a little tricky when
it comes to municipalities, but typically they stop at the
end of their meter once the water goes through the meter,

(21:00):
mess with anything after.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Okay, so now when you call a municipality, what again,
remind us what are the questions that we need to
be asking so we can make a you know, a
smart decision on whether or not this is a good
idea and potential money saver for us. So they may
And by the way, who do you who do you
call it a minsiplagy? Just the water department? I guess

(21:23):
I envisioned this thing. I envisioned this thing. Where somebody says,
I don't know what you're talking.

Speaker 4 (21:27):
About, absolutely, and a lot of people don't. That's fine.
But the couple of key terms that I would use
is tap fee. Check to see if there's a tap fee,
which would be the fee to tie on another line
to add a meter. Now there may not be one
because they might be tying off your current meter behind it.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
What would be a reasonable tap fee, James, do you know?

Speaker 4 (21:52):
I mean so again, I've never had to add a meter,
so I don't know the charge for adding a meter.
I've never ad as to customer what they paid. But
a tap fee, can you know you're talking sewer or
water can be up to thirty five hundred dollars, but
that's if they tap into the main like if you

(22:13):
didn't have a water meter like me, I have availability
for water from the municipality, but we have a well.
So if I went to them right now and said, hey,
I want to get a meter installed and get city
water to or municipality water to my home, they're going
to charge me.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
A tap fee.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
Right now. Every municipality is different, but if you already
have a meter there, they may be able to add
a t to the line that goes to your current
meter and you not get charged tape. You might just
get charged an additional meter fee. Don't know what that
charge is, but that's something I would ask to make
sure that they're not charging a tap fee for that

(22:55):
second meter, because you want to get all that and
they'll probably tell you, okay, it's going to call X
amount of dollars to add a meter. So that's the
first thing you want to find out how much is
the municipality going.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
To charge you?

Speaker 4 (23:08):
And next thing that you want to know is what's
the rate and then compare that rate you know whether
it be you know, for x amount of gallons of water.
Compare that to what you're currently paying on your homewater system.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Does it make sense the rate for the water or
the weight of the rate that you will be just
sewer I fee will be tacked on. I'm a little confused.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Here would be the rate for the water because you
want to make sure that that one that the rate
that you're paying for the water is going to be
similar to the rate that you're paying.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
On your home.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Why would it not be.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
That's what the other munciality did. They went up on
the rate for the irrigation water. A lot of people
that were separating their systems, so they just increased the
rate on the irrigation water.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Okay, So so make sure that's not in play, okay,
all right?

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Right, so you want to pair the rates of your
household water to your irrigation water, Okay, And then you know,
you can always get a cost assessment for what it
would cost a company to disconnect from your current meter
and reconnect to the irrigation meter. So those would be
your costs associated with that, and to find out whether

(24:19):
the rates make sense for you to even have a meter.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
This sounds like the store. This is one of those
things where you know, in the long run it can
pay off for you. The short term, you're going to
have to you know, pay out some money. You know,
it depends absolutely.

Speaker 4 (24:32):
The long game you're playing on this one, because you're
going to be spending money up front that you wouldn't
have to spend if you just kept your current meter.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Okay, but again it's a two step process. Number one,
the bean disipot has to come out and install a
second meter, and then you've got to call you know,
folks like Freedom Plumbing to come out and hook that up. Typically,
right that is not going to do that so.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
Correct because one they don't want to be responsible for
damaging your system, and two they don't they're not going
to warranty anything that they usually don't even touch a
household side of the system.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
What makes sense that makes water or sewer, So of course,
I guess the other issue is number one, you're you're
getting a municipality, not to the municipalities, but we know
how this goes to do something that might take a
while for them to get around of doing.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
Yep, that's you know, again, it's not an emergency situation.
They're great in emergencies. You know, typically answer the phone,
show up same day a lot of times, very fast.
When it comes to if you're having a sewer back
up or a loss of water situation to shut your
water off or you know, mitigate damages, they're great for that.

(25:42):
So you know, if you ever are in a situation
where you don't know where your water shut off is,
or you're having a sewer back up and it's coming
up in the home, reach out to the city or
whoever maintains your sewer system or water system asap see
if they can get out there, cut the water off,
check the sewer, see if it's on their end. They're
great at that, so.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah they are. Yeah, kudos for them for that.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
Yes, absolutely, But as you.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Said, this is not an emergent situation, so it did
could take a little while to get it done, so uh, yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
It's not a priority, but you know, it's definitely something
that could could help you out in the long run
for sure.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Fascinating. I had no idea this was even an option,
and I should mention this too because I need to.
I need to call the office about this. When you
have an irrigation system on city water, you got to
get something checked annually.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (26:29):
What was you for telling me?

Speaker 4 (26:31):
Oh, yeah, you're a backflow prevention device. Yes, So this
is a device that protects against send back siphonage, your
backflow on the system. So for example, if a water
main broke, I went out to a job one time
where the water main a couple of blocks over busted.
I turned the hose ville on the side of the
house on and I can hear a noise, but nothing

(26:52):
was coming out. And what was happening is there was
no back you know, check valve or backflop prevendor on
the system. So it was leaking so much out of
the city main that it was pulling air through the
water lines of the home back into the system. So
I can hear the air coming out and you put
your hand up to it and you can feel a

(27:13):
little bit of suction on the hose bib. And that's
what the backfloor preventer does. It prevents the back ciphonage
of water through your system and back into the city system.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
That a legal requirement. You have to have it checked
every year. Just a good idea, No, it's.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
Just a legal requirement for further to be one on
an irrigation system. Because it's considered a hazard. Yeah, and
to check it yearly. And the reason it's considered a hazard.
Let's say you just fertilize your lawn. You got your
irrigation system on, so the sewing went valves open and
trying to provide water city main brakes. Those heads start

(27:50):
pulling water into the system rather than pushing it out,
and then you get all that fertilized water and now
contaminated the city system.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
You better put me down for one of those, James,
because I think about that time. I gotta get that done,
all right, James Carlo for all things plumbing, it's Freedom
Plumbing headifoks get a hold of you, my.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
Friend, Thank you, give us call at eight oh three
four four seven zero four to seven to one. Visit
website at Freedom dash Plumbing dot com. Thank you, Buddy Yeazer,
Thank you Gary.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Have a good week.

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(29:57):
we're back on the Home Improven Show of the Midlands,
one of three p FM and five sixty am WVOC,
and it's time to talk a little restoration. Every of
our friends over at Dripped Ninj's our newest contributors to
the program every other Saturday morning, and the Gene is
here today. Shannon is is out of town this weekend,
but Geen Harvey from Dripped Ninjas is joining us here.
Good morning do you sir?

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Hey, good morning? How are you brother? I'm doing well.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
You know we want to number one. Okay, let's let's
let's be real here, right, this is the call nobody
wants to ever have to make.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
You are one percent correct, You know.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
Nobody wants to ever have to make this call. But
know this that if a disaster strikes your home or
your business, whether it's fire, whether it's water, you want
to know this name Dripped Ninjas because you guys, you
don't take a day off.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Now we're twenty twenty four seven, three sixty.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
Five, right, I mean we talk about how if something
We'll talk about water damage here in an instance like that,
this is not something you can put off. And number one,
it starts with and let's talk about this. Geene and
I have this conversation with them with James Carvel over

(31:09):
freedom plumbing all the time. Know where the valve is
to shut off the water to your home or business.

Speaker 9 (31:16):
You are so right, and you'd be surprised how many
people don't. I've I've got so many stories. One there
was an orthopedic center downtown where they had a pipe burst.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
It was going on for a little while.

Speaker 9 (31:31):
The big thing was once they found it, they didn't
really have like a dedicated maintenance crew. They just had
to watch the water flow all over their floors and
surgery center because no one knew how to cut it off.
Oh after that, they had a water key hanging in
the hallway and everybody knew how to cut the water off.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
I know now, and for years I didn't know. But
the last couple of years I've known exactly where mine is.
And actually this came in real handy about a year ago.
One morning I got up, we were gonna get in
the car and go down to Ale of palms enjoy
the day. And uh I went to turn the water
on the faucet in the sink which overlooks the driveway area,
and the pressure was extremely long. What the world's going on?

(32:10):
I look out the window and we just had some
work done on an irrigation system and one of the
pipes right there at the at the valve or whatever
for the irrigation system ruptured what have you, and we
got water spewed out of the right It had just started.
And luckily I knew exactly where my key was and

(32:31):
exactly where the shutoff out was, so we were able to,
you know, get it started. Heck, had we gone on
and it happened ten minutes later, we would have been
out of town all day long with water gushing.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Oh yeah, well, water's kind of sneak. Usually you'll do that.

Speaker 9 (32:44):
After You'll see you leave the driveway right then it'll
have Then it happens and you know, like nowhere where
your meters. I've got other stores where other restoration companies
have failed to turn the water off when they're removing
cabinets or like a sink base, pop the PVC behind
the valve. Water's flowing. Then they have to go run

(33:04):
around the yard trying to figure out how to cut
the water off. And a lot of newer homes you'll
actually have a water valve in your garage if you have.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
I've seen that, Yes, yes, so, I guess the rule
of thumb is, anytime you're gonna do any kind of
work anywhere near any kind of water lines, it's probably
best to shut them off to the whole house, right our.

Speaker 9 (33:20):
Guys, we do any kind of cabinet work, commode or
even cross spaces, we'll cut the water off and like
you know, if you have a half inch pipe, bot
will flow ten gallons a minute.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
A minute.

Speaker 9 (33:34):
I mean, just imagine if you look at your sink
or your your bathtub and cut the water on full
of last. Imagine that water going doing that for a
minute or five minutes onto your floors.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
How well that water's gonna go and the damage every.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Cause doesn't take long, does it. I guess it may
not be a bad idea to maybe occasionally just go
out there and shut the water to the house off
and just test to make sure that you're doing things
right in the or test.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
But just no know where it is right.

Speaker 9 (34:04):
Because the city has these's like electronic monitoring on your meter,
so you don't really have the guy coming and looking
at your meter every day. Right Like in my yard,
I need to open mind up because the grass is
kind of grown halfway over.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
The meter box.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
That happens too.

Speaker 9 (34:20):
Yeah, but just just know where there is no how
to do it. That's the big thing. My old house,
there was actually a spickett valve in the ground right
in front of a spicket to my house, so I
had three different ways to cut the water off.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
You don't.

Speaker 9 (34:38):
Just know how to do it because speed really the
response of the restoration company, the speed to get the
water turned off. Everything revolves around speed to reduce the
amount of damage that the water causes.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
So let's say in a hypothetical situation. Situation that is,
you walk into your kitchen or your bathroom wherever you
see water just gushing out all over the place. Now,
scenario A, you know where the key is, you know
where the shut off olve is. You get out there
within you know, minute, two minutes whatever get it shut off,
or B you don't know, and you know you guys

(35:13):
are called. You get out there as quickly as humanly possible.
I know, but the difference in that amount of time
can make all the difference in the world.

Speaker 9 (35:21):
Right, Oh, absolutely, And even if you're most people aren't
trained restorational professionals. But always something you don't lot common
sense get in the way. You've got water and floor,
throw some towels down. Most people have a shot back.
Do do whatever you can, because even if it's minor
compared to what's going on, every little bit helps.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
And I guess even if you did get it shut
off quickly, but if you, as you say, if you
don't really try to remove that water right away, you're
giving it time to seep down into other things under
cabinets or into into the trim and the and the
sheet rock, and before you know it, you don't know
that problem is this back there?

Speaker 3 (35:59):
Oh yeah, water that goes to dry high goes low.

Speaker 9 (36:02):
If that was water on the floor, it's going to
find a spot under over quarter round, under baseboard, through floors,
up dry wall, et cetera. And then once you get
water going into walls, then you've got water bound between
multiple building materials. So sometimes it's not as easy as
just quote unquote drying it out, and then you have

(36:23):
to have some demo involved to ensure all the water's.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Been removed, because then you got other things in those
walls that you don't want to interacting with, like I
don't know electrical lines and such, and we mix right absolutely,
So when you guys get the call and again you
guys are on call twenty four to seven, three sixty five,
what happens. Let's assume that the person gonna have been

(36:47):
able to get the water shut off. What's the process
then when dripp ninj just shows up? I mean, what
do you in Every situation is different, I know, but
in general ballpark, which.

Speaker 9 (36:57):
Will have at least two people will be on that visit,
one person talking to the home owner.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
What happened? Et cetera.

Speaker 9 (37:05):
Then that's one of the first questions. And when we're
actually taking that call in the office, is the water
still running? Is one of the first questions we will ask.
So we get on site, we know person A needs
to go find water cut off. Person B starting to
talk to the customer, walking through the process, find out
what happened, et cetera, so we can formulate a plan.

(37:28):
We need to do a safety review, electrical involved.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Et cetera.

Speaker 9 (37:33):
There was a job down in Forest akers last year
where what we weren't involved, but the power was not
cut off, no one really knew where the water was,
and the electrical system had kind of like shorted out,
and I guess lost the ground and there was a

(37:54):
puddle of water and a guy touched the water and
got shopped.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
So well, I'm glad you brought that up because I
even thought about that. I mean, again, if this happens
to you, all right, let's say you're able to shut
the water off to the house, but should you shut
off the circuit breaker and stop electricity anyway, just to
be on the safe side until you can know that
that's not going to be a risk.

Speaker 9 (38:16):
Or maybe not always, but it's definitely a concern because
a lot of homes, especially maybe higher end on slabs,
they actually have electrical outlets in the floor. So if
you have a water issue, you've got water going over
those outlets, over the power to the home and you
got we got one chance to be saved if there's

(38:39):
a doubt cuts something.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Off right, And I guess with your yell's recommendations, like
anybody else that does any sort of work that involves insurance,
is it's a smart idea I guess for us to
be able to document them before in the after as
a homeowner or a business.

Speaker 9 (38:57):
Oh well, absolutely, And I think I mentioned this before.
Everybody's got a phone, walk through your house, take a video.
It's going to go to the cloud or Apple Store
or wherever. The show what you have, because it's like
your closet. Everybody has a lot more money and clothes
than they realize. And for insurance, if there's not wasn't
a picture, it didn't occur. They're very stickler about documentation.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
So y'all's procedure your process again. If if the water
is still going, number one, get the water cut off.
Number two is to dry things up.

Speaker 9 (39:31):
I guess, well, I actual number two is the place
safe for the home.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
You need to do that in homeowner. For for our employees.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
What is it? What does that involve doing?

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Jane?

Speaker 9 (39:41):
And it's a it's a it's a general safety review.
Where where's the water? What's going on? I guess A
great example is somebody has a basement. The outlets usually
I guess about a foot foot and half over the floor.
They got three feet in the basement. Well, we're not
walking in that basement. That go look around, there's water
over electrical outlets, so it's there's a combination of common

(40:07):
sense and you know, you can't really be too safe on
these things.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
You know, if we're in a.

Speaker 9 (40:12):
Cross space, we usually cut the water, the water off
and the power off if you can. Sometimes there are
limitations on that, but anybody who's been shot by an
outlet knows it's not it's not fun and.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
It actually can be deadly, absolutely so. But but stabilizing
the situation, getting it dried out. But then the restoration
processes is the next step. And and depending on the
severity of the damage that that that can be I'm
guessing a pretty lengthy process. You've probably involved in a
few of those.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
It can take several months, and insurance has it's a
two part process.

Speaker 9 (40:47):
The mitigation where you do the demo, draw out, the cleaning,
prepping up for rebuilding, you have actual the restoration where
you're rebuilding. And came back to what we're talking about
in the beginning, speed is the most important thing because
if you can address the cause quickly, well, then the
mitigation is going to be less expensive. And the less

(41:09):
mature you have to pull out means the less material
you have to rebuild, so the build back will be cheaper.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Right, So if you take nothing else away from this segment,
know where your shut off out is and have a
key take action.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
Right.

Speaker 9 (41:22):
Yeah, when something like that happens, that's really not the time.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
They might be shopping on Google and let me see
who to call.

Speaker 9 (41:29):
We actually market services the companies where we're going maybe
just like you guys here, Well we'll get a floor plan,
we'll know where the water cut off is, we'll know where.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
The key people are.

Speaker 9 (41:40):
So when they have something where they're easy button, they
just pick up phone called dripped Ninjas and all those
because people are stressed, there's water. We've already had those conversations,
so they just pick up the phone and we just
come started dressing stuff.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Okay, so our businesses you can take advantage of that
by by calling dripped ninjes and again it's the call
that you know nobody wants to make. I know, but
if it happens to you, don't don't delay. Do the
things we talked about and get a whole of the
good folks here. That's at drip Ninja's gene and the
folks there gene how to folks reach you if they
need you, my friend.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
There are two ways.

Speaker 9 (42:13):
They can call us at eight three nine two five
seven nine to one five eight, or they can go
to drip ninjas dot com.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
Where we have a fillable form they can fill out.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Right, drip Ninjas. I love that name, man Gene. Good
to see it, my friends.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
All right, thank you.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Hi.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
This is Gary David. You've heard me talk for years
about Anthony John Construction and the wonderful jobs they do
for folks all across the Midlands. When it comes to
roofing and guttery, well it's the same people doing the job,
but the name has changed. That's right now. It's Beaver
Roofing and Beaver Gutters. Leave it to Beaver for all
your roofing and gutter needs. The same great service and
the same great folks behind Anthony John Construction, just with

(42:51):
a new name. Eight oh three nine nine to one
roof and Beaverroofing dot com. Me gutter roofing work, Leave
it to Beaver Beaver Roofing and Beaver Gutters, Our old

(43:16):
friend Summer from Beaver Roofing and Gutters Summer.

Speaker 10 (43:20):
Good morning, Good morning, how you doing.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
I'm good, I'm good, so I don't know. I guess
we'll talk about some roofs and gutters.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
This morning, right, we'll do it.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
I'm down, okay, cool? And we talked. I guess a
couple of weeks ago. Heath was on with me and
he's he's the guy in charge all your gutter stuff.

Speaker 10 (43:38):
That is right.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
And we had Heath outs at the house this past
summer and installed those six and seamless gutters. As I
was telling Heath, it's not like we didn't have gutting
our house. We had gutters. They were there when we
bought the house, and they're probably all the house was
built back in the eighties or whenever it was the nineties,
I guess it was. But the gutters that y'all put
up are a bit different from the gutters if your

(44:02):
home is, you know, fifteen twenty years old, or maybe
even if you had gutters recently, your gutters are a
little different from the ones that may be on your
house right now. How is that so?

Speaker 10 (44:13):
Like you said, six inch seamless metal gutters are so
before they were a little bit smaller. They were a
five inch gutter. Some may be metal, however, some actually
came in six excuse me, ten inch sticks of guttering,
so they would steam those together. So with that being said,

(44:35):
when there are seams, there are more opportunities for leaking,
more opportunities for damaging, collapse and that sort of thing
that's just a week a week spot in the in
the guttering system, and more opportunities for failure. So, yes,
our gutters are six inch seamless, seamless gutters, and they

(44:56):
are metal like like you were saying, some could have
been made of like a thick plastic. They don't do
that often anymore, but like you said, if your home
is older, they could be made of plastic. So our
gutters are literally custom fit for your home. When our

(45:16):
guys come out, they have a big gutter machine in
the back of the truck. It's pretty cool to white.
So your gutters start as a flat piece of metal.
Then they process it and they run it through the
machine and it you know, they'll measure They take all
of their measurements and we actually dial it in and
they know exactly just how long it is. When that

(45:38):
flat metal comes out, it's a K style shaped gutter
and that's what we install and you know it fit
perfectly for you. They stop the machine they chop it
right there and bam, it's perfectly made for your home
custom fit.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
And yeah, you've been telling us for years how much
more water these gutters can move as opposed to a
five inch I get it because thing, Okay, I said
an inch bigger. What's the big deal here?

Speaker 10 (46:04):
But I know bigger is better.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yeah no, but.

Speaker 10 (46:10):
Like you said, the inch, it's just it is. It's
crazy to think. However, from that five inch to the
six inch gutter. The six inch gutters hold forty percent
more volume of water, so it is able to accept
that much more water from your roof, take it and
divert it away from your home. You know, a lot

(46:31):
of times when they are not adequate enough, they'll fill up,
they'll spill over. You know, if they're five inches, they
could spill over the front. If your gutters are not
in great condition, you have not really maintained those gutters,
it could actually spill back into your home and it
will appear to be leak, but it's not. So there

(46:55):
is a number of things that could happen when one
your gutters are not large enough or too when they're
not maintained properly. So you know, that's another thing that
you should really be making making a note of and
doing when you're doing your checklist of monthly or yearly
things to do for your home.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, and you know that was And I knew this
because we talked about it for so long, but you know,
it was earlier that I was past. This past spring,
we had just a heavy downpour one day and I
looked out there and sure enough, there's watering over the
front of gutters. And I gotta tell you then, my
next thought was, okay, boy, I sure hope it's not
running over the back of the gutter too. Uh right,

(47:37):
So yeah, I was, you know, I was a little warreos. Okay,
will you guys come out?

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Boy?

Speaker 1 (47:41):
I hope I gotta pull those old gutters down and
find this damage of the facer behind it, because that
can happen.

Speaker 10 (47:45):
It happens a lot. It happens often because you know,
it's just you know, gutters. They they are kind of
like the unsung hero. I can if you will of
your home. You know they're there. They're great, they're doing
their job. However, if you forget about them, don't maintain them,
or you know you don't have them, there are so
much damage that could be done. Obviously, we talk a

(48:08):
whole bunch about foundation problems. Yes, that is one thing
that you know, over time it can happen. Your foundation
can become you know, it can settle crack, you know,
and water intrusion that is a large, large problem. However,
like you said, facia soft it. If you have wood
facia or soffit and you're not caring correctly, for one,

(48:31):
the gutter system rate that you do have, or to
the lack of gutters, that wood can become damaged soft
and that's just more ways for water to get in
through there, or to critters, spiders, other insects or even

(48:51):
like squirrels and things of that nature. So it's just
more ways for things that should stay outside to come inside.
So you got to you gotta take you know, take
cautions that take time for these little things.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Since you brought this up plain to us. When you
talk about properly maintaining your gods, what does that involve?
How do you properly maintain a god system that's already
on your home?

Speaker 10 (49:15):
Sure, so cleaning them they need to be cleaned. You know,
we do have a bi annual and then we have
an annual cleaning service. It really depends on your area
that you live in and how much foliage is around
and and that sort of thing. You know, you want
to make sure that they're cleaned. If they're clean, the

(49:35):
water has a clearer channel, clear a clear way to
get to those downspouts and away from your home. If
they're not clean, there's a lot of build up that
can happen, and that's when things start going right over
the top behind the back. So whenever we come out,
when we clean these we're actually looking to make sure
that we get all of the goops, all of the gunks,
all of the granules that come off of your roof. Yes,

(49:58):
and you know, it's not just things that that are
fallen from the sky like I just mentioned things from
your roof. You know, leaves get piled up on your roof.
They go into those gutters, so leaves and granules and
that kind of causes slimmy stuff to acclimate and everything else.
So we're coming out, we're cleaning your gutters. We're making

(50:18):
sure that they're pitched appropriately to make sure that that
water that falls in goes to those down spouts. We're
making sure that at our corners because yes, at the corners.
We do have seen, but we're making sure that they
are caughked correctly. Everything is water tight when we come
out there to clean and maintain these gutters, So you

(50:40):
want to make sure they're fastened nicely into that the
face and everything is sound and water is going happily
away from the home as it should be.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Right, And you talk about it, well, if anybody's ever
cleaned out gutters, you know as you talk, that's slime,
that gunky stuff builds up in there. And yeah, it's
it's a nasty, nasty process. But that stuff not only
is it nasty, it gets heavy, yes, and I guess
there's a danger there that even if even in a
drought situation, that stuff gets in there, it gets wet,

(51:11):
it gets nasty, and that weight, I guess could could
potentially start to pull that gutter away from the houll.

Speaker 10 (51:17):
Away from the home. You're exactly right, So you know,
even in like you said, the cold, you know, yes,
we do get some rains and whatnot, but if that
stuff gets nasty cold and then freezes, that's even heavier.
So you know, that's why we like to really urge
homeowners to make sure that they are doing this, you know,
right before the fall or right after. You know, you

(51:38):
have all the leaves and stuff falling, cacorns, whatnot. That's you,
that's you're calling this out there, making sure that your
gutters are cleaned. We clean those out, We get you
ready for the winter because we want to make sure
that everything is nice clean, all of that debris is
out and ready for any you know, water or freezing
and whatnot. They're ready, they're ready to do what they

(52:01):
need to do and protect your home.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
So if you have got a protection, which we ought
to do because we had a lot of trees around
the house, absolutely as heath of your guys know. So
if you if you've got gutter protection on there, I mean,
are you out of the woods here or there's still
things you need to be do you still kind of
need to get them checked out every now and make
sure things are hunky dory.

Speaker 10 (52:23):
So that's a great question. Yes, So we do. We
have two types of gutter protection, gotter guards or covers.
Call us at eight zero three nine nine one roof
can't forget it. And then we also have our new
website at beaver Roofing dot com terrific.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
All right, summer always a pleasure to have yourself a
good weekend.

Speaker 5 (52:45):
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(53:07):
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Speaker 4 (53:19):
I'm James Carwell, local owner and operator of Freedom Plumbing
right here in the Midlands. After working as a plumber
for nearly a decade, I decided to open my own
business and Freedom Plumbing was born because of my love
for this country and the great respect I have for
the men and women of our armed forces and our
first responders. I named my company Freedom Plumbing. What sets

(53:39):
us apart from other companies is our customer service. We
have a five star rating on Google, a five star
rating on Facebook, an A plus rating on Angie's List,
and an eight plus rating with a Better Business Bureau.
I'm James Carwell, local owner of Freedom Plumbing, and we
look forward to servicing you for all of your plumbing needs.
Get fifty percent off your new service call when you

(54:01):
mentioned you heard us on WVOC. Learn more at Freedom
dash Plumbing dot com. That's Freedom dash Plumbing dot com.