Home Improvement Show 08-16-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Good morning and welcome in. Now it's time again friends
for the Home Improvement Show of the Midlands and we
appreciate you joining us on this Saturday morning here on
one O three point five FM at five sixty AMWVOC.
If we've not met, my name is Gary David and
it's nice to make your acquaintance. Coming up some folks
we talk to all the time about getting it fixed
or fixing it up, or just in a moment we'll

(00:37):
talk about taking care of pesky things here, so well,
hang on. Jeremy Holliday, mister Electric is going to be
joining us later on in the half hour. We'll be
talking about well, the upcoming holidays and how yeah, lots
of folks that are interested in you know, refreshing their
place getting fixed up in time for the holidays. If
that's you, why you want to start to now and
call Russ, Markesy and the folks over at the Finishing

(00:57):
Touch team and ask them about their cabinet resurfacing specials.
We'll talk about that with Russ in the next half hour.
The Home Improvement Show of the Midlands first up, taking
care of those pesky things. It's what Trey Powell does
over mosquito Joe, and he joined us to get things started.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Good morning, Trey, Good morning to you. Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
You know, before we get into it, I want to
ask you about this because this story has been floating
around now for a couple of weeks in China about
the you mentioned this before, and I'm going to say
it wrong. I know, chicken gunya, chicken gunna virus, chickagonia virus. Yeah,
I've when I saw that, I said, you know, Trey
talks about this all the time. This is something that's

(01:37):
spread by mosquitoes, right, it is.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
It's a mosquito born illness that generally is not a
huge threat in the United States, but every once in
a while we do have small outbreaks from here to there. Yeah,
they are. They're having some larger outbreaks around the world,
and but so far there are no homegrown cases in

(02:03):
the United States. There, meaning that the folks in the
United States that have come down with it did not
get bit by a mosquito here. They got bit overseas
and they came back with it. So that's the good news.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Well, and I may be totally off base on this,
but you know, again, you know, you go back to
recent history and the COVID virus in China and all
that that seemed to spark fears here that this is
the next big pandemic. But you've got to be actually,
is this virus do you know? Is it able to
be transmitted from human to humor? Do you have to
be bitten by one of these mosquitoes it carries it?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it has to be a mosquito, you know. Case
now the the if you have it and a mosquito
bites you, then you can be involved in that transmission process.
So yes, if a bunch of people come over here
from overseas with chicagoona and they get bit by our

(03:02):
mosquitos and then those mosquitos by others, there is a
chance of transmission from UH in that case, but so
far we're not seeing that. But that is the.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Fear, right, And again it all goes back to the
whole COVID thing and that craze, and you know this
is nothing like that doesn't work that way. So I'm
glad you can clear that for us this morning. I
just when I first.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Saw that story, COVID was not a mosquito born illness,
that was an airborne virus.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Right, Okay, good, well, thanks for clearing that.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Thank goodness.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah right exactly, So, well, that's not something that's did
we we again we typically see here on these shores,
uh and sorting not in South KNA. There are issues
that mosquitoes do do do cause for for some folks.
What are the most prevalent ones here and say our
little neck of the woods straight.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
The I would say probably the we don't have a
ton we we don't like have malaria and stuff like that. Right,
West Nile virus is probably the most would be the
most likely thing to catch from a mosquito. Zeca virus
would be possible. I mean, there's a bunch of them

(04:20):
that are possible. The type of mosquitoes that we have
can carry a bunch of different things in gay fever
and things like that. But I would say West now
virus is probably the one that that shows its ugly
head more often than any any of the other ones
in in in the central South Carolina area.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
But in that cases that are are very rare around here,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Doesn't have very often.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
It's pretty rare. Yes, I mean, you know, I think
our municipalities do a pretty good job of keeping the
mosquito population low. Enough that we do not have widespread
outbreaks of stuff like this, you know, and as soon
as they we have a case of it, uh, they
are right at work, you know, making sure that the

(05:08):
population has not gotten you know, out of hand, a
little different than what we do at Mosquito Joe.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Well right exactly. And while that, you know, brings it
down to a more manageable level, it's not going to
mean that, you know, if that if that truck drives
down your street today, uh, you know spray and whatever
it is they spray, that doesn't mean that, you know,
tomorrow or next week you're going to be rid of
mosquitoes in your backyard. That's what you guys do.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, that's where we are. We just don't we want
you to be able to enjoy a picnic in the backyard.
I mean when when mosquito born illness is it becomes
very you know, the likeliness goes goes way up. Is
where the mosquitoes are way worse than what anybody is

(05:53):
would would say would be normal. I mean, if you
watch these programs like Naked and Afraid and that people
have thousands of bites all over them, that's the kind
of situation where mosquito born illness is. So it is
very very likely this system mosquitoes are really really high,
and we don't really have that, And the only reason

(06:13):
we don't have that is because of what the municipalities
are doing. But what we don't like is we go
out in the backyard and we get several bites while
we're just trying to have a drink on the back porch.
And that's where mosquito joe is just trying to get
it where you're not getting bit and you don't have
to spray yourself down, but you know, it's not a

(06:33):
situation where you're going to be covered from head to toe.
You know. I laugh when I hear customers saying I'm
getting eaten alive, and it's like, well, you don't even
know what that means. What it could mean if you
lived in a third world country and had to sleep
under a bed net. You know that that is that

(06:54):
is a reality in some parts of the world, but
not saying goodness, not in the United States.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
I think you've told us before trade that you know,
mosquitoes are like the number one killer in the world,
isn't it, aren't they?

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (07:05):
By far, mosquitoes are responsible for more deaths than any
other animal. All these things that people are terrified of,
like sharks and snakes and alligators and all that stuff,
you know, they in reality kill very very few where
by far the number one is mosquito born mosquitoes, mosquito

(07:31):
born illness killing I mean, seven hundred and fifty thousand
people a year. I mean a very very distant second
would be humans killing other humans. But the things that
we're really afraid of have very very few deaths. They're
way way down on the list. Yeah, but you know,
mosquito born illnesses is definitely and always has been very

(07:53):
high on the list. I don't know if there's number
one by far right.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
I don't know if you can quantify this or not
if you ever thought about it. But I mean, in
your average backyard here in the midlands of South Carolina
that's untreated, okay, that has never done anything. I mean,
how many mosquitoes could you expect to actually have in
a backyard like that. I know it's going to vary
on the factors of the human, the water levels and
the amount of moisture in this and that, but I mean,

(08:21):
are we talking like it could be thousands in your backyard.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
It could be you know, hundreds, and you know would
be probably more reasonable. I mean it can be. It's
like you said, it's going to vary widely, just based
on on the condition of the backyard. The type of
mosquitoes that we have, their nickname is their container breeders,

(08:46):
meaning that mostly they are breeding in man made containers.
And you know, you have to have standing water or
you're not going to have mosquitoes. They have to have
a place to lay their eggs. Those eggs have to
stay moist in order for them to hatch into larva.
The larva have to wiggle around in the standing water

(09:06):
and they have to eat. And so if you don't
have any standing water, you won't have mosquitos. And people say, well, we
don't have any standing water, Well, they're standing water somewhere
and it's not very far away because these mosquitoes won't
fly more than two hundred feet in their whole lifetime,
so it's very close by. But everything that we own
will hold water, and it doesn't have to be a lot.

(09:27):
I mean, kids, toys, buckets, wheelbarrows, trash cans. When you
turn the trash can upside down, there's a little lip
around the outside that will hold enough water to breed mosquitoes.
Trash can tops, sandboxes. I mean, there are one million
things that can hold water and it doesn't take a lot.
You can breathe. You can get one hundred mosquitos out
of a bottle cap aw of water, and so it

(09:50):
doesn't take much. And so you know, the volume of
mosquitoes could be very well predicated by how much stuff
you have that can hold water. I mean, a good
thing if you have a if you have a tire.
A tire is a perfect example. It's when it rains,
it's going to get water in it, and it's impossible

(10:12):
to get that water out right. And if people have
stacks of old tires, they're going to have eventually they're
going to have a mosquito problem. I mean, you know,
the health department will come and scold heavily these companies
that have stacks and stacks of tires because it creates
a public health hazard. Eventually that thing becomes a mosquito pit,

(10:36):
and they are required by law to get rid of
those things and not keep them on their property. And
because all of those places have bad mosquito problems, because
they have all these things that hold water, and the
water just never goes away, right.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
And the weather we've had the last week and a half,
close to two weeks now around here, I mean, my goodness,
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
You believe me. You are going to see the population
of mosquito spike after all of that rain, and you know,
we had it kind of a cooled off, so it's
not even evaporating like it normally would.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Right. So, and this time, this time of year, they
can go from you know, zero to sixty in a heartbeat,
can't they. As far as their their maturation process.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, they go through that. You know, when the conditions
are right, they can go through that, you know, from
egg to larva to pupa to adult mosquito very quickly
in as little as four days, whereas in the late
fall or early spring it might take them three or
four weeks to go through that process. And that's why

(11:45):
the mosquitoes and the population of mosquitoes just grows exponentially
at this time of year because there's lots of rain,
lots of water, lots of heat, and the conditions are
just perfect, and so they're multiplying exponentially at this time
of year.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Well, let's talk Trey about the service that you guys
offer at Mosquito Joe and how you go about attacking
this problem.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, so we are you know, out door pest control
company that we specialize in mosquito control, mosquitos, fleas and ticks.
We do do other general pest control and things like that.
But if somebody wants to enjoy their backyard without having
to spray themselves down or dress and you know winter

(12:33):
clothing to try and keep the mosquitoes away, you know,
that is that is what we do. We come out,
it's a there's no contract, but it is a reoccurring
service where we come back every three weeks and we
will find the standing water that is in the yard
where the mosquitoes are breeding and we will either get
rid of that water or we will treat it with

(12:55):
a larvacide so that no more mosquitoes could be born
out of that standing source. So it's going to eliminate
them before they're born, and if they're not born, they
cannot bite, So that's going to dramatically reduce the number
of mosquitoes on the property. And then we are going
to spray that property all the bushes and shrubs to

(13:15):
eliminate all the adult mosquitoes that are there, and then
that product will stick there for about three weeks. So
if any of the neighbors mosquitos decide to come over,
they're going to be eliminated as well. So it's kind
of like putting a flea collar around that yard. Their
neighbors are going to have mosquitoes, but any of them
that come into their yard are going to be eliminated.

(13:35):
So that customer can go outside anytime, day or night
and they're not concerned about getting eaten alive.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
Right, And as you mentioned, it's a part of what
you do because you also do full home pest control
like you're doing in our place. So you can you
can bundle all this together, right and say money, can't you.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, most customers, you know, customers, we're finding they just
want to pay one company and they really like the
way that we do business, and so you know, we are,
you know, we are doing their general pest control for inside,
you know, inside and out, you know, to keep things
like roaches and ants and silver fish and things like

(14:17):
that out of their house. And then we're treating the
yard for mosquito sleeves and ticks and you know, spiders
and all those sorts of things. So inside and out
we'll do take care of fire ants in the yard
if that's an issue for them as well.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
And I didn't realize until about a month ago you
and I were talking that. Yeah, I was mentioning we
have a you know, a fly problem in our backyard,
but only when we're out there with food. Of course,
that's right. You guys have a remedy for that too,
and I appreciate y'all coming by and dealing with that
issue at our place. I wish i'd asked that question
a long time ago.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, any any pests that you're having an issue with,
there's probably a solution. It's not a there's not a
one stop you know, there's not a one treatment that's
going to take care of every single pest. But if
you have specific issues, like you had a fly issue, uh,
there are things that we can do to mitigate that.
But yeah, we got to know. So thank you for

(15:10):
speaking up and asking that question, because yes, we do
have an add on you know, uh, you know, remedy
for for flies. If you have a particular fly issue
and we never.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
See them until, of course you show up with that Hamburger,
you know on the back deck.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
It's what it always is, right, you know, you show
up with food and they're they're gonna they're They are
much different than a mosquito. They are excellent flyers and
they can come from three yards away.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Just like that. I guess it won't be long trade.
We'll start be talking about holiday lights again, won't we
you guys.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
That is right around the corner.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Wow, that's that's kind of your off season, you guys
put up those those commercial lights. So we'll be we'll
be talking about that, I'm sure in the next month
or so as people get signed up with that, so
we'll have all the details on that part of the business.
And and uh I know that also, you know coming
up in the in the coming months, you've got some
more exciting things coming down the pike that we could
be talking about. So we'll leave that at that for

(16:09):
right now.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
But you know, you guys, goes, you always got something
going on over there, Mosquito Joe Man, I appreciate the
job y'all do for for my home and for so
many folks. I know who you who you guys work with,
all right, So never a contract required.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
That's correct.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
If you've never tried folks who have never tried you before,
you can get a you can get a discount to
give it a shot, right, yeah, That.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
First treatment will do for only thirty nine dollars. It's
less than cost, but you know, and and then reoccurring
services are going to be more than that. But we
want to earn your business the right way and give
you a chance to try this and just see just
how good this could work.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Terrific? All right, Trey? How to folks reach you at mosquito.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Joe eight five five Askoe eight five to five. Ask
at Joe. That will ask you to enter your It
will ask you to enter your zip code and then
that will direct you directly to either our Columbia office
or our office out in Lexington.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
All right, Trey, thanks so much as always, my friend.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Certainly you have a great day.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Thank you. Ed. You're listening to the Home Improvement Show
of the Midlands on what A three point five FM
and five sixty AMWVOC.

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(17:49):
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(18:12):
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my friends, we thank you so much for joining us
for the Home Improvement Show the Midlands. Sam, we appreciate
you tuning in here on one O three point five

(19:06):
FM and five sixty am WVC or listening on the
iHeartRadio app. And hey, if you ever miss an episode,
don't forget. You can go on the app. You can
search us out WVOC Home Improvement Show of the Midlands.
You can catch up. They're all right there, all right.
Jeremy Holliday mister Electric who joins us in studio. Jeremy, morning,
do you my friend?

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Good morning Gary. I gotta tell you.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
I've been I've been challenging. I've been channeling my inner
mister Electric last week week or so, and have you Well,
you have to be careful with your diy Electricity. I
mean I know enough to be able to hang a
light fixture. Yeah, okay, I always wind up doing something
wrong and some wire pops off or whatever, and I
gotta take it all. This happened to me just the
other day. I take it all back down again. And anyway,

(19:53):
there's this stuff. Listen. I know enough to know when
to stop.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
And that's what we're here for again. Yeah, exactly weird.
You can always call us.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Exactly what I'm going to know. I was before we
came on the air here during the break we were
talking and you know, we moved to a new house,
and I know there's a lot of outdoor lighting, but
I don't heck, I don't know if it's just not working,
or if I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong
or whatever. So you know, we've talked about this before.
This is listen. Electricity doesn't have to be boring, right, No,

(20:24):
absolutely no. You guys do a lot of that sort
of thing, the outdoor lighting and the and all that
th those enhancements.

Speaker 5 (20:31):
Yeah, home enhancements, fun things, fun projects that you get
to enjoy after we're finished. You know, it's not all
all the hidden stuff that you don't really get to see.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
But we can do landscape lighting. We do.

Speaker 5 (20:42):
We actually use a product that is brass comes in
different finishes and lifetime warranty on the fixtures their self.
So we use a quality, real quality product LED. Uh.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
You know LED.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Everything's LED these days.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, yeah, be strange if it wasn't.

Speaker 5 (21:01):
Yeah, but sometimes we run into it where it is
still some type of halogen or something like that, and
it's on a medium voltage system.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
The systems we install would be a low voltage.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, what's what's the difference there between those two, I mean,
what's the advantage.

Speaker 5 (21:15):
Well, the advantages of the low voltages obviously you're saving
energy makes sense.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, yep, it's a lot safer as far as.

Speaker 5 (21:23):
Being out in the yard, in the ground running from
light to light tends to last longer. The LED uh
low voltage definitely lasts longer than the halogen. Halogens can
be problematic.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
LED's I mean those things are supposed to last like
almost forever, aren't they.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
I mean yeah, yeah, they last a long time.

Speaker 5 (21:47):
I mean you're talking thousands of hours, thousands and eighty
thou fifty thousand hour bulbs, you know, so if you uh, yeah,
they last a lot longer, so a lot less maintenance,
you know, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
There's a lot of you don't.

Speaker 5 (22:01):
You know, there's a lot of different you can place
them anywhere, you don't. You know, you don't have to
trench super deep for the wiring because it's low voltage wiring.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
So it's ok. Really you're really able to put them
anywhere you want.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
I mean it would look bad, but I mean you
could basically lay this sings just on the front on
the grass.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
You could. I wouldn't recommend that.

Speaker 5 (22:19):
We normally, you know, get it covered up an inch
deep or two inches you know underneath everything doesn't need
to be you know, eighteen inches like medium wiring.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Oh okay, that's a big difference right there.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
So it sounds like you probably come out and lay
these things and lay the saw back over to whatever
and you never know you were there.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (22:41):
Yeah, very cool and some pretty cool fixtures they have.
I mean, we have a whole catalog. We bring a
bring a book with us an iPad. We call that
our book, but it's an iPad and it has a
catalog on it and you can see all the different fixtures,
pick them out in the style you like. We can
go over all that with you the placement and or

(23:04):
repair what you have.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
You know, a typical I know I always ask this
question on the show, and I know there's no typical anything,
but you know, more than likely when you guys go
out and do one of these jobs like this, I mean,
what kind of timeframe are we are we talking about
from somebody that has nothing and you want to you know,
go the whole night. You want to get it. You

(23:26):
got to get the maybe I guess, maybe the controller
or whatever, or cook to the app or however it's done.
Is this a one day kind of job typically? Or
it can be, and a lot of times it probably is.

Speaker 5 (23:37):
Yeah, depending on the guys you got, how many fixtures
you got to install?

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Right, how big the project is.

Speaker 5 (23:43):
There's some houses it might take two or three days.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Depending on some people get pretty extravagant.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah you can. And you know if it's all.

Speaker 5 (23:51):
Yeah, you know, earth fixtures, I guess I could say
not implanted into the walls or ran up on posts
and stuff like that that you know should typical installs
should be probably about a day.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
It should be able to get in and out of there.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
But it's more than just lights. When we come to
home enhancements. Yeah, this is a wide variety of things,
and I'm not sure that we quite understand, you know,
what all is possible in our homes these days.

Speaker 5 (24:18):
Yeah, so ah man, you're talking smart switches, you know,
where you can program your lights to come on at
a certain time, turn them off from different locations.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
And we're not talking about smart plug now, we're talking
about the actual switch.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
This is the wall, the switch in the wall for
your lights. That's right.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
You can get smart receptacles also. You know, we put
in a play okay, with Christmas coming up, there's actually
one that we like to install, which is a plug
in play, but just so people know it's out there,
you can buy.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
It's a really cool module.

Speaker 5 (24:50):
You can plug into your wall and then you can
control it on an app on your phone right where
you don't have to unplug that Christmas tree.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
You can just turn it off with your phone.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah. Now I have done that with just a regular
smart switch and Alexa before, and that's that's cool.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
Yeah, that's a cool little feature. So there's little things
like that. We can put a three way switch anywhere
you want to. If you have a situation where you
wish you could turn a light off at a point
that you don't have a switch there with with smart
switches where you don't even have to do any wiring.
You know, we can put like a remote switch with

(25:26):
a ten year battery and put a master switch if
you will, where the where the switch location is for
that fixture, and then you have two locations where you
can turn it on and off without a lot of
sheet rock damage or crawling through the attic and things
like that.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
So there's there's a lot of little things like that. Lighting.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
Obviously they've got lighting now that's rgb W where it'll
do a million plus colors.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
I love those. My wife is like, no, we're going
with white.

Speaker 5 (25:59):
I'm like, it's yeah, well it's fun on the holidays.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Well that's what I told her.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
How cool would it be to have you know, red
and green lights on Christmas or you know, orange for
Halloween coming up here in a couple of days or whatever.
And she's very traditionalist when it comes to.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
That sort of thing, So that's wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
When she's not there, I turn on right.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, we'll put them in. She won't ever know.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
There you go perfect, perfect, you can.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Keep them on white. But you know we do so
light under cabinet lights. That's another one.

Speaker 5 (26:30):
That's another great to your home, you know, accent lighting,
to lighting, stair lighting.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Oh okay, to stairsteps, yeah, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know I'm familiar with because like in the
house we have now there's a space over the cabinets
and I want to run some lads up there or whatever.
But I didn't think about that in the cabinet lighting.
But that's a that's a that's an ideas. Time has come,
hasn't it. Oh yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
They make so much great products out there that you
can that aren't that hard to install anymore. Really, you know,
puck lights you can put in your cabinet's level and
those would be all lovel to j Also, yeah, we
fabricate lights on the scene. Yeah, we build strip lighting
at your location and install it so for under cabinet lighting.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Very cool, very cool. Are there any things that maybe
we as homeowners and consumers haven't really thought of that
is that you can do these days?

Speaker 3 (27:32):
Well?

Speaker 5 (27:32):
Yeah, you know, like I'm saying, the three way switches,
the you know, all the stuff we've talked about, you
can do drawing a blank now Gary.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Trust Bawlk probably four or five times already the last hour.

Speaker 5 (27:51):
You know, anything you can think, I would say anything
you could think of. It's worth calling and asking, getting in,
getting us to come out and look at it, because
there's a lot of stuff we can do.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
In set. Lighting in the.

Speaker 5 (28:04):
Walls, a different different pathway lighting. If you you know,
you can put track in the floors, you can put
track on the walls and have your you know, different
different types of lighting can be put in for it.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Sounds like if if you can can dream it up,
but you guys can find a way to make it happen.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Basically, yeah, most of the time there's there's a way.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, so very cool.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
And you know this is not really related to this discussion,
but I know it's one we've had in the past.
Something else you guys do and uh, And that is
when it comes to things like smoke detectors, CO two
detectors and such. And I didn't realize that. Again, we
were this new home and we'd had this discussion before,
so I wasn't shocked to discover how many smoke detectors

(28:54):
are in this house I'm in right now. I think
a lot of us always thought you need water, maybe
two or whatever. But I think We've talked about this before. Yeah,
that's really not enough. And this is something you guys
do as well.

Speaker 5 (29:04):
Yes, and we do smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, fire alarms.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
All of that.

Speaker 5 (29:10):
And yeah, they're very They're an essential part of your
home because they if you ever read the statistics which
I'm not gonna go over, but you can read the
statistics about home fires and people to get harmed. Most
of the time they don't have smoke detectors, or they
have smoke detectors that they've disengaged, you know, and and

(29:32):
and so they're very important. And I imagine being that
you just got into your home, those are all probably new.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yes, Ceah, we've all been put up. It's not a
new home, but they all look to be very new.

Speaker 5 (29:44):
And they're they're everywhere, yeah, everywhere, Like wow, in every
bedroom outside the vicinity of every bedroom.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (29:50):
And this is not a new building moved into but
a new build homes these days? Is that? Is that
a code now.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Or that standard?

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (29:56):
Okay, yeah, so that's something that has to happen. And
for the reason for that is.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Just to forget we're not talking about one or two.
We're talking about yeah, a lot of them.

Speaker 5 (30:04):
I mean you're talking on a on an average home,
you're probably looking at six to eight in there.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, you know, yeah, and certainly older homes. You're probably
thinking and saying, what, I don't have that many. Yeah,
they used to.

Speaker 5 (30:17):
I think the code was back in the seventies was
just one yeah, and maybe one on each floor.

Speaker 6 (30:22):
It was like, wow, we got a lot. But now
they're everywhere. Yeah, they really are. And that's again something
else that mister electric is going to help you with that.
And of course the safety check should do with every visit.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
That's right. We do safety check on every call new customers.

Speaker 5 (30:39):
We can go over your system and just let you
know of anything that can they can make that system safer,
any items that need to be addressed, you.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Know, absolutely absolutely all right, Well I gotta get you
out and look at these other outdoor lighting in my place.
I go to figure this thing out, man, Yeah, give
us a call. Funs up again. Electricity doesn't have to
be boring, No, not with mister Eli Jeremy. Always good
to see you, my friend. So how's the best what's
the best place for us to reach in and get

(31:08):
you out there to their place?

Speaker 5 (31:09):
So you can reach us by phone eight zero three
eight six eight four to two four three, or you
can reach us at our website mister Eelectric dot com,
forward slash Columbia.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Okay, and then nuberrato three eight two eight.

Speaker 5 (31:24):
Eight six eight eighty six eight zero three just information
eight six eight four to two four to three. And
we always have a live person answering, so you know
you always get a hold of somebody.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
All right, Jeremy, have a good weekend, buddy.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yes, sir, there was a far.

Speaker 7 (31:39):
When your power goes out, there's not a lot to do,
but you can call mister Electric with priority dispatching. One
of our electricians will be at your door ready to
safely restore your power fast. Because not having electricity is annoying,
very annoying. So next time you need an electrician, call

(32:00):
mister Electric because life is better with electricity. Services provided
by locally owned and operated franchise ease. Products and services
may vary by location.

Speaker 5 (32:08):
Hi there, I'm Jeremy Holliday, local owner of Mister Electric
of Columbia. I've been servicing the Midlands since twenty ten
and I'm happy to answer questions and give you free
estimates with upfront pricing. Schedule your free safety check with
mister Electric of Columbia and receive fifty dollars off any
work over three hundred dollars. Call eight oh three eight
six eight four two four three or visit my website

(32:30):
mister Electric dot com forward slash Columbia.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Hi, 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,

(32:55):
just with a new name. Eight oh three nine nine
to one roof and Beaverroofing dot com. Ne gutter or
roofing work, Leave it to Beaver Beaver Roofing and Beaver Gutters.
Now back to the Home Improvement Show the Midlands on

(33:17):
one O three point five FM and five sixty AMWVOC
and welcoming to the microphone Russ Marcasey, the owner of
the Finishing Touch team here in Columbia. Good morning, do you.

Speaker 8 (33:26):
Say good morning? Gary could be here.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Nice to see him, sir, y'all have twenty three years
now doing this.

Speaker 8 (33:32):
Twenty three years. This summer actually was twenty three years June.
First family owned, family operated the whole time, rocking and
rolling baby, just painting up the world, Gary, painting up
the world.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
You know, we had a conversation a week ago on
the show with Marcus Greenwell, the owner of Lifetime Cabinets
and Countertops. Yeah, and he was telling me this is
kind of the time of year when we think about
it so often in the spring where people are fixing
things up. Sure, but this is kind of starting to
rival that is maybe the second most popular time when

(34:04):
people say, Hey, I want to get stuff done because
guess what's coming up the holidays? The holidays. Yes, sir,
And like with with Marcus, you know, if you want
to with him, if you want to get countertops done,
you better start thinking about it right now. If you
want them done in time for the holidays. What about
your business? What about the painting business?

Speaker 8 (34:23):
Same way, Gary, same way. I can't tell you how
many times. We get calls just about every year a
week two weeks before Christmas, before Thanksgiving, the holidays where
it's a rush. Maybe it was you know, spur of
the moment thing or the ball got dropped where they
want to freshen up some rooms because they have get
togethers for the holidays and they want to get several,

(34:43):
you know, a few rooms painted, maybe the main area
of the house because that's where folks are going to
be for the get together and it becomes very difficult
getting that done in that amount of time. Typically we say,
you know, thirty days is a really good rule of
thumb kind of time time to get on our books,
if you're thinking about doing something like that. Anything really

(35:04):
short of that is you know, I'm not going to
say a miracle, but it becomes a lot tougher to
get to get it done.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
As matters, we all have to align.

Speaker 8 (35:15):
It really does, it really does. Now, you know, that's
for rooms. Now cabinetry we get we can get folks
in a little bit quicker with cabinetry because it's a
little bit of a different system. But generally speaking, if
if you want to get you know, let's say three
to four rooms done in your house or a main area,
living room, kitchen, things like that. We need about thirty
days in advance to book that out.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
And the process itself, folks should know it's it's not
going to be, Hey, we're going to zip in and
do it zip out. No, there's more to it than that.
So even that process once you get there, is not
going to be like a one day process.

Speaker 8 (35:50):
Typically typically, I mean it all depends. Obviously, there's a
lot of variables at hand here, right, depending on the
amount of work and you know what kind of preparation
we have to do, what kind of condition it's in
to begin with. But no, we don't. We don't just
slap paint on and go gary. We we have to
go through all the right motions, all the right preparation

(36:10):
techniques to make sure that that it comes out correctly.
We do a lot of little we call them trick
I call them tricks of the trade. I like to say, right,
but it just makes the paint job look so much better. Okay,
I'm gonna give you a real quick example. How many
times have you looked up at a ceiling line, let's say,
and you see that squiggly looking line up there. It

(36:32):
just doesn't look very sharp, it doesn't look professional. Okay, Well,
a lot of times that's because of the way the
sheet rock was done to begin with. Okay, there's a
little bit of a concave area right at the top
of that ceiling line, okay, and it is difficult to
cut a straight line to it because you're you're cutting
along a jagged kind of.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Surface, right.

Speaker 8 (36:52):
So what we'll do is we'll go a step further
and we'll actually run a beat of calk all the
way around the perimeter of that ceiling line to fill
that con cave gap in to reform the ceiling lines
so we can paint a really straight looking line.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (37:06):
This is just one of the little things that we do.
That's just part of our paint job that we we
do no matter what. The same thing with drywall repairs.
We you know, a lot of folks with a lot
of companies will will charge extra to repair drywall before
they paint. Okay. Now, if it's extensive, of course, and
there's just tons of sheet rock work, yeah, there's going
to be an additional charge to that. But your general

(37:28):
nail pops a stress crack here and there, nail holds
from a picture frame or something. Right, It's all part
of our paint job. It's a standard preparation job that
we do always.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
You know, when you go in to do an estimate,
you can tell right away if the change's going to
need more repair than than what would typically be needed.
Of course included the.

Speaker 8 (37:47):
Yeah, yeah, And every situation is different, and every homeowner's
expectation is different as well, right, So we talk about
that in the very beginning when I go to when
I meet with the folks and look at their homes,
what they want to do, we talk about it. I
like to know what their expectations are. How far do
you want us to go with this?

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Right?

Speaker 8 (38:05):
Because let's face it, you know, sheet rock is not perfect,
all right, and never it's not a perfect surface.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Right.

Speaker 8 (38:13):
You can spend a day in one room doing nothing
but preparation work on walls if that's what you wanted. Okay,
So we try to manage expectations and find out what
exactly are you looking for? What irks you?

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Does this?

Speaker 8 (38:28):
These type of imperfections irk you? And you know, we
try to get a good consensus of that before prior
to going in so that we can make the customers happy.
As possible.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Customers always right, that's right. Absolutely. Yeah. If you go
into a situation Russ where there really used to be
a lot of work done to the sheet rock, but
the but the you know, the customer is going to say,
you know what, I no, I just I just want
to code of paint up there. Professionally. That's got to
you know, great on your very last nerve.

Speaker 8 (38:54):
I'm sure it's tough, but it is. It is tough
because we do have a certain standard that we're just
not going to go below. And I do get that
a lot. I get it a lot, actually, Garrett. So
that's actually a good point. So I get folks that
maybe it's a rental proper, let's say, or they just
don't want to put money into it whatsoever. They want

(39:16):
to slap some pain on, freshen it up. You know,
we can, we can accommodate certain things to a certain extent,
but at the end of the day, our name is
on this and it's got to be done right because
if somebody ever hass hey, who did your pain job,
you know it's got to look right. If finishing touch
did it, Yep, that's that's just a fact.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Are there any obviously painting insight. I wouldn't guess there
are too many obstacles. But we've talked about this before.
Depending on the weather, if you're doing outside jobs and
we go again, we're a long way away from the
holiday still, but they'll be here before you know it.
They will be and maybe one of these days of
whether we'll turn colder around here again, who knows, but
or stop raining or stop raining. Yeah, I mean, the

(39:56):
rain's obvious to turn into doing outdoor paint work. But
are there are conditions when it gets really cold outside
where you know, outdoor jobs have to be you know,
push back or put on hold for a while.

Speaker 8 (40:06):
Of course. Yeah, you know, it gets it gets pretty
chilly in South Carolina, you know, you know, January February,
it'll get chilly and you just have to watch the weather.
It's the same thing in the summer, excuse me, when
it's too hot, we have to you know, chase the
shade around the house. Right, Well, in the wintertime, we
have to chase the temperature. Okay, so you're chasing the

(40:29):
sun now, that's correct, right, So it may not be
feasible in the morning time, but we may have to
get there around ten eleven o'clock to start doing some work, right.
The main thing is at nighttime when it gets real
cold at night time, that's what you really need to
be leery of. If it's dropping down below you know, forties,
forty five degrees into the thirties, that's where you've got
to really be leery of what you're putting on outside

(40:52):
on those type of you know winter days. But yeah,
it's we still paint throughout the winter. It's very very
very doable. It just depends on how cold it gets
at night and in the morning time. It's really what
it comes down to the moisture level, right, Yeah, well, yeah,
that's always.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
A it is.

Speaker 8 (41:09):
It is because it'll stay wet, especially if it's rained
for a couple of days in the wintertime and it's
staying cold. You've got to really watch.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
That, right.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
So now I mentioned this last week. We were talking
about you during the morning show Daring the Week one day,
and I told the story about how last weekend I was,
you know, walking through the great room at the house
and Ann had one of those you know home fix
up shows on or whatever, yea, and these people I
think were renovating a beach property or something or another,

(41:37):
and they were number one. I think when they put
up these numbers, they're always lying to you. Anyway. They
don't look accurate to me at all. But they were.
They were putting in new cabinets in their kitchen, and
the price tag was going to be like fifteen thousand dollars.
Oh yeah, And I stopped and I went, yeah, really, yeah,

(42:00):
what are you gonna get for that? Let's face it,
I mean, replacing cabinets in the kitchen is you know,
you may have to actually take out a second mortgage
on your home to do it sometimes.

Speaker 8 (42:12):
Yeah, I mean it's it is not cheap replacing cabinets,
hands down. I mean it's uh, you know, there's there's
no two ways about it. Gary. I mean, look, sometimes
there's situations where you know, cabinets are in shambles, let's say, okay,
and pieces are broken everywhere. Maybe you know the folks

(42:34):
beforehand didn't take care of them. Well, yeah, there's times
where you do have to replace sections and certain hinges
and doors and things like that. Right, But the amount
of cabinet guys that we work with, Gary, they can
literally fix anything that they can beef anything up that
you have sitting there existing. Okay, we're talking. I'm considering

(42:56):
doing it my own house right now. Okay, we're just
kind of at that point where ready.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
To do something.

Speaker 8 (43:01):
I know, somebody you can call, do you because I
need that? And uh, you know, and so we're talking
about it. We're we're talking about actually raising the cabinets
up a little bit higher to go to the ceiling
ceiling line, adding some crown mold, adding some slide out shelving, right,
and then we're gonna paint them all. We're gonna we're
gonna do a real nice paint job on them and

(43:21):
uh and get them looking a lot different. So the
sky's the limit when it comes to cabinet try. Replacing
is to me these days, is like the last resort
in my opinion. There's so many other options, so many
different ways to go about it that you can get
a heck of a lot more bang for your buck
versus just replacing the cabinets. Uh, and and save you know,

(43:45):
thousands of dollars. It's to fraction the price, it really.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Is, right, I mean, yeah, really, why are they so expensive?
Is it? The wood? The craftsmanship, the you know, is
it just is it? There's alway.

Speaker 8 (44:00):
There's been custom cabinetry that you can, you know, spend
a lot of money on, right, sure, but you know
everything's gone up in the last five to ten years.
Inflation has just increased exponentially, right, and it's just everything's
gone up. And lumber, Yeah, lumber is a big reason
for it. You know, quality of the wood, all sorts

(44:20):
of stuff. So you know, they they have come up
with some economic type cabinets that are on the cheaper side.
But you get what you pay for, right, you really do.
It's the cheaper hinges. It's the hinges that loosen up
after six months and you're constantly having to tighten them up.
They lose, you have to constantly adjust them all the time.
They're very flimsy, they break easily. Those are the cabins

(44:44):
that you know, you get what you pay for on those,
you really do.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
But to what they're putting in that beach house flip
that I saw on the TV.

Speaker 8 (44:50):
The other day, it could be yeah, it sounds like,
but now you get again, you guys come in, so
we're talking about more than just really just painting. But
you can do that correct, So we do the painting, right,
we're the painting contractor we will coordinate all of that.
But we work with several several cabinet companies hand in
hand that we have great relationships with that that we

(45:12):
can we work coincide with them. So if they if
the customer needs something done like that, we can either
they can either go straight through us with that or
we can work they can work elect directly through the
cabinet guy and we do the painting. We work in
all sorts of different ways, but the fact of the
matter is we have those we have those connections and
those capabilities to be able to do all of that

(45:33):
so you don't have to a homeowner doesn't have to
call another guy and try to figure out how to
get this done and coordinate that with a painter. Right,
that becomes a big problem a lot of times, and
you're making a lot more phone calls, whereas we can
do a one stop turn key situation and it's a
lot less phone calls and stress on the customer.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
And a quicker getting it back to where you can
use it again a lot quicker. Yes, absolutely, and the
process you mentioned this before, and it's fascinating. I mean
when you guys, obviously the cabinet shells with the cabin shells,
and you're gonna have to, you know, deal with those
where they are right. But the doors themselves, I mean,
you're you're not just going out there and slapping a

(46:13):
coat of paint up on those on those cabinet doors,
have you pain?

Speaker 3 (46:16):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (46:16):
No, Gary, So we we remove all of the doors. Okay,
we bring them back to our shop. Okay, we have
a state of the art spray booth in our shop.
We don't we don't spray the cabinets in some in
a home owner's garage or outside on on a on
a stretched out ladder, right with all the elements and
pollen and all sorts of stuff floating around.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
This all winds up in your paint job.

Speaker 8 (46:37):
It does, It absolutely does. And even if you can't
see anything in the air, it's there all right. We
all know that we've seen where lights shine through a
window before and you can see all the dust floating
in the air that's all over the place, and it
sticks into your paint.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
Okay. Uh.

Speaker 8 (46:52):
We have a controlled environment in our shop. We have
dry rooms that we put the cabinets into once they've
been sprayed, and the booth so that it can dry
it's all controlled, right, and it just the finish comes
out spectacular when you when you do these steps and
you control the environment of how.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
You're doing it, right, So you're taking everything off back
to the shop right back installing bam. Correct.

Speaker 8 (47:19):
Yeah, it's about a week process. So if we pick
up on a on a Monday, let's say, you can
typically expect that we're reinstalling those doors on the following Monday.
It's about a seven day process, is what it is.
And it depends if the cabinet's already painted or if
they're a stained cabinet. How many steps we have to
go through.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Okay, could you change from staying to paint or paint
to stain.

Speaker 8 (47:37):
You can always yeah, you can always change from stain
to paint, but you can't paint change from paint to stain.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
Oh really, okay, well that makes sense.

Speaker 8 (47:44):
Yeah, you're stripping them down at that point. It just
wouldn't be wouldn't be worth it at that point to
do that's a lot of a lot of work. And
plus once you've painted the cabinets like that, that paint
has gone into the grain of the actual wood, right,
and it's never going to stain the same way because
it's filled a lot of the grainage, you know, in
the wood itself. So yeah, it doesn't stay in the
same way.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
It makes perfect sense. Yeah. Again, if you're a first
responder first, if you're a veteran, aways always always, all
year long. So whether it's just one room, a whole home, cabinets,
or hey, maybe you're on a school board somewhere and

(48:26):
you know that one of your buildings needs to be
you guys have done that before.

Speaker 8 (48:29):
We do. We did about four schools this summer, about
four different schools this summer, yes, sir, we did. We
do a lot of school painting, a lot of commercial painting.
The new Great Collegiate School right right down here.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Off of the highway.

Speaker 8 (48:43):
We're just finishing up that one, the brand new Mungo
building off of twenty six. We did all the painting there.
We just did two different public's upfits over the summer.
A lot of commercial painting we do as well. There's
a big job, busy, busy.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
Yeah, all right, So you can get your free yester
bit by calling this guy right here, and trust because
I know from experience if he doesn't answer the phone
when you call, it won't be long for you. Hear
back from him russ Hod of how to folks reach
at the Fetishy Touch Team.

Speaker 8 (49:13):
You can always give me a call at eight zero
three four sixty seven six seven five nights. Good to
see about it, Thanks Garry.

Speaker 9 (49:20):
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

(49:40):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Get fifty off.

Speaker 9 (50:00):
Your next service call when you mentioned you heard us
on WVOC. Learn more at Freedom dash Plumbing dot com.
That's Freedom dash Plumbing dot com.