Home Improvement Show 11-04-23

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Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Good morning my friends, since thattime again the Hope Improvement Show of the
Midlands on one of three point fiveFM and five sixty AM. WVOC.
Wonderful to have you join us thismorning. Appreciate that My name is Gary
David. Lots of information to passalong this hour. We'll be talking to
James car Well about all your plumbingneeds with Freedom Plumbing coming up here in
a couple of minutes. Casey Marcusand this time Cody is going to join

(00:32):
him one of the mini vendors andboy a special one lifetime cabins and countertops.
How is it you can find justabout anything you want. We'll talk
about if that coming up in thenext half hour. We get things underway
though, now with John Fickner fromRock that Top Breeds Surface and John.
Good morning sir. How are you? Good morning sir? Oh heck car
you man. If I was doingany better, it'd be a lot of

(00:53):
trouble for everybody else. Oh yeah, yeah, Now, Gath, you
was here a couple of weeks ago. You were off busy doing doing stuff.
Yep, yep. And then Icame in and she was off doing
stuff. We're just busy, busypeople. Well, yeah, that's a
good sign. Right, yep,yep, it sure is. I'd rather
complain about being too busy, rightexactly. Let us reset here if we

(01:17):
can for a second, mister Figner. And here's the amazing thing about this
what you do. A lot offolks probably even realize it exists. But
you've been doing this for a longtime, yep, decades. So this
is not new. Day's evolving technology. It's evolving. It's not new,
it's not unproven, right, it'snot somebody's never been done before. It's

(01:41):
an unknown jewel. Tell us whatit is you do? Do So did
you say do do? I did? In a nutshell? I was hoping
you wouldn't point that out to everybody, But there it is. Sorry,
drop that load in a nutshell ratherthan like, let's say a bathroom,
let's say somebody wants to the renovatedbathroom, rather than you know, tearing

(02:02):
everything all out and tearing it allapart and then putting it all back together
again. If everything is you know, in a good location, and you
don't really want to move things around, it's it's functional, it's just ugly.
We just leave it alone, leaveit right where it is. And
resurface it. And our chemicals areincredibly well, they're waterproof, they're beautiful

(02:24):
and incredibly durable. So there's alot of upsides to this. Number one,
it's it's super fast. I mean, we can do an entire bathroom,
talking like the bathtub or shower stall, the ceramic tile walls, and
a lot of times in Columbia theygo all the way around the bathroom,
the entire ceramic tile floor, andyou know, the vanity top and all

(02:45):
that, and we have great colors. Rather than tearing it all off,
we just leave it right there andresurface it all. So it's three days,
maybe four at the max. Andwe can do two bathrooms in the
same house in three or four daysand do it quick, you know,
and expensively. So what's the whatall surfaces can you resurface? Well,

(03:07):
maybe maybe I should ask what can'tcan't you do? That's an easier like
a vinyl linoleum floor. We can'tresurface that because our chemicals are too strong.
You know, they'll melt the stuff. But ceramic tile floors and walls,
no problem. You know, asteel, cast iron or plastic tub,
no problem. Any kind of vanitytop including granite. We do those

(03:29):
all. You know, there areugly granites out there. So if you
have a green one or a pinkone, or you know something that you
don't, you don't have to replaceit. It can still be granite and
we can resurface it and it's justgorgeous. I'm not sure if there's seeing
a pink granite countertop, but someserve there's one there somewhere out in there.
Not flashy pink, but there's some. There's some feminine colors and some

(03:49):
of that stuff. Nothing against that. Well, for example, and we'll
probably be talking in a couple ofweeks here because we're getting my parents home
ready for sale, and lo andbehold, you know there's there's a master
bathroom with some of your favorite,one of your favorite colors in there.
Oh pink. But it's not everysingle it's a it's a it's a tile

(04:13):
floor, but it's not every tile. There'slets or something, just a couple,
not even that many. And I'mlike, why did you do that?
All right? But but there itis. Yeah, bam, right
in your face. So yeah,well we'll talk about that later. Yeah.
Uh so the process itself, Yeah, somebody no doubt is listening right

(04:34):
now and they're saying, well,man, I can probably just put something
on that stuff myself. People tryto do that and that doesn't usually turn
out well. They get in toodeep and and then the final the end
product is very very low quality.They can't get the chemicals that I can

(04:54):
get, and they don't know howto apply them properly. So it's really
a lot about prep. If youprep it right and you'd use really good
chemicals, the outcome is amazing.But if people go and they buy a
kit like a touch up kit ora tub kit from Home Depot or Lows,
and then they brush or roll iton or whatever, it's not gonna
stick. And now it's got tobe stripped. And if you strip that

(05:15):
stuff, it's twice as much moneyand it's twice as much time too,
So it's just not good at all. People shouldn't be doing that. They
shouldn't even sell those touch up kitsfor people, But so I didn't realize
they did. So, yeah,you can go to a big box store
and buy something like that. Youcan go to Home Depot or Lows and
they have a tub painting kit,and it's just it's embarrassing. It's bad

(05:38):
for the industry. Really kind ofhurts me to the core watching people do
that because they shouldn't be doing that. I'm sorry. So when folks call
you guys, what are the questionsyou're most often asked? Do you have?
You know, a lot of colorsto choose from? Which we do.
I don't carry everything in stock,of course, because it's the paints

(05:59):
are expensive. But mostly people arepicking from ten, ten or fifteen colors
that we have every single time.They don't. A lot of the colors
are discontinued because nobody uses uses them. Florida have some crazy colors still,
but uh well yeah here in Colombia, you know, we're we're we're doing
blacks, whites, grays, alot of grays still, and some beisias
are coming back. I guess.So that's that's neat. But it's changing

(06:23):
all the time. I mean,right, Well, if somebody wants a
color that you don't normally stock,I mean, are you able to get
you can special order and I guess, or well, solid color, we
can do any solid color. Butlike if somebody wanted a pink bath tub,
we can do that. Heart Iknow, I probably wouldn't. But

(06:46):
we can do any color on theSHERIWN Williams fan deck typically okay, but
people usually if they just want totub or shower, they want to pure
white and shiny. Yeah, butfloors, we can throw some stone gray
in there. Make it, makeit. Uh. I think Summit gray
is a very popular color on thestone gray primer. Same with vanity tops.
We get a lot of colors,you know, on on those two

(07:08):
surfaces, but for the most part, you know, tubs and showers and
surrounds it. Most people just wantthem pure white and glossy, and that's
really inexpensive and super fast to do. So that's the first question you get,
is all right, what color isgonna choose from? Well, I
come with samples and I break themall out. There's a lot of names
for colors, but I have,you know, a box of probably thirty

(07:30):
colors that people can pick from,and they're all samples that I've done in
people's homes. I just throw atile in the in the on the sink
that I cover up, and whileI'm painting the countertop, I paint that
tile too, and that becomes asample. So what are the questions you
get asked a lot, how muchdoes it cost? Well, yeah,
that's that's a that's a big eat. And when I tell them, they're

(07:50):
like, no way, you cando an entire bathroom for that, Yeah
we can. How does it holdup to heat? And it does great
with heat? So if I doU for Micah countertop and somebody throws the
red hot pan on there, it'sprobably not going to hurt my coating at
all. However, it is stilla laminate countertop and it can delaminate from
the heat. So but granted,no problem with that, right, yeah,

(08:13):
no, yeah, so it holdsup to heat great. But that
is one of the first questions peopleask. Well, let me go back
to that second question then, sinceyou brought it up. But people are
like shocked when they find out,you know, how much this costs.
Let's put in the context of allright, somebody's going to come in and
rip out that bath up. They'regonna rip up all that flooring, maybe

(08:37):
replace all the countertops or what haveyou. Okay, so that's that's option
A the entire bathroom, not notnot even you know, yeah, not
not even do any real you know, changing of the structure. It's all
the same stuff in the same places, but just with new stuff. Okay,
so say let's form a percentage basis. How much money could you save

(09:03):
winding up with the same outcome butdoing it this way as opposed to the
first way. Yeah, twenty thousanddollars. I happened to bring my friend
Rick today, who was a custodof mine, and he gave Rick mint
front. Hey guy, and hegot an estimate to have it a bath
entire room gutted and pull pull thatmicrophone over. Since you're here, Rick,

(09:26):
come on, man, this ismore talk about your project. How
are you man it? Rick's alittle shy, but yeah, So we
were going to do a bathroom,just a small condo with a bathroom.
We got an estimate well over twentythousand dollars. And what were you What
were you looking to do? Rick, Well, we were going to take
it down the studs because there's somemold behind the drywall, and so we
just replace a vanity retile and puta nice floor in. And it was

(09:50):
well over twenty thousand dollars was ourestimate. And I don't want to give
John's quotes because I don't work forhim. I'm just a cusper of his,
but I'd venture to say he couldprobably do it for twenty percent of
that or maybe even thirty percent somewherein that ballpark. Again, I don't
want to give a quote for Johnbecause it's unfair to him. But I
know that he saves people a lotof money and his work is incredible,
and he's done work for me.He did some columns in my basement and

(10:13):
made him look like granted as Irequested. Oh wow, friends and family
were amazed or like, that's that'snot that's not Stone. I said,
nope, that's John, and that'swhat John does fun projects. Yeah,
it's amazing. So these actually tookcolumns and made look like granted. Yeah
they were. They were styrofoam columns. Uh in the base what and uh,

(10:35):
I'm sorry that's stire from They werethey were insulation. What's insulation made
out of fiberlass? There were fiberglasscolumns. That's long time ago. Yeah,
And he primed them and and actuallyhe let me help him because I
wanted to learn the process. Andbetween the two of us we knocked it
out and friends and family were amazed. They can be like, no way,
you didn't replace his Nope, didn'treplace him. Yeah, but bathrooms

(10:58):
and kitchens are probably be a specialtyflooring. Uh, but if you name
it. I've seen him do nickknacks, I've seen him do wall hangings.
I've seen him do while he's donerocks. Yeah, you know those
pump covers, those rock pump covers, and just yeah yeah yeah. So
I won't mention her name, butshe's a well known, uh real estate

(11:20):
agent in Lexington, and I wentover there and did a little bit of
work for her. I don't thinkit was even resurfacing, but I saw
this rock sitting out there covering herwell pumping. It just looked like an
old piece of Oh I was Iwas power washing, so I powerwashed that
rock, and while in power washing, I'm like, oh, I could
make this thing look like Plymouth rock. So I took it and I did.
I resurfaced that thing and brought itback two days later, and she

(11:43):
pulled in a driveway. She's like, oh my god, what did you
do my rock cover? I'm like, what do you think? She's like,
is that real? She didn't evenbelieve it. That still looks perfect.
I've been sitting in the sun nowfor five years. I should go
take a picture of that. Yeah, yeah, well I think that's on
my on my Facebook or my website. That rock. So Rick just mentioning

(12:07):
that, well, the twenty thousanddollars job might not be done for twenty
to thirty percent of that cost,is right. I've had many people tell
me that they got estimates of twentyeven thirty thousand in some cases. And
I'd be in and out for thirtyfive hundred dollars even even three sometimes.
And when we do it, sincewe're doing the floor, I take the

(12:28):
old toilet off the floor because Iwant to resurface underneath that, and I
could put the old toilet back,or if you've got one sitting in a
in a box outside the door inthe hallway, I'll put it together and
put that. I mean you mightas well well full service huh. Yeah,
yep. I try to stay awayfrom plumbing as much as I possible.
Well, I think it's usually toJames free of plumbing typically, Yeah,

(12:50):
yeah, I thought to James quiteoften. Actually, I mean it's
only certain the idyo us, nomatter how talent we think we are.
Yeah, there's only so far weshould be going. When it comes to
that sort of thing. And againthis is a good example of that too,
because I would have you know,heck, I gotta tell you the
truth. If I'd have gone bya big box store and seen something that
claims that you could resurface whatever withit, and I'm looking at and I

(13:15):
forget that this cause my parents' house. Well, I'll give it a shot,
truthfully. I mean, it mightbe such that it went on.
Okay, it looks good for now. I'm guessing this is one of these
things where, yeah, it looksfine today, it wasn't going to look
like in a couple of months,a couple of years, maybe even a
couple of weeks. I guess ifyou get a lot of wear and tear

(13:37):
on it. I mean, Iwas out riding my boat. Short story,
but I hit a chair blew offof somebody's deck. It's floating in
the middle of the lake. Itwas a poly erathane chair of those Pollywood
I think they call it. AndI hit it up with my boat,
like what the heck was that?And so it was a big, nice
chair and I put it in myboat and took it home and we resurfaced
it. Actually, I had myson resurface it for me, and it's

(13:58):
sitting down in my deck and it'sgoing just we got crushed pearl in the
in the clear coat and it's onnaval blue and bow and the sun hits
that thing. It's just sparkles likelike a diamond. It's so you can.
You can do chairs, you cando five glass columns. We can,
and we do it for fun mostly. I really like, is there
anything though that you really couldn't do? I mean we mentioned, you know,

(14:22):
Laminus and things on that nature,but I mean, is there any
any you know, there's not muchreally that you can't that you can't do.
I mean would right now. Literallyten minutes twenty minutes ago, I
was in an elevator and we're doingthe panels in the in the elevator,
and the panels are really just piecesof romca hanging on the wall and h
we got to number three. We'redoing one every single day this week,

(14:46):
and so we're in number three todayand we went to start resurfacing the or
cleaning up one of the panels,and it's delaminating so bad that the entire
panel is just barely even hanging onthere. So we ripped it right off
of there, and we're going todo the plywood. It's it's a chipboard
underneath it that it's glued to.Yeah, we're just going to resurface that.

(15:07):
So so that's sort of here youcan do as well. Yep,
Yeah, we sure can. Huh. Okay. So sometimes permica countertops are
so bad and delaminating that you wejust tear them off completely and just do
the particle wood wood that's underneath underneathit. Yep. Fascinating. Yep,
it's pretty neat. So it's incredible. And when we're done now you don't

(15:28):
have to worry about it delaminating morebecause there's there's no laminade on there.
Yeah, so you're you're in oneman mission to delaminate the world. Yeah.
I do pink the world too,especially if you got pink lamita.
You definitely did to call it allright, take care of that well,
Rick, it's nice to make itsounds like you're a repeat customer man.
Oh yeah, repeat customer and alongtime friend and definitely a supporter of his

(15:50):
company, his company and his business, and he and Kathy work hard.
There, good people and he doesgreat work, terrific. Well, thanks
for shopping by man appreciate it.Yeah, and uh, well, I
guess John, at this point intime, people folks are hearing this and
they're thinking, Okay, I needto check more into this. Yeah,
that's the best way to reach you, guys. Uh. Our website is
Rockdtopresurfacing dot com and we're on Facebookas Rock Thetop Resurfacing. I encourage people

(16:14):
to google me or us and you'llsee that we carry a five star rating.
Yeah that's not not everybody. Don'lljust give those out, No,
they don't just give me and thoseare real and there's a lot of testimonials
on there, so you know,google us to your research. There you
go, start that resurfacing. Allright, John, good to see about
it with you. Thank you.Rock the Top Resurfacing transforms outdated tubs,

(16:37):
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(17:02):
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(17:26):
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man caves, you name it.Lifetime Cabinets Encountertops Fernandina Road in Columbia,
Chapin Road in Chapin and online atLifetime Cabinets SC dot com. Hey look,

(18:12):
it's her old pal, James Carwell, the owner of Freedom Plumbing,
joining us now here on the HomeImprovement Show of the Midlands. Good to
have you, James, Good morningsir, Good to be here, Gary.
How are you. I'm doing well? Man, I see you all
over the place these days. Man, we get around. Apparently you do.
And you've been in my neighborhood quitea bit recently too, I've noticed,

(18:34):
Oh yeah, did a tankless waterheater install for one of your neighbors
terrific. I'm sure she's happy withthat we had. That's something we hadn't
talked about in quite some time,James, tankless water heaters. Maybe we'll
talk about that today. What doyou think absolutely sounds good of the water
heaters you're installing these days? Isit getting to be where you know,

(18:55):
you're doing more of than tankless onesthan any other any other type. You
know, they're definitely more prevalent nowadaysthan they were, and you know,
the situation kind of dictates which routeis the best route to take. You
know, if you get a smallhome, just one person in the house,

(19:17):
yes you can get some energy savingsout of switching from an electric to
a tankless natural gas or propane tankless, but not every situation really is needed
to have a tankless as far asthe expense, so it's typically about twice
the cost of the install of anormal water heater. What take think of

(19:38):
normal water heater around fifteen a tanklessaround three thousand. All parking, I'm
getting it is that installed or isthat just for the unit of south.
Yeah, that's that's installed. Andagain it can range. We've done some
tankless installs for forty two hundred.They go with the bigger unit that has
a built in recirculating pump and it'sa condensing model, which means it's more

(20:02):
efficient. So yeah, it canrange. And depending on the house size
and how many bathrooms and everything.Now, just curious here from a cost
standpoint. So let's say you gotwice as much using your example of fifteen
hundred for the conventional old style threethousand of the tankle is installed. What

(20:25):
sort of over the course of ayear, I mean, what sort of
cost savings are we talking about inlower electricity costs From the numbers I've run
and from what I've heard as faras recovery time on your investment above and
beyond what you would spend on aregular heater, it's about a fifteen year
recovery time and that's about the lifespan of the heater, so you know,

(20:48):
it kind of breaks even so tospeak over the life span of the
heater. Okay, but the benefitis more in the fact that you have
endless hot water situations where you havesoaking tubs or elderly might have had all.
Yeah, those you're not Typically you'renot going to be able to fill

(21:12):
up a tub like that with astandard tank style heater. You're going to
run out of hot water before thatthing is full. So certain cases,
a lot of people in the home, teenage kids got taking showers, back
back, running out of hot watersnot something you have to worry about with
a tankless water here, what didshould you expect? And let's go let's

(21:38):
go here. Okay, regular stylewater heater I'll just call old fashioned for
sake of argument here. They comein different sizes, right, I mean,
depending on the size of the home, number of showers and fixtures and
things like that. What are youroptions there? Typically forty or fifty.
You have some cases where you cando an eighty. They're now considered more

(22:02):
light commercial than residential, but itcould still be used in a residential application.
So I mean, is it good? Is it possible that you could
say, well, I don't wantto, you know, invest the extra
money for the tangles. I justwant to get as big a model as
I can. Can you get ayou know, one big enough to ensure

(22:22):
that. Let's say a family offour is not going to run out of
hot water. That's hard to say, depending on their habits. So if
you get somebody that hops in theshower and they stand in there for thirty
minutes, you're going to have aproblem. Typically you get about a seventy
percent yield from a water heater,so you know, forty gallons, you
get seventy percent of that, andthen it's going to start cooling down pretty

(22:45):
quick after that. Okay, anaverage shower, an average shower, let's
say you're hopping in out of theshower and say five minutes. You don't
have that that teenager in the housethat likes a thirty minute shower, you
know a five minute shower, becauseyeah, I've had those, I've been
A shower is going to consume abouthow much how many gallons of water depends
on how hot you like the water, depends on the temperature that the water

(23:06):
is set at. So I guessthe best way to kind of describe what
happens there is the hotter your temperaturethe shower, the less hot water you're
going to use as far as volumeof actual water to reach the desired temperature.
That you're trying to achieve because ifyou get one hundred and forty degree
water and you're mixing that with seventydegree cold water, you're going to get

(23:27):
that one hundred degrees a lot witha lot less hot water than if you
had one hundred and twenty degree hotwater in seventy degree cold water. I
got you. So there's a lotof factors that kind of play into how
long and how you know, muchof a shower you can take with a
certain gallon amount in a water heater. So really, again, this is

(23:48):
not so much that I'm I'm goingto go make the investment, take the
plunge here, so to speak,and go for the tankless water heater.
It's not so much a question ofI'm going to save that much more in
electricity over the of the of thecourse of a month or a year.
Even you mentioned a fifteen year returnon that this kind of break even point.
But it is, Yeah, I'mtired of run out of hot water

(24:11):
mainly, and so you're definitely gonnahave a lot more energy savings if you're
going if you're transitioning from an electricstyle tank water here to a tankless because
that electric heater or even a gason that for that matter, is gonna
heat cool whether you use it ornot. So let's say you left your

(24:32):
house for a month, that waterheater is gonna cool down, heat back
up, cool down, heat backup, and then can continue to cycle
whether or not water is being usedin it or not, because eventually,
you know, you have transfer ofheat. Heat's going to leave the water
and it's eventually going to need toheat back up because the thermostat says,
hey, we're not hot enough.Well, since you brought that up,

(24:56):
let's say you are going on asabbatical of the sort you're gonna leave for
a month. Uh, you know, short of just I guess going wherever
it's located and shutting off the pilotlight or what have you, there's no
real other way to shut that thingdown, or should you even try to.
You can on a gas unit,you can turn your breaker off I

(25:17):
guess thermostat to vacation, which ispretty much just means the pilot light stays
lit and it doesn't heat and coolwhile you're going all that. You said
on electric, right, do allelectric water heaters have that? That's a
that's a gas model. Gas model. Okay, Yeah, you just this
knob typically on the front of theunit. Most of them are red,

(25:40):
red knobs on the front of theunit. It'll have you know where you
can change the temperature setting on thethermostat right, and if you go all
the way down it typically is thevacation mode. Okay for the gas unit
and on the electric I mean youcould always just flip the braker off.
I would also recommend if you're doingthat, to shut the water off to

(26:00):
the house. That way, ifyou know, long hold, something happens
that doesn't happen for the entire timeyou're gone, or until you're one of
your neighbors sees water coming out ofyour front stairs. What Yeah, yeah,
that's kind of the do with thewater heater. That's just in general.
Yeah, no, I agreed.Yeah, yeah, it's a side
note. Yeah, that would bea horror story to come back to right

(26:21):
there. Hey, for somebody who'spurchased the house in the last few years,
they haven't replaced a water heater,and maybe they just never really thought
much about it. How can youquickly tell whether you've got an electric water
heater or a gas water heater.Well, the power cord going into the
top of the heater usually lets youknow, and the gas heater is going

(26:42):
to have some sort of vent,whether it be atmospheric, which means the
vent goes straight up, typically throughyour ceilings or your roof, or out
the wall, which is considered todirect that so it makes a ninety degree
turn and comes out the sidewall.Typically you'll see those applications in a garage.

(27:03):
You know, you're here of beingthe corner of the garage, and
then the vent will turn and goout the wall, and you'll outside you'll
see the little vent cap, atermination cap for the exhaust the combustion gases.
I guess cross spaces will be thatway too, pretty much, would
they. I've seen some direct ventapplications inside of a cross space. You

(27:26):
just got to have a lot ofroom for it because they don't make like
short direct vent water hears. They'retypically going to be pretty tall. So
if you see some sort of anof a vent on the on the outside
of your home near the water heater, let's say go in the cross space
for example, that's that's you gotgas water here, yep, and atmosphereic

(27:48):
event, the vent will actually endthrough the roof, so you'll see a
little a lot of times it's likea silver colored pipe coming out of your
roof that looks different from all theother pipes sticking up right through your roof,
which are with that pipe tree youplumbing are gas heaters. Water heater
is more efficient and giving you morehot water than electric. Yeah. They

(28:12):
definitely have a quicker recovery time,meaning once you deplete the hot water out
of it's going to heat that watera lot quicker. I think electric is
one of the most inefficient ways toheat, whether it be heating the air
or heating water gas. It's definitelyyou know, that's why they say cooking
with gas. Yeah, that's whythey say that. Now, so you've

(28:36):
decided you're going to go with thetankless style water heater, and there's a
there's a misnomer here that you get, you get to put in and of
course you know, now you workwith a pro like James, this is
all gonna be explained to you,of course. But I can foresee a
situation where somebody says, yeah,I want the tankless water heater, and
somebody comes out and installs one andthey cut the shower on hot pright in

(29:00):
and they're surprised to find out theydon't have hot water right away. Yeah,
so it's it's what we call endless, not instant. So typically we'd
like to install the tanklesses near thelocation where your old heater was, so
you're not going to notice a largedifference in wait time that you had before.

(29:22):
So if you move that location ofthe heater twenty feet away from where
it was, you're going to extendweight times for different areas of the home
and then decrease weight times for otherareas. So, you know, there
may be some cases where the layoutjust didn't work the way they had it,
and you know, the customer's like, well, I you know,
hot water my kitchen is not mymain priority. I wanted it near.

(29:44):
I want it to the master bathquicker. So then those cases where you
know, we would consider relocating thetankless closer to the master bedroom or bathroom.
That way they get that hot waterthere quicker. The other option would
be going with a tank list thathas a built in recirculator circulates hot water
through your system and decreases that weighttime for hot water. No, you

(30:07):
mentioned that at the start of thesegment. There that you just did solved
one with that feature on there.How much quick are you going to get
a hot water when you go thatroute? So again, there's a lot
of stuff that kind of goes intoit. You're plumbing layout as one of
the biggest things. So that basicallyyou have a bypass that gets installed on
the furthest faucet and it creates thatloop for the water to continuously circulate through

(30:32):
the system. So basically what itdoes is it pushes hot water to the
hot water side of that faucet andthen the loop it is created by pushing
it to the cold side. Soyou'll get a little bit of lukewarm water
on your cold when you cut iton, but the het will be there
fairly quickly. It does cut offit around ninety degrees, so you'll have

(30:55):
ninety degree water instantly, but thatone hundred and twenty degree water is not
very far behind it. How muchmore is it to go that route,
James, you're looking for the fullinch of LADA here. Now those can
range I would say thirty eight toforty two somewhere in that total ball park
total price here. Now, yeah, total price installed with the bypass programming,

(31:17):
the pump, because those pumps youcan program to Let's say you get
up at six am. You wantto be able to take a shower by
six point thirty. You can programthe pump to cut on at five o'clock
and recirculate that water within that timeperiod to be able to have it there,
so it's not constantly recirculating. You'renot, you know, using that

(31:40):
energy to recirculate water through your system, say at four in the morning when
everybody's sleeping. Well, that's whatI was thinking, because I mean,
this is a system that keeps thatwater if you go that route, keeps
that water hot really all the time. That seems like that could be pretty
cost prohibitive. You know, it'smore of a luxury item as far as

(32:02):
wait times for how long you're howlong it takes for your water to get
the hot water to get to thatfixture. It's basically the best way to
think about it is you have topurge the water that's cooled off in that
line until the hot water gets fromthat tankless to that fixture. So like
in our home, it takes along time for it to get to the
kitchen. You know, we mayhave to run that water for thirty forty

(32:28):
five seconds before we have hot waterin the kitchen. Ye, same way.
So you are using more water inthat case, but on the on
the flip side of that to recirculateit, you're using more energy. Best
tip I ever got that you,James, was when you told me about
a year or so ago, thinkthat shower turn the knob all the way
to hot. Every time I dothat, I think, yeah, I

(32:53):
kind of thought about that. Oneday. I went to turn the shower
on and I put it where Inormally would have the temperature right, yeah,
and I sat there and thought aboutit. I was like, well,
it's going to take longer for thewater to get hot because I'm just
running cold water through it with hotwater instead of all hot water. So
yeah, when you want the waterto get there quick hot, just cut

(33:14):
the hot side on by itself andall the way to hot, and then
adjust back once you get hot waterat the fixture. Don't don't forget you
did that before you hop in.H Yeah, needless to say, it'd
be a little warm depending on howhot your water here is set to.
I got my pad in the morning, man, I cut it all the
way hot by the time I gotmy teeth brushed, It's ready to go.

(33:37):
Boom, there you go, Thereyou go. Freedom Plumbing. James
Carwell. He is the owner andfolks have questions for you, or they
just need a little help. Maybethey want to go to the tankless route
or just ask you about that.I can they reach you, my friend?
Give us a call at eight ohthree four four seven zero four seven
to one, or a visit herwebsite at Freedom dash plumbing dot com.
The guys riding around town all overthe place of the bigger, red,

(33:58):
white and blue trucks Freedom Plumbing,have a great weekend, James, you
do the same, Gary. Thankyou. I'm James Carwell, local owner
and operator of Freedom Plumbing right herein the Midlands. After working as a
plumber for nearly a decade, Idecided to open my own business, and
Freedom Plumbing was born because of mylove for this country and the great respect
I have for the men and womenof our armed forces and our first responders.

(34:22):
I named my company Freedom Plumbing.What sets us apart from other companies
is our customer service. We havea five star rating on Google, a
five star rating on Facebook, ana plus rating on Angie's List and an
A plus rating with a Better BusinessBureau. I'm James Carwell, local owner
of Freedom Plumbing, and we lookforward to servicing you for all of your
plumbing needs. Get fifty percent offyour next service call when you mentioned you

(34:45):
heard us on WVOC. Learn moreat Freedom dash Plumbing dot com. That's
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(35:50):
property a new lease on life withDiamond Concrete Solutions, and we welcome you
back to the Home Improvement Show ofthe Midlands on one oh three point five
FM and five sixty AMWVOC. Letme remind you once again the next hour

(36:15):
as opposed to the All the WellShow airing DOWTL area one o'clock this afternoon,
the best Gamecock coverage Getting ready forthe Game Cocks and the Game Cocks
it starts coming up here in justa few minutes at nine o'clock this morning
with Christopher Thompson, John Whittling theteam over in the shadows of WILLIAMS.
Brice Stadium. All Right, wewelcome in the guys from Lifetime Cabasty Countertops.

(36:35):
Now to wrap up the program thismorning, it's Marcus Greenwell, it's
Casey Alexander. Good morning, gentlemen, Good morning. I've got a special
guest with us this morning. Yes, please, who do we have here
from here in town but base outof Charlotte and Charleston. We've got my
buddy Cody from Easystones Oh yeah,hey, guys, you doing good to

(36:55):
be here. How are you doing? Cody doing pretty good about you.
Heard lots of great things about you, guys, And we've talked to him
about him a little bit on theshow. So he's, you know,
one of our favorites. You know, we love people here in town like
Arcadia. But ironically it goes.I met him shortly after, right before
COVID, if you remember, wehad Arrows, like a little week before

(37:16):
COVID. Arrows came in on theshow with us. Yes, well,
Cody initially replaced him, and thennow I'll let him talk about where he
is now, a little bit largeroperation. So yeah, yeah, now
I'm at easy Stone's. When Imet Casey, I was at a different
company, a little smaller, butnow we have sixteen ocases nationwide and we've

(37:38):
only been a company for about fiveyears. Fast Y Yeah, yeah,
I think so. I think we'regoing to continue to grow. Something that
separates us. We use like someof the best suppliers in the world when
it comes to courts, and thenwe have high selection teams whenever it comes
to overseas, whenever it comes outof the ground. So that and customer
service, I think, or whatkind of push us ahead. They did

(38:00):
a real good job on customer service. Me being the owner, it's especially
nice to have support on that side, the suppliers, sly Stone supplier side.
Yeah, yeah, you know,sorry to interrupt, and again again
people understand what we talked about thisfor years. I mean, yeah,
while you carry a supply on thelot both the showroom and out in Chapin

(38:22):
and one fifty three chain rogue thatfor example, we did our marble in
our in our kitchen, uh twoyears ago whatever it was, you know,
in case he sent me a bunchof pictures and stuff, and you
know, you found the one weliked. And so that comes from a
supplier, like like you guys atEasy Songs. That's right, Yeah,
that's right, that's right. Sothis is important, I mean, to

(38:45):
build those good relationships. So obviouslyyou guys have mm hm oh yeah.
Yeah. They're one of my favoriteclient. Actually yeah, he's saying that
because he's on the radio. I'mjust starting in Casey. We'll just talk
football and granted, you know anythingalways got to follow the different podcast.
He keeps me up on my standup comedy. I'll walk in and they're

(39:06):
over there cackling. So so youguys sixteen locations. Oh yeah, we
have Charlotte, Charleston, Greensboro,Atlanta, Richmond, Fort Worth, Bragg,
Dallas, Spokane, Seattle, NewJersey, Houston. Yeah right,

(39:27):
I can't remember on the list here, can't be my two kids, all
right, go on his hand,I remember them all. But yeah,
we have a good uh market presence. Our owner wants to do business the
right way. So if something happens, which always does in business, we
try to you know, adjust andcorrect any mistake that happens. Yeah,
that's delivered, reallyracked on the delivery, you know, no problem, will

(39:50):
swap it. I got to makethis observation ship because before we came into
the segment here Marcus was josting hisradio voice on. Apparently Cody, you
brought your radio voice. So that'sawesome. So I mean, what is
because I talk to these two allthe time. Yeah, and sometimes we

(40:12):
talk about the trends, you know, and we getting ready to move into
twenty twenty four. Now, yeah, I mean at your level with sixteen
locations across the country, I mean, what are you saying? I know
the courts prices have been amazing recently. Yeah yeah, oh yeah. One
of the people that drove it downnice. Yeah, nice. And we
just put courts at my parents' housea couple of court So thank you for
driving it down, Cody, Appreciateah, you're welcome. You're welcome in your

(40:36):
dad's house. Yeah. Do weexpect to see that trend continue? Or
I mean, as we headed attwenty twenty four, what are you guys
seeing? What's what's the market lookinglike? They're saying that porcelain countertops are
going to be big next. Theissue is a lot of fabricators don't really
want to use porcelain because hardcutting it, it's a whole nother process. It's
more delicate. But Courts is prettystrong. I would say most operations are

(40:59):
doing sixty seventy courts still. Everynow and against, somebody wants a quurt
site, but the builder grade granitesare just that now. They're just builder
grade, really really or like flippinga house. So porcelain's coming. And
other than that, probably courts willjust be more affordable than it was ten
years ago. But if Coreyon wasreplaced by quartz, courts will probably be

(41:20):
replaced by porcelaind soon. Okay,so maybe courts has really become the I
guess more more the go to nowthan the the natural stone sounds like,
uh yeah, I would say forthe most part, especially commercially, just
because you don't have to worry aboutstains. It doesn't absorb anything. It's
very it's ninety three percent resin,so it's like medically porous. You just
have to worry about heat now.Yeah, So in an application like at

(41:45):
a restaurant, on the desk atthe front or whatever, it's gonna be
perfect for something like that because it'sscratch resistant. It's not gonna it's not
gonna have a hot or large amountof heat to it. Or even hospitals
are using a lot in doctor's office. Yeah, yeah, because I don't
absorbity bacteria, so it's a loteasier to keep sanitary, especially in the
operating room with the counter. Yeah, they spilt blood on us, you

(42:09):
know, in lieu of this beingHalloween last week exactly, Well, some
people are still still celebrating, rightcertainly, so Casey, you're the you're
the guy, because Marcus is outbusy, you know, doing measurements and
stuff and talking talking on the phone. Yeah, Pet and dogs and kissing
babies and stuff. But so nowyou know you're you're the guy you like

(42:30):
to conduit between me as a customerand and and Cody U when it comes
to finding just a perfect thing.So how does that episode work? I
really try to keep everybody up todayin our office a lease on on who
has what. I usually I'm constantlyscrolling through their web portals and seeing their

(42:51):
online inventory, trying to just reallyknow who has what and who has the
best well, but they have sucha large inventory that it's pretty easy to
point you know, you know alot of times my first step is here
locally with with Arcadia, Uh thoseguys you know, uh you know,
Cody, will we even vouch forthe for them? They but they're local,

(43:14):
but if we get when they aremore of a boutique type supplier,
so they may not have you know, the just the expansive inventory that he
has and availability of different products.So usually my second step if we can't
find it, if it's the well, third maybe if it's not on the
lot, if it's not at youknow, one of the local spies,

(43:34):
then immediately I'm suggesting, and Iusually know off the back I can get
a fill from my customers. Itry to stay you know, the days
that I am in the office withDavid, I try to listen and and
you know, make sure that youknow, uh that he's on page for
that. But try to keep toddup today as much as possible. But
really just knowing what everybody has andknowing that pretty much, which with their

(44:00):
as expansive as they are, anythingthat I want to find I could probably
find from him. If somebody seessomething, yeah, and it's almost like
he's super deliver. It's to meanthere there, those are run two trucks
a week for us. I meanthere, yeah, I mean it's uh,
but also I mean it's they canget stuff transferred from Seattle if I

(44:22):
need it. And that's that's onething that we haven't had to really dip
into yet, but it's been youknow, he's like, hey, well,
I mean I have this piece outhere. It's just take it take
a little while, you know.But also there I think you know,
I know he doesn't want to probablycome out and say this, but they
are competitive in the market. Andthat's what's cool for us because you know,

(44:45):
if it ever comes down to it, if it comes down to you
know, if it's equivalent product andsomebody's got a better price, he's like,
man, we'll just beat it.So it helps out a lot,
So I'll on that a little bit. I was like, the one more
price guarantee there, that's right.Yeah, to an extent, I have
had to ask called people if Icould buy granted from them that they wanted

(45:06):
it so cheap. But so soI talked to these two crazy guys you
know, all the time, andI done business with them for years now.
But I'm curious from your side ofthe business, Cody, what's it
like working with Casey and Marcus here? Oh, it's a disaster if the

(45:28):
wall. No, No, they'regreat. They're great. They're good at
communicating. Obviously we still do businesstogether after three years and switching companies,
so I really appreciated that they didn'thave to keep working with me whenever I
switched companies. Yeah, I thinkwe were one of your first accounts here
in town two. Oh yeah,yeah, I think so. A few
came over, but y'all were definitelyone of my favorite because I just I've
always talked to you guys pretty plainlyand yeah, kind of social inviting,

(45:52):
me down during a hurricane to uh, you know, oh yeah I heard
that the uh yeah yeah, supplyhouse. I got the hurricane now much
he thinks of you, Casey,Come on down, Carol. I both
had a great time time. I'veheard about their great times. Yeah they

(46:13):
are. They are legendary. Sonow I'm curious back to business here,
Uh from your perspective, Cody,and again going back to you mentioning how
Courts has kind of taken over thewhole thing. And I can remember years
ago. We've been doing this showwith these guys for a long time,
and I can remember a time whenthat guy over there, case was like,
yeah, you know, he's likea baseball traditionalist, right, I

(46:36):
like the natural and Courts is notthe natural, of course, But is
there is there a reason why it'skind of overtaking the market? Is it?
Is it because of the versatility theyable to be, the ability to
get it and a lot of differentlooks, or is it is it just
a after going through the pandemic andhaving supply chain disruptions and all of that,
and trying to get Stone out ofBrazil and wherever else? I mean,

(46:58):
are there reasons why Courts is growown so much in popularity. Probably
just the low maintenance you have yourcustomers. That one of the things I
just mentioned. Okay, yeah,yeah, yeah, none of that.
I personally am not easy to clean. I personally like natural stone better just
because it's unique. But yeah,colors, it's a little easier to get
more square footage consistently for bigger projectswith quartz, so you can book match,

(47:21):
you can seem up a little easier. There may there's gonna be a
lot less defects or areas that youdon't want to use. Like a natural
stone. It could be a gorgeousstone and in the middle there's just this
giant red stain, right, You'renot going to have that with quartz.
So it's not a stain. That'sa natural beauty, is what I call
it. Yeah, inclusion what arethey call imperfection? Yeah, which is
actually usually the best part about theslab. Yeah, it's like like a

(47:43):
mull on Madonna's face. Yeah,okay, yeah, has some quartz or
something like that. Yeah. Uh. And because it dust come out of
the ground, well yeah, yeah, interesting. Interesting, Probably some little
fossil or something in there, Andthere's a lot less labor involved in the
grand scheme of like pulling something outof a mountain versus somebody putting a plastic

(48:07):
resin dye mix. See, itseems to me like just from a business
perspective, when you got something thatyou can produce man made versus something that's
gotta be hauled out of the ground. And there's a lot I guess there's
a lot more steps to getting ayou know, a granite or a court
site or a marble from out ofthe ground into your home or business.

(48:28):
I mean there's a lot more hasto has to happen, I guess than
it does with with courts, rightright, Yeah, And I mean I
hear stories about even in Brazil,a giant block of granite will be on
a flatbed on its way to theport and it just falls off and nobody
can pick it up. And ifyou pay for it, I mean good
luck. Get y'all bring a handtruck with this big old block of courts

(48:51):
over there off somewhere. Yeah.Wow. Well, see this is this
is fascinating because again when you goout and see these guys at lifetime,
I mean, y'all got to thefirst time we did business with you,
Cause this goes back several years andmy wife and I and we've recounted the
story a few times on the air. Here went out like on the hottest
August day of the year a fewyears ago, it started going through the

(49:12):
slabs that at one fifty three ChapinRoad. You know, well I knew
better because it had been me.We could have done this a lot quicker.
But knowing my wife and her eyefor detail, I think Casey lost
like ten pounds that day easily.I was. I was pouring, pouring
as we walked through the lot.And look, so it's not like y'all't
have a great selection, but there'sso much to choose from the universe of

(49:36):
these countertimes. Of course, thatthat you guys play a vital role in
how many slabs of y'all have downhere in Charleston. Oh my gosh,
you finally stumped them. Yeah,maybe twenty thousand, Oh wow, Yeah,
so that's our How many different colorswe have a hundred quartz colors,

(49:57):
maybe two hundred stone colors, givetake three hundred different colors. It depends
on the market. So the WestCoast market's a little different than the East
Coast. But because we're in Charlestonat the port hub. We kind of
just transfer everything from there and keepour landing costs down and that keeps us
very competitive instead of having to havelanding costs from into Atlanta. Yeah,
righty, Savannah to Atlanta. It'swe're five We're five minutes from the port

(50:22):
and then we just rent a truckor one of our drivers will drive a
flatbed to one of our other locations. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah,
And I guess it's not for peoplein the restaurant business, you know,
you got to it's it's how muchfood do I buy today? You know,
I mean I don't want to buytoo much, don't want buy too
little. I mean, it's gotto be like multiplied for you guys,
because you're about expensive stuff here.Oh yeah, oh yeah, we uh

(50:43):
we eat a lot of material,that's for sure. That's always been something
I've never understood. But you know, you're gonna have overhead with anything,
so it's just part of the business. But yeah, what happens to the
stuff that nobody wants? We tryto find somebody who wants it, really
Yeah, hopefully we can give thema deal or you know, they only
need like a vanity or something small. We can just work something out,
but that's just part of the business. When you got deliveries and something cracks

(51:07):
on the saw or something cracks onthe bed of the truck, so it
happens. Yeah, well fascinate now, guys. We have been talking the
last month or more about the turnaroundtimes, but we kept thinking that as
we got closer to Thanksgiving, whichwe're getting closer, we can maybe but

(51:28):
get in quick. Yeah, weare filling up, filling up. I
mean it's people are getting ready,people are are finally coming around and uh
and it's uh, we're going toget more and more stacks to be closer
to uh well them right now.So probably yeah, we're already getting into

(51:49):
Thanksgiving and then and then of courseyou know that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas
just goes so quick. So ifyou want something by the new year,
a boy the holidays, like,yeah, probably want to come see me
or David today? Yeah, yeah, because we're three weeks and a handful
of days away from Thanksgiving. Yeahwhen did that happen? Right? Man?
Happy Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas inthe one big long holiday. I

(52:12):
saw somebody with the tree up theother day and Christmas tree. Yeah,
I did. Oh my gosh,how about that? Maybe they left off
from last year. Yeah, Idon't know. You know, the guys
from a Mosquito Joe in the offseason of those Christmas lights which are beautiful,
you know, beautiful, Yeah,wonderly lights. Yeah, wondery.

(52:35):
But they go put them up early. You're not supposed to turn them on
quite Yeah, but I've already seenthem on, you know. Uh huh.
Anyway, let's let's take care ofThanksgiving first, yeah, and then
we'll get to all that. Yeah, Cody, great to meet you,
buddy, Thanks for having the appreciateyou coming in and you two guys will
good to see you. Yeah.Yeah, it's good to hear everybody.

(52:57):
See everybody so lifetime cabinsry Casey wantsto I was getting ready to get the
address in from Yeah, I wasgetting ready to ask you that. So
forty twenty Indiana Road comes to seeme today. You can reach Marcus at
seven seven twenty yep. And thenof course go see David at one fifty
three Chaven Road, right past hotDog Heaven hot Dog Express. I'm good

(53:21):
right past. Thanks Steve, yougotta plug. Uh. Cash is chicken
right there in between cash is chickenhigher ground right there on the left on
past Westling the road. There yougo get some good eats and look at
some kind of That's right, yougot three places to eat right there.
They are all my friends, beautiful. All right, you'll have a great
weekend. Thank you, y'all.Thank you. Hi. This is Gary
David. You've heard me talk foryears about Anthony John Construction and the wonderful

(53:43):
jobs they do for folks all acrossthe Midlands. When it comes to roofing
and gutty well, it's the samepeople doing the job, but the name
has changed. That's right now it'sBeaver Roofing and Beaver Gutters. Leave it
to Beaver for all your roofing andgutter needs. The same great service and
the same great folks behind Anthony JohnConstruction, just with a new name.
Eight oh three nine nine one roofand Beaverroofing dot com the gutter roofing work.

(54:07):
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