Home Improvement Show 11-18-23

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Good morning, my friends, andwelcome in. It is time for the
Home Improvement Show of the Midlands andI'm so glad you're with us this morning
here on one O three point fiveFM and five sixty AMWVOC. My name
is Gary David, and we gota full hour of folks. Actually this
hour everyone we have talked, well, we will talk to I've had over
at my parents' house in the lastcouple of weeks to do some work.

(00:32):
Yeah, not only sit down Saturdaymorning and talk with these folks. I
use these folks because they're just thatgood. Johnny Kathy Fickner Rock the Top
Priests surfacing. I saw firsthand aweek or two back where they could do
We've been talking about that for awhile now, but I've seen it for
the first time and it is phenomenal. Freedom Plumbing's owner James Carwell, Yeah,

(00:53):
they made a visit to reinstall someplumbing after these guys made a visit
to put in some brand new countertopsin the kitchen. It's Casey and Marcus
leading it off his Morning Lifetime Cabasycounter Towls. Morning, gentlemen, good
morning, good morning, good morning. I would ask you how you are,
but I happen to know that Caseyis you know kind of you aren't
crutches, dude, what's up?Yeah, I'm just trying to ditch those

(01:15):
here pretty soon, like I maybewould get around today enough, but uh,
especially waking up and negotiating stairs anduh and then it's I mean,
it's a longer walk from the parkinglot back through in this maze than it
is around that little shop. Andthere's not much to hold on to besides

(01:38):
the wall, so shop, Ican lean on an island here or a
display there, so I should beall right. Oh well, I know
there's a fabulous story as to whatyou did here while while you're hobbling around.
Man, it's got to be likeepic. Huh no, no,
no, it's just uh just gettinga little older. And uh, I
mean I was had eating dinner andgetting in my chair and kind of lost

(02:04):
lost a little bit of balance andtry to catch it and uh, well
one leg all this weight, man, you put it on just that little
spot on that one knee and torka little bit twistiness and uh it might
go and it did. So well, we have to work on the epicness
of your story, man, becauseyeah, we can build it up,

(02:25):
but uh uh, you're fighting there. There are so there are deductibles to
be and surgery probably most likely.So if you want to come in and
see me and help me raise moneyby Marcus is granted from him and helped

(02:45):
me raise money for getting my kneeoff stitched up. Here. See this
is the next best thing to gofund me page right here. Yeah,
all right, where and where areyou today? You're at I'll be today,
Okay, y'all go by today seeCasey, Alexander Fernandina or go out
to Chapin today, wherever you go. It doesn't matter. Well, no,

(03:08):
it does because you want to actuallywork on the you need you Casey
needs that money. Yeah, yeah, okay, so go see need something.
Sorry, David, but but youknow you're you're walking, Okay,
Casey needs the help, that's right, going not Actually we don't have a
can out there for him or anything. But we don't we don't have a

(03:32):
donation bucket or anything. But youknow, it's uh just all we need
is just a few good jobs tofinish up the year here yet through this
holiday week and into the the youknow, uh say, Christmas month,

(03:53):
and we'll be a shout this yourstrong man. Hard to believe we're here.
We are. We're just days awayfrom Thanksgiving Day. Now y'all close
leanks. Give a day of course, I assume, yes, yes,
absolutely, yes, sir. Yeah, for the for the Thursday, we'll
be closed. But uh Friday andSaturday Friday sale. Oh we got a

(04:13):
Black Friday saleh alert alert attention Kmarkshoppers. Yeah, yeah, come have
come have some stone for Christmas?Now, do do we have a black
Are we going to just go aheadand create one right here as we Yeah,
we're gonna create it right all right? This is fun, all right?
So Black Friday sale. Yeah,I'll see this. I have a

(04:34):
feeling and I don't know the exactamount we'll for your I will try to
nail that down so by the timewe you know, we you're giving your
listeners advice throughout the week. Wehave maybe a good number. But I
mean when Cody was in here withus, uh two weeks ago, and

(04:56):
I have a feeling that he'll workwith us on something. I bet we
can do that motive courts and doa really strong deal on most of their
colors. Yeah, I'll get withhim when we you know, between now
and opening and then uh and thenyou know hopefully uh, you know,

(05:19):
going into Thanksgiving this week. Wecan put a number to it, put
a number, put a good numberto it. Yeah, So there's nice
to use there right there. Yeah, yeah, you call me so.
Yeah, but as soon as Iget with Cody, and he's usually pretty
good, even on on weekends,bout answering me. So we'll try to

(05:40):
get this in effect today. ButI'll text Marcus what he says and we'll
come up with a good If youcall in today, uh to the seven
seven, Marcus will let you knowwhat sale we're going to have on some
motive motor Courts Motive, which istwenty five year warranty by the way,
very nice. Yeah, it's beautiful, got stuff looks like white marble and

(06:03):
the swirls of gray in it andbeautiful smoky patterns, and it's far most
popular line this year, it hasbeen. Yeah. Yeah, Well we've
talked about Courts is gaining steadily andpopular areity, Yeah, and prices have
come down on Courts. So thisis like a double sale sale. Yeah.
It all for this week for Thanksgivinghim Black Friday, and you know,

(06:25):
I mean inflation is going up yearover year, but the price is
on courts coming down, Yeah,I mean, yeah, surprisingly, I
mean I never thought I would seeit happen. Yeah, down from what
we were charging before COVID much.Yeah, And I remember now because because
y'all have been with us on thisshow for how long now five years?

(06:46):
It's been a long time, andI do remember. We have a little
party for us right now. SoJames was on the beginning. James has
been around. Yeah, the summerhas been round. That summer was there
was something else before summer. I'dhave to go back, and yeah,
I remember who it was. I'mnot gonna you know, but yeah,

(07:11):
Summer came in after after him,But uh is it me and James been
the only one. So yeah,And for for a while there, I
mean, Marcus was a little lateshowing up to the party here. If
you recall, it was usual andme for the longest side and Marcus came
in and but I remember before yougot here, Marcus, there was a
time when you got over there.Casey was not exactly a big fan of

(07:33):
courts. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I still I still, I've got
it on tape. Yeah, Istill like natural stuff. Yeah, just
the beauty of it. And it'sstill popular too. Yeah. Yeah,
it's sell a lot of granted sureand marble yeah, I mean, yeah,

(07:54):
granted marble courts. I almost there, but yeah, no, I
just think there's so unique about it. I mean, it's like like a
gemstone, like a real mind,you know, peace versus you know,
a lab grown and a controlled environment. I don't know. Uh yeah,

(08:15):
just just call me old fashioned,I guess. Okay. I don't think
that granted will ever go out ofstyle because of the beauty of it,
the natural beauty of it, sure, yea the depth and all that that
you can, you know, getout of that. With the courts,
you can kind of see into itbacklight in a lot of cases, you
know, and you can actually seelight through it, through the through the

(08:37):
granted, through the granite. Yeah, and the marbles too. And that's
so and you guys, this isall this is what you guys do every
day. It's kind of like,well, you know, the average person,
you may not really notice that rightaway, Yeah, but it's there,
that difference, is there. Yeah. Yeah, the train that I
can can spot in a hurry,the pop I mean, the court is

(08:58):
popular. I like it too.You know. I had a lady last
Monday, you know her, shewent to one of the suppliers and she
made a selection, and you know, when I called her up, I
was like, hey, you knowthat's that is about, you know twice
what you were looking at before.And she picked out some really nice natural
stones. Well just my wife youwere talking about. Yeah, she picked

(09:22):
out a really nice quart site andshe knew, you know, in her
head, it was gonna be more. And when I called her up because
she had been looking at some courtsand when I called her, I told
her that that, yeah, thatcourt site is a bit more expensive.
She's like, yeah, I justlike it more. And I said yep,
and that's why it's more expensive,and that said, because you're drawn
to it. I mean there's moredraw to it. That just looks more

(09:45):
dynamic, and so yeah, itis, it's got to be price.
Heer. I mean that's how theygraded, that's how they That's just like
when you go to the jewelry shop. Sure, so well, I can.
I first had experience. I mean, y'all put a beautiful courts in
my parents' house, but you puta fantastic marble in our house a couple
of years ago. You know,all I've done for the last like three

(10:09):
months is go over there and workon their house. Everything I see it.
I see that that Courts, andit's I love it. But then
I come home and I see thatmarble. I was like, okay,
yeah, yeah, yeah, Isee it. A difference certainly, But
I mean Courts has really been whatwhy is it? Is it a price
point thing? Why it's getting somuch in popularity, or just that it
could be so versatless to what youcan get the versatility and and just utilitarian,

(10:33):
I mean just the practical nature ofcourts. Yeah, that makes it
so practical. Well, I meanbecause I mean the man may controlled surface
here, it's easy to match upwith you know, so sometimes dialogues can
change up very little bit, butreally not as much as they do.
In nature. The patterns are veryvery consistent because they're created with the same

(10:58):
you know, matter of fact action, process and die and then the non
porous nature. A lot of people, even though the ceilings that we use
are are just fantastic these days.They protect marble against etching, they protect
against staining, they protect against water, it's still there's a lot of information

(11:20):
online and everything else that just reallyvilifies the natural stone as far as being
porous, and you don't. Imean it's really that's not that big of
a deal with the ceiling that weuse, but it gets made into one.
So and that's white. I mean, everybody wants the crisp white right

(11:41):
now, whether that's crisp white withtope, crisp white with gray blues and
goals, whatever it might be,they want that that really really crisp color.
What the time was. Look,so we get that nature, you
have to, you know, goup. And the Jamison's came in last

(12:03):
week. They said they went tosome of our competition and they didn't weren't
really in love with the with thepiece they saw and they they thought in
the back of their hell, ohwe hear uh these guys on the radio
all the time, We're gonna goover to their place. And they found
a place on our lot with kC and they went and bought that day
and uh and I measured that Saturday. Yeah, after the game. Yeah

(12:24):
yeah, how about that? Wow? How about that? Yeah? Well,
thank you all for listening, andyeah, thank you will these good
folk. Yeah, well, whatare the time times right now, because
you said you got there pretty quickand measured y'all. Yeah, you know,
jumping on them. We know thatfor a while now. I mean
y'all were turn things around in ourhurry. Yeah, we're wondering we got
closer to the holiday season if thatwould hold up. There are there are

(12:48):
people that are getting jobs ready forus, uh you know now, so
we're putting them back in the calendar. But we still because we've stayed ahead
so much, uh and prepared,and our guys just you know, worked
their tell. I wouldn't be surprisedif they don't, you know, eat
and early Thanksgiving, launch and jumpon a job Thursday afternoon, even uh

(13:13):
they've done in the past, youknow, had you know, I could
you know, do construction job orsomething that that was you know, the
doors were open or they had thelock code and the little jump on one
on a holiday. I mean,they our guys just want to work and
they want to create these beautiful products. And I noticed that last week with

(13:33):
the job guy called me up afterit was done and and he's like,
man, He's like, honestly,I could never have pictured how good it's
gonna look. And and they reallythey went above and beyond as far as
making sure everything was supported properly andeverything else. But he he was just
amazed, you know, because hehe thought, you know, he's like,

(13:56):
yeah, I end up picking arather inexpensive stone. These guys made
it look so good when it wasdone. He's He's like, there's definitely
a wild factor there. I've seen. These guys are working man's I got
a great deal of pride in whatthey do. Yeah, and guys back
in a fabricating shop, all thefolks come out of doing the installation,
which oh, yeah, by theway, you don't farm anything out right,

(14:18):
right, and see, and that'sand that really is the difference.
I was. I was looking atme scrolling through, uh, you know,
just the other night on a friendof mine's Facebook page. Now,
to his credit, he I don'tthink he had anything to do with these
countertops that were installed, but hewas redoing. He took off the four
inch backsplash and redid this beautiful backstyle backslash for this customer. But when

(14:39):
I looked at the counters and Idon't know who did them, but man,
I couldn't I had. It's oneof those things where I had to
keep going back and looking at itand make sure I saw what I saw,
But then I didn't want to lookat it again. And I mean,
there are jobs out there. It'sjust like, how why would anybody
or and then why would any customeror builder or any let of a fabric

(15:00):
here in sorry get away with that. I mean, I can't imagine.
Our customers are usually pretty picky.I can't imagine if our guys left the
house in that condition with the stoneand cognition. I can't imagine the phone
calls I would be getting or themarks would be getting. You know,
you need to come rip this stuffback up and put it in right right

(15:20):
right. But I will say mybuddy's I'm not gonna mention this anyway,
but his backslash did look good too, a little bit of it. So
you'll you'll you'll ponder today. You'llget ahold of Cody, right, yeah,
oh yeah, Cody, and thenof course, okay through the owner
over here, Mark, that's allright, and then Black Friday sale,

(15:43):
Yeah absolutely, okay, let meknow what it is. Yeah, yeah,
absolutely, We're gonna let you know, all right, and you will
be at Ferndita Road today raising moneyfor your knee operators. Yeah, that's
right. Where we'll find you.David's out at Chapin Road. Yeah,
I'll be available by phone as always. It's so funny the Jamison has just

(16:03):
called me on the phone. Sohey, we appreciate you sending us the
lead for Freedom Plumbing. Right yeah, Canada, James, he's got a
doctor. James, you got tocome in behind you. You got that
plumber stuff right, all right,guys, So Fernandina Road one fifty three,
Chapin Road Champing, Lifetime cabinsas cdot com. Go to Facebook phase

(16:26):
lots of pictures, theyre, oh, please go there for sure. I'm
a good poster. You are youread You're a viral poster. People love
them. You make that phone callseven twenty. Who picks up the phone
and it says the owner Marcus,Welcome to Lifetime Cabins Encounter. Come.
That's right, I'll take care ofyou. You'll have great weekend. Thank

(16:47):
family. Rock the Top Resurfacing transformsoutdated tubs, tile walls, tile floors,
countertops and more without replacements, savemoney, time and the environment.
Free estimates at Rockdtopresurfacing dot com oreight oh three nine a fiss. Lifetime
Cabinets Encountertops is your locally owned sourcefor countertops, great selection, great prices,

(17:08):
and they pride themselves on superior installationand customer service. The owner,
Marcus will even personally come out todo all your measurements. See the selection
online at Lifetimecabinets SC dot com orstop buy one of Lifetime Cabinets and Countertops
two conveniently located showrooms on Fernandina Roadin Columbia or Chapin Road in Chapin and

(17:30):
check out the hundreds of slabs instock, granite, marble, quartz court
site. They've got it all.And if you can't find exactly what you
are looking for when you're there,and that's rare, they will find it.
And it's not just kitchens and bats. Lifetime Cabinets and Countertops does outdoor
patios, vanities, bars, mancaves, you name it. Lifetime Cabinets

(17:52):
and Countertops Fernandina Road in Columbia,Chapin Road and Chapin and online at Lifetime
Cabinets SC dot com. And wewelcome you back to the Home Improvement Show
of the Midlands on one O threepoint five FM and five sixty am WVOC.

(18:17):
We have been talking now for awhile with these two folks, John
and Kathy Fickner Rock the Top Resurfacing, and but up until about a week
or so ago, I'd never beenable to experience firsthand exactly what it is
that y'all do. Good morning toyou both, Good morning, good morning.
So I've seen pictures, we've talkedabout what it is that you do

(18:41):
when it comes to resurfacing, buty'all recently came into my parents' home and
I wish we could have done more. We're at the end of their budget
here, you know. But havingsaid that, I started thinking about the
things that you that when you cameout John and and did the work force.

(19:03):
I thought how much they had tohave paid to do well what they'd
had to do if you weren't around. I mean, it really is phenomenal.
Rock the Top Resurfacing UK. Thanksto you both for for for helping
them out with that. Thank youwell so so John, we had a

(19:26):
foyer in the living room, justa small area yep, five by four
and a half by five four fivethat yeah, uh, the tile,
ceramic tile. There was an upstairsguest bathroom that that had your favorite color
in it. You have vanity toppink. It wasn't all pink, but
it has some pink in there.It's got a little pink in it.

(19:48):
It's pink, it's pink. Andthen a guest bathroom downstairs, yep,
that this is a home that wasbill thirty years ago. And well the
guest bathroom and the foyer both hadgreen green. We had green and pink.
And if you know, you've evertried to, you know, remodel
a home and get it fixed up, but those are the color. You

(20:08):
don't want colors like that in there. Not to sell, I mean,
not to sell a hole. AndI'm thinking to myself, wow, because
now we're not talking just about anygreen. This was a d Hunter green.
Oh man, it was green greengreen. You would you wouldn't even
recognize it now, Yeah, completelydifferent, just unbelievable and anti skid and

(20:30):
anti skid on top of that,and the grout lines are sealed beautiful,
and nothing went in the landfill andit was all done in one day.
I mean, it just keep going. I got out there that day about
oh nine thirty or so, andyou you've been out there for maybe half
hour tops, and you were goneby what one o'clock. I don't remember.

(20:52):
Maybe winning the howlhol wasn't too long. I mean it was, and
that was three different projects in onesetting. I'm pretty quick, you ma.
He's good at what he does.And you bring along a nice selection
of music too, by the way, which I appreciate it. So what
I'm just well, I got tosay this to my wife Anne totally.

(21:17):
She loves She hadn't stopped talking aboutit yet. I want, I want
to come and work with you.Can I be here assistance and I want
to learn how to do this?This is cool. She just loves that
sot of and I mean just sheshe hadn't stopped talking about it yet.
That's awesome. Matter of fact,she took pictures into as a friend of
ours that you may have heard from, and I don't know who wanted to
redo some stuff in her bathroom andI said, okay, you got to

(21:37):
call these guys. That's the wayit works. And only that, Kathy,
but we have the painting crew wasin there too, so that was
kind of a three rings workus.But yeah, Felix, our painter was
I mean, you know, Iwalked out of there, I come back
in and he enjoyned this in depthconversation about what if you guys do,
which is which is really cool.So I can understand that I come from

(21:57):
the world of painting, so right, yeah, so he can I totally
understand where he was like, Wow, this is fascinating because this it's a
painting to a completely new level.So it's easy to to think, you
know that you're coming in there andslapping paint because trust me, and I
may have mentioned this before years andyears ago, my wife tried that.

(22:18):
Yeah, yeah, and it wasjust a total not your ordinary paint that
you put on a wall, forsure. Yeah. So this process is
okay, let's get that out ofway right now. You're not coming in
and repainting a surface to change thecolor anything like this is not what we're
talking that at all. It's acompletely new it's a completely new surface and
we worked so hard on it toget it, you know, ready to

(22:41):
accept our materials. And I meanit's ninety percent prep, just like a
lot of it's ninety percent prep.But the prep that we I mean,
we're dealing with acids and all kindsof bases. It's it's crazy the things
that we put on there, andit's probably pretty hazardous to my hands,
but uh, I try to weargloves. Best of the candy even melts
gloves, and and you need myhands, I got you got to be

(23:03):
able to feel things. Sure,our surfaces and stuff too. See hard
to feel anything with a rubber gloveon. But so we do it right.
We have really high quality coatings.We don't skip on quality. We
make stuff Sheriwan Williams or Benjamin Moore'sway higher than that. Right. But
again, you talk about the preptime, because I once it was prepped.

(23:26):
Yeah, actually putting the new surfaceon there didn't take a long at
all. Yeah, spraining quick.You talk about the ninety percent of it
as prep and and and sure enough. So what uh what kind of surfaces
we had? We had tile,ceramic tile, ceramic tile, yep.
And then I don't even know whatthe upstairs bathroom I guess that was.

(23:47):
Yeah, that's the plate you haveupstairs. You have a shower stall and
uh and those are that's plastic.So we can do plastic, and we
can do fiberglass, we can douh steel steel really oh yeah. In
fact, a lot of people callme they have rust all the way around
their drains. They think, oh, man, I got I could stick
my finger through that. Yeah wecan, we can, we can repair
that. We can fiberglass work onall that stuff and then resurface it and

(24:10):
you can't even tell it's like brandnew again. People think that you got
to throw it away. You gota hole all the way through a steel
bathtub with rust in it. Yeah, that's what they think. But that's
not the case at all. Weuse a lot of resins and we can
cure them with light UV light.They actually they actually make the light h
the photo initiators in the light workwith the with the resins, so they

(24:33):
kind of really formulate the light raysto work with the resin. So it's
kind of almost backwards the way youthink it would work. But it's kind
of like dental work. You know, you get maybe a crown put on
and they hit it with a lightreal quick and it hardens instantly. This
is much like that. Okay,so we're been there and done that.
Yeah. So yeah, so ceramictiles, you know, any kind of

(24:56):
bath tub, it's easier to almostsay what we can't do, And like
if you got a linoleum floor,yeah, our our materials will melt that
stuff. So you can't do it. Let them stand up to it.
Okay, but pretty much anything else. So this this this prep prole.
Let's talk about that PREPP because it'sgood to know what all goes into this.
Again to reinforce the fact that you'renot just showing up with a bucket

(25:17):
of paint a paint brush and sookay, I'll change color before Yeah right,
you can't. You can't brush thestuff. It'll it would if I
stuck a brush in it, itprobably melt the bristles, but so is
everything sprayed. But to prep it, the first thing we do is we
give it an alkaline bath or anacid bath actually with hydrofluoric based acid,

(25:37):
and then we give it is whatis that doing? That's what that does
is like if it's a ceramic tile, it opens the pores. Like if
you're trying to etch glass, thiswill etch the tile. So we don't
don't necessarily just have a chemical bond. We also have a mechanical bond.
Our primers are locked into that it'sactually getting into the actual materials on top.
It's right, okay, yeah,it's locked. It's is amazing,

(26:00):
Uh, and then we give itan alkaline bath to to clean up silicones
and things like that, but alsoto change the pH back that we want
to get to a neutral pH youknow, as close to seven as it
we can get totant. Oh,some of our chemicals don't react if if
you have a highly acidic surface andthen you're trying to put an epoxy primer
on top of that, it's notgoing to adhere really good. So and

(26:22):
it's also got to be extremely dry. So when we're done with all of
the chemicals that we use on there, then we give it a what I
call a final wipe with either dnatured alcohol or or acetne. UH.
It dries extremely quickly. It's ahot, hot solvent, so UH drives.
It's got to be bone dry.And then then we put a molecular

(26:47):
bonding agent on top of that,and that's clear, but that locks into
the surface and that gives us ourmechanical bond. You can't you can't even
see it. But then on topof that is a couple of two or
three coats of epoxy primer two partA part. It doesn't dry, it
cures, so you spray that onthere and that dries. It cures pretty
quickly too, like you know,two to eight minutes. And then on

(27:08):
top of that, well, ifwe're going for a stone look, we'll
spray some fluck on there to giveit, you know, a stone look,
and that's a water based product.There's little droplets of paint that they
don't like each other. They're notthey don't meld. If you have a
black one and a white when youtry to stir them up, they're gonna
stay a black one and a whiteone. They don't become gray. So
that's really interesting. Spray that onthere, and then we blow it dry

(27:32):
and then sand it down and thenblow it all off, blow all the
dust off, and we have ventilatorsand everything cause we don't want to smell
this stuff either. No, no, And then on top of that,
once we got the look that we'regoing for, we clear it with an
acrylic polyurethane which has like an Hfive hardness, and they could make that
harder, but we don't want itto be a H six or an H

(27:53):
seven because it could be brittle.It's too hard. So we're right where
we want it to be. Andwe have maans of satin. We can't
do flat, but we can dosatin semi gloss and and high gloss.
And our glosses are shinier than whatyou might think you might see in like
like a Sherwin Williams product or BenjaminMoore machines are significantly higher, very much.
So. Yeah, and you knowthe really cool thing. And I

(28:15):
don't know Kathy if John mentioned this, but the upstairs bathroom, John was
putting the FLEs on there, theflakes rather, the flakes aren't And my
wife's up there watching this, andhe says, well, do you want
more of them? Do you wantthem bigger? She said, yeah,
yeah, you can customize it.Yeah. So I mean right there on
the spot. So this is notsomething that okay, it's etched in stone

(28:37):
here, We've got to do itthis way. I mean there's a lot
of leeway. There is products goingon. Yep, we're only limited by
our imaginations. Actually, And Ilike that part about, you know,
spraying the fleck on there because thehomeowner this stuff doesn't stink. The fleck
that doesn't have a bad odor.It's not not really bad for you.
So I can have the homeowner sittingright behind my back and say you know
a little bit more a little bit. I can't take it off once it

(28:59):
sounds there is. Yeah, Ican't remove what you told her once it's
there. But I can continue toput more on, and I can make
them larger and smaller if we want. And we have some you know,
veining that we can put in there, spider webbing that we can do occasionally.
Most people are not real interested indoing that, but we have other
things that we can do and youknow, to give it character. And
we also do another product completely different. We haven't even talked about this,
called create a stain where we usenatural sea sponges and some semi transparent stains

(29:25):
Italian stains, and they're because they'resemi transparent. Once we start putting like
ten or fifteen or twenty different colorson there, you can see colors through
colors, and that looks really highend. That's that's as you know,
as beautiful as those epoxy pores thatyou see. We don't do epoxy pores
in people's homes, and the reasonfor that is that stuff is messy and

(29:47):
if somebody's spilled, accidents do happen, and if you spill a POxy all
over somebody's cabin or something that's gonnabe a really bad thing. So we
can do epoxys, you know,in our in our shop, but we
wouldn't do a POxy pores in youknow, people's homes. It's just too
risky. So, Kathy, whenwhen folks give you all to call it
rock the top resurfacing, I'm surethey've got to unless you've actually seen this

(30:11):
done. There's a lot of questions, I'm sure. Yeah. Well,
a lot of people, I thinkdon't even know what all is entailed.
And John just did a great jobexplaining that because you know, people think,
oh gosh, you're just going inand putting pain on the wall,
spraining it on there, like,No, there's a lot more involved in
that. So yeah, we loveit. We love the reactions we get

(30:32):
from our clients, and seeing itin person is just so much better.
Oh yeah, because we see itand went through the website, Yeah,
figuring out okay, this is this. There's there issues, like, there's
so many different options. Yes,yeah, but it's endless, right,
I mean the option really Yes,yeah, yep, we can we can
even mix colors with other colors.We can do, but I can't make

(30:55):
all those. I mean just tomake a sample takes me several hours just
to make a little sample. Souh, you know, I can't make
thousands of samples. I spend allmy time making samples, but you know
I can get it in my headand get an idea where they might want
to go. And these ones,this one's going to be unique, I
mean really yeah, I mean there'sis it's an art yeah, very artistic.

(31:15):
So I love that about it too. I love everything about it.
So yeah, the surface itself,I'm guessing that once you're done with this
that this surface is much more resistant, easy to clean, everything, easy
to clean, definitely more easy toplan. That's why I love it.
Yeah, it's really chemical resistant.In fact, we just did a nail

(31:37):
salon just a few weeks ago andthere's a special paint. I had to
pay like two hundred and eighty dollarsjust for a few courts of the stuff.
But it's really it's highly chemical resistant. And nail salons use acetone all
day long, every single day.Acetone. This is fingernail polish remover,
and they're spilling it all over theplace. They spilled it on it the

(31:57):
first day, which really that Ishould I should have been more careful telling
them these don't spill last Becau's notcreed debt. So I did have to
go touch a little thing out.But after just four or five days that
stuff is so incredibly strong you couldspill last tone on it now no problem
at all. So there's a lotof ways we can go with it.
But really, in a nutshell,if people like to save literally thousands of

(32:22):
dollars totally renovate in a bathroom,we're not going to move anything around.
But if everything's in a decent spot, it's just ugly. That's a great
option for this because people save somuch time and so many thousands of dollars
for each bath A bathroom renovation istwenty thousand dollars. Sure, if you
go out, and I encourage peopleto go, ask people, but that's

(32:43):
what it is. It's you know, fifteen to thirty So this isn't this
is in and out. And ifwe did all the surfaces, let's say
a bathtub, ceramic tile walls allthe way around the bathroom walls. There's
lots of them in Columbia and WestColumbia, all over the place. Sure,
ceramic tiled floors and the vanity topand we take the toilet off,

(33:04):
so that's the perfect opportunity to getin. I put the toilet back on,
so you might as well have anice shiny new one there because your
new. And yeah, so inand out and like literally three days and
for instead of twenty thousand dollars,you know, how about thirty five hundred
bucks. That's what I'm thinking.Yeah, you know, it's it's hard
for me to find fault with thatguy. It's just for that customer that

(33:27):
is on that budget and doesn't wantto there's a ton of money. I
mean, a lot of people gota lot of money. But I mean,
but even if you do, peoplethe point just throwing it away if
you don't have to write yeah yep. Well, well, uh, I
appreciate the job y'all did at theat mom and Dad's house. I think
it really is for the opportunity.We just love it, and it was
it's great to actually see it andnot only see the finished product in person

(33:49):
and to know what it was andwhat it is now, but actually see
how it all goes down. It'svery instructive. And I tell you,
my wife's still talking about it.Still appreciate it. Rock the Top Resurfacing
all right, so you want totake a look at what they could do
for you. How can folks reachyou? Guys? They can go to
Rockthetopresurfacing dot com or they can callus at eight zero three nine ninety eight

(34:10):
two zero eight eight And we're onFacebook and check usut on Facebook as well.
That's pretty active Facebook. Check outall the pics. Yeah, great,
good to see the body. Youhave a great weekend. You do
get thanks. I'm James Carwell,local owner and operator of Freedom Plumbing right
here in the Midlands. After workingas a plumber for nearly a decade,

(34:30):
I decided to open my own businessand Freedom Plumbing was born because of my
love for this country and the greatrespect I have for the men and women
of our armed forces and our firstresponders. I named my company Freedom Plumbing.
What sets us apart from other companiesis our customer service. We have
a five star rating on Google,a five star rating on Facebook, an

(34:51):
a plus rating on Angie's List andan eight plus rating with a Better Business
Bureau. I'm James Carwell, localowner of Freedom Plumbing, and we look
forward to serve f you for allof your plumbing needs. Get fifty percent
off your next service call when youmentioned you heard us on WVOC. Learn
more at Freedom dash Plumbing dot com. That's Freedom dash Plumbing dot com.

(35:14):
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(35:36):
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(36:01):
That's Diamond Concrete Solutions dot com orcall eight oh three seven five nine
eight two eight nine. Give yourproperty a new lease online with Diamond Concrete
Solutions. We're back into the finalsegment of the Home Improving Show of the

(36:24):
Midlands and James car Weller is onthe line now from Freedom Plumbing, joining
us again this morning. James,Good morning, sir, Good morning Gary.
How are you man? I'm wellAnd I gotta I gotta shout out
to you guys at Freedom Plumbing becauseyou've you guys are lifesavers. Man.
We were. Yeah, I've beentalking about this project we've been involved in
and doing some innovations at my parents'house and getting it put up on the

(36:46):
market after they moved out, anduh, I mean just earlier this week.
It's like the pretty much the lastday of you know, things to
be you know, major things tobe done. At least we discovered the
painters there and discovered that I guessthe the outside hose that that faucet there,
and they turned it on and heardsomething popping, heard something hiss and

(37:09):
next thing you know, there's watercoming out underneath the house. Wow,
and this is like what yeah,I first thing they called me and luckily
they had just been painting the garagelike the day before and noticed well everything
else was out of there, thatthat was the key to the shut off

(37:30):
alve and thank goodness for that,so they were able to get it shut
off. And I don't know whattime I called you on it was like
maybe five thirty or so, andluckily we got the water cut off of
the house and you got your guyswere out there, you know, just
as you told me they would beat nine o'clock the next morning and taking
care of the problem. So sothanks for that, man. I appreciate
it, of course, absolutely appreciateyou keeping us in mind, and you

(37:54):
know I we would have been ableto do it the same night. Thing
is if they get the water off, save to the emergency service fee.
So anytime we could save somebody money, you know, we try to give
information over the phone that can helpwith that. It's kind of like mainline
stoppages. We get emergency calls somebody'ssaying that their sewer line is backed up,

(38:16):
and typically the first thing we tellthem to do is contact their municipality
whoever they pay their sewer bill toand make them come out first, because
they should be able to tell themwhether or not it's on the city side
or the customer side, and ifit's on the city side, you pay
for them to maintain the system.You know, it's you don't have to

(38:37):
pay anything if we come out therefirst, open the clean out and tell
you, then you just spend thatmoney on emergency service charge just for us
to tell you it's on the cityside. There's nothing we can do.
So, well, what's the delineationbetween where the city side is and where
the homeowner or business owner side is. So sometimes it's basically the property line

(38:59):
in most cases, and you know, usually there's that little buffer where the
city has easement onto your property forutilities or things of that nature. So
I would say about ten to fifteenfeet from the road. Typically, I've
seen them go into the middle ofthe yard before, So it really just
depends on the municipality. But ifyou have to clean out s, which

(39:23):
are the access points to your sewerline, they typically stick up out of
the ground, little white pipe withthe screw tap on it. There's one
usually close to the house near thefoundation two three feet from the house,
and then there's one usually out inthe yard about ten feet or so from
the road. And the way toknow whose side the issue is on is

(39:45):
by opening those cleanouts. If youopen the one at the house and there's
water in it, then you knowthe water is getting past that clean out.
So then you go to the city. If you open that one up
and there's water in it, thenyou know the issues on the city if
there's no water in it. Andthen is she's going to be in between
somewhere, which means it's going tobe on the homeowner side, in the

(40:06):
in the yard somewhere. Okay,typically roots, But yeah, that happens
a lot, doesn't it. Itdoes. But here's the question, and
maybe different municipalities it's different. ButI'm thinking, yeah, if I've got
a sewer stoppage or backup, uh, you know, I hear what you're
saying. You know, if it'san emergency situation where you're going to pay

(40:30):
the emergency fee to get you know, Freedom Plumbing or any plumber out there.
But it seems to me like callingthe municipality, I mean, how
quickly will they get out there,because you know, it seems like they
can day sometimes well luckily when it'san emergency like that, that they're out
there pretty quick. I pulled acustomer this the other week, and it

(40:51):
was actually a friend of mine,so he was texting me back and forth,
and I said, Hey, callthe muni pathty. Let's just verify
it's not on their side before orwe send somebody out there. He goes,
I don't want to wait that long, and said they're usually pretty quick
about it. And sure enough hetakes me back and said, hey,
man, thanks, they're coming out. They'd be about within forty five minutes.

(41:12):
Oh. So most municipalities have anemergency service program as well in these
cases, so they have somebody oncall that's going to come out and take
a look. And unless you knowwhether or not it's on their side or
your side, well it's good toknow, okay, because I would have
thought it could be days, youknow, before government could respond. Yeah.

(41:34):
Well if you have, especially ifyou let him know, hey,
I got sewage backing up into myhouse, I flush my toilet's coming up
in the shower, then yeah,most likely they're going to send somebody out
pretty quickly when that kind of thinghappens. James, And you notice that,
is that the sort of thing thatOkay, well, as long as
you don't flush another toilet is notgoing to get any worse, or will

(41:58):
it get worse, regardless of whatyou do or don't do. Yes,
it should stop as long as isthe issues on your side. It should
stop when you don't use any morewater, no water in the house at
all. That's what I recommend allthe time. Some people think the upstairs

(42:19):
is flushing, Well, the upstairsare just coming downstairs. It's all going
to one pipe. That one pipeleaves the house and goes out to the
municipality. So no matter what youuse in the house, you know,
unless it's just one you know tooltthat's backing up, you know, you
can have branch line stoppages. Buttypically anytime that happens, until we get

(42:39):
out there and take a look atit, I'll just say, you know,
just stop using water. That way, you don't cause any damage or
overflow toolets or showers. Matter offact, the gap that called me the
other other day said it was comingout of the shower, so it had
filled up the hour base enough tooverflow out of that lip of the shower.

(43:05):
Yeah. So, and and asclean as that stuff looks, it
is not clean. It's it's consideredblack water, which is a Class three
contaminant. So yeah, yeah,time for call a d heck yea on
that sort of thing happens, Well, a restoration company somebody that knows what
they're dealing with to make sure becausetypically anything porse that that touches at that
point needs to come out. Andnow there's some stuff that they could do

(43:29):
with microban and to clean up,but it really definitely a situation I would
be calling a restoration company. Okay, Now do you need to in that
situation not only not use any wateruntil it can be fixed, you need
to actually turn the water off tothe house or is that not necessary?

(43:50):
Only if there's fixtures that won't stop. But a drip typically isn't going to
be enough to do anything. Sowhat you can do if you know someone
feels comfortable enough is if they knowthey have those clean outs, they can
relieve the pressure. I would bevery cautious about doing this, but outside

(44:12):
by taking one of the cleanout catsoff, Beware there could be a good
bit of pressure in there and youtake that thing loose in it starts spraying
sewage, So you know, kindof do it slow, careful and step
back. Well, if nothing else, I think so far we've established it's
a it's a pretty good idea toa you know know where your water shut

(44:37):
off valve is and and have theappropriate key in order to turn it off.
Is that key universal? By theway, Is there just one size
fits all when it comes to that. Typically now there's some like really small
keys that I've seen that unless youhave a new meter, that key's probably
not going to help you out thatmuch. You can get large the larger

(45:00):
keys, and sometimes the store carriestwo different sets. There'll be a real
cheap, tiny little meter key andthen they'll have a bigger, more heavy
duty one. I always recommend itto be duty one because you know,
there's there's some meters where you gotto put some put some force into it
to get that pain to spin,especially the older ones in downtown Columbia area.

(45:22):
If it hadn't been replaced, thenit could be difficult to turn off.
Yeah, who knows how long?Right? Yeah? Yeah? Or
you know, some people have shutoff valves easily accessible in their garages right
outside their house. There's other waysto shut it off other than the meter.

(45:45):
Our old house had a shut offvalve and the pressure reducing valve in
the garage, so pretty convenient.A lot of new houses are doing that
and finding is it pretty easy tofind the shut off valve, I mean,
the the main shut off there aI mean, we we've spent quite

(46:07):
a bit of time trying to locatesome of these meter boxes because they some
of them haven't been using so long. They're they're covered with landscaping. I've
seen them in little you know,landscaped islands and molts just covering. And
you've got to just go around whereyou think it might be based off of

(46:28):
you know, the those bit inthe front or certain indicators, and just
kind of go around and see,wait until you hit that metal or plastic
lid and you know, yeah itcould it could take a while, So
I would I would try to knowwhere that is as well, just so
you you have it in your mind. If anything happens, you have to
go to it right away instead ofmore property damage the current wall, catastrophic

(46:53):
happening with the waterliner. Yeah,all right, so we've we're talking about
sewer backups as shoppages. There's youknow, over the years that technology and
how to to you know, findthese things and fix them has evolved quite
quite a bit, hasn't it.Yeah, So it used to be,
you know, you send your cabledown and you relieve the blockage, and

(47:16):
you pull your cable out and layit on the ground and say, all
right, well this is where thisis how far I had to run my
cable to get to where the blockageis. So this has to be where
the roots are or whatever issue is. But you know, technology always advances.
So now we've got cameras that wecan send down there. They've been

(47:37):
around for quite a while, butyou know, we got a newer one
that we can actually send down theentire sewer line and trace the whole wire
instead of just tracing a camera head. So it makes it a lot easier
for one person crew to do thejob. In some cases, you know,

(47:58):
especially commercial, you'd have to haveone guy pushing the camera, one
guy following the head of the cameraand kind of locating where it's going through
the building and where you know wherewe've got to potentially dig to do a
repair. With that analogy, itjust makes it to where you can just
trace it all the way from thestart to the finish. Okay, So

(48:21):
that's a cost setting for the consumer, right Because you can do one man
crew instead of a two man crew, you can get to the problem faster,
you get it fixed faster. Yeah, and it's really precise, and
I'll get your whole yard dug upin the process because right we can tell
exactly where it is and how deepit is, so you know, and
that helps us on bidding certain projectsbecause a sewer line repair at two feet

(48:46):
is going to be a lot differentthan the sewer line repair at six feet.
Now, we don't run into sixfeet sewer line repairs very often,
but you know, once you goa certain depth, you can't just dig
down that far. Let's say you'reeight feet in around. You can't dig
an eight feet an eight foot hole. You have to have, you know,
certain safety measures in place to makesure that that hole can't collapse on

(49:08):
any workers in there, whole thingsof that nature. So so the cost
goes up pretty substantially when you're whenyou run into situations like that. So
knowing the depth is really key tobeing able to know what you need on
site to do the repair and thenhow much that repair is going to be
so you don't surprise the customer,you know, with a with a larger

(49:31):
build than they were expecting, right, because you didn't know it was eight
foot deep, not three feet deep. This is one of those things we
just take for granted until something goeswrong, right you expect to go.
We don't think about it. Butit's funny. I'll ride through neighborhoods and
okay, they got to clean up. They go, just little little little

(49:52):
things like that, and I'll usethat information, you know, on jobs.
If I can't find somebody's clean out, I'll walk down the road and
I'll say, okay, well,you know their line comes out here.
They have a city clean out,they have a city clean out. The
likelihood is that the customer rat hasone. It just might be buried or
or something like that. So youknow, the neighbors systems can help us

(50:17):
identify some things that help us locatedevices that we need to locate, whether
it be meters, clean outs andthings of that nature. So you just
give us an idea on what couldbe going on. Sure, since you
brought up earlier, James, thefact that we were talking about, you

(50:38):
know, getting the meet or weget to get turned off and sometimes older
homes harder to do. What haveyou The actual line itself. I know
we've talked before about how you know, you know, over the older homes
have a you know, certain typesof water lines. You know, newer
homes use this. Is that thethe plex's what's what's the what's the world?

(50:59):
Pecks plex is the place out inthey'll just send okay pecks. Yes,
the actual material used for sewer lines. Has that changed over the years
too, Uh well mainly, Imean over the years. Yes, it's
gone from terra cotta at one pointthat we're using Orangeburg, which is like

(51:21):
a rolled up tar paper type ofmaterial. I mean you could take a
shovel and go straight through the line. So anytime we run into Orangeburg,
it's it's you know, we haveto replace it. Uh there's there's no
getting there. There's just no integrityleft to the pipe to reattach to it.
So but yeah, there's concrete pipe. We've run into that before,

(51:44):
which is just a it's a concretelike just like what it sounds like cast
iron. But typically what we're runninginto is going to be your thin wall
PVC. Now we don't use that. We're gonna use Schedule forty, which
is a pressure graded BBC and wecould put a ten ye of warranty on

(52:08):
that. So but if you haven't, it's rare. It's rare to see
a route penetration. I think I'veonly seen you know, two or three
in a Schedule forty pipe unless somethingwasn't done properly during installed. Okay,
well, and if you had,if you had to go in and actually
repair us, who are lined areyou going to have to if you've got

(52:29):
to replace a section, do youhave to use the original material? Are
you able to use some newer materialand just draft it in or what have
you? Typically we can use transitionsto transition from the older material to what
we use, which is Schedule fortyPVC. We just did one the other
day. It was thin wall PVCgoing out. There was an issue in

(52:52):
a portion of the line. Wereplaced probably fifteen feet and it was thin
wall, and we just used,you know, a transition to make it
fit. So we can put Scheduleforty in between. So our repair is
going to be all scheduled forty pipeand then the remaining line is going to
be the here thin wall. Okay, all we are out of time.
My friend Freedom Plumbing, the guyswho have helped my family quite a bit

(53:15):
over the years and just recently aswell, always appreciate it. James.
How do folks get a hold ofyou if they need you at Freedom Plumbing?
They can give us call at eighththree four four seven zero four seven
one, or visit our website atFreedom dash Plumbing dot com. All right,
the guys right around town in thebig red, white and blue trucks,
it's Freedom Plumbing James. Thanks asalways for joining us, and you

(53:35):
have yourself a good weekend, buddy. You do the same thing, Gary,
Thank you. Hi. This isGary David. You've heard me talk
for years about Anthony John Construction andthe wonderful jobs they do for folks all
across the Midlands. When it comesto roofing and gutty well, it's the
same people doing the job, butthe name has changed. That's right now.
It's Beaver Roofing and Beaver Gutters.Leave it to Beaver for all your

(53:55):
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