In this episode of the RepcoLite Home Improvement Show, sponsored by Benjamin Moore, Dan discusses various topics ranging from personal anecdotes to practical home improvement tips. A story about the pursuit of a quirky antique sets the stage for an important life lesson about joy and personal taste. The episode also features an interview with Chad Danforth, a former painting contractor turned RepcoLite sales rep, who shares his journey and valuable insights into painting products and techniques. Additionally, the host provides a detailed guide on effectively removing old caulk, emphasizing the surprising effectiveness of caulk remover spray.CHAPTERS00:00 Introduction and Show Overview01:21 Madi's Antique Adventure03:53 The Lesson from Iris Apfel05:46 Interview with Chad Danforth07:20 Chad's Painting Mishap13:03 Chad's Early Painting Career17:37 Ron the Zen Painter18:24 Starting Blue Whale Painting18:42 Exploring Paint Specifics with Chad19:40 Log Cabin Restoration Experience21:54 Tips for Hiring Contractors26:17 Transition to RepcoLite26:50 Favorite Painting Products and Techniques33:29 Caulking Tips and Tricks39:09 Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, good morning everybody. You're listening to the repcol Light
Home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and today we've
got some pretty great stuff lined up. It's maybe not
the best stuff, this is great stuff that let's just
say it's good stuff. It's good stuff. You're not going
to be disappointed. You may not be wowed, you know,
into some sort of you know, ecstasy or you know,
(00:26):
seizure of joy and gladness, but you're probably not gonna
be bored to tears either. So it's good stuff right right,
nicely in the middle on the scale. Anyway, I got
to move on or I'm gonna lose people. I'm gonna
share a trick at the end that makes removing old
calking way way easier. I hate that job, absolutely detest it.
(00:48):
I had to do that in the house this past week.
And I found a solution, a real solution. This isn't
silliness and it's not power tools. It's a real solution.
It's in a expensive and I couldn't believe how much
it simplified the process of removing old caulking. So we're
going to talk about that, and also we're going to
(01:08):
hear from Chad Danfirth, one of Repcolite's outside sales reps
in Metro Detroit. Now, Chad's a former painting contractor, and
he's got a lot of solid insights on products and
application and more. We'll get to all of that coming
up in just a minute, but first I want to
talk about something that happened this past weekend because it
reminded me of one of the best lessons that I've
(01:29):
learned while working at Repcolite and hosting this show and
all of those things. All Right, here's the deal. My
daughter Mattie was out antique shopping. She's quirky. You've got
to understand that she loves weird things. She laughs at
anything with a ducker a goose on it. You know,
it's surefired humor if you find something with a ducker
a goose on it. Maddie's in seventh Heaven anyway. She's
(01:53):
out shopping and she finds something that she absolutely has
to have. It's a glass sculpture that looks like a
plastic bag filled with water, complete with a little glass
goldfish in it. Right, it looks just like the little
bagged goldfish you get from the pet store, except it's
done in glass, kind of clunkily. Clunkily, that's not a word.
(02:16):
That's not how we get to the best content, Dan,
It's why we're at the good level. It wasn't done
with great skill. Let's just say gorgeous, rare, valuable. No,
it was none of those things. Weird, absolutely, So Maddie
finds this strange item and instantly falls in love with it.
(02:38):
But it was forty bucks, so that was a little
sticking point there. So Mattie texts me the pictures and
then proceeds to spend the next thirty minutes texting me
her entire thought process as she wanders the store in
debates buying this fish. The friend that shopping with her
thought she was nuts, couldn't believe that Maddie seriously liked
(03:00):
this thing. She texts pictures to her fiance. He had
a similar reaction. So Mattie's got her people, you know,
her close people telling her that it's a little nuts.
And then she tells herself, you know, okay, they think
it's nuts, and it's forty bucks. That seems kind of
steep for what it is. And so finally, after about
thirty minutes of hand ringing considerations, She puts it back
(03:21):
on the shelf and heads home. Didn't need it, it
was too dumb. Good decision, right, what's the point of
the story, you know, what's the paint point? What's the
big Repcolite lesson that I said. It reminded me of well,
I'm going to get to that, because the story isn't
finished yet. See. An hour after Mattie gets home, she's
back in her car, driving to the antique store. She
walks in, snatches up that glass bagged fish thing, shelves
(03:44):
out the forty bucks, and drives home all smiles. So
now I can get to the paint point, to the
big lesson that I learned. About five or six years
ago or so, Repcolite hosted a color and design event
focused on the late Iris app full now at nearly
about one hundred years old or so the point of
our event. Iris was famous for her over the top,
you know, clothing style, her fashion sense, huge glasses, huge
(04:07):
circular glasses, bold prints, crazy jewelry, and then her home.
She was also an interior designer. Her home was packed
with all the things she loved, clashing patterns, quirky trinkets,
vibrant color. She was all about maximalism. Now. In that event,
we took all of Iris's wild, over the top decisions
and design choices and distilled them to a single simple thought.
(04:27):
If you love something, pursue it. Now. Iris didn't worry
about trends or what other people thought. She surrounded herself
with things that brought her joy. And that's what made
her home, her fashion, really everything about her uniquely hers.
And that's the lesson with this dumb little fish. If
you love something, if it speaks to your soul, don't
give a second thought to what anybody else is going
(04:49):
to think. Don't worry about making it fit into some
superficial design style in your home. If it brings you happiness,
don't walk away from it, you know, don't leave it
on the shelf. Your home should be filled with all
the things that make you you, you know, the silly,
the sentimental things, the things that make you smile. The
glass fish that's going to be a cherished memory in
(05:09):
Maddie's home as the year's unfold. I guarantee it. So
don't overthink it. If something truly brings you joy, you know,
a piece of furniture, a cat clock with the swishing
tail and the blinking eyes. You know what I'm talking about, right,
Maybe even just a paint color that everybody else thinks
is a little nuts. If it speaks to you, don't
worry about what everybody else is thinking. Pursue it, don't
leave it on the shelf. All right, there's the paint
(05:31):
point for the week. Now let's take a break and
when we come back, we'll be talking with painting contractor
turned Rep Coolite employee Chad Danforth. That's just ahead, stick around,
Welcome back to the Repcolite Home improvement show sponsored by
Benjamin Moore. And right now I'm excited to share part
(05:52):
of an interview that I recorded with one of my
co workers at Repcolite, Chad Danforth. Now, Chad is one
of our outside sales reps, and he primarily has worked
on the East side of the state in the Metro
Detroit area where we've got five locations. He joined Repcolite
about a year and a half ago after spending several
years as a painting contractor. And that background is really
pretty interesting because it gives them a unique perspective. You know,
(06:15):
he's applied the paint for a living and now he
works directly with contractors who are applying the paint for
a living. You know, his whole goal in life right
now is to help them find the best products and
the solutions for their jobs. So he's kind of been
on both sides of the of the fence there. Now,
what you're about to hear in this interview is just
a portion of our full conversation. And man, trust me,
(06:35):
there's a lot that I couldn't fit onto the you know,
onto this on air version. I've only got so much
time after all, and there's it was. It was so
painful because there were things that I wanted to air
that I just didn't have time, including Chad singing a
little country music. You know, I even got him to
do that on air. So if you want to catch that,
(06:55):
find that full interview. We cover everything from competitive bowling
to karayoke to some great causes that Chad supports. And
you can catch that full interview in all of its
glorious video form on Repcolites YouTube page. You can find
it under the new feature the Interviews, and check out
the other interviews that we've posted there. While you're at it,
(07:16):
all right, let's get to it. Here's my conversation with
Repcolite's own Chad Danforth. All Right, so I guess what
I want to start with is just have you ever spilled,
you know, paint, worst possible place, anything come to mind.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I have been really fortunate when I was I mean,
I painted professionally for about ten years. I've had a
few small paint spills. I did have one incident a
piece of furniture fall down, but that didn't spill any paint.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Okay, okay, a piece of furniture fell down. Yeah, what
are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So this is actually I've got a little PTSD from
this because it was so catastrophic. But I was painting
a personal friend's living room. And this friend was in
business and in business overseas sometimes and collected glass bulls,
custom glass bowls from every country that he visited, and
(08:12):
he would decorate his.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Arm wire.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Or like his desk, you know, his personal computer desk,
with all these different bulls from all these different countries.
And so I said, okay, Michael, let's just slide this
out from the wall. My team and I are going
to be extra careful. You don't have to move all
this stuff. We just need to get in there so
we can paint the ceiling, and long story short is
I had an employee at the time who tripped on.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
The power cord.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It had a power cord with a light source, and
when he tripped, he went to grabed like this, and
it was one of the ones where like a hutch
had to be fastened to, you know, the top to
the bottom, and those were just missing. And so when
he grabbed the whole thing came down. All this glass
bowls that he's collected for an entire lifetime hit the floor.
(08:59):
One of them was full of whiskey and proceeded to
hit all of his electronics. And right then the homeowner
came home and I'm just left flailing.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Oh my goodness, and very I was.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Like yelling, trying. It fell on top of my employee.
So first and foremost was his safety.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
And then come on, really, what's wrong?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah? I know.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
It was a lot of emotions all at once, and
I was not okay. I I really had a hard
time with that.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
This poor fellow, the guy do with that?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Your customer?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
My my customer. She rounded us up, we got it
cleaned up. I was just wrapping up the project, doing
a punch list. She goes, you gotta get this done,
because we got to get you out of here before
Michael gets home. I'm going to tell him and we're
going to handle this.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
But you need to.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Leave this site because I just I'm fearful, which of
course was not I understand.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
That and not what I want to hear.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, that was the worst incident that has ever happened.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I mean, I can't really think of a worse incident.
I can, but not in a realistic world.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
No, because it was like crazy world. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Did you ever work again after that?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Not much longer.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
That was probably about six months till the end of
my painting career. But I got insurance involved. I placed
a call to an insurance you know, and they had
them my customers try to gather up approximate values of
these bowls, you know, but there was nothing. They had
no formal receipt on some of these things.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
It was they were priceless.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah, they were priced.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
They were priceless. And so these dreams, some children's heritage,
all of that, yeah gone.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, I think the Dalai Lama gave them one or whatever.
I mean, it was quite a scene and I still
struggle with that.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I feel so terrible.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I've enjoyed it a lot. I mean, you've shared with us.
I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, no problem, no mine mine.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That makes me feel great. Yeah, because nothing I have
ever done even comes close to that.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, the worst thing I've ever done. Can't even see
where you were in that point. I'm so far away
from that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
And what do you got?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Well, nothing, I mean, it's just poultry. And in comparison,
one of the things that I've done that I remember
and think about a lot. I've talked about it on
the show, just as a you know, don't do this,
but like the lid we'll talk about. You know, you
want to avoid paint spill. Always make sure you tap
that lid tight. So I'm working in the store at
(11:35):
the Lakewood location and making paint, and you know what
it's like trying to match a color. You're constantly back
and forth, back and forth. That's really good. The time
I was not quite there yet, you know, or the
customer just you know, we just had to dial it in.
So I'm making multiple adjustments and I get called away,
put the lid on top of it, go away, answer
(11:55):
whatever I've got to do. I come back and I
the lid's on it, but I never pounded the lid
on it. So I flip it over because now I
finally got the color, so now I'm going to write
the formula on the side, flip it over the counter,
and it took my brain way too long to process
the fact that I was pouring into the paint all
over the counter, lid off, everything, and what a mess
(12:18):
that was.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, I'm sure in the paint store are they you know,
everything has to be shaken, so you forget us stuff
like that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And oh yeah, no, we had one with at seventeenth Street.
This was years ago, where we've got bright aluminum paint,
you know, it's super shiny, super metallic, and somebody throws
that in the shaker and the lid comes off, and
the manager, you know, just your knee jerk reaction is
to open the shaker because you can hear it just
spilling the shaker. He opens it up and gets.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Completiently sprayed out of a movie.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
We're working at another store and all of a sudden,
the phone goes crazy. We pick it up and it's
the other store laughing hysterically because their manager is running
around looking like the tind hell we covered with with metallics. Yeah,
so you know what you do or I guess what
you used to do, because you know, we should say
that Chad did all this work as a painter. Yep,
(13:13):
you know all that, and then you transitioned how long
ago to Repcolite?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
About a year and a half, so August mid August
of twenty three.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
All right, yep, so you've got you know, a lot
of experience. You know, a year and a half's experience
is here, and then all your previous life as a contractor.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
You know, let's go way back. Okay, you're working on
a crew. That's how you got started. How green were
you when you first started?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I was very green.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
What happened is I was actually my first job was
working in a bowling alley and one of the league
bowlers had a team named Dedrich Painting. And then I
was a lane attendant. So I'm kind of up close
and personal with a lot of these different guys. I'm
picking up their bottles or whatever. And I don't know
if you just saw, you know, my work work ethic.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
What is a lane attendant? Exactly?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Do well? Lane attendant?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Bring them little trays of good ease polish.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well if they need that, Alene attendant really is meant
to kind of watch over some of the competitive leagues. Well,
any any kind of bowler really, but the competitive leagues
sometimes guys, guys aren't sliding properly. You need to clean.
You need to clean the approach for you know, if
there's any kind of dust or anything out there. A
lot of times pins will come back out from the
(14:30):
machine and then you've got to go take care of
that or relay messages. A lot of times someone's ball
doesn't come back. I got to relay that to the counter.
Is that kind of thing and come back? Gotta go
say hey, ball return lane twenty three. All right, So
you're working as a I'm working at a l attendant
Deedrich painting. He sees my hard work, ethic Dan, he says, wow,
that kid's I was twenty years old. Say he's really
(14:52):
busting his butt. And so he says, hey, I have
a painting company. You don't have to know how to paint,
but I could really use, you know, a help. And
I thought, okay, you know, I'm open minded, let me
let me try it out. And so first day we
show up, you had a job in Milford, Michigan, and
he just starts having me carry stuff down into this
(15:13):
guy's basement. And it's a home I was not used
to being, and you know, we're working for upper middle
class individuals. This particular house was really nice, square footage rise,
larger than something I was normal too. So I was
just kind of an off through the whole process and
just starting to go out to the truck carry carry
tools in, carry drop cloths in, and and then it
just started. Ron Deedrich is his name. He learned painting
(15:36):
from his his great grandfather who taught his father who
taught him, and just kind of in the family. And
from that moment on, after the tools got brought down
to the basement, he's just started teaching me one step
at a time, like the real, like a real long
haul kind of mindset. And so I ended up liking it.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I got that.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Left handed creative brain, and so I find that, you know,
painting is really open for interpretation, and I I like that.
I liked that part initially, and I liked the camaraderie.
At that time, it was just myself and Ron, and
so we're just kind of there joking.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, just the two of us for years.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yet he had a bowling team.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He had a bowling team.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
You know, none of these were people that he worked with.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Well, just friends. No, just friends.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I assumed it was a huge crew.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Well nope, just one man show.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And then I was his helper and so yeah, we
continued to work together. He just keeps continuing to teach
me old school painting.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I mean he was talking about that. What are some
of the things you picked up? What are old school
painting things?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
You know, we kind of started with some basics how
to correctly mask right, We started masking the floor correctly,
and then you know, he's educating me on why we're
doing this right, we're lipping up some of the tapes
so that some of the paint doesn't creep through. Starts
teaching me that certain tapes do certain things. You know,
we get into you know, why we're standing the walls.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
That caught me off guard. Okay, why are we standing
the walls? You know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Are you standing the walls?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
We're standing the walls. Poles standing. A big, big part
of my early career was spent pole standing. I was
the designated pole sander, uh and that is to not
only clean the walls, but also to knock down what
we call boggers. A lot of people have different names
for him, but we're not. We're making those things soon.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well what are you calling them? What do you call them?
The goobies? Yeah, the good left and we're sanding and uh,
and then.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
So and then he starts Dan, He's got me this guy.
He starts getting me into the habit.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Of feeling the walls.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And he says to me, paint jobs, not a paint
job unless it feels good. It can't just look good.
It's got to feel good. And I say, okay, So yeah,
it's very zen. He's got a lot of run ron,
had long hair, kind of hippie style, zen like guy.
And so yeah, he's got me feeling the walls, got
me feeling the trim and uh.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Did you wear a special glove?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
No, no, no, gotta feel it. So yeah, it was
kind of that old school feel. We were working in
a lot of upper echelon homes. He had been their
painter for years and years. He's kind of a word
of mouth type guy. I think you probably inherited some
clients from his dad even and so you know, and
then I did that for four or five years, and.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I really liked it. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I started getting into why products are doing certain things.
Really enjoyed the product aspect of it, which obviously would
kind of come to play later in life here. But
there's a whole section in between there we're missing out on,
which is Yeah, I think when I was twenty five,
I left Ron and said, Okay, I think I'm gonna
start my own business, you know, no hard feelings, and
(18:37):
I started a company called Blue Whale Painting.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
All right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when
we come back, we'll dive back into the conversation with
Chad and we'll explore some paint specifics, including kind of
a unique approach that he's got to using our bath
and spa from Benjamin Moore. That's all coming up next.
Stick around, Welcome back to the Repcolite Home Improvement Show
(19:04):
sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And right now we're in the
middle of an interview that I recorded with Repcollites outside
sales rep Chad dan Firth. Chad used to be a
painting contractor before joining Repcolite about a year and a
half ago or so, and he primarily works right now
on the east side of the state. And remember what
you're hearing in this interview is just a portion of
(19:24):
the full thing. If you'd like to catch everything that
we talked about and actually tune into Chad singing a
little country music to boot. If you want to catch
all of that, just head to Repcollites YouTube page and
check out our latest episode of the interviews. All right,
let's get back to my conversation with Chad. So, I
know that somewhere along your journey as a contractor you
(19:45):
worked on a log cabin restoration or a family that
basically this is probably before you knocked over all those
vases and stuff in another home and like almost adopted you.
You talked about this as an incredible experience job.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, yeah, the Walter's job.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It actually was one of my last jobs, and the
Walters job came to me.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
It was just a normal phone.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Call that I feel that, hey, we've got a cottage
out here in Holly, we'd like to come take a
look and stop by, and just the the architecture of
the this thing was very unique. I think it was something,
you know, one of those ones that had been added
on to four or five different times. But the experior
substrate was vertical log siding, and it hadn't been maintained
(20:34):
in years. It was really in some dire need of
powerwashing with some chemicals to clean it up. And then,
you know, really see what we got. But I go
out and I meet Gwen Walters, and she is just
the absolute sweetest lady in the world, and she says, Okay,
you know, listen, my husband built this house with his
(20:56):
bare hands. We've been here, I think in twenty or
thirty years now, and unfortunately he has gotten ill recently
and he's just not able to do this himself. Normally
we do everything ourselves, but this has got to be done.
It's getting to the point where some of these logs
are starting to be rotted. We're starting to kind of
have you know, compromised logs and waters coming in in
(21:20):
some areas. So we need to call someone out and
get this taken care of us.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
It okay, no problem.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I totally understand that, and so I know that this
is really important to them, and she just couldn't treat
me nicer, which I you know, in this business that's
really important to me.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Paintings hard and so you have.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
To give all that you can for your services, but
it also takes some effort on the homeowners and too.
And that was one of those things that you know,
I tried to really pare myself with customers that understood
how that dynamic could really help them get the best
paying job. You know, oftentimes you find some people that
just don't want to give you what you need to
help them.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
So let's talk about that. I mean, you're talking to
a lot of people who could be hiring contractors. You
talk about how there's things that we can do, you know,
as people hiring a contractor to get a better job.
And I don't think a lot of people think about that,
you know. I think we think we're hiring somebody and
I'm going to make sure that that crew does a
good job. They've got a good you know, good reviews,
they've got a good rapport. You know, talk to them
(22:16):
and okay, they'll they'll listen to me, they'll understand, and
they've got the skills to do it. You're saying there's
something that we can also do, which I think is
really good. I think that's good for people to hear
about what can we do as people hiring a contractor
to help.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, the best problems.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Absolutely, So, I think, you know, the first thing is
just preparation of the area. I think that's kind of
first and foremost. There's often be times where I'd show up.
We plan to do someone's kitchen, cabinets or their foyer
or whatever it is, and I show up and I think,
you know, upon initial quoting, I say, okay, we'll take
care of the big stuff. I have a crew, we're
going to move your furniture. We're going to cover that up.
(22:54):
But I need you I think the terminis use was
nick knacks, right, I need you to take care of
all these little nick knacks before we get here.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
That's first thing.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
We have a large project, and depending, I mean some
people have a lot of knickknacks.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I think there's a lot of people that heard the
beginning of this in all those vases going over that
are well you know, wait, what is it makes sense?
Maybe remove those nicknames, maybe.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Remove those knick knacks. Yeah, that one was maybe my fault.
Now I'm contradicting myself, But.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
No, you that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
That was a horrible experience. Yes, So now I've got
information to convey to other people to save them from that.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yes, that's how I do it.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So you got to take down the knickknacks, and then
you know, we've got to come to some kind of
agreement with how the space that we're working and is
going to be used for the duration that we are
in there. If it's a you know, a kitchen, obviously
people use that on a daily basis. Like you know,
I think expectation setting is big upon the initial quote, Hey,
(23:53):
you're you know, you may have access to this for
a couple of days, but then it's off limits and
then you know, and of course I've come into job
where plastic is just ripped down and you know, they
got to get to something or and sometimes that's you're
not gonna have every win, but no problem. But sometimes
you know, I guess what I'm saying is some some
(24:13):
homeowners really do a good job of recognizing you as
someone that is more than just the help, and they
are able to kind of get into your state of mind.
I understand that they need to make it easy on
you too and everyone and everyone wins.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Well that's the big thing, that's the big takeaways. Everybody wins,
you know when you're communicating well and asking questions when
you've got them, not stewing on stuff, you know, finding
out exactly what's expected, so that your family can coexist
because it's you know, you're in the house for however long. Yeah,
any on the project, you're you know right.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yes, in their space, it's much more prevalent of an
issue in interior than an exterior exterior. There's not too
much overlap that needs to be done on their end.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
But oh my kid though, he worked on a crew
this past summer for the first time, you know, he
didn't do any painting beforehand, and he's working on an
exterior crew, and yeah, it was much easier in that regard.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
M hm oh man.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
He'd come home, you know, not every day, but there
probably once a week. There was awkward moments where you know,
the contractors would let they're in condo associations, and so
the condo association has alerted all the people there, there's
painting crews around and they're going to be painting the
exterior homes, doing certain things, getting.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Your deck right.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And every time he'd put his ladder up by a
window and he'd have to think, oh.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Oh god, oh please okay, yeah, and he's got some
really funny stories like he gets to the top and he,
you know, is painting and then he sees motion and
there's a lady just rocking her chair right by the
window looking out.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Other times other times he'll you know, you just people
are moving thinking.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Okay, okay, good luck.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
But yeah, you gotta let people know have those conversations
that that helps you know us as we're hiring people.
Like you said, you just remember that you know you
as a contractor, your person to help and when I
work with you and treat you in that manner, we're
going to get better. Yeah, faults down the road. So
you switched over to Rep call Light year and a
(26:19):
half ago, year and a half ago something like that.
Now you're an outside rep working with our contractors, which
I think is great because you come at this job
from their point of view. You know what would help
them succeed in their business, because you ran a business
like that exactly. So that's really cool. As a rep.
As a painter, you had to form, for lack of
a better word, relationships with products. You know, whether they're
(26:41):
paints or whether they're sundrys. You know, from either angle.
As a rep or, you know as a painter. What
were some of the products that you just found yourself? Really?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Oh well, what was nice about this conversion from contractor
to to rep particularly for a Benjamin Moore story.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I wasn't obviously not.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Familiar with repolit product because they were, you know, pretty
new to that side of town at that time. But
I was a Benjamin Moore user and I centered my
business around the Aura line. I had a little bit
of a unique system where I actually used our bath
and spa on everything on your foyer.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
So why did you do that?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Two reasons?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Finish The finish is slightly lower sheine than the regular
Aura Matt, I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
If you you know from Benjamin Moore.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
They say, oh, it's almost the exact same stuff with
just a little bit of mill the side added in.
But when you dry them down, the oor bath and
spa absolutely is a little bit lower sheen. And that's
a nice little hack for you know, some of those
twenty foot walls, and also for touch ups. You can
absolutely touch up or a bath and spa and almost
(27:54):
all bases and have pretty good success with it, particularly
if you use the same cover you know, or in
the same week, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
But it also is really nice off the brush.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
It's a little bit looser than the regular or a Yeah,
there is a little bit of a consistency difference. I
used to use the Corona ex Caliber.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Brush for that product.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I'd pair those together and man, you can you can
really get you know, a good twenty four inch brush stroke,
you know, at the ceiling line with that combo and
you're still getting really good coverage and it just rolls
off really good.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So mix, yeah, I mean did you mix brushes with products?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, absolutely, you have different brush absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Different different brushes for different products. I got pretty into,
you know, really honing in some of the details with
tapes and brushes for products. Now not not all the time.
You could probably drive yourself crazy trying to you know,
find that. And I think I narrowed my brush selection
down to three. Right, we have a trim brush. It's
typically pretty soft, I you know, for them with the
(29:00):
advance it's not hard to make that, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Look too good.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Benjamin Yeah, Benjamin Wore's advanced line yep.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Just self levels beautiful.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, And so I typically like something firmer from you know,
my wall paints and then you know, a soft preshl
brush for trim, and then of course those you know,
upon the tail end of their life would get recycled
into like ceiling paint brushes, you know, or a duster brush.
I wasn't big on dust brush that that guy round
I was talking about way back. He said, we don't
We don't just push dust around. We remove the dust
(29:29):
with a vacuum. I said, okay, that's that's a pretty
decent theory. Yeah, you know, rather than we're just moving
the dust around. That's not pretty good for job site cleanliness.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Old brushes so they can be really nice for dusting
off electronics things like that. Oh yeah, for all the
studio equipment that I've got here. Doesn't mess my knobs
up because I've got all my settings where I want.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Oh yeah, that's yeah, that's over them. Yeah I like it.
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I centered my you know, my business was really around
that Advance s trim paint line, the ORB Beth and
Spa or it's just regular Aura, you know. But I
did find that little sheen hack with the Beth and Spa,
and it would end up really working out well for
some of the touching up if necessary, or on some
kind of new construction and electrician comes in and bashes
something or cuts an outlet wall. I thought that that
(30:17):
was a reasonable, uh looking touch up at the end
of the day, didn't have to go corner to corner.
But that absolutely personal preference. And I'm not saying that that's.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Uh yeah people.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And then I really liked I. I was a big
believer and this is this is hard for me to
sell now that I'm up. Here's a little bit of crossover.
I used to exclusively buy Benjamin Moore's ceiling paint. Used
to be in a yellow can. Now it's in a
purple can. If you work in a store, you call it, yeah,
premium water borne ceiling paint. We call it five O eight,
which is the skew. That particular product has elite coverage
(30:56):
and you can tell that it is a high degree
of solids content to it. And so in a lot
of circumstances, I was saving an additional coat. If you
get a and this is a little bit counterintuitive to
I would use sometimes up to a three eighths inch
roller cover for a ceiling and.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Just dip a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I would use dipping to get a lot of product
on and that three eighth roller cover would just you know,
level it right out like a like a steamroller on
a road.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I think a lot of people like to think about
taking large roller covers thinking added coverage or or mileage.
But if you get in the habit of just dipping
extra and moving that paint around with a cover that's
not going to pull paint back off the surface, I
think a lot of painters will find some success with
added coverage capability half inch is not unreasonable for a ceiling.
(31:46):
But if you really want to get you know, a
nice roller cover on the ceiling, if you take the
time and buy a nice roller cover and dip and
really get yourself into a flow, that five o eight
ceiling paint can cover off with the you know, the
white can cover some decently off foid ceilings in one coat.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
And it's completely flat dead and flat dead flat, no
matter flat or it's tinted too. Yeah, And that's huge
on a ceiling because yeah, I mean, with the light
coming in angles out the smallest little thing, if there's
a little bit of sheene and a true flat ceiling
paint in most situations, those when they're tinted to certain
colors that the colorant itself is going to give off
(32:22):
a little slide machine and then that'd be enough to
see roller mark.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, critical lighting situations, right, And that's that product I
just didn't stray with. You know, a lot of guys
want to use you know, more cost effective ceiling paint,
and there are I'm sure places for that, but the
kind of work that was my business was doing. I
just I like to develop a system and just get
into it. Or water borne ceiling paint Advance.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
That's my system.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
There's obviously jobs that called, you know, if someone was
on a budget or something like that, they have a rental,
you know, we can start to navigate to some of
those lesser, uh you know, not top of the line products.
But that was kind of my system, and you prepare,
you know, you kind of pair the Sundrys with it.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
You experiment.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Painting is kind of about testing and finding out what
works for you, what works for your style, Especially with
brushes roller covers, there's so many you know, between the
woven and the microfiber and the microplush and what's really happening, you.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Know, kind of a mixed bag there. Yeah, just find
what works for you. Yeah, So anyway, I'm gonna let
you get back to work.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Thanks for hanging out, Yeah, no problem, pleasure all right.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I think it's time for a break, and when we
come back, we're gonna be talking about calking. I ran
into a listener talking about calking. That rhymes just hit me.
I completely lost my train of thought. I ran into
a listener this week with a lot of good questions,
and I figured that it was worth digging into on
the show. So we're going to do that in just
a minute. Stick around, and we're back. You're listening to
(33:56):
the Repco Light Home Improvement Show. And in this last segment,
I want to talk about some caulking questions that I
was asked this week by a listener. Now, the person
in question was doing some painting, and she'd done all
the prep work, you know, all the prep work, she thought.
And then she gets closer to painting and she notices
the existing calk around some trimming windows. She hadn't seen
(34:18):
it before, she notices it now, and she sends me
some pictures. It wasn't in the best of shape, you know,
there were gaps, there were cracks and so on in it,
and In her email, she asked if she could just
calk over it with new call, you know, to make
it look good, to clean it up, and then just
go on with her painting. Is that okay? She doesn't
(34:39):
need to remove it, right? That was the main question.
And certainly, you know, anything's possible if you're in a
situation like that and the existing calk is fully adhered,
it's free from cracks, it's in a dry, non water
exposed area, you might be able to apply you know,
a thin beat of new calk over top of it
and just walk away. You know, maybe it'll be fine.
(35:00):
Just make sure that that new caulk is compatible with
the old. But with all of that said, and I
think you're picking it up if you want the best results,
the general rule of thumb is that you really should
remove that caulk first. You know, you're going to get
better adhesion. Oftentimes new colk just won't bond well to old,
dried out or cracked kulk, and you're also going to
get a smooth, cleaner finish. And that for sure was
(35:22):
going to be her situation because the caulk that she
had was pretty bubbly. It wasn't applied well in the
first place, the first original culk wasn't applied well, new
caulk over top of that, it's just going to look
messy and uneven, you know. Trying to put a layer
of that over top not going to look good. So
definitely her best way forward was to remove that old calk. Now,
(35:44):
the next question, of course, came up, how do you
remove the calck easily? Well, I had an answer for
her that I had to go back and kind of
retract a little bit and give her some better advice,
because after talking to her about it and walking her
through through the process, I went home and did the
same thing around my tubs surround, and I found a
(36:07):
better system, a system that worked really well. So if
you've got a caulk that you've got to remove, I've
got the system. It's still not fun, but it is
way better than what I would have recommended previously, and
in fact what I did recommend to that poor listener.
Fortunately I was able to give her the adjusted version
before she actually started. So, how do you remove caulk
(36:29):
as easily as possible without power tools? I mean, there's
maybe power tools that could make this easier yet, but
this is the old fashioned way, how do you remove
it as easily as possible. Here's what you're gonna need.
You got to gather your tools first. You need a
good utility knife. You know, something sturdy, and that's for
scoring the caulk. You need a cal removal tool. Metal
works better here. It can damage your surfaces, so be
(36:51):
aware of that. Plastic is safer. But in my experience,
I had no leverage with the plastic one. I couldn't
really make it do anything. So use what will work
best for you. If you go with metal, just be
careful with it as you're working around delicate surfaces. So
you need the utility knife, the call removal tool. You
need a stiff putty knife, and you need a flexible
putty knife. You need rags and a scrubby pad for
(37:13):
cleaning up. And then the last thing you need the
piece de resistance, the game changer. You need cock remover spray. Now,
I'll be honest, I thought the cock remover spray was
a complete gimmick. I knew about it. I've known about
it for years. I thought it was ridiculous. You know,
I assume this job is really all about brute force,
(37:34):
But in this instance I gave it a shot because
I thought, you know, whatever I'm going to learn when
I'm taking this cock out from around the tub surround,
I'm going to report back on the show, so I
might as well try this. And I was blown away.
It completely changed everything. Now, the instructions on the spray
said to score the cock, first, spray the remover on,
wait five to twenty minutes, and then remove the calk.
(37:56):
My calling was old and tough, and so even score
worrying that was a battle. I got some of it
out and then sprayed the remover on. I waited the
five minutes, and the result that I got was the
remaining cock peeled up way easier. I mean, it still wasn't,
you know, like a walk in the park, but it
was way less of a struggle. And when I saw that,
(38:16):
that's when I ditched that whole scoring step and I
went straight to spraying everything. So I sprayed all the
rest of the caulking around the top, waited the five
to ten minutes, and the cock softened right up. I
was able to go and score it with my utility
knife and then hitting it with the cock removal tool.
I removed eight to ten feet of calk in the
same time that it took me to do three feet
without the spray. So use the cock remover spray. It's
(38:39):
going to save you a ton of time. Now, once
you've got all of that calking out, wipe everything down
with rubbing alcohol or a mild detergent to remove any residue.
Use your little scrubby pad and all of that. If
there was molden mildew there, clean that area with a
bleach solution and then let everything dry thoroughly before reculking.
So final verdict, cock remover spray is absolutely the real deal.
(39:01):
If you're tackling old cal king, don't skip it. It's
gonna save you time, frustration, and who knows what else,
maybe even some choice words. Who knows. All right, that's
all the time we've got. We're gonna have to wrap
this one up. If you want to catch it again,
you can find it online at repco light dot com.
Whatever you do today makes your paints a part of it.
Have a great weekend, everybody, and I'll see you next week.
I'm Dan Hansen. Thanks for listening.
Well, good morning everybody. You're listening to the repcol Light
Home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and today we've
got some pretty great stuff lined up. It's maybe not
the best stuff, this is great stuff that let's just
say it's good stuff. It's good stuff. You're not going
to be disappointed. You may not be wowed, you know,
into some sort of you know, ecstasy or you know,
(00:26):
seizure of joy and gladness, but you're probably not gonna
be bored to tears either. So it's good stuff right right,
nicely in the middle on the scale. Anyway, I got
to move on or I'm gonna lose people. I'm gonna
share a trick at the end that makes removing old
calking way way easier. I hate that job, absolutely detest it.
(00:48):
I had to do that in the house this past week.
And I found a solution, a real solution. This isn't
silliness and it's not power tools. It's a real solution.
It's in a expensive and I couldn't believe how much
it simplified the process of removing old caulking. So we're
going to talk about that, and also we're going to
(01:08):
hear from Chad Danfirth, one of Repcolite's outside sales reps
in Metro Detroit. Now, Chad's a former painting contractor, and
he's got a lot of solid insights on products and
application and more. We'll get to all of that coming
up in just a minute, but first I want to
talk about something that happened this past weekend because it
reminded me of one of the best lessons that I've
(01:29):
learned while working at Repcolite and hosting this show and
all of those things. All Right, here's the deal. My
daughter Mattie was out antique shopping. She's quirky. You've got
to understand that she loves weird things. She laughs at
anything with a ducker a goose on it. You know,
it's surefired humor if you find something with a ducker
a goose on it. Maddie's in seventh Heaven anyway. She's
(01:53):
out shopping and she finds something that she absolutely has
to have. It's a glass sculpture that looks like a
plastic bag filled with water, complete with a little glass
goldfish in it. Right, it looks just like the little
bagged goldfish you get from the pet store, except it's
done in glass, kind of clunkily. Clunkily, that's not a word.
(02:16):
That's not how we get to the best content, Dan,
It's why we're at the good level. It wasn't done
with great skill. Let's just say gorgeous, rare, valuable. No,
it was none of those things. Weird, absolutely, So Maddie
finds this strange item and instantly falls in love with it.
(02:38):
But it was forty bucks, so that was a little
sticking point there. So Mattie texts me the pictures and
then proceeds to spend the next thirty minutes texting me
her entire thought process as she wanders the store in
debates buying this fish. The friend that shopping with her
thought she was nuts, couldn't believe that Maddie seriously liked
(03:00):
this thing. She texts pictures to her fiance. He had
a similar reaction. So Mattie's got her people, you know,
her close people telling her that it's a little nuts.
And then she tells herself, you know, okay, they think
it's nuts, and it's forty bucks. That seems kind of
steep for what it is. And so finally, after about
thirty minutes of hand ringing considerations, She puts it back
(03:21):
on the shelf and heads home. Didn't need it, it
was too dumb. Good decision, right, what's the point of
the story, you know, what's the paint point? What's the
big Repcolite lesson that I said. It reminded me of well,
I'm going to get to that, because the story isn't
finished yet. See. An hour after Mattie gets home, she's
back in her car, driving to the antique store. She
walks in, snatches up that glass bagged fish thing, shelves
(03:44):
out the forty bucks, and drives home all smiles. So
now I can get to the paint point, to the
big lesson that I learned. About five or six years
ago or so, Repcolite hosted a color and design event
focused on the late Iris app full now at nearly
about one hundred years old or so the point of
our event. Iris was famous for her over the top,
you know, clothing style, her fashion sense, huge glasses, huge
(04:07):
circular glasses, bold prints, crazy jewelry, and then her home.
She was also an interior designer. Her home was packed
with all the things she loved, clashing patterns, quirky trinkets,
vibrant color. She was all about maximalism. Now. In that event,
we took all of Iris's wild, over the top decisions
and design choices and distilled them to a single simple thought.
(04:27):
If you love something, pursue it. Now. Iris didn't worry
about trends or what other people thought. She surrounded herself
with things that brought her joy. And that's what made
her home, her fashion, really everything about her uniquely hers.
And that's the lesson with this dumb little fish. If
you love something, if it speaks to your soul, don't
give a second thought to what anybody else is going
(04:49):
to think. Don't worry about making it fit into some
superficial design style in your home. If it brings you happiness,
don't walk away from it, you know, don't leave it
on the shelf. Your home should be filled with all
the things that make you you, you know, the silly,
the sentimental things, the things that make you smile. The
glass fish that's going to be a cherished memory in
(05:09):
Maddie's home as the year's unfold. I guarantee it. So
don't overthink it. If something truly brings you joy, you know,
a piece of furniture, a cat clock with the swishing
tail and the blinking eyes. You know what I'm talking about, right,
Maybe even just a paint color that everybody else thinks
is a little nuts. If it speaks to you, don't
worry about what everybody else is thinking. Pursue it, don't
leave it on the shelf. All right, there's the paint
(05:31):
point for the week. Now let's take a break and
when we come back, we'll be talking with painting contractor
turned Rep Coolite employee Chad Danforth. That's just ahead, stick around,
Welcome back to the Repcolite Home improvement show sponsored by
Benjamin Moore. And right now I'm excited to share part
(05:52):
of an interview that I recorded with one of my
co workers at Repcolite, Chad Danforth. Now, Chad is one
of our outside sales reps, and he primarily has worked
on the East side of the state in the Metro
Detroit area where we've got five locations. He joined Repcolite
about a year and a half ago after spending several
years as a painting contractor. And that background is really
pretty interesting because it gives them a unique perspective. You know,
(06:15):
he's applied the paint for a living and now he
works directly with contractors who are applying the paint for
a living. You know, his whole goal in life right
now is to help them find the best products and
the solutions for their jobs. So he's kind of been
on both sides of the of the fence there. Now,
what you're about to hear in this interview is just
a portion of our full conversation. And man, trust me,
(06:35):
there's a lot that I couldn't fit onto the you know,
onto this on air version. I've only got so much
time after all, and there's it was. It was so
painful because there were things that I wanted to air
that I just didn't have time, including Chad singing a
little country music. You know, I even got him to
do that on air. So if you want to catch that,
(06:55):
find that full interview. We cover everything from competitive bowling
to karayoke to some great causes that Chad supports. And
you can catch that full interview in all of its
glorious video form on Repcolites YouTube page. You can find
it under the new feature the Interviews, and check out
the other interviews that we've posted there. While you're at it,
(07:16):
all right, let's get to it. Here's my conversation with
Repcolite's own Chad Danforth. All Right, so I guess what
I want to start with is just have you ever spilled,
you know, paint, worst possible place, anything come to mind.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I have been really fortunate when I was I mean,
I painted professionally for about ten years. I've had a
few small paint spills. I did have one incident a
piece of furniture fall down, but that didn't spill any paint.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Okay, okay, a piece of furniture fell down. Yeah, what
are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So this is actually I've got a little PTSD from
this because it was so catastrophic. But I was painting
a personal friend's living room. And this friend was in
business and in business overseas sometimes and collected glass bulls,
custom glass bowls from every country that he visited, and
(08:12):
he would decorate his.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Arm wire.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Or like his desk, you know, his personal computer desk,
with all these different bulls from all these different countries.
And so I said, okay, Michael, let's just slide this
out from the wall. My team and I are going
to be extra careful. You don't have to move all
this stuff. We just need to get in there so
we can paint the ceiling, and long story short is
I had an employee at the time who tripped on.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
The power cord.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It had a power cord with a light source, and
when he tripped, he went to grabed like this, and
it was one of the ones where like a hutch
had to be fastened to, you know, the top to
the bottom, and those were just missing. And so when
he grabbed the whole thing came down. All this glass
bowls that he's collected for an entire lifetime hit the floor.
(08:59):
One of them was full of whiskey and proceeded to
hit all of his electronics. And right then the homeowner
came home and I'm just left flailing.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Oh my goodness, and very I was.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Like yelling, trying. It fell on top of my employee.
So first and foremost was his safety.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
And then come on, really, what's wrong?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah? I know.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
It was a lot of emotions all at once, and
I was not okay. I I really had a hard
time with that.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
This poor fellow, the guy do with that?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Your customer?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
My my customer. She rounded us up, we got it
cleaned up. I was just wrapping up the project, doing
a punch list. She goes, you gotta get this done,
because we got to get you out of here before
Michael gets home. I'm going to tell him and we're
going to handle this.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
But you need to.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Leave this site because I just I'm fearful, which of
course was not I understand.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
That and not what I want to hear.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, that was the worst incident that has ever happened.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I mean, I can't really think of a worse incident.
I can, but not in a realistic world.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
No, because it was like crazy world. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Did you ever work again after that?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Not much longer.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
That was probably about six months till the end of
my painting career. But I got insurance involved. I placed
a call to an insurance you know, and they had
them my customers try to gather up approximate values of
these bowls, you know, but there was nothing. They had
no formal receipt on some of these things.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
It was they were priceless.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah, they were priced.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
They were priceless. And so these dreams, some children's heritage,
all of that, yeah gone.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, I think the Dalai Lama gave them one or whatever.
I mean, it was quite a scene and I still
struggle with that.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I feel so terrible.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I've enjoyed it a lot. I mean, you've shared with us.
I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, no problem, no mine mine.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That makes me feel great. Yeah, because nothing I have
ever done even comes close to that.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, the worst thing I've ever done. Can't even see
where you were in that point. I'm so far away
from that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
And what do you got?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Well, nothing, I mean, it's just poultry. And in comparison,
one of the things that I've done that I remember
and think about a lot. I've talked about it on
the show, just as a you know, don't do this,
but like the lid we'll talk about. You know, you
want to avoid paint spill. Always make sure you tap
that lid tight. So I'm working in the store at
(11:35):
the Lakewood location and making paint, and you know what
it's like trying to match a color. You're constantly back
and forth, back and forth. That's really good. The time
I was not quite there yet, you know, or the
customer just you know, we just had to dial it in.
So I'm making multiple adjustments and I get called away,
put the lid on top of it, go away, answer
(11:55):
whatever I've got to do. I come back and I
the lid's on it, but I never pounded the lid
on it. So I flip it over because now I
finally got the color, so now I'm going to write
the formula on the side, flip it over the counter,
and it took my brain way too long to process
the fact that I was pouring into the paint all
over the counter, lid off, everything, and what a mess
(12:18):
that was.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, I'm sure in the paint store are they you know,
everything has to be shaken, so you forget us stuff
like that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And oh yeah, no, we had one with at seventeenth Street.
This was years ago, where we've got bright aluminum paint,
you know, it's super shiny, super metallic, and somebody throws
that in the shaker and the lid comes off, and
the manager, you know, just your knee jerk reaction is
to open the shaker because you can hear it just
spilling the shaker. He opens it up and gets.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Completiently sprayed out of a movie.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
We're working at another store and all of a sudden,
the phone goes crazy. We pick it up and it's
the other store laughing hysterically because their manager is running
around looking like the tind hell we covered with with metallics. Yeah,
so you know what you do or I guess what
you used to do, because you know, we should say
that Chad did all this work as a painter. Yep,
(13:13):
you know all that, and then you transitioned how long
ago to Repcolite?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
About a year and a half, so August mid August
of twenty three.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
All right, yep, so you've got you know, a lot
of experience. You know, a year and a half's experience
is here, and then all your previous life as a contractor.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
You know, let's go way back. Okay, you're working on
a crew. That's how you got started. How green were
you when you first started?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I was very green.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
What happened is I was actually my first job was
working in a bowling alley and one of the league
bowlers had a team named Dedrich Painting. And then I
was a lane attendant. So I'm kind of up close
and personal with a lot of these different guys. I'm
picking up their bottles or whatever. And I don't know
if you just saw, you know, my work work ethic.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
What is a lane attendant? Exactly?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Do well? Lane attendant?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Bring them little trays of good ease polish.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well if they need that, Alene attendant really is meant
to kind of watch over some of the competitive leagues. Well,
any any kind of bowler really, but the competitive leagues
sometimes guys, guys aren't sliding properly. You need to clean.
You need to clean the approach for you know, if
there's any kind of dust or anything out there. A
lot of times pins will come back out from the
(14:30):
machine and then you've got to go take care of
that or relay messages. A lot of times someone's ball
doesn't come back. I got to relay that to the counter.
Is that kind of thing and come back? Gotta go
say hey, ball return lane twenty three. All right, So
you're working as a I'm working at a l attendant
Deedrich painting. He sees my hard work, ethic Dan, he says, wow,
that kid's I was twenty years old. Say he's really
(14:52):
busting his butt. And so he says, hey, I have
a painting company. You don't have to know how to paint,
but I could really use, you know, a help. And
I thought, okay, you know, I'm open minded, let me
let me try it out. And so first day we
show up, you had a job in Milford, Michigan, and
he just starts having me carry stuff down into this
(15:13):
guy's basement. And it's a home I was not used
to being, and you know, we're working for upper middle
class individuals. This particular house was really nice, square footage rise,
larger than something I was normal too. So I was
just kind of an off through the whole process and
just starting to go out to the truck carry carry
tools in, carry drop cloths in, and and then it
just started. Ron Deedrich is his name. He learned painting
(15:36):
from his his great grandfather who taught his father who
taught him, and just kind of in the family. And
from that moment on, after the tools got brought down
to the basement, he's just started teaching me one step
at a time, like the real, like a real long
haul kind of mindset. And so I ended up liking it.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I got that.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Left handed creative brain, and so I find that, you know,
painting is really open for interpretation, and I I like that.
I liked that part initially, and I liked the camaraderie.
At that time, it was just myself and Ron, and
so we're just kind of there joking.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, just the two of us for years.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yet he had a bowling team.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He had a bowling team.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
You know, none of these were people that he worked with.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Well, just friends. No, just friends.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I assumed it was a huge crew.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Well nope, just one man show.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And then I was his helper and so yeah, we
continued to work together. He just keeps continuing to teach
me old school painting.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I mean he was talking about that. What are some
of the things you picked up? What are old school
painting things?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
You know, we kind of started with some basics how
to correctly mask right, We started masking the floor correctly,
and then you know, he's educating me on why we're
doing this right, we're lipping up some of the tapes
so that some of the paint doesn't creep through. Starts
teaching me that certain tapes do certain things. You know,
we get into you know, why we're standing the walls.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
That caught me off guard. Okay, why are we standing
the walls? You know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Are you standing the walls?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
We're standing the walls. Poles standing. A big, big part
of my early career was spent pole standing. I was
the designated pole sander, uh and that is to not
only clean the walls, but also to knock down what
we call boggers. A lot of people have different names
for him, but we're not. We're making those things soon.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well what are you calling them? What do you call them?
The goobies? Yeah, the good left and we're sanding and uh,
and then.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
So and then he starts Dan, He's got me this guy.
He starts getting me into the habit.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Of feeling the walls.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And he says to me, paint jobs, not a paint
job unless it feels good. It can't just look good.
It's got to feel good. And I say, okay, So yeah,
it's very zen. He's got a lot of run ron,
had long hair, kind of hippie style, zen like guy.
And so yeah, he's got me feeling the walls, got
me feeling the trim and uh.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Did you wear a special glove?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
No, no, no, gotta feel it. So yeah, it was
kind of that old school feel. We were working in
a lot of upper echelon homes. He had been their
painter for years and years. He's kind of a word
of mouth type guy. I think you probably inherited some
clients from his dad even and so you know, and
then I did that for four or five years, and.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I really liked it. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I started getting into why products are doing certain things.
Really enjoyed the product aspect of it, which obviously would
kind of come to play later in life here. But
there's a whole section in between there we're missing out on,
which is Yeah, I think when I was twenty five,
I left Ron and said, Okay, I think I'm gonna
start my own business, you know, no hard feelings, and
(18:37):
I started a company called Blue Whale Painting.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
All right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when
we come back, we'll dive back into the conversation with
Chad and we'll explore some paint specifics, including kind of
a unique approach that he's got to using our bath
and spa from Benjamin Moore. That's all coming up next.
Stick around, Welcome back to the Repcolite Home Improvement Show
(19:04):
sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And right now we're in the
middle of an interview that I recorded with Repcollites outside
sales rep Chad dan Firth. Chad used to be a
painting contractor before joining Repcolite about a year and a
half ago or so, and he primarily works right now
on the east side of the state. And remember what
you're hearing in this interview is just a portion of
(19:24):
the full thing. If you'd like to catch everything that
we talked about and actually tune into Chad singing a
little country music to boot. If you want to catch
all of that, just head to Repcollites YouTube page and
check out our latest episode of the interviews. All right,
let's get back to my conversation with Chad. So, I
know that somewhere along your journey as a contractor you
(19:45):
worked on a log cabin restoration or a family that
basically this is probably before you knocked over all those
vases and stuff in another home and like almost adopted you.
You talked about this as an incredible experience job.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, yeah, the Walter's job.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It actually was one of my last jobs, and the
Walters job came to me.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
It was just a normal phone.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Call that I feel that, hey, we've got a cottage
out here in Holly, we'd like to come take a
look and stop by, and just the the architecture of
the this thing was very unique. I think it was something,
you know, one of those ones that had been added
on to four or five different times. But the experior
substrate was vertical log siding, and it hadn't been maintained
(20:34):
in years. It was really in some dire need of
powerwashing with some chemicals to clean it up. And then,
you know, really see what we got. But I go
out and I meet Gwen Walters, and she is just
the absolute sweetest lady in the world, and she says, Okay,
you know, listen, my husband built this house with his
(20:56):
bare hands. We've been here, I think in twenty or
thirty years now, and unfortunately he has gotten ill recently
and he's just not able to do this himself. Normally
we do everything ourselves, but this has got to be done.
It's getting to the point where some of these logs
are starting to be rotted. We're starting to kind of
have you know, compromised logs and waters coming in in
(21:20):
some areas. So we need to call someone out and
get this taken care of us.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
It okay, no problem.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I totally understand that, and so I know that this
is really important to them, and she just couldn't treat
me nicer, which I you know, in this business that's
really important to me.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Paintings hard and so you have.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
To give all that you can for your services, but
it also takes some effort on the homeowners and too.
And that was one of those things that you know,
I tried to really pare myself with customers that understood
how that dynamic could really help them get the best
paying job. You know, oftentimes you find some people that
just don't want to give you what you need to
help them.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
So let's talk about that. I mean, you're talking to
a lot of people who could be hiring contractors. You
talk about how there's things that we can do, you know,
as people hiring a contractor to get a better job.
And I don't think a lot of people think about that,
you know. I think we think we're hiring somebody and
I'm going to make sure that that crew does a
good job. They've got a good you know, good reviews,
they've got a good rapport. You know, talk to them
(22:16):
and okay, they'll they'll listen to me, they'll understand, and
they've got the skills to do it. You're saying there's
something that we can also do, which I think is
really good. I think that's good for people to hear
about what can we do as people hiring a contractor
to help.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, the best problems.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Absolutely, So, I think, you know, the first thing is
just preparation of the area. I think that's kind of
first and foremost. There's often be times where I'd show up.
We plan to do someone's kitchen, cabinets or their foyer
or whatever it is, and I show up and I think,
you know, upon initial quoting, I say, okay, we'll take
care of the big stuff. I have a crew, we're
going to move your furniture. We're going to cover that up.
(22:54):
But I need you I think the terminis use was
nick knacks, right, I need you to take care of
all these little nick knacks before we get here.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
That's first thing.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
We have a large project, and depending, I mean some
people have a lot of knickknacks.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I think there's a lot of people that heard the
beginning of this in all those vases going over that
are well you know, wait, what is it makes sense?
Maybe remove those nicknames, maybe.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Remove those knick knacks. Yeah, that one was maybe my fault.
Now I'm contradicting myself, But.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
No, you that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
That was a horrible experience. Yes, So now I've got
information to convey to other people to save them from that.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yes, that's how I do it.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So you got to take down the knickknacks, and then
you know, we've got to come to some kind of
agreement with how the space that we're working and is
going to be used for the duration that we are
in there. If it's a you know, a kitchen, obviously
people use that on a daily basis. Like you know,
I think expectation setting is big upon the initial quote, Hey,
(23:53):
you're you know, you may have access to this for
a couple of days, but then it's off limits and
then you know, and of course I've come into job
where plastic is just ripped down and you know, they
got to get to something or and sometimes that's you're
not gonna have every win, but no problem. But sometimes
you know, I guess what I'm saying is some some
(24:13):
homeowners really do a good job of recognizing you as
someone that is more than just the help, and they
are able to kind of get into your state of mind.
I understand that they need to make it easy on
you too and everyone and everyone wins.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Well that's the big thing, that's the big takeaways. Everybody wins,
you know when you're communicating well and asking questions when
you've got them, not stewing on stuff, you know, finding
out exactly what's expected, so that your family can coexist
because it's you know, you're in the house for however long. Yeah,
any on the project, you're you know right.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yes, in their space, it's much more prevalent of an
issue in interior than an exterior exterior. There's not too
much overlap that needs to be done on their end.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
But oh my kid though, he worked on a crew
this past summer for the first time, you know, he
didn't do any painting beforehand, and he's working on an
exterior crew, and yeah, it was much easier in that regard.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
M hm oh man.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
He'd come home, you know, not every day, but there
probably once a week. There was awkward moments where you know,
the contractors would let they're in condo associations, and so
the condo association has alerted all the people there, there's
painting crews around and they're going to be painting the
exterior homes, doing certain things, getting.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Your deck right.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And every time he'd put his ladder up by a
window and he'd have to think, oh.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Oh god, oh please okay, yeah, and he's got some
really funny stories like he gets to the top and he,
you know, is painting and then he sees motion and
there's a lady just rocking her chair right by the
window looking out.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Other times other times he'll you know, you just people
are moving thinking.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Okay, okay, good luck.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
But yeah, you gotta let people know have those conversations
that that helps you know us as we're hiring people.
Like you said, you just remember that you know you
as a contractor, your person to help and when I
work with you and treat you in that manner, we're
going to get better. Yeah, faults down the road. So
you switched over to Rep call Light year and a
(26:19):
half ago, year and a half ago something like that.
Now you're an outside rep working with our contractors, which
I think is great because you come at this job
from their point of view. You know what would help
them succeed in their business, because you ran a business
like that exactly. So that's really cool. As a rep.
As a painter, you had to form, for lack of
a better word, relationships with products. You know, whether they're
(26:41):
paints or whether they're sundrys. You know, from either angle.
As a rep or, you know as a painter. What
were some of the products that you just found yourself? Really?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Oh well, what was nice about this conversion from contractor
to to rep particularly for a Benjamin Moore story.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I wasn't obviously not.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Familiar with repolit product because they were, you know, pretty
new to that side of town at that time. But
I was a Benjamin Moore user and I centered my
business around the Aura line. I had a little bit
of a unique system where I actually used our bath
and spa on everything on your foyer.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
So why did you do that?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Two reasons?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Finish The finish is slightly lower sheine than the regular
Aura Matt, I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
If you you know from Benjamin Moore.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
They say, oh, it's almost the exact same stuff with
just a little bit of mill the side added in.
But when you dry them down, the oor bath and
spa absolutely is a little bit lower sheen. And that's
a nice little hack for you know, some of those
twenty foot walls, and also for touch ups. You can
absolutely touch up or a bath and spa and almost
(27:54):
all bases and have pretty good success with it, particularly
if you use the same cover you know, or in
the same week, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
But it also is really nice off the brush.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
It's a little bit looser than the regular or a Yeah,
there is a little bit of a consistency difference. I
used to use the Corona ex Caliber.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Brush for that product.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I'd pair those together and man, you can you can
really get you know, a good twenty four inch brush stroke,
you know, at the ceiling line with that combo and
you're still getting really good coverage and it just rolls
off really good.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So mix, yeah, I mean did you mix brushes with products?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, absolutely, you have different brush absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Different different brushes for different products. I got pretty into,
you know, really honing in some of the details with
tapes and brushes for products. Now not not all the time.
You could probably drive yourself crazy trying to you know,
find that. And I think I narrowed my brush selection
down to three. Right, we have a trim brush. It's
typically pretty soft, I you know, for them with the
(29:00):
advance it's not hard to make that, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Look too good.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Benjamin Yeah, Benjamin Wore's advanced line yep.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Just self levels beautiful.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, And so I typically like something firmer from you know,
my wall paints and then you know, a soft preshl
brush for trim, and then of course those you know,
upon the tail end of their life would get recycled
into like ceiling paint brushes, you know, or a duster brush.
I wasn't big on dust brush that that guy round
I was talking about way back. He said, we don't
We don't just push dust around. We remove the dust
(29:29):
with a vacuum. I said, okay, that's that's a pretty
decent theory. Yeah, you know, rather than we're just moving
the dust around. That's not pretty good for job site cleanliness.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Old brushes so they can be really nice for dusting
off electronics things like that. Oh yeah, for all the
studio equipment that I've got here. Doesn't mess my knobs
up because I've got all my settings where I want.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Oh yeah, that's yeah, that's over them. Yeah I like it.
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I centered my you know, my business was really around
that Advance s trim paint line, the ORB Beth and
Spa or it's just regular Aura, you know. But I
did find that little sheen hack with the Beth and Spa,
and it would end up really working out well for
some of the touching up if necessary, or on some
kind of new construction and electrician comes in and bashes
something or cuts an outlet wall. I thought that that
(30:17):
was a reasonable, uh looking touch up at the end
of the day, didn't have to go corner to corner.
But that absolutely personal preference. And I'm not saying that that's.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Uh yeah people.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And then I really liked I. I was a big
believer and this is this is hard for me to
sell now that I'm up. Here's a little bit of crossover.
I used to exclusively buy Benjamin Moore's ceiling paint. Used
to be in a yellow can. Now it's in a
purple can. If you work in a store, you call it, yeah,
premium water borne ceiling paint. We call it five O eight,
which is the skew. That particular product has elite coverage
(30:56):
and you can tell that it is a high degree
of solids content to it. And so in a lot
of circumstances, I was saving an additional coat. If you
get a and this is a little bit counterintuitive to
I would use sometimes up to a three eighths inch
roller cover for a ceiling and.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Just dip a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I would use dipping to get a lot of product
on and that three eighth roller cover would just you know,
level it right out like a like a steamroller on
a road.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I think a lot of people like to think about
taking large roller covers thinking added coverage or or mileage.
But if you get in the habit of just dipping
extra and moving that paint around with a cover that's
not going to pull paint back off the surface, I
think a lot of painters will find some success with
added coverage capability half inch is not unreasonable for a ceiling.
(31:46):
But if you really want to get you know, a
nice roller cover on the ceiling, if you take the
time and buy a nice roller cover and dip and
really get yourself into a flow, that five o eight
ceiling paint can cover off with the you know, the
white can cover some decently off foid ceilings in one coat.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
And it's completely flat dead and flat dead flat, no
matter flat or it's tinted too. Yeah, And that's huge
on a ceiling because yeah, I mean, with the light
coming in angles out the smallest little thing, if there's
a little bit of sheene and a true flat ceiling
paint in most situations, those when they're tinted to certain
colors that the colorant itself is going to give off
(32:22):
a little slide machine and then that'd be enough to
see roller mark.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, critical lighting situations, right, And that's that product I
just didn't stray with. You know, a lot of guys
want to use you know, more cost effective ceiling paint,
and there are I'm sure places for that, but the
kind of work that was my business was doing. I
just I like to develop a system and just get
into it. Or water borne ceiling paint Advance.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
That's my system.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
There's obviously jobs that called, you know, if someone was
on a budget or something like that, they have a rental,
you know, we can start to navigate to some of
those lesser, uh you know, not top of the line products.
But that was kind of my system, and you prepare,
you know, you kind of pair the Sundrys with it.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
You experiment.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Painting is kind of about testing and finding out what
works for you, what works for your style, Especially with
brushes roller covers, there's so many you know, between the
woven and the microfiber and the microplush and what's really happening, you.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Know, kind of a mixed bag there. Yeah, just find
what works for you. Yeah, So anyway, I'm gonna let
you get back to work.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Thanks for hanging out, Yeah, no problem, pleasure all right.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I think it's time for a break, and when we
come back, we're gonna be talking about calking. I ran
into a listener talking about calking. That rhymes just hit me.
I completely lost my train of thought. I ran into
a listener this week with a lot of good questions,
and I figured that it was worth digging into on
the show. So we're going to do that in just
a minute. Stick around, and we're back. You're listening to
(33:56):
the Repco Light Home Improvement Show. And in this last segment,
I want to talk about some caulking questions that I
was asked this week by a listener. Now, the person
in question was doing some painting, and she'd done all
the prep work, you know, all the prep work, she thought.
And then she gets closer to painting and she notices
the existing calk around some trimming windows. She hadn't seen
(34:18):
it before, she notices it now, and she sends me
some pictures. It wasn't in the best of shape, you know,
there were gaps, there were cracks and so on in it,
and In her email, she asked if she could just
calk over it with new call, you know, to make
it look good, to clean it up, and then just
go on with her painting. Is that okay? She doesn't
(34:39):
need to remove it, right? That was the main question.
And certainly, you know, anything's possible if you're in a
situation like that and the existing calk is fully adhered,
it's free from cracks, it's in a dry, non water
exposed area, you might be able to apply you know,
a thin beat of new calk over top of it
and just walk away. You know, maybe it'll be fine.
(35:00):
Just make sure that that new caulk is compatible with
the old. But with all of that said, and I
think you're picking it up if you want the best results,
the general rule of thumb is that you really should
remove that caulk first. You know, you're going to get
better adhesion. Oftentimes new colk just won't bond well to old,
dried out or cracked kulk, and you're also going to
get a smooth, cleaner finish. And that for sure was
(35:22):
going to be her situation because the caulk that she
had was pretty bubbly. It wasn't applied well in the
first place, the first original culk wasn't applied well, new
caulk over top of that, it's just going to look
messy and uneven, you know. Trying to put a layer
of that over top not going to look good. So
definitely her best way forward was to remove that old calk. Now,
(35:44):
the next question, of course, came up, how do you
remove the calck easily? Well, I had an answer for
her that I had to go back and kind of
retract a little bit and give her some better advice,
because after talking to her about it and walking her
through through the process, I went home and did the
same thing around my tubs surround, and I found a
(36:07):
better system, a system that worked really well. So if
you've got a caulk that you've got to remove, I've
got the system. It's still not fun, but it is
way better than what I would have recommended previously, and
in fact what I did recommend to that poor listener.
Fortunately I was able to give her the adjusted version
before she actually started. So, how do you remove caulk
(36:29):
as easily as possible without power tools? I mean, there's
maybe power tools that could make this easier yet, but
this is the old fashioned way, how do you remove
it as easily as possible. Here's what you're gonna need.
You got to gather your tools first. You need a
good utility knife. You know, something sturdy, and that's for
scoring the caulk. You need a cal removal tool. Metal
works better here. It can damage your surfaces, so be
(36:51):
aware of that. Plastic is safer. But in my experience,
I had no leverage with the plastic one. I couldn't
really make it do anything. So use what will work
best for you. If you go with metal, just be
careful with it as you're working around delicate surfaces. So
you need the utility knife, the call removal tool. You
need a stiff putty knife, and you need a flexible
putty knife. You need rags and a scrubby pad for
(37:13):
cleaning up. And then the last thing you need the
piece de resistance, the game changer. You need cock remover spray. Now,
I'll be honest, I thought the cock remover spray was
a complete gimmick. I knew about it. I've known about
it for years. I thought it was ridiculous. You know,
I assume this job is really all about brute force,
(37:34):
But in this instance I gave it a shot because
I thought, you know, whatever I'm going to learn when
I'm taking this cock out from around the tub surround,
I'm going to report back on the show, so I
might as well try this. And I was blown away.
It completely changed everything. Now, the instructions on the spray
said to score the cock, first, spray the remover on,
wait five to twenty minutes, and then remove the calk.
(37:56):
My calling was old and tough, and so even score
worrying that was a battle. I got some of it
out and then sprayed the remover on. I waited the
five minutes, and the result that I got was the
remaining cock peeled up way easier. I mean, it still wasn't,
you know, like a walk in the park, but it
was way less of a struggle. And when I saw that,
(38:16):
that's when I ditched that whole scoring step and I
went straight to spraying everything. So I sprayed all the
rest of the caulking around the top, waited the five
to ten minutes, and the cock softened right up. I
was able to go and score it with my utility
knife and then hitting it with the cock removal tool.
I removed eight to ten feet of calk in the
same time that it took me to do three feet
without the spray. So use the cock remover spray. It's
(38:39):
going to save you a ton of time. Now, once
you've got all of that calking out, wipe everything down
with rubbing alcohol or a mild detergent to remove any residue.
Use your little scrubby pad and all of that. If
there was molden mildew there, clean that area with a
bleach solution and then let everything dry thoroughly before reculking.
So final verdict, cock remover spray is absolutely the real deal.
(39:01):
If you're tackling old cal king, don't skip it. It's
gonna save you time, frustration, and who knows what else,
maybe even some choice words. Who knows. All right, that's
all the time we've got. We're gonna have to wrap
this one up. If you want to catch it again,
you can find it online at repco light dot com.
Whatever you do today makes your paints a part of it.
Have a great weekend, everybody, and I'll see you next week.
I'm Dan Hansen. Thanks for listening.
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