Home Improvement Show 10-25-25

Tune in here for this 10-25-25 episode of the Home Depot Home Improvement show on WBT with John Gordon and David Dovell.

On this edition of the program, John and Dave talk about fire safety, home improvement planning, and practical homeowner tips as October’s Fire Safety Month comes to a close. Joined by guest co-host Wes Woodam, the team dives into key topics like creating and practicing a family fire escape plan, understanding the differences in smoke alarms, and common home maintenance issues such as the mysterious “phantom flush” from toilet flappers. Wes also shares insights from his extensive experience in construction and real estate, touching on value engineering and creative problem-solving in home projects. The hosts discuss evolving energy efficiency options—like whether storm windows still make sense in 2025—and reflect on lessons from their own remodeling careers. Listeners are encouraged to text or call in with their questions throughout the show as the crew mixes practical advice, humor, and a little inspiration for homeowners everywhere.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Home Depot Home Improvement Show with John and Dave
presentery try pro answering your home improvement questions every Saturday
on News Talk eleven ninety nine three WBT.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning, everybody, Welcome to the Home Depot Improvement Show
with John and Dave. I'm John Gordon.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
I am Wes Woodhin Wes Wooden.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Oh my god, are you I'm doing one? Miss you man, man,
It's it's certainly nice to have you back. I heard
you were traveling the world.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
We were bouncing around Italy for a couple of weeks,
not quite two weeks, I guess. Yeah. It was awesome.
It was beautiful, a wonderful thing.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Else, I'm glad you're back safely.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
You know what. We are too, as much fun as
it is, and you always kind of hate for vacations
to come to an end. We were glad, we were,
we were ready to be coming, to be coming home.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Well, we missed.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
We did part of our trip as a pilgrimage, so
it was less about the tourist thing and a little
bit more about some faith things, and a little bit
more spartan in some of commedations and things. But all good,
all really good. Yeah, it was great. How's life in
your world?

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Oh my gosh, it's been great. You know. I think
Dave has taken a little sabbatical this week. Yeah, he's
well deserved.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Some well deserved time off. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
So it's a privilege to be here, and I love
being here. So looking forward to really good day to
day and some hot topics.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's good. We've got a bunch of stuff to talk about.
You know, I always pull things together from questions and
comments and just different things. One of the things that
I would like to do this week, though, we'll get
into it probably in one of the latter segments, but
just from your experience in you know, construction remodeling GC,

(01:46):
maybe some of the mistakes that you see people make
in planning or in execution, and maybe some best practices.
We'll dig out on that. It's still this is the
last week, I think, yes, next, but here's here's a
mind blowing moment. Uh. Next Saturday will be the first
of November. We are in iikes, crazy crazy, but this

(02:10):
is the last week of the fire safety month. October
is always fire safety month, and I know you guys
spoke a little bit about some of that stuff last week.
I don't think we touched on the the differences in
smoke alarms and things like that, and and so we'll
probably take a few minutes on that. I went out.

(02:32):
This is always interesting, like if you google ten things
firefighters wish you would know, you knew, or homeowners knew
about their home or knew about fire prevention or fire safety.
I think if you if you google that first off,
you'll come up with more than ten things, which is
I guess good. And then they'll be it'll be all

(02:55):
over the place. So I tried. I tried to dial
it in and we'll talk about we'll touch base on
some of that as we go through the morning. Also,
one of the things that is on every single list
that if I'm just totally honest, we did not do
well as a family. Be interested in here in your thoughts.

(03:18):
We spoke about having an escape plan, like all the
kids knew if you can't get out this way, get
out that way. Ye, right, but we never really documented that.
We never practiced it.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
And well, we didn't do it. We didn't do it either.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
It's crazy, it's yeah, it's I think it's I think
it's Hey, don't take my advice I'm not using it,
maybe hear, but what's it's?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
When? In fire safety? Was it who's the crazy boxer?
The bittiers and stuff like that?

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Mike Mike Tyson.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, Mike said, everybody has a plan until they get
punched in the face, right, and a fire would say
be a punch in the face, feels like.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
So planning prevents one pad performance, planning prevents poor performance.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
There there you go. So that's that's one that we
can maybe take him in and on. And then I've
got do you know how many things you can talk
about with respect to flappers in the toilet? Oh? My gosh,
I had no idea, but there's a lot. We've always
addressed the phantom flush. Yeah, but we'll dig in on

(04:30):
that a little bit. What is going on in your world?
What projects are you cranking away?

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Well, you know, I've got a new venture coming up
which is going to be very exciting. You know, I've
been in real estate over thirty plus years and I've
been a licensed builder for gosh, can't even believe it,
maybe ten eleven years now and going back into real
estate working for a try Try Point Homes and doing
some big things here. But I just love real estate,

(04:58):
I love homes, I love I love solutions, coming up
with creative ways to make things happen, value engineering things
so that it's palatable to the pocketbook. Awesome.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, you're into alliteration this morning. It's palatable for the pocketbooks.
Planning prevents prove performance.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, some peas in there. You gotta be careful. Yeah,
but I know things are really really good. But just
keeping things straight, keeping my eyes up, doing some spiritual
stuff similar to you, and things are good.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
So awesome, awesomeome awesome. That's good stuff. Well, we've got
we've got the text line up here, so you can
give us a call, apartment. You can call us at
seven O four five seven eleven ten, or you can
text us on the WBT text line driven by Liberty
Buwick GMC at the same number seven O four five
seven oh eleven ten, and we can I really like

(05:55):
texting because it it lets us kind of time. Let's
be people just ping us, you know, all through the show,
but it's it lets us. It gives us a way
to kind of balance responses and even do a little
bit of follow up post text or post call or
something like that. So don't be bashful use that it's
a it's pretty slick. We've had some really good stuff

(06:17):
come in. How busy was that when y'all were together
last week?

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well, you know, it was a little bit slower up front,
of course, people waking up having their morning java. But
I tell you it picked up towards the end and
had some really really good questions and it always keeps
us on our feet. Of course, you know that job
and yeah, but yeah, that was good and it was
easy and worked.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, so do you give us check it out, give
us card. We'll talk about well, we'll kind of keep
the theme of fire safety, but very very loosely, and
then we'll talk about just a lot of other things.
I think I have fifteen or twenty different questions here.
One of the things that we won't get time to
talk about before the break. But it kind of was

(06:59):
a memory buster for me. I started working in home
improvement officially in Michigan, and there were two things we sold,
like by the truckload. One of them was cellulose insulation.
Literally multiple trucks a week, tractor trailer trucks a week.
I think all that's kind of evolved a little bit,

(07:20):
but the other thing we sold tons and tons of
were triple track storm windows or the storm windows the
storm owners you mounted permanently to the windows, and that
came up in conversation. We'll talk a little bit about
that and if there's even a place in the world
for them anymore here in twenty twenty five, and maybe
even how to make a decision or how to leverage

(07:41):
that as perhaps a low cost way to upfit your
home from an energy perspective, and then all the other
energy questions that just happened this time of year. And
we'll also talk about I used to call it the
ring of death. That sounded pretty morbid, so we call
it the ring of fire, and we'll talk about the
ring of fire. It will not be a Johnny Cash song, okay,
but lots of good stuff coming up. So give us

(08:03):
a call seven O four five to seven oh eleven
ten or text us at the same number on the
WBT text time driven by Liberty View at GMC, and
we will answer your homopum questions when we return to
the Home People Reprovement Show, which John today, welcome back.

(08:42):
It's the whole deep hob of Provement show with John
and Dad I'm John Gordon.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
Good morning, I'm Wes Wooden.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Wes, thanks for being with us this morning. We're taking
calls at seven o four five seven oh eleven ten.
I'm looking at the text feed seven O four five
seven oh eleven ten. Give us a call, send us
a text. We can kind of banter back and forth
before we answer the question using the text, if you
want to do that. So it's it's kind of good.

(09:08):
And then Lina just keeps me between the ditches on
everything else it has to happen with that. So grateful
for that. But so Wes, your choice. We can look
at the ten things that firefighters wish you knew about
fire safety?

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Why do we just do that? Because it out it's
once a year October And I didn't realize this, but
the week of October ninth, commemorating the giant Chicago fire
in eighteen seventy one is kind of how this whole
thing got started.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, that was so. I grew up in Chicago a
little just a little after the fire, but yeah, that
was a big deal. And we always made a trip,
like a trip to water Tower, the water Tower on
the just north of the Loop, because that was the
only building that basically survived the Chicago fire because it
was one hundred percent masonry.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
I didn't know that any cool.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
And now there's a big shopping center there, so nobody
cares about the water tower. Actually they just go to
water Tower place and shop spend a lot of money. Yeah. Anyway,
so here's here's things, and this is a slam dunk
and we're gonna we'll go into some details on that
maybe just right after this. But number one is have
and check smoke alarms.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Right, Yes, the in.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Newer Homes department, you can't get a CEO without having
all the right fire protection in place. When we when
we remodeled our home in Atlanta, we had to change
how smoke alarms were were wired and we had to
add additional smoke alarms. So do that. It's just really

(10:46):
good to kind of make a habit. I think next
weekend we go to daylight we come off of daylight
saving time and go to a standard time. That's the
perfect time you set your clocks, you know, to whatever
the appropriate time is going to be to check all
your all your smoke alarms, the batteries. So so that's good. Uh,

(11:08):
the manufacturers tell you to test them once a month.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yes, do you do that? Well, you know, I don't.
I don't. They end up chirping and we can get
into this a little bit, but you know, they collect
dust and all that. But we can again, we can
talk about that, but no, answer your question, No, I
don't do it. I need to. But they you know
that wonderful little reminder of the check in the middle

(11:34):
of the night.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, and those are designed, by the way, there's a
there's a little chip in there that nobody talks about.
They will only chirp. They can sense the local time,
and they will only chirp between the hours of two
am and four am. That's not true. That's not true,
of course, But so yeah, have them and check them.

(11:55):
The beautiful thing now is they're more expensive, but you
can buy smoke alarms that are ten years so they're
not going to chirp on you and they run ten years.
And this not everybody knows. If you've got all your
smoke alarms in place and they're over ten years old,
you should replace them totally. They are warranted to work.

(12:19):
They're warranted might be an inappropriate word, but the confidence
level that the manufacturer has in the device after ten
years is lower. Right, So, and then I don't want
this to sound like a self serving comment, but typically
you can go to home depot and get like pro
packs or packages of multiple smoke alarms that are less

(12:43):
price less, you know, but more attractively priced. If you've
got to replace multiple a.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
Lot, John, that's kind of what I do. You know,
I do it for my mom. You know, she's getting
a little up there in age, and but it's typically
five years and they are a little more affordable, kind
of like the old mattress, get a cheaper mattress, change
it off more often. But you know, we do that.
We put them up because what I was finding is
that they get dust in them and they don't work

(13:10):
that well. So I was blowing them out. But why
not just put some new ones in? The prices have
come down, and she doesn't have many of them either,
you know, we're looking at five of them tops. Yeah, yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Here's one. Well that I guess makes complete sense. But
this is an aggressive move. They're like, hey, we think
homes should have sprinkler systems at them. Well, a retrofit
for sprinkler is not impossible, difficult. You won't have so

(13:43):
if you've been at homes that have sprinkler systems in them,
it's not like when you were in the public schools
or the school system, or even certain commercial places where
you see all the pipes in the heads and stuff
like that. These things fit behind little covers. The plumbing
is behind drywalls, so it's not this obnoxious thing. But
they want you to have sprinkler systems. Don't overload outlets. Yes,

(14:08):
that's going to be very relevant in about four weeks
when people start putting Christmas decorations up. Number four. Safe
placement of space heaters, so auxiliary heaters three feet from
anything combustible. Yes, don't leave candles unattended. That seems like

(14:30):
pretty good advice. Yeah, here's one that we've talked about
many times, but it's actually it's a serious issue.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Clean the dryer vent very very good.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
I don't know, like I don't know if you do
camping or have fires and stuff like that. Oh yeah, Wes.
But if you want an awesome fire starter, just collect
the lint out of your dryer filter and put it
in a bag and then use it as starter. It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Actually never tried that, but that's it works.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Really well. Yeah, it works really well. The problem is
it works really well, so it's very combustible, right, and
you're just adding heat. Here's one I don't know politically
correct and politically correct. Don't smoke indoors for sure. Don't
smoke in bed. Yes, um, keep flammables stored safely and properly.

(15:26):
Let's take one second to pay attention to time. Here.
We're good, We're plenty get here. So this is one
for like painting or home improvement stuff. When you use
things like lacquer, mineral spirits, highly combustible products with rags,
that rag can't just get stuck in a plastic bag

(15:47):
and thrown in the trash. You've got to let particularly
with lacquer and things like that, you get spontaneous combustion. Right,
So those things have to be allowed to air out
till all of the ocs are gone, and then you
can throw them away. Keep your chimney cleaned. Inspections probably

(16:09):
annual are appropriate. There, be careful with alternative heating methods
fireplaces and wood stoves in particular. Do people still use
kerosene heaters?

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yes? Really, yeah they did.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Those were yeah, I feel like those were just like
Russian roulette.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Well they're effective.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Keep great.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Yep. They do dehumidify the air, you know, as most
you know, heat sources do, so it gets kind of dry.
But you know that's still in use.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
All right. Here's one is this is this still relevant
given all the GPS stuff. Keep your street numbers highly
visible from the street totally so the fire people can
find your house.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Well, I mean GPS does make it a whole lot easier,
but yeah, you know, I mean, what if you have
somebody wanting to come over and service here gutters or something.
I mean, come on, yeah, you didn't know where you are.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
No more than just fire safety. And then finally, the
one you and I talked about at the very beginning
is have fire drills.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, so create and practice a excuse me, a home
escape plan. So so good.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
We did as a product of the week once upon
a time it was doing Fire Safety Month, maybe it
was last year. Just the inexpensive fire escape ladders that
you can have in your bedrooms. Yep. Right, they don't
have to be these obnoxious things hanging out everywhere, but
they can you know, be in a closet or store,
beneath a window or something and just give you easy.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Well, Christmas time's coming, John, and I tell you it's uh.
With all these lights and everything. I mean, these Christmas
trees they smell so good, but man, they go up quick. Yeah,
and you just can't risk it, you know. I know
for me and my family, I've got to keep them safe.
Most important thing.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
So all right, So there we have it. That's Those
are are actually twelve things that firefighters wish homeowners knew
about fire safety. So there we go. I know we're
gonna be up for a break here in about forty
five seconds, fifty seconds, something like that, so we'll go
ahead and take it. We will take your calls at

(18:17):
seven oh four, five, seven eleven, ten. Doesn't have to
be related to fire safety. We want to talk about
what's important to you. You can text us at the
same number. We send us a note at Ask John
and Dave dot com. Pick on the questions bout it,
but just send us a note of questions at Ask
John and Dave dot com. It's all about getting a
good information. We want to do that and we will
surely do that. When we return to the Home deepo
Home brooman show with John and Dave. Welcome back. It's

(18:51):
the Home Depot with Boom Me Show with John and Dave.
I'm John Gordon, I am Wes Wooden and it's time
for our home Deep bo product of the Week. This
week we're gonna go it's time SAPs coming down in
the trees. Chillier weather is here, gonna get chillier. Time

(19:11):
to get out and do the pruning you need to
do for the fall and to help out. We're going
to talk about the Riobi forty volt ten inch cordless
battery pole saw. You can use, you know, pull you know,
the little saws and the clippers and things like that,
but there's nothing like power. This is forty volt, so
it matches all the other forty vault Reobi products. The

(19:32):
thing I like about it is it's it's designed with
an angle to make it easy to cut the limbs.
When you get higher, it's easy to lose the right
angle and get the saw bound in the in the
in the branches as it breaks loose. This prevent it
doesn't prevent it altogether, but it's designed to make it
work easier. It extends from six foot to nine and

(19:53):
a half feet or six and a half feet to
nine and a half feet, so plus your own height,
you've got a reasonable reach. Beyond that you probably to
be calling a professional. It's got a ten inch bar,
so it'll do some serious branches for you automatic oiler
for smooth operation, you just keep the loyal chamber filled.
And it's compatible with all the other forty volt products,

(20:13):
so the mower pieces, the blowers, the trimmers, edgeres, all
those things. And it's Riobi and so backed by both
Reobi and the Home Depot. So that's the price point
on just the tool itself is one hundred and forty
nine dollars, so it's not going to cause you to
have to meet with your banker and mortgage broker for
a second mortgage on the house. Awesome to buy the

(20:36):
Riobi forty inch forty vault ten inch cordless battery Pulsa.
All right, that's our product of the week. So we
talked about fire safety, but now we're going to talk
about the ring of fire. Huh what? And we we
get all kinds of questions through the year, but particularly

(20:57):
in the spring and in the fall wes Is the
weather changes, vermin rodentia critters are looking to get in
the house and so over I don't know, twenty plus
maybe more years. We've kind of used the system that

(21:17):
super simple, inexpensive and isn't like harsh chemically to keep
the insects out of the house. And it's two steps really.
One is just taking triazicide granules and just sprinkling them
around the entire perimeter of your home. They're granulars, they're granules.

(21:42):
The rains and so on. Gets it into the soil,
doesn't harm plants. As long as you don't have pets
and kids, you know, play it in it, it's fine,
it's safe. But then on the inside of the house.
I think that's really the trick we've been using Ortho
Home Defense forever. It's a liquid comes. You can get

(22:05):
a version that's has its own little sprayer. I like
the one that's battery powered because you don't squeeze in it.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
It's so nice.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, Or you can get we're on this fliphouse that
we're doing. I always while the walls are open, I
always spray all the wall cavities and stuff like that,
just for you know, and see you get you can
dump the refills in a pump sprayer, but it doesn't
stain carpet. It doesn't stain hardwood floor or lamin. It's
I don't let it puddle up on the floor. I'll

(22:33):
spray along the baseboard and then I'll just gingerly, you know,
wipe away anything that's kind of puddling. But I don't
know how it works. I just I really don't. And
I'm one of those guys that likes to understand how
things work. But for whatever reason, it leaves a barrier
that is super effective. We'll see bugs from time to time, sure,

(22:54):
but they're all legs up.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, well it seems like they don't. They've they've gotten
so good at it. They don't seem to stink like
they used to back in the old correct And that's
just nice.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
And so that's twice a year, in the spring and
in the fall. In fact, on my task list my
day today, it says spray home defense. So it's on
the do list for today. So that's that's that's the
ring of fire. And it really does. In Atlanta. When
we lived in Atlanta on a heavily wooded lot, we

(23:28):
used to have scorpions, not the big ones like you
see in the desert and stuff like that, but these
little black ones. But I got news for you. I've
never been stung, but our kids have been stung. It
ain't fun, No, but but the ring of fire, like
we would see them, but they would be dead.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
I did a John real quick. I did a mission
trip last year to Belize and I was doing a
deck and I'll be dog gone. I've got up and
there was a scorpion there. And it's the first up
close personal experience I had with one. But they say
that when that stings you, your whole body goes numb.

(24:05):
That they won't kill you, but it's incredibly painful. So
I'm glad I haven't been stung, but not getting scary
ugly little things too.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
There. Yeah, I do question from time to time. Noah's
good judgment with respect to mosquitoes and scorpions really two
of each. But he was following somebody else's lead.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
So we'll get some slack of course.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Let's see how we're doing on time we got. Let's talk.
Let's take a second on the the types of smoke alarms. Okay,
there's two. Forever there have been two smoke alarms, and
how they operate or how they detect smoke is a

(24:53):
little bit different. One is called an ionization smoke alarm,
and basically there's a little chamber inside of it, and
it's got electrically charged air, so there's particulate in there

(25:13):
that is, you know, missing an electron somewhere, so it's
got a positive or negative charge, probably a negative charge.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
Like two plates in there. I think they bounce back.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, there's plates either side of it. And then it
passes a current through that charged air and as long
as the circuit, if you will, is complete, everything's cool.
It's kind of like a dead man switch, right, But
when smoke gets up in there, it blocks the transmission
of the current, right because now there's something other than
charged air in that chamber. And once that circuit is broken,

(25:46):
like a dead man switch, the alarm goes off. So
they are particularly effective in flaming fires like things that
will you know, open flame, open flames and so on. Right.
So the other version is a photo electric alarm, same deal.

(26:09):
It has a chamber, but it sends light versus an
electric current across the chamber and once it's like your
garage door opener, right from transmitter to receiver, the little
safety beam. Once that beam is broken by particulate from smoke,
then the alarm goes off. Those are good in detecting

(26:32):
smoldering fires sooner than the.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Ilization.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
So then the question comes, Okay, when do I call
Karnak the Magnificent or whomever to say, which fire is
going to break out in my house? Will it be
a smoldering fire or will it be a flash fire?
The good news is you can now get I think
the kit A Corporation will give you a combination or
provides a combination smoke alarm us both ionization and photo

(27:02):
electric YEA.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
They call it a dual sensor.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Dual sensor dual sensor smoke alarm that incorporates both technologies.
So rest easy, you can get a dual sensor alarm
and not have to pray that since you got one
that only that kind of fire breaks out. We're going
to take a break, but I want to come back.
When we come back, Wes help me remember this because
there's also a combination alarm that does both smoke and

(27:30):
carbon monoxide. But I want to talk a little bit
about that. We just won't have time for the break,
So we are going to take our break. Folks here
with the New Home Deeople Home Improvement Show and we're
going to return after these important messages.

Speaker 5 (27:46):
Cool, Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
It's the whole Deep Home Improvement Show with Johnna Dave.
I'm John Gordon.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
I'm Wes Wooden.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Give us a call seven O four five seven oh
eleven ten, seven four five seven eleven ten. We'll talk
about your home improvement questions. You can also text us
using the WBT text line driven by Liberty Viewick GMC
seven O four five seven eleven ten. It's the same.
How about that? All right? West? We were talking before
the break about the different types of smoke alarms and

(28:47):
the fact that there now is last few years a
dual sensor smoke alarms, so you don't have to try
to gamble what's more likely to happen near which type
of fire is more likely to happen in your home.
But in the spirit of combinations of things to be
practical and and is there's a there are smoke there

(29:09):
are combinations smoke alarm slash carbon monoxide detector alarms. If
you have a fossil burning like fossil fuel burning system
in your home, it probably is prudent to have a
carbon monoxide detector placed appropriately there. If you've got particularly

(29:33):
like gas logs. I don't recall the proximity, but you
should have a carbon monoxide detector placed within I want
to say fifteen feet, but I don't quote me up.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
I think it was like ten or fifteen feet something
like that.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Okay, yeah, all right here. So here's why I wanted
to bring that up. There's you can get a combination
carbon monoxide smoke alarm and I'm sure in information that
I've heard, I don't have documented you know, footnotes and
all the stuff on this. My understanding is those are good.

(30:10):
But where you have scenarios like you're going to use
gas logs or or or or situations like that, just
having that combination is not adequate. You need to put
someone something carbon monoxide detector closer to the source than
just on the ceiling with the smoke alarm in whatever

(30:31):
room it happens to be in. So I think I
think our advice is like, check it out, unless you
know specifics about that, well, I said, I'm not, you know,
thinking over dialing it on.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
Well, I mean, you know, it is important to understand
where to install them. You know, they enter near bedrooms
and of course multi level homes right near burning appliances.
But I mean there are benefits to both. I mean
they and some say that you want, you know, the
photoelectrics and the smoke sensors for different things and then

(31:08):
have an overall encompassing combination for the whole house. I mean,
you can really break it down, but the combos are great.
They do it all. But yeah, I mean, with as
easy it is to do research nowadays, it's important to
really kind of dive in. Most people just don't think
about diving in and researching it, I.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Know, but they can tell you, never mind, that would
be an opinion. So and the good thing is a
quality carbon monoxide detector by itself again is not going
to break the bank. So it's I think it's just
it's just good. It's good practice. Well, especially as we

(31:49):
get into the time of year where we're looking at
auxiliary heat sources and maybe.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
Burn in gas logs absolutely.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
And things like that we won't get into during this show,
I don't think, but in the next couple of weeks
we'll take a dive into auxiliary heaters and gas logs
and things like that and just talk about some some
best practices and see what's there as well. So that's it.
I just want to make sure we covered correctly the
conversation around carbon monoxide because it is every year, especially

(32:22):
during you know, hurricanes or disasters, people try to bring
different devices inside the house, either to cook or to heat,
and inevitably somebody, somebody expires as a function of a
bad decision.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
So's that's the invisible killer, is what they call it,
and that's what makes it so dangerous.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
So look, we've got we've got a couple of minutes
here before we go, you know, into our break at
the top of the hour, and so let's shift gears
for a second, and you know, you're moving into real state.
You've been a license a general contractor for ten to
twelve years, whatever it's been. And if you say, John,
I don't I'm not ready to talk about that. That's fine.

(33:05):
We'll move on to the next topic. But Wes, what
are some of the things that you see folks like
some mistakes, some common mistakes you see people making when
when they're working on you know, trying to plan either
a building project or a renovation project or something like that.
Have you given thought to that.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Well, I'm always constantly thinking about that because we are
in the solution business, and you know, it's important that
you are methodical in your approach, doing things correctly and
hiring a professional to do it. Now you could probably
relate to this, but you know, you have a plethora
of knowledge and being able to do a little bit

(33:48):
of everything. But with that, you try to do everything
on your own, try to save the money, and sometimes
that really gets you in trouble. And as I've gotten
older in my seasoned years, John, you know, leaving it
to a professional that can come in, get in, get out,
execute the project, and leaving it to a professional because

(34:10):
you know, if you've got to be able to do
it right. If you don't do it right, do you
really have the time to redo it over? And and
I forgot the famous author of that saying, but yeah,
I mean that's you've got to be smart about it
because I've seen all the time customers doing it the
wrong way or in theory, it's the right kind of thought,

(34:33):
but wrong execution. And so yeah, I'm totally an advocate
for you know, leaving it to the professionals. If it
is outside of the scope.

Speaker 4 (34:43):
All right, So so bring the pros in and bring
the rights like.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Combination of professionals. Here here true confession is good for
the soul, right, So here's here. This is the truth.
I had an electrician out to our home because I
will I wanted him to look at installing a transfer
switch for a generator for us in our house. I
also have one spot in the house on this kind

(35:12):
of closed in porch that we have that is a
four way switch, so it's controlled not by two switches
but by one two by three switches. And I wanted
to put a dimmer on it, and had I had
a dimmer, and I had two options. I could start
at each of the three boxes looking at the wiring

(35:35):
to figure out where the circuit came in, and then
wiring that dimmer into the switch the appropriate switch the
appropriate way. Or I could look this guy in the
eyes and hand him the box and say, before you leave,
please do this. I opted for the ladder.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
That's nice. Well, it's just a peace of mind too.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, But I do of like, I do like there
is a certain element of figuring it out that you know.
But I'm like, yeah, like you, I'm too old for
that now. And Barb's less patient about times. She used
to give me two years to get anything done not
that way anymore, that could be a substantially larger percentage
of the remaining portion of our lives than it ever was.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Yeah, our bosses are in alignment there.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
I think, Yeah, it's all good, it's all good. So
I think I think that that is true. And as
you point out some of us that that God has
given certain talents and in some of these things, it's
also prudent to it's easier and you get the order
of operations done, if you will, more correctly when you

(36:42):
bring a professional in in particularly when you can have
a general contractor looking after after some of the larger projects,
you can you know, you can replace windows yourself, you
can remodel it room yourself, you can do certain plumbing
things yourself. But once you get to a certain scope,
David Dobels, it's really good about this, right, just understanding
what's the right order of operations so that you don't

(37:06):
you don't backtrack, even if you do it flawlessly the
first time, you're not backtracking on yourself sure and having
issues with that is what we have all less than
a minute left. What are you seeing as far as
availability of trades and talent in the field to get
work done.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Well, I think you know, you certainly do get what
you pay for. But you know, the really good people,
they're just busy.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
They're crazy, you know.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
And it's funny. It's you get one contract, yeah I
can get to it tomorrow, or yeah I'm about a
week out. It's like, well wait a second here now,
you know, or they don't have any work or it's
always something to keep in consideration. And of course Google
reviews are so good, you know, understanding, you know, experiences
and how the client was was treated and did the

(37:57):
contractor truly care, did they ask her right questions? These
are things that you know, interview, get quotes, get bids
and understand a lot of the people out there.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Good deal. We're gonna slide away for a break top
of the hour seven four five seven call us text us.
We'll talk about your home improvement questions when we return
to the Home Deepo Home Improvement Show with John and Dave.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
The Home Depot Home Improvement Show with John and Dave
pre sent up by try Pro Answering your home improvement
questions every Saturday on News Talk eleven ten and ninety
nine three WBT.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Welcome back, everybody, It's Outward number two with the Home
Deeper home improvement show with John and Dave.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
I'm John Gordon, I'm Wes Wooden.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Wes, we really appreciate you being with us this week,
letting David have a little bit of break into action.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
He needs it, he deserves.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Thanks for doing this. We've talked about a lot of
different things, and we kind of tickle the topic at
the beginning of the last hour, and I was saying,
do you know how many things you can know about
a flapper? Like a toilet flapper. We've addressed for the

(39:39):
thirty one years that we've been on the air, the
problem of the phantom flush right where you're laying in
bed at night and all of a sudden the toilet
flushes by itself or it sounds like it's flushing by itself, and.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Just dealt with that.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Did you really?

Speaker 3 (39:56):
Okay? I did?

Speaker 2 (39:58):
I don't anymore, not for work, but as many hotels
that I stayed in, I was always blown away by
how many had that issue right. And I always tell
the desk I'm like, hey, you should check this out.
But I mean talking about water conservation anyway. It's so so,

(40:19):
what did you do when you you had to address
the phantom flush. What did you change?

Speaker 3 (40:24):
Well, you know it. So we've got these new it's
I've actually kind of moved over from Color to American Standard.
They've got this one that will flush all the golf balls.
You've seen that, right, and the champion for Yeah, it's
a dual flush toilet system and it's a dual flapper.
And so I went in there and you know, you

(40:45):
look in some of these new toilets and it's like
it looks like a computer, looks like looking under the
hood of Yeah, it's crazy. You got to have a
computer to work on it. But no, So they have
these silicone and and it's interesting when I when I've
communicated with American Standard and they're fantastic by the way,
they said, as a one time courtesy, we'll send these

(41:06):
out to you, and I said, well, thank you. But
they look like a different material than what it was
new or OEM. But they were a silicone flat pad.
And what happens is, over a period of time of
that repeated use, they create an intention in that ceiling
surface so water will seep through and therein lays your

(41:31):
phantom flush. Yeah, And what I did is I replaced
that flapper and it's so nice. It's one of those
things you know you have to do and it's just
a pain to do it, but it's so nice. And
you know, of course we're on a well so we
don't have to worry about the sewer, but in some
situations that it can it can cost money.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Well, if you're on a septic system in particular, so
even so, your sewer bills typically calculated as a function
of the water that you use, right, so if it's
a leaking away, you're paying for the water and you're
paying for the sore. But you know, is it enough
to be like this damaging effect. No, But if you're
on a septic system, you're putting undue stress on the

(42:15):
system by just letting all this water leak away your
septic tank and then ultimately into the leach fleet field.
So I think so you you spoke about two important things.
One is the flapper itself, and we've always recommended There
may be other manufacturers for it, I'm not sure, but

(42:35):
we've always recommended Corky k O r k Y and
the red rubber version because the red version holds up
to the chlorine in the water. Much better than the
black one does. And so so that's it. The other
thing that you can look at or you can check out.

(42:58):
You can go to quirky dot com if we have
no life, and you just watch the lapper.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
But there's an adjustable.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
There's an adjustable flapper and it has a little dial
on it, and the flapper works by getting saturated many
do by getting water into that chamber, that kind of
hollow chamber that sits down over the opening, and then
when you push the lever, the flapper comes up. The
water drains out of the the you know, the flapper,

(43:30):
and then then it drops back in place. You can
actually get a version that it has a dial on
it that takes on more or less water and releases
more or less water, so it'll shut quicker or slower,
more quickly or more slowly, and and it can control
your flush.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
So technology, John, technology of a flapper, Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
And we're not talking to twenties dancers, all right. So anyways, seriously,
you can't to uh to quirky dot com. There's a
bunch of stuff out there. They also make a wax
free toilet seal kit. I'm not sure if I'm on
board with that yet or not? Gonn. I just haven't
tried it.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
But are you talking about the toilet? Uh? The like
a wax ring. Oh, that's all I use now is
they're there. It's like a wax ring around and it's
you got a rubber top because you can reset them.
Really cool. That's all I use. Love them.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Okay, all right, so I haven't tried it. I've been
just using the traditional uh bees wax thing.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
So well, there's a blue one and you got to
make sure that you get that. I can't remember the manufacturer,
but that's all I use. Are fantastic one and done.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Okay, there you go boom. All right, let's see how
are you doing here? Time wise? We're good. We've talked
about the phantom flush and the flappers. Here's here's one man,
there's a lot here. We may end up going past
the brain. Well we'll come back after the break. But

(44:59):
this is a out replacing old masonite siding. There's I
don't know how much time we want to spend. You
can actually repair a little bit masonite siding for around
some nails, but usually once the surface fails and water
gets behind that, it's you know pretty much curtains. For
that product, you have to replace whole sections. But the

(45:21):
question is like, what are the options for masonite siding,
and there's a lot. I think the most common WES
is a five Orsome n solution.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yes, yeah, well they've they've got two Nietzsche, Ha and Hardy,
and I think they're pretty similar. I look almost identical.
But yeah, it's a great fix for it, maintenance free
for the most part.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
There are some things in the installation process that are
kind of important, like whether you're going to face nail
or blind nail, you do have to treat. You have
to have flashing behind the seams, so there's a lot
that goes into installing it. This is one WES. I

(46:10):
think where a handy person could certainly reside their house
if they took their time, treated around the windows correctly,
flashing and so on. Yes, but I think it's one
of those things where like, you know what, this is
one you call the professional out to do it. But
we're going to need to take a break here. But Wes,

(46:31):
when we come back from the break, let's talk about
there's more than just lap siding from a fiber cement
product and there's more than just five or cement options
if you've got to replace siding out of your house,
and some of them are really cool. So we'll talk
about that. We'll talk about any questions you have if
you call us at seven oh four or five, seven
eleven ten, or text us at that same number. When
we returned to the Whole Depot Home Improvement Show with John.

Speaker 6 (46:53):
To day, Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
It's the Home Depot Home Improvement Show with John and Dave.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
I'm John Gordon, I'm Wes Wooden.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Wes we let's see, we were talking about the question
that came up was replacing old and I say, masonite siding.
Masonite is is a brand kind of like Kleenex is
a brand of facial tissue. Pardon me, so it's it's
basically a hardboard siding. We've seen Holmes fifty years plus

(47:57):
with hardboard siding on it never had an issue installed correctly,
maintained correctly. But it's basically obsolete at this point, and
fiber cement has been the most popular replacement for it.
And a couple of things I think that are worth
mentioning fiber cement, you said, Nietzsche. Ha also talked about

(48:20):
James Hardy. There was one more out there that I
can't remember, and it actually may have been acquired by
one of those two manufacturers. But the manufacturing process is
fundamentally the same. But people think just in terms of
lap siding. If you're actually replacing the siding on your home,
there's lots of fiber cement options. So the lap siding,

(48:45):
smooth lap siding with a bead on the bottom, lap siding,
wood grain, those are all laps. But you can also
get four by eight sheets of fiber cement product. I
recently we did use the stucco version of it. I
had sections that needed to be covered versus having major

(49:06):
masonry work done. Structurally fine, just needed an esthetic solution.
I ferd it out and put the stucco version of
fiber cement. I will tell you when you get a
half inch four by eight sheet of fiber cement product,
it weighs a couple pounds.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Yeah, I'll say.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
It's heavy, but but again hands holds up to the
weather and stuff really well. The other thing that you
can get West I don't know if you've messed with
it at all, but you can get like the shaker.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
You can get a shake yep.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Look, you can get what's the one gingerbread is at
the moment.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
A little yeah like scallops yep, yep, yep. It's really
super cool.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, And you can and you can do a gable
in one kind of format, and you know, the walls
in a different one. So I think the answer is
fiber cement. Great, don't limit yourself just replacing lap for lap.
Go out and look at what the options are and
decide if you want to kind of give your house
a facelift. Then David swears by the.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
LP siding with smart siding, smart.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Side exactly, and it's it's what OSB I think.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
Right, it's engineered wood paneling, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yep, yep, and then with a factory apply finish, and
that's what he put on his home, folks. I just
kind of like I've learned over the years, I've known
David longer than at least one of my children, and
I've learned that like he thinks things through and if
he's doing it, it makes sense. So that's an option

(50:40):
and they have options as well. And then the third
thing I think people should think about, at least is
just the stack stone accents the manufactured stone, it's a
little more expensive, so you probably don't want to do
entire home in it necessarily, but just doing some things
around columns kind of like a part way up from
the ground or access sections. Well, yeah, things.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
It's awesome, god, you know, because it's uh, it's lightweight,
so you don't have to worry about like a footing
that you have to stack it on correct And it's
I tell you, this day and age, anything is possible.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
So those are those are just some things to think about.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
And then there's always cedar expensive.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
It is expensive.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
It takes a lot of maintenance, but it is so
pretty yep.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
So anyway, there's there's just I think, like everything else,
there's just a lot of options out there and it's
worth it's worth taking a look to see what what
you want to do. Let's change gears for a second though, Wes,
are you a native? Where did you grow up?

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Charlotte, North Carolina?

Speaker 2 (51:51):
You are a native Charlotte Chean so.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
Rare, that's what everybody says, But all my friends are like,
I keep hearing that, but now it's I tell you,
this town has changed so much unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
It's I mean, we moved to Charlotte in nineteen eighty four,
and just in that time it's been ridiculous. We drove
through last weekend. I'm like, man, I just can't believe
this place. But anyway, the reason I asked that is
when we were talking about all the different topics at

(52:27):
the beginning of the show, one of the things that
came up was do they still whoever they is? Our
triple track Storm windows still made. So my strong suspicion
is that this person was born and grew up and
spent some time north of the Mason Dixon line and

(52:47):
probably in a city where well, I shouldn't say necessary city,
but we're older homes were more prevalent, right, yes, and
so the familiar with it because of how quickly parts
of where we are now grew. There's a more contemporary,

(53:09):
if that's the proper word solution for windows. That kind
of windows being installed are are are different, but you
can still get a triple track storm window. Have you
messed with them at all?

Speaker 3 (53:22):
I haven't. I'm looking into replacing them, some of them
down at the beach, okay little beach property down there.
But I think there's a company up in Raleigh that
still making them. They're aluminum, yeah, which you know that
wouldn't be good for the beach in my opinion, because
you know the you know the the corrosion, right, you.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Get the ox white rust exactly.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
But yeah, now they're still made, so.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
They are made, and you can get what's called the illuminum.
The silver or mill finish is probably more prone to
the oxide issues you know at the beach then a
white or bronze. And there may be additional color options
now those that's a baked on paint and finish which

(54:11):
probably helps them to hold up to the salt environment
a little bit better. Yes, but they're a great solution
if you don't want to if your windows are such
that you can't replace them, or you don't want to
replace them, or the cost of replacing them is prohibitive,
a triple track or double track storm window is a

(54:33):
great solution, absolutely, the and the difference is just says
three tracks or two tracks. The question is does the
top pane of glass move up and down or is
it stationary? So if you've got single hung windows, there's
no point in having the triple track storm window because
you know nothing doing up there. But but yeah, so
I think I think check them out online, but triple

(54:54):
track storm windows or storm windows are a really good
solution in in lieu of just totally replacing windows. David
and I were talking, I think it was a couple
of weeks ago, three weeks ago about historical properties or
properties on the historic registry and you have to get

(55:15):
you know, approval to do any changes windows there, things
like that. So there's there's some things you might be
able to do so that it doesn't look like you've
got a different kind of window on there. But it
does help with the energy efficiency and stuff like that.
So lots of different, lots of different applications for that,
and I'll say it's it's worth it's worth checking out

(55:37):
staying with I'm just running down our questions here, so
you got to stop me if you think that they're not.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
This is this is great. I mean, it's just a
wide variety spectrum.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
It's what people are asking questions about, right, So, I
mean it's not like it's not like there's any rhyme
or reason. We call it the dog's break the dog's
breakfast agenda. Yeah, this one is also related to storm.
It's a storm door versus storm windows. And it says
my storm door closes or seals so tightly that if

(56:08):
I close my main door, the storm door doesn't latch right,
so the air is trapped and it doesn't latch. There's
probably a couple other complications with that. One of them
is trapid that's all. Yeah, trapped heat where you have
the the when the storm panel is in right the

(56:31):
glass panel. There's a couple of solutions. You can buy
a storm door that has a little event on the
bottom that you can open up. Solves the trapped heat
solution and would automatically solve that kind of air pressure issue.
The other thing you can do is you can take
a little section of the weather strip off on the

(56:52):
bottom and now you you lose some of the seal. Right,
so there's potential for insects. But if you're using the
ring of fire, you spray that too. They don't come up,
or they come in they die. But but that it's
not complicated. You don't have to rethink your your storm
door situation. You can just remove a section of that. Well.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
A lot of clients can use that for extra security,
you know, maybe really not for any kind of a
weather or whatever, but just an added another door.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Lay so you can actually or if you have a
if you have a pretty door with glasses you can't
see through, or a solid wooden door, you can lock
the storm door and at least open the main door
to have a look at what's going on, sure without
being you know, directly open to the to the outdoors.
Or you can get a ring doorbell.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Well, yeah, you've got that too, nest ring.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Can you imagine if we had all this stuff when
we were kids.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
I'm kind of glad we didn't. How I grew up.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
Well, I do too, I do too.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
All right, we're going to take a break. We gotta
take a break. Don't go away, folks. Seven oh four five,
seven eleven ten, same number for a text, and we'll
talk about your homomprovement questions when we return from these
important messages. Welcome back. It's the Home Deep Home Improvement

(58:37):
Show with John and Dave.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
I'm John Gordon, I'm Wes Wooden.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Give us a call this morning. We're taking calls and
texts at seven oh four five to seven oh eleven ten.
And it's also time for the Home Depot Product of
the Week. This week, it's it's fall, it's time to
get out and do all the things with trimming and
pruning and all the fall prep stuff. And in that spirit,
we're looking at a forty vault ten inch cordless battery

(59:05):
polesaw from Riobi. It gives you the reach to get
at the bigger branches that you don't just get with
a pruner. You don't have to get on a ladder
to reach some of them. What a couple of things
that I like about a number one, it's part of
the whole Reobi system. So anything that you've got that
operates on the Riobi forty vault batteries, the mowers, the trimmers,

(59:27):
the blowers, all those things, this will operate on that
same platform. And it's just from six and six and
a half feet to nine feet, so you can reach
the difficult places. Probably any higher than that you should
be reaching out to a pro It's got inline motors
so that it's you get a precision cut. What I
really like, though, is the angle of the cutting bar.

(59:51):
Many of them are just on a straight just straight,
you know, one hundred and eight degrees. This blade is
at a small angle so that you can get on
top of the branch and cut through it. And the
blade doesn't binds as the branch is cut and cut through.
Uh and it's got a five year warranty. The price
point on just the tool itself is one hundred and

(01:00:13):
forty nine dollars. So that's it. Our whole deep product
of the week this week is the Reobi forty bowl
ten inch Cortus battery poles Law whole saw poles Law.
I love that sounds to do list also, but not
until next week. I've got live oaks here.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
I love live It's my favorite tack.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
They're awesome, but they are like crazy and it's I've
got one. It's just totally invading a really pretty crape myrtle,
So I gotta gotta go off.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
I believe the live oak doesn't lose its leaves, does it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
So there's a couple versions of that. Some do not
lose their leaves all year long, and then there's two
other versions, which is tongue in cheek because that sounds
so much better than sarcasm. One version loses its leaves
in the spring and one version loses its leaves in

(01:01:08):
the fall. Thanks that we can have leaves falling from
live oaks all year.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Long, exactly. Yeah, that's that's so wonderful, and they're the
most beautiful in the Christmas time to put all the
lights all the way up to the top the coolest.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Yeah. But they also support, for whatever reason, the Spanish moss.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
That's correct.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
I'm trying to get that to grow. I haven't figured
that out yet, because there's places in the neighborhood it
looks really pretty.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Yeah, so cool, so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
All right. So we talked about storm windows and let's see,
we talked about the storm door seals. This we're gonna get.
We're gonna put our minds in the gutter gutters. So
there's a lot of questions about gutters, cleaning the gutters.

(01:02:01):
David and I talk wes. We talk about, you know,
whether you put a gutter guard on or what type
of gutter guard in the in the spirit of the
live oak trees that have leaves that fall like one
version in the spring, one version in the fall, and
I think we must have several of each on our

(01:02:22):
property because we do have like live oak leaves coming
down a lot. I bit the bullet and put a
whole gutter guard system on the house. I just got
tired of climbing up there. And cleaning everything out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
Well, it's dangerous.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
On top of that, Yeah we're well, we're only on
a ranch, but but if you're more than that, it's
even worse. But there's a couple of things that I
think are really cool. Just go google down spout filters.
They're a great solution if you're not going to use
the there's there's lots of problems with clogged gutters, right,

(01:02:56):
so you get the gutter blocks of down spout, the
gutter overflow, water gets behind the facia. Just there's a
lot of bad things that can happen as a function
of that. But I think the problem is if you
clean all your gutters out and now the down spouts
they have gotten clocked. Especially if you've got a situation
where they're going into drains underground, like pipes undergrounds, that's problematic.

(01:03:20):
So keeping debris out of the down spout is kind
of critical. If you go online, you can find the
usual remember the little wire the baldest ones that you
skip down in the opening, right, so you got those.
Those are simple. I think David said that's pretty much
what he uses. But you can get a downspout filter

(01:03:42):
that fits in line down toward the ground with and
so it connects to your down spout and then it
connects down into the pipe that goes in the ground.
But there's a little space where the water goes through,
hits a kind of a drain grate if you will,
at an angle, yes, and captures the debris, washes it

(01:04:03):
out and lets the water get back down into the pipe. Yep,
those I would say that's really worth having a look at.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Yeah, those are super cody.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
It sounds a lot of problems and if you've got
the corrugated pipe in the ground, it's really hard to
put some kind of router or something in there. You
end up just tearing up the pipe. But do check out.
Just google down spout filters or go to the home
Depot website and check out. They're available either in store
or online. But there's some pretty interesting solutions versus what

(01:04:38):
we've always put in as far as the wire little
balls in the box.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
I'll tell you one of the best things I did
real quick while we're talking about that underground piping is
just four inch schedule forty PVC smooth wall. Because it
flows that debris, you know, it just I don't know.
It's something I did a long time ago, never had
a problem with it, so it is, it is the
right way to go.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
And even if you don't use a schedule forty west,
there's a I mean there's another. I don't remember the
schedule number, but I just I always refer to it
like it was rated at like what I call the
fifteen hundred pound or with a manufacturer called fifteen hundred
pounds PSI crush, so it could go under driveways and
things like that, didn't have to handle pressure. But the
smooth wall solution absolutely the best way to go, especially

(01:05:22):
if you have to replace anything or if you're in
a new construction putting it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
In Absolutely all right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
We got to take a little break here. Don't go away.
We're seven oh four five seven eleven ten. By foe
or by text, we'll talk about your home improvement question.
When we returned to the Home Depot Home Improvement Show
with John and Day fuck them back. It's the whole

(01:06:06):
Deep Home Improvement Show with John and Dame.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
I'm John Gordon, I'm Wes Woodham.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Last segment, give us call where at seven o four
five seven eleven ten, seven four five seven eleven ten
you can call or text text using the home. I'm
sorry the WBT text line driven by Liberty Buick gmcu wes.
This next one is all you, sir. Let's see I

(01:06:33):
got this is let me. I'm looking at some texts here.
Clean duck work. Have been a two story house for
seven years? Second owners and what does the cost? Who
would you recommend first covers, furnest comes on in time?
We have to see. So they've got some kind of
allergens or something going on. Duck cleaning work. I don't

(01:06:58):
remember if Coit Services is still out there doing that.
Most of your HVAC people will do duct cleaning as well.
Do you have someone in minds?

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
I do somebody that that I have used in the past, Chris,
and I'll have to get the name, but she is
out of the Gastonia area but has done like I
think viro tech or something like that. But it's it's awesome.
I mean, you get dust over a long period of time,
and you know, and when those systems come on, especially

(01:07:33):
in the heat, they disrupt that that stuff in the
bottom of the duct and you get airborne particulates that
you breathe. Yeah, so it's kim clean.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
And it's good to know, you want a reputable person
doing that, because just getting out there and beating the
sides of some flexible duct work is not the best solution.
You can actually exacerbate issues by you know, breaking the
plast lining and so on. So do get a quality
person for that. Next question, is there a product to

(01:08:06):
replace painted wood picket handrails on a porch other than vinyl,
aluminum or wrought iron to give me the same look
as the original railings? Who might be a good contractor
to install it? So check out the manufacturers of treks fibron,

(01:08:27):
there's any of a number of composite decking manufacturers typically
will have railing products that look like the wooden pickets.
Now I say pickets, I'm assuming that they're talking more
of a spindle than a picket.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
A right balluster type thing, right exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
So if it's a true picket, not one hundred percent sure,
but I'm guessing that we're probably okay to assume it is.
It's it's a spindle. And then those those manufacturers composite
deck it decking will typically have the the pickets that
we're talking about, and we'll also have a version of

(01:09:08):
handrail all made from the composite product. So fibron uh
uh tracks Uh, there's a whole bunch of them.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
Think there's like eight or ten of them out there.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Yeah, there's so many manufacturers. And really the technology now
with the PVC codings or wraps and stuff like that,
all very good, and that would be I think a
suitable solution.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
You had said fibron, but I think a Trecks decorators
is one. Okay, that's that's pretty good. And then they
have a new tech would like an ultra shield stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
And then I don't even know, like maybe Ask and
those guys might have something along the same lines, right,
so so worth worth checking that out. AzaC maybe Vinyl,
I'm not sure. Uh sorry, first texting the show forgot
to say my name is Jim fort Mill. Gotcha, Hope
that's how Jim? All right, now to what is all

(01:10:03):
you wes? Uh? Oh? This one is like converting a
screen porch into conditions space. Have you been asked to
do that? Have you overseen projects of that? Ilk?

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
You know, I've I've had questions. I have not overseen projects.
I've worked closely into renovations and doing like house flipping
and stuff like that. But you know, I think the
biggest thing to know is is when you do that,
you've got water infiltration typically under decks. You've really got
to be able to get that under control because when

(01:10:36):
you seal those areas in you trap moisture. That's one
of the biggest things to to really look out for.
So you really want to be able to have some
kind of a water mitigation because if you trap that
in there, then you end up having a propensity for
for mold, bacteria and things like that. And that's of
course where decay right exactly. And then you know for

(01:10:59):
Sponsored Drypro you know, that's that's who I used to
be with, and they're just a fantastic company for putting
together those solutions for that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
I think the other situation that we come across when
when those kinds of conversions are made, there's two situations.
One is very serious and that is what is the
foundation on which the screen porch is built exactly right,
so to if it's got adequate footings or pilings if

(01:11:29):
you will to be a deck or a screen porch, great,
once it becomes sort of living space, if you will,
things change, and so you want to be sure that
an engineer, I d C. I think Intelligent Design ID
Intelligent Design Engineering is a great partner, very reasonable price,

(01:11:54):
excellent professionals have been very very helpful in remodeling situations.
You would have them take a look at those kinds
of things for you. The second piece is HVAC. Folks
kind of think that, okay, well, I've got a duct
right in front of what is the door that leads
onto the screened and porch. Now, so I'll just put

(01:12:14):
a jump v in or extend that duct and add
some you know, add some cooling and heat into the space.
And that typically is inadequate and it can cause problems
because now you're pulling, you're affecting the existing house package. Right.
So HVAC is the second piece that can sometimes have

(01:12:37):
folks get in trouble. There's all kinds of options as
far as closing it in with windows and full you know,
big glass and insulatic glass and stuff like that, but
those two things, foundation and HVAC are our big concerns
from an HVAC perspective. Mini splits the bomb very popular, yep,

(01:12:58):
And I never like the big cassette that's sat on
the wall. But you can get an inn ceiling version
now that fundamentally disappears and is very effective. So those
are some things. Those are some things that you can do.
We have got to slide out of here. Wes number one,
thank you so much for making time on a busy
Saturday to be with us. I always appreciate your gud us,

(01:13:18):
your partnership. Folks, Thanks for listening. We really appreciate you all,
and we like to remind you every week that we
think the most important kind of home improvement you can
make is the one that makes your home a have
your place to live in. Don't forget to work on
that project this week, and we'll see you next week
on the Home Depot Home improvement Show with John and
Dave

Speaker 5 (01:14:03):
School