October 20, 2025 • 30 mins
Sunlight changes everything. We kick off with a real project that turned a dim great room into a bright, open space by swapping a standard door for full glass, adding a 10-by-6 quad window, and installing an 8-by-12 slider with screens for a cross-breeze you can feel. The secret wasn’t just picking pretty glass—it was structural discipline. We brought in an engineer, sized LVLs correctly, and worked to the inch so the spans carried safely and cleanly.
From there, we pull the curtain back on builder grade versus custom grade. “Builder grade” isn’t a dirty word, but it can hide weak links like finger-jointed studs or MDF outside. We share the exact questions to ask about floor lumber grades, shingle brands, and warranties. On roofing, we compare standing seam metal with Kynar or Valspar finishes against exposed fastener panels that fade, and explain why today’s premium shingles deliver serious wind performance and algae protection for less money. Pro tip: never use button-cap fasteners under metal roofing underlayment unless you want the caps to telegraph through the panels.
If you’re hunting older homes, we offer a quick triage: read the foundation, then price the heavy hitters—electrical, HVAC, and insulation. For windows, don’t default to full replacements. Investigate sash swaps, reglazing, or sash kits that preserve frames and cut labor. On HVAC, we decode SEER and explain why the jump from 14 to 21 rarely pays for itself. Your smartest investment is the envelope: spray foam where it counts, diligent air sealing, and right-sized equipment. Mini splits shine in garages and bonus rooms, but only after you insulate.
We also touch on a rumored national housing emergency and what real relief might look like for first-time buyers. If you care about better light, stronger structure, and upgrades that actually return value, this one gives you a roadmap—without the hype. Enjoy the show, explore resources at thecarolinacontractor.com, and hit the Ask The Contractor button with your questions. If you learned something useful, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:03):
And welcome to another edition of the Carolina
Contractor Show.
My name's Eric Smith.
Across from me, Joe Burrow.
Nah, it's it's Donnie Blanchard,general contractor, uh, but he's
kind of imitating uh uh Mr.
Burrow with with an injury.
But unlike him and his turf toe,you ain't stopping working, are
you?
I don't have a choice, man.
SPEAKER_00 (00:20):
I got cars, colleges, and weddings to pay
for, so I'm still under contractfor a lot of years.
So no, sir.
I uh braced it up, but yeah,that's the best I can do.
SPEAKER_01 (00:28):
Tell them succinctly what happened and and how you
found out it was broken, becausethis is how guys do it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
I didn't really know that it happened, but I just
stepped off the side of asidewalk and, you know, back in
my younger days, would have justconsidered that a sprain.
So I walked on it for a week andwoke up last weekend and it was
black and blue from my toe tohalfway up my shin, and I
thought maybe I should get thischecked out.
And of course, X-ray said it wasin fact a break.
Um, so yeah, I walked on abroken ankle for a week, and um
(00:54):
they put me in a walking boot.
That wasn't fun at all.
And gosh, I'm saying this on theradio, that's not good.
But I came out of the walkingboot about a week too early, and
I just got the highest anklework boots I could I could find,
and I laced them up as tight asI could stand, and I've been
rolling with it, man.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09):
I'm not gonna use his name, but it we had a
contractor walk in one time andhe he was limping pretty hard,
and uh he had self-wrapped withduct tape, and we said, dude,
what happened?
He says, I I fell off the roof.
And I'm like, maybe you shouldgo see somebody.
He says, Nah, I've I've takencare of myself, ordered material
and walked back out the store.
And I'm like, Yeah, I'd like tosay that that's dumb, but I'd
(01:31):
probably, you know, try to walkeverything off regardless of
age.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
My sweetheart told me how tough I was.
She said, Oh my gosh, you youmust be the toughest man ever,
but you better go see a doctor.
So I knew I was gonna be introuble with her, and I just I
just did it, made it official,and it was good to know, I
guess, in the big picture.
So, but uh the good news is it'sdoing a lot better.
And I drove a bobcat yesterday,and I have the the foot controls
on my bobcat.
So all that went really smooth,kind of like still got it status
(01:56):
there.
And um, after that I knew I wasover the worst part.
SPEAKER_01 (01:59):
Hey, uh, if you're uh not familiar with our show,
the Carolina Contractor Show,great place to start is
theCarolinacontractor.com.
That's our website.
We got a bunch of information onthere.
We're also up on YouTube so youcan see past shows, and we've
got some uh shorter episodes upthere, questions, and and we'll
get into that in a little bit.
Uh also check us out on IG.
We were on several radiostations across the Carolinas
(02:20):
and of course podcasts.
So if you go to that samewebsite, you can look at the
literally hundreds of showswe've done.
They're labeled by subject, andyou can download it that way.
Or if you just want to see whatwas the most recent shows we've
done and listen to those andcheck us out.
Again, you can find it all atthe Carolinacontractor.com.
And another thing we have,grief, Donnie, I forgot about
this because this pertains totoday's episode, and that is
(02:43):
going to be having a question,whether it's about the show,
about your house, aboutsomething we talk about.
There's an ask the contractorbutton.
How long have you been a GC,Donnie?
I got my license in 2008.
17 years at GC.
So when you send a questionthrough the Carolina contractor
show, it goes to Donnie and hegives you some answers, emails
you back.
We talk about them sometimes,and we're gonna talk a little
(03:05):
bit about uh questions thatpeople ask us, not necessarily
only from the website today, butsome that we hear when we're on
the uh uh job site.
As we like to say, the show isfrom the job site to the studio
mic.
We're just talking about what wedo for a living.
I sell building materials,Donnie uses them to build things
with.
And speaking of which, Donnie,you sent me some pictures.
(03:27):
We got to get this up on the IG.
It sounds like it's beer, butI'm a big fan of natural light
coming into a house.
I actually prefer it over uhstandard lighting if I can.
And then you showed me a housethat you did work on that was
absolutely amazing how youimproved it.
SPEAKER_00 (03:44):
Well, yeah, yeah, I don't want to pat myself on the
back, but I went pretty bold onthis one, and and basically
every suggestion that I hadended up working out really
well.
And uh, met this really nicecouple, and they had a beautiful
home uh that bordered ChapelHill, kind of on the
Hillsborough side.
So I go to the house and I couldtell it was fairly new, and I
couldn't imagine what they wouldwant to change about it.
So uh that being said, I walkedthrough the house and they
(04:07):
expressed their problem with nonatural light in the kitchen and
living room area, and they havea combo great room that we talk
about all the time where theyboth feed into one another.
So they have a 10-foot ceiling,but they had standard doors at
six foot eight.
So uh a lot of people refer tothat seven-foot doors.
But uh the next option up, andwhat's commonly seen with a
10-foot ceiling, is aneight-foot door.
So eight-foot doors aren'treadily available at your at
(04:28):
your big box stores or anything,but um, folks like you and I, or
I know you guys can specialorder those and we can get those
uh on demand.
My suggestion was that we changeout the walk door to the screen
porch to an eight-foot door,full glass, and then to the left
of that, we did a series ofwindows.
So we did a quad uh ofdouble-hung windows that matched
all their existing windows, butit's 10 foot wide by six foot
(04:50):
tall.
And the reason I only went sixfoot tall is because you know,
if you go any closer to thefloor, you have to have tempered
glass, and I didn't want them toget into that expense.
So I went just low enough whereno tempered glass was needed,
and then moved to the right,which was basically the kitchen
dining area combo.
We put an eight foot tall bytwelve foot wide slider, so it's
a sliding door.
(05:12):
And being that it was you know12 foot wide, there was four
three-foot panels, and thecenter, the two center panels
are the operable ones that youknow slide out to the flankers.
And uh, one of the questionsthat the homeowner asked me,
which that I give them all thecredit for this, but do they
have screens?
So I made sure that they did,and of course, the screens uh
close you can open the twomiddle doors wide open, and
(05:34):
you've got a six-foot openingthat you can close the screens
on.
So really neat for uh airflow,basically creates a little wind
tunnel if you open up thewindows on the other side of the
house.
And then the original goal wasto get more natural light in,
and man, it really did that.
I mean, there's barely any woodwall that you see.
Uh side note there, if anybodywants to tackle something like
this, the first step is tocontact a structural engineer.
(05:56):
So I had somebody come out andexplain, you know, the spans and
my intentions with the uhmaterials that I just mentioned,
and he spec'd out uh a plan withLVLs that would span both uh
distances, and man, it it allworked out like a dream.
But when we got those big doorsand windows on site, I started
pulling tape immediately.
I was kind of in freakout modebecause it didn't look like it
(06:18):
was gonna work.
And and I'll say this, it itcame down to the inch in a
couple of those uh scenarios.
So we really did our thing, andyou know, experience matters,
but uh I'll I'll be fullytransparent.
There was some guessworkinvolved there.
What were your uh LVL widths?
The wider width was a 11 and 7eighths, and then the uh I'm
sorry, that was the shorter uhspan, but the wider span that
(06:40):
had the 10-foot quad window plusthe walk door uh ended up being
a 14-inch LVL.
So uh with a 10-foot ceiling,they both made that no problem.
SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
People might now listen to the show, look at
their house and go, man, I'dlove to put a couple more
windows or replace these singleswith doubles.
unknown (06:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:56):
You need to have an engineer because there's more
going on on your house than youyou might realize.
But if it works, or as you said,put in some LVLs and work the
spans and everything, you canreally add a lot of windows to a
wall or to a section.
And good work.
I think it was beautiful.
It made me excited.
SPEAKER_00 (07:13):
Oh, I appreciate it.
I was super proud of it, and Ithink the biggest thing that
that mattered the most is thatthe the homeowners were just
wonderful people.
And when you go in and you kicksome rear end for somebody and
do a great job, and they nevercease to tell you how pleased
they are.
That's a that's a that's part ofthe relationship.
We have a group text going, andyou know, every step of the way
they have uh have not ceased totell me how pleased they are
(07:33):
with it with every little thing,and and from my end, that feels
good, man.
SPEAKER_01 (07:37):
It's uh something we'll look forward to.
Some pictures popping up on thesocial media.
Another thing I want to hit realquick before we jump into the
meat of the show was uh youpointed out there's a rumor of
Trump declaring a housingemergency.
We know getting housing,affordable housing, is very
difficult.
And there's talk about ithappening this fall, and I want
to touch on that real quick.
Um, people say, what can thepresident do?
(07:59):
And technically, he can declarea national housing emergency for
almost any reason he sees fit.
It's uh under a 1976 NationalEmergencies Act.
And the act doesn't necessarilysay for certain what constitutes
an emergency, but it does allowhim to bypass Congress and take
some various actions.
And he's done this with umdeclaring emergencies on
(08:21):
immigration and crime andforeign trade.
So he kind of just might go outthere and say, we have a housing
emergency.
Now I want to do this, this,this, and this to alleviate it.
I think he's being genuine.
He wants to make an effort tosomehow help the housing
problem.
SPEAKER_00 (08:38):
Yeah, and after we did the show on the Big
Beautiful bill, I'd have toadmit I was sort of disappointed
because my personal situation isthat I've got two young folks
that are very close to me andthe family that I'm gonna be
building a house for to makethem first-time homeowners and
there was no incentives in theBig Beautiful bill.
But I'm I'm hoping that theywere thinking forward and knew
that this would be an option ifthe interest rates didn't, in
(08:59):
fact, drop like they predicted.
So uh really, really pleased tohear that with the uh housing
emergency because we need somerelief.
We need we need the price ofthese houses to come down.
You know, the affordability isis a real thing.
And what 22-year-old, uh, even24, 25-year-old, would you
recommend go get a half milliondollar home loan and be house
poor for the next two decades oftheir life until they figure it
(09:21):
out?
I think it impacts their abilityto have children and just be
happy.
You know, who wants to be indebt like that?
And and um I'm hoping that thatthis is isn't just a maybe.
I hope this is something thatthey follow up on and make it
happen.
SPEAKER_01 (09:33):
And there'll be another protest march about it.
I mean, can you just imaginepeople in the streets, no cheap
housing, no affordable housing,this president's horrible.
I mean, all the things thatthey've been wanting are now
coming, but because yeah, he'sdoing it, they're gonna protest
against it in some way.
We thought it was a joke, butlet's be honest.
If he found the cure for cancer,there'll be people that would
(09:55):
reject it just because of themessenger.
Yeah, maybe TDS is a real thing,E.
So we're gonna do some questionstoday.
I'm gonna kind of pick yourbrain.
Some of them are from peoplethat walk into my store and ask
me about something, materials ora way to do something.
And I kind of just rolled themaround my head.
Well, maybe I'll ask thesequestions on the show so
(10:15):
thousands of people can hearthem all at once.
So this will require you tothink on your feet some.
Are you ready?
I think so.
All right.
Uh, one thing I get is peopleasking me what's the difference
between builder grade and customgrade materials, and when is it
worth to upgrade to those?
Builder grade doesn't mean cheapmaterial, it means maybe generic
(10:36):
material.
It builds the house, theframing, the uh sheathing, the
the roofing, those things.
Uh custom is, you know, you havegnomes in Norway that are
hand-carving rails and you wantto pay extra for them.
I tend to deal more with thebuilder grade material because
we're dealing with buildersmore.
(10:57):
You do some custom work, so youprobably I guess deal more with
those custom grade materials.
SPEAKER_00 (11:04):
Yeah, I think there's a sweet side sweet spot
between both.
Of course, you don't want tospend that you know, the
hand-carved gnome, whatever youjust said, you don't want to
spend money on that kind oftrim.
Um keep lure out.
Yeah, there you go.
But um, I think a a better termwould be track builder grade.
And you know, the track buildersobviously have to buy from
someone who can accommodate uhthe the volume that they crank
(11:26):
out.
So uh they're gonna be buyingfrom different supply houses
than maybe I would.
And the right questions to askfrom a homeowner standpoint is
you know, what grade of lumberdo you use in your floor system?
And uh, for instance, the peopleI buy from only have number one
grade two by tens for the floor,and for the framer for the the
end result for the homeowner,that just seems to be a better
(11:47):
approach, and they do cost more,but if there's certain things
you don't want to skimp on, it'syour floor system.
So uh I would say that from ashingle standpoint, you know,
there's certain suppliers thatcarry certain manufacturers, and
that's just about who made acontract with who.
And um, you know, in our world,GAF and Certain Teet are the
Coke and the Pepsi of of theroofing industry.
(12:07):
So they both have their kings onthe warranty, they they have
better uh algae deterrentwarranties, they just have
better wind ratings, you know,all the way around, they're
superior to the competition.
So that's probably a homeownerhomework assignment to know the
right questions to ask.
But yeah, I I don't think thatthat you're gonna go inferior.
I I won't call them out by name,but there's a couple of local
(12:28):
suppliers, and you know, if Ihave my way about it, if I need
a few two by eights, I know thatI've got to go through there and
I've got to cull through thematerials and I have to pick out
the straight ones, and youreally got to take a look.
But that's why I'd rather pay alittle bit extra, get number one
grade material, especially for afloor system, and just call it a
day.
And uh one thing that I pickedup on, I was a 21-year-old when
I did my internship, so I reallydidn't know much about anything
(12:49):
at that point.
I was book smart withconstruction.
I knew foundations throughworking for my dad, but that's
what my beginning was um thisthis internship with a track
builder, and they werevertically integrated, meaning
that they had their own carpetmanufacturers, they had their
own lumber yards, and they wouldproduce these things, get an
engineer stamp on it, and ofcourse they were saving bucko's
of money, but um their studs,for instance, that went in their
(13:11):
walls were finger jointed.
So they had different pieces ofwood that were ran through a
machine, finger jointed alltogether.
And you know, for a um for avertical pressure test from an
engineer, it stood up to what itwas supposed to, but you could
take your hand and uh to giveyou a visual, you could karate
chop that thing in half withminimal effort.
So uh once it was all inside thewall, that's probably never
gonna happen.
(13:31):
But the carpet, we had aterrible time with problems with
the carpet.
We were closing the houses, andcome to find out, you know, they
made their own carpet.
So if you're gonna buy atrack-built house, I would I
would ask, and they have todisclose that information, is is
hey, you know, what do you guyssupply to yourself?
You know, what what whatbusiness uh what trades or what
uh materials come from youin-house?
SPEAKER_01 (13:52):
Yeah, we've had uh people talk about, hey, I pulled
up sheathing that was just uh itwasn't treated or something that
was exposed outdoors, trimmingwith MDF outdoors.
Oh yeah, yeah, because you canpaint it and no one knows the
difference until it melts away.
Um so it also is important toknow who your contractor is and
you get you hire a GC.
(14:13):
People come into me all the timeand say, Can you recommend a
contractor?
And I always say, I can give yousome names.
Uh I don't make any money off ofit.
There's no referral to it, but Ican give you some names if
people have a good reputation.
Um then it's up to that buyer todo their homework and they need
to make sure, hey, do you havewe hear, make sure they're
licensed and insured.
(14:34):
Well, how do you find that?
Is you being a generalcontractor, if I hire you, what
can I do to to check on yourqualifications and insurance,
Donnie?
SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
Uh that's pretty easy.
Uh you would go to NCLBGC, whichis the North Carolina licensing
board for generalcontractors.org or dot gov, I
can't remember.
I want to say it's ORG, but um,you can just search the name.
It's it's very user-friendly.
So you can find out if someonehas a license or if they have an
expired license uh within aminute.
(15:04):
And then as far as the insurancepart of that, um you you can
always just ask and say, hey,can you have your insurance
folks email me a copy of yourworkers' comp and your general
liability insurance?
That's a really straightforwardquestion.
Uh be leery if they give youthat certificate themselves,
because anybody can forge acertificate.
There's crazy stuff out thereonline right now.
So the safe bet is to have youragent email that over so you're
(15:26):
not in between.
And uh that that's that's a wayto legitimize that certificate.
And a lot of times that doesn'tcome into play until you
actually choose the builder, andthen the bank will do the rest.
Assuming you're gonna have amortgage and go through a bank,
the bank will require all theright insurance forms and uh the
other administrative things thatthey need to process the loan.
So you usually don't have to askthat question if it's a
(15:48):
reputable builder.
SPEAKER_01 (15:49):
But if you're not having a build, you're just
having uh some general work doneand you want to find out the
bank's not gonna get involved,then yes, it is nclbgc.org.
Org.
And you go to that site and uhas you also said, call the
insurance company uh directly.
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
Or the polite way to ask is say have your agent email
me your certificates.
And uh that that's anybody who'slegit is not gonna mind you
saying that.
SPEAKER_01 (16:14):
Okay, when you buy an older home, uh people wonder
what's the first thing I shouldinspect or update.
Inspect, well, if you're buyinga home, you should have an
inspector go through it and theyshould be able to tell you you
know what needs attention.
But um I guess when it comes toupdating things in a house that
(16:34):
you just bought, not a new buildbut an existing, again, that's
gonna kind of fall on theinspector to say, hey, your HVAC
system is great, your waterheater's got some uh build-up
around the connection pointsthat needs to be changed, or you
need to get a new roof.
But I don't I don't know.
Is there one thing people shoulddo when they buy a house to
check themselves to look for anupdate?
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
Uh I would say it's three or four main things, and
I'll try to make this quick.
But when you approach the house,if the foundation looks lousy
from the outside, that meansthat the inside's probably not
much better.
So if their foundation looksvery, very outdated, you know,
the the mortar seems to bechipped away and and um nothing
looks level, then then that'sprobably a bad foundation for
the piers and the supports thatare that are in the crawl space.
(17:19):
Uh the second thing that willburn you and the big ticket
items are electrical, HVAC, andinsulation.
Most of these older homes arevery poorly insulated, meaning
that when you retrofit thatinsulation, it's not as
straightforward as a square footprice.
You know, there's differentthings like drill and fill, and
uh underneath the house ispretty easy, and in the attic is
pretty easy because all thatseems to be accessible.
(17:39):
But uh, you know, if the wallshave no insulation, then you're
you're looking at thousands ofdollars there to retrofit um
electrical.
If it's outdated wiring, that'ssomething that I would
definitely lean on that homeinspector to document.
And then the HVAC system, youknow, now with AI, you can go
take a picture of the tag on thecondenser unit, which is the big
thing with the fan that'soutside, and you can run that
(18:00):
tag and it'll tell you themodel, the the manufacturer, and
the date that it was installed.
So all that is uh is uh publicinformation.
So you you can find that outpretty easy.
But those are the big thingsthat are gonna burn you.
Of course, the visual test onthe roof, if it looks like it
has uh seen its best days, thengonna be, you know, those are
the things that when you getinto this project or you buy an
(18:21):
older home that you can plan onspending another$30,000 to
$50,000,$60,000 on.
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
Uh two things I'll add to that that popped in my
head while you're talking.
Number one, ask the previousowner if they by chance know who
was servicing or taking care ofthose major things.
Like, did you have an HVACcompany that was checking every
couple years?
It might be worthwhile just tostick with them if they're
familiar with it and any othermaintenance programs that might
come along with the house, evenif you have to pay for it, like
it's an annual bill.
(18:47):
If somebody's familiar with it,especially if it was the
installer of said equipment.
Um number two on the roof, thereason a new roof uh is a big
deal is because one, when youget insurance on your house,
they will ask you how old isyour roof, and then after you
tell them how old it is, theyusually have you sign an
affidavit.
So you need to tell the truth onthat, and it is a great
(19:09):
investment to get.
Go ahead and have that roof donebecause it can also lower your
uh premium, but keep you out oftrouble because if your roof is
25 years old and you said it'sfive, they're gonna know if a
tree falls through that yourroof was uh a lot older than you
said it was, and now you're inin jeopardy of getting your roof
replaced uh with insurancemoney.
(19:30):
It might have to be at yourcost.
SPEAKER_00 (19:32):
Yeah, you don't want to open that can of worms.
No.
SPEAKER_01 (19:34):
Uh speaking of roofs, we get a lot of people
walk in asking about metalroofing material, and uh some of
them are very familiar with it,they like it, they might be
doing a repair uh or they'rejust adding something, a shed.
But some people just straight upare like, um, hey, I I I seen
this on TV, the stuff metalroofs.
Uh, is it only for places at thecoast and hurricanes and or can
(19:56):
I just use it residentially?
And I know you deal with it alot too.
What's your take on metal roofs?
SPEAKER_00 (20:02):
Uh well, before I get into the metal roofs, I'll
get into the numbers.
And metal has gone up by about50% since the pandemic.
So, what I can buy the metal fornow, I used to be able to do
labor and materials for.
So it's expensive.
And so if you're budgetconscious, then I would probably
just lean towards shingles fromthe get-go because you don't
want to disappoint yourself.
Um, that being said, the twomain types that we deal with uh
(20:23):
in a residential world are uhI'm gonna use a slang here is
screw down and standing seam.
Uh screw down is exposedfastener, meaning the screws are
all on the outside, and standingseam is concealed fastener,
meaning that the roof'sinstalled with clips, the clips
are under the panel, so uhnothing that that uh would be a
screw would be uh exposed to thelight of day.
(20:44):
The standing seam is about fourtimes more than the screwdown,
and the standing seam has eithera kinar or a valspar finish, and
usually from the manufacturerthey have a 40-year paint
warranty on that, and everybodyhas 50 in their mind when they
approach us about it, but it'sreally a 40-year warranty.
Uh, it can last forever if youmaintain it.
So I will give it thatendorsement, but it is quite a
(21:06):
bit more.
The screwdown has a siliconizedpolyester paint system on it,
and that is only a 10-year paintwarranty.
So uh big, big differencebetween 10 and 40.
And and I'll say this, it's it'sguaranteed to fade.
If you get red, it's gonna lookpink in 10, 20 years.
If you get black, it's gonnalook gray in 10, 20 years.
And um, and people say, Well, Ijust want a metal roof, and I'm
(21:29):
like, well, let me explain theend game here.
So um I I'm I I am a fan.
I think that it's it'sbeautiful, but from a pricing
standpoint, I usually recommendthat people go with shingles.
Our shingle roofs are you know50 years non-prorated warranty,
they're transferable, unlimitedwin rating, 25 year algae
deterrent guarantee now.
So shingles have come so farjust in the last 10 to 15 years
(21:50):
that they're hard to beat interms of bang for the buck.
But the happy medium for mosthomeowners that I work with is
that we'll do metal accentsalong with a shingle roof on the
main body of the roof, and thatmeans, you know, water tables,
returns, porches, things thatare just short metal panels, but
you still get the look of themetal, so you'll have the same
(22:11):
color between the metal and theshingles, but just two different
textures.
Very good.
SPEAKER_01 (22:15):
And I get people coming in uh doing that, but um,
they're not shocked necessarilyat the price, but I think the
install is what throws them off.
It's not done the same way, andthere's some planning you have
to do to put a metal roof on ahouse.
So if you don't have experienceor you hire someone like Donnie
to do it, it is more expensive.
But I agree with you, it looksbeautiful, especially for the
(22:37):
first five to ten years.
SPEAKER_00 (22:38):
Big pointer here on metal roofs, if you hire
somebody to do that, the main,main thing, and we work for all
the contractors around town uhas a subcontractor for this, and
the main thing I tell them isthat when you install the
underlayment, do not install theunderlayment with button caps.
That's the little plastic caps,either have a nail or a staple
because those will show through.
When you put that metal down andstep back across that metal, it
(22:59):
will leave an imprint from thatplastic button cap.
So you either have to installthe underlayment with hand drive
roofing tacks that have a flathead or just plain staples.
And that's not as watertight asa button cap, but the end game
is is very well worth it not touse those.
SPEAKER_01 (23:13):
Never even crossed my mind.
And we sell button caps anywherefrom uh the little box of a
couple hundred to threethousand.
And yeah, I never thought aboutthat.
Excellent, uh, excellent adviceright there.
Hey, uh people come in, ask me,hey, I I want to replace a
window, maybe two, sometimesmaybe three.
The thing that can be shockingis if you want to replace all
(23:34):
the windows in your house andupgrade them, walk through your
house, even if it's mentallyright now, and go, well, how
many do I have?
And all of a sudden you find outyou're in the 20s without even
trying, get all your windows atonce or a few at a time.
And I'm going on the basis thatnothing is inherently wrong with
any single window, not like abroken one.
They're all basically good, butyou can't afford to drop 25,000.
(23:58):
So I just want to do my lowerlevel of my house.
Would you promote that or not?
SPEAKER_00 (24:02):
Uh, first thing to do is explore your options.
Don't spend any money until yousee what you can do versus a
window replacement.
You know, they make sashreplacements.
If you pull your double hungwindow in and look on the side
of it, usually there's amanufacturer tag that's going to
tell you exactly what size andwho made it.
And um, that's pretty easy fixif you just have a broken sash.
You can swap that out, and a lotof those are under warranty if
(24:24):
your home is newer.
Um, the second thing is um youyou can have it reglaze, meaning
you can call a glass company,any glass company, they're all
pretty uh well-versed on how todo this.
So you can call them out, andit's a fraction of a replacement
window just to have a couple ofglass panes uh uh replaced
there, and they can pop thoseout, put a new one in, and
you'll never know what happened.
They in some of our renovationsand flip houses, we'll get a
(24:47):
broken window once in a while,and that's definitely a much
cheaper option than a wholereplacement window.
I know we've talked about thisbefore, and you guys probably
offer these, but sashreplacement kits.
So if you have a brick on theoutside of your house and you
just can't get that window out,you know, a sash replacement kit
is incredibly efficient.
They work very well, they're afraction of the cost, and from
an install standpoint, they takehalf the time.
SPEAKER_01 (25:08):
We definitely get a lot of calls.
People break uh upper or lowersash and they ask us, can I do I
have to replace the wholewindow?
And we order them replacementsash.
Warranties vary, but a lot ofthem are transferable too.
So if somebody buys a house twoyears later, moves out, and then
you notice a seal goes, ifthat's a warranty repair or you
notice a defect.
Sometimes it is just one of thesashes and you can uh have it
(25:30):
taken care of.
And a lot of sashes you can putin yourself.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, why totally?
Yeah, so uh do that.
Now, we were talking about whenyou have your house inspected,
things to look out for, maybeupdate or replace an HVAC.
Uh, one question we get a lot iswhat is the most energy
efficient HVAC system for homes,especially in the Carolinas?
Uh uh the heat pump's a bigthing, but I also hear people
(25:54):
talk about the uh mini splits.
SPEAKER_00 (25:56):
Yeah.
Um, gosh, I'll start with theheat pumps.
The most efficient heat pump youcan get has a SEER rating of a
21.
And SEER is S-E-E-R.
It means seasonal energyefficient rating.
And um, I don't know how theycome up with that number.
I could probably figure it out,but I'll leave that up to the
experts.
And I do know that theyoverhauled the um the the way
(26:17):
that they they came up with theSEER count about two years ago.
So now the minimum SEER is a 14,and uh I was advised that what
is a 14 sear now used to be a 15sear, so that's they've they've
tightened up on the regulationsthat dictate that number.
Um I will say this.
Do I think a R, I mean I'msorry, do I think a 21 sear unit
is worth the number?
(26:38):
Because the price goes up bythousands.
This isn't hundreds of dollarsfor an upgrade, it's thousands
of dollars.
And uh, does it work like it'ssupposed to, and is the payback
there?
I think that's a hard no.
If you have a very wellinsulated house, that's the key
to all your heating and air.
And so you build a new home, youknow, pay the extra for spray
foam, uh, pay the extra forflashing bat.
You want to use the lowexpansion spray foam around your
(27:00):
doors and windows and justanything you can to keep the
heat transfer down.
And a 14 sear works just fine.
We may bump up to a 15 sear, andthat is, you know, hundreds
instead of thousands to go upone point.
But um I definitely think thatif you had a$250 utility bill
going all the way up from a 14to a 21 sear is not going to
drop your utility bill by$100 amonth.
(27:22):
It's gonna be more like$20,$30,$40, maybe, maybe if that.
And um, and and when you projectthat out over the long haul of
the lifespan of that heating andair unit, the payback just ain't
there, man.
What about on mini splits?
What would be some applicationsyou could use that for?
So a mini split, uh, the easiestdefinition of that is it looks
like a little hotel heating andair unit, but uh it's it's
(27:43):
smaller than the ones in thehotel rooms.
But mini splits don't turncorners.
So it's basically it's called aductless mini split.
There's no ductwork coming offof that.
And if you have a uh bonus roomor a garage that you want to
condition, they're wonderful,wonderful for that.
They don't look the greatest,but they definitely work like
they're supposed to.
There's no ductwork for you tolose any of the heating and
(28:03):
cooling, so they're incrediblyefficient as well.
And I want to say average costof those is anywhere from five
to six thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_01 (28:11):
And the number one thing people need to know if
they have like a work shed andthey said, Well, I'm gonna put
one of those in my work shed,it's not gonna work well unless
you have what?
Insulation, my friend.
Insulation.
So if you've got like a littleshop out back and you're you're
thinking, I might put a sear inthere, I mean a split in there,
because that I could work outthere in the winter and and have
AC out there in the summer.
(28:31):
If your insulation isn't inthere, it's you're wasting your
time and you're wasting yourmoney.
So get the insulation first.
Matter of fact, if you have goodinsulation, uh a freaking
electric heater sitting on afloor in one of those small like
Leonard sheds will do just fine.
Agreed.
Yeah.
Uh once again, me and Donniehave all these questions that
come in and we order them up andwe get ready to go through them,
(28:52):
and then all of a sudden timeruns out.
So we only got through abouthalf of these.
But this isn't really a questionshow.
We're just kind of shooting thebull.
So next week we'll kind of dosome of the same thing.
We've got uh more subjects talkabout.
Uh, one of them I really want toget to is uh a lot of people,
especially in the fall and inthe spring, want to know what
they can do to clean their ductwork.
So that's gonna be thecliffhanger.
(29:13):
Um, and I know you know a lotabout that, or know people who
know a lot about that, Donnie.
Yes, sir.
That's a good one.
We'll get to it next week.
That that's a cliffhanger.
That's who shot JR.
We're gonna be talking aboutducks instead of bullets and how
to keep them clean.
Again, website theCarolinacontractor.com, is where
you can find more details aboutthe show.
Find us on YouTube.
We upload videos on there, showsup there, and podcasts that you
(29:34):
can download from the website.
Also, we just want to thankeverybody for tuning in and and
and being interactive with uswith these questions and stuff
that me and Donnie see on thethe job site, as said beginning
the show.
From the job site to the studiomic, we're just uh shooting the
bull about construction andbuilding and uh trying to give
you some tips on maintainingyour dwelling.
And so we invite you to comeback next week to a new episode
(29:57):
of the Carolina Contractor Show.
Thanks for the support.
Everybody, love y'all.
And welcome to another edition of the Carolina
Contractor Show.
My name's Eric Smith.
Across from me, Joe Burrow.
Nah, it's it's Donnie Blanchard,general contractor, uh, but he's
kind of imitating uh uh Mr.
Burrow with with an injury.
But unlike him and his turf toe,you ain't stopping working, are
you?
I don't have a choice, man.
SPEAKER_00 (00:20):
I got cars, colleges, and weddings to pay
for, so I'm still under contractfor a lot of years.
So no, sir.
I uh braced it up, but yeah,that's the best I can do.
SPEAKER_01 (00:28):
Tell them succinctly what happened and and how you
found out it was broken, becausethis is how guys do it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
I didn't really know that it happened, but I just
stepped off the side of asidewalk and, you know, back in
my younger days, would have justconsidered that a sprain.
So I walked on it for a week andwoke up last weekend and it was
black and blue from my toe tohalfway up my shin, and I
thought maybe I should get thischecked out.
And of course, X-ray said it wasin fact a break.
Um, so yeah, I walked on abroken ankle for a week, and um
(00:54):
they put me in a walking boot.
That wasn't fun at all.
And gosh, I'm saying this on theradio, that's not good.
But I came out of the walkingboot about a week too early, and
I just got the highest anklework boots I could I could find,
and I laced them up as tight asI could stand, and I've been
rolling with it, man.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09):
I'm not gonna use his name, but it we had a
contractor walk in one time andhe he was limping pretty hard,
and uh he had self-wrapped withduct tape, and we said, dude,
what happened?
He says, I I fell off the roof.
And I'm like, maybe you shouldgo see somebody.
He says, Nah, I've I've takencare of myself, ordered material
and walked back out the store.
And I'm like, Yeah, I'd like tosay that that's dumb, but I'd
(01:31):
probably, you know, try to walkeverything off regardless of
age.
SPEAKER_00 (01:34):
My sweetheart told me how tough I was.
She said, Oh my gosh, you youmust be the toughest man ever,
but you better go see a doctor.
So I knew I was gonna be introuble with her, and I just I
just did it, made it official,and it was good to know, I
guess, in the big picture.
So, but uh the good news is it'sdoing a lot better.
And I drove a bobcat yesterday,and I have the the foot controls
on my bobcat.
So all that went really smooth,kind of like still got it status
(01:56):
there.
And um, after that I knew I wasover the worst part.
SPEAKER_01 (01:59):
Hey, uh, if you're uh not familiar with our show,
the Carolina Contractor Show,great place to start is
theCarolinacontractor.com.
That's our website.
We got a bunch of information onthere.
We're also up on YouTube so youcan see past shows, and we've
got some uh shorter episodes upthere, questions, and and we'll
get into that in a little bit.
Uh also check us out on IG.
We were on several radiostations across the Carolinas
(02:20):
and of course podcasts.
So if you go to that samewebsite, you can look at the
literally hundreds of showswe've done.
They're labeled by subject, andyou can download it that way.
Or if you just want to see whatwas the most recent shows we've
done and listen to those andcheck us out.
Again, you can find it all atthe Carolinacontractor.com.
And another thing we have,grief, Donnie, I forgot about
this because this pertains totoday's episode, and that is
(02:43):
going to be having a question,whether it's about the show,
about your house, aboutsomething we talk about.
There's an ask the contractorbutton.
How long have you been a GC,Donnie?
I got my license in 2008.
17 years at GC.
So when you send a questionthrough the Carolina contractor
show, it goes to Donnie and hegives you some answers, emails
you back.
We talk about them sometimes,and we're gonna talk a little
(03:05):
bit about uh questions thatpeople ask us, not necessarily
only from the website today, butsome that we hear when we're on
the uh uh job site.
As we like to say, the show isfrom the job site to the studio
mic.
We're just talking about what wedo for a living.
I sell building materials,Donnie uses them to build things
with.
And speaking of which, Donnie,you sent me some pictures.
(03:27):
We got to get this up on the IG.
It sounds like it's beer, butI'm a big fan of natural light
coming into a house.
I actually prefer it over uhstandard lighting if I can.
And then you showed me a housethat you did work on that was
absolutely amazing how youimproved it.
SPEAKER_00 (03:44):
Well, yeah, yeah, I don't want to pat myself on the
back, but I went pretty bold onthis one, and and basically
every suggestion that I hadended up working out really
well.
And uh, met this really nicecouple, and they had a beautiful
home uh that bordered ChapelHill, kind of on the
Hillsborough side.
So I go to the house and I couldtell it was fairly new, and I
couldn't imagine what they wouldwant to change about it.
So uh that being said, I walkedthrough the house and they
(04:07):
expressed their problem with nonatural light in the kitchen and
living room area, and they havea combo great room that we talk
about all the time where theyboth feed into one another.
So they have a 10-foot ceiling,but they had standard doors at
six foot eight.
So uh a lot of people refer tothat seven-foot doors.
But uh the next option up, andwhat's commonly seen with a
10-foot ceiling, is aneight-foot door.
So eight-foot doors aren'treadily available at your at
(04:28):
your big box stores or anything,but um, folks like you and I, or
I know you guys can specialorder those and we can get those
uh on demand.
My suggestion was that we changeout the walk door to the screen
porch to an eight-foot door,full glass, and then to the left
of that, we did a series ofwindows.
So we did a quad uh ofdouble-hung windows that matched
all their existing windows, butit's 10 foot wide by six foot
(04:50):
tall.
And the reason I only went sixfoot tall is because you know,
if you go any closer to thefloor, you have to have tempered
glass, and I didn't want them toget into that expense.
So I went just low enough whereno tempered glass was needed,
and then moved to the right,which was basically the kitchen
dining area combo.
We put an eight foot tall bytwelve foot wide slider, so it's
a sliding door.
(05:12):
And being that it was you know12 foot wide, there was four
three-foot panels, and thecenter, the two center panels
are the operable ones that youknow slide out to the flankers.
And uh, one of the questionsthat the homeowner asked me,
which that I give them all thecredit for this, but do they
have screens?
So I made sure that they did,and of course, the screens uh
close you can open the twomiddle doors wide open, and
(05:34):
you've got a six-foot openingthat you can close the screens
on.
So really neat for uh airflow,basically creates a little wind
tunnel if you open up thewindows on the other side of the
house.
And then the original goal wasto get more natural light in,
and man, it really did that.
I mean, there's barely any woodwall that you see.
Uh side note there, if anybodywants to tackle something like
this, the first step is tocontact a structural engineer.
(05:56):
So I had somebody come out andexplain, you know, the spans and
my intentions with the uhmaterials that I just mentioned,
and he spec'd out uh a plan withLVLs that would span both uh
distances, and man, it it allworked out like a dream.
But when we got those big doorsand windows on site, I started
pulling tape immediately.
I was kind of in freakout modebecause it didn't look like it
(06:18):
was gonna work.
And and I'll say this, it itcame down to the inch in a
couple of those uh scenarios.
So we really did our thing, andyou know, experience matters,
but uh I'll I'll be fullytransparent.
There was some guessworkinvolved there.
What were your uh LVL widths?
The wider width was a 11 and 7eighths, and then the uh I'm
sorry, that was the shorter uhspan, but the wider span that
(06:40):
had the 10-foot quad window plusthe walk door uh ended up being
a 14-inch LVL.
So uh with a 10-foot ceiling,they both made that no problem.
SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
People might now listen to the show, look at
their house and go, man, I'dlove to put a couple more
windows or replace these singleswith doubles.
unknown (06:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:56):
You need to have an engineer because there's more
going on on your house than youyou might realize.
But if it works, or as you said,put in some LVLs and work the
spans and everything, you canreally add a lot of windows to a
wall or to a section.
And good work.
I think it was beautiful.
It made me excited.
SPEAKER_00 (07:13):
Oh, I appreciate it.
I was super proud of it, and Ithink the biggest thing that
that mattered the most is thatthe the homeowners were just
wonderful people.
And when you go in and you kicksome rear end for somebody and
do a great job, and they nevercease to tell you how pleased
they are.
That's a that's a that's part ofthe relationship.
We have a group text going, andyou know, every step of the way
they have uh have not ceased totell me how pleased they are
(07:33):
with it with every little thing,and and from my end, that feels
good, man.
SPEAKER_01 (07:37):
It's uh something we'll look forward to.
Some pictures popping up on thesocial media.
Another thing I want to hit realquick before we jump into the
meat of the show was uh youpointed out there's a rumor of
Trump declaring a housingemergency.
We know getting housing,affordable housing, is very
difficult.
And there's talk about ithappening this fall, and I want
to touch on that real quick.
Um, people say, what can thepresident do?
(07:59):
And technically, he can declarea national housing emergency for
almost any reason he sees fit.
It's uh under a 1976 NationalEmergencies Act.
And the act doesn't necessarilysay for certain what constitutes
an emergency, but it does allowhim to bypass Congress and take
some various actions.
And he's done this with umdeclaring emergencies on
(08:21):
immigration and crime andforeign trade.
So he kind of just might go outthere and say, we have a housing
emergency.
Now I want to do this, this,this, and this to alleviate it.
I think he's being genuine.
He wants to make an effort tosomehow help the housing
problem.
SPEAKER_00 (08:38):
Yeah, and after we did the show on the Big
Beautiful bill, I'd have toadmit I was sort of disappointed
because my personal situation isthat I've got two young folks
that are very close to me andthe family that I'm gonna be
building a house for to makethem first-time homeowners and
there was no incentives in theBig Beautiful bill.
But I'm I'm hoping that theywere thinking forward and knew
that this would be an option ifthe interest rates didn't, in
(08:59):
fact, drop like they predicted.
So uh really, really pleased tohear that with the uh housing
emergency because we need somerelief.
We need we need the price ofthese houses to come down.
You know, the affordability isis a real thing.
And what 22-year-old, uh, even24, 25-year-old, would you
recommend go get a half milliondollar home loan and be house
poor for the next two decades oftheir life until they figure it
(09:21):
out?
I think it impacts their abilityto have children and just be
happy.
You know, who wants to be indebt like that?
And and um I'm hoping that thatthis is isn't just a maybe.
I hope this is something thatthey follow up on and make it
happen.
SPEAKER_01 (09:33):
And there'll be another protest march about it.
I mean, can you just imaginepeople in the streets, no cheap
housing, no affordable housing,this president's horrible.
I mean, all the things thatthey've been wanting are now
coming, but because yeah, he'sdoing it, they're gonna protest
against it in some way.
We thought it was a joke, butlet's be honest.
If he found the cure for cancer,there'll be people that would
(09:55):
reject it just because of themessenger.
Yeah, maybe TDS is a real thing,E.
So we're gonna do some questionstoday.
I'm gonna kind of pick yourbrain.
Some of them are from peoplethat walk into my store and ask
me about something, materials ora way to do something.
And I kind of just rolled themaround my head.
Well, maybe I'll ask thesequestions on the show so
(10:15):
thousands of people can hearthem all at once.
So this will require you tothink on your feet some.
Are you ready?
I think so.
All right.
Uh, one thing I get is peopleasking me what's the difference
between builder grade and customgrade materials, and when is it
worth to upgrade to those?
Builder grade doesn't mean cheapmaterial, it means maybe generic
(10:36):
material.
It builds the house, theframing, the uh sheathing, the
the roofing, those things.
Uh custom is, you know, you havegnomes in Norway that are
hand-carving rails and you wantto pay extra for them.
I tend to deal more with thebuilder grade material because
we're dealing with buildersmore.
(10:57):
You do some custom work, so youprobably I guess deal more with
those custom grade materials.
SPEAKER_00 (11:04):
Yeah, I think there's a sweet side sweet spot
between both.
Of course, you don't want tospend that you know, the
hand-carved gnome, whatever youjust said, you don't want to
spend money on that kind oftrim.
Um keep lure out.
Yeah, there you go.
But um, I think a a better termwould be track builder grade.
And you know, the track buildersobviously have to buy from
someone who can accommodate uhthe the volume that they crank
(11:26):
out.
So uh they're gonna be buyingfrom different supply houses
than maybe I would.
And the right questions to askfrom a homeowner standpoint is
you know, what grade of lumberdo you use in your floor system?
And uh, for instance, the peopleI buy from only have number one
grade two by tens for the floor,and for the framer for the the
end result for the homeowner,that just seems to be a better
(11:47):
approach, and they do cost more,but if there's certain things
you don't want to skimp on, it'syour floor system.
So uh I would say that from ashingle standpoint, you know,
there's certain suppliers thatcarry certain manufacturers, and
that's just about who made acontract with who.
And um, you know, in our world,GAF and Certain Teet are the
Coke and the Pepsi of of theroofing industry.
(12:07):
So they both have their kings onthe warranty, they they have
better uh algae deterrentwarranties, they just have
better wind ratings, you know,all the way around, they're
superior to the competition.
So that's probably a homeownerhomework assignment to know the
right questions to ask.
But yeah, I I don't think thatthat you're gonna go inferior.
I I won't call them out by name,but there's a couple of local
(12:28):
suppliers, and you know, if Ihave my way about it, if I need
a few two by eights, I know thatI've got to go through there and
I've got to cull through thematerials and I have to pick out
the straight ones, and youreally got to take a look.
But that's why I'd rather pay alittle bit extra, get number one
grade material, especially for afloor system, and just call it a
day.
And uh one thing that I pickedup on, I was a 21-year-old when
I did my internship, so I reallydidn't know much about anything
(12:49):
at that point.
I was book smart withconstruction.
I knew foundations throughworking for my dad, but that's
what my beginning was um thisthis internship with a track
builder, and they werevertically integrated, meaning
that they had their own carpetmanufacturers, they had their
own lumber yards, and they wouldproduce these things, get an
engineer stamp on it, and ofcourse they were saving bucko's
of money, but um their studs,for instance, that went in their
(13:11):
walls were finger jointed.
So they had different pieces ofwood that were ran through a
machine, finger jointed alltogether.
And you know, for a um for avertical pressure test from an
engineer, it stood up to what itwas supposed to, but you could
take your hand and uh to giveyou a visual, you could karate
chop that thing in half withminimal effort.
So uh once it was all inside thewall, that's probably never
gonna happen.
(13:31):
But the carpet, we had aterrible time with problems with
the carpet.
We were closing the houses, andcome to find out, you know, they
made their own carpet.
So if you're gonna buy atrack-built house, I would I
would ask, and they have todisclose that information, is is
hey, you know, what do you guyssupply to yourself?
You know, what what whatbusiness uh what trades or what
uh materials come from youin-house?
SPEAKER_01 (13:52):
Yeah, we've had uh people talk about, hey, I pulled
up sheathing that was just uh itwasn't treated or something that
was exposed outdoors, trimmingwith MDF outdoors.
Oh yeah, yeah, because you canpaint it and no one knows the
difference until it melts away.
Um so it also is important toknow who your contractor is and
you get you hire a GC.
(14:13):
People come into me all the timeand say, Can you recommend a
contractor?
And I always say, I can give yousome names.
Uh I don't make any money off ofit.
There's no referral to it, but Ican give you some names if
people have a good reputation.
Um then it's up to that buyer todo their homework and they need
to make sure, hey, do you havewe hear, make sure they're
licensed and insured.
(14:34):
Well, how do you find that?
Is you being a generalcontractor, if I hire you, what
can I do to to check on yourqualifications and insurance,
Donnie?
SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
Uh that's pretty easy.
Uh you would go to NCLBGC, whichis the North Carolina licensing
board for generalcontractors.org or dot gov, I
can't remember.
I want to say it's ORG, but um,you can just search the name.
It's it's very user-friendly.
So you can find out if someonehas a license or if they have an
expired license uh within aminute.
(15:04):
And then as far as the insurancepart of that, um you you can
always just ask and say, hey,can you have your insurance
folks email me a copy of yourworkers' comp and your general
liability insurance?
That's a really straightforwardquestion.
Uh be leery if they give youthat certificate themselves,
because anybody can forge acertificate.
There's crazy stuff out thereonline right now.
So the safe bet is to have youragent email that over so you're
(15:26):
not in between.
And uh that that's that's a wayto legitimize that certificate.
And a lot of times that doesn'tcome into play until you
actually choose the builder, andthen the bank will do the rest.
Assuming you're gonna have amortgage and go through a bank,
the bank will require all theright insurance forms and uh the
other administrative things thatthey need to process the loan.
So you usually don't have to askthat question if it's a
(15:48):
reputable builder.
SPEAKER_01 (15:49):
But if you're not having a build, you're just
having uh some general work doneand you want to find out the
bank's not gonna get involved,then yes, it is nclbgc.org.
Org.
And you go to that site and uhas you also said, call the
insurance company uh directly.
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
Or the polite way to ask is say have your agent email
me your certificates.
And uh that that's anybody who'slegit is not gonna mind you
saying that.
SPEAKER_01 (16:14):
Okay, when you buy an older home, uh people wonder
what's the first thing I shouldinspect or update.
Inspect, well, if you're buyinga home, you should have an
inspector go through it and theyshould be able to tell you you
know what needs attention.
But um I guess when it comes toupdating things in a house that
(16:34):
you just bought, not a new buildbut an existing, again, that's
gonna kind of fall on theinspector to say, hey, your HVAC
system is great, your waterheater's got some uh build-up
around the connection pointsthat needs to be changed, or you
need to get a new roof.
But I don't I don't know.
Is there one thing people shoulddo when they buy a house to
check themselves to look for anupdate?
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
Uh I would say it's three or four main things, and
I'll try to make this quick.
But when you approach the house,if the foundation looks lousy
from the outside, that meansthat the inside's probably not
much better.
So if their foundation looksvery, very outdated, you know,
the the mortar seems to bechipped away and and um nothing
looks level, then then that'sprobably a bad foundation for
the piers and the supports thatare that are in the crawl space.
(17:19):
Uh the second thing that willburn you and the big ticket
items are electrical, HVAC, andinsulation.
Most of these older homes arevery poorly insulated, meaning
that when you retrofit thatinsulation, it's not as
straightforward as a square footprice.
You know, there's differentthings like drill and fill, and
uh underneath the house ispretty easy, and in the attic is
pretty easy because all thatseems to be accessible.
(17:39):
But uh, you know, if the wallshave no insulation, then you're
you're looking at thousands ofdollars there to retrofit um
electrical.
If it's outdated wiring, that'ssomething that I would
definitely lean on that homeinspector to document.
And then the HVAC system, youknow, now with AI, you can go
take a picture of the tag on thecondenser unit, which is the big
thing with the fan that'soutside, and you can run that
(18:00):
tag and it'll tell you themodel, the the manufacturer, and
the date that it was installed.
So all that is uh is uh publicinformation.
So you you can find that outpretty easy.
But those are the big thingsthat are gonna burn you.
Of course, the visual test onthe roof, if it looks like it
has uh seen its best days, thengonna be, you know, those are
the things that when you getinto this project or you buy an
(18:21):
older home that you can plan onspending another$30,000 to
$50,000,$60,000 on.
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
Uh two things I'll add to that that popped in my
head while you're talking.
Number one, ask the previousowner if they by chance know who
was servicing or taking care ofthose major things.
Like, did you have an HVACcompany that was checking every
couple years?
It might be worthwhile just tostick with them if they're
familiar with it and any othermaintenance programs that might
come along with the house, evenif you have to pay for it, like
it's an annual bill.
(18:47):
If somebody's familiar with it,especially if it was the
installer of said equipment.
Um number two on the roof, thereason a new roof uh is a big
deal is because one, when youget insurance on your house,
they will ask you how old isyour roof, and then after you
tell them how old it is, theyusually have you sign an
affidavit.
So you need to tell the truth onthat, and it is a great
(19:09):
investment to get.
Go ahead and have that roof donebecause it can also lower your
uh premium, but keep you out oftrouble because if your roof is
25 years old and you said it'sfive, they're gonna know if a
tree falls through that yourroof was uh a lot older than you
said it was, and now you're inin jeopardy of getting your roof
replaced uh with insurancemoney.
(19:30):
It might have to be at yourcost.
SPEAKER_00 (19:32):
Yeah, you don't want to open that can of worms.
No.
SPEAKER_01 (19:34):
Uh speaking of roofs, we get a lot of people
walk in asking about metalroofing material, and uh some of
them are very familiar with it,they like it, they might be
doing a repair uh or they'rejust adding something, a shed.
But some people just straight upare like, um, hey, I I I seen
this on TV, the stuff metalroofs.
Uh, is it only for places at thecoast and hurricanes and or can
(19:56):
I just use it residentially?
And I know you deal with it alot too.
What's your take on metal roofs?
SPEAKER_00 (20:02):
Uh well, before I get into the metal roofs, I'll
get into the numbers.
And metal has gone up by about50% since the pandemic.
So, what I can buy the metal fornow, I used to be able to do
labor and materials for.
So it's expensive.
And so if you're budgetconscious, then I would probably
just lean towards shingles fromthe get-go because you don't
want to disappoint yourself.
Um, that being said, the twomain types that we deal with uh
(20:23):
in a residential world are uhI'm gonna use a slang here is
screw down and standing seam.
Uh screw down is exposedfastener, meaning the screws are
all on the outside, and standingseam is concealed fastener,
meaning that the roof'sinstalled with clips, the clips
are under the panel, so uhnothing that that uh would be a
screw would be uh exposed to thelight of day.
(20:44):
The standing seam is about fourtimes more than the screwdown,
and the standing seam has eithera kinar or a valspar finish, and
usually from the manufacturerthey have a 40-year paint
warranty on that, and everybodyhas 50 in their mind when they
approach us about it, but it'sreally a 40-year warranty.
Uh, it can last forever if youmaintain it.
So I will give it thatendorsement, but it is quite a
(21:06):
bit more.
The screwdown has a siliconizedpolyester paint system on it,
and that is only a 10-year paintwarranty.
So uh big, big differencebetween 10 and 40.
And and I'll say this, it's it'sguaranteed to fade.
If you get red, it's gonna lookpink in 10, 20 years.
If you get black, it's gonnalook gray in 10, 20 years.
And um, and people say, Well, Ijust want a metal roof, and I'm
(21:29):
like, well, let me explain theend game here.
So um I I'm I I am a fan.
I think that it's it'sbeautiful, but from a pricing
standpoint, I usually recommendthat people go with shingles.
Our shingle roofs are you know50 years non-prorated warranty,
they're transferable, unlimitedwin rating, 25 year algae
deterrent guarantee now.
So shingles have come so farjust in the last 10 to 15 years
(21:50):
that they're hard to beat interms of bang for the buck.
But the happy medium for mosthomeowners that I work with is
that we'll do metal accentsalong with a shingle roof on the
main body of the roof, and thatmeans, you know, water tables,
returns, porches, things thatare just short metal panels, but
you still get the look of themetal, so you'll have the same
(22:11):
color between the metal and theshingles, but just two different
textures.
Very good.
SPEAKER_01 (22:15):
And I get people coming in uh doing that, but um,
they're not shocked necessarilyat the price, but I think the
install is what throws them off.
It's not done the same way, andthere's some planning you have
to do to put a metal roof on ahouse.
So if you don't have experienceor you hire someone like Donnie
to do it, it is more expensive.
But I agree with you, it looksbeautiful, especially for the
(22:37):
first five to ten years.
SPEAKER_00 (22:38):
Big pointer here on metal roofs, if you hire
somebody to do that, the main,main thing, and we work for all
the contractors around town uhas a subcontractor for this, and
the main thing I tell them isthat when you install the
underlayment, do not install theunderlayment with button caps.
That's the little plastic caps,either have a nail or a staple
because those will show through.
When you put that metal down andstep back across that metal, it
(22:59):
will leave an imprint from thatplastic button cap.
So you either have to installthe underlayment with hand drive
roofing tacks that have a flathead or just plain staples.
And that's not as watertight asa button cap, but the end game
is is very well worth it not touse those.
SPEAKER_01 (23:13):
Never even crossed my mind.
And we sell button caps anywherefrom uh the little box of a
couple hundred to threethousand.
And yeah, I never thought aboutthat.
Excellent, uh, excellent adviceright there.
Hey, uh people come in, ask me,hey, I I want to replace a
window, maybe two, sometimesmaybe three.
The thing that can be shockingis if you want to replace all
(23:34):
the windows in your house andupgrade them, walk through your
house, even if it's mentallyright now, and go, well, how
many do I have?
And all of a sudden you find outyou're in the 20s without even
trying, get all your windows atonce or a few at a time.
And I'm going on the basis thatnothing is inherently wrong with
any single window, not like abroken one.
They're all basically good, butyou can't afford to drop 25,000.
(23:58):
So I just want to do my lowerlevel of my house.
Would you promote that or not?
SPEAKER_00 (24:02):
Uh, first thing to do is explore your options.
Don't spend any money until yousee what you can do versus a
window replacement.
You know, they make sashreplacements.
If you pull your double hungwindow in and look on the side
of it, usually there's amanufacturer tag that's going to
tell you exactly what size andwho made it.
And um, that's pretty easy fixif you just have a broken sash.
You can swap that out, and a lotof those are under warranty if
(24:24):
your home is newer.
Um, the second thing is um youyou can have it reglaze, meaning
you can call a glass company,any glass company, they're all
pretty uh well-versed on how todo this.
So you can call them out, andit's a fraction of a replacement
window just to have a couple ofglass panes uh uh replaced
there, and they can pop thoseout, put a new one in, and
you'll never know what happened.
They in some of our renovationsand flip houses, we'll get a
(24:47):
broken window once in a while,and that's definitely a much
cheaper option than a wholereplacement window.
I know we've talked about thisbefore, and you guys probably
offer these, but sashreplacement kits.
So if you have a brick on theoutside of your house and you
just can't get that window out,you know, a sash replacement kit
is incredibly efficient.
They work very well, they're afraction of the cost, and from
an install standpoint, they takehalf the time.
SPEAKER_01 (25:08):
We definitely get a lot of calls.
People break uh upper or lowersash and they ask us, can I do I
have to replace the wholewindow?
And we order them replacementsash.
Warranties vary, but a lot ofthem are transferable too.
So if somebody buys a house twoyears later, moves out, and then
you notice a seal goes, ifthat's a warranty repair or you
notice a defect.
Sometimes it is just one of thesashes and you can uh have it
(25:30):
taken care of.
And a lot of sashes you can putin yourself.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, why totally?
Yeah, so uh do that.
Now, we were talking about whenyou have your house inspected,
things to look out for, maybeupdate or replace an HVAC.
Uh, one question we get a lot iswhat is the most energy
efficient HVAC system for homes,especially in the Carolinas?
Uh uh the heat pump's a bigthing, but I also hear people
(25:54):
talk about the uh mini splits.
SPEAKER_00 (25:56):
Yeah.
Um, gosh, I'll start with theheat pumps.
The most efficient heat pump youcan get has a SEER rating of a
21.
And SEER is S-E-E-R.
It means seasonal energyefficient rating.
And um, I don't know how theycome up with that number.
I could probably figure it out,but I'll leave that up to the
experts.
And I do know that theyoverhauled the um the the way
(26:17):
that they they came up with theSEER count about two years ago.
So now the minimum SEER is a 14,and uh I was advised that what
is a 14 sear now used to be a 15sear, so that's they've they've
tightened up on the regulationsthat dictate that number.
Um I will say this.
Do I think a R, I mean I'msorry, do I think a 21 sear unit
is worth the number?
(26:38):
Because the price goes up bythousands.
This isn't hundreds of dollarsfor an upgrade, it's thousands
of dollars.
And uh, does it work like it'ssupposed to, and is the payback
there?
I think that's a hard no.
If you have a very wellinsulated house, that's the key
to all your heating and air.
And so you build a new home, youknow, pay the extra for spray
foam, uh, pay the extra forflashing bat.
You want to use the lowexpansion spray foam around your
(27:00):
doors and windows and justanything you can to keep the
heat transfer down.
And a 14 sear works just fine.
We may bump up to a 15 sear, andthat is, you know, hundreds
instead of thousands to go upone point.
But um I definitely think thatif you had a$250 utility bill
going all the way up from a 14to a 21 sear is not going to
drop your utility bill by$100 amonth.
(27:22):
It's gonna be more like$20,$30,$40, maybe, maybe if that.
And um, and and when you projectthat out over the long haul of
the lifespan of that heating andair unit, the payback just ain't
there, man.
What about on mini splits?
What would be some applicationsyou could use that for?
So a mini split, uh, the easiestdefinition of that is it looks
like a little hotel heating andair unit, but uh it's it's
(27:43):
smaller than the ones in thehotel rooms.
But mini splits don't turncorners.
So it's basically it's called aductless mini split.
There's no ductwork coming offof that.
And if you have a uh bonus roomor a garage that you want to
condition, they're wonderful,wonderful for that.
They don't look the greatest,but they definitely work like
they're supposed to.
There's no ductwork for you tolose any of the heating and
(28:03):
cooling, so they're incrediblyefficient as well.
And I want to say average costof those is anywhere from five
to six thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_01 (28:11):
And the number one thing people need to know if
they have like a work shed andthey said, Well, I'm gonna put
one of those in my work shed,it's not gonna work well unless
you have what?
Insulation, my friend.
Insulation.
So if you've got like a littleshop out back and you're you're
thinking, I might put a sear inthere, I mean a split in there,
because that I could work outthere in the winter and and have
AC out there in the summer.
(28:31):
If your insulation isn't inthere, it's you're wasting your
time and you're wasting yourmoney.
So get the insulation first.
Matter of fact, if you have goodinsulation, uh a freaking
electric heater sitting on afloor in one of those small like
Leonard sheds will do just fine.
Agreed.
Yeah.
Uh once again, me and Donniehave all these questions that
come in and we order them up andwe get ready to go through them,
(28:52):
and then all of a sudden timeruns out.
So we only got through abouthalf of these.
But this isn't really a questionshow.
We're just kind of shooting thebull.
So next week we'll kind of dosome of the same thing.
We've got uh more subjects talkabout.
Uh, one of them I really want toget to is uh a lot of people,
especially in the fall and inthe spring, want to know what
they can do to clean their ductwork.
So that's gonna be thecliffhanger.
(29:13):
Um, and I know you know a lotabout that, or know people who
know a lot about that, Donnie.
Yes, sir.
That's a good one.
We'll get to it next week.
That that's a cliffhanger.
That's who shot JR.
We're gonna be talking aboutducks instead of bullets and how
to keep them clean.
Again, website theCarolinacontractor.com, is where
you can find more details aboutthe show.
Find us on YouTube.
We upload videos on there, showsup there, and podcasts that you
(29:34):
can download from the website.
Also, we just want to thankeverybody for tuning in and and
and being interactive with uswith these questions and stuff
that me and Donnie see on thethe job site, as said beginning
the show.
From the job site to the studiomic, we're just uh shooting the
bull about construction andbuilding and uh trying to give
you some tips on maintainingyour dwelling.
And so we invite you to comeback next week to a new episode
(29:57):
of the Carolina Contractor Show.
Thanks for the support.
Everybody, love y'all.
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