March 23, 2025 • 37 mins
Dean covers resurfacing an outdoor spa and to prevent it from collapsing. Dean advices a caller on what to do with his plant ledges in his tract home. Dean helps a caller figure out what is causing their whole house water filter from working properly. Plus, Dean talks about restoring stamped concrete and what to avoid. Plus, Eaton Fire phase two clean up and aftermath.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
House Whisperer on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, welcome
to home where. Every week I help you understand that
place where you live. I am Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
By the way, follow us on social media, we only
(00:21):
do the good kind, uplifting, informative, inspiring social media. We're
on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, x, all the usual suspects. Home
with Dean is the handle for them all. And a
reminder if your home is in need of some personal
house Whisper attention, if you say to yourself, you know what,
we'd love to get that guy in my kitchen staring
at that problem so we can just get that dealt with.
(00:44):
Then you can book an in home design console with
me and the t just go to house Whisperer dot design.
All right, thank you for joining us on the program.
We are doing part two of a two part series
this weekend about big moves for or a tracked home
remodel that pay off in spades. I mean disproportionate amount
(01:05):
of good for the money that they cost because of
understanding the unique properties of a and we could say
unique weaknesses of a tract home. We're taking advantage of
those weaknesses. We're dressing them head on, we're fixing them
where we can, and as a result, we're getting big
changes disproportionate to the cost. And we're going to get
(01:25):
back to that list in just a bit. But it's
the top of the hour right here, just a few
minutes after ten, which means it's time to go to
the phones, and I want to talk to you. What's
going on with your house? And I'm gonna ask let's
talk to Nichee. Hey, Nische, welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Home, Hidin.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
You are very welcome. How can I help you?
Speaker 5 (01:50):
So?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I have an in ground a swim spot. It's very
large and I need to resurface it. And I have
heard that it's not good to let it sit empty,
So I'm curious how true that is. It might I've
already emptied it, but it might be a couple of
months before I actually get to the resurfacing part.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I got you, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out the exact right way
to address this for you. Here's the thing, Uh, it
is never a great idea to leave an in ground
pool or spa just sitting around empty for an extended
period of time. Okay, so that's number one. Normally, what
(02:40):
I would have recommended to well, absolutely, what I would
have recommended to you is keep the water in it
until it's time to actually do the resurfacing work. Not
a problem at all. To empty it, to fix it
and fill her back up again. Okay, whether or not,
it's a good idea too. And I know you just
emptied it. And so now like the idea of like, oh,
(03:01):
you want to pay all that amount of money to
fill up the water again for a couple more months,
That's where it gets tricky and a gray area because
it had that has everything to do with ground conditions
in your area, the water table in your area, how
(03:22):
high is the water table, Because the problem is this,
if the water table, you know, unexpectedly rises up in
your area because we get a strong spring rain in
the next eight weeks or so, uh, then we have
seen pools and spas literally been forced from the water
pressure underneath them out of the ground because they're empty
(03:45):
and they're you know, relatively light at that point, and
boom they actually pop up out of the ground some
and then the whole thing is. You know, all bets
are off. The whole thing is messed up. So what
would your statments bet be to refill it or at
least get it filled half or three quarters of the
way to get some more weight in there. Now am
(04:05):
I saying that that structure? That's my only concern. By
the way, that's my only concern. Okay, I'm not concerned
about it cracking.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
You know, the the an in ground pool or spa,
if you have one on your property, is the strongest
piece of concrete you've got on your property. If you
had any idea what the amount of rebar and the
and the PSI standards for the gunnite or the shot
(04:36):
crete that went into forming that structure was, you would
see that they are, you know, multiple times stronger than
the foundation that your house is sitting on. All right,
So I'm never personally worried about, oh, if we empty
out this pool, because sometimes pool remodels can take the
better part of a month or so to do, so
(04:56):
if we empty out this pool for a month, I'm
never worried about, Oh, the shell might crack or just
I've never seen it happen. I've heard stories, but I've
never seen that happen, and if we're working on it,
we got to empty it to work on it. My
concern has always been that if we're doing this during
the rainy season, if the water table rises then, or
(05:19):
if ground pressures are just right, that we may end
up popping that shell out.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Of the water.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So I'm not worried about it cracking or collapsing. Just
that's incredibly, highly unlikely. It's just a question of whether
water pressure underneath it, working on a much lighter container
now pops it out of the ground.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Does that make sense, Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I
did watch them build it, so I know that there
is a ton of rebar in there.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Crazy strong. I mean it is crazy strong. It really is.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Well, okay, that's a little bit reassuring. Okay, so I
got a little bit of time anyhow.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, I would say, you know, I just don't want
to be the reason I hesitated, And he says, I
just don't want to be the one who says, you know, yeah,
you should be fine. What a couple of months, you
should be fine? And then you're calling me back saying
with a bill like, hey, Deane, remember when you told
me that I could just have this thing sit around
empty for eight weeks. Here's the bill for rebuilding my spa.
(06:24):
So I just wanted to give you the full, full
picture of that.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
I appreciate disclosure.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yeah, because because I just don't want to be the
person who gives you the wrong advice. So it's better
for me to just give you the whole, the whole perspective,
you know. I if you're working on it, of course
you have to empty it. But uh, and and I've
seen pools in homes that you know, We've walked into
a property where a new a new owner has just
bought a house and they've called this out because they're like,
(06:54):
this thing is in terrible shape. What we want to
know right now? The best way to read design this
house before we move in. And we walk into the
backyard and we're like, oh, there's an empty pool in
the backyard, and the realtor is like, yep, it's been
empty for the last six and a half years and
it's perfectly fine, perfectly fine. I mean an empty pool.
By the way, your plaster you're stuck though. The plaster
(07:18):
on the pool will crack. Okay, that doesn't mean that
the pool shell will crack. But pool plaster is designed
to stay submerged in water. But so anybody who just
drains their pool and thinks, you know, that's gonna be fine,
I'll just fill it up next year again. Nor your
pool plaster is gonna crack because that's a particular kind
(07:40):
of plaster that's designed to stay submerged, and you expose
it to air too long and then it cracks. That's,
by the way, why there's tile at the water line
of your pool. Okay, the tile line of your pool
is so that pool plaster doesn't just come up out
of the water and there's a portion of exposed to
the air and a portion of it underwater. Because because
(08:00):
if we expose a portion of it to the air,
it will crack and fail. That's why there's tile there instead.
So the plaster's going to fail if you leave a
pool empty for an extended amount of time. But the
whole reason you've got it empty is to refinish it,
so you're not worried about that. We're talking about the
shell failing. I don't think the shell is going to fail.
(08:20):
I think the odds are unbelievably low that the shell
will fail. But whether it gets popped out of the
ground by pressures unseen.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
That's the only wild card in the factor.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So there you go, Nishe thank you so much for
the call, and I hope that helps at least give
you some perspective.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yes, thank you, Dean.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
All right, we will talk again, my friend. Let me
know how that turns out.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The overarching theme of our program today are remodeling facets
of facets of a remodel specifically targeted toward tracked homes
that yield a disproportionate amount of good and awesome for
the cost and time. And what we're doing is we've
laid the foundation of what a tract home is all about,
(09:17):
where its inherent weaknesses are, and then we're addressing those
in terms of renovation and remodel. And if we understand
some things about our tracked home, then we can find
the best places to invest our remodeling money to get
the biggest bang for the buck. But right now, as
is our custom, I am here in the middle of
the show taking calls, and that can be and is
(09:40):
about anything and everything. So I want to go back
to the phones. Let's see where we're at here. Bump bump,
bump bum. Let's talk to Jim. Jim, welcome home.
Speaker 7 (09:58):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
How are you doing deed?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I'm well. Sounds like you're doing well too.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
No, I'm doing pretty good. My question is is my
house was is a track home. It was built nineteen
eighty nine. But I got these dust collectors or plant
ledges through every room.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
Yeah, and without like ripping out walls and everything, because
I don't just want to dry wall them over and
make it avoided space.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I know, I can do cabinets and stuff, but from
a design point, how can I make these not useless spaces?
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah? Yeah, here is a class.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I mean, this is one of my big critiques about
you know, when I talk about track homes in general,
obviously there are a lot of different kinds of track
There are different eras of track homes. Yeah, I'll just
say I was just going to say right now for
everybody who's listening that if you live in like a
nineteen sixties, fifties, sixties or seventies ranch style house, you
(11:09):
have the tract home that is most malleable. It is
it can be changed, it can be customized. In so
many ways because it's basically a very simple rectangular structure
with rectangular rooms, and we hadn't ride, we hadn't arrived
at the nineteen eighties and nineties, where my term for
this is faux sophistication built into tract homes in the
(11:35):
eighties and nineties. We're kind of tired of the ranch
house builders were like, look at this, and you end
up with a home like weird angles, strange softs. And
because of all of that jumble of what looks oh
very different and sophisticated, we find ourselves really limited in
a lot of ways. And one of the classics of
(11:58):
a nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties tracked home are what
you called them plant shelves, but basically, up above your
eight foot wall, all of a sudden there's an indentation
and an alcove and it runs all the way up
to the vaulted ceiling. And you know, what do you
put up there? Plants? I mean, there's a shelf up there.
Now are you talking about that where it's you know,
(12:19):
like up above running up to the ceiling, or if
you've got something down at eye level.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
Oh no, no, no, it's that's what I'm talking about.
It's up above, going all the way to the vaulted ceiling.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
So all right, so we've got these weird alcoves and
plant shelves. So I mean, you already spoke to one
of them. One of the solves, and that is and
this is the thing that most everybody's hesitant to do.
But I would say, honestly, Jim, about maybe at least
a third of the time that I'm looking through a
house like that from a design perspective, I just asked
(12:54):
the question, well, what if you never knew it was there?
What if you did just finish that off and dry
walllet in, And how would you feel about the room
at that point? And most, you know, a good third
of the time, the real honest answer is we wouldn't care.
It would be we just wouldn't care. The room would
feel better, it would look better, just to ignore the weird,
(13:19):
funky shelf. H So to just let it go. So
that is always an option. And I say that even
though you said you didn't want to do that. But
I say it because you know, we've got a lot
of people listening, and they're in that situation. Now you've
got them staring at their shelves. Jim, thanks a lot.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Sorry, And I'm going to say that.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
That at least at least a third of those cases,
you know, you could just fill it in, Just fill
it in. It's a little weird to put cabinetry and storage,
you know, up up in the upside of a room
that you've got to get on a ladder to get
up to, but you know, in some situations maybe it
would work. My suggestion if you're going to keep the
(14:00):
shelf is that you make the most out of it.
And making the most out of it usually doesn't work
with plants, because a plant is a visible dust collector
that you'll need to maintain regularly. And again you're getting
up there. So so I actually I take off the
(14:21):
construct the the the contractor hat, and I take off
the designer hat, and I actually put on a decorator
hat at this point and say, if we can put
on that shelf right where the indent goes in, because
of today's you know technology, if we can put a
(14:42):
really nice strip of led lights there that will shine
up onto that wall, then put above it the right size,
the right proportion, the right volume of you know, a
piece of art a tapestry, a poster, a you know,
whatever the case may be. In other words, we can
(15:04):
turn it into a a lit recessed gallery.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Well that actually.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Shows off something, something that nobody expects to go walk
up to and touch, something that you look up to
and you say, oh, that's really cool and leave it
at that. But beyond that, Honestly, I got to tell
you half the time, I'm filling them in. I'm just
filling them in now. I just had a consult last
week at a beautiful, beautiful home in Lagoon and Miguel.
(15:35):
That's a very luxury tracked home, okay, but still a
tract home nonetheless, And what we discussed in one of
the children's bedrooms, they had exactly what you're talking about.
But it just so happens. And I was actually going
to get to this a little later in the show,
so I'm showing my hand ahead at that. Maybe I'll
move this up front after our call, Jim. But what
(15:58):
we had talked about was the fact that also it
just so happens on that side of the house, there
were all sorts of funky ac ducting chases that were
taking up rooms and other houses. And I realized because
this house. This room was located close to the garage
that I said, Hey, guys, you know that funky shelf
area in your son's room. If we filled that in,
(16:21):
we could redirect the ac ducting back behind there and
get it out of this gigantic thing that's taken up
half the room in his closet. And so that is
another just you know, I have no idea if your
alcove that you're talking about is has any other practical function,
But just think all of those options through before you commit,
(16:47):
you know, one to the other, because maybe there's a
duck that can run through there. Maybe you can fill
it in and not feeling bad about it because now
you're actually using it to help another room. But if
all else fails and you're going to keep it, then
let's try and make it something other than a plant shelf.
Let's try and make it something with a little bit
(17:07):
of lighting that sets off a beautiful piece of art.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
All right, well that sounds great, Thank you very much,
because I didn't even think about looking at how my
duckwork was run, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
All right, give it some thought, Jim, really really good question.
I'm so glad he called, because that just you know what,
I'm going to take this side. I don't even know
where it is on my list, but it's on the list.
That's the next thing that we're going to be talking
about when we get back. But as soon as we return,
we'll try and take a couple more calls.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Love that you've joined us on the program. Always an honor,
always a privilege to talk to you about this all
important thing that we call home. Today we are doing
it part two of a two part series talking about
the most effective ways and facets of a tracked home remodel.
(18:07):
Specific areas, specific items on the to do list that
yield a disproportionate amount of good relative to their difficulty
and their cost. Low cost, low difficulty, disproportion proportionate amount
of awesome. We're going to get back to that list
in a bit, but right now I'm taking calls and
I'm going to get back to the phones. I want
(18:30):
to talk to Roe. Hey, Roe, welcome home.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Hi, thank you. I live in your Belinda and we
have horrible water here and the scale build up is bad,
and I have a whole house water filter, m not
the one that you advertise.
Speaker 9 (18:54):
And even though we have that, we have a really
good filter on our ice cubes through the refrigerator, and
those are garbage.
Speaker 7 (19:05):
We can't.
Speaker 10 (19:07):
I don't eat the ice cubes.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I don't drink the water out of the refrigerator, even
though that's filtered through the whole house filter and through
the refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
The I've got one question for I know, I know
what you're about to say. The shower head just gets
all white and gunked up and crusty and cruddy and
all that kind of stuff, right yep, Okay, I've got
a question for you.
Speaker 7 (19:34):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You say you have a whole house water filter, do
you have a whole house water descaler as a part
of that filter system?
Speaker 10 (19:45):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
So here's the thing, my friend.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Uh you hear me talk about like life Source the
whole house water filtration system. Okay, there are uh and
people can purchase from like source just the water filter.
And when you say water filtration system, you know we
talk about no longer needing a water softena or anything
like that, and that speaking, you can purchase just the filter.
(20:13):
But Life Source is one of the reasons I partner
with them Life Source. Their their complete system that they
do for most homes is two cartridges, two big canisters.
One is the filter and the other is a descaling
canister that specializes in pulling hard water minerals. Actually doesn't
(20:36):
pull them out, it changes them so that they're not sticky.
So it is a it's it's an often misunderstood thing.
Ro a water filter does zero. It in no way,
shape or form changes the hardness of your water. Okay,
Hardness in water is not a toxin or a nasty
(20:59):
that needs needs to be filtered out of the water. Okay,
hardness and water, it's mineral build up inside the water.
It's minerals like calcium and magnesium and things like that.
Those are minerals that our bodies need. It's minerals that
go into our water. And yeah, there are places in it,
you know, depending on whether you're well water is part
(21:20):
of a reservoir system or if it's well water coming
out of the ground, there are places where the hardness
of water, and we're talking about mineral content is intense.
But a water filter is designed to take out things
that aren't usually in water, not minerals. Okay, scale all
of that that's mineral content, and so this is people
(21:44):
have water softeners. A water softener system is also gets
misunderstood because people are like, and I found that there's
still chlorine in my water, and it's like, well, okay.
A water softener is not a water filter. It doesn't
take out anything out of the water other than the minerals.
But a water filter is not a water softener system,
(22:05):
and it doesn't remove actual minerals from the system. So
that's why, like a life source system has a filtration
element and a descaling element that reduces massively the amount
of scale build up that happens in the house, a
water softener also reduces scale build up because it uses
(22:26):
salt ions that it passes through. That's why you have
to keep feeding it salt. It uses salt ions to
capture to grab on to calcium and magnesium and potassium
in these things that these minerals that cause scale, and
it pulls it out of the water completely, and so
you're drinking water at that point in bathing it. It's
(22:46):
why your water feels a little weird. It felt like silky,
some people say slimy. Some people love it, some people
hate it. But the water feels weird because it lacks
any mineralization of substance in it. So in your situation,
this is the big question. You may have a whole
house filter and that's keeping things like chlorine and chloramines
(23:11):
and other nasties from coming in. But if the real
issue with your water is heavy mineral content, the filter
isn't filtering out dissolved minerals. It's letting them through because
it's supposed to. And that's where your scale build up
is coming from. So you could either a contact the
company that gave you the whole house filter and see
(23:34):
if they have an additional component, or you could talk
to a company like life Source and they can evaluate
your system and get you set up with a filter
and descaler, and that's when things will start to change
for you.
Speaker 10 (23:49):
Does that make sense absolutely, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Thank you, all right, ro good luck with that. Yeah,
it's it's something that is confusing, I know, So let
me just clarify that for everybody again. A water filter
does not take hard water and change it into soft water.
It simply filters out nasty chemicals and things that shouldn't
(24:15):
be in our water, Okay, like chlorine and chlorines and
stuff like that. That's a water filter, a water softener.
This is like one hundred year old concept. The water
softener uses rock, salt, salt sodium to grab onto minerals
that usually cause scale build up and keep them from
(24:36):
coming into the house. Okay, so there you've got a
demineralized water coming into your house. So far less scale
build up. But a water softener does not filter chemicals
out all right. If you want both to happen, you
need a system that has a filter and some form
(25:00):
of descaler. Now, water softeners I never recommend them. They're
one hundred year old technology. They're out moded. A descaler
canister that like the one that comes in a life
source system, actually doesn't pull the minerals out of the water.
It changes them. The best way to explain it in
a non scientific way is it makes what would be
(25:21):
a sticky scale league stick to your pipes and your
shower head mineral turns it into a crystalline structure that
still gets into your body where you want it, but
doesn't cling to the surfaces of your fixtures and your pipes.
And that is a twenty first century descaling system. And
(25:42):
that's the kind of thing you can get from you know, life, soorece.
So everybody just understand descaling and filtering are completely different animals,
and the best kind of whole house system has both,
not just one or the other.
Speaker 6 (25:57):
All Right, you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Welcome home. How is this lovely spring Sunday morning going
for you? I hope yours is blessed and beautiful. It
is a gorgeous day out there. We are hoping to
spend the afternoon with friends outside and soak in as
much of it as possible. And I hope you've got
some plan to take an advantage of it. If you're
(26:28):
not sitting in southern California where we are right now, yeah,
I know, I know. This is why we pay the
big bucks to live here. But if you're not, and
if spring is looking a little different for you, I
hope you're in a good spot too, I really do.
I hope you just have plans to take full advantage
of the day, because you know what, the day that
is in our hands, that's the one that we've got.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
So here we go.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
We are in the middle of a two part series
talking about unique things, special things that can be done
to a tract home that disproportionate good results. We're gonna
return to that conversation right after the next news break.
But we've had so many calls this morning that I've
kind of stretched our calls a little bit further. We've
got one more round here, so I want to go
(27:13):
back to the phones. I want to talk to Stan. Hey, Stan,
welcome home.
Speaker 7 (27:19):
Thank you, Dean. I haven't able to get to a buffet,
but I've had like ten cups of coffee.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Hey you me too, my friend me too.
Speaker 7 (27:28):
That's good, all right, thank you. I'll tell you it's
a small project. I've got a concrete stamped walkway and
it's a powder colder. It's about twenty years old and
I want to know how to refinish. And it's been
stated by the sun it's not cracked. I don't know
if it's power stripping as you do.
Speaker 10 (27:45):
Is our our?
Speaker 7 (27:47):
You know our pressure wash can stain and can stay,
can stealerr be into the stain if they decide to
restain it already have to put on the sealer afterwards.
How's that first?
Speaker 5 (28:01):
All right?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
So, yeah, concrete, did you hear our concrete show a
couple of weeks back.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
I probably did. Yeah, I would see every every week.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
So my friend Chris Carson was on with me. He's
a concrete expert, concrete concrete tractor, my favorite one, and
we were discussing. We were discussing how he and I
kind of that are sort of our least favorite kind
of concrete is stamped concrete, only because not because it
doesn't look good, you know, good on day one, but
(28:32):
because of the things that you're talking about. Now it's
faded now, it's you know, and it go on. So
you know there. If Chris were here, he might have
a couple of other thoughts about this. But but generally speaking,
I think what you've already mentioned stan is probably your
best tact. It just has to be handled carefully. Number one,
you may want to, uh, you got to make sure
(28:55):
that if the concrete right now is unevenly glazed, unevenly sealed,
that we've got to strip off the remaining sealer right now.
Sometimes that means pressure washing and scrubbing. Sometimes it means
a sand blast. But we just have to be careful
with a sand blast because we can end up, you know,
(29:16):
exposing aggregate in the concrete and changing its look entirely. Okay,
but the idea generally, Uh, sometimes through a chemical process,
we can strip back the seal, the glaze that's only
half there. If we can get yeah, if we can
get to the the you know, the open up the
(29:39):
porosity of the concrete uniformly and with the right pro
involved a professional concrete staining company. Uh right, I think
those are your best odds to restoring color.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
I like stains.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I don't want to paint your stamped concrete because you
know we've talked about before, concrete has a porosity and
absorbs moisture from the ground, and that water will push
paint off from the backside. I mean, it'll look fine
for a bit, it won't look really realistic because it's paint,
and nobody sees stamped stone looking like paint. That's a
(30:18):
viable thing. So I would have the stain stain could
work for you.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
Okay, it's one more thing, stain. Uh is there any
stain that's already when you put it down on every ceils,
I have to apply sealer afterwards, like a low chine seiler.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Well, I wouldn't even put a sheen on the ceiler. Personally,
I would stain it and then use a penetrating seiler
and leave it be.
Speaker 7 (30:44):
You know, you want any gloss on it penetrating Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I wouldn't put a gloss sealer
on it. I would try and stain it. It's gonna
feel modeled, modeled, you know, meaning you know, you know,
color change this darker, that lighter, but the right pro
can can hopefully blend that all in, so the whole
thing feels uniformly modeled, and it feels like.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
It looks right.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
Oh great, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
You are so welcome. Stan, good luck, good luck, my friend.
Do I have room to slide one more in here?
Let's talk to Fred. Fred, welcome home.
Speaker 10 (31:21):
I did question about I was impacted by the eating fires,
and I'm getting started, I'm getting ready to start the
face to clean up, and I'm noticing around my block
a lot of my neighbors that I've had it done.
What's left over is this massive crater, you know, because
they come in to take off six inches of top soil,
(31:41):
but also.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
They pull out yes, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 10 (31:47):
So my concern is this is that you know, in
the future, we can Moraine. I don't know how long
this is going to take to rebuild that. You know
water will accumulate there and that it might have an
impact on the future foundation settlement of the house of
a new house.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Should I be.
Speaker 10 (32:03):
Concerned about that? Should I backsill it with their How
should I anticipate or remedy that issue.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
It's a really really good question, Fred, and it would
be a much longer conversation for you and I to
have to cover every detail. But let me give you
a quick overview. Okay, when you rip A when you rip,
because this is the critical thing. I'm just going to say,
you need to before you get going again and make
(32:32):
sure this is included in your claim with your insurance company.
Make sure all of these things are being addressed appropriately.
They're going to scrape the lot six inches down, but yeah,
they're going to leave a crater because that slab is
not just four to six inches thick. It has got
all of its perimeter. I mean it goes down fourteen
sixteen maybe even deeper into the ground, and all of
(32:54):
that dirt, all of that soil is going to be disrupted.
And you don't just shovel back in to fill up
those holes, because what actually has to happen there in
the perimeter of where the foundation was, it's going to
once that soil is disturbed like that, you're going to
need under a deputy inspector observation, the removal, the scraping
(33:19):
back of all of that soil down to its deepest
point and then recompaction in four to six inch layers
soil is put in and then it's compacted, and then
it's tested, and then another four to six inches of
soil is laid on and then it's compacted, and then
it's tested all the way back up to the finished
(33:39):
level of the rough soil for the property. And so
the process that has to happen in order to have
proper soil conditions to dig the new footings in is
that that has to be kind of restored to essentially
sort of virgin soil area to dig into for the
first time. So what's going to be involved here and
(34:02):
the individual the professionals who you need to talk to
about this when it happens to your property and have
this as part of the claim is a soils engineer,
a soils engineering company needs to look at the property,
needs to evaluate the current compaction the kind of soil
you have on the property. The basis of their soils
(34:25):
tests will tell you what needs to be done in
order to get your lot back to buildable state. But
you can't jump over that. The city's going to require
it anyway. Your codes and your permits are going to
require it. But that's your next step, and don't let
the insurance company kind of skip over that step with you,
because it is literally the very beginning. It's the foundation
(34:47):
of rebuilding the proper house on that property. So one
you have yanked a sixteen inch deep footing that's twelve
to fourteen inches wide out of the ground. You have
disrupted all of that soil down to that level. All
of that has to be recompacted. Again, I'm not really
(35:08):
worried about water accumulating in that crater. I have very,
very rarely, unless you're on a hillside and you've got,
you know, soil erosion concerns, that's one thing. But if
we're just talking about kind of a standard lot, I'm
really not worried about water accumulating from rains while you're
waiting to have all of this done, And I don't
(35:30):
think the soils company will either. In fact, I would
say in general, homeowners spend too much time trying to
get water off their property instead of letting it soak
in through their soil down into the aquifers below. Very
very rarely does an accumulation of water on a piece
of property pose a threat to that piece of property
(35:50):
or change your soil's conditions. But the tearing out of
the foundation and the disrupting of that previously very stable soil, well,
that is going to change the rebuild, and so a
soils engineering company is going to be the one to
tell you, all right, based on your soil, your situation,
here is how we have to return the soil to
(36:11):
buildable conditions.
Speaker 10 (36:14):
God, thank you very much, already appreciate it. I'll definitely
make a strong note and share it with all my
community members that were impacted.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
There you go, Fred, thank you so much, and I
am so sorry for your loss and for the devastation
there in the eat and fire, and best wishes and
keep listening and feel free to reach out anytime that
you've got questions about rebuilding.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
There.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
All right, everybody, when we come back, we're going to
come back to this topic of these key areas of
remodeling A tract home that yield the disproportionate good for
the amount of time and energy and money put into it.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
All of that.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Next your Home with Dean Sharp, The House Whisper on KFI.
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI A six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
House Whisperer on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, welcome
to home where. Every week I help you understand that
place where you live. I am Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
By the way, follow us on social media, we only
(00:21):
do the good kind, uplifting, informative, inspiring social media. We're
on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, x, all the usual suspects. Home
with Dean is the handle for them all. And a
reminder if your home is in need of some personal
house Whisper attention, if you say to yourself, you know what,
we'd love to get that guy in my kitchen staring
at that problem so we can just get that dealt with.
(00:44):
Then you can book an in home design console with
me and the t just go to house Whisperer dot design.
All right, thank you for joining us on the program.
We are doing part two of a two part series
this weekend about big moves for or a tracked home
remodel that pay off in spades. I mean disproportionate amount
(01:05):
of good for the money that they cost because of
understanding the unique properties of a and we could say
unique weaknesses of a tract home. We're taking advantage of
those weaknesses. We're dressing them head on, we're fixing them
where we can, and as a result, we're getting big
changes disproportionate to the cost. And we're going to get
(01:25):
back to that list in just a bit. But it's
the top of the hour right here, just a few
minutes after ten, which means it's time to go to
the phones, and I want to talk to you. What's
going on with your house? And I'm gonna ask let's
talk to Nichee. Hey, Nische, welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Home, Hidin.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
You are very welcome. How can I help you?
Speaker 5 (01:50):
So?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I have an in ground a swim spot. It's very
large and I need to resurface it. And I have
heard that it's not good to let it sit empty,
So I'm curious how true that is. It might I've
already emptied it, but it might be a couple of
months before I actually get to the resurfacing part.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I got you, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out the exact right way
to address this for you. Here's the thing, Uh, it
is never a great idea to leave an in ground
pool or spa just sitting around empty for an extended
period of time. Okay, so that's number one. Normally, what
(02:40):
I would have recommended to well, absolutely, what I would
have recommended to you is keep the water in it
until it's time to actually do the resurfacing work. Not
a problem at all. To empty it, to fix it
and fill her back up again. Okay, whether or not,
it's a good idea too. And I know you just
emptied it. And so now like the idea of like, oh,
(03:01):
you want to pay all that amount of money to
fill up the water again for a couple more months,
That's where it gets tricky and a gray area because
it had that has everything to do with ground conditions
in your area, the water table in your area, how
(03:22):
high is the water table, Because the problem is this,
if the water table, you know, unexpectedly rises up in
your area because we get a strong spring rain in
the next eight weeks or so, uh, then we have
seen pools and spas literally been forced from the water
pressure underneath them out of the ground because they're empty
(03:45):
and they're you know, relatively light at that point, and
boom they actually pop up out of the ground some
and then the whole thing is. You know, all bets
are off. The whole thing is messed up. So what
would your statments bet be to refill it or at
least get it filled half or three quarters of the
way to get some more weight in there. Now am
(04:05):
I saying that that structure? That's my only concern. By
the way, that's my only concern. Okay, I'm not concerned
about it cracking.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
You know, the the an in ground pool or spa,
if you have one on your property, is the strongest
piece of concrete you've got on your property. If you
had any idea what the amount of rebar and the
and the PSI standards for the gunnite or the shot
(04:36):
crete that went into forming that structure was, you would
see that they are, you know, multiple times stronger than
the foundation that your house is sitting on. All right,
So I'm never personally worried about, oh, if we empty
out this pool, because sometimes pool remodels can take the
better part of a month or so to do, so
(04:56):
if we empty out this pool for a month, I'm
never worried about, Oh, the shell might crack or just
I've never seen it happen. I've heard stories, but I've
never seen that happen, and if we're working on it,
we got to empty it to work on it. My
concern has always been that if we're doing this during
the rainy season, if the water table rises then, or
(05:19):
if ground pressures are just right, that we may end
up popping that shell out.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Of the water.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So I'm not worried about it cracking or collapsing. Just
that's incredibly, highly unlikely. It's just a question of whether
water pressure underneath it, working on a much lighter container
now pops it out of the ground.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Does that make sense, Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I
did watch them build it, so I know that there
is a ton of rebar in there.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Crazy strong. I mean it is crazy strong. It really is.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Well, okay, that's a little bit reassuring. Okay, so I
got a little bit of time anyhow.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, I would say, you know, I just don't want
to be the reason I hesitated, And he says, I
just don't want to be the one who says, you know, yeah,
you should be fine. What a couple of months, you
should be fine? And then you're calling me back saying
with a bill like, hey, Deane, remember when you told
me that I could just have this thing sit around
empty for eight weeks. Here's the bill for rebuilding my spa.
(06:24):
So I just wanted to give you the full, full
picture of that.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
I appreciate disclosure.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yeah, because because I just don't want to be the
person who gives you the wrong advice. So it's better
for me to just give you the whole, the whole perspective,
you know. I if you're working on it, of course
you have to empty it. But uh, and and I've
seen pools in homes that you know, We've walked into
a property where a new a new owner has just
bought a house and they've called this out because they're like,
(06:54):
this thing is in terrible shape. What we want to
know right now? The best way to read design this
house before we move in. And we walk into the
backyard and we're like, oh, there's an empty pool in
the backyard, and the realtor is like, yep, it's been
empty for the last six and a half years and
it's perfectly fine, perfectly fine. I mean an empty pool.
By the way, your plaster you're stuck though. The plaster
(07:18):
on the pool will crack. Okay, that doesn't mean that
the pool shell will crack. But pool plaster is designed
to stay submerged in water. But so anybody who just
drains their pool and thinks, you know, that's gonna be fine,
I'll just fill it up next year again. Nor your
pool plaster is gonna crack because that's a particular kind
(07:40):
of plaster that's designed to stay submerged, and you expose
it to air too long and then it cracks. That's,
by the way, why there's tile at the water line
of your pool. Okay, the tile line of your pool
is so that pool plaster doesn't just come up out
of the water and there's a portion of exposed to
the air and a portion of it underwater. Because because
(08:00):
if we expose a portion of it to the air,
it will crack and fail. That's why there's tile there instead.
So the plaster's going to fail if you leave a
pool empty for an extended amount of time. But the
whole reason you've got it empty is to refinish it,
so you're not worried about that. We're talking about the
shell failing. I don't think the shell is going to fail.
(08:20):
I think the odds are unbelievably low that the shell
will fail. But whether it gets popped out of the
ground by pressures unseen.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
That's the only wild card in the factor.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So there you go, Nishe thank you so much for
the call, and I hope that helps at least give
you some perspective.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yes, thank you, Dean.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
All right, we will talk again, my friend. Let me
know how that turns out.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The overarching theme of our program today are remodeling facets
of facets of a remodel specifically targeted toward tracked homes
that yield a disproportionate amount of good and awesome for
the cost and time. And what we're doing is we've
laid the foundation of what a tract home is all about,
(09:17):
where its inherent weaknesses are, and then we're addressing those
in terms of renovation and remodel. And if we understand
some things about our tracked home, then we can find
the best places to invest our remodeling money to get
the biggest bang for the buck. But right now, as
is our custom, I am here in the middle of
the show taking calls, and that can be and is
(09:40):
about anything and everything. So I want to go back
to the phones. Let's see where we're at here. Bump bump,
bump bum. Let's talk to Jim. Jim, welcome home.
Speaker 7 (09:58):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
How are you doing deed?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I'm well. Sounds like you're doing well too.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
No, I'm doing pretty good. My question is is my
house was is a track home. It was built nineteen
eighty nine. But I got these dust collectors or plant
ledges through every room.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
Yeah, and without like ripping out walls and everything, because
I don't just want to dry wall them over and
make it avoided space.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I know, I can do cabinets and stuff, but from
a design point, how can I make these not useless spaces?
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah? Yeah, here is a class.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I mean, this is one of my big critiques about
you know, when I talk about track homes in general,
obviously there are a lot of different kinds of track
There are different eras of track homes. Yeah, I'll just
say I was just going to say right now for
everybody who's listening that if you live in like a
nineteen sixties, fifties, sixties or seventies ranch style house, you
(11:09):
have the tract home that is most malleable. It is
it can be changed, it can be customized. In so
many ways because it's basically a very simple rectangular structure
with rectangular rooms, and we hadn't ride, we hadn't arrived
at the nineteen eighties and nineties, where my term for
this is faux sophistication built into tract homes in the
(11:35):
eighties and nineties. We're kind of tired of the ranch
house builders were like, look at this, and you end
up with a home like weird angles, strange softs. And
because of all of that jumble of what looks oh
very different and sophisticated, we find ourselves really limited in
a lot of ways. And one of the classics of
(11:58):
a nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties tracked home are what
you called them plant shelves, but basically, up above your
eight foot wall, all of a sudden there's an indentation
and an alcove and it runs all the way up
to the vaulted ceiling. And you know, what do you
put up there? Plants? I mean, there's a shelf up there.
Now are you talking about that where it's you know,
(12:19):
like up above running up to the ceiling, or if
you've got something down at eye level.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
Oh no, no, no, it's that's what I'm talking about.
It's up above, going all the way to the vaulted ceiling.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
So all right, so we've got these weird alcoves and
plant shelves. So I mean, you already spoke to one
of them. One of the solves, and that is and
this is the thing that most everybody's hesitant to do.
But I would say, honestly, Jim, about maybe at least
a third of the time that I'm looking through a
house like that from a design perspective, I just asked
(12:54):
the question, well, what if you never knew it was there?
What if you did just finish that off and dry
walllet in, And how would you feel about the room
at that point? And most, you know, a good third
of the time, the real honest answer is we wouldn't care.
It would be we just wouldn't care. The room would
feel better, it would look better, just to ignore the weird,
(13:19):
funky shelf. H So to just let it go. So
that is always an option. And I say that even
though you said you didn't want to do that. But
I say it because you know, we've got a lot
of people listening, and they're in that situation. Now you've
got them staring at their shelves. Jim, thanks a lot.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Sorry, And I'm going to say that.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
That at least at least a third of those cases,
you know, you could just fill it in, Just fill
it in. It's a little weird to put cabinetry and storage,
you know, up up in the upside of a room
that you've got to get on a ladder to get
up to, but you know, in some situations maybe it
would work. My suggestion if you're going to keep the
(14:00):
shelf is that you make the most out of it.
And making the most out of it usually doesn't work
with plants, because a plant is a visible dust collector
that you'll need to maintain regularly. And again you're getting
up there. So so I actually I take off the
(14:21):
construct the the the contractor hat, and I take off
the designer hat, and I actually put on a decorator
hat at this point and say, if we can put
on that shelf right where the indent goes in, because
of today's you know technology, if we can put a
(14:42):
really nice strip of led lights there that will shine
up onto that wall, then put above it the right size,
the right proportion, the right volume of you know, a
piece of art a tapestry, a poster, a you know,
whatever the case may be. In other words, we can
(15:04):
turn it into a a lit recessed gallery.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Well that actually.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Shows off something, something that nobody expects to go walk
up to and touch, something that you look up to
and you say, oh, that's really cool and leave it
at that. But beyond that, Honestly, I got to tell
you half the time, I'm filling them in. I'm just
filling them in now. I just had a consult last
week at a beautiful, beautiful home in Lagoon and Miguel.
(15:35):
That's a very luxury tracked home, okay, but still a
tract home nonetheless, And what we discussed in one of
the children's bedrooms, they had exactly what you're talking about.
But it just so happens. And I was actually going
to get to this a little later in the show,
so I'm showing my hand ahead at that. Maybe I'll
move this up front after our call, Jim. But what
(15:58):
we had talked about was the fact that also it
just so happens on that side of the house, there
were all sorts of funky ac ducting chases that were
taking up rooms and other houses. And I realized because
this house. This room was located close to the garage
that I said, Hey, guys, you know that funky shelf
area in your son's room. If we filled that in,
(16:21):
we could redirect the ac ducting back behind there and
get it out of this gigantic thing that's taken up
half the room in his closet. And so that is
another just you know, I have no idea if your
alcove that you're talking about is has any other practical function,
But just think all of those options through before you commit,
(16:47):
you know, one to the other, because maybe there's a
duck that can run through there. Maybe you can fill
it in and not feeling bad about it because now
you're actually using it to help another room. But if
all else fails and you're going to keep it, then
let's try and make it something other than a plant shelf.
Let's try and make it something with a little bit
(17:07):
of lighting that sets off a beautiful piece of art.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
All right, well that sounds great, Thank you very much,
because I didn't even think about looking at how my
duckwork was run, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
All right, give it some thought, Jim, really really good question.
I'm so glad he called, because that just you know what,
I'm going to take this side. I don't even know
where it is on my list, but it's on the list.
That's the next thing that we're going to be talking
about when we get back. But as soon as we return,
we'll try and take a couple more calls.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Love that you've joined us on the program. Always an honor,
always a privilege to talk to you about this all
important thing that we call home. Today we are doing
it part two of a two part series talking about
the most effective ways and facets of a tracked home remodel.
(18:07):
Specific areas, specific items on the to do list that
yield a disproportionate amount of good relative to their difficulty
and their cost. Low cost, low difficulty, disproportion proportionate amount
of awesome. We're going to get back to that list
in a bit, but right now I'm taking calls and
I'm going to get back to the phones. I want
(18:30):
to talk to Roe. Hey, Roe, welcome home.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Hi, thank you. I live in your Belinda and we
have horrible water here and the scale build up is bad,
and I have a whole house water filter, m not
the one that you advertise.
Speaker 9 (18:54):
And even though we have that, we have a really
good filter on our ice cubes through the refrigerator, and
those are garbage.
Speaker 7 (19:05):
We can't.
Speaker 10 (19:07):
I don't eat the ice cubes.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I don't drink the water out of the refrigerator, even
though that's filtered through the whole house filter and through
the refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
The I've got one question for I know, I know
what you're about to say. The shower head just gets
all white and gunked up and crusty and cruddy and
all that kind of stuff, right yep, Okay, I've got
a question for you.
Speaker 7 (19:34):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You say you have a whole house water filter, do
you have a whole house water descaler as a part
of that filter system?
Speaker 10 (19:45):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
So here's the thing, my friend.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Uh you hear me talk about like life Source the
whole house water filtration system. Okay, there are uh and
people can purchase from like source just the water filter.
And when you say water filtration system, you know we
talk about no longer needing a water softena or anything
like that, and that speaking, you can purchase just the filter.
(20:13):
But Life Source is one of the reasons I partner
with them Life Source. Their their complete system that they
do for most homes is two cartridges, two big canisters.
One is the filter and the other is a descaling
canister that specializes in pulling hard water minerals. Actually doesn't
(20:36):
pull them out, it changes them so that they're not sticky.
So it is a it's it's an often misunderstood thing.
Ro a water filter does zero. It in no way,
shape or form changes the hardness of your water. Okay,
Hardness in water is not a toxin or a nasty
(20:59):
that needs needs to be filtered out of the water. Okay,
hardness and water, it's mineral build up inside the water.
It's minerals like calcium and magnesium and things like that.
Those are minerals that our bodies need. It's minerals that
go into our water. And yeah, there are places in it,
you know, depending on whether you're well water is part
(21:20):
of a reservoir system or if it's well water coming
out of the ground, there are places where the hardness
of water, and we're talking about mineral content is intense.
But a water filter is designed to take out things
that aren't usually in water, not minerals. Okay, scale all
of that that's mineral content, and so this is people
(21:44):
have water softeners. A water softener system is also gets
misunderstood because people are like, and I found that there's
still chlorine in my water, and it's like, well, okay.
A water softener is not a water filter. It doesn't
take out anything out of the water other than the minerals.
But a water filter is not a water softener system,
(22:05):
and it doesn't remove actual minerals from the system. So
that's why, like a life source system has a filtration
element and a descaling element that reduces massively the amount
of scale build up that happens in the house, a
water softener also reduces scale build up because it uses
(22:26):
salt ions that it passes through. That's why you have
to keep feeding it salt. It uses salt ions to
capture to grab on to calcium and magnesium and potassium
in these things that these minerals that cause scale, and
it pulls it out of the water completely, and so
you're drinking water at that point in bathing it. It's
(22:46):
why your water feels a little weird. It felt like silky,
some people say slimy. Some people love it, some people
hate it. But the water feels weird because it lacks
any mineralization of substance in it. So in your situation,
this is the big question. You may have a whole
house filter and that's keeping things like chlorine and chloramines
(23:11):
and other nasties from coming in. But if the real
issue with your water is heavy mineral content, the filter
isn't filtering out dissolved minerals. It's letting them through because
it's supposed to. And that's where your scale build up
is coming from. So you could either a contact the
company that gave you the whole house filter and see
(23:34):
if they have an additional component, or you could talk
to a company like life Source and they can evaluate
your system and get you set up with a filter
and descaler, and that's when things will start to change
for you.
Speaker 10 (23:49):
Does that make sense absolutely, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Thank you, all right, ro good luck with that. Yeah,
it's it's something that is confusing, I know, So let
me just clarify that for everybody again. A water filter
does not take hard water and change it into soft water.
It simply filters out nasty chemicals and things that shouldn't
(24:15):
be in our water, Okay, like chlorine and chlorines and
stuff like that. That's a water filter, a water softener.
This is like one hundred year old concept. The water
softener uses rock, salt, salt sodium to grab onto minerals
that usually cause scale build up and keep them from
(24:36):
coming into the house. Okay, so there you've got a
demineralized water coming into your house. So far less scale
build up. But a water softener does not filter chemicals
out all right. If you want both to happen, you
need a system that has a filter and some form
(25:00):
of descaler. Now, water softeners I never recommend them. They're
one hundred year old technology. They're out moded. A descaler
canister that like the one that comes in a life
source system, actually doesn't pull the minerals out of the water.
It changes them. The best way to explain it in
a non scientific way is it makes what would be
(25:21):
a sticky scale league stick to your pipes and your
shower head mineral turns it into a crystalline structure that
still gets into your body where you want it, but
doesn't cling to the surfaces of your fixtures and your pipes.
And that is a twenty first century descaling system. And
(25:42):
that's the kind of thing you can get from you know, life, soorece.
So everybody just understand descaling and filtering are completely different animals,
and the best kind of whole house system has both,
not just one or the other.
Speaker 6 (25:57):
All Right, you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Welcome home. How is this lovely spring Sunday morning going
for you? I hope yours is blessed and beautiful. It
is a gorgeous day out there. We are hoping to
spend the afternoon with friends outside and soak in as
much of it as possible. And I hope you've got
some plan to take an advantage of it. If you're
(26:28):
not sitting in southern California where we are right now, yeah,
I know, I know. This is why we pay the
big bucks to live here. But if you're not, and
if spring is looking a little different for you, I
hope you're in a good spot too, I really do.
I hope you just have plans to take full advantage
of the day, because you know what, the day that
is in our hands, that's the one that we've got.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
So here we go.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
We are in the middle of a two part series
talking about unique things, special things that can be done
to a tract home that disproportionate good results. We're gonna
return to that conversation right after the next news break.
But we've had so many calls this morning that I've
kind of stretched our calls a little bit further. We've
got one more round here, so I want to go
(27:13):
back to the phones. I want to talk to Stan. Hey, Stan,
welcome home.
Speaker 7 (27:19):
Thank you, Dean. I haven't able to get to a buffet,
but I've had like ten cups of coffee.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Hey you me too, my friend me too.
Speaker 7 (27:28):
That's good, all right, thank you. I'll tell you it's
a small project. I've got a concrete stamped walkway and
it's a powder colder. It's about twenty years old and
I want to know how to refinish. And it's been
stated by the sun it's not cracked. I don't know
if it's power stripping as you do.
Speaker 10 (27:45):
Is our our?
Speaker 7 (27:47):
You know our pressure wash can stain and can stay,
can stealerr be into the stain if they decide to
restain it already have to put on the sealer afterwards.
How's that first?
Speaker 5 (28:01):
All right?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
So, yeah, concrete, did you hear our concrete show a
couple of weeks back.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
I probably did. Yeah, I would see every every week.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
So my friend Chris Carson was on with me. He's
a concrete expert, concrete concrete tractor, my favorite one, and
we were discussing. We were discussing how he and I
kind of that are sort of our least favorite kind
of concrete is stamped concrete, only because not because it
doesn't look good, you know, good on day one, but
(28:32):
because of the things that you're talking about. Now it's
faded now, it's you know, and it go on. So
you know there. If Chris were here, he might have
a couple of other thoughts about this. But but generally speaking,
I think what you've already mentioned stan is probably your
best tact. It just has to be handled carefully. Number one,
you may want to, uh, you got to make sure
(28:55):
that if the concrete right now is unevenly glazed, unevenly sealed,
that we've got to strip off the remaining sealer right now.
Sometimes that means pressure washing and scrubbing. Sometimes it means
a sand blast. But we just have to be careful
with a sand blast because we can end up, you know,
(29:16):
exposing aggregate in the concrete and changing its look entirely. Okay,
but the idea generally, Uh, sometimes through a chemical process,
we can strip back the seal, the glaze that's only
half there. If we can get yeah, if we can
get to the the you know, the open up the
(29:39):
porosity of the concrete uniformly and with the right pro
involved a professional concrete staining company. Uh right, I think
those are your best odds to restoring color.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
I like stains.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I don't want to paint your stamped concrete because you
know we've talked about before, concrete has a porosity and
absorbs moisture from the ground, and that water will push
paint off from the backside. I mean, it'll look fine
for a bit, it won't look really realistic because it's paint,
and nobody sees stamped stone looking like paint. That's a
(30:18):
viable thing. So I would have the stain stain could
work for you.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
Okay, it's one more thing, stain. Uh is there any
stain that's already when you put it down on every ceils,
I have to apply sealer afterwards, like a low chine seiler.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Well, I wouldn't even put a sheen on the ceiler. Personally,
I would stain it and then use a penetrating seiler
and leave it be.
Speaker 7 (30:44):
You know, you want any gloss on it penetrating Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I wouldn't put a gloss sealer
on it. I would try and stain it. It's gonna
feel modeled, modeled, you know, meaning you know, you know,
color change this darker, that lighter, but the right pro
can can hopefully blend that all in, so the whole
thing feels uniformly modeled, and it feels like.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
It looks right.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
Oh great, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
You are so welcome. Stan, good luck, good luck, my friend.
Do I have room to slide one more in here?
Let's talk to Fred. Fred, welcome home.
Speaker 10 (31:21):
I did question about I was impacted by the eating fires,
and I'm getting started, I'm getting ready to start the
face to clean up, and I'm noticing around my block
a lot of my neighbors that I've had it done.
What's left over is this massive crater, you know, because
they come in to take off six inches of top soil,
(31:41):
but also.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
They pull out yes, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 10 (31:47):
So my concern is this is that you know, in
the future, we can Moraine. I don't know how long
this is going to take to rebuild that. You know
water will accumulate there and that it might have an
impact on the future foundation settlement of the house of
a new house.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Should I be.
Speaker 10 (32:03):
Concerned about that? Should I backsill it with their How
should I anticipate or remedy that issue.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
It's a really really good question, Fred, and it would
be a much longer conversation for you and I to
have to cover every detail. But let me give you
a quick overview. Okay, when you rip A when you rip,
because this is the critical thing. I'm just going to say,
you need to before you get going again and make
(32:32):
sure this is included in your claim with your insurance company.
Make sure all of these things are being addressed appropriately.
They're going to scrape the lot six inches down, but yeah,
they're going to leave a crater because that slab is
not just four to six inches thick. It has got
all of its perimeter. I mean it goes down fourteen
sixteen maybe even deeper into the ground, and all of
(32:54):
that dirt, all of that soil is going to be disrupted.
And you don't just shovel back in to fill up
those holes, because what actually has to happen there in
the perimeter of where the foundation was, it's going to
once that soil is disturbed like that, you're going to
need under a deputy inspector observation, the removal, the scraping
(33:19):
back of all of that soil down to its deepest
point and then recompaction in four to six inch layers
soil is put in and then it's compacted, and then
it's tested, and then another four to six inches of
soil is laid on and then it's compacted, and then
it's tested all the way back up to the finished
(33:39):
level of the rough soil for the property. And so
the process that has to happen in order to have
proper soil conditions to dig the new footings in is
that that has to be kind of restored to essentially
sort of virgin soil area to dig into for the
first time. So what's going to be involved here and
(34:02):
the individual the professionals who you need to talk to
about this when it happens to your property and have
this as part of the claim is a soils engineer,
a soils engineering company needs to look at the property,
needs to evaluate the current compaction the kind of soil
you have on the property. The basis of their soils
(34:25):
tests will tell you what needs to be done in
order to get your lot back to buildable state. But
you can't jump over that. The city's going to require
it anyway. Your codes and your permits are going to
require it. But that's your next step, and don't let
the insurance company kind of skip over that step with you,
because it is literally the very beginning. It's the foundation
(34:47):
of rebuilding the proper house on that property. So one
you have yanked a sixteen inch deep footing that's twelve
to fourteen inches wide out of the ground. You have
disrupted all of that soil down to that level. All
of that has to be recompacted. Again, I'm not really
(35:08):
worried about water accumulating in that crater. I have very,
very rarely, unless you're on a hillside and you've got,
you know, soil erosion concerns, that's one thing. But if
we're just talking about kind of a standard lot, I'm
really not worried about water accumulating from rains while you're
waiting to have all of this done, And I don't
(35:30):
think the soils company will either. In fact, I would
say in general, homeowners spend too much time trying to
get water off their property instead of letting it soak
in through their soil down into the aquifers below. Very
very rarely does an accumulation of water on a piece
of property pose a threat to that piece of property
(35:50):
or change your soil's conditions. But the tearing out of
the foundation and the disrupting of that previously very stable soil, well,
that is going to change the rebuild, and so a
soils engineering company is going to be the one to
tell you, all right, based on your soil, your situation,
here is how we have to return the soil to
(36:11):
buildable conditions.
Speaker 10 (36:14):
God, thank you very much, already appreciate it. I'll definitely
make a strong note and share it with all my
community members that were impacted.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
There you go, Fred, thank you so much, and I
am so sorry for your loss and for the devastation
there in the eat and fire, and best wishes and
keep listening and feel free to reach out anytime that
you've got questions about rebuilding.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
There.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
All right, everybody, when we come back, we're going to
come back to this topic of these key areas of
remodeling A tract home that yield the disproportionate good for
the amount of time and energy and money put into it.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
All of that.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Next your Home with Dean Sharp, The House Whisper on KFI.
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI A six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Home with Dean Sharp News
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