David Dunning Talks Flooring & Plays Us A Song

David Dunning Talks Flooring & Plays Us A Song

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Michael Blaze.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Welcome to Your Home three sixty, the show where we
talk about everything that has to do with your home.
Joining me today is my good friend David Dudding, local
musician and flooring expert.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
We're going to talk about both.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Today actually, and I just saw David about a week ago. David,
you were telling me the last time you were here
you really enjoyed the frozen drink that I prepared for
you on the patio, and so I was getting all
prepared to do that again, and I couldn't get the
blender to work, and I'm like, oh, no, I don't
want to disappoint my friend. We're just going to have

(00:32):
to drink out of the bottle. Wouldn't be the first time.
But guess what I got it going.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Oh that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
So we will start with a cold refreshment here to
get us through our conversation. It always helps a little bit.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, I was good you having me again.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, man, Well, thanks for being here, and I appreciate
you taking the time out. And it's always helpful to
have a cold refreshment as older friends talk.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Here. You go.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Awesome, Yes, sir, I'm glad I didn't disappoint today.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Very good, tasty.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Thank you, yes, thank you, cheers so cheers. David.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
You've been with Carpetbaggers for a long time, man, I
mean I've known you for I don't know, thirty something years.
How long have you been there?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, I took a hiatus for a little bit, but
Dean Kelly is the owner. He and I worked for
a place called Charleston Building Products back in the nineties
early nineties, right after Hugo, and then he opened up
Carpet Baggers and then I went to work for him
about a year later. I think that was ninety two
when he opened it up, and I went to work

(01:51):
probably a year or so later, and worked up until
about two thousand, and that's when Live Bait was kind
of taken off a little bit. Took a hiatus for
a few years, and it turned out to be a
long time. It was almost a twenty year break, and
then I went back to work in like twenty seventeen
for him. So I've been there like eight or nine
years back again now so but yeah, so back at

(02:15):
it and it's a great company to work for, great
people there, and we do our best to take care
of everybody so carpet baggage flooring. If anybody's out there
looking for some flooring.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, carpet baggers does a great job. And we'll talk
about flooring. But you know, I saw you a week
or two ago at benefit concert for the American Cancer
Society up up and nexton in Summerville for that wretched
Access show that I thought it went great, man, I
enjoyed the hell out of it.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Well, thanks, man, that was pretty fun. It was great
being together with the guys because we were rehearsing over
the We get together once in a while over two
or three months getting the songs ready, but turnout had
some other bands playing with us. So yeah, it was fun.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Man.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
It got a little chili pretty quick. That was right
when we had that first cold spill. But it was fun.
And we raised up close to ten grand for that.
So with donations and people contributing for you know, to
come see it, and other donations and people out there
just doing stuff for free and or taking all their

(03:28):
you know, whatever they were down there, food trucks and stuff.
Everybody's donations went straight to the American Cancer Society. So
it was a good day.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, it was awesome and and I love the band
a Wretched. I mean I like all your bands and
your solo work too, but you know, Wretched holds a
special place in my heart. And and you guys are great.
And if you want to find any Wretched songs, you
got those up on YouTube, right.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yes, Kevin are guitar player, our old guitar player.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
We're old.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yes, he takes care of getting all the media stuff
up there, so yeah, he does a concern of that.
So if you can find him on YouTube, and you
might be able to even find him on iTunes and
stuff too, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, so let's get to flooring. So, I mean, there's
so you know, it seems like a simple subject, like, oh,
it's just flooring, right, but there's so many choices and
everybody knows that. When they go to choose new flooring,
they're like, ah, this will be easy, and then all
of a sudden, especially if you're married.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well yeah, there's lots of choices.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, there's lots of choices.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Not colors, there's all kinds of materials and different products.
So yeah, once you narrow that down, then you've got
to start figuring out the color. Yet that could be tough.
Used to be back started man, it was we had
engineered floors or real floors, solid solid oak or engineered
oak that we would either glue down or nail down.
And we had carpet and then vinyl for bathrooms and kitchens,

(04:55):
and that I was on like track builders or newer
homes coming out. Sometimes we do some tile, but we
didn't really do a lot of tile. But now you've
got hundreds of choices of all those things instead of
just like three or four. And the first thing I think,
I didn't want to interrupt you, but the first thing
I think that people underestimate is a cost. And it's

(05:16):
not like I'm trying to tell you get out your
checkbook or nothing, but a lot of people don't understand
what it takes to do the labor part of it,
the materials that you need. Whether it's tile, you've got
a lot more materials involved. If you're doing tile with
a flooring, you could have some materials depending on which
floor you use, sometimes there's a cushion or a moisture

(05:38):
barrier needed, or if you're doing hardwood, it's either going
to be the cost for the glue to glue it down,
or you know, there's some kind of wood guard that
goes underneath the nail down product that's not very expensive.
But yeah, there's difference costs involved in different things and
not the worst part of my day is getting a
response back from somebody is like, holy crap, no idea,

(06:00):
it's going to be this much. I'm like, man, I
try to do the best I can to help you
out on everything. But yeah, you know, it's a it's
an expense, and it's an investment. You know, it's something
that's going to last hopefully a long long time.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
So you know, like buying a car, Yeah, exactly, and
and you know, and you watch something that's you know, quality,
you don't want to cheap out on it because I
mean it'll wear right out right.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
And you know, even if it's a rental property that
you're doing. You know a lot of people are moving
to l VP or a laminate because so they won't
have to replace the carpet as much. And I get
that even if you're doing in the in the common areas,
like when you come in the delivering area, the halls
and the stairs and then maybe the bedrooms could be carpet.
You know, that's less exploring to worry.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
About later on and all of it.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
It saves a little expense not having to do the
whole place in the hard surface. But there are different
different options people can go with on mixed matching things.
You don't want to have too many different things in
your in your house. I would say two maybe three
different like if you're going to have carpet and wood
and tile maybe in the bathrooms or something. But I

(07:07):
wouldn't want to go like different carpets or different woods.
Don't want to mix match too much in other.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Words now, and I mean that's a higher labor cost
too to do it, you know, to have too many
different things in there.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
So when you're meeting with somebody, say you're meeting with
a couple and they're having trouble deciding what kind of
flooring to put down, and and maybe you can't even
agree among themselves, like you know, what do you suggest
to them how they can make their decision, What would
help them make their decision? What are the things to consider?

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Well, first first thing is what kind of subfloor. I
guess you're you're starting with whether you're on a slab
or you're on a crawl space where you're located has
a lot to do with it. If it's a like
my house is, you know, built in an area that
probably used to be wetlands of the neighborhood that they

(07:56):
just put up next to us a couple of years ago.
Used to be like that. Now there's houses there, so
you know, that means the ground is going to be
pretty moist underneath there. So we're built up off the ground.
There's like a garage under the house, so you know,
but that still lets you know it's not all the
way and closed in and air.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Tight, you know.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
So that is a factor you have to deal with
whether your slab on the ground is going to have
a good moisture barrier in there. A lot of times
people cut back on that and they don't put very
good so your slab's gonna sweat a lot. It's good
to do moisture eatings before we put a floor. That's
a big determination of what kind of floor. If there's
a high moisture content in your slab or in under

(08:36):
your house, then you're going to want to go with
something that breeds very good. So a lot of times
you're going to be limited to carpet it. We have
we go to people lots of times, well, I want
to say lots, but there have been times over the
years where we're like, we're sorry that we can't recommend
anything but either tile which breathes, or carpet. We can't
put any kind of hard surface. The wood's not going

(08:58):
to really work in here, neither will this other stuff
that blocks off the moisture. Vinyl is going to pretty
much create a moisture bearrier if you're doing an LVT
or an LVP, and laminate can do that too. Sometimes
there's different factors with the laminate that help the floor
breathe a little bit better, depending on what kind of
If it's an attached pad that helps a lot, or

(09:19):
if it's a vented pad so to speak. When you
open it up and unfold it, it has these little creases
in it which helped the moisture to to dissipate underneath.
So that's a big thing subfloor. Then once you narrow
down it's this or this or this or this, then
you can kind of start now or down from there,
help them pick the right product and explain each thing.
If it's different lvps or LVTs, there's different ones of that.

(09:42):
Some can be glued down. Most of them are floating,
there's solids, there's some that have cores. So and then
also with all the lamin is today, a lot of
people as soon as you say that, they're like, oh god,
but really that's my favorite of the two laminates. Are
they say water proof, I would say more rot water

(10:04):
resistance the ends. When you cut a piece that it
goes up against the wall, you still got to cut
the end off, so that end is going to be exposed. However,
you know, you put the quarter round down right, you
leave your expansion gap if you know. I don't suggest
really putting these kind of floors in bathrooms that have
tubs or showers, especially if it's a rental. You know,

(10:26):
you never know how much water people are going to
let spray right out onto the floor, and then where
it goes is a mystery. It's either going to dry
up or it's going to make us way underneath the
floor if it's floating. So pile is my suggestion for bathrooms,
definitely if there's a water source in there that you're
getting in and out of. But yeah, you know, if
it's carpet, you just start narrowing down. It's a pattern

(10:46):
that you want if they look at there's different lots
of different carpet choices now, and I found there's a
little turn going back towards carpet a little bit these days,
believe it or not, there's lots of good choices of
different patterns, color dominations. People are using it for lots
of stair runners we've been doing these days and making
area roads. So I mean some carpets wide open right now.

(11:11):
I'm not sure what the turn was on that, or
if it was just a fluke that it was a
big thing over the summer and winding out of the summer.
We're still looking at it though, so good stuff. Business
is not so bad right now, a little slower than
it than it was at this time last year. But
lots of things have been going on too, I guess.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
You talk about them every day.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah exactly. I mean you have the government shut down, inflation,
I mean, you know, and just the value of your
dollar now keeping up is a problem. And hopefully that
will you know. I hear that that is going to
change soon, but we'll see. Only time we'll tell. But
with the LVP, I mean, what a great product. And

(11:55):
I kept telling my wife, I'm like, you know, the
next time we get flooring, I think I want to
go with that. And she had the same reaction where
you were like when you mentioned that, people are like
And then she came home the other day and she
was in a place that had it, and she's like, oh,
because I kept telling her, I'm like, it's not what
you think it is. And and you know, once she
saw it, she fell in love with it. And I

(12:16):
think so many people do.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
So it really does have to you have to have
the right situation. Like I was saying, no is that
if you're on a crawl space, I was just something else.
If you're on a slab, then that's going to be fine.
If you're even up in the air and you've got
a living space. If you're doing it like on the
second floor of the house, that's good too. If there's

(12:38):
if it's air conditioned then heated underneath it, it's controlled,
I guess you say, But you know, if you're on
two three foot crawl space and you hadn't looked under
your house in a long time, vinyl is not the
way to go. I've seen it do some pretty significant
damage on that. And also, you know, people need to

(12:58):
make sure if you're just going to the store and
doing this stuff yourself, get somebody to check that moisture
and check under the house first. If you got wet
under your house already and you're going to trap all
that moisture under there, you're looking at problems.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Now.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
You brought up the subfloor, and you know it's important
for every type of flooring, but especially probably well like
you said, with the vinyl, but also with wood, right,
And a lot of these builders now are cheaping out
and instead of using plywood, they're using like, you know
what we used to call particle board. That's not a

(13:34):
good subfloor for hardwood flooring, is it, No?

Speaker 3 (13:38):
And I don't know if it's particle board they're used
in these days, but it's some kind of press board,
you know, like it looks like a flake that this
is all kind of but it's still kind of glued together.
Plywood is still the best way to go. And there's
even you know, different kinds of plywoods they make now
that are for sub floors and for moisture areas all

(14:00):
most just like the green board they make for your
walls for tile or bathrooms, it's treated differently and it's
made for subfloors just specifically. But but yeah, you got
to make sure underneath is the main thing underneath the house,
between your subfloor and the ground. You need to have
plastic under there needs to be sand on the ground

(14:22):
preferably first before the plastic. Make sure all that's dry,
there's no standing water underneath. A lot of people might
have a slow leak under their house and don't even
realize it until they start noticing something in their floor
and then look under and go, lord, I got a
pond under my house. I wonder I got rotten floors.
So always do a little bit of investigating first. Get

(14:43):
in your exterminator, the exterminators that have your termite bond
or whatever. A lot of times you they can. You
can just call them up and go, hey, send me
some pictures of the last time you did the inspection,
what's under the house look like. Sometimes they might have
to come back out and do it again, but it's
worth that little extra expense before you go dropping a
ton of money on your floors and you know, put

(15:05):
yourself in a bund by something being wrong that you
didn't know about.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
I mean, it really is and you don't even have
any idea how many times that comes up on the
inspections that we do, and you know, it's rotten subfloors,
it's rotten moisture under the house. The moisture reading is
exceptionally high.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
We're the highest in the country for high moisture, you know,
us in Texas and all along because anywhere like that
where it's you know, very humid, that's what we get.
So you work around.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
It, and you know, and you get exceptionally high moisture
readings all the time. Sometimes people even need sump pumps
and they don't even realize it and then you have
to go trench it out and put some pump in
and do all of that. So there can be a
bunch of damage under the house. And like you said,
I mean, there's not very many people that go crawling
under their house to inspect it on a regular basis.

(15:58):
So and that's a great idea with you know, if
your house is under Termoit bond, because they'll come and
inspect it once a year for that Termoi bond, have
them snap some pictures and ask them what the condition
is while they're under there. Now, when we get to pricing,
why don't you rank the products according to price. So
if somebody's on a budget or they can afford to

(16:19):
spend a little more, they'll know what their options are.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
So the lamb in it for solid floor solid flooring
is probably going to be the most economical. To me,
it's like I said, man, the planks feel more like
wood vinyly. You know, vinyl is going to be a
little bit flimsy. There are harder planks, the thicker you get,
but to me, you know, less movement with a laminate floor.

(16:45):
So laments are going to be anywhere. You know, for
a decent one, you're going to be in your low
threes little I'd say maybe a little under three fifty
and three and a quarter maybe up to you know,
you can get into the form five dollars, depending on
what kind of finish you're looking at, what kind of
Some of the joints look more like a grout line

(17:06):
than they do an actual wood joints, So there's different
looks and different choices. But I say, in between three
point fifty and five dollars not a very big range
on laminates. You can get some they're a little cheaper,
some that are more expensive. That's a good window though,
with LVP starting point about the same three in the
low threes, but you can get up many. Some of

(17:29):
the core tech ones now are a half inch thick,
even a little more. There's one I think they make
now there's three quarters. So that's a big thick piece
of vinyl with a thick core and a thick piece
of cork underneath it. So you got three layers of
a product there with everything you need. If you have
a wood stow floor, you just lay that right down.
If you have a slab, you put down a moisture

(17:50):
barrier first and then you lay it down. Those can
get up into the nine and ten dollars a square
foot the higher ones, but the middles are around six
six or so, i'd say six to seven and then hardwood.
Your engineers probably started around the same area three fifty
or so in the builders. You know, you get what

(18:12):
you're paying for kind of thing. The top surface is
going to be a little bit thinner. You can get
up to so a lot of engineered floors now because
of being a people want wood on slab these days.
Though you can get an engineered floor with a plank
that's up to nine ten inches wide. Some of them

(18:32):
might even go even wider than that. I know, I've
seen ten, maybe eleven, and the planks are longer, some
of them seven eight feet long, so you can spread
those out over a slab floor. You can do those
on a wood subfloor, all glued down. Some people you know,
suggest glue and nailing depending on the product, but usually

(18:53):
just glue.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
Glue.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
You have to be about one hundred and fifty square
feet per bucket, so if you've got two thousand square feet,
you're looking at lots of buckets and those are getting
on three hundred bucks per bucket some of that glue,
So that's a lot of money for glue. So you
got it for that. And some of those wide hardwoods
get up to and you're in the nine and ten dollars. However,

(19:20):
they have a five mili surface on the top, so
you can, you know, you can stand that down once
maybe twice over a twenty year period to refinish the floor.
So you've got enough on top of that engineered top layer,
you know, to refinish that floor over the years. Man,
the finishes on those floors these days are so good

(19:41):
and baked in, and they do like five to ten
baked on codes that so many degrees that we cannot
even duplicate on it on site finished. So the finish
that comes on these floors is way better than you
can get done by somebody you know on site. But
we do that too, so well.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
I mean, that's good to know, you know, you know,
when you're making that choice for looking down the road
on what you're going to have to deal with.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
That's right. And for a solid wood. Now you don't
around here, like we were talking about moisture issues and
stuff gluing down an engineered stuff. You can go wide
if you're looking at solid you know, the old tried
and true is the two and a quarter wide by
three quarter. That's you know, the safest way, I'll say

(20:28):
right now, some people go three three and a half.
I've done four inches around here before. And problems, man,
And where you think you've got the safest conditions in
a house, it's still gonna cup and and you know more,
you know, it's gonna moon shape, is going to bubble up,
if it's going to get crimped up, or it's gonna

(20:48):
you know, cup the other way, and it's just you know,
you stand back and you can see it. So just
we got too much moisture. Man engineered is the way
to go, seems around around these parts, unless you're sticking
with the old two and a quarter inch wide solid.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Now, what about the cost of carpeting. Now, sometimes the
pad can cost as much as the carpet.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Right, there are some good pads out there. There's some
good pads though, that you don't have to empty your
wallet on.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
You can stay.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
I mean, the pad I use in my house is
pretty much a little above the middle of the road.
Since I've done that, though, there's been a couple of
other ones that have come out with moisture barriers and stuff.
But if you're in a position where you don't need,
you know, to protect your carpet from pets or kids
spilling stuff all the time, then you don't have to

(21:36):
spend really the extra money on the pad unless you
want to carpet. However, it's not so bad. Has it
moved a lot over the last few years as far
as price goes. There's been some new products that have
been coming out, Like I was telling you, some newer
looks which I think are bringing a little fuel to
the to the fire for the carpet market. So that's good,

(21:59):
but you know you're still looking I mean wolves and
you know things like that. If you're if you're really
going upgrade, you're into the ten to twelve dollars a
square foot on those which is you know, one hundred
and twenty dollars a yard or so. But you can
also stay, you know, with something very economical, you know,

(22:21):
for your house in the in the three to five
dollars a square foot, you know, and if you want
to move up from there, then you're looking at you're
into you know, high twenties to thirty dollars a yard.
So that's a much more you know middle ground right there. Now,
if you're rental property in it and stuff like that,
or just trying to get something sold, you know, we
can keep you down, you know, you know in the

(22:44):
teens on price per square yard, you know, you're in
the dollar to two dollars square foot. So you know,
there's all different options these days, man, on everything, it's
pew compared to what it was when I started out. Man,
it's it's like starting off a book to go into
the Britannic encyclopedias. Lots of lots of product knowledge.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Well, of course, I mean you have a showroom where
people can go cruise right on seventeen sounth and.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
West Ashley, nicest in town.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, so that can you know, I'd urge anybody to
go by and take a look and see what your
options are and and make your choices that way. And
if they want to reach out to you directly about
ordering some flooring, David, how do they reach you?

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Then just give me a call at the office and
ask for me David Dunning. The number there is eight
four three five seven one zero zero one three, or
you can you can email me David at Carpetbaggers dot.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Com, carpetdash Baggers dot com and Buddy. I appreciate all
the great information and in good luck to everybody picking
out a new floor And like I said, especially when
you're married, because you know how that goes.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yep, you're just listening to the boss man.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
It's like, but I like, it's never mind what you like, Yes, ma'am,
that's right. That phrase right there, David will serve you well, yes, ma'am.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Indeed, you've been married a little longer than me, but
we're getting on nineteen years this coming July, so one
more year to twenty.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Well congratulations man, Yes, sir, and you too.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
You've been married forever.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, I am trying to think of how long. I
think twenty eight years, so yeah, so a long time.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Say we were talking about that the other day.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, that's right, we were. But you know, we love
our wives, and of course we're just joking with the
yes ma'am stuff, well half joking with the yes ma'am stuff,
but always good to talk to you, my friend. And
I'm going to let you play us out here with
your song What Happens Now? This is off of your
solo record. You can you can go and purchase it essentially,

(25:00):
it's up on all the regular sites, right.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah, you can just go to YouTube and listen to
it too. You don't have to buy it. I ain't
making no money.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Oh okay, Well if you're not making any money, then yeah,
I go to YouTube and listen to it.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
I get a check every couple of months for like
four dollars.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Well, I mean it's better than nothing, man. At least
you know that people.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Are listening, right, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
What Happens Now from David Dunning and we'll talk soon.
David and thanks for joining us today on your Home
through sixty.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yes, sir buddy, thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
I remember everything you said. I never done it bother me.
But here I go again. Something's going on insigning.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
My so the little things I.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
Understands so bad because I can't see what guess to
be saying? He said so bad. I'm lens with our past.
So why now now that I'll go.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
Some feel it's be easier to day another year has
come and gone. Basket feel the same. I'm never guessing it,
but in this way I'm looking back. I start to
think I the word to.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
I can't see what things these so happens where? So
why happens?

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Because I can't see.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
Its reasonles so happens.

Speaker 5 (27:59):
Where?

Speaker 2 (28:32):
That's David Dunning? What happens now? I want to thank
David for joining us today and talking about flooring. He's
an expert. He's worked in Carpetbaggers in West Ashley for
a very long time and carpetbaggers does a great job.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
I can tell you personally.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
It's Michael Blaize. I appreciate you listening to another edition
of your Home three sixty. Join us every Saturday and
I will talk to you again Monday morning. Enjoy the
rest of your weekend.