100% Right or 100% Wrong with Larson Home Services

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right there.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Eight oh five thirteen ten WI B A and ask
the experts, joined this morning by Andrew Larson. Andrew, of course,
comes to us from Larsen Home Services. The website Larsendhomes
Services dot com.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
That's L A R.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
S O N Home Services dot Com. Telephone number six
oh eight five three five forty three forty three. That's
five three five four three four three. Andrew, are you
keeping warm right now?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I am. It's good. I mean as good as I can.
But I mean I'm inside. Yeah, you know. I'm doing
this thing right now called seventy five hard. Some of
our listeners have probably heard of it, but it's a
it's a fitness challenge, and it's it's one workout a
day inside, it's one workout a day outside. It's drinking
a gallon of water, it's reading books, it's no alcohol,

(00:50):
it's sticking to a diet like it's wow. It's called
seventy five Hards. So right now, every single day I
have to get some sort of workout in outside for
forty five minutes. Oh my good, I can tell you
how fun that is. Right now?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, you know what, Andrew, I once you're done with it,
the rewards will be great and you'll truly appreciate comfort.
And it's funny you mentioned your inside at home indoors
because generally comfortable, but not universally comfortable. Unfortunately for some folks,
their houses are not particularly comfortable, and it's a lot

(01:26):
to do with how their home home performs. And you know,
one of the you had mentioned to me, you said,
home performance is either all right or it's all wrong.
Explain that that and and why it's one of those
important areas, especially this time of year.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, that that is a model that we have with
our with our production text. And it's not I mean,
it's not really a model. It's a truth, but it's
something we talk about. It's one hundred percent right or
it's one hundred percent wrong. And that's that's my sales
guys understand that, and our staff understands that because when
it comes to home performance work and everybody listens, home

(02:01):
performance work to me is the way your home is heated,
it's cooled, how it holds energy, how it breathes. All
of that. It's home performance. How does your home perform?
And it's a one hundred percent right, it's a hundred
percent wrong. Like, if we don't do everything one hundred
percent right, we can actually make things worse. And here's
the thing. We're not perfect. We're learning. We've made mistakes.

(02:25):
I mean, we've made costly mistakes, like pocketbook wise, where
we've done something we thought was right, missed a little
something and exacerbated a problem and created a bigger problem
and ended up having to go back to houses and
remove and redo everything. But that's something we'll do. But
I have a specific I have a specific story about

(02:46):
one hundred percent right or one hundred percent wrong. And
this one has to do with vaulted ceilings. A lot
of people have usually might have a room in their
home that has a vaulted ceiling. It looks cool, it
makes a room feel big, and you know, it gives
height to the room, so it happens a lot in
a great room or something like that. Well, they're hard

(03:08):
to insulate, you know. For one thing, on a regular ceiling,
we've got an attic space that we can get into
and we can properly air seal and insulate. You know,
we can get our seventeen eighteen inches of insulation in there,
get us an R sixty. We can air seal it
on a vaulted ceiling. Unless it's new construction, it's typically
never done right. And even if it's new construction, it

(03:30):
might not be done right. But usually what's done is
you put your you know, you put your your rafters
up there. You and you basically throw some fiberglass rolled
pink stuff up there, and it's not very efficient. Those
rooms can usually be cold and drafty, and so a
lot of people are We have a lot of people

(03:51):
that call us that are looking for better ways to
insulate that well. One of the ways that you can
insulate it is dense packing. And dense packing is just
what it sounds. You are dense sleep packing cellulose insulation.
And when you do that properly, it has a good
our value. And our value is a measure of the
rate of energy escape, so it's got a good our value.

(04:12):
Our value of a wall, if it's two by six
wall is about nineteen not amazing when we can get
an R sixty in our attic, But getting our sixty
in our attic is much more important because heat rises,
so we candense pack it well. One of the ways
that contractors will do that is they will actually take
the ridge vent or the ridge cap off a roof

(04:35):
if there is one. If there's not, they will create one,
and they will actually dense pack from the top of roof.
Sounds straightforward, I mean to me some people I think
that sounds really complicated, But it's pretty straightforward. But here's
the problem. Ninety nine point nine percent of the time,
there's already insulation in those cavities. So when you dense

(04:55):
pack and you stick this long, hard tube down these
roof slopes, you're essentially can be pushing the fiberglass insulation
that's in there down, And because you can't see what
you're doing, you are doing this blindly. All you can
do is measure the length of that slope and hope
that you can get that tube down there the same
so you're covering the whole area. But I know from

(05:18):
experience that it is almost impossible because you push the
other insulation that's in there down, and what you can
end up doing is actually creating voids. So there might
be now voids and that roof slope that have no
insulation in them. Which now we've got certain areas that do,
certain areas that are dense packed, and certain areas that

(05:39):
might have little spaces, little holes, little voids of insulation.
So now what we did is we took it from
basically one hundred percent right before it was just under insulated,
but it was still right to completely wrong. And one
of my reps ran a lead last year, and that's
what these people wanted done. Wanted they wanted their vaulted

(06:02):
ceiling dense pack and he knew we will not do
that because we've been there before and I know what
can happen. Well told the whole owner that we will
not do that, even though the whole owner says, well,
we've talked to two other companies and they will do it,

(06:23):
but we know that you guys are the best and
we want to work with you, and we were just
sorry adamant not doing it. The only way to do
it properly is to actually tear the shingles off, tear
the deck boards off, and spray foe it from the outside.
Now we know that we do not have any voids.

(06:47):
It is one hundred percent right because now we not
only have we given it a great our value with
spray poone, we've actually air sealed now too, because air
can't go through spray phone close sell spray phone. So anyway,
apparently they went with somebody else and they got it
dense packed, and we got a call yesterday that they

(07:07):
have wet spots at the ends where their wall meets
their ceiling. Well, what has happened is we sent someone
out there right away, even though we didn't do the work.
We sent someone out there right away. They were able
to crawl their way up into an attic space that
was adjacent to this vaulted ceiling area and see in

(07:28):
there and there were voids, there were multiple voids, and
they were soaking wet, stripping wet because now there's no insulation.
So what we have is we've got super cold deck
board and so now that warm air is able to
rise up hit the sheet rock, it can then go
through the sheet rock or it's getting through there from
holes or air gaps, and it's condensating on that roof. Well,

(07:52):
because it's dense packed in certain areas, no airflow can
get through there, so we can't even use the air
or the ventilation to carry them moist sure out. Now
we've got and this was one year ago almost to
the day. Now they've got wet, dripping, moldy wood. Now
We're going to give them an estimate to go back,
tear the shingles off, tear the deck boards off, get

(08:15):
rid of all that wet nastiness, spray film it, put
the roof deck back on, put new shingles on. So
again it's all right or it's all wrong. And now unfortunately,
and I feel bad for them because I mean, I
don't know how much was spent to dense pack, but

(08:37):
I'm sure it was, you know, three four or five
thousand dollars. It's a lot of work. So again, all
right or all wrong. And in this case it was
done with probably with good conscience and best intentions. But
I know from experience that it's almost an impossible task
to do. That's why we just stay away from it.
And if doing it the right way is too expensive,

(09:00):
I can't help you. We will only do it the
right way because we need to sleep at night knowing
that we did it right.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
And that's one of the things I think for a
homeowner you can really appreciate. I can speak to that
personally as well. You guys have done work on our home,
and you talk about all right or all wrong, the
attention to detail and making sure that every piece, every part,
everything is done right. It's pretty phenomenal. And you mentioned
the scenario of somebody who actually decided to try and
save a couple of bucks. Well, you're not saving any

(09:27):
money having to do it twice. As a matter of fact,
you're costing yourself a whole lot more money and wasted
time and damage and other issues. That's why we talk
about with Andrew about the work that they do. And
of course calling Larsenome Services at six eight five three
five forty three forty three. That's five three five four
three four three. If you haven't had your home inspected recently,

(09:48):
had a performance check on your home, definitely get the
folks from Larstome Services out. If you are looking to
have some work done, make sure that one of the
calls is to Larsnome Services. Have to come out, have
them take a look at your house, how it performs,
give you some knowledge and understanding a little bit of
an education about what they do and what makes them different.
At larsen Home Services. You will not regret it. I'll
get to do this morning. Pick up phone, gimme call

(10:08):
six oh eight five three five four three fourth three.
That's not going to cost you anything again their number
six oh eight five three five forty three forty three.
Learn more online Larsenhomeservices dot com. That's Larson L A R.
S O N Home Services dot com. Andrew, this is
too easy.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
I gotta tell you that, Mary, I like to talk
too much. I just got done working out, lots of
pre workout and coffee. It'scome to run high.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
What I love is I love the perspective and and
and you know it's something I know you are. You
put your name on the business, and I know you're
very proud of of the work that your team does.
And it's it's great to hear about about the projects
and some of the things that your guys and your
team are encountering, because I think for a lot of
folks it's very real life. Is this is things that
that maybe others have experienced or hopefully some folks that

(10:55):
maybe maybe heading down that wrong road may have a
chance to write it before it becomes a problem. So
I really enjoy hearing this stuff. And again that's a
great thing too with Andrew talk about the pride in
the work that they do. If you haven't had a
chance to check out their Facebook page, I laugh because
I've become a big fan of nice looking addicts, and
it's because of Andrew. It becomes to the work that

(11:17):
they do and the pride that they take it is amazing.
Head on over to their Facebook and social media page, where,
of course learn more online Larsenhomeservices dot com. Andrew, it's
always too much fun, my friend. You have a great
day and we'll talk real soon, you too, all right,
next week week we'll we'll talk then again. The website
larsenhome Services dot com. That's l A R s o
N home Services dot com. Kevin hamhamsarburgare enjoined us next

(11:39):
right here thirteen dn WIV