Ty Stricklin Fix My Slab Interview

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, welcome back, Hey, welcome back to Guardline folks. Good
to have you with us. Just a reminder before we
get going here. Superturf nineteen four ten from Nitrofoss. The
silver bag provides months of gradual feeding of your turf,
the way turf should be fed, the way we should

(00:21):
be fed. I mean, do you eat Do you eat
three months of food at one time? Okay, maybe I
shouldn't ask do you should you eat three months of
food at one time? No? In your turf's is the
same way. Superturf gives a gradual feed. You can find
Superturf and other night FoST products it places like Dandy
Feed and tombaal RCW Nurse around Tomball Parkway and allspaws

(00:42):
ace up in the woodlands on kirkandall this hour we're
going to be talking to Ty Strickland from Fix my Slab,
and you hear me talk about them all the time.
We're going to be talking about all kinds of things
related to problems with the concrete in our world, our
foundation and driveways and things like that. If you have

(01:04):
a question this hour, the eight o'clock hour, I ask
that it becall if it's regarding something regarding what we're
talking about, foundations or slabs or driveways or whatnot, and
feel free to do so. To talk to Ty. We're
gonna look at the way our plants might affect foundations
and things as well. If you have a general gardening question,

(01:25):
hold that until nine o'clock. We'll be doing that for
the nine to ten hour again when we come back.
So let's head on out here, Ty, are you there?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Good morning, Skip? How are you.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
I'm good, I'm good. Thanks for agreeing to take time
out today and come on the show. I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Now, I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Skip.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
I've been partnering with you for a little while now,
and I just want to tell you your audience is right
up my alley. There's a big difference pursuit. And there's
a big difference between people who have a house and
have a home and your audience who are concerned about
their landscaping, are concerned about their home, and those that's

(02:12):
my customer right there.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Well, good, I'm glad to hear that. Well, nobody wants
to talk about foundation problems, right. I mean, anytime something
that potential level it hits in my life, I want
to stick my head in the sand like an ostrich
and maybe it'll go away, and we know it doesn't.
One time, you told me that all slabs have cracks,

(02:36):
and I if I if I'm quoting you right? Can
you is that?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Do you?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Is that? Did I get that right? And if so,
will you explain what that means?

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, there's there's definitely a uh in my In my world,
there's three levels of cracks. I mean, the all concrete
has cracks and it's called shrinkage cracks. The next level
of crack is kind of when it starts.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
To become a hinge point.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
And that's when you really start to notice whenever you know,
whether it's the front of the house, back of the
house starts dropping, it becomes a hinge and that's when
you really want to be a little more aggressive and
start getting on.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Top of the situation. Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
The last form of crack is whenever you actually have
vertical displacement and the slab actually fractured, and we want
to prevent that for sure.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, vertical, that's interesting. Vertical displacement, so like one section
is literally lifting upward, not just hinging like you say,
you know, tilting a little bit. But but lifting upwards,
I can see how that would be a problem that
might be on the level of the San Andreas crack. Well, well,

(03:51):
let's uh, let's let's talk a little bit about you know,
when people are listening to this and they're going, well,
I don't know if I have cracked in my foundation.
How do I know what I have here? I mean,
how do I know that it's something I need to
call you about?

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Well, there's some obvious things. The thing I tell people
is that this is the cause and effect. Right, So
if your slab is dropping enough, what happens is it's
actually pulling on your framing. So whenever your doors are
not sitting perfectly aligned in the frame and you develop

(04:28):
diagonal cracks off of the doorframes, that's truly when you
want to start getting worried, because it's actually pulling on
the structure. I don't you know, I talk with my
hands a lot, but like when the slab drops, basically
the wall is rolling out, So it's pulling on your framing.
And that's why it's a structural concern.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Okay, And that's that hinge thing. Like, since you mentioned hands,
if people will put their two hands flat out in
front of them and to together and now tilt one
hand to the left or right. That's is that what
kind of what you're talking about?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Exactly?

Speaker 3 (05:07):
I mean away exactly skip as a slab drops, Basically
the wall is rolling out, so it's pulling on the
framing of your home. And that's what's causing your doors
to be misaligned. And I'm not talking about people say
ghost doors, but you could actually look at your doorframes

(05:29):
and there'll be a gap larger on one side versus
the other. And yeah, that's when you need to be concerned.
It is a structural concern.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
And putting off dealing with it is not a good
plan because at some point what has to be done
becomes more major, more expensive, and so on.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, if you can catch it early, we can handle
it from the perimeter. If you wait too long, and
then now we're actually having them do interior work, and
that is terrible. You either have to jackhammer through the floor,
which is not pleasant.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
For a homeowner, or to hunnel underneath the.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
House, which is a much more expensive plan. So yeah,
if you catch it early, you handle from the perimeter
and it's much less expensive.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Okay, yeah, well that's true. A lot of things in
life putting off a problem tense to not fix itself. So, uh,
that's that's good advice. Let's uh, let's let's do this.
I'm gonna I need to take a little break here,
and I think it's a little early, but I think

(06:46):
I'm gonna go ahead and take it because I want
to dive off into some more questions and not have
to stop you part way through an answer. We're talking
to Ty Strickland from fix my Slab. Fix myslab dot
com is the website if you like to go there
and check it out if you've got a question regarding
soil foundations. And we're going to get their driveways too.

(07:07):
A lot of people have driveways that look like the
rocky mountains you know as well. It's not exactly level anymore. Uh,
give us a call, uh seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. Just a reminder to hold
off on gardening questions themselves.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Now.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
If you want to talk about trees and foundations and things,
we'll talk about that, but give us a call. We'll
be right back. Do you know that this is Buchanan's
fortieth anniversary. Buchanan's dated plants in the Heights on Eleventh
Street fortieth anniversary, been around a while, and what a
great place to go. By the way, when you go there,
you know, I know you're going for the plants and

(07:46):
the expertise and stuff that they have in the product,
but always check out the Bungalow their little gift shop.
Do you know that they have clothing? Uh? And do
you know that they have like for kids, They have
kids pajamas and clothing. And by the way, this is
tax free weekend, you know. August seventh through Sunday August
ninth is Texas tax free weekend back to school. You know,

(08:07):
we're clothing and footwear and school supplies and stuff are exempt.
And so stop into the bungalow check out some real
cool pajamas and stuff for kid and that does count
for the tax free weekend. I want to let you
know too that today, after I quit talking here on
garden Line, at ten o'clock at Buchanans Elizabeth Wingfield, Polino

(08:28):
is going to be talking about creating a fall cut
flower garden. It's a free class, one hour class from
ten to eleven at Buchanus Native Plants in the Heights today,
creating a fall cut flower Garden. What a great idea.
It's free, and while you're there, chop around and see
some of the wonderful plant options that they have there

(08:48):
at Buchanans Native Plants. We're going to continue our discussion
with Ty Strickland from Fix my Slab Foundation Repair and
Ty welcome back to garden. Line kind of wanted to
shift the question over a little bit and talk about
the effect of plants on our foundations. And I will

(09:09):
get a question from time to time Tie, like you know,
can I plant a tree five feet from my house
or ten feet from my house or fifteen feet from
a house, And they're concerned about the roots, and they're
worried about the roots lifting up the foundation and cracking it.
And so we talk about the fact that tree roots
go two and a half times the height of the
tree in all directions and can even be further depending

(09:31):
on the soil and the conditions, and so moving a
plan over a little bit, the tree roots are still
going to go over there. Of course, the further you
get away, the less size there's going to be on them.
But do you have any thoughts or advice regarding trees
and roots and how they affect the foundations of our houses.
Can you kind of enlighten us on that.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Yeah, that's the biggest thing that I see. I mean,
I've been doing this twenty five years and the biggest
thing that I can tell people is those oak trees
that the HOA the developers wires in your small front yard.
They have a major effect on your foundation, probably about

(10:13):
fifteen to twenty years in the tree gets big enough
and the moisture is getting pulled from the soil.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
And so prevention is a great word, I think.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
And root barriers, anything you can do to keep the
roots from growing underneath your house will have a major
long term effect of not needing foundation repair.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay, Okay, So I think a part of what you're
saying there is it's not just that the root gets
under the foundation like it would go under a sidewalk
or a driveway and crack it. But it isn't it
the effect of like the moisture removal that a tree
is capable of doing and going in increasing that wet

(11:00):
dry cycle.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Exactly, Skip.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
I mean, we build floating flabs because we know our
soil moves up and down, and in a perfect world,
if you have even moisture around your house. Your slab
moves up and down evenly. But due to the effect
those two or three oak trees that they require you
to put in your front yard, over time, there's less

(11:27):
moisture in the soil in the front of your house
and in the back of your house, and that's what
causes a lot of foundation problems. The front of your
house begins to subside due to a difference in moisture
content compared to the rest of your yard.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Okay, so yeah, that's a good visual you gave there
of the floating slab. Like the soil gets dry, shrinks down.
This so gets wet, it lifts up. But when it
gets wet on one side not the other, it gets
dry on one side and at the other's that's where
you start to get that crack in the hinge that
you were talking about earlier. So now tell me a

(12:08):
little bit about the root barriers. Do y'all do those
or do they need to talk to somebody in a
tree business for that?

Speaker 2 (12:18):
No, absolutely, I do those.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
I mean, what we're trying to do is, once again,
we're just trying to prevent.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
The roots affecting the house. So if you look at.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
It from a I don't know. I guess a overview.
Once again, the house is designed to move up and
down evenly, which once again a floating flab. But with
the trees in the front, you develop less moisture. So
if we can prevent the roots from going underneath the house,
then you have a better chance of maintaining equal moisture

(12:56):
around the house. And their house is going to move
up evenly.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Okay, So can you give me a little bit of
a lot of technical detail, like a root barrier? What
are we talking about? What is that? How far away
from a foundation typically would you do? How deep does
one go? Just kind of a general overview. What do
you mean by root barrier?

Speaker 3 (13:23):
So it depends on the yard obviously or in the situation.
But we want to prevent the roots maybe five five
feet away from the home from going underneath there. And
so there are products out there that you know, whatever,
you dig a trench and you install the product, and

(13:45):
the product that I use is called bio barrier, and
over time it basically creates a leasing effects with a
herbicide that prevents the roots from going underneath the home.
And it's I mean, people talk about prevention all the time,

(14:06):
it's Houston, it's not. If you're gonna need foundation in parish,
just win. But there are some things you can do
from a prevention standpoint. Roop briers one, soaker hose are another.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
So let's just say that.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
There's not a lot you can do to prevent it
in our current soil conditions. And we're building so fast
around Houston. Everything that we're building right now used to
be rice farms, and the soil is just black gumbo clay,
and you're eventually gonna have problems if you don't start
thinking about prevention early.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Would would you recommend I realize I'm kind of going
down a rabbit trail here on this route thing. I'm
just curious myself about it. But would you recommend that
when a house is built that something like that we
put in or is that something you would wait and
if needed later? Added? I know that I'm asking you

(15:13):
questions that I know the answer begins with the word
it depends. But what do you think is this something
should be installed earlier or just wait and see?

Speaker 3 (15:25):
I mean, I think if somebody is really a true homeowner,
which most of your audiences are, that is concerned about
the flower beds and all of that, the plants and
the beautification. Yes, I think if you do it early,
you're going to have a much less chance of having

(15:46):
foundation problems in the future.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Okay, And I do know what you mean about the
rice patty soil and the clays and the high When
I was in school, I had to take soul science
class and they call it the shrink swell potential of
the soil. I'm sure those are terms you probably used
to but potentially so high.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Skip, You'll have to remind me, but there's something about
a high plastic plasticity index.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Correct, Okay, yes, huh yeah, yep. Uh. You know, if
you have a sandy soil, it's not going to do
much shrinks well, you know when it comes to water.
But boy, some of these clays, Uh yeah, it does.
It's kind of like me in enchiladas. There's a big
shrink swell potential when I start considering a lot of

(16:38):
enchiladas and uh but unfortunately it's mostly swell and not
much shrink. Joking aside, how we get that?

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Mean? People really don't understand it.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
It's like a double edged sword, like, oh, I'll just
cut the trees out. I mean, I've been to houses
where big trees whatever, one hundred year old oak trees
have been removed and they just built a big old
house and all of a sudden, we've got to swell
and you can see the house from the streets. It's

(17:16):
it's six inches off level because one side of the
house has swelled so much because they.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Removed a big oak tree.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
So the soil conditions here are lot of a little
bit insane.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, yeah, that is a challenge. Well, I guess it
keeps you busy. But unfortunately for the for everybody that's
building all these houses all over the place, it's not
a good thing. So when when we're talking about this
like a like a root barrier things to protect it.
You made another statement about a socer hose. Can you

(17:51):
kind of advise people on if someone were to put
a hoser around the house, and how do you run those?
Do you just leave them on always soaking or do
you put them on when it's kind of quit raining?
And then we're we're you know, it's hadn't rained for
a couple of weeks, so let's go ahead and get
some moisture in there before it starts moving a lot,
or what do you recommend.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
So skip I pay attention to. There's a US strout
monitor that comes out every Thursday morning at seven am.
And right now we have no drought conditions, so it's
a balancing act. You're trying to maintain moisture around your house.
So yes, the soaker hose definitely helps. What I recommend

(18:36):
is to keep the soaker hose about eighteen inches away
from the foundation. And you're trying, once again, it's a
balancing act. You're trying to maintain equal moisture. So right
now you should be running a soaker hose about one
time a week, about twenty minutes of twenty minutes at
a time. The important part once again, about eighteen inches

(18:58):
away from the foundation. If we continue on our normal
Texas summer where we're going into drought conditions, which we
are not there right now, you would increase that two
days a week, three days a week, twenty minutes at
a time. So you're trying to maintain you can. The
problem is people wait too long and they can't catch

(19:21):
up once the drought hits.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
So right now.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
We're thinking about, okay, we're perfect, perfect moisture content, how
do we maintain that? And it's once again, it's a
balancing act.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Skip okay, okay. Yeah, So it's like a lot of
these questions. The answer UT is going to begin with
depends because it depends on shore, It depends on how
hot it is, depends on how much it drain, and
on and on. Uh So that but that is a
good guideline. It gives people an idea. You know, what
does it mean to moisten the soil? And basically you're

(19:55):
just saying, try to keep it evenly moist as best
you can. So that's really good advice and very very helpful.
I'm about five seconds away from having to go to
a heartbreak. Ty. Thank you. We'll be coming right back
to you in just a moment. Folks, don't go away.
We are visiting with Ty Strickland from Fix my Slab

(20:16):
Foundation Repair about all kinds of things. I've been talking
about some fascinating things about, you know, the causes and
ways to prevent problems with the foundation on our homes.
If we want to bring Tie back in here and Taiwan.
To continue our discussion, I'd like to shift over for
a moment and talk a little bit about the driveways

(20:39):
and things. I was at a family member's house a
few months ago and their driveway. I told them it
looked like the Rocky Mountains. I mean it had just
sort of fallen down on the sides and stuck up
in the middle, and they had a big, old giant
crack and pieces are falling off of it and everything else.
There are things that can be done aside from bringing

(21:00):
in a bulldozer and a cement truck to put a
new driveway in, And will you talk a little bit
about driveway issues and what can be done about those.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Certainly skip you have to remember that we're only dealing
with flat work, which is the nonstructural concrete, and it's
only four inches thick. So it's sitting up there in
the middle of our expansive soil, and it's going to move.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
If it's dropped. That's not that big a deal.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
We can come in and we can do an injection
of semontitious grout and remove the trip hazards. What's kind
of interesting is that the insurance community has totally changed
where they will not renew if you have trip hazards
in your driveway. So we're getting a lot of calls

(21:59):
to move that so people can renew their homeowners' insurance policies.
But there is a way to level your driveway and
it's probably a third of the cost of breaking out
and replacing and pouring new concrete.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
So you know, it's one of those things.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
If you're seeing that on your expansion joints in your
driveway that they're not level, we can help with that.
And it's so much cheaper if you catch it early
before you have to break it out and replace it.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Okay, now, I'm assuming if it's so far along that
now you've got a two inch gap and the two
slabs have separated, we're getting a little too late there
for any kind of repair.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Right, Yeah, So the biggest differences skip is if the
tree has affected the driveway, where as calls the driveway
to lift up. I can't lower a driveway at that point.
We have to replace it. But and I don't know

(23:11):
whatever the number is, seventy percent of the time, if
you catch it early, we can keep you from having.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Those trip hazards.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
And level it and save you a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Well, you know, just thinking about it, it seemed to
me like this may be a place to where a
route barrier before the problem becomes a bad wouldn't be
a bad idea because you know, tree riachs are only
going to get bigger in time.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Absolutely, And the more important part about that, Skip, is
that that tree is gonna need more water to stay
alive old or it gets and it totally influenced whether
it's the foundation or the driveway or the sidewalk. So yes,
so there's there's a lot of preventative things that you
can do, and root barriers the great great resolution for that.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
That is a that is a good point. So, uh,
all this foundation, uh, the foundation issues and talk you
you mentioned some different levels of fixing a foundation, from
you said stuff you can kind of do on the outside, uh,

(24:30):
to jackhammering through the floors, to creating trenches and crawling
under I just can't imagine those last two, especially the
trench thing where someone's crawling under the foundation trying to
fix it and stuff. Uh, what basically are you doing
is is there sort of some sort of a a
vertical peer being put down deep in the soil to

(24:53):
get a good foothold or or what what what's happening
when you're doing that level of a repair.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
I try and keep it simplistic, Skip, and think about
in most areas around Houston, the top eight feet of
soil is what I consider active soil, and so when
we install piling, then you can look at it as
any type of support. But basically we're penetrating the active

(25:21):
soil and going deep enough to get into the non
active soil, and that soil is not affected by the
elements because it doesn't have the same exposure. So we're
just transferring the load from the active soil down to
the non active soil.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Okay, so that's why these skyscrapers aren't all tipping over
and fallowing on their side. They're getting down to something
solid that'll hold the building up.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
Buh yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
I mean, I don't know if you want to go
into like the leaning tower piece or anything, but very simple.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
You think about it like the.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
They think about a house galliston up on stilts. All
we're doing is putting in slilts to go through the
act of soil, to get down to the non act
of soil, and that will become the new soul of
supporting the structure.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Okay, that's good. Now. I suspect you've probably not been
called by the Italians to come fix that darn thing
because they're making a lot of money off the fact
that it's crooked. But that would be quite the job
to take on, and.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
I may not be able to communicate over there. I
only do job site Spanish.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Okay, yeah, I don't think that would work. Oh yeah,
well that's that's all. That's all good and interesting. So
do you have any This is getting a little outside
of you know, fix my slab. But when someone is
building a house, I assume that there are some options

(26:59):
when it comes to foundation options. You know, if you
were putting a new house in, would there be anything
that you would request and the way the foundation is
built or just builders should know what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
So that's an interesting skip. So it's a big difference
if you're building, let's just say, a custom home versus
buying a track home. So with a custom home, you're
going to do a soul sample and they're going to
look at the soil conditions there. But when you go
into a neighborhood, they may do two or three soul

(27:40):
samples throughout the whole neighborhood and that determines how they're
going to build a foundation.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
With a custom home.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
They're going to tell you whether you should do builders peers,
which is just pre engineered foundation that has the piers
underneath it, versus just put it in a floating slab.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
In neighborhoods.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
In neighborhoods, they're doing basically the cheapest, right, they're trying
to get through ten years. That's the builder's warranty. And
after ten years it's probably good it. Come fifteen to
twenty years, due to the oak trees in the front,
they're probably going to have problems. So yeah, if you
could look at prevention early and root barriers are probably

(28:36):
the biggest thing that I could advocate for.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Okay, all right, well that that is that is interesting.
I would think that you know, those peers and things
coming a cost, but when you look at the value
of the home and the cost of fixing it, maybe
not so bad. Good.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Well, the builder, So the builder, the builder is out
in ten years and he can get it, he can
put a slab in and he doesn't have to worry
about it. But come fifteen twenty years, with those two
oak trees and a postage stamp front yard, that's when
the problems start.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, and we do you mentioned hoa earlier, but I'm
going to not go on a tirade, tirade here on it.
But I do I see situations where they have to
have two live oak trees in a front yard that's
not big enough to even own a lawnmower. You can
just mow it with a weed eater, and it's like, okay,

(29:42):
you know how big live oaks get, right, So I've
never been able to hear that one out.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
Skip you skip, You and I are on the same page.
That's I mean, I've been doing this twenty five years.
But basically I chase trees in ninety percent of the
cases in the front yard.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
You wet trees. I'm sorry I didn't catch that.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
I said, I'm just chasing the trees that they require
them too in a small front yard, and they're going
to have problems at fifteen and twenty years out.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yep. Well, I don't think you have to be a
horticultural expert to know that if you've planted two live
oak trees that are close enough to hang a hammock
in them, that's probably too close. And sometimes it gets
darn close to that in these fright yards. That's good. Well,
what would you want to know if you were just

(30:41):
one of our listeners and they were they were talking
to someone. Actually, I'm gonna have to have to put
this on hold. They're telling me, I got to go
to a break here. We will come right back to
you and I'm gonna finish that discussion or question just
a second. Hey, by the way, folks, Sienna mulch down
south of town. Sienna is the place you go for

(31:02):
everything to make the soil right. As I say, brown
stuff before green stuff. You get the soil right, you
put the plants in and you have success. You don't
get the sol right and put the plants in and
you get to go buy more plants after years of disappointment.
Fix the soil first. Ciena Malts is a place to
go to do it. Cnmaults dot com. We'll be right back.

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That's too much confuture.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Hey, welcome back to the Guardline. I'm good to have
you with us this morning.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know, Medina products widely available. You find them at
garden centers, you find them at feed stores, you find
them at a hardware stores, you find them at Southwest Fertilizer.
Easy to find all over the Greater Houston area. Medina
products like hast grow has to grow plant, which is
a higher phosphorus product great for transplanting, but can be

(36:21):
used on any kind of plant, especially when you want
to boost that phosphorus up, perhaps for fruiting and flowering reasons.
Then there's hast Grow Lawn. It's a twelve four to
eight that you put on the end of a garden
hose and you just water it right into the lawn
and gives you a nice quick boost. Just two examples
from the many hastro Grow products, but also from the

(36:43):
many many Medina products that work. Try them, they work.
They've been around since the nineteen fifties and gardeners swear
by them. Medina products excellent pur work. If you're dealing
with pest problems. By the way, Rose is the only
place I send people. Pest Bros. Is the company that

(37:05):
will come out and do the mosquito buckets that I
talk about all the time, the ones that attrack mosquitos
in that they want the mosquito lay the egg in
there because the eggs will never turn into mosquitoes. And
then the mosquito goes away with a little dust on
its feet from landing in the bucket that when they
find little tiny bits of water, you know it all.
It takes is a bottle cap for a mosquito to

(37:25):
go through its life cycle. It prevents that water from
being a place where mosquitoes can grow up as well,
and the mosquito that carried them away, by the way,
gets a fungus disease that it picked up in the
bucket that kills the mosquito. Ain't that cool? They also
have the herbal product that smells so good. I've tried
it out myself, thinking this is stuff just can't last.

(37:47):
I was amazed. They say up up to thirty days.
I got at least that from when I had the
herbal treatments done here. We just kept going outside, you know,
bare legged, looking around evening late day, where mosquitos should
be carrying you off to the next state, not a mosquito.
I mean, I was amazed at how well that worked.
Thepestbros dot Com. Give them a call, talk to him

(38:08):
about all the different kind of pest solutions that they have.
We go back out here and grab tie again. So, Ty,
you were talking before about the driveway kinds of issues.
I think you have some. Do you have some other
suggestions for people on that?

Speaker 3 (38:25):
I don't know if it's suggests skip, I said, the
biggest thing is you're dealing with with a driveway, sidewalk, patio,
whatever it's it's only four inches thick versus with your home.
You may have a thirty inch grade being going down,
So the soil is totally different at thirty inches versus

(38:47):
four inches. So I do have another company called Southern
Concrete Raising, and you know, we go in with nonstructural
repair where we can actually lift the uh sidewalks, great
UH sidewalks or driveways and get rid of those trip

(39:08):
hazards because they're going to be affected far faster than
the foundation of your home just due to the fact
that it's only four inches deep.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
It's in active soil.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Okay okay uh and so I without confusing people with
a lot of names and uh numbers and websites, if
they called fixmslab dot com went to fix my slab
dot com and calle y'all, y'all could refer them to
that other service as well.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Right.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Absolutely, we're sister companies that were in the same office.
So yes, if you call fixmonslob dot com two eight
one two five five four nine four nine, we can
take care of any of your concrete needs. Whether it's
structural or nonstructural.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Okay, good that all that all sounds sounds very helpful. Well,
you've given us a lot of tips here in terms
of avoiding the problems in the first place as best
we can. The things that a homeowner can do, like
keeping the soul moist with a soaker hose around the property.
It doesn't mean it's one hundred percent guaranteed you're not

(40:18):
going to have problems. It just means that to the
degree you prevent the wet dry, which means the shrink swell,
you're preventing big headaches down the line, to root barriers,
to the kinds of work that have to be done
when people come in. So you mentioned the phone number.
I want to give that again. It is folks, it's

(40:39):
two eight one, two five five forty nine forty nine.
Now they will come out and do a free inspection
to assess the problem. In fact, ty, let me just
let you explain that better than I will. What happens
when somebody.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Calls, Oh, we have a wonderful staff that actually answers
the phone.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
There's no AI.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
We actually talk to you and we personally set up
an appointment that fits for us.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
And the homeowner, and we come.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Out and we give a free evaluation and we give
our honest opinion. That's and that's all we can do
is skip is give an honest opinion whether the homeowner
is in the prevention mode or in the recovery modes.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
We're just going to give our honest opinion. We show
up when we tell them we're going to show up.
No to to four hour windows.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
That is, that is, that is a wonderful thing. I
don't tell you. I can't tell you how many times
I've sat at my house waiting for some cable guy
or something like that to show up, and you book
the whole afternoon and then they don't even come. So
the fact that you guys are straight shooters, you're going
to give people the honest opinion on it, not just
try to sell them on something they don't need. You

(41:57):
go show up and then if you have to fix it,
you're gonna fix it right. And I appreciate that about
you guys very much. I also appreciate you coming on
the show today. I know I probably kept you from
getting a lot of good work done, but thank you
for taking time out for us today.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Ty Yep, I appreciate you and partnering with you. And
it's a big difference between working for a homeowner