May 11, 2024 • 28 mins
It's an all-calls weekend as Dean answers callers burning questions surrounding their home.
Dean talks about carbon monoxide alarms and where’s the best place for installation. He gets into toilets that are brand new and not flushing properly, Dean advices a caller about the type of paint to use & how to paint their home for a long lasting paint job. Plus, Dean shares on how to plant a tree and how to nourish it successfully.
Dean talks about carbon monoxide alarms and where’s the best place for installation. He gets into toilets that are brand new and not flushing properly, Dean advices a caller about the type of paint to use & how to paint their home for a long lasting paint job. Plus, Dean shares on how to plant a tree and how to nourish it successfully.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharpon demand from KFI AM six forty KFI
AM six forty and live streaming inHD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Hey,
welcome to home where Every week wehelp you better understand that place where
(00:22):
you are living. I am DeanSharp, the house whisper here with you
live like I am every weekend Saturdaymorning six to eight Pacific time. That's
what we're doing right now. Sundaymornings nine to noon Pacific time. It
is an all calls weekend. Ishould show my hand a little bit and
let you know this. Not onlyare we doing an all calls morning today,
(00:45):
but it's an all calls weekend.And tomorrow tomorrow, my friends Mother's
Day, we're doing a very veryspecial and I was told by Tim Conway
a very sexist all calls Sunday tomorrow. I think it's is it is it
it's nuts. Well, if itis, it's in the best possible way,
(01:07):
with the best intentions. Tomorrow Tomorrow'sall call show, nothing but calls
from the ladies. That's what I'msaying. It is an all ladies show.
All right, It's all for you. So tomorrow in honor of Mother's
Day, all calls from our femalelisteners. That's coming up tomorrow today.
(01:32):
Though you can be a guy.You can. It's fine. It's fine.
No, No, it's fine.It's not a problem, all right.
The number to reach me eight threeto three two ask Dean A three
to three. The numeral to askDean A three to three to ask Dean
give me a call. We'll putour heads together, we'll figure out what's
going on with your home. Anythingyou want to talk about, design,
(01:53):
construction, DIY whatever. I wantto go back to the phones. I
want to talk to Jane. Hey, Jane, welcome home. Good morning,
Good morning Dean. Good to talkto you, Good to talk to
you. How can I help?Recently I purchased a carbon monoxide alarm.
When I got it home, Irealized that it was either a ceiling mount
(02:17):
or suggested as a ceiling mount,or a wall mount at about shoulder height.
We're elderly, and so I wentfurther and called a hardware store who
had a plug in monoxide alarm.And my question is does that alarm need
(02:38):
to be ceiling mounted or is theplug in at just a general height,
say a foot from the floor.Going to work, and how specific must
we be on the location of thatalarm. It's a large house. One
bedroom is way on one side ofthe home and another is quite further away
(03:00):
on the other side. So dowe need more than one alarm or can
you just generally fill me in onwhat's the best procedure? I got you,
I got you all right, Igot you covered. So here we
go. First of all, theplug ins are fine. They're absolutely fine.
So if you want to go withthe plug in in a in an
(03:22):
outlet, that's fine. Here iswhat I'll just let everybody know. When
it comes to carbon monoxide detectors.Here is what the code, California Code
specifies. It is the locate.Well, there's two different locations, right,
there's the location of where do weput it floor wall ceiling, and
then there's the question of location inthe house. So first of all,
(03:44):
let me address floor wall ceiling thatscenario. Practically speaking, I mean just
purely in practical terms, the bestlocation would be on the wall at about
five or six feet And the onlyreason is that that's where our heads are
at, and so that's where we'rebreathing in carbon monoxide. And most recommendations
(04:08):
are if you had the choice andyou were able to then set your carbon
monoxide detector at the level of whereyou are breathing the air, so that
it detects uh, you know,in conjunction with you know who we are
as people. So that but that'sthat's a suggestion. A recommendation is not
(04:28):
code when it comes to CO two. Now, smoke detectors are different.
They need to be high up onthe wall or on the ceiling. Okay,
But a carbon and if you havea combination smoke detector carbon monoxide detector,
boom, you're done. And thereare a lot of those out there
as well, no problem. Okay, But the carbon monoxide detector can be
high, it can be middle ofthe wall, as most recommended, or
(04:51):
it can be down near the floor. Doesn't matter because CO two distributes evenly
through our air in an indoor situation, so it doesn't rise, it doesn't
sink, it just mixes evenly.And that's why it doesn't really matter high,
low, or in between where theCO two detector is. So that's
(05:15):
why hardware stores are allowed to sellplug in detectors that go down and outlets.
Otherwise the city or the State ofCalifornia would say you can't sell those
here because they're going to be putin the wrong place. That's fine.
So that's the answer number one.About your plugin versus wall mount or ceiling
mount or what have you. Ifyou want it up out of the way,
(05:35):
I suggest that you get a batterypowered one that has a ten year
battery. And yes, I understandthe issue of elderly and climbing up there
and so on, but a tenyear battery, you know, that's you
know, you get some help forsomebody to take five minutes to switch that
out once a decade and not abig hassle. So just so everybody knows
(05:58):
what all the options are as faras locations, Jane, Now, the
code does have something to say aboutthat, and that is the whole point
of a carbon monoxide detector, primarilyin a residence, is to protect sleeping
people in their rooms. So hereis how the code kind of reads,
and I'm paraphrasing, but essentially youneed a detector just inside each room or
(06:25):
just outside a group of rooms.So like if we went down the hallway
and we've got two rooms or threedoors to three different bedrooms. At the
end of the hallway. Then youcould put a carbon monoxide detector in the
hallway just in front of those doors, so that the source of carbon monoxide
as it creeps down the hallway,the detector goes off and it protects those
(06:46):
bedrooms. Better would be to putone in each bedroom near the door,
not on the far side of theroom, but near the door, because
you want to be alerted as itenters the room. That is what the
code is concerned about. And whenit comes to CO two detectors, it
doesn't care whether it is inside theroom specifically or just outside the room,
(07:10):
but it needs to be there toprotect you and to alert you as carbon
monoxide is entering the room. Soone or the other. And if you've
got two bedrooms at two opposite endsof the house, then yeah, you're
gonna need two because you're gonna needone to protect the entrance into each of
the bedrooms. Does that make sense, Yes, it does. It was
(07:32):
perfectly clear. Thank you, allright, very much. There you go.
Okay, all right, Jane,have a great weekend. Thank you
so much for your call. Uh. This is why I love to taking
calls on all call shows, becausewho knows where we go and everybody ends
up learning something along the way fromevery caller, and we will get right
back to it. Can't by GeanSharp the House Whisper at your service.
(07:57):
It's an all calls Saturday. Weare just taking calls. Anything you want
to talk about regarding your home.The number to reach me eight three three
two. Ask Dean A three threetwo ask Dean. We got a board
full of calls. Let's get toit, Tina, I really like that
name. Welcome home. Thank youDean. We love your show. I'm
(08:24):
Colleen because I have a toilet issue. But before I ask you that,
I know you said you have twogenerators. If you can just elaborate on
what type they are and what brandthey are because I really need them and
I'm really looking to buy one ortwo. Yeah, but anyway, really
(08:45):
quickly, just really quickly, wehave we have We actually have three generators
here at the house, portable generators. They're called inverter style generators. That
means they're whisper quiet. Technically they'redesigned for RVs for like RV camping.
They are dual fuel. They runon both gasoline, which I never put
(09:07):
in them, but that's there asa backup. And propane, so they
run off of the same propane bottlesor canisters that you use for your barbecue.
They will run for hours and hoursand hours and hours on that.
They're both twenty five hundred watt generatorsand they can be linked together to form
five thousand watts of power for thehouse for temporary power in the case of
(09:31):
a blackout. And they are madeby Champion Champion twenty five hundred watt dual
fuel generators. There you go,All right, let's talk about your toilet.
What's going on? Okay? Iput in a brand new toilet a
few weeks ago, and it isthe very bad toilet the very back bathroom
(09:52):
in the back bedroom. And it'snot slushy. What do you mean it's
not flushing like when you when youdo the handle. Nothing happens when you
press the handle or or it's notgoing you know, or you hear it
flush, but the water isn't goingdown or it's overflowing. What do you
(10:13):
mean nothing happens. It's dead.It's dead. So what I'm thinking is,
at one time, when I firstmoved in here, I don't really
utilize that bathroom too much. Butwhen I moved in here. Years ago,
I remember that there was a toiletthat had like a little pressure button
(10:35):
on the top. Yeah, AndI'm wondering if that has to do with
it. I don't know what typeof toilet that was, but I remember
in the back of my mind itwas a little pressure button on top.
Do you think that could be it? Well, No, I don't know.
I don't know. Does this toilethave a pressure button on top?
(10:56):
No? Does that have a regularhandle, a regular handle? And and
so and when you and and there'swater in the toilet, yes, and
when you when you do the handle, nothing happens. Nothing happens. Okay,
Tina. So it's probably a lotsimpler than it seems. Okay,
(11:18):
you're gonna have to lift the lidoff the back of the tank and take
a look at the handle. Thehandle has to be connected to something.
The handle is usually connected with alittle chain down to the flapper that is
connected. Okay. And so whenyou and you so, if you take
the lid off and you actually andyou actually flip the handle, you see
(11:45):
the flapper rise up and water rushesout of it. Yes or no?
Yes, yes, it does.Okay, Well, then the toilet should
flush. Uh pashured my dilemma.It's not flushing, Okay, all right,
when the flapper roses up. Whenwhen the flapper comes up, does
(12:07):
does water leave the tank? Ordoes or nothing happens? Nothing happens?
Ah. Interesting? Does it haveto deal with the fact that it is
the lowest point letter? No,No, it has nothing to do You
didn't just I mean this, thishas been a toilet, right, It's
been a toilet, right. Sothe point is, if there was a
(12:28):
clog in the toilet, then thetoilet would flush and the water would overflow
in the bowl. So there's somethingwent wrong in putting the toilet in.
It sounds like it sounds like maybethere's a seal that wasn't removed in between
the tank and the bowl, andthat the water is just sitting in the
tank. Okay, okay, Soyou need to drain that tank, need
(12:52):
to drain that tank out, needto get that water out of the tank,
maybe shop back it out because it'snot going anywhere else. And then
we've got to take the tank backoff of the bowl and make sure that
there isn't something blocking the two.Sometimes they come with a little seal on
it, and yes, I haveseen people just ignore that and they haven't
(13:16):
pulled off the little cap that comeson the bottom of the tank, and
then they just set the tank onthe toilet and nothing leaves the tank because
it's blocked. So take the lidoff of it first, essentially, and
pull that seal off from below.There has to be a clear passage through
otherwise maybe a rag or something gotput down in there is maybe something fell
(13:37):
down into that toilet, but something'sblocking it from getting into the bowl.
Find out what that block at you. It should be super easy, and
I promise you, because gravity workseverywhere, the water will go downhill.
When you pull up the flapper,the water will leave the tank into the
bowl, and you will have yourtoilet functioning yet again, Tina, thanks
for the call, my friend.The good news is, I think it's
(14:01):
far far simpler than what you wereconcerned about. But somebody's got to take
you a little bit more serious lookat that toilet and find out what didn't
get taken out in order for thewater to flow. All right, y'all,
more, when we return your Homewith Dean Sharp the house Whisper,
you're listening to Home with Dean Sharpon demand from KFI AM six forty,
(14:24):
KFI AM six forty and live streamingin HD everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.
You are home with Dean Sharp thehouse whisper. It is an all
call Saturday morning. Nothing but yourcalls this morning, having fun with callers,
solve them problems, answering questions,and I want to get back to
(14:46):
the phone. Let's talk to MaxAmax. Welcome home. Hi Dean,
Dean. My wife and I havebeen a home for forty years, nine
years or so. Max. Ican barely hear you. Can you hear
me? Now? Yeah? Thereyou go, coming in loud and clear.
(15:07):
How can I help Bud? Okay? My wife and I have been
in a house for forty years.Nine years ago we remodeled the house inside
outside, took the stucco off.I have horizontal running hardyboard on the outside.
I want to paint the house.I want to know what you recommendationation
is for paint and should I sprayit or should I roll it? And
(15:28):
I've heard some stuff being advertised calledrhino shield. Do you know anything about
that? I do? I do? And Okay, So when you remodeled
and you put on the Hardy boardthat by the way, everybody is concrete
fiber embedded sighting. It's really reallygood stuff, fire resistant, it's just
(15:52):
wise stuff. And it paints beautifully. When was it colorized from Hardy or
did you paint it then? Soare we talking about a year old paint
job that we're that we're adding paintto now or or adding over the factory
colorization. No? I didn't dothe colorization. It was almost twice the
money. So I went directly withthe We painted it and it's white.
(16:15):
Okay, all right, So yougot to think in our house. Our
house is a single story, isonly sixteen and two square feet, Okay,
no problem, no problem. Uhyeah. So not a big fan
of of rhino siding, I meanof the rhino paint. Here's it.
A Last Americ paints. We usethem. We use them very very in
(16:41):
very limited applications. A heavy duty, thick Last Americ paint. It's almost
a rubberized coating that is on theoutside of the house. And and I
have found that it seems like,oh, yeah, this is the thing,
is bomb proof, it will lastforever. And yeah, there is
a breatheability factor. And there's somethingabout the rubberized coatings that we've seen,
(17:07):
probably it create as many problems asit's solved. We've seen bubbling, we've
seen all sorts of weird things forit. Plus I'm not a big fan
of the of the colors and theand the the the overall look and texture.
So unless you've got a stucco housethat is cracking just like spider cracking
(17:27):
all over the place like crazy,we usually don't recommend the elastrameric paint because
that's really what it's It's real realbenefit is that when stucco cracks in a
minor way, these little spider cracks, that the elastomeric paint stretches over that
crack and it doesn't show the crackthrough sighting. Irrelevant. You're full of
(17:49):
cracks. They're everywhere, they're they'reeverywhere one board joins another, so we're
not trying to hide those. Wewould just really want a really good exterior
paint. And so the simple factis max that you're in a really good
situation, you have the best possiblesurface. Because to start with that hardy
(18:11):
sighting is porous, which means itgrabs onto paint really well. If you've
got a good paint job on itright now. You don't have to strip
it back down or anything like that. Basically, you just got to do
the basic exterior house painting steps andthat is this. Are you ready,
here we go. Number One,we're gonna pressure wash the house because we
(18:33):
want the existing paint clean clean,clean, no dust, no debris,
no grease, no oil. Wejust want it as clean as possible.
Number Two, you're gonna prep anydamage, any little defect areas you're gonna
take care of after you've pressure washed. You're gonna take care of any calking
(18:53):
that has cracked, anything like that. Do the prep work. A good
paint job is eighty to ninety percentprep work, so preparing the surface,
pressure washing the outside of the house, fixing all the calking or patching holes
or whatever. Then then you're goingto apply two coats of the best paint
(19:22):
you can afford to buy. AndI'll tell you right now, the best
paint out there right now, inmy opinion, when it comes to exterior
homes, the highest grade, thebest paints out there are from the two
oldest paint companies on the planet,and that would be Sherwin Williams and Benjamin
Moore. I love Benjamin Moore.We've used them again and again and again.
(19:44):
Sherwin Williams right there with them.So you buy the best paint you
can afford to buy and give ittwo really good, beautiful coats. It
really doesn't matter whether you spray orwhether you roll or brush, as long
as your technique is good either way. Spraying can be really, really convenient,
(20:07):
but you have a lot more maskingto do. You got a mask
off doors and windows and patio covers, and because spray is what it is,
and you also need to know forsure that when you're using a spray
gun that you're putting on the rightlayer of coating and not kind of underdoing
it or overdoing it to the pointof drips. So it doesn't really matter
(20:27):
whether you roll it or brush itor spray it, as long as the
paint gets where it's supposed to go. And so that'll be dealer's choice when
it comes to how you do it, Max. But the key is a
good quality. I mean, we'retalking about a paint that's going to last
you thirty to forty years if doneright on the outside of your house.
(20:49):
And I don't think anybody is lookingat that thinking oh, well, only
thirty years. Yeah, exactly right, especially on the substrate that you've got
going on, because Hardy it doesn'texpand and contract. It's never going to
crack and bust open like regular side. It is just a fantastic, fantastic
(21:11):
product and the great base for yourpaint. So Max, there you go.
Good luck on that paint job forthe house. It's going to be
great, I'm sure, especially ifyou're just now repainting the house just after
ten years. Use the best paintyou can afford to buy. Stretch that
next paint job out another three decadesfrom now if possible. All right,
(21:32):
y'all, more of your calls whenwe return. You're home with Dean Sharp,
the House Whisperer. Kay if IDean Sharp, the House Whisperer.
Welcome home. Hey, thanks forjoining us on the program today. Always
a privilege and a pleasure. Iactually really enjoy getting up early on a
(21:52):
Saturday morning and spending a couple hourswith y'all. Here we are in the
last segment of the show, butwe're not done yet. We're still taking
calls. An all calls Saturday.I want to talk to Josh. Hey,
Josh, welcome home, Jean.How are you, Bud? I
like your show? Thank you,Bud. How can I help? So
dumb question? But better you thanhandle, so I don't get yelled at.
(22:15):
I can't plant stuff for nothing,you can. I am not all
right. I got this pine treethat grew in a pot out of nowhere.
I don't know where it came from, but it wants to live and
it's four feet tall and it's stillin the pot and I want to plant
it and all the you know,I know, just give me your best
(22:37):
suggestion on how to plant a tree. Dig the hole twice as big?
I mean, what do I do? All right? All right? Are
you ready? Are you ready?Because you're talking to a guy who has
been diagnosed repeatedly with chronic recurring biophilia. Okay, what does that mean?
It means a love of nature,biophilic. I am a biophilic. I
am I was born a biophilic.I've got sixteen trees on my property.
(23:03):
They're all doing just fine. SoI feel qualified to tell you this.
All right, So here we go. All right, here is the house
whispers steps on how to plant atree the right way? Number one,
the hole Okay, the hole iscritical. And you know, there's this
old saying that says, you knowbetter plant a dollar tree in a five
dollar hole than a five dollar treein a one dollar hole. The hole
(23:26):
is critical, and the hole shouldlook like this, three times wider in
diameter than the root ball of thetree. So whatever the size of the
pot is that it's sitting in rightnow, you plant, you dig that
hole three times wider than that andset it right in the center. But
and this is critical. No deeper, no deeper than the pot that it's
(23:48):
in. Okay, people dig theirholes too deep all the time. They
plant the trees too deep. Ifthe top of that tree what we call
the flare of the tree, wherewhere the trunk is starting to flare into
the root system, if that getsburied, you will suffocate this tree on
day one. So the hole shouldbe the exact same depth as the as
(24:11):
the container that the tree is sittingin right now, and three times wider.
Number two. Step number two.When you take this tree out of
its pot, if it is rootbound, then you want to very gently
loosen up and break up the rootson the outside. Now, how do
we know if it's root bound It'snot that you can just see a few
(24:32):
of the roots when you pull itout of the pot. It's if the
roots have gone so far that they'rekind of swirling around. They're spiraling around,
that kind of thing. Those rootsneed to be broken up and loosened
up, not grown in a spiral, because you'll be you'll be you'll be
committing that tree to a long,slow death if ye mean gently, Yeah,
(24:56):
roughen up the soil. Get inwith the tips of your finger.
Is just rough up the soil onthe outside until those roots fall loose and
yeah, and if you've got onecoiled up, pull them out kind of
straight and loose, and then you'regonna set your tree down into the hole.
Now the fourth thing, third,fourth, I'm losing track anyway.
The next thing is put the soilback. I am not a huge advocate
(25:22):
of amending the soil with all sortsof this or that, or hey,
soil mix or whatever. I knowsoil mixed companies are real big on this.
But here's the thing. The mostrecent science on this, okay,
has indicated that trees do much muchbetter, especially trees do much much better
(25:44):
if if they're not going into aheavily amended soil area. So basically I
just want you to put the dirtback in the hole. You can mix
a little something something in there alittle bit. Here's the problem, though,
if that tree gets used to allthat amended soil, its roots will
go out, will stretch out rightto the limits of the hole, and
then it'll just shut down and stopbecause it's like, well, this is
(26:07):
what I'm used to. So giveit real soil to grow in, just
like it was going to grow naturallyin nature. Give it real soil to
grow. Now. If you pullthe soil out and there's a bunch of
rocks and other crap in there,clear that stuff out. Put just soil,
nice soil back into place around thetree, tamp it down a little
bit, not firm packed, right. You just want to get air holes
(26:32):
and air pockets out so that therearen't any there's no air down in the
roots because that will burn the roots. Right, So it doesn't have to
be super firm packed. I liketo water the hole a little bit just
to get a little moisture there,and it also helps the soil to resettle
back in and then tamp it in. And again, don't put the soil
up above the level of the roots. And then finally, finally, it's
(26:56):
time to water. And trees needto be watered well, and they need
to be watered deep. So whenI plant a tree, I will either
put a tree steak that's basically ahollow tube all the way down to the
bottom of the root ball. Ifit's a nice big one, I'll put
two or three. Or I'll usea pipe like a PVC drainage pipe that
(27:18):
and just lay it on the sideof the hole there to create a sleeve
so that when I put my dripsystem water in, the water runs down
through this tube, the tree snakeor the sleeve and gets right to the
bottom of the roots. So theroots grow down and out, not relying
on surface sprinklers or surface water.Surface water means surface roots. And everybody
(27:41):
thinks that trees are just gonna disrupttheir foundation and all sorts of trouble.
But then again, most people justwater their trees with their sprinklers, so
roots go where the water goes.You do all that, Buddy, I
guarantee you that pine tree it's gonnathrive. Thank you for your call,
Bud, really appreciate it. Appreciateeverybody's calls this morning. Here we are
at the end. We are backtomorrow tomorrow for a special all calls Mother's
(28:07):
Day. We're going to be taken, just calls from the ladies tomorrow,
just a special thing. We've neverdone that before. We'll see, we'll
see how it works. And untilthen, my friends, if you haven't
got your Mother's Day stuff together yet, we now's the time to do it.
Otherwise, get out there in thisbeautiful spring day and get busy building
(28:29):
yourself a beautiful life. We'll seeyou tomorrow. This has been Home with
Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM
six forty every Saturday morning from sixto eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning
from nine to noon Pacific time,or anytime on demand on the iHeart Radio app.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharpon demand from KFI AM six forty KFI
AM six forty and live streaming inHD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Hey,
welcome to home where Every week wehelp you better understand that place where
(00:22):
you are living. I am DeanSharp, the house whisper here with you
live like I am every weekend Saturdaymorning six to eight Pacific time. That's
what we're doing right now. Sundaymornings nine to noon Pacific time. It
is an all calls weekend. Ishould show my hand a little bit and
let you know this. Not onlyare we doing an all calls morning today,
(00:45):
but it's an all calls weekend.And tomorrow tomorrow, my friends Mother's
Day, we're doing a very veryspecial and I was told by Tim Conway
a very sexist all calls Sunday tomorrow. I think it's is it is it
it's nuts. Well, if itis, it's in the best possible way,
(01:07):
with the best intentions. Tomorrow Tomorrow'sall call show, nothing but calls
from the ladies. That's what I'msaying. It is an all ladies show.
All right, It's all for you. So tomorrow in honor of Mother's
Day, all calls from our femalelisteners. That's coming up tomorrow today.
(01:32):
Though you can be a guy.You can. It's fine. It's fine.
No, No, it's fine.It's not a problem, all right.
The number to reach me eight threeto three two ask Dean A three
to three. The numeral to askDean A three to three to ask Dean
give me a call. We'll putour heads together, we'll figure out what's
going on with your home. Anythingyou want to talk about, design,
(01:53):
construction, DIY whatever. I wantto go back to the phones. I
want to talk to Jane. Hey, Jane, welcome home. Good morning,
Good morning Dean. Good to talkto you, Good to talk to
you. How can I help?Recently I purchased a carbon monoxide alarm.
When I got it home, Irealized that it was either a ceiling mount
(02:17):
or suggested as a ceiling mount,or a wall mount at about shoulder height.
We're elderly, and so I wentfurther and called a hardware store who
had a plug in monoxide alarm.And my question is does that alarm need
(02:38):
to be ceiling mounted or is theplug in at just a general height,
say a foot from the floor.Going to work, and how specific must
we be on the location of thatalarm. It's a large house. One
bedroom is way on one side ofthe home and another is quite further away
(03:00):
on the other side. So dowe need more than one alarm or can
you just generally fill me in onwhat's the best procedure? I got you,
I got you all right, Igot you covered. So here we
go. First of all, theplug ins are fine. They're absolutely fine.
So if you want to go withthe plug in in a in an
(03:22):
outlet, that's fine. Here iswhat I'll just let everybody know. When
it comes to carbon monoxide detectors.Here is what the code, California Code
specifies. It is the locate.Well, there's two different locations, right,
there's the location of where do weput it floor wall ceiling, and
then there's the question of location inthe house. So first of all,
(03:44):
let me address floor wall ceiling thatscenario. Practically speaking, I mean just
purely in practical terms, the bestlocation would be on the wall at about
five or six feet And the onlyreason is that that's where our heads are
at, and so that's where we'rebreathing in carbon monoxide. And most recommendations
(04:08):
are if you had the choice andyou were able to then set your carbon
monoxide detector at the level of whereyou are breathing the air, so that
it detects uh, you know,in conjunction with you know who we are
as people. So that but that'sthat's a suggestion. A recommendation is not
(04:28):
code when it comes to CO two. Now, smoke detectors are different.
They need to be high up onthe wall or on the ceiling. Okay,
But a carbon and if you havea combination smoke detector carbon monoxide detector,
boom, you're done. And thereare a lot of those out there
as well, no problem. Okay, But the carbon monoxide detector can be
high, it can be middle ofthe wall, as most recommended, or
(04:51):
it can be down near the floor. Doesn't matter because CO two distributes evenly
through our air in an indoor situation, so it doesn't rise, it doesn't
sink, it just mixes evenly.And that's why it doesn't really matter high,
low, or in between where theCO two detector is. So that's
(05:15):
why hardware stores are allowed to sellplug in detectors that go down and outlets.
Otherwise the city or the State ofCalifornia would say you can't sell those
here because they're going to be putin the wrong place. That's fine.
So that's the answer number one.About your plugin versus wall mount or ceiling
mount or what have you. Ifyou want it up out of the way,
(05:35):
I suggest that you get a batterypowered one that has a ten year
battery. And yes, I understandthe issue of elderly and climbing up there
and so on, but a tenyear battery, you know, that's you
know, you get some help forsomebody to take five minutes to switch that
out once a decade and not abig hassle. So just so everybody knows
(05:58):
what all the options are as faras locations, Jane, Now, the
code does have something to say aboutthat, and that is the whole point
of a carbon monoxide detector, primarilyin a residence, is to protect sleeping
people in their rooms. So hereis how the code kind of reads,
and I'm paraphrasing, but essentially youneed a detector just inside each room or
(06:25):
just outside a group of rooms.So like if we went down the hallway
and we've got two rooms or threedoors to three different bedrooms. At the
end of the hallway. Then youcould put a carbon monoxide detector in the
hallway just in front of those doors, so that the source of carbon monoxide
as it creeps down the hallway,the detector goes off and it protects those
(06:46):
bedrooms. Better would be to putone in each bedroom near the door,
not on the far side of theroom, but near the door, because
you want to be alerted as itenters the room. That is what the
code is concerned about. And whenit comes to CO two detectors, it
doesn't care whether it is inside theroom specifically or just outside the room,
(07:10):
but it needs to be there toprotect you and to alert you as carbon
monoxide is entering the room. Soone or the other. And if you've
got two bedrooms at two opposite endsof the house, then yeah, you're
gonna need two because you're gonna needone to protect the entrance into each of
the bedrooms. Does that make sense, Yes, it does. It was
(07:32):
perfectly clear. Thank you, allright, very much. There you go.
Okay, all right, Jane,have a great weekend. Thank you
so much for your call. Uh. This is why I love to taking
calls on all call shows, becausewho knows where we go and everybody ends
up learning something along the way fromevery caller, and we will get right
back to it. Can't by GeanSharp the House Whisper at your service.
(07:57):
It's an all calls Saturday. Weare just taking calls. Anything you want
to talk about regarding your home.The number to reach me eight three three
two. Ask Dean A three threetwo ask Dean. We got a board
full of calls. Let's get toit, Tina, I really like that
name. Welcome home. Thank youDean. We love your show. I'm
(08:24):
Colleen because I have a toilet issue. But before I ask you that,
I know you said you have twogenerators. If you can just elaborate on
what type they are and what brandthey are because I really need them and
I'm really looking to buy one ortwo. Yeah, but anyway, really
(08:45):
quickly, just really quickly, wehave we have We actually have three generators
here at the house, portable generators. They're called inverter style generators. That
means they're whisper quiet. Technically they'redesigned for RVs for like RV camping.
They are dual fuel. They runon both gasoline, which I never put
(09:07):
in them, but that's there asa backup. And propane, so they
run off of the same propane bottlesor canisters that you use for your barbecue.
They will run for hours and hoursand hours and hours on that.
They're both twenty five hundred watt generatorsand they can be linked together to form
five thousand watts of power for thehouse for temporary power in the case of
(09:31):
a blackout. And they are madeby Champion Champion twenty five hundred watt dual
fuel generators. There you go,All right, let's talk about your toilet.
What's going on? Okay? Iput in a brand new toilet a
few weeks ago, and it isthe very bad toilet the very back bathroom
(09:52):
in the back bedroom. And it'snot slushy. What do you mean it's
not flushing like when you when youdo the handle. Nothing happens when you
press the handle or or it's notgoing you know, or you hear it
flush, but the water isn't goingdown or it's overflowing. What do you
(10:13):
mean nothing happens. It's dead.It's dead. So what I'm thinking is,
at one time, when I firstmoved in here, I don't really
utilize that bathroom too much. Butwhen I moved in here. Years ago,
I remember that there was a toiletthat had like a little pressure button
(10:35):
on the top. Yeah, AndI'm wondering if that has to do with
it. I don't know what typeof toilet that was, but I remember
in the back of my mind itwas a little pressure button on top.
Do you think that could be it? Well, No, I don't know.
I don't know. Does this toilethave a pressure button on top?
(10:56):
No? Does that have a regularhandle, a regular handle? And and
so and when you and and there'swater in the toilet, yes, and
when you when you do the handle, nothing happens. Nothing happens. Okay,
Tina. So it's probably a lotsimpler than it seems. Okay,
(11:18):
you're gonna have to lift the lidoff the back of the tank and take
a look at the handle. Thehandle has to be connected to something.
The handle is usually connected with alittle chain down to the flapper that is
connected. Okay. And so whenyou and you so, if you take
the lid off and you actually andyou actually flip the handle, you see
(11:45):
the flapper rise up and water rushesout of it. Yes or no?
Yes, yes, it does.Okay, Well, then the toilet should
flush. Uh pashured my dilemma.It's not flushing, Okay, all right,
when the flapper roses up. Whenwhen the flapper comes up, does
(12:07):
does water leave the tank? Ordoes or nothing happens? Nothing happens?
Ah. Interesting? Does it haveto deal with the fact that it is
the lowest point letter? No,No, it has nothing to do You
didn't just I mean this, thishas been a toilet, right, It's
been a toilet, right. Sothe point is, if there was a
(12:28):
clog in the toilet, then thetoilet would flush and the water would overflow
in the bowl. So there's somethingwent wrong in putting the toilet in.
It sounds like it sounds like maybethere's a seal that wasn't removed in between
the tank and the bowl, andthat the water is just sitting in the
tank. Okay, okay, Soyou need to drain that tank, need
(12:52):
to drain that tank out, needto get that water out of the tank,
maybe shop back it out because it'snot going anywhere else. And then
we've got to take the tank backoff of the bowl and make sure that
there isn't something blocking the two.Sometimes they come with a little seal on
it, and yes, I haveseen people just ignore that and they haven't
(13:16):
pulled off the little cap that comeson the bottom of the tank, and
then they just set the tank onthe toilet and nothing leaves the tank because
it's blocked. So take the lidoff of it first, essentially, and
pull that seal off from below.There has to be a clear passage through
otherwise maybe a rag or something gotput down in there is maybe something fell
(13:37):
down into that toilet, but something'sblocking it from getting into the bowl.
Find out what that block at you. It should be super easy, and
I promise you, because gravity workseverywhere, the water will go downhill.
When you pull up the flapper,the water will leave the tank into the
bowl, and you will have yourtoilet functioning yet again, Tina, thanks
for the call, my friend.The good news is, I think it's
(14:01):
far far simpler than what you wereconcerned about. But somebody's got to take
you a little bit more serious lookat that toilet and find out what didn't
get taken out in order for thewater to flow. All right, y'all,
more, when we return your Homewith Dean Sharp the house Whisper,
you're listening to Home with Dean Sharpon demand from KFI AM six forty,
(14:24):
KFI AM six forty and live streamingin HD everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.
You are home with Dean Sharp thehouse whisper. It is an all
call Saturday morning. Nothing but yourcalls this morning, having fun with callers,
solve them problems, answering questions,and I want to get back to
(14:46):
the phone. Let's talk to MaxAmax. Welcome home. Hi Dean,
Dean. My wife and I havebeen a home for forty years, nine
years or so. Max. Ican barely hear you. Can you hear
me? Now? Yeah? Thereyou go, coming in loud and clear.
(15:07):
How can I help Bud? Okay? My wife and I have been
in a house for forty years.Nine years ago we remodeled the house inside
outside, took the stucco off.I have horizontal running hardyboard on the outside.
I want to paint the house.I want to know what you recommendationation
is for paint and should I sprayit or should I roll it? And
(15:28):
I've heard some stuff being advertised calledrhino shield. Do you know anything about
that? I do? I do? And Okay, So when you remodeled
and you put on the Hardy boardthat by the way, everybody is concrete
fiber embedded sighting. It's really reallygood stuff, fire resistant, it's just
(15:52):
wise stuff. And it paints beautifully. When was it colorized from Hardy or
did you paint it then? Soare we talking about a year old paint
job that we're that we're adding paintto now or or adding over the factory
colorization. No? I didn't dothe colorization. It was almost twice the
money. So I went directly withthe We painted it and it's white.
(16:15):
Okay, all right, So yougot to think in our house. Our
house is a single story, isonly sixteen and two square feet, Okay,
no problem, no problem. Uhyeah. So not a big fan
of of rhino siding, I meanof the rhino paint. Here's it.
A Last Americ paints. We usethem. We use them very very in
(16:41):
very limited applications. A heavy duty, thick Last Americ paint. It's almost
a rubberized coating that is on theoutside of the house. And and I
have found that it seems like,oh, yeah, this is the thing,
is bomb proof, it will lastforever. And yeah, there is
a breatheability factor. And there's somethingabout the rubberized coatings that we've seen,
(17:07):
probably it create as many problems asit's solved. We've seen bubbling, we've
seen all sorts of weird things forit. Plus I'm not a big fan
of the of the colors and theand the the the overall look and texture.
So unless you've got a stucco housethat is cracking just like spider cracking
(17:27):
all over the place like crazy,we usually don't recommend the elastrameric paint because
that's really what it's It's real realbenefit is that when stucco cracks in a
minor way, these little spider cracks, that the elastomeric paint stretches over that
crack and it doesn't show the crackthrough sighting. Irrelevant. You're full of
(17:49):
cracks. They're everywhere, they're they'reeverywhere one board joins another, so we're
not trying to hide those. Wewould just really want a really good exterior
paint. And so the simple factis max that you're in a really good
situation, you have the best possiblesurface. Because to start with that hardy
(18:11):
sighting is porous, which means itgrabs onto paint really well. If you've
got a good paint job on itright now. You don't have to strip
it back down or anything like that. Basically, you just got to do
the basic exterior house painting steps andthat is this. Are you ready,
here we go. Number One,we're gonna pressure wash the house because we
(18:33):
want the existing paint clean clean,clean, no dust, no debris,
no grease, no oil. Wejust want it as clean as possible.
Number Two, you're gonna prep anydamage, any little defect areas you're gonna
take care of after you've pressure washed. You're gonna take care of any calking
(18:53):
that has cracked, anything like that. Do the prep work. A good
paint job is eighty to ninety percentprep work, so preparing the surface,
pressure washing the outside of the house, fixing all the calking or patching holes
or whatever. Then then you're goingto apply two coats of the best paint
(19:22):
you can afford to buy. AndI'll tell you right now, the best
paint out there right now, inmy opinion, when it comes to exterior
homes, the highest grade, thebest paints out there are from the two
oldest paint companies on the planet,and that would be Sherwin Williams and Benjamin
Moore. I love Benjamin Moore.We've used them again and again and again.
(19:44):
Sherwin Williams right there with them.So you buy the best paint you
can afford to buy and give ittwo really good, beautiful coats. It
really doesn't matter whether you spray orwhether you roll or brush, as long
as your technique is good either way. Spraying can be really, really convenient,
(20:07):
but you have a lot more maskingto do. You got a mask
off doors and windows and patio covers, and because spray is what it is,
and you also need to know forsure that when you're using a spray
gun that you're putting on the rightlayer of coating and not kind of underdoing
it or overdoing it to the pointof drips. So it doesn't really matter
(20:27):
whether you roll it or brush itor spray it, as long as the
paint gets where it's supposed to go. And so that'll be dealer's choice when
it comes to how you do it, Max. But the key is a
good quality. I mean, we'retalking about a paint that's going to last
you thirty to forty years if doneright on the outside of your house.
(20:49):
And I don't think anybody is lookingat that thinking oh, well, only
thirty years. Yeah, exactly right, especially on the substrate that you've got
going on, because Hardy it doesn'texpand and contract. It's never going to
crack and bust open like regular side. It is just a fantastic, fantastic
(21:11):
product and the great base for yourpaint. So Max, there you go.
Good luck on that paint job forthe house. It's going to be
great, I'm sure, especially ifyou're just now repainting the house just after
ten years. Use the best paintyou can afford to buy. Stretch that
next paint job out another three decadesfrom now if possible. All right,
(21:32):
y'all, more of your calls whenwe return. You're home with Dean Sharp,
the House Whisperer. Kay if IDean Sharp, the House Whisperer.
Welcome home. Hey, thanks forjoining us on the program today. Always
a privilege and a pleasure. Iactually really enjoy getting up early on a
(21:52):
Saturday morning and spending a couple hourswith y'all. Here we are in the
last segment of the show, butwe're not done yet. We're still taking
calls. An all calls Saturday.I want to talk to Josh. Hey,
Josh, welcome home, Jean.How are you, Bud? I
like your show? Thank you,Bud. How can I help? So
dumb question? But better you thanhandle, so I don't get yelled at.
(22:15):
I can't plant stuff for nothing,you can. I am not all
right. I got this pine treethat grew in a pot out of nowhere.
I don't know where it came from, but it wants to live and
it's four feet tall and it's stillin the pot and I want to plant
it and all the you know,I know, just give me your best
(22:37):
suggestion on how to plant a tree. Dig the hole twice as big?
I mean, what do I do? All right? All right? Are
you ready? Are you ready?Because you're talking to a guy who has
been diagnosed repeatedly with chronic recurring biophilia. Okay, what does that mean?
It means a love of nature,biophilic. I am a biophilic. I
am I was born a biophilic.I've got sixteen trees on my property.
(23:03):
They're all doing just fine. SoI feel qualified to tell you this.
All right, So here we go. All right, here is the house
whispers steps on how to plant atree the right way? Number one,
the hole Okay, the hole iscritical. And you know, there's this
old saying that says, you knowbetter plant a dollar tree in a five
dollar hole than a five dollar treein a one dollar hole. The hole
(23:26):
is critical, and the hole shouldlook like this, three times wider in
diameter than the root ball of thetree. So whatever the size of the
pot is that it's sitting in rightnow, you plant, you dig that
hole three times wider than that andset it right in the center. But
and this is critical. No deeper, no deeper than the pot that it's
(23:48):
in. Okay, people dig theirholes too deep all the time. They
plant the trees too deep. Ifthe top of that tree what we call
the flare of the tree, wherewhere the trunk is starting to flare into
the root system, if that getsburied, you will suffocate this tree on
day one. So the hole shouldbe the exact same depth as the as
(24:11):
the container that the tree is sittingin right now, and three times wider.
Number two. Step number two.When you take this tree out of
its pot, if it is rootbound, then you want to very gently
loosen up and break up the rootson the outside. Now, how do
we know if it's root bound It'snot that you can just see a few
(24:32):
of the roots when you pull itout of the pot. It's if the
roots have gone so far that they'rekind of swirling around. They're spiraling around,
that kind of thing. Those rootsneed to be broken up and loosened
up, not grown in a spiral, because you'll be you'll be you'll be
committing that tree to a long,slow death if ye mean gently, Yeah,
(24:56):
roughen up the soil. Get inwith the tips of your finger.
Is just rough up the soil onthe outside until those roots fall loose and
yeah, and if you've got onecoiled up, pull them out kind of
straight and loose, and then you'regonna set your tree down into the hole.
Now the fourth thing, third,fourth, I'm losing track anyway.
The next thing is put the soilback. I am not a huge advocate
(25:22):
of amending the soil with all sortsof this or that, or hey,
soil mix or whatever. I knowsoil mixed companies are real big on this.
But here's the thing. The mostrecent science on this, okay,
has indicated that trees do much muchbetter, especially trees do much much better
(25:44):
if if they're not going into aheavily amended soil area. So basically I
just want you to put the dirtback in the hole. You can mix
a little something something in there alittle bit. Here's the problem, though,
if that tree gets used to allthat amended soil, its roots will
go out, will stretch out rightto the limits of the hole, and
then it'll just shut down and stopbecause it's like, well, this is
(26:07):
what I'm used to. So giveit real soil to grow in, just
like it was going to grow naturallyin nature. Give it real soil to
grow. Now. If you pullthe soil out and there's a bunch of
rocks and other crap in there,clear that stuff out. Put just soil,
nice soil back into place around thetree, tamp it down a little
bit, not firm packed, right. You just want to get air holes
(26:32):
and air pockets out so that therearen't any there's no air down in the
roots because that will burn the roots. Right, So it doesn't have to
be super firm packed. I liketo water the hole a little bit just
to get a little moisture there,and it also helps the soil to resettle
back in and then tamp it in. And again, don't put the soil
up above the level of the roots. And then finally, finally, it's
(26:56):
time to water. And trees needto be watered well, and they need
to be watered deep. So whenI plant a tree, I will either
put a tree steak that's basically ahollow tube all the way down to the
bottom of the root ball. Ifit's a nice big one, I'll put
two or three. Or I'll usea pipe like a PVC drainage pipe that
(27:18):
and just lay it on the sideof the hole there to create a sleeve
so that when I put my dripsystem water in, the water runs down
through this tube, the tree snakeor the sleeve and gets right to the
bottom of the roots. So theroots grow down and out, not relying
on surface sprinklers or surface water.Surface water means surface roots. And everybody
(27:41):
thinks that trees are just gonna disrupttheir foundation and all sorts of trouble.
But then again, most people justwater their trees with their sprinklers, so
roots go where the water goes.You do all that, Buddy, I
guarantee you that pine tree it's gonnathrive. Thank you for your call,
Bud, really appreciate it. Appreciateeverybody's calls this morning. Here we are
at the end. We are backtomorrow tomorrow for a special all calls Mother's
(28:07):
Day. We're going to be taken, just calls from the ladies tomorrow,
just a special thing. We've neverdone that before. We'll see, we'll
see how it works. And untilthen, my friends, if you haven't
got your Mother's Day stuff together yet, we now's the time to do it.
Otherwise, get out there in thisbeautiful spring day and get busy building
(28:29):
yourself a beautiful life. We'll seeyou tomorrow. This has been Home with
Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM
six forty every Saturday morning from sixto eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning
from nine to noon Pacific time,or anytime on demand on the iHeart Radio app.
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