April 26, 2025 • 29 mins
Dean advices a caller dealing with water entering her room and causing the dry wall to be replaced frequently due to the slope on her yard.Dean talks stucco and how it should never run down into the soil as it will continue to ruin the material (water damage) + Dean covers leaving a water heater on vacation mode to save some money and the chances of it being damaged. Lastly, Dean shares his input when seeking a reliable handy worker and how to find one.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app ray
I AM six morting live streaming and HD everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. Dean Sharp The House Whisper with you
live every Saturday and Sunday morning Saturdays from six to
(00:23):
eight Pacific time, Sunday Mornings The Big Show nine to
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Podcast that you can listen to anytime, anywhere on demand,
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(01:07):
if you live well, if you live anywhere, and you
feel like your home is in need of more personal
house Whisperer attention like, Oh, I would really love to
have Dean and Tina in my house staring at that problem,
helping us figure it all out. Well, that can happen too.
You can book an in home design console with me
and the t Just go to house Whisperer dot Design,
(01:31):
House Whisperer dot Design. All right, it is Saturday morning.
We are live as always, and uh we're taking calls
and going to the phones. I want to go back
to the phones right now. Let me give you the number,
by the way, because Saturday morning, there's always room for you.
It's always room on Saturday morning to get on the
air with me. The number to reach me right now
(01:52):
eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three the
numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean.
It's just that simple. Give me a call. I'd love
to talk to you about your home. Let's talk to Susie. Hey, Susie,
welcome home.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Huh Hi Deane, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So my family has had a rental property rental house
for about fifty years, and over the last six years
we did do you might hear my dog bark, We
did do some remodeling, and the backyard has a slope
to it, and now water has been intruding. And in
(02:35):
the master bedroom we're getting molled. And we've had to
take out the lower half of the wall and replace
it twice. So I'm wondering if I should put in
a French train. The gardener has readjusted the sprinklers so
it wouldn't really hit the house the water. So my
(02:57):
father put in stepping stones around own the uh, the
the wall, the backside of the wall, and that worked
for many years until I did this remodel and changed
out the flooring. I've had some companies come out and
they say, well, you need to have the air flowing
through more, and that hasn't changed anything.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
No, yeah, no, no, no, yeah. Okay, So you've got
a sloping backyard sloping towards the house. Yes, okay, ye
tell me, what do we know? What is the soil
level outside the master bedroom wall? Or is it a
raised foundation? Is a slab house? What are we on here?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It's a raised foundation. So there's dirt under the house.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Okay, So there's dirt under the house, and and and
yet so have we have we got under there and looked.
I mean, is it saturated? Does it get really wet
under there under the master bedroom area.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, it doesn't seem to interesting I've had the first
time that I have that it happened, I did have
somebody go under the house and on the other side
of the of the bedroom wall around the corner from
the outside, there is a hose hook up there, but
(04:24):
that doesn't seem to be the issue. It has something
to do, I think with the sprinklers and then the
waters going back. So I'm not sure what to do
at this point.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
All right, So okay, next question, very important question. Do
we know what relative to the floor inside. Do we
know how high the soil is up against the master
bedroom wall? In other words, is it level with the
floor inside? Is it up actually a little higher? Is
it below considerably? Where are we at there?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
I think it's higher, I think than the floor level.
Oh okay, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Okay, all right, all right, Susie. Uh, there are there
are answers to this question. And uh and I want
to take it in a little bit more tail And
there's your beautiful puppy doing his thing. Let me if
if with your permission, can I pop you on. Hold.
We're going to go to a break and when we
come back, I'm going to try and address this issue
(05:29):
of drainage. And I think you're right about the French strain,
but there may be something else involved as well. So
let's deal with it in a way that will work
for you and that others will understand as well. So
can you hang tight with me?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I sure can, thank you?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
All right, see you, hold on, everybody, hold on. We're
going to figure out this drainage problem. I promise you.
You are home with Dean Sharp the house whisper. These
whisper at your service. It's an all calls Saturday morning,
like we do. The number to reach me eight three
three two. Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two.
(06:04):
Ask Dean eight three three to ask Dean anything about
your home inside outside, from architectural uh lofty design concepts
all the way down to you know, how do we
keep water out of the master bedroom, which is what
we're talking to Susie about. Susie, is he still with me?
(06:29):
Did I lose Susie? Susie? Are you with me?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I'm here, okay, all right? So uh yes, I got you,
I got you, Okay, so the question of this water
intrusion that has messed up the drywall a couple of
times in the master bedroom. From the outside of the house,
we've got a sloping yard sloping towards the house, which
(06:52):
is always a bit precarious. I uh, when whenever that happens. Uh,
it's thing that we have to take very very seriously
in terms of drainage and irrigation control on the outside
of the house. So I asked a couple of questions
right before the break. I'm just going to reiterate what
(07:13):
the situation is. Not a lot of excess moisture underneath
the house. She's got a raise foundation, so not a
lot of excess moisture there, but a lot of moisture
coming in through the wall underneath the wall. And so, Susie,
here is my concern. A couple of concerns. Number one
code the code for levels of soil outside a home
(07:37):
versus the floor inside the home. When it comes to
just open rough soil, the code is that there needs
to be at least four inches of elevation drop where
the soil surcharges the house on the outside than from
your finished floor. So the soil level outside should be
(07:58):
four inches below the the floor level of the home,
including the master bedroom. That's number one, and that's really
really key because moisture can build up in that soil
and we never want to be in a situation where
surface water has a chance to run in underneath the
plate of the wall and get in, which it sounds
(08:19):
like to me is exactly what's happening on some level.
So that's number one. On a raised foundation, it's also
really really important that we don't just run soil right
up against the concrete stem wall that is the raised foundation,
but that we put some waterproofing on the stem wall
as well, which in older homes with raised foundations was
(08:39):
rarely ever done. And so if you have a drainage
and moisture issue, then then waterproofing the foundation is an
important step along the way lowering the soil level, getting
it away from anywhere near A third problem that often
occurs is that older homes with stucco, Oh is it
(09:00):
a stucco house or a sighting house?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It sure isco okay.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Older homes with stucco back in the day just runs
the stucco just runs right down into the soil and
doesn't have what we call a weep screed. The stucco
doesn't stop above the soil line. What's yours like?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, it just seems to go right down into the dirt.
And now the stucco wall is starting to have that
red mold.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah to it. Okay, So here's the good news.
The bad news is we've got multiple little problems. Okay.
The good news is it's all solveable. It's all solvable. Okay.
So number one, stucco, everybody, Your stucco should not be
running down the wall into the soil. Why is that?
(09:51):
Because water? We know this water has such a strong
surface tension. It's always seeking to go from areas of
greater concentration lesser concentration, which means the porosity of your stucco.
It's concrete, it's full of pores and air spaces. The
porosity of your concrete. Water can climb a foot twelve
inches up, percolating up inside the stucco before it gets
(10:15):
too heavy, and then it wants to release and then vush.
It releases into the wall, out of the wall, all
over the place, and it's no good. We don't this.
The stucco coming down into the soil is a bridge
for moisture to climb up the wall and get into
the house. So that's something that if it's a serious
(10:36):
enough problem that you can actually call a stucco company
and say, hey, cut my stucco at the proper level
of the plateline of the house. Cut it there and
install a weep screed that's a bottom finishing flashing that
has holes in the bottom of it, so that when
the stucco does get wet, the water has a place
(10:57):
to drain out up above the soil of that's number one,
cut my stucco up and get it out of the
wet zone. Number two, the soil has to come down
so that we are not surcharging soil up against a
wall above the level of the interior floor, because the
moisture is always going to try and find a way in.
(11:18):
So we lower the soil level, we cut the stucco up,
so now we don't have a bridge, and then yes,
I would say, now without seeing the yard there there
may be other solutions, but generally speaking, when there's a
large amount of slope pushing moisture towards the house, I
love the idea of shutting it down or capturing it
(11:41):
with what we call a French drain. A French drain
is a trench that we're going to dig next to
the house. It's going to be just a few inches deep.
It's a you know, it's not a canyon. It's just
a trench maybe twelve inches deep or so, maybe fourteen
inches deep, and in a few inches wide, eight to
(12:02):
ten inches wide. This trench. Then, while we have dug
that trench out by the way Susie and expose the
concrete of the stem wall of the of the raised foundation,
then we're gonna cover that stem wall with some elastimeric coating,
some waterproofing coating so that the concrete there doesn't absorb
(12:23):
water unnecessarily. Then we're gonna pop a little bit of
gravel in the bottom of this trench, and we're gonna
lay in a horizontal drain pipe that has perforations in it,
that has holes in it, and we're gonna it may
have a sleeve, it may not. It's debatable, depending on
you know, different people feel different ways about putting a
(12:44):
cloth sleeve around it to keep mud from clogging it up.
But the point is, if you embed that and then
cover that in gravel, all the way up to the
surface of the yard. Again, Now you don't have to
expose the gravel on top. You could take a couple
of inches of soil and cover over it so no
one even knows it's there. But now that there's a
(13:05):
void underneath, and it's totally walkable because the gravel is
supporting everything. But now that there's lots of space in
between that gravel, moisture, any moisture in that soil that
it gets near that area will rush to that trench,
go into that gravel area and be conveyed away by
the pipe that's there. Of course, that pipe has to
(13:28):
go somewhere, so you'll have to turn the corner with
it and continue out. It could be completely flat, or
if you've got room to slope it fine, tie it
into other yard drains, or have it eventually emerge on
the surface of the property at some place so it
can drain off. But the goal is grab as much
of that moisture that's coming towards the house, either divert
(13:50):
it on the surface or capture it in this French drain.
When you're all said and done with that, if you
go those three or four steps, if you take all
three or four of those steps. I guarantee you you're
not going to be having moisture in the bedroom anymore.
It's not about getting more air circulation. It's not. It's listen,
we don't want to have to deal. Don't. Don't just
(14:12):
constantly deal with the you know, with the symptoms. Get
to the root cause, stop the water from getting near
that part of the house.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Got it. So the stucco company can handle the wall.
But who would I use to put that French drain in?
Would a landscaper do that? Or do I have to
call it contractor yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
No? Now very likely, very likely. You know a good
landscaping company or the gardening company. They deal with this
stuff a lot, all right. So I don't know if
you've got a gardener or a landscaper, but you would talk.
I would talk to them first. I'm like, hey, how
do you guys feel about getting a French drain and
put in there? My landscaper, my gardener. He's like, yeah,
we'll do it all the time, no problem, they'll take
(14:55):
care of it for me.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Okay, sounds fabulous. I really for sure.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Your help, Susie, So thank you so much for the call.
I appreciate the call, insightful questions, problems. That's the whole
idea of taking calls here on the show, so we
can all learn together. All right, when we return more
of your calls. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
(15:21):
KFI AM six forty. Welcome KFI AM six forty live
streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're Home
with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Welcome Home, Welcome to
the show. I'm glad you're with us. We're talking all
things home today. We're taking calls as we do now
on Saturday mornings. It's an all call Saturday morning, and
(15:44):
I'm going to go back to the phones. I want
to talk to Tricia. Hey, Tricia, welcome home.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Oh thank you, Jean, and good morning. It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
It is, indeed, even though it's cloudy and I think
it's starting to rain outside, but you know what, it's springtime,
so I'm embracing it. How can I help you, Well.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
You know, I'm always looking to save a couple dollars,
and my power bill right now runs between about thirty
to forty dollars a month, and that includes gas and electric.
Now I have your basic water heater. It's a forty
gallon tank, and I live alone. It's just me. I
don't even need that big heater, the water heater. But
(16:23):
my question is, I went on vacation and I forgot
to put I put the water heater on vacation mode,
and I forgot to take it off vacation mode. This
is like maybe four five months ago and it's been
on vacation mode. And I'm thinking, am I damaging my
water heater by keeping it that low? Should I turn
it up? I'm very happy with the water that comes out, thoughts.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So you're happy with the water that comes out of
the water heater on vacation mode.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I'm just like it's perfect. I mean, it's it's great.
I mean, I'm happy. I'm in the shower, I'm out
of the shower, in the bathtub, out of the bathtub.
It's great. My dog's happy when I bathe them with
the I mean, I couldn't be happier. But I'm thinking,
am I damaging my water heater? I just replaced it
about two years ago, and that water heater lasted thirteen years,
(17:20):
but I had it on.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I had it on the lowest, but not vacation mode.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Okay, yeah, so you're a person who doesn't need the
you know, scalding hot water coming out of the water.
We're opposite. That's when it comes to that. I always said,
you know, I have a tankless water heater. It comes
factory pre set at one hundred and twenty degrees and
I always find the override code too, so I can
set it up to one hundred and forty. Because I
(17:45):
was hot water. I love it. But hey, no, So
the answer to your question, very simply, Trisha, is is no,
you're not damaging your water heater vacation mode. Vacation mode
is just low. It is. It's low, and it does.
Do you live here in southern California.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I'm in Carlsbad, so I'm you know, with San Diego County.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah, so you're here in
sokol And you know, vacation mode doesn't even really apply
to us out here too much. So vacations just everybody understands.
Vacation mode setting on a water heater is simply this,
you know, is that you are setting the water heater
all the way down to its lowest setting, so that
(18:31):
while you're away, it is it's keeping the water warmish,
but it's not overdoing it. Uh. And the whole reason,
I mean, honestly, in all honesty, Uh, if you live
in southern California, we rarely have ever experience freezing temperatures,
and if if we do, it's for a day and
(18:53):
then we move on. And I don't want everybody don't
don't sue me when I tell you this, but I
mean a lot of us we can just turn our
water heat. If you live in a warm climate, you
could just turn your water heater off when you go
on vacation and come back and just fire it back
up again. Vacation mode is really for everybody who lives
in a place where you may be going away during
(19:16):
the winter months and you may get freezing temperatures, and
what you don't want. Everybody understands that understands that if
water freezes in your pipes, it expands. Water expands when
it freezes, and as a result, in a closed system.
If the water in your pipes freeze, then you it
will expand against your pipes and often will burst pipe
(19:39):
open and create a leak, and so vacation mode is
the lowest setting on your water heater. It's usually fifty
degrees and it will just barely keep the way you know,
it keeps the water above freezing so that the pipes
don't freeze while you're on vacation. And if you happen
to like that setting, great, It's just it doesn't there's
no special it's not a special thing where the water
(20:01):
heater is working differently. It's just the lowest. It's just
the lowest of low.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
That's all good to know because the next level is
turning it off and I'm a little bit I get
scared with the gas, you know, turning it off and
then turning it back on again. So I just like,
you know, what if I put it at the very level.
And I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and we
used to drip our pipe, you know, we should drip
the faucet when it got really really cold, like in
(20:29):
the seventeen degree weather. So yeah, so I'm familiar with
bursting pipe.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So yeah, so yeah, that's exactly why you drip, yess
why you drip the faucet so that the water has
a place to expand so it keeps it just trickling
a little bit. So there's all these tricks. But vacation
mode is a great setting in a modern water heater.
And hey, if you like the temp, there's nothing weird
about it other than it's just low. It's just low.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
A lot of money. I think. People laugh at me, like,
how much is your problem? Like thirty dollars me, it's
a little high, and they're laughing at me like what, well.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
You know what. I applaud you for that, Trisha. I'm
just not coming over to your house for a hot shower,
that's all. So it's all.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's good, Tris.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Thanks for the call.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Thank you to have a wonderful day.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You and Tina, you two, my friend, Thank you so much.
All right, See this is such a lovely lady. Uh
more of your calls. When we return your home with
Dean Sharp, the house whisper. I r Hi Dean Sharp,
the house whisper with you on this lovely spring Saturday morning.
Welcome home. Thanks for joining us on the program. It
(21:38):
is a privilege. It's an honor to sit and talk
to you about your home, that most precious place, the
holy of holies, the ground zero of your life home.
That's wherever it is that you live. Whether it's a condo,
a cottage, a castle, matters not to me. I'm here
to help you take it to the next level so
it can be the very best home it can possible
(22:00):
ble be for you. It is an all call Saturday morning,
as is our growing custom here, and so I want
to try and take at least one more call. I'll
also tell you about what's going on with tomorrow's show,
but first let's talk to Julie in Anaheim. Julie, welcome home,
Good morning, Dean. How do I find a good, reliable handyman.
(22:23):
That's a really good question, really good question. So there
is there are some places around these days thanks to
the Interweb and stuff like that. First of all, I
would always ask a friend's family acquaintances, Hey, do you
have anybody who you trust? Because personal referrals are just
(22:45):
still the gold standard for this kind of thing. There's
nothing that replaces in the end, you know, a trusted
friend telling you, oh, this is this person is fantastic
for this and and then you go that way. But
if you are shy of those referrals, then a couple
of places online would be Uh, they all have the
(23:05):
word task in them. Uh a air tasker, air tasker.
Did I get that right? Did I get yeah? Air
tasker dot com is a is a website that you
put in your zip code and you look for that,
you know, you list out the thing you're looking for,
and they'll meet they'll match you up with people who
have signed up for just those kinds of jobs. And
(23:26):
another one is task Rabbit TaskRabbit dot com, same kind
of thing. These are really sites that are focused on
handy people. Handy persons. We still say handyman, but I
feel like that's not politically correct anymore, and it's probably
just not great. But here, and just so you know,
(23:46):
this is a critical part of the U the home
repair and maintenance economy really really is a lot of
people are like, oh, you're a handyman, you're not a
real contractor. Well, you know what, here is the thing,
Uh you get you you get a contractor's license, you
have to have bonds and all of these other things.
And and that's this is why most contractors are not
(24:09):
interested in taking jobs that are just Hey, what I
need is somebody to install my washer and dry my
new washer and dryer. You know, because I don't want
to do it myself or these kinds of things. By
law in the state of California, and this may be
different in other states, but I law, by law, in
the state of California, handy person UH can operate and
(24:30):
do all of these things without being a licensed contractor
UH as long as as long as the the total
value of the project is five hundred dollars or less,
that's the that's the law. So if you and there
are companies that are massively successful sending people around doing
these small, odd, uh but important projects, little fix it
(24:54):
things here and there, UH, just always be aware that
if it's a larger project and that requires you know,
something major, like you know, like a license plumber, for instance,
then you want to be looking for a licensed plumber
as opposed to But but it doesn't take a license
plumber to change out a toilet or fix a toilet
leak or you know, that's kind of that's the kind
(25:16):
of stuff, and contractors usually just don't want to touch
it or they're just going to charge you way way
too much. So handy people are a critical part and
just because they don't have a license does not mean
that they don't know what they're doing or that they're
not functioning legally. It is in fact a fully you know,
legitimate category, and finding them at times is is really important.
(25:39):
So yeah, task rabbit, air tasker, friends and family referrals.
That's how you find a great qualified handy person. And
they fell just a critically important niche. Yeah, and sometimes, honestly, legally,
you may have a project that a general contractor actually
(26:00):
is not supposed to touch. And this is just I'm just
going to give everybody a little bit of trivia here
or a little bit of info. In the state of California,
a general contractor's license for residential is actually a carpentry license. Okay,
it's technically it's the carpentry license. And so here's what
(26:21):
a general contractor can and can't do. A general contractor
can come in and do any of the trades that
you need them to do. We can do plumbing, electrical,
you know, carpenter, whatever, but we have to come in
technically to do two or more of those trades. So
in other words, if your project involves electrical and plumbing,
then I can come in as a general and be
(26:44):
you know, do the electrical work and the plumbing work myself, right,
no problem. What I can't do, what I'm not allowed
to do as a general contractor in California is come
in and just do your electrical or just do plumbing work.
Because now, wow, I am supplanting a licensed electrician and
a licensed plumber with just my general contractor's license. So
(27:08):
if I'm doing general work two or more trades, no problem.
But I can't come in and just legally, you know,
fix the toilet or fix a pipe, because it's one
trade and that trade has its own specialized license. I
know it's weird, but I think you can get the
point is that the idea is that generals aren't allowed
(27:28):
to come in and steal everybody else's work on an
individual basis, but we can do the job if it's
if it's two or more trades combined together. So the
point is there are a lot of jobs that generals
can't even legally touch that a handy person sits in
and fits the bill and makes it work. And I,
you know, I know some beautiful people who are really
(27:50):
really really handy and know their stuff, and so air
tasker task rabbits and referrals. Julie, thank you, so much
for your call, and I hope that helps you. Pop
in your zip code you'll get some referrals. But interview also,
and remember VET a handy person, just like you would
a contractor. Ask for referrals, talk to people who have
just been using them recently and find out, you know, hey,
(28:13):
is this person up to snuff? Were they helpful? Were
they on time? You'll find the right one. And once
you make that relationship, man, it's worth its weight in gold.
All right, y'all. Here we are at the end of
another couple of hours together on this lovely spring morning,
and I hope your day is full of wonder and
(28:35):
uh and productivity and rest or whatever it is supposed
to be for you. That you get busy building yourself
a beautiful life. Tomorrow on the show, we're talking pest
control with my good friend Sue Freeze, founder owner of
Ecola Pest Control, to Pest Control Sunday morning. So save
(28:55):
up all your pest problem questions and we'll talk to
Sue about it tomorrow. Until then, get out there and
get busy building yourself a beautiful life. We'll see tomorrow.
This has been home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
(29:17):
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
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(00:23):
eight Pacific time, Sunday Mornings The Big Show nine to
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(01:07):
if you live well, if you live anywhere, and you
feel like your home is in need of more personal
house Whisperer attention like, Oh, I would really love to
have Dean and Tina in my house staring at that problem,
helping us figure it all out. Well, that can happen too.
You can book an in home design console with me
and the t Just go to house Whisperer dot Design,
(01:31):
House Whisperer dot Design. All right, it is Saturday morning.
We are live as always, and uh we're taking calls
and going to the phones. I want to go back
to the phones right now. Let me give you the number,
by the way, because Saturday morning, there's always room for you.
It's always room on Saturday morning to get on the
air with me. The number to reach me right now
(01:52):
eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three the
numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean.
It's just that simple. Give me a call. I'd love
to talk to you about your home. Let's talk to Susie. Hey, Susie,
welcome home.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Huh Hi Deane, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So my family has had a rental property rental house
for about fifty years, and over the last six years
we did do you might hear my dog bark, We
did do some remodeling, and the backyard has a slope
to it, and now water has been intruding. And in
(02:35):
the master bedroom we're getting molled. And we've had to
take out the lower half of the wall and replace
it twice. So I'm wondering if I should put in
a French train. The gardener has readjusted the sprinklers so
it wouldn't really hit the house the water. So my
(02:57):
father put in stepping stones around own the uh, the
the wall, the backside of the wall, and that worked
for many years until I did this remodel and changed
out the flooring. I've had some companies come out and
they say, well, you need to have the air flowing
through more, and that hasn't changed anything.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
No, yeah, no, no, no, yeah. Okay, So you've got
a sloping backyard sloping towards the house. Yes, okay, ye
tell me, what do we know? What is the soil
level outside the master bedroom wall? Or is it a
raised foundation? Is a slab house? What are we on here?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It's a raised foundation. So there's dirt under the house.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Okay, So there's dirt under the house, and and and
yet so have we have we got under there and looked.
I mean, is it saturated? Does it get really wet
under there under the master bedroom area.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, it doesn't seem to interesting I've had the first
time that I have that it happened, I did have
somebody go under the house and on the other side
of the of the bedroom wall around the corner from
the outside, there is a hose hook up there, but
(04:24):
that doesn't seem to be the issue. It has something
to do, I think with the sprinklers and then the
waters going back. So I'm not sure what to do
at this point.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
All right, So okay, next question, very important question. Do
we know what relative to the floor inside. Do we
know how high the soil is up against the master
bedroom wall? In other words, is it level with the
floor inside? Is it up actually a little higher? Is
it below considerably? Where are we at there?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
I think it's higher, I think than the floor level.
Oh okay, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Okay, all right, all right, Susie. Uh, there are there
are answers to this question. And uh and I want
to take it in a little bit more tail And
there's your beautiful puppy doing his thing. Let me if
if with your permission, can I pop you on. Hold.
We're going to go to a break and when we
come back, I'm going to try and address this issue
(05:29):
of drainage. And I think you're right about the French strain,
but there may be something else involved as well. So
let's deal with it in a way that will work
for you and that others will understand as well. So
can you hang tight with me?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I sure can, thank you?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
All right, see you, hold on, everybody, hold on. We're
going to figure out this drainage problem. I promise you.
You are home with Dean Sharp the house whisper. These
whisper at your service. It's an all calls Saturday morning,
like we do. The number to reach me eight three
three two. Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two.
(06:04):
Ask Dean eight three three to ask Dean anything about
your home inside outside, from architectural uh lofty design concepts
all the way down to you know, how do we
keep water out of the master bedroom, which is what
we're talking to Susie about. Susie, is he still with me?
(06:29):
Did I lose Susie? Susie? Are you with me?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I'm here, okay, all right? So uh yes, I got you,
I got you, Okay, so the question of this water
intrusion that has messed up the drywall a couple of
times in the master bedroom. From the outside of the house,
we've got a sloping yard sloping towards the house, which
(06:52):
is always a bit precarious. I uh, when whenever that happens. Uh,
it's thing that we have to take very very seriously
in terms of drainage and irrigation control on the outside
of the house. So I asked a couple of questions
right before the break. I'm just going to reiterate what
(07:13):
the situation is. Not a lot of excess moisture underneath
the house. She's got a raise foundation, so not a
lot of excess moisture there, but a lot of moisture
coming in through the wall underneath the wall. And so, Susie,
here is my concern. A couple of concerns. Number one
code the code for levels of soil outside a home
(07:37):
versus the floor inside the home. When it comes to
just open rough soil, the code is that there needs
to be at least four inches of elevation drop where
the soil surcharges the house on the outside than from
your finished floor. So the soil level outside should be
(07:58):
four inches below the the floor level of the home,
including the master bedroom. That's number one, and that's really
really key because moisture can build up in that soil
and we never want to be in a situation where
surface water has a chance to run in underneath the
plate of the wall and get in, which it sounds
(08:19):
like to me is exactly what's happening on some level.
So that's number one. On a raised foundation, it's also
really really important that we don't just run soil right
up against the concrete stem wall that is the raised foundation,
but that we put some waterproofing on the stem wall
as well, which in older homes with raised foundations was
(08:39):
rarely ever done. And so if you have a drainage
and moisture issue, then then waterproofing the foundation is an
important step along the way lowering the soil level, getting
it away from anywhere near A third problem that often
occurs is that older homes with stucco, Oh is it
(09:00):
a stucco house or a sighting house?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It sure isco okay.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Older homes with stucco back in the day just runs
the stucco just runs right down into the soil and
doesn't have what we call a weep screed. The stucco
doesn't stop above the soil line. What's yours like?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, it just seems to go right down into the dirt.
And now the stucco wall is starting to have that
red mold.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah to it. Okay, So here's the good news.
The bad news is we've got multiple little problems. Okay.
The good news is it's all solveable. It's all solvable. Okay.
So number one, stucco, everybody, Your stucco should not be
running down the wall into the soil. Why is that?
(09:51):
Because water? We know this water has such a strong
surface tension. It's always seeking to go from areas of
greater concentration lesser concentration, which means the porosity of your stucco.
It's concrete, it's full of pores and air spaces. The
porosity of your concrete. Water can climb a foot twelve
inches up, percolating up inside the stucco before it gets
(10:15):
too heavy, and then it wants to release and then vush.
It releases into the wall, out of the wall, all
over the place, and it's no good. We don't this.
The stucco coming down into the soil is a bridge
for moisture to climb up the wall and get into
the house. So that's something that if it's a serious
(10:36):
enough problem that you can actually call a stucco company
and say, hey, cut my stucco at the proper level
of the plateline of the house. Cut it there and
install a weep screed that's a bottom finishing flashing that
has holes in the bottom of it, so that when
the stucco does get wet, the water has a place
(10:57):
to drain out up above the soil of that's number one,
cut my stucco up and get it out of the
wet zone. Number two, the soil has to come down
so that we are not surcharging soil up against a
wall above the level of the interior floor, because the
moisture is always going to try and find a way in.
(11:18):
So we lower the soil level, we cut the stucco up,
so now we don't have a bridge, and then yes,
I would say, now without seeing the yard there there
may be other solutions, but generally speaking, when there's a
large amount of slope pushing moisture towards the house, I
love the idea of shutting it down or capturing it
(11:41):
with what we call a French drain. A French drain
is a trench that we're going to dig next to
the house. It's going to be just a few inches deep.
It's a you know, it's not a canyon. It's just
a trench maybe twelve inches deep or so, maybe fourteen
inches deep, and in a few inches wide, eight to
(12:02):
ten inches wide. This trench. Then, while we have dug
that trench out by the way Susie and expose the
concrete of the stem wall of the of the raised foundation,
then we're gonna cover that stem wall with some elastimeric coating,
some waterproofing coating so that the concrete there doesn't absorb
(12:23):
water unnecessarily. Then we're gonna pop a little bit of
gravel in the bottom of this trench, and we're gonna
lay in a horizontal drain pipe that has perforations in it,
that has holes in it, and we're gonna it may
have a sleeve, it may not. It's debatable, depending on
you know, different people feel different ways about putting a
(12:44):
cloth sleeve around it to keep mud from clogging it up.
But the point is, if you embed that and then
cover that in gravel, all the way up to the
surface of the yard. Again, Now you don't have to
expose the gravel on top. You could take a couple
of inches of soil and cover over it so no
one even knows it's there. But now that there's a
(13:05):
void underneath, and it's totally walkable because the gravel is
supporting everything. But now that there's lots of space in
between that gravel, moisture, any moisture in that soil that
it gets near that area will rush to that trench,
go into that gravel area and be conveyed away by
the pipe that's there. Of course, that pipe has to
(13:28):
go somewhere, so you'll have to turn the corner with
it and continue out. It could be completely flat, or
if you've got room to slope it fine, tie it
into other yard drains, or have it eventually emerge on
the surface of the property at some place so it
can drain off. But the goal is grab as much
of that moisture that's coming towards the house, either divert
(13:50):
it on the surface or capture it in this French drain.
When you're all said and done with that, if you
go those three or four steps, if you take all
three or four of those steps. I guarantee you you're
not going to be having moisture in the bedroom anymore.
It's not about getting more air circulation. It's not. It's listen,
we don't want to have to deal. Don't. Don't just
(14:12):
constantly deal with the you know, with the symptoms. Get
to the root cause, stop the water from getting near
that part of the house.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Got it. So the stucco company can handle the wall.
But who would I use to put that French drain in?
Would a landscaper do that? Or do I have to
call it contractor yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
No? Now very likely, very likely. You know a good
landscaping company or the gardening company. They deal with this
stuff a lot, all right. So I don't know if
you've got a gardener or a landscaper, but you would talk.
I would talk to them first. I'm like, hey, how
do you guys feel about getting a French drain and
put in there? My landscaper, my gardener. He's like, yeah,
we'll do it all the time, no problem, they'll take
(14:55):
care of it for me.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Okay, sounds fabulous. I really for sure.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Your help, Susie, So thank you so much for the call.
I appreciate the call, insightful questions, problems. That's the whole
idea of taking calls here on the show, so we
can all learn together. All right, when we return more
of your calls. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
(15:21):
KFI AM six forty. Welcome KFI AM six forty live
streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're Home
with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Welcome Home, Welcome to
the show. I'm glad you're with us. We're talking all
things home today. We're taking calls as we do now
on Saturday mornings. It's an all call Saturday morning, and
(15:44):
I'm going to go back to the phones. I want
to talk to Tricia. Hey, Tricia, welcome home.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Oh thank you, Jean, and good morning. It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
It is, indeed, even though it's cloudy and I think
it's starting to rain outside, but you know what, it's springtime,
so I'm embracing it. How can I help you, Well.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
You know, I'm always looking to save a couple dollars,
and my power bill right now runs between about thirty
to forty dollars a month, and that includes gas and electric.
Now I have your basic water heater. It's a forty
gallon tank, and I live alone. It's just me. I
don't even need that big heater, the water heater. But
(16:23):
my question is, I went on vacation and I forgot
to put I put the water heater on vacation mode,
and I forgot to take it off vacation mode. This
is like maybe four five months ago and it's been
on vacation mode. And I'm thinking, am I damaging my
water heater by keeping it that low? Should I turn
it up? I'm very happy with the water that comes out, thoughts.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So you're happy with the water that comes out of
the water heater on vacation mode.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I'm just like it's perfect. I mean, it's it's great.
I mean, I'm happy. I'm in the shower, I'm out
of the shower, in the bathtub, out of the bathtub.
It's great. My dog's happy when I bathe them with
the I mean, I couldn't be happier. But I'm thinking,
am I damaging my water heater? I just replaced it
about two years ago, and that water heater lasted thirteen years,
(17:20):
but I had it on.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I had it on the lowest, but not vacation mode.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Okay, yeah, so you're a person who doesn't need the
you know, scalding hot water coming out of the water.
We're opposite. That's when it comes to that. I always said,
you know, I have a tankless water heater. It comes
factory pre set at one hundred and twenty degrees and
I always find the override code too, so I can
set it up to one hundred and forty. Because I
(17:45):
was hot water. I love it. But hey, no, So
the answer to your question, very simply, Trisha, is is no,
you're not damaging your water heater vacation mode. Vacation mode
is just low. It is. It's low, and it does.
Do you live here in southern California.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I'm in Carlsbad, so I'm you know, with San Diego County.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah, so you're here in
sokol And you know, vacation mode doesn't even really apply
to us out here too much. So vacations just everybody understands.
Vacation mode setting on a water heater is simply this,
you know, is that you are setting the water heater
all the way down to its lowest setting, so that
(18:31):
while you're away, it is it's keeping the water warmish,
but it's not overdoing it. Uh. And the whole reason,
I mean, honestly, in all honesty, Uh, if you live
in southern California, we rarely have ever experience freezing temperatures,
and if if we do, it's for a day and
(18:53):
then we move on. And I don't want everybody don't
don't sue me when I tell you this, but I
mean a lot of us we can just turn our
water heat. If you live in a warm climate, you
could just turn your water heater off when you go
on vacation and come back and just fire it back
up again. Vacation mode is really for everybody who lives
in a place where you may be going away during
(19:16):
the winter months and you may get freezing temperatures, and
what you don't want. Everybody understands that understands that if
water freezes in your pipes, it expands. Water expands when
it freezes, and as a result, in a closed system.
If the water in your pipes freeze, then you it
will expand against your pipes and often will burst pipe
(19:39):
open and create a leak, and so vacation mode is
the lowest setting on your water heater. It's usually fifty
degrees and it will just barely keep the way you know,
it keeps the water above freezing so that the pipes
don't freeze while you're on vacation. And if you happen
to like that setting, great, It's just it doesn't there's
no special it's not a special thing where the water
(20:01):
heater is working differently. It's just the lowest. It's just
the lowest of low.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
That's all good to know because the next level is
turning it off and I'm a little bit I get
scared with the gas, you know, turning it off and
then turning it back on again. So I just like,
you know, what if I put it at the very level.
And I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and we
used to drip our pipe, you know, we should drip
the faucet when it got really really cold, like in
(20:29):
the seventeen degree weather. So yeah, so I'm familiar with
bursting pipe.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So yeah, so yeah, that's exactly why you drip, yess
why you drip the faucet so that the water has
a place to expand so it keeps it just trickling
a little bit. So there's all these tricks. But vacation
mode is a great setting in a modern water heater.
And hey, if you like the temp, there's nothing weird
about it other than it's just low. It's just low.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
A lot of money. I think. People laugh at me, like,
how much is your problem? Like thirty dollars me, it's
a little high, and they're laughing at me like what, well.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
You know what. I applaud you for that, Trisha. I'm
just not coming over to your house for a hot shower,
that's all. So it's all.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's good, Tris.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Thanks for the call.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Thank you to have a wonderful day.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You and Tina, you two, my friend, Thank you so much.
All right, See this is such a lovely lady. Uh
more of your calls. When we return your home with
Dean Sharp, the house whisper. I r Hi Dean Sharp,
the house whisper with you on this lovely spring Saturday morning.
Welcome home. Thanks for joining us on the program. It
(21:38):
is a privilege. It's an honor to sit and talk
to you about your home, that most precious place, the
holy of holies, the ground zero of your life home.
That's wherever it is that you live. Whether it's a condo,
a cottage, a castle, matters not to me. I'm here
to help you take it to the next level so
it can be the very best home it can possible
(22:00):
ble be for you. It is an all call Saturday morning,
as is our growing custom here, and so I want
to try and take at least one more call. I'll
also tell you about what's going on with tomorrow's show,
but first let's talk to Julie in Anaheim. Julie, welcome home,
Good morning, Dean. How do I find a good, reliable handyman.
(22:23):
That's a really good question, really good question. So there
is there are some places around these days thanks to
the Interweb and stuff like that. First of all, I
would always ask a friend's family acquaintances, Hey, do you
have anybody who you trust? Because personal referrals are just
(22:45):
still the gold standard for this kind of thing. There's
nothing that replaces in the end, you know, a trusted
friend telling you, oh, this is this person is fantastic
for this and and then you go that way. But
if you are shy of those referrals, then a couple
of places online would be Uh, they all have the
(23:05):
word task in them. Uh a air tasker, air tasker.
Did I get that right? Did I get yeah? Air
tasker dot com is a is a website that you
put in your zip code and you look for that,
you know, you list out the thing you're looking for,
and they'll meet they'll match you up with people who
have signed up for just those kinds of jobs. And
(23:26):
another one is task Rabbit TaskRabbit dot com, same kind
of thing. These are really sites that are focused on
handy people. Handy persons. We still say handyman, but I
feel like that's not politically correct anymore, and it's probably
just not great. But here, and just so you know,
(23:46):
this is a critical part of the U the home
repair and maintenance economy really really is a lot of
people are like, oh, you're a handyman, you're not a
real contractor. Well, you know what, here is the thing,
Uh you get you you get a contractor's license, you
have to have bonds and all of these other things.
And and that's this is why most contractors are not
(24:09):
interested in taking jobs that are just Hey, what I
need is somebody to install my washer and dry my
new washer and dryer. You know, because I don't want
to do it myself or these kinds of things. By
law in the state of California, and this may be
different in other states, but I law, by law, in
the state of California, handy person UH can operate and
(24:30):
do all of these things without being a licensed contractor
UH as long as as long as the the total
value of the project is five hundred dollars or less,
that's the that's the law. So if you and there
are companies that are massively successful sending people around doing
these small, odd, uh but important projects, little fix it
(24:54):
things here and there, UH, just always be aware that
if it's a larger project and that requires you know,
something major, like you know, like a license plumber, for instance,
then you want to be looking for a licensed plumber
as opposed to But but it doesn't take a license
plumber to change out a toilet or fix a toilet
leak or you know, that's kind of that's the kind
(25:16):
of stuff, and contractors usually just don't want to touch
it or they're just going to charge you way way
too much. So handy people are a critical part and
just because they don't have a license does not mean
that they don't know what they're doing or that they're
not functioning legally. It is in fact a fully you know,
legitimate category, and finding them at times is is really important.
(25:39):
So yeah, task rabbit, air tasker, friends and family referrals.
That's how you find a great qualified handy person. And
they fell just a critically important niche. Yeah, and sometimes, honestly, legally,
you may have a project that a general contractor actually
(26:00):
is not supposed to touch. And this is just I'm just
going to give everybody a little bit of trivia here
or a little bit of info. In the state of California,
a general contractor's license for residential is actually a carpentry license. Okay,
it's technically it's the carpentry license. And so here's what
(26:21):
a general contractor can and can't do. A general contractor
can come in and do any of the trades that
you need them to do. We can do plumbing, electrical,
you know, carpenter, whatever, but we have to come in
technically to do two or more of those trades. So
in other words, if your project involves electrical and plumbing,
then I can come in as a general and be
(26:44):
you know, do the electrical work and the plumbing work myself, right,
no problem. What I can't do, what I'm not allowed
to do as a general contractor in California is come
in and just do your electrical or just do plumbing work.
Because now, wow, I am supplanting a licensed electrician and
a licensed plumber with just my general contractor's license. So
(27:08):
if I'm doing general work two or more trades, no problem.
But I can't come in and just legally, you know,
fix the toilet or fix a pipe, because it's one
trade and that trade has its own specialized license. I
know it's weird, but I think you can get the
point is that the idea is that generals aren't allowed
(27:28):
to come in and steal everybody else's work on an
individual basis, but we can do the job if it's
if it's two or more trades combined together. So the
point is there are a lot of jobs that generals
can't even legally touch that a handy person sits in
and fits the bill and makes it work. And I,
you know, I know some beautiful people who are really
(27:50):
really really handy and know their stuff, and so air
tasker task rabbits and referrals. Julie, thank you, so much
for your call, and I hope that helps you. Pop
in your zip code you'll get some referrals. But interview also,
and remember VET a handy person, just like you would
a contractor. Ask for referrals, talk to people who have
just been using them recently and find out, you know, hey,
(28:13):
is this person up to snuff? Were they helpful? Were
they on time? You'll find the right one. And once
you make that relationship, man, it's worth its weight in gold.
All right, y'all. Here we are at the end of
another couple of hours together on this lovely spring morning,
and I hope your day is full of wonder and
(28:35):
uh and productivity and rest or whatever it is supposed
to be for you. That you get busy building yourself
a beautiful life. Tomorrow on the show, we're talking pest
control with my good friend Sue Freeze, founder owner of
Ecola Pest Control, to Pest Control Sunday morning. So save
(28:55):
up all your pest problem questions and we'll talk to
Sue about it tomorrow. Until then, get out there and
get busy building yourself a beautiful life. We'll see tomorrow.
This has been home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
(29:17):
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com