August 24, 2025 • 27 mins
Dean shares smart, proactive tips to help you avoid expensive repairs down the line—from overlooked GFCI outlet checks to the importance of annual carpet cleaning. He breaks down why cleaning air ducts is crucial after major events like floods or construction, and why gutter maintenance before the rain matters more than you think. Plus, Dean explains how regular paint inspections can protect your home’s exterior. Don’t let small neglects turn into big bills!
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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 iHeartRadio app, your guide
to better understanding that place where you live. We're all
about taking your ordinary house and transforming it into an
extraordinary home, and we do it so many different ways
(00:22):
every week. This week we're gonna take a well, you know,
last week I stood on my soapbox all three hours
of the show and tried to convince you. I hope
I did that. When it comes to transforming your home,
design matters most so it was a very very design
oriented show last week. This week, we're gonna flip the
(00:45):
script to the other side of the coin, gonna get
super practical, very very homeownery, and we're gonna talk about maintenance. Actually,
we're gonna talk about a problem that you have, deferred maintenance.
Everybody struggles with not getting around to stuff that needs
to get taken care of around their home, and I
(01:05):
want you to avoid the cost of deferred maintenance because
you know it, especially when it comes to our home.
What's that old Ben frame? Was it Ben Franklin who
said a stitch in time saves nine right? You probably
haven't heard that in like a decades, right, So, but
it's true, one little fix right now, it's save a
(01:28):
much bigger fix down the road, and when it comes
to our home, we don't want those costs multiplying. The
question is, though, what needs our regular maintenance attention and
what doesn't. If you go on the interweb, that's a thing.
It's a thing, I don't know if you've heard of it.
The internet. Yeah, if you go on the internet and
you ask the question annual home maintenance, you will get
(01:53):
a lot of interesting things on the list. Some of
them are the same on every list. Those would be
on my list too. Some of them are just really unrealistic,
and some of them are completely ridiculous. So the big
question is, of course, Dean, what's on your list? Well,
that's what we're going to go through today. We're going
(02:14):
to go through my list of things that you could
and should give regular attention to around your home, and
I'm going to help you understand how to do it
so that we can avoid the costs of deferred maintenance,
the stuff that will really bite you in the rear
end if you just let this stuff go. So that's
(02:34):
what we're going today, and of course also your calls,
which we always do the number to reach me. I'm
gonna give you the number right now because the phone
lines are open. We're gonna be going to the phones
in a bit eight three three two. Ask Dean A
three three the numeral two ask Dean A three three
to ask Dean whatever has got you scratch in your
(02:56):
head about your home. When it comes to calls, if
you're not familiar, you get to set the agenda. I
have my list of deferred maintenance things that we'll be
talking about today. But when it comes to the calls,
you can talk to me about anything you want design, construction, architecture, decor,
diy inside, outside, hardscape, landscape, from property line to property line,
(03:20):
and from the ground to the roof, anything having to
do with your home. We'll put our heads together and
we will get it figured out. All right. Before I
move on, let me introduce you to the person who's
sitting across the table from me this morning, A very
very special guest, Barry. I can't even get her to
(03:40):
look up there, she goes, Finally, I just called you
a very special guest. You did not hear that at all.
You had your face buried in your phone, my better
half usually my design partner, the co owner co founder
of how s Whisper, the best home designer I know,
(04:03):
and my best friend in all the world. Tina is here.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Welcome home, angry elephant. That was that was a slightly
slightly It was protecting me. How you doing, Bud good? Yeah,
beautiful day.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It is a beautiful day. It's going to be warm,
but it's not as warm.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I think we are we over there?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Have we? Have we gotten over the peak? Are we
started to slowly cruise? It's going to be like in
the high eighties this week or something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Like the high seventies. And I'm really you know.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
What, I'd be fine if it just kept on falling.
Me too, if we got into like this is so unrealistic.
It's ridiculous for me to say, because you know, we
live in southern California. But you know, if it just
kept falling, if we hit October and we had like fifties,
what what a dream would that be? Would be dreaming?
(05:01):
But no, we're gonna get like seventy mile an hour,
one hundred degree wins.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yes, that's case.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
See what happens because hello, southern California. But it is
a sunny, gorgeous day. There's all sorts of good stuff happening,
and you get to listen to my list of things
to do around the house. You're like, oh, great, and that's.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
A good time to do it because the weather's great.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah. So what's your excuse? Lazy? I know, no, no,
no guilt, no pressure, just gonna help you out. That's
what we're always about here. Does that make sense? All right?
There is so much more good stuff on the way.
You are listening to Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
We are about to dive into our list for today
and today very very practical, avoiding the cost of deferred maintenance,
the stuff that you should be spending a little bit
more time paying attention to on your home so that
it doesn't build up and end up costing you big
bucks down the road. A very very homeownery practical. Mostly
(06:12):
mostly it's the builder in me talking today. The designer.
He got to talk all last week, that guy, and
you know what, man, he just talks, He talks and talks,
and so the builder a little bit more practical guy here.
He's taken over, and the designer may may get a
word in or two, but mostly the guy with the
(06:36):
tools this week to help you out. Okay, first of all,
can we start with this very quickly. You know they
say in good advertising that you present the problem, the
pain point in order, and then you present the solution. Well,
this isn't really that, so I don't know why I
brought up that analogy. Anyway. I know I was saying
(06:57):
before the break that if you go online and you'll
find so many lists of things that you should be
doing around the house, and you know, some of them
are fine, some of them are just typical, some of
them are clear. Most of them, I say, are clearly
just put together by some editor or some assistant producer
(07:17):
at some you know website or some magazine who like,
oh yeah, put together, we got to fill up page
five and seven, So put together a list of maintenance items,
all right, And so they just steal it from another website. Anyway,
there's some really wacky advice out there, And let me
just hit home on a couple of the things that
you do not need to do regularly for your home,
(07:41):
no matter who tells you contrary to this regular duct cleaning.
All right, now, I'm not saying I'm going to be
really clear, I'm not saying that companies that clean air
ducts are scammed. It's not true. There is a time
(08:03):
to clean an air duct, But in this reporter's opinion,
i'll tell you when that is. If you've just had
a major flood or a leak that infiltrated into the
HVAC system, If you are in a house that has
been neglected and abandoned for a period of time, Okay,
(08:27):
probably a good idea to clean out the ducks. If
you've just gone through major construction and the ducks have
been subject to all the dust and stuff that major
construction kicks up. Not a problem recommending that we clean
out the ducts so that we just don't blow that
back out into the house when everything else is clean.
(08:49):
So you get my drift right. Duct cleaning is a
real thing, But duck cleaning is usually, in my world,
a response to some kind of trauma that has happened
to the house. A flood, to fire, major construction, those
kinds of things. The idea of well, have you ever
cleaned your ducks? If you haven't, you should probably do
this on an annual basis. Why why moisture build up?
(09:13):
That's a claim. You know that your AC system is
a dehumidifier. It pulls moisture out of the air out
of the air, and then during the winter it blows
hot air through the ducks. So no, na, na, no,
not that well, just you know daily life. No, not
that either. Okay, it's a forest air system. It cleans
(09:36):
itself pretty regularly. You got to be in pretty bad
shape in order for the ducks to need some attention.
That's all I'm saying. So duck cleaning.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Nah.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Negative, We're not going to do that one. Okay. What
else have I got for you that you should not
worry about on a regular basis? Oh? I saw a
list that said check the GFI outlets in your home monthly.
Who wrote this? Who wrote this? Some OCD person who
(10:09):
wears a pocket protector to bed right, I'm like, who
has time to do that? No? No, no, no, Your
GFI outlets are fine. If one starts acting up, you'll
know it, okay. At the same list said that you
should test your breaker panels breakers like every six months.
Why let me just tell you this, Of all the
(10:30):
systems in your home that are complex, and there are
several of them. The electric system is what we call durable.
In other words, Man, if the wires were run right
in the house, in the walls and nothing has happened
to them, nothing has intruded, they're gonna be working fined.
And believe me, this is a guy who you know.
We restore one hundred plus year old homes all the time,
(10:53):
and I'm always asked what about the wiring? I'm like,
what about it? Has anybody screwed with it? Because if
it's the right gauge wire, we can leave most of
it in place as long as the insulation isn't broken
and hasn't been torn open because it's a piece of
metal conducting electricity through it. Generally speaking, electrical systems are durable.
Now something is going funky, like a switch is going funky,
(11:17):
or a GFI outlet just keeps popping all by itself,
then don't wait to deal with that, because I don't
want that, like a bad switch to be arcing secretly
in the wall and as a result, you know, catch
something on fire. I don't want your house to burn
down because you've ignored a really funky weird bad switch.
(11:39):
But generally speaking, if things are working as you expect
them to with your electrical system, you don't have to
worry about it. Breakers. By the way, the more you
use them, pop them on and off, they do wear
out eventually. Right, So now I'm not saying if you
pop your breakers every six months or so. Excuse me
for saying that. If you're prone to popping your breaker,
(12:00):
may seek medical attention. But I'm not saying that's gonna
wear it. I'm just saying there's really no reason. Okay,
the breakers pop when they need to. You don't have
to go out there and just like clear them out psychically,
just clear that energy out. No, it's not at all necessary. Okay,
all right, we got that out of the way. Those
(12:20):
are the worst offenders on the list that I saw,
and then the rest of it was just sort of like, okay,
normal stuff. So when we return right after this break.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
We start with design, we make sure everything else is
in order, and the next thing, you know, man, it
is something truly truly extraordinary. And I help you through
that every single week right here, on the program today,
we're doing a little bit of maintenance. In fact, we're
doing the kind of maintenance that defers bigger costs down
(12:56):
the road. So today's show we're calling it avoiding the
cost of deferred maintenance. Now, I've already told you about
the the goofy stuff that I don't think you need
to do as regular maintenance. Let's dive into the rest
of my list, though, and start eating it up. I'm
going to start off easy, soft and easy with you here. Gutters. Okay,
(13:18):
clean your gutters. What can I tell you? Keep them clean? Yes,
leaves build up in your gutters. But you know, even
if they don't, even if your gutters are nowhere near
a tree that's regularly dropping leaves in I'm going to
let you know. If you've got gutters, you need to
keep them clean. In other words, you spray them out.
(13:39):
Spray them out at least, I'll just tell you this.
The gutters need to be ready for the rainy season. Okay,
I don't care if they sit there uh doing that
if there are no leaves in them. If there are
leaves in the gutters, you got to clean them out
because they're a fire hazards. All right, if there are
no leaves in the gutter, you still need to clean
the gutters out before the rains come. And I'll tell
(14:01):
you why dust. Dust builds up in the bottom of
your gutter. Stuff rolls off the roof, little particulates of
your roof, rolls off the roof. Do transports it and
starts to solidify the dust in there, and what you'll
end up with. I mean, you know how dirty your
car gets if it just sits outside for two or
three days, Okay, it starts building up. How about an
(14:24):
actual trough that's made to hold stuff and months at
a time. So I shouldn't have to make that big
of an argument for it, but I just want you
to know the dust is just as important because dust
can settle in a gutter and nullify the slope and
the drain of the gutter, and water hits that on
the first rain, makes it very, very heavy and turns
(14:47):
it into a paste. And now the next thing you know,
your gutters aren't flowing well. So the dust factor you
only have to worry about that. Just make sure they're
clean and ready to flow right before the rain starts.
Their leaves, yeah, keep the leaves out and when people
ask me about, by the way, gutter filters, you know,
the stuff, the leaf filters that you put on top.
(15:08):
I have mixed feelings about them for two reasons. One
number one. First of all, all right, I'm gonna let
the designer talk. Come on over here. You get to
say this one. All right, thank you very much. No
problem with the leaf filter. If you can't see it there,
it is all right. He's gone his way. I do
not want the leaf filter. I don't want anything that
you do to protect a certain area of your house
(15:30):
to end up ruining the look of your house. Okay, So,
because there's always a way to do it without doing that.
So if it's a leaf filter you can see, I
don't want to see it, So that's a no. If
it's a leaf filter that's invisible from the ground staring
up at the house, that's fine. That's fine. But I
don't want you to think of it as a panacea,
(15:50):
because no leaf filter is gonna keep the dust out.
It'll keep the leaves out. That's great, as long as
they don't just sit on top. Okay, but I don't
want I want a leaf filter to lead you to believe,
oh I got leaf filters. I spent a mint for them,
so I never have to clean my gutters. Not true,
Not true.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Okay, next thing, real quick, clean your carpets if you've
got carpeting, wall to wall carpeting still in some room
to the house or wherever. And I'm not just talking
about regular vacuuming. Yeah, regular vacuuming is critical, but also
the occasional professional carpet cleaning. I say professional because I
(16:30):
have yet to find a rental unit or a buy
it for yourself and stored away unit that has the
necessary vacuum power to pull out the moisture that the
sprayer put in. And that's really really important because we
don't want mold. We don't want mildew developing in that
(16:51):
carpet pad underneath the backing of the carpet. So I
strongly suggest if you've got wall to wall carpeting anywhere
in your house, that you get it cleaned regularly. You know,
get it cleaned once a year. Have a pro come
in with the big truck and the unit on the
truck and have them do it, because they know how
not to use too much water, not to use too
(17:13):
much detergent, and how to get it all back out again.
The reason I say that it preserves your carpets. It
helps because any kind of fiber that has got dirt
or grit or tiny particulates down in it. If you
look at those things under a microscope, like sand. You
know glass is made out of sand. You look at
(17:35):
a grain of sand under a microscope. It has several
cutting surfaces. And the more that sits in there and
then you walk on it, the more you grind it
in and cut those fibers, and the faster the carpet
will wear out. And that's the whole idea, avoiding the
cost of deferred maintenance, defer cleaning the carpets, and just
plan on replacing the carpet sooner than you need to.
(18:00):
A lot of what we're going to be talking about
today is taking care of a thing so that we
don't have to replace it as quickly. Almost everything on
our list eventually has to be replaced. The question is
are you going to get one year out of it?
You're gonna get five years, you're gonna get ten, you're
gonna get fifteen, twenty years out of it. How premature
will its death be? Because then Chiching back to the
(18:23):
cash register and the bank account. Again that makes sense. Okay, more,
when we return you are Home with Dean Sharp the
house whisper.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I spent all last week talking about exactly that, trying
to convince you of how important entering into a design
process with a design team before you begin your remodel
or your major transformation, or whatever the case may be,
or your new build. Clearly, design matters. Most design is
(19:01):
eighty percent of the game craftsmanship and materials and budget.
That's the other twenty percent. Is he kidding? Is he exag?
I thought the designer wasn't showing up today for today's show.
I get to do the intros. Okay, the designer gets
to do the intros, so before the other guy kicks
me out, I'm just saying it's really really important. By
the way, if you've enjoyed the show and you're thinking, gosh,
(19:25):
but you know, he has no idea what our issue is.
What we really need is Dean and Tina sitting here
and staring at it with us. Well, guess what that
can happen too. You can do an in home design
consultation with us. All you have to do is go
to house whisper dot Design for more info. And no,
that was not an intentional promo for that. It just
(19:46):
came up on my head because design matters most So
there you go. Okay, let's get back to our list,
all right, let the contractor take back over again. Fine,
we're gonna talk now about the ongoing list of ways
to avoid the cost of deferred maintenance. So we've talked gutters,
(20:08):
We've talked cleaning the carpets. I'm gonna throw an oddball
one at you here, and this is so easy to do,
all right, And it's something that I just realized recently
talking to one of our patio furniture experts, talking to
Brian Gold from Aldick Home. Brian's like, you know, most
most of us have mow and blow gardeners as opposed
(20:30):
to like pull on, real old school gardeners. Right, the
guys with the blowers come into the yard every year,
every year, every week. He's like, well, if you've got
really nice patio furniture, like soft upholstered patio furniture outside,
have the gardeners take the blower and just blow the
dust off the patio furniture. And my response to him was, yeah, okay, fine,
(20:55):
why And he's like, because dust outside has pollen and
other organic materials mixed into it. And add a little
water to that mix down in the cracks and it
begins and the water meaning like do for the evening
when it cools down and we hit due point. It
promotes mildew growth. So dusted, dusted, clean, dusted furniture outside
(21:21):
reduces the amount of maintenance that ultimately you'll have to
do on all of that soft sided patio furniture. Whoa
only here, yeah and out pearls. All right, let's talk
about something else. Paint paint inspection on your house is
an important thing. It's something that I hope you're just
aware of most of the time. But you know, once
(21:42):
a year you should do a walk around the house.
And when I say around, I mean interior paint. Well,
that's one thing. And if paint starts coming off something,
or it's chipped or it's peeling somewhere, of course I
want you to address it because the designer over there
gets really, you know, ticked when we neglect aesthetic things
(22:04):
inside the house. On the outside of the house, though
not just an aesthetic issue. Paint coming off the house
is always more than just the aesthetics. It is an
exposure of those surfaces to the weather. It's an exposure
of those surfaces to mildew, to dry rot, to termites
(22:28):
and other nasty, buggy kind of things and structural damage ultimately.
So the point is this check up on the paint.
Touchups are fine. And you know what if you've experienced
this in the past and you're frustrated because you're like, listen,
I would love to do a little bit of touch
(22:48):
up work, Okay, But I go and I try and
match the color as close as I can, and it
never matches exactly, and so then I end up with
this paint patch where the paint is mismatched. And so
I don't do touchup work because if I really wanted
to do it right, then I got to paint the
whole wall, and I don't want to do that, or
I call a painterre in and it's too much work
(23:09):
and it's too much money. Okay, So for a couple
of hundred bucks one time purchase, I want you to
go over to nix nix or just search for this
search for the Nicks Mini two is a tiny retar
chargeable color analyzer. You got to go check it out.
(23:30):
Those of you who have heard me say this before,
is that the two or the three that they're on. Well, anyway,
look up Nix Mini and check out what the latest
model is. Okay, the one that I'm talking about is
a couple hundred bucks, and you buy that, you charge
it up, you walk outside, and believe me, Tina and
I do this all the time. We were at a
client's house a few weeks ago and they had a
(23:52):
little paint tissue, and so I didn't just I didn't
ask them, well do you have the original paint color?
Doesn't matter because on this side of the house that
faces full sun and has been for like two years,
the original paint color is not the right color. What
we wanted to do was make a little patch that's
about six inches round, and we wanted to get it right.
(24:15):
So I took the Nixt Mini, I took it out there.
I sampled the paint right on the edge of the patch.
It gave me the paint numbers that I took to
the paint store and I brought back a tiny little
sample pint and we painted it over perfection. That's what
I'm talking about. Okay, So there you go. That was
a free gift with purchase, free gift with no purchase whatsoever.
(24:38):
Paint on the outside of the house is never just
about the esthetics, so keep track of it. Okay. Let's
start the process now of HVAC maintenance, heating and air conditioning.
There are a couple of things that you should do
and a couple of things you should never ever ever do.
(24:59):
Before we get to the things you should do, I'm
going to tell you what you shouldn't do. Don't go
around your house closing off vents into rooms because you're
trying to save money and make the heating and air
conditioning system more efficient. Don't do that, okay. And the
reason I don't want you to do it is because
your system wasn't designed to have those vents closed. It
(25:19):
was designed to breathe all at once, and in breathing
it utilizes its fan and the pressure inside the ducks properly.
You close off those registers, and I don't mean aiming
them that's fine, or dampening the bat a little bit,
but if you close them off to some room that well,
(25:40):
I never use it anyway. Not only are you losing
temperature control on that room, which you shouldn't because that
does affect the rest of the house because the walls
in between that room and the rest of the house
are not insulated. But not only are are you messing
with that, but you're causing back pressure to build up
inside that duct all the way and it gets to
(26:00):
the main trunk line and then it starts affecting pressure
to the rest of the house and reducing the efficiency
of airflow everywhere. So the answer is not pulling back
and shutting down registers into rooms or closing off doors
into rooms because you don't want to quote unquote waste
the heating or waste the air conditioning. You gotta let
(26:22):
it flow. You gotta let it flow. By the way,
back pressure in your system ages your motor and your
fan and all of these other things. Not good. Does
that makes sense?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
All right?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
When we come back right after this break, we'll talk
about the two things, the two things that you absolutely
should be doing to your HVAC stuff system that likely
you're not doing. So let's talk about it. Your home
with Dean Sharp, the house whisper. This has been home
with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Tune into the live
(26:56):
broadcast on KFI AM six forty every Saturday night 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
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app, your guide
to better understanding that place where you live. We're all
about taking your ordinary house and transforming it into an
extraordinary home, and we do it so many different ways
(00:22):
every week. This week we're gonna take a well, you know,
last week I stood on my soapbox all three hours
of the show and tried to convince you. I hope
I did that. When it comes to transforming your home,
design matters most so it was a very very design
oriented show last week. This week, we're gonna flip the
(00:45):
script to the other side of the coin, gonna get
super practical, very very homeownery, and we're gonna talk about maintenance. Actually,
we're gonna talk about a problem that you have, deferred maintenance.
Everybody struggles with not getting around to stuff that needs
to get taken care of around their home, and I
(01:05):
want you to avoid the cost of deferred maintenance because
you know it, especially when it comes to our home.
What's that old Ben frame? Was it Ben Franklin who
said a stitch in time saves nine right? You probably
haven't heard that in like a decades, right, So, but
it's true, one little fix right now, it's save a
(01:28):
much bigger fix down the road, and when it comes
to our home, we don't want those costs multiplying. The
question is, though, what needs our regular maintenance attention and
what doesn't. If you go on the interweb, that's a thing.
It's a thing, I don't know if you've heard of it.
The internet. Yeah, if you go on the internet and
you ask the question annual home maintenance, you will get
(01:53):
a lot of interesting things on the list. Some of
them are the same on every list. Those would be
on my list too. Some of them are just really unrealistic,
and some of them are completely ridiculous. So the big
question is, of course, Dean, what's on your list? Well,
that's what we're going to go through today. We're going
(02:14):
to go through my list of things that you could
and should give regular attention to around your home, and
I'm going to help you understand how to do it
so that we can avoid the costs of deferred maintenance,
the stuff that will really bite you in the rear
end if you just let this stuff go. So that's
(02:34):
what we're going today, and of course also your calls,
which we always do the number to reach me. I'm
gonna give you the number right now because the phone
lines are open. We're gonna be going to the phones
in a bit eight three three two. Ask Dean A
three three the numeral two ask Dean A three three
to ask Dean whatever has got you scratch in your
(02:56):
head about your home. When it comes to calls, if
you're not familiar, you get to set the agenda. I
have my list of deferred maintenance things that we'll be
talking about today. But when it comes to the calls,
you can talk to me about anything you want design, construction, architecture, decor,
diy inside, outside, hardscape, landscape, from property line to property line,
(03:20):
and from the ground to the roof, anything having to
do with your home. We'll put our heads together and
we will get it figured out. All right. Before I
move on, let me introduce you to the person who's
sitting across the table from me this morning, A very
very special guest, Barry. I can't even get her to
(03:40):
look up there, she goes, Finally, I just called you
a very special guest. You did not hear that at all.
You had your face buried in your phone, my better
half usually my design partner, the co owner co founder
of how s Whisper, the best home designer I know,
(04:03):
and my best friend in all the world. Tina is here.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Welcome home, angry elephant. That was that was a slightly
slightly It was protecting me. How you doing, Bud good? Yeah,
beautiful day.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It is a beautiful day. It's going to be warm,
but it's not as warm.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I think we are we over there?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Have we? Have we gotten over the peak? Are we
started to slowly cruise? It's going to be like in
the high eighties this week or something like that.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Like the high seventies. And I'm really you know.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
What, I'd be fine if it just kept on falling.
Me too, if we got into like this is so unrealistic.
It's ridiculous for me to say, because you know, we
live in southern California. But you know, if it just
kept falling, if we hit October and we had like fifties,
what what a dream would that be? Would be dreaming?
(05:01):
But no, we're gonna get like seventy mile an hour,
one hundred degree wins.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yes, that's case.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
See what happens because hello, southern California. But it is
a sunny, gorgeous day. There's all sorts of good stuff happening,
and you get to listen to my list of things
to do around the house. You're like, oh, great, and that's.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
A good time to do it because the weather's great.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah. So what's your excuse? Lazy? I know, no, no,
no guilt, no pressure, just gonna help you out. That's
what we're always about here. Does that make sense? All right?
There is so much more good stuff on the way.
You are listening to Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
We are about to dive into our list for today
and today very very practical, avoiding the cost of deferred maintenance,
the stuff that you should be spending a little bit
more time paying attention to on your home so that
it doesn't build up and end up costing you big
bucks down the road. A very very homeownery practical. Mostly
(06:12):
mostly it's the builder in me talking today. The designer.
He got to talk all last week, that guy, and
you know what, man, he just talks, He talks and talks,
and so the builder a little bit more practical guy here.
He's taken over, and the designer may may get a
word in or two, but mostly the guy with the
(06:36):
tools this week to help you out. Okay, first of all,
can we start with this very quickly. You know they
say in good advertising that you present the problem, the
pain point in order, and then you present the solution. Well,
this isn't really that, so I don't know why I
brought up that analogy. Anyway. I know I was saying
(06:57):
before the break that if you go online and you'll
find so many lists of things that you should be
doing around the house, and you know, some of them
are fine, some of them are just typical, some of
them are clear. Most of them, I say, are clearly
just put together by some editor or some assistant producer
(07:17):
at some you know website or some magazine who like,
oh yeah, put together, we got to fill up page
five and seven, So put together a list of maintenance items,
all right, And so they just steal it from another website. Anyway,
there's some really wacky advice out there, And let me
just hit home on a couple of the things that
you do not need to do regularly for your home,
(07:41):
no matter who tells you contrary to this regular duct cleaning.
All right, now, I'm not saying I'm going to be
really clear, I'm not saying that companies that clean air
ducts are scammed. It's not true. There is a time
(08:03):
to clean an air duct, But in this reporter's opinion,
i'll tell you when that is. If you've just had
a major flood or a leak that infiltrated into the
HVAC system, If you are in a house that has
been neglected and abandoned for a period of time, Okay,
(08:27):
probably a good idea to clean out the ducks. If
you've just gone through major construction and the ducks have
been subject to all the dust and stuff that major
construction kicks up. Not a problem recommending that we clean
out the ducts so that we just don't blow that
back out into the house when everything else is clean.
(08:49):
So you get my drift right. Duct cleaning is a
real thing, But duck cleaning is usually, in my world,
a response to some kind of trauma that has happened
to the house. A flood, to fire, major construction, those
kinds of things. The idea of well, have you ever
cleaned your ducks? If you haven't, you should probably do
this on an annual basis. Why why moisture build up?
(09:13):
That's a claim. You know that your AC system is
a dehumidifier. It pulls moisture out of the air out
of the air, and then during the winter it blows
hot air through the ducks. So no, na, na, no,
not that well, just you know daily life. No, not
that either. Okay, it's a forest air system. It cleans
(09:36):
itself pretty regularly. You got to be in pretty bad
shape in order for the ducks to need some attention.
That's all I'm saying. So duck cleaning.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Nah.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Negative, We're not going to do that one. Okay. What
else have I got for you that you should not
worry about on a regular basis? Oh? I saw a
list that said check the GFI outlets in your home monthly.
Who wrote this? Who wrote this? Some OCD person who
(10:09):
wears a pocket protector to bed right, I'm like, who
has time to do that? No? No, no, no, Your
GFI outlets are fine. If one starts acting up, you'll
know it, okay. At the same list said that you
should test your breaker panels breakers like every six months.
Why let me just tell you this, Of all the
(10:30):
systems in your home that are complex, and there are
several of them. The electric system is what we call durable.
In other words, Man, if the wires were run right
in the house, in the walls and nothing has happened
to them, nothing has intruded, they're gonna be working fined.
And believe me, this is a guy who you know.
We restore one hundred plus year old homes all the time,
(10:53):
and I'm always asked what about the wiring? I'm like,
what about it? Has anybody screwed with it? Because if
it's the right gauge wire, we can leave most of
it in place as long as the insulation isn't broken
and hasn't been torn open because it's a piece of
metal conducting electricity through it. Generally speaking, electrical systems are durable.
Now something is going funky, like a switch is going funky,
(11:17):
or a GFI outlet just keeps popping all by itself,
then don't wait to deal with that, because I don't
want that, like a bad switch to be arcing secretly
in the wall and as a result, you know, catch
something on fire. I don't want your house to burn
down because you've ignored a really funky weird bad switch.
(11:39):
But generally speaking, if things are working as you expect
them to with your electrical system, you don't have to
worry about it. Breakers. By the way, the more you
use them, pop them on and off, they do wear
out eventually. Right, So now I'm not saying if you
pop your breakers every six months or so. Excuse me
for saying that. If you're prone to popping your breaker,
(12:00):
may seek medical attention. But I'm not saying that's gonna
wear it. I'm just saying there's really no reason. Okay,
the breakers pop when they need to. You don't have
to go out there and just like clear them out psychically,
just clear that energy out. No, it's not at all necessary. Okay,
all right, we got that out of the way. Those
(12:20):
are the worst offenders on the list that I saw,
and then the rest of it was just sort of like, okay,
normal stuff. So when we return right after this break.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
We start with design, we make sure everything else is
in order, and the next thing, you know, man, it
is something truly truly extraordinary. And I help you through
that every single week right here, on the program today,
we're doing a little bit of maintenance. In fact, we're
doing the kind of maintenance that defers bigger costs down
(12:56):
the road. So today's show we're calling it avoiding the
cost of deferred maintenance. Now, I've already told you about
the the goofy stuff that I don't think you need
to do as regular maintenance. Let's dive into the rest
of my list, though, and start eating it up. I'm
going to start off easy, soft and easy with you here. Gutters. Okay,
(13:18):
clean your gutters. What can I tell you? Keep them clean? Yes,
leaves build up in your gutters. But you know, even
if they don't, even if your gutters are nowhere near
a tree that's regularly dropping leaves in I'm going to
let you know. If you've got gutters, you need to
keep them clean. In other words, you spray them out.
(13:39):
Spray them out at least, I'll just tell you this.
The gutters need to be ready for the rainy season. Okay,
I don't care if they sit there uh doing that
if there are no leaves in them. If there are
leaves in the gutters, you got to clean them out
because they're a fire hazards. All right, if there are
no leaves in the gutter, you still need to clean
the gutters out before the rains come. And I'll tell
(14:01):
you why dust. Dust builds up in the bottom of
your gutter. Stuff rolls off the roof, little particulates of
your roof, rolls off the roof. Do transports it and
starts to solidify the dust in there, and what you'll
end up with. I mean, you know how dirty your
car gets if it just sits outside for two or
three days, Okay, it starts building up. How about an
(14:24):
actual trough that's made to hold stuff and months at
a time. So I shouldn't have to make that big
of an argument for it, but I just want you
to know the dust is just as important because dust
can settle in a gutter and nullify the slope and
the drain of the gutter, and water hits that on
the first rain, makes it very, very heavy and turns
(14:47):
it into a paste. And now the next thing you know,
your gutters aren't flowing well. So the dust factor you
only have to worry about that. Just make sure they're
clean and ready to flow right before the rain starts.
Their leaves, yeah, keep the leaves out and when people
ask me about, by the way, gutter filters, you know,
the stuff, the leaf filters that you put on top.
(15:08):
I have mixed feelings about them for two reasons. One
number one. First of all, all right, I'm gonna let
the designer talk. Come on over here. You get to
say this one. All right, thank you very much. No
problem with the leaf filter. If you can't see it there,
it is all right. He's gone his way. I do
not want the leaf filter. I don't want anything that
you do to protect a certain area of your house
(15:30):
to end up ruining the look of your house. Okay, So,
because there's always a way to do it without doing that.
So if it's a leaf filter you can see, I
don't want to see it, So that's a no. If
it's a leaf filter that's invisible from the ground staring
up at the house, that's fine. That's fine. But I
don't want you to think of it as a panacea,
(15:50):
because no leaf filter is gonna keep the dust out.
It'll keep the leaves out. That's great, as long as
they don't just sit on top. Okay, but I don't
want I want a leaf filter to lead you to believe,
oh I got leaf filters. I spent a mint for them,
so I never have to clean my gutters. Not true,
Not true.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Okay, next thing, real quick, clean your carpets if you've
got carpeting, wall to wall carpeting still in some room
to the house or wherever. And I'm not just talking
about regular vacuuming. Yeah, regular vacuuming is critical, but also
the occasional professional carpet cleaning. I say professional because I
(16:30):
have yet to find a rental unit or a buy
it for yourself and stored away unit that has the
necessary vacuum power to pull out the moisture that the
sprayer put in. And that's really really important because we
don't want mold. We don't want mildew developing in that
(16:51):
carpet pad underneath the backing of the carpet. So I
strongly suggest if you've got wall to wall carpeting anywhere
in your house, that you get it cleaned regularly. You know,
get it cleaned once a year. Have a pro come
in with the big truck and the unit on the
truck and have them do it, because they know how
not to use too much water, not to use too
(17:13):
much detergent, and how to get it all back out again.
The reason I say that it preserves your carpets. It
helps because any kind of fiber that has got dirt
or grit or tiny particulates down in it. If you
look at those things under a microscope, like sand. You
know glass is made out of sand. You look at
(17:35):
a grain of sand under a microscope. It has several
cutting surfaces. And the more that sits in there and
then you walk on it, the more you grind it
in and cut those fibers, and the faster the carpet
will wear out. And that's the whole idea, avoiding the
cost of deferred maintenance, defer cleaning the carpets, and just
plan on replacing the carpet sooner than you need to.
(18:00):
A lot of what we're going to be talking about
today is taking care of a thing so that we
don't have to replace it as quickly. Almost everything on
our list eventually has to be replaced. The question is
are you going to get one year out of it?
You're gonna get five years, you're gonna get ten, you're
gonna get fifteen, twenty years out of it. How premature
will its death be? Because then Chiching back to the
(18:23):
cash register and the bank account. Again that makes sense. Okay, more,
when we return you are Home with Dean Sharp the
house whisper.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I spent all last week talking about exactly that, trying
to convince you of how important entering into a design
process with a design team before you begin your remodel
or your major transformation, or whatever the case may be,
or your new build. Clearly, design matters. Most design is
(19:01):
eighty percent of the game craftsmanship and materials and budget.
That's the other twenty percent. Is he kidding? Is he exag?
I thought the designer wasn't showing up today for today's show.
I get to do the intros. Okay, the designer gets
to do the intros, so before the other guy kicks
me out, I'm just saying it's really really important. By
the way, if you've enjoyed the show and you're thinking, gosh,
(19:25):
but you know, he has no idea what our issue is.
What we really need is Dean and Tina sitting here
and staring at it with us. Well, guess what that
can happen too. You can do an in home design
consultation with us. All you have to do is go
to house whisper dot Design for more info. And no,
that was not an intentional promo for that. It just
(19:46):
came up on my head because design matters most So
there you go. Okay, let's get back to our list,
all right, let the contractor take back over again. Fine,
we're gonna talk now about the ongoing list of ways
to avoid the cost of deferred maintenance. So we've talked gutters,
(20:08):
We've talked cleaning the carpets. I'm gonna throw an oddball
one at you here, and this is so easy to do,
all right, And it's something that I just realized recently
talking to one of our patio furniture experts, talking to
Brian Gold from Aldick Home. Brian's like, you know, most
most of us have mow and blow gardeners as opposed
(20:30):
to like pull on, real old school gardeners. Right, the
guys with the blowers come into the yard every year,
every year, every week. He's like, well, if you've got
really nice patio furniture, like soft upholstered patio furniture outside,
have the gardeners take the blower and just blow the
dust off the patio furniture. And my response to him was, yeah, okay, fine,
(20:55):
why And he's like, because dust outside has pollen and
other organic materials mixed into it. And add a little
water to that mix down in the cracks and it
begins and the water meaning like do for the evening
when it cools down and we hit due point. It
promotes mildew growth. So dusted, dusted, clean, dusted furniture outside
(21:21):
reduces the amount of maintenance that ultimately you'll have to
do on all of that soft sided patio furniture. Whoa
only here, yeah and out pearls. All right, let's talk
about something else. Paint paint inspection on your house is
an important thing. It's something that I hope you're just
aware of most of the time. But you know, once
(21:42):
a year you should do a walk around the house.
And when I say around, I mean interior paint. Well,
that's one thing. And if paint starts coming off something,
or it's chipped or it's peeling somewhere, of course I
want you to address it because the designer over there
gets really, you know, ticked when we neglect aesthetic things
(22:04):
inside the house. On the outside of the house, though
not just an aesthetic issue. Paint coming off the house
is always more than just the aesthetics. It is an
exposure of those surfaces to the weather. It's an exposure
of those surfaces to mildew, to dry rot, to termites
(22:28):
and other nasty, buggy kind of things and structural damage ultimately.
So the point is this check up on the paint.
Touchups are fine. And you know what if you've experienced
this in the past and you're frustrated because you're like, listen,
I would love to do a little bit of touch
(22:48):
up work, Okay, But I go and I try and
match the color as close as I can, and it
never matches exactly, and so then I end up with
this paint patch where the paint is mismatched. And so
I don't do touchup work because if I really wanted
to do it right, then I got to paint the
whole wall, and I don't want to do that, or
I call a painterre in and it's too much work
(23:09):
and it's too much money. Okay, So for a couple
of hundred bucks one time purchase, I want you to
go over to nix nix or just search for this
search for the Nicks Mini two is a tiny retar
chargeable color analyzer. You got to go check it out.
(23:30):
Those of you who have heard me say this before,
is that the two or the three that they're on. Well, anyway,
look up Nix Mini and check out what the latest
model is. Okay, the one that I'm talking about is
a couple hundred bucks, and you buy that, you charge
it up, you walk outside, and believe me, Tina and
I do this all the time. We were at a
client's house a few weeks ago and they had a
(23:52):
little paint tissue, and so I didn't just I didn't
ask them, well do you have the original paint color?
Doesn't matter because on this side of the house that
faces full sun and has been for like two years,
the original paint color is not the right color. What
we wanted to do was make a little patch that's
about six inches round, and we wanted to get it right.
(24:15):
So I took the Nixt Mini, I took it out there.
I sampled the paint right on the edge of the patch.
It gave me the paint numbers that I took to
the paint store and I brought back a tiny little
sample pint and we painted it over perfection. That's what
I'm talking about. Okay, So there you go. That was
a free gift with purchase, free gift with no purchase whatsoever.
(24:38):
Paint on the outside of the house is never just
about the esthetics, so keep track of it. Okay. Let's
start the process now of HVAC maintenance, heating and air conditioning.
There are a couple of things that you should do
and a couple of things you should never ever ever do.
(24:59):
Before we get to the things you should do, I'm
going to tell you what you shouldn't do. Don't go
around your house closing off vents into rooms because you're
trying to save money and make the heating and air
conditioning system more efficient. Don't do that, okay. And the
reason I don't want you to do it is because
your system wasn't designed to have those vents closed. It
(25:19):
was designed to breathe all at once, and in breathing
it utilizes its fan and the pressure inside the ducks properly.
You close off those registers, and I don't mean aiming
them that's fine, or dampening the bat a little bit,
but if you close them off to some room that well,
(25:40):
I never use it anyway. Not only are you losing
temperature control on that room, which you shouldn't because that
does affect the rest of the house because the walls
in between that room and the rest of the house
are not insulated. But not only are are you messing
with that, but you're causing back pressure to build up
inside that duct all the way and it gets to
(26:00):
the main trunk line and then it starts affecting pressure
to the rest of the house and reducing the efficiency
of airflow everywhere. So the answer is not pulling back
and shutting down registers into rooms or closing off doors
into rooms because you don't want to quote unquote waste
the heating or waste the air conditioning. You gotta let
(26:22):
it flow. You gotta let it flow. By the way,
back pressure in your system ages your motor and your
fan and all of these other things. Not good. Does
that makes sense?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
All right?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
When we come back right after this break, we'll talk
about the two things, the two things that you absolutely
should be doing to your HVAC stuff system that likely
you're not doing. So let's talk about it. Your home
with Dean Sharp, the house whisper. This has been home
with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Tune into the live
(26:56):
broadcast on KFI AM six forty every Saturday night 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
Home with Dean Sharp News
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