0:02
Before you start your next do it yourself project. Listen to this. You got this is on the air you got this is hosted by abt plumbing electric heat and air owner Andrew Twidwell and Rosalie brown with a helpful man, here are Andrew and Rosaline,
0:17
ICC, Andrew Twidwell, under BBT, plumbing, electric heating. And once again, we’ll show you guys this is a show a DIY do’s and don’ts. And I’ve got Rosalie Brown, zooming in from LA and I am in a lovely Auburn. And sorry about the echo because I have been relegated to one of our spare rooms that has nothing in it other than our carpet, to try to dampen the echo our new conference room because we’re in the process of building an office for our new hire. So yeah, it’s been kind of a crazy, crazy last couple of weeks.
0:51
So let’s talk about like, I think it’s exciting news. Can we talk about your new hire for a second? Yeah, so
0:58
we’ve over the past four to six weeks, we actually hired two Scott’s so I’ll lead in with the first Scott. So we heard Scott Kosta, some of you may know his wife, Valerie up in our area, she worked for the Union for many, many years. And Scott worked for a company called water heaters only, which is actually located in Grass Valley. But they don’t do any work in Grass Valley. They’re their two markets are San Francisco and LA. And he worked for their business development sector in LA, for many, many, many years. For the with like seven years he worked for for water heaters only. And I’ve known him for quite some time. I’ve known his wife for even longer because of working with her at the Union. And he was looking for something different just because he was tired of making the commute down to LA once a month to go talk to his vendors and people down there. So we brought him aboard. And he’s been doing great. He’s out and meeting and greeting and kissing babies and shaking hands and doing the stuff that I did when I first started the company. So we’re really happy to have him on board. And then just this week, we hired Scott Eagle, and he comes from we hired him as a chief operating officer. He comes out of corporate world they work for actually, back before he was a Air Force vet. Then he worked in the corporate world, he worked for Sony for quite some time. And then worked for Buechler heating and air and Blue Mountain to really large Heating and Air companies out in the Sacramento market. And work for the work in the heating and air industry for about 20 years, and more recently worked for a solar company. And that’s where I hired him and pulled him from the solar company. And that’s why I’m losing my conference room because we’re putting him in that conference room and taking one of the rooms that are off to the corner. And that’s what I’m in right now that that’s why we’re echoing So yeah, we’re really happy to have the two scouts aboard and changing things are changing quickly and growing rapidly. And we brought Scott on to kind of help us with this growth that we’ve seen. We’ve seen some pretty stellar growth. And I am. I’m good at building teams, but building processes has been a little hard. So by the process guy on board, so anyway, beautiful little professionalism and some corporate stuff. So exciting times.
3:40
It is. It’s funny because I grew up with a brother named Scott. And it’s not the most common name in the world. And so as this process was unfurling and we hired the first Scott, I was like, oh, yeah, okay. And then when you second Scott, I was like, oh, okay, that’s super rare. That’s not an everyday name. So see of the two. So we have the two now, but it’s exciting because one is focused on business development, and the other one is going to be helping us to manage the growth right, so it’ll be exciting. Yeah. And maybe you’ll end up with a soundproof booth in the corner who knows? Yeah, yeah. Recording Studio and turn the broom closet into like a recording studio.
4:23
I found that that is one thing I realized. Yeah, I probably get we’re probably gonna need a studio because we should be doing more videos and stuff. Anyway. So yeah, I know, I know. A company that I go and visit, visited what’s actually going on again, at the end of this month to go visit again that they literally have I think it’s probably about 800 to 1000 foot videos. department right. It’s a good sized studio that they have just for video, video and podcasting set my camera right.
4:56
Wow, I got to work on I got to work on a good microphone first. But yeah, you got your video setup. I can’t find a good microphone and I live in LA. What does that tell you? It’s crazy.
5:09
It’s kind of kooky. And then yeah, so we had we had sat caster was out in Sun City yesterday and Lincoln doing health and wellness and business kind of thing for the residents of Sun City, we had a booth down there. And he was down there meeting and greeting people and giving away stuff and talking to people. And one of the things that people were really, really interested in was this water jetter that we have, it’s kind of scours the pipes with high pressure water 3000 psi. We’re one of the only companies in Northern California to have this particular piece of equipment that actually has a diesel tankless water heater runs on it. So it not only does it shoot up high pressure water, but it’s not cold water, it’s actually hot water. So it has the ability to dissolve fats and greases that typically coagulate inside of sewer lines and drain lines. And we can actually clear those out to the point where they’re they’re literally squeaky clean. We’ve We’ve done some experiments where we’ve gone in and when you rub your finger on the pipe, it slips because of all the fogs, the grease organics and or the fats, greases, fats, organics and greases in there. And then when we jet it with the hot jet, your finger sticks it kind of like it gets it’s so clean that it changes the whole dynamic of the pipe, it’s not going to clog faster, it actually will clog slower. Because if I can get rid of the grease that grabs a hold of stuff. And while we’re jetting it, we also have a reservoir or product that we use called Total see that we’ve got private label then it’s an enzyme product that is not just an enzyme that also has a grease emulsifier. So not only does the organic not only does the bacteria break down organics, but the emulsifier breaks the bonds of the grease, so that it dissolves into its basic components and will run through the wire run through the pipes. So it’s a pretty it’s a pretty great piece of equipment. It was basically the price when I bought it. It was the price of the of a decent Mercedes. It’s what vehicles are going for now. It’s a little cheaper than that. But I know we just we just had a truck deliver today. And yeah, shocking when I’m paying for for vehicles these days. I think they’ve gone up $30,000 In the past two years for me two and a half years since COVID. So it’s yeah, it’s nuts. But yeah, so anyways, the hot jet is a pretty amazing piece of equipment. It does some great, great work, and we use it quite a bit. So yeah, that’s my pitch on that.
8:04
I wanted to get that plugin because Scott is so enamored with that machine. And also, he also has really been promoting it a lot. And I guess people were really kind of excited at the show. You know, it’s kind of a cool machine and then that that total see that you put in the pipes afterwards actually smells good. Which I I’m always into that because yeah, this ongoing issue with my kitchen sink. I’m like, got it always takes no matter what I do to clear it. It’s always stinks. And so I’m like, I need to get I need to get my hands on that.
8:36
Yeah, it definitely takes takes us a lot. And it’s got a citrus smell in it, which helps with again with the degree that the grease and other cleaning stuff. So yeah, it’s pretty great. And yeah, so Scott’s been doing do an excellent. And then. Yeah, I was I’m not sure where I was gonna go. I did
8:54
something cool. We’re gonna pivot to I thought it was fascinating for once. Bless, no, no offense intended. You were the producer this week. I did not do any resources. You did. So
9:11
yeah, we started going down the line of we offer an electrical inspection and whole house electrical safety inspection. And I kind of went down the rabbit hole of figuring out how often people should do it, and what the reasons why you should do it. And I kind of had a lot of ideas, but I wanted to get some kind of clarification and maybe some third party kind of reinforcement on it. So I went down that rabbit hole and shared it with you and shared it with somebody else. And you’re like, hey, let’s make a sushi on this. So this isn’t exactly DIY, but it does kind of dovetail into some DIY projects. Because one of the subjects on there is what what happens after you do your own electrical work, right, who’s actually looking at it So when should you have your electrical system inspected? It’s one of those things where, you know, should I have my plumbing or electrical system or my HVAC system looked at, things break down, right? I mean, things don’t last forever. And it’s surprising how lackadaisical we can get with things inside of our home compared to our vehicles. Right? If I’ve got a 10 year old vehicle, I’m taking that thing in for service all the time, the 20 year old vehicle, I know it’s going to be in the shop all the time, I’m going to be doing all the maintenance on it to make sure that thing keeps running right 20 year old systems inside of a house we dislike take for granted that they’re still working, right, you know. But the reality is, both in the plumbing and electrical, and HVAC, but particularly electrical things do break down, we do have electricity running through those wires, that through expansion and contraction of materials, and the actual electricity running through things actually move inside of there, things, bonds will actually start to loosen, and then all of a sudden, you start having arcing, and you have all these kinds of issues. And it’s just from normal use. It’s not anything bad. It’s just happens, right. And then there’s other things where products that we installed maybe 40 years ago, were state of the art at the time, and now all of a sudden, we realize no this are really bad. Dangerous, like this ENSCO panels that where we realize that the aluminum busbar that they use to save money on on manufacturing was really not a good idea. It heats up and the buy, again, the material, expensive contracts, and the gap on the conductor’s increases the bond that we have the BRAC, how should I say it? Well, we push the screw down the tighten on the connector, things kind of move around and it gets loose, and all of a sudden, it starts like the electrons start jumping through air. And that’s little lightning bolts, they’re really hot, and they start working and they start causing heat issues. And then eventually they start crossing fires. So you know, they were a good product when we installed them 40 years ago, at least we thought they were. But now we’ve realized no, they’re not there were some lawsuits against them. And that’s long gone. All that money has been been utilized. But anyway, so when should you have your house inspected? If you have a house that’s over 20 years old, you should really be getting our electrical system inspected every three to five years minimum, ideally every year. And the reason being is yeah, we’re talking about electrons, we’re talking about sparks, we’re talking about arcing, we’re talking about little lightning bolts that cause fires. And it happens more often than we think more often you would think I know of just firsthand knowledge of two fires in our community that were started from a zinsco panel, then houses were not completely destroyed, but close to it. Right. So and that’s just firsthand knowledge. And I know there’s been plenty others as well. And some of them go without being even registered, they are not even listed as that being the cause just aka otherwise known as electrical fire, right. So it does happen quite often. So how often should you have your electrical system is 20 years old, should really have it every every three to five years, it three to five years, ideally every year, and who should be doing it a licensed electrician, somebody that actually knows what to look for. They should be checking the panel, make sure there’s no arcing, make sure they’re all the connections are tight, make sure the wire is and moved and done something weird, make sure the products that were used were are of code today. And you know, some people get kind of the quickly when you say code, but building codes, their prime purpose, their prime reasoning is to protect person and property, it’s the only reason we have codes is to make sure we protect persons and property. So you know, I know people don’t like big brother looking down on you and whatnot. But really, they’re not there to hurt you. They’re there to make sure that we stay safe. So every three to five years.
14:20
Well also the code, you know, if you don’t end up staying in your home, if you go to sell your home, it’s a big deal. If things aren’t up to code, you know, you’ve got to take that into account when you sell your house. If things aren’t up to code, you can have some issues there, whether it’s election on price or getting that resolved before you know there are some additional problems with ignoring code, not just safety.
14:45
So but primarily that does happen when you get the deductions and the price of the house and stuff it’s because they were installed in an unsafe manner and workmanship type of manner. And that is all the code really is right. sure whether you have somebody inspect You’re not at least hopefully, you’ve done it to the bare minimum, which is code. So what are some of the times that you should have when you should consider having an inspection. So before any major home upgrades, so if you’re going to be doing an addition, if you’re going to be doing any kind of remodeling or anything like that, within your home, and that’s literally just, you know, a new kitchen or something, you should have an electrician, inspect the other words, don’t just have them come in and then put the wire put the new circuits in haven’t make sure to look at everything as a whole, it’s a system. You know, when you go to the doctor, if you have a broken leg, they check your blood pressure and they check your weight. Why do they check your blood pressure, because it’s a system, you could be having reactions to something that have nothing to do with, it may just be a symptom of something. But the core issue may be high blood pressure, right? The same thing goes with electrical, you may add a new circuit. But there’s another line condition that needed needed to be addressed. But unfortunately, no one paid for it or no one brought it to your attention that that needed to be solved. And unfortunately, that’s another problem with most technicians is we’re taught to fix things, we’re not taught to communicate, and tell people things that we see. Because we’re afraid that people are going to get mad, we train our guys to make sure to bring up things, if they see something, you are the professional, you need to bring it to their attention, and let the client decide what they want to do. At least they know. But unfortunately, you know, we’ve been taught to not say anything, because we don’t want to get in trouble. So anytime you’re doing a major, major Home Upgrade, remodel or something like that, have electrician go through the system, make sure things are done in a workman like manner and done to code. Here’s where it’s kind of leading into the DIY thing. The number two, when should you have it inspected? If you’ve done some electrical work yourself, or one of your buddies came over and you shed some pizza and some beer and did some electrical work? Have an electrician take a look at it, make sure it’s done correctly. You know, you can all the best intentions and you think you’re doing it right because you watched a couple of YouTube videos. And then the electrician comes out and like oh my god, you’re gonna literally cause a fire. I’ve seen it. You know, I’ve seen people do some installations where they thought they did a great job. And they looked like you know, from everything they saw on YouTube, they really know what they’re doing. And nope, it was, you know, potentially going to cause a fire. So one of those things where it’s like, you know, I’m a licensed electrician. And even since I don’t work in the field on a daily basis, I have somebody else do my electrical. You know, if it’s been I’m putting in a fixture or an outlet, I’m having somebody else take care of it for me because they deal with it on a daily basis, like I’ve got so actually I’ve got something at my house right now running a new, a new panel, a new sub panel, because that’s I can do it. But he does on a daily basis. And things change. But in any event. So if you have done any DIY stuff in your house, you should really have a licensed electrician come to look at it. When you may have nothing to say other than Wow, great job or oops, let’s fix it. This is another really big one. If you live in an older home. There are a lot of older homes in our area and what are we talking about 25 years or older? We’re not talking about just Victorians. But we have a lot of Victorians that are we have a lot of homes that were built during the turn of the century that you know, when electricity first came to market in that era, we were using literally wire covered in cloth. They were basically carbon in Levi’s, right. It’s an organic material that guess what a lot of creatures like to eat. Mice like to eat cotton insulation. I’ve seen mice get art on wires when they’re eating cotton insulation. So a lot of in San Francisco, and actually had my dad actually had a buddy of his was repiping a house and they had not a tube knob. This was back in the 60s, that tube knob wiring, and he was pushing some copper pipe by himself. And he electrocuted himself and died in this in the attic. And they didn’t know that he was working by himself and then figured out for like a couple of weeks. So anyway, anyway, that old knob and tube cotton installation is bad. We need to get that stuff out of there. Again, it was good when they installed it, because that’s what they all knew at the time. But let’s get rid of it. So if you live in older house, it’s 25 years or older, and especially if you live in a historic home, if that house hasn’t been completely rewired and all the old knob and tube hasn’t been removed, you should do that. It’s not safe. Looking at time, what’s another time you want to have inspected is if you didn’t get a proper inspection before buying the house. And I’ll be honest, a proper inspection does not mean a home inspector. A home inspector will come in and inspect your home. But if you look at Any of those findings that the home inspector says that you may have seen something right underneath it, there’ll be a little cya clause, have a licensed contractor, look, have a high with a licensed plumber, have a licensed electrician have a licensed HVAC technician look at the work that was done. And they may say it’s passed, but haven’t looked at and who does that right? Well, not many people call an electrician to come and look at it. And it may have actually been brought to your attention. But the home inspectors probably like it’s probably okay. But a home inspection is, you know, kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. And most of the home inspectors I know were never contractors, they just became home inspectors were trained to look for specific items. They were never electrician, they were never a plumber, they are never a carpenter. They were never in a to actual trades. So even though you had a home inspection, you just bought a house, you might want to have somebody come in and take a look at it just to make sure that it’s safe. It doesn’t hurt. And you know, you may get some bad news. But hopefully you don’t and everything’s good. And to be honest, if you get the bad news. Better to take care of it better knowing about it and deciding what you want to do about it, then leaving it and finding out that, you know, there is an issue that could be potentially dangerous or potentially deadly. Another time after a storm after storm damage. This year was a big year for falling limbs, right? Wasn’t one of our huger ones, but it was a big one. So severe weather events can cause permanent damage your electrical system, lines come to wires come down or limbs come down. Water infiltrates things. And unfortunately, water can infiltrate areas that you may not even see. I mean, when we let’s be honest, I haven’t climb underneath my house in years, I’ve got people that I sent to my house every year to check things. But if you’re not, if you don’t have that person to do that, when was the last time you actually crawled underneath your house and inspected electrical make sure there’s no water damage and make sure there’s no damage electrical system. Probably never, you know, probably never or maybe five years ago, right? That’s what we do, we make sure that everything is done properly. So it’s not a bad idea after this year, if you’ve experienced any kind of damage whatsoever, have a thorough inspection done by an electrician. And we’ve got time for maybe one more. If you have sudden or reoccurring problems, if you have lights that are flickering, and once a lot an outlet that’s flickering as well, that’s probably a loose connection somewhere in there, a loose connection is bad, a loose connection equals little lightning bolts, it’s arcing, it’s like electrons jumping from one area to another, it’s scary. So definitely have electrician come out and determine where that problem may be. So anyway, there’s that’s the majority of them. So with that. So this is kind of a plug for us, obviously, but also kind of a PSA. But we do do these inspections. And we do them at a very reasonable rate so that you know you’re not going oh my god, it’s gonna cost me so much money. We’re doing it for 49 bucks. So we can have a license, have our electrician come up and thoroughly inspect your system, make sure everything’s working for only $49. Hopefully find nothing. If he does find something, he will let you know, he or she will let you know. And then allow you to determine whether or not it’s something you want to take care of no one as ever going to force you to do something that you don’t want to do. We’re just there to give you information. And then it’s up to you as a homeowner to decide whether it’s in the budget or whether it’s a big enough concern for you to want to take care of right away. So again, so for 49 bucks, we can come out and do this inspection and you know, take care of it and get you through this. Where to reach us 530 To 309092 the number again 530-230-9092 You can also find us at Abt plumbing.com are easy as abc.com Find us on Facebook, like our page, please we got a lot of this information that we share all the time. And with that, thanks for listening to me. Go on about electrical and hot jet and fun stuff. And we’ll catch you guys next week. Hope you have a wonderful week. Thanks. Bye.
24:22
Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Rosalie. Now let’s get that project started. You got this. We’ll be back next Friday morning at nine o’clock on Cancio Newstalk 830