SUMMARY KEYWORDS
water, drain, vinegar, dishwasher, products, plumbing, abt, pipe, chlorine, hot water, people, plumber, toilet, buying, longer, air, baking soda, sink, plastic, pecs
00:03
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 hand here are Andrew and Rosalie
00:18
Hi, this is Andrew Twidwell, owner of ABT plumbing electric heat and air, once again with the show you got this. It’s a show of DIY do’s and don’ts. And we’re just talking about how I typically don’t nail that right? But, I nailed it.You just gave me the hands down. I’m talking too fast.
00:40
I can see it in your eyes. Too much coffee. You’re eyes say “let’s go!” How long have you been up?
00:50
Yeah, I’ve been up for about eight hours now. So yeah. And it’s it’s been a day of managing. So it’s a lot of talking to people and, and talking about Yeah, customers and employees and issues and benefits and things. People have done good things people have done bad. But yeah, people are hard, right? My life would be so much easier if I didn’t have customers and employees. But that’s just not a reality.
01:17
I wouldn’t be careful saying that. But that’s the PR person.
01:21
I just put that on the air. But, but it is something that I’ve talked to other business owners and it’s kind of a running joke with us all it’s like, yeah, you know, it’s hard. Because people are hard. But I love it at the same time. So yeah,
01:35
oh yeah, no day is ever the same. Isn’t that the truth? Definitely not.
01:38
Definitely not speaking of which note is ever the same we just brought on, I’m gonna lead right into it, because we’re gonna banter. So I love talking off air before we started. And we just brought on a new product line, and we put it in the newsletter. It’s the halo water filtration system. It’s something I’ve been looking at a long time. I’ve been looking at it for a long time. And one of the things I kind of haven’t really kicked in utilizing it much is because it’s primarily for pipe treated water. So that’s what people that are hooked up to NID or people that are on Placer County Water Systems. But the thing is, I’m really excited about it, because it does a lot of stuff that a lot of things for filtering water that we haven’t been able to do before. It helps with hardness, it helps with chlorine, those are the two main things. And one of the things that I really like about is I’ve installed a lot of filters that you have to replace the cartridges. Yeah, and those cartridges can be expensive. And you got to do that, like every year. And minimum. The thing you don’t have to deal with it for has got like it’s got a warranty for 10 years. And then after that you have to do anything. It’s got backwash system. So you don’t have to change the cartridge. You don’t have to change the filter. So I really liked that product. I’m
02:50
thinking about let me let me slow you down and just kind of because you kind of just went right into the name of it. So we’re talking about this really cool. Water Conditioning and filtration system. Right and right. And it’s called Halo water systems, right? Yeah, it’s new to abt, but it’s not new to the market. Right. It’s, they’ve
03:07
been around for quite a while, I think 15 years or something like that. But it was it was engineered and designed and engineered by a plumber down in San Diego. I’ve actually met with Glenn a couple of times and talked to him quite a bit. And it’s a great product and the fact that you don’t need to maintain it. Like I mean, that you don’t need to change cartridges on it. I mean, there’s always the issue of a part going wrong or something but they do have a really good warranty for it. It’s really good. And the idea that yeah, we get questions out sometimes like I you know, I don’t want to have chlorine in my water. And the fact that I don’t want to have that taste of Korean my water and the fact that one of the largest organs on our body is our skin. And we shower in Korean water and some of our pipe treated water has more chlorine than a swimming pool that we’re ingesting and showering and you know, it’s a, it’s chlorine, it’s a deep, it’s a decontaminating chemical. We don’t necessarily want it this reduces the level of chlorine dramatically. So almost to the point where it’s all it’s barely present. It’s barely picked up on test. So I really liked that about it. So yeah, it’s a cool product. And for those folks with high pre water it’s it’s wow it’s amazing. And
04:22
as an aside from drinking water being like cleaner and you know, smelling better tasting better, you know, also to just real quick, the thing I liked about it was a little reminder that it could actually help your clothes last a little bit longer because yeah, water and the way it works with the laundry soap and all that good stuff like I was reading so fascinating because
04:44
it encapsulates the calcium magnesium which is basically liquid rock. And most most of our water has it and it has has its low hardness but it’s has hardness ready to hear about them a lot. And some wells have a lot of hardness and you get White staining. Yeah, that makes it so soaps don’t work as well. And it makes it wears clothes out faster. And it makes it so you have your skin feels a little different physical weird, like if you’ve been to Las Vegas and showered in their water, their heart, their water is really hard. It helps with that it helps soften the water. So yeah, it can help with that. And also the fact that it’s really green not to have to buy bottled water because you get bottled quality water at your tap. As opposed to having the truck in water that’s been sitting in a plastic bottle for gosh knows how long picking up any contaminants in there. And actually, most of our bottled water is just filtered tap water anyway. So instead of filtering it, putting in a water, putting in a plastic bottle, shipping it to your house or shipping into the store and then driving it home, you can just have it stripped from your tap so much better for the environment. So it’s a I’m really excited about I think it’s a really cool product. And we’re training our guys up on it right now and getting them so they know all the ins and outs of it. We’ve done water filtration for a long time. But there’s a product that I’m really excited to bring bring to to our plethora of different products and services that we offer. But yeah, so I love it.
06:18
I love it. And before we kind of switch gears, I just want to hurt you know, segue into the news. The next topic, I just want to say as a PSA, you mentioned Las Vegas and showering and I’m just gonna say I recommend everyone shower after they’ve been to Vegas because Vegas, daddy and daddy plates
06:36
about the sleep pools in Las Vegas. The why there was a there was a an article I read a couple years ago about water water testing. And this water testing engineer was testing different waters. And just as a lark, he pulled some water out of a swimming pool that he was staying in. It was in a conference. And he took it back to the lab. And the amount it had cocaine had and feta means it had all this nasty stuff. You’re in all kinds of terrible, terrible things. And he’s like, I’m never swimming in Las Vegas again, in any of their swimming pools. So yeah, it’s just shocking. And then he went on to do some more sampling of different pools throughout Las Vegas. And they’re all coming back with drugs and all kinds of nastiness. And so, yeah, everybody, every friend and family member that I know that’s found the biggest reason they come back from COVID. So there’s something else. So
07:31
crazy times my friends. So that’s my little PSA for your health and your safety. So I’m gonna do a little piece real quick that I found really fascinating. And I use it at home. And so I’m gonna talk about a little bit about the drain. Okay, but first, before we do that, I also want to give myself some massive pat on the back because I had a slow drain in the bathroom the other day. And I was like, Hey, I know a plumber. I know what to do. So you know, I got my trusty. You know, things are always complicated. Nothing came apart, right? Like I couldn’t even get the little dream stop out to like, look and see for the guy. Right. So I did what I usually do, I went for some baking soda. I went for some vinegar. And what I like about this is depending on where you’re kind of stoppage or what the material is, it actually brought up to the top and I was able to kind of pull that up. Yes. So as disgusting as it was the thing that came up. And I know it’s old because the hair was super long. And you you see me okay. And it was also not the right color. But I thought well the color could just be because it’s been rotting in a sink but, but anywho so discussing that was Yeah, I was just like, okay, you know, actually
08:54
go back. Hair lasts longer than bone underground. I mean, it lasts forever. It’s just me. It’s an amazing, amazing part of our body. Anyway, time. So it’s
09:11
set timeframe oil wise, we’re talking about like at least 18 months that hasn’t been that’s not my hair. Right so anywho so the cool little you know, so does that little volcanic reaction but now like, you know, spewing all over the walls but like so pools Yeah, so as it pulls this stuff up, right, that’s right near the top. And that was just enough for me to get my stuff going again, and then I kind of flushed it with, you know, hot water and all that and we’re back to normal and I didn’t have to call on anybody. So that was nice and pretty safe. Right? I mean, I’m not I’m not dealing with like toxic stuff there. But so as I just went through that, like Yeah, I’m so proud of myself. I must texted you but I thought you wouldn’t care. So I want to get my thumbs up. I know I need I need the win on the Monday Okay, don’t we all so but as a Going through that on that vein. The other thing that I think most of us have experienced is the stank coming out of like the kitchen drain. And I know for me my kitchen drain for some reason, it’s just it’s one of the things I really have to keep on top of there is no, you can’t leave it. disposer I do. I do. I do.
10:19
Typically white when they’re gonna stick as an exposure. Yeah, it doesn’t smell great. So sits there and gets funky.
10:24
Yeah, so, you know, we’re always talking about you know, try to use natural products if you’re gonna do it yourself, and you don’t have a big problem, right? And this is really about stink not about being backed up, right. So to there’s a solution without using any chemical products. And so it’s really simple. So if you want to kind of get your sink, Dream smelling fresh, there’s only three things you’re going to need. And really one is suggested. So really only need two things, but a kettle your ex you’re gonna you’re gonna get some hot, you’re gonna make some water hot rubber gloves. If you need them, whatever. Yeah. And then a little bit of baking soda. So vinegar, right? Yeah, yeah. Which is not a list. But, yes. So you’re gonna go ahead and you’re going to boil that kettle of water, you’re going to pour the hot water down the drain. And theoretically, this is going to kind of break up stuff that stuck, right? Any old food particles. Okay. And then you know that okay, so they’re saying where the rubber gloves to protect your hands. But I mean, I’m not telling you to. If you don’t know that, I don’t have hot water and don’t touch it. Okay, I
11:32
just thought of some some little things about like, suppositories. Yeah, I
11:36
don’t know why you this is what happens when you’re over caffeinated. Okay, so then you’re gonna take
11:41
the baby in the obvious, yeah, you could protect everybody. Yeah, you have
11:45
to have a label on everything. So then they’re saying, you know, measure one teaspoon of baking soda. I think that’s a little bit light. But which is actually, yes, like 88 cents a whole box, okay? Just sprinkle it in the dream. Run the hot water from the tap for about 10 seconds, and that’s going to send your baking soda, you know, down into the drainpipe a little bit, it’s gonna go all the way, right. And then you’re gonna pour a cup of distilled vinegar, which is just vinegar, period. We don’t need all these exclamations, okay, all these little late categories, so declare, or pour some vinegar down the drain, and then between the so the vinters Vinegar, as you know, is going to help remove the foul odors, right? And even though vinegar doesn’t smell great, it has this amazing ability to kind of soak up and absorb odors in the air. It’s crazy. I mean, I’ve gone into smokers homes or when I was looking at homes. Yeah, people had smoked in the home, and you’d walk in and there’d be little balls of vinegar. And it actually does that. Yeah, died on ground coffee beans, actually our natural odor absorbers. So to say no. So anyway, so you allow the vinegar to rest and be drained about 20 minutes, then you turn on the hot water, you flush it out, and then they’re suggesting finish it off, finish it off at the end after waiting a few minutes with a tiny bit of lemon juice. Okay. And if you do that, right, after 15 minutes, flush it with hot water. You kind of have this really easy, cheap products takes you almost no time. That’s something you can do kind of on the regular.
13:17
Yeah, white box of baking soda under a buck. And a gallon of white vinegar with two bucks. Three bucks. Yeah, bucks,
13:25
those little things of lemon juice that come in those little plastic lemons. I mean, that’s like 90 cents. So this is something I keep handy. And I’ve been using it a lot. And I’m like, oh wow. Okay, it’s making a difference. So, yeah, that little tidbit little DIY, supposedly, um, look, I love stuff like that. So I insisted on it being included today.
13:44
And it’s good stuff. And it’s actually in our newsletter this month. So yeah,
13:48
it’s valuable. We don’t want your house to be stinky. No stinky houses. Okay, so I’m going to now transitioning to the last part of our show. So I was asking you questions last week and because we got into such a heated discussion about a Who knows why it was probably about I can’t remember could have been mountain lions. I don’t know. Okay, so we’re gonna return and get a few more questions answered. Okay. Yeah, so I will dive in. So Mr. Plumber, I’m asking you as a as a plumbing customer. So I’ve heard that clogged vents can stop up my drains. Is that an old wives tale or is that the truth
14:27
is the truth and we have quite a bit of experience with that, especially down in Penn Valley because the egg corn, woodpeckers love to take a corns and drop them into vents in people’s homes, and like Wildwood and people’s dreams will stop draining. So, if you kind of what event does is it stops this. It keeps it from siphoning and also keeps keeps a P trap from siphoning but also keeps the water flowing. So like if you picture you’re putting your finger on Putting your straw and your soda and put your finger on it and lifting the liquid out. And then when you open up the straw when you release your finger, the water drains out. Same thing occurs inside of our drains. So if you literally put your finger on top of event, it’s going to restrict the amount of airflow that’s going in there for slowing the drain down, potentially clogging the drain. So yes, a clogged vent is necessary or open vent is necessary. And yeah, a corn
15:28
Roenick a corn loving acorn.
15:31
woodpeckers are notorious for dropping acorns in and we’ve done we’ve had our fair share down there and putting a little nine DS on there and making making it until you shape so that the acorn woodpeckers don’t drop them in
15:46
there. That’s not your story. Mr. Yeah.
15:49
I mean, we’ve literally the pipe filled practically to the top like 20 feet tall of acorns from the years and years and years, and they’re just dropping and dropping.
16:00
Isn’t that crazy? It’s nuts. Yeah, literally. Oh, that was Yeah.
16:06
I actually looking at my neighbor’s house ribbon on top for it. Now. He’s got a tree coming out of his bed. So another squirrel put a nut or something in and it’s been growing there ever since. We bought this place couple years ago. So yeah,
16:19
I guess I guess he likes I guess he likes nature. I mean, that’d be something that probably I would probably dress. But okay, so what do I do if I’ve had this happen before? And I have tracked down the culprit. But I want to hear your take on this. What happens if my dishwasher doesn’t drain completely? You know, it says the cycle is over. Yeah, but it’s definitely not drained all the way. What’s what’s causing that? And what can I do?
16:42
Most of the time, not saying all the time, but most of the time, it’s an installation issue. So there’s this little thing, that little cap that you see on top of the sink, that you’re like, what’s that for, it’s called an air gap, it’s part of the drain of the dishwasher, we put that there so that sewage doesn’t get into your dishwasher if a backup occurs. Because you don’t really we tend to leave our dishes in the dishwasher for days sometimes, like we do quite often clean dishes, and you don’t want it open to a sewer. So you don’t want to connect it directly to the sewer. So you put that air gap. And if it doesn’t have an air gap, the very least that you should do is have a high loop, which is bringing the pipe up high as possible underneath the sink. And a lot of times we’ll find when people have water sitting at the bottom of their dishwashers because there’s no high loop and there’s no air gap. And it’s literally just water that drains back when the dishwasher dumps it into the disposer into the plumbing system, and it just drains right back into the dishwasher. And not all dishwashers have a Backflow Preventor and not all of them have a checkbox. So most of them don’t, except for some of the higher end stuff. So that’s it’s an installation issue. So have a plumber, check it out or an appliance space, check it out. Next person, check it out.
18:03
Now, I’m going to ask a question and I want to get your take, okay, it’s kind of true or false. copper water pipe versus plastic water pipes, what? Where my head goes, right is because we’re in 2022 I automatically think that you’re gonna want to go with plastic. But you’re gonna tell me from a plumber’s perspective, what the right answer is. Well,
18:26
there’s pros and cons for both. So one of the things though, is let’s just, it’s different. There’s many different types of plastic types. So there’s abs that we use for drains, there’s PVC that we use for water and drains in certain jurisdictions. But PVC you’re not supposed to put inside the foundation wall of the house within our jurisdiction of the our code. It’s not designed for hot water, it will literally dissolve. If you put hot water through it, it starts to break down. There’s also CPVC, which has been around for a long time, which is it can take keep. It had some issues, and it’s still being utilized in some jurisdiction. We don’t really use it much in our area. But really the plastic pack that we deal with in abandoned Placer Counties is pecs pipe, it’s crosslink polyethylene tube. It’s been used for about the last 40 years I think, if not a little bit longer, maybe 50 years and it was really used a lot and radiant heating. The stuff is pretty bulletproof. We install it a lot. The nice thing about using pecs is if it freezes, it expands and it has a memory and bring it right back it won’t crack it won’t. It won’t explode like copper will. The other thing is it’s inert to acidic water. So if you’ve got slightly acidic water which a lot of our a lot of our wells have in Nevada County it won’t have any issue if like you forget to put calcium into your into your acid neutralizer whatever your your filtration system, so it does have its place. One of the downsides is if you got to wrote a dish you first get rid of the rodents, but rodents will eat backed by Copper has been used for a long time. And you know, it’ll last in a house for, you know, 100 years. So it’s pretty bulletproof.
20:14
You know that. And I know that because you’re spending time in the Midwest right now. So yes, sir, that is so true.
20:20
If it freezes, it breaks, right? Yeah. So there’s the bad part. And if you’ve got acidic water, it eats it away, and you really shouldn’t be adjusting that much copper. So, you know, plus a minuses for both. Copper is also takes quite a bit longer to install. So we’re moving more and more towards pecs because of the fact that labor is getting so expensive. And now with our labor shortages and everything, it’s just getting more expensive. So yeah.
20:47
Okay, so do I have time to ask you one more question?
20:50
I don’t. Yeah, we got we got a couple more minutes. Okay.
20:53
So if you were gonna weigh in on this topic, which I know you love to do, do you have a recommendation? If I were gonna go for a low flush toilet? Do you have a recommendation, what I should be looking for? Are brands or styles or give it to me?
21:06
Yeah. So I always tell people, if you’re looking at a low flow, toilet, look for namebrand toilet, you know, a Kohler American Standard, something in and I’m not even necessarily just saying those two, but something that is well known. There’s a lot of engineering that goes into low flow toilets. I remember when they first came out, I was working in San Francisco back in the late 80s, early 90s, when we just started going low float, 1.6 gallons per flush, and there’s the drought. And there was a lot of really bad products on the market that didn’t have a lot of engineering. If we bought the more expensive ones, we didn’t have problems with clogging. The first ones do, we’re still having some of those issues with the cheaper ones. So you know, you want to spend a couple 100 bucks on a decent toilet. Don’t go Don’t try to save yourself some money by buying a cheap toilet because one clog one plumbing call, you’ve basically wiped out any of the savings that you just had for buying that thing. Products. Strangely enough, these days are tended the cheaper than our labor. So spend a little extra, you get what you pay for buying name brand, by sending it’s good. And then the rest, you know, you buy really expensive ones. I mean, I’ve seen toilets that are 1015 grand, they just have a lot of bells and whistles on them. There’s nothing that makes them necessarily work better. But they just look cooler, steadily more pleasing and may flush on their own and drive.
22:29
Expensive. More expensive than my first like three cars like oh my gosh, crazy.
22:33
Kohler has a couple of total as a couple that are Yeah, like in the five figure range. Yeah. So with that, hopefully, so by by name brands and any kind of plumbing products, pipe by name brands, if it’s a faucet, if it’s a toilet, it’s a sink, by something that’s been around for a long time, anything that’s going to be functioning that has an engineering in it, you want to spend a little extra, because you’re just going to, you’re going to spend that savings on a one service call. So spend that spend it now as opposed to later. Anyway, with that. If you do have a plumbing, heating, electrical, air conditioning, especially right now their conditioning is so freakin hot. You can call us at 530-230-9092 The number again 53023090920. If you want to handle a water system, also give us a call. You can find us on the web at easy as ADT or abt plumbing.com. And you can find us on Facebook, where we have all the screen information. And we’ll probably be posting this little recipe for drain cleaning on there. So you guys can use that and clear your own drains easily. And I’ll tell you what, that whole thing we did in the meeting about Drain Cleaning 90% of the time when we have a slow bathroom sink, it’s right there in that first six inches. So you can save yourself 100 bucks, 200 bucks, or whatever cost these days to get a drink cleared by just a couple of dollars in drinking stuff. So anyway, vinegar and baking soda and some lemon juice. Anyway, thanks for listening. We’ll catch you guys next week. Bye.
24:05
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