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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.
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This is Andrew Twidwell, owner of abt plumbing electric heating air once again with the show. You got this. It’s a show DIY do’s and don’ts. Zooming in here with Rosalie Brown. Hi, Rosalie.
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Hi, Andrew. How are you?
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All right. I’m sitting it sitting at the home office looking out at the leaves on the lawn and really cool there. Oh, like a cold anymore. Like,
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you’re you’re heading into the wrong season, then sir, because I know going to be cold cold. It’s 59 right now where I’m at. So in LA, chili
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46 Here, lovely Grass Valley. And that’s actually warmer than it’s been so you know? Okay. It’s just cold enough that you go outside without a jacket. Like,
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no, Midwest cold,
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but it’s just not. It’s just cold. And speaking of cold. Oh my gosh. So we did the light parade this weekend in Auburn.
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Yeah. So you did the Festival of Lights Parade in Auburn. And I saw photographs because of course, you know, I got to get some of those and put them on. And I gotta say that you guys looked very wet. And it’s still very cold. Very wet. Very cold.
1:22
It rained the entire time. It wasn’t just a lake sprinkle. It wasn’t like a Seattle rain. Right? It was or a fog rain. It was rain rain pretty much the whole time. And yeah, really was pretty soaked and wet and cold. But there was a great turnout. I was surprised at how many people were there. And we walked so we managed to stay a little warm just by walking and umbrellas and rain gear kept us dry enough, I guess. But yeah, it was. It was a it was an experience. And that, you know, it happens every I guess every three or four years where you get a rainy one. So
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yeah, well, the turnout did look great. And I you know how excited I was to see a bear. I do love the abt bear. And
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that was a hit with the kids. Oh my gosh, so yeah. Jackie, Jackie JJ and I loved it.
2:14
I gotta say that, that the bear, we did have at one point, anyone who doesn’t know this, it was kind of a sad, sad day for me. But so excited when we see you know, we added a bear to our branding. Gosh, I don’t know six years ago, maybe a little bit longer. Feels like a lifetime ago. I feel like I’ve lived a lot of places since then. So but I have so don’t don’t hold me to that. But so we added the bear to the logo. And honestly, so we found this pretty cool bear right bear suits. That looked a bit like the bear in our branding. So that was kind of exciting, right? And then lo and behold, it got mismanaged in storage. That’s what I’m gonna say. That’s all I’m gonna say. And went to go put on the bear suit. And the rats had gotten to the bear right restaurant, many
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made a nest in the country yet that just kind of happened to be alright.
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So we’ve been without bear suit. So imagine my joy, my joy on Saturday night when Diddy texted me pictures from the parade. And I noticed that there was a bear. So either two bears.
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We had a bear and we had a person in a bear outfit. And we had lives life size, life size, teddy bear and the passenger. We were gonna put him on the roof. But it was raining so hard. We put him in the passenger seat.
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But and that was really cute. Because you get as you’re driving along, you hear the kids like, oh my god, there’s a teddy bear.
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And Paul was waving his hand as he was driving. At one point I was waving, waving the fit, waving the hand and talking on his phone while driving in the parade. I’m like, Dude, we’re going we’re going one mile an hour. So I might have been stopped at that time. But still,
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that’s pretty funny. Yeah, that Well, I mean, safety first safety first. But no, I did. I did see a picture the teddy bear too. And I thought, oh, man, there’s when I was a kid, like I dreamed of a teddy bear that size. Right. Like it’s bigger than you. Yeah. So we looked it looked fun. It looked family friendly. And I don’t know. I mean, it’s always kind of cool when you have like the kickoff to the official holiday season. Because I know the last few years, it just has melted from October to Christmas. Like there’s just this weird thing, right? So it’s kind of nice to have an official kickoff. So yeah,
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it was fun. And if you have a chance, I haven’t shared the video with you there was there was from the chamber. And when they saw our truck, there was some pretty saucy language going on on that on that video. So but you got to do take a listen to it. It’s pretty good. It’s the wrong word, I guess. Yeah, I mean, doing what we do as as being as we’re plumbers. There was some mention of certain unmentionables. During the video I was cracking up because I kind of know the person that was that was talking to it with a little liars
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and you know how much much I love toilet talk so I’m excited about I’m excited about this video. I can’t wait to see it. Wow Okay, that’s it look forward to
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cool cool. Yeah, it was fun it was fun and speaking of toilet talk I gotta tell you what I got for our so we’re having our Christmas party next week to accompany and hopefully you’ll make it up here
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hopefully
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what did I get? I got this toy game and I
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can pull it up. Oh no, I know what game was. Did you see it? Did you find that? Joy? I don’t where did you find it? I don’t think
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Amazon was one of those difficult ones to find so I wasn’t sure I could find it locally right and is a basically if you’re South Park watcher, it’s Mr. Hankey popping out of the toilet as you plunge the toilet and then whoever catches wins points. So that’s gonna be a fun game for for the Christmas party.
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I think the more ale consumed the more fun that game. Yeah, just just a thought. But here’s the thing I so DD R h back manager. She I don’t think she tagged me like she sent it to my Facebook.
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Exactly. I’m gonna buy that she.
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She says like, you’ve got to get this for the office. And I was like, I do not that toys should not exist. I am not going to get it. I should have known that you being a seven year old little boy. We’re going to find that and you have a credit card, you have a credit card.
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So that makes it dangerous.
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Now I just feel like I’m compelled to come to this Christmas party. I mean, who could miss that? You gotta you gotta maybe we’ll take some footage of the game in motion. Yeah, so anyway, if anyone can’t imagine we’ve got a really bizarre sense of humor. But when you work in the trades, especially the trades that have to do with poop, you’re gonna have just a warped sense of humor. Well, yeah,
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and the bear. There was a few comments along the way about the bear being poohbear. You know, but that P O. H.
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That I kind of get. That’s a fun play on words. Right?
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Okay, or the game? I finally found it. I can open it up. It’s flushing frenzy.
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I can’t. Well, you know, it’s all fun and games. Okay, when it’s a game, but when you’re a guest at someone’s house, and you’re living that in real time, the flushing frenzy or the Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God, like, oh, man, there’s I must think like, Okay, people talk about what causes anxiety, right. So they talked about moving and you know, dying and all these things. Yeah, you know what, none of that, you know, freaks me out being a guest at someone’s house and having a situation like that. Could there be something worse? I mean, yeah, I guess but not really, you know? Yeah, I will share my family photo could happen.
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I’ll never forget my so the first time we came up here, and we were looking at places to live this is 23 years ago, we stayed at the outside in and by clogged the toilet in a room, and I went to the front desk to ask to let them know. And guess what? Try not to get her name. I know. Really well. And now I’ve errands exactly. I asked her. I just let her know. Because she was still managing it before she before she gave it to the kids. For the kids took over that I call it before that and she passed me a plunger. Exactly like I’m a plumber. So this is not an issue but oh man. I was like we’re in the country. Now. This is awesome.
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moment, right? Yeah, moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let’s stop talking about that. Okay, let’s
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move on. So yeah, you got a good list of things to talk about December home maintenance to do list. And of course, the first one. The first number one that they have on this list is replace your furnace or filter. The first one. So I know we taught this at nauseam and over and over and over but I cannot stress enough how important it is to replace the air filter on your system. It’s don’t think of it as the cheapo air filters that you’re using for your furnace. They’re not really there to help improve the air quality’s per se. They’re really there to keep the inside of your ducts clean. And if you’ve got air conditioning that keeps the coil, which is essentially you can picture to a radiator that’s the front of the car that will keep your engine cool. You Got two of those, meaning like on a frame kind of tilted up together. That thing is in the air stream, whether you’re using a heating or furnace or or heating or air conditioning, that things is sitting there all the time. And it collects debris, it collects dust it collects for collects anything else that’s going through the air stream that’s going, you know, whenever that furnace kicks on, or whenever that air conditioner kicks on, the air is going right over that thing. So you want to keep that clean, that really makes a big difference on your efficiencies.
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And also just really
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makes your system last longer.
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And related, though, I was just thinking like your house can smell and you don’t even really notice it. Like it picked like that stuff kind of can stink. And secondly, actually, I was gonna I made a note. I know that’s
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a good point. Yeah. Okay, I think and that stuff can get pretty fall in there. We pulled some off that literally looks like a bathroom. But it was so thick.
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I I’ve been guilty of that. But because I do have a big hairy dog. But I also actually had a note and I was gonna ask you before we were off air, because I didn’t want to spring it on you. But here we are. I’m going to spring it on you go for the keynote speaking of like, okay, so we’re in the air quality neighborhood. So I was just curious, because, you know, I listened to a ton of podcast, and I have been hearing a commercial lately on repeat. And it’s all about air filter, this air filter that I brand new company, whatever promotion. And it made me think of one of the things that woman said in the commercial, she started talking about COVID again. And listen, I’m not saying COVID isn’t here wasn’t here, what I’m saying is that I remember when when COVID first was when we were in lockdown, a lot of the messaging about air quality and air filters. They were trying to really push this whole, like, prevent COVID in your home with this air filter? Well, I haven’t heard that kind of so they haven’t heard that kind of messaging and longtime. So I thought it was unique that suddenly she’s this this new product or this new campaign was back in my earbuds talking about how a nick can kill this and kill that and even COVID And I thought it is your experience, like in the line of work that you do, and air quality and all that good stuff? is are we gonna start leaning in that direction? And because because isn’t it dangerous to over promise how much we can take out of the air?
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It is. So anytime you’re filtering something, it’s unless you spend, you know, 10s if not hundreds of 1000s of dollars, you’re never going to have a completely clean, you’re never gonna get 100% Right. And typically, when we’re talking about household filtration and air quality issues, you know, we’re trying to reduce the levels of things, we’re trying to reduce levels of dust we’re trying to lose reduce the levels upon, we’re trying to reduce the pathogens, we’re trying to reduce the these levels, there’s no way Well, that’s not true. You can spend a ton of money and eliminate those things, but we’re talking 10s to hundreds of 1000s of dollars. And typically, you know, for indoor air quality, or it can be 10 grand, depending on how much you’re doing. But I mean, we’re talking, you know, 8050 to $80,000, for these high end, really, you know, medical grade kind of filtration systems. But yes, we will hear it. And unfortunately, some people do have that snake oil, make the snake oil statements that they can get rid of things, you can’t get rid of stuff for the level that we’re doing the same thing with water filtration, I mean, we can reduce the level of blood we can reduce the level of Giardia we can reduce the level of pathogens in the in the water. But we’re, you know, at the level that we’re working, we’re not going to be removing everything. And as you are removing everything, like with water for removing everything, that’s a whole other thing. You’re stripping out minerals. And you can do that with our oil. But you’re still some things are getting through, not just water. But in any event. Are we gonna be hearing more of that? Yes. And since we’re on this topic, so we do if you do if you’re tired of changing your filters, I don’t know if we’ve mentioned this before, but I probably have. We do have filters that we installed that are four inches thick, and they’re pleated and they have a surface area that’s about 50 times. Don’t quote me on that. But anyway, much larger surface area where you only need to replace those on a yearly basis. I don’t go out of my house, I don’t replace my filters, when one thing any longer replace them yearly. And we just, you know, I have the guys come in and do a tuneup on the system and they replace the filter at that time, which you should be getting anyway. So that’s an option, putting in a high efficiency air filtration system and it really reduces the it, since it’s the fact that there’s so much more surface area, since it’s pleated, and it’s so thick, it can take out a lot smaller particulates than the standard ones. It’s an actual filter as opposed to you know what we what you get at the grocery store or get at the hardware store.
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Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. All right. Thank you for entertaining my little fancy there. Yeah,
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yeah. Number two attic insulation. So check your attic insulation, it’s a good idea just to go up there every once awhile to take a look at it, because things start to settle down. And if you’ve had any work done in your house, people may have moved the insulation. I actually, when I read this, I was thinking about myself want to, you want to make sure you have insulation on anything that’s that is a barrier between your living space and the attic. And even like the little trapdoor that you lift up to get your attic should have insulation on it. And I was like, you know, I think we took the insulation off of that trapdoor A while back, I got to put that back on. So look and see if you’ve got that. The other thing is, if you’ve got stairs that come down, they make packages that you can insulate the stairs, there’s not a huge heat loss, but you are going to be getting some heat loss from there, go up there and just poke around. And if you’ve got areas that look like they’re thinner than others, if you’ve got blown in insulation, kind of move it around a little bit so that it’s more evenly spaced. If you’ve got areas where the battens have fallen down like the fiberglass or cellulose bats have fallen down, we staple them up you know the stuff lasts a long time but you know gravity in animals if we live in another country, like talking about our bear outfit, you know, and we can do our best to keep keep animals out there. But you know, all you need is it’s the whole the size of the dying for a mouse and all the size of a quarter for rat. And we thought we were just dealing with a squirrel in our fireplace. One of our rentals so anywhere I can
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listen, I can put the pause there for a second because this is all coming together to beautifully for me. I have to go in here. So the squirrel, okay, the mansion of the attic, the stairs, all these okay, it’s Christmas time. So honestly, everything you were saying I was like cockroaches wild vacation Christmas vacation movie, like he literally goes up into his attic. And for reasons because it’s so cold and there’s like a Oh my. Okay, so I’m picturing that in the squirrel and all these good things there that are related. If you haven’t seen that movie, you’re missing out. But
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watch it again. It’s been, it’s been a few decades. Yeah,
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it’s worth it. Okay, it’s but Chevy Chase is.
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So the installation can be moved around. So go out there and inspect it, go and look at it. And that’s literally just, you know, taking a flashlight going up. If you’ve got an attic, poking your head up in there. If you’ve got a large attic, you might have to get up there and walk around a little bit. But if you’ve got a normal 1200 15, or square foot house or 2000 square foot house, single single storey, you can get a pretty good idea of what it looks like. One areas that we see a lot of times that have issues is we’ll have a shared wall inside of the attic space like like a vaulted ceiling in your living room. A lot of times the insulation there is insufficient or not insulated at all. That’s one place you can really increase your decrease your energy bill by making sure those walls are insulated. seen that a lot. And I’ve seen a lot of Amman pictures as well, that’s one of those areas that we people tend to forget about. Because it’s not necessarily out an outside wall. It’s an attic wall. So but it’s an unconditioned space. So take a look at that. insulate the drop downstairs, we talked about that seal the cracks. You know it’s a good time. If you’ve got any cracks in your concrete cracks in the foundation, cracks in the windows, go in there and then fix them with some caulking and it’ll help you know with air infiltration and with the concrete outside or help from water getting in there and freezing and expanding that joint even further. So yes, you’re
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really quick not see today I’m engaged. It’s you know why it’s because I had that cup of coffee delivered to me while we were nice. I’m waking up. I’m waking up. Okay, so I’m curious. And I feel like I always get this answer incorrectly. You talk about concrete, and we’re in winter. So is there is there a good? Is it okay to pour concrete or to work with concrete when it’s really cold out? Isn’t there a curing temperature issue or have I just heard that made
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up? Concrete? No, because it is a it’s a chemical reaction. asphalt. Yes. Gotcha. Okay. So you can’t like under 50 degrees if I remember correctly. Don’t quote me on this but I seem to have 50 degrees in my head like if it’s below 50 degrees. We Can’t we can’t vote we can’t roll out asphalt patch or. Gotcha. concrete cures underwater. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So it’s as a chemical reaction where the little molecules start to bind together.
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Yeah, I, you know, I’d like I guess it’s an old wives tale, but I swear to you, I’ve heard that more than once tap people talking about conquering I could be wrong. No, I think you’re I think you’re actually correct. But I wonder where this.
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We’re getting to the end. Would you do a quick Google search while I’m reading through here? Okay. We’ll pull up. We’ll pull. I’ll take
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a look. As you continue to do you continue. And I’ll do my homework here.
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Yeah. So the other thing, obviously, this time of year, I mean, we already started to freeze here. If you haven’t disconnected and drain the garden hoses, now’s really the time to do it. You might be a little late. Hopefully not. I mean, it’s been cold, but it hasn’t been on. We haven’t had a hard freeze yet. But the reason why you want to do that, for some of you guys that are just moving into the area, is you know, water freezes. And when water freezes, it expands. So they can break your your host. I know I’ve lost more than one of the timers for my drip irrigation system that just hooks up to the outside hose bid. Can I forget to take them off, take them off and drain them out. I made sure I did it this year. I’ve been good last like three or four years. I haven’t lost the one a long time.
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I’ve answer. Okay, cool. So it says this is I’m quoting off a website here. It’s advised that concrete be cured at a moderate temperature between 50 degrees and 90 degrees. In a perfect world, the temperature of fresh concrete should be above 50 degrees. But here to maintain that 50 degrees. I don’t. Yeah, I don’t know what I just read. But so yeah, whatever. Okay, just somebody who knows somebody, somebody who knows more can get back to us. Anyway, enough about that. Yeah, I’m
21:59
not I’m not a mason by any means. I’ve worked with concrete with plenty of concrete my day, but I’m not what I do on a daily basis. So disconnecting and drain the garden hoses. If you have water spigots on the outside of your house, which most of us do, and if they’re not the freeze type, it’s a good idea to cover them. Depending on where you live, though. Like if you’re on top of a hill in Grass Valley, you’re probably going to be fine. If you’re in a valley and Grass Valley. If you’re in a low spot where where the cold air sinks, we’re kind of in a low spot here. So I’ve got them all covered up. You have the potential for colder snaps.
22:39
You cover them with that when you say cover them up, like what with a T shirt, what are you talking about? What are you covering?
22:45
So the easiest thing is just go to B and C or A to Z and get a or Hills flat and they actually make the styrofoam covers or socks that go over there under 10 bucks each. Interesting he kind of thing and you can use them year after year after year. It’s not like a course thing. So it’s not a bad investment to just put those things on there. Just so you don’t I mean, you know, compared to a freeze repair. It’s cheap insurance. And unfortunately, you know, when it does freeze here, when we do get a really cold snap. All this plumbers are booked for days. I mean, our guys are running around for 12 hour days and trying to hit you know, just doing triage just trying to get people’s water back on. Yeah, and hasn’t happened in a while. But man when it happens. You also Yeah, can be getting any breaks on on bills when that happens. Because everybody’s so busy working, you know, we’re charging what we need to charge to be able to get everybody in and trying to make up for some slow season stuff. So yeah, you’re not getting any breaks on the bill. So if you can, make sure to do the crease. Make sure you take care of this before it freezes. You’re much better off on that. Wow, we’re out of time that went fast. All of a sudden, I’m looking at my watch, like, wow, we’re done. So if you are if you need any plumbing, electrical, heating and air work done on your house, you can reach us at 530230909253090 by 302309092. You can also find us on the web at easy as abt or abt plumbing and you can find us on facebook, please like our page. And we’ll catch you guys next week. Thanks for listening. Bye
23:38
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 KNCO Newstalk 830.