0:04
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 I’m zooming in here with Rosalie, down in LA. And I’m actually looking out the window and there’s sunshine.
So we’re recording this on Wednesday. We’re in that that weather window of sunshine that we were going to have and then the rain begins again tomorrow or tonight. And then throughout the weekend, which we need. We need the rain. We need the rain and the snow.
0:41
I’m just gonna course correct you. We’re in that time between Christmas and New Year’s where nothing makes sense. I don’t know what day it is. I literally was like, am I working this week? Like, I don’t even know what’s going on. So that’s been weird.
1:04
Yeah, we’ve called the we closed the business down. But yeah. No rest for the wicked. We gotta keep some of us have to keep working through the freak. I know. I had I had a two hour meeting yesterday and myself know this. Yeah, maybe this will be it though. This is my last thing for the week.
1:21
Yeah, yeah. Well, so the fire alarm just went off. So I’m just gonna Oh, can you hear it?
1:28
I can hear that. Oh, okay.
1:31
I should probably like, breakfast in.
1:36
There. Ready? That’s always that’s always the key for breakfast. Yeah,
1:40
my dog is like, my dog is amazing. Is mine. Oh, okay. Good. So it stopped. Sorry about that. I’m hoping no one can hear that. So, you know, that’s a good segue. It was very subtle. What my Christmas was like, Well, there’s two things to talk about with that. So first off, we’ll get Christmas morning. You know, I get up early, because the dog has got you know, needs or whatever. And so’s up early. And I don’t have small children anymore, which is fine. So I’m up with the dog and fire alarm at 723 goes off, and it goes off for 25 minutes. And it’s this morning. Yeah. And all I could think to myself was I am so glad. I don’t have small kids. Because you know how mad I would be if like, because, you know, there’s a whole lot of like running around. There’s a whole Santa situation. There’s all this chaos, because it’s morning,
2:31
right? To throw that late the night before. Together. Yeah.
2:36
So then, so of course, you know, there was an emergency. And then the very next day on the 26, exactly. 7:23am. I went off again. And I was like, Yeah, someone’s like, either the programming is off or like someone’s jack in this building, whatever. So there were quite a bit of kerfuffle around that, but what I did and I will advise anyone, anyone who has this and you’re gonna like lose your mind and my insurance friend Kevin Cookson, if he listens will lose his mind and say, don’t listen to me. Okay, here’s the thing. Here’s what I did. Here’s what I’ve done. Okay, so, oh, it’s going on again. Um, so, oh, it’s off. Okay. So what I’ve done is I’ve taken Swiffers, three to four, you know, the Swiffers that go, the little cloth things that are kind of, I’ve taken probably three to four. And because I live in an apartment for the first time in my adult life, there are these mandated like fire alarms like speakers, right, and so there’s one literally inside my bedroom, and one that is outside the other bedroom, like in the hallway. And it’s meant to be loud, so that you know, no matter what’s going on, you can hear it but it is it was so loud and piercing that my dog would like have a heart attack and it’s so bad. So I took anyway, long story short, I took Swiffers and put I think three to four. And I took I took packing tape and I put them over the speaker. And then you’re going with and then on top of that and then on top of that, I also had some canvas art that looks really nice when I first put it up but now one sits over my speaker it’s back on and the other Canvas isn’t so now my canvas art is on top of the Swiffers on top of the speakers, and honestly it you could still hear the fire alarm but is taking the tone down to a level right that you’re still gonna hear it and it might even show up on this recording and I apologize, but it doesn’t really hear it you can hear a little bit it doesn’t make you feel like you have to jump out the window because it was literally so piercing that it was unlivable. So I now I still hear the fire alarm When they are doing whatever it is they’re doing, um, but it’s not killing me. So don’t do what I do. It is a DIY hack. But I had to get the volume down. I mean, it was like you could have an attack. I mean, you could have a heart attack, so I can still hear the alarm. I don’t want to rip my ears out. And that’s how I’ve dealt with it. So no logs
5:28
not jumping through the window. So Right. He’s still we win. Yeah, yes,
5:32
he’s still very upset about it. And he doesn’t like it. But he can. He can manage it. Where um, so anyway, so for so who knows, this might come on about six or seven more times before our show’s over. So that’s what I’m dealing with. But um, but it is like we’re talking between Christmas and New Year’s. I don’t know what day it is. And it is sunny today. It’s gonna be something else in about 24 hours. And I’ve got this weird throat thing going on like, ooh, sore throat. But I think I told you it’s because the weather temperatures keep jumping. It was ad for us on Christmas ad. Right. I heard Yeah. Nuts.
6:12
Not cold everywhere else. I’m fortunately California wasn’t it’s freezing as most of the places but oh my goodness. Yeah. It’s been a it’s been Yeah, it’s been just it’s been kind of a ride with all the illnesses and stuff from the get togethers. And I know, we struggled through it. I think we talked about last week. We had a couple hospitalizations in our office because of the flu. And yeah, it’s been kind of crazy. And I finally finally feeling better. But then of course, you know my wife, but he was fine for five days. And now she’s got it. So she’s not feeling great. And, and cursing me because I’m always like patient zero. I’m the one that brought COVID home. I’m the one that brought the flu.
6:56
You might have been you actually behind closed doors. You’ve been blamed for the Christmas party. Grand 02. Just so you know. Yeah. Okay.
7:08
I don’t quite aware.
7:09
Okay. I want to keep it honest. I’ve been I’ve heard you called. I’ve heard you called Patient Zero recently. So yeah, I was like, that’s, that’s possible. It could have been answered.
7:19
I mean, everything’s possible. Like I know, I was I was before that person said anything about that. But I did do some research on trying to figure it out. Because I’m a dork. And I like doing research. But trying to figure out trying to figure out where you got sick. And how difficult it is with the flu like COVID is you can kind of get a good idea. You know, but even COVID knows that you’ve got some asymptomatic people out there. It’s really hard to tell on the flu is really difficult, because it’s not just, it’s not just airborne, you could have picked it up. I could have picked it up on a dish, you know, door handle. Or anybody could have picked it up. So we just you know, it’s it’s so hard to say. But yeah, we had 910 people 10 people sick from that. 10 out of 20 attendance to our party. Christmas party got sick. Yeah.
8:14
So the the odds were again that you were taking COVID home or the flew home.
8:19
Yeah. The high high, high level probability that yeah, if you came to our Christmas party, you were taking flew back the flew back to your house? Yeah.
8:29
That’s a gift that keeps giving isn’t it? Yeah,
8:30
we had one when 53 year old that was hospitalized and 122 year old that was hospitalized for respiratory issues and had to be put on oxygen. So yeah, it’s been it’s been an interesting, interesting, interesting holiday season this year. But you kind of I read about the fact that we probably would have a really bad year with flu and such because of the fact that we’ve been so good about masking and things like that. So I made sure to get my flu shot and to my wife so hopefully, you know, I think are are still recommend you guys, if you if you haven’t got your flu shot, you might want to get it. I’m hoping that it might have kept the symptoms down because I know for myself, it wasn’t that bad. It was tiring. But I didn’t feel like I didn’t feel like I was gonna die like I have in the past on with the flu.
9:17
Oh, we’re glad we’re glad you’re still here. Because you know, we got a lot of stuff to talk about. We should actually tie something up. I wanted to bring something up, though, that I saw this morning and I asked you about it off air to make sure you could answer on air. Because as much as I do love to like zing you like I tried to. I’m trying to gently go into 2023 being the same lovable person with a little bit less. Well, that’s a lie. I’m going to be the same person has always been talking about right I am who I am. So I wanted to ask you the question because I was scrolling scrolling on my phone this morning and I saw this question came up and I thought that’s fascinating. So I was accidentally On Reddit, I don’t ever go there on purpose. And someone had said, have a question. I, when I put on my hot water tap, there’s my water is gray, and kind of, you know, cloudy. And when the flutter is room temperature or cold, it’s clear. And I was like, Hmm, that sounds like that could be a little disturbing. So I thought I’d ask you, because I’m sure someone out there has had this experience. And so I know there’s a explanation for it
10:31
when you read it, so I mean, you can kind of fill us in a little bit, and I can, I can take it from there a little bit long. Further.
10:37
Well, you’re the plumber, and you go right ahead, I’m just I’m just noise I’m just
10:43
so typically that is just that cloudy, milky kind of aesthetic to hot water is typically just air bubbles. And it can even happen in cold water. But it does happen quite often with hot water. And if you do find that you have cloudy water, when you pull it off the tap, and you drop the tap, put the glass on the table or on the counter, and let it stand for a few minutes and see what happens if it dissipates if all the air bubbles just pop and you don’t see anything at the bottom of the water, or the water bottom of your glass. And you know, it’s just air bubbles because they just literally float to the surface and pop. And that has its air, it’s not a bad thing. If those particulates fall out of solution dropped to the bottom of the glass, and you know, you’ve got some sediment issues, because I’ve also seen that where you know, you can have, especially with well, water sometimes will. In the summertime, you’ll start picking up stuff off the bottom of your of your well, and grit and stuff and you get a little dirt. So sediment will drop out to the bottom. Because it’s typically heavier than water. It’ll follow a solution. So yeah, it’s not a big deal. And then we were kind of talking about the fact that you know, what, who’s getting your who, who’s giving you a friend? A hot a class of hot water, right?
12:10
Right. I might not like say, Hey, would you like some hot water? That seems weird, but but if they were at, you know, if they saw it happen, you don’t want to be like, Oh, here’s your cost of poison, you know?
12:22
So that’s totally not bad. But we’re also talking about, you know, should you be drinking it hot water tap. And there are some people out there that that say you probably shouldn’t, and I’m not necessarily one of them. But just to let you know, you know, in the water heater, there’s this thing called the anode, right. It’s a sacrificial element. It’s what saves the tank from electrolysis. It’s either made out of magnesium or aluminum. Typically, it’s magnesium. But in some instances, we have to install an aluminum one, depending on the the chemistry of the water. Because sometimes you have this kind of nasty rotten egg smell that comes out on hot water suffering, typically, the sulfur smell and it’s usually a reaction with a magnesium anode rods, we’ll put an aluminum rod in there to solve that issue. But then, you know, there are some potential, there’s some talk that maybe aluminum might cause Alzheimer’s, so you might want to avoid drinking out of your hot water. Tap. That’s yeah, just because there’s there may be traces of aluminum in there. And but it is going to be a really small amount, because it’s something that an anode rod lasts, you know, typically five years. So it takes a while for it to fall apart. So it’s no trace, trace trace amounts, but still, there’s some people don’t want to have anything in their water. So yeah, so I
13:48
don’t want to like you know, jump the shark here. But in a few days time, people that are customers of abt plumbing, electric heat and air will get the January newsletter. And in the January newsletter, we just so happened to kind of go into depth a little bit about the quality of your water and why a water softener or a Water Conditioning system might be a good idea. So look for that. Right? That’s kind of a on topic by accident. Look at that. Yeah. So we’ll be talking a little bit more about water. So you can you’ll learn more off air about that topic. So listen, let’s pivot I don’t even know what time it is. So you’re gonna have to really we’re
14:30
like, we got like a good 10 minutes left. So we got we got plenty of time. So let’s go into the show because actually, you gave me this great list of things last week and I kind of want to deviate it on to my own little rant about maintenance and you didn’t know how much it cost to maintain properties and but
14:48
in your budget, and your defense you had just gone through you were living through a situation where you were supplying maintenance for the property in Minnesota. So to be Be fair, you had possible fever, possibly in the throes of not feeling well. And then you also were going through some stuff. So it was still helpful information. But the goal of us ending 2022 It’s so weird, we’re about to be in another year. But the we thought going into 2023, I thought it might be interesting, just talk about kind of some of the, there are powers that be that will do surveys and ask questions and check in with industry experts, and they compile this information. And I just find information like this in I don’t know, informative. It’s an interesting point of conversation. I think that this doesn’t apply to everybody, right. But there are some trends that they’re predicting for 2023, I think these trends might also color, how difficult or how easy it is to get certain supplies or things like that. So I just thought, hey, let’s just kind of talk about what they think 2023 looks like from this perspective. And
16:00
that’s why kind of Yeah, it’s, it’s actually timely, because I mean, with interest rates being what they are, not a lot of people are gonna be selling their house right now. You know, the markets kind of turning right now. So yeah, it’s a great time to really invest in your home and just keep it up, because you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be living in it for a while. So one thing they’ve talked about some of the big trends, they see the most, the biggest trend is going to be approximately 23% of homeowners intend to paint at least one room in their home. So painting is one of those things that you know, is a real, it’s a really good investment, you get a lot of bang for your buck when it when it comes to painting your house, especially interior, because it really it changes the feel of the space, and we’ve moved into a new space. And it was kind of a aquamarine, teal, that was definitely not something that we wanted to live in. It was a little dated. So we doesn’t
17:00
seem like your aesthetic, it doesn’t seem like
17:03
a nice like, go white, which is kind of a grayish white. And it completely changed the vibe, completely change it. And you know, so if you’re thinking about if you’re thinking about doing any kind of if you want to kind of refresh your space, painting an interior room is by far the biggest bang for your buck, because it completely changes the feel. And there are a lot of really cool color trends that are going on right now. I mean, we tend to, we’re getting out of a lot of color and more grays and whites and stuff these days than we were back in the 90s and 2000s, where where there were a lot more mustards and browns and reds and things like that. So take a look and see what’s hip right now. And you can you can do it. And it’s relatively inexpensive. I used to be a painter back in the day in my 20s. So it’s, you know, not that hard for me. But you know, one of the big things to remember when you’re painting is is prep, prep, prep, prep, prep, prep, prep, and then paint takes, it’ll take you two or three times the amount of prep that it does actually paint. So definitely, definitely prep will save you a ton of effort. But if you do decide to hire a painter, you know, there’s plenty of really good painters out there. And things are slowing down enough so that people are actually you can actually find painters these days, I tried to paint our office this year last year, and I couldn’t couldn’t even find a painter. And finally, this year, we introduced somebody in there to paint it. But you know, you typically talking you know, hundreds of bucks, not 1000s of bucks for a room. If you’re gonna be a pain in the inside entire inside of your house and you’re talking, you know, you’re talking 1000s of dollars, but it’s something that you can definitely, you know, if you’ve got anywhere with all in our call at all handy, you can pretty much paint Air and Space, the interior at least. Don’t forget to pull this when you’re doing it pull the electrical covers. And while you’re at it, just go and buy some new ones. They’re about 50 cents each. Don’t even try to reason just buy new ones. It’s so much easier. bathroom renovation, that’s another one. So they figured about 22% of homeowners were planning a bath renovation. So there’s, you know, there’s all sorts of things. There are all sorts of different levels of bathroom, remodels, you know, simply changing the faucet can have a huge effect on the aesthetic of your bathroom, especially if you’ve got you know something that is a very dated finish like a an antique bronze or brass or shiny brass or those those are starting to come back again. shiny brass is coming back again. It’s becoming Vogue again. Now they have like gold finishes and things anyway. A lot of those a lot of those fixtures can tend to show there were so you know if it’s if your FOSS is starting to look a little funky, it’s starting to show you know some of the epoxy is peeling back and a lot of those finishes, decorative finishes Have a clear epoxy color or paint on him. And you’ll get corrosion underneath the pink or underneath the, the epoxy coat. So just replace him with a new one. And I’m a big fan of Chrome just because Chrome has never gone out of style. We’ve used Chrome fixtures since the beginning of plumbing, and it tends to last the longest. So if you are thinking about changing things up, I always recommend Chrome as opposed to some other fixture color. Just be also because the fact that they it doesn’t tend to go out of style. So it’ll last a lot longer. So if you aren’t looking at putting in a fixture, I always recommend not going too trendy. Because the fixture can last a bathroom fixture can lasted 2030 years. And if you’ve got something that like I remember putting, like red faucets in during the you know 90s And you just don’t see red faucets anymore. And they were expensive like growing. I mean, they were like 800 bucks back in the in the 90s. I was putting these things in and they were only you know chic for maybe like five years, something like that. So and then we start pulling them up.
21:07
And honestly the color listen the color red,
21:11
and white and black. We did a lot of those. Yeah, a lot of European classes in the 90s that were like, and it was just an epoxy coat. And so that’s that peeled off. So but chrome ones they’ll last me I still have a chrome fixed, growing faucet, my kitchen, that’s probably like 10 years old. That looks great. Anyway, those are some some of the remodels, those are pretty easier models. painting a bathroom. Oh my gosh, you can really upgrade your bathroom by painting it painting of the vanity. If you’ve got kind of a you know, 60s 70s vanity, just painting it will completely change it. Especially if it’s like one of those ones that everybody has the contractor grade. painting it white makes a huge difference. Yeah.
21:55
Oh, ugly God, those are so ugly, I just those, when I see those, I’m like, oh my god like that. Just it takes me right back to the 80s. It’s just it’s the 80s. And every time I say the 80s I’m like, Oh, that was not that long ago. And I’m like, Oh my God. Like, remember how old you’re gonna be this year. That really is.
22:14
That’s 40 years ago do you? time ago. But you can do some really simple, you know, bathroom models is simply you know, changing a fixture, changing the pain of the vanity, change the hardware. You know, if you got some old funky hinges and handles, again, if you’re talking about one cabinet, so two, two to four hinges and maybe four knobs, depending on if you got drawers and things can completely change the way it looks.
22:45
Hard hardware is such a game bathroom,
22:47
towel holders and all that stuff, changing all that stuff up. Again, really simple but can completely change the look of your bathroom. So you can you know, they’ve got figures here for a bathroom models from anywhere from six to 30 grand. I’ve actually worked in bathrooms where it was close to 100 grand. But those are some really high in bathrooms. But you can do it for hundreds of dollars if you do it yourself and and new fixtures, a new bathroom sink, paint the vanity, put new hardware on change the the the towel racks and paint and a new shower curtain and boom. Pretty easy, pretty inexpensive, and you got a nice remodel. And you know, we only did two and we’re out of time. So Wow. All right. So hopefully you find this stuff interesting. We just like went on. rambling on so yeah, in between show. Christmas in New Year’s guy. Yeah, give us a break. I want to wish everybody Happy New Year and a successful 2023 And Happy 2023. And we’ll catch you guys next next time. If you need any plumbing, electrical heating and air help. Give us a call next week. We’re closed this week.
530-230-9092
24:03
You can find us on the web at easyasabt.com or ABTplumbing.com and find us on Facebook please like our page. And with that, we’ll catch you guys next week. Thanks for listening. Bye