SUMMARY KEYWORDS
plumbing, tile, diy, gas prices, line, walls, joists, professional
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
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 man, I nailed the intro this time, because last time it took me five times. I’m no more on it today, because I’ve been traveling around with my head cut off, visiting family and stuff. So yeah, I’m actually in my sister’s offic/bedroom in Pacifica, because she’s off traveling herself. And we’re down here because our son came up from Mexico for a week. So we’re down here visiting him. He had to renew his visa for working in Mexico because he changed jobs. So that’s been a little kooky.
01:05
No, no, I love hearing your stories. So I’m just keeping my fingers crossed, your internet calls out or the entire listening public is going to get just me. But well, so speaking of that, as you know, I’ve been looking at, you know, transcriptions and why would I but we know why I was looking at transcriptions of our show. And by the way, happy fourth anniversary. We’ve been doing this for four years a
01:34
year. So that’s like, that’s a lot. Maybe I don’t know, I could do the math really quick. But I always we’ve skipped a few but that’s yeah, a lot. An average of 65 or maybe 360 times four. So yeah.
01:49
Well, no, I don’t know. Where you show me 52 weeks, let me
01:57
close to a year 50. So it’s probably 200 shows,
02:01
at least Yes. We’re close. We’re close to 100. So as I’m going through and looking at it, I realized that while you and I think we are sounding super smart. And we’re just moving right along, just trying to, you know, fill up the right time slot. Oh, my gosh, the Caribbean amount of times I say like, right there, the way that you roll over. So can I just tell you that what comes up the
02:31
back end? So what we’ve been doing is so there’s there’s some regulations that we have to have our website comply to ADA because just because so I won’t go any further with that. So we have to have our all these shows that we post on the website transcribed so people can read them. So you’ve been reading all these transcribed and and we’re having a I do it. So it’s yeah, it’s been an interesting little experiment. Well, let me show you 100 shows. Yeah, so.
03:05
So that’s the best part is that abt abt actually comes up quite often. It’s something different. And then the actual name is abt plumbing, electric, heat, and air. And it comes up every time Heating Air. And I’m like, no. So when I’m, yeah, so I’m focused on the good news is, it’s making me talk slower. I’m trying to make him it trying that as well. Yeah. And but today could go either way. But
03:42
we’re both Bay Area kids. So it’s like, it’s really hard to slow our speech down. And I literally grew up in a six lane Street in San Francisco. So it’s like, for me to slow down and I’ve it’s ingrained in my DNA at this point.
03:53
What, right and I had to talk fast, because when my folks would like, actually want to hear what I had to say, like I had a window, so I had to get it out. So like it’s out and it’s loud, but it’s not enunciated So, I have been feeling a lot of shame and self judgment.
04:11
Don’t go there. Don’t know. They’re,
04:14
like, I’m underneath therapy from these. But um, but yeah, so we have listeners anyway, so when I so I apologize. So it sounds better than it than it reads. But that’s okay. So I’ve been working on that. And we are right now I want to say I’m about to head into a heatwave. So that’s coming my way. We’re about to hit summer. And so, I mean, I look forward to that. But at the same time, I just want to do a little quick reminder, everybody that if you don’t have time, or the ability to get in on an H fac checkup call
04:52
or whatever to get in too late now.
04:55
Right, but the least you could do the least you could do and I mean the very least So I’m going to be doing it myself is go ahead and change out those filters. Because you can say like, first off, you can want to prolong the life, right. But also the efficiency can go up by as much as 15%. Right? Yeah. So
05:13
I knew literally, I mean, how much does the filter cost? Yeah, we use a picture on Facebook that kind of had the nicer fancier ones don’t use those use the cheap ones. They weren’t. I got
05:24
were free, I felt fancy. So I put up the fancy ones, but
05:28
they look nice, but they literally cost you like $5 apiece, that compared to how much energy you’re using, you’re gonna save it in the first month. Right? It’s easily right. And not to mention the fact that if you haven’t changed your filter in a long time, you could be looking at a minimum of a dispatch fee to work on your plate on your house, just for us to just for company to come look at it’s going to be we’re charging $79 for a dispatch fee right now. It’d be close to that just to get somebody to your house, especially with gas prices, everything. And as the other thing we’re talking about, like, you know, if you need anything done, I know things are expensive, but they’re not getting any cheaper. It’s not going to get any cheaper next year, it’s not going to get any cheaper probably for another two or three years. So if you if you’re on the fence about getting something done, because things are so expensive, get it done now because man, everything I’ve been reading, it’s not going down. With like, right now gas prices are not getting there, things are not getting cheaper.
06:21
I can tell you that it’s really if people like, here we go, I’m just gonna say this, then we’ll get into our our game show that I set up. But um, listen, the one thing I do want to say is that’s been really helpful for me is, I mean, I know the gas stations not to go to in Los Angeles because they’re in high tourist areas, or they’re really close to the freeway. Now I get it in a more rural geographically spread out, you know, area that might not always be the same thing that we’re talking about. Sometimes it’s it’s contrary, right, but, but I go on Facebook groups for my own neighborhoods, and people are always saying where they got the best price gas. And there’s actually an app I forget what the app is called. But there’s actually an app for you. You can you can find it and a glass buddy is one of them. Yeah, cheap the cheapest gas in your area. So anyway, and that’s just when I hear some dogs
07:15
are trying to cover my headphones, I can block out my my sister’s to have their little yappy dogs.
07:25
They sound smart, and they do smell unexcited but you
07:28
felt you felt you can find the cheaper gas prices? But yeah, I mean, it’s whatever
07:31
you can do to help yourself. Right. So yes, that having Yeah, it’s
07:34
insane. I mean, we spend I mean, it’s our gas. Speaking of fuel costs, just for our own company. I mean, we were spending last year about eight to $10,000 a month in fuel. Now we’re spending anywhere from 17 to $20,000 a month on fuel costs. It’s insane. So I tried to find a spot where I could get it without the dogs. But yeah,
08:03
they are not going to be listening, folks. They don’t want to be ignored. Well, you know, all we need now is to turn this out is for Theo, my dog, not co your son to
08:16
have serious working right now.
08:18
You can help him feel can chime in, and then we’d have a little thing back and forth. But okay, before things go off the rails, and I’m hoping you set a timer because I have no idea.
08:28
Yeah, we’re eight minutes in. So yeah, we’re ready. We’re ready for content. So okay, here we are. Sorry, we were kind of bantering a little long. But it has been it’s been a very, I kind of keep saying this. And the only thing I could say it’s a very interesting time to be alive between the pandemic, the Warner Ukraine, the gas prices that seem to be around the world and inflation that seems to be around the planet and the climate issues and everything. It’s just it’s interesting. But anyway, content. So that wasn’t a great segue. But
08:58
let me jump in and handle it. I don’t have barking dogs either. Okay, so because I have the title, I gave myself a producer of the show.
09:08
Well deserved because you have you have this, you figured out the show. I had lunch with my bass, wife’s cousin. And she’s like, how do you guys do this? And what are you guys going to talk about today? I’m like, I really don’t know. But I’ll look at, I’ll look and see what my producer put on my email today. I had a chance to look at it. So just now. Well prepared as usual.
09:30
I mean, I’m used to doing these on the fly by the way. This week, what the producer came up with was we’re going to do a little game and it’s like a game show and it’s going to be higher a pro or no. So I’m not going to actually position this as a game show because I don’t have that energy. We recording this at late in the afternoon. Instead of the morning. I start to fade so I won’t be as lively but that we listen I just worn off a long time ago. Um My gosh, I remember just struggling with the whiskey but and so, so I thought, Look, everybody is trying to save money. I mean, so that’s, that’s a fact right. And so it might, it might be one of those things where when you do need to do the remodel or you’re going to do the fix it up or the improvement, you’re going to try to cut your costs where you can, but there’s some things unfortunately, you’re not going to want to do on your own, you are going to want to hire a professional. And since you have a background, you’ve got the contractor license, and you’ve got a varied background in the trades. I thought let’s let’s do it this way. I’m gonna work we’re gonna go through some things that you definitely want to hire a pro for, and some that you can probably with some DIY skills, and probably manage yourself. So let’s let’s dive in. Andrew,
10:53
can you just start with a question? We haven’t gone over how the format we’re going to be doing this? Why don’t you start with a question and I’ll answer it. Okay. So we’ll do kind of a game show thing.
11:01
Yeah, it’s always it’s always an adventure. For me. I was like, I’m gonna win a big prize. That’s how I feel when I come on the show. Okay, so there’s
11:10
a winner. You’re gonna cry, you get a prize.
11:14
I just, it’s the gold star. It’s a gem in my life. It is. Okay, so, in the kitchen. Um, let’s talk about that. So there’s obviously some things that are gonna be left to professionals and some that you can DIY. So if I were going to say this seems obvious, in my kitchen, if I’m going to move or install new plumbing, is that a DIY? Or is that professional?
11:38
Really depends. So if we’re talking about moving a drain, or moving a water line or moving a gas line, I would say hire a professional. Unless you’ve got a real deep knowledge of how to run things. I’ve fixed a lot of poorly installed plumbing over my lifetime where people actually hired contractors to do it and or DIY or handyman to do it. And they didn’t know what they’re doing. So you know, homeowners even move further away from those those people that are slightly in the trades, because you can be put in so I would hire somebody because you can put the drain line in. We know how many fixtures can be put on a drain so you don’t overload it and have problems with clogging and all the time. We know how to make sure that strap properly. So you don’t have bellies in line. Again, oh, start clogging. We know what fittings to us, so that you don’t get sewer gases into the house. There’s a lot of little nuances to plumbing that a lot of people don’t realize, yeah, poop goes downhill paydays on Friday, don’t bite your nails is the essence of plumbing. But there are some nuances that you really, unless you do it on a regular basis and have gone through training. I mean, most of our guys that have been doing plumbing, have you know, we’re talking 8000 hours of work before they’re before you come a journeyman it’s four years. So they’ve literally done this 8000 hours, so they know what they’re doing. And if you’ve only done it once or twice for maybe 10 hours, you’re not going to know the difference between a y and a combo fitting, you’re not going to know the difference between a Santi and a Y. There’s all of these things and which ones should you use? So I would definitely say hire somebody. Okay. Makes sense. Especially guys with gases. And that was going to be the next one anyway. So running gas lines. Dude, you’re talking about gas I mean you can blow your house up and especially when you’re dealing with propane because propane is heavier than air. It settles in low spots. So if you got a bad gas leak with propane it’ll settle and you have potential for a major explosion. So yeah.
13:42
Okay, well grabbing the host Mike back. I’ll I’ll ask I’ll ask the question sir.
13:49
Okay, so if a tangent there
13:52
Well, I mean that the gas line explosion thing like Dude, you’re getting real dark today. I’m gonna need you to bring it back to the light okay, I’m don’t have enough coffee and
14:00
it’s difficult. It’s foggy. Okay, so
14:02
you’re in a dark place. Okay. So how about if I wanted to and this is something that I have done and I would do so I’m giving it up but cabinet refacing that’s not going to require professional is it?
14:16
Depending if you’re refacing it with like new doors and things there’s a potential for doing it yourself. If you’re talking about painting for sure. You know, it’s a pain. Like the last time I we did our kitchen cabinets, and I hired a professional because you much better spraying than I am and I actually worked as a painter for about three or four years in a previous life. But they’re, you know, cabinets. If you’re painting a cabinet, and you want a really nice dialed finish, hire somebody. If you just want to change the color or change the the look, you can do it yourself. Just really clean it up and make it follow. Go on YouTube. Go on the internet, find out how to prep because kitchens have a lot of grease. So the paint doesn’t stick so great to grease. So you really got to clean it got to do a lot of prep.
15:06
All right, well, what about if I were going to remove the walls to kind of open up a floor plan or open up my kitchen? Would you suggest a pro or no for removing walls?
15:19
Definitely a pro. Definitely a pro. And the reason being is I’ve seen people remove walls and their weight bearing walls, and you have the potential for your house to cave in the roof to just fall because the wall is literally holding up the beam that holds up the roof ELLs up ceiling that holds up the roof. So now you can do some pretty major damage by removing the wrong wall. If you don’t know what weight bearing wall is definitely don’t keep removing walls.
15:51
That’s a good, that’s a good rule of thumb. I think for most I’ve seen,
15:54
I’ve seen people do it where it’s on the margin. And I’ve seen joists literally have cracks in the middle and where they removed a wall and the load was so great that the the span was so wide that the joists couldn’t carry the amount of weight that was on it. And it’s slowly creeping down. And you may not you know, you may get away with it for five to seven years, you may move, but the next person may have something falling down on their heads.
16:20
sounds horrible. That happens.
16:24
That happens more often than you think. A lot of people they go open concept. Let’s just remove that wall.
16:29
Well, I mean, there is some nuances to removing. Wow, that much I do now because I had to knock down a weight class turbo but that was you know, my biceps. It was rough.
16:40
Okay. And then also Oh, yeah, speaking of that, if you’re dealing with a house that’s old, that was built like old like being the 70s, which, for some of us that are of a certain age that didn’t seem like that long ago, but that was 50 years ago. There were things like asbestos and lead and a lot of those walls. So you may not want to be removing them some hazard
16:59
some hazard can be there, but that’s can be pretty toxic. Yeah, for sure. No, that’s That’s understandable. Okay, so what about if I were going to this is going to be a pro or No, on installing countertop.
17:16
So installing countertops, you know, if you just got a straight counter, you don’t have any corners, a laminate countertop is relatively easy to install. The and the other things, the hard part is doing the ends and they make little kits that you just literally iron on. So So kits being the same matching laminate that’s on top of the cabinet you want on the end, such as particle board where you cut it, so they make like a little piece that you can iron on. Not not terribly difficult. But if you’ve got a corner that you’ve got to cut, that can be a little tricky, depending on your carpentry skills, because let’s face it, most homes that we’re dealing with, and especially if you’re replacing something, probably not square, so it’s not automatically going to be a 45 You got to figure out those angles, and it can be a pain. So yeah, I would say me probably, but depending
18:11
so no commitment, typical. Okay, so what I like to do to shake this up is let’s move out of the kitchen, and let’s move into the bathroom. Okay, let’s move into the bath. So, again, I mean, this seems pretty basic. Obviously, if you’re going to move or install anything to do with the plumbing, you’re probably really going to want right to go.
18:31
You’re putting anything behind the walls, probably gonna want somebody that knows what they’re doing. That’s
18:35
fair. Okay, so Pro are now the tile, a tile job.
18:42
That was tricky, because I’ve seen some pretty good DIY tile jobs. And I’ve seen some really awful DIY tile jobs. So I think with if you’re a meticulous person, and these things matter to you, you can probably do it yourself. If you’re kind of a fly by the seat of your pants kind of person and don’t really worry about tile being crooked and sticking up and stuff, you’re probably going to do a pretty bad job, and it’s probably going to be nice to be ripped out. So and also depending on the type of tile that you’re laying, like, you know, look, ironically, a large tile tends to be easier than small tiles, but they make sheets of tiles now, so it’s pretty easy. But if you putting a 24 by 24 tile in not too terribly hard. But again, watch those videos and make sure you need to the prep work properly. And yeah, I’ve done a lot of tile work in my own homes and as customers homes. So kind of again, kind of depends on how good how skilled you are. So possibly a DIY, but probably it would be better if you hired somebody like our last bathroom. I hired somebody because it was just it was too big of a project. And I know enough to make it work but I also know that it wouldn’t be as good as what my tile guy did. And yeah, I mean, after he was done, I was like, wow, this is amazing.
20:07
And so So on those along those lines, like doing
20:11
a backsplash, kitchen, right? That’s relatively easy if you’re doing a whole bathroom floor to floor up in shower. That’s a pretty big job and you might be biting off more than you can chew. Right, right. So kind of you might cut corners at the end by the time you’re just so sick and tired of living without a bathroom. So,
20:30
I wonder what that’s like, I wonder what it’s like to live in a bathroom. It’s not completed. Should I talk about that? It’s gonna be in litigation at some point. Um, okay, so anyway, if you are playing with coins, Andrew Twidwell, whatever you’re doing with your hands, stop doing it. I’m hearing it. Um, so I can’t see you. So I’m just giving this
20:50
advice. I’m playing with my sister’s little beaded bracelet. My fidget toy.
20:56
Okay, so focus. So along the lines of tile, this is going to be kind of the same, right? So that kind of goes with flooring. So you could hire a pro to do the flooring. Or you could do it yourself, depending on the size of the room, the complexity, the material, that type of flooring.
21:13
Yeah, like I did, you know, I’ve played a lot of floors. And I’ve done a lot of a lot being, you know, maybe 5000 square feet, not not like a professional who’s done, you know, 10s of 1000s of square feet. And I did a floor in our cottage and a laminate floor. You know, fake wood, kind of flooring, click, click once. And I had one of my friends move in there. Who was actually the flooring guy. And I’m like, I’d apologize because I did a really bad job. All the corners were kind of lifted up just a little bit. Just yeah, just enough that most people won’t notice. But a floor guy. Yeah. Joanne, you’re out there and listening. Yeah, he moved in there for a while before he bought his house. And yeah, I had to apologize. I’m like, dude, yeah, I put that in. Sorry.
22:06
Okay. He probably picked up on that. Pretty quick. But yeah,
22:10
it was definitely a DIY project. Well,
22:13
um, so again, if you’re
22:14
really dry, you could do it yourself. But if if your particular you might want to hire somebody to do it, and we’re Wow, that’s about it. That’s her show. This goes so fast. Well, we just kind of banter for half the show. So sorry about that, guys. But I’m not interesting day.
22:33
This is the best I could do it this time of day. I’m not sorry. This is on you. I didn’t say to it the afternoon. Yeah, this is very good. Okay, so how about running down how people can get a hold of us?
22:46
Yes, you can reach us at five threes. Okay, so if you need any plumbing, electrical heating, or if you got one of these projects, and you’re like, wow, I should hire a professional. You can call us at 53230 99 25302309092. You can find us on the web at easy as a B t.com. That’s a s y at a B t.com. And you can find us on facebook, please like our Facebook page. We got a lot of fun stuff there and interesting things there. And that’s all I got. So and I know you can’t sign up for the newsletter anymore. So anyway, thanks for listening. Wow, this, this is this is going down. Isn’t that one of our better show. Sorry about that guys. will do better next week. There’ll be more present. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you next week. Bye.
23:35
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