SUMMARY KEYWORDS
water heater, dog, check, sewer, toilet, plumbing, house, booties, leaking, buying, diy, people, feet, inspection, realtor, faucets, water, years, rotted, adulting
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 Rosaline.
00:18
This is Andrew Twidwell, owner of ABT plumbing electric heat and air once again, with the show You Got This! is a show of DIY do’s and don’ts. Zooming in here from lovely Auburn, where another hot day and Rosalie’s zooming in from LA. And yeah, we’re just talking off camera a little bit off camera. So we’re on camera. You guys are in the radio world. We’re zooming together so we see each other. We actually we’re not putting the videos up anymore already. We did for a little while, but we really weren’t. No one was really watching them.
00:51
So I think people get annoyed watching people to sit and talk. Like if you’re talking about how to build like a B house and you’re just looking and we’re just looking at each other. Yeah, it just kind of seems like it’s it doesn’t even quite yet. Work on video. Just doesn’t work. And then you know, some people would argue that we have faces for radio not video. So take it anywhere you want. Take it any way you want.
01:15
So yeah, we’re chatting it up. And yeah, so we are zooming so. And yeah, it’s It’s warm. It’s gonna be like 90 degrees here or something like that. 91 degrees today. It’s Wednesday today. So this early. Okay, it was snowing last Tuesday. So Tuesday before last
01:33
September you’re gonna it’s interesting that you’re gonna have a hot spell because the last couple of days I had some some heat over the weekend. And I have a funny story about that, of course, but that involves my dog. But it’s the last few days I’ve been kind of overcast a little breezy kind of chilly like right now. 65 Wow. And I’m okay with that.
01:57
I don’t actually guys nice temperature. Yeah,
01:58
I don’t know if you’re aware I still have sunburn feet. My feet haven’t recovered from when I went to Texas. So I’m still freaking out about getting too hot. But can we just talk for a second about the heat and dogs? Okay, so you know me I’m like all fall for just about any gadget that has to do with like, making life easier when it comes to certain things. So I got caught up in a downward spiral on the internet about your dog,
02:26
our dog, but
02:28
no. No, the pads on the feet. Right? And right. So I live in the city. There’s your I’m primarily walking the dog on sidewalk and so asphalt, which is really hot. I was like, okay, you know what, I’m going to be a really good pet owner for the first time in my life. And I’m going to get him some booties. So I know he’s going to be mad. And he’s going to try to chew them off the first couple of times. But we’re doing this. So I watch a little video on how to how to measure your train
02:59
them or, you know,
03:03
on that, yeah, that part is gonna come on its own. You’re just gonna wrestle the 100 pound dog. No, you have to measure. You have to measure your dog’s feet in a specific manner, right? Because the effective pricey because I have to buy the pricey ones. They are hard bottom. Right. So they’re there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there’s not a lot of gifts. And so I measured the dog’s foot about four or five times. And yeah, I don’t know, I missed a part. So when the booties came over the weekend, I was like, Yay, we can go on a long walk. And I went to put him on his feet. And it was like, I wish I got a video of this because besides him prancing around and looking ridiculous, and just not knowing how to walk. These things were flying off his feet, because they were probably like half an inch too short. So he wasn’t even all the way in him. So he’s worrying. And he’s flinging them at Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. So those have gone back. And I think I’m gonna visit the pet the pet store now and see if I can get some soft bottom booties for this
04:11
thing to something to put them on. Yeah, we tried those for for snow and just, yeah, it didn’t quite work out.
04:18
No, pets.
04:19
I got a pet went to so we went. So we went to San Francisco this weekend, and stayed out at the wharf we had we want to go down to visit family. But we’re like, hey, we had some we had some extra credit card points. And we were able to stay at this really nice hotel on the wharf. And we’re able to bring our dogs so it was dog friendly. So we wanted we didn’t have a dog sitter this weekend. So we’re like, let’s just find a place we can bring the dogs and our little dog who is 15 now, is he back? Yeah, he’s getting old. Like 15 or 16 years old. He’s getting old and you can’t hear very well. I can’t see very well. He’s missing half his teeth. He almost died last year because he got we trimmed some azaleas and he got some stuck on his mouth and ended up ingesting them and got went blind and like him was died. It was kind of scary. Now, you know, now the facilities are fenced off, obviously, but live and learn, unfortunately. But he was doing some long walks, but we’re used to him, he can usually only go about one mile now. And we used to be able to take them for, you know, 10 mile hikes, no problem. He just, he’d be running circles around us. Now we’ll do about a mile but he was able to do two four mile hikes, and still do it, but we bring his backpack. So the day we left after those two, four mile hikes, which are two miles each, right when we go to my house and hang out and have coffee or whatever, have a meal, and then walk back. So give him time to rest who’s able to do it. But on the day we left. So after those two days of him walking so much, he’s on the couch, and we go to put his leash on. He doesn’t even raise his head. He opens his eyes but doesn’t even raise his head. He just looks at us. So we had to put him in the backpack just to get them out of the hotel because he wasn’t even moving. dead to the world. All right. You are getting old. We thought you were doing so great. I guess we pushed you a little too hard
06:15
on the backpack although he’s he’s he’s not very big. So if you had to you could have
06:19
oh, he’s tiny. He’s only 12 pounds or some 15 pounds. So yeah,
06:22
you could have been like a little burrito. Can you imagine me trying to bundle see you up and
06:28
make a sling for the big dogs? For Doogal but yeah, you don’t need it.
06:33
I’m gonna need to do like probably a lot of serious working out before I consider putting that. I mean, probably carrying 100 pounds. 100 pounds.
06:43
A friend on your shoulders.
06:45
Yeah, I mean, like, Look, I’ll help you get in trouble. But don’t ask me to piggy back you. I mean. So anyway, so yeah, I’ve got to get into the with the warmer weather. It’s reminded me to I know who I should call though. You know, we have a mutual friend. Andy, right. He’s, yeah, he’s got his dog goes everywhere with them. And I bet you he’ll tell me exactly what gear to get. Yeah, making a mental note. Give him a call. See what see what his dog is using to reach a scale. Kelly Kelly? I think it is. Yeah, it’s super cute dog. Yeah. So that’s my big adventure is I’ve got to get dog booties before the weather turns out. So that’s what I
07:24
did see something I was kind of shocked like 77 degrees, and sunny and asphalt will be like 100 Basketball be like 130 140 degrees. So that’s, you know, and then you know, it hits 90, no, no issues at all right now lay in here. And can only imagine what the payments like I always touch it, just to kind of get an idea. Because I have broken our dog’s feet before not knowing. But ya
07:47
know, I mean, I just the older I get, you know, like, I try to be a little more responsible. So, my first, my first try didn’t go very well. But I’m gonna see if I can find the right boots.
07:59
adulting stuff where you have to be responsible and take care of people and things and creatures. And
08:03
I’m kind of I’m kind of late to the game if you didn’t.
08:08
I came I came, my wife keeps saying I’m not remembering things as well as they used to. And like, because we have to think about so many more people. Now as we get older. I’m just I’m sticking with that. That’s the story I’m sticking with. It’s not because I’m getting older and losing my mind is because I have to think about more. And I’ve only got I’ve got a finite amount of gray matter. So I know
08:25
that to be true. And that’s why I know when I need something from you what I do is I do okay, if I can’t return this way, send a quick tax, like, respond just for I just think your brain for 30 seconds. Okay, good movie.
08:36
Thank you call me twice yesterday, and they were picking it up. Yeah, I was glad I wasn’t answering many phone calls yesterday, it was crazy. Anyway, gave me a list of stuff to do to go over, which I think is great. So it’s a list of, it’s not so much DIY, but it can actually I’ll make a kind of DIY, but this is mainly a checklist for when you’re buying a home and things inspect there. Yes, people are still buying homes. I know you know, there’s there’s not a lot of homes on the market. And when they do come on the market, they tend to go pretty fast. So these are some things that you should check out on the plumbing side or at least have your inspector make sure your inspector checks these things out. And I got a couple other tips in here that you should have a plumber checkup because there’s some pretty expensive problems
09:25
that well and let me just yeah, let me just say that as a as a segue into adulting and stuff like that. So you know, I’ve gotten a couple of homes you’ve gotten homes before and the one thing that depending on where you live and I know that all all 12 of our listeners are all probably in Grass Valley or Auburn right areas, but um, you know this because you you have dealt with property in the Midwest, but sometimes, like for me when I bought my house, they had turned the water off because the house was you know, was unoccupied, vacant at a time. So we actually had to it was was a trip we had to actually put in something in our basement. We had to do it not the water company. So the thing is you couldn’t so none of the inspections could tell us what? Yeah, nothing. It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t matter. Because I couldn’t tell you. I had water. I didn’t have any water. So it but most most places, I think people live.
10:23
I mean, you but that was an interesting purchase, because that was a foreclosure.
10:27
It was a HUD property. Oh, yeah. So they’ve
10:29
got their own whole set set of rules. Yeah, like to buy a house. Now, you know, to get financing on the water. I mean, you couldn’t get financing for that thing. You have to pay cash. You’ll need Water Foundation, all that stuff, heat. Those sort of things.
10:44
It’s so funny to think about that, like, yeah, when you say it like that. I’m like, Oh, my God, what was I doing Jesus? Good idea at the time, you can buy anything over the internet, and the house is still standing. So and it’s gone up in value. So
10:57
appreciated quite a bit. Yeah. 10x, right.
11:01
It doesn’t appreciate how does it hasn’t made my life any easier. But it has appreciated.
11:05
Nothing but quite the opposite. Right, exactly.
11:08
So moving on to the next one.
11:12
So buying a house. So the first one is toilets. Now this is something that simulate is seemingly simple. And yeah, I mean, you want to make sure the toilets actually flush, you want to make sure that you don’t have any leaks around the toilet and make sure that inspectors looking around the toilet. But one of the things that I find that is a good DIY thing. And a good thing to know, is not all, not all, home inspectors are going to check this, the majority of them will but it’s one of the things that you kind of missed is literally grabbing one side of the toilet, straddle the toilet, the bowl and grab where the toilet seat sits, is mounted. And there’s a piece of porcelain there and literally try rocking the toilet back and forth. One of the reasons why you want to do this is if the toilet moves at all, it means that a it could be a cracked flange actually holds the toilet to the ground into the plumbing, or be a bolt could have broken. What that tells me is when I do it, and this is something you could do at your own home. The way we set a toilet, the seal that is made between the toilet and the plumbing is wax, it’s literally wax wax compresses really well and holds its body but it doesn’t, it doesn’t have a memory, it won’t come back like styrofoam. So once it’s compressed, so if it’s if the toilets rocking it all, it will compress both sides. Now you gotta leak. And I’ve can’t tell you how many times we pull toilets and found that it’s been leaking because it was rocking, and the toilet, the floor is all rotted out and we and the framing is all rotted out, we gotta get a carpenter in and do this huge job of pulling the floor pulling floor joists and rebuilding the entire area and new flooring the whole bit. So it’s definitely something you want to check. And it could be just a minor little movement, because of the fact that wax compresses and doesn’t have a memory, it doesn’t take much. And if that thing’s been used, while it’s rocking, for any length of time, we’re just going to go through there and rot out the wood and do some serious damage plus mold and all that other stuff. Not fun. And it’s you know, funky water. It’s not, it’s not drinking water and sewage. So yeah, definitely check to make sure the toilets not rocking. The other thing you could check is simply throw some food coloring in the toilet. Give it about half an hour and go back and see if there’s any coloring in the bowl. Excuse me, but food coloring in the tank, and then come back in about half an hour and see if there’s any of that that food coloring that’s made into the bowl that’ll tell you if the flapper is not functioning or leaking. So those are some good ones
13:47
and realtors that when you do that. Realtors Yeah, when you get an open house and then you bring your food color drop and
13:54
don’t use yellow.
13:59
Yeah, I’m sure the realtor would be very happy.
14:02
Well, I mean, if you’re doing the inspection anyway, yeah, as you’re walking through and if you’re if your home inspector is not doing that haven’t do that. One of the one of the things that is on the bottom and in both states say it now when you’re purchasing a house, you want to know about these problems before you actually sign on the dotted line because once you take ownership of that property, those plumbing problems you yours so you want to catch them early so that you can negotiate and maybe have the owner take care of it before you take purchase of the house or take some some money off the job. Take some money off the off the table so that you can make those repairs. So yeah, as you shake your head Oh, my head’s about to fall off. Like you have no idea. Yes, exactly. Yeah, we’ve all done it. I mean, I’ve done I the last house we bought I didn’t even have a home inspector. I did my own home inspection and I missed a bunch of stuff because I’m not a really good inspector and just a bunch of dry rot. But it was a good price. to shower, you want to make sure you check all the showers make sure that the shower heads are functioning to pretty cheap jobs. So if they’re if they’re not functioning too well, you can just replace the showerhead costume, you can do it, that’s a DIY thing for the most people. And it’ll cost you 25 to 150 bucks, depending what kind of showerhead you get. But just want to make sure that drains working, going to go underneath and make sure it’s not draining, it’s not leaking, especially with the the fiberglass or plastic shower pans. Those things are pretty flexible. So of the width when they were installed, if somebody didn’t put a concrete or Styrofoam or something underneath those things, it’ll flex and it can cause leaks, so you want to check on it. And I see we’ve seen a lot of those where they just were poorly installed in the last year five or 10 years, and it starts leaking. But to fix that, a lot of times that means ripping it out. So it’s not a cheap job, you know, faucets and sinks, you wanna make sure all the faucets are working and the sinks are draining, and you want to make sure that the emergency stops actually function. So turn those emergency stops off so and the emergency stops or the angle stops. If he was this trade name for him, there’s the things that turn the water off to the fixture. And in the state of California, there has to be an emergency shut off within three feet of the fixture that’s readily accessible, meaning behind the door or access open. So and the reason we have those is so you can turn the water off to the faucet, if it starts to leak or it starts to flood, then you have to turn the whole building off. So you really want to make sure there’s emergency shut shut offs work. And then you know, make sure turn the water on and off a couple times and make sure it doesn’t drip, check the drains make sure they’re they’re draining properly. Kitchen Sink disposer make sure same thing like he did in the bathroom, make sure the faucets working, make sure that angle steps are working, check this disposer make sure it’s functioning, make sure it’s not leaking. Those are pretty you know, I’ve I’ve gone to homes brand new that you know have a jam dispose, or at least one catch that first. So have them take care of that before you purchase it. Water Heater, this is the big one, or one of the big ones, real big ones next, but water heaters in the state of California to change title you have to have a earthquake strap on it. And so you got to make sure that that thing is is earthquake strapped. Your mortgage broker is going to catch or you’re really just gonna catch that they’re they’re pretty on it. But make sure it’s it’s strapped. The other thing that a lot of people don’t realize is and but most people that listen to the show realize water heaters, tank type water heaters generally lasts about eight to 10 years, a gas tank water heater will generally last eight to 10 years. On the water heater itself, you’re going to find the manufacturer plate that’s going to have all the data on it, it’ll have the serial number and the model number in that serial number is going to be the date of manufacturing. What I’ll usually do is sometimes they’re hidden with a letter sometimes there’s a hidden with a number like the year and date the year and month that it was installed or manufactured. If you put into any search engine, you know Bradford White Water Heater, look up serial number, put it in it can give you the date. So what’s the internet these days, it’s pretty easy to find that information out hard that’s really hard. It’s a lot easier these days. Yeah. So if you know you got an eight year old water heater, so you’d have them replace the water heater, because it’s it’s gonna it’s just a matter of time you’re living on borrowed time, if it’s six years old, again, you probably only got a couple of years, I see him go out to eat all the time. So you want to make sure that that thing you’re not paying for a water heater the first year you move into that thing that actually happened to us.
18:51
When we first moved up here, and I was working in San Francisco, or water heater went out, my wife was by herself and we had to have a home warranty company come in and do it. And like most contractors that work for home warranty companies wasn’t exactly the best guy because I wasn’t exactly the best. And so I had to do some some fixing on that. So yeah, home warranties are great, because yeah, you get it done. But the majority of us contractors don’t like working for him because they don’t really pay too much money. So the guys that do work for him tend not to be the highest quality. I’ll just leave it at that. Just want to make sure that you know ask him when the last time the water heater was flushed, you know, be flushed. That should be flushed every couple of years. So every year to two years depending on the water source. Also want to make sure that the flu is actually taking the the byproducts out. So what I’ll generally do is I just do old school, I’ll turn the water heater on with the either turning some hot water on a tap and make sure that things turn on or change or turn the thermostat on let it burn for a little bit. Let it heat up the chimney. And then I’ll just take a piece of newspaper and light it on fire. Just a short piece and and blow it out and put Get up near the draft over at the top of the water heater and see if it sucks to smoke and if it’s sucking the smoke, and I noticed that the byproducts are pulling out and I know that chimney is working for the flue. It gives you a visual representation. Yeah, that’s the chimney effect that hot air rises, right? If it’s not working, you have potential for getting carbon monoxide poisoning. So you definitely want to make sure that things working. Yeah, we get time for this. This is going fast sewer systems. This is a big one man. Well, I the first couple of houses I bought I did not do. I did not check the sewer. Fortunately, I was lucky. But the last property we bought, we did have a we did run a camera down and visually inspect the sewer to make sure there was no breaks or things. This I’ve been talking to realtors about suggesting this for a long time. But unfortunately, yeah, I’m gonna say it. I heard it from one of my friends who’s a realtor, he’s like, Yeah, you don’t want to really just don’t necessarily want to put any, they don’t want to muddy the potential for the making the sale. So a lot of times, they won’t recommend that. Fortunately, the last property I had my realtor recommended it. And he had a, we were buying from out of state, so I didn’t have a camera. So and he actually even had a company that did it for us. So
21:20
from personally, like, from personal experience, I would recommend getting that done. Because I can tell you that when I had already bought the home and had to have the guy come out with the camera. It was some scary stuff, you know, because depending on how old your house is, in the part of the country it’s in has to do with the type of material went into creating your sewer. So we have broken tile from everywhere. And it was a little scary because it was underneath my driveway, underneath feet of concrete feets and pizza. You know what I mean? So
21:58
I had to hire to get that done. Right. And that was like, half the cost of the house. It was?
22:02
Well, let’s just say not everything got done. But But yes, I mean, but it was a very big stress factor. And that would have been good information to have. But it didn’t even dawn on me that I could, you know, get that checked?
22:13
Yeah, because I mean, for new sewer, you’re you’re talking, you know, on the really low end $5,000. And that’s really low. On the high end, if if we’ve got to go out into the city, city part, where, you know, if you’re, if you’re hooked up to a sewer, you’re responsible from that sewer from your house all the way to the main sewer, you’re talking 10s of 1000s of dollars, because I have to shut the street down, I’ve got to get multiple permits. I’ve got to get flagged, man, I’ve got to get we’ve got to shore it, we got to do all this stuff. And it’s really expensive. So you might want to find that out before you buy the house. Because, yeah, it can be really, really, really expensive. And it could happen six months, like you after purchasing the house. All of a sudden, that toilet doesn’t
22:57
flush about six weeks is actually that six weeks, but Yes, correct. So get that done. Get that.
23:03
So definitely have that sewer line checked, you know, and it’s and to be honest, you know, if you if you have had issues, if you’re living in a home right now, and you’ve had issues with your sewer backing up, I recommend you have the sewer line camera, because it’s not if but when that if it’s already backing up. It’s just it’s not if but when that thing actually is going to completely fail and have catastrophic failure where we can’t even clear it with a cable. It’s just gone. And I you know, unfortunately, things are not getting any cheaper these days. So better, you know, when it’s time to plant a tree now, you know, it’s time to fix something. Now, because its prices are we’ve seen 35% increases in our equipment for HVAC this year. We’re not even halfway through the year 35% increases. It’s insane. So anyway, I hope this helps you guys with buying houses and some DIY stuff. I know people are still buying houses, people still get divorced and move and stuff. So you know, people need spaces. So in any event, if you need any help with plumbing, electrical heating and air, you can reach us at 530230 99 at that number again 530-230-9092. And also I forgot to mention, we’ve got a special going on through the end of this month. And $99 or $99 Throw electrical inspection we inspect the panel, we inspect all the outlets and switches and things to make sure everything was installed correctly. And it’s a safety inspection. We want to make sure we don’t you know we want avoid house fires because we’ve actually seen that where we’ve gone out and done inspections in the house and they were waiting to get things done and the house burned down. So get it checked out with that. Have a wonderful day. And we’ll catch you guys next week. Thanks. Right.
24:50
Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Rose Lee. Now let’s get that project started. You got this. We’ll be back next Friday morning and nine o’clock on Cancio Newstalk 830