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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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Hi, this is Andrew Twidwell, owner of ABT plumbing electric and air, here once again with you got this, a show of DIY do’s and don’ts. And I almost flubbed that, but I managed to pull it all together.
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I was gonna, I was gonna throw you off, and I was gonna jump in and take the mic and do the intro myself. And then I thought if I do that, Andrew literally is in his brain is gonna be like, wait, what what? Like,
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I’ll just have it it’ll skip a beat on this. Yeah. It’s so weird, because I think about this often, like, it’s something I’ve done for how many years now? It’s like or third year? No,
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it’s longer than that, my friend, it’s four and a half years now
0:58
or the half year intro, right. So you would think I’d have it down and I do it’s in there. But sometimes the brain doesn’t want to access it like it’s supposed to, when you’re kind of in a hurry and hopped up on the beach and hopped on my coffee bean,
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excuse for everything.
1:14
I just keep just the synapses don’t don’t connect like they’re supposed to sometimes correct. And I’m also, since we’re in the banter, part of our show, I’m also. So I’m a big believer that we always thought I was talking to like my significant other to Betty and other people about how our memory seemingly gets worse. And I don’t believe that I just think that I’m holding on to this, I don’t think that it’s getting worse. It’s just that there’s so much more stuff up in there. And there’s, we’ve got so many more memories that it’s hard to access. And then we’ve got so much more that’s going on in our lives, the older we get, because now all of a sudden, it’s not just me. And it’s not just me and my partner, and it’s not just me and my kids, I’m just me and my kids, I’m just me, my grandkids, but me and my dogs or whatever the case may be, or all the people that work for us and all this stuff. It’s like, Alright, I gotta give, try to give myself a break. Because this just gets more and more and more the older I get, it doesn’t get more and more and more intense. Right?
2:19
I mean, I could see the argument for that because your brain is really a memory bank. And all it does is it’s like a computer database, it collects data, right? And so your you do have, right? Everything you’ve ever done that you can remember, it’s stuck in there, everything’s ever been done to you to an editor, right? So
2:42
well, if there’s if they didn’t burn enough, if the synapses didn’t burn enough, it’s not there,
2:46
perhaps but it being there or not, and your ability or not to access it is not I mean, that’s the that’s the fuzzy like quantum physics part of this, right? So don’t start talking to me about quantum physics, because I will just, I will take this in a whole different direction. I’m all about quantum physics. People look at me and go, you. And I’m telling you right now, quantum physics is more basic and easier to understand than most, like manuals, directions, I get, like the set of directions that come in a box or something. Those are harder for me to understand and the principles of quantum physics, you know, because quantum physics is like, the most basic explanation that there is for everything. And people
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are like how our brain works. People complicate everything, they’re starting to say that yeah, the point is that our brain works in a quantum physics, quantum physics level, where
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you just, you just not speak eloquently about the topic, but you have the ability to, you know, get in there and process all of it. Yes. I mean, biology is biology, whether you believe it or not. And science is science, whether you believe it or not. So, you know, it’s just one of those things where I’m fun at parties, because I will talk about two things I will talk about quantum physics, or I will talk about serial killers and true crime. So those depending on the party you go to, those are either wildly popular topics, or I’m in the corner nursing a cocktail because nobody wants to hear
4:17
me talk about the last semester like the first couple of sentences.
4:22
Right? It depends on which direction I go. So I’m either glaze over, or I get avoided at all costs. And it’s fair.
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We’re just talking offline and about what I was just been doing like it was literally we’re recording a bunch of these shows because we’re, we’re on probably when this airs, we’ll still be on vacation in Italy. You’ll be back from Texas. But
4:46
God willing, I’ll be back we had. We had a little time
4:49
in there and I’m recording at home and Betty’s working on insurance right now. And she asked me of all these insurance questions, it’s renewal time and So, I’m just gonna, I’m not gonna throw you underneath the bus, buddy. But Kevin, but Kevin cooks my broker that may have been great guy. And we, every year we go out for lunch and talk about insurance and my wife’s like, so you don’t seem to remember a lot of this stuff. What are you talking about? And I’m like, I don’t know, I just kind of tells me nice kind of glaze over. And as long as it’s like, make sense, it’s cool. You know? Like, is not, insurance is not the realm that I can play in that sandbox. You know, here you take care of that. Yeah, somebody else to pay the bill. That’s good. Maybe I should go with as much as with you next time. Yeah, that’d be fine. I, well, here’s the thing plays over because it’s like, it’s whatever is protected. And as long as they have the right insurance, I’m good. And I just rely on the professionalism of the people that surround myself with
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I can say this about your your insurance
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broker. He’s doing well as you know him as
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well. And so he’s trustworthy. He’s a lot of fun. And sometimes at lunch, he might even buy a beer. So he’s a good
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mother, there was definitely a beer wrecking ball to their life.
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So I would say I get it, why you let you know, the pro handle the Pro. But let’s not forget that. Your wife is into details and you’re not so oh my god. Yeah. So so really, and that’s what that’s the beauty of your relationship, right? Is that you have balance, okay. But on things like this, could I just suggest maybe buddy attend those lunch?
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She’s like, maybe the same time she doesn’t like giving me these things? Because it’s literally talking about insurance. He’s like, why don’t want to go? That’s a free lunch? I don’t know.
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I know. But,
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and, and cook and SWANA hang out with his company. So yeah.
6:47
I know. I know. It’s details are the devils in the details of like, everything right? I have. That’s not me. No, no, I know. And the older I
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like, the 30,000 foot view, just just give me just gloss over it and let the chips fall where they may and then I’ll have somebody else come and clean it up for me. Cuz that’s that’s kind of how I run my life.
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It’s kind of a you in your life, I will say this. But you know, I’m kind of like, I don’t want the details. Unless it’s really right. And so I’m that person that the details are important, but not until whatever it is, is on fire in front of me. So like, I have a flight tomorrow. And I know that, like, I know, I booked it and I know that I’m gonna be on the flight. But if someone asked me today, what time’s your flight, I’m like, I don’t know, like, I will find the email, it’s on your phone. Right? At some point, I won’t get where I need to go, I will, in time to pick me up at the right place. You know, it’s just like, I can’t function at that level that’s not on fire yet. I’ve got 17 emergencies between now and tomorrow morning to deal with before I worry about that. You know, and then once you get to the airport, look, you’re not in charge anymore. Okay, you’re not in charge anymore. So you have to be you have to be assertive at the right time. Role at the right time. It’s finding that balance right.
8:10
I got a good story with travel and details. This this rolls right into this. So we’ve got a trainer that’s out in Montgomery, Alabama. So there’s two airports that are relatively in the two airports that you fly into a Birmingham, Alabama or Atlanta, Georgia. And I was flying into Birmingham, and I reserved a car. Well, I reserved a car in Birmingham, England. They’re like, Yeah, we have a car for you. But this detail
8:47
is a detail. I mean, but you would think honestly, like in your defense, let me be honest with you, if I were to go onto a site and like requests to car, okay, my assumption would be that it was going to be in the same country that I was booking from, so I can see how that would have been like a really rare thing rare.
9:05
It’d be funny if it didn’t happen to me twice. It happened to me again. I had a training in Houston. And there’s two airports in Houston. I didn’t realize there’s two, two airports in Houston. So I flew into one and my car was in the other. So yeah, that was a bummer. Yeah. I’m only laughing and it was like 12 o’clock at night. So yeah, the kiosks were closing as I was walking up to them. Yeah, that was a fun night. Yes.
9:32
These are stories that you got to tell your kids so like when they when they like don’t pay attention to detail. You can go no, I get kids why you’d think you wouldn’t need to. But here’s a classic example of me not paying attention to detail and how it affected my life. Because when you have real world consequences, somehow that makes it more relatable. Yeah,
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yeah. Yeah. So I’ve come to realize that yeah, I need I’ll ask somebody to double check on my travel arrangements. No, that’s that’s helped. And ironically, yeah, I can manage a company that has what are we up to, like 30 people, but yeah, there’s a little detail things. Yeah, I gotta get people to help me with that stuff. Yeah,
10:12
that’s what we’re here for Andrew. are paid or not. But we, we do you help you? Because that’s what we do. We’re helpers, right? Yeah.
10:22
Whenever we’re the female say a lot of times it just, this is her off because I’ll say it’s always just works out. And she’s like, Can because I’m there to clean up the mess. Like, oh, yeah, I guess
10:34
I’m not gonna it’ll just
10:35
work out on everything always works out in my life. Yeah, it does. Because with people that help clean up my mess,
10:42
right, so I’m just gonna say on that note, before we segue into the show, I’m just gonna say so I feel you on that. I think it’s a true statement as one of the people that helps. And I do want to say you could make the experience less painful for some of us. If you have my address. You use DoorDash to send some donuts I every time you ask for my address, I’m like, Does this mean the doughnuts are on the way? Are things you could do to make it sweeter for the rest of us? But I’m just again, that’s out there. Yeah. Putting it on the air. I put them on the air.
11:17
Okay, and that’s, I know, our topic. This week, this is your topic this time. You guys got to listen to my two topics. Last
11:26
Last few shows feeling gloom all over the place.
11:30
The first one was, but the second one was okay. Well, no, it was actually kind of dark too. Because it was it was all about what what to look for to not get into the DIY project. So this one’s a little less.
11:40
So it’s fascinating how my topics tend to be more worldly and more, you know, positive and but that’s okay. That’s okay. This is we are in our own lane. So I decided that now it’d be a good time to brush off the list of things that look as this the show airs in October. I am not a meteorologist. I cannot predict that far in its future. I don’t know what October holds. But typically in the foothills, October is pretty great. Right, you might have a little bit still a little bit of heat hanging around you know from it’s not maybe super cold yet, but this makes it a perfect time. Before the wet shows up. Hopefully it shows up before the snow shows up before that the weather breaks and it’s just really chilly and cold. There’s a perfect little window right to take care of some stuff getting ready for winter,
12:31
these days are still a little long so you can get stuff done outside and a lot of this stuff. A lot of these on the list are outside. So let’s get started. So again, number one store patio furniture, stash those launched chairs, tables, umbrellas, someplace where they’ll stay clean and dry for the winter. I know we do that every year with the with the patio cushions and our little Rubbermaid shed umbrellas on the side of the house, underneath the eaves, so they’re out of the sun. So yeah, do that. And that’s right around. And now it’s time to start doing that. Bring in plants if you have plants that won’t survive colder temperatures or house plants that are you put outdoors for summer vacation start transitioning to the inside. So yeah, that’s another one that you know will do. Right, especially up here in the in the foothills where some of us like succulents, and succulents, a lot of segments don’t do so well when they freeze. So I’ve made that mistake of leaving like the Jade plants out to come back to just like this gelatinous goo that’s sitting on the bottom of the of the planter. Yeah, well, they
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are, you know, in seconds are so great for that climate because they can grow and really lucky soil because like some of the soil up in Nevada County is pretty tough, right? So, so a lot of us were using container, you know, stuff. And so pull those in. And J date is one of those funny things. It’s one of the few succulents that is extremely, extremely sensitive. So it doesn’t seem like it, but it is and so you’re right,
14:06
if it drops below 32 If it’s 31 degrees for any length of time well,
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it’s like oh, yeah, old letters. So you know, just bring those in so that they’re not going to be exposed to extreme temperatures. And you can keep those year round in your, you know, year round. You can keep them living, pull them into your garage, whatever you’re inside spaces. Save yourself some some money too, because replacing those is kind of a
14:30
little spit a little spendy drain and start with garden hoses. So if you’re done watering, kind of mean this the show’s airing in the middle of the month, so might be a little early to start draining and storing water garden hoses depending on how much garden you do. But yeah, you don’t leave your garden hoses out full of water because there’s a potential for them to expand and potentially crack in the winter because when it freezes. Don’t forget the water timers. I’ve got a couple of those out there and yeah, I’ve I’ve had more than one sale because I forgot to turn them off and drain them out and they freeze and they blow up. So if you got any of the water timers that are hooked up to your host bibs or something, yeah, turn them off and drain them. Drain exterior pipes. And put insulation covers over the spigots. So they get those, get those little foam covers which you can get it BNC or Hills flat, and it’ll cover it up. Or even just wrap it with some stuff with some insulation. Yeah, check gutters and downspouts a little later in the season after the trees have finished shedding clear the leaves from the gutters. If you’re climbing up on a ladder, yourself, be careful. We just went through Ladder Safety again, we do Ladder Safety.
15:48
Let’s talk about that for a minute. Let’s talk about that for a minute. Because otherwise, you’re going to spread through this list so fast. So I want to talk about Ladder Safety really quickly. So when you say you took Ladder Safety training, is there something beyond? what I’m assuming is just common sense? What what do you get trained? Well,
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one of the one of the main things is, you know, three points of contact at all times. So when you’re on a ladder, you want to make sure that you have three points of contact either two hands on one foot or two feet in one hand on the ladder.
16:16
Okay, your body. Okay, gotcha
16:18
your body. And you. So how do you do that, if you’re trying to carry a bunch of tools up there? Well, you got to get a tool belt you don’t want to carry, you don’t want to have your hands full of stuff. And climbing up the stairs. I know I remember, years ago, we had a therapist, a couple of therapists that was working on his own gutters in Nevada City and broke and really hurt himself. He fell down, fell off the ladder and broke his hip and a couple other bones and it put them out of commission and in bed. And a He’s lucky he didn’t die. So it’s scary. So he was just cleaning his letters, right? So it’s legit. So make sure when you’re climbing a ladder, make sure you have three points of contact at all times. So if you got to carry something up, the best thing to do is, you know, clip, put a bucket at the bottom of the ladder attached to a rope, get a carabiner clip to belt walk up to contact, that’s pretty great stuff up. Or a tool belt, you know, you just don’t want to be having hands full of stuff. So and also making sure that when you setting up your ladder that it’s set at the proper angle, most extension letters have a square or an L shape thing on the on the side of them that tell you where the level is. And you can just, you know, a visual inspection will tell you if it’s too far. Or if it’s too close to the house on the bottom or too far from the house on the bottom. You want to make sure it’s kind of in that sweet spot. Because letters do fall off of things and fall out. And we’ve you know, every time we do this, those trainings in our shop, somebody’s got a story. Yeah, right. Okay, that makes sense. Most of us, most of us old guys have done some pretty stupid things in our younger days. So we’ve got some good ones should go to the downspouts prep your fireplace. If you have a fireplace or woodstove that you’re using over the winter, clean it and get your chimney cleaned and inspected by a professional that is one of the things that you can, if you’re using it on a regular basis like that is your heat source. I highly highly recommend having a professional covenant cleaning at least once a year. And if you got to do the in betweens yourself do the in betweens, but you really want to have somebody in there that knows what they’re doing. This is not a service that we provide. But what’s the woodstoves if you’re not cleaning has a potential for chimney fire, which can light your house on fire where the forest ranger on fire.
18:45
So in talking about that, too, and I know we’ve got excuse me covered this and other shows but we’ve talked about this right those those logs they sell those creating cleaning, yeah, last year, those are not those are not going to do in between
19:00
those are not to be used in place of a chimney sweep. And they’re going to be more than just weaker chimney chimney though, they’re going to be looking for safety issues. So you know, it’s a good idea to have a professional and come in because how often do you do it, you probably only doing it once or twice a year yourself. These guys are doing it three, four times a day. So they know what they’re looking for. They’re going to know the nuances that that they’ve got to keep an eye out for for safety and you know, you’re literally burning wood so you’re talking about carbon monoxide. So you don’t want to you don’t want to mess around with carbon monoxide.
19:32
And they’re probably gonna go they’re gonna go Tippy Tap up there and take care of anything on top of your vent or your chimney right up on the roof and make sure your screens clean and I’ve been up on the roof and I’ll tell you right now to do that exact thing to knock the stuff off. And it’s a different view of the world when you’re on a slope and you’re looking down at mossy shingles and you realize like, Oh, if I miss calculate If I’m gonna have a bad day, yeah, I definitely would would recommend someone that has Ladder Safety training and also knows how to clean those out pay for it. It’s not worth it.
20:11
Yeah, I might even, you know, for your gutters, it might be worth hiring somebody to do that as well. Yeah. I don’t like climbing. I mean, if you’re in a two three storey house, hire somebody to do that. Yeah, if you’re my age or above, it’s, I know, like, people are gonna argue with me about it. But
20:26
risk versus reward, risk versus reward, right is
20:30
hundreds of dollars, right? It’s not You’re not talking 1000s of dollars to have these services taken care of for you. And the potential for me getting hurt, way outweighs that expense. Just one hospital visits gonna cost me more than a couple years worth of cleanings just in the cost of going to the hospital, even with insurance, let alone potentially dying or potentially getting hurt disabled or out of work for a while. So that whole thing anyway, yeah. We’re running out of time now. So we’re going to kind of blow through some of this stuff, clean up vents and replace furnace filters, replaced furnace filters, and I was actually in a training and that was one of the questions that he asked how often should you replace your furnace filter, and I always like, you know, every month, and he’s like, but what if it’s a high density HEPA filter that’s at the unit that only needs to be replaced once a year. You need to know that before you can say that answer. So I’m going to change it up about that. So know what kind of filter you have before you go replace it. So if you got the $100 filter that goes at the unit, or a couple $100 filter that goes to the unit. Those are the yearly filters, if you got the cheapo you know 510 Buck filters that are inside your house, and those you want to be doing on a more consistent basis when they get dirty. At least check them every month and if they get dirty, replace them. Check for smoke check smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers really important. If you still have the smoke detectors that have batteries replaced those batteries, most of them come with tenure batteries now so you don’t have to do that. Make sure you got a carbon monoxide detector. You want them carbon monoxide detector outside of each bedroom. So if you’ve got like in our house, we’ve got two bedrooms at one end of the hall I’ve got one right there. Cuz you want to make sure you if so if you’ve got an you know, common nice Where do you need a carbon monoxide detector if you’re an all electric house you’re probably get, you don’t need one. But if you’ve got natural gas or propane in your house, and or a fireplace, put it in cheap insurance. You don’t want to go to sleep one night and not wake up. It’s CODEL colorless, odorless and tasteless. You won’t even notice it until you’re fixated. So yeah, check get make sure this carbon dioxide detector sort of setup. There clean humidifier, we get into that a little bit here, we don’t have a lot of humidifiers. But if you do, make sure you clean it and soak it in vinegar if it’s looking a little white and funky, because that kind of happens with you know, there’s minerals in the water. This is one, I like this one, switch the direction of your ceiling fan. during the colder months, you want the blades to rotate clockwise force in the air that rises up to the ceiling to circulate around the room. During the summertime, you want the air to be pushed down onto the occupants. So you want the air to go down, there’s a little switch on the side of every ceiling fan where you can switch the direction of the rotation of the blades. So during the wintertime, you want the air to circulate up. So takes that heat up and rolls it down on the side of the house or the side of the walls and recirculate it so you don’t have especially if you’ve got a high ceiling, you definitely want a ceiling fan. Because you’ll get that thermocline where the air kind of separates, you get all hot air that sits at the top and all the cold air that sits in the bottom. And you don’t want that air to be pushed down onto the person because it makes you feel cold. If you’ve got wind against you, which is nice during the summer, but not during the winter, you want the air to go around the outside walls, so you want it to go up. So if you don’t have if you do live in a house that has high ceilings and you don’t have birds, you do have a ceiling fan. And it tends to feel cool downstairs and really warm up on the loft or something. Turn the fan on. It’ll circulate that hot air down and it’ll save some money on your on your heating bills. It’s surprising that just how simple it is, oh, we’re out of time. So anyway, if you need any help with any plumbing, electrical heating or air problems, you can give us a call at 530-230-9092 That number again 530-230-9092 You’ll find us on the web at easiest abt.com or abt plumbing.com. And with that, oh and like us on Facebook. We’ve got all this information up on there, and thanks for listening. We’ll catch you guys next week.
24:48
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
Transcribed by https://otter.ai