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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 ADT 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 heat and air, with the show, you got this, a show of DIY do’s and don’ts. And this is number four of our recordings today. I’m just gonna spill the beans. I mean, we’re pre recording these because I’m going to be on vacation. And actually, I’ll be back this show is going to air the last Friday, and I’m back on Monday after the show. So I’ll be back for the fall in the show. But right now we’re recording for shows because we’re going to, you’re going to be gone tomorrow for our show for tomorrow. And then I’m going to be leaving the next week. And it’s all you know, trying to get get these trips in before the end of the year.
0:58
All I gotta say I think again, as I said in their previous recording this morning, I think you’re going to somewhere a little more luxurious and I’m not gonna I’m not excited. But I think
1:11
it is a bucket list trip. It’s not just it’s not just a trip to go visit the kids or something. This is a bucket list trip. That’s been three years in the making. Because of COVID they were finally getting to go. So yeah,
1:23
I mean, you gotta you gotta go. Now you gotta enjoy the food, the weather.
1:27
The nice thing is, so last year, we were gonna bring the kids. So we bought all the tickets and stuff and airplane. flights were still pretty inexpensive back then. But then this year will the kids aren’t coming with this. So we had these vouchers for British Airways, like, they’re never going to use British Airways. So we’ve managed to buy our tickets and get a nice upgrade. So yeah, we’re pretty stoked.
1:54
So let me tell you the exact opposite that’s happening in my life. So here’s, here’s how you and I operate differently in the world. About money, it’s just, it’s more about, like, you know, I’m more like the let me find the crack and get in that crack. And like, let me know. So I’m going to I’m going to talk about a company that will never hear this. And so it’s not like we’re advertising for them. But so I was looking for flights that were, you know, decent prices, right? Because I got invited to go to the Dallas area, and then wanting to go and hang out with you know, this friend of mine and her family for quite a while. And so she happened to ask me when I had just been looking at flights to go to the Bay Area, and the flights to go to the Bay Area were priced really well. So I went to those same sites to book this trip to the Dallas area. And wow, like my choices were $450 to $650. And I thought you know, I don’t think I want to go that bad like that’s crazy, right? That just it just didn’t fit right so i remember i Gone to Texas to a little tiny airport Corpus Christi a few months back to like a vacation resort a type of town you know, and that was significantly less than what they wanted me to pay to go to expensive still small places. Dallas is a stopover for most places right so I thought all right there’s got to be a way to beat this and so in my usual fashion keep you know, digging deeper, deeper you know me conspiracy theory person. I’m like, I know there’s a better price. So anyway, I found this website, and it’s called kiwi.com on TV, Okay, now here’s the thing. If you know me or ever traveled with me, you know that I don’t care if my trip is one day or a month I am not checking a bag and yes, everything I need will fit in that carry on. So I am one of those people so the trick was kiwi is so I got a round trip ticket to Dallas. I mean as far as I know I’m coming home right for like 160 bucks round trip Yeah, hands in the air promising me that’s the truth 160 bucks round trip. So
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you don’t get to check you don’t get to choose your seat. You don’t get something on
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well first off I actually I do get to carry something out but but let’s be clear, I don’t really care the seat I get anymore because I’m literally flying from Burbank to Las Vegas. And then here’s where they get you though, then you gotta you gotta layover it’s pretty significant. So three airlines, and then you fly from Vegas to Dallas. So now instead of being stuck on the plane for a long time, my trip takes longer, but I’m on the plane. I’m on the plane for shorter amount of time. And let me tell you this. Here’s where people don’t want to risk it. If you’re someone who travels with a bagging a check a bag you checkout. So here’s the problem. So this trip actually probably would be fine. But they book the first leg of your trip on one airline.
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Oh yeah. And kiwis. Pretty bad. I’ve done that way. Yeah, you fly sprint, your spirit one way
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different
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airlines, American Airlines.
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So so what would happen is so now you’ve got too many trips. So you have to go get your bag, go back out, come back through the entire airport, because once you get to baggage claim, but here’s the thing, if you have a three hour layover, if everything goes smoothly, that’s probably going to be enough time you’re going to be okay for me because I don’t check a bag. None of that affects my life. So I’m like, I go from this lounge to that lounge. Okay, so I’m,
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what’s nice if you get a layover in Vegas, you’re only 10 minutes from the strip. And if you just gotta carry and I’ve done that I had a I had a six or four hour layover that turned into like a 10 hour layover in Vegas, and I spent the whole day on the strip, just walking around, going out to eat and it wasn’t bad. It was kind of nice.
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I look for some fun, right? If I’m gonna have
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a $5 $10 Uber ride from the airport to the strip. So
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I mean, like I look at it like that shortest time in the air, which I love. Right because it planes suck. There is no room ever, like ever. And I’m always seated next to some real
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estate a little bit more you can get a little more room but
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but but that to me doesn’t matter. Right? Because I just got all I need the plane to do Andrew and don’t get me wrong. I do love comfort once I get on the ground like I need I’m gonna need some stuff. Yeah, but in the short flights, plane to do one thing. Well, two things take off safely, land safely. Don’t don’t care so much about the in between. Now, if I were going to be like yourself and be going to a different continent, I would definitely not be flying in a spirit airline. Okay, like that would have been
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in the middle seat. Yeah, no. Comfort wouldn’t matter. comfort with our flight. Yeah, yeah.
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So anyway, so we’re so we’re often very different trips we’re both having but um, but it’ll be fun to hear about your trip and talk to you when you get back and, and
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looking. I’m looking forward to, it’s still kind of, we’re kind of recording all these shows, trying to get everything done. And that’s just kind of the story of this week, right? Trying to get everything done. And in between recording the shows, I’m talking to Betty. And we’re trying to make sure all the bills are paid before we leave both personal and business. So it’s just like the lists. I keep checking things on my list and then adding more things like getting smaller. And that’s how it’s
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growing. That’s what happens. Well, like we said, last show, if you listened, we’re all very happy that you have Betty in your life. That’s that’s the details. As per usual. So way to go. Love once again,
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everything always works out in my life. But yeah, it’s because of her.
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And so let’s segue into so there’s been some natural disasters. Of course, we’ve talked previously about, you know, the hurricane in Florida. And most time,
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nothing else has happened since Yeah, I mean, since we’ve been on vacation for the past couple of weeks.
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Yeah, who knows, right? But emergencies are bound to happen, right? So and in our neck of the woods we’re faced usually will be a fire or we might have like a bad earthquake, which would then cause fires, but fire is kind of our big thing, right? And so, if you find yourself in emergency situation, you know, we can’t get into all the scenarios, right? But what ifs, but but there are some things you can do, right? There are some like your water heater, for instance, we know because we watch the YouTube videos, those things can be a missile, right? They can literally fly up into the air and let’s get it it’s cool to watch on on YouTube. It’s not you don’t want to have it
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in a laboratory environment. You don’t want to recreate it. Right.
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So one of the things that I think is super cool, and we’re working on the design right now so that’ll be you know, top of mind for me. emergency shutdown instructions for your water heater abt actually is provides our customers with a kind of a to do list right like what you can do the sticker you can put right onto your water heater so you have it right there at all times. So I think it’s fantastic we do that but let’s kind of if it’s okay, can we go over a little bit like what it looks like emergency shutdown?
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I was thinking about it’s like God I really should have during the during our little break I was like God maybe I should have her send me that picture because I can’t remember them all but I’m gonna let you read them off and we’ll just go from there. That’s what I got in front of you. I just need to I need to I need a seed to start it.
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So this is once again things working out for you. Right see how that works. Okay, so my
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life story my life things just kind of work out because I surround myself with the Dewar’s. Yeah, exactly what fix that clean up my mess,
9:51
Lord, okay, so I’m gonna assume that everybody that’s listening, you know, all 15 people I think we’re up to 15 a watt welder. Right water heater, and they know where it’s located. So that’s first, like, know where your water heater is located, everyone’s gonna know that. Okay, so the first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to turn the gas or electricity off. And I want you to explain to us where we would find that on our water heater,
10:17
right. So the nice thing about water heaters is they all should have a shutoff valve on them. It’s not only for code, but it’s also for safety. So hopefully, whoever installed your water heater put a valve there, hopefully they put a ball valve their ball valve is different from a gate valve. And since it’s literally just a ball that’s got a hole in it that’s inside of a pipe, and there’s a lever, when the lever is parallel with the pipe, the hole goes through, it goes the same direction as the lever, and the water goes through the hole in the pipe or the hole in the belt and goes and supplies the water to the water heater. When the handle is perpendicular to the pipe. So it’s angled, the hole is angled as well, and it shuts the water off. So those are the best reasons why I say those are the best is because they’re pretty bullet proof, we don’t really see a lot of failures with ball valves. gate valves in other hand, literally are a gate. So if you kind of envision a a gate that is drawn up, kind of like in medieval times, you got those gates that kind of go up at the gate of the castle, right on the wall of the castle. It’s a threaded rod that goes into a mated round disc that has another thread in it, and as you turn it, it either raises it or lowers it. So when you’re turning clockwise, it’s closing it when you turn counterclockwise, it’s raising the gate. The problem is after you know 3040 80 years that that thing’s been installed, the stem tends to snap. And unfortunately, when you close it, it’s usually when it breaks, it usually breaks when it’s closed. So hopefully somebody’s replaced it. But anyway, that’s where you turn the water off. So you’re going to have a valve on the right hand side of your face in the water heater on the top of the water heater or on the side of the water heater if it’s a electric or some other thing. If it’s a tankless, that’s a whole other thing you don’t really, you know, it’s a whole we’re not gonna really go into details about the tankless, we’re mainly talking about tank type water heaters. So that’s where you’ll find the shutoff so turn the water off. And what do you do next? Okay, this is if it’s leaking, or there’s an emergency of an emergency. And mainly, if it’s leaking, you want to be able to shut the thing off, it’s a good thing, if you don’t know where this valve is, go take a look at it. Just so you have in your mind’s eye. So if he, you know, it’s like, you know, we talked about this in training with our guys and how, you know, customer service and things like that, we try to train more than we actually do, you know, kind of like a football team, you want to train more than you actually play. So if you don’t go and look at this thing beforehand, and you got to do in an emergency situation where you where things are, you know, trying to find buckets to get the water in a vacuum cleaner, all this stuff, it’s can be a little stressful. So find it and then it’s just easy.
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Alright, so Okay, so step one, we turn the gas electricity off step two, we turn the water off right at water, and
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electricity. So if it is a, so the gas, so we just we’re just talking about water. So if it’s gas, there’s you’ll see a pipe that goes into this thing that’s called the gas control, it’s a little box that’s on the bottom of the water heater typically, actually, not typically always, that’s where the fire is. So you’ll see like a gray or a yellow corrugated tube that comes off of it. And on the other side of it, you’re gonna see a little valve and that is a ball valve. So when the valve when the handle is parallel to the pipe, it’s on when it’s perpendicular, it’s off. So it’s literally just turning that thing a quarter turn and we’ll shut it off. And kind of depending on the manufacturer determines whether it’s clockwise, clockwise or counterclockwise. And electricity, you definitely want to turn the electricity off into electric water heater, because if the water heater drains because of said leak, that element that’s inside of there, the resistance coil that’s inside the column of water. If that thing fires off, when there’s no water, we get what’s called the dry fire and it just burns up and melts. It’s destroyed danger and so you gotta replace it or you know, depending how old the water heater is, sometimes will this if your water heater seven or eight years old was, well this recommend replacing it because the amount of cost that goes into fixing it on a water heater that’s probably only got a couple of years left in it, you’re just better off getting a new one with a warranty. So turn the power off. Hopefully there is a service disconnect at the unit. So some way of turning the power off will be it either a switch or a pullout or a breaker box out The unit, that is what we’re supposed to, we’re supposed to have a service disconnect within three feet of the unit for emergencies. If you gotta go to the breaker box, hopefully it’s labeled. So that’s another good thing, you might want to figure that out before you actually need it. If your panel if you don’t have a services connect to the water heater, and you do have to do it from the service panel, find out figure out which one is for the water heater and it’s going to be 20 amp or 240 volts. Breakers is going to be to double breaker that’s got a little bridge between the two of them. And so hopefully, you know, if you’re an electric house, you may have like three or four of those for your range, your water heater, potentially for your well this sort of things have those marked, so you know what it is? You want to be like, shut that thing off. Alright, what’s next? So shut off.
15:51
Right? So you got that part handled? And then you’re going to turn the water supply off, right? Yeah. Okay. And then the next thing is that you may need to drain the water heater right to avoid water damage. So you can
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you just installed like in an attic space with no pan, which we see a lot up here. Unfortunately, that’s yeah, or if it’s even in a living space that shares the same floor and doesn’t have a pan underneath it, it can do a lot of damage pretty quick. So all you got to do for draining it is hook up a garden hose to the valve on the bottom of it. Fortunately, over the past 20 years, those valves have gotten better than the old days used to be a really funky valve that were really hard to use. Now they’re now they’re pretty much all plastic, but at least they have some more metal, and they’ll have some kind of handle on it. Sometimes they’ll have a screw, then you’ll need a flathead screwdriver to open and close it but the majority of them have a handle and hook the hose up, take it outside someplace that’s not going to kill any plants because the water is hot. So you don’t want to just throw it on your lawn or whatever or up against your penis, you want to make sure you put it in an area that’s not going to kill the plants. So you know asphalt, gravel, something like that, and then turn it on and let it run. Okay, if you want to get the water out faster, you can there’s the temperature pressure relief valve, that’s going to be the thing that makes it so that you don’t so the water heater to turn into a missile, there’s a little lever on that, that should be exercised every year to make sure it works. Flip that guy up. And that will give some will allow some air into the system so that it’ll drip it’ll drain out because otherwise you’ll get that quick look. Good Glunk. And eventually we’ll just stop and you’ll still have water in there. And so yeah,
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so that’s important. Okay, so now that your water heater is drained of water, what do I do now so that I don’t like it’s turned off. So it’s not going to be it’s not an active heating element right? Now okay, so am I am I danger free. Now that I’ve gone this far,
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you’re danger free once you’ve gotten that far. So you’ve gotten all the water out of the system. So it’s not dripping over anything, you’ve already turned the utilities off either the gas or electricity. So that doesn’t fire up and potentially cause a fire in your house. Literally. Or, and and or just do more damage to the water heater. Because, you know, I’m assuming the reason why you’re turning this off is because it’s leaking. If it’s leaking, it’s pretty much toast anyway, because water heaters actually are designed with obsolescence in mind. They last about anywhere. Most warranties are anywhere from five to 10 years, you get longer warranties, but they typically don’t really do much. The reason why water heaters break well let’s let’s back up a little bit. What is a water heater water heater is essentially just a tank and they spray this enamel in it and they fire it. So it’s like a tub. It’s got a glaze inside of it. That’s what the glass line is it’s literally just glaze. It’s glass line, but you’re keeping a bunch of water in one space that has dissimilar metals in it. So you’ve got brass, copper steel, it forms electrolysis and starts to eat away at everything. So we put an anode rod in there. And an anode rod is a softer material. So it’s either aluminum or magnesium. And that Anna ride will be attacked by the electrolysis because it’s the lighter of the metals that the softer of the metals. The Enterprise is designed to last about five years. Okay. Oh, so once Anna dries gone, then it starts attacking the water heater, that’s my water heaters lasts about eight to 10 years, you can theoretically make a water heater last a lot longer, potentially even indefinitely by replacing the anode rod. It’s not some last service that we provide because in terms of your return on investment, you’re not going to really realize it because our water heaters keep getting more and more efficient, use less less energy. So you’re better off just putting any water heater in for the cost that it would cost you to get a plumber out there that change the antibiotics. It’s not a simple job. But if you’re not charging any labor you do it yourself, it’s not a bad idea to change it out. It’s not something I do I just replace it. But if you’re that person that likes to make things lasts a long time, and it’s kind of fun. You can replace the anode Rod Stewart every five years. And yeah, like that they last for 50 years.
20:15
And there are people that are into that, right? It’s like, it’s a it’s a point of view,
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this is a show, you may be that person, you know, I’m personally not, I don’t see, you know, I’ll just replace the water heater, because it’s easier. It’s relatively easy for me, it’s five are by three to four hour job with getting the water heater and everything by myself and doing it all by myself.
20:36
Yeah, because we know that you don’t like to do everything by yourself. You do get helpers, by the way. Well,
20:41
actually, yeah, I say that in Yeah. There’s another caveat. Because yeah, I don’t think the water heater that’s in my house right now was a training moment for one of my apprentices. And probably the next water heater is going to be another training. One of our friends
20:55
can mean convenient. I mean, that’s not a bad thing, right?
20:59
They have to go through the whole roleplay and everything. So yeah. Oh, wow. Make it easy for them. Yeah.
21:03
No, you really don’t make it easy for people. I’m just gonna say. That’s where I’m going to end that. So okay, so what what are some other things we need to know about water heaters keep them in good shape anything, because that’s kind of my whole point was like, Look, if you’re in a situation where you got to get that thing safe, these are the steps to take, make sure you flush that that sucker? Do you recommend flushing it like once a year right to keep that yeah,
21:28
manufacturer recommends flushing it once a year, and it’s really going to be determined on the type of water that you have. So if you’re unwell water, and you don’t have a softener, you could have a lot of sediment on the bottom of your water heater, a lot of what is sediment? Well, if you’re in a well, you’re gonna sediment and but you also could potentially have calcium, magnesium, which is as the water goes through the strata of the earth and goes into the sump or the well, right that we pull out, it picks up all this rock and kind of it stays in Stacy’s inside of our water. And then once we heat it up, the molecules get all excited, right, because that’s what heating water does, it makes it it makes the molecules move around, it drops the calcium magnesium just kind of fling off, right because they’re attached to the h2o, but then they just try to they just kind of break free. And then they form little pellets, little rocks, inside your water heaters. So when you if you’re not draining your water heater, you can form this really nice little thermal blanket on the bottom of your water heater. And I use that word thermal for a reason. Because what are you doing in order here, you’re trying to heat the water up, I don’t want to insulate the water from the fire, I want to insulate the air from so it doesn’t just wrap the water heater with with foam to make sure it’s not, you know, dissipating heat to the atmosphere. But I want metal to metal contact with my fire and my water because the fact that if I got a blanket there, it’s insulating it that most of the majority of that heats is going to go up the flue, and it’s not going to go into the water, the second eighth of water. So that’s why you want to flush water here. And I’ve had we’ve had instances where we’ve this. This happens not infrequently, this happens a lot, where we can’t even drain the water heater because there’s so much sediment on the bottom of it, that it’s just formed a thick, hard calcium layer on the bottom and we got to get in there with a screwdriver to try to get the water out. And even after that, that’s the water heater will weigh about 200 pounds and gotta get a couple guys to get it out. So it is not something that does, it happens a lot. So flush your water heater, flush your water, it’s definitely worth it. If you’re not, especially if you’re in a while and even if you’re on local pipe treated water. Our water is fairly light, it doesn’t have a lot of calcium, magnesium, but there’s enough in there that will form so on that note, if you need somebody to come and replace your water heater, you can give us a call at 53023090922302309092 can also find us on the web at ABC plumbing.com or easiest att.com and find us on Facebook where we got all this kind of stuff, we rehash it and put it out on the internet so you can see it. And then we’re going to be making these stickers and they may actually even be done by the time this show airs. If you guys drop us a line either on Facebook if you could just make a comment or DM us on there and or call the phone number 5323090 on iTunes give us your your contact information. We can send you one of these stickers and you put on your water heater just so you know how to do this. It’s all graphics. So there’s pictures so you know, we show you what you need to do. Anyway with that. Thanks for listening. We’ll catch you next week. Bye.
24:47
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