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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.
Hi, this is Andrew Twidwell, owner of ABT plumbing, electric heat and air. The show you got this. It’s a show of DIY do’s and don’ts. And I’m zooming in with Rosalie Brown. And I’m in lovely Auburn right now. And it’s Wednesday at 1120. And the skies are clear. Pretty awesome. And I think it’s clear in LA to write, but you guys have had some some pretty crazy weather. Yeah, well, yeah, it was like 114 or something crazy. Look, I mean, it was crazy period everywhere, right on the wedding down there and hurricane winds. And up here we’ve got smoke. And then yesterday. We record this a couple days early, but it broke. The weather broke. And we actually got a nice wind coming through and sending it up to Tahoe, unfortunately, but at least it’s leaving us clear. Yeah, outside and
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our weather is our weather’s chill right now. 76 outside a little bit of a some cloud cover. It looks like it’s got some moisture in the air. But what I was concerned about I almost did I don’t know if I need fewer back or not. But I was going to text you and ask you things are okay, because I got an alerts. I don’t know if it was on Facebook or whatever. For the Grass Valley area and the air quality. The number was so bad. I’ve never seen a number like that. And I was like because it was literally off the chart from what we read. They didn’t the measurements couldn’t go that hard. Over 600 You know, I mean, it was brutal. But yeah, fortunately, we weren’t home yet. I felt for everybody, all my friends and family that were here.
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It was a little rough.
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brutal, brutal stuff. But you know, the other thing I was going to talk to you and kind of joke with you about was, so you were away enjoying your summer, he came home, and I was thinking, I wonder how many to do list. He walked into being gone all summer like, Oh my gosh. So do you have like a million things do around the house? Like seems a lot. But I do want to go back a little bit because I did this is something that I found very fascinating. driving across country, you don’t really realize how you know, you talk about a global atmosphere, right? You talk about a global climate, and driving across the country from we went through, you know, from Minnesota through Iowa, Nebraska,
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Colorado, there was smoke in Iowa from the fires in the West, the sky was hazy, you couldn’t really see, you could get a tinge of a smell of fire smoke. So it just kind of blows me away that it’s not only affecting us here in California or here in Idaho or, or Washington state, Oregon, it’s also affecting the states that are further downwind of us. And it’s kind of wild to think that it has such a large impact on all of us.
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I mean, it wasn’t dangerous to go outside. But even like in Utah was I think it was like 110 120 An IQ. So obvious. It was not unhealthy, but not great. You know? Not good. I don’t know. If you I don’t know if you know this, but like Salt Lake City actually has some of the worst air quality in the country year round. Oh, yeah. Because they’ve got that inversion. Yeah. And I was driving and we stayed in Park City and drove into salt. Like, early in the morning when all the universes the worst, and yeah, it was just completely socked in with smoke. Yeah, it’s crazy. I have a friend that lives there. And I’m always like, I like it. They have a lot of I mean, so. So essentially, like, there’s no perfect spot, right? But when you do your cross country trip, you get to kind of see things through a new lens, you know, and you get to see how things are and I was laughing when you posted that you were in Nebraska because I was like I too have been in Nebraska. And it’s not something a lot of people would ever say because I mean, it’s kind of, but when I was there, it was so freakin hot. I couldn’t believe like how I remember thinking like, I don’t know if it’s ever been this hot in my life, and it was during a heatwave. But it was like there was no shade in Nebraska. So I was like no tall trees. You tall trees and like, overhead with tall trees. Oh my gosh, like the sun is beating down anyway, like, moving vehicle and I’m like, we’re gonna expire. It was there. It’s incredible to drive cross country because you just get to see different things. I mean, you know, last year like my father was born in North Platte. And his family moved to San Francisco when he was three so just the beginning of the war. My grandfather got a job at the the shipyards as a diesel mechanic. But so we were able last year we went through North Platte and visited some of the grave stones from
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My great grandfather, great grandmother, and some of the other family members and looked up some of the current family members that are living there. Just kind of check them out on Facebook.
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And yeah, it’s North Platte. I can see why they left.
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See, when they moved to the Bay Area moved to California. That’s totally say it’s a terrible place because it should have some lovely things. There. But you know, I’m a little bit of a sob coming from from California. Yeah. Nebraska is very flat and bilac trees and plants a little. It was interesting. Yeah. It is a different way of life. It is definitely life. So I mean, you know, we got a little bit of perspective on that. Right. So yeah, yeah. What are you gonna do?
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Alright, so anything else? Before we dive into our now we’re back at it? And? Oh, well, yeah. Well, we’ll go into a little bit more about the fire. Yeah, it’s impacted us. I mean, we’ve, we’ve had some issues with getting technicians out to the jobs because we’ve got with three people that have been displaced by the fire.
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It’s been rough, you know, we got two guys that are living a family member’s houses. Another one other guy who’s been holding it up in a hotel, while his wife and kids are down in the Bay Area with his with her family. And the hotel is not giving him a discount, not and then literally kicking him out this week, because they’ve got other people that have already reserved it has been this place. Just I don’t understand how a company in Auburn that is so close to the forest fire can’t give a little bit of more of a break to this guy, you know, and it’s, we’re doing everything we can we’re trying to figure out what we can do to help them out. But yeah, it’s it’s unfortunately, and it’s just, it’s, it’s impacted everybody and I feel for the people we’re kind of talking about off air and just how hard it is for everybody.
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It’s stressful, stressful time. Yeah, that’s especially those people that are out in force still know Dutch. But yeah, it’s, uh, yeah, well, rough. So we bid you complain about the smoke. But yeah, you got to continue to remember there, there are people that are actually displaced right now. And people have lost their homes. So yeah, that’s it’s not good. Anyway, with that, we’re talking about air quality, indoor air quality, primary indoor air quality, we were talking about outdoor air quality, and other things you can do for indoor air quality, one of the best things you can do is give us a call, and we’ll help you out with a high efficiency filtration system like I’ve got in my house, which is helped dramatically. But if that is something that is beyond your financial ability, or something that you’re really not interested in, there are some more DIY things you can do.
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And also something that you can do immediately because yeah, I mean, we’re still living in post pandemic.
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World. So getting parts isn’t always necessarily easy. Sometimes it can be a little delay and getting things installed in people’s homes right now. But any of it, we talked about this last year. And a really simple, easy filter, if you don’t have a HEPA filter, or store bought is simply taking a box fan, taking a regular fan that you probably already have sitting around going to the hardware store. This is going to be the time when I tell you to get the most efficient filter, you can not you don’t use it on your furnace, they get the most efficient filter, you can the one that has the most restriction, literally duct tape or blue tape and under that fan on the side that’s pushing air through. And now saying you got a filter that’ll help help with air quality, it’s not going to solve your indoor air quality problems are the smoke problems, but it will definitely decrease the amount of smoke that’s in your house. I know we’ve got one here set up in the office because we’ve got many splits. So we don’t have the ability to put a furnace filters in. And I just looked at it, it’s brown,
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this office here in Auburn, and we were right in the middle of the thick of it. So and it’s an older building, so it breathes a lot. So there’s quite a bit of smoke coming, and you could smell it when it came in. So that’s a nice, easy, inexpensive way, because you probably already have the fancy enough to buy it and a filter, you could pick up a high efficiency filter for under 20 bucks. And you’d probably have some duct tape or masking tape sitting around. So you’re into it for 20 bucks. And you can kind of Yeah, you got something that help with indoor air quality. One thing I would say though, is take a tape measure and measure the outside diameter of your fan. So at least you have an idea how big it is. And then try to match it as close as you can. Again, with supply chain issues, you may not be able to find the exact prime size, just go bigger. Doesn’t really matter if it’s bigger, if it’s smaller air is gonna go by it and you’re not gonna filter as much, but just get something bigger and you’re literally, you know, it’s duct tape and chewing gum kind of thing, but it’ll definitely help you and that’s what we need right now. Right? Just a little bit of help. So that was the beginning.
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That was the
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See, that’s it, I will, I will then go ahead and also put something on Facebook to that reminder, just like the visual and, you know, whatever, yeah, sometimes it helps seeing it. So we’ll have it on Facebook. And I think we’ve got it up online anyway, up on our website. So probably we I mean, honestly, at some point in fire season, it usually gets posted, but it doesn’t hurt to bump it to the front. So we’ll go ahead and do that. And just, especially when you can even look it up on the internet, just, you know, DIY air filter, box fan, and especially elderly people, older people, people in your life that are, you know, more possible, you know, possibility to like immune compromised, things like that, whose lungs are. So I mean, it’s not good for any of us, right. But there are certain populations that have more of a risk. So that would be a nice thing for you to do. If you have an older neighbor, or you got some older folks in your life or whatever, just check on him. So I’ll put that up. Yeah. And it should be easy. It’ll be easy, it’s a DIY everyone can do. Even my kids could do it. And that.
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Not that I don’t love my kids, but even my kids could figure this one out. So
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and they’re just kind of, you know, too cool for school and not interested in anything. So even they could do it.
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Hey, so we were going to talk about the other thing that we thought people might want to know. So with fires, as we know, and intense heat and all those things that were still, you know, kind of their standby generators, right. So a lot of people either have them or want them are interested in them. But what about if you have one, you know, you don’t want to buy it, have it installed and kind of forget about it, right, there’s some maintenance you are going to want to do to prolong the life of your generator, you are more than likely going to need it at some point this year, between fires or and, and plan power outages and snow and weather. It’s kind of like weather.
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Yeah, weather is bad news, right? So you’re gonna, if you’re on the PGD grid, it doesn’t seem to really matter where you live these days, you’re gonna power outages.
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So you’re, well, the average life expectancy of a well maintained, and service vehicle is approximately 5000 hours. So you’re assuming 300,000 miles at 60 miles an hour, typically, you’re gonna get about 5000 miles out or 5000 hours out of a car standby generator. On the other hand, you can expect 10 to 30,000 hours of use from this generator.
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So a standby generator might only operate for as little as like 26 hours a year, because it runs for 30 minutes a week, to just make sure that everything’s working and functioning because you got to keep the oil moving, and everything
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just exercises stuff, or as much as a couple 100 hours a year, depending on upon the number of durations and blanks of a power outages. The cool thing, though, is if you maintain this said standby generator, it could conceivably last you 20 to 30 years, you know, it could be a Vincent generate. And we’ve actually worked on some vintage generators that are in good shape. Because the people have maintained it, it’s kind of like a furnace, the same thing, if you maintain these things, they’ll last a lot longer. If you if they’re installed correctly and maintained, you can get a really good life out of these out of these pieces of equipment. And they are you know, we use the example of a car because of the fact that these are the costs of a nice used car, you know, I mean, you can some of these generators we installed can be this price of a brand new Mercedes. By the time we’re seven done installing, you know, some of these 30 Kw generators that run the whole house.
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Some of the smaller ones are closer to 15 grand or something, but still the price of a nice car. So if you want to maintain these things, so there’s some there’s some DIY stuff, you know,
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that you can do.
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But you should really have these things, at least looked at by a professional, the manufacturer says at least once a year, like everything at least once a year.
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You want to do that to make sure you keep up on your warranties. But if you’re out of warranty, and you have a mechanical background and you change the oil on your car, and you do all this kind of stuff, you can kind of do a lot of stuff yourself. But even if you don’t even if it’s just basic stuff, some of the things you might want to check.
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I had my list and now I lost it.
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You know one things you can do, especially right now when we’re kind of getting ready like things have may have come on and may have. You may have used it in the last couple of weeks, you might want to go outside. After the system is cooled down, take the cover off, open up and just make sure just do a quick visual inspection. Make sure everything’s working. Make sure everything doesn’t look make sure the belt doesn’t look cracked. Make sure all the lines nothing’s disconnected. Make sure the wires aren’t frayed. But one of the big things you want to look for is rodents. Rodents get inside of these things and they can wreak havoc. They will eat
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wire insulation, they will eat filters for bedding, they will find whatever they can to make a comfortable space for themselves. So once a mouse or a rat gets in there, they can do a lot of damage. So you want to find those, you want to stay up on top of that. So, you know, theoretically, ideally, you should be checking at least on a monthly basis, when it’s not running, open the cover, take a look, if you do have a mask that’s gotten in, find out where they got in.
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A mouse can go in through a hole the size of a dime rack and go on this through a hole the size of a quarter. So cover that thing up with some sheet metal duct tape doesn’t work, they will get through duct tape. Steel will work sometimes, depending on how much backing it’s got. Ideally, if you’ve got some sheet metal sit around, cut a piece of sheet metal cut it up and take some adhesive like some caulking or something like that and squish it on there and you’re good to go. So that’s a that’s an easy one. Everybody should be doing that.
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Some of the bigger things that you want to do though,
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that’s go through and I had it all laid out. But as I’m talking I kind of lose my
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thing standby maintenance checklist. Here’s a handy checklist to help guide you as you work to maintain your standby generators. Be sure to note of the frequency recommendations for these maintenance activities. The majority of standby generators are going to be air cooled. We do get into some bare diesel and liquid cooled ones but the majority of our just air cooled so that you can use most of this stuff. weekly maintenance run the generator typically no load Automatic Transfer Switch exercise cycle. That does it pretty much automatically. If you notice that the generator isn’t running during that weekly exercise cycle, call somebody up. You want to have that checked out before you actually need it. Because that’s a that’s a dead giveaway. These things are are programmed to run at least on a weekly basis.
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Verify that the unit is run and has no alarms or warnings. Some have alarms so that you know that they’re not working. Some of them don’t ensure adequate fuel levels if it does have liquid, make sure that has liquid and sure that the generator is on auto mode for automatic startup so when the power goes off to things switch it back right on. Check the circuit breakers if closed so you want to make sure the circuit breakers are set where they’re supposed to be set. Make sure there are no fluid leaks this is again this is these are just visual inspections make sure that there’s no oil that’s leaking into the ground or if you’ve got coolant make sure there’s no coolant that’s left in that thing. monthly maintenance check oil and engine coolant level
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check engine oil level and check the battery charge. Those are things that you can actually do you can go in you want to make sure the engine is run a little bit so the are actually the engine is stopped running for a little bit so the oil can drop down. Check the oil make sure that the level is where it’s supposed to be on the dipstick, it’s the same as a car.
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Check the battery charge, just take an ohm meter or a voltage meter and check and make sure you got over 12 volts on that thing 12.7 I think is where you want or 13 Somewhere in there. But you can check those things. Don’t go by me because it’s been a while since I’ve done this been a while since I’ve been out in the field. Check the internet or your manual by annual maintenance. schedule maintenance as a certified technician inspecting inspecting closure check the battery electrolyte levels and specific gravity of the fluid. Check battery cables and connections inspect drive belts inspect the coolant heat here. Check coolant lines and connectors if applicable check the oil levels inspect lubrication systems hoses connectors, check for fuel leaks, inspect fuel system hoses and connectors. You really want to do that because
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you know what happens when gas gets gets loose in a car causes fires.
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I remember a video of some guys really nice Ferrari catching fire because of a fuel leak. Check for fuel leaks. Inspect the exhaust system muffler and exhaust pipe if if there is an exhaust pipe,
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check and clean air filter. Inspect air induction piping and connections if it has it, inspect the DC electrical system, control panel and accessories inspect the AC wiring accessories, annual maintenance. So this is something that this gets a little bit bigger. So this is something that we do. But if you’re so inclined in inside of an F it’s out of warranty, change the oil in the oil filter. So it’s like changing it on a car but it’s a little easier because you don’t have to climb underneath it. Change the fuel filter, change the air filter, clean the crankcase breather. Check the sparkplug make sure it’s got properly and clean. Check coolant constrictions if it’s got coolant flush coolant system if it’s got coolant, perform a load bank test fuel testing and reconditioning if these if you’re using diesel, most of ours are going to be propane or natural gas, remove water from fuel tank again diesel units. So those are kind of the things that you can do if it’s out of warranty, and you are a mechanically inclined person
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There,
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let’s, you know, this is just a brief kind of our review, you’re definitely going to want to refer to the maintenance manual that you can find online for your specific unit. And make sure that you’re doing it, make sure you’re getting this done every year, you can literally have your generator last 20 to 30 years, if you do this on a religious basis. If you don’t, I’ve seen generators only last a few years because the engine seizes up, we’ve got one right now that the customer didn’t do any maintenance. And she needs a new generator, you know, and it’s not that old. But you know, it’s a car, if you run your engine, it’s an engine, if you run your engine driver oil, it’s pretty much toast, theoretically, you could replace the motor and stuff like that. But by the time you’re setting, then you’re better off just getting a new one with any warranty. So
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take a look at that. But double check and make sure that you are doing it correctly. And again, this is for entertainment value.
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Because this is electricity and gas and oils and things like that. So if you know this, these are dangerous things, you’re dealing with electricity and natural gas or propane.
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So a lot of the same things can be applied towards portable generators as well. If you have a portable generator that you plug in to your house, you should be doing at least any annual oil change at least an annual fuel filter change to do the visual inspection on the whole thing. They can be a little bit you can be a little bit more liberal with the magnets on them simply because of the fact that let’s be honest, you probably spent two to $3,000 on it.
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If it goes dead and you need a new one, that’s another two three grand it’s not 15 to $60,000, right?
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Yeah, for new generator, the new standby generators, you talking about six to $25,000, just for the unit’s themselves. So they’re, they’re chunks change. So you want to take care of them, right? That’s kind of like what you always it’s what you always tell your kids, right? Like you can, you can maintain the car, or you can go through getting a new one every couple of years. So let’s maintain.
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Right.
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And they’re really nice, right, it’s nice to be able to just have power on all of a sudden right,
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and not lose power and have air conditioning, especially right now with the air quality issues that were intermittent air quality issues. If I didn’t have air conditioning right now and have power,
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I probably wouldn’t be home.
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Right? Just it’s too rough. And yeah, and you can have it with a generator, you can have your air, you can have it installed that habit size. So you can have your air conditioning run and your refrigeration and your lighting and everything else. When you do have these bad power days are these bad hour, hour, these bad air quality days, I gotta slow down a little bit.
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To that too fast, it’s good for you to notice at the end of the show, right.
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So I probably did talk really fast. So I apologize for you those that are listening, I do tend to
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at for anyone who actually does listen to the show, you know, I will go ahead and put kind of the the what we’ll do is we’ll share kind of the recommended and these are generic recommendations your own, you know, your equipment is going to have standards, right but some generic information on here’s what to make sure is happening weekly, couple times year and then annual just to kind of do more of an in depth breakdown. You do run through things very quickly. And I I thought I talked fast that man put it in front of a microphone and it’s like
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it gets a little sometimes it gets a little faster than my brain. So in any event, that was our show. Now we got to wrap it up and I probably do it faster than I’ve only got a couple I’ve only got 30 seconds. So if you do need a plumber or electrician Heating and Air technician, give us a call 53230 99 225302639092 You can find us on the web at easiest abt.com or abt plumbing. Can you find us on Facebook please like our page. We’ve got all this great information and fun little stories and least we laugh at it. I don’t know some people laugh. Anyway, thanks for listening. We’ll catch you guys next week and stay safe my friends. Bye. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Rose Lee. Now let’s get that project started. You got this. We’ll be back next Friday morning at nine o’clock on TNC on Newstalk 830
Transcribed by https://otter.ai