Matter of Facts: Homeowner Prepping

[00:00:06] Welcome back to the Matter of Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at MWFPodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Ravelet, Andrew, Nick are on the other side of the mic and here's your show.

[00:00:30] And welcome back to the Matter of Facts Podcast. Let's get the admin work out of the way first in case you are commenting and we think we're ignoring you, this is pre-recorded because I had a family obligation to deal with

[00:00:41] at literally the exact same time and date we normally record. So instead you get me and Nick sitting here on a Sunday. I don't know what he's drinking, but this is coffee number two. Coffee number two or if you have you switch to adult coffee number three. Well, bear in mind that my coffee cup holds about, you know, 30 ounces. So when I say coffee number two, this is like number seven for most people.

[00:01:08] Well, I had my first two at about five o'clock this morning. Yeah. Fortunately or unfortunately, I recently went through this whole thing of like upgrading my espresso setup. So I've been, I've been drinking more, more espresso than it's probably rational or healthy for the last couple of days trying to get things dialed in. It's, um, I reached a point the other day where I was no longer drinking the espresso.

[00:01:33] So I literally take a sip, pour it down the sink and then chase it with water just to clean my palate off. Like that's, that's how out of control this has gotten. Cause you know, when you, when you fire up, like when you fire up the espresso setup six times in an afternoon.

[00:01:48] But I think heart will only take so much caffeine. Yeah. I mean, I try to stop when I get heart palpitations. Yeah. It's wise, but, um, I don't know. I'm like, I'm like this close. I got a recipe that works, but my wife said still a little bitter, but her and my daughter more, more sensitive to bitterness than I am.

[00:02:06] I'm sure she hears that there's a joke in there someplace, but, um, you know, I'm close. I, a little, uh, one more little tweak and I might have like absolutely awesome espresso, which nobody wants to hear about that. That's, that takes my coffee nerdism to an unhealthy level.

[00:02:24] We all have our obsessions. Yeah. How many again? Too many, too many.

[00:02:33] All right. So getting on the topic.

[00:02:36] Ah, patrons and merch.

[00:02:38] Oh, patrons and merch. Patrons and merch. Thank you to the patrons for supporting our insanity as always. Um, I actually have something to drop into the patron chat probably this afternoon. I'm at a point where I can start talking about with you guys. It'll probably be another month before I let it out of the silo with the general audience.

[00:02:58] But, um, I'm planning on doing a thing, probably local down here in South Louisiana.

[00:03:05] You know, I wouldn't begrudge anybody that felt like it was worth driving a long distance to come to this thing that we have planned, but I'm mostly aiming at it at the local community.

[00:03:16] I think it'll be fun. It's going to put me entirely and completely way out of my comfort level.

[00:03:22] And all of you poor sociopaths, our patrons are going to be my focus group.

[00:03:27] So I don't make a complete jerk of myself doing this the first time.

[00:03:32] Just a partial jerk plan and merch.

[00:03:36] I'm not wearing the shirt.

[00:03:37] I promised Chris and Tiffany, I would wear the shirts more often, but we do have merch.

[00:03:43] The links in the show description.

[00:03:46] Honestly, I mean, we got that first little batch done and I thought it worked.

[00:03:49] It came out very well.

[00:03:51] I'm thinking I might have to put my brainstorming hat back on and see if we can come up with something else.

[00:03:56] I love the quality of the shirts.

[00:03:59] I do.

[00:03:59] I do have to say, like, you know, that was the one thing I was really particular about when Chris and Tiffany first approached us about doing our merch was I told him, I'm like, I would rather the shirt.

[00:04:11] I would rather the shirt costs a little more or conversely, I'd rather our the show's profit margin be less if it means that the quality is better.

[00:04:21] Yeah.

[00:04:21] Because, like, that's the one thing I hate about when you buy merch from any company is when it's like a cheap, you know, itchy feeling shirt.

[00:04:29] Oh, well, yeah.

[00:04:31] Even if it falls, even if it, it falling apart is a whole nother situation.

[00:04:35] I'm talking about when it's fresh out of the bag and it just feels like a cheap shirt.

[00:04:39] Oh, or it's so uncomfortable you can't wear it.

[00:04:41] Yeah, that drives me nuts.

[00:04:43] And, you know, I have expressed my hatred of money on this show many times.

[00:04:51] And, you know, we never offered merch to make a bunch of money on it.

[00:04:55] It was really some people asked for it and we thought we would inject our own sense of humor into it.

[00:05:01] But we were really particular about the quality being there.

[00:05:03] And I think Chris and Tiffany nailed it.

[00:05:06] They did.

[00:05:07] They really did a fantastic job.

[00:05:10] All right.

[00:05:11] Now, topic.

[00:05:12] Do we have any other administrative work?

[00:05:15] Not that I'm aware of.

[00:05:16] Okay.

[00:05:17] The subtitle under my name says, I am the home warranty because this is what Nick wanted to get into was home improvement preparedness, which I know that this is very near and dear to your heart.

[00:05:29] Because, like, you told the story before and maybe you'll indulge us one more time briefly.

[00:05:34] But, like, this is kind of what got you into preparedness.

[00:05:38] And I think this is also kind of what brought your wife along into it was the 3 a.m. something's broken and my husband happens to have the stuff to fix it at the drop of the hat.

[00:05:50] Like, that's one of those experiences that most – I feel like a lot of spouses can relate to.

[00:05:56] It's the first time that – it's the first time the husband or the wife, whoever's the not prepper, realizes all the crazy things my spouse has been doing have led up to this moment where they just happen to have the tool in the tool bag to fix the problem.

[00:06:12] Yeah, that's exactly what it was, too.

[00:06:15] And for us, it was – well, for me, what got me into prepping was buying a house the first time.

[00:06:21] You know, I – it was strangely easy to buy a house the first time.

[00:06:29] I went out and looked at a few houses.

[00:06:31] I picked literally the cheapest house that I could buy because, well, it was my first house.

[00:06:38] I didn't have to love the house.

[00:06:39] I just needed a house to start building equity.

[00:06:43] I had, growing up, a lot of training from both of my grandfathers and my dad on a lot of variety of construction things, plumbing, electrical, roofing, siding, you name it.

[00:06:54] I can probably put it in a house.

[00:06:56] Probably not up to the highest quality, but, you know, it'll do the job.

[00:07:01] And a few years we'd been living in the house, older house built in the 1940s, so the insulation wasn't the greatest.

[00:07:08] And we had that polar vortex here where we had minus 50-degree weather in Illinois.

[00:07:13] And I don't know if any of you have ever experienced minus 50-degree weather, but you will have frost on the inside of your walls near your electrical outlets when your house is 76, 74 degrees.

[00:07:30] You know, we had a pipe freeze in our bathroom.

[00:07:35] Oh, I've got up to use the bathroom.

[00:07:37] Went to flush the toilet.

[00:07:38] Toilet didn't refill.

[00:07:39] So you know exactly what the problem is.

[00:07:42] Fortunately, we didn't go long enough that it burst the pipe, but I was able to, using all the tools and equipment I had, get under the crawl space where I needed to, get a heating apparatus down there, and thaw the pipe slowly.

[00:07:58] And that's the key.

[00:07:59] You've got to thaw those things slowly.

[00:08:02] And I was able to fix it and then set up a small heater down in there to keep that from freezing again through that winter.

[00:08:09] You know, even through that week of minus 30, minus 40, minus 50.

[00:08:13] You know, it really, she was very thankful that we had that because burst pipes are phenomenally expensive.

[00:08:21] Uh-huh.

[00:08:22] You know, and that's kind of what got her thinking, okay, him having all the plumbing stuff, all the electrical stuff, all the carpentry stuff, wasn't so bad to have.

[00:08:35] You know, because we didn't, 3 a.m., nothing's open.

[00:08:38] You're not going to go to a hardware store at 3 o'clock in the morning.

[00:08:41] You're not going to have to shut up your water.

[00:08:43] And you're not going to get a plumber out there for any amount of money at 3 o'clock in the morning.

[00:08:47] You'd be surprised around here.

[00:08:48] We do have 24-hour plumbing services.

[00:08:50] Really?

[00:08:51] But they start at 750 an hour.

[00:08:56] Yeah.

[00:08:57] Yeah, I, uh, one of my wife's co-workers worked for one for a little while.

[00:09:03] And he said their starting hourly rate from, for drive time, from his house, not from the shop.

[00:09:08] So from his house to the shop, you are paying him.

[00:09:10] And then from the shop, when he has his work truck, to your house.

[00:09:14] And then you're also paying for his trip back.

[00:09:16] So this reminds me of the conversation you and I had recently where you said there are a few problems that cannot be solved by throwing money at them.

[00:09:23] Correct.

[00:09:24] But that's, that's not throwing money at the problem.

[00:09:27] That's, that's throwing buckets of money at the problem.

[00:09:32] Oh yeah.

[00:09:33] Which, look.

[00:09:34] An hour.

[00:09:35] Yeah.

[00:09:35] But I tell you what, when your house is flooding from a burst pipe.

[00:09:38] Yeah.

[00:09:39] Are you, are you going to deal with gutting your entire house or cutting a $2,500 check?

[00:09:46] A lot of people pick the check.

[00:09:48] Believe it or not, there are adults who own homes that don't know where their water shutoff is.

[00:09:54] So my daughter's 12 and yesterday while we were, she, she came and told me like, Hey, I think I broke the toilet.

[00:10:02] And it, it, it turns out now that toilet is probably in the very near future going to need like a full, like rebuild everything in the tank, just new hardware and everything.

[00:10:11] But what had happened was the little flapper just didn't seal.

[00:10:14] So the toilet was just filling and filling and filling.

[00:10:17] Very common problem.

[00:10:18] Yeah.

[00:10:18] Super common problem.

[00:10:19] I took the lid off, reached down there, scooted around until, you know, put it back where it was supposed to be.

[00:10:24] And it was fine.

[00:10:25] It's been fine since.

[00:10:26] But I did take that moment to point out to my daughter.

[00:10:28] I'm like, first of all, 12 years old, I'll teach you basic plumbing in another year or two.

[00:10:36] But do you know where the water shutoff is for a toilet?

[00:10:38] And she said, no.

[00:10:40] So I showed her because I'm like, if you ever have a leak or if you ever have a toilet doing things that scare you, the first thing you do is look right here, grab this little handle righty tighty until it stops.

[00:10:51] And that will at least shut off the flow of water.

[00:10:53] It may not fix the problem, but it will stop the problem where it is until dad can come home to take a look at it.

[00:10:59] Yeah.

[00:10:59] It won't get worse probably if you shut the water off.

[00:11:02] Well, even if it's something like a leaking tank, it's only going to leak so much until it stops.

[00:11:07] It's not going to continue to just pee water all over the house for days on end.

[00:11:14] Right.

[00:11:15] Which is great.

[00:11:16] You know, everybody should know where their water shutoffs are.

[00:11:19] And that's one that I was going to talk about later, but we can talk about it now.

[00:11:23] You need to exercise those water shutoffs.

[00:11:28] Phil, when's the last time you twisted those shutoff knobs?

[00:11:33] Within the last couple of years.

[00:11:36] You know you're supposed to exercise those fully closed to fully open every six months to a year?

[00:11:42] I'd never heard that before in my life.

[00:11:44] I had to do it recently, though, on my wife's toilet because I had to rebuild that whole everything inside that tank.

[00:11:49] And I had to do.

[00:11:50] I had to turn this one off because the tank started leaking from the gaskets.

[00:11:55] I don't know, probably a year or two ago.

[00:11:59] Yeah.

[00:12:00] So the idea is you can get hard water buildup.

[00:12:03] You know, that calcium scale and lime scale that you get on your sinks and tubs.

[00:12:07] You can get that in those valves and that is what stops those valves from shutting or keeps them frozen in place.

[00:12:14] So if you exercise it, what it does is it scrapes off that little bit of buildup that's there before it gets to a point where you can't turn it.

[00:12:23] And it gives you the opportunity to say, hey, this valve doesn't work before you have a leaking toilet.

[00:12:31] That makes sense.

[00:12:32] Yeah, so a couple of plumber buddies of mine have recommended that numerous times.

[00:12:36] See, when you change clocks, open and shut all those valves just to check them.

[00:12:40] You know, that said, I have two in my house that I know I need to replace.

[00:12:44] And I just haven't got around to it yet.

[00:12:47] I really should.

[00:12:48] In fact, that's on the short list for the next two weekends.

[00:12:52] So this also bears in mind because my sister or my brother-in-law, several months ago, they discovered a leaking pipe in the wall between their master bedroom and master bathroom.

[00:13:03] And they discovered this because of the pool water that was coming out from underneath the wall into the master bedroom.

[00:13:10] That's suboptimal.

[00:13:11] Yeah.

[00:13:12] Well, that led down this.

[00:13:13] This led them down the rabbit hole because, you know, they had to they had to gut the wall.

[00:13:18] They had to fix.

[00:13:19] They had to get the pipe fixed in the short term.

[00:13:22] And then they got into the mode of in for a penny in for a pound and decided, you know, my sister had been wanting to kind of like renovate that bathroom for years.

[00:13:32] And because this the house was their house was built, I want to say, in 06.

[00:13:37] So that was like right after Hurricane Katrina down here, which means they were slapping houses together as fast as humanly possible because there was all this mass migration coming from the New Orleans area up onto the North Shore.

[00:13:49] And how's the over quality?

[00:13:51] Exactly.

[00:13:52] And they have encountered more quantity over quality and that had that poor house over the years.

[00:13:57] But the thing they discovered over the course of tearing everything out is like there was there was a standard like a garden tub in the bathroom.

[00:14:10] Yeah.

[00:14:10] And when we went to take the toilet, when we went to take the because they wanted to replace it with like a freestanding like a claw tub.

[00:14:17] Sure.

[00:14:17] And in the process of doing that, we realized that some of the water pipes that were coming up out of the slab right there did not come up in the wall.

[00:14:26] They came up outside the wall and the only thing obscuring them was the garden tub.

[00:14:31] Oh.

[00:14:31] Oh.

[00:14:32] And then we found out that not all of these pipes had shutoffs on them.

[00:14:37] Yeah, that sucks.

[00:14:38] Yeah.

[00:14:40] I'm not going to put their business down the street, but like it has been a constant me wanting to track down the plumber and like, you know, just beat him with a wet noodle in public because of all the nonsense.

[00:14:53] All the nonsense we've run into with this bathroom renovation.

[00:14:59] And the worst part is, is they're probably on a slab like you are because of the water situation down south.

[00:15:05] So it's not like you have access to that easily.

[00:15:08] The only way to change that is to cut slab.

[00:15:10] And oh, that is a horrible mess.

[00:15:14] Yeah.

[00:15:14] That's a horrible mess.

[00:15:15] Yeah.

[00:15:15] Plumbing shutoffs.

[00:15:16] But yeah.

[00:15:17] My point was when I saw you added add plumbing shutoffs.

[00:15:23] It reminded me of that because before I saw their bathroom, it never occurred to me that you would have a water line without a shutoff.

[00:15:30] Like, that's just, you're supposed to have those things.

[00:15:34] Well, maybe I'm naive.

[00:15:36] If you have an older house.

[00:15:37] Maybe I'm naive.

[00:15:38] I'd never seen a water line without a shutoff on it before that.

[00:15:42] I see them all the time.

[00:15:43] Oh, Jesus.

[00:15:44] You know, up here, there was a big boom in housing right after World War II.

[00:15:49] And there was a shortage of copper and all kinds of things.

[00:15:53] You know, everything comes along with post-war reconstruction stuff and post-war new construction stuff.

[00:15:59] And a lot of that ended up with, well, they had the main shutoff.

[00:16:03] That was all you had.

[00:16:05] Sometimes they had shutoffs.

[00:16:07] They had shutoffs at the toilets.

[00:16:09] But sometimes they didn't even have shutoffs under the sink in some of these houses that I've been in.

[00:16:15] Like, my buddy's house didn't have any shutoffs on any of the sinks.

[00:16:19] That blows my mind.

[00:16:20] It was just tied into copper.

[00:16:21] Hey, old houses.

[00:16:22] Some of these houses were built, like, in the 1920s and had galvanized pipe coming out of the walls.

[00:16:27] And that's, you know, you're now drinking through a McDonald's straw instead of the half-inch pipe you're supposed to have because of all the buildup and rust.

[00:16:36] But if you're buying a house or if you're in your house now and you've been in there a while and you haven't looked for it, take a look and find out where all of your shutoffs are.

[00:16:46] And maybe tag them, something, so that you can see them and find them easily.

[00:16:50] And just make sure they work.

[00:16:51] Make sure they actually shut the water off because valves can go bad.

[00:16:55] And you can, if you get into a bad situation with a leaking toilet or you got to pull out a tub or a sink and you go to shut it off and you still have bypass past that valve.

[00:17:05] Well, now you got to shut off the entire house instead of just that one bathroom.

[00:17:09] It's just a massive inconvenience.

[00:17:11] Also worth pointing out, because we went through this at their house, but if you shut, if you have to hit the master water shutoff, you also need to make sure you turn off your hot water heater.

[00:17:21] Correct.

[00:17:21] Because if that element gets, if it's electric and that element gets exposed, you have a whole new set of problems.

[00:17:27] Correct.

[00:17:28] You can have that same problem with a gas water heater too, just because there's no, I guess, it can boil off all the water and you can cook the inside of your tank.

[00:17:39] They weren't designed to not have water in them.

[00:17:42] Right, exactly.

[00:17:43] And then when you do turn it back on, you don't just turn it back on, much like a natural gas shutoff.

[00:17:51] You slowly open the valve and ensure that and open up all your other faucets and drains so you don't build pressure and blow out a weak line somewhere.

[00:18:01] Because copper does corrode on the inside of it.

[00:18:03] Not very fast, but it can get weak.

[00:18:05] And if you blast it with pressure real quick, you can cause that stuff to crack or fail.

[00:18:11] Anybody ever heard of a water hammer?

[00:18:14] Mm-hmm.

[00:18:16] Matter of fact, if you're ever in a very old house and you listen in the wall, sometimes if you turn a faucet on rapidly, you'll hear those pipes move around.

[00:18:25] It's the creepiest freaking sound when you've never heard it before.

[00:18:29] Yeah, I've got some plumbing I need to add some expansion to for that.

[00:18:33] Yeah.

[00:18:35] You know, along the same vein of adding plumbing shutoffs is repair kits for your plumbing, for your faucets, for your toilets.

[00:18:46] Find out what make and model each of your faucets are, each of your bathroom shower knobs or tub knobs is.

[00:18:55] You can probably buy a refit kit for between like five and ten bucks.

[00:19:03] They're not terribly expensive.

[00:19:03] There's not much to them.

[00:19:05] There's really not.

[00:19:06] And a lot of times it's a single piece cartridge that you pull a snap ring up and just pull it right out of the wall.

[00:19:13] Mm-hmm.

[00:19:13] But that said, you have to have the water off to do that because you'll never get it back in with the water flowing out of it.

[00:19:21] Yeah.

[00:19:21] But, you know, again, that's one of those things that at three o'clock in the morning, at four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, you can't get to the hardware store because they're closed.

[00:19:31] Well, then bear in mind that if you have a faucet that is consistently dripping, even when it's closed all the way, that's a sign that if you don't schedule time for maintenance, maintenance is going to schedule time for you.

[00:19:44] Absolutely.

[00:19:46] And if you're not on a well and you're on city water and sewer, that adds up and can factor into really high water bills.

[00:19:54] I forget how much a running toilet will let out a week, but it can add up to hundreds of dollars in a month in water bill.

[00:20:04] Which is also a good cautionary note that if you start seeing your water bill precipitously increasing month after month after month, you're going to have an up and a down, but it should average out.

[00:20:16] But if you see it going up and up and up and up and up, the water's going someplace.

[00:20:20] Well, but even worse than that, I've heard from people who had a leak in the main water line between the city main and your house where it was just flowing into the ground table.

[00:20:36] That shouldn't hit your meter, though.

[00:20:41] As long as it's before your meter, you won't see that in the bill.

[00:20:45] But yeah, I've seen that happen where that'll still cause a sinkhole from hell.

[00:20:49] Oh, yeah.

[00:20:50] And you are billed for that.

[00:20:53] Uh, assuming it's after the Buffalo box, which for those that don't know, there is the main water line that comes down your street and there is a, a shutoff box at that line.

[00:21:04] That is called a Buffalo box.

[00:21:06] Don't know why it just is.

[00:21:07] They'll use a big T handle wrench to turn that on and off.

[00:21:10] If they have to turn that off and it breaks, you get billed for it.

[00:21:16] Mm hmm.

[00:21:17] Another good reason to have shut off, to check your shutoffs in the house.

[00:21:21] But see, I'm thinking, I think our water, I think our water meter, if I'm not missing like-

[00:21:29] Should be on your house.

[00:21:30] Or in your house.

[00:21:33] I'm going to go poke around in my front yard when we get done with this because I have an access panel in the ground that's out by-

[00:21:41] It could be there, yeah.

[00:21:42] That's possible.

[00:21:43] That's out by like the street, out by the side of the street.

[00:21:46] That's probably access to your Buffalo box.

[00:21:48] And you, you more than likely have a smart read meter that's either hooked into a phone line or a wireless transmitter.

[00:21:56] I think they-

[00:21:57] Inside the house.

[00:21:58] I think around here, they're still having people come around and like manually check them because every time I'm going to move the lawn, that freaking lid has been lifted.

[00:22:06] And I have to like press it back down into the ground.

[00:22:08] Oh, maybe that is where your meter is.

[00:22:10] It could be they do it differently.

[00:22:12] I know our meters are indoors due to the, due to the low temperatures.

[00:22:15] Yeah.

[00:22:17] The lowest temperature I've ever lived through down here was like 17 degrees and it was that cold for an hour.

[00:22:23] It's been thrilling weather.

[00:22:24] No, that was fireplace, heater set to nuclear, every stitch clothing I own.

[00:22:30] I know, I know that the audience loves to tease me about my, my just taste for cold weather, but like y'all don't seem to understand.

[00:22:37] When I say it's cold-

[00:22:39] Well, your house isn't built for it.

[00:22:40] Hell no, it ain't.

[00:22:41] I mean-

[00:22:42] Your furnace isn't sized for it.

[00:22:44] No.

[00:22:45] It'll, it will keep up when it gets that cold outside.

[00:22:47] Thank God.

[00:22:49] But, um, no, 17 degrees is no bueno.

[00:22:53] That stay inside and roast marshmallows over the, over the, uh, the oven range.

[00:22:57] We ain't going outside to play in that.

[00:22:59] Absolutely.

[00:23:00] You know, the old school sinks and faucets, it was rubber washers.

[00:23:06] Mm-hmm.

[00:23:07] And you can still buy those or what's called packing.

[00:23:10] It's like a wax embedded cord that you wrapped around stuff and compressed down.

[00:23:16] Nowadays, it's pretty much all O-rings or those little cartridge kits.

[00:23:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:23:22] I had to do a set in my bathroom recently and I think that's all, I think that's all that came in the repair kit, honestly.

[00:23:30] I expected to have to change the entire cartridge, but it was literally just the O-rings.

[00:23:35] Yeah, some of them are.

[00:23:36] And that's all.

[00:23:37] It was like $3 at Lowe's.

[00:23:39] Like, we're talking about stuff that's so freaking cheap.

[00:23:42] It is.

[00:23:43] You might as well keep one in, in your, in your box.

[00:23:45] Well, not just that, but I mean, on top of keeping one on hand, but like, unless you just hate the look of your faucets and everything, there's no reason to rush straight to calling a plumber and ripping all that stuff apart.

[00:23:57] When you could YouTube university and have, have the O-rings changed out of that freaking assembly and have it back together and the water turned back on in less than five minutes.

[00:24:06] Yeah.

[00:24:07] Yeah.

[00:24:08] You can fully rebuild a toilet, ground up, completely disassembled all the plaster or all the ceramic apart and back together in an hour.

[00:24:17] It's really not that complicated.

[00:24:19] Yeah.

[00:24:20] And you can rebuild.

[00:24:20] But that's another one.

[00:24:21] Toilet flush kits and fill valves.

[00:24:23] And you can rebuild just the stuff in the tank in 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

[00:24:27] I mean, it takes.

[00:24:28] 15 tops.

[00:24:29] It takes longer to drain the freaking tank than it does to get the rest of the work done.

[00:24:35] You know what the trick is for that, Phil?

[00:24:38] Hmm.

[00:24:38] Hmm.

[00:24:38] Get yourself a little wet, dry shot back and just suck it all out of the tank.

[00:24:42] Flush it.

[00:24:43] After you've got the water off, flush it and then stick the hose in there.

[00:24:46] Suck it all up.

[00:24:48] Done.

[00:24:49] Just, you might as well just do it the quick way.

[00:24:50] Because then you can suck all that crap out of the tank too.

[00:24:53] Because you're going to get some kind of algae and stuff in there.

[00:24:55] And that's the stuff that actually causes your toilet to leak.

[00:24:59] Because that stuff gets on that flush valve.

[00:25:01] And it holds it open just the tiniest little bit.

[00:25:04] And you'll just get a little trickle of water going through there.

[00:25:08] So.

[00:25:09] Not as much of a problem if you're on city water though.

[00:25:11] Because we've got chlorine added.

[00:25:13] Well, yeah.

[00:25:14] But you're still going to get some hard water deposits too.

[00:25:17] Yep.

[00:25:18] Hard water deposits and rust.

[00:25:21] Mm-hmm.

[00:25:22] Absolutely.

[00:25:25] So is there anything else we can think of that's like repair kit type of stuff?

[00:25:31] You could, if you are comfortable with it, outlets and switches.

[00:25:37] Keep a spare, couple spare outlets, couple spare switches.

[00:25:39] Because switches do wear out.

[00:25:41] And they do go bad.

[00:25:42] It takes an awful long time to wear out a switch.

[00:25:45] But if you're in an older house like mine, my house is built in 64.

[00:25:49] I've had to go through and change all the switches and all of the outlets in my house.

[00:25:53] I'm actually still in the process of doing that.

[00:25:55] Because there is a shockingly high number of outlets in this house.

[00:25:58] I do not understand it.

[00:26:00] Pun intended.

[00:26:01] No.

[00:26:03] Like, when I had the home inspector walk through this place and we bought it, he was startled

[00:26:09] at the number of outlets in every room in this house.

[00:26:13] They must have had all kinds of electronics for 1964.

[00:26:17] But I'm guessing your main electrical panel didn't justify that many outlets.

[00:26:23] God, no.

[00:26:23] We had it upgraded to a 200 amp panel because it was already over amperage when we bought the place.

[00:26:29] Yeah.

[00:26:30] It was not good.

[00:26:32] I mean, I guess in that vein, although you could add this to one of the things you had

[00:26:36] later, the second from the bottom.

[00:26:39] But like, it just pays to have, it just pays to have like basic homeowner supplies.

[00:26:44] You know what I'm saying?

[00:26:44] Yeah, we can kick that one up.

[00:26:46] Duck tape, silicone, WD-40.

[00:26:49] What's the old army saying again?

[00:26:52] It's like, does it move and it's not supposed to?

[00:26:55] Duck tape.

[00:26:56] Does it not move and it is supposed to, you know.

[00:26:59] WD.

[00:27:00] Yeah.

[00:27:01] Please don't use WD-40 as a lubricant though.

[00:27:04] It is not a lubricant.

[00:27:05] It is.

[00:27:06] Regardless of the fact that it looks kind of oil-like, it's not.

[00:27:09] It's not.

[00:27:10] No, it's not.

[00:27:11] It's a solvent.

[00:27:12] Yeah.

[00:27:13] But, you know, that is an excellent point.

[00:27:16] Especially down where you live, Phil.

[00:27:17] I'm sure you got some plywood sized to your windows in the garage.

[00:27:21] I actually don't.

[00:27:22] For hurricane damage.

[00:27:22] You don't?

[00:27:24] So, I have some, I have like just a general wood pile.

[00:27:28] But I wouldn't say I have anything that's like cut and everything specifically to fit

[00:27:32] my windows.

[00:27:33] And a lot of that is also the fact that like where I live, I'm fortunate in the fact that

[00:27:39] the very same wood line that decorated my front lawn with trees for Hurricane Ida is

[00:27:44] also a hell of a windbreak.

[00:27:47] So, like, I mean that now if I had a house on a hill with nothing around me, like my

[00:27:53] wife and I have talked about down the road one day building our own house.

[00:27:57] And we've literally talked about like, you know, make it such that trees can never touch

[00:28:01] the house.

[00:28:02] But in the same breath, I tell her if we do that and we don't have any natural cover,

[00:28:07] we are obligated to put storm shutters on the entire house.

[00:28:12] Absolutely.

[00:28:13] Whether they be manual or automated, it doesn't, or not automated, but like motorized.

[00:28:17] It doesn't matter.

[00:28:18] I need a way to, I don't need decorative shutters like we have on this house.

[00:28:22] I need legit shutters.

[00:28:24] I can shut and protect all the glass because there's going to be nothing blocking the wind

[00:28:30] at that point.

[00:28:31] We can kind of get away with that now.

[00:28:35] And I'm just going to say like for Hurricane Ida, one tree hit the house, two land in the,

[00:28:39] you know, one land in the front yard.

[00:28:41] Didn't have a single broken piece of glass in the whole house.

[00:28:45] That's fortunate.

[00:28:46] Yeah.

[00:28:48] Had plenty of tarps, plenty of tape, plenty of visqueen.

[00:28:51] Like we had things if we needed to patch a window.

[00:28:55] And we had, thank God we had tarps to patch the holes in the roof.

[00:28:58] But yeah, that's another one I was going to bring up.

[00:29:01] Tarps and furring strips.

[00:29:03] If people aren't familiar with what a furring strip is, it's a thin piece of wood about

[00:29:07] an inch wide, you know, four to eight feet long.

[00:29:10] You use it to reinforce tarps when you've got a hole in your roof or leaking shingles

[00:29:14] on your roof.

[00:29:16] Spare shingles is another one.

[00:29:18] Roofing nails.

[00:29:20] Dirt fricking cheap.

[00:29:21] Get a little box of them and just put them with a tarp somewhere in the house.

[00:29:25] Yep.

[00:29:26] And if, if you can't get roofing nails, look for the ones with the little plastic caps

[00:29:30] on them about an inch in diameter for holding a expanded foam insulation on things.

[00:29:35] They, they work fantastic.

[00:29:37] They don't pull through the tarp quite as easily, but what else was I going to put in that

[00:29:42] pile there?

[00:29:45] Copper and PVC.

[00:29:47] Ah, yes.

[00:29:48] Get yourself either some, whatever size copper pipe you have or galvanized pipe or, or that

[00:29:56] new plastic wonder flexible stuff.

[00:29:59] Hex pipe.

[00:30:00] Thank you.

[00:30:01] Get yourself some couplings, throw those in a box, get yourself a section of pipe, throw

[00:30:04] that in the box.

[00:30:05] Because if you do get a pinhole leak, you know, it's usually a section that long to a couple

[00:30:09] feet long.

[00:30:10] So if you've got an eight foot section of pipe laying around and you don't have to run out

[00:30:14] and get it.

[00:30:14] Now, granted, if it's copper, you're going to have to have a torch and you're going to

[00:30:17] have to learn how to sweat it or use compression fittings.

[00:30:20] But if you don't know how to sweat it and you're comfortable using the compression fittings

[00:30:24] until you can get someone out to sweat it.

[00:30:28] Now you don't have to pay an emergency call out charge.

[00:30:31] You can call a plumber and say, Hey, I've got a, I need to schedule an appointment.

[00:30:35] Just send them a picture.

[00:30:36] They'll send you a quote.

[00:30:36] It'll be a lot cheaper.

[00:30:39] Anytime it's an emergency, they tack on a few extra bucks because they know you're going

[00:30:43] to pay it.

[00:30:44] And probably because it's not during standard business hours.

[00:30:48] Few extra bucks.

[00:30:49] Yeah.

[00:30:51] You know, PVC is the same way.

[00:30:54] You can get sections of PVC, two feet, four feet, eight feet long and whatever couplings

[00:31:00] for that and keep some of those laying around.

[00:31:03] I mean, if you do any amount of home improvement, you're going to end up with overrun stuff anyway,

[00:31:07] because you never need all six, eight foot lengths of copper you buy.

[00:31:10] You always have half a copper left or whatever.

[00:31:14] Just make sure you have a few pieces laying around the glue to use them and obviously benzene

[00:31:18] for your, for your torch.

[00:31:20] If you're going to sweat copper.

[00:31:22] Again, you can learn it on YouTube university.

[00:31:24] It's really not that complicated.

[00:31:26] Just try not to set your house on fire while you're doing it.

[00:31:29] Preferably.

[00:31:30] That's why I chuckled when I saw a stack of wooden cans of screws, because like everyone

[00:31:36] growing up knew if it wasn't your dad or your grandfather, you knew some, some crotchety

[00:31:41] old man that had like coffee cans full of screws and nuts and nails and everything else that

[00:31:47] you thought.

[00:31:48] Folgers can.

[00:31:49] Yes.

[00:31:50] Back when they were back before they were made of plastic, when they were made of metal.

[00:31:53] But like I, for years, didn't even, didn't even question why.

[00:32:00] I just, when I started accumulating hardware, I started off keeping it in my toolbox.

[00:32:05] And then when it outgrew the toolbox, it went into a can.

[00:32:08] And then when it outgrew the can, it went into several cans in a larger box.

[00:32:13] And at this point, it's, I'm not going to say I never need to, because sometimes I just

[00:32:19] need a specific kind of hardware.

[00:32:20] I can't, I don't have what I need.

[00:32:22] I have to go out to the store and then I wind up buying three times as much as I need.

[00:32:25] And that goes into the can.

[00:32:26] And that goes in the bin.

[00:32:27] Yep.

[00:32:28] Because you would not, my wife refers to it as fidgeting.

[00:32:34] Because if I'm trying to figure something out or I'm trying to work on something, I'll

[00:32:38] just go stand in the garage and look around.

[00:32:41] Because I've got stuff on that wall.

[00:32:43] You'll see something that'll trigger it.

[00:32:44] I've got stuff on that wall and I've got boxes of parts and I've got boxes of screws

[00:32:48] and nuts and nails.

[00:32:49] And you just find the stuff you need.

[00:32:52] But that's, that all comes from the fact that you save all that stuff.

[00:32:56] Like if I have a piece of wood that is greater than one foot in length, I don't throw it

[00:33:03] out unless I get overloaded.

[00:33:05] I have to do a purge every now and then.

[00:33:06] But usually I just throw it in the wood pile because I mean like my daughter, I got, I

[00:33:12] got given, I think it was a bookshelf.

[00:33:14] Somebody was throwing it out and I happened to be over there like, what, do you need a

[00:33:18] bookshelf?

[00:33:18] And I'm like, no, but I'm sure I'll, it was a little, little bookshelf.

[00:33:21] Yeah.

[00:33:22] Yeah.

[00:33:22] And they were like, somebody will find a use for it.

[00:33:24] Well, I mean, it was, it was, it was, it was made of wood, like real wood, not particle

[00:33:28] board or any of that nonsense.

[00:33:30] And I was like, yeah.

[00:33:32] Yeah.

[00:33:32] So I literally like took it home, threw it in the wood pile, broke, broke it down, used

[00:33:38] some pieces of it, threw the rest back in the wood pile.

[00:33:40] And then recently my daughter got a, she saw something on YouTube and was like, Hey, have

[00:33:45] you ever heard of a rubber band gun?

[00:33:47] And I'm like, yeah, we used to shoot the hell out of each other with those things when we

[00:33:49] were kids.

[00:33:50] So she asked me to make her one.

[00:33:52] Guess what came out of the wood pile?

[00:33:54] A chunk of the bookshelf, you know, it's just, but that's why you, you'd never throw any of

[00:33:59] that stuff away.

[00:34:01] I mean, you just, I mean, it can get to a point where you do need to pare it down.

[00:34:05] There is a start with the smallest first.

[00:34:07] There is a line between, there is a line where it becomes hoarding.

[00:34:14] It does.

[00:34:15] And I don't know.

[00:34:16] I don't know how to, I have seen guys that have gotten away from it.

[00:34:20] Yeah.

[00:34:20] But at the same time, I don't know.

[00:34:24] I don't know where to tell anybody to draw that line though, because like the number

[00:34:27] of times I've just found something in one of my junk piles, that was exactly what I

[00:34:31] needed.

[00:34:32] It kind of maybe reinforces bad behavior.

[00:34:35] Like, well, you remember that one time I had the exact bolt or nut or whatever I needed

[00:34:39] to fix this problem.

[00:34:40] That's why I don't throw anything away ever.

[00:34:44] The line I draw is if it starts to interfere with our day-to-day life, if it starts to get

[00:34:48] inconvenient, it's got to start going.

[00:34:52] I wonder if my wife ever said that about me.

[00:34:54] Well, I'm sure there's, I'm sure there is some stuff in your house that you like, you

[00:34:58] know, if you moved and packed it in a box, you'd never unpack it.

[00:35:02] That's the stuff I start with if I'm going to get rid of stuff.

[00:35:05] No, that's fair.

[00:35:08] Yeah.

[00:35:09] So I don't know what this insulation thing is you speak of around here.

[00:35:13] We have just enough to hold the air conditioning in our houses because it doesn't get that cold

[00:35:17] down here.

[00:35:18] Although having well...

[00:35:19] Oh, this isn't just insulation though.

[00:35:22] This is anything you do to prevent critters getting in, to prevent cold from getting in

[00:35:29] or out, or to keep water from getting in and out.

[00:35:34] It's just a general catch-all because you know that great stuff, expanding foam insulation,

[00:35:39] people like to shoot into random holes they find in their house.

[00:35:41] That stuff is actually fantastic.

[00:35:43] Don't put it anywhere.

[00:35:44] You don't want it permanently though because it's really a bear to get rid of.

[00:35:50] But so one big thing that I learned in my first house that really cold winter was that

[00:35:57] there are little insulation things are about this big.

[00:36:00] You can buy it at a local hardware store that have pre-cutouts made for your outlets.

[00:36:04] You take your face plate off, you put that little foam piece around your outlet, and

[00:36:10] you put your cover plate back on, and it seals off the airflow.

[00:36:13] Because your house does need to breathe.

[00:36:16] Yeah.

[00:36:17] The walls need to get the moisture out of them through the outside.

[00:36:21] So they're not perfectly sealed.

[00:36:23] But that stuff stops that cold airflow coming into your house.

[00:36:26] And it can really help cut down your heating bills.

[00:36:32] Again, something I never would have thought of down here because, well, you know, 11 months

[00:36:38] of the year, it's warm enough your heater's not running.

[00:36:42] Actually, you know, funny you mention that.

[00:36:44] It's October the 20th.

[00:36:48] Our heater just fired on for the first time within the past several days.

[00:36:52] Oh, okay.

[00:36:53] So it's a little more than one month a year.

[00:36:55] Yeah.

[00:36:55] It's been dropping down into like the 50s at night.

[00:36:58] Okay.

[00:37:00] But...

[00:37:01] You know, I don't know if I mentioned on this show, I ended up with bees in my roof.

[00:37:06] Ugh.

[00:37:07] Yeah.

[00:37:08] Yeah.

[00:37:08] That was like a two-week-long ordeal of sticking my head into a tiny hole and getting stung by

[00:37:13] bees.

[00:37:15] Not a great time.

[00:37:16] Do not recommend.

[00:37:18] Do you know what the cause of that problem was, Phil?

[00:37:20] Hmm.

[00:37:21] A piece of caulk that wide fell out from behind the electrical supply coming into my house.

[00:37:29] A piece of caulk just over an inch long.

[00:37:34] And that was how they infiltrated the house.

[00:37:36] That was how they got in.

[00:37:36] And they built a hive that was about the size of a basketball.

[00:37:40] Oh, phenomenal.

[00:37:41] And probably a couple of weeks.

[00:37:42] Phenomenally fast construction workers.

[00:37:44] Wish I could hire them.

[00:37:46] Probably wouldn't, though, because of the stinging.

[00:37:49] But I ended up having to take a six-foot-long chunk of soffit down off my house, take all

[00:37:54] the underlayment out of there, pull all of them out, poison the whole thing, take them

[00:37:59] out again, and then put it all back up.

[00:38:01] That all could have been solved had I thoroughly inspected the outside of my house more often

[00:38:05] and checked on that caulk.

[00:38:08] So if you have a house that's more than like five or six years old, take a look around.

[00:38:14] Take a close look around.

[00:38:15] Climb up on a ladder.

[00:38:16] Shine a flashlight in all those places.

[00:38:18] Because if you ever are in a hard spot, whether time-wise, money-wise, civil unrest-wise, where

[00:38:27] you can't be dicking around on the ladder for two straight weeks after work, you can avoid

[00:38:33] that by not having bees in your house in the first place.

[00:38:37] Not to mention the damage that they caused, because I did have to rip out quite a large

[00:38:43] amount of wood due to all of the enzymes and the dead bees and everything, and just getting

[00:38:48] in there.

[00:38:50] Fortunately, I had all the tools to cut access into there.

[00:38:54] Otherwise, I would have had to call out an exterminator.

[00:38:56] I have no idea how much that would cost.

[00:38:57] I didn't even want to get a quote on that.

[00:39:03] But they can get quite extensive.

[00:39:05] You know, it's just another thing, like with your regular maintenance oil changes.

[00:39:11] Check the caulking on the exterior of your house.

[00:39:13] Take a detailed look at your siding every few months.

[00:39:16] Take a nice close look at your roof.

[00:39:19] From the ground, there's no need to go up on there.

[00:39:21] Grab your cheap old binoculars.

[00:39:23] Take a look, see if you see any shingles lifting or missing or whatever.

[00:39:27] Because if you catch these problems sooner, okay, you got to hire a refer to replace that

[00:39:33] shingle or those two, three shingles.

[00:39:35] Fantastic.

[00:39:35] A couple hours of work.

[00:39:36] You're out a couple hundred bucks.

[00:39:38] Instead of not finding out until you have a torrential downpour and now your ceiling,

[00:39:43] walls, and floor need to be taken out.

[00:39:45] And down here, I don't think I've heard of much bee infiltration into people's houses

[00:39:51] down here, but the one thing we're constantly fighting with is termites.

[00:39:55] Oh, yeah.

[00:39:56] I never thought about that.

[00:39:57] We don't have termites up here.

[00:39:58] Well, not really.

[00:39:59] Formosan termites will literally eat you out of house and home down here.

[00:40:03] Like, I've had friends and coworkers that have had them infiltrate into the outside walls

[00:40:08] of their houses.

[00:40:10] And once that happens, like, they just Swiss cheese everything they get to.

[00:40:15] I've seen pictures.

[00:40:16] It's terrifying.

[00:40:17] Some people won't realize they have a problem until they start chewing on the drywall.

[00:40:22] And when you start seeing the little pinholes in the drywall, that's when you realize what's

[00:40:26] going on.

[00:40:27] And the only fix is to just gut that wall out, go as far as they've gone, cut everything

[00:40:37] out, and put everything back in.

[00:40:38] I mean, because there is no salvaging that wood after they've chewed holes through it.

[00:40:43] Right, because they kind of just eat it, don't they?

[00:40:45] Yeah.

[00:40:47] Or at least they hollow it out.

[00:40:49] They bore holes through it.

[00:40:52] Interesting.

[00:40:54] Yeah, that's fortunately something I've not had to deal with.

[00:40:56] I mean, we have carpenter ants around here, which will get into wood and get into your

[00:40:59] walls and eat through your studs, but they're not as voracious as termites.

[00:41:03] And as long as you keep old firewood piles away from your house, you're mostly okay.

[00:41:09] Yeah.

[00:41:10] Formosan termites or termites down here is a constant problem.

[00:41:14] That's terrifying.

[00:41:15] Ants to a lesser degree.

[00:41:17] Like, we have that problem in this house.

[00:41:20] Because we live at the edge of the subdivision and we're literally like 10 feet away from the

[00:41:25] wood line, every time we get a hard ray down here, we have, sometimes we'll get ants that'll

[00:41:30] get into the house.

[00:41:31] Sure.

[00:41:31] Because the water table is chasing them up out of the ground.

[00:41:33] They're trying to go to high ground.

[00:41:35] They're looking for somewhere to dry.

[00:41:36] Yeah.

[00:41:37] We deal with spiders on a regular basis in the house.

[00:41:39] We deal with cockroaches on a regular basis in the house.

[00:41:42] And it's not a, oh, our house is so freaking filthy.

[00:41:46] It's, we live 10 feet away from the wood line.

[00:41:50] I mean, it's not, it's not out of the ordinary for us to have like rabbits and snakes and squirrels

[00:41:56] in the front yard.

[00:41:58] And apparently we have a mole.

[00:42:02] And the only reason I know that is because I was walking the, I was walking the yard mowing

[00:42:05] it one day and my foot like sunk partway into the ground.

[00:42:09] And like, as I kind of tested with my foot, there was a, there, there was a tunnel dug through

[00:42:16] my yard.

[00:42:16] Oh yeah.

[00:42:18] They'll do that.

[00:42:19] Homeowner problems.

[00:42:22] Landowner problems.

[00:42:23] Yes.

[00:42:24] But you know, that, that's our next one.

[00:42:29] So we don't have wildfires really where I'm at.

[00:42:33] You're too wet to probably have big wildfires, right?

[00:42:37] Hmm.

[00:42:38] You say that, but I mean, they had.

[00:42:40] Do you?

[00:42:41] Oh, okay.

[00:42:42] Swamp fires are not out of the ordinary.

[00:42:45] Oh, I suppose in the, in the drier season that could catch fire for sure.

[00:42:48] Especially when you get to the drier season when that water level, cause you got to bear in

[00:42:52] mind like what the definition of a wetland or a swamp is.

[00:42:54] It's not always inundated with water.

[00:42:58] It's just mostly inundated with water.

[00:43:01] And once that water level falls enough and those, all those plants that are used to being

[00:43:07] in water start to dry out when the temperature gets high enough.

[00:43:11] Yeah.

[00:43:11] So like, I know that I think last year, the year before we had Bayou Liberty, which isn't

[00:43:17] too far from me, had several days where they had a swamp fire blowing through that area.

[00:43:23] And I mean, and you, you could see it outside.

[00:43:26] Like there was a haze in the air from that fire.

[00:43:29] Never got close enough to threaten my home, but it does happen.

[00:43:34] And flooding is just, if you spit on the sidewalk, it floods around here to some degree.

[00:43:40] Yeah.

[00:43:41] I mean, where, where you're at with the elevation you're at, there's, there's not necessarily

[00:43:45] things you can do about it, but there are definitely things you can do to mitigate a

[00:43:49] fire danger to your house.

[00:43:51] You know, uh, look at the recommendations that they tell people out in California, uh,

[00:43:57] Washington places that get fires regularly.

[00:44:01] You know, as you come out from the property line in towards your house, they tell you

[00:44:06] smaller, shorter, less dense vegetation.

[00:44:10] That way the fire can't burn enough fuel to get to your house kind of thing.

[00:44:16] Having an open barrier around your house where you don't have that, don't have a big stand

[00:44:21] of brushies, brushy trees next to your garage kind of deal.

[00:44:25] Like I have, it's probably not going to be a problem around here because we don't get

[00:44:29] wildfires.

[00:44:30] I have had a tree hit my garage once already.

[00:44:32] So I'm going to cut a few of those down, but you do what you can.

[00:44:37] Some of them are on my neighbor's property, so I can't cut them down legally unless he

[00:44:42] consents to it.

[00:44:43] Technically.

[00:44:44] Well, I, I like that neighbor.

[00:44:46] He's a pretty nice guy.

[00:44:47] So I, I tend not to dick around on his property.

[00:44:50] He doesn't dick around on mine.

[00:44:51] We're square.

[00:44:53] That sounds fair.

[00:44:56] Uh, I'm on a water bearing Hill.

[00:44:58] I'm on a Hill that's on average 75 feet above the surrounding elevation around me, but the

[00:45:06] top of the Hill is fairly flat.

[00:45:08] Okay.

[00:45:08] There's a whole subdivision up on this Hill.

[00:45:11] And a lot of the water from my end of the subdivision has to drain down into the back

[00:45:15] of my property and into a Creek that we have that runs through it.

[00:45:18] And then down along the back of the subdivision.

[00:45:21] When we bought the house, the lady who had lived there was elderly, did limited landscaping

[00:45:28] because elderly.

[00:45:30] And she hadn't, uh, thoroughly checked out that stuff in a very long time.

[00:45:35] And the first big torrential rain we had, despite us being on a Hill, we had water in

[00:45:39] the basement because the landscaping bricks, the joints between the landscaping bricks and

[00:45:45] the land and the dirt between the landscaping bricks and the house had sunk.

[00:45:49] And it was retaining water up against the foundation.

[00:45:53] Went out there with a shovel, popped the brick up.

[00:45:55] All the water started running out into the yard, down back to the Creek and wasn't a problem.

[00:46:01] Take a look at your landscaping when it's raining.

[00:46:05] Take a look at your landscaping when it's raining as heavy as you can stand to be out there.

[00:46:09] Cause that'll show you where the water's flowing.

[00:46:11] Now all of us have a transit level in their garage and can go out and figure out where the

[00:46:17] drainage swale is around your house, but you can definitely see it in the rain.

[00:46:21] And just make sure you're not going to be planting things in the way of that drainage,

[00:46:26] causing water to backfill up towards your house.

[00:46:29] You might be like me, you might be up on a Hill and all the water's supposed to run away,

[00:46:32] but it doesn't necessarily.

[00:46:35] And see, that is one thing that I know my wife and I need to deal with this winter when it gets

[00:46:40] cool outside.

[00:46:42] And before it starts getting hot again, we get back into the wet season is I have an issue

[00:46:46] in my backyard where if you're standing like on my back porch, the wood line is to the right.

[00:46:53] That's where all of the drainage is supposed to go.

[00:46:55] The low side of my yard is on the left.

[00:46:58] So you need to cut a swale.

[00:46:59] So the problem I have is that over the years, my yard has obviously sank down some.

[00:47:06] Like you can just plainly see it because if you look through the fence at where my neighbors,

[00:47:12] like their soil level is compared to mine, their yards are three inches higher than mine.

[00:47:17] Okay.

[00:47:18] So every time it rains, all their yards drain into mine and I ended up with Lake Rapal Lake.

[00:47:22] Sure.

[00:47:23] And I've told Gillian for a while now, and we're just finally at the point where we're

[00:47:27] just going to suck it up and do it.

[00:47:29] Like I'm probably gonna have my brother-in-law come over and give me some muscle and some

[00:47:32] manpower, but we're just going to literally dig a French drain across the backyard from

[00:47:37] one end, from the low side of the yard to unfortunately what's the high side of the yard

[00:47:41] where the water has to go.

[00:47:43] Take all that soil, use it to backfill the low side of the yard, and then just put in gravel

[00:47:49] across that whole French drain.

[00:47:52] All we need is to get my yard, that low spot in my yard up to about the level of my neighbors

[00:47:57] and then make all the water go to the French drain and go to the right.

[00:48:02] And here's the thing of it, even right now with the drainage being completely freaking bass

[00:48:06] backwards, even now if it rains hard enough, the water will back up enough in that side

[00:48:11] of the yard and eventually it'll kind of crest over.

[00:48:14] And once it gets to a certain level, you can see the water flow.

[00:48:19] Like all the water goes over that, over that hill and flows where it's supposed to go.

[00:48:23] I just have to cut the head, that hill down a little bit and then, you know, kind of do

[00:48:27] this with the yard.

[00:48:29] Sure.

[00:48:29] Yeah.

[00:48:30] Take the fill from one side, put it in the other, level it back out a little bit.

[00:48:33] Do you know what, uh, are you familiar with what percentage grade you need for water flow?

[00:48:40] Um, I looked it up once if I recall correctly for French drain.

[00:48:44] I think it's like, was it an inch every foot?

[00:48:50] An inch every foot is optimal.

[00:48:52] You can get away with an inch every two feet as long as it's not a lot of water.

[00:48:58] But yeah, you want about an inch per foot.

[00:49:01] Um, do you, do you know how to run a string, a string plumb line?

[00:49:05] No.

[00:49:06] Okay.

[00:49:07] So for those that don't know what you do is you pound two stakes into your yard, one on

[00:49:11] whichever side you're starting and one on your end side, you run a string between the

[00:49:15] two of them and you have one end tied to the stake and the other end loose at the other

[00:49:20] stake, pull it as tight as you can and get the longest level you have or by what's called

[00:49:26] a, uh, a string level.

[00:49:28] It's level about that long.

[00:49:30] It's got two little hooks on it.

[00:49:31] It'll hook on the string and you can take a look at it.

[00:49:34] What you do is you just raise or lower the string on your end side until that bubble is

[00:49:39] dead center.

[00:49:40] That gives you your level.

[00:49:42] And then what you can do is you can measure from that string down at any point and have

[00:49:48] a, and have a measurement from a standard height.

[00:49:50] It's an old school way of doing it without a transit level.

[00:49:53] It's a lot cheaper than transit levels.

[00:49:56] Yeah.

[00:49:57] I mean, it's one of those situations where it's like, I, I know it needs to be done.

[00:50:02] Uh, I actually talked to a friend of mine from high school who now does landscaping work

[00:50:07] and he, instead of doing that, which is what I think needs to be done.

[00:50:12] He wanted to literally submerge a, an electric transfer pump in a dry well in the backyard and

[00:50:19] then pump, well, but then pump it out to the street.

[00:50:22] Yeah.

[00:50:22] But then you have to have power running.

[00:50:24] Yeah.

[00:50:26] Power don't run very well in hurricane.

[00:50:27] Not to me.

[00:50:28] Yeah.

[00:50:28] Well, I mean, that, that's why I'm looking at a natural drainage option.

[00:50:31] Cause it's like I told him, like, I can see where the water's trying to go.

[00:50:34] If this side of my yard was, was just three or four inches higher, this whole problem would,

[00:50:39] would solve itself.

[00:50:40] The water go where it's supposed to.

[00:50:42] Even if you don't want to cut a French drain, all you need is a natural swale.

[00:50:47] All you need to do is to cut down the hill on the other side enough that it is below the

[00:50:52] lowest level on the other side of your yard.

[00:50:55] Yeah.

[00:50:55] You can take that fill and improve the other side's height a little bit.

[00:50:59] I mean, realistically, you're probably not going to get an inch per foot down where you

[00:51:04] are just because of how flat the land is.

[00:51:08] But if you had an inch per four feet, the water is going to eventually drain.

[00:51:12] It's not going to drain quickly, but it'll move.

[00:51:15] Yeah.

[00:51:15] And I mean, my whole, my whole thing with the French drain isn't just to encourage the

[00:51:20] water to drain out of my yard, but it's try to get the water out of the rest of my yard

[00:51:25] down into that French drain so that I don't have just stand.

[00:51:28] Cause that's also part of the reason.

[00:51:29] That's part of the issue of having a landscape in the backyard for years is the fact that there's

[00:51:34] so much standing water there for so long, it kills all the fricking grass, which makes

[00:51:38] the soil erosion even worse.

[00:51:39] So it's like, I need all this water to go that way.

[00:51:43] And then eventually go that way.

[00:51:45] The only thing about a French drain though, Phil, is when your water table is really high,

[00:51:51] they can actually end up working the opposite of what you think.

[00:51:54] Cause that gravel will fill up full of water.

[00:51:58] Like if you're, if I don't know how deep your water table is, but if you say you had to go

[00:52:02] down three feet with your French drain to get your inch per foot fall off to the, whatever

[00:52:06] side of your property, if you strike that water table, it'll start back filling up into

[00:52:11] that gravel.

[00:52:12] I've heard eight to 12 feet.

[00:52:14] Okay.

[00:52:14] So you should be fine then.

[00:52:15] Bearing in mind that like my home is at one of the higher elevations in town.

[00:52:19] Like if we were, if I were closer to the lake, the average elevation down there is three

[00:52:24] feet above sea level.

[00:52:26] But where I'm at, I think I'm 21 feet up, which is like living on a mountain around here.

[00:52:31] That is a mountain for Louisiana.

[00:52:34] Yeah.

[00:52:35] For, for South Louisiana.

[00:52:36] If you, if you ever happen to be in this area and you're in North Louisiana, like close

[00:52:41] to Arkansas, you'll start seeing like hills and stuff.

[00:52:44] Like it look, it looks like South Arkansas cause it practically is.

[00:52:47] Higher than the house?

[00:52:48] Yes.

[00:52:49] Wow.

[00:52:50] You do have mounds of dirt.

[00:52:52] That's all they are is mounds of dirt.

[00:52:54] It's not really mountains.

[00:52:55] No, definitely not.

[00:52:57] So next up was your, one of yours.

[00:53:00] My only actually.

[00:53:01] So like vehicle maintenance is something that I've, I've tried to take in, take in hand

[00:53:07] a lot over the years because so, you know, during, I hate to keep bringing it up, but like

[00:53:12] during COVID things were weird.

[00:53:15] Things were weird and they continue to be.

[00:53:17] And the supply chain was less reliable than we were used to.

[00:53:22] And bearing in mind that almost nothing is manufactured in this country anymore.

[00:53:26] And I don't believe in spreading out oil changes because nothing good comes from that.

[00:53:33] Nope.

[00:53:33] I started several years ago.

[00:53:36] Like, so I can remember my dad, he, he would used to go to the dealership and he would buy

[00:53:42] like, you know, a flat of oil filters or he'd buy like six or eight at a time.

[00:53:47] And whenever we get down to the last case it was.

[00:53:49] Yeah.

[00:53:49] And whenever we get down to the last two, he'd go buy more, but we always had oil filters,

[00:53:53] but we didn't use, and we usually had like a case of oil and I never thought twice about

[00:53:58] it, but from my dad's perspective, he, his point of view was, is like, well, if I buy it

[00:54:02] at a case, I get a little bit of a discount.

[00:54:04] So it's a money saving strategy for me.

[00:54:08] It is, I want at all times to have an oil change worth of stuff sitting in the garage so

[00:54:15] that if I get to, you know, around about 5,000 miles, I don't have to go to the, go to

[00:54:22] the, you know, go to the store and look for an oil filter.

[00:54:24] And if they don't have it, then I have to go to another store and I need to, I, I, I'm

[00:54:27] particular about oil.

[00:54:29] I like mobile and full synthetic, whatever your brand is good for you.

[00:54:33] I understand that when you're buying it ahead of time, you can afford to be picky and get

[00:54:37] the exact item you want.

[00:54:39] Not to mention when you, when you have one vehicle that uses five W30 and one vehicle

[00:54:45] that uses five W20, there's been more than a handful of times I've gone to the store and

[00:54:50] one or the other of those oils was not on the shelf because they hadn't restocked it

[00:54:55] yet.

[00:54:56] Sure.

[00:54:56] I've just gotten into the mode of basic maintenance supplies.

[00:55:01] I keep on the shelf.

[00:55:03] Whenever I have to change a serpentine belt, I don't throw the old one away.

[00:55:06] I put it in a box.

[00:55:08] I put it on a shelf because, or even better, like in my truck, it's sitting in my toolbox

[00:55:13] because if I pop, if I pop a serpentine belt on the side of the road, it will, it will

[00:55:18] involve some profanity, but I will manage to get that new serpent, that, that old serpentine

[00:55:23] belt back on that engine so I can get off the side of the road and get moving.

[00:55:26] Right.

[00:55:27] But it's just, it's this idea that it's kind of the same thing we've been talking about

[00:55:30] with home maintenance.

[00:55:31] It goes back to the idea that you should have a minimum amount of stuff to put your vehicle

[00:55:37] back on the road if something pops or to keep it on the road.

[00:55:41] Um, every single fluid that goes in my vehicle, I have a, I have at least one bottle of it

[00:55:47] sitting on the shelf.

[00:55:48] Brake fluid, power steering fluid.

[00:55:49] Yeah, enough for a top off.

[00:55:50] Yeah.

[00:55:51] Transmission fluid.

[00:55:52] I do all my own maintenance anyway.

[00:55:54] So most of that is what I had left over from the last time I changed the fluid out.

[00:55:58] Sure.

[00:55:59] But that's really all you need because, and a lot of this is also driven out of like

[00:56:04] my experience.

[00:56:05] Cause like, you know, my personal boogeyman is, is, and always will be hurricanes and I

[00:56:11] got it kind of, you know, pushed into my head at a young age that if your vehicle is not

[00:56:16] in a state of maintenance where you could put it on the road and drive 500 miles right

[00:56:20] now at the drop of the hat, it's not maintained properly.

[00:56:24] So that means if I need to go get brake fluids, I can drive 500 miles.

[00:56:29] I better have brake fluid in the garage.

[00:56:31] If I'm to, if I'm a hundred miles away from an oil change, I better have stuff doing oil

[00:56:35] change right here now.

[00:56:36] And then put that vehicle on the road from 500 miles.

[00:56:39] It's just this idea that like, I don't want to have to go to the store when what I really

[00:56:44] need to do is get this vehicle up and moving so it can serve me in the way I need to be

[00:56:48] served right this minute.

[00:56:51] Absolutely.

[00:56:52] And generators too.

[00:56:55] Carb kit, filters, oil, gas, fuel filters, fuel line.

[00:57:01] Spark plug.

[00:57:03] So, and maybe even your contacts.

[00:57:05] If you have a brush, a generator with brushes.

[00:57:11] Hmm.

[00:57:11] So after my, after my experience during Hurricane Ida where my generator was being less than

[00:57:16] cooperative, as soon as that was over, I ordered two complete carburetor assemblies,

[00:57:24] two spark plugs, two fuel filters, and got a five quart jug of the oil that I needed.

[00:57:30] Now for, I mean, I had some oil for it, but I got, I just got like a whole nother jug and

[00:57:34] put it on the shelf with everything else.

[00:57:36] Yeah.

[00:57:36] But at this point I literally have every part I need to strip that engine and put it all

[00:57:42] back together, sitting in a vacuum sealed bag, sitting in the shed right where the generator

[00:57:48] is.

[00:57:48] Perfect.

[00:57:49] So, and that's strictly because, you know, when I fired up for Hurricane Ida, that old foam

[00:57:56] air filter disintegrated and got sucked into the carburetor.

[00:57:59] It was kind of pissed at me after that for a while.

[00:58:02] So, yeah.

[00:58:04] But the, I mean, you could, you're right.

[00:58:05] You could extend this to chainsaw.

[00:58:07] I've got a spare bar.

[00:58:09] I don't know how many chains I have.

[00:58:11] I quit counting.

[00:58:13] Every time I never have enough chainsaw chains.

[00:58:15] Trust me.

[00:58:16] Every time I'd go to the steel, every time I'd go, cause there's only one place in town

[00:58:20] that had, that stock steel stuff.

[00:58:21] That's a steel dealer.

[00:58:22] No, they'll take it back.

[00:58:23] There's two, but every time I'd go to one, I'd pick up an extra chain.

[00:58:26] Cause I was there.

[00:58:27] Why not?

[00:58:29] And got an extra bar, got a whole frigging, you know, kit of stuff to put it back into

[00:58:33] service.

[00:58:34] Like to me, it's always been about half the stuff I need because my, my, my thought process

[00:58:38] was I still only have a single chainsaw.

[00:58:42] Exactly.

[00:58:42] What would happen if after a hurricane, I sent, I managed to sink that thing into a tree and

[00:58:48] it shifts and it pinches the bar and I can't get it out.

[00:58:53] Now I do have an ax.

[00:58:55] I do have a couple of wedges.

[00:58:57] I could try, I could try to get it to give me the chainsaw back or I could undo the bar

[00:59:04] nut, leave that thing in there, go get the other bar in the other chain, take one of the

[00:59:09] spare bar nuts.

[00:59:10] If I happen to drop one, cause I got extras of those.

[00:59:13] Cause why the hell wouldn't you have extras?

[00:59:15] Screw that back together.

[00:59:16] And then I can cut the frigging, cut the bar back out of the tree when we're the other.

[00:59:20] Like, you know, it just, to me, it just made sense to have all those spare parts because

[00:59:26] when something breaks, especially something you're going to depend on after a hurricane,

[00:59:30] you know, the thing I tell people about hurricanes is I'm like, uh, a cap for hurricane is like

[00:59:35] an F two tornado that can wipe out six zip codes.

[00:59:39] Yeah.

[00:59:40] You don't have it.

[00:59:41] If you don't have it at Lambeau, you're not going to have it for a couple of months.

[00:59:45] Right.

[00:59:46] Or at least a couple of weeks in the case of a minor hurricane, it's going to distribute,

[00:59:50] uh, mess up your supply chain.

[00:59:52] So, okay, great.

[00:59:53] Your car is a hundred miles from needing an oil change.

[00:59:55] It's going to be three weeks before you can get it into a shop because you and everybody

[00:59:59] else.

[01:00:00] Yeah.

[01:00:00] And the shop's under three feet of water.

[01:00:02] And there it becomes, the next problem is let, let's, let's assume you are the only person

[01:00:08] who needs that serve that thing service, which you're not going to be because everybody else's

[01:00:13] generators and chainsaws pick that exact moment, start acting crazy.

[01:00:17] I mean, it just, it, and we, Gillian and I have dealt with this before, you know, uh,

[01:00:23] one of our patrons, Nathan, he was talking recently about, he ordered something from Lowe's

[01:00:27] and I didn't ask what it was, but he'd mentioned like, he got this notification that like, due,

[01:00:33] due to being in the hurricane affected area, cause not to put his business down the street,

[01:00:36] but he's, he's in an area where a hurricane just went through.

[01:00:40] And, uh, you know, due to all that, there might be shipping delays and everything else.

[01:00:45] And I pointed out to him, I'm like, here's the problem.

[01:00:47] The shipper could be having a delay.

[01:00:50] Lowe's could be having a delay.

[01:00:51] Their warehouse could be having a delay.

[01:00:54] And if you ordered anything that is like home appliance related, you are one of a couple

[01:00:59] million people that are trying to replace stuff in their house right now.

[01:01:03] So like if, if you're, if you're buying stuff, cause you just want to update stuff, but everybody

[01:01:09] else ordered stuff because their houses were under four feet of water and they need to replace

[01:01:12] everything.

[01:01:13] Like you're, you're stuck in the chute with that, you know, of that supply chain right now.

[01:01:17] And not to mention there are going to be things that Lowe's says, these things are not a priority.

[01:01:26] Plywood and structural components are a priority or, or these are higher dollar items.

[01:01:32] Yeah.

[01:01:33] Higher dollar items get, get the priority on shipping.

[01:01:36] After hurricane, how they're going to prioritize that.

[01:01:39] After hurricane Ida, I want to say it was four or five months before we got our roof replaced.

[01:01:45] Yeah.

[01:01:45] I remember you saying that was quite, it was quite a long time.

[01:01:47] Well, first of all, we had to fight with the insurance company because why wouldn't I want

[01:01:51] to fight with the homeowners insurance company about all that?

[01:01:54] But even then it was like every roofer for 150 miles was working six and seven days a week.

[01:02:02] And probably hiring as many guys as they could.

[01:02:05] And then their suppliers were like importing stuff as fast as they could just to get the

[01:02:11] materials in.

[01:02:12] Like if I had, if I had, fortunately I did want black shingles on the roof, but, but I

[01:02:20] was, you had a colored shingle.

[01:02:21] I was told if you want anything but a black shingle, it's going to be three more weeks.

[01:02:26] Cause that's, that's how far back we, cause like they had people who had said, no, no,

[01:02:30] no, I want this special colored shingle.

[01:02:32] And that was fine.

[01:02:33] But that meant you weren't going to be able to get that color until the next batch came

[01:02:37] in and their supplier was bringing stuff in as fast as they could.

[01:02:40] So it turns into a problem of if you are held hostage by the supply chain to get things

[01:02:49] done, it just pays to have those things in your custody before the emergency.

[01:02:54] That really is like the, the linchpin that ties this whole topic together.

[01:02:58] Honestly, is like at three o'clock in the morning, you don't have a plumber standing in your front

[01:03:03] yard.

[01:03:03] And if you do, he's charging you $750 an hour or whatever price they want.

[01:03:08] Even if it's two 50 an hour, you're paying a minimum of two to three hour travel time.

[01:03:13] Mm-hmm plus whatever time he's there.

[01:03:16] So you're in for a grand minimum.

[01:03:19] The whole time you have a pipe blowing water out.

[01:03:22] And what are you going to do?

[01:03:23] Tell him his, his hourly rates too much.

[01:03:25] Cause you got to pay him for that trip, whether or not he does any work.

[01:03:28] Yeah.

[01:03:29] You know, and it, for me, the, the vehicle maintenance stuff extends out to my lawn care

[01:03:33] equipment because I have a fairly large property.

[01:03:36] I'm on, well, fairly large for this area.

[01:03:39] For me, it's a little over an acre.

[01:03:41] It's about an acre and a quarter, but to get to my, the wood from the back of my property

[01:03:48] to the front of my property, I'm not putting all that in a wheelbarrow.

[01:03:50] I've got a lawnmower and a trailer.

[01:03:52] So I have spare inner tubes for the lawnmower tires, spare inner tubes for the trailer tires,

[01:03:59] compressor, um, belts for the mower fluids for the mower, uh, some repair parts for the

[01:04:05] mower, fairly simple stuff.

[01:04:08] But if I have to take my generator from one side of my property to the other, it's a real

[01:04:12] bitch to do that by hand.

[01:04:15] But the tractor makes that phenomenally easy.

[01:04:19] You know, uh, basic maintenance, put a battery tender on it.

[01:04:22] When it gets cold, it's the battery doesn't freeze.

[01:04:24] You can go out there, fire it up.

[01:04:27] Same with a snowblower around here.

[01:04:29] Cause Phil, I know you guys don't, when you get snow down there, you're pretty much just

[01:04:32] done for the week.

[01:04:34] But around here, if I get a 12 inch snowfall, I'm expected to be to work at six in the morning

[01:04:40] because what are you doing?

[01:04:41] It's only a foot of snow.

[01:04:42] You better be at work.

[01:04:44] If we got a foot of snow in South Louisiana, national geographic would be insane.

[01:04:49] National geographic would be on site.

[01:04:51] Like it'd be, it'd be something.

[01:04:54] Yeah, we get, we get a one foot snowfall usually at least once a year around here.

[01:04:59] It's not uncommon to wake up to multiple four to five, six inch snowfalls in a week.

[01:05:06] And I got a big driveway.

[01:05:07] I got a big truck.

[01:05:08] I'm not going to clear that with a shovel.

[01:05:10] That would just be miserable.

[01:05:12] So I keep a bunch of spare parts for my snowblower belts for that as well.

[01:05:18] Same thing.

[01:05:18] Oil, fuel filters, air filters, you know, extra gas.

[01:05:23] Phil, you know, we were talking about in the Patreon chat, uh, generators and ways to cut

[01:05:27] down generator maintenance.

[01:05:28] Have you looked into doing a propane adapter for your generator?

[01:05:33] So my generator is so freaking ancient that before I would surrender to the idea of adapting

[01:05:39] it to propane, honestly, I'd replace it.

[01:05:42] It's just a straight carburetor replacement.

[01:05:46] It's just a new slap on carburetor most of the time.

[01:05:49] Yeah, but I'm already toying with the idea of upgrading the generator anyway.

[01:05:52] Oh, okay.

[01:05:52] Well, then I would look for a dual fuel or if you can.

[01:05:56] Now, this is the way to really go if I'd have known that existed when I bought mine.

[01:06:00] Yeah.

[01:06:00] Tri-fuel and then get your gas line up, your gas meter upgraded.

[01:06:04] See that that's, and this is, this is the thing that I debate with myself because I could

[01:06:10] get an 8, 9, 10,000, 1000 watt tri-fuel.

[01:06:15] Mm-hmm.

[01:06:18] And I could certainly like, you know, get a couple of hundred pound propane tanks.

[01:06:25] You know, I should show you, I'll, I'll, you know what?

[01:06:28] I'll write up an article about my generator trailer that I built and what I've got for it.

[01:06:33] Yeah.

[01:06:33] And it'll run my, it'll run my 220 well pump.

[01:06:35] It'll run my 220 boiler.

[01:06:37] Um, well, it's the 220 pump on my boiler.

[01:06:40] The boiler's natural gas.

[01:06:42] But, uh, 240 pound propane cylinders will, if I'm running one hour on four hours off, I

[01:06:49] believe it was 14 days of, of one hour on to the four hours.

[01:06:55] The problem I'm going to have down here is that my, my single most common use case is going

[01:07:00] to be after a hurricane air conditioner.

[01:07:04] Those tend to have the, those tend to happen when it's hot outside.

[01:07:08] Yes, they do.

[01:07:09] So, and now I don't, I mean, if I had a big enough generator to run the frigging entire

[01:07:14] house in the central air, like I still think it would probably, it'd probably still be

[01:07:21] more efficient just to plug in the pair of window units that we have.

[01:07:24] And, you know, for me, it was a 20, it was looking like a 20,000, uh, 20,000 watt generac

[01:07:31] whole home.

[01:07:32] If I wanted to run my air conditioner, I can't imagine yours would be any less.

[01:07:36] No, but that's also why I'm not looking at running the central air.

[01:07:39] On ours.

[01:07:39] Because like my problem is that I know this is not my forever home.

[01:07:43] Like this is, this is just, and, and a generac is a tremendous investment in the house.

[01:07:50] Whereas if I got, when I quoted it out four years ago, it was like 15 or $16,000, including

[01:07:55] install.

[01:07:55] I'd have to ask my dad what he got.

[01:07:57] Cause he just put one on his house and, but he's, they're going to, they, they're retired.

[01:08:02] They're staying.

[01:08:03] Sure.

[01:08:03] They're going to, they're in place.

[01:08:05] Yeah.

[01:08:06] But for me and my wife, like this just isn't where we want to be for retirement.

[01:08:11] I have been extremely happy.

[01:08:14] I know it's not the best brand of generator.

[01:08:16] I got one of the Duramax 10,000 surge dual fuels.

[01:08:19] It's been fantastic.

[01:08:21] You know, I had four and a half days where we were totally out of power from an ice storm

[01:08:27] and I ran the thing every other or every third hour to keep the boiler heat in my house from

[01:08:34] freezing.

[01:08:35] I mean, we, we really didn't need to, to use it to keep the house warm because I've got

[01:08:40] a, uh, well, one of the big reasons I bought this house is because we have a naturally aspirated,

[01:08:45] uh, heat-alated fireplace.

[01:08:48] So essentially what that is for people that don't know is alongside of, you got your fire

[01:08:52] box and on the left and right side of it, there's usually an air gap.

[01:08:57] Well, in ours, it's, it's like a, like an HVAC duct that comes in at the floor level.

[01:09:03] It gets heated up by the masonry and the flue and it comes out the front.

[01:09:07] And what it creates is a convection of air pulling in cool air, heating it up and pushing

[01:09:13] it out into the house.

[01:09:14] Well, that fireplace, when we kept that running basically for four straight days without the

[01:09:20] heat on and we didn't need to fire up the heat, it was like 74 degrees in the house.

[01:09:25] That's nice.

[01:09:27] It was super nice.

[01:09:28] Granted, this is a ranch house and it would not be as effective if it was a two-story

[01:09:32] house because the upper floor wouldn't get that heat, at least get as much of that heat.

[01:09:36] But, you know, it's, uh, once you get all that stone and brick up to temperature, it holds

[01:09:44] temperature for a very long time.

[01:09:47] You know, it was probably, I mean, we would, we would bank the fire for going to bed.

[01:09:53] And then in the morning when we woke up, it was still too hot to touch any of the stone

[01:09:58] around it, even though the fire had probably gone out four hours before.

[01:10:02] So that's still creating and adding heat or not creating, but adding heat into your air

[01:10:07] and into your environment.

[01:10:08] This sounds like northerner problems.

[01:10:11] Oh, it really is.

[01:10:12] It really is.

[01:10:13] You know, down by you, you guys could probably survive with no heat and not freeze to death

[01:10:19] just because you're inside the house.

[01:10:20] You'd be miserable.

[01:10:23] So several, several years ago, our furnace went out, our, our gas furnace went out literally

[01:10:30] the weekend before the coldest week of the year.

[01:10:34] That's rough.

[01:10:35] We managed to make it through because like we were, we very quickly like, you know, made

[01:10:42] an assessment, realized that the entire age of it, it was, it was, it was going to cost

[01:10:46] us, I think to fix what was up there was going to be two thirds the cost of a brand new unit.

[01:10:51] So we just sucked it up.

[01:10:53] Time for a new unit.

[01:10:53] Yep.

[01:10:54] Time.

[01:10:55] Pull the checkbook out, throw money at the problem, whole new unit, whole new furnace,

[01:10:58] fix the problem.

[01:11:00] But to get through that weekend, we literally had two electric space heaters.

[01:11:05] Okay.

[01:11:06] And that was, that was all it took to keep the two bedrooms at a nice, reasonable temperature.

[01:11:11] And then during the day we'd run the fireplace to warm the front of the house.

[01:11:15] Yeah.

[01:11:16] I think, um, my neighbor up the street behind me, when we had that ice storm, her house

[01:11:20] got down to 38 degrees and it was like in the upper third, upper to lower thirties.

[01:11:27] No, it was, it was in the twenties at night and it was 32, 33 during the day while her power

[01:11:33] was out for four days.

[01:11:35] That's, that's cold.

[01:11:37] 38 degrees inside the house.

[01:11:39] 38 degrees inside the house.

[01:11:41] Yeah.

[01:11:42] No, I had her drainer plumbing completely down.

[01:11:45] That way she didn't get her pipes to freeze.

[01:11:46] The coldest I can ever remember being inside this house was like mid fifties.

[01:11:51] Yeah.

[01:11:52] That's, that's survivable.

[01:11:54] That's comfortable night camp sleeping weather.

[01:11:58] Don't say that to my wife.

[01:11:59] She'll, she'll get very upset about the idea that we would, she would be comfortable.

[01:12:03] What, you don't have zero degree sleeping bags, Phil?

[01:12:05] Oh, we do.

[01:12:05] And, um, if I tell her to hop in one while it's 55 degrees outside, she's going to tell

[01:12:10] us, she's going to be like, no, I'm going to stay in a hotel.

[01:12:13] There you go.

[01:12:15] Yeah.

[01:12:15] But you know, unfortunately for us, that wasn't really an option because we couldn't get out

[01:12:20] of the neighborhood.

[01:12:21] Mm hmm.

[01:12:22] There were, so we live on a dead end street in a small subdivision and it's all dead end

[01:12:28] streets.

[01:12:29] There's only one entrance and exit.

[01:12:31] There were three places.

[01:12:33] There were power lines down on the road.

[01:12:36] So because there are only 12 houses, 12 to 20 houses on our street, I can never remember

[01:12:40] the exact number to count.

[01:12:42] Um, we were really low on the total pole to getting those last two fixed when they fixed

[01:12:47] the one up by the highway.

[01:12:49] So in other words, you were going to sit there and eat that poop sandwich with a spoon.

[01:12:53] We were just going to be stuck there.

[01:12:54] We were just going to be stuck.

[01:12:55] And I called, you know, I, uh, I called into work the first morning and said, Hey, I got

[01:12:59] to get the generator up and run and then I'll be into work.

[01:13:02] And, uh, my wife went to leave to go to work and five minutes later, she's walking back in

[01:13:06] the house.

[01:13:06] She said, there's, there's a tree and power lines down on the road.

[01:13:09] What do I do?

[01:13:10] Well, you don't drive across them.

[01:13:12] Nope.

[01:13:12] That's for, but you know, sometimes.

[01:13:16] Yeah.

[01:13:17] Could we, could we have walked up to the highway at somebody pick us up and then, and then get

[01:13:24] out?

[01:13:25] Yes.

[01:13:25] Yeah.

[01:13:26] Probably could have, but it wasn't necessary.

[01:13:28] I had enough, I had enough propane to keep the generator going for what was basically two

[01:13:33] weeks.

[01:13:34] And I had enough firewood cut and stacked in the back, in the back property that we could

[01:13:39] have kept a fire going for months.

[01:13:43] So, you know, it's, that's another, another point I meant to bring up, but I forgot to was,

[01:13:49] uh, chimney maintenance.

[01:13:51] If you're not one that uses their fireplace often get that inspected at least every other

[01:13:56] year.

[01:13:59] Fortunately, we use ours regularly.

[01:14:02] Yeah.

[01:14:02] As regularly as it gets cold enough.

[01:14:04] Well, and even if you do use it regularly, you should have it cleaned now and then.

[01:14:11] Well, I think we've pretty well covered all of this.

[01:14:16] I mean, when you, when you, when you, when you propose this topic, I was in favor of it because

[01:14:21] like, I feel like a majority of the things that we talk about, like we, we on this show,

[01:14:28] we try not to talk about, like, I refer to it as crazy stuff.

[01:14:31] We don't do zombies.

[01:14:32] We don't do, we do World War III occasionally, but.

[01:14:36] We should do a Halloween zombie episode.

[01:14:39] I'll, I'll excuse myself from that one.

[01:14:43] But I like, I feel like we try to talk about things that there's a better than hot, there's

[01:14:47] a better than reasonable likelihood of happening and things, when you start talking about things

[01:14:51] like a pipe might burst or a sink might start leaking or.

[01:14:56] You know.

[01:14:56] If you're a homeowner for any length of time, one of these things is going to happen.

[01:15:00] Yeah.

[01:15:01] And if, if your day hasn't come yet, it's coming.

[01:15:04] Just, just give it a minute.

[01:15:07] But yeah, I mean, that's why I put in the, uh, I put under my name, I am the home warranty

[01:15:13] because you know, at three o'clock in the morning when something breaks, there's something we say

[01:15:19] in the self-defense world all the time of like, you are the first responder, whether you want

[01:15:23] to be or not, cause you're going to be the first one there.

[01:15:27] And sometimes you are the home warranty, whether you want to be or not, cause you're there when

[01:15:32] it breaks.

[01:15:34] And if you would like, you're there when it breaks.

[01:15:36] Yeah.

[01:15:36] But if you're, you're not there when it breaks, you're probably going to be the first person

[01:15:40] to discover it.

[01:15:42] So there you are.

[01:15:43] Now you're the home warranty service.

[01:15:45] You might choose to, you know, subcontract the fixing of the problem to somebody else.

[01:15:50] But in the meantime, you're still sitting there with a pipe spraying water out of the wall.

[01:15:55] At the very least you're there to stop it from getting worse.

[01:15:58] And if that's all you can do, fantastic.

[01:16:01] You've just saved yourself money by making it not worse.

[01:16:05] Yeah.

[01:16:06] We could talk for a freaking hour about, about this same thing in relation to just automobiles.

[01:16:13] But I'll drive myself crazy telling old war stories I saw in mechanic shops.

[01:16:21] Nothing, nothing will scare you worse and make you hate your fellow driver worse than working

[01:16:26] in a mechanic shop and seeing the rolling junk heaps that people drive down the road with

[01:16:30] your wife and kids.

[01:16:30] It's like, yeah, I look, I am as cold blooded libertarian as the next person.

[01:16:36] I think that if I think we should take all the warning labels off everything and let the

[01:16:39] problems fix themselves.

[01:16:41] But the, some of the stuff I've seen driving around on four wheels next to my wife and daughter

[01:16:47] almost make me embrace like mandatory safety checks by the government.

[01:16:52] You know, there, there is an argument to be made for it.

[01:16:56] But trouble is, is that it's almost impossible to do well.

[01:17:02] You're being generous by saying almost.

[01:17:05] Well, in, in theory with the most authoritarian state possible, you could inspect every single

[01:17:11] vehicle every quarter, but you're still going to get somebody that's breaks war out in between

[01:17:18] quarterly inspections.

[01:17:20] Or somebody who paid their mechanic to look the other way.

[01:17:23] Not that I've ever seen that happen before.

[01:17:26] All right.

[01:17:28] Well, let's kick this one out the door.

[01:17:30] It's two 38 on a Sunday afternoon.

[01:17:32] And I'm sure you have stuff to do.

[01:17:33] And I haven't heard from my wife or daughter in over an hour, which is alarming.

[01:17:40] Yeah.

[01:17:41] You could be in real trouble this time.

[01:17:43] It depends on how big the honeydew list has gotten.

[01:17:47] But as long as it's still not touching the floor from the top of the fridge, you're probably

[01:17:51] fine.

[01:17:52] It probably will be.

[01:17:55] All right.

[01:17:56] Matter of Effects podcast heading out the door.

[01:17:58] We're still trying to get to loop back around to our friend and patron, Eddie, to give us

[01:18:03] some debrief on North Carolina.

[01:18:05] Unfortunately, he was unavailable.

[01:18:07] So maybe we'll catch him next week.

[01:18:09] And if not, we'll cook something up in the meantime.

[01:18:12] Yeah.

[01:18:12] Worst case, we can do a prerecord at his convenience for it.

[01:18:16] Why would we want to make things convenient for him?

[01:18:19] Well, I don't know.

[01:18:21] He's a nice enough guy.

[01:18:24] Going out the door.

[01:18:25] Bye, y'all.

[01:18:26] Bye.

[01:18:26] Bye.

[01:18:26] Bye.