I think we can all agree everything right now is expensive. Are there things you can do aroudn your house to save some money? Are there projects that might put money back in your pocket or save you a ton down the road. We talk about that and so much more in the first hour of Around the House Show!

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[00:00:23] Eric Goranson: So we can talk about things you can do to save money around the house. This is going to be a good one. And there might be some things here you hadn't even thought of. And some of these are preventative and some of these are things you can do right now to save you some serious money. If you want to find out more about us, head over to around the house online.

[00:00:59] Eric Goranson: [00:01:00] Thanks for joining me today. I'm Eric. And we are going to talk about some fun stuff today It doesn't matter though. If you're catching us on the talk media network on the radio stations across the country Thanks for tuning in and if you are make sure and follow and listen to those sponsors out there They're the ones that keep us on the radio Every single week for two hours.

[00:01:35] Eric Goranson: If you want to find out more about us, you can find us on our website. Around the house online. com. And of course, if you've got a home improvement question or a comment, or you just want to talk to me, that number is 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44 that number again is 8 3 3 2 3 9 41 44 today, we're going to be talking about my top things to do this year.

[00:02:15] Eric Goranson: And the material costs just, they're not going back down again, which is a bummer because there's so many of us that want to be tackling projects and. These things just get more and more expensive these days. And I was hoping we'd see some balance in that. And clearly we haven't. Some things have gone down.

[00:02:50] Eric Goranson: And, uh, my first one here on the list, these are not in a particular order, so it's not a countdown or anything like that, but these are just my pieces that I think are worthwhile to take a look at first on [00:03:00] is work on low cost energy efficiency, saving money on your home and not wasting money. Is a big thing.

[00:03:29] Eric Goranson: And I tell you what mine saved me a couple of hundred bucks a year. So it starts to pay itself back really quickly. And if you get the good ones, like a Bradford white is my favorite brand out there because they're the only one that's serviceable. So you think about it, it's like a refrigerator that's built into this.

[00:04:04] Eric Goranson: So it's few light bulbs basically. So that is really cool and how that works. And so that can save you a ton of money. And right now, the more I'm diving into this and I've been, I've changed my tune about this a little bit over the last six months to a year and some of these ultra hyper energy efficient.

[00:04:52] Eric Goranson: But sometimes it's a difference of spending 10 grand for something that's medium efficiency to 25 [00:05:00] grand and spending an extra 15, 000 to get, I don't know, 10 percent more. So unless you have that disposable income, you're like, I just want to get the most efficient and I'm going to be good for the I'm totally cool with that.

[00:05:35] Eric Goranson: I put in a great carrier infinity system in my house. I absolutely love it. I have zero regrets on that system. It's quiet. It's efficient. It's saving me money. I had window air conditioners in before that. So that was a big deal. And that has really added a ton of comfort and clean air in my home. And so that's really cool.

[00:06:31] Eric Goranson: Okay. You can get some eight, 10, 12, 000 bucks back. The problem though, is that you have to pay on the stuff that I saw prevailing wage, which means you're paying sometimes double for that employee. And I don't know of any in my area, for instance, I don't know of any heating and cooling professionals.

[00:07:07] Eric Goranson: And so that hope that I had for this whole thing, once I dove into it and started talking to the professionals out there and started seeing where the catches are. There's a lot of catches. So that's going to be one right there. And the other one is just doing some inexpensive stuff around your house.

[00:07:39] Eric Goranson: That your local energy company might have rebates on and that can really put money back into your pocket pretty well. Just like the other tip I have is making sure that you've got those doors and windows all repaired up. Maybe you need to put in a new window. Maybe you've got daylight coming into that front door and you need to put in some new weather stripping and stuff on there.

[00:08:13] Eric Goranson: So all of these little things like this, working on that energy efficiency, as you're changing out lights, putting in the LEDs. Putting in some nice stuff, put it in good quality LEDs, not the cheapest Amazon stuff out there, but just making sure you're putting in the quality stuff and that stuff that can save you money in the long run and just going through, changing those things out as you need to not tackling is a big project, but just trying to make sure that, uh, you're efficient.

[00:08:52] Eric Goranson: If you could take a look at my videos out there that we've got either on my own YouTube page, which is around the house or on our Fox 12, Oregon [00:09:00] page, where we've got stuff on there. If you're watching those videos, make sure and clip the font, the thumbs up on there. That is such a big deal for us because that really gives us out there.

[00:09:27] Eric Goranson: So your little thing of, as you're watching a video, Hey, that was cool. You click thumbs up. That is awesome. That helps us get out there and it helps all the algorithms and things like that. So click subscribe, thumbs up. And of course, any comments and or reviews, we love it. And I appreciate every single one of you around the house.

[00:10:09] Eric Goranson: the around the house show the next generation of home improvement. I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining me today. I really appreciate you all. If you're listening on the radio, make sure you catch the podcast as well. That way, if you miss some of it, you can always go back. If you're out driving around in the car, don't worry.

[00:10:40] Eric Goranson: com. And we're coming to dates the May 18th weekend. And this is always a kind of a reminiscing weekend for me. And we'll talk about this little sidebar here. Cause we've been talking about my top 10 things to do this year to save money on your home. And this is one of those weekends that I always just look back and go, man.

[00:11:18] Eric Goranson: And I look at my dad and go, that wasn't a Sonic boom. And he goes, no, that was a big deal. And my dad goes running off. My dad worked in the nuclear stuff. So I think he had other concerns of what that was. He comes back and goes, Hey, we got to load up. Let's get out of here. Mount St. Helen's just exploded.

[00:11:58] Eric Goranson: But I remember about noon, it was [00:12:00] like just raining ash and the street lights were on and it was like fireplace ash just raining from the sky. And we got a couple inches. And it was just one of those things as a kid, remember, wow, this is insane. So of course, every May 18th, that's just one of those natural disasters that I remember as a kid.

[00:12:32] Eric Goranson: So there was some scrambling to make things get going. We spent a little bit of time in May when I wanted to be outside playing. There was some serious time of spending time inside and not out there going to school with dust masks on. It was like pre COVID stuff. It was pretty crazy. So great time on May 18th.

[00:13:11] Eric Goranson: And this is a really big deal, especially with needing annual maintenance on your systems. If you're in the Northern states, I would say having your heating system looked at and your AC system looked at is good. If you're in the Southern states, like down on the coastal states, down South, You probably want to have that AC system looked at twice a year because you're going to have it running a lot more often than the people up north.

[00:13:57] Eric Goranson: All of a sudden you're paying a hundred times more It [00:14:00] seems for stuff that was super cheap a couple years ago, and they're gonna discontinue this stuff So what happens is all of the newer refrigerants are out there a few years ago. We're getting ready to change them again But what happens is if you've got a system that's older than 15 years old, guess what?

[00:14:39] Eric Goranson: And maybe you can sneak a few extra years out of it before you got to go spend money. Now, the other thing is too, is we got to keep an eye out on what energy star and some of these mandated rebates are out there too, because. I wouldn't be surprised to see them eliminating some of these lesser and cheaper efficiency units, and that could happen between [00:15:00] now and the end of the year.

[00:15:16] Eric Goranson: So keep an eye on that. That's a big one right there. So, and just make sure things are working and there's a lot of things you can do yourself. And I just talked about this for this weekend. So around the house, Northwest television show, make sure that you've got a really good filter in there, but here's the problem.

[00:15:55] Eric Goranson: Now, home Depot has their own, there's the Merv. There's all these different ratings on stuff out there, [00:16:00] but maybe get a little less efficient filter. So it's not grabbing all the stuff out of the air. Now I want you to have good air quality, but I also want you to make sure you've got enough air to keep the house cool.

[00:16:27] Eric Goranson: So that way you can get a little more airflow and then swap it back in when it gets back down to normal and you'll be good to go. So that's another one right there. Those are all things to do. And then outside on that compressor unit, maintain that. I want to make sure that you take. All the shrubs and bushes, get them a couple feet away from that.

[00:17:03] Eric Goranson: You can get a Lowe's the hose end ones, and I'll put it next to it. And when we get up into the over a hundred degree temperature. HVAC systems on the air conditioning side are only designed to really drop that temperature inside 25 30 degrees. So what you can do then is put that mister out there, if you've got good water quality, put it right next to the unit.

[00:17:45] Eric Goranson: I don't want to be keep that thing flooded. There's computers and everything else. It's meant to be outside, but on those 2 or 3 days where it's like, all right, they got all the heat warnings out there. That might be the time to pull that thing out. Let that run during the afternoon for a few hours, and that [00:18:00] could lower that down and just make it more efficient.

[00:18:27] Eric Goranson: Those plug in air fresheners stay away from those are like vaping in my mind not good Make sure you use your vent fan in the kitchen Make sure you use the vent fans in the bathrooms when you're in there, you know taking a shower Get the moisture out of there. Let's see if we can cut down on the mold, the better off you're going to be.

[00:19:10] Eric Goranson: the around the house. So the next generation of home improvement, I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining me here today. We are talking about my top things to do this year to save you money on your home. Those little things can save you a ton of cash. Now, if you want to find out more about me, or if you had a trick or a tip, I'd love to hear it.

[00:19:49] Eric Goranson: We've been talking about these things and saving some money around the house. Next up here is an important one. When doing projects, Rent those expensive tools [00:20:00] if you don't think you're going to use it a lot. And this has been one of my secrets here because I don't know, I tackle projects, some tools, I've got a nice, smaller saw stop table saw.

[00:20:31] Eric Goranson: And I don't have to trip over it. So whenever you're doing stuff, especially when it comes to outdoor power equipment for stuff, you never use the excavators, all that stuff, find and make friends with your local independent. Whether it's a hardware store that rents or if it's a local rental company here in the Portland, Oregon metro area I work with park rose hardware and I love these guys because one other stuff is like brand new And I don't have to go into another [00:21:00] big box store Where things in my area are hammered.

[00:21:20] Eric Goranson: Cause you know, you're paying for it. You go pick it up and you're like, Oh man, this thing is on its last leg. If I've got an excavator and the tracks are just barely hanging on there, are ready to fall off. I've had stump grinders where I've had to spend an hour getting them started. I've had post hole diggers, same kind of thing.

[00:21:58] Eric Goranson: It'd be good. So [00:22:00] find that good local independent tool company and you'll be good to go. And it's going to save you space. And a side note on this, one thing you can do to save money, and this is just going to be a 1A on this, if you know what I mean. Make sure that if you're trying to save money, don't go get a storage unit.

[00:22:48] Eric Goranson: That's a business kind of thing. But really if you have got storage units Like multiple, and unless you're storing like your parents stuff, because they've passed away or you've got [00:23:00] stuff like that. You have to go through and tell you what, that is the biggest sock of money out of your wallet is paying for storage units.

[00:23:31] Eric Goranson: It's one thing if it's like your tax records or something like that. But if you don't need that extra air compressor, if you don't have that extra window air conditioner out there, that's been sitting in there and not being used, sell it, put some money back in your pocket, save somebody else. The money and man, you can cut that deal way back on what it's going to cost you.

[00:24:11] Eric Goranson: That's a good one right there. And that's going to save you some serious money. If you can start, you can turn around and sell stuff out of a storage unit. And now you can think about it in a year. If you're saving 500 bucks. And then you get about a thousand bucks out of what you had in there. That's putting serious money back in your pocket.

[00:24:43] Eric Goranson: All right. Here's another one here that I've got a really good one here. Now this could cost a little more, but in case on risk, it's going to be big. Do some research on your homeowner's insurance. Make sure you've got the right coverage. Make sure you've got that dialed in and make sure that a homeowner's insurance is one of those things for many [00:25:00] people.

[00:25:24] Eric Goranson: So get ahold of your independent retailer out there for that. You're I always like dealing with somebody in person, me. I've done my biggest mistakes i've made on insurance is when I jump online and try to do it myself And log in and can sign that it's i've never had enough coverage when I do it that way And that could get even more expensive if you have some kind of claim.

[00:26:05] Eric Goranson: It just plugs into your, into your electrical panel and you load the app on your phone. And you can see it learns using AI type stuff. You think about everything in your house that plugged in, whether it's an LED light or an electric motor that's on your dishwasher or on your washer dryer. They all make their sounds when they take the electricity in this listens for those sounds, and it identifies them and where you can really start to see is you can be going.

[00:26:52] Eric Goranson: You talk to the guys over there at the sense and they're like, yeah, it seems like maybe you got a problem with your air conditioner. Do you have a sump pump that's just [00:27:00] running all the time? And you get down to the crawl space and go, wow, that's some pump was stuck open. And I've been paying for the power for that for six months.

[00:27:25] Eric Goranson: Make sure you know where that money's going and what you're paying for it. Then you can make some good decisions. Cause sometimes you'll go like with me, I put a hot tub in. I'm like, oh, that's going to kill my power. But I looked down and went. No, I'm cool with that. My happiness is worth that for my body being feeling good.

[00:27:59] Eric Goranson: And some of [00:28:00] these are really great, easy DIY projects. Especially if you pay for water and you have expensive water out there. I've got one that's going to shock you, but it could save you a few hundred bucks a year and that's big money. All right, guys, we're gonna go out to break. We'll continue this conversation in just a minute, but I just want to remind you.

[00:28:33] Eric Goranson: Now, let's go out to break. We'll be right back after these important messages. Don't go anywhere.[00:29:00]

[00:29:30] Eric Goranson: Build, remodel, or take care of that house, which is probably one of your, if not the biggest investment. If you want to find out more about us, head over to aroundthehouseonline. com. And if you have a home improvement question, give me a ring 833 239 4144. That number again is 833 239 4144. All right. We've been talking about my top things.

[00:30:20] Eric Goranson: And those storage units to save you some money. Now here's one here that I think is really important. It's one of my favorites because I've done this and it worked out really well. If your water is expensive, if you have a, if you're paying a couple hundred bucks a month, I can pay two or 300 bucks a month for water when I'm not even watering my lawn in my area.

[00:30:59] Eric Goranson: [00:31:00] What we're seeing here in the last seven, eight years, and probably the last 15, if you're looking at a brand like Toto is that we really had some horribly working toilets from the nineties and into the two thousands. And here's what's happened is that. We finally caught up with engineering. Companies like Toto out there owned this space for the last 20 years.

[00:31:52] Eric Goranson: That's the nice part. So a lot of these new toilets, especially if you're looking at it, like Toto, what they do is you have that white porcelain toilet. We've all [00:32:00] seen, they put a micro coating on the inside of it that makes it so things don't stick. So that means you have a cleaner toilet. So if you've messed your toilet up by pouring and bleach in there, And doing that, it etched the surface, it just, the more you etch it, the more things stick to it, the dirtier it gets, the harder it is to clean, and the cycle goes on and on.

[00:32:37] Eric Goranson: That's where it gets crazy. So you can save some serious money and that adds up, especially if you've got multiple bathrooms in the house. So that's a good one right there that can save you some serious money and headaches. And less cleaning. He doesn't enjoy that. And here's another one here. You can eliminate that yard spraying service.

[00:33:11] Eric Goranson: You can save some serious money. By going through and going and joining a service like lawn bright or any one of these other companies out there And you can make that a diy lawn care solution and have maybe a higher quality lawn with less chemicals That's the one thing I like about lawn bright is they do have these really great programs with they're awesome They're all organic.

[00:33:51] Eric Goranson: So it's a really easy thing to do, but that could put some money back in your pocket. If you're looking to cut those things back, it's not a bad way to go. Sorry, all of you [00:34:00] lawn fertilization companies, but there's a great DIY option out there for people that are trying to cut back and save a little money.

[00:34:30] Eric Goranson: And if you don't work on getting those skills, this is stuff that can save you money. Now here's the thing. Your time is money, right? And so about half of the cost of a project is labor and the other half is materials on average. There are a thousand exceptions to that rule, but that's a pretty decent rule.

[00:35:03] Eric Goranson: They mark it up. They have a business, they got to pay taxes on that. So it's good that they mark it up. That's part of the deal. But really for them to come over and do it, you're probably saving as much as 50%. So really what that does is that frees up money for you to maybe tackle that project. Or if it's something that you're trying to, I'm going to sell that house next year, let's say, I'm going to put this thing up for sale.

[00:35:44] Eric Goranson: Now you assume a lot of risk, assume a lot of liability, because if you make a mistake, you pay for it, or maybe that contractor, they mess them up. They got to go eat it and do it. But really, if you can pull that project off, that can be a great way to add value to your home [00:36:00] without the added expense. Now there's a lot of great contractors out there that are doing great work.

[00:36:38] Eric Goranson: Cause I tell you what, that's one of the biggest challenges I've learned over the years. Is yeah, projects are fun. I love tackling stuff. I love doing stuff, but making sure you're there. Cause tell you what, that can get even more expensive. You don't do that, right? So focus on what's going on in your life.

[00:37:21] Eric Goranson: Put in that install that new dishwasher that was broken and put the new one in there. Make sure that's dialed in, put in that outdoor kitchen. You want out there to barbecue in, get rid of some of that grass and put in the artificial turf that you want to do over there. So you can have a little putting green or whatever.

[00:37:55] Eric Goranson: Head over to around the house, online. com and go over the contact me section over there. [00:38:00] Send me a message and I'll be the one to get back with you right there. So that way. We can try to help you out on your next project if you've got a comment as well I'd love to hear them over there All right, everybody.

[00:38:26] Eric Goranson: And that will also give you their phone number. So you don't have to write this down. You can just go to the website, but that phone number again is 833 239 4144. And then make sure that you check out my television show, which is around the house, Northwest. You can catch it over on our YouTube page, which you can grab off of that website there.

[00:38:59] Eric Goranson: You can actually grab [00:39:00] it right there and that'll get you lined up where you can watch the show every week. We are on episode 66 already. And, uh, about 400 videos right now. So we've got a lot going on over there. So we're covering a lot of stuff. All right, everybody have a great rest of the time here, man.