This already for many has been a hot summer! Here are some of my budget tips to keep your house cool. Some of these tips and tricks are free and just take a little planning and time to pull off. The second half of the show we talk about Deck safety and making sure that we inspect our decks to make sure they are safe for the rest of the summer and fall seasons. Those decks take a lot of abuse from Mother Nature and a little bit of maintenance can save you from having to build a new one a lot earlier. Here are my tips and tricks to make sure you can have that outdoor BBQ without getting someone hurt.

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[00:00:31] Eric Goranson: And of course it makes the news. People get hurt or worse and that's never a good thing. So if you've got a wood deck and it's more than, you know, a foot off the ground, it's something you should be taking a look at and trust me, I've put my foot through plenty of decks before that looked okay, that were a little sketchy, but I've also been on some big ones that, uh, I was so nervous on that.

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[00:01:56] Eric Goranson: One, we're going to talk about how to keep your house cooler without spending a [00:02:00] ton of money and some deck safety tips. Now that we're in the middle of the summertime. It's a good time to go out and make sure that your deck is up to that big party. You're planning on having out there and maybe it was 4th of July last week, or maybe it's something coming up.

[00:02:27] Eric Goranson: As well as you get to hear the podcast on Thursday instead of Saturday. So you get to hear it a little bit early. So there's so much going over there and you can find out more about our premium membership at around the house online. com. Let's talk about how to keep your home cooler for us here in the Pacific Northwest.

[00:03:06] Eric Goranson: Absolutely crazy. So it's 1 of those things that a lot of people suffer with that. When we had the heat wave here. Jeez, two or three years ago, we ended up having 20 or 25 people pass away from heat exhaustion just in a couple days when we got up to 113, 114 degrees. And so it was not a good situation for people.

[00:03:50] Eric Goranson: This is the time to ventilate your home. Now, if you gotta get up early, set the alarm, or get up and do this, do it. Here's what I recommend doing. If you've got a single [00:04:00] story house, I wanna get cross flow ventilation in there, so I wanna open up when it's cooler outside than inside the house. I want to open up my windows so you get a good cross ventilation.

[00:04:31] Eric Goranson: You want to keep all that just air. Inside, you don't want to have any more of that going out. Cause the air that you bring in, like if you're running laundry, for instance, and it's pulling air in because of the dryers pushing air out, that air is going to be much hotter. So those are the times you want to do your laundry in the morning.

[00:05:07] Eric Goranson: If you got skylights that open up, that can be a really big key as well. And that'll really keep that air moving. I've noticed when I put a skylight in the highest part of my living room there, I can open that up in the morning and it's just like a chimney and it just pulls that heat right out naturally.

[00:05:43] Eric Goranson: This will save you money. This will get on a maintenance plan, take care of it, get them to clean out the coils, make sure everything's going good. If you've got an older system, they'll make sure the capacitor that starts the motor works correctly, isn't swollen up. That way, when it gets super hot, it doesn't cut out on you.

[00:06:19] Eric Goranson: If you do have a breakdown, it'll put you in the front of the line. And they'll also sit there many times, and it's just depending on who does this, but they'll also give you a break where they're not going to charge you for after hours fees if you're on their maintenance plan. So, front of the line. And so that way, during the heat wave, that could save you a ton of time too.

[00:06:56] Eric Goranson: Early in the morning at the coolest part of the day. So you can help ventilate things out. [00:07:00] Only use that stuff that creates heat when you need to. So heated tile floors, shut them off. Otherwise you're paying to keep that in cool. You're just fighting it another day for that comfort, as well as just making sure that you're controlling humidity in the home.

[00:07:24] Eric Goranson: This is why when you're sitting there and you're in a house and it's 70 degrees and you're like, man, it is hot in here, even though the thermostat says 70, I bet you've got 50, 60, 70 degree humidity, which makes it feel hotter. Because if it's 70 degrees and you go, oh, it's feeling cool for many people.

[00:08:07] Eric Goranson: If you're in an area where humidity is king outside, you walk outside in Texas and you've got that humidity, maybe having that whole house humidifier to help along with that EC, that could be a problem. Now, many of you out there that have systems that were improperly designed, like they oversized it trying to make up for that, that's where you can run into some serious problems.

[00:08:56] Eric Goranson: So, keeping that cooler, getting that humidity out of there [00:09:00] is going to be much better off for you. And that's going to give you that feeling of being cooler. Now, another thing is that this is my other trick and tip here. We're going to talk about this. This is something that you can jump into your local Lowe's store or jump on Amazon.

[00:09:30] Eric Goranson: We'll be right back after these important messages. Don't go anywhere I got some stuff to keep you cool[00:10:00]

[00:10:29] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the around the house show the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me. I'm Eric G. We've been talking here about how to keep your home cooler this summer without spending a ton of money. And that's where some of these tricks and tips might be able to help you keep your place cool.

[00:11:06] Eric Goranson: And then to have your HVAC system. If you have central air, uh, or heat pump, having that serviced annually to make sure that's working great. And then, of course, this next one here is an important one. Running a mister to help your outside AC unit stay cool. So, if you think about it, that outside compressor out there that is swapping out that heat, its job is to convert or remove the heat out of that coolant and send it back into the house.

[00:11:57] Eric Goranson: Go out there, put a mister next to that unit [00:12:00] on these extra hot heat days where you've got heat warnings and everything else that can add another five to 10 degrees of temperature drop to your system because what it's doing is it's transferring that heat faster. It's what happens to your body when you turn the mister on.

[00:12:32] Eric Goranson: And if you need to get three or four degrees to make it comfortable, if you want to get it from 80 to 75 in the house and your system's running at full speed, maybe that's your solution right there. And a little bit of water, a little bit of mister can go a long way. Just don't forget, set an alarm on your phone before you go to bed that says, turn off mistress.

[00:13:07] Eric Goranson: Now, I got an email on this recently, and this is an important one, and this is why I wanted to bring this up in this episode. You'll see those whole attic fans where there are power fan on the end of the gable. And I will only say to install one of those when you have got a chance to go up and seal that space off.

[00:13:43] Eric Goranson: All those things need to be sealed. Any place around there. So what I recommend is if you're putting one of those in, pull the installation back, go in and then caulk and seal up everything between that attic space in the living space down below it. [00:14:00] Now, if it's in the wall, use some of that fire caulking.

[00:14:24] Eric Goranson: And people are going, why is my house hotter when I turn that on? It's because it's pulling cold air out of your house and sending it outside. Okay. Yes, you did reduce the attic temperature, but you reduced it by pulling out the cold air that's in your house. So that's counterintuitive. So you want to make sure you go through and seal up all those areas.

[00:15:00] Eric Goranson: So, if you're building a house, it's an easy thing to do. You can make sure that's sealed up and put it in there. Otherwise, you're probably going to be pulling too much air inside the house and creating a vacuum there, which now you're paying to cool the attic and that makes no sense. So, be careful with those power vent fans.

[00:15:35] Eric Goranson: Turn it down a little bit and get that temperature down. So that way in the heat of the day, when it can't catch up or can't get that close, now you're chasing it down, but you've moved the goalposts a little bit. So if you're heating the Won't keep under 80 degrees and you want it at 75. Maybe if you drop down five degrees earlier, it'll help you keep a cooler longer.

[00:16:15] Eric Goranson: So I have two thermostats and two fan controls, and it actually has damper controls, so it turns off the upstairs when I want to. So what's cool with that is, is on a hot day, it could be 70 degrees downstairs. I don't need to have the AC on down there, but I need to have it upstairs. So it'll put everything upstairs.

[00:16:50] Eric Goranson: And that can save you some bucks right there. So take a look at that. If you're looking at a system, sometimes it's only a few thousand bucks to add on. But get a quote, see what that costs. It [00:17:00] might not be that crazy depending on how easy access it is to go up there. Cause you're gonna need some dampers and a system that can handle that, which is probably going to be variable speed.

[00:17:25] Eric Goranson: Make sure you cool the house and when you have the house cool, make sure you close those blinds in the morning. That the sun's hitting anything there to help reflect that. And then if you've got white color blinds, that will do better than if you've got dark ones, the dark ones will tend to bring more heat in.

[00:17:56] Eric Goranson: Think of lighter colors. I live in the shade here. I've got a [00:18:00] black house, but I can get away with that because I'm mostly in the shade 95 percent of the day. So that black color doesn't really attract the heat. Like you would be worried about. Now, if I was out in the desert, that can add 10 or 15 degrees to my house.

[00:18:36] Eric Goranson: All right, we come back. We're going to talk about how to inspect your outdoor deck and make sure that it is safe It'll be good for another year living on. We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns. Hey,[00:19:00]

[00:19:14] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round the house show. The next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me. We've been talking about, of course, how to keep the house cool, but you know Right now, we're going to change subjects a little bit and dive into deck inspections, making sure your deck is safe for the rest of the summer.

[00:19:49] Eric Goranson: And if you have any home improvement questions, give me a call here in the studio at 833. 239 4144, that's 833, 239 4144. [00:20:00] Well, I wanted to talk about deck inspections because we always see this time of year, where it always makes the news, where a deck pulls off the house, or it collapses. Or somebody does something absolutely crazy to it.

[00:20:36] Eric Goranson: I basically stepped off of it and said, I'm not going out on that deck. Cause I think I'm going to be a long ride down. So the first thing you're going to be looking for is on the structural framing underneath, and this is going to be that ledger board. Now the ledger board is that piece of wood that attaches the deck framing.

[00:21:18] Eric Goranson: So I want to see that going in there and making sure that that is dialed in nice and tight about every 16 inches because that's usually what the house is framed at. Could be 24 if it's framed at 24. I'd like to see it into a ledger board so at least 16 on center down there having that all bolted in.

[00:21:57] Eric Goranson: So that needs to be fastened in there correctly to [00:22:00] start with. But really I want you to start looking for rotting or decaying wood. So get around with a little, you know, like an all or a flathead screwdriver, even a Phillips and start poking around at the wood. If it seems soft or mushy, that means you've got a structural issue going on right there.

[00:22:39] Eric Goranson: I want to see some flashing there. I want to make sure that's not, because here's what happens. If that is not flashed correctly right there, then you've got water that can go down behind the siding into the framing of the house. That ledger board can look good, but everything behind it is rotten, which means that that screw or bolt or That structural [00:23:00] screw, the structural pieces holding that together are not holding it into something that's solid, which means that now could be the weak point.

[00:23:25] Eric Goranson: So it's kicking the water out and around it, not in behind it. That's one of those common mistakes that I see deck builders that are very inexperienced do is they forget that flashing part. And that is its own detail to make sure you get that right. So that needs to be flashed correctly. If that, uh, if you're building a deck right now that I'd want to make sure that you've got flexible flashing behind it, you've got a nice.

[00:24:06] Eric Goranson: So you still want to cut that out. And put the flashing in, you want to put some more plywood in behind it, that's fine, but you still need to flash that off correctly and make sure that that is dialed in. Even if it's a 70s house, for instance, that has that T 1 11, you want to make sure you do that correctly.

[00:24:51] Eric Goranson: So whatever that span is right there is that span of the deck. Now, I want to make sure that you've got joist hangers that are coming off that ledger board onto [00:25:00] that. And so everything is being held up by structural fasteners, whether it's my tech or Simpson or whatever brand those are. I want to see those galvanized fasteners there.

[00:25:32] Eric Goranson: Um, drywall screws, regular construction screws. These need to be the structural like Simpson nails or Simpson screws that are designed for these brackets, because that is just as important as everything else in this whole system to hold together. So that's really important right there. Now, as you're looking at these, you want to make sure that the fasteners are in there and that there's nothing loose.

[00:26:17] Eric Goranson: You want to make sure those are all connected together. And if there's any cross bracing or anything there, everything needs to be nice and tight. Sometimes just with mother nature, you build one of these decks and if you've got pressure treated wood that you're using, which is a great idea. Sometimes when you get, I've had that pressure treated wood so wet and so heavy.

[00:26:55] Eric Goranson: That's somewhat natural for this. Especially if you're in a dry summer. So it's good to [00:27:00] get that thing put together. So once you've got that base structure, I want you to walk around the top and make sure that if you've got wood deck boards, there's no weak points there. There's no rot. Everything seems good and that everything is finished correctly.

[00:27:34] Eric Goranson: Maybe you're moving stuff around on it and you're overloading it. Whatever stairs can be a weak point in there because you've got a lot of wood and you've got wood that's been cut out, especially for those stairs. So make sure that they're solid. Make sure that they're not moving around. Kind of bounce around them on a little bit just to make sure everything's fastened.

[00:28:19] Eric Goranson: All of a sudden, you could have 600 pounds of force on the outside of those railings, and if they're not put in correctly, maybe they were just nailed on. Maybe they're not split up correctly. Maybe they're not installed correctly. All of a sudden, you could have people landing out in your backyard. And that could be six, seven, 10 feet down.

[00:29:01] Eric Goranson: back to the around the house show. The next generation of home improvement. If you just joining us on the radio, it's okay. You can catch the show on any podcast player. Just look for around the house show. And then you can find out more about us over to round the house online. com. Well, if you're just joining us, we were talking in the first half of this hour, but my tricks and tips to make sure that you keep that house cool without spending a bunch of money.

[00:29:48] Eric Goranson: Well, one of the biggest things that I see as far as safety is people overloading the deck. It could be they take up the kiddie pool and put it on the deck so mom and dad can watch them, or [00:30:00] they get up there and put something bigger like an above ground pool up there. Or a hot tub without engineering.

[00:30:31] Eric Goranson: All of a sudden you can be overloading that deck. And sometimes it won't tell you that you've overloaded it until things are too late. So things that I start looking for is you can take a look. And see how that's built and what would is built and what the spans are. That'll start to tell you kind of what the max load capacity is.

[00:31:14] Eric Goranson: But if you've got something that's built a lot heavier, maybe 12 inch on center, because you're using composites and you really have something sturdy. That can hold a lot more weight. So it comes down to what the spans are. And of course, what the overhang is over the end, because many times you'll have a deck that's elevated and you'll have that beam under there.

[00:31:51] Eric Goranson: There's a lot of things on here. If you're worried about it, you can always have an engineer come out and tell you what that's engineered for. And if you're okay, [00:32:00] so that's some of the secrets to that. So, be very careful with what you do for outdoor furniture, what you do for storage. And, of course, any of those fire puts heaters, anything else up there and then again, if you've got a charcoal grill up there, like, 1 of my favorites, a Weber kettle.

[00:32:41] Eric Goranson: You won't have as many flare ups that reduces the fire risk out there. We see so many house fires. Based on somebody forgetting to maintain the barbecue, not maintaining it, or the fire gets out of control, they get a grease fire like you would in the kitchen, and you got a heck of a mess, [00:33:00] and that can be a major disaster in your backyard.

[00:33:23] Eric Goranson: Now, what I've seen, if you're building a deck out of pressure treated wood, I'm starting to see that we end up getting into this where we're. 15 years is an average lifespan for a wood deck out there. So, I'm seeing, now I've seen them last 30. If you maintain them, you take care of them. But if you just have a deck on the back of the house at 6, 8 feet off the ground, after 15 years, you can have some serious issues as far as structure if you haven't taken care of it.

[00:34:18] Eric Goranson: And three, four years later, those things are rotten out already, depending on the climate. So it's really depending on the wood that was used and how it's been maintained and make sure you got that dialed in. And that will really help you as far as deck maintenance, making sure you got the right wood and you're treating it correctly.

[00:35:02] Eric Goranson: I tell you what, the Thompson's water seal did not hold up. That thing was soaking water in and just was probably the weakest one in our test that we did here. And so really, make sure you got a good stain. You'll probably get a couple years out of a good stain in most places on an uncovered deck. So if you can get two or three years, you're doing great.

[00:35:46] Eric Goranson: Now I hope some of these tips have helped you with your deck and keep you getting it done. Maintain and keeping it up to speed. Now, none of this information will replace a really good deck inspection where you go around with a checklist or have a professional [00:36:00] come out and do it and make sure that you're good to go.

[00:36:18] Eric Goranson: It's good. That way you won't have to sweat it and you can enjoy that until next season. Now, one of the things that you're starting to see in deck construction now that's getting interesting is when you're seeing new decks get built, if they're using wood. You're seeing Joyce tape go across the top that they make a black butyl based tape or now even with some people a roll on coating that protects that upper layer.

[00:37:00] Eric Goranson: These joist tapes really go in there and give you that sealed off area. And so that way, when the screw goes through that to fasten those deck boards down, whether they're composite or wood or whatever, You go down into that and all of a sudden that seals around that screw so you don't have to worry about that.

[00:37:34] Eric Goranson: Maybe you just bought the house, you're building a new house and you really want to go that route with it. This can be a great way to extend the life of it without having to get into other materials like aluminum or steel, or some of these other materials that of course will last longer in most situations than what.

[00:38:07] Eric Goranson: So there is no one all be all perfect material for framing a deck up. But if you do wood and you do the joist tape, you'll get the most life out of it. And then if you go through and just make sure that everything is coated with a stain Or a paint to help kind of take that weather. You're just going to get the most life out of it.

[00:38:45] Eric Goranson: That might be a great way to go. So take a look at it. It goes together so quickly. Because all you're doing is bolting stuff together, and that can make for a very seriously strong system. And you're starting to see too now, trends where people, instead of using composite deck boards, [00:39:00] or some of the new rubber coated decks, you're seeing tile get put in, you're seeing large format tiles, you're seeing, uh, steel with more of a patio paver on top of it.