Ready to dive into the nitty-gritty of making your home earthquake-ready? Eric G and John Dudley are here to chat about the ins and outs of retrofitting your castle against those pesky seismic shakes. But wait, there's more! We're not just stopping at earthquake prep; we're also tackling the often-overlooked world of sprinklers—yes, those things that keep your lawn from turning into a desert! Whether you're fixing up a broken sprinkler head or dreaming of a whole new irrigation system, we’ve got tips and tricks that won’t break the bank. Plus, we’ll sprinkle in some witty banter about the importance of using the right materials to keep your home safe and sound. So grab your hard hat and your gardening gloves because we’re about to get to work!

Takeaways:

• Earthquake retrofitting isn't just for the 'big one'—it can save your home from all sorts of disasters, so don't ignore your foundation!
• Sprinkler systems can save you a ton on water bills, and with smart technology, you can program the whole thing from your phone—how cool is that?
• When it comes to retrofitting, hiring an engineer is a smart move; trust me, their plans will keep your house standing when the earth starts to shake!
• If your sprinkler heads are as old as your grandma's recipes, it might be time for an upgrade to avoid wasting water and money—nobody wants a lake in their backyard!
• Using the right fasteners in construction is crucial; those flimsy drywall screws won't save your house during an earthquake, so invest in some serious hardware!
• Don't skimp on your home's safety; retrofitting can even help lower your insurance rates, so it's not just an expense, it's an investment in peace of mind!

Links referenced in this episode:

• regreen.com
• otolawn.com
• aroundthehouseonline.com
• aroundthehousehq.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Regreen
• Rain Bird
• Otolawn.com

Thanks for listening to Around the house if you want to hear more please subscribe so you get notified of the latest episode as it posts at https://around-the-house-with-e.captivate.fm/listen

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We love comments and we would love reviews on how this information has helped you on your house! Thanks for listening! For more information about the show head to https://aroundthehouseonline.com/

Information given on the Around the House Show should not be considered construction or design advice for your specific project, nor is it intended to replace consulting at your home or jobsite by a building professional. The views and opinions expressed by those interviewed on the podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Around the House Show.

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Foreign.

Ready to turn your house into the home you've always dreamed of without the headaches or huge bills.

You're tuned to around the House, the nation's number one home improvement radio show and podcast with expert advice that's helped millions tackle everything from remodels to repairs.

Host Serig G. And John Dudley have got you covered with the best advice and information about your home.

Now let's get this hour started.

Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining us today.

I'm Eric G. John Dudley.

Good to see you, my brother.

This is gonna be a fun one.

This is gonna be a watering experience.

Oh boy, here we go.

That's not funny.

This is gonna be fun.

Cuz I tell you what, it's springtime.

I like talking spring subjects.

We've been talking about so many different things out there, but for so many people out there that have irrigation lawn systems out there that have sprinkler might have not been maintained, might be thinking about putting a new one in or they're just trying to get it working so they don't have to drag the hose around the lawn.

It's kind of nice to be able to get that stuff figured out and save money at the same time.

Yeah.

Versus just watching that broken sprinkler head pump water.

That's your water bill, right?

Lake in that corner of the yard that you just avoid and don't pay attention to.

Oh, dude.

So simple.

It's like driving around and you've got like, you know, the city green scrapes or whatever, or it's a, a shopping mall or whatever.

And you see that somebody has broken off a couple sprinkler heads and you drive by for the hour and it's old faithful going and you're like, that's costing them a lot of money.

Not only that, I mean, it's a resource issue at that point as well.

That, I mean that bugs me more than anything.

Like, dude, what a wait.

What a waste.

Yeah.

And I'm, I'm.

Dude, I'm an old crusty contractor, right?

Like I'm not some eco guy.

I mean conscious.

Being conscious is smart.

But when it comes to like water and power, that stuff bugs me.

And you know the guy washing his car that just lays down the hose and let it run for the whole time he's washing the.

That stuff bugs me.

It's just wasteful.

I get it.

Blatant waste.

I don't like with sprinkler systems.

You know, it seemed like for like 30 years, nothing changed.

And then about 10 years ago, we started actually getting the smart space invading it, which has been nice because you started out getting some of the smarter, smarter, easy to hook up sprinkler timers.

And now we've gotten to the point now where you're using digital sprinkler heads that can literally throw as far as you want the water like 35ft or all the way down to 2ft.

And you can program where you want the water to go all from your phone.

Like I said before we started this conversation, you're talking to an old rain bird guy.

Yeah.

And there's nothing wrong with being a rain bird guy.

But I tell you what, I, and, and I will say this.

I went from dragging the hose around to putting in the system and this.

I haven't talked to these guys in over a year.

So this is not a company that we're promoting here or anything like that.

But Regreen is the company that came up with that smart way of doing it.

And it's like using inkjet printer technology.

So they're spraying it out there.

They can control how far, how much it's doing.

It saved me 35% on my water bill.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That's substantial.

Especially where I was paying.

I mean, that was saving me a hundred bucks a month.

Yeah, that adds up quick.

Yeah, I mean, you know, and it's the cool thing is it uses so many less sprinklers.

So like in my backyard, when I put that in, I could go in there.

I just dug one trench and put it in kind of in the middle of the yard.

They helped me design out the space.

I would have had like 15 or 20 sprinklers in there with this stuff.

I had two.

And then I went around and programmed it and.

Awesome.

Super smart.

And you can really play with it.

And it worked really well.

So instead of having all the control valves, you have a timer box that mounts on the wall and.

And then you're running all the way out there, a like a three quarter or one inch line, depending on what you're doing out there.

And it's always pressurized to the head.

And then what it does is it's controlling the head digitally.

You throw a cable that they have that pushes together, that's waterproof, that goes in the same hole as the sprinkler line.

And now you're digitally controlling that sprinkler head, which is awesome.

Yeah.

Pretty crafty, man.

Yeah, it works.

No, it's.

It's a super cool idea.

I mean, it's water and grass, but that's pretty cool.

Well, I mean, it's.

And it's so cool because it uses 80% less pipe, plug, and play wiring.

So it's kind of.

Kind of smart, you know, and if.

You had a special point, you're saving that kind of money and that kind of water, and you can't beat that.

I mean, that's going from a sword to a lightsaber.

Right.

It makes sense.

It's great.

And you don't have to adjust it.

You just get it going.

And once you kind of get it set up and say, okay, that's the right amount of water, which is just how you're doing.

Will monitor the weather and go, hey, you got an inch of rain yesterday.

You don't need to run your water today.

And it won't.

There's nothing more frustrating having your sprinklers going and you look outside, they're running, and it's in the middle of a downpour, and you're like, okay, I'm wasting all that water for nothing.

Back to what you were talking about, right?

Yup, yup, for sure.

So that works really well.

Now, the one thing you really can't do that with a lot of filtration.

There are places in the country, especially here in the Pacific Northwest, like what we see in eastern Washington and eastern Oregon and California and everywhere else you see irrigation systems, and those can be a little tougher because you need to put in some serious filtration for those.

And this is not drinkable water.

This is where they say, hey, you're going to have this basic ditch water that comes out of a river or lake or wherever they're getting that water from.

And many times it goes through open ditches throughout the countryside.

Shows up in your.

As a second hose at your house.

And it can work really well.

But I grew up on that stuff.

I don't know how many millions of gallons of bad farm chemicals I drank.

You know, the water quality in that is.

You know, you'd get tadpoles that were sitting there plugging up your rain birds.

And so you had to put in a serious filtration system in there.

You had to Always keep cleaning.

If you see tiny frogs coming out of your sprinkler head, it's an issue.

Look, it's a trout, Mom.

But I'm happy.

I never knew.

I mean, we always made fun of us for drinking out of the hose.

That's where you had, like, ddt.

I don't know what else was in there, but it was just all the bad chemicals, every bit that washed off the farms.

Anybody spraying out of an airplane or spraying that got into the water.

So it probably self fertilized the lawn.

But it was not something you wanted to fill the kiddie pool up with, if you know what I mean.

Or the kitties.

This has opened a lot of doors into the insight of Eric Garrett.

Twitch.

How many chemicals did he drink?

No wonder your body breaks all the time, kid.

Yeah, might have been that.

Maybe it was growing up next to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation as well.

So I had it coming from all directions.

No, you are an anomaly, my friend.

I know it.

But I glow in the dark and that's good.

So it's great when the power goes out.

I did always like that when we'd play a show.

You look cool under lights.

Yeah, but seriously, you know, getting your sprinkler system dialed in and getting this stuff taken care of is key, and that's one great way to go.

But so many times people go out there and they're like, I don't even know where to start.

And it's like, all right, if your timer's working, make sure you got the water turned on.

Because many times you turn that off in the wintertime.

Now, if you're in Florida or something like that, or down in a southern state where you don't like California, I get it.

But many times you'll turn that off in the free states where it's getting freezing and.

And of course, I think we had free states in almost every state this last year.

But really, if that's turned off, get that turned on.

And then you got to go through and kind of get it dialed in and figure out, okay, what's going on.

My secret is to go find where the valve box is, especially if it's a house that you just bought and maybe you didn't get the tour of how things work.

And that's where you'll find those little solenoids.

Those solenoids will be on there.

Well, you could manually turn those solenoids on, so there'll be a little knob you can twist and turn.

Be careful.

You don't want to remove it.

All so you get a water in the face.

But if you go through there and turn those on, you can figure out, oh, that water's the front.

Oh, that's the side yard.

Oh, that's the mo strip out front.

You can kind of figure out where those things are manually and then make sure that you've got the electrical connections to work them.

Or if they're not working at all, then you have to replace that.

But there's a lot of things you can do to get these things working correct.

And really, you want to make sure that you've got them dialed in because it'll save you money.

And I also think that, Johnny, that in places like California, where you've got wildfires and everything else, I know they don't want you to use the water to do it, but I'd much rather have a green lawn than the white lawn that's going to catch fire.

Yeah, right.

That's the tough part.

Yeah.

I mean, grass is grass.

It's a weed.

Right?

I mean, listen, the issue is, like I said, right, the guy that leaves the hose just running in his yard thinking, well, the water will get everywhere eventually and floods the thing.

Oh, yeah.

Be efficient.

Be smart about it.

All right, we come back, Johnny, I'm going to give us some other tips to getting those things repaired.

And we'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

What's up?

This is Sticks It Inia and Satchel from Steel Panther.

And you are listening to around the.

House with Eric G. Yeah, we love.

Eric G. And you should, too.

Welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining us today, John Dudley and I, if you're just joining us, Eric G. We're sitting here talking about repairing those sprinklers.

And the next half of the show after this, we'll be talking about foundation repairs and making sure that you've got the earthquake retrofit stuff going on.

And we'll talk about some secrets to that.

Whether you're doing that as a DIY project.

That'll be in the next segment after this one.

But, John, so many times you'll get that sprinkler that's been run over, that's broken, or you've got it just where you can't figure out, why are these things not working?

Well, you have a couple choices.

One, you could sit there and say, all right, I'm going to figure this out, or you can hire that landscaper to come out there that's gonna Charge you by the hour that didn't know what they did either.

And then they're gonna go through just haphazardly to figure out what's going on.

Unless you found somebody that specializes in irrigation systems like that could be a thousand dollar fix pretty quick.

So for me, I'm like, all right, it's better to know my own system anyway and get it figured out and do it.

We were talking about those valves.

That is probably the one moving part that I see that breaks the most.

Are those valves not working?

That's what low voltage turns the water on, turns it off, and that's that.

All right.

That's the first, you know, the first line that's working out of there.

That could be the front yard, the side yard, backyard, or whatever, however it works in your house.

But making sure that the wires are hooked up and making sure that the valves are going, that's key.

The secret that I do in when I'm going in and replacing a valve is one I'll see if I can get it working manually first to make sure that's the problem.

And trying to replace it with the similar part that's there because usually works out best, dude.

Just if you've got the orbit one or the rain bird one many times, those are not pretty universal.

Yeah.

If I'm tearing into that, if I got to replace one solenoid, or if I can't get a repair kit for it, I'm like, screw it, I'm doing all of them.

I'm gonna go in and replace them all at the same time.

Because if one goes, you're gonna get that fixed two weeks later, the other one's gonna fail.

Because they're probably running about the same time and they're all gonna fail about the same time.

Makes sense.

And I want to append my.

I'm an old school rain bird guy.

Yeah.

When I said that, I meant the green ones that you used to run through when we were kids.

Yeah, yeah.

You're running through the sprinklers.

Rainbird guy.

Not the Rainbird automatic controller.

Yeah, I remember when.

Yeah, I remember the.

The dial timers on sprinkler systems.

And then they got electronic and.

But man, I.

You're talking about valves and stuff.

And that was one of those things a homeowner would say, hey, do you know anything about.

Nope.

Nothing.

And we didn't have YouTube back then, so.

Yeah, you're just gonna go figure it out.

In.

In defense, if you don't have a system, you're like, man, I Can't go spend a few thousand dollars to put a system in myself.

There is a system out there.

Oto.

Otolawn.com they have a smart sprinkler, like what we saw there before, but it hooks on a hose end, and you mount it on a stake basically in your yard permanently.

And then it's your hose end.

Add on, it's the John Dudley version of a nice one that.

I like that.

Okay, I'll go with that.

I can get behind that.

And they're about 499 apiece, but that'll do a single yard up to 5,000 square feet.

So.

Yeah.

And if you're saving.

If you're spending 500 bucks and you save that in water the first year.

Makes sense.

Yep.

Yeah, you got me on that, too.

I'll get behind that for you.

Get behind that.

There we go.

That's the Johnny system there.

I like it.

That works.

And what's cool is you can adjust that to go around the fire pit.

You can adjust that.

But the one thing I do want to say, there are times, though, when you get that sprinkler system that's been in the ground for 30, 40 years.

Half of it's steel, half it's galvanized, maybe some of its plastic pipe, and some of it's that poly pipe, the black stuff.

Sometimes it's just easier to go start over.

Like my buddy Brandon's house in California, he's got.

He just took over his dad's place down there, and I'm like, dude, abandon this.

It's so old.

It's easier on everybody.

How many times playing football did you land on one of those metal sprinklers, dude?

Ah.

Oh, dude, all the time.

All the time.

I'd forgotten all about them until you brought up it being metal.

I was like, oh, those damn metal sprinklers.

You trip over the round spray heads and just keep on them or whatever.

Oh, man.

Yeah, abandon them and damn them.

Yeah.

The other thing I think is cool, too, is that I like drip systems for keeping the plants going because I don't have to worry about it.

I can go, hey, it's going to be 100 degrees outside.

Make sure the drip system's working.

Well, if you put those on a timer, that will save you so many headaches and keeping those things working great.

Because, man, I tell you what, it just gets brutal when you're looking at those things because I hate going out and watering every day.

Now, for me, yeah, Elise, she loves to go out and water everything by Hand.

It's her little outside quiet Zen moment.

Yep.

If I said, hey, I'm going to put all those in a drip system, she'd go, why?

I'm gonna go ahead and do it.

But then when you go on vacation, she's trying to find something to water it, and it's.

But I'm not gonna do that for a couple times a year.

But that's where it gets tough.

That's where it gets tough.

I like the automation, but I'm the tech guy.

Yeah.

But it saves money, too.

And again, sprinkler heads are sprinkler heads.

You've got the typical impact style.

You've got the ones that shoot the jets out.

When you're doing a traditional system, I say just stick with the brand and go with it.

You can now get all these digital timers to go off hose ends.

You can run 12 hoses around the place and do it that way.

If you don't want to dig stuff up, that will save you some money.

But you still got to move it every time you go mow the lawn.

There's that.

Right?

And now.

Now here's the other trick that I see people doing.

This happened.

I saw this happen in Portland and Seattle and Portland.

If you guys have never been to the Pacific Northwest before, do something in the metro areas on the west side of the state, they do something that I don't see anywhere else.

Many homes just let their lawn go white and it just dies off and they go, it'll come back in the fall when we get the rains again.

Yep.

And now you're seeing companies out there that are lawn care companies that are not going over there to mow the lawn at all.

So what are they doing?

They're selling.

Painting.

They're painting lawns.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It happens a lot in Arizona.

Wasn't a new thing down there, but yeah.

In the Northwest, typically, you wouldn't see that.

Yeah.

And that's our dry season, typically.

So we might not get rain for 45 days, which is keeping it.

Yeah.

But that's one of those things that you should really pay attention to, and it's not a bad idea.

My problem, though, is you still probably, unless there's some fire retardant in there, you probably still have a lawn that is tinder fire ready to go.

And I still think it's a huge deal to sit there and have, man, I don't want to have a fire at my neighbor's house and go, man, if I'd have just kept my lawn watered, I Would have had a chance to save my own house.

Yeah, I'm holding my tongue because.

Yeah, I.

The rant about painting grass.

I could go on.

Yeah.

And we're gonna run out of time here in a second, but.

Yeah, no, just.

I can't tell you.

I had one time that we had to go out there and put the yard because a buddy was putting together a kind of a me going to Seattle party when I moved up there and he put the.

I think, yeah, I won't name the band, but they had at least one hit and the Weber barbecue was sitting out in the grass with.

Grass was white.

And when you're running a barbecue for six hours out there and the little things are open and they drop out and maybe a little wind comes by and all of a sudden you got a five foot fire on the outside of the barbecue.

Not a good thing.

All right, we come back, we're changing subjects, guys.

We're gonna be talking about earthquake retrofitting.

And if you're going out getting quotes on trying to tie that house down to the foundation, whether it's a earthquake or a tornado or a storm or you're trying to get those things done.

Because we'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't change that.

D. Welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

If you're just joining us, we just wrapped up talking about really getting those sprinkler systems dialed in and making sure they work and some new technology that's been out over the last few years.

Now we're gonna pivot, start talking about earthquake retrofitting those old homes.

And I tell you what, this is another one of those things, Johnny, that is like the wild west of home improvement.

I called it piracy, but Wild west is similar.

Yeah, same kind of thing, you know, and here's what happens.

People will go, hey, your house is not tied into the foundation.

Yeah, most homes before, at least in the west coast over here you didn't see engineered homes in many areas.

Now if they had earthquake or, or other stuff, they got tied in early.

But most homes before the, the late 70s didn't tied have them tied in.

What they would do is they would have the foundation built.

You didn't see the bolts coming up through it.

They might throw a, a nail, like a 16 penny framing nail into the foundation because that concrete still soft.

So it'll kind of stick in there to keep things from moving around a little bit.

And that's all they would do.

Nail down the sill plate.

Yeah, right.

That's crazy, dude.

Yeah.

I mean, I've seen it a million times, but it's still baffling.

Like, really?

You thought that was good enough?

And now it's funny now.

Now they have Jay bolts, and now you got all these Simpson ties, and there's all these things in there.

And.

And I'm gonna make fun of Adam Carolla on this because I like making fun of Adam Corolla sometimes.

I've been watching his series about rebuilding Malibu that he's been doing, and it's been good.

But Adam Crowland remembers about enough about construction that he did, what, 40 years ago?

And it's so funny because he name drops, but he's kind of close, but he's making a big deal.

Those are J bolts, and they drop down.

And he's, like, super excited that he's got something to connect with the builder on.

He's.

Oh, yeah.

Then, Then.

Then he'll make some.

It's funny.

You got to watch it.

But he'll go, whoever was doing the concrete work, the house that he was looking at in Malibu, they went J bolt crazy.

And across in front of all the doors and openings and the.

And the big nanowall, they just followed around and put the bolts in there.

And so the guy's gonna have to cut them off.

Who cares?

Not a big deal.

But Adam's like, hey, I brought a Sawzall blade so I could.

I'm like, you're not going to get your hands dirty, dude.

Come on.

It's kind of like bad hdtv.

I got to make fun of the guy.

But here's the problem that I see out there, is that there are many ways to do this earthquake retrofitting.

And the best way is to have an engineer come in and say, okay, here's your plan.

They drop the plan, the notes, and say, this is going to work.

So you have a certified way that the engineer goes.

This is stamped.

You're awesome.

Now, in many places, they need a permit because they want to see an engineer stamp.

Because the problem I see, brother, is we see people out there going, hey, we do earthquake retrofitting.

They go in there and they take these big kind of circles, clamp looking pieces of metal.

They drill into the.

Into the mud sill.

They drill into the side of the foundation.

They put in a couple redhead anchor bolts, and they call it a day.

And they go up.

It's tied in.

Yeah.

And it's not okay.

It looks good cosmetically, but zero sheer value.

Nothing is keeping that from moving horizontally laterally.

So think about how many 19, 20 homes you and I have worked on.

And you got the main beam going down through the basement.

There's a 4x4 post or metal post that's holding up that center beam down the hall, down the middle of the house, down that middle spine.

Yeah, they go around, they put the.

They're on the outside.

And I'm like, what happens to this house if that bottom, if that post that's not bolted in, that's just sitting there with the weight of the home on it, if that kicks out, you're in trouble because that whole inside of the house is gonna implode.

On the inside, they put a couple of those.

What are they, Simpson L32s or something like that.

Four nails a piece, they're like, that's.

Good, good, that'll be good.

But really, you need to tie in that whole floor system.

So not only do you need to have the mud sill that's on the concrete, you need to have the, the plates, the floor joists.

All those things need to have brackets to have it tied together.

Yeah.

And then anytime there's a beam in the middle, it's got to tie into that.

There is so much more work that needs to go into this than what many people are doing out there.

I just wanted to give people kind of a heads up on this because you need to tie that whole system together.

And then you were talking sheer load, which is kind of that diagonal load.

Like, if you take a, a wall, for instance, and, and if you don't know what sheer load is, this is my, like one on one way to explain it.

If you build a wall out of two by four studs, you can rack that thing side by side.

And it's not square.

If you put a piece of drywall on it, wow, that really stays square.

If you put in an engineered piece of plywood on both sides and put the screws in every three inches, you're not moving that thing for anything.

And that's what they call sheer load, is how that racks on that.

And if you've got to put those in, most people aren't going to do that unless they're an engineer that looked at it, went, oh, we got a problem right here.

This is a point that we need to take care of.

Yeah, it's not worth guessing that.

I mean, your house, the stability of your house rests on it, literally.

And I mean, I built houses for 30 years, dude.

I would still.

I mean, I could guess at it.

All day.

I could do a bunch of neat stuff and put a bunch of cool brackets and plates and you're gonna probably.

Over build it knowing.

Yeah, I would usually, you know, I'll build you a bathroom wall.

You can park a.

But yeah, but again, like, here's the deal.

I could over build it over, plate it and put all the hardware on there I wanted to.

And it still may make less sense than a third of that hardware would make from an engineer telling me where to put it and how to put it.

Right?

Yeah.

So absolutely.

That's a different.

You can go up there and nail away until your heart's content and go, man, look at all the stuff I put in.

But if it's not engineered and you don't understand things like sheer value and you know how you're what, loads being carried by what.

And you're not doing yourself any good, man.

Speak about, yeah, oh, I'm in a bunch of social media, kind of DIY Facebook groups.

And I tell you what, the one that drives me nuts the most is you see the drywall taken off the wall, you see the ductwork that's going up through it, you see the electrical and the plumbing in it, and it's the homeowner going, is this a load bearing wall?

It's the wall between my kitchen and my dining room.

And you're looking at it going, you've got four two by fours lined up at the end of that for some reason.

Right?

Yeah.

Tied into the floor, joists above it, around it.

And then you'll have somebody on there go, oh yeah, I was a contractor for 20 years.

You're fine.

We're really.

The only honest answer to that is an engineer coming out going, you're good.

Yeah.

And I say this because many times in older homes especially stuff 20s, 30s, 40s, where there was an engineer on it.

I'll look at a kitchen wall.

Oh yeah, there's no load on that.

They'll come out and they'll go, well, there's not a lot of load on that, but there's load on it.

You need to actually do this, this and this.

And then I face palm and go, well, yeah, that is keeping that outside wall from pushing in.

So I get what.

So there's a lot more to it.

Than just welcome to why I always overbuilt everything.

Oh, right.

Like incredible.

You know, it doesn't make any sense.

Like what to save.

Well, what used to be $2 on a couple extra two by fours, now it's like an extra $50 but yeah, just about.

But here's.

But if you don't know, if you don't know, is that a load bearing wall or not, you probably shouldn't be messing around with it.

If you don't know to call the engineer and don't get your contractor buddy over there, they're going to miss it too.

Yeah, get him over there, feed him six beers.

He's going to tell you just what the guy in the group is selling you on.

It's fine.

Let's go play some pool.

Yeah.

Oh, it's so brutal.

And the other thing I see.

And this is what?

This one.

Before we go into break, we'll tease this one here.

How many times have you and I looked at brackets that somebody else put in there and they use drywall screws or something stupid to put them on with?

Yeah.

You know what, when we do come back, I want you to look up real quick because the difference is staggering.

Speaking of sheer value.

Yep.

Between a 16 penny nail and a screw, screws will snap like a peanut brittle, man.

Absolutely.

Good one, brother.

We'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

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Welcome back to the around the house show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Johnny and I have been talking about earthquake retrofitting and then we just started diving down a little bit of a rabbit hole here about talking about using the wrong fasteners on projects.

And Johnny brought up a good one comparing the drywall screw or even the gold screw that you see, just the deck screws that you see, versus a 16 penny nail, you know, which is your just typical gold glue covered frame ring nail that you would put out there.

Now it's interesting.

So I went down the rabbit hole a little bit here while we were on break and started looking at how brittle drywall screws are.

Drywall screws are just there to hold the drywall on the wall.

There's not much to them, you know,.

And there's a reason you got to put them every 6 inches or 8 inches, whatever the spec is now.

And the spec has changed by the way out there.

If you look, if you really read the inst Instructions.

It takes twice as many drywall screws now because they've gone to this lighter drywall that has more air in it.

So you've.

You made it easier to hang and haul, but now it takes more.

Yeah.

I would go in and put adhesive in.

Sorry, remodeling contractors.

Because that's going to suck.

And then put the same amount of screws in it makes it a little bit easier.

But.

So if you start comparing typical shear like the lateral per fastener drywall screw is way under a hundred pounds.

Of course, 16 penny common nail is about 138 to 154 pounds on shear.

And then when you get into some of these structural screws, you go from 138 to 154, you're up to 900 pounds plus.

Tested and exceeding.

Yeah, that's insanity.

But again that's.

That's a different ball field.

Right.

To be clear.

But if you're putting in.

Let's say we're talking about retrofitting.

Yeah, you're making sense.

Yeah.

I was just saying in general we were talking about load bearing walls and the sheer value.

Yeah.

And don't forget, think about how many times you snapped a drywall screw or a gold screwing it in.

Yellow one.

Yep.

Yeah.

Right.

That's how easy it is.

Absolutely.

And then you look at the withdrawal which is basically what happens when you pull away on it.

Right.

So those drywall screws, man, those things break off so easy.

When you start looking at the common nail, they're 40 to 50 pounds of force to pull out.

And this is per inch of penetration.

So if it's two inches, it's twice that.

Right.

So structural screws are 200 pounds plus.

Many times.

Yeah.

So it's just way.

You better pray you don't snap the head off of that pig because you're never getting it out with flyers.

Never coming out.

It's never coming out.

And then I started to show you some of the.

We were talking on the break.

We were sitting there chatting about some of the lock like timber lock or flat lock or ledger lock, the LOC brand of stuff out there.

This is just stuff that is so far out there.

But that's the difference of using the right fasteners on it.

If you go in there and just put deck screws in with stuff.

Great.

You spent all the money on the fasteners but you Use the wrong on the brackets, but use the wrong fasteners and yeah, it's just in trouble.

And that's why when I see up on a deck, for instance, you walk over to somebody's deck and you're walking underneath, hey, can you look at my deck for me?

And anybody does, you go over and take a look at that and you're like, it's just got all deck screws in there.

And those are just like plated drywall screws.

They're not much different.

No.

So that's where you want the expensive structural screws.

It makes a big difference.

And so here's the thing.

If you're out there wanting to have a earthquake retrofit done, and sometimes, especially in areas where earthquakes happen, this can give you, when you get that certification that, hey, this was done, that contractor will give you paperwork going here, here's a completely engineered certified ready to go.

You can give that to your insurance company to get lower rates or they might even now cover you for earthquake insurance when they wouldn't before.

And the other thing is, we talked about this a few weeks actually last week when we were debating on our old houses, better than new houses, that tornado or the hurricane that went through and somebody's house is sitting in the middle of the road.

If they would have bolted that thing down, that house might have been okay.

Not only that, but I was going to bring up the sheer value factor.

In windy environments like that you get in hurricanes and things like that, sheer value really becomes an issue.

Well, when you've got that kind of lateral force against something like.

Yeah, you need the strength two story houses.

Right.

That gets to be pretty big.

I really had an eye opening experience here.

Probably seven, seven, ten years ago maybe I went down and I was the emcee for the Southeastern Building Conference down in Florida.

And so I really got to see what code is for hurricanes down there.

And they basically now, and this was a newer product, but they've been using straps that go from the foundation all the way up to the top plate that hold down.

So now they do cables.

So they'll help sink the cable into the concrete that end.

And then it goes all the way up through each stud bay and goes through the top plate to hold it down.

Yeah, I've seen both.

And actually that I think cable's brilliant.

Yeah, I thought it was really cool.

The straps are good in theory, but.

They get kicked around on the jobs.

I don't know how to expl.

I don't know how to explain it because I'm not an engineer, but the idea of a cable actually put pulling tension down on.

Yeah, that.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

They both do in their own right.

Yeah.

Those galvanized traps get beat up, they get bent up, they get moved around.

I got a feeling by the time that the house is framed, the integrity.

Yeah.

They've lost a little that tensile strength, let's put it that way.

And I think that is a good way to go.

But when you get into that stuff now you're talking about rated windows and garage doors that have steel braces in the back.

And you know, that's a whole different world down there.

But it was really interesting watching how they build those to me code.

And in Florida, I sure noticed a lot of still concrete block construction from big builders, just CMU block construction.

And that's okay.

It's horrible to remodel in, but definitely is.

Talk to Phoenix, Arizona.

Yeah.

And the other problem, Johnny, too, is when they build basements out of them.

And I get.

And I. Florida doesn't have a lot of basements.

I get it.

But those are the worst to try to tie into, to do a earthquake retrofit to.

Because you don't have anything to bolt them.

Yeah, yeah.

It doesn't work.

You know what I mean?

So now you've got to get the engineer in there to do a lot more work because you're tying into the side of a little concrete block that's just going to bust off.

Yeah.

And even when they're backfilled, they're still so brittle that.

So you're last point of security is a brittle sponge.

Yeah.

With something solid inside, but you're still going to chunk away, which allows for.

What are they?

Inch and inch, Inch and a half.

With the movement that happens in three spots, you're in trouble.

You're in trouble.

So I've seen guys go in there, they'll come into a basement like that and they'll actually put up a steel wall on the inside.

Yeah.

And they'll basically build a steel stud wall in there with structural steel studs.

There's some systems out there that you can go in there mounted up to the wall, you're good to go.

So it's not so bad to do that.

Yeah.

So that way they've got a structural thing then they can tie off to that and it'll help support that wall.

But at the same point, I doubt they put rebar on it.

I doubt it's filled.

But it's just like a brick Wall sitting there.

So that can be really tough to try to earthquake retrofit against.

Yeah.

And that.

Yeah, you're shaking.

What a nightmare.

Yeah, I got into words.

Yeah, you just kind of up a creek with that one.

And you're seeing this too, with commercial buildings where they're coming in with steel moment frames and they've got big, huge, massive beams of square steel they come into to get the brick buildings that are from the teens and twenties or earlier to get those to hold together.

So, really, guys, here's the thing as we go out to the last segment of the show here to wrap this up, talk to somebody that has an engineer.

If you're having this done, keep it simple.

Get it put together, have the engineer do it.

Have them get down there, drop a plan.

Won't cost you that much, or it'll be built into their price.

If it's their engineer, follow that plan, and that way you've got the engineered solution, you're having the work done anyway.

Why save a couple hundred bucks to not have something that you can give to your insurance company and give you that peace of mind that you've got things tied together and it's going to stay on it when things go sideways?

And.

Yeah, and don't forget, you might want to sell the place one day as well.

Added value.

Added value.

And if you're thinking about finishing the basement, do this first because then you don't have to have the drywallers and the trim carpenters come back in and try to put that mess back together.

Yeah, that's it.

All right, guys, if you want to find out more information about us or if you forgot to get that list from us from the last segment with the last hour we did where we were talking about the spring home maintenance checklist, make sure that you reach out to us over at around the House Online.

We'll have that over there.

And if you've got comments, questions, get ahold of us.

You can contact us over in our Contact Us page.

That drops right in to my email box here so I can get back to you.

I was just talking to a guy the other day about.

He was working on designing a kitchen.

I wanted to get some ideas for the software to use because he saw what I did over at Cam's house and it was cool to get him pointed in the right direction to go.

Yeah, you don't want to buy that program.

That's six grand.

But here's another way to do it.

Are they really still selling that stuff for 6K?

Yeah, they are and maintenance plans and everything else.

That's a whole other story.

Yeah, don't get me started.

Exactly.

Johnny, thanks for coming on today, brother.

It's always great to chit chat and banter on these construction stuff that's so important for people out there, man.

I always appreciate.

Yeah, man.

Always a good time.

We have a blast on here.

Thanks, everybody.

I'm Eric Gene for John Dudley.

You've been listening to around the House.

Thanks again for tuning in to the around the House show.

Make sure and head to our website@aroundthehouseonline.com we will see you next time.