DIY projects are a lot of fun. We all know that things are not getting less expensive out there. Are there projects we can work on that will actually put money back in your pocket. Heck yeah there are!

Some of these projects can save you HUNDREDS of dollars a year. That is real money you can be spending on something else.

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[00:00:34] Eric Goranson: And the reason why I went with Bradford white, and I don't want to make this sound like a Bradford white commercial, because it's not, plus you're not paying us to say this, but they're the only model out there. That's repairable.

[00:00:47] Eric Goranson: remodeling and renovating your home, there is a

[00:00:53] Intro: This is

[00:01:05] Caroline Blazovsky: We are not your grandfather's home improvement yet. No, we are not

[00:01:11] Eric Goranson: not old. So no, not at all. Not at all. This is not your typical Collin home improvement radio, which has the retired handyman in there.

[00:01:39] Eric Goranson: Cause I tell you what things are not getting cheaper out there. These are fun

[00:01:43] Caroline Blazovsky: to do. They're like gadgety, you can put them in the thermostat was a Christmas present in our house. Everybody got one.

[00:02:01] Eric Goranson: First off is heating and cooling. And second of all is heating water. So let's talk about heating and cooling a little bit because you know, I'm a, I'm a smart home technology guy, but like you and your house putting in that, I think you're putting an eco right with a

[00:02:22] by

[00:02:29] Eric Goranson: It's going to save you guys some money because it is so much more. In tune to what you guys are doing. Absolutely. What I like about that is that that sensor is now, you know, you think about it in an old heating and cooling system. You have that old 40 year old thermostat on the wall. That's got the little mercury switch and use in you, you set it up.

[00:03:09] Eric Goranson: Now you've got something that has actually measuring multiple places around your house. It's measuring humidity, it's measuring all these things. So now it can start saying, Hey, I want to make it more comfortable for you. So I'm going to turn the fan on instead of just turning the heat and cold on, and that keeps you from getting, and also

[00:03:32] Caroline Blazovsky: Like where's your thermostat in your house? Ours is in the middle of like the hallway where there's no windows there. It's like the tiniest hallway. And of course it's going to regulate the temperature to that, to that space. But everywhere in the house, it could be cold or hot, depending on how many windows you have, et cetera.

[00:03:51] Eric Goranson: Minus in a hallway, but here's the key that you don't want, which is smart. You don't want a window there because if you have that window open up to sunny day and you're off [00:04:00] doing your thing, and all of a sudden, you know, it's July and you've got that bacon heat come in and all of a sudden you've got 140 degree thermostat.

[00:04:17] Caroline Blazovsky: but sometimes that's good and sometimes it's bad. Like we have two thermostats and one's hidden in a room, which is on the colder side of the house.

[00:04:32] Eric Goranson: So my house is a little more complex because we just put a new system in. So I have a zone to system. So I have a two-story house. I've got one in the hallway, right? When you walk in the front door, which is very close to the air return.

[00:05:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah, so now you, it will go, Hey, we need to make sure and anticipate. And some of these systems will even anticipate going, Hey, we need to make sure it looks like it's going to be a hot day. We're going to make sure and turn the fan on and move the air around and, and see, or a cold day. And so it's a really smart, and I use air quotes when I say that way of managing that heat, which in turn saves you money.

[00:05:55] Caroline Blazovsky: They were not something they did originally.

[00:06:25] Eric Goranson: And that's because there's multiple things that have to be controlled. And so what happens is with that is with all those wires, you have more control and a very old system doesn't have a common wire. Sometimes that common wire is what powers that eco be thermal. And so that's where the is coming through.

[00:07:07] Eric Goranson: So it's got to get its power from someplace. So what that does is that. That takes that power that's coming off of the board. That's inside your heating and cooling system. That's down in your utility room or garage or wherever that is. And that's sending power through another. To get to the thermostat.

[00:07:26] Caroline Blazovsky: So that wire goes from your furnace all the way through your house, up to wherever your thermostat's located, correct?

[00:07:44] Eric Goranson: So when we put the new one in Iran, uh, you know, a huge trunk of cable in there, so. I have the control and I think we're using six wires on that. We have all the different, you know, things go on in minus so complex. I didn't actually use an eco [00:08:00] B. I use the carrier setup because I have much more. Control's going on with that system, because it's much more complex even than what the

[00:08:09] Caroline Blazovsky: So people understand that's going up. You're calling, it's got six wires, but it's all incorporated into one wire, one cable,

[00:08:27] Eric Goranson: I had found an area where I had had some carpenter ants that had repaired. So I had the area kind of around that, where, you know, where that thermostat was. So a year ago I ran a new thermostat wire, cause that was close. I was like, okay, I know I knew I'm going to be doing this. So I ran a new thermostat wire outside and I just coiled that roll of wire up over the top of the, the heating and cooling system and tell them about it.

[00:09:00] Caroline Blazovsky: So with our system, because we don't have a common wire that has enough capacity, they give you a, a booster, right. It's kind of

[00:09:11] Eric Goranson: All it's doing is diverting power over to another wire because you have four wires there. It's powered. That thermostat via second wire and the thermostat goes, Hey, we've got power over here. So I know you're using that little box. And so now I can run and do it's all stuff. Now, when we come back, we're going to have to run out to break.

[00:10:02] Eric Goranson: welcome back to around the house with Eric G N Caroline B. It's a new kind of home improvement show for everybody out there. Thanks for joining us. Well, Carolyn and I have been talking about the DOI projects that can save you money. And this is going to be a big segment here because water is one of the most expensive things in your house.

[00:10:33] Caroline Blazovsky: And just from a safety standpoint, water heaters are notorious for water leaks, and also other things can go wrong. You can, they can explode. So if you don't maintain these, a lot of people will tell me, oh, my water heater is 21 years old.

[00:10:54] Eric Goranson: heater? You know, most water heaters fail at about the 10 year mark. That's about where [00:11:00] you see the average water heater go. And I know you're going to have people out there that go, mine's been in there for 27 years.

[00:11:26] Eric Goranson: Hmm. Okay. And it's a lot of it has to do with the kind of water you have in the kind of maintenance it was done. You know, if you've got a two year old water heater right now, you just moved into a house and it's two years old and you've got kind of hard water. You've got a well, man, you should be turning that electric water heater off or turning the gas off to.

[00:11:50] Caroline Blazovsky: Nobody does. This is key. Nobody does this. Like if I go into a house, right, I've been an inspector for 25 years. If I were to [00:12:00] ask my clients and I've probably seen, you know, 30,000 houses. Nobody's doing this. So why I just give a quick recap how they do this and why they have to do it?

[00:12:36] Eric Goranson: Cause there was 10 inches of settlement fed in the bottom of this thing. So that a little electric, 40 gallon water heater had 20, 25% of the capacity misses. And one of the elements was actually in that hard water sediment at the bottom. So it wasn't

[00:13:01] Caroline Blazovsky: Wow.

[00:13:22] Eric Goranson: So it was something that I had to do about every eight to 10 months at that time. And, you know, I was in my early twenties, I didn't have money to put in for a water conditioning system in there. It was like, all right. So I just had to go out there and turn the water off, turn the power off. Of course, turn the power gas off first.

[00:13:53] Caroline Blazovsky: a foot of sediment. So typically how do you drain it? So there's a nozzle that you [00:14:00] can typically turn on and off, right. To drain it out.

[00:14:07] Eric Goranson: do is, uh, turn the power gas off the unit. Cause you want to do that, then turn the water off to that unit. Sometimes if they did you a favor, they put a shutoff valve. Right in front of the water heater where you can do that.

[00:14:36] Eric Goranson: So put it in a place where the water can get soaked in or into a storm drain system or something like that. You know, where it's not a bad place to go. Um, good for cleaning out areas as well. If you've got a floor drain that you want outside or something, that's in your driveway that you want to clean out, it's not a bad place to put it.

[00:15:20] Caroline Blazovsky: come out when you do that, will it allow it to flow or do you have to kind of go up there and loosen snake it a little bit.

[00:15:42] Eric Goranson: A minute or two and just let that drain out and I'll turn it off and on a few times and let it kind of rinse itself out because I noticed that God even additional sediment out of it. And so that worked pretty good. So that was one of those things that, uh, that I was pretty happy about getting it cleaned out and that's a good way [00:16:00] to do it now, then you're done.

[00:16:23] Eric Goranson: Change out. It's going to save you a big money on this.

[00:16:30] Eric Goranson: heat pump monitor. Yeah, I've got, I'm going to

[00:16:42] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I've got the gas. I had the gas at my house. It was a 20 year old gas. I knew what was going on. So I put in the heat pump bread for white. And that is saving me at my house, that water heater, about 175 to $200 a year [00:17:00] in heating costs and that's big money.

[00:17:09] Eric Goranson: yeah, it is. And so. So it's paying for itself really quickly. And if you do the math, there's usually a lot of your electric utilities out there are trying to get you to convert to those. So there is a lot of incentives out there. I've seen $500. I've seen a thousand dollar incentives to pay you to change over.

[00:17:48] Caroline Blazovsky: What do you need with the heat pump water heater?

[00:18:00] Eric Goranson: correct? Yes. When we come back, let's talk about this. When we come back, we'll talk about how those in, and it's actually pretty simple.

[00:18:28] Eric Goranson: It's not this hard to do. So we come back. We'll talk about more of that. We'll do that just as soon as around

[00:18:48] Intro: Hey, this is.

[00:18:53] Intro: house with[00:19:00]

[00:19:02] Eric Goranson: back to around the house with Eric G and Caroline be that new kind of home improvement show. You hear every single week. Thanks for joining us. Well, we've been talking about really those DIY projects are going to save you money. Okay. We know that we got to figure out better ways to save money out there.

[00:19:31] Caroline Blazovsky: overwhelming, like, so I have a gas water heater. So I was asking, you know, what do you prefer to do with that line?

[00:19:45] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So here's what you do first, you know, get the, the right sized, you know, heat pump water here from my house, because I knew I'm doing an addition here in the next year or two.

[00:20:14] Eric Goranson: But two, I want to run a hypo heat pump mode all the time, which does heat slower than what a gas water heater would be. If it's on heat pump only, but mine has control. So I can put it into heat pump and electricity mode. So let's talk about that, of how that, how that works.

[00:20:39] Caroline Blazovsky: Who's going to help them size it. So how do you size it yourself to make sure you're sizing it appropriately?

[00:21:01] Eric Goranson: So you're going to run down and get it through there. Really when it comes down to it, there's a couple different ways to do it. It's pretty easy to do. And like for instance, mine, I have an 80 gallon heat pump and I run it on heat pump only. And how that works. Just so you think about the heat, pump that in your house, you got the air conditioner type unit that's outside and it's taking.

[00:21:45] Eric Goranson: Without having to use an electric element, which is, you know, much less efficient because it uses a lot of power. My 80 gallon heat pump water heater when it's in heat pump only mode and it's fully heating is using about five light bulbs where the [00:22:00] power of incandescent light bulbs. That's all. So that's how I can heat for about a hundred bucks a year with my electricity rates, where I was paying almost $400 a year with gas.

[00:22:35] Eric Goranson: You can put it into that, uh, hybrid mode. So it'll, it'll quick recover if. So

[00:22:59] Caroline Blazovsky: So as it [00:23:00] collects water, I mean, think about it as things condense, right? You bring hot and cold together. You always have a condensation aspect that happens. And so no different in a heat pump. You've got to get rid of that water. So where do you drain too?

[00:23:17] Eric Goranson: So I have a, a, uh, mine drops right out. Drops right down, goes right outside the house, straps on the outside, out there. And it drops even in humid weather. It might drop a couple cups of water out there, but there's really not a lot.

[00:23:35] Caroline Blazovsky: What are you running

[00:23:52] Intro: in the

[00:23:53] Eric Goranson: Right. But you know, when you do that, it saves you so much [00:24:00] money and, you know, okay. So you might spend a couple grand on one of these water heaters, but if all of a sudden your utility is saving is throwing 500 to a grand at ya. That's you're getting out down to where a regular water heater costs and the reason why I went with Bradford white, and I don't want to make this sound like a Bradford white commercial, because it's not.

[00:24:40] Eric Goranson: You got to change the whole water heater out. This one here actually has a repairable system. So a heating and cooling professional under warranty can come out and repair the parts. And you're not, you're not losing water. You can just keep it on the regular heat. They'll come out there and do some quick work on it.

[00:24:57] Caroline Blazovsky: a question or a question. Do [00:25:00] he pump water heaters have to be maintained the same way, a gas or electric. Do you still have to do that general?

[00:25:20] Eric Goranson: You're not having that super-heated area there, which tends to really almost like boil the water in that certain area. When you've got a flame down there on that bottom plate, you've got this area. That's superheated water. That's. All the casually warming, everything else, all that

[00:25:41] Caroline Blazovsky: You get all that sediment. That's at the bottom. Yeah, that's great point. And I like water temps. Let's talk water temps a little bit. Just for sanitary reasons. I like a hot water temp when you're sanitizing, you know, if you're in your kitchen and you're sanitizing your cutting boards and you need a hot water, I like instant on demand water.

[00:26:16] Caroline Blazovsky: And most of the time you have to control it from the water heater. So any tips about temperature?

[00:26:28] Caroline Blazovsky: And then the problem becomes now you've got a sanitizing issue cause you've got this down and

[00:26:38] Eric Goranson: Um, you really can't depend on your water heater to give you water hot enough to sanitize within reason, because if you've got the hot water heater even set at 140 degrees, there's literally no way you're getting 140 degrees at the faucet because it is cooling. To the pilot, it's pretty easy for, to have 140 [00:27:00] degree water temperature and to run the water for 3, 4, 5 minutes and still have 115, 110 degree water at the faucet.

[00:27:31] Eric Goranson: So you're not going to get out 140 degrees. You're generally not going to get anywhere near that at the faucet side. So if you want to sanitize dishes, if you want to sanitize clothes, you are a hundred percent relying on that dishwasher or washer and dryer setting to do.

[00:27:54] Caroline Blazovsky: If you have an on-demand and hot water,

[00:28:13] Eric Goranson: And then you get that. You'll get constant water. Now let's talk about this. When we come back, let's go out to break and we come back. I want to talk a little bit more about that, about using water and how you can save money. There. We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns.

[00:28:55] Eric Goranson: already command from Eva. Novelas bam. And you're listening [00:29:00] to around the

[00:29:06] Eric Goranson: back to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B, your new kind of home improvement. Every single week. Thanks for being a part of this today. Carolyn and I have been talking about DIY projects that could save you some money.

[00:29:43] Eric Goranson: It had the, the Formica backsplash, cause it was a contemporary house that was all white, you know, kind of all murdered whiteout and with the Delta faucet Ana and a nice, I think it was a Delta [00:30:00] hand shower that was decent. And I knew I was going to rechange it out, but here's what I didn't expect when I changed out that system, put the new shower and I'm like, ah, there goes my water bill.

[00:30:43] Caroline Blazovsky: Samso spoiled because I have a well, so I'm not that whole concept just blows my mind. How much you pay for water. It's expensive. Like what do you pay?

[00:31:11] Eric Goranson: Wow.

[00:31:14] Eric Goranson: a well in the rainy city, right. You know, that's

[00:31:20] Eric Goranson: Yeah, so that, that adds up quickly. Um, but I do get good clean condition water that comes in here too. So I can't complain about that and I don't have to go pay for a new welder we put in or a new pumper, any of that other stuff.

[00:31:50] Caroline Blazovsky: I just don't feel clean. You know, we've talked about this and I always go with the more.

[00:32:13] Caroline Blazovsky: And I just feel I get a cleaner, a rinse than just. Dainty shower, you know, missed that comes out, I guess.

[00:32:36] Eric Goranson: And it's horrible.

[00:32:40] Eric Goranson: but when you know, and you don't, but when you get into good water management out of shower heads, they have now designed the water to give almost like a spin or a Turrell to it. So they've made it feel like it's a lot of water, it tricks your brain, but it [00:33:00] also is giving you better coverage.

[00:33:21] Eric Goranson: You are not getting. Uh, shower and here's the problem. I mean, 15 years ago, I'd go, oh, cool. I'd get my pocket knife out. I'd little pop, the energy saver thing out of the back of it. And I'd have a great shower head. You can't do that anymore because now all of a sudden you're taking that maybe two gallon per hour shower head or whatever that's in there.

[00:34:04] Eric Goranson: I just go up fix.

[00:34:10] Eric Goranson: Well, it kind of is now it's a narrator and it's, uh, it helps. That's the thing that helps get the spin in the water and getting it to whatever the trademarked version of, of water management that water got in there.

[00:34:55] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah, those are amazing. I mean, I, it blows my mind to see [00:35:00] how little water can actually flush your toilet and you think it's not going to work. Cause you're like, oh, there's going to be debris left and there's going to be, you're going to have to clean the toilet more frequently, but they're actually really good.

[00:35:49] Eric Goranson: So. You take that out to a year. That's 300, 3,650 gallons of water. You're saving from that toilet.

[00:36:01] Caroline Blazovsky: And I think some water that's a lot of water and I think people like they may be more. Open to the idea of using it in a shower, right? Like if you're paying for water, you may say, oh, I don't mind if I use more water cause I'm showering in it.

[00:36:33] Caroline Blazovsky: Rinsing away your poop and pee. You're basically

[00:36:37] Eric Goranson: about that again, that, that saved me on average, about $110 per year is what that's doing now. Here's the thing. There's a little, there's a little asterisk to all this, and I want to make sure that we touch on. If you go buy that house brand toilet, that's, uh, you know, the a hundred [00:37:00] dollar one off the home center show.

[00:37:15] Intro: Well, and explain to

[00:37:25] Caroline Blazovsky: And that's why it ends up in a big box store. And I never knew that. I just thought. You know, they manufactured maybe more of this brand and that's why it's there. Or they have a special deal with that company to give it away at a cheaper price. But that's not always the case.

[00:37:45] Eric Goranson: And what happens is, is that you're sitting there and you go, oh, this is brand ax. And I don't want to call brands out, but they all do this. They're in the home centers. And all of a sudden you've got. A second there. So you think [00:38:00] about their manufacturing staff and they're like, okay, you want to man on a porcelain.

[00:38:18] Eric Goranson: That's this one. So they're, they're giving you the B grades and the home center because the home centers are always pushing these guys. I want a cheaper price. I want a cheaper price. I want a cheaper price. And to be honest, that's why I don't buy toilets from home centers because I actually go over to my local plumbing store and buy my DXV Toto, whatever higher end brand that I'm going with, because it's going to work better and it's going to be easier to clean because a lot of these companies.

[00:39:00] Caroline Blazovsky: today, saving you money and giving you DIY what's better than around the house.

[00:39:09] Eric Goranson: You've been listening to Around The House