There’s something about appliances that feels like navigating a minefield, right? If you’ve ever wondered why your washing machine suddenly decided to play hide and seek with your laundry, or why your dryer is giving a sad performance after just a few years, you're not alone. Eric G and John Dudley kick off this episode with a no-holds-barred discussion on the ins and outs of home appliances—those ever-so-helpful gadgets that also have a knack for driving us up the wall. They dive into the top ten reasons your appliances might be throwing temper tantrums, and spoiler alert: it’s probably not just the brand’s fault. Eric shares a hilarious yet painful story about a dryer that took a long time to dry a simple load of towels. It turns out, all it needed was a good cleaning of the lint ducts, which is a revelation for many of us who just assume it’s time to splurge on a new model when things go south. So, if you’ve been cursing your appliances, this episode is your wake-up call to roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty. It’s not just about fixing problems—it’s about understanding the gadgets that keep our homes running smoothly and maybe saving a few bucks along the way.

Takeaways:

• Appliance malfunction? Spoiler alert: it's probably not the brand; it's you, buddy.
• Cleaning your dryer ducts is not just a suggestion, it’s a fire hazard waiting to happen.
• Using the wrong settings on your washing machine could lead to a lifetime of regret and dirty clothes.
• Stop pre-rinsing your dishes before loading the dishwasher, it’s like washing your clothes before putting them in the washer.
• If your dryer takes four cycles to dry towels, you might want to consider cleaning those ducts, like, yesterday.
• Don't skimp on appliance quality; a cheap washer or dryer might just be a ticking time bomb.

Links referenced in this episode:

• aroundthehouseonline.com
• aroundthehouseonline.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• KXL
• 30 Seconds Outdoor Cleaner
• Lowe's
• Samsung
• LG
• Bosch
• Cascade

Mentioned in this episode:

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Welcome to around the House with Eric G. Your trusted source for all things home improvement.

Whether you're tackling a DIY project, hiring it out, or just trying to keep your home running smoothly, you're in the right place.

With over 30 years of remodeling experience, certified kitchen designer Eric G takes you behind the scenes with expert advice, industry trends, and the latest innovations for your home.

Home.

It's everything you need to know without the fluff.

Now here's your host, Eric G. Welcome.

To the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

I'm Eric G. And I'm Johnny D. We're having a good time here in the studio.

Good to see you, brother.

I'm coming in from Portland, Oregon, and Johnny is coming from South America.

Good to see you again, my friend.

Good to be here, brother.

Always fun.

Always fun.

How's the coffee down there in Colombia, man?

Good.

Fantastic.

But I can be a little obsessive.

Nothing wrong with that, man.

Nothing wrong with that.

I wanted to give it before we get into the show today.

I wanted to give just a quick shout out to one of our old producers of the show.

And we were on KXL radio back in the day.

Donovan Sergeant was our call screener.

And I love that guy.

He was just out of college.

He was just one of those guys that was just so excited to be there, had the passion for radio, later went on to the.

It was crazy.

He went on to be the producer for the Lars Larson national radio show out there across the country.

And Donovan and his brother passed away.

I just found out about that.

So sad for this family because, man, he was such a great guy.

But I feel for this family because he passed away, I believe, on September 11, and his younger brother, just a couple years difference, passed away on the 8th.

So they lost two, both kids in the family, three days apart.

And it's just brutal.

I feel for those guys because that's a big hit for a family.

Oh, man, it's crushing.

Yeah.

Can't believe it.

And I got a funny story.

And I'll keep this.

I'll keep this kind of clean because we got away with it on the radio.

But it was funny.

And I almost gave this guy a heart attack.

Donovan, it was so funny.

I had shown him this video about the New Zealand deck cleaner.

And if you think about it, with E is I.

So let's do the math there.

I'm not going to do it all for you.

Anyway, I had the founder in from New Zealand of 30 seconds outdoor cleaner in the studio because it was a Portland based company at the time.

Anyway, hilarious.

Long story short, I asked the guy at the last segment, how do you clean a big golden colored deck?

So then he started talking about the big golden colored deck.

And Donovan was through the glass on the other side of the studio, holding his chest, arms around, laughing, tears rolling down his face, couldn't see.

And I'm like, I'm gonna have to give this cat cpr because he was dying, laughing.

And of course it was just happening.

So it was just one of those moments that was so fun, so great.

We got away with it due to accents and things like that.

It worked out well, but he was just a great guy.

So hats off to Donovan.

We will miss you out there, brother, in the world of radio and feel bad for the family and my condolences to them.

Let's get into the more positive stuff here, Johnny.

I've really realized on social media, even in my own house, it's so many people are struggling with appliances, how to use them, how to maintain them, and how not to go buy new ones every five years.

So I thought, what a great time to dive into appliances today and talk about some of my top 10 reasons why your appliances are probably not working like they should.

And it's probably on you, to be honest.

Not even the appliance brand.

You're probably doing something wrong.

So I thought, let's have an educational hour and have some fun with it.

I'm sure it's on me.

I'm the guy that just buys a new one every five years.

I'm like, I don't know, don't work, it's broke and I don't know how to fix them.

I'll build your house, but I ain't fixing a washer.

Gotta go.

Exactly.

And this is one that happened to my house here recently.

Here with the girlfriend in her place.

And it was funny because let's talk dryers to start with.

And this was a big one.

I noticed her running the towels through four cycles to get them dry.

And I'm like, hey, something's going on here.

What's going on?

She's.

That's just not working.

So I said, okay.

So I asked her, when was the last time this house is about seven years old.

Six.

Seven years old.

And I said, okay, let's figure out what's going on.

Is it an element?

Do we need a new dryer?

First thing was I asked her, when was the last time that the ducts were cleaned out.

Now that's that metal Ducting that goes in the wall, crawl space, wherever, even up through the ceiling sometimes that vents that outside.

And she looks at me like I was speaking French.

I'm like, all right, that's not been done.

So let's go take a look.

So, pulled the dryer out, disconnected it, pulled it out away, got in behind it with the shop vac, a drill, and then just one of those like $20 kits from Lowe's that have the fiberglass rods and a little plastic brush on the end, started working through it.

I got out of that fairly short distance, about 5 gallon bucket jammed full, solid packed of lint just out of that.

Now, it depends on the dryer you have, the filter they have.

But really, when you think about it, the more of the fabric softeners and things like that, the more sticky that kind of stuff gets and the more it sticks to the inside of that.

So it's one of those things you got to be really careful with.

But got that cleaned out and that made a world of difference.

World of difference.

And here's the problem though.

If that gets too plugged up, one, you can cause a dryer fire, and with a gas dryer, that can be even worse.

And then two, when that gets plugged up like that, you're going to burn out the electric element.

You're going to start, I've seen it start melting the rollers inside of it.

And so basically you just create.

Because they're plastic, usually plastic, over 160 degrees, it starts to come apart.

So it's usually not rated well.

So as soon as that backs up, it gets too hot and you're burning the dryer up.

So that's the big one right there.

So got that put back together going really well.

But one of the biggest problems I see with people on dryers is they're not using the settings correctly.

You got 42 buttons and nobody knows how to use it, which is pretty common.

And a lot of people probably like.

It'S a far cry from the 70s now, dude, three buttons and a timer, right?

Yeah.

Now I gotta program a computer to make the thing do something.

And I'm not sure exactly what touch softly with lemongrass means.

Like it's kind of setting, do I.

Need steam cotton or what is permanent press?

Anyway, what is that?

I didn't see that.

So anyway, really a lot of times what you see now is the sensor dries.

If the dryer is working, the best way is the most efficient way to go.

Because if you put it on one hour dry and hit it Going, that thing could have been dry at 30 minutes and it's just going to keep going.

So you're wasting all that energy.

If you go to sensor dry and then adjust it to the setting that you're looking forward to, like super dry or dry or whatever it is on there, that's going to be the most effective way to do that.

And so the other thing that you could have too is maybe you just got a cheap, worn out dryer.

If you go out and buy the 299 dryer versus the 799 dryer, you get what you pay for with appliances out there.

And sometimes dryers are probably the easiest one that you could probably spend a little less on because it's not that complex.

But really, when it comes to dryers, you got to be careful because if it's not working correctly, that's one that can cause a fire pretty easily.

And you and I have both been in on projects where you can see the dryer fired happened and the laundry room's toasty.

But there's a reason why you use dryer lint when you're out camping to start a fire.

You just got to be careful with that, guys.

So really be careful.

And if you've done some remodeling, another one that I've seen too is that you've made.

People have made the duct way too long to get outside, right?

So all of a sudden it's 40 or 50ft to get out there because they moved the, the dryer, washer and dryer set up to the other side of the house.

And the only way to get it out there is 60ft across the house.

Now you got a problem.

It just lays in there and lays in there.

Absolutely.

Now there's a cool new one.

If you've got that situation, I would tell you before we go out to break here, the best way to do that is go get one of the new heat pump dryers because what they do is they capture the.

They don't have a vent outside, so it captures the water and dumps it into the drain.

So it, it's self contained.

So it's just pulling the moisture out of it with a heat pump instead of.

So it's basically dehydrating it versus drying it.

And that way you don't have to have that duct.

And that's probably going to be your best bet if you've got that long run because it's just not going to work great and it's going to be a high maintenance thing.

Now when we come back, Johnny, I want to talk about washing machines because this is a big one and the problems that people have, including people like you and I that have 16 penny nails and our shirts and pants that we put in there and everything else.

So we'll talk about that when we come back.

Don't change that dial around the house.

We'll be right back after these very important messages from our sponsors.

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The house show, Next generation of Home Improvement.

Johnny and I are sitting here talking about the top 10 reasons your appliances are probably not working like they should.

And I know we're going to be over 10, so you're gonna get the bonus rounds on these.

But this one is one of my favorites.

And yeah, I can be hard on washing machines and I know Johnny has too, because all it takes is for screws and nails to be in your pockets or anything else, and those things get hammered sometimes.

Daily occurrence back in the day.

Yeah, it's.

Yeah, absolutely.

I've gotten a lot better as I.

Got older utility knives.

Yeah.

Name it.

Oops.

Yeah, that happens.

Little hot tower in there for good measure.

Oh, that's why I like front load machines, because they do have that little filter down there, which we'll talk about a little bit later.

But with washing machines, I tell you what, if you've ever worked on one, you realize it doesn't matter if this is a top mount or a front mount.

You know where you load it from the front or load it from the top.

Like the old ones in between those two drums, they get really nasty if you're not cleaning them.

I don't know if you've ever taken them apart.

Johnny, if you're ever doing service or.

Watch anybody, like I said.

Yeah.

You throw them away.

I'm the guy that buys a new one.

Like a top mount machine where you got the top door on it and you're throwing the stuff in.

It's usually got the agitator in it.

If you pull that drum that you see on the inside, that's the inside drum.

There's an outer drum out there and there's all those little holes in it.

The soap, the grease, the nasty between those two things, because nothing ever touches it.

Can be.

Yeah.

To be fair, I have nastiness.

Witness.

Yeah, nastiness.

So if you're not running cleaner through that from time to time, and they make this stuff at the grocery store like Tide makes it, you can go in there and grab the dishwasher.

The.

Not the dishwasher, but the washing Machine cleaner.

And you can just pour the powder in, run it through the cycle and do that.

If you're getting a new front load machine, it's super cool because you can go through there and run that through there.

And a lot of them have steam as a function, so it actually steam cleans itself.

So that also will help keep those germs and stuff clean.

So many times when you're running that and you're like, man, this thing smells nasty.

Your clothes are going to smell nasty when they come out too, so you might as well take care of it.

Putting in more detergent and more fabric softener is hiding the problem.

They still stink, it's still nasty.

Could be mold.

You want to get that cleaned out.

So that's it right there.

Now the biggest hop in there with a pressure washer, right?

Oh, my gosh.

Can you imagine the mess you'd make in there, though?

Oh, Lord.

Oh, don't do that, folks.

Don't do that.

Total.

Yeah, exactly.

But so anyway, going through and cleaning that up can be big.

Just getting that cleaned up and get that, you'll get a lot of the stuff out of there and do it.

But if you go out and buy the cheapest washing machine known to mankind, you're also going to have a problem with it.

Now, one of my secrets is to do a little research.

Many brands, if you jump online, you're like, I this came with my house, or I bought it used.

And you're like, this washing machine is not working correctly.

Sometimes it's a soap.

There's a reason why many brands put that little trial soap thing in with the instructions when you buy it is many times these units were designed around a certain detergent.

And so what I like to do is go try it with that detergent because it's probably going to work the best for it.

So I jump online, look up, and see what brand requires what, and that actually might make your clothes get a lot cleaner.

Now it might be more expensive.

It could be some anything else with the crazy brands out there, what they're requiring.

But I tell you what, doing that is going to help.

Now, the other problem I see out there is people using the wrong settings, doing a quick wash for everything.

If I take a dirty shirt that I did that I wore outside doing demo day, right, where you got drywall dust, you got insulation in it, you got all the junk you got in there, and I throw it on, quick wash ain't gonna work.

So what you want to do is use it for the setting of the Clothes you're doing.

So if it's super dirty and it has a pre wash cycle, use that and then put it through some of the sensor cleans.

Some of the new sensor clean ones, they like the dishwashers, they have a little electric eye in there and they will look to see how much dirt is in it.

And it'll keep washing it until it finds it being clean, which means you're gonna get a lot cleaner clothes.

And that can save you a ton of money on that.

I'm way too impatient.

I'm quick wash guy.

And then if quick wash doesn't work, then I quick wash it again, which is super dumb.

But that's.

There you go.

That's how I roll.

I cook on high, put the microwave on high, everything quick, fast, go.

Yeah, I get that.

Now the other one too is interesting too is when you're using these things, and this is another one of those, make sure that you do.

Unless you've got something that's you don't want it to get wrinkled up.

But just regular clothes, make sure you're going on the higher spin because that actually takes more of the water out.

So it'll save you money.

On the drier side of things, if you're washing comforters or towels or something like that, go with the high spin on that.

So that way it spins it and gets more of the water out.

So it saves you on the electric or the gas bill on the other side.

That's another one there as well.

We don't have a lot of.

A lot of dryer problems down here.

Pretty much everybody hangs their clothes and.

I hate it.

Oh, I hate it.

Do you?

Yeah.

You don't have the patience for that, do you?

No.

Hang them to dry.

What are you talking about?

It's nice, but really almost.

Yeah, almost everybody hangs their clothes out to dry and then they're still wrinkled.

You gotta iron T shirts.

I don't get it, but plenty of people do it.

That's not your jam.

No, not me.

I bought a new Samsung washer and dryer.

Of course.

Yeah, see?

Of course.

So really, that's the thing.

Be careful with those things.

Get them dialed in.

But the other thing is too, and I've seen this, those hoses on the back of your washing machine, pay really good attention to those.

If you have the black rubber hoses, get rid of them and get the metal wrapped ones, the braided hoses back there at least.

I tell you what, I had one where I was so close.

I was in a rental house, probably 10 years ago I walked by and I just caught my eye on the.

When I was walking through the laundry room between the garage and the in the kitchen and I kind of looked and just went, oh, what's that?

I looked over there.

This hose had four different bubbles coming around the fitting where it was all bubbled up that were probably a half inch tall.

Each one of these bubbles.

And I was like, turn the water off.

Went and got new hoses.

But I tell you what, it was that close for bursting.

All it needed was you to go on vacation and then it would have happened.

Correct?

Yes.

Yeah.

I think, I don't know if you, I think you might have even looked at this and you went, oh, wow, this is going to be too much of a project.

There was a house that I think Kevin and I had looked at that was in Federal Way, Washington.

It was like a three story house that had a view.

These folks went to Europe.

And yes, the hot water hose broke on the back of their washing machine which was in the master suite on the third level.

Right.

That thing broke.

The water went all the way through over four or five days down through the house.

So this was like a garden hose running.

Brutal.

It filled up so much in the basement, daylight, basement.

It popped out the sliding glass door.

Wow.

And ran water down the driveway.

And that's when people went, oh, they have a problem.

Wow.

No, I did not make it to that one.

But I wish I would have saw that.

Oh, they had got the.

I think it was the remediation.

People spent almost a month in there getting it dried out and cleaned up.

And the whole house was down to the studs on the inside.

Oh, sure.

And it was a start.

Over.

They were going to be out of that.

It was like a house fire.

They were going to be a year getting that house dialed back in.

Brutal.

Over $10 hose for the washing machine.

Yeah, don't save the extra three bucks.

Yeah, just get it knocked out.

So I was really shocked at that one.

So that's another one there to really get dialed in.

Now we come back, we are going to dive into probably one of the most controversial appliances in your home, the dishwasher.

Do you pre rinse?

How do you load it?

What cycle do you use?

Do you buy the cheap detergent or the good stuff?

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

Don't change that dial.

Welcome back to the around the House show.

The next generation of home improvement.

Thanks for joining us today.

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We've got that there for you.

Johnny, how we doing over there?

We had to take a break here, guys.

Johnny had to take care of the dogs.

We are a pet friendly.

Yeah, yeah, much better.

It's a, it's a, it's a happier house.

I've got two panting, lazy dogs now instead of two whiny, crawling upside.

Dad, I wanted to talk here.

We've been talking about our, our tips for appliances right now.

And man, these things are expensive.

They just keep getting more and more expensive.

And part of the problems that I see out there, like with this next one, dishwashers, I think one of the biggest complaints that people see is it used to run for an hour and it was good and you were done.

Now they're running for three, three and a half hours.

Because instead of them emptying the water and doing four different runs, they empty it maybe twice, maybe three times, and this run longer through the cycle.

So it's one of those things that in the name of water conservation, now they run three times as long in many cases.

And so there's a lot of things that have really changed how people use dishwashers.

Between the water conversation that we have there and the conservation and the detergents changed here probably 15 years ago when they got rid of all those phosphates because people with septic tanks, that water would go into the ground, contaminating the well water.

And we had this problem there.

So they got rid of that, then they changed over to enzymes.

And so people here in the US when you go scrape your dishes, pre rinse them, put them in the dishwasher, there's no food to activate the enzymes, so then the soap doesn't work.

So most of the time when you're pre rinsing your dishes, you're actually making it worse because you're not giving anything for the soap to eat.

So you're not.

So I've been right this whole time.

Throw them in there.

Yeah.

I'm like, put the plate in there.

You have to wash it first.

I'm like, why not buy a Dishwasher if I need to wash the damn thing.

Exactly, exactly.

So there's the thing and that is the final answer there.

If you are pre rinsing those dishes, you're probably making them dirty versus cleaner.

And the other thing is that's fun.

Fact for the day.

That's.

I didn't know that about the enzymes.

The enzymes so wild you got to have food on there.

And the other thing is too is the cheap detergents you get.

You go into your discount store and get the no name powder or something.

Again, make sure you're using the brand of dishwasher detergent that manufacturer recommends.

If they say use Cascade complete, I would use Cascade Complete.

If they say to use whatever, use the right brand for that.

So that's the big one there.

And then the other thing is too is you have to think about how you're loading that dishwasher and how you're doing it correctly.

It's many of these dishwashers have two or three racks.

They have their top rack where you can lay the silverware out flat.

Many times you can put that big pan and there it'll fit.

But you don't realize you're blocking the spinner that goes under the glasses.

So make sure that you get that adjusted correctly and something.

All the manufacturer's directions kind of show how best to load it and that tells you how they want you to do that.

Which I think is super important to be able to go in there and do that correctly.

Now the other thing is most people forget is many times there's a filter down in the bottom down there, the very bottom that gets clogged up and nasty.

When was the last time you checked that?

That gets forgotten all the time.

And what happens is all those little food pieces or whatever fill up that micro screen.

So it's almost like your lint filter on your dryer.

You need to get that thing cleaned out every once in a while.

And if not, you could be burning up a pump motor or something like that with those.

Yeah, those things get gross.

They get nasty, man.

Now one thing here too that I did when I.

And it's been really.

It's a smart thing that I start to do now when I install dishwashers in kitchens, Johnny, I go in underneath that thing and I actually put down ice and water shield you would put on a roof.

So if it's hardwood especially, I will lay down ice and water shield back from the toe kick area and then run it up the back wall, up the sides of the cabinets, a Little bit.

So when that pump fails and starts leaking out the bottom now it's going to kick it.

And I slope it all towards the front so it's going to push the water out there.

So if it starts leaking, you're gonna see it so many times.

People will go in and put that extra, the tile over the linoleum or whatever in there.

And then when they put the dishwasher in, it drops down a little bit.

Yeah, there's a lip in the front where all the water catches.

So I. Yeah, it's that little lip you gotta lift the feet over to actually pull the thing out.

And you're like, why, why, why?

To save four bucks on tile.

Oh, my gosh.

I had the worst one.

And this was when I was living north of Seattle after you left the country, I think it was.

Holy smokes, dude.

I have never seen anybody tile a dishwasher in before.

So the kitchen had like linoleum or something down.

Somebody tiled the floor, no big deal.

Somebody didn't like the tile, so they tiled on top of the tile.

And so you had this inch and a quarter transition strip from the living room and dining room into the kitchen.

And then to get the dishwasher out when it failed, I couldn't even get the electrical panel piece off the front because I couldn't get it to bend enough to come out.

And I ended up having to go in there.

It was a tile countertop with a wood edge.

So I had to go in there and carefully remove the wood edge just so I could get that out of there and then get underneath the tile countertop and just get it up a little bit to get the dishwasher out.

But that's just called not thinking.

Oh my gosh.

Not playing.

I was like, oh, I'm dying.

I was like, this what should have been a 15 minute job now ended up turning into a two hour job because I was like, you tiled in the dishwasher?

How dumb is that?

And luckily there wasn't a range in there either because that range would have been way high.

But it was a double oven and a cooktop.

But trying to get that out of there.

Oh, it was brutal.

And I could barely get.

I had to cut the.

I had to cut all the insulation off of the top of it just to get it up enough to get it underneath there.

And I was bending metal and then I was like, how am I at the new one in there?

I had to go around and look at what the case size was and get one that had enough adjustable Feet.

And I actually had to take the feet off of it, put it in there, and then lift it up to put the feet back on underneath.

Laying on the ground.

Yeah.

What a blast.

Because the last thing I wanted to do was do a kitchen remodel while I was at it.

So a lot of sawzalled out.

The first one.

Yeah, I was there, but I didn't know if I was going to be able to get another one back in there.

So I was like, am I gonna have to repair it in place or what I've got to do here?

So didn't want to overly commit on that one.

So probably smart, but it's what it was.

The other thing is, with any of these water appliances, like your washing machine, your dishwasher, even a refrigerator, if you've got hard water or minerals in the water, get that taken care of, guys, because you're going to just absolutely cut the lifespan of these things down by 75% sometimes.

Because all that hard water builds up in the dishwasher, it builds up in the ice maker, it builds up in the washing machine and just absolutely destroys everything it touches in your house.

Builds up in the refrigerator if you have water going to the fridge.

Yeah, it just goes sideways.

Absolutely go sideways.

So I always say if you're getting ready to do a bathroom remodel or a kitchen remodel, you're going to put all new appliances in, get a test kit, send it off to the lab, or have a water professional come over, test that water.

Because there's no sense.

Yeah.

Shower every six months.

Water heater lasting you three years.

And you're pulling it out again.

Yeah, it just takes it sideways.

So take the time and deal with that there and then again go through the settings on it.

Right.

I actually like when I'm buying dishwashers, some of the things before we go to break here, I want to just cover I always with the new ones.

Now get the ones with the stainless steel interior because it reflects the heat and it dries better and it doesn't smell when you open up.

The plastic ones do.

So stay away from the plastic liners.

Get something with a sanitized rinse.

I like that because you can put them through there, hit the sanitize button and you've got stuff that's smoking hot when it comes out of there, but at least it's sanitized.

And you know, if somebody in your family has a cold, you're not spreading that around everybody else in the dishwasher.

That's a key right there.

All right, guys, we come back.

We're going to talk about a few other ones here.

And some of these are be a little controversial.

We've got the oven arrange refrigerator and of course the water heater.

I want to talk about too.

When's the last time you worked on that?

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

Welcome back to the around the House show.

The next generation of home improvement.

Thanks for joining us today.

You've got me and Johnny D here in the studio.

We've been talking about those appliances and how do we save you some money on these things and keep them running at their best?

Because I tell you what, some of these things get so dang expensive, you can't, Johnny, you can't go out and get a good working dishwasher.

For instance, we were just talking about for really under 500 bucks, even 600 bucks these days.

It used to be it was that 299 one that was the cheap one that you didn't want to get and stay away from.

And now anything under 500 bucks and unless you got a closeout is probably garbage.

It's going to be super loud, it's going to leak early and you're just going to fight it.

So you got to be careful buying the stuff.

That cheap stuff just isn't holding up anymore.

The 299s were for rentals, but I actually would have priced them higher.

I would have figured it's a thousand bucks to get a decent one by now.

Yeah, even that 900 to get like into the Bosches or some of the nicer ones that have that stuff that, that really keep going.

Yeah, the stainless we were talking about.

It just keeps adding up.

One of the things I wanted to talk about here, and this is an interesting one, are refrigerators.

And there are some brands out there that have had significant problems over the years and many times the problems you have are related to the brand you bought.

Now some of the biggest issues that I've seen with them out there are the ice and water freezing up in the door.

Great example.

My girlfriend's got a six year old Samsung that has just a horrible problem with the ice maker not working.

And you can put in five new ice makers and it's just a bad design.

And so it's one of those things my LG that I have Here at my current house, that's that sale is getting wrapped up.

They reached out to me and said, hey, there's a class action lawsuit going in.

Do you want to be a part of this?

Because the craft ice wasn't working correctly.

And for me it worked fine.

Every six months I'd have to hit the reset button on it.

And that was fine.

If you're wanting me, I'm like I said, hey, I didn't buy this LG fridge.

They gave it to me.

So I'm sure as heck not going to jump in on a class action lawsuit on that.

You know, that would be super uncool, but because we were shooting TV stuff with it.

But long story short, a lot of these things you can DIY and fix if they go sideways.

And especially with the ice makers.

Most of them now in the new fridges have a little button on the side of them that you can hit the reset button and it will recycle it through, it'll go through the thaw process.

So before you call that, you know that person to come repair it, make sure that you've through and done the DIY stuff to do it.

But one of the things that we're seeing, seeing right now is one of the biggest maintenance problems people are forgetting is when was the last time you took off that little grate down below and vacuumed out all the dog hair, cat hair, dust bunnies from around the fins down there on the condenser, down where the compressor is.

You might have a full on blanket down there and not know it.

And you're just going to burn that thing up because it's basically putting an insulating blanket around it.

So really take the time on your refrigerator, maintain it, keep the seals cleaned up, make sure that you're running good clean water through it and spend some time pull that thing out, clean around it.

And of course, make sure you got the right amount of airflow around it.

Make sure that you've got the right amount of space.

That's one of the biggest things that kitchen designers do these days is they can make a huge mistake of designing it.

They'll say, hey, I need to have a three quarter inch gap here, I need to have two at the top, whatever.

And if you make that too tight, you can actually burn that thing up because you just overheat it.

So make sure you do that.

And a note here over the top.

The refrigerator is probably the first or second hottest place in the kitchen.

So don't put your fine whiskeys, your wines things up there.

You're gonna cook it.

So that's always been my pet peeve.

And Johnny's heard this or seen me do it where people go, I want to put my wine cabin over the top of the fridge.

And I'm like, no, you don't supposed to keep that at 50, not 80 degrees.

Not a good thing.

Not a good thing.

So just wine.

Who cares?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I like my good wine.

I like my wine.

You fancy people in your wines, you can have it.

Mr. Corona himself Drink whiskey.

I remember you in the days you were a Corona guy in the days of band practice.

That was a long time ago.

Quite a few of those.

Yeah.

You've changed your ways on that one, brother.

But back then when we were out doing music, I was a whiskey guy.

You were a beer guy.

Back then, Hefty bags full of half racks come down those stairs from the studio.

Yeah, you would go, eric, do you want to carry the bags of bottles out or do you want to carry your half stack Ampeg down there?

I'll take the Ampeg, man.

I'll take the Ampeg, which is like moving the fridge.

But look what a healthy being I've become because of it.

If you have.

I'm proud of you, man.

I'm proud of you.

So the other thing too, man, I wanted to talk about here before we run out of time in this segment is the ovens and ranges.

And sometimes, and this is something coming up into the holidays, I always want to say about this with appliances, be very careful of running that self cleaning oven cycle right before the holidays.

Because here's what happens if you haven't done that in a while.

And this is Murphy's Law playing at this.

When you go to do that, it does two things.

One, it gets that oven like twice as hot as it normally does.

So the chance of you burning out pieces right before the holidays is pretty solid.

And then the next two or three times you cook, you're going to have a little more of a burnt taste in it.

So don't go ruining your turkey because three days before you decided to clean the oven because people are coming over, maybe do that now.

And that way it's good in November.

But there's always a risk of burning things up inside of it and overheating electronics.

So be really careful with it.

Do it.

But I would stay on doing it.

If you haven't ever done it, it can be risky the first time.

So it's not a perfect science.

You could burn that stuff up pretty quickly and then you're in trouble.

Interesting, huh?

You don't think about how you can.

Nobody lets me get near an oven, dude.

I'm not usually even allowed in the kitchen.

The barbecue, that's me, but.

Oh yeah, yeah, the kitchen, the kitchen.

They kick me out.

Let's talk barbecues for a second here too.

That's one of the big ones too.

Keep it clean guys.

When you're keeping that barbecue clean, if you want to rust things out, you leave all that cooked on sauce, all the char on it.

The cleaner you keep that barbecue, the less those acids are gonna eat into the metal.

So you gotta be really careful with that, keep it clean.

And they make great barbecue.

I've used like Weber makes one.

You can get the crocodile cloth barbecue wipes.

Those work good.

But if you really wanna keep it clean, stay on top of it like when it's new.

Otherwise, I tell you what, many of the barbecues that are in that $400 and under, you'll get a year or two out of them if you don't really keep those things scrubbed up and clean.

So take the time and that way if you do get a flare up, you don't have a four alarm fire and you're burning the deck down on top of it.

Because otherwise that can be a huge issue.

I'll take away all the fun.

Oh man.

I tell you what, I have had only one big fire and it was when I moved to Seattle and it was over at a buddy's house and he was roommates with the band Harvey Danger.

Remember they had their out of Seattle, those guys?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

So when I first moved in, we had a barbecue, the barbecue.

Because we were.

Everybody was sitting on the patio.

Summertime, they had it sitting out in the yard.

One of the things if you've learned, if you don't live in the Pacific Northwest, many people don't water their lawns.

So this grass is white.

Here's the problem.

You got the Weber cranked up because you got 20 people over there and it's just your round kettle grill.

And you have those little, little dials on the bottom there where you control.

The air vents on the bottom, little.

Bit of a breeze.

Those things turn out into little embers that bounce off the pan and miss down below.

One of the guys turns around and We've got a 10 by 10 area around the barbecue on a full on grass fire.

These were a bunch of dudes living in a rental house.

Did they have a garden house?

No.

So we're out there with solo cups, a small bucket.

Everybody trying to stamp it out, and I'm like, we're gonna burn the dang neighborhood down out here with a Weber barbecue.

It was the funniest thing ever.

And we got to put out, but I was like, holy smokes, that was close.

We were about ready to call the fire.

We didn't.

Nobody had a hose.

I was shocked.

I'm like, who doesn't have a garden hose?

It was out of control.

It's funny how those parties turn out and those emergencies spring up and you somehow drunkenly deal with them with a bunch of just asinine bobos running around.

22 years old and don't.

Don't even know what a Phillips screwdriver is.

And suddenly the house is on fire.

You're like, guys, what do we do?

Solo cup, dude.

Absolutely.

All right, brother.

We are running out of time.

We should run here.

Thanks for tuning in, guys, to the first hour of the show.

We got the second one coming up if you're listening on the radio.

If not, make sure you catch it on your favorite podcast player.

I'm Eric G. I'm John Eady.

You've been listening to around the house.

Thank you for tuning in to the around the house show today.

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