We saved some of the best for last! We start out this hour with Schannon Yodice also known as That Tile Chick. Then we dive into swimming pools with Swimming Pool Steve. Then we get a little hungry with Jeff Tracy and Lee Ann Whippen from BBQ Nation. We close out this episode with Emmy Award Winning Home Tech Expert Katie Linendoll.

If you want to hear these full episodes take a listen to the full collection of these right here: https://player.captivate.fm/collection/b69dcc86-8213-40e5-bb16-71d4e41af8d1

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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.

Mentioned in this episode:

A new kind of decking and siding from Millboard

For more information about the latest in decking and cladding head to https://www.millboard.com/

Upgrade your trailer game with Summit Trailer

For more information about Summit Trailers and their extensive dealer network visit them at the website link

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Monument Grills

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Monument Grills

[00:00:28] Eric Goranson: You probably saw her win Master Q on Food Network. And then we round this hour up with Emmy Award-winning. And we'll talk home tech for your family, all this and more coming up on this first hour of around the house. And don't worry, our number two will leave you. Disappointed either. Yeah. Let's do

[00:00:46] Intro: When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a covered, this is

[00:01:05] Intro: joining us. Hey Caroline. Hey Eric.

[00:01:13] Eric Goranson: You might have seen her all over social media as that tile check. Shannon, welcome to Around the House.

[00:01:23] Eric Goranson: This is gonna be a lot of fun. You are just crushing the trades out there and Caroline and I are both supporters of it and I love to see what you're doing out there. Cuz you know it's funny when I watch videos and then I watch the comments of the people that have, maybe I've been in Dove for 33 years and this is how I do it and I just laugh sometimes cause it's like, so you've been doing it wrong for 33 years.

[00:01:51] That Tile Chick (Schannon Yodice): Oh yes. . Oh yes, .

[00:01:59] Intro: Well,

[00:02:16] Caroline Blazovsky: She makes me

[00:02:19] That Tile Chick (Schannon Yodice): can. Most definitely tile. It's, it's a little, it can be intimidating. It's a, you know, it's a hard material and like there's special tools and skills you need, but. . I truly believe anybody can do it as long as you just, you know, learn key steps.

[00:02:37] Intro: it takes a long time to focus. , there's a learning curve. Mm-hmm. , that's

[00:02:56] Eric Goranson: That's where, yes, the beauty is, that's,

[00:03:20] Eric Goranson: you know, and as somebody that's done showers before, including my own steam shower with, with really good pros.

[00:03:49] Eric Goranson: There were plenty of tile setters out there, putting green board Sheetrock in the, in the shower and laying tile over it and then wondering why it didn't work.

[00:04:12] That Tile Chick (Schannon Yodice): So that means what? Probably just like, you know, the, the steam that comes off of your shower, you know, and it's like sitting in the room because you, your vent fan is like clogged up with 10 years worth of dust, you know, . So moisture resistant, not water. It's not even water resistant because you get that thing wet, it's going to soak great, explode, smoke the water right up.

[00:04:44] Intro: drywall. . Yeah, . So

[00:05:03] Caroline Blazovsky: Like, so where's the first place to start? Is it knowing what your backer board's gonna be? Is it knowing, you know, what type of process you're gonna engage in first? Just take us through some basic tips. So DIY people like me aren't so scared. Okay,

[00:05:35] That Tile Chick (Schannon Yodice): Like what's the size of the. . Um, now this might sound super complicated, but it actually makes your life so much easier when, if you're gonna put a niche or a soap box in the shower and you're like, okay, well, like I know I have this size tile. You can literally plan out where the niche is going to go in the wall.

[00:06:15] That Tile Chick (Schannon Yodice): So you just. , kind of figure out where you're gonna put your, your niche box. And then like, I like to just like work from the bottom. So like, just pretend that the, the rest of the wall isn't existing and I'll just like measure from the floor to the bottom of the niche and then like move it as I go up or down, depending on where the tile is gonna be, legs so that I can like, have full tiles around the niche and I don't have to make any crazy cuts.

[00:07:00] That Tile Chick (Schannon Yodice): Plus, if you use like, um, cement, cement board, now you're creating dust and it's like an extra step. If you're cutting it with like a, something like a grinder, for example. You're cutting it outside and you're making dust and I have to wear a mask and. It's heavy, like it's just, I like foam i'll, I'll spend a little bit more money on it.

[00:07:56] That Tile Chick (Schannon Yodice): Like it's very hard to mess it up. If you're using like [00:08:00] a system like Lati Crete, which is what I use, they are the foam and they use a sealant system. So basically you put up the foam and what you're putting over your washers and your screws and your seams is you're using. Uh, urethane sealant. So, and the urethane, sealant is water curable.

[00:08:41] That Tile Chick (Schannon Yodice): Takes longer. It's just a more intensive process, you know? So that's not a thing. Foam board, urethane, sealant, if you can get that system. Amazing. Um, I'm trying to think of any like super key point, but,

[00:08:57] Caroline Blazovsky: Eric, is that the artex? Is that what he was talking about? [00:09:00] Remember we were talking about when you have these weird shapes,

[00:09:02] Eric Goranson: Yeah, there's, yeah. The good news is right now there's probably. You know, a half dozen name brand systems and another dozen off-brand systems out there. Yeah. And I see the good thing is, is right now, because trying to come up with materials for a job sometimes where you're like, Hey, they got all the sealant, but they don't have any board.

[00:09:39] Intro: Why

[00:09:55] Intro: So,[00:10:00]

[00:10:26] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us, Caroline. We have a excellent guest in the studio today that I'm so excited for. Hi

[00:10:44] Eric Goranson: There we go. We got SW pool.

[00:10:55] Swimming Pool Steve: you. Thank you for having me. I'm

[00:11:07] Eric Goranson: Things are warming up. People are thinking about hitting that pool or, or even uh, getting that hot tub

[00:11:25] Swimming Pool Steve: I've always wondered why close a hot tub, like for me using the hot tub year round, like why not use it in the winter? It's the best time to use. There

[00:11:44] Eric Goranson: The only bad part is, is that walk to the house, cuz if it's icy, that can be its own little dangerous experience.

[00:12:00] Eric Goranson: That walk of shame when it's, when it's icy out there and the chance of you eating it on a, on a cold, icy deck in the wintertime, it's not comfortable.

[00:12:10] Swimming Pool Steve: But at the same time, if you're not jumping into a snowbank and then back into a hot tub, you're just not living.

[00:12:21] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, I'm a, I'm the an environmental consultant by. And so my gripe with hot tubs is that they always get moldy no matter what you do.

[00:12:39] Swimming Pool Steve: Oh, definitely. And, uh, you know, just in general, like I've, I've gotten a fair bit of experience with hot tubs, uh, up to and including, you know, managing a pretty busy hot tub store, uh, for a period of time into water lab.

[00:13:05] Swimming Pool Steve: And they're not supposed to be like that. Like hot tubs aren't supposed to smell bad. That's one of the most common complaints. Like, oh, hot tubs. I, you know, how do I make my water smell better? It's like, if it smells bad, it's probably not balanced to begin. And, uh, just to, to put a pen in this, the most important thing if you have a hot tub and you're hearing this and you're like, well, I wonder if I'm one of these people.

[00:13:43] Swimming Pool Steve: Pipe flush procedure is a critical element that hot tub boners should be doing every time they drain their hot tub, which also they should probably be doing more than they're

[00:13:55] Swimming Pool Steve: their pipe? So you should drain once every, once every four months is kind of the, the [00:14:00] conventional logic.

[00:14:18] Swimming Pool Steve: Like if it ever turned green at all, even for a day, like that's a disaster. You would, like, some people would just drain rate based upon that alone. Um, and all of the stuff that you're adding to try to compensate for the lack of chemical management that you're doing, again, it's contributing to just higher levels of total dissolved solids within the water and making the water.

[00:15:01] Swimming Pool Steve: Like it's super easy, , it's not hard to. I actually have a joke on on YouTube. That was one of the first things I ever posted, like eight years. And somebody was saying about this exact procedure like, well, what, how? What's this pipe flush? I've never heard of, it sounds like a lot of work. And I explained to them, look, grab a can of pipe flush.

[00:15:26] Eric Goranson: be easy. . That's awesome. That is awesome. Well, I've got a question for you cuz there's all these people out there that are like, oh, I'm done doing chlorine. I'm gonna go saline or salt.

[00:15:41] Swimming Pool Steve: Breaks are on. So Salt wa makes chlorine. Chlorine, I know that too, making it at that salt. But these things are exactly the same. So you, you described two things which are the same and uh, some people know that and, but a lot of people don't steal.

[00:16:11] Swimming Pool Steve: So those two things are the same, but you almost said, what's an alternative to chlorine? And that is such a hot button issue for me. Like you, if you want to, if you want to see me , I bent outta his shape. Start talking to me about, you know, you're looking for an alternative to chlorine because you want to be healthier.

[00:16:45] Swimming Pool Steve: And people say like, oh yeah, well that's, you know, when Africa or some other place that's undeveloped. And I say, do you know what the main difference between us and them is? It's that we use chlorine in our water to keep it. So I'm talking everything from the food that, or the water that you cook with, the water you [00:17:00] wash your kids with.

[00:17:17] Swimming Pool Steve: Which is kind of what most people end up. And in a worst case scenario, you can get some bad advice, which is really easy to come by these days. And you can choose an alternative completely. You know, something that maybe works a little bit, or maybe you choose something that doesn't work at all, because there's not really any way to stop you from buying that or to stop somebody from claiming that something works really well.

[00:17:54] Swimming Pool Steve: I mean, if you don't, if you don't wear lab coats work every day, you have no business trying to figure this out on your own.

[00:18:11] Eric Goranson: But at the same point, somebody out there mismanaging, it can also make people sick by putting too much or hurt them by

[00:18:28] Swimming Pool Steve: And again, it really comes down to just most of the people not really knowing what they're doing. And then you have to ate by adding a bunch extra.

[00:18:43] Intro: returns.[00:19:00]

[00:19:22] Intro: for.

[00:19:28] Caroline Blazovsky: I said, I wanna hear all about it. So here they are. Bring it on.

[00:19:48] Eric Goranson: Welcome to Around the House. You might have seen Jeff Tracy on the back of Milk Cartons Everywhere, and Leanne Whitten has been an all over food network before beating people like Bobby [00:20:00] Flay and Master aq. And welcome guys. Thanks for having us.

[00:20:10] Eric Goranson: There you go. In. Good afternoon. Whatever time is, I'm not sure I was up, so we wanted to talk barbecuing because there's some people like me that's all good. I can be standing out in the snow as long as the wind's not blowing and barbecuing. But we are getting into what I call residential barbecue season for me, for people that are walking into the home centers and seeing that $199 grill.

[00:20:36] Eric Goranson: and I, I thought we'd talk about that to begin with about. There's some great barbecues that are inexpensive, but there's also ones that are kind of throwaway models that might make it through a year and a half of cooking. What are you guys doing out there for barbecues these days?

[00:21:03] Lee Ann Whippen "Master of Cue": Design for someone that's cooking in the backyard that doesn't have the time to work on maintaining their fire over live fire like charcoal. Um, it preheats very easily. You can kind of set it and forget it so you can come home from work and actually smoke food and you're, it's ready in like 10 minutes to put your food on and it regulates the heat for you.

[00:21:50] Lee Ann Whippen "Master of Cue": I mean, it is like nonstop. I mean, the choices are amazing

[00:21:57] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: Yeah. Yeah. Well, [00:22:00] I, I'm a little old fashioned. I use a stick and a blow porch. ,

[00:22:10] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: I, uh, I have an assortment of grills, as you know there, Eric. Um, but lately I've been using, uh, two models, uh, from Gorilla Grills out of. And you, and you buy direct. You won't find those in any stores. Um, they have also a retail store in Dallas, but um, I've got a pellet, griller pellet grill from them and also a kamado style.

[00:23:05] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: So, uh, I agree with Leanne. I mean, we're. Ground central here for app pellet

[00:23:14] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: as you know, I only live about 12 miles from where Traeger was invented. And um, so that kind of started up here. I know they had some, um, variable. Similar grills in Canada that they came up with, which is actually, uh, from Danson's, which are the folks that own Pitmaster and Louisiana grills there.

[00:24:06] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: So, um, that's, that's what I've been using the last couple years. So, yes, Caroline, are we calling you? Yes,

[00:24:15] Caroline Blazovsky: hand. . So I am an amateur, I would say amateur grill. I'm used to using a propane tank and a Weber. So I wanna step up my game when, uh, comes to barbecue. So what would be the next step for someone like me who's loves to barbecue, wants to get a little creative, but isn't at obviously the level that you are.

[00:24:38] Lee Ann Whippen "Master of Cue": I definitely think the pellet grill is an, an, you know, your answer. Not only that, but the price point is there. You aren't spending a lot of money and you're actually, um, you don't have to be an expert. I mean, you can convert your gas grill to a smoker.

[00:25:13] Eric Goranson: Hmm, yeah, yeah. My lump, my lump charcoal grill. I love cooking on it, but I gotta go out there 40 minutes before I want to throw something on it. Clean it up every time. Go through, get the fire going. And I've got an off-brand Kuboto style, and it's, it's a messy grill to

[00:25:35] Lee Ann Whippen "Master of Cue": A price of an LP tank is over $40. I mean, and so when you look at the cost of pellets, you can turn the pellet cooker off and reserve all those pellets. It's just, it uses what you use. So it's really more economical than gas these days. I feel like it.

[00:25:55] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: Yeah. Yeah. I agree because, um, [00:26:00] plus the, excuse me, the price points.

[00:26:26] Lee Ann Whippen "Master of Cue": 800. Or you can get 'em for like 300 or less, $300.

[00:26:31] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: cooker.

[00:26:34] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: you go. Yeah. And so that worked really well. And a lot of the pellet cookers Caroline have, um, wifi on 'em. Now. You can get notifications on your phone about your temperature, or if you need to add pellets on a long cook, there's a, they got a lot of bells and whistles.

[00:27:20] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: But with, um, you know, gas, if you, if you do catch on a grease fire or something, if it hasn't been cleaned properly, Uh, you gotta deal with the gas and the grease and all this, and very seldom, unless you just never clean your grill, do you get fires in pellet grills? I mean, it does happen. It happens with all grills, but I think they're about the safe.

[00:27:43] Eric Goranson: that's taking me

[00:27:50] Lee Ann Whippen "Master of Cue": in my opinion? Yeah, go ahead Jeff. Hire somebody, ,

[00:27:54] Eric Goranson: somebody. It's my right.

[00:28:08] Jeff Tracy The Cowboy Cook: That was my ShopVac that I used on cars and stuff, and that got, um, moved down a step when I bought a new one. But I get it. Get yourself a 30 or $40 ShopVac. Dedicate it to only cleaning your grills. Okay, around the

[00:28:28] Eric Goranson: Don't go anywhere.

[00:28:59] Eric Goranson: New Year's [00:29:00] Eve, everybody. Welcome back to Around the House. Now let's get back to, uh, one of my favorite episodes from this last year. This is Katie Lineal Emmy Award-winning. Let's Talk Some Home Technology.

[00:29:23] Katie Linendoll: No matter how high tech the conference is that I'm going to is passwords. And I'm like, I start to kind of do the zone out because I'm like, we all know that passwords. But then I had a friend sitting next to me in one of the recent conferences we were at very high level, uh, former, uh, I think it was a Department of Defense individual doing a presentation.

[00:30:13] Katie Linendoll: I know we're all busy, just making smarter decisions for cybersecurity and also taking advantage of things like it, the advanced security that you might already have baked into your gateway. Do it. Do it because that moment comes, it's like the worst thing ever.

[00:30:30] Eric Goranson: I think that's number two. Outside. Of not having the right password. The biggest mistakes that a homeowner makes is not using the equipment and the security features they already have around

[00:30:54] Katie Linendoll: And it's like we were talking about TVs, it. You know, you can have 4K content, but do you have a [00:31:00] 4K capable tv? It's not gonna work. You know, it's having the best hardware at your fingertips and utilizing it. And if you don't know what that is, like we can be sitting here and talking very techy lingo. Ask your, ask them, just ask like, Hey, am I up to date?

[00:31:28] Eric Goranson: And when your app that you're using comes on and says, do you wanna enable two, two factor authentication?

[00:31:37] Intro: a hundred times. You're like, yeah,

[00:31:49] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it's amazing. And you know, with Caroline here too, as America's healthy Home expert, the the space out there that we're seeing now as far as creating healthy homes is really cool too.

[00:32:19] Katie Linendoll: I always say, people are like, why don't we get into the Jetsons air? I'm like, we're here we're, it's like an influx right now, and just to see where, like, where the next two, three years are going. In terms of home technologies and for the betterment of the consumer is an exciting place to be.

[00:32:39] Eric Goranson: Uh, we, we had, uh, when I was talking with Bro NuTone as a great example, they've got a new product out now called Overture that actually has sensors that goes around your house. So this is going to now create it where all of a sudden it'll automatically turn your vent fan on in the kitchen or the bathroom, depending on.

[00:33:08] Intro: And

[00:33:19] Caroline Blazovsky: They're not gonna change their vent fan, they're not gonna turn their vent fan on. They're not gonna be cooking with their vent fans. So those are things that really protect. Exponentially on health. So for example, if you are using a HEPA filter in your home, we know you can increase your cardiovascular function by 8%.

[00:33:47] Katie Linendoll: option too. In your experience, you know, and then just becoming a, a new homeowner. I think one thing that I found very interesting, and I'd love to get your perspective, is you could also get rebates and kickbacks.

[00:34:11] Katie Linendoll: Like I got thousands of dollars back for being more efficient and saving myself more money. Long term

[00:34:24] Eric Goranson: Yeah, I swapped out my 40 gallon gas water heater. Just natural gas water heaters is common, a water heater as it is out there.

[00:34:55] Eric Goranson: Right. You know, and it's cool. So it's, it's like a heat pump. So it's like a heat [00:35:00] pump in your house. It's grabbing the heat outta the air around it and putting it in the water. And so I went, I, I'm actually using two-thirds less energy. To heat water, but now I'm heating that and that's 80 gallons of water, not 40 that I'm, so I'm doing double the water for two-thirds less the money.

[00:35:21] Katie Linendoll: worth exploring. I, I, I just, I can't tell you how much I, I, that's a perfect example. There's so much savings out there. It's also a sign of adulting cuz I have too many young people working on my team and I'm like, you guys, I got this new water pump and I've gotta tell you a water heater. It's so efficient.

[00:35:45] We've

[00:35:47] Eric Goranson: Hey. Yeah. I mean, I, I saw, I saw that energy bill. Just go Cho. Yes. Hey, it feels good. Absolutely.

[00:35:58] Caroline Blazovsky: Eric and I are talking about like [00:36:00] diy, right? How, why is it so important for us to all be talking about home improvement and ways that you can save money and DIY yourself is because a lot of these millennials coming up, which are, which you know, or the younger generations behind them, they have no experience in home improvement.

[00:36:31] Caroline Blazovsky: And the problem is education now has really forced us to look, not have those skillsets any longer. And so all these generational people are coming up and they rely on people like yourself or Eric or me to teach them how to do d i y cuz you can't afford to do it and pay someone all the time to do these projects.

[00:36:47] Katie Linendoll: I wish I had the data in front of me to support the, the, this conversation because to your point, the trades have gone. The, the understanding of the trades, which are so critical, have just been decreasing and [00:37:00] decreasing and decreasing over the years, and it's so important and it's such awesome skills to have.

[00:37:12] Eric Goranson: Oh, Yeah, I mean, you know, uh, a girl can come outta high school right now instead of going to college. And if she's interested in, you know, being an electrician in four years, she can be making six figures right.

[00:37:28] Katie Linendoll: And I applaud if, you know you wanna go in that direction, I'm like, My goodness. You just saved yourself and you're only like half a mil. You like doing that. You know where you wanna go, 150%. Go do it.

[00:37:43] Caroline Blazovsky: I mean, I look at it from my perspective. I have an advanced medical degree, but I also think it's fascinating to know how to fix things and do things like it. It's, it's sort of like, it doesn't have to be one or the other. It should be that we all have these skillsets and are able to.

[00:37:59] Katie Linendoll: [00:38:00] See .

[00:38:05] Eric Goranson: Hey man. Katie, is there stuff that we didn't talk about today that we've. Didn't dive into, oh my goodness,

[00:38:17] Caroline Blazovsky: guys are like twinning.

[00:38:19] Intro: there.

[00:38:37] Katie Linendoll: And it's changing and it's a very connected time. And it's an exciting time. And um, I'd love for you to check out

[00:38:54] Katie Linendoll: there.

[00:39:02] Eric Goranson: Fabulous. All right, Katie. Fabulous. Thanks for coming on today. This has been great.

[00:39:13] Katie Linendoll: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Oh, thank you.

[00:39:22] Intro: Around the House.