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Eric G's Tips on Surviving Gas Prices and Overreaching HOAs!
Episode 21684th March 2026 • Around the House with Eric G®: Upgrade Your Home Like a Pro • Eric Goranson
00:00:00 00:14:36

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Gas prices are on the rise, and Eric G is diving right into the nitty-gritty of why that’s happening and what it means for us home improvement lovers. We’re chatting about everything from oil market fluctuations to how these changes can ripple through the world of building materials. Plus, Eric's got some spicy updates on those pesky HOAs and city governments that sometimes seem to think they own the neighborhood! It’s a wild ride as we explore the balance between community regulations and our rights as homeowners. So, grab your headphones and get ready for a mix of insightful commentary and a sprinkle of humor—because who said discussing gas prices and local governance can't be fun? Gas prices and the ever-fluctuating costs of building materials are hot topics these days, and Eric G dives right into the thick of it. He gives us the lowdown on why gas prices are on the rise, linking it to the uncertainty surrounding the oil markets—especially with the shenanigans happening in Iran. But don't throw your hands up in despair just yet; Eric assures us that this spike is likely temporary. He explains how the oil supply is still relatively stable and how these prices often bounce back like a rubber ball—quick to soar, slow to come back down. So, while we might feel a pinch at the pump, Eric's optimistic that we won't be left stranded in the desert of high prices for long. But wait, there’s more! Our trusty host also touches on how these rising gas prices might just ripple out and affect the costs of trucking and shipping materials, creating a bit of a domino effect in the building supply world. With spring around the corner, and the clocks about to change—cue the collective groan over daylight savings—Eric encourages us to check our smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms. After all, safety first, right? He reminds us that while the clock may change, the need for vigilance in home safety doesn't. And if that wasn’t enough, Eric is revving up for a new segment focusing on those pesky Homeowners Associations (HOAs) and city governments that sometimes seem to have more power than they should. He shares his plans to investigate local governance that might be overstepping its bounds—particularly in Cannon Beach, Oregon, where city council members seem to be making rules that could hurt homeowners. It’s a fascinating peek into the power dynamics at play in our neighborhoods and how they can impact our rights as homeowners. So, whether you're a DIY aficionado or simply someone trying to navigate the wild world of home ownership, this episode is packed with insights and a sprinkle of wit to keep things lively!

Takeaways:

  1. Gas prices are on the rise due to global oil uncertainties, but don't panic just yet!
  2. Eric G discusses the importance of checking smoke and carbon monoxide detectors regularly for safety.
  3. Homeowner associations can sometimes overstep their bounds, which Eric plans to explore in future episodes.
  4. Over 3.2 million Weber grill brushes have been recalled due to safety hazards, so check your kitchen!
  5. As we spring forward, remember to check your home safety devices for a fresh start to the season.
  6. Eric shares insights into a local HOA situation, highlighting the need for homeowner awareness and advocacy.

Links referenced in this episode:

  1. aroundthehouseonline.com
  2. cpsc.gov
  3. youtube.com/aroundthehouse

Companies mentioned in this episode:

  1. Anderson Windows
  2. Weber
  3. CPSC

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

If you want to join the Around the House Insider for access to the back catalog, Exclusive Content and a direct email to Eric G and access to the show early https://around-the-house-with-e.captivate.fm/support

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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Transcripts

Speaker A:

Foreign.

Speaker B:

The House with Eric G. Your go to source for everything home improvement.

Speaker B:

Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric G is here to guide you through the latest tips, tricks and trends.

Speaker B:

So grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap, and let's get to work right here on around the House with

Speaker A:

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

Speaker A:

Happy Wednesday day, everybody.

Speaker A:

A little late getting this out today, but as you can tell, still fighting that cold.

Speaker A:

That was my parting gift from Orlando, Florida.

Speaker A:

Had it for a week, but getting better guys on the road to feeling better finally.

Speaker A:

It has been a rough one and when you work with your voice for a living, doesn't take much to take it down.

Speaker A:

Sometimes when you get one of these bad colds that's going around.

Speaker A:

So been kind of laying up here and some gays are better than others.

Speaker A:

Today is a good day, so we'll take it.

Speaker A:

So a lot going on there.

Speaker A:

Hey, I had a bunch of people asking me, what is the update on your shoulder?

Speaker A:

Good news here.

Speaker A:

You know, I had that soldier shoulder surgery about five weeks ago, rotator cuff, all of that had to do the bicep work.

Speaker A:

I think where they relocated to was word and they worked on that and we're at week five.

Speaker A:

Man, it's doing great.

Speaker A:

PT physical therapy is going well.

Speaker A:

I'm weeks ahead of that and due to an amazing doctor and great PT people, it's coming along.

Speaker A:

So this should be my last week in this crazy six week sling.

Speaker A:

So can't wait to get this out and start actually using my left arm.

Speaker A:

So feeling excited.

Speaker A:

I can't wait to sleep in a bed again where I'm not only on my back or the other side.

Speaker A:

So that I'm excited about.

Speaker A:

So take care of your shoulders out there, guys.

Speaker A:

I pushed mine a little bit too hard and paid for the price, but man, it's feeling so much better.

Speaker A:

I knew day one after surgery it was better because even though I just had surgery, I was like, oh my gosh, that pain is so much more manageable.

Speaker A:

Just taking Tylenol.

Speaker A:

So that was really good.

Speaker A:

Well, today I wanted to talk about a few things out there in the marketplace.

Speaker A:

We're seeing some different stuff.

Speaker A:

Gas prices are up because of, you know.

Speaker A:

Well, there's a little bit of uncertainty with oil, with everything in Iran.

Speaker A:

I think this is going to be temporary.

Speaker A:

I think we're actually in a pretty good spot where there is a lot of oil available in the marketplace.

Speaker A:

Out there.

Speaker A:

So I don't think we're looking at shortages.

Speaker A:

I think we are going to see the typical stuff where it moves up super quickly and then it takes about twice as long to come back down.

Speaker A:

So I think that for you out there, that is, you know, you'll see the prices go up and down with what's going on in the world.

Speaker A:

I think that they will naturally go up and I think they will go back down again.

Speaker A:

And we could even see more oil coming freely here, which even lower prices depending on what's going on with Venom, Venezuela and all the rest of that stuff.

Speaker A:

So noticed how that kind of just hit in the back of the news.

Speaker A:

That kind of disappeared after that, but still something going on there, obviously.

Speaker A:

We'll see what happens.

Speaker A:

We'll see what happens with that.

Speaker A:

Now this will affect some prices out there with trucking, shipping, that kind of stuff, you know, lumber yards, that kind of stuff.

Speaker A:

You will see it if it gets too crazy.

Speaker A:

But I think we're probably going to see the president would be my guess, saying that he's going to escort ships going through the straight and all that stuff.

Speaker A:

So I think we're gonna be good on that, which should keep things kind of more settled, shall we say?

Speaker A:

So hopefully that will take care of that.

Speaker A:

We are coming into spring this weekend.

Speaker A:

Of course we're changing the clocks so we lose that dreaded hour.

Speaker A:

Except for you guys and like Arizona, Hawaii.

Speaker A:

But I can't wait till we stop this whole daylight savings time thing.

Speaker A:

That would be very happy.

Speaker A:

I'm tired of changing it.

Speaker A:

I think, I think we're at a point that we could make those changes and I don't think anybody would notice.

Speaker A:

I'm sure there are people out there that are, you know, going, well, I'd love to have it on your schedule.

Speaker A:

I get it, but it'd be nice not to have to mess with that.

Speaker A:

But the one thing I always remind you, check those smoke detectors, check those fire alarms, check the radon.

Speaker A:

And this is an air quality weekend, as I call it.

Speaker A:

So when was the last time you had your read on checked?

Speaker A:

Was it two or three years ago?

Speaker A:

Might want to think about doing that again if you're in a radon prone area like I am.

Speaker A:

But the carbon monoxide detectors, your smoke detectors, check the batteries on those.

Speaker A:

Check the, check the dates.

Speaker A:

If they're over a decade old in the back, it's like milk.

Speaker A:

If they're over a decade, swap those things out.

Speaker A:

And like I talked about last weekend in the seminar, I was Talking about with some safety over at the Spring Portland Home and Garden Show, I was bringing up this point that we should all be thinking about.

Speaker A:

And what that is, is that many of those carbon monoxide detectors only set off warnings at 60 or 70 parts per million.

Speaker A:

And at that point, yeah, it's trying to prevent death, but you're already probably pretty sick.

Speaker A:

So in theory, you could have those in the right places and you could have high carbon monoxide.

Speaker A:

Not enough to set that off, but enough to make you sick.

Speaker A:

So take a look and see what the effective range is on that.

Speaker A:

And some of the newer ones are getting down there.

Speaker A:

Especially if you've got one of those handheld portable ones.

Speaker A:

Those are kind of nice because it'll tell you what's going on.

Speaker A:

So if you're in that even 4, 5, 6 parts per million, you got an issue you should be looking for.

Speaker A:

So take a look at that and see what's happening.

Speaker A:

So don't trust those all the time.

Speaker A:

I would get a little handheld one that you can carry around.

Speaker A:

It's smart.

Speaker A:

You can put it in the garage, put it wherever you.

Speaker A:

Just so you're making sure you know what's going on with those, because that could be a really big deal.

Speaker A:

But for the rest of the house, test them, make sure they're working, are the batteries good, all that stuff, make sure it's all dialed in.

Speaker A:

That way you're ready to rock.

Speaker A:

Speaking of rock and roll, we had a fun week this week.

Speaker A:

My buddy Jimbo, you've seen him do cooking stuff with me, especially on our YouTube channel.

Speaker A:

He was in town and, well, we met up and went and got Sebastian Bach from skid Row fame.

Speaker A:

And I gotta say, that dude still has the skills.

Speaker A:

I was very impressed.

Speaker A:

Now, I'm not gonna disparage too badly the opening bands.

Speaker A:

That was rough.

Speaker A:

I'll just say it that way.

Speaker A:

First band didn't have much chemistry.

Speaker A:

It seemed like they were kind of just thrown together.

Speaker A:

The second band, I tell you what, this was the biggest, I guess, contrast in rock and roll today.

Speaker A:

And I'm just gonna say this.

Speaker A:

I know it's a home improvement show, but it's always interesting to tell some of these stories.

Speaker A:

It was this band that was opening up.

Speaker A:

Female singer, female drummer, Their drummer.

Speaker A:

She was fantastic.

Speaker A:

By far the best musician in the group, hands down.

Speaker A:

But the problem was I could see the laptop sitting there, and I could see that they had Adobe audition sitting there.

Speaker A:

And they hit play and they played along to the tracks.

Speaker A:

Now, there were keyboards.

Speaker A:

There were eight times Vocals.

Speaker A:

I'm not sure exactly if we were watching like the Grammys or something where it was fully lip synced or if it was a hot mic and she was kind of playing along.

Speaker A:

You couldn't hear the guitar player except for a couple things.

Speaker A:

And the rest of it was pre recorded electronica music.

Speaker A:

Now when I go to a rock show, I'm a little old school.

Speaker A:

I get that maybe you're not bringing the 25 piece band there, but this was so ridiculous.

Speaker A:

Out of the probably nearly thousand shows I've seen out there, because I've seen a lot in my lifetime, this was the first where the majority of what was coming out was not being played on stage.

Speaker A:

And it was absolutely insane.

Speaker A:

It was so much so that Jimbo and I were sitting there just laughing the entire time going, wow, this is not even close to real.

Speaker A:

And then Skid Row frontman, former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach came up with his band and they tore the roof off the place and played well.

Speaker A:

Didn't see any backing tracks.

Speaker A:

And you know, you can tell here's a little secret.

Speaker A:

When you see the laptop and the iPad and if they start a song over, like for instance, this is where this gets interesting.

Speaker A:

This is one of my tells.

Speaker A:

Sebastian Bach did not like some dude being a douchebag.

Speaker A:

Up in the front, he was pushing around and oh my gosh, in the beginning of the show, first song, he stops it and goes, dude, we're too old for this.

Speaker A:

Knock it off.

Speaker A:

I thought it was awesome.

Speaker A:

He was protecting the female fans up in the front.

Speaker A:

Hats off to Sebastian Bach for stopping the show right when he came out, stopped it, put an end to it, kicked the guy out, then they started right back up again.

Speaker A:

Way harder to do that when you have backing tracks and somebody over there to do that.

Speaker A:

These other bands that were using it, you weren't going to pull that off because someone would have had to gone over the laptop, move the thing back and do it.

Speaker A:

Hats off to those guys.

Speaker A:

Amazing musicians, great show.

Speaker A:

And then hours later in the morning when I wake up, I hear that Sebastian Bach is going to be the lead singer Twisted Sister, which I went, oh, that's interesting.

Speaker A:

See how that goes?

Speaker A:

But great show from them.

Speaker A:

Great show from them.

Speaker A:

Hey, I wanted to bring up our weekly recalls here.

Speaker A:

A couple things that we see out here.

Speaker A:

Anderson Windows recalls on their 100 series, casement windows will fail so somebody can lean up against it.

Speaker A:

This is on their casement windows.

Speaker A:

There's about 91,000 of them.

Speaker A:

So reach out to Anderson Windows or go to the CPSC.gov website.

Speaker A:

And again guys, there are a ton of kids stuff.

Speaker A:

If you have children's toys, bedding, furniture, all that stuff, I would go onto cpsc.gov every week and take a look.

Speaker A:

You would not believe the stuff that's on there every single week.

Speaker A:

High chairs, everything else.

Speaker A:

The only other thing that's big, and this was one that I actually got caught on that I've got to go out and take a picture of now that this reminds me.

Speaker A:

Weber recalls over 3.2 million wire bristle grill brushes due to ingestion hazard.

Speaker A:

Yeah, we've talked about it.

Speaker A:

But even their new ones that had the new style wire that wasn't supposed to are being recalled.

Speaker A:

So all of those are going back.

Speaker A:

So they are getting rid of those.

Speaker A:

There are 3.2 million of them out there.

Speaker A:

I have one of them.

Speaker A:

So I'm going through that process now.

Speaker A:

And so again, just go to cpsc.gov recalls now one more thing I wanted to talk about today.

Speaker A:

I am going to be doing a series over the summer here on cities, hoas, that kind of stuff that is out of control.

Speaker A:

I've been watching one here, for instance in Portland that was getting out of control and they've kind of resolved it.

Speaker A:

I, if I was a owner of this complex, I would not.

Speaker A:

But it was between the the city of Portland Habitat for Humanity and a bunch of different homeowners and they kind of have a resolution.

Speaker A:

But I tell you what, I would not be happy with it.

Speaker A:

But teach their own.

Speaker A:

I think these people that are living there are just trying to live their lives knowing that they're kind of stuck.

Speaker A:

But if you've got some big HOA thing going on or a city that's going out of bounds like right now, I'm investigating one that is in Cannon Beach, Oregon where they have a city.

Speaker A:

It appears they have a city council that might be just a little overstepping here.

Speaker A:

And from what it looks to me is you've got a lot of city council members that own hotels and they're going after the short term rental community there and trying to make separate rules for them versus homeowners.

Speaker A:

And we're going to be taking a deeper dive into that.

Speaker A:

I've asked for some information from them.

Speaker A:

We'll see if we get it.

Speaker A:

I'll be putting out request number two today and we're seeing something there that's kind of getting out of control.

Speaker A:

So we're gonna be bringing in people to investigate these kind of things.

Speaker A:

Have some fun, talk about it.

Speaker A:

So, you know, if these things come up in your area that are limiting your rights as a homeowner or soon to be homeowner or wannabe homeowner, you can look and understand and what's going on because these things can be a big deal, especially when you're out trying to get your first home or, or maybe it's your forever home cause you're gonna retire there.

Speaker A:

So these are gonna be a lot of fun diving into these stories.

Speaker A:

So head over to my website, aroundthehouseonline.com and you can find out more there.

Speaker A:

And boy, tell you what, if you've got send me a message over there.

Speaker A:

If you've got something, I'd like to take a look at it and see if we can comment on it and get some more answers for you.

Speaker A:

Because I tell you what, I'm not an HOA fan.

Speaker A:

I mean, they do have their place, but they also can get out of control and so can your local city council.

Speaker A:

So let's see what we can do with that.

Speaker A:

All right, everybody, I'm gonna rest my voice.

Speaker A:

Thanks for tuning into around the House.

Speaker A:

We got a great new show this weekend.

Speaker A:

I can't wait to show you.

Speaker A:

We'll see you on Saturday.

Speaker A:

Thanks for tuning into around the House.

Speaker A:

I appreciate you.

Speaker B:

Make sure to follow us on social media.

Speaker B:

Just head to aroundthehouseonline.com for all the links.

Speaker B:

Make sure you check out our new YouTube channel.

Speaker B:

Just type in at around the House with Eric G. And click subsribe and ring the bell for updates.

Speaker B:

We will see you next time.

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