Diving into the age-old debate of whether to repair or replace, Eric G and John Dudley take listeners on a wild ride through the intricacies of home maintenance. The duo kicks things off with real talk about HVAC systems and the daunting costs of repairs versus replacements. Ever felt like you’re pouring money into a bucket with a hole in it? They get it! They paint vivid pictures of old furnaces that could roast marshmallows and new ones that are computer-operated wonders—except when they break and suddenly you’re staring down a price tag that looks like a small car. The conversation flows effortlessly as they transition from HVAC to water heaters, roofing, and even the joys of preserving vintage toilets. Yes, they even go there! Between the laughter and sarcasm, they emphasize the importance of knowing when to cut your losses and invest in replacements that might save you in the long run. Tune in for the absurdity of home repairs and the good-natured ribbing that comes with it. After all, who can resist a bit of banter about how hard it is to fix a roof when you’re busy dodging tree branches?

Takeaways:

1. Deciding whether to repair or replace can be tricky, especially with costly home systems.
2. New HVAC units may be energy efficient, but their repair costs can leave you gasping for air.
3. Old plumbing and electrical systems? Just rip them out and start fresh to avoid future headaches.
4. When it comes to vintage fixtures, restoring can be better than replacing, if you know where to look.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. aroundthehouseonline.com
2. youtube.com/aroundthehouse

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. Sherwin Williams
2. Toto
3. Carrier Infinity
4. Home Depot
5. Lowe's

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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.

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Foreign.

You've always dreamed of without the headaches or huge bills.

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

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

Now let's get this hour started.

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

I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining us today.

John Dudley, good to see you, my friend.

Happy New Year, brother.

What's happening, man?

Happy New Year.

Now I'm back to work and I need a rest.

I feel you there for sure.

Yeah, it was a good time.

Hope you had a good time.

I got to go down and play a little rock and roll music.

Watching that down there at the Whiskey a Go Go in la.

So that was pretty fun.

Dude, is it the videos you sent me?

It just doesn't change and I hope it never does.

There's nothing like la, except la.

This is so production factory.

I love it.

Love it.

Yeah, I had a great time down there.

It was a hall, though.

Round trip in the trucks.

Yeah, good little.

You know what?

I do know it well.

Touring with.

At least you didn't have three or four stinky, smelly bandmates next to you in the van.

Good point.

Good point.

Today, since it's the new year and we're done diving into new stuff here, I thought let's bring up a big subject that many homeowners and even contractors will struggle with sometimes.

When do you fix or when do you replace?

It's a tough one.

It's kind of like that car.

You got that car going and you're like, man, do I want to put $3,000 into this or am I putting $3,000 in a thousand dollar car?

That's usually the case with me, but that's why I haven't owned a car in 10 years.

Man, I remember your old vans.

Those were good.

Yeah.

Three motors later.

Absolutely.

I thought we'd dive in and go for some dive into kind of by segment a little bit.

This first segment today, I thought we'd hit like the big ticket ones first, you know, the expensive systems.

Yeah.

First up, like your furnace H vac system, that kind of stuff.

Air.

Air conditioning.

Today, when you look at AC units out there, let's say you've got a 20 year old unit that's.

Let's say it's A gas furnace and an AC unit just to be very simple with it.

And many of those 20 years ago were an 80% efficiency.

They're pretty easy.

But if you put your hand up on, you know, on the exhaust pipe coming out, you're going to take the skin off and have third degree burns because so much heat is going up through it.

You can cook a meal on the thing.

Yeah.

Now the new ones that are the higher efficiency models, they send it out in PVC and you can't even warm your hands on that.

You know, it's going out with pvc.

So it shows you how much more efficient those are at in keeping the heat in the house and going.

Though the problem is they have now instead of just having a little tiny circuit board in the thing, now they've got multiple computers in these things.

They'll have one for inside and you got the AC unit outside.

There's one or two out there.

So now we're back to talking cars again.

You used to be able to change a carburetor.

Now you can't touch anything on a car.

No.

So real simple, hard to replace those.

And then with all the changes that they've made to the coolants that go in the gases, I don't want to say Freon, because it's not really Freon anymore, but every few years they've had to change out to new, more energy efficient or better for the environment, refrigerants to keep things cool.

And so right now, if you've got that 80% unit out there that's 15 years old and you go replace the compressor, you're changing out the whole thing.

Instead of spending a thousand bucks to fix something or 2,000 bucks to fix something, you're spending 15 to $30,000.

Yeah.

So it's crazy.

So it's one of those things that I always say, hey, if you don't want to get into the big ticket items and don't want to have to pay for that, now there are rebates out there, but there are thousands of dollars.

A thousand here, thousand there.

There's no rebate that's going to pay for even half of that out there.

Yeah, but really, when you're looking at it, man, you can spend a big ticket.

So staying on top of the maintenance and trying to keep that thing going for a while until you can put some money in the bank or at least get into a financial situation where you can pay for that thing with extended financing through your H Vac company or whatever, or home improvement loan to get you through it.

But there's even people out there like our friend Caroline Bozowski, who doesn't like the new efficient units because she thinks that it's causing some indoor health issues as well.

Depending on which way you go with those, they can be problematic.

And I like them.

They save you money.

But, man, are they expensive to fix.

That's curious.

I'd love to hear her take on that, because we do that so much in construction.

Right.

And home stuff.

By creating efficiency, we create more problems.

Just.

I just always reference back to the 90s when we had to have everything so airtight, and then suddenly we had mold issues, and suddenly we had CO2 issues and.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Think about it.

Back then 80s and 90s, they had us putting in Visqueen plastic before you put the drywall up, and all you were doing was putting in and creating a mold sandwich because you had moisture coming in through the outside, through that barrier, and then it was trapping on the inside, and then you're just getting everything moldy in between.

Yeah.

And suddenly the wall caves in because the studs are rotted out.

And you had no idea.

Yep.

Didn't show through the drywall.

This week, all I wanted to do was put in a new light switch, and suddenly the whole front of my house got torn off.

Oh, it's so brutal.

Yeah.

Newer isn't always better.

My last house, I put a really nice new carrier infinity system in.

It worked awesome.

I did a lot of cool things to it.

But retail wise, that was going to be a 25, $35,000 fix three years ago.

So, you know, that's where you got to watch out for that stuff.

So that's second mortgage talk.

This is.

Those costs are just flooring me.

That $60,000 mainline plumbing fix you mentioned the other day, I'm still just reeling.

Like, what as.

Yeah, I just can't believe.

Anyway, it's absolutely brutal.

Now, the next one we talked about a few weeks ago, water heater.

We talked about the electric water heater, the gas water heater.

And you know my opinion, if you heard that, that I do those heat pump water heaters.

But yeah, you're gonna spend more money on it.

You're spend two or three thousand bucks on one of those and make four hundred bucks back a year, which is cool.

Yeah.

Not only that, but yeah, since those have come along, I have a hard time even looking at a standard water heater tank, rusted out bottom, blah, blah.

Yeah.

Why would you do that when you could put a little box on the wall.

Now, come on.

And these days, too, if you haven't maintained that water heater, and if you've got hard water, for instance, you've got a six, seven, eight, year old water heater.

Just go, another one in there, dumbass.

You're gonna fight it, dude.

The water.

When I was in Arizona, if you got four years out of a water heater, you were lucky.

Mineral rich, good for your bones.

But, oh, hard on the fixtures, hard on the glass, hard on everything, plumbing wise.

Oof.

Why did my Keurig only last nine months?

Yeah, that one's totally brutal.

That's one of those.

You just go, oh.

And then the next one here, too.

Roofing, it's one of those things.

You can get a lot of life out of the roof if you maintain it.

I always tell people, when you get a new roof, put on, man, get four or five bundles of shingles and stick them away someplace cool.

Down in the crawl space, basement.

Put them away someplace cool.

Keep out of the heat in the sun.

Put them away.

Because that way, when the wind blows off or a tree comes down and damages it, or 15 years from now, you need to replace a few pieces because they're starting to get worn.

Or maybe a tree branch or the neighbor's trampoline bounced off your house when the windstorm came through, you can fix it and repair it at least.

Otherwise you're putting a new roof on.

Yeah.

The worst part of that is after tripping over those three bundles of three tab that you saved in the garage for seven years, you're like, ah, just get these out of here.

And they end up in the dump trailer.

And then it's always within the next month or two that you need them.

You're like.

And you go to try to match them up, and it's not going to happen.

Two by fours in plywood.

I cleaned it up, I got made some more space, and I got to go buy a 2x4 because I needed 3ft.

Yeah, keep the bundles around, keep them out of the way.

Basement, crawl space, whatever.

And yeah, when you throw them up, they're still going to look different.

Bring up a handful of dirt, scrub it on there.

Yeah, absolutely.

Little trick I learned in the war.

Way to go.

Hey, for all our new listeners out there, as we go to break, make sure you tune in to our website.

Check it out@aroundthehouse online.com and we'd love to hear from you over there.

If you got a comment on any of this stuff, feel free to shoot us a message.

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We'll be right back.

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

I'm Eric G. We got John Dudley sitting here in the co pilot seat with me.

We've been talking about something that I wanted to talk about with the new year.

Is it worthwhile fixing it or do you just start over with something new?

And we've been talking about those more expensive things, Johnny, of course, like the roof.

We were talking about your H VAC system.

And the last one on that list that I wanted to talk about, which is controversial windows.

And I tell you what, I learned this lesson on my last house.

I went putting the house up for sale.

I want to replace those panes of glass that are fogged over.

I'm going to leave the old windows that were in there.

Yeah.

That number I got was about 2,400 bucks to have somebody come in and replace the glass.

And I bought new windows for 600.

Yeah, that.

Yeah, yeah.

Honestly never really makes sense.

And the other side of that coin is it's a lot of those windows you can't repair depending on what era they're from.

There's.

They're full of gas.

You're not fixing that.

It's.

You're buying a new window.

They'll come in with those full sheets of glass and put them in there.

They'll custom order them.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

So is that.

And I get it.

If you've got wood windows and you've got a classic old house and you want to replace the glass in that and put new cords and weights in there.

Awesome.

That's definitely something that can be done if you want to keep.

Johnny.

Sometimes it's just that historical neighborhood where they're going.

Yeah, you can't.

I've done it.

I lived in it.

North Tacoma.

That was my stomping grounds, man.

You know how many.

Yeah, yeah.

Speaking of saving things, you know how many window weights I had?

I'd use these.

Make a boat anchorage.

Yeah, like I know.

So you know that one there.

Now here's the next one.

I wanted to dive into the kitchen and bathroom dilemmas.

Right.

So my first one is a toilet.

If that toilet is over 10 years old, unless it's some like avocado green or harvest gold this period that you're not going to go match those.

I'd say if you want to keep that vintage mid century look or something.

Yeah, you're gonna have to repair it.

You're not getting another one.

Don't go to the big box store, go down there and pick up a toto one.

Or if you're only going to be going to Home Depot Lowe's, get the highest end cooler one that they sell on the shelf.

That'll get close because colder starting to catch up to those guys.

But really if you want to have something that's going to flush, something that's going to work great, it's going to save you money because you're not going into that 1.6 gallon.

You get down to a 1 gallon flush with those.

And if you're paying for water that gets expensive.

But if you've got that 70s one that's using probably three and a half gallons and so you're sharing saving some serious money if you're jumping in at a gallon flush.

So that's where that starts to make sense.

Those are amazing.

You go, we grew up with them.

Right.

But you go into, you go into an older house and I think in Arizona, I remember anyway, yeah, you go in, you flush the toilet.

Like that's 11 minutes worth of flushing going on there.

Dude, how many gallons of water just went down?

No, those are crazy.

Oh and it takes 10 minutes to fill up.

And that toilet was also about 10 inches off the ground.

So what is with this thing?

Not comfortable.

And if you do it right, you get the ones like Toto's got some really cool things where they've gone over it with this other nano coating over it.

So it's pretty much don't have to worry about the hard water sticking to it or the or germs and stuff on it.

It makes it the finish super slippery so it keeps itself clean pretty good.

So a lot less cleaning because it's got that nano coating.

Now if you want to take the nano coating off, just pour a bunch of bleach down there and that'll ruin that toilet really quick.

Not picking on anybody but surely 50 of the people knew that.

I know it.

And guess what, you just Every time you do it, you just etch a little more and you make that a little more non.

Take the non stick off and make it so it's got a nice grit to it.

So every little piece of everything grabs onto it.

I'm just gonna throw it out there.

But not everybody understands what nano coating means.

So to be fair, you can't fault them.

No, yeah, no, just.

Yeah.

Don't put the bleach down there unless you want to go buy another thing.

Use your cleaners, use them well, but just don't go nuclear on it because it just doesn't hold up.

Now here's the other one.

That's always a debate.

I want to get your take on this one.

Johnny, what do you think about cabinet refacing versus new cabinets?

Man, my knee jerk is I always want to replace because I've seen so many bad refacing jobs.

Amen.

I don't say that to be mean and I understand that the cost is gravely different, man.

It depends.

It's not.

If you're going to be in the house another five years and you can live with a facelift, go ahead and knock yourself out.

If you're going to be there another 15 years, spend the dough, man.

Finance it at Home Depot, whatever you got to do.

Replace the cabinets.

I've just seen so many battery facing jobs.

I'm not saying they all are and that.

Sorry to the guys out there that do that.

And some people do it really well.

I've seen good ones too.

But my knee jerk is always, no, don't try to save.

Don't try to race an old horse.

That's.

I just, I'm not a fan.

Here's what I always.

I'm a sucker for it.

I'll do it with my thousand dollar car that I put to you that I'm dumb like that myself.

Not calling anyone dumb, but yeah, certain things I'm like, no, got it.

Like I always say, it's like buying.

You're like, I do like this car.

I'm just gonna paint it, right?

Go down to the paint shop and they go, yeah, that's $15,000 to paint it.

Yeah.

And really, you're just putting lipstick on a pig.

Lipstick on a pig, baby.

There it is.

Yeah.

It sounds like we both fall on the side of Sister Place.

The glue gets dried out on the sides and the veneers start peeling up.

You're already buying the most expensive part of the Cabinet, which is the doors and drawer fronts anyway.

Yep.

Exactly.

It.

The.

Yeah.

The boxes.

Yeah.

You just nailed it.

And you'd know better than anyone.

And that's just it, man.

You think it's one of those things where you think you're saving money and it's going to cost you in the long run because either the job's going to fail or it's not going to look the way you want it to and then you're out maybe halfway.

You were going to spend on replacing the cabinets, but you feel terrible about it.

You're like, man, why didn't we just do it right?

And nobody needs that disappointment, man.

Suck it up.

Do it and.

And just be ecstatic about it.

It's worth the dollar.

Just do it.

Appliances are the same way, man.

I've seen this before.

I saw somebody that looked like they might have tripped and fell on social media and bent their dishwasher door, taco, the door on it.

And they're like, hey, can I get another door?

And I'm like, sometimes you just gotta go.

It's gonna cost you more to buy a door and have somebody replace all the electronics, get the seal right.

It's.

Nope, that and it's done.

And getting it right, it.

97 of the time, it's not gonna get right.

Like, it's.

I'm trying to think of a good example when you're like, no, I think I just replaced that part.

Yeah.

And it's like the Ferrari and you go out and you spin it in two parts and you.

The guy goes, I put that back together.

Yeah.

It's just never the same.

And dishwasher is not a big expense.

Refrigerators, yeah.

But it's not a25,000.

Washers, dryers, things like that, man.

Again, spend the extra dollar and don't put yourself through the misery of fixing it.

And it blows up again in a year.

Like you're throwing.

It's like buying a boat.

Yeah.

Hey, man.

There you go.

There you go.

Which again, I'm a sucker.

I'll buy a boat and I'll throw money in the water.

And you know what BO means.

Bust out another thousand.

There you go, baby.

Yeah.

All right, guys, we're gonna have to run out to break.

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Around the House.

We'll be right back.

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

I'm Eric G. We got John Dudley sitting here in the co pilot seat with me.

We've been talking about something that we I wanted to talk about with the new year.

Do we fix it?

Do we replace it?

Is it worth it?

That's always a big debate when you're talking everything Home improvement.

The last few segments we're talking about kind of kitchens and baths and those big ticket items, of course, like your H VAC system and some of those things.

But I wanted to take it outside here with you, Johnny.

Let's talk about some outside things because the debate sometimes is let's say you've got that house that 20 years ago they put some vinyl siding on it.

Now it's faded, it's cracked, it's not looking its best.

And people like, I can get some pieces and patch it up and then go paint it.

Or you just start over.

I'm grimacing because I probably know there's been a lot because I've had to as a contractor, serve my client and do as they wish and piece in and patch in different dimension vinyl siding, cut it down, customize it to make it fit.

Because they don't have that particular vinyl siding anymore.

You're legit, like routing pieces of vinyl siding to piece in the parts that have fallen off the heck out of it and blast it with paint.

And they're like, oh yeah, that's much.

I'm like, oh man, please, please, would you just do this?

Companies like Sherwin Williams do vinyl siding paint.

But the one thing I've noticed and it shows up all over social media and it can be a lot of things.

They create vinyl siding.

It's vinyl and it has different melt temperatures.

The biggest ones I've seen is when they've got the white vinyl siding that's existing, somebody goes and paints it nice charcoal gray.

And the first time they get a full heat, August day, that stuff's coming off their like taffy off the side of the house.

Yeah.

Or you breathe on it, window on.

The front and melting A square section of the side and it's running down because it's reflecting off the window glass.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

Yeah, yeah.

I've got a lot to say.

And also, being a previous landlord with several rentals, I have to cop to pull in a few shenanigans myself where I'm like asking, screw it, just good enough.

Good enough.

Yeah.

And it was good enough because I knew what I was doing it for.

I had a reason and I had an ultimate plan.

And we're not remodeling this duplex this year.

So patch in the dang siding, paint it thick, rock it good, keep.

Keep the water out.

It's all we're doing for right now because in two years we're going to resize the thing, put new windows in, do all that.

So if that's your plan and you get that and you know that, but you want it to look good for the next couple of years, knock yourself out.

But don't fool yourself into thinking that's a 15 year fix.

That's.

You got to go real siding.

Like, no question, no question.

Whatever it is, whether it's cedar, whether it's hardy plank, whether it's one of the concrete materials out there, whatever you're using, that's.

Just make sure you pick something.

I.

If you noticed, we haven't covered vinyl siding on this house at all because I'm just not a fan.

And I just haven't put people on the show because I just don't think it's an amazing product.

And I don't want to come out there.

And I've had some endorsements like, hey, you want.

I can't put my name on that.

Sorry, guys, I just can't.

It's not my gig.

I've never liked it, and I've bought a few different properties with it knowing that at some point I would tear it off.

Yeah.

So that being said, I was happy to again, matter planning and depend on what you're doing with the house, how long you're going to be there, Think about it, and if it makes sense to make it look good for tenants for two years before you remodel the whole thing.

Ah, knock yourself out.

You could do that and it's cheap and it's done and you don't have to reside the whole house, which is way more expensive.

Right.

Versus patching in some vinyl siding.

But no, man, if it's your house, even if you just bought it and you want to keep it for 15 years, don't waste your time, don't waste your money.

Rip it off and do it right.

It's funny, if you look at the trends out here in the west coast where I'm at, people kind of look down on that product.

But up in the Northeast, they, they like that better than some of the concrete board sightings and some of the hardy sightings.

They still sell a boat.

Really?

Still.

And I'm like, teach your own.

I'm not going to talk on that.

But it's just not been a great product.

No, it's.

Yeah.

Both of us being from the Northwest, we know all the failures that have been had.

Yeah.

I mean, I think there was in there.

There was an era where it was the hot new ticket and the ex.

The reason we have so much of it still existing is because, man, they sold the lights out of that stuff, man, go Sears.

And they were.

There was literally door to door guys pitching that stuff.

You couldn't see the neighborhoods that had the good sales people because they hit everybody.

Oh yeah, man.

And they'd get 10 houses on a 15 house block.

It was crazy.

And when it came out, it was like, seemed like this magic product.

Wow.

We never have to replace the siding again.

This is.

What a brilliant idea.

Yeah.

It had all the right selling points and boy, they did a good job of selling the encyclopedias, but all the pages are blank now.

Another one that I've seen on social media a lot too.

Decks, porches, those kind of things.

And I tell you what I see so many times, you're just better to start over.

The problems we have right now, just even begin with is we're putting on a composite decking on a deck that's got 30 or a 40 year warranty for some of the nicer ones.

But you're putting in, you're putting on top of pressure treated wood that's got a 15 year lifespan.

So I've seen so many people out there.

Oh, I'm gonna take those two by eights and flip them over because the one side's rotten where the screw holes went through.

But I'm gonna cut them loose and flip them over so I can nail into the good side.

I'm like, all right, man.

But you just admitted that 2 by 8 now is what, a 2 by 6 or a 2 by 4 strength wise, just go buy some new lumber.

It's not that bad.

Look, I'm not afraid to admit that I can be wasteful because I just won't bother.

My time is more precious than.

I'm not talking about lumber specifically.

My point Being is, I've had some people in my life in the past that will spend $5 in gas to drive 20 minutes in traffic to save 30 cents on an item.

I just, I will never understand that math, nor will they ever understand my math.

When I'm like, no, I'm not calling in on the warranty because.

Or the insurance claim or the.

I'll eat the 2,000 bucks because I don't want to waste my time dealing with it and get a headache over it.

Like, they don't understand that.

And the insurance company is going to get that $2,000 out in blood anyway.

Yeah.

So.

So it's.

It's the same idea, man.

You're spending five bucks to save 30 cents.

It doesn't.

Yeah, it just doesn't work.

Yeah.

Doesn't work.

Now the other one here I got is garage doors, man.

And this is a good one here.

And I see this happening all the time.

You're closing the garage door, the opener's just getting towards the ground, and you hear go, boom.

There goes the spring.

And so many times garage door repair company comes out and they're like, all right, hey, these springs, I can replace the one spring, but I strongly recommend we do both.

Yeah.

Homeowner goes, nah, we'll just do the one.

Yeah.

Next year.

Because the springs have been moving at the same rate.

One broke.

Yeah.

If one broke, the other one's on its way.

So let's.

That's simple math.

That shouldn't be an argument.

That should not be.

Most garage door companies should go, we just do them in pairs.

We only sell them in pairs.

Yeah, that's.

Yeah, that's.

I only want to fix the right front brake on my car.

No, you don't.

And steel garage doors will last a long time.

When they start getting rusted or the kid runs the bike into it too much, they start looking a little taco and beat up.

Maybe it's time to do it.

But those wood ones, once they get that smile in the bottom where the middle has.

Because you've got all the cables and the things on the outside on those 16 foot garage doors, now all of a sudden in the middle, they're an inch down.

Yeah.

Get that smile.

You're not fixing that.

It's done.

It's.

Yeah.

No, it's wood.

You can't bend it back into shape.

I don't care how many toenails you put in.

The pain.

Yeah.

You can't cut it down.

You just can't cut it down.

You lose an inch, you put A bigger sweep on it.

No, you're chasing.

It's not happening.

But just do it.

Or just Larson it and throw a little OSB over it.

We're just gonna have to call his, his project where he does all his projects.

We're gonna call that the dead Hop Workshop.

Right?

Yeah.

There you go.

Oh man.

Yeah.

The stories I could tell you about that guy.

Live with that guy for a year, dude.

And watch some of the ingenious hick them that he pulls off.

You're like, I love it.

God's note.

Let's go out to break John.

And we come back, we're going to be talking about some really important ones here, like small projects and some of that stuff that can really save you some money.

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

If you are listening on the radio and are just joining us, don't worry, you can catch the podcast on your favorite podcast player.

We would love to hear from you.

Just visit our website@aroundthehouse online.com make sure and subscribe to our YouTube page that has hundreds of videos to help you with your next project, around the House.

We'll be right back.

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

I'm Eric G. Got John Dudley here in the the studio co hosting today like always and we've been talking about some of those things.

Do you fix it, do you replace it, what do you do from here?

And we've been talking about on the show everything, if you're just joining us, from exterior stuff to kitchens and bathrooms to H vac, some of those big system stuff.

And now let's talk about something here I want to talk about before we go to the small projects.

Some of that aging home stuff when too old is just too old.

Like galvanized pipes.

Yeah.

Sometimes you just gotta start over.

Sometimes you rip off the band aid.

Yeah.

Galvanized steel pipes, they have a lifespan of what, 40 years maybe tops.

And people go oh, that might have been in there for 70.

You're right, they probably have.

Is there still water coming out of your.

Yeah, he's going through a pin sized hole inside of a wood rusted pipe.

Yeah.

No, and I get it.

Especially with copper prices being what they are.

I don't know.

Max is the way to go.

Yeah.

But that being said again, like some of the rentals I bought.

Yeah.

I pulled some shenanigans and now just get the coupler and leave that, leave the Galvi for there and just replace the Part that's broken with some copper and call it a day, off we go.

Yeah, yeah.

But again, if it was my house and I was gonna stay there for 10 years, five years, 15, whatever.

I love my water pressure, and I'd rip it all out and get it done.

Dude with long hair, you gotta have some water.

Oh, lord.

I don't miss my.

And here's the thing with that.

You just gotta jump in and do it.

A great example.

We did this, and I didn't want to do it at the beach house that we were working on last year.

People have been listening to the show for a while.

It's heard me talk about it.

Got down on the crawl space.

Got down there, and this best crawl space I've ever been in because it was beach sand.

Nice.

It was nice.

I'm like, this is awesome.

I don't care.

It's easy.

Yeah.

That's not bad.

Hard to dig a hole to get stuff out of the way because it just keeps coming back in.

But it.

That's livable.

I'd rather have that than rocks.

You can't use the plastic shovel.

Eric, from the beach.

That's your problem.

It actually works pretty good.

It's a tight crawl space.

I couldn't take the shovel down there, but we had a galvanized.

Not a galvanized, but just a cast iron sewer pipe.

But the problem was that house was abandoned for 15 years.

And I've learned with cast iron and a drain pipe, when no one's put anything down it for 15 years, the very bottom rots out.

Yep.

So I went down there with a hammer.

Just went dink.

Yeah.

Poof.

Giant hole.

Yep.

So it wasn't a hole, but it was like, this is gonna be too big of a number.

But it was like, it's a quarter inch and it's paper thin.

Yeah.

So ripped it.

Hauled it out of there and put in abs, and that was the way to go.

Met building code.

Everybody was happy, but solved some problems because that was going to start leaking anytime.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

I had some nightmares in Tacoma with some of those older properties.

Full of cast iron.

Full of galvanized h. Yeah.

I like the cast iron.

Don't get me wrong.

It's great in a wall.

It's so quiet.

You don't hear the people flushing up above.

You're not in the living room having dinner, and some kid flushes the toilet, and it's over the conversation of the water running down through the wall next to you.

Yeah.

But if it's from 19 oh, 2.

It's an issue.

Different story.

Different story.

Same thing with electrical panels.

Same thing with knob and tube wiring or the split mains.

Rip it out, make it gone.

And old insulation.

Rip it out, Put new in.

Just.

If it's got dirt, rodents.

Tear it all.

Put it in.

It's not that expensive.

Not.

Yes, Carolina be wanting to speak on that as well.

So we're on here soon.

I mean, just.

Yeah, for health reasons and air quality alone.

Some of that old dirty insulation that's sitting there with everything from squirrel droppings to six pounds of dust.

All right, I got one here for you.

Good for you.

We're gonna go on smaller projects, which seem like bigger projects.

Not the hipster stuff.

It's the grandma stuff that nobody wants.

This is an orange boomerangs.

This is a.

A green and a navy and a yellow that nobody wants to see again.

I know the ones my grandma has.

You know the ones.

So you got those.

Strip the wallpaper or shredded down to the studs and start over.

Me, I rip the drywall down.

That's me.

Every concert.

Ever tried to get wallpaper off.

You're like, no, man, just rip the.

I'll resheet that in 14 minutes versus spending three days peeling wallpaper not doing it.

I don't care what kind of iron, tool, steamer, thingamajigger, solvent nonsense you got.

No, just get it.

Just rip the drywall out.

That.

Now, that's easier for me to say than it is my mom to say.

But, yeah, here's the thing.

It's depending on your ability, right?

If you've got all the time in the world and your time isn't that expensive, sit there with a chipper and a couple weekends stripping it and going through it for contractors, they look at it and go very simply go, wow, I can have this brand new way cheaper.

Yeah, and way faster.

Yeah, and way faster.

So that's a good one there.

All right, now here's one here that I think is good.

And I want to hit this before we run out of time.

This hour, the small projects, like re hanging doors in the house.

Maybe you got a cracked.

You got a cracked jam or something like that.

Do you just go get another one and do you repair that one?

And to me, it's depending on what you got in there.

If you've got very cool doors, that jam repair is going to be way more easier than trying to match a door to everything else.

Yeah, Putty.

It Up a couple of screws, a little putty, little sandpaper, good stained paint, whatever.

Yeah.

Oh, but if it's something.

That was my first vinyl crack door.

Now throw it away.

It's worth four bucks.

That was my first DIY project at 10 years old.

Was fixing a door that split around there.

How'd that happen?

I have three younger brothers.

I'm chasing one of them down the hallway.

He runs into my room and kicks the door shut.

Nice.

I'm two steps behind him.

I hear click.

And I hit this door at full speed.

What's it do?

It splits it right near the stop, and the whole door drops into the.

Into my bedroom.

Sweet sing.

Molding it all on the inside got me room.

Being the home improvement kid that I was.

My brothers and I all of a sudden quit arguing because we knew we're all in trouble, Right?

So I went upstairs in the garage, got some tools.

My parents were gone.

Got the door back up there, got it puttied up.

And if you shut the door, you didn't see it.

So my door stayed shut.

Every time my parents would leave, I do another coat of sanding and cleaning up.

Everything nicely cleaned up.

Aired out with the weekend.

My parents were moving out of that house the weekend before.

We had dinner, and I told my dad about it, and he didn't know.

He painted that room twice.

He didn't have any idea.

He goes, that's.

The drywall.

Seemed a little wanky.

Yeah.

Because it ripped the paper back.

It's.

Yeah.

So that was my first project and got away with it.

Because my dad didn't know until it was 30 years later.

He's like, good work, son.

He was pretty impressed.

But these are the things, though.

Whether it's a light fixture that you can fix.

You know, faucets, sometimes, if they're a name brand, you can get repair parts for them for free.

Because many of them have a lifetime warning.

We've talked about that.

Sometimes light fixtures, unless you know what you're doing, it's just better to go buy another one that's got a UL listing on it.

That might be the case.

But what I like to do.

If you've got an old light fixture that's tore up, there are plenty of places out there you could drop those up and they can restore them, put the UL listing on them.

And then, you know, you're putting in something vintage, but it looks like it's brand new again, and the electricians won't have a hard time working on it.

And that's again, to Reference Tacoma, man.

So many cool little fixtures that we tore out of rentals but saved and restored and used in other properties.

Like yeah, you'll never find fixtures like that again.

Like just amazing stuff.

Amazing light fixtures for sure.

Hard part right now if you want to build a house that is got that real retro feel with that.

You literally have to do that because the electricians won't install.

Yeah.

In almost any case a light fixture that's not UL listed because the code guy's not going to sign off on it.

Yeah.

And that makes sense.

That is a safety issue.

That's actually a rule that makes sense and is fair.

But there's so many.

I've got a couple in town here that couple places in and if you want to know those people get send us a message over around the house online dot com.

I'm not going to give it out and blow them up over here but if you need somebody that rebuilds those fixtures, I've got a couple guys that do it here.

They literally will sit there and remake pieces to match.

Yeah.

To make it look fun stuff man.

I love this cool stuff.

It's cool stuff.

One last thing Johnny, I wanted to mention here and this is going to be a really good save if you're working on a vintage project.

If you have a tile project where you've got ceramic tile, maybe it's a floor or a backsplash or something like that that is actually a ceramic man made tile versus stone or something like that, reach out to your local custom tile shop.

Many times you can take that tile down there and have them make something either close or something perfect and that way they can get that dialed in.

And I've been able to actually recreate those tiles.

So if you have to go in there and replace a couple of them that are broken, you can actually go in and fix it.

So before you toss that whole project away, if you've got that beautiful mid century and you just have a couple tiles that are broken that are turquoise or pink or yellow or whatever, don't worry, there might be a way to fix those.

Man, we blasted through this first hour of the show.

Johnny, we better wrap this up.

If you guys need to find more information about us, just head over to aroundthehouse online.com make sure you subscribe to all our social media, including the YouTube over there.

And if you're listening on the radio, make sure you catch the podcast on your favorite podcast player.

I'm Eric G. And for Johnny D. You've been listening to the first hour of around a house.