Navigating home improvement projects can be as tricky as walking a tightrope while juggling flaming chainsaws. Eric G and John Dudley take us on an exhilarating ride through the top ten home improvement projects that are basically designed to make a homeowner throw their hands up in despair. From the perils of electrical panel upgrades that could fry your circuits quicker than you can say 'DIY disaster,' to the nightmare of trying to fix water damage that could lead you into a mold-infested abyss, the duo lays it all out. They share tales of hapless homeowners who thought they could tackle roofing repairs, only to end up with a blue tarp covering their house for months, while the neighborhood kids use it as a makeshift fort. With their signature sarcasm, they remind us that some projects are best left to the pros, and that there’s no shame in admitting you can’t paint the Mona Lisa – or rewire your entire house for that matter. So buckle up, grab your tools (or don’t), and let’s dive headfirst into the world of home improvement follies where the stakes are high and the consequences are hilariously absurd.
Takeaways:
Attempting to upgrade your electrical panel is a surefire way to invite disaster; just call a pro instead!
Water damage repair is not a DIY project—trust me, your health and home depend on professionals.
Roof replacement sounds easy until you're knee-deep in plywood and regret—leave it to the experts.
The only thing worse than bad tiling is the mold that follows; hire a pro to avoid a wet mess!
Thinking of removing load-bearing walls? Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster—just don't do it!
Deck construction may seem straightforward, but unless you want your BBQ party to turn into a disaster, hire the right people!
To get your questions answered by Eric G give us a call in the studio at 833-239-4144 24/7 and Eric G will get back to you and answer your question and you might end up in a future episode of Around the House.
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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Welcome to around the House with Eric G. Your trusted source for all things home improvement.
Speaker B:
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.
Speaker B:
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.
Speaker B:
And John Dudley, former contractor and contractor business consultant is here today in the co pilot seat.
Speaker B:
It's everything you need to know without the fluff.
Speaker B:
Now here's your host, Eric G. Welcome.
Speaker A:
To the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.
Speaker A:
I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker A:
I got in the co pilot seat here in the right front seat, John Dudley, welcome back to the show.
Speaker C:
Good to be here, my friend.
Speaker A:
Man, it's always good having you on these discussions and today we have got a big one.
Speaker A:
And you and I were talking and I thought this would be a great subject.
Speaker A:
Getting from your experience as a licensed, bonded and insured contractor here in the states, what are our top 10 big projects that are not DIY friendly out there?
Speaker A:
Because there's so many people that look at the price tag like we were talking about last hour from the Cost versus Value Report.
Speaker A:
I'm going to try this myself.
Speaker A:
Sometimes can be a very dangerous situation, brother.
Speaker C:
I've seen it become one many times and saved many as well.
Speaker A:
Oh, man, I have seen so many things.
Speaker A:
And you and I have walked into many houses together going this looks like a homeowner that tried to start the project got in over their head and then called you and I to come out and take a look at it, which was always sketchy.
Speaker C:
Yeah, it's a part of it is that they're married to it and there's a part of the ego in there.
Speaker C:
And they don't really want to say I can't do it, but they have succumbed to the fact that they can't do it.
Speaker C:
And there's no shame in that.
Speaker C:
Man.
Speaker C:
That's like me trying to paint the Mona Lisa.
Speaker C:
Ain't gonna happen.
Speaker C:
But I can surely remodel your bathroom.
Speaker A:
Absolutely, man.
Speaker A:
It's funny.
Speaker A:
I can't tell you how many times in my 30 plus 35 years of career kitchen of bath design that I had some guy walk into my store and we didn't stock any cabinets.
Speaker A:
Hey, man, my wife's out of town this week.
Speaker A:
I just tore the kitchen out.
Speaker A:
I want to get some cabinets.
Speaker A:
Dude, you promised to work on a hotel for a Couple of months.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
You missed the eight week lead time, brother.
Speaker A:
You're in trouble.
Speaker A:
You're in trouble.
Speaker C:
Do a little research before you just go.
Speaker C:
Shred in the house, buddy.
Speaker C:
Ye.
Speaker A:
Do not get the sledgehammer out.
Speaker A:
That is.
Speaker A:
Even though you watch DIY television, that is not the first tool you grab when it's demo day.
Speaker A:
Makes for good television pictures, but for everything else, you're probably doing more damage than you need to do.
Speaker C:
That sounded like a good idea.
Speaker A:
Exactly.
Speaker A:
Oh, we've started a lot of things with that today.
Speaker A:
I thought the first one on here, which was a big one, and there's an asterisk to any of these.
Speaker A:
If you're a professional or you've done this before or you're in that trade or you're in that career path, it could be something different.
Speaker A:
But these days, I think one of the more complex ones is electrical panel upgrades or complete rewiring.
Speaker C:
Yeah, look, I was a general contractor for 30 years and I had an electrician.
Speaker C:
I wouldn't do that.
Speaker C:
Pull one wire to a GFI in a kitchen, I could get that done.
Speaker C:
But a whole panel swap?
Speaker C:
I'll pay the 10k or who knows what it is now, but yeah, that brings your house down.
Speaker C:
That and gas.
Speaker C:
I didn't like messing with either of them.
Speaker A:
Oh, man.
Speaker A:
My brother and I, we rewired the entire electrical system over the beach house.
Speaker A:
We read up on all the code, and if you haven't done it in three or four years, the code's probably completely different.
Speaker A:
So you need to look at that as well.
Speaker A:
And that's the hard part, is when you've done it and you've passed it.
Speaker A:
So you know what those rules are.
Speaker A:
The electricians deal with it every day, so they know what those were.
Speaker A:
Now you're timestamped.
Speaker A:
Oh, I did it seven years ago.
Speaker A:
I'm great.
Speaker A:
You don't know what you're doing now, from arc fault breakers to which one takes a regular breaker or what takes a GFCI breaker to older house stuff where you're having to share neutrals.
Speaker A:
And what kind of breaker goes with that?
Speaker A:
Because you're using the existing old wiring.
Speaker A:
This is a can of worms.
Speaker A:
So unless you've done a ton of it, the risks are way bigger than the rewards on that one.
Speaker C:
Yeah, it's just not.
Speaker C:
You're literally playing with fire.
Speaker C:
Just a bad idea.
Speaker C:
Seems simple.
Speaker C:
I've done my fair share of it, but yeah, no.
Speaker C:
If I did mess with gas or electrical, those are the nights I didn't sleep well.
Speaker C:
Because I was like, man, did I do.
Speaker C:
Is the wire not on tight enough?
Speaker C:
Did I. Yeah.
Speaker C:
Was that gonna.
Speaker C:
Yeah, no.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
No, I don't like it just doesn't work.
Speaker A:
Yeah, I get it.
Speaker A:
And the other thing too is that you just open your yourself up to more can of worms.
Speaker A:
If you have to jump on the Internet and look how to do.
Speaker A:
How to wire up a three way switch and you can't do it from memory.
Speaker A:
You have no hope of doing an electrical panel.
Speaker A:
Just not going to happen.
Speaker A:
So be careful with that.
Speaker A:
And we're seeing more and more of those because people now have been adding into those car chargers and solar panels and there's all this stuff that's been coming in or backup power for with a generator.
Speaker A:
And so all these panels are now getting upgrades.
Speaker A:
Especially those older houses that had those split main panels and stuff.
Speaker A:
The color hammer ones that were all.
Speaker A:
And here's the thing that drives me crazy and I can't believe people do it.
Speaker A:
I see people that must be either electricians and I hope an electrician isn't doing this, but they're probably the electrician's assistants.
Speaker A:
They're jumping up and taking all those panels that were fire hazards and what are they doing?
Speaker A:
They're throwing those breakers up on online sales like ebay or Craigslist.
Speaker A:
And I'm like, why are you loading up a fire hazard that's like pouring more gasoline on it.
Speaker C:
What was the one that always got on fire is older other hammers.
Speaker A:
That was the split main one right where you had the wire coming in and then you had the other kind of breaker that went off to the other breakers and.
Speaker C:
Yeah, but there was another one with really thin.
Speaker A:
Yes.
Speaker C:
Paddles.
Speaker C:
I shouldn't say the name anyway but yeah, Paul Larkin used to be like, no, that's a fire thing out of there.
Speaker C:
I'd buy:
Speaker C:
I'd be like, could we just swap the brake.
Speaker C:
He's getaway.
Speaker C:
Get away from me.
Speaker A:
My:
Speaker A:
Electrician.
Speaker A:
Well, you probably should have that inspected.
Speaker A:
I pulled it off and started looking up.
Speaker A:
I'm like, oh no.
Speaker A:
The baker light is broken in the back of the panel.
Speaker A:
So that tells me one thing.
Speaker A:
It's been getting hot.
Speaker A:
So we had the panel done.
Speaker A:
I had the panel done.
Speaker A:
I had an electrician come do it.
Speaker A:
And it was interesting.
Speaker A:
So our local power company.
Speaker A:
I'm not going to mention their name because I'm not trying to bash them.
Speaker A:
It wasn't their fault.
Speaker A:
But from the wires rubbing, I think it was the original line set coming down to the house.
Speaker A:
It was rubbing, so the neutral was starting to short out in the line coming off the pole.
Speaker A:
So it was heating the panel up.
Speaker A:
And so it was close to a fire.
Speaker A:
It was days away from a fire.
Speaker C:
So look, man, I never had problems with.
Speaker C:
I just didn't.
Speaker C:
There's reasons for them and they make sense and they're smart.
Speaker C:
They're definitely smarter than me.
Speaker C:
And when it comes to the house burning down, my own, one of my properties burning down, I get no, you.
Speaker A:
Don'T want to lose the guitars.
Speaker C:
I'd rebuild it.
Speaker C:
But burning somebody else's house down.
Speaker A:
So when we come back here first, I want to talk about this here before I want to get started on this one because we do have a couple minutes left.
Speaker A:
But the big one here too is my number two one.
Speaker A:
When you have water damage in your house, call the insurance company, have them deal with it.
Speaker A:
This is not a DIY project.
Speaker A:
There's professionals out there that are going to get sued one of these days for not doing it right.
Speaker A:
You as a homeowner probably or not.
Speaker A:
You can't just go, I had water leaking on my wall.
Speaker A:
I'm going to dry it out, let it dry out.
Speaker A:
I'll replace that little bit of flooring or I'll try to get that warped floor to look better.
Speaker A:
No, do not.
Speaker A:
You are in deep trouble when that happens.
Speaker A:
So stay away from it.
Speaker A:
Have somebody come down there.
Speaker A:
Do not grab the gallon of bleach and start putting it all over stuff.
Speaker A:
Because all you're gonna do is make the bleach bleach out the mold.
Speaker A:
It won't kill it all, especially on non on porous surfaces.
Speaker A:
And you're just gonna make it worse.
Speaker A:
So can be super unhealthy.
Speaker C:
Any system or trade that has remediation as a word in it should be taken seriously.
Speaker A:
Yeah, yeah, good call, good call because that's one that again just gets super expensive.
Speaker A:
And it's not the expensive part now.
Speaker A:
It's that bills that you're going to have later from the mold that's got you getting asthma and your kids getting sick and everything else that you don't want to mess with.
Speaker C:
So not worth the risk.
Speaker A:
Hire the insurance company, get yourself a good lawyer if you need to make sure you keep them under control and that they pay out what they're supposed to.
Speaker A:
But other than that, sometimes you just got to let it go.
Speaker A:
So when we come back, man, I have some other ones here that might be surprising for some people.
Speaker A:
Might not be because you and I are going to roll our eyes and go, oh, that's dangerous.
Speaker A:
That's super dangerous.
Speaker A:
We'll talk more about that just as soon is around the House returns.
Speaker A:
Don't change that dial.
Speaker B:
Love the show.
Speaker B:
Help us spread the word.
Speaker B:
Drop a quick review on your favorite podcast player to let others know why around the House is your go to for home fixes and fun.
Speaker B:
Want more?
Speaker B:
Follow us on YouTube and social media for extra tips, tricks, and maybe a few laughs.
Speaker B:
Check out aroundthehouseonline.com for all the links and info to keep your home shining.
Speaker B:
Time to hit pause and check our stud finder.
Speaker B:
It's beeping like crazy.
Speaker B:
Hang tight.
Speaker B:
Around the House will return faster than you can lose a socket wrench.
Speaker A:
Never understand what it's like to play an instrument, to be in a friend.
Speaker C:
What's up?
Speaker C:
This is Sticks it in ya and.
Speaker A:
Satchel from Steel Panther.
Speaker A:
And you are listening to around the.
Speaker C:
House with Eric G. Yeah, we love.
Speaker A:
Eric G. And you should, too.
Speaker A:
1987.
Speaker A:
Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.
Speaker A:
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker A:
I really appreciate all you guys tuning in.
Speaker A:
We're here to help you get through your home improvement projects, whether you're that contractor, whether you're that homeowner or even wannabe homeowner that's looking to get your first house.
Speaker A:
And today we've been talking about Johnny and I have been talking about the top 10 home projects that are not DIY friendlies.
Speaker A:
These are the things that you don't want to mess with.
Speaker A:
The next one up here that I had roof replacement or major roofing repairs.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Johnny is a hot tire roofer.
Speaker A:
What do you got to say about that?
Speaker C:
I've done every kind of roof there is and I. Oh, you just staple these shingles on.
Speaker C:
I'll go rent the gun.
Speaker C:
I'll get it done in a week.
Speaker C:
And you won't.
Speaker C:
You will not.
Speaker C:
You will have a blue tarp on your roof for three months.
Speaker C:
Your wife will be angry.
Speaker C:
It does not go as fast as the roofers make it look.
Speaker C:
Don't do your own roof.
Speaker C:
Just don't.
Speaker C:
Unless you got five buddies and five guns that are gonna help you.
Speaker C:
And then it's gonna end up all twisted and turvy and bad anyway.
Speaker C:
But it's a bigger project than you think.
Speaker C:
And once you tear it off, then you go, oh, crap, the plywood.
Speaker A:
Two sheets of plywood.
Speaker C:
Now the trusses are rotten, too.
Speaker C:
Oh, now I got to do all this carpentry now I got it.
Speaker C:
You just don't pay the pros.
Speaker A:
Yep.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Even I and my brother, we both have roofed plenty of things.
Speaker A:
Before we knew better.
Speaker A:
We went on the beach house.
Speaker A:
We jumped in that was known in Cannon Beach, Oregon as the blue tarp house.
Speaker A:
We took off a couple of over a ton of tarps off that thing.
Speaker A:
It was just layer.
Speaker A:
I filled up.
Speaker A:
Filled up with nasty, dirty tarps.
Speaker A:
My entire summit trailer, dump trailer.
Speaker C:
Like, wow, nice.
Speaker A:
Couldn't fit another one in it kind of thing.
Speaker A:
And this is off a ranch house.
Speaker A:
So it was crazy.
Speaker A:
And yeah, we pulled it off.
Speaker A:
And I've never seen a roof that bad.
Speaker A:
And yes, it was all stick frame.
Speaker A:
So we had plenty of framing to do and had to resheet the entire roof surface.
Speaker A:
We got that done and went awesome.
Speaker A:
We're hiring somebody to put the shingles on.
Speaker A:
And I'm happy we did because we had all these different valleys and stuff that, quite frankly, I didn't want to have to think about to do.
Speaker C:
Yep.
Speaker C:
And it's important.
Speaker C:
You got to know how to interlace them or.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
There's so much to it that you just don't know.
Speaker C:
And you're going to spend all that time and effort, probably piss off whoever's living in your house at the time.
Speaker C:
Be really angry with yourself because it's going to eat you up every weekend going, oh, I gotta finish that dang roof.
Speaker C:
And then it's not going to be done.
Speaker C:
And you're going to have leaks the first year.
Speaker C:
And you're going to be like, no, call a roofer.
Speaker A:
And the roofer comes out and goes, what is this person?
Speaker A:
Did this.
Speaker A:
Stop the embarrassment and all that.
Speaker A:
Because it's just brutal.
Speaker A:
Now here's the other thing.
Speaker A:
When you get into the new architectural stuff, like the presidential type stuff out there, it's not only just getting up the stagger.
Speaker A:
Right.
Speaker A:
They have a whole thing where you have a very complex pattern to follow.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
To make it look right.
Speaker A:
That way you have that.
Speaker A:
Because there's multiple colors in there.
Speaker A:
So it's trying to give you a exact look that they're trying to achieve with it.
Speaker A:
And if you don't follow that, it looks a little goofy.
Speaker A:
So you have to really lay it out.
Speaker C:
It's like matching patterned carpet in a hotel.
Speaker A:
Done that.
Speaker A:
Never good.
Speaker A:
Never.
Speaker A:
It's one thing to get up there and do a fix.
Speaker A:
I just did a fix on my house this last weekend, just going through.
Speaker A:
Because I knew that there was a guy 20 years before me on that old Roof that had gone up there and where a tree branch had fallen off one of our 200 foot trees and poked a hole through the roof.
Speaker A:
And instead of getting up there and doing it right, he.
Speaker A:
He put the three tabs sideways over two shingles, threw a bunch of tar down and then stuck some nails through it and called it a day.
Speaker C:
Plenty of those in the Northwest.
Speaker C:
The other thing to consider too is if you do it yourself, the odds are pretty dang good that you're going to do something in there that voids any kind of guarantee that Ruth has.
Speaker A:
Great point.
Speaker A:
Guarantee.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
If you're hiring somebody.
Speaker C:
20 year warranty.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
If you install it right, which you did not, sir.
Speaker C:
Lo siento.
Speaker A:
Yep, you're out.
Speaker A:
You're out.
Speaker A:
And so that's a big one, man.
Speaker A:
Good call.
Speaker A:
Good call.
Speaker A:
Because yeah, they want you to use the certified installer.
Speaker A:
Not even just chucking the truck.
Speaker A:
They want to have somebody that's been through their classes, that is in their program to do it.
Speaker A:
So you want to do that anyway.
Speaker A:
But the next one here on the list, man, is good plumbing system overhauls.
Speaker A:
You think about the broken pipe is one thing, but replacing that old galvanized and getting in there with the hex crimp tool or $4,000 in shark bite fittings that fail to push to connect fittings out there.
Speaker A:
And you probably need permits.
Speaker A:
You're probably not going to do the venting right on the drains.
Speaker A:
There's a lot of things that go into these systems.
Speaker A:
And you can grab a plumbing fitting that looks exactly or 90% to what you thought it was supposed to do, and it's the wrong fitting.
Speaker A:
You can get yourself in a world of hurt.
Speaker A:
It's one of those things that I have seen so many bad DIY installs for RE pipes that it's just an absolute hot mess.
Speaker A:
Now, it could be that I think Roger Wakefield, the expert plumber, sent me over one time where they had replumbed this house, but they just nailed it.
Speaker A:
The PEX pipes on the drywall inside the rooms, going through holes into the next room on the outside and just put it up at the ceiling height and ran it down on the outside of everything and it was a hot mess.
Speaker A:
So you can be shocked at what you see sometimes.
Speaker A:
Right.
Speaker C:
Who did for a homeowner, for a.
Speaker A:
Remodel, for a new home, Remodel, old home.
Speaker A:
It looked like it was.
Speaker A:
It looked like it was some.
Speaker A:
And again, down there with.
Speaker A:
They have some problems because they usually have slab on grade down there.
Speaker A:
They don't have crawl spaces.
Speaker A:
They don't have it.
Speaker A:
So all it takes galvanized in the concrete, and you got a heck of a mess to deal with.
Speaker A:
So these people just went through and hung it right on the drywall like it was.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
And so bad.
Speaker A:
So bad.
Speaker C:
And I tell you what, Industrial vibe.
Speaker A:
Let alone hooking gas up to a water heater and everything else that can go really badly.
Speaker A:
I don't know if you saw this couple years ago, I think it was in Boston or someplace out there.
Speaker A:
Somebody had not done their water heater correctly.
Speaker A:
And whatever they did, it blew up.
Speaker A:
I think it killed five people and took out like eight houses.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
Wow.
Speaker A:
I mean, it.
Speaker A:
This looked like somebody let a car ball off in the garage.
Speaker C:
Electricity and gas, I want part of it.
Speaker A:
Speaking of that, when we come back here, we'll talk about that one.
Speaker A:
Because any of these, whether it be gas or appliance, that stuff can be super sketch.
Speaker A:
And especially when it comes to appliances.
Speaker A:
And I'll talk about gas in a second.
Speaker A:
But one of the things that I noticed with appliances is that sometimes now with appliances, you got to be really careful because you have the clearances for built in appliances.
Speaker A:
But some now of these appliances, like some of the new wall ovens and stuff that are built in, you need to have a ground and a neutral cd.
Speaker A:
Four wires.
Speaker A:
Well, if you're doing a remodeling, got three wires.
Speaker A:
Now you gotta drag another ground all the way back to that.
Speaker A:
And that can be tough.
Speaker A:
We had one house that was on the water up in Seattle that I was working on.
Speaker A:
I think it was up in Burien on the water.
Speaker A:
It was gonna be a $7,500 price tag to run aground to the panel because it was all the way.
Speaker A:
They had to do it to get there.
Speaker A:
And it was more than the appliance was.
Speaker A:
So that stuff can get super expensive.
Speaker A:
So when we come back, we'll give you some more tips and tricks here to make.
Speaker A:
Don't do this wrong.
Speaker A:
Because I tell you what, there's nothing more frustrating than buying all the materials, doing the project going, this didn't go well.
Speaker A:
And then having to pay somebody else and buy the materials again.
Speaker A:
And Johnny and I have both been the deliverer of those bad news before.
Speaker C:
Where you gotta go plumbing is.
Speaker C:
Even the plumber goes to the Dang store 50 times on a job because I got the 22 degree.
Speaker A:
Yeah, whatever.
Speaker C:
Forgot we gotta vent the sink.
Speaker C:
Yeah, don't.
Speaker A:
Just don't.
Speaker A:
Those are wise words around the house.
Speaker A:
We'll be Right back.
Speaker B:
Welcome back to the around the house show.
Speaker B:
If you want to find out more about the show, catch us@aroundthehouse online.com now let's get back to the show with Eric G. And Johnny D. Welcome back.
Speaker A:
To the around the house show.
Speaker A:
The next generation of home improvement.
Speaker A:
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker C:
I'm Eric G. And I'm Johnny D.
Speaker A:
We got Dudley here in the passenger seat.
Speaker A:
We've been talking about the mistakes people make.
Speaker A:
You know those top 10 projects that are not DIY friendly, the ones that the average person is going to get burned on.
Speaker A:
And of course there's plenty of experts out there that can more than handle these, but most people can't.
Speaker A:
And you tease this one up earlier, brother, and it's asbestos or lead paint abatement.
Speaker C:
Yeah, I'll never admit to, I'll never admit to how much of both I've eaten.
Speaker A:
Oh yeah.
Speaker A:
Yep.
Speaker C:
Out of my own ignorance and stupidity.
Speaker A:
Yeah, we both learned.
Speaker A:
Recommended before the asbestos thing was big.
Speaker A:
This was 30 years ago, right before they really had a lot of stuff on this.
Speaker A:
I was in Richland, Washington in my first house and there's this little thing out the back that had a coal shed where the coal furnace was.
Speaker A:
I just put central heat in air and I didn't need a coal furnace taking up the back room space.
Speaker A:
So I went back there and I gutted the room out except for this thousand pound coal furnace.
Speaker A:
I'll tell you how I know it's a thousand pound coal furnace.
Speaker A:
I got in there and I looked at all right and I went, wow, this is all asbestos around it.
Speaker A:
So there wasn't.
Speaker A:
It wasn't the Internet to go get things on or anything like that.
Speaker A:
So I went, ah, it's probably not good for me.
Speaker A:
So I got my garden hose and got it soaking wet, backed my pickup truck to the side of where the load in of the coal furnace was, took off all the stuff that was loose on the outside and shoved it in the coal furnace part of it on the inside, shut the door and pushed it over into the bed of my truck.
Speaker A:
And I brought the front of the truck up probably 4 inches off the ground when it hit the bed of the truck.
Speaker A:
And I went oh wow, than I thought it would.
Speaker A:
And then took it down to the scrap metal yard and luckily they didn't open it up.
Speaker A:
They wouldn't have done anything then either.
Speaker A:
There's nothing against the lot that back in the day.
Speaker A:
But you know, now I look back and go, wow, that was a dangerous move.
Speaker A:
You wouldn't do that today.
Speaker C:
It used to be in every junior high we went to, man, it was everywhere.
Speaker C:
Everywhere.
Speaker C:
What I didn't realize.
Speaker C:
Yeah, Piper apps, mostly.
Speaker C:
tion and, you know those late:
Speaker C:
The thing was full of it.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:
Just ate it.
Speaker A:
Yep.
Speaker A:
Absolutely.
Speaker A:
So here's the thing, guys.
Speaker A:
If you don't know about this stuff, and, you know, here's the bad thing.
Speaker A:
If you jump on the Internet and start getting into these local or even your social media groups, the home improvement pages, all that stuff, you'll see some denier on there that'll go.
Speaker A:
I've done that for 30 years, and I've never.
Speaker A:
I've disposed of it illegally for 30 years, and I've never had a problem.
Speaker A:
Well, guess what.
Speaker A:
Yeah, it's coming.
Speaker A:
Yeah, it's coming.
Speaker A:
You know, and it's just what it is.
Speaker A:
Have the pros handle it.
Speaker A:
Have them test it.
Speaker A:
I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker A:
Here in my metro area, where I live is a great example.
Speaker A:
If I'm working on a commercial remodeling project, like I'm working on some strip mall, everything in that building has to be.
Speaker A:
Everything that could be asbestos has to be tested before I can take it to the dump.
Speaker C:
Yep.
Speaker A:
And if it's coming out of a house that is.
Speaker A:
That has texture on the walls.
Speaker A:
If there is vinyl flooring or, you know, mastic, they won't take roofing felt, period.
Speaker A:
Yeah, roofing felt.
Speaker A:
Even new stuff won't take it because usually there's asbestos in it.
Speaker A:
And so you have to have it tested before you take it down there.
Speaker A:
Otherwise, they just turn you around and say, go home and get your test results.
Speaker A:
So it's one of those things that it's just not worth the effort and the risk.
Speaker A:
Let someone up, take the risk.
Speaker A:
It's getting cheaper, so there's more people doing it, so it's helping, but.
Speaker A:
And then it's very against the law for you to throw that stuff in the trash these days.
Speaker A:
Anyway, so I saw a guy here that was a realtor that was doing a house flip and had his helpers pull it all out.
Speaker A:
You got to find 100 grand.
Speaker A:
Now, I don't know if they ever reduced the fine through that stuff, but I sure don't want to be up against the State that I'm living in for a hundred grand.
Speaker A:
No, that's expensive.
Speaker A:
So here's the next one here.
Speaker A:
I think it's interesting.
Speaker A:
Deck or patio construction, especially big, tall, above ground decks.
Speaker A:
That is not your first place to start.
Speaker C:
No, please.
Speaker C:
There's too many bad party stories.
Speaker A:
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker A:
Jump on YouTube and just search deck collapse and you'll see the guy there putting it.
Speaker A:
They put their hot tub up there and it wasn't engineered for it.
Speaker A:
Or the roofer put a pallet of roofing up on the wood deck and it pulled away from the house and did it.
Speaker A:
I mean, yeah.
Speaker A:
Every year we see on the news of a deck not built correctly and you got railings and you got all these things.
Speaker A:
You know, I was watching a. I think we talked about a few weeks ago.
Speaker A:
I was watching this really bad contractor.
Speaker A:
The homeowner had me come out and take a look at this deck project as well as the rest of the house.
Speaker A:
He had the middle beam.
Speaker A:
There was only one beam.
Speaker A:
It was attached on the house.
Speaker A:
There was a sliding glass door.
Speaker A:
Told me, yeah, 50 cantilever on that.
Speaker A:
I'm like, oh, I'm not getting on that.
Speaker A:
That's a teeter totter.
Speaker A:
In a good case scenario.
Speaker C:
Those are things I just can't understand.
Speaker C:
Like, I don't.
Speaker C:
What are you doing with a hammer in your hand?
Speaker C:
Sorry, brother, but I just don't.
Speaker C:
How can you even think that?
Speaker C:
It's basic physics, man.
Speaker C:
It's not a teeter totter.
Speaker C:
It's a deck.
Speaker C:
What are you doing?
Speaker A:
What are you doing?
Speaker A:
Right?
Speaker A:
It's horrible.
Speaker A:
It's horrible.
Speaker A:
And I guess, you know, here's the other thing, too.
Speaker A:
Even patio construction.
Speaker A:
I watched the guys at System Pavers work on my place here this last few weeks.
Speaker A:
And in three days, they did my back patio.
Speaker A:
And looking at the work that they do, most homeowners are not going to go down there.
Speaker A:
Dig down 8 inches for the patio, haul that dirt away, bring in the rock, the barrier, the sand, Tampa, read it, get it dialed in, looking beautiful, and then lay block perfectly.
Speaker A:
They built in a grade beam to support the side so the side wouldn't wash out or the last blocks wouldn't roll away because there's a little bit of a grade change right there.
Speaker A:
And I watched that and I went, man, it'd been a number of years since I'd done it.
Speaker A:
And it reminded me how much work it is.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
And having three guys out there that dug that area out in literally an hour where I'd have Been out there for the day.
Speaker A:
I'm like, no, thanks.
Speaker C:
My issue is I'm too much of a perfectionist with stuff like that.
Speaker C:
And that being said, the last house I was in here in Colombia, I just wanted a little path.
Speaker C:
We had a.
Speaker C:
We had an outdoor patio, and then a little path that went down to a deck where hot tub could be.
Speaker C:
Nice view of the city.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
I'm like, I want a, you know, 40 inch wide, cool pavers, cool design, but I ain't doing it.
Speaker C:
Could I the homeowner?
Speaker A:
Sure.
Speaker C:
But it's, you know, like you said, the right size rock, the right amount of sand, make sure it's padded down good.
Speaker C:
You got to dig it all up.
Speaker C:
You gotta lay a barrier, then you gotta cut the blocks.
Speaker C:
Then you gotta make the pattern correct.
Speaker C:
It's not as easy as it looks.
Speaker A:
Oh, and I have herringbone pattern with a dark charcoal exterior on that ring around the outside of it.
Speaker A:
So, yeah, no, I'm good.
Speaker A:
I'm good.
Speaker C:
I'd be there three weeks making it perfect.
Speaker C:
And it would be perfect, but it would be three weeks instead of three days.
Speaker A:
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker A:
And that gets dangerous.
Speaker A:
You know, you look at that and just go, oh, man.
Speaker A:
Sometimes you got to figure out, and this is one of my biggest tips on these kind of projects.
Speaker A:
What's your time worth?
Speaker C:
Yep.
Speaker C:
You know, that's exactly what I do.
Speaker A:
Well, it's like you and I have been talking about, you know, with our around the House pro insider thing.
Speaker A:
It's like, how many business owners do we know that'll drive five or seven miles to go save 10 cents of gas at Costco?
Speaker A:
And you go, hey, man, what's your time worth?
Speaker A:
Yeah, you gotta figure out what your time's worth.
Speaker C:
Yep.
Speaker A:
So sometimes it's just better that way.
Speaker A:
Now when we come back, brother, I got a couple more here.
Speaker A:
That is gonna be.
Speaker A:
One of them is an obvious one.
Speaker A:
But I tell you what, two of them are what great YouTube videos are of.
Speaker C:
Oh, no, that sounds.
Speaker A:
And one of them was what good TV shows are made out of.
Speaker C:
Oh, here come the bloopers.
Speaker C:
Bring it on.
Speaker A:
Here come the bloopers.
Speaker A:
Exactly.
Speaker A:
We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.
Speaker A:
Don't change that dial.
Speaker A:
All right, welcome back to the around the House show.
Speaker A:
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker C:
I'm Eric G. And I'm Johnny D.
Speaker A:
We're having a good time in here talking about those 10 top projects that might not be the best DIY projects for you.
Speaker A:
If you want to find out more about Us or any of the shows that we do, check us out over@aroundthehousonline.com and if you're one of the contractors that are listening to this and shaking your head yes, please don't.
Speaker A:
There's a place for you over there, too.
Speaker A:
That's the around the house pro insider.
Speaker A:
So check that out over there.
Speaker A:
That is our podcast.
Speaker A:
That is for you guys in the trades or even business owners or inventors out there as well.
Speaker A:
So we got a lot of great stuff there for you.
Speaker A:
Johnny.
Speaker A:
I was teasing up some of these last ones in this last segment, and this one is what great blooper reels are made for tree removal next to the house.
Speaker C:
Oh, yeah, awesome.
Speaker C:
Just tie a rope around her.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Put it around the bicycle or the Harley.
Speaker A:
You'll be fine.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
Ready?
Speaker C:
Go.
Speaker A:
How many times have we seen the tree go down through the house, the.
Speaker C:
Neighbor'S house, the neighbor's house, usually the.
Speaker A:
Barn, back onto the truck that they tied it off to.
Speaker A:
Here's the thing, guys, we see on the news professionals that mess this up.
Speaker A:
Like a couple years ago in Redmond, Washington, there was a crane that they did some math wrong and when they cut the branches loose in the backyard, the whole crane boog boom came over the top of the two story, 4,000 square foot house.
Speaker A:
Leverage and mother nature won there.
Speaker A:
And it pulled the boom truck backwards.
Speaker A:
So it was 90°.
Speaker A:
Truck was dead level.
Speaker A:
You could put a level on that thing.
Speaker A:
And the boom was all through the second story.
Speaker A:
It pulled it right over until the branches hit on the other side and they just bit off more than they could chew.
Speaker A:
Here's the problem.
Speaker A:
You might have learned from the best of them how to cut a tree down, but you don't know the condition of that tree.
Speaker A:
You don't know if the center's rotten.
Speaker A:
Doubt if it's some of these trees like alder and stuff that we see in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker A:
Most of the guys that cut them down wrap a logging chain around it so it doesn't explode while they cut it.
Speaker A:
Because I've seen that happen before where they'll be cutting through it and it just splinters off into a million pieces.
Speaker C:
Four pieces.
Speaker C:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:
And you got four widowmakers going on at the same time.
Speaker A:
So these are things you just need the professional to do.
Speaker A:
Have you seen these neighbors?
Speaker C:
Thank you.
Speaker A:
Yeah, your neighbor, your insurance company will thank you.
Speaker A:
So, you know, who wants to deal with that?
Speaker A:
And I get it.
Speaker A:
It's tempting to go.
Speaker A:
I don't want to pay.
Speaker A:
I had Some tree quote stab.
Speaker A:
I was thinking about doing that addition before I put my house up for sale.
Speaker A:
So I was like, I want to take a couple trees out.
Speaker A:
I want to trim these up, do this.
Speaker A:
It was $12,000.
Speaker A:
And I'm like, wow, okay, I'm not doing that as doing that yet.
Speaker A:
I got to be committed to do that.
Speaker A:
Plus another 9 to 12 months of permits through the city as well.
Speaker A:
And that's something, too, before we go into the next one here.
Speaker A:
That's interesting.
Speaker A:
I saw in my city we have all these tree covenants.
Speaker A:
You can't cut a tree down with all these public hearings and signs and all this stuff.
Speaker A:
We had that ice storm a couple years back that took down all these trees.
Speaker A:
And gentleman that I think I might know, I know the name.
Speaker A:
So I want to make sure there's not two of him in town before I say it's him.
Speaker A:
If it is, it's a body of mine.
Speaker A:
His parents were killed by a tree that went down.
Speaker A:
Unfortunately, they had tried the year earlier to get the tree taken down and they wouldn't give him a permit for it.
Speaker A:
So now they're suing the city for millions of dollars.
Speaker A:
And I'm like, you're not wrong.
Speaker A:
You're like, hey, that thing's gonna kill me.
Speaker A:
And they go, so that's.
Speaker A:
I see that.
Speaker A:
I don't want to see people getting hurt like that.
Speaker A:
I don't want to see stuff happening or worse.
Speaker A:
So let's move on, John, to the next one.
Speaker A:
You'll laugh at this one, too.
Speaker A:
You talked about it.
Speaker A:
H vac system installation or major ductwork stuff.
Speaker A:
There's too much math there, guys.
Speaker C:
Not only that, but you're just going to cut the heck out of yourself all over the place.
Speaker C:
There'll be a lot of blood involved, right?
Speaker A:
Anything.
Speaker A:
And, you know, you got airflow balancing, you got refrigerant handling, you got energy code compliance.
Speaker A:
It never goes well.
Speaker A:
And one of the problems that we're seeing now with these DIY kits, I don't know if you've seen that, Johnny.
Speaker A:
That's something new in the last few years here is you can get the mini splits and the DIY kits now.
Speaker A:
You can get it ships to your house.
Speaker A:
You can hook it up, they show you how to do it, and it works.
Speaker A:
Trying to get a company to come out and service that when it fails is nearly impossible.
Speaker A:
Oh, that's one of those DIY kit brands.
Speaker A:
They don't want to assume responsibility for it, so they just walk away and say, we're not going to come do it.
Speaker A:
I've had more listeners to this show that have reached out.
Speaker A:
It's probably one of the number one questions.
Speaker A:
I'm trying to find somebody to work on this and I can't.
Speaker A:
And I finally have to say call the manufacturer and see if they have someone in your area.
Speaker A:
Because so many people just go, I ain't touching that.
Speaker A:
Cause that was a DIY project.
Speaker A:
Gets expensive, man.
Speaker A:
It gets really expensive actually.
Speaker A:
You know Johnny, it's interesting when it comes to this one here, this is one of those things that it just gets me rolled up because it is so bad.
Speaker A:
It's so bad.
Speaker A:
And it doesn't matter if it's a DIY or a contractor.
Speaker A:
Sometimes you just have to hire the pro.
Speaker A:
And that's going to be major tiling and wet areas.
Speaker A:
This is the easiest thing to completely mess up.
Speaker C:
Yes, it is.
Speaker A:
We have all seen it.
Speaker A:
I don't know if you saw this.
Speaker A:
I probably should share it up with you.
Speaker A:
We had about three or four years on the show here.
Speaker A:
The guy that was called the sledgehammer contractor, he made it all over social media, he was all over the People magazine and all those things out there that you saw.
Speaker A:
Evening Edition did a story on it.
Speaker A:
The guy was this ultra hack contractor.
Speaker A:
Installed for this wonderful lady a bathroom remodel.
Speaker A:
And it looked like a blind 8 year old decided to do the tile work.
Speaker A:
And when she wouldn't pay him early for the job, he went over and repossessed it.
Speaker A:
When her roommate was home where it was, her neighbor that was there came in the house, was told not to enter the house, entered the house with a sledgehammer and tried to destroy the bathroom with a sledgehammer.
Speaker A:
Yeah, Colorado, he sure found out that's a felony when a contractor does that.
Speaker A:
So had to do a little time.
Speaker A:
Wife was there too.
Speaker A:
They got charged.
Speaker A:
They did.
Speaker A:
He got to do some time and then he moved on to another city near you.
Speaker A:
So who knows where he's working out there.
Speaker A:
But we covered it a lot.
Speaker A:
A lot of my friends went down to from the Global Tile Posse to rebuild her bathroom and do it right.
Speaker A:
And so we did some interviews with them as they were working on the project.
Speaker A:
And her and I are still friends to the day.
Speaker A:
It's great to see, you know how that project went.
Speaker A:
Turned out beautiful in the end, but major tiling, man.
Speaker A:
I tell you what, people go in there, they'll put the drywall up and build a shower over the top of it.
Speaker A:
And it's just this is not going to work.
Speaker A:
You can't do it like it's:
Speaker A:
There are so many great pieces of technology to make this job easier and more reliable.
Speaker C:
Right.
Speaker C:
And the other issue is now we're right back to talking about mold the minute of.
Speaker C:
In the minute any of that fails, right?
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
Now it's everywhere.
Speaker C:
It's grown in your walls.
Speaker C:
You don't know it for three years.
Speaker C:
People are getting sick, and one day you go, is that mold above the shower head?
Speaker C:
And then you find out the whole freaking shower surround is full of it.
Speaker A:
What happens?
Speaker A:
You touch it, right.
Speaker A:
All of a sudden your hand goes through the wall system and you go, what just happened?
Speaker A:
What just happened?
Speaker A:
And so that's what happens, is that all of a sudden it just rears its ugly head and you've got something completely gross going on.
Speaker A:
And the problem with tile in a wet area like a shower is it's not really easy to go in there and do a repair on it.
Speaker A:
Once you've got it and you pull a few tiles back, you can't just repair that area because you're going to end up with some area there that's not waterproofed.
Speaker A:
Because when you pull the tile off, you're taking the waterproofing off with it most of the time.
Speaker A:
So it's really sad.
Speaker A:
A lot of people don't understand the right stuff.
Speaker A:
And many of the right materials are not even in the home centers.
Speaker A:
And that's the scary part.
Speaker A:
You can't just go down to Home Depot and go, okay, they're going to walk me through it.
Speaker A:
Or Lowe's.
Speaker A:
Many of the right products are not on the shelf there to do as a professional would.
Speaker A:
It's more homeowner grade.
Speaker A:
And that's where the tough stuff is.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
And that's.
Speaker C:
Yeah, it's a shame.
Speaker C:
Yeah, it's effective.
Speaker C:
You want to do it cheap, you want to do it yourself.
Speaker C:
And they're going to give you just the right stuff to do it cheap and yourself, which is 90% of the time incorrect and gonna fail and gonna cause bigger problems than you ever wanted.
Speaker C:
Yeah, again, especially with the mold stuff, man, that's.
Speaker C:
It's so important.
Speaker A:
It really is.
Speaker A:
And it's just gonna cost you more money to have the abatement people go in there and fix it anyway.
Speaker A:
You know, it's the last one we have on the list I forgot to mention, is removing load bearing walls.
Speaker A:
There's a classic, my friend.
Speaker C:
I don't worry about it.
Speaker C:
Just rip it out.
Speaker A:
Just rip it out and before we go out here, we're running out of time.
Speaker A:
My favorite one was on YouTube.
Speaker A:
There was this shoe influencer.
Speaker A:
Yes, there's shoe influencers here in my area.
Speaker C:
And he was doing the wrong biz.
Speaker A:
Took the videos down because I called him out on the show.
Speaker A:
Johnny.
Speaker A:
He went in and cut all the trusses out of this house.
Speaker A:
Bring her two by four trusses on a single family ranch house.
Speaker A:
Cut it up to both the ceiling and then just put two by sixes on the sides with no collar tie in the middle and insulated and drywalled it.
Speaker A:
And I went, can you imagine the first time someone gets on that roof to inspect it?
Speaker C:
Oh, wow.
Speaker C:
Oh, wow.
Speaker A:
Someone was going to take the building down when they got on that roof.
Speaker A:
Because, dude, there was no triangulation of load in that.
Speaker C:
You're not building the tree for it.
Speaker C:
I'll tell you what.
Speaker C:
Let's do this.
Speaker C:
If you want to try doing things yourself, like vaulting a ceiling, roofing a house, put it in the front door.
Speaker C:
Start with a dollhouse or doghouse.
Speaker C:
Like, practice on that.
Speaker C:
Make it a big dog house.
Speaker C:
Yeah, but just, you know, so you can get a feel, like, oh, damn, I don't want to do that to the whole house.
Speaker A:
And that's why they created structural engineers to do that math for you.
Speaker C:
Indeed, my friend.
Speaker A:
Brother, we are out of time.
Speaker A:
This hour went so quickly.
Speaker A:
Thanks for coming on the show today.
Speaker A:
It's always appreciated.
Speaker A:
I always love having Johnny D. On the show with me.
