Insulation with Steve Spoon from Victory Insulation

This is episode number 172 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. So glad that you could join us for another episode live here from The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

And I'm doing good.

You got your volume up over there? I don't know.

Is it— is it too loud? What's happening?

It's on your computer.

It's on my computer.

What's going on? I'm just over here. You're gonna send back—

Acting like nothing. I don't know, man.

Look, come on, man.

I think we're good.

This is supposed to be a professional show.

Well, anybody who's listened to this show for very long knows that that's probably not the case. So yeah, we'll figure it out one way or the other.

Yeah.

Yeah. So No, I'm good. Christmas is over, which is weird because actually Christmas is not over whenever we're recording this. When we're recording, yeah. But whenever this goes live, this goes out on Tuesday, Christmas is over. So I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. Absolutely.

Time travel is difficult.

It's weird. It is weird, I'll tell you that.

Yeah.

So how are you doing?

I'm doing good, man. I, I had a weird experience today as, as a business person.

Okay.

So in the one hand, I had to fire somebody.

Oh no.

Not from my business.

Okay.

I had to fire a customer.

Ooh.

Yeah.

All right.

It sucked.

Okay, what— I mean, like, I need to know, it was— how bad did it get? That's what I need to— okay, someone's literally saying, come kill my bugs, and you're like, okay, well, I don't like you anymore. So how bad did this get?

Well, having done this for quite a while, yeah, I didn't let it get bad.

Okay.

You see the writing on the wall.

wall.

You see where this is going. It's not going to be pretty. You're not going to enjoy me. I'm definitely not going to enjoy you.

Right?

Let's— I'm just going to cut my losses and hope you find somebody that can help you. So yeah.

And so what— I mean, I need more details than that. What happened?

I can't give like too many details because it's somebody's, you know, private information. But like, basically, this person was wanting He wanted— he was wanting write-ups for every little thing that we did.

Okay.

And he was like, well, I don't trust that you did this, and so I want documentation for this, and I don't think that you did this right, and so I want documentation for this, and you need to make your terms and conditions more clear, and you need to make sure your warranties are clear, and da da da da da da. And it's like, look, we, we've explained all this stuff to you. If you're not happy with the way that we're doing things, that's fine. Like, right, we'll just move on. But like Once you've explained that to somebody, this, this is what's weird to me, is you know that they're not happy, right?

Yeah.

And, and you've done— gone above and beyond to try and make them so, right? And you know that they're not happy, yet they continue to call and want to use you. And then when they use— when they try and use your services, they do the same thing again and again and again. You have to let them go.

You have literally no other option at this point. Like, it comes to the point, it's like, I can't help you, right? I can't help you anymore.

Well, no, it's— for me, it's, you're going to make me miserable.

Sure.

And I don't have time for that.

And how am I not making you miserable?

But yeah, like, how do you not let me go yet? Like, like, I'm like, I'm raising my rates. I'm trying to do everything I can to get you to go away. And it's like, you're not, you're not getting the message. So I'm just apparently like, It's like that ugly girl in school that was—

That just won't go away.

That won't go away.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's almost racist right there.

Racist?

We gotta be careful talking about girls and women.

They were all white.

But they were all white, of course they were. All right, so here's the question.

Uh-huh.

How'd it go? Like, how did the firing go?

Fine.

They were fine with it?

No, they weren't fine with it.

Oh.

No, it was— but it's fine with me. They're not gonna call me again.

Okay.

So, and then the other— so like the flip side of that, I, I had a new customer, okay? And he, he calls me for like a specific service. And as I walk up to the property, I notice things that I can, I can tell that another company has done some things on the property.

Okay.

And rather than, you know, comment on it or any of those, I begin to ask questions. Like, hey, were you having— were you having problems before? I saw— I saw this on the porch. Did you get— and in this instance, it was a termite treatment.

Right.

I said, do you have issues with termites in the house before? Because it may not be him. I mean, it could be the previous owner.

Yeah.

All kinds of stuff.

Yeah.

And he's like, yeah, man, I paid beaucoup of money when I moved into this house because they told me I had termites really, really bad. And I said, oh, okay. Where's the sticker? And, like, if you're listening to this and you don't live in the state of Texas, I don't know your termite laws. in other states, but in the state of Texas, if you get a termite treatment, there has to be documentation that the house was treated. And it's usually done with a sticker underneath the sink, on the water heater, or in the electrical panel.

Right.

And so I said, cool, man, where did he put the sticker? And he goes, what sticker?

Uh-oh.

And I said, well, sometimes they put it in and they just don't let you know. Let me, let me check around and see what happened.

Yeah.

No sticker underneath the sink, no sticker underneath the electrical panel, no sticker on the, the hot water heater. And I'm like, bro, I don't, I don't think you got a good termite treatment. I'm like, do you mind me asking how much you paid for this thing? And it was like a third of what I would have charged for his house.

Mhmm.

And I'm like, man, that's a really good price. Did he, did he just do like a small area? Did he do— he's like, no, he did the whole house. And I said, do you have the invoice? And he's like, yeah. And so, again, in the state of Texas, I don't know how it is in other states, but if you do a standard termite treatment, Usually the chemical that you use provides you a 10-year warranty for the house. On the invoice, didn't even list the chemical that he used, which is a big no-no.

Oh no.

Like, we have to have all sorts of documentations as well as a disclosure document that the state provides that we have to give a copy for us, a copy to the customer, all this kind of stuff. And didn't list the chemical, didn't have a disclosure document, none of this kind of stuff. And I'm like, Bro, I don't know what this guy did. I don't know what he pumped underneath your house. I don't, I don't know what happened here. I mean, like, it's— and he was like, man, this, this— I use this guy because he lives in my neighborhood. He seemed like a really nice guy. I'm like, I'm sure he is a nice guy.

Sure.

I was like, but if I was you, I would send this guy an email. And here's the magic question: what chemical did you use? Could you send me the chemical that you used?

Right?

Because usually for pest control guys, that'll send red flags up all over the place. So like, and like, as I'm asking questions, this guy is getting more and more concerned about his home because he's like, what did I do? I mean, like, I dropped—

Because he, he thinks that he had termite issues.

Well, yeah, I don't even know if he did.

Who knows? Yeah, I mean, who knows if he got sold on something that he didn't actually need, or whether, you know, they, they just came in and did the treatment, so to speak, right? Or, or maybe he just got screwed altogether.

Could have been. So, and then, so that was number 2. Number 3 today.

All right.

So this was the confirmation that I had done the right thing.

Okay.

Well, I don't know. You could take this one of two ways, I guess. A friend of mine calls me and he goes, hey, Craig, I need you to come over to the house. I think I've got termites.

And I said, really?

Why do you think that? He goes, because I've got this box of Bibles in my garage and they've been eating them.

Oh, no.

And he goes, I need you to come save the Bibles.

Save the— Forget, forget the termites. Save the Bibles.

Absolutely. That's awesome.

I was like, I'm coming, I'm coming.

So, so let me get this straight. You went from insect micromanagement to saving the Bibles in an 8-hour time?

Yes, absolutely.

It's impressive.

That's awesome.

And for those of you who are wondering who the third voice is, we have a great guest tonight, Steve Spoon from Victory Insulation. That's right. Welcome to the show, man.

Thank you very much. Glad to have you, you know, have me out here and let's talk some buildings.

Yeah, so let's start here. Tell us a little bit about you.

Okay.

And we're talking insulation tonight, which you know plenty about. So tell us a little bit about you and how you got into the insulation business.

So funny story. I, you know, I always tell this story and I kind of jump in the middle, so I'll back up and I'll go to the beginning.

Pull it up just a little bit closer.

Okay, sorry.

Yeah, you're good.

Um, so I, uh, I was a police officer for almost 15 years, and, um, I left because of the politics, um, back in '04. Um, and I started my own business, and I did bed liners, and I worked for a great company called Ultimate Linings. And, um, this is kind of how I got into the chemical end of it. Um, if you've driven a Ford, Chevy, Dodge, or Toyota, I've had something to do with that spray-in bedliner at the factory level.

Oh, wow.

While I was working for them, my son was a senior at Oak Ridge High School, and he decided that he wanted to start his own business. And this is the middle, this is kind of where I jump in. So I told him no. And I'm like, I am not traveling all week and then coming home and then crawling in an attic. I'm not gonna do it. Well, here I'm crawling in attics every day now. So obviously he won out. But the thing, that got me was, is when he sat me down and said, Dad, I can work for Kroger, H-E-B, Walmart, and work all the time, and I could go work one job and make more than I'd

probably make in a month. And I went, okay, you get it.

Yeah, right.

All right, I'm in. So that's kind of how we did it, and, and, uh, that's kind of how Victory Insulation started about 7 years ago. Right. And then, um, we've been really rocking and rolling full-time, um, since, uh, the, the plague. Yeah, you know, came out, right?

Yeah.

And so, um, so you guys were what, 4 years old by the time COVID hit?

Right. And it was— we'd come home and, and it was always the, you do, um, you know, grandpa's house and grandpa's friends and then aunts and uncles and aunts and uncles' friends. And it was only word of mouth. We didn't advertise. And we always did some work. And, um, when I came home, it was funny, you know, my wife's like, hey, great, you're, you're on unemployment and everything, but, uh, what's the plan, right? And so I'm like, well, the plan I guess is that truck out there, you know, I'm gonna give this a run. And I've always kind of had a little bit of an entrepreneurial spirit to me anyway from, you know, when I was little. And, uh, so I started, you know, Facebook ad, and

I started spraying Sheila She Sheds, 2 a day, every day. And I just kept— it just grew, you know.

And when you say spraying Sheila She Sheds—

Spray foam insulation.

Spray foam.

Okay. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, you're fine.

Yeah. And so, um, you know, my wife is like, hey, Skippy, nobody's gonna spend money. Everybody's afraid, right?

Right.

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, Let's give it a shot, right? And, and, uh, you know, I was spraying those for about $2,000 a pop, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. I was doing it by myself. And then it snowballed. What would happen is once I kind of did a bunch of that, then they were calling me back going, my house is incredibly hot, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then so I started doing houses. And then from that we started doing fiberglass insulation. And then from that we started doing cellulose insulation and And it just, it kept growing, but I refused to grow too much because I don't want to be that business that's got 14 trucks and 300 employees and you lose the connection with your customer as what you just got done speaking about, right?

Mm-hmm.

You know, one of the greatest things that I will say about our company is that when we do work for you, you kind of become part of the Victory family. You, you, we, we have a touch, right? And, and that, that turns into that friendship, and that friendship turns into advice. And there's— I have customers call me all the time that I've spray foamed their house like a year, 2 years ago, and they'll be like, do you have a plumber?

Right.

I'm looking for a pest control guy, or I'm looking for, you know, a window company. Who do you know? And, and it, it, it leads to that that, that communion, right? And then I think I try to foster that because I want my customers to be happy. I want my customers to sell that house and go to the next house.

Yeah.

And so with that, I don't— I'm not a salesman, I'm an advocate. When I go in your house, I'm truly on an advocate mode. And that, I think that's what fosters that friendship, that trust that comes along with that. Yeah.

Well, that's good. I mean, I, I think that, you know, it's, it's really weird what happened. You mentioned how, how during COVID you know, your wife was like, ah, no one's gonna spend money. But what, what we have found talking to contractors and, and people that, that we associate with on, on the show is they were so stinking busy because people were at home going, man, it feels weird in this house. I need some insulation. Or where did these bugs come from? Like, I need a pest control guy. Or goodness gracious, that wall looks terrible.

We need to remodel this house.

And like, all of a sudden, contractors were getting calls left and right, because a lot of people were still getting paid. They were just getting paid to sit at home and do their work rather than going into an office.

Oh, absolutely. And so then you sit home at noon in July or August, the hottest month, and you're looking at each other, you and your wife, and you're like, oh my God, is it always this hot?

Yeah.

So then what would happen is I'd get there and there'd be a new AC unit already sitting, right? Or, or I'd get there and they'd have no insulation, but the AC unit is like ancient or whatever, you know? And, and people are checking that off the list, right?

Yeah, what's next? What—

yeah, right. How do I, how do I get this house more efficient? And, and it's, it's amazing. I'll go into a house and go up there and, you know, they'll have 12, 14 inches of blown insulation and they're like, okay, What do I do? And I'm like, well, in reality, in the norm of insulation, of traditional insulation, you're good. You have something else going on, right? And then, you know, we'd bring in like my AC guy or their AC guy and we'd start, what's going on here? You know, is this unit actually working properly or is it like a million years old and it's on its last leg and it's doing what it can do, right?

Yeah, I think, so when it comes to insulation, I think this is one of those industries where people don't realize the value of insulation.

Absolutely.

Until they get their heating or air conditioning bill and they go, golly, why is my bill so expensive? You know?

But the problem that you have is, I believe that you don't realize how bad it is.

Well, 'cause you don't ever see your attic. You're not up there very often, right?

Well, right, but your bill just slowly grows.

That's true.

as your insulation value is dropping, your bill's slowly going up, and you just accept it.

Mm-hmm.

And then pretty soon you're like, wow, you know? And somebody says, yeah, my, my, my, you know, my AC bill a month in, in August is $150. And then you're like, what?

Yeah.

What? Why is mine $350 or whatever, right? And, and I have a friend of mine, I, I won't mention his name, but, um, he's like, people's bills are only like $150? And I'm like, yeah, what's yours? He's like, almost $400. I'm like, holy crap. So my friend that owns an AC company, um, Brian Gessner, and I, we run over there and I go up there and he's got like 3 inches of insulation.

So—

Oh man, is that like, when you say 3 inches, is that like blown in? Is that—

Yeah.

Okay.

That was blown insulation. And so Here, here's, you know, kind of a funny fact that most people don't realize, and I'm going to date myself. Yeah, I'm— I was there with Christ at the beginning. Um, but back in the Reagan era, um, they had a program called Blue Star Energy Homes.

Mm-hmm.

And I don't know, you guys might not remember that, but they were giving out tax breaks to insulate your house, to energy improve your home. And all these insulation companies had these crazy, crazy claims. So the US Energy Department did a study in a 2x4 wall, and they gave you exactly what the R-value was, right? Well, in that study, they came out and they basically said that if fiberglass insulation settles 2 inches, you've lost 80% of your R-value.

Oh my gosh.

Now, as a pest control guy, right?

Yeah.

You're in an attic all the time. So how many times you crawl up in an attic and look across that, that sea of rafters and all you see is lumber, right?

Yeah.

They have no insulation. It's there, but it's all compacted. It's all compressed. It's gone. It's done.

Now, does it compress because of moisture or is it just time?

Oh, it's time. Time and heat.

Okay.

Heat, if you go up, So in the old days, insulation used to be itchy and scratchy and nasty, right? Well, that was the chemical that they used to bind the fiberglass together with. Now they use a cellulose product, and the cellulose is a sugar product, right?

Right.

And so as it gets hot and, and age with the, the gravity and the moisture and the heat, it will kind of crust and kind of fall.

Right?

So there's some of the things. So if you go up in your attic and you stick your hand in your insulation and that top part of it feels kind of crusty, yeah, you're kind of in trouble, right?

And at that point, when you're— and we're still talking about blown-in, correct?

Absolutely.

If it's doing— at that point, the only thing you can do is remove it, replace, right?

Well, a lot of people, what they'll do is they'll top on top of it.

Okay.

And here's what I say to that. Yeah, you can do that maybe once, but you start doing that 2 and 3 times, you're just, you're creating a base of nothing.

Yeah.

And then you're creating your insulation value, right? And so you really want to, you know, I go up in attics all the time and I'll dig around and I'll find like 3 different colors of insulation. Well, that means that they've topped this thing off 3 times, right? So probably the first 6 to 8 inches of insulation has no value.

Right? Okay.

Now, we already know that blown insulation should be at minimum 12 inches to 14 inches to create the R-value that you're really looking for. Now, I know that this goes out to everywhere, so every place has a different, you know, code, right?

Yeah.

So, like, here in Houston is R-21 minimum, right? The norm that everybody tries to achieve is about R-38. R-30 to R-38, which is 12 to 14 inches of blown insulation.

Okay.

So it gives you kind of an idea.

Okay, so I, I'll just be honest with you. Um, I don't have a clue what you just said as far as R-value goes.

Okay.

And I think there's probably a lot of people out there going, I understand that there's something related to insulation called R-value.

And it sounds like the high numbers are better than the low numbers.

Right.

I'm going, okay, I think the more— the higher the R, the better. But can you kind of explain that for a minute?

So, um, I would like to say that I'm like this really smart genius dude that, that knows all of the yada yada yada. But really, um, to make this very simple, the R-value is resistance between hot and cold. Okay, let's just, let's just use that because that's the simplest thing. Now, R-values is— and I'm going to take it one step further— R-value really is a poor method of valuing insulation because R-value works well for like a cellulose or a fiberglass, but it does not work well for a spray foam.

Okay.

It just does not because like an R-value, R-21, um, you know, or something like that is code and, and you can, you can achieve. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to Let me retract that. What we're trying to do is we're trying to get the temperature from mitigating from point A to point B, right?

Okay.

I mean, that's what we're trying to do in insulation world.

Yeah.

And then we get into air barriers and stuff like that. But in reality, foam insulation, so fiberglass insulation is like 32% effective. Foam insulation is 92% effective.

Hmm.

So 1 inch of spray foam insulation is 92% effective, which gives you an R-value of 7. 1 inch of fiberglass is, you know, I can't tell you off top of my head. I know 3.5 is R-11 in reality, but it gives— the foam gives you the, the air barrier difference, right? So that creates even more of a value. And that's why R-value is really an arcade kind of thought process, because there's too many different insulations now that give you different—

Yeah.

Bonus parts, right? So 1 inch of closed-cell foam insulation is 92% effective, and it's going to give you an R-value, the feel-like R-value, of like 40 Whereas it's only really R-7. So that's why I'm saying is it's, it's, it's kind of an arcade, the olden days method process.

Yeah, so we've got, we've got multiple different types of insulation.

Absolutely.

Let's go through them for a minute. So blown, you got blown-in, you got cellulose and fiberglass, right? Right.

So blown-in insulation is loose fiber insulation that you process through a machine Right? It comes in a brick, you process it through a machine, and it comes out like snow.

Okay.

Right?

Yeah.

So fiberglass in itself has no R-value. Zero.

Okay.

And I mean that big zero.

Okay.

The R-value in blown fiberglass is the air trapped.

Okay.

So that's why it has to be fluffy. So I go in and I blow your house, and then you come in thinking you're smart and then deck on top of it. You crush that fiberglass And that square now has pretty much zero R-value.

Okay.

Makes sense? Yeah.

Right, yeah.

Okay. So then you have cellulose. Cellulose is 100% recyclable paper soaked in boracic acid, which gives it a fire rating, extra 24 minutes, 23, 24 minutes of fire protection above and beyond what, you know, you normally would have.

Okay.

So those are the 2 types of blown insulation that most people will do. And you can, as a DIY person, You can go to Home Depot, rent a machine, and go do either one of these yourselves.

Okay.

Please wear protective.

Yes.

Right? Don't breathe this stuff, right? And, and a lot of people go, well, it's paper, it's dust. Yeah, but it's fine material dust with boratic acid that's going in. He's a pest control guy.

It eats you up.

Yeah, it's very cancerous. It's not good stuff.

So let me ask you this before we go to a different type of insulation.

Go ahead.

If, if I were bringing you over to my house and let's say we just remove all the old insulation, so we're gonna start from scratch, would you try to, uh, encourage me to go with cellulose or fiberglass and why?

I'll tell you, going back to fiberglass has zero R-value, right? So between the temperature of 30 below zero and 150 degrees, fiberglass insulation has a R-value. Now look, we live in Houston, right? We don't see below 30, but every attic in Houston in August that's not spray foamed and temperature controlled can hit 150 all day long, right?

Oh, easy.

So you lose your R-value at 150. Cellulose, due to the fact that it is a paper product, I mean, back in the Depression, they used to take newspapers and just pack 'em in the wall, right?

Yep, yeah.

and an R-value. So if I were to, if we were looking at good, better, and best, I would look at fiberglass as good.

Okay.

Better would be cellulose.

Okay.

Because as cellulose compacts, it loses some of its R-value. Excuse me. But it still has a better R-value, staying R-value, than what fiberglass does.

Okay. So, so we got right here, we got fiberglass, we got cellulose. Cellulose is a little bit better.

Absolutely.

It's also a little more expensive.

No. It's less expensive, okay. No, no, no, it's right in the same dollar figure as— It's equal.

Yeah.

Okay, all right. So let's go to another type of insulation. Let's talk, let's go spray foam. That's the easiest, probably the next thing that most people would understand. So let's talk about spray foam.

So there's 2 types of spray foam. There's open cell and there's closed cell. Number one, if you are doing anything underneath of a house, And please, if you're doing anything underneath the house, contact your local pest control person and have them come out and do a termite treatment before you spray a crawl space, anything of that nature.

Oh yeah.

Because then the foam gives them an environment that they'll just thrive in.

Yep.

Right?

Yep, absolutely.

Okay, so now that I got my disclaimer out of the way, I made the pest control guy happy, right?

Get it inspected. That's really, yeah.

Right. Well, I, I actually make people either sign off and tell me that they've had it done.

Oh, really?

Or they take the responsibility that it's on them.

Just take the liability.

Right. Because to me, I, as, as I said earlier, I really go at things that advocate mentality. Um, so there's 2 types. There's open cell, closed cell. Open cell, think of like your mattress, your pillow, right? Absorbs moisture, it's open, it's a sponge. Closed cell is, is actually that. It is a closed cell. It's very dense. It's, it's a moisture barrier. Um, so in, in wall cavities, I spray open cell. Um, I'm not a big fan of open cell because you don't gain enough R-value as opposed to the closed cell.

Okay. Uh, but do you do the open cell in the walls because you want that moisture to be able to, to kind of trickle down to the bottom.

And if we were in Michigan, Alaska, Canada, I would be closed cell all the way, and I wouldn't want anything to do with open cell at all. Now, a lot of my spray foam people will roll their eyes and tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about, but the reason I, I— open cell's a little bit less expensive to apply, applicate walls, and we're in Texas. We're not trying to keep out that north wind that's blowing 30 miles an hour at 30 below zero kind of mentality.

Right.

Um, closed-cell foam is a higher R-value. It's a natural moisture barrier. Like, if, if your house was flooded from Ike or Harvey or the Tax Flood or whatever, yeah, I would try to talk you into going to closed-cell foam so you'll never have to replace your insulation again. If your house floods again, everything else can be dried out, the insulation can stay where it's at. Okay.

Okay, well, let me ask this then, because You just said something there that you would never have to replace it. So how often should I be replacing blown-in? And so, because a lot of people are gonna listen to this and go, yeah, I had a quote for spray foam and it's 3 times the amount or whatever, I don't know what the difference is, but it's a lot more expensive.

Right.

Than doing blown-in. But what you're telling me is if you're gonna live in your house for a while, it might be worth the investment. Is that what you're saying?

Oh, absolutely. So here's, let's answer the first question. How often should I be looking at my insulation, right? And I think that on an average, what I like to tell people is every 5 years. You should have somebody come out and look at your insulation every 5 years, right? Because if it settles more than 2 inches, right, you're losing 80% of your R-value. Now your light bill's gonna start getting stupid, right? You know, I say every 5 years, right? We kind of covered, you can top off insulation, you know, maybe once, twice is kind of getting a little risky. But, you know, that's kind of where I draw personally as a professional, I draw the line at twice. Okay.

Right.

If I come up there on the third time, I'm gonna have issue.

Okay.

Right.

I'm gonna tell you upfront, I don't believe we should do this, but you wanna do this, this is on you. But I'm telling you right now, this is not what I believe is right.

Yeah.

If we go to spray foam, that's a lifetime deal.

Okay.

It's never gonna go away. You don't lose your R-value. It's good forever, basically. I mean, by the time that you get sick of that house and move out, it's still gonna be good, right?

Yeah, that's good. Okay, well, let me ask you this. So we've got our resident home inspector commenting.

Yeah, I wanna go back to her.

Sure.

Yeah, I'm gonna go back and ask. First of all, she said, you're spot on. your full inspection should happen every 5 years on this. So she's really happy with you on that. But, um, do you know—

have you, have you met Ricky?

I have not.

No, she'll find something wrong with your house.

Yeah, yeah, she will.

She, in fact, she said, she said she almost always sees, uh, uh, spray foam— when she sees it in walls, it's almost always installed incorrectly, is what she said.

It happens.

So here's, here was her question. Uh, she said, is open cell foam supposed to have a spray coating?

Um, it depends on the code.

Okay.

Okay, so most foams don't have a high burn, um, ratio on it, and, and what they're depending upon a lot of times— like, now I'm speaking from Houston, Texas, right? So please don't hammer me if you're from Ontario, Canada, that has— yeah, I'm just making that up, right? A totally different code, right? But Most foams do not have an E85 coating in it, which is a burn rating coating.

Right.

So if we go to a Buffalo Wild Wings, I'm going to pick on Buffalo Wild Wings, but most of them are spray foamed.

They've earned it. It's fine.

Yeah.

And if you look up, it's all painted black and that's that thermal coating.

Okay. Right.

Yeah. So this all goes back to the fire that happened in the '80s in New Jersey that the bar was all spray foamed and the pyrotechnics caught it on fire and it killed all those people.

Yeah.

This is where this all comes from.

Okay.

Right.

So, um, one person always got to ruin the party.

Oh, there's a whole bunch of people, right? It's, it's that typical, you know, absolutely. Um, so no, it doesn't have to have a coating, um, because you're using your, um, your drywall as your burn barrier. Okay, right. Yeah, because a 3/8 sheet of drywall has an X amount of time burn barrier on it. And that's, and that's like I said, that's, that's here's code. Now you might get In a different area, California, New York, whatever, they might have a totally different code, and it might require a burn coating, which is it's it's painted on just like paint.

Okay.

Well, she's saying she's saying yeah, she completely understands that with commercial because that makes sense. Absolutely. What about what about residential though?

Nope.

No. Okay.

And and and once again, I'm talking Houston. Houston's code.

Absolutely. Right.

Yeah.

Because is it easy? I mean, like, even in Texas, I mean, there might be a difference between like Houston and like, say, Dallas.

Well, give you an idea. Austin's blown insulation is R-49.

Really?

But Houston's still R-21.

Wow.

The common on the builders is R-38.

Okay.

So code can be one thing. And if you're up that or above, you're better, right?

Right.

So I mean, it's just—

So why did Austin— why did—

It's Austin.

Is it just because it's Austin?

Yeah.

Okay. That, I mean, that actually makes sense to me.

Well, and, and so, so the building code nuisance, however, a little bit.

No offense, however, a little bit. No, no, no. I mean—

Okay. No, no, no.

I mean, Sarah lives there. It's every offense.

Yeah.

Every offense. Well, and here's the thing is, is code change generally generates from the West and the East Coast.

Yeah.

And they collapse to the middle.

Yep.

Right? And so the new building code is supposed to go into effect. It was supposed to go in 2020 where every furnace had to have a fresh air return on. every new build had to have a fresh air return, and it's still not that way yet, right? So, I mean, there's some stuff that coronavirus kind of gacked with, right?

Well, and like, there's— there is this kind of weird thing where you can pass all the, you know, regulations you want. What kind of enforcement do you have on that, right? What kind of— I mean, like, really?

Absolutely. I mean, and so, you know, like, it doesn't have any teeth.

You're just not going to get it— make it happen.

Absolutely. And some municipalities are great to work with, and they're they're very open. And, and they, you know, like, I'll tell you, um, Jersey Village, uh, somebody did some, um, uh, remodel work to a, uh, I guess a nightclub or a bar, and they needed a burn rating coating. And, you know, I called the guy up and I'm like, look, this is what I— this is what I'm offering. You know, I'm not in the middle of the— I don't want to be in the middle of a fight.

Right.

this, you know, I've got X, this is what it is. What do I need to make you happy? And they were like, send me the specs. And so I sent him specs and he called me right back up and he goes, yeah, let's, let's make sure it has a burn rating of X, Y, and Z and we're good. I'm like, sweet, right?

Yeah.

But then, you know, you, you run into a county inspector or a city inspector somewhere and they, they really don't know, or they think they know and they really don't know. And They're in left field, and then you're fighting with them, right? And because you're trying to do the right thing. Yeah, it all goes back to that, right?

Absolutely.

Well, let me tell you what, like, you have, you have made a believer out of yourself to Ricky. She wants to meet you. She's gone. She's got— this guy knows a lot. I want to know what he knows. And she's a home inspector. She's very, very—

Let's get this on camera. Yeah, I mean, I got, I got a card. Right there. I'm gonna give it to you.

Yeah, we'll get, we'll get it over to you. Don't worry. Don't worry.

That's awesome. Well, Ricky, here's what I say. I say that home inspectors are the first line of defense for the homeowner. And if you're a good home inspector, you know, you are always seeking knowledge.

Yeah.

Right? And, and I've met some really, really good ones.

Yeah.

I've met some that I probably wouldn't throw water on them if they were on fire because, I mean, they're in it for a check, right? Right, right.

Oh yeah.

But, you know, I mean, with every industry that there is— pest control, you know, computer, you know, marketing, you know, insulation— you, you have really great people and you have some really poor people. What I have found in the years that I've been doing this is spray foam people generally are very educated, um, very self-aware and conscious of what they're doing. Because if we're not, we put ourselves in a really bad spot quickly. Because foam, if it's not done properly— I had somebody ask me this question just the other day. Well, if foam is the greatest thing since sliced bread, why is there so many lawsuits?

Yeah.

It's because the applicator's not doing the job Properly, right? So if you're out there and you're looking for a foam insulator, first thing, first question I would ask them is, A, what brand foam are you using?

Okay.

And if it's not an American brand, that's not your guy, right? Because even though China and Dubai and, and, you know, you're— they're bringing all these chemicals in, they're still blending them here, right? There's still the quality control checks in place. That chemical, when it's in a drum going to said consumer, it's right. It's going to perform proper, right?

Yeah.

You buy something out of a container that came from Beijing, you don't know what you get, right? That drum set might be perfect and the next 3 might be just horrible.

Yeah, well, that's— I mean, that's, that's really, really good information. In fact, one of the things that we love most about what we do is getting to educate our, our listeners.

Yeah, absolutely.

On how to own their home better. And you just put out a huge nugget there of just things to ask. Like, how do you know? Because maybe, maybe our listener isn't from Houston, right? So, so how do you know the questions to ask? And, and that's a, that's a really big one. That's really, really—

Where's the chemical coming from?

That's a huge one. Absolutely. I, I, in fact, I asked that question of any insulation, right? Blown insulation.

Okay.

Bat insulation. What, what brand am I getting, right? I mean, everybody knows what the pink stuff is, right? I mean, everybody gets that. I mean, that was the greatest marketing idea in the, in the late '70s that anybody ever came out with, right?

Pink Panther.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, think about it, right? I mean, you see pink insulation, hey, that's Ornicorn, right? That's good stuff. But, you know, Jet, uh, Stream, you know, John Manville's a great company. Right? It's a— it's an American-owned company. You know, these are the questions I ask.

Yeah, right.

What insulation would I be getting? It's the same thing as if I asked you about, you know, pest control, right?

Yeah.

Where's that chemical made? Yeah, right. Because I don't want anything that's coming from somewhere else in the world. I want something homegrown that I know that has my—

There's quality control with that, right?

Yeah, my, my safe and health you know, in mind when they, they, they do this, right?

Yeah, like for us, a lot of times people are very concerned about the active ingredient in, in the pesticides that we're using, which, which is valid. That's it. That's something to be completely concerned about. The one I'm more concerned about is the inert ingredients, the stuff that they're not listing. Yeah, on, on that.

And why aren't they listing them?

Well, I mean, like every, every company does that, you know, because like every, every, everything has an inert ingredient.

Sure.

But when it's an American company, you can get the MSDS on that and find out exactly what's going on. Some of these other companies, you can't get it.

Sure.

So I actually want to— I want to ask you something about the, the spray foam because this is something I ran into recently. And I've seen plenty of spray foams. I had one the other day. Gal was asking me to go take a look at something in the attic, you know, which happens all the time. And so I was going up the ladder in the garage Which on these, these ranch-style homes, this is kind of, you know, you probably experienced this. Sometimes it's like in a hallway, but a lot of times in these new houses, it's in the garage.

Absolutely.

So I go up the garage and there's the void over the garage. And then to my right is a door. And I'm like, well, that's kind of weird. So I opened the door. And as soon as I opened the door, cold air.

Yeah.

All over the top of me. And I go in and there's a send and there's a return. And I'm like, well, this is beautiful, you know. And so I go in and I, you know, it's really easy to inspect because you see where, you know, something's been chewing on the foam or whatever.

Absolutely.

And so I come downstairs and I'm like, why is there a send in the return? And she goes, I don't know, it's been like that since I bought it. So I start, you know, like kind of like on the show, I start asking questions to guys. I'm like, why is this going? I've never seen this before. They're like, well, you have to do that when you seal it off, otherwise you're just going to create this massive mold, mildew You know, cocoon in the house, right? So if you're then moving from, you know, say, you know, standard, you know, removing that roll-up insulation, or you're pulling out blown-in insulation, are you then having to, you know, partner with like an AC

company in order to—

I do.

To, to do that kind of insulation?

I do. So I partner with, uh, can I say a name? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. So Brian Gessner is a very good friend of mine. And when a lot of AC people, when they hear foam, they freak out because it's the typical, I don't know.

Yeah.

So I'm afraid of what I don't know. And Brian, when we first met a couple years ago, he was like, I love working with foam guys. A, you don't have to have as big a unit. B, you know, I mean, it's just, he just goes down the line, right?

Yeah.

And the guy's, he grew up in the AC business. He's very intelligent. And I always think it's funny is because there's, There's a system that his company does, and they call it the spoon.

Okay.

Right? Because I call in, I'm like, hey, 123 ABC Avenue, I need— and they're like, do you need the spoon? I'm like, yep, I need the spoon. They're like, okay, how many units? How many water heaters? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right?

And it's, you know, and so it's now kind of a joke. But, um, the, the thing of it is, is you have to do something with that air.

Okay.

Right?

Yeah.

Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to create— so you have the hot air.

Is this with either kind of spray-in?

Yeah.

Okay.

Any type, because what you're doing is you're encapsulating that attic.

Right.

And that attic is gonna be sealed tight, right? There's no airflow, right? So wherever your heat goes, your humidity, everything goes up, right? Now it's trapped, so it just becomes this greenhouse effect up there. But if you lower that temperature, right, then, then you get the, the spectrum's not as far apart. What happens is you don't have the moisture because you're conditioning that, right?

Yeah.

So there, there are systems where people go up there and they put a return and they treat it just like another room in the house.

Yeah.

I don't go that far because I don't think you have to go that far because I want that house to breathe to the attic. I want it to go back and forth. You'll have a lot of foam guys that'll go, oh, that's incorrect. You gotta seal that off. It's gotta be its own domain. And I just, in our world, with the humidity and the heat that we have, I don't believe you need to do that.

Why are they wanting to do it though?

Because they feel like that you have to condition that attic to one temperature.

Are they, are they trying to get more control? Is that—

I think so.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, but you just, you just don't find that to be necessary?

Not where we're at now. In a colder region, maybe you do need to do that.

Okay.

But I, I, I operate in my world, right? My world's the swamp in Houston.

Yeah.

Right. So, um, and a lot of people will go, oh, all that insulation's got to come out, right? Because what it's going to do is it's going to create a barrier and this, that, and the other thing. And Really not. It doesn't. But even if I did take all the old insulation out, I would still beg you— I'll tell you the story here in a minute— to put some type of insulation back over the bedrooms at least. Because what happens is all the noise in the house turns into a theater.

It's an echo chamber, right?

Absolutely. Nobody needs that coming from the bedrooms.

I'm just saying.

So you want to hear the story?

Yeah, of course.

Of course we do.

After that intro, Yes, we want to hear the story.

So I'm in West Texas and I'm teaching a gentleman— well, I'll leave names unsaid— to spray polyurethane in, um, containments, you know, for tanking containments. And his wife, we've had a few drinks, and she's like, hey, hey, keeps hitting him, tell the story. And I'm like, yeah, tell the story.

Come on.

So brand new build, ranch-style home. master's on— master, kitchen, common, 3 bedrooms. The adult children come home, they're in the far side of the house. Well, mom and dad decide to go knock boots at Christmas time, and they had to listen to all of it.

Yeah. Oh, right.

And so the guy's mad, he calls up and he's like, you got to come out here, and this foam's messed up. And he's like livid, right? And he comes out, and the whole time he says— I'm driving out there and I'm thinking, What's wrong with the phone, right? So he gets out there and the wife can't look at him, right? She's mortified, right? The adult children are like, oh, this is just bad. Can, can we just tear the presents open and go home, please? You know, so they ended up blowing some insulation over all the bedrooms just to eat the sound, right?

Right.

So I'm a big believer in If that insulation isn't full of mouse and, and, and droppings and urine and that kind of stuff, it's fine.

Yeah, right.

Because I, I'm gonna put something up there anyway to eat the sound up.

Yeah.

So why not?

Well, let me ask you this question while we're there. That's a great story, by the way. Let me ask this question. So, uh, what if, what if I did have like a theater room or something like that and I wanted to insulate it a little bit differently? What would you What would you recommend in order for sound barrier?

So I would do 1 inch of closed-cell foam insulation.

Okay.

Because that gives you the, the actual air barrier. It's not going to travel. And then I would use Rockwool insulation. Now a lot of people are like, Rock what? It is actually a wool product, and, and it's been around since, you know, Christ was corporeal.

It's been—

I've looked into Rockwool a little bit. It's been around forever, but nobody really uses it anymore.

It's because it's not— it's, it's more expensive than what the traditional fiberglass is.

Okay.

Right, because it costs more to make, right?

Yeah.

But, um, I did some research, um, on this for a gentleman, and, um, I found out that's how they insulate operating rooms and movie theaters.

Okay.

It's 1 inch of closed-cell foam and then the rock wall, the high-decibel rock wall on top of it, and the The foam is not allowing the air to move, to travel the sound, and then the Rockwool is just absorbing as much vibration as it can.

So does that go up sort of like sheetrock, or is it— how does it install?

It's more like batt, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

It's exactly batt.

It's like sheathing?

No, it just rolls out just like batt insulation, and you just staple it in, the Rockwool does. And we spray the foam in between and then apply the batt.

Okay.

Okay, so, uh, that, that's great information, by the way. Um, but next we got bad insulation, right?

Yeah.

So that— I mean, traditionally, I would assume— let me tell you this. So if you were to go up in my attic right now, you would, you would not be happy with me. Um, because, uh—

I mean, right? Come on, right?

You wouldn't be happy with me because I didn't do this. But what's interesting is you go up there and it's like It's—

it—

I need more insulation, right? It's— it is what it is. But, um, every once in a while there'll be this roll of batt insulation just there, and I'm like, what? Why is that there? It's just someone was like, you know what, I think we need some batt insulation right here. There.

Okay.

For no reason.

Okay, Ricky, Ricky, you're gonna have to back me up on this. Seriously. I mean, You just don't randomly roll this stuff out, right?

Yeah, there's got to be a reason, right?

Well, you would think, but the, the kicker of it is, is, um—

That's where the animal died.

I bet you're right.

Yeah, I'm not gonna look under there. I'll let you come look under there.

Oh yeah, yeah, the things that we find in it, it's scary. Um, so bad insulation has its place, okay? And a lot of people DIY people roll batt out in an attic and they think they're doing themselves a favor and they're really not because that 2x4 joist does have an R-value, but it is so very low. And what it does is it creates a wicking effect, right? And I don't know if y'all have ever been out to a house before that's sweating like that, but you'll see the, the joists in the ceiling, right?

Right.

So that's why everybody really blows batt Blown insulation in attics is 'cause you're creating that blanket effect, right? The whole thing's covered. Bad insulation generally is more of a wall insulation. In reality, I mean, I don't know a builder that would be like, oh, you know, let's do it that way, because in reality it's not that good.

Yeah, and really they make it a certain width for the walls, right? It's 16 inches or whatever it is. No, they make it, They make it different, but they do. But, but the reality of it is, I mean, it's, it's, it's almost the perfect size for putting it up between your framing, right? Okay.

Right.

Um, well, they do make it the size to go in the ceiling.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, well, and I think, I think some people do it for like, you know, hunting cabins or, you know, when they're doing like cheap builds or—

You're a DIY person instead of renting The equipment and going through it. They'll just go get BAT and roll it out, right? And are they helping themselves some? Sure, a little. But in reality, you're not getting the effect that you're wanting in the long run.

Yeah, it's almost like you're just wasting money to do this. I mean, it is not that it's not helping at all, but it's definitely not giving you what you could have done if you would have done something different, right?

Absolutely.

Right.

Absolutely.

All right, so there's BAT. Just know that's primarily for walls. So next, I guess we've got like rigid foam board, right?

Yeah, you know, when you're going into the rigid foam board and that mentality, what you're really gonna wanna do is, that's on the building effect.

Okay.

Right? You're gonna wanna employ that, you know, on your sheeting on the outside.

Okay.

And you're gonna be using that more as a moisture barrier insulation across there, and then you're gonna Tyvek across that.

Right.

So always remember, DIYers, please always remember when you're putting up foam boarding, you need to duct tape the seams because you're trying to use that as an air barrier as the best possibly can.

Right.

Okay. So I—

Now you don't find that much in Houston.

Okay.

Now think about that. You know, you're, you're a pest control guy and you're out there and you're, you're termite, right? And people pulling houses apart, you don't find a lot of foam board on houses.

Yeah, so I will tell you, like, the way we do things now, we don't have to take many houses apart anymore. I mean, it just—

That's a good thing.

It rarely happens. Well, most of it's due to early detection. I mean, you know, you see it early, figure it out, solve it early. Yeah, just before they start eating the house. But anyway.

So, all right, now we get to your favorite topic, 'cause I've talked to you about this before, which is radiant barrier.

Oh, so I'm gonna make people's heads explode.

Do it, please do it.

All right, so radiant barrier has its place in this world. I'm trying to be polite, aren't I?

Yeah.

And it's not, it's not gonna happen.

Let's try to be polite.

Yeah, it's not gonna happen.

Here we go. All right, do your best.

So let's do this. If you take a baked potato, wrap it in aluminum foil, put it in the oven, 350 degrees, cooked, right? Reach in there, you can pick it up and just Barely grab it, pull it out, it's not gonna burn you too badly, right?

Yeah.

Not a big deal, right? Cut it open, put all the chives and the sour cream and the butter and it all spills over, then grab that aluminum foil. It's gonna burn the living bejeebies out of you, right?

Yeah. Right?

Because there's a protein that's gonna allow the aluminum to hold the heat now.

To stay hot.

Right. So we put aluminum, you know, radiant barrier in your attic, right?

Yeah. Great.

First year, it's gonna work just fine. And then it's going to get dirty. Now it has a protein on it that's going to let it do what? Hold the heat.

Right.

So now we're just heating our attic.

You've just made an oven out of your attic. I mean, it's already hot. Now you've made it an oven.

Right, right.

What— so did they not know this when they started?

Is it—

I mean, you know, unforeseen circumstances, maybe we're dealing with—

I mean, maybe, you know, I don't want to stand here And think that people did this with ill intent.

Sure.

But man, they marketed the crap out of it.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Oh yeah. And you can go into a lot of attics and see it stapled up, right?

I tear— I bet I tear $10,000 worth of radiant barrier out of houses a year.

Really?

Yeah.

And people are just— they're pissed because it doesn't work worth a hoot. And just go up there and actually add real honest-to-God traditional insulation and put an attic fan in, and their light bill drops in half because they got rid of the radiant barrier, and now they're ventilating that attic, right? I'd say about 80% of the, the attics in Houston don't breathe properly.

Yeah, we just installed an attic fan not long after we moved in because you'd go up into that place, it was just ridiculous, and It was a solar fan, wasn't it? Yeah, it was solar. It's super awesome. It doesn't, you know, it's got a thermostat on it and it's all that. And it was like, I don't know, it was like $1,000 and put it in. You actually install attic fans, don't you?

I do, I do. You know, I'm a firm believer, if you don't want to go down the road of foam, which is an investment, right? I mean, you have to be in your house more than 5 years to get the ROI Out of foam. Sure. I mean, it's just—

That's not very long, actually.

No, no, but think about it. If I, if I turned right around and told you I was going to cut your light bill anywhere between 30% and 50% a year, what would you do?

Well, yeah.

You'd jump on it, right?

Sure.

But knowing that it might cost you $8,000 to $10,000 up front, you know, it's going to take you 5 years of 50%. 30% to 50%. Yeah, absolutely, right? So that, you know, When, when I'm sitting down with a family, that's one of the first things I ask is, this house, are you going to be here for the next 10 years?

Yeah.

Right. And if they go, no, I'm like, we don't need to go down this road.

Yeah.

Because you're just never going to see the benefits out of it. Right. So, you know, there's number one. Number 2 is, um, the attics in Houston do not breathe properly. You do not get enough airflow with just a ridge vent and soffits for the heat that we deal with. You've got to get that heat out of there so that unit is not working, you know, in stupid conditions. I mean, John Carrier was a smart man, right? He invented air conditioning. Yep. Yeah.

Thank you.

But where in the world did we ever think that we were going to take the coldest air in the world and stick it in the hottest place we could possibly find and expect it to come out at 40 degrees?

Right.

I mean, you've got to get that, that unit down in temperature. And that's where foam works really well, is you air condition that attic.

Yeah.

So that unit is working in prime condition, right?

Yeah.

So it's not working hard at all.

Yeah. And it's, it's funny because I— so, so we have a, we have a camper, right? And, and I think a lot of people that buy campers, they go out into, you know, in, in the summer, it's like, oh, we're gonna go to the beach, we're gonna take this into the beach. And, you know, it's 102 degrees outside, right? And they're like, it's hot as crap in my In my RV, this thing isn't worth a dang over here. Like, what's going on? I bought this thing, it cost $40,000, and so hot. And it's like, look, that air conditioner has cooled your rig down 25 degrees. I'm sorry it's not 70 degrees, but it did the best that it could. It's actually doing exactly what it's designed to do, right? But

park it in the shade. That's exactly right. Like, you've got to find a way to actually get the value out of— I mean, you're— it's doing what it's supposed to do. So it's like, okay, this is like, you know, like a, like a cake that you got to build, right? You got to have a layer upon a layer upon a layer, right? And you can't get the, the most out of your air conditioner. In fact, if you want the best way that I've— okay, I don't know a lot, that everybody understands that, right, Craig?

Yep.

You want to— you want to chime in here for a minute?

I can confirm that.

Okay, I don't know a lot, but here's what I do know, just because I listen every once in a while, and that is that your air conditioner is not going to last very long the way you want it to. You spent thousands and thousands of dollars on that thing.

That's right.

You even had it installed correctly by, you know, Affordable Air, because they're awesome. And your guy, what's his name?

Brian Gessner.

Where are you at?

Prestige.

Prestige, yeah.

Prestige, all right. So we got a couple of really good options here. You, you have one of those guys that do it right, right? But you didn't do your insulation. And so now you're frustrated with your HVAC guy. But at the real— really, you need to be frustrated yourself. Well, you didn't, you didn't properly do all the things you need to do.

So, so as a homeowner, what I would say, and just piggybacking off what you're saying, what I would say is in August, right? Hottest. I mean, Satan's balls hot. I mean, it's nasty in Houston, right? I mean, 150-degree, you know, attics, you know, you have 100% humidity you can slice with a knife and just like a shower curtain and you're just walking through it, right? Go in a house, look at all your register vents. If there's moisture on those register vents or if you see mold on those register vents, you don't have enough insulation.

Yeah, we actually had that issue not too long ago. Is it raining in here? Nope, that's just condensation coming down from the register.

It's like, you know, I went— so I got called out to do an estimate the other day, and it was a veterinarian clinic. And I'm walking around and I'm looking at this, and their AC guy said, oh, you don't have enough insulation. They just blamed it all on my side of the fence, right?

Right.

And that happens a lot because there are some AC people out there that are just like bad insulation people or bad pest control or whatever, right?

Yeah.

And so I walked around in there and I started looking at everything and I'm like, man, there's some funky stuff going on. So I went back and I, I contacted the owner and I'm like, do you mind if I bring my AC guy? I'm— I just want to make sure what I think I see is what I think I see. So I, I get Brian and I'm like, You know, we're at a chili cook-off and I tell him the story about this thing and he's looking at me and he goes, that sounds like a whole lot of something going on. I take him out there and Brian's— he's, he's, you know, he's outgoing, he's very talkative. I mean, he said maybe 10 words the whole

time we were in that building and I'm like, oh, this isn't good, right?

Yeah.

And he takes all these pictures and he goes down there and he You know, we meet with the owner and we're having this discussion and he goes, look, you know, this is messed up from get to go. Like all the plenums, you know, typical square plenum, right?

Mm-hmm.

They don't hardly even use those anymore, right? They take it off of one large air run to a distribution block and then it goes. They don't make big long plenums anymore.

Right.

This vet clinic was built within the last 6 years, 6, 7 years, somewhere right in there, had 2 huge plenums built. And I mean, it's just, it's all wrong. They have air pickups in, in the places where they have dogs bathing, so they're sucking air into the system, you know. I mean, it's just one thing after another thing after another thing. And, you know, he, he, you know, he just laid it out on the line. And that's what's so valuable about having a guy that knows HVAC. Yeah, right. Because they look at— there's a, there is a true science to it. And Bryant always tells people, look, I can put a million tons in this attic, right? But until you do something with the insulation, it ain't gonna work. It's just

not gonna make a difference, right? And, and that's, that's where, you know, you have to, you have to trust your trades to know what they're doing.

Yeah.

But as a DIY person, I will tell you That if you look at your HVAC vents in your house and they have black mold on the inside of them, they have moisture, condensation in the hot time of the days, you have lack of insulation. And if you have that mold starting to work, you need an HVAC guy out there to fix this. I mean, you just do, because it's not going to be healthy for you in the long run.

Yeah. I mean, because at the end of the day, it's not just about keeping your bills down.

That's correct.

You're, you know, you're, you're breathing in this stuff.

Oh.

And you're, you're, you're wondering, why is—

why is—

why am I always like feeling chesty? Or why am I— I feel like I've got a cold all the time. Or, you know, what's going on?

Well, and now that they have those units that they put actually in the HVAC system that will kill the mold.

Yes.

Right. The UV stuff, is that what you're talking about?

Yeah.

You know, so it— I mean, it's— don't, don't ever use ozone. That's bad for you, right? I know you and I know this, right? But, but you— how many people will go out and buy an ozone unit and put it in their house? They think that they're doing themselves a favor. Yeah. And you're poisoning yourself, right?

Yeah.

There's a reason ozone is not on the space station, right? Yeah.

I mean, I, I will say this, you can use ozone effectively if you know what you're doing. And you can't even be in the house when you're using it. I mean, it— because this has been a trend in our industry. It's like, look, you can eliminate pretty much every bug in your house by using ozone. Yeah, it'll kill every living thing in the house.

Ah, even you.

Fluffy and—

But the fish and—

Yeah, and that's the point, right? And but, but these companies on the internet will sell you an ozone unit, put in your house. Oh, it's healthy for you. It's killing the bugs.

Yeah.

And it's poisoning you at the same time.

Right.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean, everything, that kind of stuff comes at a cost. And so, here's the thing, and this is what I'm hearing from you.

Mm-hmm.

Get the right guy.

Right.

To come check your insulation. If you've— here's the thing. If you've lived in your house for 5 years and you have not had someone come check your insulation, call.

Absolutely.

Call your insulation guy. Have him come out. And I mean, after you've listened to this episode, you have some ideas of some things to talk about. You know about blown insulation, you know about spray foam. I mean, get the prices, figure all this stuff out. But at the end of the day, like, you're— this is not just about dollars and cents. It's really about your health too.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You know, I'm a firm believer in get 3 quotes.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, if you trust your HVAC guy, have him come out, have him look at it, have him recommend you somebody that, that they trust, right? I mean, look, you know, you, you have to trust somebody, right?

Sure.

And, and hopefully you do your due diligence. I mean, it's— this is about more than just the investment at the end of the month. This is the investment in your home, your family, You know, and, and in the long run, you know, you, you want that to plateau together, right?

Sure.

I mean, to me, that's the way I look at it. And so when I go out, I give free estimates. And the, the reason that I do that is because I don't want somebody to be on the fence and think that they need something and are afraid that somebody's going to go charge them, you know, whatever, $80 or $90 to have them come out and look at your insulation. That to me is— that's a land grab mentality, right? I'm all about let's do the right thing. And I think that's the law enforcement in me, right? You'd show up on a call, domestic violence, criminal activity, shooting, theft, whatever. I'm your advocate when I show up, right? Victim and complainant. That's my job, to mediate for both people,

right?

Yeah.

So I, I kind of take that with me when I go into what I do now, right? And, and a very good friend of mine, she's a business coach, and, and she told me, man, a couple years ago, she goes, Steve, look, you're an advocate. You're a born advocate. Be that advocate. And, and I've, I've embraced that.

Yeah.

I've made up my mind. That's what I want to be. I want to be there for people that can pick up the phone, call me, have me come out. I look at your installation and you're good. I'm gonna shake your hand, tell you you're in great shape. If you need something, call me. You know, I have no issues with that. And that, and that goes back to that trust factor. Someday, hopefully, they'll call me and say, hey, you know, maybe I do need an attic fan. Or, you know, to me, an attic tent in that hallway.

Yeah.

If your light bills say $300 a year, I'm gonna— I'm just going off numbers I can remember. I think they say that you're gonna save like $1,500 a year If I put one of those in that attic doorway, right above it.

Yeah, for people that don't know what he's talking about, it's— I don't know what they're made out of, but like, it's a, it's a zippered tent that goes over the attic ladder door.

It has some insulation.

Yeah, and it keeps a lot of stuff out of your house. It keeps heat from, you know, moving back and forth and cold air from moving back and forth. It keeps pests out. They're fantastic.

And, and, and just, just that, right? I mean, if you called me back and said, hey Steve, you know, maybe I do want to do that, then, then it was well worth it for me. But, but the biggest thing for me is, is knowing that when I walk away from you, i.e., customer, that I did you right.

Yeah.

Right? I want to tell you the truth. I want to tell you what you need, what you don't need. You know, I want to make sure that you're sleeping at night comfortably, right? And if you don't get that feeling from a professional, that's not your professional.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you guys, do you guys install those attic tents?

We do.

How much do you guys charge to put one of those in?

Um, actually the, the tent's like, uh, $100, $150, something like that.

Yeah.

And that's, that's installation as well.

Oh, is it really?

Oh yeah.

That's, that's well worth it to me.

Oh, absolutely.

If you don't have it. I mean, I mean, even if, especially if you're in a house that has multiple, you know, $300. I mean, it's gonna—

Yeah, because here's what happens. I, I don't know. I mean, Not every house is like this, but my house specifically, I've got, I've got 2 AC units.

Mm-hmm.

And they're— the returns are near each other just because of how it's set up. And the only inside attic, uh, access— there's one in the garage, the other one is right above both of those returns. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

So, what do you think happens whenever those returns kick on because the HVAC system has kicked on and it is sucking air like crazy out of your house to cool down or heat up your house? That air is coming from upstairs too.

As well.

That's correct. In the attic. It is pulling— if it is not sealed well, it is pulling out of there and so you've got inefficiency. Galore, basically, right?

Right.

You know, you can't even quantify how inefficient that is. And I need to do something about my house because it's in bad shape.

Well, you know, I do know a good insulation guy. Yes, I'm just saying.

That's good. That's good to know.

But I mean, you know, for everybody that's thinking about, man, maybe I do need to have somebody come out, Really, I mean, do your due diligence. Ask the questions.

Yeah.

You know, um, look, you know, you might be in Walla Walla, Washington, or you might be right here in Houston, Texas. You know, I'm a phone call away. I, I don't mind answering questions. I don't mind talking to people. You can pick my brain. It will be a quick pick because, you know, I don't have much brains anymore at my age. But, you know, I, I'm, you know, I will tell you the truth.

Sure.

You know, and I, and I I tell people all the time, you know, I'm kind of like a hammer. I'm pretty blunt. So, you know, I'm going to tell you right, wrong, or indifferent.

Right.

And I'll try to do it in the best possible way I can. But, you know, that's the biggest thing for me is I like to make sure that people are standing on good ground, right? So, you know, if you're going to go blow insulation, wear your PPE, right? Make sure that, you know, you keep your fingers out of that machine because it'll eat you up like an auger. You know, be careful, you know, make sure that you're getting your, your insulation on a level at about 12 to 14 inches, and you want to dome it, right?

Mm-hmm.

So you're not blocking off your soffits. You know, they're, they're just— there's, there's some science to go in with this, and people just, just willy-nilly go along, you know, they just create more problems. So if you don't know, ask questions. If you don't have anybody to ask, research. call, you know.

And I'll tell you this, anybody who's listening to this episode should have a ton of information. Like, I think that you've imparted so much wisdom and information about this topic because— and here, Craig, how is it that we've gone 172 episodes and we've never had an insulation guy on? That's crazy.

It's— I think it goes to show like how complicated homeownership can be. Oh, and how overwhelming it can be.

Yeah.

And like that, like, we like have done this show for so long and have not yet talked about this. Yeah.

No, it's crazy. And so, but the good thing is, I think that someone could listen to this episode and have a huge advantage over the average homeowner who, you know, I think a lot of people don't really think about insulation until they buy a house.

Well, when you buy a house, it has insulation in it.

That's right.

Where did it, where did it go? It's still there, right? And that's the part, that's the problem, right?

Yeah, if you have a good inspector like Ricky, right, then, um, then they're gonna tell you you don't have enough in, you don't have enough insulation. And so you put it on the report, and the homeowner at the time, they're like, okay, we're gonna get the cheapest, fastest insulation we can get in this and get out of this deal, right? And at the end of the day, this is one of those things, it's really important, get the right guy.

Absolutely.

Make sure, I mean, it would almost be better to say, look, could you come down off the price of the house just a little bit, rather than you go do the insulation so that I can get the right guy in, make sure that I'm picking who does it, you know?

So, I did an educational moment for a real estate company.

Okay.

Right, a bunch of agents, right? And the first thing I told them, I said, in today's market, I get it. You can't, you can't say, hey, that's deficient, we, we need to get that fixed. They'll go, next buyer.

Yep.

I mean, it's just it. So, and I told him, I said, I get it, but if you're the buying person, right, you need to, you need to make sure that you're taking care of your person, right? And, and so, like, I have a great real estate lady I work with all the time, uh, Mandy Poff, Valerie Blank, both great people, both in Houston. But, you know, they'll tell their people right now, this is not worth fighting over.

Yeah.

It's not.

Yeah.

But it's not right. And I've got a guy, right?

Right.

But that's the point, is if you're a real estate person, like I told these people, I said, look, here's the deal. If you're the selling person, you're trying to kick this dog down the road, right?

Yeah.

I get it. I do. I get it. But if you're the buying person, you're their advocate.

Sure.

You need to stand on the stump, and you need to fight for them, right?

Yeah.

And they just kind of looked at me, and that's when I, I gave them that, you know, 2 inches, losing 80%. And they all sat there with their mouths open. Like, that's the first time anybody ever told them that. And they were like, I'm like, so you're selling somebody a home that's already 80% energy deficient. Think about that. Yeah.

And it's not even hard to tell either, 'cause usually they have those—

Markers.

Yeah, like, it's almost like a rain gauge that they put in the attic now.

So when you build a brand new house, by code, there's supposed to be an insulation document stapled in the attic. You've, as a pest control person, you've seen them, right? And they'll say, this was insulated by this company at this R-rate, right? And then you look at the R-rate and it says, oh, we were at R-38, 14 inches. And then you look over there and you see 10 inches.

Yeah, you're already bad.

Bam, 4 inches, right? I mean, that's just right up front, right? And then sometimes you'll look at it and they'll say, you know, R-30 or R-38, And then you look over and it's below the joist, which is 6 inches.

Yeah.

And then you're like, that's a house that—

Whoop, you're good. Don't worry about it.

That has absolutely— I know I'm slinging my hands everywhere. Sorry. So, you know, you're at a basic zero at that point.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And that's one I say that about real estate agents is they need to be your advocate. They need to make sure that you understand what you're buying. And, and Ricky's probably, you know, going, oh my God, he's speaking my language, right? Because home inspectors fight this battle every day.

Yeah.

Well, and, and look, the reality of it is, it is not that expensive.

Y'all keep chatting. I'm gonna grab—

go, go do it. It's not that expensive to, to insulate your home. I mean, really, whenever you think about all the different things, especially whenever you're to like remodeling your home or installing a new HVAC unit or all those sorts of things, it's really not that expensive to insulate your home.

No, actually it's the cheapest of the bunch.

Okay.

Right, so if you live in a, and this is Houston prices, right, of course. If you live in like a 2,000 square foot home, ranch-style home, one story, and you need to add more insulation on, right? You know, the average is anywhere between $1 to $1.50 Okay, that's cheap. Yeah, it is, you know, because I'm sure a new AC unit's gonna cost you—

Oh, I mean, you're talking $5,000 to $7,000 for a new AC unit a lot of times, and maybe even more than that.

I was gonna say more than that.

Yeah, but that's on the cheap end. But again, it's like you are— it's like you're putting your HVAC unit on All the time. Every time that it turns on versus going, okay, it's on, it's on, it's on a level that it's comfortable with.

Absolutely.

You know, it's a normal talking voice, we're not yelling, right, anything like that. But it's whenever you have to start yelling that you get strained and it's like, this isn't comfortable anymore, and it peters out a lot quicker than if you would have just done the cheaper route. Work these things in tandem, right?