Is Your Electric Bill Stupid High?

This is episode number 203 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.

William. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us here in the studio. How you doing, Kev?

Man, I'm just happy to be here.

Back in America. Back—

yes, back in the place where, you know—

Well, I told everybody that you fled the country.

That's true.

And abandoned your family.

That's all very true. Um, yeah, all very true. But I'll tell you, man, like, you go away to one of these third world countries, man, and you come back being pretty thankful for the things that we have here, man. It's a, it's a different world. So I'm glad to be back.

Did you eat a cat?

I didn't.

Dog?

Who's to say?

Well, if you didn't do it on purpose, then welcome home.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thanks. Uh, I will tell you that, uh, one of the guys that, that we took on the trip, we, we literally got out off the airport Um, and into a truck we're headed, and we're like, ah, it's time to eat. Uh, let's stop at a restaurant. So we stop at this restaurant. Of course, I don't know the language, so our interpreter is there with us, and he's like, okay, here's this, this, this. One of the people with us ordered the fish. Uh-huh. Fried fish.

That didn't go well.

Well, honestly, he wound up liking it pretty well. But it was a full fish.

Oh, like bones and everything?

Deep fried the whole thing, head, tail, the entire thing. And literally he got it and he goes, I didn't know I ordered this. And anyway, pretty funny.

Then you just eat the fish?

Well, yeah, he, he literally— I mean, he just kind of take a fork to it and start digging in.

Get it, just get in there.

He said it was pretty good. I myself did not try it. You didn't try it? No.

What kind of fish was it? Was it?

Yeah, I don't know.

You don't know?

Dead.

If it survived frying, he earned every bit of that breath.

What's really funny is I was like, I think that thing's looking at you.

Oh, that the eyeballs?

Oh yeah.

You know people eat those.

Oh, I do know that. Did they? No, no. I told him he could.

My sister did that once at a restaurant.

Yes.

She was like, hey, they're good.

They're not.

You're lying. Flip it over and do the other one.

I told although we so we started we. flip it over. It's funny, we were talking about it. I was like, I think this is kind of like Gushers if you eat it, you know, you know, different, different texture probably.

Exactly.

But it's the same effect. The effect's got to be the same. So anyway, um, how you doing, man?

I'm, I'm doing good, man. Like, we are— we've got some cool stuff in, in the pipeline for the show.

Yeah.

Uh, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna try and ramp some stuff up. We're gonna have some new and different episodes. Um, our goal is to try and have 2 episodes a week, right? Um, we'll see how much we stick to that. Um, but one of the, one of the cool things that we're, uh, so there's a lot of people who are in our network that just don't fit the content for the show.

Sure.

But they're people that we like.

Yeah.

And people that we like hanging out with. And, and so one of the ways that we thought it would be kind of fun to incorporate some of those people and, and bring some new and different people into the studio was to have a trivia show.

Yeah.

Um, so we're gonna do that. Uh, B-52's already donated some prizes for the winners of the, of the first trivia show that we got coming up.

We're not talking about koozies.

No koozies. Get some beverages to take home. So, uh, so that's, that's exciting. That's, that's coming up pretty soon. Yeah, we've got some, some people coming in to, to do that. Um, and then Well, before we do the next thing, like, we need to pay the bills.

Okay. You wanna do it?

You wanna go first?

Yeah. Alright. Yep. So the— this episode is sponsored by Sustained Growth Solution, your best option for all your digital marketing needs. They specialize in lead generation. They specialize in web design and also things like search engine optimization, which is how you get on page 1 of Google. And also things like review and reputation management, which we all know how important reviews are. So if you need help getting extra reviews, call Sustained Growth Solutions. They will be able to help. And, uh, I'll tell you what, right now they're, they're making a push, uh, to, to take on some new clients. And so, uh, if that's something that you're interested in, they're probably willing to make a little bit of a deal right now. So yeah. That's a good deal.

Yeah.

That's what I was told. So I guess you'll never know unless you, uh, hit them up. The best way to get them actually is on email, info@sustainedgrowthsolutions.com. Send them a message and they will get back to you, and it'll be worth your while for sure.

Awesome. This episode of The Homeowner Show is also brought to you by TermiSave. TermiSave is the only termite home warranty company in the business. No one else is doing it. Why? Who knows?

Who knows?

But they should. They're the only ones doing it. So if you, if you want a warranty for termites on your home, you gotta pay thousands of dollars to get the treatment first.

Yeah.

And then you gotta pay renewal fees on top of that every year after that. With TermiSave, all you gotta do is pay $35 a month.

Man.

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Shenanigans.

No shenanigans. Just $35 a month. And so here's the deal. Uh, you can reach them at info@termasave.com. So, but for this month only, if you mention The Homeowner Show, you're gonna get $5 off a month.

Wow.

On your warranty.

For how long?

Oh, forever.

For $5 forever?

$5 off forever. So that's only $30 a month.

Wow.

When you mention The Homeowner Show.

Nice.

So throw in a little Homeowner Show jargon when you reach out to them. Let them know that you heard about us on the show. And they're gonna give you $5 off.

That's a great deal.

That's a bunch of money that you save every single year.

Well, yeah.

So anyway, if you want your home protected from termites and you don't want to spend thousands of dollars, reach out to TermiSave. They're going to get your home covered. Uh, Kev, we get to work with some awesome companies, um, and it's, it's our privilege to do so. So we're always excited to talk about our sponsors here on the show. I sent you an article Earlier today.

Oh, you did?

Well, it wasn't really. I guess it was an article.

Oh yeah, you said. Okay.

About the. It was from realtor.com.

Yep.

And it was talking about the the biggest metro. Okay. Figure out how to how to phrase this. It's the metro cities. I think it's the top ten metropolitan cities that have had the biggest reduction in real estate prices.

Right.

Over the last month.

Right. So, so basically, these are, these are the top 10 markets.

Right.

Not in, not just the top 10 markets. These are the top 10 markets that saw the largest reduction in rates.

Well, so it's, it's a—

so, like, New York, for example, would be the one of the largest markets, probably, just because of the sheer size of it. But it is not in this list because it didn't see the largest reduction.

Well, I don't wanna be clear on how they did the math on this one because it's actually 2 things.

Okay.

It's the largest percentage in price reduction, but also the number of properties that reduced its price over the last month. So you— there's 2 things going in play. How many properties in that area reduced their prices, and then the amount by which they reduced those prices. So they combined those numbers to kinda produce the top 10.

Okay. Do, do, do we wanna just, like, talk about which— what they are?

What the top 10 are?

Yeah. What—

and, like, when— the reason— and I think one of the reasons we're mentioning this is because it's, it's a brand new world. You know, and, and so, so many people have the opportunity to live wherever they wanna live because they can— most companies are offering the opportunity to work remotely if you don't have, like, a labor-intensive job.

Right.

Or, like, you, you have to, like, go into customers' houses and you need face-to-face time and you have to physically be there. If not, most companies are saying, you wanna work from home? We'll let you work from home.

Sure.

And so we wanted to— we wanted to put this information out there because, you know, maybe, maybe you're thinking, like, you know, I'd like to live someplace else. I mean, but I can keep my job. I can, you know, work from home, but I'd like to live here. Or maybe I live in the sticks and I wanna move into the city.

There you go.

Not me, but maybe that's you.

Me either.

So anyway, and, and so, and so it's not— none of these are rural places.

No.

They're all metropolitan areas.

Yes.

So do you wanna, do you wanna just kinda go, go down, go through the list?

Okay.

You, you, you got it. I, I did the expl— I did the, the, know, the, you know, beautiful buildup. Okay, land the plane.

All right, all right, well, we'll just start with, um, the lowest one first, number 10.

Okay.

All right, number 10 would be Medford, Oregon, and they saw a 23.2% reduction. And so the average right now, I guess the, the median price that, that houses are going for in Medford, Oregon is $562,500. Okay, so, uh, I mean, 23% reduction That's significant.

I got— I'm, I gotta say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with reaching. I've never even heard of that city.

I don't either. Who is it?

No, you just said it's Medford, Oregon.

Who is that?

Yeah, who knows? I assume it's like near Portland.

Yeah, well, I mean, you would think. I don't know. But I mean, here, that's the crazy thing is the— I mean, the majority of these at the lower level here you've not heard of.

Okay.

I mean, the next one, number 9, is Evansville, Indiana. Do you know where that is?

I want to say I've heard of it, but that would just be being arrogant. Just, I've heard of it.

No, you haven't. Uh, so they saw a 24.7% decrease in price. And here's the cool thing for this— this is the lowest number on the chart. Their average price for a house is $246,000.

That's not bad.

$246,000? Heck yeah, I could pay that.

What's that? It's— you said it's Evansville?

Evansville, Indiana.

What's the biggest city in Indiana?

Um, I don't know.

See, this is why trivia is going to be fun.

Gary?

Is it Gary, Indiana? No, I don't know.

I'm just thinking of the song from The Music Man. Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana.

I only know Gary, Indiana because it was mentioned in Parks and Rec.

And I thought of The Music Man whenever they said it in Parks and Rec. So there you go. All right. Number 8, you've heard of this one. Colorado Springs, Colorado.

That one I know.

Yep. 25.1% decrease and their average is $550,000. So that's still a lot. Still pretty good check, right? Change. The next one, number 7, is Sacramento, California. You've heard of that one too.

Yes.

25.2%. So just 0.1%, uh, better than Colorado Springs. Their average— again, we're talking about California—

$642,500, which is actually pretty low when you think about the other big cities in California. Yeah, because Sacramento is not one of their biggest cities.

No, no, but it's, it's the capital, so There you go.

Yeah.

Uh, the next one, I would challenge you if you've heard of Ogden, Utah.

I have not heard of Ogden, Utah.

Neither. Uh, 20—

It sounds like the kind of place I'd like to live though.

Yeah, of course, especially with the, uh, dramatic decrease in percentage of cost, which is 27.4%, which it tied for with number 5, which is Boise, Idaho. And the only reason Boise, Idaho is probably different is because of the, the dollar amount that it changed.

Yeah.

So, uh, Ogden, $580,100. Boise—

boy, Boise's the capital.

It is. $587,900.

That's stupid.

So much money, man. I don't know. That's a lot of money. I— to live in the city where they put blue turf on the ground.

I don't know.

I don't know what to say about that.

They, they win some surprising games though.

They do. A surprising number of them. Uh, next one, number 4, moving on up. Anchorage, Alaska.

That was— that one was surprising to me.

Probably the most surprising to me.

For 2 reasons. One, that it went down that much, and 2, that houses in Anchorage go for that much.

Yeah, so, so the price that it was reduced is 28.5%. Pretty significant number. $436,000 in Anchorage. Yeah. You know, interesting things about Alaska. So I have a friend who graduated as a dentist. Mhmm. And if you give 5 years in Alaska as a dentist, they'll pay all your medical bills.

Wasn't that the, like—

Not medical bills.

Your medical school bills.

That's what I'm trying to say.

Wasn't that, like, the whole premise of Northern Exposure?

Yeah.

That TV show? Wasn't that, like, Was that the late '80s, early '90s?

Yeah.

Okay.

But, I mean, that's nuts. I— he did. And here's another thing that was crazy is he lived in, like, this little nothing of a town.

Mhmm.

And—

Just out there cleaning teeth.

Yeah. His wife would travel to Anchorage by commercial airline with big plastic tubs to go buy groceries.

Nice.

Because it was cheaper to get on a commercial airplane, fly to Anchorage, load up the plastic totes, and fly home than it was to buy groceries in their little town.

I have, I have heard, like, if you wanna move to Alaska, get your pilot's license.

Oh, I, I'm sure that's true.

Because, I mean, like, the bush pilots are like taxi drivers over there.

Yeah.

I mean, like, they take you everywhere.

Everywhere. I mean, it, it's huge. The place is huge.

Yeah.

So, and it's, it's like the only efficient way to get around. Yeah. There's like 4 cities there.

And they're all— yeah, well, and but like they're all like seaplanes.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, definitely. Except for like the, the bush planes which have like giant rubber tires on them. Oh yeah, yeah, bouncy, bouncy.

All right, let's keep going. Next one is, uh, number 3, Phoenix, Arizona at 29.5%.

Dude, Phoenix, Phoenix has been on fire.

Yeah, I know. So it's actually good to see that they've, you know, lowered things a little bit. Yeah. And honestly, Phoenix is not a bad place to live. A lot of people think, oh, it's in the desert, it's hot. It's a dry heat.

I don't care what kind of heat it is. I ain't going.

Yeah. Anyway, $548,500 average. That's a lot of money, but it gets worse. Because number 2 is our very own Austin, Texas.

Yeah. Yeah. That had to happen.

Oh my goodness. It, it's been nuts. And it's at 32.4% reduction. And the median is still $620,000.

Dude, it's be— okay. Austin, and like, I'm just, I'm, I'm making bold prediction for the show.

Okay.

Bold prediction for the show. Austin's the new Hollywood. It is.

It has to be. It's here. Here's the reason. People from California are flocking to Austin.

To Austin. And specifically people from Los Angeles.

Oh, yeah. And, and you gotta think about it though. I mean, you can— I mean, they're looking at this going, $620,000. It's nothing. I sold my house for $1.8 million, and I bought it for $53,000.

Yeah.

You know, 25 years ago. And I sold it for $1.8. I can move to Austin which is beautiful. And I can spend a third.

Yeah. The, the only thing that Austin doesn't have that they left is the ocean.

Yeah.

But they have so much, so many lakes, like big lakes and parks.

Yep.

And I mean, like, there's a massive lake just in the middle of downtown Austin that you can just, like, go paddleboarding on.

It's wonderful.

And so it's, it's kind of like a little paradise in Texas, but, like, it's become— and, like, the, the live music scene is great.

Yes.

There's lots of comedy clubs opening in Austin right now.

I mean, a lot of, lot of, like, breweries and—

Oh, there's a ton.

Distilleries and— Yes. Stuff like that.

All that stuff's happening. The food in Austin is great.

Oh, yeah.

So, I mean, it's just, it's just a hap— and, like, let's, let's be honest. Like, 10 years ago, Austin was the chump city between the 4 big ones.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, like, don't get me wrong. It was a cool city.

Sure.

Cool city. Like, the whole thing was keep Austin weird.

Yeah.

Because Austin was weird. And it was, it was, it was the 4th smallest city between Houston, Dallas, uh, San Antonio, and, and then Austin, right? Um, and I guess Fort Worth is in the mix just because it's next to Dallas.

DFW.

Yeah, but I mean, like, I think most people just kind of— they do put those together. Um, and I'm actually, I'm actually curious if— is Houston bigger than Dallas?

Oh yeah.

Than DFW?

Oh yeah.

Like, even if it's combined?

Yes.

Okay, so it's, so it's probably Houston, DFW, San Antonio, and then Austin.

Correct.

I don't know if San Antonio still got that number 3 spot now.

I mean, there— I mean, Houston just took over number 3 recently from Chicago.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So we're the 3rd largest in the country.

Yeah. Okay.

So it's New York, LA, Houston, Chicago.

How is LA still number 2?

Well, they're all in Anchorage— in Alaska. I'm looking at Anchorage.

They're all going to Anchorage.

They're all going to Alaska. No. It's— they're all in Austin.

Which is a great John Wayne movie, by the way.

Oh, yeah.

North to Alaska. You ever seen that one?

I have.

It's a good one.

Yeah. It's a good one. So, but I mean, you— they're, they're fleeing the politics. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, even, even these corporations that are moving to, to Austin, it's just so much cheaper to own a business.

Oh, y'all. We didn't even pull up the numbers on how many, like, I, I saw there was, like, an interview with somebody the other day about how many corporations have moved their headquarters.

Oh, yeah.

To Texas.

Oh, yeah.

It's not just like they're moving their company.

No.

They moved the headquarters to Texas.

And, and many of them are moving to Austin.

Yeah.

And do— and doing it there. And that's why you see, I mean, this number, 32%, it's gone down.

Mhmm.

It's because people were able to sell their houses for a nutty amount of money.

Well, so what's, what's interesting about this is even though there's still a ton of— and we didn't get to number 1.

Number 1's Reno.

Yeah.

And it's almost the same, 32.6%. But the number, the highest number on the entire map, which is $677,500, is Reno. Is Reno.

Yeah. And a close second is Sacramento, though.

Yeah. So, I mean, they're all kind of right there together.

Yeah, they're not terribly far apart, but they're not. And Reno is kind of interesting. I mean, it's like the weird stepson of Las Vegas. Yeah. Um, but it's, it's, it's, I mean, like, obviously it's doing okay with house prices being, being that high. Um, but what's interesting is like the number of— I mean, for here, I don't know, I don't know a lot about these other cities. Um, Colorado Springs I know a little bit about just because I have family there. I know that there's a lot of people moving to Colorado.

Oh yeah. And it— I mean, Colorado Springs is a great place because it's right in the center Right. And it's in a valley, so you're not dealing with extreme temperatures. But if you want the extreme temperatures, I mean, the mountains are right there. I mean, you can just see them right there. I mean, it's, it's an hour and a half from like Salida, Buena Vista, about that from Denver. It's kind of right there in a pretty neat sweet spot. And it's a, it's a cool city.

But what's, what's interesting about it is there's, there's people— like, I know that there's people still flocking to Austin. I know that there's people still flocking to Colorado Springs. I assume that's true for most of these cities, you know, that, you know, housing is still in demand in those places.

Yeah.

But that despite the fact that demand is still high, prices are coming— demand is not as high as it was. That's what I'm trying to get at. And so prices are going to have to come down.

Yeah.

What's interesting about this list to me are the places that aren't on it. Florida is not in the mix.

Right. Well, there's really nothing on the east, in the east anywhere, except for like Idaho, I guess, is sort of on the eastern side, but not really.

I mean, Idaho is far, far west.

Yeah.

Well, but I mean, look, all of these are the most, most, the most eastern thing on this list. Hang on.

Texas.

No, I mean, maybe Evansville.

Oh yeah.

Maybe Evansville. I'd have to look at it on a map, but probably Texas.

Yeah.

But Austin is West Texas. I mean, so like, it's— yeah, I'd have to look and see where—

Well, West is not too far from Austin.

What's not too far from Austin?

West Texas.

Oh, West Texas.

The city of West.

The city of West. I'd have to look and see where Evansville— Evansville might be the furthest east, but everything else in here is on the west. Yeah.

I mean, there's nothing, you know, but we're not talking about anything like DC. Well, like, you would think that DC would— I mean, at some point, I mean, their, their housing market's always been pretty high.

Right. But I'm, I'm surprised, um, Nashville is not in the mix.

Yeah.

Um, and there's a couple other big cities in Tennessee.

Like, like Atlanta.

Atlanta's not in the mix.

Huge city there.

Orlando's not in the mix. Uh, Charlotte is not in the mix.

Yep. Well, the thing I wonder— I'm wondering if, like, like, for instance, Orlando, People are still flocking to Orlando despite all of the crazy stuff happening with Disney. People are still going there in droves. Shame on them. I wonder if their numbers are just staying high. I mean, it's hard to know what's going to happen here, but, but we've been saying this for a long time. At some point there's going to be a peak and things are going to have to come back down. Yeah, they just have to. Um, and you know, we were— we, we had— it was interesting. Whenever we were selling our house, a lot of people were like, oh, it's a great time to

sell your house. It's a horrible time to buy a house. I'm like, shut up. I know. I realize that. However, I will never make this much on my house. And if I'm smart, I can probably buy a house that I can live in for long enough that it won't matter how much I pay for it.

Right.

And that's the goal. So, if you knew you were going to live in a house for 30 or 40 years, Then the price is not the biggest problem. It's whether or not you can actually pay the bill.

Well, yeah. You know, well, and that is what we're here to talk about tonight is paying bills.

Paying the bills.

Yeah. So we wanted to get into a little bit of, uh, paying electrical bills.

Yeah.

Uh, and for, for, for me, I mean, we are with MidSouth and, and recently we got a fun little extra charge on our bill for about $300. So which, um, I mean, I'll just be transparent with everybody. I mean, like, my, my electric bill last month I think was like $900.

Holy schnikes.

Yeah. So, I mean, but that— it was, and it was because they tagged me with the extra $300.

Yeah, but so your normal electric bill is $600?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, not normally.

Okay.

No.

Okay, so it's high. It was unusually high and they tagged you with $300.

Yeah, we're in the middle of— we're in the middle of a drought and heat wave.

Yeah. still.

And, like, it was, like, a month-long heat wave that was crazy dry without much relief at all in terms of, like, temperature drop with rain.

Right.

No rain. So, yeah. So my— yeah. So it was close to 600. It's closer to 400 usually.

Usually.

Like, 400, 450, something like that. Which I realize is high for most people.

Yeah. But you also gotta understand, You've got basically 3 households on your property.

Right.

And all of them are here all the time.

Mhmm.

And so you've got your family, your sister-in-law, and your, your in-laws that all live here. And on top of that, we've got the studio here that you're paying for every time we're here. There's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff that—

And if you notice, we're not sweating.

No, we are not. Thank you, mini split.

That's right. No, it's nice and quiet so we can record in here together.

But okay, let's all— yeah, it is. Let's say this though. Just something that's different about MidSouth is it's co-op, right? And so it's member owned. You have to be a member in order— it's the only thing really available, but you have to be a member. And because it's member owned, They work extra hard to take care of their customers.

Yeah.

They really do. In fact, the thing that I know about MidSouth is during the bad freeze, Yuri, during Hurricane Harvey, did you lose power? Nope. No. Nobody did in MidSouth.

No. Their infrastructure is superb.

Yeah. It's really, really good.

I have little to no complaints.

Right.

Uh, about, about MidSouth.

And honestly, their prices are very normal, competitive.

Oh no, they're very competitive.

And so there, there's nothing outrageous about it.

Um, because you were with— were you— you were with CenterPoint before?

I was with— yeah, well, I was with CenterPoint for gas, and I was with, um, Entergy.

Entergy. Okay.

For electricity. And, uh, man, I'll tell you, it was awful. Being with energy was awful. We did not lose power during Harvey. We did lose power during Uri, um, the winter storm. But all the time we would just rain— our power would just randomly go out.

Mm-hmm.

Right? I mean, and then on top of that, they're doing the rolling brownouts, that kind of stuff, which, you know, we've been in our house since rolling brownouts have been happening because I'm seeing it from the previous neighborhood that I lived in, I'm still on some Facebook groups there. They're like, oh, we got more brownouts coming. We didn't have any. Right. With MidSouth. They, they do a really, really good job. That being said, everybody's energy bill has been sky high. Yeah. And, and it's hard.

So one of the things I wanted to bring to everybody's attention is what, what is called the WPCA. Mhmm. So what that is, the Wholesale Power Cost Adjustment Fee. that they're putting on your bill. That when I, when I mentioned earlier that $300 adjustment, that's what that was. So it's an, it's an adjustment for the cost of making the energy.

Yeah. So, so, yeah, I don't know. I, I've not always understood all of this.

Mhmm.

But, I mean, your electricity has to be made.

Right.

It has to be generated. It's not just coming from the sun. Yeah, it's got to be generated just like a generator, but on massive scale. Yeah, right. And so how do they power that?

Well, I mean, here in Texas, it's natural gas, it's coal. There is some wind and solar farms, right? Most of that's in West Texas though.

Most of it. Yeah.

So I mean, and those are the primary ways.

Yep.

Which is weird because I would think being in Texas, like, we would have at least one nuclear plant.

Well, I think there are. I think there is a nuclear plant up, like, I think it's near, like, Wichita Falls or somewhere around there.

You keep talking.

I wanna look it up.

But so I'm, I'm, I'm, I want there to be one.

I think there is. But here, here's the thing. So that, that energy has to be created where we're at, especially on Mid-South. It's solely generated by natural gas. And so Basically, they're saying, look, the price of natural gas has gone up. And so in order to provide you with energy, to generate that energy, simply put, we are going to have to add this to your bill so that you, whenever you flip the light switch on, the light comes on.

Hmm.

So it's, it's this whole thing of like, I'm mad because my energy bill is higher. And I get it. I am too. I mean, It's, it's hard whenever you're, you know, it's like, man, groceries are up, gas is up, all the things are up, and now I've got this, this $300, $400, $500 hike on my, on my energy bill.

Mm-hmm.

But at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself a question. Do you want air conditioning? And do you want lights? Because we're in a situation right now where that's kind of where the rubber meets the road.

Okay. So there are 2 nuclear power plants in Texas. There's one in Bay City and one in Glen Rose.

Glen Rose? Yeah. Okay.

Just south of Fort Worth. Yeah.

Well, it's not too far off.

Which one falls in there? If you pull it up on the map, it will say that there are 5, but according to this, there are only 2.

Okay.

I thought that there were One of the ones that pulls up actually pulls up as a coal power plant.

Okay.

Um, so that's not the same. So, but yeah, so, and the one in Glen Rose is actually Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.

Okay. So there you go.

And then Bay City, what's that one? Is that what that is? Hang on.

This is riveting, right? People are really excited to hear all the things you have to say right now.

Well, they should be. And I don't know. Oh, STP Nuclear.

STP.

Yeah.

Steep.

They have a 4.4 rating on Google.

I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do.

So one of the things that we— so you and I were actually listening to an interview, and I think it was like the the CEO of MidSouth.

Right.

He was talking about how, like, where the WPCA was coming from, like, what that is. And he was talking about how the energy is regulated. And he said ultimately it all comes down to ERCOT here in Texas.

ERCOT. Yeah.

Which is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Right. Basically, they're in charge of making sure that power that exists, that the grid exists in Texas.

Right. And that every time you want electricity, it's available. Right. Yeah.

So they— and, and they're the ones that came under fire.

Oh, yeah.

With, uh, Uri. Yeah. With the, with the winter storm that came through because everyone was like, well, what, what, what the hell? Like, everybody lost power. And it's like, well, yeah, it was 7 inches of snow. It doesn't happen in South Texas.

Right. Um, you know, but everybody was going, but you have one job.

Yeah.

And that's to ensure—

Keep the power going.

That there is power available. Right. And they were basically saying, well, the reason you don't have power is because we don't have any to give you. Yeah.

Which is weird.

It is weird.

I mean, like, did we ever get, like, a clear answer as to, like—

Well, I think the thing— that's the problem is that's been a year and a half at this point.

They're still deliberating that. Yeah. Of course they are.

They're still in the courts about it.

Yeah.

So, I mean, no, I don't— I don't I, I think that everyone's saying, well, not me, not my fault, not my fault, it's their fault. You know, it's like everybody's— it's at the end of the day, like, so we had Entergy, told you that a minute ago, right? My understanding is where Entergy exists in Montgomery, Texas, mhm, is so far at the end of the grid that it shouldn't exist there.

Oh my gosh.

Like, there, there should be something else there, kind of like MidSouth is. It's, you know, extending this direction. My understanding is that Entergy should kind of stop in the east side of Houston, but it's going miles and miles and miles past to the far northwest side. So again, people are saying, look, part of the reason that we're so mad is because you're not providing enough energy.

Right.

But there's another kind of entity at play as well. Right. What is that? It's the Texas Utility Commission.

It's something like that. Yeah. Texas Utility Commission, which is sort of like an in-between between ERCOT and your power company.

Yeah, exactly. They basically, they regulate the price. The price.

They're basically making sure that these companies Stay competitive.

Yeah.

And don't jack up the prices.

They're trying to make it as cheap as possible. ERCOT has a job, if I, if I remember this correctly, ERCOT has a job of keeping electricity available. Right. The Texas Utility Commission has the job of making electricity— They regulate the price.

Cheap. Yeah.

As possible. So, which, look, that's, that's a, a lot of words. to say we're in a problematic situation where we're just— it's freaking hot outside. Well, so getting no relief.

I actually have this, this chart from, from Mid-South. And in May and June and July, the average temperature was pretty consistently about 10 degrees hotter than it was in 2020.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think—

And 5 degrees hotter than 2021.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I don't think that— I think there was like 2, maybe 5 days last summer that it hit 100.

Oh, yeah.

And like this year, almost all of them are 100 plus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, so what we wanted to do is, is run through some things that they're recommending to help keep reduce your use of electricity in your home.

Right.

And I'll, I'll just go through this list real quick, and then Kevin and I probably have a couple that, that we know about that, you know, and, and these are, these are pretty standard. So just real quick. One, increase your thermostat by 1 to 2 degrees. So, like, if you keep it at 75, you know, see if you can manage it at 77 for a while.

Right.

77 is still gonna feel cool compared to 105. you know, relative temperature outside.

And you can run fans.

Sure.

Most of us have fans in our house.

Right.

Or you can go get a box fan or something.

Sure.

And it's gonna cost a lot less money to run a fan than it is to run the air conditioner.

Absolutely. So, so, and then if you have any incandescent light bulbs in your house, change those out to LEDs. They, they produce a lot less heat and use a lot less power. Power.

Yep.

Um, so this, this one was interesting to me. Unplug your tech devices when not in use. So like, I— and like, that extends, I think, to like your TV, your receiver, your, you know, all those, you know, extra things that are always using a little bit of electricity.

Yeah, like even, even your toaster. If there's a— if you got a Keurig, like anything that has a, a, an on light, right, or a power light or a clock, you know, anything like that. I know it doesn't seem like it's a lot, But if you went around and started counting, I bet most people would have 30 of them.

Oh, easy.

You know?

Easy.

And, and that winds up adding up. Right.

Uh, replace your air filters. Yeah. You know, if they're dirty, that's gonna make your, your, your air conditioner run a lot more efficiently.

Yep.

Um, keep your curtains and blinds closed during the day.

Yeah.

That's a big one. I mean, because the sun heats up your house like an oven.

Yeah. And I mean, even if you need, like, if I know a lot of people are going, okay, well, what's— I either open the curtains or I turn the lights on. It's like, okay, well, um, if you have LEDs, it's a lot cheaper to run an LED than it is to basically cool down from the hot window. Yeah.

So, um, and then the last one that they recommend is wash your clothes in cold water and hang to dry when possible.

Hang to dry.

Yep. Get the old clothesline out.

I would— yeah, I, I mean, I would think that if you have a natural gas dryer that might—

Probably doesn't apply.

Doesn't apply.

I mean, it still uses a little bit of electricity.

It does. But, yeah. There's, there's a lot of things that, that they hit on here. I'm surprised that they don't— it's kind of a catch-22, I think, because you go buy a smart thermostat if you don't have one.

Mhmm.

But if you can buy a smart thermostat, you will save money.

Yes.

You just will.

And we're gonna, we're gonna mention that here in a minute because that's something else that it's, it's another section here, but it's something we're gonna circle back around to is those, smart thermostats.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, because there's a lot of reasons. I mean, you can— first of all, a lot of times it's like, hurry, hurry, get out the door. Ah, forgot to change my thermostat, right? Well, if you have a smart thermostat, you can hop on your phone and change it. Um, but just in general, even if you don't have a smart thermostat, if you have a thermostat that can be programmed, program it, right? And, and just leave it alone. You know, it'll do what it needs to do when it needs to do it. You don't have to worry about it. Yeah.

So do you have any, any, any tips that you have, you know, wisdom that you've garnered over the years?

Well, I think that there, there are a couple of things. One of them, and I know this is very inconvenient, but don't use your oven. Grill outside of it as much as you possibly can. Um, and here's the reason. Not only does most— most ovens are electric, not all of them. You got gas ones, but it heats up your home.

Yeah, it does.

And the thing is, once you heat it up, it takes a long time for it to cool back down. And so if you can cook stuff, I mean, look, I've got an egg. We've talked about it before on the show. I've got an egg. It'll bake. sear. It'll, you know, regular grill. It'll smoke. It'll do all kinds of things. So a lot of these, like, pellet smokers will do the same thing. You can bake on them if you want to. Just don't put the smoke in. And so if there's a way that you can use an alternate heating source, I think that it would be beneficial, even if it's—

Like your car window. One or two, right?

One or two days a week would even help.

Yeah.

Right? Um, so that, that's something that I, that I think is good. The other one that, that to me is a big one is to do everything you can to check the seals on your windows and doors.

Yeah.

Because, um, you're losing air because whenever your air conditioner comes on, I don't know if you've noticed, like, if your door's almost closed, it slams closed, right? Because it is pulling every amount of air through, uh, that system. And if you've got a leaky door or a leaky window, Yeah. it's just pulling all that hot air straight in. Um, in fact, uh, so my, my new house, the return is right next to the attic, uh, access, and it was not closing all the way, and it was drooping down just a little bit. And I couldn't get it adjusted. So I literally took screws and I just screwed that thing shut. Because I don't need up there except

from time to time. And I can loosen a screw or two because I don't wanna just— I mean, it was literally gonna be pulling hot air straight through that attic.

Yeah.

So that, that would be a huge thing. Just check all your windows and doors. Make sure they're sealed up.

So that, that's actually one of mine. I, I always tell people to check the, the, the sweeps on the bottom of the doors. That's the one hardly anybody ever notices.

That also keeps bugs out.

It does keep bugs out. So, yeah, that's so— and then the other one is I've been— I've— I need to start, like, collecting commission because I have sold so many attic tents. So, which probably could have solved your problem without putting the screws in.

It could have.

So if you guys don't know, I mean, you can just go to Amazon and search attic tent. It's an insulated pop-up tent on the interior of your attic door that is insulated, and it keeps air from flowing from inside your house up into your attic. But it also keeps critters and stuff from getting through.

Yeah.

But it's just that it's— you, when you, when you do the pull-down door in your attic and you go up the steps, you just unzip it.

Yeah. It's no, it's no big deal.

Yeah. It's no big deal at all. But especially if you have a 2-story home.

Yeah.

I have told— people have told me that after installing it, it has been life-changing upstairs for them with that attic tent.

Yeah.

Because all of a sudden, it's nice and cool upstairs where it hasn't because there's, like, that transfer of heat between the attic and the, and the upstairs. That's, you know, for whatever reason, it's just so much more prevalent upstairs.

It's heat rises.

So, but yeah, once they put that attic tent in and it just, I mean, basically, you just staple it to the inside of the door.

It's easy.

And it's one of the few things that's gone down in price. I think when they first started selling them, they were like $100 a pop. I've seen them on Amazon recently for like $39.

What?

Yeah.

I need to get one.

Yeah, they— I mean, like, for what they— for what they do, it's, it's, it's crazy not to have one.

Yeah, it actually brings up another thought. Um, one of the things that we did to reduce our heating bill, uh, at our previous home is we installed an attic fan.

Mm-hmm. Now, was it like a solar fan?

Yeah.

Okay. It was like $1,000.

Not— so don't just rush out and buy an attic fan. You know, they're probably not saving money by just installing it today. But what it does is it pulls out a significant amount of heat. So it's basically on a thermostat, and once it hits— I think it's like 105 degrees or 100 degrees or something like that in your attic— that thing turns on and it just pulls air out of your attic.

Yeah.

Um, and that dramatically reduces your house heating bill. cooling bill. So something else to think about.

Yeah. So one of the other things, um, because we probably need to wrap this up.

I've got one more.

You got one more?

Well, this is— yeah, yeah.

Oh, go ahead.

Okay, this is something that blew me away, but a lot of people will think, oh, I'll just dim the lights in my house.

Oh yeah, you're talking about this.

Because I've got a dimmer switch. I'll just dim the lights and it'll use less energy. Well, that is a complete lie. So I'm debunking, uh, this lie that you've heard.

Right.

That if you just dim your lights, it's gonna use less power because the, the truth of the matter is what happens is there's, there's a couple different ways dimmer switches work, but either way it works, it pulls the same amount of power. It just transfers the amount of energy that it's putting to the bulb, right? So, um, if you think I'm just gonna, you know, lower my lights a little bit, you're using the same amount of power as if you have them up all the way. Now, it might just help your mood, sure, but it's not going to change your energy.

I wonder, I wonder if dimming the lights at all, if you're using incandescents, if it would reduce the heat.

Uh, I mean, that's, that's the only one I could see that might make sense. It might reduce heat, yeah. I mean, I guess that's possible.

But that's only, only if it's incandescent.

Right. Yeah. And you shouldn't have incandescent bulbs right now.

We've already covered that. Yeah.

But if you do, I would see that being the case. But still, it's gonna provide the same amount of power to it. So, uh, just something to be aware of that a dimmer switch is not going to save you money. Yeah.

So, okay. So one of the things I wanted to make everybody else aware of, because this is, this is the case with Kevin and I's, uh, power company is they're offering incentives on your bill for you to do things for your home. So, like, for instance, for us, we get a credit on our bill for attic access insulation. We get credit on our bill if we can provide proof that we had an HVAC tune-up. And we get credit on our bill if we have a programmable and/or smart thermostat.

Really?

Yeah. And I think you get— and I think that's an ongoing credit of $25 for us.

Nice.

If you replace your water heater, that's a $600 credit for the, for the power company. And then credit for window screens. And, like, you can—

there's—

and they're saying, like, there's, there's a bunch more. So, like, there's, there's lots of different credits that you're— you, like, if you've, if you've switched to, like, an Ecobee or a Nest thermostat, Mhmm. That's something that you probably need to tell your power company so that you can get credit.

Yeah.

For using—

I just did that.

A device.

Yeah, I just did that. So I need to call them. Right.

So that you get money off of your bill. I mean, because let's face it, I mean, like, especially if you're going to be getting that, that WPCA on there, which everybody's going to get it, uh, at least here in Texas. I don't know how it's working in other states, um, but, you know, you're going to be getting— it's just, it's going to be more expensive.

Sure.

Uh, and, and part of that is, is the downstream of gas and oil being more expensive than it's been in the past. So it's more expensive to create that energy. And so they're gonna— they're— rather than, you know, just ratcheting up the prices, they're giving you like a one-time fee. At least that's what they're saying. They're saying it's gonna be a one-time fee.

One time this summer.

So, and I'm sure they, you know, there's, there's things that are outside of their control, and that's, that's true in everybody's business. Sure. There's been things that have outside of everybody's control.

Yeah.

That are affecting the way that we do business and what we charge to do that business. And, you know, the energy company's not immune from that.

Yeah.

By any stretch of the imagination.

Yeah.

So as much as you can do, there's— there are things that you absolutely have control over to affect the efficiency of your home. Unfortunately, one of the things that, you know, you're— if you're— if you're on YouTube or you're on any of these, like, social media platforms, you're probably getting pushed hard with solar energy right now.

Oh, yeah.

Like, did you know it's free to get it installed? And it's like, you guys are so full of crap.

No.

We—

you and I have both gone through the, the spiels about it, and it did not save money for a long time.

For a long time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Eventually, yes. But you have to buy the system. And for my house, it was like $75,000.

Right.

Paid out over 30 years. And after you pay that off, then you're—

Hopefully, it's still working.

Yeah. Exactly. If you don't have to replace panels, this, that, and the other. But I— that's the experience that I've had, that it's not cheaper.

Well, so a lot of the ads that I've been hearing recently are promoting, like, hey, you wanna get this with a whole home battery? And I'm like, those things are— I mean, like, yes, I get the—

Yeah.

Why you want one.

Yeah.

But, like, the, the tech is not there yet.

It's not.

It's just not.

Nope.

These things are crazy expensive.

Yep.

And, you know, so I mean, like, for, for my money, I'd much rather have a natural gas generator.

Oh yeah.

I mean, absolutely. With everything we've experienced this summer and with the winter storm a couple years ago, a, a whole home generator, natural gas, seems to be like— if you have access to natural gas, seems to be like the way to go.

Yeah.

Um, I will say The families that I know that got a little coin in the pocket, most of them have whole home, like, massive whole home generators that are diesel operated.

Oh, yeah. Those diesel ones are awesome.

They're huge.

They're huge. They're massive. But you also got to keep diesel on hand.

And that's the thing is, like, diesel is stupid expensive.

It is.

Not promoting you do anything unethical. If you can get some ag diesel.

Does it— well, does that work in those? I mean, dude, it works just fine.

Ag diesel is no different than regular diesel.

It's just got red. It's got a red dye in it.

Red dye in it.

But you gotta get it first.

Well, you gotta get it and you gotta transport it.

That's the problem.

Well, you better have some farm tags and it better be operating agricultural equipment. Otherwise it's like $10,000 fine or something like that. Exactly. I used to buy, I used to buy a lot of ag diesels. I think I bought it in like, it was either 50 or 100 gallon batches at a time.

Nice. Nice.

So yeah, like we, we got, we got checked. Well, like it's one of those deals, like if you, if you have ag diesel, it's almost in your best interest to have like no diesel trucks because state troopers are gonna constantly be like dipstick in your vehicles.

Yeah. No thank you.

Yeah, it's just a pain.

Yeah, get a V10. That's what I got. That's right.

So anything we didn't cover, man?

Ah man, I— there's plenty more that we can wind up talking about. In fact, uh, you know, we get a, uh, one of our listeners is, uh, chiming in right now talking about, um, basically the idea of their people are coming up with all kinds of ways to cool down your condenser unit on your air conditioner. Um, I'm— I would be really interested to hear, like, J-Hugh talk about that a little bit because, um, I hear 2 sides of the story, right? Like, right, you know, put a lot of— like, there was a deal going around for a while, like, put up one of those canopies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Over it so it just keeps it out of the sun. Uh, what Lucas, uh, was just talking about was Uh, it's a product that basically blows mist onto your condenser, right, just to cool it down.

I would, you know, I would imagine that's only effective depending on the amount of sun exposure your system has.

Sure.

I mean, like, if you combine like one of those like canopy tents, yeah, with a misting system, right? Yeah, it's probably going to cool the condenser down pretty—

And then the air that it's pulling in through the condenser, it's already cooled a little bit. I mean, I understand the way it works. But, yeah. It's just, I mean, I, I'd be interested to kinda hear some of those sorts of things. My, my guess, and this is, I, I, I feel confident about this.

Mhmm.

My guess is that Jay Hu would tell us, and, and he's our, our buddy that does AC stuff. AC stuff. Yeah.

Affordable Air Repair.

Affordable Air Repair. Yeah. I don't mind throwing that out at all. Yeah. I think that he would probably tell us, keep your unit Running by maintaining the thing.

Yeah.

Regularly.

He's, he's big on doing regular inspections.

Well, I mean, look, you're— the last thing you want is to have something go out right now.

Mm-hmm.

And, and what are you gonna do? I mean, you hope that he has an availability to come by your house and fix it.

Yeah.

And then how much is that gonna cost?

Uh, depends on who you call right now. I mean, exactly.

I mean, as opposed to spending— what is it, is it $100 every time he comes out to, to do a maintenance?

Uh, well, I mean, I think it's $50.

I think it's $50 because I had 2 units, so it was $100. That's $50.

$50 per unit.

Per unit. So it's not a big deal. Uh, get it, get it maintained so that the other thing that does is it puts you on a list, and, and if something does go out, he will get to you faster. Yeah, because you're part of his maintenance. team. So it's one of those deals where it's like, take care of the stuff you got, do the best with what you can, be smart, and hopefully—

Well, and like establish relationships with people that you trust to look after the things that, you know, make your home run, right? You know, your appliances, your HVAC system, your electricity, your— I mean, like all those things. establish relationships with people that you trust to, like, tell you the truth about what's going on with your home. And then, I mean, like, essentially, that's the whole point of the show.

Sure.

Is, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna talk to people that, that we have developed relationships with, right? Um, that we know are telling us the truth, um, and that are gonna set us up to, you know, have a successful home. Yeah. That, you know, it, you know, that when something goes wrong, we know with, with confidence that we can call them. And it's not, it's not about the price. It's about, are you going to do right by me?

Yeah. And, and look, I'll tell you right now, you and I, we practice what we preach on that.

Yeah.

Because the people that we have on our show are people that we call.

Yeah.

I mean, both of us use JHU. I just had an entertainment center custom built by Chuck Dodd. He was on our, on our show. Uh, we— I use—

He's probably gonna do some cabinets for me.

Perfect. Yeah, I would use him. He's great. Um, Aaron Bernizal, he came and did my, my, uh, my cabinets. He painted, repainted everything. Yeah, right. I mean, we, we use the people. Uh, Paul the plumber, he's been at my house multiple times. Uh, Burke, he's been at my house multiple times. And we, we go on and on and on, like, but it's relationships so that, you know, that you're getting what you're paying for and they're not going to screw you, right? You know, they're going to take care of you.

Yeah, I mean, I still remember the time that we, uh, do you remember interviewing Zano?

Yeah. Oh yeah, that the jacked— oh yeah, I was actually talking to him just the other day. I was like, man, my back, I'm gonna go talk to him.

I don't know what was going on, but I still remember him talking about, he goes, the, the times I've regretted spending money in my life is when I've tried to do it on the cheap. He goes, every time I've tried to do it on the cheap, I've regretted it.

Wow.

And so, like, for me, it's, it's never about— like, I, I don't wanna— I'm not just gonna throw money away, right? I'm gonna be smart about the way I use my money. But when it, when it comes to the things in my home, it's not about the price, it's about the trust, right?

It is. Oh, well, all right. I think that does it, uh, for tonight, for today's episode. Thanks for, uh, listening in, guys. And, uh, If you haven't already, like, subscribe, do all the things to do to make sure that you get all of our content. And don't forget, we're gonna have new content coming out soon, so it's gonna be really, really good. So if you haven't already, go on iTunes, please leave us a 5-star rating and review. We'd really, really like that. Until next time, we'll seal it.

See ya.