Plumbing Insights with The Fisher Family

It's the Homeowner Show! Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to bring you the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Craig Williams. I'm running the studio live without Kevin because he's at camp. Glad you guys could join us. It's gonna be a fun episode. We got a bunch of guests in the studio. Hang on, let me turn this off.

Hi, I'm Kevin.

'Cause no one wants to hear the weird after music. Uh, guys, we have a, we have a really fun episode actually in the studio tonight. We haven't been in the studio for a while, so we are glad to be back at home, um, where it sounds good and the lighting is good and there's no rain and lightning trying to kill us. Um, 'cause that was pretty much the experience at our last live one, even though it was, it was a lot of fun. But anyway, this episode is brought to you live by Lone Star Appliance Repair. If you need your appliances repaired, which everybody needs their appliances repaired, or if you just need them a little maintenance, a little cleanup, a little, you know, maybe some,

some defrosting going on, uh, give Darlene a call over in the office at 936-647-2364 and she will get you all hooked up. She will send one of their expert techs out to get your appliance checked out and let you know exactly what's going on with it. Maybe it's just not getting cold. Maybe you got a little funk in the, uh, in the old dishwasher there, or a little funk in the, in the washing machine. and get it all cleaned up and good as new, and it'll cost you a fraction of what it would be to replace it. Give 'em a call, 936-647-2364. Uh, this episode is also brought to you by True Texas Solar. Our friends over at True Texas Solar are looking to help everyone get their home and business to

energy independence, and they can do that through a series of strategies that they have. You can get solar on your home, you can get generators on your home, you can put a battery on your home. For any of those instances where the power goes down, which is happening a lot, I think even lawsuits are now being brought to the state of Texas against some of the power grids because we are having such a problem with our infrastructure. True Texas Solar can get you set up to where you'll never lose power. I mean, it might be like five seconds and you'll be back up and running. If you are, this is like a huge need now for people working remotely from home. I keep hearing this from people that you know have home offices. They've

transitioned to homework. They're like, "I have to have a a backup plan." in, in place in order for me to continue to do work even when the grid goes down. My boss says it's not a good excuse anymore for me to, you know, not have internet, to not have power. I need to be able to continue to do the work. And, and so guys like True Texas Solar can help you out. They can get you the, the best system that you need for your home, and they're not gonna take advantage of you. The CEO, Josh, actually is out touring the state of Texas, talking to groups about these scams that, uh, solar companies are running, these other, These outside

non-Texas entities that none of y'all want to work with, how they're scamming homeowners out of thousands. And this is one of the good ones. Give them a call: 936-286-8325.

Again, 936-286-8325.

All right, tonight in the studio, we're gonna have a good time. We have the Fisher family. We actually have the Fisher family in the studio. We're gonna— I'm gonna get everybody pulled up on the screen here so that way I'm not having to switch back and forth all night.

Let's make—

see, yeah, that's beautiful. Now I don't have to think about the camera. Glorious. Because this is Kevin's job.

Kevin's not here.

Kevin's not here.

See, Kevin, we have a robot that can do your job. How are you guys doing tonight?

Good.

Awesome.

Yeah?

Yeah, I got monsooned on as soon as we tried to leave.

A little rain on the way here?

Started heading towards Conroe and it was just The clouds parted. It's meant to be. Get us out of there.

Hey, if it cools it off a little bit, I'm all for it.

Yeah.

So, and I think they even changed the weather, like, because I was looking at it like tomorrow and Wednesday, and they were saying like it's up to like 50% for tomorrow and Wednesday.

Oh yeah.

And it was like 20% this morning.

No, I know it's gonna rain out of nowhere. I looked outside, I was getting my son's shoes on, trying to find them, and I was like, is that rain? So I had to get a— we don't have any umbrellas because I'm awesome and unprepared always. So I got a Kroger bag and threw it over my head.

Well, there you go.

Get out the door.

Well, so we, uh, we, we have a couple of cool episodes coming up. Um, we have a review of a sauna that we just put in over at the, uh, the party deck. Um, it's like a big cool— have you guys like seen these like new home saunas that you can get. Like, it's, it's cool. It's like a big wooden— it's a wooden box that— I mean, I've— Yeah.

I got it.

My, my chiropractor recommended it to me, and he's like, look, dude, just get a sauna. You can sit in, you can sweat off all your troubles. Um, I was having really bad back problems, and he's like, look, this is one of the strategies that you can engage in order to get your back ready or get your back better. And it really has helped. Um, it was super easy to put together. We're gonna do like a full review on that. But the other one that's interesting, um, is we're actually going to do— we, we get into politics a little bit every once in a while on the show. We try to like stay out of it as much as possible because it's not really our bailiwick. Um, but there was an interesting survey that came

out, I think it was last week, of the number one issue, the number one voting issue for millennials in 2024. Do you guys have any idea what it might be? Any guesses?

Being able to buy a home.

That's actually it. Yeah, that is it. That home affordability is the number one issue for millennials in 2024. And like, what is interesting about it to me is like none of the candidates are talking about it. And then they're all telling them like, this is the issue. And they're all talking about like immigration and they're talking about scandals and they're talking about, you know, everything else. But it's like they're telling them this is the number one issue, right? And they're not— what are they doing about it?

What a shocker.

I don't think they have an immediate fix or a quick turnaround on how to fix the market, on the homeowner market. And so that's why they're avoiding it, because anything that they say that they're going to do to try to fix it, it's not going to happen right away. So they're trying to dangle the carrots for us to all paw at, and I don't think that's one of the easy carrots for them to attack right now. Yeah, it's not going to happen.

Well, you know, it also seems kind of weird to me to go to the people that screwed it up to try and get them to fix it.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Hey, you really messed this up. What are your best solutions?

Yeah. It's like, hey, you spray painted and, and I don't know, I was trying to think of a good example. Just words eluded me for the first time in my life ever. It's weird.

Whoa.

So, so anyway, we're gonna, we're gonna do a deep dive in, uh, the next couple of weeks on like which candidate, and we're gonna look at all 3 of them. Um, I guess we could look at all 4 of them. I don't know that the 4th one's actually like— no one's Anybody know who the Libertarian candidate is?

Isn't it Jill?

Don't ask me.

Is it Jill?

She was the Green Party candidate. I think she was running again. I thought I saw her on there again, but I know you have RFK, Trump, and Biden.

Yeah. Those are the 3 I was thinking that we're gonna dig into. I mean, I think those are the 3 that actually have a shot.

Yeah.

I don't know the— I mean, I don't even know the names of the other, like, I guess there's Libertarian Party, Green Party. They never, like, I don't even think they go above 1% in the—

Oh, no.

It's—

yeah.

It's terribly difficult to get any traction in that.

Yeah. I listened to an interview with RFK today.

Yeah.

And I think he's an interesting dude. There's a lot of stuff about him I'm not on board with, but dude's into falconry.

Yeah.

Did y'all know that? Like, he's been raising hawks and like, he's been catching hawks and rearing hawks since he was a kid.

All right, that's it.

Oh, that's cool.

Collected.

Like, that's cool.

It's cool, isn't it?

I was like, there's a hunting podcast that I listen to.

Shout out to the, the Meat Eater Podcast, to Steve Ornella and those guys over there. Brought him in, they started talking about falconry, and he was like, yeah, I've been catching these birds since I was a boy. And, and like, and he was talking about this kind of, this kind of hawk. There's, um, what is it called? Anyway, he was talking about his first one was a red-tailed hawk, but then he found out that there's these other hawks, they actually hunt in packs, and it's like the only bird that does that.

That's terrifying.

That's amazing.

He was talking about how they'll like chase a squirrel around a tree together I mean, it's just cool stuff. And he's like, when I found out that they did that, I was like, I had to get one. And I was like, who does that?

That's why I avoid them. Like, oh my gosh, no thank you.

He's like, no, I'm just gonna go and catch one and train it and like just steal all their babies so I can sell them.

Okay, now, now maybe not elected.

You make money where there's money to be made.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a great hobby though.

I mean, well, it's like one of the oldest hobbies.

Yes, it is.

I mean, it's like, it is like the hobby of kings of old. I mean, like, it's He said he picked it up, um, because there was a book he read out of the Oval Office from when his uncle was president about King Arthur and how he was into falconry. And he's like, well, if King Arthur was into it, I'm gonna be into it.

Well, it was originally like a hunting method, wasn't it?

Well, that's what he was—

that's what he's using it for.

Yeah, he's catching rabbits and squirrels.

Yeah.

So when you can use it, he said you can use it to catch other birds, um, but that's tougher, um, because other— most other birds fly faster than hawks. Okay, so he said it's really tough.

I do see people like they do. I've seen where they license people to for hawks to catch dove in the cities to help with the population pigeons and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's effective.

Yeah, really effective.

Yeah, really cool to watch. It is cool to watch.

Still feel it'd be more fun to let me loose with a shotgun, but it's frowned upon in city limits, I guess.

Yeah, not in Argentina though. Argentina, it's like wherever you want to shoot a dove, it's fair game. Just kill them.

Yeah. Oh.

There's millions of them. So yeah, I mean, like, I've had friends that go to Argentina and there's hunting ranches there where you— like, they say you'll throw your shoulder out before you stop shooting them.

Really?

Yeah. And there's the— usually you have like a guide with you and his job is to stand behind you with another shotgun, loading that shotgun so that when this one's empty, he can just hand you that one, let the one you were just shooting cool off. And then just keep going.

Just mow them down.

Just mowing down. And he goes, and they're like, it never ends. There's just birds all day long. All day long.

That'd be so fun.

I want to go next year.

I mean, I'm not going to blame that as our next, uh, our little, uh, kid-free trip, honey. Zach and I are avid hunters. Oh, cool.

Yeah, same. Like, I, I love it. So, and like, I'm— we've got, um, Yeah, we're going, we're going deer hunting this year. We're going dove hunting this year, probably go duck hunting again this year. I'm really getting into like the bird hunting. I like— I didn't do it this year. I really wanted to go turkey hunting.

I grew up hunting in South Texas. And I mean, for— I was— I have 3 sisters, and I was Daddy's only little boy.

Okay.

And so, and I was the last one to get married out of the 3. So when Thanksgiving came around, I was the only kid without a spouse, family to divvy up with. So Dad and I would pack up and go to the lease for 4 or 5 days. And 3 years in a row, I shot a turkey on Turkey Day.

Oh, that's awesome.

And we cooked up a couple of drumsticks for dinner. They always tasted terrible, but we had turkey on Thanksgiving at the deer lease 3 years in a row. It was really cool. My dad was always pumped up about it.

I have heard with wild turkey that it's one of those deals. You can't roast it like you would one from the grocery store. They're just not the same. And so you want to make like sausage. Yeah, you want to make what's that German dish where you like pound it and bread it and strusel?

No schnitzel.

Schnitzel. That's the one.

The other one.

Schnitzel.

Strusel is a dessert. You want some turkey dessert?

Sounds like a chopped ingredient. Make turkey for dessert.

It's a tough meat. I I I if I would love for somebody to cook some wild turkey for me to where I would like it. I enjoy hunting them and everybody at camp would, would eat them and I would take one bite and just, you know, kind of do like the fake fork movement. And so I was like, yeah, it's great, Dad. Thanks.

How were they cooking them though? Over the fire?

Well, yeah, well, we would, we had a smoker down there. So we would smoke them sometimes. And then we would use the Allegro marinade. That is great. It's one of my favorites. I like to put it in hamburger meat and you know, beef and stuff like that. But my dad would always buy the hickory flavored one. And hickory is my least favorite of all marinades of all time. And it was like, so you had wild turkey, which already wasn't my favorite, and then hickory on top of that. And I was like, are you trying to make this terrible for me? But thanks, Dad. It was delicious. I really hope he doesn't listen to this. It'll break his heart.

I'm sending him this.

You are?

Yeah, he's like, I'll make her prove her love to me.

Yeah, sorry, Randy. Just please don't make me eat wild turkey anymore. Like anything else down there. But no, it was great. I mean, that was the only time I got to be an only child was when I went on hunting and fishing trips with my dad and I was into it already. So then you get to be— and I'm a twin on top of that. So it's like—

Are you really?

Oh yeah, it's like double time, no alone time, you know, only child time. And so it was great. I really enjoyed it.

Identical or?

Oh no.

Okay.

I mean, so the only thing identical about us was the fact that we were both college athletes. But I was a catcher, so I had to get as small and low as possible. And she was a middle blocker. And so even our positions were opposites. And, you know, hair down to here and just our career paths. So we had college sports, went into insurance. My mother was a State Farm agent and then became an executive. And so we just, we had the identical career paths until, and she's a State Farm agent now.

Okay.

And I went independent because I wanted to do commercial only. And, but other than that, like, we could not be— her hair is down to here, mine's above my ears. And she's, you know, the PTA, you know, I brought the gluten-free cranberry crunch muffins. And I'm like, here's your Shipley and chocolate milk, kids.

Good luck.

Have a good time.

Diabetes later.

Now go aggravate your teachers.

Not my problem anymore.

You're on their clock. So but yeah, no, but it's I mean, we get along really well. We all do. But it was just very polar. I mean, you could not get— we were roommates for 9 months. That's about the only thing that's similar about us. So very, very eclectic group.

So, you know, Neil from Ontario says hello.

Hello, Neil.

So, but now plumbing?

Yes.

By the way, where'd you play college ball?

Southern Miss.

Southern Miss?

Yes, sir.

Are you from Mississippi?

I am not. I am from Alvin, Texas.

Alvin, Texas.

Born and raised in Alvin and Nolan was great. He showed up at all the state tournaments. My twin sister, they went to state twice. I will say this, Nolan, you didn't come to the state water polo playoff that I got to play in, and I was a little upset, but that's okay. It wasn't a UIL sport, but it's all right, Nolan. But yeah, no, he would come to the, to the girls' sports, and then, I mean, our guys' sports at that time. Shout out to all my football buddies. I love you guys, but y'all didn't make it anywhere. So the only time I got to see Nolan was that volleyball state championship. But, uh, playoffs.

But well, so real quick for— I mean, we, we've been talking now for almost 15 minutes, but so everybody knows who you guys are, why don't you guys take a second and just introduce yourselves so everybody knows? You start.

No, I'm Zachary Fisher. I'm, I'm the plumber.

The plumber. The plumber.

And I'm Laura Fisher, and I'm Zachary's wife, and, uh, I'm the CEO of Fisher Family Plumbing.

Okay. I'm Alicia Fisher, Zachary's sister, and I'm the chaos coordinator and Laura wrangler.

Yes, she is. She has probably the most vital role in the company.

From what I'm gathering, those role titles are synonymous.

Yes.

You know, but it's important to say both.

Yeah. No, Alicia does all of our marketing. She did pretty much from day one. And we had another friend who was helping us out. Shout out to Renee Stevens and got us off. And then, um, you know, she was moving back from Florida and it's like, all right, I need your help. Let's go. Let's do this. We really wanted to incorporate as much family as we could. And I mean, she's brilliant at it.

Well, that's how we met. I mean, that's how we got connected is she showed up at one of our live events and, and I think we were talking after, after the show.

Yep. After it ended.

Um, and it was like, oh, this sounds, this sounds cool. And we hadn't had, we hadn't had plumbing on in a while. So that was good. Yeah.

So Yeah, the one I introduced myself, and he was like, I think you follow us. I was like, yeah, I kind of like all your posts. I wanted to make sure you knew who I was.

Stalking you a little bit.

It's fine. But hey, I didn't slide into their DMs.

I waited to meet them in person.

Okay, I did it the right way. I didn't want to be like one of those weirdos. So, you know, it's fine.

Now here we are. DMs are fine. Like, well, it's— I'm glad you mentioned that because like, I want people to know that we do pay attention. Like we do, like we look at Like a lot of people say like, don't read the comments, and like we read the comments.

Like everybody—

You have to.

One, because we like— it's fun to find the crazy.

Oh yeah.

It really is. We don't engage with it at all, but like we do watch the comments. We pay attention to people that are watching the show. So like, you know, it is a good way to get connected to us. But I mean, like we don't mind people sending us messages and stuff like that. That's fine.

I'll just send you a funny meme from time to time.

That's fine.

That's me.

Send it on over.

Sarcasm is my love language.

And so do you, I mean, Fisher Family Plumbing, do you guys focus mainly on residential? Do you, do you do commercial? I mean, how do you—

Yeah, we have, we are, we started it with a grand idea that in, in the long term, we plan on having a residential department, commercial department, and new construction or in construction department.

Okay.

And, and we've already pretty much hired out the guys that we envision running those divisions for us in the future. And so we're just, we're focused on laying all the foundation, all the groundwork. Um, about to celebrate our first year, um, end of the month. And, you know, so far so good.

Yeah.

I mean, and got a rocking team. And I mean, we had a vision from the very beginning. I mean, I had a vision 3 years ago, 2 weeks into dating Zach, I just looked at him and with my background as a commercial insurance agent and I kind of focused on contractors and hearing all their woes and ways of doing everything and then meeting him and I was like, uh, we are, we're totally gonna start our own plumbing company one day. I just, 2 weeks in, I was like, yep, this is happening. And we got married a year later and now here we are.

I like residential plumbing.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's what you enjoy?

Yeah.

What, what is it that you like about it?

No, I, I like it. It's one-on-one with the customer, so I get to meet the people in our neighborhood. So I see a lot of neighbors and then I go to their house and then I go and I see them at the grocery store. And so it's just helping out with simple problems and I like to teach them plumbing so people can more understand plumbing because half the time I go in somebody's house, they don't understand it whatsoever.

Mm-hmm.

And so I can, I could try to get them to understand exactly what's happening, why it happened, and then how to keep it from happening again in the future.

Yeah.

And by far just helping people, man.

What, what, what do you find that most people don't understand the most about their homes and, and, and the plumbing infrastructure there that you're having to educate? The drains. Okay. What about them though?

It's because they never see them.

Okay.

95% of your life, your drains are working perfectly fine.

Sure.

And then out of nowhere, it sits there and it backs up. And so you could have multiple different types of stoppages. your lavatory sink in your bathroom, your bathroom sink backs up, it's backing up by yourself, by itself. Nobody's running water, but it's still filling up with water and it's from the AC condensate. And so just teaching people how they can treat their drains to prevent those issues from happening again is pretty cool.

So like, what kind of things do you recommend that they do to like, because I'm thinking about like, you know, like an older married couple that's had the kids move out of the house, they got a 2-story home, there's a bathroom upstairs they don't use anymore. They may have an upstairs drain that backs up and they don't even know.

Yeah.

And like, what, what would, what would you tell them? Like, is it something they just need to go like peek in on from time to time? Or like, what do they need to be doing?

So there's multiple ways and there's a lot of different ways that everybody says you can treat those drains too for the AC condensates. There's, there's bleach down it, vinegar down it. There's products that you can put down it. So it's just a personal preference. And because you have the AC guys and then you have the plumbers and they're all kind of saying the same thing, but all a little bit different.

Sure.

treating those drains, but definitely going up there once a week at least to run— you at least need to run water in drains because if the water evaporates out of the drains, next thing you know you have sewer gas smell coming in your house. Yeah, because all that P-trap dries up. So definitely going up there periodically.

So it's not as— I mean, it's not just as simple as like, hey, just close that, you know, seal the— what's the stopper in the bottom?

Yeah, no, there's no just, uh, stopper in the bottom. You know, plunging the stopper down to stop anything from going through.

That's not gonna, that's not gonna do anything. No, no.

On the AC condensation line is where they— every— there's a misconception about what's actually clogging it, right? Is, or is that something different that I'm thinking of? I'm like plumber by proxy.

No, no, I got you.

Yeah, we're still learning.

I'm still learning.

No, so a lot of people say it's algae.

Okay.

They— a lot of people call it algae growing in your AC unit on your coils because it's green. Or it's, it's brown, it's white, it's green, it's black.

Yeah.

And it's— you have to have sunlight for algae because algae is green from photosynthesis, right? Well, what's— it's your AC unit is 40 to 50 degrees, pitch black, and 100% humidity. Yeah, it's, it's a biofilm. It's actually a fungi. It's classified as a fungi.

It's growing mushrooms, essentially.

I guess you could put it that way.

No DMT in those though.

No, no, no, no.

What's that?

Not that we'd know anything about that.

No, you're talking about—

I'm not disappointed.

I know.

Talking about microdosing people. It's fine. It's good for the VA. It's good for us. So I mean, like, so but like, what's the, what's the remedy for that?

So, you know, doing the bleach down the drain from the AC condensate line in the attic down will help with that. But also they do have products like New Line that is an AC drain conditioner and is supposed to kill all the biofilm. And so just, it's, some of them are a 3-month treatment, some are a 1-month treatment. All AC companies and a lot of plumbers will do chlorine tablets in there to kill it. That works as well. So it's just, uh, if you want to get it away from your sink, then rerouting it outside to your outside sewer.

Right.

Or to a gravel pit outside. And that can totally eliminate that scenario of your sink backing up from it.

So that's the ultimate treatment is just do a reroute, get it over with.

Okay.

You know, we actually do have $200 off reroutes right now.

Oh, just saying. Sorry. That's our marketing manager.

Sorry.

It's her job.

There's no off button. I was actually going to ask because like I ask questions sometimes based off like my own home experience, but like people that have been listening to the show for a long time knows that my my house is wackadoo. Um, and, and so like, it's almost the— it's like the exception that proves the rule most of the time, you know what I mean? Because like, my condensate line, I know exactly where it is, um, and it's not connected to anything other than itself. Like, it just— it's a line that runs outside the house and goes—

Well, that's good because now it's gonna— I'm not gonna clog your sinks, right?

Exactly.

Yeah. And so like, so what— like, if it's not the AC condensate line, then like on mine, what would it— what would be like the common cause for like a a common blockage in the line then?

Uh, hair. Hair and buildup. Every time you wash your hands, you use products, all that stuff that goes in that water, it all connects in that drain. And then sooner or later, with all the hair and all the other buildup from all the other products, it just will start causing blockages.

Just builds up over time.

Yeah.

And yummy, yummy things happening down there.

Well, I mean, and with like which I know is like the bane of like most people's existence, like people in the service industry's existence anyway, is like the, the, the, the, the thing underneath the drain in the, in the kitchen sink. Can't think of the name of it.

Garbage disposal.

Garbage disposal. Thank you.

Yes.

Like people pour all kinds of crap down the sink because they think that they— because they have a garbage disposal.

Yeah, this is his trigger point.

Like, like me, like I, I, like I have a jar on I may be old school for doing this, I don't know, but like I have a jar on top of my fridge and it's just for grease for when I cook.

Bacon grease.

Because I'm not gonna pour that, it's not to like, I'm not saving it to like cure meat. I'm saving it so it doesn't go down the drain and I don't have a big clog later on. But like I know that there has to be a section of people out there that just like whatever they cook on the stove just goes right down the drain.

Yes, those are our customers.

Those are your customers.

Yes.

We don't disparage you people.

It's like on one hand don't do it, but on the other hand, Please, please keep it up.

Here's our magnet right next to that sink on your fridge, please.

The best thing I can say is don't put anything down the disposal.

Right.

And I've been to calls where they throw an entire squash down there. Oh my gosh. Or they have an entire Tupperware full of broccoli. And it's a 1-year-old house, so there is no grease buildup really on the drains already. And so that's what just clogged it up because it's a lot of stuff going down that one drain at one time. But grease, man, that's whatever— that's what gets everybody.

Yes, it gets down there and congeals.

Yeah, I've actually seen a picture of like, I guess it's where plumbing goes out to the ocean or something, like to a big mass of water, and there's just tons of grease just built up around that. It is disgusting. And I think of it every time I clean something in my sink. And but that's why you scrape into a jar or the trash can And then you wipe it with a paper towel before you start cleaning it. Because even that little bit, I mean, it all adds up.

It does. We actually, right before Thanksgiving, you know, our company was all of about, what, 4 months old or so.

That video you made.

I made a video and I was like, your garbage disposal is not a trash can! Stop throwing crap down your garbage disposal. It's only for the oopsies that get by you.

Yeah.

That's it.

You know, the people, people that understand this are septic Septic tank people.

Yes, yes, they're the only people that get it.

Yes, and because they're the ones that get it because they have to pay that big bill to have the thing cleaned out later on, and then it's nasty. And but like, people, people that don't have septic systems, they just don't care.

Yeah, drains are meant for things that flow, not— yeah, that get gummy or hard or congeal. That's—

it's rice, liquid rice and noodles.

Oh my gosh.

Oh dude, rice has got to be the worst. Worst?

Uh, noodles are—

noodles are worse than rice?

Yeah, because, uh, definitely during winter, all the chicken, homemade chicken soups, chicken noodle soups, it's just— it's in there, the big egg noodles, and then everything is completely just jam-packed. And by the time I get there, it all soaks up that water and just expands. It expands even more. So it's even— it's— yeah, it's, it's not—

And noodles are bigger, like rice I feel like is small, so it can kind of flow through a little more. Well, you said noodles are worse than rice. I guess that's my thought process.

Lesson is, if you have a roommate that you're really mad at and you're getting kicked out, just throw a tub of spaghetti down the garbage disposal and be like, all right, peace out. Peace.

Have a good life.

Yeah.

Don't encourage that.

Oh, come on.

No, I'm sorry. That's the way my brain works.

Just make sure they have one of our cards if you're gonna do it.

And we'll charge them double for kicking you out of the house.

Like on the side, it's kind of crazy that garbage disposals, you can buy 1 horsepower, you can buy the 1.1s, you can get bigger garbage disposals for your house, and then they add more to the list of what you can put down it. And so it's like, it'll say chicken bones, it'll say harder substances. Oh my gosh. And so it's like people are just believing if I buy a more expensive garbage disposal that it's going to help their drain flow better. Their drain size never changed.

Yeah, it's not a bigger hole. Yeah, they're just thinking they can Tim the Toolman Taylor this chicken bone down the drain.

Exactly.

It's just not gonna happen.

No. Yeah, it was like the first time I want to— yeah, the first time I made dinner for Zach and I was cleaning up and he was like, stop, stop! And I was like, what? And he was like, don't put that down the disposal. And I was like, but I'm doing dishes.

Trash is—

so you were doing the trash can?

You were doing dishes?

Only because I was trying to impress him.

I know, like, at least that one time.

I totally catfished him. I like cleaned and cooked and here you go, honey, this is what life with me is going to be like. And then just kidding. Nope, nope, not Betty Crocker. Sorry. Well, I mean, for cleaning, cleaning-wise, I'll make you anything you want, but I'm not going to clean or do dishes. Not going to do it.

It'll taste good, but you got to clean it up afterwards.

You're going to have to work for it after the fact.

That's the rule in our house. I mean, like, I do most of the cooking and it's like, kids, get in there. Like, you ate it, right?

Come on.

Yeah, I cleaned this too.

I can't wait until mine are old enough.

Yes.

Oh my gosh, mine are too young.

That's why you have cheap dishes at the, at the outset. You can just— or paper.

Paper plates, best thing ever when you've got small children.

Very biodegradable. Yeah, it's good. Sure, probably get ate up in the comment section for that one.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Have real plates, Greg.

Just FYI for those people, I don't use them. Yeah, separate parties.

Well, so what, what are, what are some of the other like big trends you guys are seeing? I mean, like, is it, um, I mean, the stuff, stuff I hear about is like clear ice, stuff I hear about is tankless water heaters, stuff I hear about, um, I mean, clogged drains are obviously a big one, um, repiping houses, that's another big one. Yeah, I mean, what do you guys, what are you guys hearing? I mean, because like, I know like anytime in Texas we have a freeze, people start thinking about repiping, going over to PEX. I mean, are you guys still hearing about that kind of stuff? Is it still happening?

Yeah.

Yep.

No, uh, it's, it's just, it's not just because of a freeze. Galvanized or copper can spring leaks anytime.

Sure.

And just because they're 30, 40, 50 years old. And but there's 2 types of PEX. There's PEX-A and PEX-B. PEX-A can expand up to 3 times its size before busting, right? PEX-B, it's, it's, it's as flexible, but it'll sit there and split pretty quickly as well.

Really?

It's better than copper. What's better than— is, you know, it's, it's definitely a better piping for that sense. But the biggest issue with any kind of PEX is rodents. Oh yeah, about this.

Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, like, because they, they'll chew right up to the membrane on those things, and then it's like a slow leak.

Oh no. Typically whenever they hit them, because it's— they sit there and cave into it, carve into it, carve into it, and then that last one they sit there and they fully puncture it so it becomes a spray. And I've been to 2 different houses in the past 3 months because of one. The first one was a squirrel, and it just— luckily it was over the back patio of this house so it didn't flood it.

Oh, that's, that's good.

And then the second one, uh, here in The Woodlands, sat there, went and fixed one one day, told them they need to call exterminator. 12 hours later, she was calling the opposite end of her house. Sat there in the wall, chewed that one up. So I repaired that one, and then it was another 16 or 18 hours later, she called again. Totally different side of the house again, in another corner.

Oh my gosh.

A mouse chewed that one up.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I mean, like, every time I've run across it, I mean, at least in pest control, like, it's like they, they chewed right up to that point and then it— not a spray, but it's like a drip. And it was, at least in all the ones I've been brought in on, and it was like, hey, this is something that we just started noticing. And then it's like a, it's like a small wet spot in the sheetrock, and then it became a bubble and it just got bigger and bigger over it, but slowly. And so they didn't notice it as much.

Oh yeah.

And so they didn't know what they were— they were like, what's— and, but by the time they figured out what was going on, it was almost too late.

Yeah.

You know, and then you've got to go up there and repair it.

You got to call the dry guys.

Yeah. You got mildew going on, you got mold going on, you got a dry, you know, sheetrocking that needs repair, you got plumbing that needs repair. And so like the last thing on their mind is like catch the squirrel.

Um, so, well, but sometimes those, uh, the stuff y'all use to kill rodents like mice and stuff like that will make them super thirsty.

There, there are products out there that do that. I mean, we don't use any of them for that very reason because, I mean, they'll start chewing into pipes to do that.

And I think that's what happened with that house. Yeah, it's—

I mean, honestly, most of the time it's, it's techs that just don't know what they're doing, or they're— they've got products on their trucks and it says rodent and they just use it. Yeah, and it's, it's stuff that's intended for the exterior, not the interior. Um, but that's why you have to know.

Who you're going with for these products.

Are they knowledgeable? Yeah, I mean, it's because that is something that we run up against a bunch. It's like, well, isn't this just gonna make them thirsty? It's like, well, yeah, if I use this one over here. But like, this is this one. But like, you can't tell most of the time in our business, you just can't tell people that. They're like, well, is it a bait? Well, that's gonna make them thirsty. And that's true of some.

Yeah, not all.

Um, so it— yeah, it does, it does happen, but— and that's probably why you're running up against that.

So, but I'm surprised. I'm— we're lucky. When we, when we moved into the house that we live in now, um, about what, not even 3, 4 weeks later, we started seeing droppings everywhere. I mean everywhere, but it was mainly in like, um, you know, behind the fridge and I mean, there were— by the time we realized what we were completely infested with mice, so we actually got lucky they didn't chew through.

Not a single patch was chewed through.

Yeah, nothing.

That's good.

Thank goodness. So must have used that good bait, you know. Yeah, it was a whole— I mean, it took— there was one I worked for. I've worked from home since 2017, just in my insurance business. And our home— now we have our home office for FFP. And I remember being in bed on my laptop and just watching a mouse like just run across the room.

Oh geez.

And I chased it into the closet. And, you know, what am I gonna do, like beat it down with a bat? But I went in there to try to like, where did it go? And, and it was on the clothes and it jumped straight at me. And I was like, okay, now I'm done. All right, we gotta do something about this. This is not— because I can't, I can't work in this condition. They don't bother me because we would get them in our— we had this 1970 Airstream at our dearly down in Freer, Texas.

And— They'd get in that thing and just—

Oh my God, they were everywhere.

Make happy happy.

Yeah, so we were like, you know, we just didn't even worry about it. And I mean, you would wake up and you'd have mice crawling across you. And so, but so it was, they don't bother me. They didn't freak me out. If anything, I wanted, it was almost became like a hunting game with the kids. We would go check the traps when we got home or in the morning, like, Mom, let's go see if we got any more mice. And, you know, and we would get one and And it was fun. Yeah, we don't have them anymore, so now we're bored.

Yeah, the infestation.

So I'll tell you guys, because I'm far enough away from it now, we can actually talk about it. Like, one of the biggest jobs I've ever done rodent-wise was at the Intercontinental Airport here in Houston.

Oh yeah.

And it was a crazy— they're like the size of otters. But we were actually at the airport ready to fly out to Vegas. I was taking my kids and my wife and my mom and my sister to the Grand Canyon. And we took, you know, we're a family business. We always take the business phone with us even though everybody else is here working. And one of my clients called me and he said, hey, Craig, how quick can you get to the airport? And I was like, dude, I'm at the airport.

Yeah.

He's like, don't mess with me. And I'm like, no, I'm literally at the airport and getting ready to fly out. And he goes, when are you flying out? And I said, In about an hour, he goes, "What?

What terminal?

What terminal are you at?" I'm like, "I'm in Terminal C." He goes, "Which gate?" I told him the gate, and he goes, "I'll be there in five minutes." Came and got me, and he goes, "So I guess you've already heard." And I was like, "I have no idea what you're talking about." He goes, "The video that went viral on TikTok." And I was like, "I have no idea, dude. What are you talking about?" And so he pulls out his phone and shows me, and it's this video of these four rats. Eating out of the service line of the Panda Express in terminal— in one of the terminals.

Oh my gosh.

And he's like, this is happening in the daylight.

Oh my gosh.

And I was like, you got to be kidding me. And he's like, no. And I was like, okay. He goes, what can you do? And I was like, burn it down. So I mean, like, we— I mean, there's much more to it than that, but I mean, like, we— I mean, like, basically I went to work the whole time I was on vacation. I was, yeah, uh, just, just getting ready for that job. My guys kind of stepped in and, and took over while I was out of town, and we, we ended up taking over a warehouse just to do prep work.

How long did it take?

It took us 4 days just to put out everything we needed to put out.

Oh my gosh.

So, and, uh, I mean, there's, there's a lot more to it than that. I mean, but that, that was That was— and that was like all we ended up doing there. Yeah, we didn't have any follow-up. They just kind of wanted somebody to come in and do something because I didn't— I didn't realize this— United Airlines controls all of Intercontinental. Like, they control all the concessions, they control every terminal, every gate. They're in charge of the entire airport system out there.

In charge of everything except for rodent control.

Well, no, they had a contract with a big multinational conglomerate that wasn't doing the job, wasn't paying attention apparently. Yeah, and so they ended up awarding the contract to another local company, um, and, but, and I hope it's getting taken care of now. I don't know.

Um, we were just there not too long ago.

Panda Express.

I know, I don't recommend it.

This doesn't look like a noodle.

What is this? But I, you know, I, I don't know that it was their fault. I mean, honestly.

Well, it's like, how does it get so bad? Like, that did come out of nowhere.

Well, like, because, like, if you— I learned so much just by doing that job because we got to walk around sort of the infrastructure of the airport. And most of what everybody sees is actually the 3rd floor. And so there's 2 floors below all that. And so there's a lot of stuff happening underneath you. Yeah, that you never see.

Rodent farming.

Which a lot of that is grease traps that are not maintained and not cleaned out, or at least they weren't when we were there. Which I mean like that. I mean, I don't know how you even who who you hold accountable for that. I don't I don't know who the person is, but they probably don't have their job anymore.

I would hope not. See, every time you say Panda Express now, I hope you think about that because Chinese food is says it. his go-to. What do you want for dinner? Chinese food.

Yeah.

And it's my least favorite.

Yeah, well, I mean, of, of my— of the Chinese food, Panda Express is probably my least favorite. I mean, it's a personal preference. I mean, like, I'm sure they do a fine job.

No, that's— Panda Express is on the bottom.

It is now?

No, it always has been.

Always has been?

I love real Chinese food.

Okay.

Not real Chinese food, but our version of Chinese.

Our version of American Chinese.

Anything American Chinese buffet style. Deep fry it and throw it in a sweet sauce and he's happy.

How can you go wrong?

That's that good stuff.

Yeah, it is real good.

No, I'm getting really hungry.

So I'll tell you this. I mean, do you have a Blackstone?

No, not yet.

No, listen, this is the whole reason you should have one. It's because you will never have as good a fried rice as you have unless you have your own Blackstone.

I know.

It's so good.

I went to Academy this weekend. They were staring me in the face like Father's Day, Father's Day.

They're on sale probably right now too.

They are.

I forgot it was Father's Day now. Actually, set one aside for me, Academy. There's your surprise.

Happy Father's Day. Blackstone's looking for a new show to sponsor. I'm just, I'm just saying. Yeah, I will sing their praises even when they don't pay me.

So it's been on the list to get. It's just been— yeah, I mean, we got—

there's so much to get.

That's true.

Well, I got him a smoker one of the last dad holidays or whatever.

Pit Boss.

Nice.

Yeah.

Was it like the cabinet one or like the—

The Austin XL barrel. It's been good.

He was using it every single weekend and then we had a power outage and it tripped it.

I blew the motherboard.

Yeah.

Was it electric?

Yeah.

Okay.

Easy. I got too many kids, man.

Yeah, we have 3 kids, 2 dogs.

You know, I can't babysit nothing right now. Yeah.

Well, so I got, I got the big cabinet one. And the reason I got it, so you guys don't know my wife, but like, she, um, I mean, her background is in nonprofit work. And so she still does that even though she works with me in the company now. Um, but she also works with like 12 different nonprofits now.

Oh, wow. Awesome.

Um, and, uh, I forget which one it was. She came to me, it was like, it was right before Thanksgiving. She goes, hey, um, I know it was, um, So it was one called Seven More, and it's a, uh, it's a Christian organization that goes and greets, uh, men coming out of prison.

Oh, okay.

I mean, like, most of the time they don't have, like, families there and stuff like that, and, like, they're released, but, like, they don't— there's no one there for them.

Yeah.

Um, and so, like, they provide them with, with stuff.

Yeah.

And love and care. And, you know, and, um, it's a— it's based off that passage, like, how many times should you forgive? 70 times 7. So it's like 7 more. So the guys coming out. So anyway, she was like, hey, we're gonna do Thanksgiving dinner for all the guys coming out of prison on Thanksgiving. I was like, great, sounds good. She goes, I need you to make 6 turkeys. I said, okay. No big deal. Because I do most of the cooking in our family. And I said, babe, like, we have 1 oven. Like, I can fit maybe 2 turkeys.

that oven.

Like, there's, there's no way, yeah, I can have 6 turkeys for Thanksgiving. Like, if you want them warm, if you want them to actually taste good, like, for what I would want to serve these guys, to kill all the salmonella that might be in there. Like, and she goes, well, what, what can we do? And I was like, I mean, like, we could buy a smoker that can fix 6 turkeys. And she goes, we'll just go get it. I was like, all right.

See, I see what you did there.

Twisted my arm.

I have a solution to your problem, wife, but it's gonna require me to go get this piece of equipment.

She knows, she knows. At this point, she knows, she knows.

Yeah.

She knows what I'm doing.

Oh yeah.

So.

Yeah, we know you know.

And like, look, here's the— rarely have I used that thing to cook for myself. I mean, like, it's too— like, what am I gonna do? Like, I think we used it last week. I think I made like, I think I had like 8 pork butts in that thing.

Oh gosh.

You know, and I was making— I was just making barbecue sandwiches for kids at camp. I mean, it was like, when do I cook for me? Never.

Better watch out when we leave, make sure he hasn't strapped it to the back of the car on the way out of here.

I think he's already—

I can see his—

Listen, it's not worth stealing. You can just come over here and use it and swim in the pool. Yeah, I'm down with that. Smoke the meat while you're waiting. Sit in the sauna. Yeah, come on.

So when y'all do your review—

So you're moving out, is that what you're saying? Is that what I'm hearing? Okay, bye. Love you. It was nice knowing you. I'll be at Craig's.

When y'all do your review for the sauna, y'all need to do the podcast in the sauna.

That could get weird. I mean, it says for 2 people, but I'm a little larger than Kev, and I might crowd him.

It's okay.

And I don't wanna touch him. Just get cozy. I mean, we're close. We're good. We're good buddies.

I just yeah, when you're sharing sweat, arm sweat, yeah, gross rubbing elbows.

That's a little personal.

It ain't like that. Yeah.

Be good for for ratings, you know.

It could be.

I mean, it'll go viral for sure.

Yeah. Oh, it's under the red light, so that I mean it would have it would have that going for it. Be a little kind of nighttime light.

Oh my!

Yeah.

What would you even talk about in there? That could get weird real quick.

What what are you talking about? Nothing softly.

This sauna is hot. That'd be great. It is effective.

It makes me sweat.

Oh, just go plumb for a day in the summer. You don't need a sauna. Yeah, just go into attics. We made a mistake last August. We had an AC reroute and we scheduled it for 1 o'clock. Not even— we just weren't even thinking, you know, we were— we just launched July 1st and we were just And we were busy, you know, thankful. We were so thankful and grateful to the years of networking that we had done, you know, and building my book of business because I started with zero clients. All I did was network for years in Spring Woodlands area. And so we were getting calls, you know, we had our networking army out there and they helped us, you know, spread the word. And so we got busy quick. And

so not even thinking, threw it on there. Okay, yeah, 1 o'clock AC reroute, no problem.

I went through 2 gallons of water water and still almost fell out. It was, it was down the street from Steve Spoon, and he gave me a couple bottles of water.

Yeah, I was texting Steve like, hey, Zach's dying, can you, can he come steal some water?

Steve understands.

Oh yeah, no, he does. Anybody in the trades understands.

Yeah. Oh yeah, especially insulation. Like, I'm surprised he didn't say, hey, I'll trade you if you go tell them that they need to get their attic insulated. Yeah, there you go.

No, he's fixing to move. Did you know that?

Yeah, yeah.

So he called me this morning, told me he just sold his house.

He did?

Yeah.

Yeah, good. I know he was— they had been talking about selling actually last year. They were talking about getting ready to sell it. And, you know, then he moved his office location and we were driving— was it— yeah, his new office location's not far from here either.

I saw actually, I saw his box truck.

Yeah. All the way here.

Yeah, it's over there on 2854.

It is.

Yep.

Yeah, which just makes him closer to me, which means he can come and bother me more anytime.

I'm surprised he hasn't busted through that door yet.

He, you know, he might.

Yeah, he could.

You never know because he's probably—

I just sent him his GL renewal, so maybe he's looking for me. I'm like, sorry, buddy.

How do y'all know? How do y'all know Steve? Well, so, um, he didn't like arrest you at one point?

No, no, no, not him.

Um, no, uh, I learned something right there.

No, so I'm a, I'm a, I'm an independent commercial insurance agent, and I, I still am. I'm still out there. I still have my book of business, and thankful to my 2 assistants at Creekside and the support that I get from Creekside, the agency that I contract through, um, to let us focus on FFP for a while. But, um, that, that's— I went out on my own in 2017 as an independent. I left State— I was with State Farm for 14 years.

Right.

And my mother was a State Farm exec, and my twin sister sister was a State Farm agent, and I was the bad apple that fell very far from the tree and said, I think I'll go independent. And I remember my mom sitting me down and saying, let me show you the failure rate of independent agents. And I was like, that's not really what I'm looking for, Mom.

Yeah.

Words of encouragement. But, but no, I get it. She knew the success rate for them, and that was her thing. And, uh, but no, I was like, no, I just want to do commercial. I don't want anyone telling me what I need to focus on. I don't want anyone giving me quotas to hit. Like, I just want to sell, do my thing, you know.

Yeah.

And, uh, got into contractors, and, and really that became my niche market. So like Steve and, um, gosh, I'd probably have to look at a list of— but all my networking buddies, uh, you know, Brian Gessner at Prestige has been a longtime client, and Matt Grease, GJ Fuels, uh, he's got an awesome business, and You can get your own gas tank and he'll come fill it up for you on your property.

Oh, nice.

Or just do the actual residential. He's like a residential gas station.

Doesn't he do like fleets too?

Fleets, yeah, for businesses. And so it's awesome. I just— but getting— that's kind of how we landed launching a plumbing business was because I had all my years of working with my business owners and hearing about all the things that do and don't do, or me watching from the outside being like, that's a bad idea. bad idea, or that's great, I'm gonna remember that. So we started dating and just saw his— Zachary's level of like business ethics, and didn't hurt that he was like the number one salesperson at his old company. And so yeah, that's when the wheels really started turning. We were like, hey, we can do this.

She knows Steve Spoon from networking.

Yes.

And he's a client.

Are you making fun of my very long answer? Okay, yeah, I'm the talker of the couple.

Shocker, my bad. Laura talks.

Yeah, sorry for that history of my relationship with Steve Spoon. Hi, Steve. Okay, I'll shut up for the next 10 minutes.

No, we want to know about your kindergarten teacher.

That's right.

Yeah, no, um, I don't remember her name.

That'd be a fun Kevin Bacon game. Steve Spoon and her kindergarten teacher. Yes, you can do it in 6 moves.

I ran into my 3rd grade teacher though, uh, through a networking. Here we go. Yeah, no, I did. I'm not gonna tell you that story because— Listen, they're making fun of me. I'm super thankful that I didn't run into my 3rd grade teacher.

She's the one that sent me to the principal's office the most.

Yeah.

So yeah.

But did you deserve it?

Shame.

Oh, absolutely.

Okay, cool.

I was a smart aleck. So, but like, I— but like, it was like one of those deals, like, like I knew that I had, like, I knew that I had that edge. And so like, I knew, but like, I also knew that I could push it far enough because like, she was, she was a new teacher. It was like her, it was like her first year.

You're like fresh meat.

Oh yeah.

she's like, I can't keep doing this. Are they all gonna be like this?

Yeah, I think the way my mom told me, because I don't remember doing this, but she told me that— I think it was like one of the last times I got sent. Like, she got, she got really mad at me. She's like, Craig, what's your problem? I was like, you! You're my problem. And I went again to the— yeah, got sent back again.

So yeah, I waited till high school to get in trouble a at school. That's— but my— it was my junior high volleyball coach ended up being my assistant principal. And I signed up for SWAT. So I was like, I don't want detention. I got too much to do. So I signed up for SWAT. Yeah, yeah. So I would go in there like, hey, Miss Davenport, I did something stupid. Let's get this knocked out. She was like, well, sure. She was probably waiting on— she's like, I've been waiting for this opportunity, Laura. But she— we're still friends on Facebook and Told her happy birthday, you're my favorite person to get swats from.

Send her a little fruit basket at the end of the year. Yeah, right? Thanks for holding back.

It was good times.

Well, listen, on these, one of the things I hear about a lot when it comes to plumbing are the tankless. Are you guys a big fan of those?

Yes and no. Like, they can, they work well, But they can also have more issues.

Okay.

Because there's a lot more moving parts.

Oh, okay.

And with the tank, you have essentially 3, 4 parts, right? You have a couple things you need to change out every 2, 3 years for maintenance, flush it. But with the tankless, you also have to flush it. It also requires a solution, so it costs a little bit more to maintain it.

What do you mean it requires a solution?

So there's actually a descaler.

Oh, okay, like a chemical solution.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that we have to run through it for about 45 minutes.

How often?

Uh, once a year.

Once a year. Okay.

It works really well for families that with 3+ kids and, you know, they're older and everybody's taking a 20-30 minute shower.

Yeah. And so because it's constant hot water.

It's constant.

Yeah.

And so it's, it's, it, is it worth it or not? That all depends on the customer itself. And I just, you let them make their own decision. If, if like I— the first question I ask is how many people live in the house? They're like 2. I'm like, do you need it? Yeah, because it is a more expensive piece of equipment. Yeah, it costs a lot more to sit there. It's a lot more intensive on the installation rather than just switching out with another tank or 2.

And is it, is it really only efficient if it's like natural gas or something like that?

Yeah, uh, well, either way it's efficient whether it's natural gas, propane, or electrical, because instead of Heating up water. If you're gone for a week, those tanks are going to be constantly heating it up no matter what. But if you're gone for a week and have a tankless, if you don't run water, then you're not using the electricity, gas, or propane.

So sorry, I lost a camera there. I missed, I missed part of what you were saying. I was trying to figure out what was going on. Let me, let me see if I can get it back on here for a second.

So we actually got a call, um, Today with someone who's wanting to— they're interested in getting quotes for a tankless because their neighbor has a tank water heater in their attic and it flooded their house.

Yeah.

So there is that aspect to it too. But that's also why we encourage people when they do get new water heaters or we come and do maintenance on it, they need a flood stop. Like, if you've got a water heater in your attic and you don't have a flood stop, you want one.

Yeah.

Yeah, it'll save you a lot of money.

Well, a lot of insurance claims and—

A water leak in the attic is a water leak in the attic. Yeah, if it's a big leak, it'll— it's going to cause damage. The only difference is, is with the tank, if you— even if you turn off the water, you still have 40 gallons, 50 gallons. With a tankless, it only holds about a gallon.

So it's usually got like a cutoff on it. If there's like a— don't the tankless have like a, like an internal system that cuts it off if it detects a leak or something?

No, sir.

No.

Okay.

And so it'll still leak out, like out of the casing into the pan. But let's just say if it sprays out a little bit, then the water's not going to get caught into the pan. I got you. And so my recommendation is installing a flood stop, whether it's a tankless or a single tank or a double tank. It's a super easy thing to install on the cold water inlet. A sensor goes into the pan, and as soon as water hits that sensor, it shuts off the water. Going to that tankless. Okay, or that tank.

I got you.

So there's flood top, there's flood stops for tankless and for tank.

It's the same thing. It just goes on the water line.

Okay. The more you know.

Yeah, you're learning.

See, I'm learning. I'm still learning.

We answer the phone, so I know we're not supposed to talk plumbing because we're not licensed, but you know, people ask us questions, and so we try really hard not to answer them and get ourselves in trouble.

Like, look, I'll say this, but don't tell Zach I told you in case it's wrong.

No, but one of the, one of the— trying to remember some feedback that we got after an install, a tankless install, was that the water flow was, was not as strong. And but they had the heat set so high that there's no, there's no way.

They were trying to run a master shower and the master tub all at one time, but had the water up to 140. 40 degrees on the tankless. And it's like you're only trying to pull hot water to these. I'm gonna have to slow down the flow rate so it can keep up with the demand.

Okay. Yeah, with the temperature demand.

But with a— with 2 tanks, that's a crazy hot shower though, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's blistering.

No, I've never— I've never seen anybody have this complaint before.

Yeah.

And but I've never had anybody go up that high, and I've never had so many people try to do one thing all at once. time.

Yeah, I, I will say this though. I mean, like, on a lot of these new, uh, like, tub, uh, controls, like, they, they put those, uh, guards on them now where you can't make the water as hot.

Yeah.

Um, I've had to take those out. I mean, just because, like, I mean, like, it seems like it's such a cool temperature that they're trying to, like, keep the water at now.

No, so with— it's like with, uh, Moen, you could sit there, there is one piece that you can turn.

Yeah, it's like a little plastic piece on the inside that you—

And if somebody doesn't install that correctly, then you're not going to get fully hot water, right? Because it's not doing the full turn. With Delta, you can actually sit there and adjust it.

Okay.

And so if they don't adjust it all the way how you like it before they put it in, they leave, you get warm water because you go and touch it to make sure that everything's good, right? And you're like, okay, yeah, I'll take a hot shower tonight. and then it's not hot, it's just warm.

Yeah, that's because they didn't adjust it properly when installing.

Yeah, the reason they're doing that is, uh, they're putting— it's called Posi-Temps, and it makes sure that there's positive pressure from both sides so there is no kids scalding themselves.

Right.

With them old school, uh, 3, you burn yourself all day long.

Yeah, I mean, shower roulette.

I get it. I mean, but it's just like a weird kind of like— it's like, okay, like I didn't want to take an 85-degree bath. Nobody does. But it seems like that's like the— like what it would— that's just what it's set up as.

It's, it's really on the plumber that puts it in.

Okay. Because it has a default. And you're like, you're supposed to like adjust it from there.

On Deltas, it is. On Deltas, Moen, if you just install it correctly, then it'll do it.

Oh really?

Yeah.

Oh, there you go. So what, like, is there— I mean, other than, other than just like that, is there— do you find like there's a big difference between those 2? I mean, those are kind of the 2 big brand names when it comes to—

It's, it's— there's not really.

It all heats water, lets the water out.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's, it depends. Do you want it constantly? It's because it's a tankless, a lot of people think it's instant hot water, right? It's endless hot water. It still takes the same amount of time for that hot water to get to your—

Right, because it's got to come all the way through over there to wherever it's coming from.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Unless you put like some, you know, if you put a return line or if you put a Grumpus pump on it or something like that. But it's a tankless, gives you the ability to have endless hot water. So you could sit there, you can run a shower and a bath, and then somebody could be washing their hands or somebody could be you know, doing dishes in the kitchen while there's a bath going on and nobody has to worry about running out of hot water. Because the big thing is laundry. So much laundry to do.

Yeah.

You have 3 kids. You can't give— you can't do laundry and give baths at the same time.

Right.

If you only have one single tank or even with 2, you could run out pretty quick. Sure. You're doing laundry and then have 3 baths to do. Somebody's going to be taking a cold bath.

Yeah.

Is, is there, is there a top end to these things? I mean, like, I mean, like, I mean, it's what I'm asking is, like, if the dishwasher's running while I'm taking a bath and I'm doing a load of laundry and then someone else is taking a shower.

Oh yeah.

At what point am I gonna see, like, a diminish in, in that tankless?

Well, it depends on the size of tankless.

Okay.

And so there's, there's different size tanklesses that are rated for so many gallons per minute of hot water.

Yeah.

And it also depends on the size of the house as well. And so there is a— you could easily exceed it, but it's, it, it's a lot harder to than with a tank.

So is the— is if I do that, is the water just going to be cooler or like what's going to happen?

Yeah, it could slow— it could— it's going to be cooler. It's not going to be sending out the water that it needs to be sending out. It can sit there and slow the flow rate because it, it— there's a pump inside that tank, right? And so it'll slow that down actually.

So the pressure goes down.

Yeah. So until something stops, yeah, and then it'll be able to pick back up.

And see, like, I, I mean, I would imagine plumbers like you are gonna be explaining that to their clients.

Yeah.

But this is, this is why I like this show is because it, it gives homeowners the opportunity to go like, okay, that's a question I didn't know I needed to ask. Or a scenario I didn't need, I needed to know to present to my plumber. Like, hey, look, there's, there's a situation. I have 5 kids. There's a situation where like, I'm gonna be running the dishwasher, I'm gonna be running the washing machine, there's gonna be 2 kids taking a bath and all like, and, and some plumbers are gonna be going, okay, like how can I sell them a tankless water heater and then just get outta here?

Yeah.

You know, rather than what do you need?

Exactly.

What's, what's gonna actually fulfill that? What, what's gonna make you happy in your home?

Well, a lot of, a lot of customers really don't know what they need. They have an idea of what they want, right? And so like, that's where the education comes in. And that's what I like about it, the educating as much as possible.

Yeah.

Well, and that's the difference between Fisher Family Plumbing and a lot of those other ones is we want to make sure people are making the right decision for them and not just for us to make a little bit of extra money and take advantage.

If one of my guys is upselling just to upsell, they're gonna need to go job shopping. That's what they're gonna need to do.

So with the education, educating, you know, we're all learning in the field every day, right? There's something that we haven't ran into or a question that we've never been asked before. And so what, like, there's always, always, there's always a team of people like my mentors that taught me how to plumb that I can sit there and call and ask those questions. They've been plumbing 27 years, right? 30 years. And so it's, you know, I love to learn. And so I like to teach people so they can, you know, like I said a while ago, The more educated they are, they can make the best decision for them, right? And in the long run, it's not what we think the customer needs or what the

customer wants. It's exactly what they want.

I remember listening to Zach one of the first times he was explaining tankless versus tank to a client, and he was asking these questions, but, you know, and I couldn't hear the client on the other end, just him. And almost in my head, I was like, wait, don't we want to sell tankless? Like, why are you talking them out of it? Isn't that like a good big the big new thing to have. And yeah, but the way he was, he was, but he was answering their questions and then leading them down the path based on your answers. That doesn't really sound like your solution. And so he explained that to me. He's like, no, I'm not against tankless.

I, I'm indifferent, but I'm going to ask them what, what it is. And I was like, oh, okay. I'm sure you're not like tankless hating or anything over here.

I give pros and cons. Yeah. You know, if you don't have a backup generator for your house during the winter, your power goes out, you have no power to your house whatsoever, your tankless isn't working. You have no hot water.

Right.

But with the tank, you do. You'll have essentially endless hot water because you just wait 30 minutes and then it's hot again. And so that's, it's, you know, there's pros and cons to every single thing. If you only have a single water heater, well, even if you have a double, we have to do gas sizing chart to make sure that the gas is sufficient enough for that tankless. And so, you know, installs can vary by price depending on what needs to happen, right?

Yeah, because we, we tried to get a tankless for our place and we didn't have a big enough, uh, natural gas supply line because I think there's like a difference in like the supply line size that you need for all tankless.

Yeah, every single one's different. Some you can, some you can actually, they say in the, in the, uh, the paperwork that you can run half inch, but it's, you also have to size your gas as if— what if the stove is on? What if the oven's on and the dryer's on? And so you have to take into account for all measures, right? And so that's why you have to just get a base BTU count for the entire house and then do the math from there and draw it out.

How do you get a base BTU for the house?

Well, every single appliance has a BTU rating.

Okay, so you just find them and add them?

Yeah.

Okay, so for like, for instance, uh, tank water heaters are 39,000 BTUs. And then tanklesses are 199,000 BTUs. So essentially it's 4 times the amount of a tank.

That's a lot.

Yeah. I love it when you speak BTUs to me. Sorry, some plumbing humor for you. These are the ways I get under his skin.

Well, so what about, what about like the, some of the other ones I've seen are like these small tankless, like that are just like The one room under the sink.

Oh, point-of-use? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are— those can work.

But those are electric typically, right?

Yeah, they— a lot of them just plug into a normal outlet.

Yeah, yeah.

Do they work pretty good? I mean, like, I don't know anything about them.

Yeah, they can work fine. Like, if, if somebody has a complaint of having to wait, you know, 5 minutes for it to get to the kitchen sink specifically, right, then you can get a point-of-use water heater just for that sink, and you'll, you'll have endless hot water for that.

So that's better for like those really large houses when like the, the runs are— yeah, it's like too far, it takes forever. Okay, I didn't even know those existed.

Learning. Do those— I mean, like, I'm wondering how those work. I mean, like, is it— do you then cut off the hot water from the, like, the water heater and that's just the point of hot water, or does it like Once the hot water comes from the water heater, does it then disengage? How does that work?

No, I sit there and whenever I do them, I just put the cold up to it. And because I want to kind of— they want a point of use here. I'm not going to have hot water going through a point of use. And so that hot water could be used somewhere else in the house. So they can—

So you cut it off basically?

Yeah.

Okay.

So they can sit there and do whatever they want in the kitchen, not have to worry about anybody else.

Huh. I mean, like, are they efficient? I mean, like, sorry, go ahead.

Oh, I said that's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah. I've, I've, I haven't really, you don't see them often.

Right.

It's not something I see often, but the people that I know that have them love them.

Yeah.

And then I have a couple customers that don't like them.

Mm-hmm.

Caused a leak underneath their kitchen sink. So now they have a vendetta out for them.

Yeah.

They don't even wanna look at them anymore.

Where I've seen them are on additions.

Yeah.

Where people don't wanna run an additional line. So they'll just put a point-of-use heater under the sink, and that way they don't have to run a hot line. They just got to run the cold line and then they're done. Yeah, like a, like a, like a, like a washroom on a— I don't know.

I was just thinking like a shop or something. Yeah, yeah, build out like a mother-in-law suite. Yeah, casita, mother-in-law suite.

Because they're not using electricity unless you're using it, right? I mean, it's like, I imagine in that regard they're pretty efficient.

Yeah.

What do those run? Do you know?

Um, there, there's so many different brands.

Yeah.

Like, it could be anywhere from $300 to $800 for the unit.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

There's really expensive stuff out there, but they're typically on the cheaper side.

Yeah.

And so, but compared to other water heaters? Uh, yeah, like a lot of times the size of the heater doesn't really dictate the price. Um, you know, like you would think a 30-gallon water heater would be a lot cheaper than a 50-gallon water heater. Not the case. They're essentially almost the same exact price.

Why? Don't know. Don't ask me. Talk to the supplier. So, all right. So I've, I've got, I've got one more question before we wrap up, uh, because we're, we're over an hour. I don't want you guys to have to stay all night, but, uh, one of, one of the big questions I I'm in a lot of attics too. And what boggles— and I can't tell you, like, to me, one is more than I should hear about. But I've had at least 6 clients now that have had their house flooded out because the water heater is in the attic. Why do they do that?

There's a lot of reasons why people say they're in the attic. If you go up to Dallas, most of their water heaters are in the Garage.

Okay.

If you go to Austin, most stairs are in the garage.

Okay.

If you go to downtown Houston, a lot of older homes, some of them are in the attic, some of them are in a closet in the bathroom.

Yep.

Almost none of them are in their garage.

Yeah.

And it's— I've heard that it was because, uh, people didn't want the builders to put them in the garage or in a closet because they wanted more storage space. And then I've sat there, been told, hey, they put them in the attic because it gets so hot here. You want hot water in your attic. It only makes sense to me. It doesn't make sense at all.

I'm with you. Like I can't think of a good reason for it to be in the attic. I mean, like I've even heard people trying like Jack and Jill me on this. Like it's like the water turns down the hill. I'm like no, that doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, it runs straight into your house. Yeah, if it busts, it's nuts. From the insurance perspective, I can't think of a you know they get asked questions about like galvanized. Do you have galvanized? Yeah, lines or aluminum, you know, electrical, whatever. Um, but do you have a water heater? 50 gallons of water just being suspended over your master bedroom, right?

You know, I, I mean, I can imagine a scenario where insurance companies are going to start going, if it's in the attic, we need to add a premium onto this policy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Because I mean, I've had clients that have, you know, 2, 3-story homes And they go away for the weekend, they come back, their whole house is flooded. And now insurance is having to rebuild the entire infrastructure of this home.

Sorry.

And it's insane.

It is. It's asinine. It's— and it's backwards. I mean, gravity tells you that you've suspending 50 gallons of water and an endless supply running to it. And as it drains, it's going to continue to try to fill it up. And yeah, you've got, you know, The next flood right in your house. And we literally had a call today, her neighbor flooded out, and that's why she wanted to get a tankless quote. She's like, I can't sleep now. And luckily it was right when they got home, but they had just come back from a 4-day trip.

That's weird how it always happens on a trip.

Yes. I came back from one of my Thanksgiving hunting trips, and it wasn't— I guess it was plumbing because the AC unit had crashed through my master bedroom and was held, being held by the cables. I was like, I could have been asleep in that bed and been decapitated by this AC unit.

Your house knew what you did to those turkeys.

Yeah, I know. It was very upset with me.

It's karma.

It's my turkey karma. But yeah, no, we've tried to really, we really try to focus on the customer experience. And, you know, our slogan is, you know, plumbing solutions with a family touch. And we're about to launch our, um, our— we're calling it the FFP VIP membership. So that's launching July 1st, trying to get everything ready.

What all is that going to be about?

Uh, let's see. Alicia, you've got it all right there. You want to read it off, sister?

I'm prepared.

Come on, marketing guru.

I try to be prepared.

Yeah.

Um, well, it's really— it's to help, you know, it's— we want to reward people who are being loyal to us. So it's a loyalty program, essentially. So, uh, the main thing is it comes with a discount on every service for the year.

That's nice.

Um, I mean, the price is only $150 for if you have a single—

For like the whole year? Yes.

Okay. So it— and that's for the single, um, water heater home. So if you have a single tank in your house, that, that covers all of it. So if you have double, it's $100 more.

Yeah, yeah, we— it—

the, the membership includes even the under-the-sink point of No, we wouldn't charge for that. Just clarifying.

Just the big ones, the whole home heaters. So, but that value is reached just from one portion of it, which is the water heater flush, which is important. You need to be doing that every year. And so that's included and that's $150 right off the bat.

Okay.

Or $150 value. Words are hard. So that's just one part of it. And then the whole home inspection, which is good to do too, because it can catch— like if you have a rat chew through something, you don't know when it's just dripping slowly. Yeah, we'll catch that. So the whole home inspection.

And that's annual. You get an annual inspection. We're gonna send the guy out, get you scheduled, and every year we'll go out, just check everything. Everything tight? Everything dry? Everything looking good? Okay, great. Here's There you go. High five. And we flushed the water heater too.

Is there a time of year that's best to have a plumber come out and do a whole home inspection like that?

Well, for our plumber's sakes, not in the summer.

You can be selfish here. It's fine.

Anytime's fine.

So, but we've got the loyalty discount, the water heater discount as well. So if you need to do a replacement on your water heater, you can get up to $400 off.

Okay.

So it just depends on the water heater. And then, so if you need, for the inspection, if we suspect that there's something, you know, major going on, like if, what is it, if there's something that bellies out and you need to use a camera for that, you get half off.

Half off the sewer cameras.

Okay.

So, and that's $600 right there, the total. So you get $300 in savings.

Okay.

And then what else do we have? Priority scheduling. And then The annual preventative maintenance drain treatment. You mentioned the—

what is it now?

The brand?

The New Line?

The what now?