That Time We Talked About Fall Heating

This is episode number 114 of The Homeowner Show. Do you want to do it over?

No, I like it. You gotta, you gotta keep going now. You growled.

Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams. Hello, hello, hello.

And if you like the growl, go ahead and punch the like button because that was amazing, Kevin. That was That was one of the best intros. I think you gave it— I gave it everything I got, man. Got one for the gipper.

That's right. That's right. I'm feeling good tonight. I don't know about y'all, but—

There's a chill in the air.

That's right.

It's a little chilly outside.

It is.

Halloween is a day away. No, 2 days away. 2 days for us.

I mean, it's already happened if you've listened to the episode today, but for us, it's still 2 days away.

That's right. So, I mean, like, the stars are aligning, like, literally, because Halloween is coming. It's gonna be the first time— I forget how many years— it's like the first time that Halloween is gonna have a full moon.

Since the '40s, I heard.

Yeah, it's crazy, right?

Yeah, no doubt.

And we were able to achieve the impossible on the show.

What is that?

We were able to get a pregnant woman to come to the studio.

Oh snap.

To come out of the—

Hiding.

Not hiding, shelter. Yeah, like she's, she's protecting the wee one. And so like we've achieved that. I feel like this is almost bigger than when we hit like 1,000 downloads.

That's true, and that's been a while since we've hit 1,000 downloads.

That was a big day for us.

It was a big day for us, but JoJo, thank you for being here.

Y'all are welcome. I look forward to the paychecks, so thank you.

All of these endorsements.

We're looking forward to it also.

Affiliate money, it's gonna come rolling in now.

That's right.

So if you guys haven't picked up from the video or from the audio if you're just listening, We have return guests from Affordable Air Repair just in time to heat your wee bodies up from the chill that has overtaken Texas.

Yeah, I actually put something on Facebook just yesterday saying I am so glad that I had Jehu out already to check my system because guess what? My kids woke up cold. So I had to turn the heater on and man, it felt good 'cause it wasn't like a, What is this gonna smell like? What is this gonna feel like? Is it gonna come on? I mean, it was ready to go. We had heat. It was awesome.

Yeah, this is, this is, I mean, like, so both of us have used the, the amazing services over here now. So like, we're not just like, you know, talking out our tailpipes here. That's right.

Which we normally do.

Every episode. Um, and so, uh, but we, we, like, we found ourselves on the more prepared side and, and he was coming in the studio today telling us like how many people were calling him today.

Right. Yeah.

like, hey, it's cold. My heater's not working. What the heck?

And then that was your fault. And it's tough too, because, you know, everybody expects the air conditioning man doesn't have a full schedule. So whenever something breaks, it's like, hey, can you get to me today? And it's like, well, I have 5 calls already. Sure, let's do it. You know, can you wait till 5, 6 o'clock tonight for me to get out there? You know, and most times we can break the schedule a little bit and speed things up. But I mean, today, 8 service calls. It was quite a day. No doubt that cold weather.

weather.

It's rough on units.

Yeah. And like, I mean, I think for like, for most service guys, 8 calls in a day doesn't seem like a whole lot. I mean, but like, for you, sure, it's a little bit more involved.

Yeah. Because 8 calls is a lot of calls for you, I'd imagine.

It's a lot. So I mean, we check each, each individual heater, we fire the gas off, we make sure all the safeties are working, we clear drain lines while we're there on inspections. I mean, there's multiple checkpoints that we're doing each time we come out to a homeowner's house, whether it's on a service call or a maintenance call. So I mean, we always want to make sure when we leave the house that the problem's fixed, it's not going to happen again, and that they're going to be comfortable in their home.

Yeah. And let me, let me, let me jump over to JoJo here because I know she's probably the one answering the phone call.

Yes, sir.

JoJo, if you can, let us— let the audience know, because I mean, like, Jehu's telling us, like, you know, a lot of people are calling and they expect the man to not have anything going on that day, what's the best way to get to the top of the list when you call?

Well, we have a residential service club, which gives you 2 visits a year, and it checks your AC in the summertime, heater in the wintertime, and that offers you priority scheduling. Okay, so if you're one of our service members, you, you go to the top of the list.

Nice.

Given that, given that we don't have a whole log of, you know, club memberships out there already.

Right.

Because I mean, yeah, We have 2 club memberships call us the same day. It's first come, first serve.

Right.

Of course.

So I hope my problem comes before your problem.

Right. I mean, and you know, it's, it's something that we can't always foresee what's gonna happen.

Uh-huh.

So sometimes we have calls in Kingwood, sometimes it's in Magnolia, Spring, Humble. I mean, they're all over the place. So being the best in the best place at the best time is not always, it, it can't always happen.

Right.

You know, so you have to schedule your time accordingly to be able to maintain the calls that are coming in.

I imagine please and thank you go a long way as well.

That, and we're working on a clone machine for him, but until then.

Until then, okay.

If anybody has any knowledge in that, call me.

Yeah, I'll look into that.

With, you know, non-nefarious agendas at the end of the line, okay.

Sure.

Yeah, there's a long list of those guys.

Just a power on, power off. Yeah, well, I, I'll say that, that to me, I mean, you should be doing regular maintenances on your air conditioning system. Sure, right? You should be doing that. I mean, if, if for no other reason, debris gets in there, you need to clean it out, all that kind of stuff, make sure everything's functioning right.

Absolutely.

But on top of that, you're telling me I get priority if, you know, something goes wrong? I mean, you, you had 5 or 6 calls today, which, I mean, some people might be listening to that and go like, that doesn't sound that bad.

You said 8.

But, oh, 8. Goodness gracious. But even, yeah, when the host isn't listening, that's always, um, but I mean, you're talking, I mean, you, you said Kingwood or Magnolia. People don't understand that that's like an hour and almost an hour and a half away from each other. So that's a, that's a long way. So even if a call only takes you a minimal amount of time, your drive time, Pretty high here in Houston.

Sure.

Absolutely.

If someone has teleportation, that'd be great, too. That, too. That's our next item.

Now you need cloning and teleportation.

We're not needy or anything.

Demanding a lot. Elon Musk needs to get on the stick.

That's right. Exactly.

Why not? We can make this happen. We have a lot of clout.

He's moving close.

To Austin? Yeah.

That's close.

I'm sure Elon Musk listens as well.

Every episode, we're going to I open his door.

Right.

It's in my speed dial.

He's just waiting on us to call him and ask him for a sponsorship.

It's all we have to do. That makes sense. Yeah.

And we're just kind of like, eh, put the truck out first.

Have y'all heard about like the neural implant stuff that he's, he's working on?

What?

Yes, it's nuts.

It's crazy.

No, I haven't heard that. I'll have to look into that. I already got enough going on up here.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know about that. Like, I, I've heard him talk about it a couple times, and like, apparently it's like He's described it sort of like what they do in The Matrix, like when he sits there like, I know kung fu. It's a way to disseminate data quickly.

I'm in. For your brain. I'm all in.

Also, a form of wireless communication. Interesting. Telepathy?

I don't need it. I don't need to talk to anybody that much.

Here's my issue, right? It just sounds invasive.

Yeah.

Right?

We've got wireless communication happening right now. I'm talking to you wirelessly. But not jacked into my head so that you You can access my thoughts.

That's what that— yeah, no one needs that.

No. Oh goodness, no.

That's Facebook. We already get enough of that.

No doubt. People are too real already. We don't need the actual real.

No.

All right. So, we're going to have a real moment here on the show. Are you having trouble with this camera right here?

Yes, I am.

Okay. What do you need me to do?

I'm going to—

We're going to keep all this. We're not editing this out.

Of course not.

Putting it back in.

Okay. You got it?

Um, yep.

All right.

And Jehu is back.

All right.

He's a lovely man.

We need to be able to see him.

There he is.

Can I get the Affordable Air Repair growl introduction, Kevin?

Can you get it?

Yeah. Can you say like, Affordable Air Repair?

Well, if you call—

We're back with—

We're back with Jehu and the Affordable Air Repair.

All right. My day is made.

All right. Well, let's, you know, let's get away from neural implants because that's just scary and like too 2020. Walk me through one of your winter checkups.

Okay.

So first, obviously, we get to the house, we talk with the homeowner, we let them know kind of the expectations of the visit, what we're going to be doing while we're out there. We ask if they have a filter that we can change for their unit or multiple filters for it. Then we go to the thermostat and we start the heat or whatever season we're in, heat or cooling. Well, this time it's heat, so we're here focused on heat today. And then go up to the attic, we start the system, make sure that everything's working properly. We set gas pressures, we check all of the furnace safeties to make sure that if there is a problem, the furnace will shut itself down before it, you know, causes fires and stuff in the house. Or,

you know, just—

Just, just real quick, how can that cause a fire?

So it's gas. gas.

Okay.

I mean, you're burning gas and it's flames that's inside of the furnace in, in the attic. Um, it's rare, but I mean, it does happen. Those flames that are in there produce temperatures sometimes 130 degrees plus, and you know, it's, it's something that needs to be protected. You need to watch it and, and make sure that there's not dust or trash fibers that are inside the burner compartment that could, you know, catch fire or roll out, which there are safeties for that reason as well. But it's just a lot of overprotection. You know, when you get into things that can cause major damage, you want to make sure that redundancy or safety redundancy is involved to shut things down in case a problem happens. Yeah.

And so like, part of the reason I asked that initial question, and then the second question is I literally on Facebook today saw a guy posting a video as to why it's safe to run your heater when you're not at home. And in my brain I'm going, well, not if it hasn't been cleaned, not if it hasn't been— I mean, I didn't watch the video. I'm sure he covered that, but I was like, that just seems like a misleading title.

So the way that the flame burns inside of the furnace, it's not like it's touching insulation or touching newspaper particles or insulation fibers that are in the air. It actually burns through a metal heat exchanger. So it's completely sealed and that heat exchanger is vented. So anytime you're burning gas, you have the off product of carbon monoxide. That's something we definitely look out for because it can kill people, right? It's definitely a silent killer. You can't smell it, can't anything. And then that heat exchanger vents out everywhere to the top, out the roof, and then the blower blows air across that. So in theory, your flame is never touched with particles or anything. You're only seeing— Anything combustible. Only seeing a little bit of the flame.

Okay.

But it is 2020.

Stuff's gonna happen.

It can happen. And we always err on the side of safety. Like, he's a big family person, especially since we've got our little one on the way. Like, that is top priority for us.

Yeah.

Yeah, we want to keep everybody safe. And well, and then when you were, when you were here actually taking care of my system, and we, so we've got the traditional HVAC system in the house.

Yep.

But then over here in the studio, we've got the ductless.

Yep.

And I mean, I didn't even know that the thing had a filter on it and you're, and you're taking it apart. I'm like, what's that?

Yeah. And a lot of people don't. Ductless units are, are something that's changing the way air conditioning is thought about nowadays. Um, I've installed quite a few ductless units here this winter and they are—

You put a pretty cool one in your house.

Yeah. I mean, we have the ability. So, so for example, in my house, I like it cold when I sleep. So it's me and my wife right now. Currently we don't have the baby just yet, but Well, before we used to crank the whole house down to 68 degrees at night to be comfortable and waste all of that energy.

Sorry.

Waste all of that energy, um, cooling the whole house down to stay comfortable in the bedroom. So now we keep the house at 73, 74 degrees, and then at night crank our little ductless unit down in our master. And then we use energy savings that way. So it's, it's a different way to think about things for sure. It kind of zones your house in a way.

Yeah. I mean, so. At my house, we have 2 units, and we— it's kind of nice because, um, we can heat or cool part of the house. Yeah, parts of the time of day. Well, we had 2 units at a home we previously lived on, but the kids were in a completely different zone than we were, so we could crank it down at night and keep theirs a little bit warmer.

Sure.

And, uh, you know, because babies, they don't sleep under blankets, right?

Yes. And so, you know, one of those, one of those types of deals.

And so So in this new house that we live in, we've still got dual zone, but all of the bedrooms are in one little area of our house and it's on its own zone, which is, which is fine. I mean, they're older now, they can sleep under blankets and stuff. But I could see where if you want your bedroom, for example, completely different than the rest of the house because you like to sleep different than the rest of the family, that is a perfect place. Or if you've got like a random sunroom or something that, for whatever, it's on the end of the line and for whatever reason. You need a cave. Exactly.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's tons of, tons of things that you can do, and they're not just ductless nowadays. So I mean, they make them ducted, they make them ceiling mount, wall mount, floor mount. So it's just a matter of what the house needs and how we can best design a need for that house.

Was the one you put in your house, was it one of those ceiling cassettes?

Ceiling, because it's a one-way, so it just blows one direction. They make them to where they blow 4 directions. They make them to where, like what you have in here, it's just a wall mount that blows and you can oscillate the fan up and down, right? Heating and cooling. So that's a big benefit with it too. They are heat pumps.

Is the one that you put in a heating element as well? Yeah. And, and this may be like a stupid question, but are any of the ductless gas heated?

No.

Okay. They're all electric.

All electric at this point. Heat pump are the way they heat right now. Currently, uh, they make some units And they're, depending upon the brand that you use, they make them to where they could keep up just as well as a gas heater could.

Oh, okay.

And it's through heat pump. So phenomenal, phenomenal products, guys. And it's the future of how air conditioning's gonna be looked at. Mm-hmm. Um, of course the regular unitary or the regular systems that we've been used to for the past however long air conditioning's been invented still works. We still have that same process that we'd go through every single day. Uh, it's something that I take a lot of pride and passion into and have a lot of experience in. But as our technology changes, we have to continue to change with that technology and grow with that technology. And I feel like that's something that this industry is going to lean towards probably in the next 10 years. Now you've been excelling at, in my

opinion. For sure. Well, thank you, babe.

Oh, that was sweet. That was real sweet.

That's a good moment.

Yeah.

So here's a legitimate question. I want to ask you a question about those systems. Because like you said, they're so versatile, and there's so many different things you can do with them. If I were to build a new house, and I were to contract you to, to do the AC in that, in that house, and let's just say it's a typical 2,500 square foot, you know, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home.

Yeah.

It's a little bit bigger. If we were looking at something like that, would you recommend a more traditional system? Or would you recommend Uh, something where you could do duct, you know, these ducted or ductless systems in each different room?

So I like to give both options. Uh, I like for people to be able to choose the option that best fits their needs in their home. So with ductless units, it's a little bit different design. So you have some cost savings because you don't have ductwork, you don't have, you know, installing the ductwork, but you have to figure out how to route the copper lines and then the drain lines. You know, those are your important things with that. So if we have access, of course that would be a candidate that we could do mini splits. If it's already a house that has sheetrock and things on it, if we have permission from the homeowners to

kind of do some sheetrock holes and patches, then we can make some things happen to where we hide a lot of all, all of the copper and everything. But they do have guttering that you can put up to hide depending upon where you're at and what you're doing.

Yeah.

I like both options. So If you want more efficiency, they make— and they're very comparable in cost to the higher efficiency units that are the unitary or the standard units that we've been putting in for years. So it's— that's a good question, my man. That's a really good question.

So 2 questions after you tell me that. So could you put all of the, uh, the fans, I guess condensers, whatever they are, they go on the outside. So there's, there's a split, right? So there's a— there is something on the outside, right?

Oh yeah.

Could you Do you just put those on a bank on the back wall or something? Is that how that works? Or they have to be outside of the room that they're kind of adjacent to or whatever?

Not necessarily. If you have a wall mount unit, you would like for the easiest access would be directly out the wall. Your drain would go out the wall and set down to a unit that's below it.

Okay.

Um, the ones where you have to get into a similar different design, they make it to where it's one outdoor unit that goes to a branch selector box inside that splits off in 4 or 5 different directions.

There we go.

So it's interesting. It's cool stuff.

Okay, but, but that brings up— I, I think the thing that I, I think about, again, talking about traditional, right, things we're used to, is I think about having a thermostat to kind of take care of my whole home. So if I do mini splits in every room, I got like every one to program. Is that the way that works? Is there like a way to auto— like, is there an app where I can do all of them at once? Or— I don't think there's an app. Well, got some work to do, buddy. I think you could, uh, make some money on this.

That would, that would be cool. And I would— I don't know, I, I hate saying that I don't know, but, uh, I could find the information.

You just hadn't found it yet.

For sure, I could find that information.

I know, I know some mini splits have apps.

Well, you can hook them up to standard thermostats, so you could hook it up to a Wi-Fi thermostat versus having a controller.

I mean, so that's probably what you would do. Remote is kind of nice.

Sure.

Unless you lose it, right? Right. But Yeah, but I, I'm just thinking there's pluses and minuses of having the control of being able to do each individual room. There's pluses, and part of it is the nice thing is you can control every room.

Yeah.

And part of the frustrating thing would be, well, I have to control every single room, you know.

But it gives you power, it gives you versatility. So let's say you want to Airbnb a room. Okay. You have the ability to give them their own individual space in your house that is outside of your regular air conditioner. You know, that's something that it's mind-blowing, guys. I mean, it really, really is. You can do it with zoning. You can do it with controls. Yes, we've been doing it for years, but I'm telling you, let me install one. You'll, it'll change your life. And that's just, I'm just saying, I put it in my house. My wife used to be hot all the time. I love it. time. She loves it. I mean, we sleep comfortably in our bedrooms. Awesome. And it's, it's phenomenal.

I've been singing their praises ever since we put one in here. Yeah, like, you know, this isn't like, you know, we're not top-of-the-line brand name or anything like that, but they don't have to be. Yeah, I mean, but it works.

Hey, if it works, it works. Yeah, I mean, we, we like Mitsubishi. That's a brand that, you know, is well known, has good warranties.

They're way better on their air conditioning than they are their cars.

Amen. Mitsubishi AC, not a Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we would like to be a sponsor.

Yeah, we'll sit down, we'll have a cup of coffee, it'll be fine.

But we're not against putting in a unit that you would get offline. You know, cost and, and affordability— Affordable Air Repair is our name, obviously. We want to help be affordable for people. So we know that there's clients out there who found them online and they need somebody to install them for them. Give us a call, we'd love to give you a quote on what that would be. To help out. You know, of course, some of these units require an electrician because there is a dedicated circuit for the outdoor unit. We have a person in mind for that too. So we have this figured out and we can help in a lot, a lot of needs.

I think so.

I think that dude's been on the show as well.

Yeah, he has. I think so. Weston. Weston Simons. There's your plug.

Yeah. Yeah.

New Builds Electric. Go look them up.

They're awesome. Exactly. They are awesome. So I can imagine though, because of the new technology, if I were to go— let's say that, that I needed all new units, and I just decided to go this route instead. But then, for some reason, I got to move. So I put my house on the market. I wonder how many people would walk in and go, this is weird. Why would— why did they just do this? Were they— what were they thinking? You know?

Sure.

I mean, we don't live in any special high-end house. I mean, if we did it in Craig's house, they would go, oh, this makes sense. But like in my house, they'd probably look at it and go, this is on the golf course. Like, why do they do this? Is it— they're cheaping out on it? You know, you know what I mean?

I do. And I've had some clients, you know, just an example that a client said, they said, well, that looks third world. Yeah. And it's like, well, yes, I understand that, you know, a lot of people in the Caribbean and a lot of people in these other countries do use these things. But why are they using them? You know, it works. You know, you don't have the ductwork, you don't have the need for the, the materials. So you're saving some material cost on it for sure. And it's a matter of opinion. You know, a lot of times— It depends on your buyer, because if I walked in and saw that, I'd be like, yes! Yeah, it's a matter of opinion. So, you know, an explanation. You know, a

lot of people haven't been educated, right? You know, education's key. And now you are. Thank you, Homeowners Show.

Well, that's, that's the plan.

Yeah, I mean, I, again, I just, I think that there's times whenever you might look in a room and go, oh, this was an added-on room. So they just did that instead. Yeah, you know, I mean, I remember the first time I ever found one was in Nicaragua. I'd gone on a mission trip to Nicaragua. And it was a, it was a Best Western right outside of the airport. And the room was super nice, by the way, um, had a mini split. And I'm like, what? And then at the— for the next day, I'm like, forget all these like old school window units that they put in there. They should be doing this everywhere because it was super wonderful.

Yeah, no doubt. I have a good kind of thing for you to think about. So what's the first thing you do when you go in a hotel room whenever you're away from your house, turn on the air conditioner and crank it all the way down because you ain't paying that bill. Exactly. All right. So imagine being able to sleep in your master bedroom or whatever you call it, 2020, at a comfortable temperature, you know, and these things—

We changed the name, didn't we?

Yeah, we had a whole thing about that.

I forget what we're supposed to call it.

We're supposed to call it primary bedroom. Primary bedroom. There you go. I'm old school, guys.

Yeah, me too.

But I mean, it's, it's a benefit. It's awesome. You know, cause that's exactly what I do. I crank that hotel down as low as it'll get and freeze it out in there because why not?

You can.

Yeah, you can. You're not paying the bill. He does. So these units, you know, our standard minimum efficiency in this industry is 14 SEER. They have these units that go up to 20 SEER, which are inverted compressors to where it ramps up and down with the heat of our day.

Hmm.

So let's say it's 85 degrees when you wake up in the morning and your 4-ton quote air conditioner needs 2 tons of air to produce what it needs for your house at that point in time. That compressor will ramp itself down to provide that 2 tons of air conditioning. And as our heat of our day ramps up to our full 110, crazy blazing hot outside in Texas, that's what it's gonna ramp up to, to provide you with that Interesting. So it's crazy energy efficient.

Well, I would think like, okay, so talking about my house again, hang on, because he used, he used a term I don't know.

That's shocking.

What is that? SEER?

SEER rating. It's your, how efficient your unit is.

Okay.

So there's a term, forgive me if I don't know exactly what it is. It's an acronym.

Okay. Can we, can we, let's look it up. Can you look that up, Kev?

Of course. I'm an air conditioning contractor and I don't know what a SEER Well, I, I just thought it was something that you did similar to like what you do to meat. You just sear the meat. All right, we're all—

Seasonal energy efficiency ratio.

Ah, okay.

I don't know why that gave me blank right there.

That's all good.

So it's just how efficient your unit's going to be in the summertime and the wintertime. So you have different ratings: 16 SEER, 14 SEER, 80% on a furnace, or a 90% on a furnace. So it's just how efficient that unit is when it's running during the Is any of that code?

Like, you have to have a certain SEER rating for code, or is that just based on your own?

The industry minimum would be 14 SEER. So when new builds are being built, you know, obviously that's something that they have to at least put in.

Okay.

Most times your builders will give you a little bit more benefit. They'll put in a 16 SEER. I like to say at our company, our industry minimum is 16 SEER. Our company minimum would be that. And we can install kind of whatever you guys want. I mean, if we have to go budget, we obviously can cut that number down a little bit. little bit and go with the 14 SEER. Still a great piece of equipment, has great warranties, just like the 16 SEER would.

So, so you're saying 16, it would be like your minimum. What's like, what's like the most efficient out there?

20-ish right now. Top shelf. Well, it's the industry's top shelf. And I heard probably in the next couple years they're going to be increasing energy efficiency. And I think that minimum efficiency will increase a little bit too. too. So there's changes that are coming in the heating and air conditioning and efficiency. So interesting.

Is that affected by like the, the different coolants that they use? And so they're, they're probably cycling through that again, is that—

I would assume. I mean, it happens frequently. Obviously R-22, January of this year, they no longer make it. They still stock it. Once stock's gone, it's going to be gone. And that's the virgin stuff, the pure. There's blends out there, but a blend, all it is is a couple different refrigerants mixed together, and if you have a leak in a system, they'll boil off at different temperatures, which means one will leak faster than the other. And if you try to just add that blend back to it, you're unbalancing it. So you'd really have to recover all of it and then recharge with— oh gosh. So it's, it's a mess, no doubt.

Wow. Well, I think one of the things that— going back to the mini splits just for a moment— that could be really interesting is, you know, in my home we do have 2 different units. If one of them went out, sure, and I didn't want to change both of them, or I didn't want to go to one bigger one, you could really zone your house pretty efficiently.

Yes, sir.

And save quite a bit of money, I would think.

Yes, sir.

By doing that.

And even one step further, say you are in a hurricane, so you're in a storm, these units have the ability to be ran off of a generator. So you can't currently do that with a residential unitary system. They pull too much power.

Yeah.

So these ones, they don't, you know, inverted compressors where it's ramping up and down, it gives you that ability. So hurricane-proof in your house, you know, that's definitely something to consider, especially where we live here in Texas.

It's going to happen.

It's going to happen eventually.

Yeah.

A lot of people are without power up in the Panhandle right now.

Yeah, they are. Are they really?

Yeah, it's terrible. They're iced out.

Yeah, and, and, you know, you can't just start a fire in your house unless you got a fireplace.

Yeah, yeah, right.

I mean, I guess you could. It'd be stupid.

You just have to get creative.

Well, I, I just, I, you know, I— one of the things I like about that is that it just gives you options.

Sure.

And I, I think so many times, especially whenever you get into Your air conditioner goes out, you feel like you have no options. You know, it's like, ah, like, what's the biggest, you know, longest payment plan I can have so that I can pay as little as possible? Because I gotta have it, right?

11 years.

11 years is your answer. I know that. He's already told me I need to pay.

You got some stuff to do.

Yeah, I got stuff I gotta do. Um, but But I think that options are nice.

Yeah.

You know, that's what it's all about, especially whenever the options are not just nice, but they're, they're actually good options to save money, be more efficient, all of those sorts of things.

Sure. And I like options. You know, I don't like somebody telling me this is what you have to do. I like somebody saying, here's a couple of options for you. What works best? You know, and I'm never there to spend your money for you. I'm always there to educate. I will never make a repair without permission. I will always tell you why it needs to be that way and give you my best judgment moving forward. I've had a lot of success that way. You know, I am not high-pressure sales by any stretch of the imagination. I'm high education. You know, I will always educate you on what needs to be done.

Cool. Well, on the, on the kind of circling back around to the, to the heaters, then at least in this, in this part of the country, Because I mean, like, obviously people listen to this show, they're like all different states. Yeah. Um, but like here, I think we have like 2 primary sources of heat, right? We've got electric and gas. Yep. What do most people around here have?

Gas. I mean, it depends if you're, you know, kind of out in the sticks, you know, where they haven't ran natural gas lines. You would probably either have electric or propane.

Yeah.

So are there ones that operate off of propane? Oh yeah, you can convert them. So it's changing your orifices, changing your springs inside the unit and how it burns.

You just need to make sure your pressures are set properly.

But yeah, I mean, you can, you can actually run a gas unit with a heat pump. So it's called a dual fuel unit. We did them a lot in Tennessee whenever I was there. Okay, so different parts of the country, there's different units for any occasion.

So is, and like changing orifices and things like, is that something you can do or is that something a plumber needs to do?

Nope, we do that.

You do that? Okay.

Yeah, so we, anything inside of the unit we can definitely handle.

See, that is so confusing to me because you can do that on heating and air system, but you can't do that on like a, you know, like a gas grill.

Sure.

You know, like you can't. I know you can't.

Sure. I mean, I know that, I know that technically you probably could, but against my license.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

That's so weird to me.

And it's, it's strange. So an example, in Tennessee we were able to pull our own electrical wires, so we did not have to have an electrician to pull into the panel box.

That explains a lot.

And it's, it's wherever you live. Tennessee viewers, listeners, just lost me.

So just Nashville, right?

And, and here in Texas, you don't have to have a license to be a general contractor.

That's right.

That's right.

So I mean, it's wherever you do have to have a license in Tennessee to be a GC.

I, in certain parts of the country, don't hold me on the Tennessee.

Okay.

But in certain parts of the country you do.

Okay.

Yeah.

And here you don't, which also explains a lot.

It does, guys.

Like my house. Perfect example.

And this chicken coop we're sitting in.

It's, uh, it makes life interesting, you know. There's no doubt about that. We, uh, we find a lot of interesting scenarios out there that what should have been done and what was done. I mean, it's, it's scary in some parts, man. I mean, you have people out there that are putting these systems in that really don't know what they're doing, and it's just saving whoever's putting it in some money, you know. And it's, it's like, man, would you rather save money or know that it's going to be safe and know that it's going to work right? That's really— you're losing money when you get Chuck in a truck who messes it up, and then you're having to call us to fix it for you.

Yeah, fixing is always way more expensive than just every time, yeah, bucking up and doing it the right way.

That's right. And, and no offense to Chuck and anybody's truck, Yeah, right.

Poor Chuck gets a lot of grief on this show.

That's right.

We need to have a Chuck on just to like clear the air.

Yeah, y'all should. That would be great.

He'd have to have a truck though. Yeah.

Chuck, if you're listening, bring your truck.

Well, and I, I kind of asked that question because I'm curious, in your experience, if people with gas or with electric tend to have more issues with their Or do you notice a disparity?

It's usually the ones who aren't doing maintenance, and that's not just— that's not just a play on maintenance, okay?

Sure.

So let's equate it to cars, okay? Would you drive your car for 20,000 miles without changing the oil? No, you wouldn't.

Well, you shouldn't, and most— and most people know you shouldn't. Even the people that are like, oh man, I need— I need to get an oil change, right? They just still know that it's— that you're supposed to.

Here's my thing. At 19,000 miles, it's kind of like with the gas being almost on E.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's that Seinfeld episode where Kramer's going, let's keep going!

I made it this far.

And why do they change it? They were educated at some point in time that they needed to get it changed sooner than later, right? And that's our job. You know, our job as air conditioning contractors is to educate you why you need to have your system maintained. Costs add up. Let's just take an instance for an example. Changing your filter regularly can help prevent needing to clean the indoor unit. So, if you change that filter more frequently than you should, all you're doing is helping prevent buildup upstairs. So, you either pay for more filters or pay for cleanings. I mean, it's, it's kind of 6 in one hand, half a dozen in another.

Yeah, one is definitely cheaper than the other.

Absolutely, 100%. And, you know, change your filter, guys. You know, we can clean them, but we'll tell you while we're there on site, change your filter more. It'll help keep this from needing to be done so often.

Yeah.

And, and if, if you go and do what Craig and I have done and installed something like an Ecobee thermostat, some of these smart thermostats wouldn't— really, most of the smart thermostats, they have a setting on your app app that just tells you when you need to replace the filter. You know, it's super awesome. It just says, listen, you've got a maintenance that needs to be done. The other thing that you can do is you can set it up to tell you when you need your, your unit maintained. And so every 6, every 6 months, it's, you know, it's, it's reminding you you need to do this. And so the thermostats, um, are built in with the

technology to do that for you.

Sure.

And if they're telling you you need to do it, then probably need to do it, you know?

Right. Because it's, it's set on timers, right? You know, it's exactly what it is. And most thermostats have those timers. A lot of air conditioning contractors don't set them up. I don't know why. It's, it's a helpful tool to them. I mean, you can even set your name and phone number up in some of them. So it's, it's all in how you look at air conditioning and how you want it to work for you. You know, there's just like decking your car out with subs and speakers and rims and things like that. You can put any accessory you want to on air conditioning. You know, that leads me to a great topic. The promotion that we're gonna be getting into this wintertime is a filter and UV light combination. It'll

also help you breathe cleaner air, but not only that, if it's installed on a system that has a brand new coil or a cleaned coil professionally, we can activate that for a 12-year clean coil guarantee. So that's on top of whatever— if your system doesn't have any warranties, we can register that system once it's been cleaned.

Hmm.

With what's going around in our world, COVID and viruses, we don't know that it kills it, and I won't tell you that it kills it, but it helps treat the air that we're breathing in our house. It helps neutralize bacterias. Shining UV light, just like what the sun does on outdoor stuff, it kills everything. So it can't hurt it, you know. Yeah, that's the big benefit there. So we have a promotion code if you listen to this Homeowner Show podcast tonight. Breathe Better, #BreatheBetter, you'll get a 10% discount on that package.

Nice.

So 10% off the total cost of installation, that's parts and labor to install that. #BreatheBetter.

Just give us a call, we'd love to be able to help you guys out in your So just be clear that the Breathe Better promotion, we're gonna get 10% off the install of the UV light and filter and filter, and then a 12-month warranty on that.

If the coil is brand new, you instantly get it. 12-year.

12-year. Oh wow, that's way better.

So if the coil is brand new, you instantly get that registered. If we have to clean it, we can either clean it in place or we can remove it to clean it, and we'll give you our best advice on on age-wise when we want to look at removing coils because we don't want to cause leaks. That's the biggest thing. So there's some stipulations there, but we can definitely educate you on what's going to be the best route to go with that and how we can get this stuff in your home. Products is through Honeywell. It's been out a long, long time. If you want to look up some research, Google Honeywell Ultra Clean Coil Guarantee, and that'll get you to the link that

you need to look into getting that system installed on your home.

Okay.

Yeah, we—

and we can link all that up in the show notes. Kev, you got that right?

Yep.

All right. So that's, that's good. So like the, when you're talking about, like, I, I've, I've heard of putting like UVs and correct me if I'm wrong, UVs in like the ductwork, people do that too, right?

The ductwork or usually shining on their coil. So the plenum would be attached to the coil. They usually either shine it in the plenum or if they have a transition before the furnace and in between the coil, you would put it there.

Yeah.

The key is to shine it on that coil. The coil is always cold. It's always dark. It's damp. So it's prime breeding ground for mildew to start. It sheds water in the summertime all the time. That's how we remove humidity in the house. So treating that area, very, very important.

Yeah. Well, and like to— I mean, like, this is so funny that this is like the first thing, but it's, you know, it's the election season. Like, I remember Trump like just ridiculously saying like, it'd be great if we could get UV light in the body. But he was talking about like how like he was, you know, speaking goofily, but he was actually talking about like, it would be great if we could because like UV light kills so many like bacteria Absolutely. Viruses and different things like that. Again, we don't know that it kills COVID.

I mean, we hope. I mean, we— yeah, we can say allegedly.

We can. Well, I mean, like, they are saying, like, you know, one of the best things you can do for yourself right now is vitamin D, and one of the best sources of vitamin D is the sun. So, which is also where you get UV light from, natural UV light.

And we would love to come in. Uh, we have some specialized testing that we're going to be getting in the future to come in and test indoor air quality in your home.

That would be awesome.

I mean, that There's products that once we plug this in, it will tell us exactly what products you need to be able to treat it.

Yeah.

Well, let me ask you this. I mean, like, something like that, because I know, like, particularly right now in Texas, there's things that are blooming and things that— does that help with allergies?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. So the UV light, you have it in either just UV where it shines on the coil, or you also have it in odor absorption or a whole house air purifier. So it definitely treats the air that we're breathing and helps with allergies, pollen, You know, pet dander, things of that nature. The only real stipulation is keeping it maintained. Obviously, there's maintenance with that— changing your filter every 6 months or maybe every year depending upon how clean your house is. We'll be the judge when we look at it. How many animals? And then changing that UV bulb once a year.

How dare you call my children animals?

So UV bulbs are like tanning beds. I like animals better than humans, so you're welcome.

All right, well, so I, I think I've seen— correct me if I'm wrong— but I think I've seen air purifiers that have UV lights in them.

Absolutely.

And, and so, you know, a lot of the really higher-end air purifiers that you could just put in your house— and when I say higher-end, I'm talking like $500, $600, $1,500— some of them are HEPA filtration. Exactly. And they— you can actually see there's like this light that shines in there.

Yeah.

And And I— it's a UV light, right?

Sure. So I've had the benefit of working in doctors' offices and hospitals and working on their air conditioners. Every one of them has HEPA filtration and UV lights. So giving your home hospital-quality air, it's awesome. Yeah, you know, what more can you ask for?

Nice.

Well, I'm telling you, this is, this is just further confirming for me that I need the Tesla truck.

Tesla truck. Well, how did we get there?

Because they have HEPA filters. HEPA filters and UV lights in their, in their air filtration system for the truck, like the interior of the truck.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, it's like all Teslas have that.

And that just came out this year?

Well, no, I mean like every Tesla that's ever been made has a HEPA filter built into their air conditioning system.

That's neat. Wild.

Yes. One, one more reason for one more box for Craig to check.

How many people have changed their cabin air filter in their vehicle?

Um, well, see, I don't have one of those because my vehicle's so old that it doesn't have one.

So it's, it's crazy, you know, people don't even know filters exist in their automobiles.

No, in fact, so I know like there's the air filter, like, for the, for the actual car.

Is that the same? Is that different for your air conditioner? Yeah, that's different.

So it's for— you have an air conditioner in your car, works the exact same way as the air conditioner in your house. It rejects the heat that's inside of the car. So there's a filter on that, it's called your cab and air filter. Yeah, so it filters the air that's in your cab.

Yeah, so I— we, we have a Honda Odyssey, and the first time we took it in to get maintained or whatever, the guy was like, you need to— it's time to change your cabin air filter. And I said, my what? What? Yep. And he was like, the cab an air filter. And he kind of said it as if I should know what he was talking about. And I said, how'd you know I saw a cabin?

Exactly.

Like, what, what did you do last summer? Some sort of ninja inside my vehicle? I don't know what's happening right now. What is this thing? He said, well, it's a, it's a filter that filters your cabin air. It kind of is in the name. And I was like, I didn't even know we had one of those. And how much is it? And he was, he was like, I don't remember. It was like $50 or $60. And I was like, $50 or $60? Good Lord, that's a lot of money. You know, it's like, I was like, that is, that is a lot. And he was like, yeah, but I mean, it really needs to be done.

Yeah.

And so from then on, like, I did a little bit of research, and sure enough, you— it's a really super helpful thing. You just put it, put it this way: driving around in Houston, you've got your air conditioner. Where does that air come from? It comes from the outside, right? Unless you've got the little internal thing going on, the, the recirculator. Yeah, the recirculating air. Then it's coming from outside. You're on these highways with exhaust fumes, you know, you're just breathing that stuff in. So—

Particulate matter.

Man, you— what are you on right now? You got all these fancy words coming out.

I came prepared.

Apparently you did.

But yeah, I got a crib sheet here.

underneath the table waiting to interject large phrases.

So yeah, filters, filters, guys, super important.

But on filters, like, Jehu was educating me, uh, while we were out here in the studio before because he was, you know, he was again telling me one, that my mini split had filters.

Yeah.

And then I was like, well, how often do I need to replace those? And he's like, you don't. And I'm like, what are you talking about? You just pull them out and you clean them, you wash them.

Oh, so they're washable? They're washable?

Yes.

I've got a—

so at my house It just further made me believe that I was a really smart person for putting that in.

Oh.

Yeah.

It's funny.

I knew that.

He finds out he's smart after the fact.

After the fact.

That's interesting.

It's called my gut.

There you go. Yeah, so we've got a dehumidifier in our house, which, um, you know about. Then you've told me that there's ways to get rid of that thing, um, by, by having a better air conditioner. Sizing your air conditioner. However, um, that being said, Um, it's the same. It just— there's a filter in that thing.

Yep.

And I can tell really whenever it needs to be cleaned because it seems like the, the motor is louder because it's having to work harder, right, to pull the air through. And so I just take it out, wash it out, we're good.

Yeah. And another plug for, you know, appliances— your refrigerator has filters, it has coils, it has things that need to be cleaned every now and then. We have great appliance repair people. Lone Star Appliance Repair is who we refer whenever we have that need. So all things need maintenance. You know, you're— if you're in a house, we're on the homeowner show, you cannot live in your house for more than 10 years without something breaking. You know, if you catch those things before it happens and you try to prepare yourself, you're only going to be better off for it. Because if you wait that 10, 15 years, everything's going to pile up at the same time. That money's going to be overwhelming, and then you're just going to be stressed beyond

belief because you can't control it all at the same time. Yeah, so that's that's wisdom. I mean, there's things that will happen. It'll go wrong. I mean, it's just part of it. Yeah, things that can go wrong will go wrong. That's what it was.

What is that?

That's that's that's a rule. That's a law or something.

Is it Murphy's Murphy's Murphy's Law?

I think don't quote me.

They'll fact check you later. You're quoted. You're literally you're literally being recorded forever and ever.

Wait, what? This is recorded? It is a lot. I thought we were just hanging out.

It's gonna be the title of your Wikipedia entry.

There you go. If I— if they even have a Wikipedia page, I'm impressed with myself.

Well, you're going to in about 30 minutes.

That's right, give them a few minutes.

Because Wikipedia is so honest.

That's right.

So trustworthy.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, don't ask my wife about that, about the librarian.

Oh no, I'm a school teacher. That was super sarcastic.

Oh, I could tell. I could tell.

Yeah, I could tell.

Well, so what, what have we not talked about that you feel like you would, you would like to educate? I actually have one.

Sure.

So I know, I know we talked about, you know, getting your, your system prepared for winter and getting your heater checked and all that kind of stuff. One of the things I mean, like, I was, I was seeing it on Facebook today.

Yep.

Click the heater on. Boy, does it smell good in my house!

Yeah.

Could you, could you explain to people why that is?

Sure. So just like that—

I guess why that is— what it is, is like it stinks.

Yeah.

When you turn the heater on.

So unless you have maintenance done.

Unless you have maintenance done.

Okay.

Yeah, because it didn't stink when I turned the heater on in my house today.

Yeah, mine either.

It was, it was quite— it was good, good fragrance.

Yeah, fragrance.

So the heating elements or the heat exchangers will have dust that gets collected on it over time. That's where we try to filter it better to where we don't have that dust collection, but that stuff has to burn off. I mean, it can be smelly for sure. When you have a brand new system, they coat the heat exchangers in oil to help produce or help, help keep them from rusting.

Mm-hmm.

So you wanna make sure that those are staying fresh. That oil, it's gonna smell a little differently than what you guys are talking about, but the, the dust on the heat exchangers or the dust on the heating elements. We like to open up the system, then when it's in the attic, we like to let that burn off. That way you're not smelling it down low. You can get most of that out while you're up there doing your maintenance. That's part of it, you know. I haven't been able to figure out a way to avoid it on the main part. Filtration obviously does help in some ways, but it's gonna happen.

I mean, the main issue is that it builds up because you're not using it for like— well, here you're not using it for like 6 months out of the year, right?

I use mine maybe a lot more. 10 months. I may turn my heater on 2, 3, 4 times out of the year. Yeah, I mean, not very much. So we really don't use it that much. You have to get below like 64 degrees in my house before the heat kicks on. Yeah, yeah, we've got a lot of blankets in our house.

Which— this was, this was like a weird couple of days because we got down in the 40s. It's very beautiful. I mean, I loved it, but I love cold weather. So I mean, but people were kicking the heater on going, oh yeah.

And we, we try to start our heater checks around September, maybe towards the middle of it, and then we usually end up in the March timeframe for when we start our AC checks. There's obviously weird times in our year where we're hot and we're doing heater checks, but the real point is to try to prevent problems from happening when we have these cold snaps like today.

Which I imagine around here, people in September are like, what are What are you doing, man? It's like 102 degrees outside sometimes, you know? But like, but like, it's, it's, it's not about, you know, performance. It's about prevention.

That's it. That's it. I mean, we can go out, we can do both checks on the same visit when we're there, but you're really not getting the benefit of that because we can't see things throughout the whole year. You know, for an example, we're clearing your drain line on both visits. We're making sure because we know we use a lot of air conditioning in Texas. We're making sure that water is not clogging in those lines, and then we're backing it up with drain pan tabs. So it's a preventative thing.

Yeah, that was a big thing when you came in and worked on mine.

I'm like, what?

I mean, like, just, just for everyone's own— I mean, like, because I don't even know what it was that— I mean, like, I know it was a big deal, but like, so what was going on on mine?

Your primary drain line was clogged. So your primary drain line, depending upon where you live and where it's piped to, usually goes to a plumbing trap or your plumbing line. So we produce a lot of water in the air conditioning mode. They try to keep that from washing your foundation, so they want that to go into the sewer. But some houses, you know, it does go outside, but we want to make sure that that line's staying clear. So if it's not clear, it's going to have the ability to back up into your evaporator coil. It could flood your emergency drain pan. And if you don't have the safeties in line in those pans and in those Lines, the next step is your

sheetrock. So sheetrock repair is very expensive. Trust me, that's experience speaking right there, but it's, it's part of it. And I mean, in this industry, you can't do business as much as we do without having small hiccups and things that you got to take care of. It's just part of it.

Yeah, we had, we had a clogged drain line at my house.

You did?

Whenever you did our heat check too, and we had to get Paul the plumber out to, uh, to fix which worked out great. Yeah, um, I didn't get a call. Well, you should have had a worse clog. So he couldn't clear my clog. So, um, but you know, we have one that just, you know, goes outside and making sure that it's taken care of. But you said something that I don't want to— I don't want to gloss over for a moment. You said the correct— having the correct items in place basically so that you don't flood your attic and get sheetrock problems.

Yes.

So, so what do you recommend as far as that goes?

So a couple different things. We like to put a shutoff on the primary drain line. That way, while we're there on our maintenance, we have the ability to shut air from going back towards the coil and we blow it downline. So that's step number 1. Step number 2, we can put a float switch in the overflow hole on the coil. So if that primary line ever clogs up, that secondary line would trip. And then third step, you can put a float switch in your emergency drain pan. So if that pan ever fills with water, it's going to shut the system down before it overflows. So we don't like to mess around with water. It's a pain in the butt.

Dangerous.

It's dangerous if you don't take care of it, dry it correctly. It can cause mildew. Mildew is a huge issue here in Texas. Humidity's a big issue here in Texas. So preventing those things, it's key. Isn't float switch one of our straightforward repairs as well? Yep. We have straightforward pricing on 90% of the things that you'll find in this industry repair-wise. Being on our club membership, you get a 15% discount on those repairs instantly.

Yeah.

So Craig, here's the thing. I, I know he believes in what he's saying because he has already told me these things at my house, at my house. I need the shutoff valve. He really wants me to put it in.

Is that what you put in on mine? That's exactly what I did. See, I got it.

Every new system. I got it. Gosh. At a discount too.

It's because you're so much richer than me. You were able to afford all of the things.

That's right, because we're in the Taj Mahal right now.

Yes, we are.

Yes, we are.

Check out the wall behind us. That's right. Yeah.

Beautiful.

Have you told the story of what happened with— was it your son in the— Oh yeah, in the register.

In the register. Did we talk about that on the show?

Yeah, we did.

We talked about it.

I wasn't on the show whenever y'all were here last time, but yeah, that had just happened. So it was, it was fresh on your mind.

Yeah, I mean, I don't mind retelling it. It's hilarious.

So yeah, go ahead and tell it.

Adorable. We can't fix that problem, by the way. Let me just go ahead.

That is not Well, so, well, before— so like when you were just here, you'd seen the giant T for the first time, right? Did you like it?

I liked it.

Did we do it justice?

You did good. Everything looks fantastic.

You haven't seen it yet, have you?

I don't think she's seen anything of it.

Well, she—

I mean, she was just in the house a minute ago. She was just downstairs. I didn't want to send the pregnant woman up the stairs.

I creeped a little bit, I'm not gonna lie to you.

So anyway, up on the 3rd floor, which is where we had to have all the major reconstruction that you did, which let's be clear, that's just above the 2nd and a half floor. Yes.

Or kind of adjacent to.

Adjacent to.

I just need people to know you do have a 2nd and a half floor.

Yeah, I just need to throw that in as often as possible. It always needs to be mentioned.

Exactly.

That is actually how I like— when like I tell people like I have a weird house, they're like, yeah, yeah, Yeah, whatever. I'm like, no, no, no, let me explain this to you.

It's a weird house, guys. Yeah, ours is goals. I love it.

Is goals?

Yeah.

Nice, nice. Not gold, duh. Not gold.

I was really hoping I would find gold in the safe in the bathroom, but that didn't happen.

That's funny.

But did y'all hear about that? The safe in the bathroom?

Yeah.

Did you not hear about that, JoJo?

No.

So like when I was demoing the bathroom, Underneath one of the cabinets was an in-ground safe. Like we didn't know about. It was just underneath the cabinets. And so like we had to drill it out and find out, make sure there was no cash in there.

Of course.

There was nothing in there.

No.

Anyway, so back to the original intent of this story. So what I meant to say was like when I tell people my house is weird, I'm like, no, no, no. Like I have a second and a half floor. And they're like, oh really? And I was like, yeah, that's where my kitchen is.

Like every time I want a glass of milk, I gotta go upstairs. You gotta work for it.

That's right.

How bad do you want it?

2% ain't gonna worth it. You're gonna have the calories to get back down.

That's right. That's right.

But anyway, so when we redid the whole ductwork system for the house, we put 2 floor vents in my— in the 3rd floor.

In the loft.

Yeah, the loft, which is my son's bedroom. And I think it was like a week after we'd had it installed, stalled. Um, my, my 2 littlest ones are upstairs playing and my youngest one's yelling downstairs like, Daddy, Daddy, get up here! I'm like, like, and usually like when my kids do that, I'm like, let's pick yourself up, right?

You know, like, figure it out, rub some dirt in it, you're fine.

She's like, no, Gatchell's stuck. And I was like, what do you mean Gatchell's stuck? I'm saying my son's name. Y'all now know my son's name is Gatchell. Um, Gatchell's stuck. And I'm like, what do you mean Gatchell's stuck? And he's like, he's stuck. And then I hear Gatchell like screaming.

I'm like, what's going on.

And so like, as I'm coming up the stairs, I see my son and he's looking at me and I'm like, what's going on, buddy? He goes like, I'm stuck. And as I come up the stairs, I can only see him from the waist up. And I'm like, what's going on?

And he—

so like, what had happened is they had been playing with Legos and had been—

As we do.

Yeah, which is amazing. Yeah, everyone should play with them. I still play with them.

I do too.

So, but they thought it was really funny to like drop Legos down the vent, down the floor vent.

It is kind of funny.

And then he was like, oh no, I like that Lego and wanted it back. So he took the vent out of the floor and thought he could reach. He tried to reach with his arm, but it was too short. And he's like, I can reach it with my foot. And because they like to pick things up with their toes because they're monkeys.

Yeah.

And so he was like, well, I can't reach it. So I need to put both legs down there so I can reach it. And so when he He got stuck in the—

so he's literally— you walk up there and he's literally in the floor.

In the floor.

Yeah.

Waist deep.

Waist deep.

He's somewhere around 2 and 3/4. Hmm.

If we— but we don't have a tool to— We don't really know how to calculate it exactly.

Yeah, because the ductwork is just above the kitchen.

That's right.

Well, when he turns 18, maybe we'll hire him for that experience.

Yeah, he can be the guy that actually goes through and scrubs them out.

Yeah, there you go. There you go.

He's not afraid anymore.

Yeah, he's seen some things.

That's right. He knows some things because he's seen some things.

That's right.

That's right.

So I used to have this piece.

No, exactly.

I wish you got a picture of that. I would be that like awful parent. I'd be like, wait right there, honey.

Yeah. Hang on, this would be great for Instagram, right?

This would be great. Well, so, so a little quick story about getting stuck. So, um, when I was young, we— Which was a long time ago.

Before camera phones.

Not quite as long as you. Um, but, um, way before camera phones.

Thank goodness.

Yeah, so it no doubt—

It saved us all, didn't it?

It truly—

It did. Like, our children have no hope.

None. None.

Like, no privacy?

No, none.

Like, it's just gonna be up on the internet forever, everything they do.

It's so— it's to that point, I, I, um, I emailed my mom the other day. I was like, hey, do you have a picture of me whenever I was blah blah? She's like, no.

Right.

I was like, I was like, why? That was like, that's like a super iconic time of my life. Like, it was super important. Like, you didn't have a camera? What's wrong with you? She was like, she was like, We just kind of experienced life.

You were number 3 though, weren't you?

No, I was 2.

You were 2?

Yeah, but, but I, I was— yeah, I was the middle though, so, right, okay, totally neglected. Um, but anyway, so we were, we were in San Antonio. I had real bad problems with my ears, uh, when I was little, and so we were seeing a specialist in San Antonio, and we'd gone to one of the malls there. It was a 2-story mall, and there was just like a a railing around, and it was kind of— it had the slats in between or whatever. And I had apparently stuck my head through the slats and I couldn't get it back out.

Oh no.

And, um, so I'm, I'm literally like, you know, sitting there hunched over, waist, you know, waist over, and I had my head through this thing. And my mom tells the story that my dad went and like had to get security because they had to like figure out how to get out. And my mom was standing back by one of the, one of the stores, and people were literally walking by, you know, watching me like, what's going on? And she was saying stuff like, where are his parents? Like, what is, what is wrong with these people that they would let their kid just stick their head through the— my goodness, they ought to have, you know, CPS called on them.

Like, I love your mom so much. I'm taking notes right now.

This is the same mom that, um, she, she still has a, a spinning top. It's— I know, I actually know where it is in her house. She kept moving it because she was afraid I would find it. And there's a reason, is because whenever I was about 5, I flushed it down the toilet on purpose just to see what would happen.

Sure.

Right, obviously, and I was a middle child, nobody was paying attention to me. And so, um, apparently Yeah, apparently Paul the plumber wasn't very close and the water just flowed out and, you know, clogged it up, flowed out everywhere, made a big mess. And my mom, uh, threatened— not threatened, she was totally gonna do this. I don't know, I think she just loves my children, my children too much. Um, but she has the top and she was planning on telling them, go flush this.

Oh.

Like, so that I could experience what she had to experience.

Sure. So that's my mom.

That's for you in a nutshell.

She's a gift that keeps on giving.

Well, there is— that is a very accurate statement.

I love that.

Yeah. My very first thought was like, you're at a mall, man. Go get some movie theater popcorn butter.

Oh yeah, grease that booger up and yank him out.

Exactly.

Yep.

I don't know.

Oh, plus you'll like, you'll be, you know, attractive to a certain kind of person the rest of the day.

Yeah. So anyway, Stuck comments on the show.

Stuck.

Stuck comments.

Like, I was stuck. Gatchell was stuck. Oh, these are the stuck stories. These are, these are hashtag stuck stories. Well, we are way off track. Yeah.

What else we, what else we got to cover, guys? I think we missed anything. Everything's Good.

I mean, we are covered. Yeah. Yeah, I think we're good. $100 a year for every system gives you 2 visits a year. Um, summertime, wintertime check. Summertime, we water wash the outdoor coil, clean all the leaves and the debris, full mechanical evaluation. We'll change your filter for you on site if you have it. Wintertime, whether it's gas or electric, we fire the heater off, make sure it's safe, make sure everything's operating normally, check cleanliness both times we're there. Flush the drain line out both times we're there. Just really preventing problems, guys.

Yeah.

So we're here to help.

Well, and, and so, uh, one of, one of our recent guests reached out to us, uh, and was like, hey, like, you know, people like actually like reach out to us because like, like they're in different parts of the country and they have questions. If people have questions, can they, can they reach out to you?

Absolutely. Oh, he would love that. He would love that. Yes. Yeah. Tag, tag yourself. Reach out to me on Facebook.

Is that the easiest way to get ahold of you is Facebook?

Facebook, my phone number. is my business number, so it reaches me directly pretty much every time. If I'm not answering the phone, I'll get back with you. Usually I'm with a client, but yeah.

Point versions like Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger. Let me know. We're very responsive.

Or Instagram. You guys are on Instagram?

Absolutely. We're hip with all of our little handles there.

But do you do Twitter?

No.

Oh no.

Oh good.

Actually, I have a Twitter. I don't know the password.

Yeah, I accidentally twitted once.

Is that the actual— no, you just said twitted.

Yeah, on purpose.

I think that means something totally different.

I think, I think my mom called me a nitwit whenever she was talking about me up on the second floor.

That tracks.

Yeah, so sure. Well, listen, thank you guys for, for showing up.

Absolutely.

This is, this is awesome. JoJo, thank you for venturing out, for feeling like the home The Homeowners Show is safe space.

Yes.

We did clean.

We're not high-fiving, but that's okay.

It was the 6-month maintenance time.

No doubt.

So we scrubbed it.

No doubt. Love it.

Well, guys, thank you for downloading today's episode. It's been good. It's been really good. If you haven't already, click the subscribe button there on whatever platform you're using. We would love that.

YouTube. It's—

YouTube's happening.

It's happening.

And it's the place to be.

That's what they tell me. All the cool kids are, you know.

And leave a review. That is so big for the Homeowner Show. Leave a review. Kevin left us a review and it just like literally— I showed Jehu, we happy danced. Yeah, it is so huge. Yeah, it's a big deal for any company, man. We take pride in what we do. We like to, you know, feel we did a good job and we like to hear that we did a good job. I don't know anybody doesn't like the Attaboyz. Sure.

So yeah, so, you know, take a moment.

I mean, just—

it does just take a moment. And if you want to leave a message, like a review, and you can't figure out how, let us know. It's pretty simple.

We can— I'll write it for you.

Yeah, exactly. Genuine as I can be.

Yeah, that's right. But writing a review really, really, really helps us. So, and, and, and here's the deal, like, I don't really care to have have the reviews just because we want to be known. I mean, I don't really care about that. What I do care about is, is scam artists that are out there trying to take people's money and telling them that they need this, that, and the other because they're just uneducated, right?

Right. That's right.

We want to prevent that. We want to help that. We want to get as, as many people aware of things that are happening to their homes and help them own their home better.

So, yep.

That, that allows you as a homeowner to spread the wealth a little bit. So please do that for us. We're here every single Tuesday. Thanks for downloading the episode, and until next time, we'll see you later.

See ya.