That Time We Talked About Flooring

This is episode number 83 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're glad you could join us from the sidecar of the new aquaponics farm of The Homeowner Show, where I'm growing all my own food and you guys can all just like go away. You can Corona yourselves into a corner, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna grow my food inside from now on.

Hydroponics, man.

It's the thing, dude.

I, I mean that— well, first of all, we talked about hydroponics way back in an episode when we talked to the Texas, uh, the ag, ag people.

Yes, I'm going to the next level. I'm going aquaponics.

Oh yeah, with the fish.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we gotta, we gotta have some tilapia. Maybe some, uh, some, some trout.

You gotta be real careful there.

With the tilapia or the—

I've had the tilapia before. It starts to taste like the water smells. There's a lot— there's a pretty steep learning curve.

Oh, man. Hey, all of this you can find at the Land Pavilion at Disney World.

That's right. Which is available right now. There's food in abundance in the Land Pavilion right now.

Nobody's eating it. Nobody's eating it. That's exactly right. Nobody's there. Yeah, well, all I care about is— that by the end of May things calm down.

You just want your trip to happen. That's exactly right.

I do not want to cancel that thing.

Have they not pulled the plug on it yet?

No, dude.

Where are you going?

No, he's going to Disney.

Oh yeah, but no, they haven't pulled it yet. I mean, we'll just kind of see. I mean, uh, you know, Florida's in lockdown right now, so they extended some things for about a week past what, what, uh, they originally said they were going to have to. But Florida put that in place, which means Disney had to kind of abide by that.

But because they weren't for a while, Disney was giving birth to the coronavirus.

They were, they were saying they were going to open, but that was just a— they probably weren't. Yeah.

Anyway, sorry, we got it. We got a, we got a guest jumping the gun at the intro. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself so people know who's talking?

Howdy everybody, my name is Adrian Rojas. I'm with Floors for Living. Floors for Living, the flooring experts so you don't have to be.

There you go. So if you guys haven't guessed yet, we're going to do a flooring episode today.

Right, you'll be floored to hear this. Oh.

Oh yeah.

Hopefully you weren't planning on using that joke later on.

I can't anymore.

No.

But you know, we got it out early. That's right, that's right. Saved me from having to do it. That's right.

That's right.

So anyway, so I had a— I had an interesting adventure, uh, this week.

Okay.

We, uh, man, I can't remember. I think it was like episode 4. We had Julie on.

Oh, that was way early.

Yeah, way, way back.

That's when the studio was inside your living room.

Yes.

It's also one of our most watched YouTube videos, and I think mostly because her granddaughter was on and like young people are more YouTube savvy than—

Well, she's super cute.

She recruited all of her friends from middle school to watch the video.

Hey, that's fine.

So anyway, I went and picked up, uh, 4 new, uh, packages of bees.

Like, like sealed wrapped packages?

Yes, it's actually really cool.

Didn't know that was a thing.

Um, yeah, so like back, back in old farmer days, this actually used to be the way that people would get bees to other people, is they'd actually send send bees through the mail. And so they were called bee packages.

What?

Yes.

Wow.

And, and so what you would do is you would package the bees up in a box and then you would take it to the post office and ship it. And, you know, it hopefully would take, you know, 4 or 5 days to get there and not so many of the bees would have died. So, and there's like this whole, whole thing. So like there's, there's basically, you can get 3 different kinds of bees if you want to go spend like a bunch of money. you can go buy a hive of bees. You know, that's like a full active hive of bees with a mated queen and a super on top that's already making honey. And, you know, you can just transport that booger and put it on your property and you're good to

go. And then you just got to take care of it from there.

Mm-hmm.

Or you can buy a nuc, which is a smaller established colony that's almost ready to be moved into a full-size hive. Or you can get a package of bees. And what's cool about this is like, they like, when you go to pick it up, and I went and picked mine up from Julie, who's awesome by the way, and just does such a great job. And it like, bee people are just weird to hang out with, by the way.

I agree, I hang out with you a lot.

Also needed to be said.

So like, especially right now, right? I mean, like, we're in the midst of the whole coronavirus thing, and so like, this is my scheduled date to go pick up bees. Like, I've now got to go be around other people, right? And like, we're in you know, like stay-at-home mode, right?

You know, but I've got to go pick up these bees.

And so like, I'm going to, you know, be around a bunch of people at this point because there's, you know, there's probably like 400 or 500 packages of bees that need to be picked up that day.

Geez.

And so I show up and I just, I don't have a good history of going to these kinds of events. One, I usually show up unprepared. Like my very first one, I showed up without a bee suit and it was like these angry bees all on the back of a semi-truck. I like took one step out of the car and I got stung in the face. And that seems to be where bees like to get me, is in the face.

Oh yeah.

Particularly around the eyeball.

And that's when you knew it was for you.

Yeah.

That was your moment.

It was love at first blinding, first bite.

God, I'm gonna love this.

So—

I can't wait. Woo!

And, and like, apparently my face is like where I'm allergic. Like, I'm not like allergic to bees, but like if I get stung in the face, I look like Sloth from The Goonies.

It's true.

And so, like, I've learned when I go to these things, I just need to bring like a suit or at least like a face covering of some sort. And so I show up and this is why bee people are weird to me is because I show up and there's bees everywhere and they're like, they're not aggressive. They're just, they're just everywhere. And so I put my suit on and like everyone there has nothing. They're wearing nothing. They have no suits.

Clothes.

They have clothes on.

Okay, good.

The nudist beekeepers.

You said the bee people are weird. I don't know. Everything's on the table.

I'm sure there's some out there.

You know, there's I don't even want to know.

I don't know that that's like a YouTube search you should engage with, but just don't, just don't quickly entertain that. But like, they don't wear bee suits around these things. I, and I'm, I'm gonna like, I'm not getting stung in the face again. It's just not, I'm not doing that. Like it hurts and it's obnoxious.

Look at the new guy over there.

That was hilarious for me. I'm not gonna lie.

And like, I'm, yeah, I am. I'm like the newbie and like I'm wearing the, I'm like, I don't care. Like you guys can scare me all you want. I'm not getting stung in the moneymaker. Yep. Right. And so, yeah, so anyway, and like, they're just like in and amongst all the bees. And like, Julie's like sitting there at a desk and like, she literally has this box of bee queens sitting next to her and just bees just like piled on top. And she's like just reaching in there and grabbing queens and handing them to people. And it's just covered in bees and she's just, no big deal.

With her fingers? Yeah.

And like, dude, I see people do this all the time and I'm like, I don't understand. Like how, like does it just not hurt you or? So anyway, the way these packages work, this is this is why these packages are.

It hurts, y'all.

It does.

I'm just saying, let's go back to that for a minute.

It hurts, dude. You can watch guys on YouTube that do this and they do it without bee suits and they're like, "Ah dang, he stung me," and then just move on with their business. And I'm like, "No, it hurts." Yeah, really.

And like, and everyone's gonna know how bad it hurts.

Cry mode right there.

Yes, instant tears. And like for some people, it just does not bother them, man. Doesn't bother them. them at all. I mean, I've heard of being desensitized and they just like reach down and like pull the stinger out and move on about their business.

Nah.

And he's like, man, that's an interesting sensation. Like I've watched the YouTube video where the guy says that. It's like, who are you, man?

He must be like a zombie.

Yeah. Anyway, what's cool about these bee packages is there, you can see all the bees on the inside cuz it's a wire mesh box. It's wood on the sides and then wire mesh. And so you can look inside and see 'em all, make sure that like they're not dying or—

Sure.

And like, you know, when you're waiting to install 'em, you just sit there and spray 'em with sugar water and To keep 'em hydrated and fed and happy and, you know, a little docile. Cuz who doesn't like a little sugar?

Um, yeah, that makes 'em docile.

But anyway, so you pull this, this wooden lid off the top and underneath the wooden lid is a metal can and the metal can is full of sugar water. And next to the can is this black strap. And so you pull the, when you pull the can out, it exposes all the bees on the inside.

Mm-hmm.

But the reason you do that is because attached to that black strap is another little tiny wooden box. And inside that wooden box is your queen. And so you have to pull the can out and get the queen out and then get her set up inside the hive. And you pull the cork out and in behind the cork is what they call candy. And it's basically like solidified sugar that she and the other bees have to eat through in order to free her. And so by the— and because these bees have just been introduced to this queen, they're all attracted to her, but they don't trust her yet. And so by the time both of them eat through

the candy, They've paired.

Wow.

Yeah, this is the weirdest wedding story I've ever heard.

So I've actually got to go out tomorrow and make sure that all my queens have gotten through the candy and have now started laying eggs, uh, and all that kind of stuff. And she should have lots of eggs laid by now, um, so I've got to get out there tomorrow and make sure. But I've been checking on them every day and seeing bees coming and going. So each, each of my, uh, Packages of bees had about 10,000 bees in each of those packages. And so like, so once you have that queen inside your hive that you're going to be installing these, uh, these bees into, it's actually kind of terrifying if you've never done it before, because you just basically take the can and knock

it on the ground and knock all the bees to the bottom. And you just turn it over and dump them inside and shake them out.

Wow.

I mean, there's, there's other ways of doing it. There's, there's other sophisticated ways of doing it. But if you're like me and it's just like, I have a box. Then I'm just gonna dump the bees in there.

That's what all the bee guys told him at the place.

Like, now we're, we're gonna get the new guy.

We're gonna get the new guy. He's actually gonna do this.

Watch.

No, it works. I mean, like, you know, like you, you kind of spray 'em with sugar water. It weighs 'em down a little bit and they just fall in there and you put the lid on top.

So that is really interesting. Yeah.

So it's, it's actually really fun.

Yeah. It's a really neat process. I didn't realize there was so much to it.

Oh, there's a lot more to it than that. That's just, that's just getting them in the boxes. So, and then I, I did 4 of So I did about 40,000 bees 4 days ago.

Nice.

Yeah. So, okay, just in time for it to be nice and hot and sweaty outside with an extra layer of bee suit. Wow.

So I just, I slept at a Motel 6 last night, so. Nice. Yeah.

A lot of birds and the bees going on there. That's right.

Well, cool, man. Well, uh, I don't have any great stories like that.

One day.

Probably not. Probably not. I don't— I mean, I, I've definitely, I've definitely been interested in owning some land, and, and that's one of the things that really helps with ag exemptions and things like that.

And well, just if you want to have like a good garden.

Oh, that's true. Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

It's not bad. Just, I'm like, and most people say if you're gonna have a colony, go ahead and have 2 or 3.

Yeah.

Just in case one of them dies or, you know, something like that.

That's gonna happen, right? It absolutely will happen.

Yeah. So, I mean, they're extremely vulnerable insects.

So, so many things you could do. I mean, in regards to that, I mean, there's, there's not just bees. I mean, if you want to have land, I mean, the guys that are doing the rice paddies right now, that whenever the rice is gone, it's crawfish fields.

There you go.

I mean, and people that are, uh, I do a lot of aquarium stuff, right? And they're actually modifying fish like clownfish. They call them designer clownfish to be the, the white stripe like covers the whole fish and it's iridescent. And there's special ones And they raise them and breed them in tanks. I mean, very similar, I would imagine, to bees. And the stuff that they farm, raise clownfish, hundreds of thousands of clownfish in a house.

Oh my gosh.

Sell them to all the places. I mean, it's just, there's a lot of different stuff you could do if you really want to get in. I don't know, the ag exemption would be a little weird there, but—

On clownfish?

Yeah, on clownfish and eels and sharks, all kinds of stuff.

So, so you, you have like pretty extensive aquariums. Is that— is that what you're letting us know now?

Well, I mean, yeah, but, but you know, you always can— I mean, you got— you have a bunch of tanks and it's like you go there, it's like, I am not spending $80 on this little fish that's an inch long. It's like, oh yeah, we have a supplier that brings them in. It's like, okay, that sounds pretty simple and cheap. And I can only imagine what the— I mean, it's an inch-long fish. I mean, the amount of space that thing takes up for the amount of money that it costs Yeah.

All right.

So, so now very skewed. You've opened the door a little bit. How many, how many tanks we talking about here, bro?

I have filled or not filled?

I, let's, let's, let's start with filled.

Filled.

I have 3 tanks. 3 tanks that are filled. Uh, how big? A 75, a 55, and a like 16, I think it is.

Okay.

BioCube. And then I have another 2 that are not filled.

All right.

Salt or fresh? All of mine are salt.

All yours are salt. Okay.

You always— I mean, I started going with the fresh. The fish aren't as colorful and they don't have all the, the crabs and the eels. I mean, they do, but it's not near as fun as a saltwater tank.

Okay.

The coral and all that stuff.

What's, what's the coolest fish you got?

Uh, what's your favorite one?

Yeah.

Did you get the clownfish? Is that what you're telling us?

You're like, I've got a, I've got a few. Yeah, I've got a few clownfish. Really cool. I mean, the clownfish are kind of— they're neat in the designer ones, cuz I mean, you look at it and it's like a centerpiece in the room. I mean, someone comes, looks at the tank, it's like, oh man, that's so pretty.

Oh, what is that?

It's Nemo.

Yeah, but it, it's Nemo, but it's like not Nemo. Like, Nemo's like solid black and then the, the stripes are like iridescent pearl kind of real neat stuff.

Huh.

Um, probably the favorite fish actually would be a gold maroon clownfish. Okay, real cool colors and they love the anemones. Not all clownfish actually like anemones, interestingly Very few of them actually will go there readily. The gold maroon is one of those, and they're—I mean—real neat to see the anemone and the clownfish working together.

Or if you're like me, you don't even know what anemone is, so you don't know if you can like it or not.

You did a really good job saying it. Thank you. I mean, a lot of people struggle, and right off the bat, you got it.

It's like an enemy. An enemy. An enemy. Yep. But the clownfish. I learned that on Finding Dory or something.

I don't know. Nemo did.

He struggled with saying an enemy the first time.

Enemy. Enemy. Enemy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You could go a really wrong way with that word. It's so true. It's so true. Have a different experience. That's right. I need it. Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's right. Give me an enemy. Oh, wait a minute.

Wait, wait, wait.

All right, well, you know what? We have strayed a long way away from floors.

That's not true. I can transition this. Okay, let's see. So with having these expensive saltwater aquariums in your home, I imagine you got to have the right kind of flooring Underneath those things. See what I did there, Kev?

I'm not. I see it.

I actually have a story for this. See? All right.

Okay. You bailed him out.

Yeah.

No. You bailed him out.

Family too. We rehearsed this. Oh man! And that was a terrible call. Got it. Eight o'clock at night. I'm finished up at work, heading home. Adrian, what are you doing? Well, nothing. What are you doing? We're away at the. We're away from the house. We're in Colorado right now, and the nanny just called said. The fish tank's empty and there's water all over the floor. Uh-oh. Like, okay, what kind of floor do you have? Solid hardwood. I'm like, oh no. Oh no. Like, did she clean it up? No, she just locked the door and left. I was like, oh no. When did she come by? It was like 2 o'clock this afternoon. I was like, so you've got 65 gallons of water that's poured all over the floor. And it was

just bad by the time I got down there to Pearland. That, I mean, they still, this was—

Oh geez. It was in Pearland from where you were at?

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

You do. That's what, like an hour and a half from you?

It was, yeah, at 8 o'clock at night. It was not— it's not fun, but you know, you do what you got to do for family. And so I get down there, and that was 6, 8 months ago, and still to this day— because that's a lot of money that you weren't planning on spending, which happens to a lot of people that come and see me, right? Yeah, some people have been planning for it, some people didn't, and insurance didn't cover this. Because it's not a toilet or something. It's an extra, right? And insurance didn't cover it. So that was a lot of money they were looking at spending. So it's, OK, well, let's find a way to not do this. So they were going to

sand down and stain it. It's warped, but they were going to sand all the high spots, stain it, make it work. To this day, 8 months later, the floor is still too wet to be able to— it feels dry to the touch, but all the way through, it is still too moist from a moisture meter—

Jeez!

—to be able to sand and restain. Which is not something we do. That's someone else that's come in and said, yeah, you get— you guys still gotta wait. Not even close.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah. I mean, from all from fish tank, I mean, you know, there's not really one floor that's better than all the other floors. There, there are different floors that match certain situations. Mm-hmm. Like myself, I've got wood-look tile throughout the whole downstairs because of the, the water. I mean, if you've got fish tanks, The water doesn't always stay in the tank. Not even talking about stuff going wrong.

Right.

Um, it does not take very much to throw off a tank and have it just start pumping all of the water out of the fish tank. Uh, or when you're doing water changes, water spills, salt water, it corrodes. I mean, look at anybody that drives up north. Salt is terrible for wood products. I mean, I, I really didn't have another choice. Yeah. I also have a Zeus. He's an 80-pound Doberman Pinscher. Really limits the amount of different choices that I have for the flooring too. But so, I mean, there is, you know, as much as you could want solid hardwood or you just love the fluffiness of carpet, sometimes, you know, your lifestyle doesn't really match your wants and needs.

Yeah.

And you can invest in something and end up having your fish tank bust down the road and then looking at spending $8,000, $10,000, $12,000, $14,000, $18,000. Because you can't just do the floor in that room. Now it doesn't match the other rooms and you got to do it. And now with the open floor plans, it's all connected in one thing together. Where do you stop?

Yeah.

So people run into a little bit.

Kevin hates open floor plans.

No, at this stage of my life, I, I don't really like them. No, I, I do. I do see a point in time whenever I will want open floor plan. It's just not with a really loud 5-year-old. I'm gonna be able to contain that.

That's right.

It still doesn't work. Really still doesn't work. And, and our flooring does not help. We've got a lot of laminate wood flooring and it just amplifies the sound sometimes.

And there's, you know, uh, you actually bring up a pretty good point. Sound, as far as the floor, you know, people don't like the hollow sound of walking around on laminate. But if you look, the acoustics of laminate and other floating floors are so much better than a glued-down hardwood or tile.

Mm-hmm.

The acoustics— not you walk on it and has a sound, it's you stand in one corner of a big room and talk. Tile or a glued-down floor will echo, whereas the laminate or glued-down— I'm sorry, or a floating wood floor has an acoustic barrier underneath that catches a lot of that sound. Uh, we're, we're doing, uh, Uh, here soon we're gonna be doing a clubhouse, uh, and they're doing a floating floor for that reason. They do a lot of presentations and it's very echoey right now, and they're wanting something that acoustically sounds better. And a lot of people make that mistake though. Oh no, I can't have this. It click clacks. And then they put glue-down wood upstairs and they can hear everything downstairs. Mm-hmm.

It's just, you gotta be careful and get the right kind of thing for what your home is.

They should just go with carpet. Yeah. In the clubhouse. I mean, you never know. I mean, people may want to go barefoot in there. That's true.

You know, the dance— the dance people that come in there twice a week probably aren't going to be a fan of carpet.

But you know, I mean, we really catering to the dance people?

Could have been a whole lot cheaper, I'll tell you that.

Kevin's white, y'all. He's not catering to me with the dance people.

Problem is that Carpet's fine.

That's right. I got one move.

That's right. Yeah, I don't even know if I got one.

This is where you live.

Yeah, this is where you live, right here.

Right here. That's right.

Don't you bite that lip.

Throw the Q-tip away. Now I want to go see Hitch. Now I want to go see it. Well, okay, so let's talk about this for a minute. Like, so if I'm just thinking off the top of my head, which I normally am. Um, I'm, I'm guessing here, here's the type of floor— flooring options that I'm thinking about, okay? I'm thinking about, uh, regular, uh, old-school hardwood floor. I'm thinking about laminate. I'm thinking about tile, linoleum, and like concrete, like just stained concrete type of flooring.

Carpet.

Um, there's— I mean, there's so many categories of each one of those, right? Um, I'm thinking about laminate tile, even like— not laminate tile, sorry, uh, like vinyl tile. Yep. Uh, what am I missing?

Um, well, linoleum is not really done anymore. There is glue-down vinyl, but it's a lot different than the linoleum of the past. It's much, much thicker, much more difficult to rip. Still not something that's used a lot because the pattern repeat just gets phenomenal with your waste. Um, but luxury vinyl plank, laminate, hardwood, tile, and carpet. Those are your, those are your big ones. You know, obviously you have subcategories, engineered versus solid hardwood. Uh, I mean, tile, you got wood-look tile, traditional tile, ceramic or porcelain. Then you got all your natural stones that kind of fall into that category as well. Um, but for the most part, those are the big ones. Okay. Real, real big one right now is the luxury vinyl

plank. Mm-hmm.

Okay. So talk about that.

Everybody has been coming in and asking for it, and it is great stuff. It's 100% waterproof, but it is not 100% floodproof. When it is installed on the floor, if you do have a large amount of water that sits on top of it for a long amount of time, that water will seep through the seams in the board and pool underneath the floor, which you clean up the top of the floor, you think, hey, it's great, I got 100% waterproof floor, we're good. Well, now that water is trapped between a 100% waterproof floor and concrete.

Hmm.

And it's just, you're, it's a breeding ground for mold and mildew and you don't know You know, early— you can't see it. You can't see it. And early mold, you don't— can't really smell it a lot of times either. Yeah. You know, uh, and it will ruin the floor. So whenever you do have water damage or water, a flood event— I'm not talking about Harvey coming through the door, I'm talking about a pipe burst in the wall, I'm talking about a toilet overflow, you know, the 4-year-olds—

Bursting onto the floor.

Bursting under the floor. You have to take up the whole floor. Label the pieces, because once they're cut and they fit one way, they're only going to fit that way back.

Oh gosh.

Dry the floor and then reinstall. If you're talking about it in like a bathroom or something like that, it's reasonable to see someone going and doing that. But you figure out if you're flooding and you got 1,100 square foot of floor downstairs, the last thing that's on your mind is creating a grid pattern for your floor and starting to clean and dry and then take up All of the, all the floor is just—

is that even worth the money at that point? I mean, like, I mean, I, I mean, it seems like the labor intensiveness of labeling and patterning that floor would— you'd be spending less money just replacing it.

A lot of times it's, it's amenable if you don't have insurance. Mm-hmm. One, because the insurance company's gonna come in and, oh, you had flood damage. Here's a check. There's, there, go get a new floor. Yeah. You know, if you're doing it yourself or you, you don't have, um, Uh, insurance for whatever reason, be that because it was a fish tank and it's not covered under insurance, right? Or some other reason, right? Uh, it is a good option still because you can salvage and save the floor. And at the end of the day, if you've got 2 or 3 extra boxes, you know, in the garage from when you did install it, you know, you

may not have to be as conscientious of the pieces and how they were cut because at the end of the day, if you misplace one or need a new piece, you just cut another one.

Hmm.

Right? So there are solutions, but it's usually the last thing on your mind whenever you have a flood event. I mean, your baseboard, sheetrock, you're poking holes in the wall. I mean, there's a lot going on there. Yeah. You're not really thinking about, oh, let me take up and organize the, and clean and dry the floor. It's just not, it's not reasonable to assume someone would do that. Yeah. And so people are getting in a lot of trouble because they come in and that's what they've been seeing on Facebook and Home Depot and Lowe's. You know, they've been all talking about it and they think that that's what the best for it is. So that's really, really big right now.

Um, but again, so, so the upside being like that Johnny and Susie can spill their juice on it and that it's durable and all this kind of— what's the downside to this stuff, other than what you just talked about with like, you know, the seepage and the mold?

Yeah, the downside to vinyl, uh, I would have to say, um, and this is, you know, all relative because there's stuff that's better and there's stuff that's worse for it, but would be the scratching. Vinyl, I'm sure you all know, solid hardwood tends to scratch. You have to sand and stain and polyurethane coats on the top. Well, that polyurethane is the same thing That, that same kind of technology they use to protect the, the vinyl, right? Okay. It's a, it's a wear layer that comes in different thicknesses. Uh, manufacturers recommend 12 for a home, 20 if you've got big dogs, right? So it's anywhere between 6, like the Lifeproof stuff from Home Depot is all 6. Okay. But no matter

how thick it is, it's all that same polyurethane, right?

So when you, when like you look like at a box of flooring, it tells you like 6 millimeters, 8 millimeters, 12 millimeters, that kind of stuff.

Not millimeters. Uh-huh. People are getting in trouble with that. which we'll get into here in a second. Okay. But it's mils, M-I-L-S.

Okay. And it's like this, it's like the stuff that like, um, paint drop cloths, that's the, that's the thickness, right? Because you can get a paint drop cloth like 2 mils, 4 mils, it's still super thin.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

A mil is different than a millimeter.

Yeah, but I mean, even if, even if you get a 30 mil wear layer, the, the most commercial thing you can even get right now, it's still made out of that same urethane color. coating, and that urethane coating can scratch. And it's kind of like putting a scratch in your car, right? If you've got a black car and you got little swirl scratches, that's the clear coat doing its job. It looks like a white scratch, which it can't be because the paint's black, but the finish, uh, the clear coat scratches and it looks like a scratch to us. To the manufacturer, no, that's the wear layer doing its job. Now they've come up with much better stuff out there if you know what to look for—

ceramic bead coating, aluminum oxide finishes on the top that they're doing to protect that scratch layer. But as you can imagine, that starts to get more and more and more money.

Yeah.

And with, you know, a majority of the vinyl that's out there coming from overseas, very recently the prices have started getting better, but it was, uh, not any more cost-effective to go with, uh, vinyl than it was to go with a wood-look tile. Very, very similar in price. So if you're looking at waterproof, I mean, the tile is a much, much better option there.

So yeah, and, and the way they've made those things look now with the, with the planks instead of the, you know, square tiles, they, they look much more like an actual wood, wood floor would look.

And they do, they look great. I mean, because, you know, with, uh, wood, um, a lot of people— I mean, solid is not really a good option in Texas because we have concrete, you know, subfloor, right? Works great up north where they've got, you know, wood and basements and whatnot, so they can just nail it right down. It's just not as realistic. I mean, we're very much so engineered, uh, based here.

Mm-hmm.

Um, my brain just went and rode a bike. At least it's getting exercise. Yeah. No. Um, uh, no, the, the problem with, um, wood is that there are only so much constraints, you know, to what you can actually get for the size of the board. You know, the big designer thing right now is the bigger, wider, longer planks. Yeah. And I mean, I'm sure if anybody has gone to Lowe's or Home Depot and bought a long plank of wood before, you, you Stand the pieces on end and look, and they're all warped to some degree. So it's hard to get that in hardwood without paying a lot of money. Well, now with the engineered products of tile, laminate, vinyl, you can get that same look for a fraction of the price. And

it's just the variety of what you can get and what you can get the look out of it is, I mean, tremendous compared to what it used to be.

And, uh, literally straight as a board.

Yes. Yeah, no, we, uh, we actually put some, uh, some barnwood tile in our shower. And I can't tell you the number of times, like, we've shown people pictures of what our shower looks like and people look at it and go, how are you gonna keep that from rotting? We're like, what are you talking about? They're like, the wood. We're like, it's not wood, it's tile.

Come on, people.

Why would we put wood in our shower?

Yeah, we would never do that.

But like, it looks, it looks so good that people are sort of deceived by it and go like, oh my gosh, it looks so cool. like, why'd you do that?

Yeah, I mean, it really is. I mean, you know, arguably there's not one floor that's any better than the other, but if there would be, I mean, tile fits so many people's wants and needs. And the only downside to tile, wood-look tile, is that it's cold and hard. If you can deal with that, I mean, it's, it's, if you install it correctly with lifetime materials, you can flood the, the grout doesn't stain if you use the right kind of grout. Um, water can literally stand on it for weeks and after the water dries, The floor is fine. After Hurricane— I mean, we've got 24 stores across town, obviously tens of millions of dollars of tile installed. After Hurricane Harvey, we got not a single warranty claim. In fact, to this day, we have not a

single warranty claim for our company for wood-look tile because of an installation error.

Not one.

Wow! That's crazy!

Not one popped tile, cracked tile, nothing.

That's amazing!

I mean, if you do it the right way the first time, Tile will look like that forever. Uh, porcelain tile, you can't stain it. I mean, it's very, very hard to stain without harsh chemicals, right? Um, you can't crack it. I mean, it's, it really is, um, truly great stuff.

Yeah. So do, do you guys do any of the concrete floors at all?

Uh, the stained concrete, um, uh, epoxy flooring, stuff like that? No. Okay. No, we do not. Uh, and there's a reason for that. We don't do solid hardwood either, nor do we do natural stone, uh, or WPC. PVC vinyl. Uh, our big thing, our claim to fame is we stand behind everything we do forever. The, the material, the labor, everything associated with that job. If, if something happens, you get a crack in your tile, you get boards start to separate, you get, uh, buckling or tinting in the boards, you get a wrinkle in your carpet, you call us up and we come and either repair or replace everything free of charge.

Okay.

So because of that, there are certain things we can't do. Uh, we'll talk about the stained concrete or the epoxy or just that kind of kind of flooring, right?

Right.

That whole strata. The problem is, depending on what you get, obviously there's again exceptions to everything, but it does require some maintenance, right? It does need to be refinished. You'll get the epoxy will start to chip up if you don't take care of it or put it in a garage. But what happens is once you put that down, it's very— I mean, you're pretty, pretty well stuck with an And with a floating floor after that, you know, unless you get some very specialized mortar or specialized glue, it doesn't stick, uh, to that surface the same way as it would bond to concrete.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause that's what mortar's for. It's meant to bond, chemically bond to the concrete.

Okay.

Now it can't. The problem is to do over that, you have to either put a very thin layer of concrete over it, which works for quite a while, not a lifetime solution, but it does work for a while.

Right.

Or more accurately, you're gonna have to, uh, chemical treat that floor to make sure that the glues can now stick to it.

Right.

And it's just, it becomes a very, very expensive thing. So a lot of people run into the trouble of they do that and now what? Well, now you have to stay with the floating floor. Well, I don't like the echoey sound of it. Well, there's that or there's this. Well, that's way too much money. Well, I mean, yeah.

Yeah, we actually have an interesting thing going on in our hallway. So we've got We've got probably one of the longest hallways you've ever seen in the history of hallways. Um, it's like half a football field or something. Um, which is great for certain activities, by the way. Uh, but we have a little offshoot of that where our bedrooms are. And so we've got 3 bedrooms down this little short hallway, and it's all that— all of our hallway areas are, are like a floating laminate. Uh, wood floor.

Yep.

In that hallway though, it creaks, and it creaks badly, especially during the wintertime. So like, I have to pass my daughter's room and my son's room to get to my room, or vice versa. If I'm leaving my room, I have to pass both of those places to get out. And so you hear creaks and cracks all over the place. Um, and so I know that now it's weird because that's the only place in the house that it does that, but I think it has to do with the direction it's installed. Um, a little bit just because, um, it, it, it, it goes, um, perpendicular to the hallway itself instead of parallel down the hallway. Uh, because it matches the rest of that really, really long hallway, right? You have to Yeah, so you have to do it that way. So I— that, that's my, that's my thought.

I mean, I have no— yeah, you know, no expertise in this at all to, to think that other than I'm just trying to think logically. Um, so I can see why some people would really want to glue all their stuff down, but I also know there's a reason you put floating floors in. And so, I mean, I, I'm just curious, like, whenever you have an issue like that, I mean, you're talking, you're talking here about adhering and the issues that you have with adhering flooring down, especially in the areas that we live in. What do you, what do you do with a, with an issue like I've got?

Well, there's a couple of things I want to touch on there. First, um, it could be, uh, because you decided to run it perpendicular, uh, but what it more likely sounds like is a float issue. Um, all floating Yeah. So, every concrete floor is going to, um, have some degree of, of creaking. Usually when it's new, after it's settled, you, you're pretty good. Uh, but if there's one area that's still squeaking more than the others, it sounds like, uh, it wasn't floated properly, which is the low spots, natural low spots in the concrete need to be filled in. Um, or else you're gonna have, I mean, as you can imagine, very flat boards that are now going down a slope and they don't click and lock into place, right? And so there's room for it to move.

Uh, and the thing about float is it's required for a proper lifetime install, right? From the manufacturer of any waterproof laminate, anything, uh, in regards to having waterproofing, it— the floor has to be floated properly or else you lose your waterproofing from day one. The problem is people say that, oh, I don't know how much float you're going to need. I haven't taken up your existing floor. I haven't looked at it. And And then it's, you know, extra charges. We call it the float scam, uh, but it's needed for an install, right? A lot of places charge $30, $40, $50. I've seen— the highest I've seen is $80 a bag of float. Just to put that in perspective,

across the 24 stores across town, we use on average 1 bag of float for every 50 square foot.

Okay.

So at $80 a bag, that That can add up pretty quick. Really quick. Yeah. And that's an extra charge after the job starts. So one, it could be, uh, it sounds like a float issue, especially given that it's only one place. Yeah.

Uh, I mean, obviously without seeing it, but, um, when you're talking about floating, you're talking about like self-leveling, like, is that what it is?

Float is, uh, a self-leveling concrete. Yes. Okay. But a floating floor is different. A floating floor is any floor that's not, I mean, bonded to the concrete. Uh, not glued or nailed, glued, nailed, mortared. Yeah, to the concrete.

Okay.

Uh, but the thing is, with your stained concrete, you've got a couple of options. Yes, there is, uh, special glues out there that you can get that will attach wood to that stained concrete, and yes, they do work very well. Not the most cost-prohibitive thing in the world, but it is out there. Same thing with the mortar. There are special mortars that you can get that will bond.

When you say it's not cost-prohibitive, you mean the glue's expensive, or—

Yes. Okay, it is, it is quite an expensive thing. to do. Uh, uh, so depending on what areas you want to put it in, if the stained concrete is everywhere, you might want to look at something different. But if it's only in a couple places, yeah, you can use it and roll with it. Um, uh, but the main thing is whenever someone does go to the house and look at it, make sure it's someone you know and trust.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I mean, the 3 of us right now could decide, hey, we want to start up a flooring company, go print out business cards and start handing 'em out to people and saying we've been in business 30 years, right? It takes nothing. There's no regulatory anything. Anyone can start a flooring company. And if you hit someone like that, that's trying to earn your business on a job, it's gonna, you know, quote you a little bit lower because he doesn't, doesn't know. He doesn't, hadn't thought about that before, hadn't run into that before. Or, uh, you know, they don't, you know, after the job is done, they're done. It's not gonna be an issue for 3, 4 years down the road. By that time you're gone. You might even be doing a

different profession by then.

Hmm.

It's just make sure you talk to someone that you know either one has a very long warranty, so that way if anything does go wrong, they're there, they got your back, uh, and they've been there for a while. Um, or it's someone that you know and trust that you know has been in the business for a while that knows what they're talking about.

Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, a lot of times when we have professionals in, a lot of times they'll say, well, you know, make sure that the person that you're working with is is with, you know, registered with the state agency or make, make sure that they have this license or different things like that. And so what you're telling us is like, you know, at least in Texas, and I assume this is probably the case across the country. Yeah. Um, you really don't need like a license in order to install flooring. You don't need like a flooring certification or something.

Nope. There are certifications you can get, but they're not required. Right. And people don't think to ask for 'em.

So that, that's a good ques— that's a good place to start then. So what can people do when they're looking to vet, you know, just, I mean, like here in Houston, like, yeah, you know, call Adrian. But you know, if otherwise, if they're not here, like let's say they're in Dallas or Austin or, you know, Saskatchewan, I don't know. But like, how would you go about vetting a flooring company? You know, if you're, if you're looking to bring these guys in your home and you know now that like, like they don't have a license, they're not required to have a license. They're not necessarily required to have these certifications. How are you gonna go about that?

That's a great question. Um, there's a few things you can do if you, if you're going to doing your research and you're really gonna invest, uh, some money and/or time in the floor and something you wanna have there for a while, do your research. You can find some qualifying questions. Like if you, now that we've had this conversation, if you go start bidding for your floor and you ask someone like, hey, um, so is there gonna be any trouble gluing down to this, this epoxy floor? Nah, nah, nah, it'll be fine. Run. Right? That's definitely, uh, you know, those qualifying questions that you can find pretty easily online.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, shopping guides. Uh, I mean, we give one to the customers when we know they're gonna shop that way. You know, I know whenever I've gone and I've done my shopping, I know what questions to ask because I'm in the industry. People don't. So they've created shopping guides that are readily available online that ask common questions like how much do they charge for furniture moving, how much for removal, how much for float, what kind of mortar, what's the shear strength, what's the bond, you know. Yeah, there's— that way you can go get specific for your situation and just kind of test the person that's coming in, you know, kind of interview them.

Apples to apples on that too. Yeah.

I mean, because it—

because I, I think that that's one of the big, the big problems with many, many contract jobs. Whatever you're contracting out, it's like, you know, Paul the plumber may come in with, uh, with a certain price, and, you know, Joe the plumber comes in with another price, and Paul's more expensive possibly, but Joe just doesn't know what he's doing, right? And, and you, you look at it, you're looking, you're looking at money, you're going, wow, it's a whole lot cheaper to go with Joe. I should just go with Joe. And then a month later you're having to call Paul anyway. So like, I, I think that that's part of the issue with any contractor, is it's really difficult sometimes for, uh, for

just people like us that are, that are hiring these people out, whenever we get multiple quotes, to look at it and go, yeah, this is comparable to what this other person is doing. Um, and at the end of the day it very likely isn't. I mean, if you, if you get something that's, that seems way cheaper than something else, you should probably be suspicious. Same thing if something is way more expensive. I mean, you have to kind of be smart with some of those things. But I like what you're saying, like, do your research and, and find some of the questions that you need to be asking. That's, that's really actually one of the reasons we started this podcast to begin with.

Yeah.

Is to help give give, uh, the people that are listening to this podcast a little bit of information so that whenever they go into these situations, they're not unarmed. And they're not unarmed.

You don't know what you don't know.

That's right.

And, you know, uh, there's nothing against contractors, right? I mean, uh, there's a lot of people out there that are very good, but the— usually the people that are very good are either one, busy for a while, right, because they have enough work, or two, they're not the most That's right. Right, in the world. So, uh, usually the ones that are, um, uh, I mean, they're trying to get work. And if someone is that desperate and trying to get work, oh, I could start on your job next week, you know, there's a reason why. I mean, I asked him when was the last time they had a time. And the problem is, you know, uh, a lot of people, as far as procedures go with contractors,

they'll come in and they'll tell you, I'll do this job for X amount of dollars, and that's the labor price.

Hmm.

And then, uh, it's up to you to go— let's just say tile, for example. It's up to you to go buy the mortar, the grout, whether you want spacers or a tile leveling system. You don't know what you don't know. And when you're sitting down that Lowe's aisle of mortar and there's 30 different kinds of mortar and they all just say mortar on the front, you know, uh, large format, uh, latex modified, non-modified, you have no idea what you're looking at. You look at the And you think, okay, this one's $5, this one's $30, all right, this one's $10. So the $10 probably is better than the $5, but I probably don't need to get the

$30. And you make your judgment based on that, and that doesn't have any kind of credence to what you actually need in your job. But the thing is, I mean, that's just how that, how that goes. I mean, the installer says, hey, I'll do it for this much, have all the mortar and the grout and everything, and whatever you provide me, I'll make. So then you go, okay, well, I have that number. Now how much is it for y'all? Oh my goodness, y'all are expensive. expensive. Okay. And then you go, and then you go, wow, this stuff is expensive. And then the installer says, hey, look, I need more. You, you didn't get enough of this. You need more of this. So go get it. And then by the end of it, you've spent more with the contractor

and you haven't got near the quality of stuff that you could have gotten going with a bigger store. You know, uh, yeah, our store, again, 24 stores. We buy all of the mortar and the grout for Lifetime stuff from one place at one time. A lot of times, contractors can't even compete with the pricing. There are several contractors that I'm now doing the flooring for because they couldn't get it done for cheaper, if not the same price, as what we could do. I'm making money, and now they can still make money on top of it, and have the lifetime warranty for the customer, and not have to worry about the install.

And they're not doing the work.

And they're not doing the work. They're sitting at home, you know? I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's very difficult for them, uh, to compete at that point as far as the pricing. But for answering your question for your, uh, people out there is just get informed. If you're spending that much money on flooring, uh, I mean, you're probably gonna be looking anyway, you know, you're not just gonna go spend that money willy-nilly.

Yeah.

Usually. Uh, and it's not, there's plenty of information out there for you to be able to check and learn within 15, 20 minutes a lot of what you need to know to be able to qualify whether you're using a contractor, a flooring company, cuz not all flooring companies are the same.

So, but you're not talking about like reading like an end cap at a big box store or something like that. I mean, like, like we're talking about a different layer of education.

Yeah. I mean, uh, if you know that you've got that issue, um, you're gonna go to Google and you're typing, um, glue down floor on epoxy Right. And just read, you know, 2 or 3 articles on that and then say, okay, well, my options are clearly this. And then go to YouTube and type in, you know, glue-down wood versus floating wood, or, you know, tile versus glue-down vinyl. And then just watch, just easy reading. I mean, 15, 20 minutes.

You probably have 20 videos to choose from.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, plenty. There's plenty of information out there and not any one is correct. You just kind of look at 3 and you can just kind of tell where the truth really really lies. Uh, but there's so much information out there, there really isn't any reason. I mean, the amount of shopping and checking into people doing cars, and it depreciates in value, and you get one every couple of years. I mean, flooring is an investment that can literally last a lifetime. Measure twice, cut once, right? You look into it, figure it— I mean, there's so much information out there, shopping guides, YouTube videos. It's really, um, uh, not very often anymore do people go with the lowest bid. You are gonna have that one that comes in hat in hand. He did exactly what you said he was gonna

do. Please come fix it. But those are more few and far between. Yeah. Uh, if you're the lowest bid, usually there's something wrong and people know that in this, that's not usually the route I want to go.

Yeah. So, so let me ask you this question. like, I, I, I, I tend to look at things differently than, than some people do because I kind of— if you— I think if you were to go ask most people, are you living in your dream home, I think most people would say no. Um, I think a lot of people would say I really like my home or I chose it for this reason, but your dream home— I mean, I, I could probably be enticed to move somewhere else, you know what I mean?

Right.

And so because of that, If I need to put new flooring in my home, let's say for like my house, I would love to change every piece of flooring in my home. I would.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I got a 2,400 square foot house. That's not gonna be inexpensive to do. I get that. When it comes to resale, I, I think, I think this is something that is, that is interesting to talk about because For example, very much so, my neighbor, um, just sold their home. Still pissed at him for it because I really like him. But, um, so he just sold his home. They spit— they had some, some natural, uh, hardwood in there, and he had it— it had some scratches in it, so he had it sanded down, restained, a whole bit. Um, and I know that it looks if you like it.

Yeah.

If you don't— I mean, because it's kind of a lighter color, looks great. If you want darker color, he wasted a lot of money doing that. Now, he, he bought a new home that he told me, and I looked at it just online, and I looked at it, I was like, dude, that is really cool. Like, the, the flooring is like, it's really neat looking in my opinion. He said, first thing we're gonna do whenever we get there, we're gonna rip it all out. It's like, really? Why? And he said, well, it's, it's actually really old. It's not put in very well. It's, it's just, it needs to be replaced. I said, okay, but it looks good. He said, I don't even really like the way it looks. So I mean,

this is so subjective based on what you like versus what I like, and I'm spending money on this. So like, when it comes to this kind of thing, how far down the road should I look? Should I look for something I'm just gonna like? Because at the end of the day, If I, if I get into a situation like the coronavirus and I gotta move because I lost my job and I gotta move somewhere else to get another job, all of a sudden flooring makes a big difference to people.

100%.

So how far down the road do I need to look? And is there something that people like more than other things based on you doing this and people buying it?

That is a fantastic question, and we could have a totally separate show designed just in answering that question because there's, there's so many— Maybe we should. Well, there's, there's so many things that come into play with that. Uh, one, you touched on it for a brief second, resale value. Hardwood and tile, best resale value out there, right? Wrong. It's not always like that. A lot of that depends on what homes in your area have, right? If you got wood-look tile, but everyone else in the neighborhood has laminate, that could be a different value jump than if everyone else had wood-look tile.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And vice versa. If everyone in the neighborhood has laminate and you put laminate, if it's nice laminate, it could very well raise the value of the home. It's totally subjective, just like what you said. And if you are thinking of selling the home, whenever you're thinking about doing floors, you're right, it's expensive.

But it's something you need to think of down the road.

If you're, if you're going to be selling the home within the next 5 years, yes, get what you like. And there's plenty of stuff out there, but you do need to think about that next person. And just like the light to dark thing, that is a huge— if you got someone, if someone comes in to look at his home that has a dog that has had wood before, probably gotten out, getting out of it at their last home. They're immediately gonna turn and run away. If you have someone that wants— has a more masculine tone or wants something, you know, it could turn off a lot of people. You know, color is a very big factor, not just what you put in, but what it looks like. You know, you want to stay with something

that is going to win over the hearts and minds of the most people. If you have something— usually when someone's thinking about selling, we tell them to stay towards the medium. Stay with brown and stay stay with middle because people that are dark could convince themselves that they like something in the middle. Same thing with light. It's not too dark, but it's not as light as they would have wanted it, but, you know, they can live with it kind of thing.

It'll work.

It'll work, right? So, I mean, there are certain things you do need to consider whenever— if you are thinking of moving away, but that doesn't mean you have to pick something you don't like. Uh, I mean, we tell people all the time, have an idea of what you want and bring it in, and we'll find something that goes with what you want, you know. And we pair a lot, uh, a lot with, um, other home designers, uh, builders, um, that help and go pick with their customers, or they'll stop by and, oh yeah, you should go with this. And learning from them, it's— I mean, it's very much so you need to think of what you're going to be doing next, the next

5, 10 years.

Yeah.

Because again, putting the flooring in there, it's gonna last a long time if you do it right the first time, which is obviously the idea. Um, but a very good question because, you know, not everybody does think about that, and then they get stuck, you know. Um, uh, a lot of times it happens with carpet with realtors. I get so many calls from realtors like, hey, we told the people we need to replace the carpet and they didn't. Well, now we're 4 months into the listing and the carpet still needs to be changed, and they're finally taking on like, yeah, everyone says this carpet looks bad and we need to get it done, right? There's— you need to

think about not just the step that you're in, but also down the line. If I had to say there was one floor that matched with everyone, it probably would be wood-look tile. It's like, yeah, 80% of our total sales.

Okay. Wow.

I mean, it's a statistically large margin versus everything else.

No, that's, that's good to know.

Yeah. Um, it's not the most— I mean, probably on a scale of price, Again, there are exceptions, but you're probably looking at wood being the most expensive, then wood-look tile, then vinyl, and then laminate. Laminate not being too far behind, and then carpet usually winning the day as far as cost goes.

Really? Carpet as the cheapest?

Oh, it can be. I've got carpet I can install for $1.50 a square foot. a foot. And I've got carpet I can install for $23 a foot.

Holy cow.

So I mean, the, the range in carpet is—

It better hug you for that.

Oh yeah.

But that's probably more like the patterned, uh, dual-colored, very thick wool.

Like, there's some, there's some weird stuff out there.

Sure.

Uh, most of your carpets, you can get a very decent— I just put a carpet in my grandmother's house. It was $2.69 a foot, really nice, 60-ounce. I mean, really good stuff. Um, usually you're in your, you know, $2, $3, $4 range if you want to splurge a little bit on carpet. Um, but, you know, more often than not right now, people are putting carpet when— whenever it's like, all right, to do 2,400 square foot is going to be $19,000 in wood-look tile.

Okay, how much is carpet?

How— yeah, how do we get that number to $10,000? It's like, well, you know, let's start at the closets. You know, people people, you got, you know, 100 square foot in your master closet, you know, you take that from, you know, $6 a foot to $2 a foot, and then you start thinking of your guest bedrooms. And then it, it just kind of— you can usually— people use carpet to, uh, reduce the cost of the job, or whenever they're moving and they're replacing floor and they're just trying to get done with it. People get flooring at 3 times in their life. Usually it's when they're buying a home, selling a home, or having to do a model. Mm-hmm.

So are you having people buy carpet and not, this is just me guessing, but like, are you having people buy carpet just because of the, the cost prohibitive nature of it or because they actually genuinely like carpet?

It is one or the other more often than not. And it's, uh, again, you know, a lot of it is based on demographics. It's a very weird thing cuz we're all in Houston. But if you, uh, I've, I've managed another store, uh, over off Barker Cypress, uh, Barker Cypress and 290, and the customer base over there is totally different than what we have in The Woodlands. The— what we sell is different, how the customers purchase is different. Like, it's— it is drastically different store to store. Uh, but so I can say in The Woodlands, more often than not— I mean, yeah, you will get that, uh, customer that does just absolutely want carpet. They don't want to step off of their master bed onto cold

tile, right? So they'll put carpet. They just diehard love carpet. But usually, it's a cost-effective measure. The parents don't go upstairs a lot, and they've got 3 bedrooms and a game room upstairs with stairs. That's a lot different price putting carpet up there vs. even a laminate or vinyl. A lot different.

Man, I'm a carpet-in-the-bedroom type of guy.

Some people are. Largely, I am, too. It's such a different, nice feel. You can't get anything like that on a hard surface.

Well, I mean, it's different. Like, you, you get a hard surface, you can get anything on it, and you walk barefoot in it, it's like, oh, just stepping all over that, right? I mean, like, first of all, clean your floors, people. But beyond that, I mean, like, you know, carpet hides some of that stuff, and, you know, it, it, I mean, it hides a lot of stuff. But a lot, um, but I, I— if you've ever taken up carpet, it's disgusting.

That voice he just used just convinced me that carpet's It is, it is.

It's tough to clean well.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. There's, there's not enough Eurekas or Sharks or Dysons to, to get it all up, right? I mean, it's just— and, and part of that is because the, the padding— The padding is disgusting. Yes, the padding is disgusting too. Like, it gets in the padding and under the padding and—

Carpet padding, unless you go with some memory foam or special poured stuff, carpet padding is furniture foam. They strip the leather or the cloth off the furniture. They take all the foam out, put it in a grinder, throw some glue in the grinder, and get a big cube. And then they slice it up into small slices. And the problem is— have you ever— you have carpet in your house, I'm guessing?

Of course.

So are there areas where you walk a lot where the carpet is just hard underfoot, and then closer to the room it's more squishy?

Yeah.

What's happened is you've walked on that so much, you've ground that foam into dust.

Sure.

And that dust doesn't come back up through the carpet. So all the skin cells and mites and pest control, you know what can live in carpet.

I'm out.

It's all there, right? So it is difficult.

I'm out.

Bring it on. I'm going to charge them rent. No, it can be very good. But you have to think about the cleaning. Yeah, it is something that has to be maintained a little bit more.

Yeah, and, and one of the things that we do try to do, and I know that this doesn't fix everything, doesn't fix hardly everything, but, you know, we do try to shampoo our carpets and try to, you know, use the Rug Doctors and different things like that, or even get a steam cleaner in there. Those types of things really, I think, do help. I mean, if you've ever done that and cleaned them, mm-hmm, it's disgusting. The The water that you dump out, that brown water that you dump out is awful.

Most people don't realize that per most of the wear warranties for any carpet that you have mandate that you have to steam clean the carpet at least once a year.

Yeah.

And it's because, you know, nylon and polyester, they're both plastic, right? So when you heat treat it, it erects the fiber again, right? So polyester is kind of known for tamping down. Well, you heat it up, hot water extraction, it erects the fiber. It's not a cure-all, but in doing so, it helps with the wear over a long period of time. In doing so, it also does clean the carpet. That will help as part of the maintenance costs I was mentioning long-term, which compared to the cost of a hard surface, you've got a lot of cleaning that's going to be able to fit in that budget before you catch back up to the hard surface. But it's a great option. There's nothing wrong with carpet.

I have 2 carpet questions. Okay. Uh, I had one person tell me one time you're better off buying a cheap carpet and a really good pad than an expensive carpet in general. Doesn't matter what kind of pad you get because the padding is what really gets the most comfort out of the carpet. Right or wrong?

Uh, I mean, with a lot of this stuff, it's, it's kind of in the middle. Okay. Uh, the best bang for your your buck, yes, that's the case.

Okay.

Uh, because I mean, you can go from, you know, uh, a 6-pound pad, which is really— I mean, it's, it's like middle of the road, but like upper middle of the road, a 6-pound pad.

Okay.

Uh, but the nicer 10-pound memory foam pad, um, is more dense, uh, which by definition, something that's more dense is not softer. I mean, have you ever gone and ran and jumped on a memory foam mattress before? Probably take the wind out of you. It's not a very comfortable thing right off the bat, right? Uh, but the thing is, you know, going that jump at, you know, 30 cents a foot—

Yeah.

That is a lot different than paying for softer, squishier carpet that could be, you know, $2, $3 a foot more, right? So as the easiest way to increase the value would be to go with the pad. Now, the, the flip side of that coin It's more dense, right? So it's not softer. The reason that you go with a memory foam or a more dense pad is because it lasts longer. There's no sense in getting a 30-year carpet with a 6-year pad, right? And vice versa, there's not a lot of sense in going with a carpet that's going to tamp down in 5, 6 years, but you have a 30-year pad.

Sure.

I mean, it's just— there's obviously middle ground. There's not just an easy answer, but the pad is the easiest way way and cheapest way to make the floor feel better without having to spend dollars in the actual carpet.

Yeah. Okay, second question. This is exotic. You ready? Have you ever been to a place or installed carpet on the walls?

Yes.

Oh, I was sure hoping you would say yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Not only that, but in the bathroom. Oh, the master bathroom.

What?

I've actually seen, uh, interestingly enough, uh, a master bathroom that was— I mean, it's really hard to describe. Carpet was green, first off, deep forest. Uh, secondly, the shirt you're wearing, like the shirt I'm wearing, green. Yeah, actually, yeah. Uh, but the, the way the bathroom was set up. Mirrors everywhere, first off. Okay. Uh, and then you walk into a square bathroom. In the middle of the bathroom was the jacuzzi. Yeah. And the 2 steps leading up to the jacuzzi, as well as the top face, was carpet.

What?

Was green carpet.

I don't— I don't—

And then the rest of the Carpet. Was carpet as well.

So I'll tell you guys, the, the very first house my wife and I bought together, it had carpet in the master bath.

Yeah.

It was weird.

Yeah.

And it was like, we, we bought the model in the neighborhood and we're like, like, it's like the rest of the house, like most of the products in the house were really nice. And so it was one of those, uh, tub shower separate things. Um, everything was carpet except for the toilet.

Wow. And there's some sense Some people like that.

I mean, like, they do. They don't— they don't want— it's like—

It's like weird carpet people out there that just, you know, have to—

Not only that, you're— yeah, not only that, but I mean, like, most people are putting some sort of, you know, like a, like a mat down outside of your, your shower, your tub anyway. So why not just carpet the whole thing?

And that's actually the justification I heard.

If you're asking, I could tell you why you won't want to do that. You're gonna For a few reasons, actually.

Water and— okay.

Not really water. Usually it's the carpet near the toilet that doesn't last as long.

Also water.

The water is not fun. You're right. There are carpet solutions that will help with the water, though. Now, I mean, with new technology, that rubber-backed carpet that can handle water.

AstroTurf in the bathroom.

You could put turf, but the urine is very difficult to get out of the carpet. Oh yeah. But what I've seen a lot of is the master bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen are the 3 most customized rooms in the house. And ripping out tile is a lot more expensive than carpet. So I've seen— I've gone into a lot of homes. In fact, I'm doing one right now that they— I mean, the builder was going to be more than twice the expense of what it was going to be for us to do it.

the floor.

So they had them put just the cheapest carpet that they can get in there because the carpet removal is free, and put it as much throughout the house as possible. That way, when they want to put the real flooring, cabinetry— I mean, all that stuff's gonna have to move around— that cost of getting it all out is a little bit lower.

That's interesting. It's a really, really interesting tactic. So specifically, just so you know, Like, I, I've been to Elvis's home, Graceland, in Memphis. He's got a room that has carpet on the wall, and it's fantastic. I mean, and this is not me saying that because I like carpet in the bedrooms. It's just— I used the word earlier— it's exotic. He's also got a waterfall in his house. Um, I'm talking about him like he's still here. Yeah. He's not. Um, if you think that he is— supposedly. Okay, just whatever.

Um, was there, was there a purpose to the carpet?

I mean, like, I think it was just because he was very eccentric, man. Okay. Like, the, the guy was just so eccentric. He just, he wanted, he wanted people to walk in his home and go, whoa. And, and he accomplished that.

That was a very '60s, '70s kind of thing, but we still have that same design aspect here and now it's different. It's not carpet, but an accent wall. I mean, how many times have you seen an accent wall different color? And it's even gone past that now. Now I'm sure you've seen—

Wallpapering like crazy too.

Yeah, that's coming back. It's coming back. Uh, the, the stacked stone that people put around fireplaces, they're putting that on the wall, doing a whole wall of it as a texture accent.

Interesting.

Really cool looking. Not the most cost effective thing in the world, but it looks really cool. Yeah. So I mean, people are going to look at that in 30 years going, oh my goodness. Yeah, they put Stone on the wall?

Why would they do that? They're not gonna rip it off.

It's so heavy. And, you know, I mean, it's just things change.

You tell me carpet on the wall, I just start thinking of like shag carpeting in vans back in the '70s.

Oh, that's what it is. That's exactly what it is.

Yeah, 100%.

You need to go Google it, man. Like, it's exactly what it is.

Yeah, I won't. Fine.

Let me be clear. Well, I'm just gonna be clear with it. You're gonna get email, text, and I'm probably gonna send it through Instagram now.

You know, it wouldn't be Very expensive if you wanted to play a prank and you could get in his house. Just saying, I happen to know a guy. I'd be in his house. Just come back in one day and, sweetheart, is that, is that wall carpet? Did you— what?

I think, I think he called Adrian. All I'm saying, Craig, is don't go to Disney for a week.

That's all I'm saying. No deal.

Lock your door if you're going to do that.

Very good questions though about the carpet though.

Well, it's tough, man, because I I think that it's one of those things that for me, anything that I do to my house, anything, I have this idea of what would the next person that buys this house want that. And, and it's not because I don't necessarily want to live in my house. I like my house. I bought it because I liked it. I didn't buy it because it was the only thing available. I bought it because I liked it. I like the neighborhood. I like, I like everything about the house that I have. But I'm not naive enough to think that if I could find a house that I loved or a piece of land somewhere that I could build the house that I loved for an— for a great price, I'm not

naive enough to think that I'm not going to move. And so I, I just— I don't want to do something and spend that $20,000 on flooring when honestly half the people that walk in my house, they're going I cannot believe they did this.

Well, I mean, and here's the thing, let me, let me spin this a couple different ways for you. Let's say option 1, you're gonna sell the house within 2 years, right? So you know that you're trying to get in and out of this floor as little as possible. In 2 years, there's not really a whole lot of chance for you to mess up the floor, so you're gonna want to go with probably a vinyl or a laminate, something that would look great great, but it, it's not going to be something that you really invest in the floor. You're going to want to stay with something very in the middle tones of the browns. Um, but I mean, there's not really a

lot you could do to damage the floor in a couple of years. I mean, drastic things, right? Uh, now let's— another scenario, 5 years. You're selling the house in 5 years. You know, that really is not a good option anymore because 5 years from now, if you have, if you have a dog or you have to You have to— someone had to come into your house and they had a dog for a couple of months. I mean, life happens. And there's— if you get something that's not meant to last a while—

Children.

Children could damage that floor a lot sooner than you'd want. And now you're having to re-spend money to fix the problem that you could have invested the first time.

Yeah.

Right. So you would get something that still could be vinyl or laminate, but a nicer vinyl or laminate, you know, something that in 5, 6, 7 years down the road is still gonna look nice. There's not gonna be water damage or scratch damage that you're gonna have to worry about reinvesting again in the floor. And the third option, 10 years down the road.

Yeah, 10.

I mean, 10 years down the road or anything longer than that. I mean, after 10 years, it's just all kind of the same.

Yeah.

You're definitely not going to go with a wood floor.

Yeah.

I mean, because certainly, solid hardwood, you're toast. You're going to have to have already sanded and restained it once, if not twice, by that time anyway. 10 years, probably just once. But it's definitely going to need to be done, so you're already reinvesting in the floor. Uh, but I mean, tile would be really— tile or very, very specialty laminates or vinyls, uh, but mainly tile would be what I would recommend to people. Find something that you like because 10 years is a long time. Yeah, you know, a lot can happen in 10 years. So definitely lean more towards what your design elements were. Just don't, um, don't lock back yourself into a corner.

No, that's really good advice, and I appreciate that, you know, the 2, 5, and Because it's different. Yeah, it is. It makes a lot of sense. I think that one of the things that, that we try to talk about, and we're probably not as explicit about this sometimes as we maybe should be, but you kind of have to know the type of person that you are. And like, there are some people that are just very unsatisfied with life, and, and it's not that they're— you, you would look at them and go, you're an unsatisfied type of person. It's just that they like change, you know. I know people that, you know, they've rearranged their house 3 times

since this coronavirus has happened, you know, like just because they don't like— oh wow. So they're like, oh, I'm gonna rearrange this room, I'm gonna rearrange that room, and all of a sudden their whole house is rearranged just because they like change. There are other people, it's like, I don't like change, I don't want it, I don't want any part of it.

Yeah.

I set this up in 1968 and it's not moving, you know.

Yeah.

And, and that's fine. mind. Know the type of person that you are and, and play into that. So like you said, if you're the type of person that you have staying power, man, pay for it.

Yeah.

And if you're not, if you like, if you're the type of person that wants change, don't pay for it now. Like, like, just get something that works knowing that you're gonna change it sometime down the road pretty soon, you know.

And, you know, the The, the, the knowledge out there, the very little knowledge people have about flooring is it's expensive. It's expensive and gonna be a pain in the butt. I gotta move all the stuff out. You know, it's always something that you wanna do that just doesn't usually get done unless you're buying, selling, or remodeling the whole home. Yeah. Right. So, uh, what happens with a lot of people, and I hear this so much, yeah, man, we looked at doing this about 8 years ago, but now we're selling our house and we have to do it. And so I said, wait a minute, so you're still investing in the floor, but Now you're doing it for someone else.

You don't get to enjoy it.

You don't get to enjoy it, right?

It's almost better to do like a, like a flooring, um, what do they call it, like an allowance, a flooring allowance.

And I've told people that before. It's like, guys, you know, if you put something like this on the floor, save that money for your next house. And tell people, hey, look, I mean, some of my realtors, I, I tell them that, like, keep me, keep me in your phone. Say, hey, look, I've got a master and 3 side bedrooms have this, the floor needs to be replaced. What's the carpet allowance, right? What's it, what's it going to be to replace the floor? That way if it comes up, I know how much. And yeah, not a problem. I tell you, boom, boom, boom. Uh, it— you're not— uh, people think that it's going to be very expensive for flooring, and, and a lot of people it is, you know. You're not— especially people that had the

pipe burst on the wall, they had no idea they were about to spend $12,000 on the floor.

Yeah.

Not exactly something that they they were ready for. But there's so many different options out there, and we're— it's not even just us. I mean, a lot of people have 0% financing options. We now have 0% financing for 5 years, 60 months, right, on flooring. I mean, you talk about that in a car, right?

Yeah.

I mean, $20,000, $30,000, that makes for an affordable payment in a car. Now you have that change in your home. You'd be surprised how many people that were planning on moving. We redid the floors, they painted the walls, and they stayed. They decided they didn't want to move anymore.

Hmm, that's actually—

I actually might have that happening right now for a customer of mine, which is more troubling because it was a realtor referral. But they love how the tile looks. And we've just kind of— now you know what, you know, when you move up to North Carolina, now you know what you want to get up there, right? Because it's— I mean, it totally changes the way someone feels about their their home. Yeah. It's not an investment like buying stocks. It's not something like buying a car where you just, you have to do it or you don't see anything from it. I mean, people come in to buy floor because they don't like the way their home feels. Yeah. And when

you change that, and it's just, it's something that can very much well appreciate in value, the home and the floor itself. Um, but it just, they love the way the home feels now. It totally, totally changed. I mean, that's one of the things I love so much about this job. Yeah. So whenever you hit the nail on the head, I mean, it's just they are Lord.

And we're back.

So I want to ask you about because we recently did the the floors in our house, and one of the things that kept coming up is people like, "Well, use the Pergo. Get the Pergo stuff." Because like because the name brand. Yeah. Because it's you know it's water resistant, and like it's guaranteed blah blah blah blah. Like it's this great laminate flooring that can you know, and like I think like even like some of their their marketing. marketing stuff has like a giant dog walking on it. Isn't that right? Is that the one that has like the— what is that, uh, the Great Dane? They have a picture of like a Great Dane on their stuff. And I'm looking at it going like, yeah, but like it's still laminate. I'm like, how can they say

that it does all this stuff? Have you— I mean, like obviously you're familiar with the brand, but like is there, is there any validity to what they're claiming as far as like, you know, water resistance and—

100%.

Indestructible.

Absolutely.

That's what they're saying.

Oh, but there's, there are some caveats to that, but yes. Uh, if, if— I mean, my mother did recently come and we got her tile, but her only options for picking were laminate and tile. That was it. Uh, I mean, she really wanted carpet in the bedroom. I told her that was okay, but it was laminate or tile. That was the only thing I would let my mother buy.

Mm-hmm.

Laminate, um, next to tile is probably my favorite thing to install in people's homes because it's half an inch thick. A lot of them are 95, 97, 98% wood, so it's still got the warmth factor of the hardwood, uh, but with the scratch-proof qualities and the waterproof qualities, I mean, it's hard to find another floor that can stand up to it as far as durability. Now, to your question, uh, Pergo is a good brand. It's a name brand and been around a long time. But let me ask you this, it is MDF board, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so there's different ways that you can make the floor waterproof. Uh, Mohawk's, uh, RevWood floor, the way they make it waterproof is their, uh, their click and lock system actually uses reverse pressure to make sure no water can get through the seam because you don't get water through the picture, you get water where the boards meet, right?

Right.

So, it uses physics to make sure, right? Um, other places, they actually dip the edges in— you can think of it like a wax. That way when they— the boards meet up together, no water can penetrate through because the water repels— or the wax repels the water, right? The problem is now you need a piece or you have a piece of laminate that's 4-foot long. Well, to get to fit in the wall, have to cut it, cut it. And now you have that exposed edge, which is going to be covered up by quarter round. Fair. Uh, but you have the same properties. Exactly. Yeah. So unless you install it with a waterproof installer on the outside and your dog goes to the wall, lifts his leg up, pee runs down the floor, the

MDF board sucks up the water like anyone on the planet knows, you're beat. And the best waterproof pergola stuff in the world is now beat because it was not installed correctly. A lot— I don't know if all, I can't say all, but all of the ones that we have with any kind of waterproof warranty has to be installed with a waterproof installation or your warranty is voided from day one. Not something that people ask about, right? So they don't know.

So what is that that you do extra to make sure that warranty stays intact?

On the outside of the room, you know, obviously there has to be an expansion gap for the expansion and contraction of the floor. Uh, we use a closed-cell backer rod. It's a little foam rod about, about the thickness, a little bit thicker than a pencil, probably like a Sharpie marker, uh, thick. Goes in that gap, you silicone over the top, and then you put quarter round. So now you have the waterproof from the top, waterproof from the edges, and then you put a moisture acoustic barrier underneath the laminate. So the only time you can have water damage is if water soaks through the wall and then goes underneath the floor in between the pad. And yeah, I mean, that's flood damage anyway and not covered under any kind of warranty, right? Um,

but that's only if it's installed correctly. The other part to most of those waterproof warranties is the floor has to be floated correctly.

Mm-hmm.

Think about that, uh, the, the Mohawk system that click and locks together and uses reverse pressure. If those boards, both of those boards are not on a flat surface, not level, but flat surface, That system doesn't work, right? It doesn't fully lock and engage into place. And so now you have a spot where water can get in. And if water gets in, you're like, hey, I got this waterproof stuff. I spent the extra money and got the good stuff. This is messed up. The manufacturer comes out there, takes one look at the floor and says, this is a float issue. Sorry, your warranty is voided. And then you call the contractor like, what the hell? Oh no, no, no, I'm blessed. Inglés, sir, señor. I don't,

you know, it's just, it's, it becomes difficult at that point. Right. Um, but I mean, that's why you go with, again, the reputation or someone with some kind of a warranty that lasts longer than a couple of years. Right. 'Cause you don't see issues like that right out the bat. Right. Right. It's not until you have that life thing that happens, it's like, oh, is the floor gonna be okay? And then the floor's not okay. And then you're upset because wait a minute, that's water, that's water damage. That's not supposed to happen. And then you get into why and you realize it. I mean, from day one you were beat. So, wow. Yes, there is

100% that I stand up to it. We're doing that same kind of laminate in that, in that, uh, country club that I mentioned to you.

Yeah.

Uh, I mean, great stuff. Uh, put it in another good friend of mine's house and I've got all kinds of pictures I could show you. Aren't very helpful on radio station, but, um, in all my friends' house, I put the laminate, the pit bulls and big dogs. I mean, there is stuff that can handle that, but you just gotta know what you're looking for. Just like what you mentioned earlier, you gotta know what your expectations are. How, how soon you're gonna be moving in and outta the house. What is, what's important to you? Cold and hard durability, soft and fuzzy. Know what you want and then let that person who is the expert in their field kind of help guide you to what you're looking for. Right.

And make sure it gets installed correctly.

And make sure it gets installed correctly. Yeah. Because you can have the best Pergo, I mean, you could have the best tile in the world, if it's not installed properly, your issues.

Um, cuz like what you, what you're telling me is, cuz like you can go buy that. I think you can buy Pergo at Lowe's.

Mm-hmm. Uh, Pergo I think is a Home Depot brand.

Is it Home Depot?

Yeah. SmartCore is one of 'em.

Yeah. You can buy it at one of 'em. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But like, sorry. Yeah, you can. So you can go buy that stuff there, you know, as a homeowner and go install it yourself. Mm-hmm. But what you're telling me is like, if you don't install it like you described, mm-hmm, all those good things about that flooring are just gone.

Are gone. Now, obviously, if you have something that is less susceptible to water next to something that has no waterproof qualities, even if you install it wrong, I mean, obviously there's going to be some measure of it being better. It's not just totally trash, right?

Uh, it's just not going to be what the protections of the brand paid for, right? Okay, right.

Uh, now that being said, DIY is not a bad option. Now, I've shown people— we're just gonna make sure the owner doesn't listen to this— but I've shown people how to install the floor. Vinyl and laminate, not difficult. Even wood isn't difficult. It's not— it's simple, but it's not easy. All right, there's things to consider, and those little things are why you have an installation company do it.

Mm-hmm.

You can DIY it, and you'll burn through a lot more material, but it's good to know how to do. I mean, to install vinyl, you need a straight edge and a box cutter, and you can install the whole floor. I mean, it is that simple. I mean, you can knock it out in an afternoon. I mean, once you get going with it, I mean, you could do hundreds of square foot a day.

Yeah.

So, uh, there are, there are things out there that are a lot easier to install. You just gotta know the, the kind of the tricks to the trade, if you will, to make sure that it gets installed correctly. That way you don't shoot yourself in the foot.

Well, and then like Kevin was talking about earlier with the carpet, how important is the underlayment to like a, like a vinyl or a laminate floor? Because there's, there's lots of different options going on there too.

Yeah, there are. Um, and while there certainly are several options, the, the underlayment for, uh, vinyl and laminate aren't as big of a deal as it is in carpet. The main thing is that you get underlayment for laminate for laminate. Don't get laminate underlayment and put it with vinyl because it's going to be a lot more thick. And the vinyl we're talking about is only 6 millimeters thick. thick, uh, and that's nice stuff. And 6 millimeters translates to about a quarter of an inch.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So, I mean, it's not very thick floor. So the, the click and lock mechanism to attach the boards together is half of that, right? So you're talking about something that's, you know, 3 millimeters thick, stepping on it. And if it's got a lot of give underneath it, you're gonna snap that mechanism and then the boards are gonna free slide, which is an installation error and should be fixed by the person that installed it. Right? But if you're doing it yourself or the guy says, hey, yep, no, I'm gonna charge you, you know, a a foot to install, go get whatever material you want. You don't know. Yeah. And you can run into trouble there. So definitely don't,

um, skimp out, even if you're, even if you're doing it yourself or doing it with a contractor, make sure you get the right stuff for your job.

Yeah. And that reminds me earlier you were saying some guys were getting in trouble about the millimeters in this. What, what, what was that?

Vinyl. Um, there's millimeters, which is the thickness of the total material. And then there's the mil wear layer, which actually is still in reference to the thickness, but But when you come in and someone's like, oh, I need something that's 6 mil, you assume that that's millimeters thick because that's— I mean, that's a fair assumption. So whenever you go to Home Depot and they're like, oh yeah, this stuff's 6 mil, and then you go into the next place and, oh, how thick is this? Oh, it's 4 mil. Oh, well, that stuff at Home Depot was better. Well, no, no, no, no. The wear layer was 6 mil, which is almost the lowest that you can get. The actual thickness was 3 millimeters, but mils and

millimeters, it's a lot of gray area there that understandably people get confused on. Yeah. And then they get to me and it's like, wait a minute, there's 2 different things? Well, the last 7 places I went to didn't tell me that, so you mean I just did all that for nothing? No, no, you just call them back.

I'm sure you got a lot of business cards, right?

Call them and ask them. But you need to know because there's 2 very, very different things.

Yeah. make them specify, right? Yeah. All right, so, so before this, this show started— and, uh, we, we can't let you get out of here— you, you said you had a pretty crazy story about Lowe's.

Oh man, I've got, I've got a lot of crazy stories depending on how much time you have. But, um, I've gone and shopped, um, 13 different places. Okay. Uh, and some places require you to pay for a measure, but I wanted to find out for my customers exactly where people like to hide extra charges, because that is a— unfortunately, that is a big part of this business. A lot of places charge extra. Oh, well, you didn't tell me you had furniture we needed to move. Oh, you didn't tell me you had this. Or, oh man, we had to use 30 bags of float just for this one room. We didn't know that, and we didn't quote that because we didn't know.

Yeah.

So it gets charged after the job starts. Very, very big in the company. So I wanted to figure out where all these people around me, where they're hiding charges, you know? And you don't get that until they come out and measure. So, uh, one of my favorite stories was when I went to Lowe's, and this is why you go to a professional. Um, obviously I'm trying to do an apples-to-apples comparison because that's what I need for the quote. So I found a tile, uh, it's 8 inches wide by 48 inches long, very nice wood-look plank tile, uh, that we— I mean, we sold all day for $2.99. And, uh, this— the exact same tile, same manufacturer, same look, everything, uh, was $7.20 cents a foot there just for the tile.

And, uh, in setting everything up, obviously the quote was a lot higher. So I'm looking at, I'm like, man, there's gotta be some way that— and there was. Um, they were charging me for 12 gallons of grout. Now, um, whenever you do grout, um, for that size of tile, just put it to you like this, for that size of tile, that, uh, one bucket of grout should have lasted me about 700 square foot and I needed 500. square foot. So 1 gallon of grout would've covered what I needed. And there was 12, and it was expensive grout because it's lifetime, doesn't stain. Yeah. So I was like, hey man, um, all the other quotes that I got didn't

have this. I think this is wrong because I mean, it's like 12 times the amount. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. See, that's why you come to Lowe's and not one of those other places because the bigger tile that you wanted, I tried to get you on the smaller tile, but the bigger tile has more edge and the edge is where you put the grout. So, because this tile has more edge, you're gonna need more grout. I said, really?

That's, that's how that works?

Because I thought, you know, the bigger the tile, the less the grout, right? You know, if I have a 2x2 mosaic all over the floor, I'm gonna need a lot of grout, right?

Right.

No. No, no. The bigger the edge.

The bigger the edge, the more grout you're gonna need. I was like, wow, can you write that Write that down right there, please, in your writing. I mean, there's, there's so much things that you hear. Uh, I mean, and people spend a lot of money. We had it over at our Magnolia store, uh, and we never got to find out who did it, but, uh, uh, we sold her a tile. I mean, the, the job that we quoted was going to be like $32,000 to do it. Well, she went with someone that was $1,000 cheaper, which is a good amount of money, right? Uh, and we're very clear about how we install the materials. materials, next-level stuff. She decided to go somewhere

else. Not 3, 4 months later, she came back because her entire install needed to be redone.

Oh!

Her grout lines in some areas were huge. The tiles underneath were shifting. She could hear it. The whole thing needed to be redone. So she had to pay $6,000 $40,000 to remove the tile and then another $32,000 to do it correctly.

Oh my goodness!

So we're talking about $70,000 that she has had to spend. Now, she wasn't allowed to tell us who came out and did it, so I'm assuming that there was a lawsuit and a hush order. And I'm sure she got some, if not all, of her money back. I mean, because it was bad. like that happen, usually on a smaller scale, but it does happen. We tell people, and, you know, most of the times it's— it does get pretty bad, uh, but a lot of times people don't know. They don't know right off the bat. They don't notice it. They don't see the things like that I'm trained to look for.

Right.

You know, um, it— which is a shame because, I mean, I see so many pictures of people post up and it's like they're proud of this and showing it off and look at what I can do. And I'm pulling my hair out just like, oh my goodness, I would never have shown a picture like that. I would be back at that house yelling at that installer because we would never have done something like this.

Hmm.

And people don't know. People are commenting on, on the post like, that's so pretty, wow, that's so awesome, and this is great. And it's like, man, you know, you don't know until 3, 4, 5, 6 years down the road when things start to go wrong.

Mhm.

And then a lot of times people just think, oh, well, that's just the laminate, that's the laminate that's bad, I'm not going to do laminate again. When all along it was the installer. Not even just the install, whoever helped them make that flooring decision did not guide them to the right kind of floor for what you were needing. Could be the install, it could be the floor, but at the end of the day, you know, you draw your own perceptions. And whether it's based on actual facts or it's just your perception and you don't like it because that's how it is, it makes it very tough to efficiently do what I do for people sometimes.

Yeah, and I would also think that one of the things you could really do to help yourself out is watch what's happening when the installer's there and, and compare it to your quote. I mean, you're sitting here telling me that, that this guy came in and quoted you 12 gallons. Is that what you said? 12 gallons?

12 gallons of grout.

12 gallons of grout. Okay.

I'm gonna want to see 12 gallons.

I want to see it. And not only do I want to see it, like, I want to make sure that I'm watching the amount of grout he's putting in, and I want to make sure that he's using all of it, because if not, then I expect a refund at the end, you know.

2-inch grout line on the ceiling.

That's right. Yeah, it's like Shouldn't, shouldn't a piece of tile go there? No, it's grout line. You know, like 12 gallons.

Yeah, 12 gallons of grout should have covered over 8,000 square foot of flooring, and I needed 500 square foot of flooring for that specific tile. Yeah. And you know, it's funny, you, you brushed up on something that I mentioned earlier, the float scam. We talked about bags of float, 35, 45, 55. I know of— I don't really like to throw competition under the bus. I mean, Lowe's and Home Depot we all pick at, right? But other, other competition, you know, I know of other flooring companies that have several stores that don't pay their installers. The installer makes their money on float. They literally do not get paid from the institution that has hired them. So their job is to make up enough afloat to pay for their guys.

Another one, uh, so how does that work exactly? Like, explain, explain this scam to me.

Okay, so the way it works is you've bought flooring, the— you've come and talked to that salesman, that salesman said, hey, it's gonna be $4,000 to do this. And if you, if you ever want to verify any of this, go look at Angie's List, Better Business Bureau. I mean, there are reviews out there and not very hard to find. $4,000 to do the floor. You say, hey, great. The other place was $5,000. This is awesome. That's a lot of money.

Yeah.

You say, okay, great. Uh, install happens. And then at the end you've got a $1,200 bill. Like, well, wait a minute. You told me it was $4,000. You don't think about a closed order versus an open order. You just went, he told you it was this and you expected to pay that. No, no, no, no, no, no. You needed, you needed float. You needed floor leveling. It was real bad and you needed it. Well, how much is float? Oh, it's $50 a bag. I didn't know that. Yeah, well, you did. Well, and you needed how much? $1,200 worth. $1,200 divided by $50, I need 24 bags of float. No, no, no, no, no, prove it. Not a problem. He

gives you 24 empty bags of float and you think, well, dadgum, I needed 24 bags of float.

I'm gonna watch them.

Uh, yeah, but here's the thing. 6 of those bags of float, they've made over $4,000 or $5,000 on because they've been empty sitting in the van for months.

Exactly.

Right. And when needed, they pull 'em out and, oh, here you go. Right. And they've now made money on this empty bag of float time and time and time again. Other places, um, they'll say, okay, you've got 5 installers standing in front of me. I've got, uh, this much square foot. It's gonna be $5,000. Will you do it? Who will do it for $4,500? Guy raises his hand. Okay. Will you do it for $4,200? Yes, I will. Okay. Will you do it for $4,100? Yes, I will. And they keep going down the line until someone's like, nah, nah, nah, I won't go any lower than that. Well, now this installer is stuck behind the 8-ball, right? They're like, I need to make that money back so I can be

profitable and pay for my guys. How do you do that? Float extra charges. after the job has started. Uh, and I mean, you'd be surprised, there are some bigger companies that actually will, will pay based on that, right? And so it is the responsibility of the installer to go get more money for float. It's not suggested like you go to Chick-fil-A and like, would you like to add a brownie to your order? They will only make money if they can put more float. And when it comes to your charge and feeding their family, they absolutely are going to add more float.

Geez.

And just, I mean, and we give it away for free, right? When you give it away for free, you don't use as much of it as someone that is selling it, right? We use 1 bag for every 50 square foot, and that's average across 24 stores, and we do a lot of flooring, right? So if you've got, uh, what'd you say it was, 2,400 square foot home?

Yes.

The average across town, you'd need 48 48 bags of float. And 48 bags of float, again, let's just say on the low end of $35 a bag of self-leveling concrete— it's not a lot of labor involved there— uh, with tax, that is $1,800 added on top of your quote after the job has begun, on average. So it could be less, could be more. The worst case that I've had, uh, was actually a house right behind, uh, Home Depot. It's 600 square foot. They needed 36 bags of float. 600 divided by 36, that is 1 bag of float for every 16 feet. In that scenario, it would have been a lot more expensive had they not gone with us. But one of our big things is we don't charge you extra for extras. Whenever we come out and measure, it is one

price and that is it throughout the install. Whether we needed 1 bag of float or 100, doesn't matter, right? Um, because it's needed for a lifetime install. But that's the float scam, right? And it's just like what you're talking about. I want you to show me this. Well, you Yeah. You have that foresight for things that are on the quote. Right. But things that aren't, that get added on afterwards, you don't think. And now you're, well, show me these bags. Well, how do you know if they actually used 'em or not?

Yep. Unless you're there watching 'em. I mean, literally watching.

And knowing what to watch for.

Yeah. That, I mean, and, and nobody knows that unless you're in the flooring business.

Yeah. If you had the kind of time to sit there and watch 'em, you wouldn't have hired somebody to do it in the first place.

Exactly. That's the problem. I mean, and it goes back to us talking about making sure that you You gotta know who you hire.

There's no governing body. It, it's just, it, anybody, anybody and everybody can install floor. Yeah. Which is unfortunate in the industry, but that's why, you know, there are places out there with longer warranties, uh, and, you know, away from contractors. Let's talk about the, the flooring companies for a second. There's, there's 2 different kind of warranties out there. There's a total warranty and a labor warranty. So let's say you come in, uh, you go to Lowe's or Home Depot, you go to one of the box stores, right? And you ask them, how much is your labor? Oh, it's $2 a foot. Okay, great. Total job, um, on 1,000 square foot, let's say it comes out

to $7,000, right? Well, $2 a foot on 1,000 square foot, that warranty covers $2,000. So assuming— let's say, because usually those labor warranties are 1 year, 3 years, something like that— let's say something does happen that soon in that 3-year time frame, and they say, you know what, that's our bad, it was because of the install, right? Which is, you know, a battle. They don't get right there right off the bat, but let's say you get there.

Yeah.

So as long as you, who's just paid $8,000 for the floor, come up with another $6,000, they'll come and do that $2,000 again for free because the warranty is on the labor, not on the total project. Which sends you through the roof because you just already invested all this money into the floor.

And it's not done right.

And it wasn't done right, and you know it wasn't. You've admitted it wasn't done right.

Yep.

But you didn't have— you didn't know about asking. You didn't know about asking what the warranty is, which is why it's such a big deal to get— I mean, and we're not the only ones. There are companies out there that have a warranty on the labor and the material. It's just usually they, they're in it for 1 year with you, and then After that, you're, you're on your own. You know, to the— to my knowledge, we're the only ones with a lifetime warranty in this area.

And you know what, like, that's why you listen to The Homeowner Show right there.

Because they've done $6,000.

That's right. You don't know what you don't know unless you listen to The Homeowner Show, baby.

And it sounds bad and you think that can't possibly happen. I thought that, you know, back when I was new into it. I was like, there's no way that actually happens to people. It doesn't take long to prove you wrong. I mean, it, it's, it's, it's bad to say, but that's just what the, the flooring industry holds. There's so much of that that goes on that it's just, oh yeah, we got a 5-year labor-only warranty. Okay, well, how come, uh, y'all, uh, these other guys said that they will do my floor and they won't put quarter round? You just put the baseboard right on top of it, or you can butt the tile right up to it, uh, and, and save that cost. Okay, well, go get it from them. So y'all won't do it?

You're going to let a customer walk on that? Well, yeah, because the National Tile Standards Association says that there has to be a gap, and it's for expansion and contraction in between the wall and the tile. And if you don't have that gap, if you fill it in with caulk or you fill it in with, um, a grout, it's called tight fitting. That's not the right way to install, and that could very well lead to cracking of tile, tinting of tile, and when it happens, it immediately sounds like a gunshot in your kitchen. That's a lot of fun. I mean, it really is a scary thing in the middle of the night. We actually got videos of

it happening at the store. I mean, it's just— there's a reason why it's done a certain way. And then you ask, and then you're sitting there, okay, I've talked to 4 different people, and 1 person's told me I had to have this, and the other 3 said I didn't. Hmm, what's the deal? Well, the thing is, you need to ask those people who's gonna stand behind their work for the long longest amount of time? You know, who has that longer warranty? You know, if that one person has to install that way because there are certain standards they have to meet, it has to last a long time, I mean, you might choose to go with them. There are people

that know that and decide to go the other way because it doesn't fit the look that they want. And hey, that's cool. They're, they're— there's a customer for everybody.

Yeah.

That's just not the kind of business that we deal in. But you still can— I mean, You can tell what kind of work someone does by how long they will stand up to said work. And anyone can say anything, uh, but I mean, written on paper that you can hold up and come knocking on my window if something goes wrong a couple years from now, you know, there's a big difference there.

Yeah, yeah, most definitely. You know who else, uh, stands up behind their work?

Who's that?

Paul the Plumber. Paul the Plumber. We hadn't given him a little plug yet. We need to.

Not yet.

Guys, if you have any plumbing needs, let me tell you who you need to call. You need to call Deborah over in the office. You can reach them at 832-521-3252, and you can reach her via email, deborah@paultheplumberllc.com. Find them at paultheplumberllc.com and on Facebook, and you can book them online and book them on Facebook.

I mean, that's pretty cool actually. I mean, I can book him on Facebook.

You can't book me on Facebook, but you can book Paul.

That's right.

That's pretty cool. And, you know, I, you know, I would assume that so many problems with flooring have to do with things that happen in the bathroom. Oh yeah, you know, so make sure you get those things taken care of by someone who knows what they're doing. Paul's your guy.

Yeah, Paul will keep you from having to call Adrian out and get your floors fixed. That's right.

Yeah, sorry. It's very true.

That is very, very, very true.

A lot of times I'm going to someone's house because something happened to the plumbing in the wall and it wasn't done right, or master showers, master bathrooms. If it's not done by the right kind of people, I'm going to be coming back for another round of flooring.

I think I talked about this one last week, but I was in a house last week that the upstairs commode had leaked. When I got to the house, people renting the house had told me, we've been in this house 2 years and this is the 4th time it's flooded. Oh my gosh. And so, like, you know, they're upset because, you know, they're living in a house where their stuff's getting flooded. The owner's upset because this is the 4th time that they've, you know, had to pay money on their investment property in order to get it fixed. And so it's just money just literally flowing into the streets.

It's crazy, man.

Man, you know, it's, I, and I imagine like that's, that's, that's gotta be one of the biggest things that you run into is when people, you know, like they're in a situation not where they want to have their floors replaced, but like they have to have the floors replaced.

And it's tough, you know? Yeah. A lot of, a lot of buying things is an emotional decision and when it's just tied to negative emotion, anytime someone starts to get excited about it, it just knocks them back down again. Yeah. And you'd be surprised how much the plumbing ties into the flooring. Give you a perfect example. For example, a lot of people are going with this, this new cool stuff, luxury vinyl planking. And if they've got tile in the bathroom and they want to replace it with vinyl, we've already talked about it. Vinyl's a quarter inch thick. Most of your tile, just the tile itself, not talking about mortar or concrete board you got to put it on if it's upstairs. Yeah, it's a lot different thickness. So if your toilet was sitting on top of tile

and you're taking it out and putting vinyl in, you got a very obvious 3/4 of an inch, if not an inch, of height difference to contend with.

Call Caulk it.

Caulk it and keep Paul and Mike's card. A lot of them.

What? I mean, you're gonna use silicone waterproof caulk.

Clearly.

Clear is fine.

Clear is fine.

Yeah.

Uh, I mean, do you guys— I mean, would you guys bring in a plumber at that point? I mean, what, how would you— what do you do to resolve that?

One, we prepare the customer for that ahead of time. Yeah, so that's not a— that's not a very good problem you want to run into during the install, right? Because I mean, I mean, for especially for bigger companies, you're 2-3 weeks out, and if the salesman did not prepare the customer for that— I mean, it's not the customer's job to know that kind of thing.

Sure.

But you know, it can happen. Things fall through the cracks, you know. Now you have to order a different kind of material, pick a different kind of material, which is not always an immediate process.

Right.

You've now gotta start over in the middle of your floor's torn out, your toilet's not attached. It's just not a very good thing. Uh, I mean, recommendation there is definitely pick a different floor. Uh, because it's gonna be cheaper to pick a different floor than it will be to— than try to get it even. Toilet. Yeah. Okay. Uh, I mean, you could, there are certain things, I mean, you could put plywood decking down. I mean, there are certain band-aids you can put on that, but I mean, realistically, Typically you should pick another tile to go in that place. But that's, that's the reason why you go and talk to flooring experts and not someone that's just, whatever you want, I'll get it. Yep. Yep. You just go buy it. I'll put it down. Yep. I got you. You

know, there's a very big difference.

Okay. So we, we had an interesting situation come up in our, uh, our bathroom.

I'm interested. Interesting situations.

I'll tell you. Yeah. So I, I'm interested to hear what, what you, you think you guys might have done with this particular situation. So we were, uh, we, we demoed the whole bathroom. whole bathroom. We just wanted something completely different.

Down to the studs?

Yes.

Downstairs concrete subfloor?

Yep. Okay.

Kind of.

Um, it all depends on which subfloor you're talking about.

That's right.

Which piece of concrete slab you're talking about. There's more than one.

We have— my house has 3 separate, uh, slabs.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So that would have been an interesting situation to deal with.

Let's call his house special.

3? Yeah, 3. So 3 long, uh, foundations all divided. Okay. Because it was originally in a barn. Um, when we gutted the bathroom, we pulled— so it was like a double sink and then a tall cabinet, right? And we were getting rid of everything, including the cabinetry, including the countertop. Everything was going. When we pulled the tall cabinet out, there was There was a safe underneath in the concrete.

Oh man.

And—

No treasure.

There was no treasure. We did, we drilled it.

That is the absolute worst part of this entire story.

Yeah, it really is. I was really like, because there'd been a lot of problems up to that point, and I was like, I'm—

How cool was that?

Please let there be gold in there, something.

Something cool.

Just make my day. But it was completely empty.

Someone went out or poured concrete.

I'll put it this way, the people that sold this house were trying to get out. They weren't leaving anything behind.

So, so anyway, like our plan was, and we did, we tiled the rest of the bathroom. If you'd have found that, what would you have done?

Oh man, needs to come out.

It's got to come out.

It's got to come out. Okay. Um, again, there are some Band-Aids that you could do to put over it and roll with it. Um, uh, you said it was where the sink was coming out?

Uh, no, it was— yeah, it was where the cabinetry was.

Okay, so were you going to put the cabinetry back?

No, putting tile down on top of it.

Okay, that would have been— that would have been a very good Band-Aid. Just put the— put whatever cabinetry right back over that, put it on the concrete, tile around it. You know, that would have been a very easy fix and one that would have lasted a lifetime. I mean, people, when you're ever talking about putting cabinetry down in on tile, it could be on the tile or on the concrete subfloor. It really is either which way. So that could have been a good option. But if you're putting tile on top of it, it needs to come out. Spoiler alert, it didn't. I mean, was it at a lower profile? It was. We floated it. Okay, so you floated it. Yeah. So I mean, that's good.

How many bags did it take?

It took 2 bags.

49 bags later, we floated that safe.

And then, and here's something else that you brought up to a very good point. You don't want to float tile floors usually. Sorry, that thought came out before I thought about it. Sorry. Yeah, uh, but usually you don't want to float a tile floor unless it's drastically bad. And the reason being is the float is a different density of the mortar and the foundation beneath it.

Okay.

So have you, um, I'm sure you've heard hollow spots in tile before. Yeah, the float, if you use too much float— I mean, actually any float— uh, one, you run into issues of it will sound hollow underneath because the sound is reverberating different, right? Secondly, because it's different density, if you have a wet slab or the, the outside floods, it doesn't come into the house, but there's a lot of water outside. Your concrete is a sponge, is a big hard sponge.

Yeah.

It will suck up and reject water as needed. And if all the sides around it are wet and the bottom of your floor is not wet, it's gonna push the water up through and water will get trapped in the float. So usually, unless it's again drastically bad, you want to actually float with mortar for a tile job. You want to put extra mortar down, make what's called a mud bed. That way, I mean, you're essentially using extra glue, right? Right. You're just putting— I mean, you're taking—

Making it thicker.

Yeah. Making it thicker. Uh, a thick bed there. That way it bonds directly to— you've got more glue there to help stick it. It doesn't sound different.

Well, and I guess that kind of makes sense on some level. Like the— I guess the, the example that comes to my mind is like if you've ever been playing basketball at a gym and you're bouncing a basketball and all of a sudden the basketball doesn't bounce back up at you. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like they call it a dead floor. Yeah. And part of it is because what's underneath it is not laid down correctly. Exactly. And so you're, you know, it's a dead spot, so to speak.

Yeah, we actually have that in this room.

Oh, what were you talking about, Craig?

No.

Oh, he's not the dead spot?

No.

Occasionally.

But you actually will go into a spot where you're walking and like, yeah, you feel it and you step on the floor. And now, um, is it going to cause an issue down the road? Probably not. No, I mean, uh, we're talking about a one-off thing. It's just not something that we would do because again, if once we do it to 4,000 different homes, eventually it is going to become an issue, right? The chance of it actually becoming an issue for you are pretty slim.

Uh, I mean, do people even notice it? I mean, do they know to notice it? it even? I mean, do they, do they look at it or do they feel it and go, this is a problem, I should call them back?

Which part, the safe in the floor? No, no, no, you're talking about like, like the—

you're talking about—

Because it sounds like a hollow spot. They think something's wrong. Okay. And if, you know, uh, and if it's like a— if it's an untrained salesman or they don't know how to handle that issue and they don't— oh well, no, they probably had to use float there, you know. If it ever does become an issue and crack, obviously we go and take care of it, but it could just be a lot of float that was used there. You're fine, right? It, it could very well turn into an issue where there really wasn't one. And there's nothing wrong, uh, unless again, there's a lot of moisture in the ground. Uh, but there's nothing wrong with using float on the install. It just, it's not as good of a quality because even if you totally

understand, you get it, you know that it's a different density and that's why it sounds different. You still don't like stepping on that spot.

Hmm.

Because to you, your perception in your head is that wasn't done correctly. It was cheaper and you just don't like it. You've got a hollow spot, you call it a hollow spot even though you know it's not one. And that perception doesn't go away.

Mm-hmm.

And it's just, uh, you spent all this money on this floor and you have this negative perception of your brand new floor for no reason. So it's just always better to not use. But now, uh, the one that I mentioned, we had 36 bags of float for 600 square foot. Their whole foundation pitched. I mean, it dropped 2 inches. It just fell off. In that situ— I mean, mortar's a lot more expensive than float. is. Yes. Uh, and just to give you a scale, uh, we buy bags of float, we get them for $4 a bag, in case you wanted to know what the markup is on a bag of float. Now, obviously, if you go and buy it from Lowe's or Home Depot, it's a lot more expensive, right? But there's still a pretty substantial markup even at $35,

right? Just to throw that out there as well.

Yeah.

But, um, mortar's a lot more expensive than float. And so even though it is a little bit more expensive, it, it gives the customer a much more solid feeling floor. And that's I mean, that's what the flooring is about. They're wanting to make their home feel better. Yeah. And yeah.

What else have we not talked about that you feel like we should hit on?

Um, man, not really a lot. Uh, I mean, I get a lot of people come in asking, you know, the difference of, you know, vinyl and laminate, but we've roundabout hit it all. I mean, laminate's usually better for scratching. Vinyl's better for water. The only thing that's truly floodproof is tile if it's installed right. Uh, I'm not, just for people that are curious, uh, 1 out of every 30 jobs that I install is wood. Mm-hmm. And it could be even less than that. Uh, it's just not something that people are doing a lot anymore. Um, because just like what we talked about earlier, someone could walk in a house and, oh, this is real wood. Shoot, we have this in our other house. Yeah. And we had to spend all this money

because Spike loves running around like Scooby-Doo on the floor and scratching everything up. And I just can't do this. So that is, they might still buy that house, but that's certainly gonna come into their mind when they're factoring in a price of what they would pay for that home. So that's interesting. Wood is not done a lot anymore. So it's not, I mean, there's, yeah, there's engineered and solid. There's a lot going on there, but not really a good use talking about it because there's not a lot of people are doing it anymore.

Yeah. I mean, truly. Yeah. Interesting. Mm-hmm. Well, um, I mean, I, I guess in that case we gotta move on to the final 4.

The final 4.

Yeah.

So the final 4 questions we ask all of our guests, and you're not gonna get out of here without doing them. You, you've listened to our show, so you, you know what they are. So we're gonna just barrel on through. That's right. So we're gonna start with the first one. All right. Which is this: what's the must-have tool that you won't leave your house without?

The must-have tool that I would not leave the house without. For me, or just generally in reference to flooring?

Not to you, for you. Like, let's say that Craig called you and said, hey dude, like, I got a job, I need you come over here, you can grab one thing on the way out the door. What do you grab?

Knee pads.

Oh, that is a first. That's the first. We've not had knee pads.

I mean, 600 square foot of tile weighs a literal ton. So I mean, how much was your house again? 2,400? 2,400 square foot. There's a lot of 6s in a 24.