Episode 1642
Cleaning Tile and Grout and talking Whiskey
Grout can be so tough to keep clean and we sit down my my personal friend William White from Ardex Americas. He is one of the nations leading tile experts from installation to figuring out the right materials to clean, maintain and install anything related to tile. He has those secrets to getting it clean and then keeping it there.
Then, Andy Pace is a nationally recognized expert on green and healthy building products. As founder of the oldest healthy building supply company in the United States, Andrew has become one of the single most helpful and educational experts dealing with the day-to-day concerns of those individuals who suffer from allergies, asthma and chemical sensitivities. However today is NOT what we are talking about. We are talking about his other field of expertise, Whiskey and Bourbon. Join us for this special holiday subject.
We also talk about insurance. This time of year its always good to review if you are covered for 2024. Are you? We speak with Tony Russell of Tony Russell Insurance.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Baldwin Hardware
A new kind of decking and siding from Millboard
For more information about the latest in decking and cladding head to https://www.millboard.com/
Transcript
[00:00:05] Eric Goranson: around the house. Hey friends, happy holidays. We've got a jam packed show here in this first hour of around the house. We're going to be talking with William White about how to get that tile clean and make it look for all of your guests coming over, and then we'll talk to whiskey and bourbon expert, Andrew Pace, and then we are going to make sure that you are covered with your insurance.
[:[00:00:44] Eric Goranson: Hold on tight. Let's do this. When it
[:[00:00:47] Intro: and renovating
[:[00:00:52] Intro: covered. This is Around the House. When it comes
[:[00:01:04] Eric Goranson: Good to see you, my
[:[00:01:06] Eric Goranson: wanted to talk today. Cause you know, it's kind of getting into fall, late summer, times of change. And you know, it's, I love it, but people are getting inside the house and looking around going, I got some stuff to do in here and man, I don't know about you, but if you've got old tile out there, there's so many people looking at that half inch grout line from 1987 that are going, how do I get this back to the color?
[:[00:01:31] William White: That's a, that's a fair question. It. It might also be time to update that tile to just say, but sometimes we have to work with what we've got. And I hear you. I mean, we just wrapped up a bunch of outside projects here at our place. And you're right. It is. It is time to start moving back inside.
[:[00:02:16] William White: That's probably going to be a little bit more of a basic grout that may take. A little bit of elbow grease just to get it cleaned up, you know? Yeah,
[:[00:02:36] Eric Goranson: Totally.
[:[00:02:56] William White: As you're talking about getting in and doing [00:03:00] a deeper cleanse, a lot of times, you know, we're really going to have to use, you know, our daily cleaning, uh, we can damp sponge with something that's a neutral pH. Uh, but when we get into that deeper cleaning. We may have to use something that's it's a little more acidic, um, just slightly acidic.
[:[00:03:45] William White: Um, but generally speaking, you can go to your, you know, home improvement center. You can get something that is a heavy duty grout and haze cleaner. That's going to be something that's slightly acidic. Now you are going to have to [00:04:00] scrub with that. You are going to have to put a little elbow grease in it.
[:[00:04:30] William White: And the most important part of that entire process is going to be getting a sealer back on there, right? Because those older grouts don't have that fortification built in them, which is why it got so dirty in the first place. We are going to have to put some sealer back on there.
[:[00:04:51] Eric Goranson: And what do you think about people that, uh, you know, you see commercials of companies coming in and they got the steam cleaner and the gloves and they're going crazy. Is that a [00:05:00] viable option or is there some risk to doing that?
[:[00:05:10] William White: Um, now the, like the shark steamer that somebody has at home. That's pretty effective and it doesn't, it's not quite to the same. Extent that a commercial steamer would be. The nice thing that I do see is a lot of times those commercial companies, and depending on how much tile you have, if you have, you know, a couple hundred square feet, that's one thing you have a couple thousand square feet
[:[00:05:34] William White: You know, you, it might be worth hiring a professional for something like that. Sure. But a lot of times those professionals do have auto scrubbers that are going to scrub that surface of the, of the natural stone tile and grout.
[:[00:05:51] Eric Goranson: Something that you're not going to have as a homeowner because it just doesn't make sense. It
[:[00:05:56] Eric Goranson: Got it. So here's one question for you, William. Let's say [00:06:00] you get it all cleaned up, right? You get your cleaners, you're scrubbing away. Everything's looking gorgeous. And then you walk down and you go into the home center and you see that there's a 7 sealer there, but then you go into your professional tile store and there's a 70 sealer there and you're going, what am I doing?
[:[00:06:43] William White: Um, there's actually more protection in it. Um, and understanding that, you know, ceiling, it used to be that everything was solvent based and it was a stinky mess you'd have to do with the doors and windows open. [00:07:00]
[:[00:07:02] William White: You totally and in like cross ventilation with some fans going on it.
[:[00:07:29] Eric Goranson: you know, that makes sense because that's what water is.
[:[00:07:35] William White: 100%. 100%. You know, it's, it's water, whether it's, you know, right around the dog bowl or just walking in from the yard and, and having a little bit of, you know, moisture from the grass. Yeah. Or as we start heading into our rainy season, most of the time, our stains and contaminants are carried in by water.
[:[00:08:15] William White: Just take your water bottle, pour some water on like a one inch strip of grout. Watch it for about a minute. Wipe that water away. If you have a dark spot, that means you're not protected. That means water is able to penetrate down in there. Probably time to look at some ceiling, whether you're doing it yourself or hiring a company to do it for you.
[:[00:08:38] Eric Goranson: there. So if you've got a travertine maybe outta the two thousands or you got some marble, something like that, would the same go for those, those two materials as well? A
[:[00:08:58] William White: And, [00:09:00] you know, if you have natural stone, that's, that's, you have all the beauty and character of natural stone, but it does require some care and maintenance specific to stone. And that's going to be some scrubbing, some sealing. Um, you may have some natural clefting in there, like with a slate or something that needs to be cleaned out.
[:[00:09:28] Eric Goranson: down your grout joints around the house. She'll be right back. Don't go anywhere
[:[00:10:11] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the Round the House Show. Now. If you wanna find out more about us, head over to around the House. Online. com. Now let's get back to our conversation with William White from Ardex about how to clean and care for that tile around your house and have it always looking its best. Let's do
[:[00:10:27] William White: Um, you may have some natural clefting in there, like with a slate or something that needs to be cleaned out. Um, And again, you get what you pay for, you know, with, with sealers. Oh my gosh. I've seen sealers that come in spray aerosol bottles that you can do standing up and walk down your grout joints. Now they're claiming that they're preventing, they're providing some level of protection.
[:[00:10:59] Eric Goranson: [00:11:00] makes perfectly good sense. And then, then you don't have to worry about it. Right. For a while. What do you recommend? And I know it comes down to the sealer you use, you know, is it, uh, you know, or, or the wear or the traffic in that area, but is this something that you should be looking at doing every six months, year, two years, what's the, the general recommendation for a high quality sealer?
[:[00:11:42] William White: All in all, considering now, the other thing that does come into play is your maintenance schedule. How often are you mopping it? Because every time you're mopping it, every time you're walking across it, you actually are kind of pulling a little bit of that sealer out of there. Um, especially if you are using like some of the like [00:12:00] Sharp cleaners or steam cleaners, you know, the small residential ones, you know, they're going to be pulling a little bit of that sealer out each time.
[:[00:12:12] Eric Goranson: So, really, if you're every year, you're going down there and taking a peek at it and pouring some water and testing it out. That's really going to be your best bet. It sounds like.
[:[00:12:26] William White: Do I have any cracked tiles? You know, which is why it's always a good idea to have a couple extra tiles saved. And, and, you know, it gives you a chance to look over that entire installation. Maybe there's some caulking that needs to be cut out and replaced because caulking again, there's another maintenance thing that, you know, it's not permanent and forever.
[:[00:13:08] William White: You don't really want that acrylic stuff in your installation.
[:[00:13:12] William White: Right. Cause it's going to crack. It's going to shrink a hundred percent. It's going to look
[:[00:13:21] William White: an upgrade. Let's be honest.
[:[00:13:38] Eric Goranson: And you can put a grout in, right?
[:[00:13:45] William White: Exactly. And now they've got some of these, you know, single component grouts that don't require sealing whatsoever. Um, you know, it, it just, there are so much better technologies out there that make it easier to the end [00:14:00] consumer, really.
[:[00:14:10] Eric Goranson: There we go. William, thanks for coming on today, brother. Where's the best place for people to find you guys, uh, for all your components out there for doing a tile job?
[:[00:14:19] William White: so Artix Americas is our website, um, and we have all of our, you can locate a rep on there, you can locate a distributor. You know, you can even call into our technical services and, and we have a really excellent technical services department that is more than happy to answer any questions that people may have.
[:[00:14:39] William White: Eric. Always good to see you, brother. Take care.
[:[00:14:56] Eric Goranson: You know, it was about time that we brought Andrew Pace back on [00:15:00] again, but we're not going to be talking mold this time. We're talking one of my favorite things. We're going to talk whiskey today. Andrew, welcome back to Around the House, my
[:[00:15:13] Andy Pace: You know, I talk about mold and houses all day long. This is fun. This
[:[00:15:35] Eric Goranson: Whiskey, whiskey spelled differently and this bourbon thing. And we're going to leave out all the other Scotches and stuff out of that. But it's a, it's a, it's a deep dive. If we get into that,
[:[00:15:57] Andy Pace: Uh, one of the things I'll say right now is, uh, [00:16:00] just to sort of, um, bring this topic to the forefront because bourbon right now is the hot topic, right? All nationwide, worldwide, actually. Um, all bourbons are whiskeys. Not all, not all whiskeys are bourbons. Okay. And so that's something to think about.
[:[00:16:41] Andy Pace: That's great. But. We also have beer. What happens if we actually distill beer and that's what turned into what we would what we known as, um, uh, aqua vitae or the water of life. That's where whiskey started. All right. So the Irish really started creating the first whiskeys. [00:17:00] Then it went to Scotland. Yep.
[:[00:17:07] Eric Goranson: that's a conversation we could have back and forth for centuries. Like they have, but
[:[00:17:25] Andy Pace: A whiskey, they didn't have the ingredients that they had back in their homeland. So what do they started using? Rye and corn, because that's what we grew here in America. And so, and then from that point, it's now gone literally worldwide. Whiskey is distilled on every continent in the world. Um, and some of the world's best whiskeys aren't even made in the countries that you can even think would be whiskey countries.
[:[00:18:22] Andy Pace: All right. So there are literally tens of thousands of styles available. When you go into a liquor store and you see that encyclopedia wall of whiskeys, where do you start?
[:[00:18:35] Intro: Welcome[00:19:00]
[:[00:19:20] Andy Pace: 1500 distilleries, just a bourbon here in the United States.
[:[00:19:34] Eric Goranson: the hard part for so many people because you can see something that is, uh, you know, a very inexpensive bottle, and then you can see something that costs more than what your first car was and everything in
[:[00:19:48] Andy Pace: Right. Exactly. And what, what's the reason for the price difference scarcity? Is one of the things the other thing is how old it is, how long it was sitting in a barrel. I mean, they're, they're paying taxes every year on that [00:20:00] barrel of whiskey. And as that barrel of whiskey ages, it's also losing volume because of what's called the angel share that's evaporating.
[:[00:20:29] Andy Pace: It's about everything that's gone into it to get into that. That makes sense. I know
[:[00:20:43] Andy Pace: Yeah. So cast strength literally means if this is the alcohol at the ABV level, alcohol by volume level of what the whiskey is or was when it was taken out of the cask for bottling.
[:[00:21:19] Andy Pace: Um, whiskeys here in the United States are typically proofed down to about, uh, 80 to 86 proof. So what they're doing is they're adding in water and they're slowly blending it in before it gets bottled. And that way they can keep consistency. Uh, it's good for profit margins, of course, but it's what, for consistency, what people are expecting.
[:[00:22:04] Andy Pace: It leaves a mark for sure. But so in the whiskey world though, uh, there's a big push for the cast ranks because it gives the buyer. Options. Um, I am a huge fan, huge fan. Anytime I've ever had a new whiskey, I always have it neat. Then I have it with a drop of water, then a couple more drops of water, and I might even put in an ice cube or something else because you have to experience what are called the altered states of whiskey until you find that sweet spot for you.
[:[00:22:48] Eric Goranson: had an ice cube in it for way too long. And it's just kind of watered down.
[:[00:23:01] Andy Pace: I mean, you're getting more. Alcoholic content to it. Therefore that bottle is going to last a long, longer time. Hopefully, uh, you know, the nice thing about whiskeys is that, you know, when you open a bottle of whiskey, that bottle of whiskey will never spoil. It may change, it may oxidize, the flavors might change a little bit, but it's not like a bottle of wine.
[:[00:23:34] Eric Goranson: and there. That's what's great about the expensive ones is that, uh, you know, you go out and buy a 200 bottle of wine and you, like you said, you've got 24 hours to consume.
[:[00:23:53] Andy Pace: Yeah, it is. And so will it be the exact same flavor profile as you have when you first open it up? Probably [00:24:00] not because oxidation does change whiskey a little bit, but I will say that there've been plenty of whiskeys.
[:[00:24:27] Andy Pace: So if you get,
[:[00:24:46] Eric Goranson: If it's a little strong, give it a few minutes. And that ice is going to knock it down a little bit. The oxygen is kind of doing the same thing. It
[:[00:25:01] Andy Pace: I've had whiskey that. Required a little alteration in order to make it to my flavor profile, but there's really is no such thing as a bad
[:[00:25:23] Eric Goranson: And for making a couple of cocktails with it. For me, it's great for that.
[:[00:25:48] Andy Pace: And so you're getting something that is from bottle to bottle, from batch to batch is going to taste almost identical. This is what happened back in the. 1800s with Scotch [00:26:00] whiskey. Uh, Scotch whiskey at the time was kind of like the wild west of America. Like it's like everything tasted different. Every batch was different.
[:[00:26:33] Andy Pace: Um, and I think this is where, um, one of the reasons why bourbon became so popular. It's also because bourbon is a little sweeter than the other whiskeys. And so it just, it gets people to, to come from the side of drinking beer or wine and going into a bourbon is a little bit easier of a jump. Then it is to get into a, you know, a lagavulin 16 that, you know, tastes like a peep fire.
[:[00:27:01] Andy Pace: Yep. I love it, but it took me a long time
[:[00:27:17] Andy Pace: So I will say, I'm not, like I said before, I'm a huge fan of Scotch whiskey, but I'm also a fan of Irish whiskey and Irish whiskey, in my opinion, is that perfect bridge. If, if you're a bourbon drinker and you want to start to explore a little bit, start exploring Irish whiskey. I'll give you a couple of reasons.
[:[00:27:56] Andy Pace: The second thing is most of Irish whiskey [00:28:00] is made from either a blend of grain whiskey, or what's called a pot still a pot still is going to be a combination of malted and unmalted barley. So you get more of a grain forward flavor to it. I believe that Irish whiskey is just the perfect step after bourbon.
[:[00:28:31] Eric Goranson: Andrew Pace, thanks for coming on today, man. You and I could make this an hour long show, which, unfortunately for the rest of the people expecting home improvement, might be a twist they don't want to have, but I can't wait to have you on next time.
[:[00:28:43] Andy Pace: and maybe some more whiskey. All right, my friend.
[:[00:28:48] Intro: threw my clothes out on the...[00:29:00]
[:[00:29:15] Tony Russell: friend.
[:[00:29:18] Eric Goranson: again. Ah, great to see you, buddy. You know, you and I used to work in the same building doing radio and, uh, you know, full disclosure, I leaned on you when I did my insurance because I was buying online and they didn't really realize how underinsured I was and I went, Hey, wait a minute, if I'm underinsured.
[:[00:29:39] Tony Russell: Yeah. You know, you want to focus more on the homeowner stuff, but if I could just say, if I could just say quickly, there are so many uninsured and underinsured auto motorists out there. So everyone needs to be very careful.
[:[00:30:14] Tony Russell: That's what you want to talk about. And the same is true for it. Got it. Prices
[:[00:30:36] Eric Goranson: What I have in the house and you might not get what you're paying for your great
[:[00:30:45] Eric Goranson: yeah, as you can see, people have seen it on the show. I've been doing a lot of projects.
[:[00:30:52] Tony Russell: And so if I drove by your home. Or if you stood outside your home, you'd put a value on it just based on the [00:31:00] structure. But if we said, well, he has a TV in his shower,
[:[00:31:34] Tony Russell: That's not covered if you're total, your vehicle, unless you let the agent know, and they add those things to your policy. Same is true with your, your home. If I don't know, you have those top notch electronics throughout the house, or, or let's say some guys in your position and that have your background, they love to work on the cars.
[:[00:32:03] Eric Goranson: yeah. And it gets interesting, you know, and I learned this the hard way a number of years ago and I had, I was living in Seattle at the time and you know, single guy, you know, single dad raising two kids and and all of a sudden I come home and you know 1920s house with kind of the barn style garage doors.
[:[00:32:44] Eric Goranson: I didn't have seven or eight grand in my pocket to go out and get tied up for six months while I went through that process.
[:[00:32:52] Tony Russell: is. And that's why that's, you know, I understand going online and buying things. It's quick. It's simple. But when it comes to your home, your autos, you [00:33:00] want someone who's going to ask you the right questions.
[:[00:33:22] Tony Russell: Um, a deck on the back of the house. That could be very expensive, you know, how big is it? Some people have it the entire length of their home. And so you need to know that because again, if the house is total and you only have on there that you had a back patio, the deck's not covered. And so you need to know those things.
[:[00:34:06] Tony Russell: And so that's what's that's what's causing these rate increases. And that's why you need to make sure you have enough. Coverage it's called, you know, it's that it's that structure a coverage where you're what I know a lot of your, this may sound like, well, no doubt, but only the structure is covered, right?
[:[00:34:43] Tony Russell: Uh, do you have a lot of wood flooring? Do you have a lot of carpeting? All those things need to be figured in. So you get the right price. And if God forbid, something happens, you get covered with the same material that the house was built. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. So you don't
[:[00:35:10] Eric Goranson: Some of those materials that you wanted to put back in there were very expensive compared to what they were 50, 60, 70 years ago, right? That adds up quick and you need to make sure that you've got that covered versus just building a spec house back on the same lot. That didn't have those same materials in it.
[:[00:35:27] Tony Russell: a great point because like downtown Portland, downtown Seattle and some of these older towns too that just have these beautiful old restored homes. Yeah, you definitely want to know what you're doing when you get those insured.
[:[00:35:43] Eric Goranson: products
[:[00:35:43] Tony Russell: still available most or not, but you want to make sure you get them, you get it built back to as close as they will get it for you.
[:[00:36:11] Eric Goranson: If you have a total loss and that could be not your fault, right? That could be somebody in the unit below you falling asleep, smoking one night. And all of a sudden everything's gone while you're at work.
[:[00:36:32] Tony Russell: One of the daughters was just burning the candle, cut, cut the drapes on fire, burned the whole, burned the room. Luckily they had sprinklers. Which is a discount, by the way, on your insurance, if you let them know you have this guys, but so they would have never gotten renters insurance, but the complex made them buy it.
[:[00:37:06] William White: dollars a month.
[:[00:37:17] Tony Russell: No, and people always underestimate how much they have in personal property. So, I try to go a minimum with, you know, maybe a couple living in a home or so, you know, minimum of 75, 000. it may sound like a lot to people, but just walk around your. Walk around your apartment, walk around your home and just start, maybe take a calculator just for fun and see, oh, my gosh, I paid 5, 000 for that big screen TV or that huge screen TV.
[:[00:37:49] William White: to a really important point.
[:[00:38:08] Tony Russell: Uh, the, the TV. So you want, I want a new TV. I don't want, I don't want you to say, oh, you paid 800 for that TV, giving you three. So it's, it's,
[:[00:38:31] Eric Goranson: Yep. Take
[:[00:38:46] William White: it. You just use
[:[00:38:54] Tony Russell: I know he's broke. He's never going to be able to buy me anything like this again.[00:39:00]
[:[00:39:03] Tony Russell: make sure this thing's covered? I don't care about him. He's going to, if he leaves, that's all right. I need to make sure this ring
[:[00:39:10] Tony Russell: Uh, things like that are just really important. Um, and you, you don't think about that when you just go online and just start checking boxes.
[:[00:39:27] Tony Russell: Eric, it's always good to see you. I love what you're doing and congratulations on your huge success.
[:[00:39:33] Eric Goranson: if you live in the Pacific Northwest, hit up Tony Russell at Tony Russell, insurance. com around the house. We'll be right back for our number
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