Expert Roundtable: Four Interivews with Experts about your home.

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[00:00:24] Eric Goranson: And we also have Chris Berry, my friend, the Idaho painter. For all of your exterior painting tips. If you want to find out more about us here at around the house, head over to around the house, online. com for all the podcast episodes, YouTube videos, and the television show. Today, we start out the show with easy lawn care with Craig O'Worthy from Lawn Bright, and how you can easily have the greenest lawn in the neighborhood.

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[00:00:50] Chris Berry: it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know, but we've got

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[00:01:14] Eric Goranson: Welcome to Around the House, brother.

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[00:01:20] Eric Goranson: here. Great to see you. And you guys have got this amazing service, which really walks people through how to get the greenest and healthiest lawn.

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[00:01:34] Craig Elworthy: So we are very much in the camp of knowing what's in your soil, knowing what's underneath the lawn is the key to actually having establishing a healthy turf stand. So, yeah, we walk them all the way through. All our products are all liquid and you really just need a hose to just spray on the patient's lung or deliver during our temporary season.

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[00:02:03] Craig Elworthy: We do, yeah, a lot of our, a lot of our products are OMRI and certified, so you can use them. All of our products are natural, so there's no harsh chemicals that we make. We have pretty good products where we are not going to use anything.

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[00:02:26] Eric Goranson: Man, that is great. And you guys are really growing each and every year. I jumped on your website since the last time we talked and you have so many more things for everything outside.

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[00:02:43] Craig Elworthy: A lot of people are asking, do you have grass seed? Do you have something for this? Do you have some for ticks and mosquitoes? In previous years, the answer, but we've looked into it and we took the approach. Can we do this? And still maintain our core beliefs, right? Can we do this naturally? And the answer [00:03:00] with a lot of the products we added was yes.

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[00:03:22] Eric Goranson: And then you see them next month or next quarter, you guys have really based this on the science and have got your own DIY lawn care program, which to me seems a lot more science based than some of the subscription models that you see where people are showing up on your door each week.

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[00:03:40] Craig Elworthy: We wanted to make sure that certainly it needed to all be safe for people to use. You also need to get results as well. We did, we were focused on making sure that I'm using soil test kit and you always going on your oil, but then we also found that a lot of people were very [00:04:00] comfortable with the idea of doing this themselves as long as they have the right guidance, right?

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[00:04:31] Craig Elworthy: And tell me not to watch for a day. You can do this yourself and it's not that hard. That's what we've really tapped into is people are completely accepting. That that is easy for them to do. And it's actually, you can get better results doing it yourself.

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[00:04:49] Eric Goranson: How does that work?

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[00:05:06] Craig Elworthy: You can use a lot of. Calculator there on our site where you can just draw a little area on your lawn and you can do it on your exact location. And then you can just select your package right there. You can choose whether you want free immersion or whether you want grass seed included with that package.

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[00:05:33] Eric Goranson: Nice, and what is that soil test kit for people that don't understand really what's going on with soil testing?

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[00:05:42] Craig Elworthy: It's really just a, a mailer, right? It comes and all you have to do is scoop some dirt into the soil test kit. Um, pre paid, um, mailer with the bag and you're good to go. And send it off and put it in your mailbox, and it goes off to our lab. And from there, you're going to get about a week [00:06:00] later, you're going to get a detailed report.

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[00:06:20] Craig Elworthy: And then if you do need to do anything, I'll call it drastic, right? Where you are, we see the pH is off in one direction or the other. And we're going to say, Hey, look, you know, you can spray this stuff all day. But you've really going to get the best benefit of going out and just getting maybe that line for six or 8 at a local store and putting that on there and then using that because that's going to actually make a lot of the stuff that's locked up in your oil plant available.

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[00:07:04] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it's funny, and that's a great point, because depending on the lawn, you might have a big iron deficiency, or your pH is way off, and you can throw all the nitrogen on it you want, you're just covering up those other problems.

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[00:07:22] Craig Elworthy: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And a lot of the times you'd see this result, but, you wouldn't know if your P. H. locking out any higher, you know, A. Or phosphorus levels, for example, are a lot higher. So we do make sure that you have a full picture of what's going on so that you understand it.

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[00:07:46] Eric Goranson: Yeah, and that makes it easy. That makes it super easy, and you're gonna have the best looking lawn out there.

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[00:07:58] Craig Elworthy: There's a, a, a text, [00:08:00] text based service that we offer as well, which is going to give you real time as your seeding moves along. And as the weather unfolds, it'll give you updates on when to spray your products, when to not spray your products.

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[00:08:28] Craig Elworthy: Yeah, and actually it's, you're totally right about that. A lot of the times fertilizer isn't the answer, right? Like in, in the spring, for example. Your VAW is going to go through a natural flush on its own. You don't really actually need to do much fertilizing to it. Not a lot of people in the industry as a whole is geared towards towering the hummer that you gotta go out in the springtime and go and buy that big 50 pound valve of, uh, of synthetic fertilizer and build up a lot.

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[00:09:20] Craig Elworthy: Even if you're on dive and times you overly and the staff is running off into the watershed and out, down spirit.

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[00:09:33] Craig Elworthy: Yeah, again, thanks for having me. I really appreciate being on. Uh, you can find us at getlawnbrite.

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[00:09:40] Eric Goranson: Thanks my friend. And guys, here's your answer to a greener and a healthier lawn. Round the house. We'll be right back. Don't go anywhere.[00:10:00]

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[00:10:16] Intro: and Satchel from Steel Panther, and you are listening to Around the house with Eric G. Yeah, we love Eric G. And you should too.

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[00:11:00] Doug Lethin: That's right. We've come up with the Skylift hardware to show you how that works. Absolutely. Let's talk about it, brother. So, Skylift, after being a contractor for decades, came up with a product that is structural and the Skylift is installed on top of the exterior wall. Typical 2x4 double top plate. That wall is designed to carry a load down to the foundation, so the sky lift is very structural.

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[00:11:54] Doug Lethin: Under this tab right here, 1 inch up. Are the stapler nails [00:12:00] holding this shingle down. Somebody's going to take a stiff, but I break the seal. Yeah, all those nails are stable and they're going to pull this off and out of the way. You can pull 1, 2, you're going to slide those out of the way. And then you can access the sheathing to cut a hole and save that flywheel.

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[00:12:39] Eric Goranson: You're listening to around the house show, talking with Doug from Skylift hardware.

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[00:12:55] Doug Lethin: This is the standard in roofing, sealing a riser, or [00:13:00] this is the principle the SkyLift uses.

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[00:13:26] Doug Lethin: A measurement up here that I told me. Remove that, install the SkyLift. The fasteners come with the SkyLift. Here we're showing our heavy duty SkyLift. We have quite a few other products I can show you in a moment here, but This is the basics of the SkyLift. The structural screw holding this down. Here we're showing an optional lateral stabilizer strap right here.

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[00:14:19] Doug Lethin: Typical roofing wants a 3 inches to 12 inch rise to rough. Typical roofing shingles for the warranty to apply is a 3 12 pitch. Therefore, this wants to be a 3 12 pitch if I'm using, if I want the sky lift close to the roofing, this is an 18 inch sky lift, which puts the bottom of the beam about 12 inches above the roofing.

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[00:15:03] Eric Goranson: help. Yeah, that makes sense, man. That makes sense. And it's super easy.

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[00:15:15] Doug Lethin: That's true. And other things that people try to do is they'll come up with. Attachments through the roofing, but once you put a volt through your roofing, you've voided your roofing warranty.

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[00:15:51] Eric Goranson: So, Doug, how many of those do you need across on a typical, on a typical patio cover that you're building out there? How far apart do you typically put those?

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[00:16:15] Doug Lethin: The other thing someone has to consider is, depending where they're located, what is their snow load? Because the snow load contributes to additional weight. Each sky lift is rated for 2, 500 pounds, but the snow load is greater than what the sky lifts can carry. You need to add additional sky lifts for that additional load.

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[00:16:52] Eric Goranson: Perfect that's where that planning comes in and anytime you're building a big cover like that. Many times you got to be pulling those permits anyway, [00:17:00] so that engineer stamp is what you're going to want anyway.

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[00:17:07] Doug Lethin: engineers and architects recommend our product. We had buildings under the radar and our product. We like that, but we have several products to help the consumer determine which is the best option to get.

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[00:17:21] Eric Goranson: So you've got basically something there for every situation. Whoever is building that, that new patio cover.

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[00:17:43] Doug Lethin: Being within 6 inches of the roof, they like this product. Their standard duty. It's an inch and a half riser, got 4 fasteners holding this down, and then we have our. 18, 24s. We have [00:18:00] 30 and 30. These can be, we don't encourage that people to trim these risers down.

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[00:18:10] Eric Goranson: How do people find these?

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[00:18:29] Eric Goranson: Doug, thanks for coming on today, man.

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[00:18:38] Doug Lethin: Thank you,

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[00:19:06] Doug Lethin: this is Ron Keel, the metal cowboy from Keel, the Ron Keel Band and Steeler. We are rocking around the house

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[00:19:28] Roger Wakefield: Brother Eric, how are you

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[00:19:31] Eric Goranson: And good to see you're doing well. And you made it through your storms over there and you're in your studio. Number four or whatever it is just to get on the show today. I appreciate the effort.

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[00:19:42] Eric Goranson: Thanks, man. I wanted to ask you, there's such confusion out in the marketplace for homeowners and even contractors out there about just using the right plumbing fittings for the project, because so many people walk into the home improvement store and go.

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[00:20:05] Roger Wakefield: What are your lines for them? Well, and here's what I like to tell people is I like to put in what was there most of the time. Now, if it's, if it's a water leak, something like that, say y'all have a big freeze, say it gets down colder than it's ever gotten longer than it's ever gotten.

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[00:20:46] Roger Wakefield: If you can cut it apart and reuse it, it's a temporary fitting. But me, I look at, I love a solder joint. I love a braze joint. I love putting something together that I know is going to last. It's never going to be a problem. I'm [00:21:00] never going to have to come back

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[00:21:02] Roger Wakefield: And I see people put these fittings, push to connect fittings, things like that together in areas they're never going to be able to get back to.

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[00:21:11] Eric Goranson: Especially when there's like O rings and things that are eventually are going to dry out and fail. And then you've got a hidden water leak.

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[00:21:31] Roger Wakefield: And then my, the other thing is. The stainless steel, the, the, the pressure to squeeze it, or when you push it together, the teeth lock in and movement over the time is going to make that loosen up and possibly leak.

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[00:21:54] Eric Goranson: And that was a licensed plumber that did it said, I'm going from CPVC to a PEX [00:22:00] product. It was installed correctly. It just slid right off the pipe and didn't grab ahold of that plastic.

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[00:22:17] Roger Wakefield: Any, they're not even allowed to have a torch on their truck. And I'm like, are you joking? But that's the way they're being taught nowadays. Push to connect, expansion fittings, PEX press fittings. There's a lot of different opportunities out there. And I think a lot of these companies are doing it because it's pretty easy.

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[00:22:48] Eric Goranson: You opened my eyes up when you did your test pressure tests on these fittings.

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[00:23:09] Roger Wakefield: Yeah, and it's interesting to see, and they tend to do different on different materials.

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[00:23:33] Roger Wakefield: They're like, Roger, the pressure is never going to reach that level. Okay. At the end of the day, I want my plumbing built with the very best product. And to me, the one that holds the most pressure that I know I'm not going to have to worry about if it's installed properly is copper line with a solder joint or a braze joint.

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[00:24:13] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And you know something, I think that does tell a story though.

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[00:24:35] Eric Goranson: You can't even get a mirror back behind that fitting, but you're like, ah, my experience says I got this soldered in correctly, but you had a perfect situation. And so it tells you what's the stronger of those. I think it still tells a great story of what's the best to use.

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[00:24:53] Roger Wakefield: We drilled a hole in it to make the penetration and put a bulkhead fitting in. So we can attach pretty much any [00:25:00] assembly that we want to that. And I think we built it about 18 inches by 24 inches. We put a half inch thick acrylic lid on it. Which is good because we've blown some stuff up in there. And I like it because we've got a gauge on the hydrostatic pump.

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[00:25:36] Roger Wakefield: And it is just testing what we're trying to test. Everything else we've got put together with stainless steel threaded joints. We know that's never going to rupture. We've got a thousand, a 10, 000 PSI hydrostatic pump and hose on that. So we've got a safe facility and apparatus to do the testing.

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[00:26:01] Eric Goranson: Now let's get back to the program. Yeah, that makes sense. I do have one more question before we go. And this comes to more of that drain waste vent stuff. Which do you prefer? Do you like the ABS or are you more of a PVC person?

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[00:26:21] Roger Wakefield: I remember, When PVC first came in, it was the early eighties when we started using it here in Garland, and they were still making us put cast iron underground. And I remember one of the inspectors telling me, he says, Garland will never use PVC. And it wasn't, but a few years later and they are using it.

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[00:27:02] Roger Wakefield: Just because we know that the. The life expectancy is so much more. And especially if we go in and do a complete re pipe, we want to try and bring the PVC up through the slab if it's possible. And if the homeowners are like, look, we don't want you to come to the house and open up the wall or anything like that.

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[00:27:41] Roger Wakefield: That way we don't have any problems. I know that doesn't answer the ABS versus PVC, but I've only found two houses in Dallas in 44 years of plumbing. That had ABS and it was hard for me to get parts to fix them, but we were able to do it.

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[00:28:09] Eric Goranson: So I think a lot of plumbers now are going that PVC fittings are third of the price. So I think that's been another thing that people are starting to look at. When it comes to job cost, and it's just like the push to connect fittings, when you're paying all that money for a single fitting, I get it for temporary.

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[00:28:29] Roger Wakefield: I didn't think about it too. It's not just the cost of the fitting. That's where the push to connect fitting makes sense. If I can take two pieces of pot that are prepped and ready to go, and I can put a fitting and boom, press it together.

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[00:29:05] Roger Wakefield: You can put them together faster than you can make a solder joint. So where you're maybe spending just a little bit more on the materials. Now you're spending quite a bit less on labor. And that's what makes it all worthwhile,

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[00:29:23] Eric Goranson: Where can people find you and get all your great information?

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[00:29:41] Roger Wakefield: We are releasing the Wakefield app. So they can go to www. wakefield. app and check it out for free.

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[00:30:23] Eric Goranson: There is one guy I've been following for a number of years and he's even in the Pacific Northwest, Chris Berry, the Idaho painter paint life. Welcome to around the house. Northwest. My friend. Oh

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[00:30:40] Eric Goranson: you. Thanks for coming on brother.

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[00:30:53] Chris Berry: Yeah, I've been, um, now on YouTube teaching and educating probably for 12 years now, got a [00:31:00] channel, paint life TV and teaching, do it yourselves and professional painters for many years and absolutely love what I do.

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[00:31:16] Eric Goranson: I got to ask you, you know, we're coming into spring right now and you know, the weather is sketchy every other day. It seems because that's just the way it is in the spring.

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[00:31:30] Chris Berry: Yeah, you know, it is. We've been bunched up inside as professional painters, doing the interior repaints. You know, all winter long, so it's been snow and it's been crazy.

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[00:32:00] Chris Berry: People are turning on their sprinklers and a lot of people don't think about this, but, you know, their sprinklers could be hitting the house. And the last thing you wanna do is, um, paint the exterior of your house and have your sprinklers hitting your house because, you know, water, our paint in itself is not, you know, water resistant per se, and it's just gonna end up, you know, um, damaging.

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[00:32:37] Chris Berry: And for 1 thing, Yeah. After you put a fresh coat of paint on it, if the sprinklers hit them right, hit the paint right away, it could get underneath there and could cause start causing water damage, dry, raw, all kinds of things, all kinds of problems. Another thing is people don't think about is their gutters, gutters and downspouts.

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[00:33:12] Chris Berry: So it does protect the house.

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[00:33:25] Chris Berry: Yeah. So those are, you know, a couple of just simple things before you start painting.

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[00:33:52] Chris Berry: And the last thing you want to do is paint your house, have it all freshly painted. And then, you know, a year later, have, um, where all your soffit [00:34:00] lights or our lights are in your house, have spider webs and bugs all around those lights. You know, it just kind of makes your house look aged, you know, pretty quick bug juice kills flying and crawling insects, you know, that land on your house.

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[00:34:34] Chris Berry: Pretty cool stuff,

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[00:34:46] Chris Berry: You know, that's, that's a good question. And that's, um, I think it goes all the way back to, uh, bear pain.

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[00:35:15] Chris Berry: I know I've used, um, you know, some recent products nowadays, you know, that are classified paint and primer 1s, um, on exterior, um, you know, houses and they are good products, but you're never going to. You know, have a situation where you really need to prime something and have a paint primer 1 be better than an actual primer.

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[00:36:10] Chris Berry: I'm always going to turn to a primer 1st and then top coat it with a lifetime warranty paint that could be classified as a paint primer 1.

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[00:36:27] Chris Berry: Yeah. And I think too, this is another thing when it comes to, um, a painting and you know, this is a tip, you know, for do it yourselfers and, you know, You know, professional painters understand this, you don't ever try to go cheap and paint, you know, paints are classified basically by the year of warranty.

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[00:37:04] Chris Berry: You're spraying. It's going to be a lot less over spray. It's going to have superior coverage, which is actually going to end up paying for itself in the end and then it's going to actually last longer too. So, you're going to have to repaint your house, you know, in, um. You know, less time or more time.

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[00:37:44] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Great advice. My experience in the past as well as. The most expensive mistakes I've made was buying cheap paint because I ended up having to buy more of it to cover and I would have saved the money if I had just bought a better quality paint and it's going to last longer. Yeah, I think

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[00:38:11] Chris Berry: But when you set the coverage, you get. Way better coverage, uh, with the light with a lifetime warranty, and that just means you're just going to less coats. Typically, you know, um, 1 of the paints I experimented with this last summer was a product from bear and it was their top of the line, um, lifetime warranty paint dynasty.

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[00:38:52] Chris Berry: You know, um, you're only as good as your crap and, um, you know, I'm going to, I'll start off by talking about caulking [00:39:00] itself. And, you know, we caught a lot of stuff on the exterior of the house. We're going to be talking soft at this. We're going to be talking windows. We're going to be talking all the nail heads on the house and we're typically doing quite a bit of caulking and priming, but caulking You know, we'll just stick with this topic.

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[00:39:38] Chris Berry: It's not going to split. Um, or it's probably it's going to split from the surface, you know, pretty, pretty soon. And pretty quick. We've seen, you know, Inexpensive caulking on houses, you know, we've caught the next year. So, better caulking use products from power, like power tech to our big stretch. It bonds way better to the [00:40:00] 2 edges that it's, it's coming in contact with.

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[00:40:23] Chris Berry: So, you know, I always use lifetime warranty coffee and sealants, just like use lifetime warranty paints.

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[00:40:36] Chris Berry: a game changing sealant. It's, you know, uh, cheap sealants don't work cultural well, so they're hard to manipulate.

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[00:41:02] Eric Goranson: That says a lot brother.

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[00:41:09] Chris Berry: know, I love to teach and educate, you know, um do it yourselfers and professional painters You can find um, I got 1700 videos on youtube about painting. My youtube channel is paint life tv You can find me teaching and educating on facebook.

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[00:41:41] Eric Goranson: That's where I get my tools, brother. Thanks for coming on today.

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[00:41:45] Chris Berry: Man, it's been, um, awesome being here. I love to teach and educate. I'm Eric G. And you've been listening to Around

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