Home Improvement Gold: Tips, Tricks, and New Concrete Tech!

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Foreign.

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Welcome to around the House with Eric G. Your trusted source for all things home improvement.

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Whether you're tackling a DIY project, hiring it out, or just trying to keep your home running smoothly, you're in the right place.

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With over 30 years of remodeling experience, certified kitchen designer Eric G. Takes you behind the scenes with expert advice, industry trends, and the latest innovations for your home.

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Home it's everything you need to know without the fluff.

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Now here's your host, Eric G. Welcome.

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To the Round the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining me today.

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This hour is brought to you by my friends at Monument Grills.

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Here's the thing, guys.

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So many people go out and buy those $300 throwaway barbecues from their home improvement store.

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They last two years, they throw them away, and in five years you got a thousand bucks wrapped up into barbecues.

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Why don't you buy something that's going last probably a decade if you take care of it and you're going to enjoy the whole time.

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No more using a cheap barbecue.

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Buy something that has all the features of your friends that have went out and spent thousands of dollars and check them out@monument grill.com they have one that's going to fit your backpack, your patio that'll fit for you@montymcrills.com today I thought let's talk a little bit about saving money on your projects.

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And I'm talking about giving a project something that's going to put money back in your pocket a little bit.

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What am I talking about when you're tackling those projects, maybe it's a plumbing project.

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Maybe it's doing something around the house.

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Maybe it's a simple water heater replacement.

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Let's do something that's going to save you money in the long run and start being a little more sustainable to your wallet.

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This is the thing.

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There are so many times that if we take an extra step or two, we could solve some serious problems with our pocketbooks.

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Great example.

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Let's say you've got that: 1970

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I have one of those.

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And one of the things that I've been doing is that thing had beautiful copper pipes inside.

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Nothing wrong with that.

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It was great.

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But here's the thing.

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Did they insulate them?

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No.

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Were they open to the environment out there?

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Absolutely.

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So what I did is anytime that I had a wall open, I insulated those pipes.

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I figured out if there was a hot water pipe going through there, I would insulate it.

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I Would make sure.

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And it made a substantial difference, really, from the time that I was sitting there and having to turn the faucet on the kitchen because my water heater was way out in the garage.

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So I would run so much water.

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And ironically, in Portland and Lake Oswego, where my house is, that is expensive water.

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We have some of the most expensive water in the country, considering it rains six months out of the year and it charges a lot to my book.

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I can have a 400 monthly water bill if I'm watering my lawn.

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So it gets pretty crazy.

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So sitting there and taking out 30 seconds of run time at my faucet, whether it be the shower, whether it be the bathroom vanity, whether it be the kitchen sink, that adds up quickly.

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So there are some things you can do if you got a wall open up, insulate it, make sure it's ready to go, that's not a bad way to go to keep that money back in your pocketbook, because that's going to save you money in the long run.

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And pipe insulation is cheap.

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So what I did is I actually had in my garage just a little place where I could put on the shelf four or five sticks of that insulation.

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So if I was working on something, I could go over and grab it and put it on.

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And it works really well.

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And it was something that I really enjoyed doing because I was like, all right, there's a little bit more water.

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And what was funny is I could see the difference when I had a wall opened up that I had to do some repairs on from some dry rot.

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I fixed that.

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And the difference was, is that I would run the faucet and I'd have my hand under it.

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It was cold, hot, cold.

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So you could really see where that insulation was doing a difference.

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It was such a visual showing of how that worked.

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So that's one of those things that can save you a bunch of money.

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Now, if you're out doing a water heater, and this is something that I have waved my flag for a lot, and I like saving money.

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Now, if you have a gas water heater, and I am not on the band gas, that whole natural gas, or propane, I am not on that bandwagon.

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I think it is a great product.

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I think it works really well.

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I love cooking on it.

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It's my favorite way to cook outside of electric induction cooking.

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But really, I enjoy it.

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I have no problem with it.

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I love gas fireplaces.

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I'm not the band gas guy by any means.

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But here's the thing.

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Let's do some simple math.

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I can save about 50% on my water heating bill a year by switching over and really using a heat pump water heater.

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It is awesome.

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So this is one of those things that really changing into a heat pump water heater.

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I really like it.

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Take a look at the Bradford White Aerotherm series.

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These things.

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I went from getting a big gas bill all summer long because of heating water and I went from a 40 gallon gas water heater to an 80 gallon electric.

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And it is a huge difference on savings.

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It only cost me about a hundred and seventy dollars a year to heat water and have 80 gallons right there.

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So with the heat pump water heater and with the Bradford White it worked really well.

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These guys are making these things awesome.

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They really have got it where you can have a heat pump.

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So what a heat pump water heater is, it works really well.

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What this does is it takes like your AC or a heat pump, it heats the water that way.

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So you don't have that electric resistance heat that's heating water or you're not burning gas to do it.

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So the heat pump water heater uses about, I think it's just a few hundred watts to go through the whole process to heat in heat pump mode.

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So all you're doing is running that electric, you know, that electric compressor in there.

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The cool thing is too is if you have backup heat for this, like for instance if you have a generator and you lose your power, I could put it over in heat pump mode and it works really well.

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So it works well if you have solar or something like that.

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But for instance, we were out at the beach house and I put another heat pump water heater out there.

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There were six of us in this house, two showers, rock and rolling.

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I just went over and put it in the hybrid mode so it has the electric elements and the heat pump working.

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And literally with two showers you're not going to run out of water.

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You can have people going in there, six people taking some decent sized showers and it's going to recover really quickly.

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And then when you're done you can just put it over in heat pump mode and I just switch back and forth with that.

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You can do it where you can run it off your phone and, and do that.

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And here's the thing that I like about the Aerotherm series.

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It's repairable.

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So if you lose a control panel or something fails on that, which these are reliable units, if that happens, they can ship parts out to you.

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What happens with everybody else out There you're throwing this big unit away and you got to haul it off, get rid of it and take it down and get another one.

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So these are repairable units, which to me is a big sustainability thing.

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Why be throwing away a big unit when you can fix it?

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You can have somebody come out there, they could put in the parts.

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It's just like your H vac system.

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So something to think about.

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Now, I do want to say that heat pump water heaters are not for everyone.

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They are great, but they are a little bit larger.

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And of course you've got to have that power to run them.

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So if you don't have that room in your electrical panel, maybe it's overloaded, that, that could be an issue.

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If you have gas, if you've got a tiny closet space where that fits into, maybe even you've got a older manufactured home that might not fit as well.

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So you got to take those things into account.

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There needs to be airflow.

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You don't want this to be outside unless there's nothing wrong with it being outside, but you just don't want it to where it's going to be in extreme temperatures because this still has to work.

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And so you want to make sure that it's.

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It can do the job for you.

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So something to consider with heat pump water heaters.

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I like it.

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It saved me a ton of.

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And it could do if you've got the right situation.

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And they just keep getting better and better.

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Like a lot of the heat pumps that we sewing we see going into our homes now.

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If you want to find out more information about that, just head over to around the House Online.

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If you have any questions on it, send me a message over there.

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I can get back to you.

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Because there's a lot to know about heat pump water heaters and how it can save you some serious money.

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And who doesn't like saving money?

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Now, coming up a little bit later in the show here, we're going to be talking about concrete and some of the new things that we have with concrete out there.

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I tell you what, there are some great, great new products out there.

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But we'll be talking a little bit later in the show to Ahmed Megadeshi.

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He's a leading expert in sustainable concrete.

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We'll be talking to him a little bit later at Cal Portland because we're trying to see where we can save money here on projects.

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And later on in the show, we'll be talking to him a little bit about some of the latest technology with Ahmed and Cal Portland.

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It's a fun one.

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Something we've never talked about in the show is some of these new concrete mixtures and stuff out there.

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And that'll be a great one.

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So when we come back, we'll be talking more about what you can be doing to your house to save a little bit of money.

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We'll be doing that just as soon as around the House returns.

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Don't change that dial.

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What's up?

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This is Sticks it in ya and.

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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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Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining me today.

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This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

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Check them out@monumentgrills.com for your next new barbecue.

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We've been talking about some tips and tricks to save some money as you're doing these home improvement projects.

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Maybe you're building a new house, maybe you're doing a remodeling project.

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Maybe you're just doing little ones around.

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And we were just talking about ways to save on water and energy there.

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And I tell you what, I would much rather take those steps personally than throw in those low flow shower heads because I tell you what, I can't stand getting in some of these hotel ones.

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You get into a area where water is expensive or something like that and you got to go to the low flow fixtures.

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I get low flow toilets.

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They work really well.

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They've got those dialed in.

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You can get down to a gallon flush with a toto and it works really well.

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I just don't like kitchen or really shower fixtures that cut the water back.

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Drives me insane.

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I would much rather get in, get out than stand there for twice as long trying to get that soap out of my hair or anything else.

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It just drives me insane.

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So here's the thing.

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I wanted to talk a little bit about windows and there are some really great windows salespeople out there and there is not a one size fits all when it comes to windows.

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Now you will see people out there that will be like, you've gotta have triple pane.

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Not necessarily to me when it comes to triple pane windows versus double pane versus all the different things you can do with windows.

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I would much rather see you have a high grade window that's going to hold up and not some of these really cheap vinyl ones out there that are barely put together.

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I'm talking about a name brand that's got a good warranty.

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That is a big company.

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Here's why.

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And in the: 2000

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And guess what?

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When we had that crash in: 2008

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So how good is that to warranty?

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It's zilch.

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It's none.

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If the company's out of business, it doesn't exist.

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So I take a look at companies out there like Milgard and Pella and Anderson.

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There's some great companies out there.

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But I also don't always buy into the triple pain argument because that adds cost.

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And if you have a fairly moderate climate like here, many of us on the west coast that aren't on the mountains, or if you're in Alaska versus Southern California, here's the thing, if you're in that 70s, 80s, 90s all the time and you're in these more temperate climates, I don't know if that triple pane is going to pay for itself.

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Why are you paying more money for that?

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To really not have the performance.

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Yeah, you can see you got triple pane windows.

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You just had a really good salesperson that twisted your arm on it.

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I would much rather spend a little bit more and get a higher quality window.

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Window with a really great warranty.

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And quite frankly, if you're putting in triple pane windows and you have a horrible installation crew, you just threw a lot of money away.

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I say that windows being installed are just like H Vac or roofs.

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The material is half the battle, the installation is the rest.

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So having a company that comes in, that gets them level, that gets them square, that, oh my gosh, flashes it correctly so you don't have to have somebody come back and do it.

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I can't tell you how many door knocking window companies out there that I've been doing remodels.

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And all of a sudden I realize that when we get into the wall that oh yeah, that kitchen window has been leaking for three years because this fly by night company slapped these windows in and didn't do anything to weatherproof, flash or do anything correctly.

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And so now they've got a bigger mess and that window has to come back out again.

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There are, as you hear about me talk almost every week, there's new home builders out there that are doing a horrible job of putting windows in.

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So having that done correctly is just as important of buying that double pane to triple pane thing.

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So Spend the money where you need to, but just don't make foolish decisions on stuff.

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If it's your forever home and you're gonna feel better with triple pane, great.

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If you're in an area where you get high windstorms or things like that, maybe you should be taking a look or a coastal house and take a look at what you're doing down in Florida and some of the Gulf coast states where they have windows that are rated for hurricanes.

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Same thing with garage doors.

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Make sure you got that dialed in.

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That's another one there.

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And here's another thing.

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When it comes to garage doors, again comes down to energy usage.

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If you're like me, where I've got, I'm doing a lot of projects in my garage.

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Maybe not having that entry level garage door and having something that's insulated and as you're working on it, insulating that garage and making sure that you've got the right ventilation in there.

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And then it's going to be something that you're going to kind of heat.

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Maybe you're running a space heater, you got a window air conditioner or doing something like that.

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That is going to be one of those things that you can do to really make that more comfortable.

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Maybe you can keep the table saw from 8 o' clock at night, making your neighbors mad.

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If you've got insulation in there.

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If that's the case and you like to work early or late, maybe putting Rockwool in the walls as you're going around and doing that remodel to make sure that you've got that workshop in the best situation.

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I used Rockwool in a lot of my garage because I'm doing tv.

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And I tell you what, when I do TV at my house, the neighbors and this is just foolproof.

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Doesn't matter what day of the week, what time there is somebody that shows up with a gas leaf blower out there that is doing lawn care.

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Those guys can sense that I've got a camera turning on or a microphone that starts going.

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And I tell you what, that's the next thing.

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So I actually did some stuff to really make things quiet.

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And that's another thing that I've done with it.

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Even though it doesn't add any value as far as insulation value when you're doing that bathroom remodel, I threw in that Rockwool insulation around the walls of the bathroom.

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So if you're diving in, fill those cavities up, insulate them one, it's not a bad thing because it's fireproof.

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It keeps that from coming around.

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And having those cavities with something that doesn't burn is not a bad thing in the wall.

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Second of all, there's always bedrooms next to it.

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So just load it up right there and that way you can have the quiet, the silence between the bathroom and the bedrooms next to it.

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It's not a bad way to go and it can really help you as far as getting that dialed in.

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Now, when it comes to lights, it's funny and this is one of those things that if you still have those can lights, those recessed can lights, those 6 inch ones that have maybe the compact fluorescent bulbs in them or the cheap LEDs, those things use a lot of energy.

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And if you have the old incandescent bulbs or even worse, those are doubling down because one, you're using a lot more electricity and two, they're putting in a ton of heat.

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So those are adding that energy to your house.

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So in the summertime you're having to AC around those.

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So take a look at high quality LED lights.

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Yes.

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If you buy the cheap ones on Amazon, don't expect them to last.

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If you buy the better ones out there, some of the name brands, they should do a little bit better job of lasting for you.

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And I know some people don't like LEDs, but this is one of those things that I look at.

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If you put in the high quality fixtures, it's not really a big expense to go through and change this stuff out, but it can really change your energy bills and what you're spending.

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Now the next one here real quick before we go out to break is just making sure that your weather stripping and stuff is around the doors and everything.

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Just taking the time to seal up a drafty door can really save 5 to 10% on your energy bills.

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So take a look.

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Those little things do big differences.

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The other thing to do is if you're doing a remodel, have that energy audit done, take a look and see where leaks are so you know what to do.

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And then when we come back here from break, I'm going to show you some of my tips and tricks to keeping that house cool that can save you money.

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We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

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Don't go anywhere.

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Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G. Thanks for joining me today.

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This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

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Check them out@monumentgrills.com if you want to find out more about us here at the show.

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And if you wonder what happened to around the House Northwest television show, if you're a viewer you've been catching online, you can find out more information about that@aroundthehouse online.com we've been talking about ways to save some money around your house.

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Whether it's energy efficiency and I'm not one of these crazy energy efficient nuts out there.

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I think there are values out there.

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I think there are things you can do.

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But at the same point, I'm not a big fan of making things inside your house house not comfortable.

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I want to be able to do things, be comfortable, enjoy my house.

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Common sense stuff, it really makes sense when you can do that.

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I don't want to sit here and do have my dishwasher run for six hours because we cut the water back on that.

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I would like it to be able to work correctly, do its job.

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And one of the little tricks that I do on my dishwasher, by the way, here's a great tip for you.

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Here's a little takeaway.

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When you're working on that dishwasher and you're getting ready to hit start on it before you load it up, don't go rinsing those dishes all the way off.

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Now if you've got a broken unit or you've got a 399 entry level builder special, that's one thing.

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Upgrade your dishwasher and get something good.

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It's not worth sitting there spending all the extra money.

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It will save you money in the long run to get the right one.

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And I'm talking get something nice.

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Mila Bosch.

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Spend a little money, get something good.

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And by the way, there are a lot of other brands out there that make.

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So if you look at certain brands out there, I'm not going to sit here and give this little secret away.

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But there are Bosch and other companies make great dishwashers under other brands.

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So sometimes you can save a little money there with that.

Speaker C: 00:25:10

But here's the thing, when it comes down to it, having a good dishwasher and there's two tricks that I do.

Speaker C: 00:25:16

One, I scrape the dishes.

Speaker C: 00:25:18

Do not pre rinse your dishes.

Speaker C: 00:25:20

If you go in there, rinse them off, clean, put them in your dishwasher, you are actually keeping those dishes not as clean because you need to have some food on them to activate the enzymes in your detergent.

Speaker C: 00:25:31

When they got rid of phosphates that were really bad for the environment out there, they went to enzymes.

Speaker C: 00:25:37

Enzymes need something to activate.

Speaker C: 00:25:38

That's called food.

Speaker C: 00:25:40

So do not pre rinse those dishes.

Speaker C: 00:25:42

I know it's controversial.

Speaker C: 00:25:44

Scrape them off, put them in there.

Speaker C: 00:25:46

Make sure you clean out the little.

Speaker C: 00:25:48

Maintain the dishwasher.

Speaker C: 00:25:49

Clean out your little screen down there, if you have one, and make sure that's working great.

Speaker C: 00:25:53

But really pre rinse those.

Speaker C: 00:25:55

And what do I do?

Speaker C: 00:25:57

I save myself a little electricity because my water heater is such a great job of heating.

Speaker C: 00:26:03

I actually get the water hot coming to my.

Speaker C: 00:26:06

To my dishwasher first.

Speaker C: 00:26:08

So what I do is I turn the kitchen on while I'm scraping things off using the garbage disposal.

Speaker C: 00:26:12

I'm using the water that would be on the hot side.

Speaker C: 00:26:15

So that way I've pre primed the dishwasher.

Speaker C: 00:26:18

So that way it's got hot water to start with.

Speaker C: 00:26:21

If you just load that dishwasher up and hit start and you've got what, two gallons of cold water that was in the pipes.

Speaker C: 00:26:28

Now that dishwasher has to sit there and heat it up with its electric element to get it up to temp.

Speaker C: 00:26:33

So that's one of those things that I like to do to save some money.

Speaker C: 00:26:37

And it wastes a little bit of water.

Speaker C: 00:26:38

But I'm also saving on my electricity, and my electricity is pretty expensive anyway.

Speaker C: 00:26:43

So something to think about.

Speaker C: 00:26:45

Now, the other thing that you can do, especially if you use ac, if you're in an area in the country that uses ac, take a look at ceiling fans.

Speaker C: 00:26:52

Those can really improve air circulation, especially in older homes where they didn't do a great job of doing that, of setting up the AC in there.

Speaker C: 00:27:01

It's going to help you move around.

Speaker C: 00:27:02

It can actually save you 5 to 10% on your H Vac costs by having a ceiling fan.

Speaker C: 00:27:07

Think about that and what you're going.

Speaker D: 00:27:09

To do with that.

Speaker C: 00:27:09

Because really, it can really impact your heating and cooling by doing that correctly.

Speaker C: 00:27:14

And don't forget to reverse it in the seasons.

Speaker C: 00:27:17

But you can actually.

Speaker C: 00:27:18

A fan in a living room can allow a 4 degree higher AC setting, which can save you in the summertime, about 30 kilowatts per hour in a month.

Speaker C: 00:27:28

And remember to shut those blinds.

Speaker C: 00:27:31

That way you can save some money.

Speaker C: 00:27:33

All right, guys, we're gonna go out here.

Speaker C: 00:27:35

I wanted to talk about concrete.

Speaker C: 00:27:37

And so I was talking to my friends over at Cal Portland.

Speaker C: 00:27:41

And the cool thing with Cal Portland is they're a huge technology concrete company.

Speaker C: 00:27:46

They deliver concrete in my area.

Speaker C: 00:27:48

They're all around.

Speaker C: 00:27:49

And Cal Portland's a really cool company as far as working on things to make sure that they've got one eco friendly concrete that could actually save you some money on your house, which I like.

Speaker C: 00:28:01

So anything that's sustainable that makes sense to me, I'm all over.

Speaker C: 00:28:06

Let's go out and talk to Ahmed Margadeshi, Director of Central Research Lab for Cal Portland.

Speaker C: 00:28:12

Now let's start this conversation.

Speaker C: 00:28:14

Amit, I want to talk to you.

Speaker D: 00:28:15

Today about just concrete itself.

Speaker D: 00:28:17

And really as we were talking about earlier, we see this truck show up at the job site.

Speaker D: 00:28:22

The Cal Portland truck here in my market shows up here in Portland, Oregon where I'm at.

Speaker D: 00:28:27

It shows up with exactly the right concrete mix I need.

Speaker D: 00:28:32

And there's so many mixes that show up at the job site.

Speaker D: 00:28:35

But this is a much more complex and takes a fair amount of energy to make this product that people are.

Speaker C: 00:28:43

So really not aware of, whether you're.

Speaker D: 00:28:45

A flat work concrete worker or a homeowner trying to get their driveway redone.

Speaker E: 00:28:51

Yeah, it takes a lot to make concrete delivered.

Speaker E: 00:28:54

It starts from cement.

Speaker E: 00:28:55

We mine limestone from the quarries which is right next to our cement plant.

Speaker E: 00:29:00

And, and then we burn it at high temperature with a little bit of clay, a little bit of silica sand to make this lava type material.

Speaker E: 00:29:09

Then we quench it and it makes like a 1 inch minus size ceramic material.

Speaker E: 00:29:16

We call it clinker.

Speaker E: 00:29:17

Then we mill the clinker in ball meals or in other types of meals to make a powder with a little bit of a gypsum added to that.

Speaker E: 00:29:24

We call it Portland cement.

Speaker E: 00:29:26

And we had gypsum to control the set time and early age behavior.

Speaker E: 00:29:31

The chemistry of cement is very fascinating.

Speaker E: 00:29:34

Right.

Speaker E: 00:29:35

We mix it with water and you get very high strength that we can build bridges, we can build foundations.

Speaker E: 00:29:40

And obviously you add gravels, you add sand to make that final concrete.

Speaker E: 00:29:46

But there goes a lot of chemistry behind the scene to make that high strength material that you can use for foundations and everything that you do at the relatively fair cost.

Speaker E: 00:29:57

If you see how versatile you concrete can be, you can make anything.

Speaker E: 00:30:01

You can make decorative pieces, countertops all the way to bridges and stadiums and dams.

Speaker E: 00:30:08

And it's very fascinating.

Speaker D: 00:30:10

Yeah, it is.

Speaker D: 00:30:11

And if you mess up part of that mix.

Speaker D: 00:30:14

And we have so many homes here built in the 30s and 40s in Portland, Oregon where I'm located that I've gone out and seen plenty of homes where they didn't know well enough to wash the sand and they were using beach sand.

Speaker D: 00:30:28

And of course it completely weakened the concrete down the road.

Speaker D: 00:30:32

And this is something that I can go in there and I'VE gone into so many old homes and I could sit there and just pick away at the foundation with my hand.

Speaker D: 00:30:40

I could dig through it with my hand because they didn't get the mix right.

Speaker E: 00:30:44

One of the most important influential factors for a good concrete is the water to cement ratio.

Speaker E: 00:30:51

That usually goes around 0.5 ish, 0.4 to 0.5.

Speaker E: 00:30:54

And the lower you can manage to have water in the mix or water to cement ratio, the higher strength you would get.

Speaker E: 00:31:02

So the concrete can last hundreds of years just by having the water cement ratio done correctly.

Speaker E: 00:31:09

There are occasions that on the job site and the aggregates and the sand is not the best and the temperature is high and the guy who's out there adds a little bit of more water and that's what they should not do.

Speaker E: 00:31:19

There is a tolerance.

Speaker E: 00:31:20

There is an acceptable range by ACI American Concrete Institute's recommendations that, hey, you can add, I don't know, 2 gallons per cubic yard to, and you're still fine.

Speaker E: 00:31:29

So that you can pump the concrete, you can place it, you can finish it.

Speaker E: 00:31:33

But if the concrete guys are neglecting that anywhere within the value chain, then you would see concrete is going to fail down the road.

Speaker D: 00:31:41

Sure.

Speaker D: 00:31:41

And I just haven't seen that in, in recent ages.

Speaker D: 00:31:45

As long as it's showing up the job site, we don't have any weird conditions like it's 105 degrees and people are out in sun trying to pour concrete or something.

Speaker D: 00:31:52

It seems like it goes pretty well, but.

Speaker D: 00:31:54

And then there's all those different mixes you can get.

Speaker D: 00:31:57

Whether you're doing a driveway, a dam on a commercial site or a nuclear plant, or even just a slab in your garage.

Speaker D: 00:32:05

There's so many different mixes where there you can add stuff to strengthen it.

Speaker C: 00:32:09

And when I was at World of.

Speaker D: 00:32:10

Concrete, I even saw stuff that was making it so moisture wouldn't go through.

Speaker D: 00:32:14

It seems like there's a lot of different mixes what we'd normally see at a job site maybe 40 years ago.

Speaker E: 00:32:19

Absolutely.

Speaker E: 00:32:20

The mixed portfolio and the concrete size is like huge.

Speaker E: 00:32:23

Right.

Speaker E: 00:32:24

Like you said, there are mixes that you can add some polymers to it so you make it more moisture and water resistant or waterproof.

Speaker E: 00:32:31

There are mixes that these.

Speaker E: 00:32:33

There are like, we call it more sustainable mixes, low carbon mixes that we can add a part of cement with supplementary cementitious materials.

Speaker B: 00:32:41

To find out more about the show, head to aroundthehouse online.com around the house.

Speaker B: 00:32:47

We'll be right back with more from Hamed Maragechi and Cal Portland.

Speaker B: 00:32:51

As we talk Concrete just as soon as around the house returns.

Speaker C: 00:34:01

All right.

Speaker A: 00:34:10

The band is drunk.

Speaker A: 00:34:11

It's the end of the show.

Speaker A: 00:34:13

Now drinking down, people.

Speaker A: 00:34:14

It's time to go.

Speaker A: 00:34:15

It's that time again.

Speaker A: 00:34:17

It's last call.

Speaker C: 00:34:18

Welcome back to the around the house show, the next generation of home improvement.

Speaker C: 00:34:22

I'm Eric G. Thanks for tuning in today.

Speaker C: 00:34:24

This hour is brought to you by my friends at Monument Grills.

Speaker C: 00:34:27

Check them out@monumentgrills.com and to find out more about the around the house show, head over to aroundthehouse online.com youm'll find our YouTube videos.

Speaker C: 00:34:37

You'll find everything we're doing over there.

Speaker C: 00:34:39

And we got some exciting stuff coming up here later this summer.

Speaker C: 00:34:43

Now let's get back to Ahmed Magadeshi from Cal Portland.

Speaker C: 00:34:46

We're talking concrete, and then there's all.

Speaker D: 00:34:48

Those different mixes you can get, Whether you're doing a driveway, a dam on a commercial site, or a nuclear plant or even just a slab in your garage.

Speaker D: 00:34:59

There's so many different mixes where there you can add stuff to strengthen it.

Speaker C: 00:35:02

And when I was at World of.

Speaker D: 00:35:04

Concrete, I even saw stuff that was making it so moisture wouldn't go through.

Speaker D: 00:35:07

It seems like there's a lot of different mixes of what we'd normally see at a job site maybe 40 years ago.

Speaker E: 00:35:13

Absolutely.

Speaker E: 00:35:13

The.

Speaker E: 00:35:14

The mixed portfolio and the concrete size is like, huge.

Speaker E: 00:35:17

Right.

Speaker E: 00:35:17

Like you said, there are mixes that you can add some polymers to it so you make it more moisture and water resistance or waterproof.

Speaker E: 00:35:25

There are mixes that these.

Speaker E: 00:35:26

There are, like we call it more sustainable mixes, low carbon mixes that we can add a part of cement with supplementary cementitious materials.

Speaker E: 00:35:34

We are actually working on one formulation specific, specifically in our California plants, to change the cement formulation.

Speaker E: 00:35:41

And we are adding more natural ingredients.

Speaker E: 00:35:43

We call it natural pozzolan.

Speaker E: 00:35:45

And it's a new class of cement we are building.

Speaker E: 00:35:48

So it's going to help with the concrete durability, concrete sustainability.

Speaker E: 00:35:51

And at the same time, we have to make sure it gives you the same finish.

Speaker E: 00:35:54

We have to make sure it gives you the same set time and strength.

Speaker E: 00:35:57

Right.

Speaker E: 00:35:58

So, yeah, there is a lot behind the scene, of course, like I said.

Speaker C: 00:36:02

And it seems that you've been really.

Speaker D: 00:36:03

Diving into that, into lowering the carbon footprint with the manufacturing side with your backgr.

Speaker D: 00:36:09

Being a scientist and all.

Speaker D: 00:36:11

That's got to be quite the process because really there's a lot of big steps in this where you're grinding, baking, firing.

Speaker D: 00:36:21

There's a lot of things going on at once.

Speaker E: 00:36:23

Yeah.

Speaker E: 00:36:23

ause structures in Italy from: 2000

Speaker E: 00:36:35

Not the same formulation as we have have.

Speaker E: 00:36:37

But if we make concrete correctly, we can have it in place in service for centuries.

Speaker E: 00:36:43

And if you look at this service life of concrete, you just already can tell, hey, this is a material of choice if I want a house or whatever product that you're making to last for centuries, rather than thinking only about 10 years or 20 years.

Speaker E: 00:36:56

But still there is a lot of room.

Speaker E: 00:36:57

And we are working on it.

Speaker E: 00:36:58

And we are changing the formulation of the cement, adding more components that are more lower carbon.

Speaker E: 00:37:05

Like you said, the main component of cement.

Speaker E: 00:37:06

Cement is clinker.

Speaker E: 00:37:07

We made it at high temperature, but now there are components that we can use to partially replace clinker in the cement.

Speaker E: 00:37:15

We call it blended cement.

Speaker E: 00:37:17

They are getting very trendy these days.

Speaker E: 00:37:19

We are using it in infrastructures, in reinforced concrete applications, as well as in bagging.

Speaker E: 00:37:25

You would be able to pick up those bags, low carbon cement bags from Home Depot, from Lowe's, and start to use it for your home improvement project as well.

Speaker D: 00:37:33

So that is cool, because that way everybody can make that choice of how they want to do that.

Speaker D: 00:37:38

And I think it's really cool to give that control to people to go, hey, I'm gonna.

Speaker C: 00:37:41

I'm gonna reduce the carbon footprint a.

Speaker D: 00:37:43

Little bit and I'm gonna go with this.

Speaker D: 00:37:45

But you still get the same performance or better.

Speaker D: 00:37:48

That's the cool part about that.

Speaker E: 00:37:50

Yeah.

Speaker E: 00:37:50

In general, I would say at these blended cements that are low carbon, it can be better, it can be worse.

Speaker E: 00:37:56

It depends who makes it, how they make it.

Speaker E: 00:37:58

Right.

Speaker E: 00:37:58

But the ones that we are making, I'm confident that the performance is better than the normal cement, Portland cement.

Speaker E: 00:38:05

There are some differences because it's a new material, how to mix it, how to make a new good concrete out of that.

Speaker E: 00:38:12

Right.

Speaker E: 00:38:12

And the concrete has admixtures like a water reducing admixtures to help with the flow.

Speaker E: 00:38:17

And all of those.

Speaker E: 00:38:18

There needs to be some change for the formulation.

Speaker E: 00:38:22

Possibly not in all applications, but if you can make it to work, you can get the same performance or better performance than normal cement and still have 20 to 25% lower emissions in per cubic yard of your concrete.

Speaker D: 00:38:35

Wow, that's huge.

Speaker E: 00:38:36

Yeah.

Speaker E: 00:38:37

Yeah.

Speaker E: 00:38:38

That's a very good step that we have taken.

Speaker E: 00:38:40

And obviously, we are still continuing to improve the emissions by changing the fuel that we use and having some innovative projects in the lab that Trying to bring it even lower and lower.

Speaker E: 00:38:51

But what I want to add is this specific cement.

Speaker E: 00:38:54

We call it HPT Advancement.

Speaker E: 00:38:56

Hpt hpt.

Speaker E: 00:38:57

It's going to be available in the market.

Speaker E: 00:39:00

It actually has higher durability comparing to the normal cement, Portland cement, because there is some chemistry happening and densifying the structure of the concrete.

Speaker E: 00:39:11

So make it more water resistant, make it more sulfate resistant and if you're using it next to where there is chloride in the sea, for example, exposure to sea, you would see much snow where transport of chloride in concrete comparing to whatever is being used today.

Speaker D: 00:39:28

Boy, that is cool.

Speaker D: 00:39:29

That is super cool.

Speaker D: 00:39:30

And I love the innovations.

Speaker D: 00:39:31

It's so many people out there and I used to think this way until I really started working with the products.

Speaker D: 00:39:37

But so many people think that I hadn't really changed in a thousand years.

Speaker D: 00:39:41

But there's so much science that's been going in now with the stuff that you're doing that really can make a difference out there.

Speaker D: 00:39:47

That it's such an affordable, durable product.

Speaker D: 00:39:50

Like you said, if you compare the lifespan of it.

Speaker D: 00:39:53

If you're going to put down an asphalt driveway, that will nothing against the asphalt driveway, people out there that has a limited lifespan, you've got tar, you got oils, you get all that stuff in there and it's harder to maintain.

Speaker D: 00:40:05

But if you did a beautiful concrete, that's going to last, if it was done correctly, it's going to last for generations.

Speaker E: 00:40:13

Absolutely.

Speaker E: 00:40:14

And don't forget that it's not going to burn.

Speaker E: 00:40:16

So concrete doesn't burn.

Speaker E: 00:40:18

If you're talking about resiliency, specifically in the coast areas that you and me are located, we have the option of concrete but quite often we go to with other options with wood and those may burn and after they burn, not only you have lost the whole house, they may not even burn and you may have end of life of wood, they may get rotted.

Speaker E: 00:40:37

When it gets rotted it releases methane.

Speaker E: 00:40:39

So it's even worse than CO2, if you will.

Speaker D: 00:40:43

Absolutely.

Speaker D: 00:40:44

And it was interesting.

Speaker D: 00:40:45

I've.

Speaker D: 00:40:45

I have friends at lost their homes down in the Pacific Palisades fires down there and it was amazing afterwards.

Speaker D: 00:40:53

Now that they're cleaning things up and you'll see all these homes that are gone, but then the concrete house is standing there and people are still living in it and it just really shows the affordability and the resiliency of that product.

Speaker D: 00:41:07

Especially in fire prone areas like that where you've got a mixture of seismic and fire and you've got something that's going to be durable for both.

Speaker E: 00:41:16

Absolutely.

Speaker E: 00:41:17

And I believe the awareness has increased for using concrete after all these natural disasters.

Speaker E: 00:41:23

So hopefully we're going to have more durable and resilient housing in.

Speaker E: 00:41:27

In California and in your state as well.

Speaker D: 00:41:30

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker D: 00:41:31

And Cal Portland does a great job as far as just on construction projects out here.

Speaker D: 00:41:37

I was with some of the drivers year team.

Speaker D: 00:41:40

We were doing this.

Speaker D: 00:41:40

I was out at doing a thing for my TV show and Cal Portland is out there delivering.

Speaker D: 00:41:45

These guys were doing this beautiful plastered look retaining wall out in front of the house and that truck showed up and it is so fun to see these crafts people out there just building this thing that looked like it was out of a Italian villa.

Speaker D: 00:42:02

And it was concrete, not plaster, but it just had that beautiful look.

Speaker D: 00:42:07

And they formed it up, hold everything at the right time, and then just went through and finished it up on that same day.

Speaker D: 00:42:13

And what a gorgeous look that's going to last them hundreds of years.

Speaker D: 00:42:16

As long as they take care of it.

Speaker E: 00:42:18

Yeah, I like concrete finish.

Speaker E: 00:42:20

Maybe I'm biased, but.

Speaker C: 00:42:22

So, Ahmed, is there anything that we've.

Speaker D: 00:42:24

Missed today talking about concrete?

Speaker D: 00:42:26

You guys have really come a long way with Cal Portland and are really taking this into the next century, really as far as durability, sustainability, and just having a product that is durable for people to be using out in the fields of construction, whether it's residential or.

Speaker E: 00:42:44

Commercial, I think we pretty much covered everything.

Speaker E: 00:42:47

Concrete is the second most used material after water by human beings.

Speaker E: 00:42:51

And you discuss how versatile it is and what different products we can make out of that.

Speaker E: 00:42:56

That never burns and we can have it for generations to come.

Speaker E: 00:43:00

Otherwise, I want to say that from Calporton side, our customers need to be aware that we are behind the product.

Speaker E: 00:43:07

Every truck that comes a lot has gone through it from the cement part, from the concrete part, and the formulation and finishing.

Speaker E: 00:43:16

And we are happy to be able to provide this material to our communities.

Speaker E: 00:43:19

And everyone, pretty much everyone is using concrete.

Speaker D: 00:43:23

Absolutely.

Speaker D: 00:43:24

And for all the residential homeowners and contractors that tune into around the house out there, don't just order concrete.

Speaker D: 00:43:31

Understand the specifications of what you're ordering.

Speaker D: 00:43:34

Talk with the people at Cal Portland to make sure that you're getting the right mix.

Speaker D: 00:43:38

Because this isn't just going down to your home improvement store and going, I need that you really want to have that discussion with the team to make sure that you're getting the best product for the application so it's easier to work with and has the best sustainability and durability.

Speaker E: 00:43:53

Absolutely.

Speaker D: 00:43:54

And thanks for coming on the show today, man.

Speaker D: 00:43:56

I appreciate was a pleasure.

Speaker E: 00:43:58

Eric.

Speaker E: 00:43:59

Thank you.

Speaker B: 00:43:59

A special thank you to Hamed Maragechi from Cal Portland for taking the time to talk with us today.

Speaker B: 00:44:05

To find out more about them, head to calportland.com make sure and join our around the House Insider group to get exclusive content that didn't make the show, head to our website@aroundthehouse online.com and click the sign up button and take advantage of the free trial.

Speaker B: 00:44:23

Thanks for tuning in to the around the House show for Eric G. I am producer Jim.

Speaker B: 00:44:30

We will see you next time anywhere.

Speaker A: 00:44:34

Beyond the me Love is a love song let's be lovers we're all over the radio Take my hand out Nowhere to go all over the radio with you.