Episode 1559
Huge rebates for your home and our discussion with Rewiring America
Are there rebates to help you with saving energy and maybe a new heat pump? We are just starting to see some amazing ones come out and more later this year. We sit down with Steve Pantano, the Head of Research at Rewiring America, where he leads efforts to build and share comprehensive working knowledge of how to replace more than one billion fossil fuel devices with clean electric alternatives. For the past fifteen years Steve worked with CLASP and ICF International to develop policy, market development programs, research, and technical analysis aimed at maximizing the climate benefits that can be achieved with energy efficient appliances and equipment. He spent years before that tinkering with and testing everything from Hydrogen fuel cells to Space Shuttle hardware. He has a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University.
To find out more www.rewiringamerica.org
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Mentioned in this episode:
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/
Baldwin Hardware
Transcript
[00:00:40] Eric Goranson: So, uh, do not use that if you're out shopping any of these services out there. That is not the place that I trust because I've seen too many. Things that went badly because, uh, they were able to, uh, purchase a better rating. And that to me is a big mistake when you allow that to happen. When it [00:01:00] comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know the, we got you covered.
[:[00:01:24] Eric Goranson: Welcome to the Round the House Show. This is where we hope you get the most outta your home through information and education. Thanks for joining me today. We are gonna dive into bathrooms and bathroom remodeling and update tips. You know, this is one of the most common. Projects that we see out there, because many homes have multiple bathrooms, right?
[:[00:02:04] Eric Goranson: Big dollars on a project. So a couple things I wanna talk about is, is with any D I Y project planning is key, right? That is a huge deal, and the bathroom is just the same, and you don't wanna get things out of order because you don't have to do a project twice. So first, what I want you to do is I want you to do some detective work before you start any of these projects and figure out some basics.
[:[00:02:59] Eric Goranson: So [00:03:00] doing a little work, seeing if you have any water damage mold, how bad is it? You know, is the floor in front of the tub pretty hammered or the shower hammered? Is it soft? You know, is that old 1970s shower leaking in behind? Do some detective work and until you can say there is nothing in there that's big, keep looking.
[:[00:03:54] Eric Goranson: That removes that and sends that all the way to the exterior of the house, not up into the [00:04:00] crawlspace or attic, not, you know, any place other than completely outside the house. And it needs to be ducted and insulated. That way you can have that move into the outside. So that's first, I think one of the easiest and best projects in a bathroom, just to update it.
[:[00:04:58] Eric Goranson: So that's a key right there. [00:05:00] That can be one of the biggest things. And when you, bathrooms are notoriously hard to paint such a small room, but it's notoriously hard to paint. You have so many little corners, so many little places that you have to get around like the behind the toilet to really do that, right?
[:[00:05:36] Eric Goranson: But really give that a good scrub down in there. Get all the, the chemicals that are on the wall, all of the, the junk and mildew and stuff that's hiding up there. Give it a good, deep clean before you do it. Don't just prime over the top of it. You want this to adhere. The last thing you wanna do is have any kind of mold or mildew growing underneath it.
[:[00:06:18] Eric Goranson: You know, make sure it gets something that's mint for humid and, and moist situations like that, you know, if it's a powder room, it's not as big a deal if you don't have a shower or you know, it's a half bath or something. But any place that's steam producing. Make sure you've got a good quality paint in there.
[:[00:06:58] Eric Goranson: And I say guys, as a company, [00:07:00] if you go in and do that, it's really easy to go through and steam, clean it and scrub it, let it dry, and then seal it. You can change a complete look of a bathroom if you have a light grout and it's getting nasty and dirty. Now, the secret though, afterwards, after you've got that clean, if you want to get it clean as to make sure that you've got great airflow in that bathroom.
[:[00:07:45] Eric Goranson: You need to have enough room in there to get that going, and that'll be a key for having a really good space. So work on that. That's a good one right there. Now, one of my favorites in a bathroom, especially if it's a like a hall bathroom and it's got [00:08:00] maybe a vinyl floor coming and putting a, uh, waterproof flooring surface in there.
[:[00:08:34] Eric Goranson: You know, you wipe up any big water spots down there and then you can let that dry out with the heated tile floor doing its work. So it does really reduce the chance of mold in there if you've got ventilation because you're just removing that from there. Once it's turned into steam, once it has evaporated into the air, then the vent fan can grab it and get it out of the building.
[:[00:09:18] Eric Goranson: And, and if you've ever watched South Park, if you're a South Park person, I hope you've seen the Japanese toilet episode. It will make you die laughing. It's funny. Uh, I love it when comedy comes into home improvement cause it makes for something funny. But, uh, definitely something for you to tune into is, uh, that, uh, go, go search that out on, uh, on your favorite, uh, streaming device.
[:[00:09:57] Eric Goranson: What's up? This is Dick and Satchel [00:10:00] from. Steel Panther and you are listening too, around the house with Eric G. Yeah. We love Eric G and you should too.
[:[00:10:39] Eric Goranson: On in your bathroom to really make it more valuable, make it more enjoyable, and, uh, make it a better space. And I wanted to talk about toilets for a minute because, you know, toilets again are one of those things that you get what you pay for. Um, I think one of the worst things you can do is run down to your local home center [00:11:00] and buy the name brand toilet.
[:[00:11:23] Eric Goranson: If you wanna catch the videos over there, you can catch this over. Uh, go to YouTube, go at Fox 12 and it's Fox 12 Oregon is where we're at. Go over there and you can just find the around the house playlist and find it there. So you'll see what I talked about when I did this, but I cut a toilet it in half and my buddy William helped me do that.
[:[00:12:06] Eric Goranson: They are the, um, I think still the largest toilet manufacturer in the world. I believe they, they do more toilets in American Standard and Kohler combined, which are two big American brands. But really when you get a good quality toilet, which is about $300 on up, you get something that's gonna be more easily flushed.
[:[00:12:56] Eric Goranson: Likes to stick to it more. Etch it with bleach cuz [00:13:00] that's what you're doing. If you buy like one of the new toto toilets, for instance. If you buy one of those, many of them and ask your, um, local plumbing dealer when you look at this to see if they have one of their nano coatings on the top side of it.
[:[00:13:38] Eric Goranson: It's funny, it's wrong, but it's hilarious. And this is one thing I recommend to everybody. When you're doing a bathroom model or you're doing some electrical in the bathroom, make sure and put that circuit G F C I, right close to the toilet down low. So that way you have a place to plug in someday a bide toilet seat [00:14:00] or a bide toilet that need power.
[:[00:14:22] Eric Goranson: You want the warm water. I did one, um, a few years ago, ah, probably five or six years ago, actually maybe five years ago, where we took AADE to one of the a hundred dollars bide toilet seats and hooked it up. You had to hook it off the co, the warm water line off of the, off of the sink, so you had to run a little hose all the way over to the toilet, and then when you turned it on to use it, it took a long time to get any kind of warm water there.
[:[00:15:11] Eric Goranson: So if you're doing a remodel and you need to run power for something, add that to your list of things that you can do to make that worthwhile. And yes, there are. $179 home center toilets. And yes, there are $13,000 luxury toilets that are not gold plated that will do everything you want it to do from giving you a, uh, hair dryer for the bidet.
[:[00:16:05] Eric Goranson: But I tell you what, buying a high quality toilet seat that is a bidet function will save you on toilet paper. And, uh, it will make for a cleaner experience for you. All right, so one of the things that you can do outside of replacing that toilet, which we were just talking about, is add a heated towel warmer.
[:[00:16:47] Eric Goranson: So that's a key right there. So if, if you do that, you could plug it into an outlet, you could put your own hardwired one in there. It's really trick. It will save you about a towel load of a [00:17:00] load of towels a week for most two people households. It will stop you from having to do that cuz all of a sudden that towel dries fresh.
[:[00:17:31] Eric Goranson: Now, one of the things too that I think is big too is if you can get a new shower door, if you've got that old shower door system, you can go through and get that dialed in a new shower door. When you've got a ugly, nasty, hard water stained one can be a game changer for inside your home and making it look like a much nicer finished product.
[:[00:18:18] Eric Goranson: It is something that I do not enjoy doing. Have I done my own? Yes. Do I swear I'll never do one again? Abs of freaking Lilly. They are not fun to put in. And, uh, when endowed have a one made to the right size and have that professional install it, we come back. I got some big tips for bathrooms just as.
[:[00:19:26] Eric Goranson: Now, here's one that I think is a really cool one, especially if you've got that seventies or eighties home with a really low, like 30, 31, even 32 inch high vanities. You know, the standard vanity height has moved from that low side up into kitchen cabinet height, which is now 36 inches. That is kind of the new standard for bathroom vanities.
[:[00:20:21] Eric Goranson: So if you're gonna buy time to do it and just gonna leave it that way, cool. Maybe you wanna wait. To get that dialed in maybe later, and, uh, get that really kind of updated and leave those lower vanities for a couple years until those kids get much taller and, uh, they grow quick. As you know, those times go by fast, so you might wanna wait a little bit or just get a nice little stool like everybody else does and, uh, the kids will do fine.
[:[00:21:07] Eric Goranson: It's a major update. Now, here's one thing I'd like to mention too, and this is where I think it's really important when you're out shopping for fixtures. So if you're like, Hey, I'm gonna do some upgrades. I'm gonna put a brand new shower valve on a new faucet, I'm gonna put on some new stuff, please make sure and use all of the right brands in series of it.
[:[00:21:57] Eric Goranson: But I wanna see all of that stuff [00:22:00] match and come together. That is gonna look really good. It needs to play well together. If you have a chrome faucet and a gold shower valve and black hardware and oil rub, bronze toilet paper, it looks like you're at Liberace's yard sale and it doesn't match. So you wanna make sure that you've got everything matching within that space.
[:[00:22:56] Eric Goranson: They do make some trim kits to upgrade stuff, so do a [00:23:00] little research online and see what styles they have. Sometimes those old classic fixtures, you could actually do a nice little update there, and that goes a long way. Now, next up here, I really wanted to talk about. You know, some larger projects that aren't that expensive, but they're a little bit more work, new lighting.
[:[00:23:41] Eric Goranson: You know, sometimes putting one that is rated for over the shower. You can put 'em up there if they're weather, if you know, if they're rated for steam and they're rated to go over the shower, those enclosed lights, they'll say that they're approved for that. But you can add in a couple lights in there and change the entire look.
[:[00:24:23] Eric Goranson: I want to add that bathtub cause I have space over here. And then I wanna put in that chandelier overhead. I seriously hope you have a nice tall ceiling. Because it is against code to have that hanging chandelier over the top of the bathtub. Why? Because you don't wanna be TA standing in water, in touching electrical appliance over your head.
[:[00:25:01] Eric Goranson: And yes, I have seen projects where. The contractor says, Hey, it's up to you. I'll put uh, an electrical box over the top with a cover plate on it, and when I'm outta here and moved out, if you wanna put a light in, go ahead. I can't do it for you cuz it's not building code and it's a safety issue. I've seen people do it.
[:[00:25:39] Eric Goranson: So no pudding hanging fixtures over the tops of bathtubs. It's a really bad idea. Now another thing that's really smart that I see people doing is a, as another little upgrade is adding as they're doing other electrical work in the house, maybe doing a panel upgrade, putting in another set of outlets in there on a different separate circuit.
[:[00:26:21] Eric Goranson: So maybe it's not the hairdryer. Maybe you've got a G F C I outlet that is worn out. They last about 10 years max. So if it's a little bit older, it's a little bit discolored. Might be chance to, to replace that. And see if that solves the problem before you put it in another circuit. But if you're really gonna drop another circuit in, I tell you what, it's a good way to go because now you have two different circuits up there and it's got two different feeds.
[:[00:27:05] Eric Goranson: And that can be a big one there. And so that added power at the same time, if you're doing it and you can add one behind the toilet like we talked about earlier. So you have an option down the road for a bide toilet seat or a bide toilet. So something to consider, you know, one of the other projects too that we've talked about a little bit, and we'll talk about it here and, and more so in the next segment.
[:[00:27:54] Eric Goranson: So sometimes you can go through and actually fill those and do it. Now here's a secret. Before we get into that, I [00:28:00] want to, I wanna throw this out there. One way I have done this when I've wanted to change out vanity hardware. Where there's a weird drill pattern that I can't find the right hardware. I have hired a furniture repair person to come out and fill those small number of holes and airbrush grain and stain match it.
[:[00:29:02] Eric Goranson: Show down people, it's time to go. It's call. Call. Welcome back to the Round the house chase, where we help you get the most outta your home through information and education. Thanks for joining me today. We've been talking bathrooms. That music there was by my buddy Jim Haas. You've heard him on the show.
[:[00:29:43] Eric Goranson: But, uh, you know, going through, cleaning up that bathroom vanity, getting all the soap scum, all the oils, lotions have oils in 'em. So really cleaning all that stuff out. Any place that they've been touched by the hands around knobs and handles. And then you're gonna sand it. You're gonna take the doors and drawer fronts [00:30:00] off.
[:[00:30:21] Eric Goranson: But it is a, a time consuming process even to paint something as small as a vanity. Well, some of the mistakes that I'm worried about happen, and this is stuff that I see out there all the time. That I wanna make sure that you don't tackle or do incorrectly while you're trying to update that bathroom.
[:[00:31:03] Eric Goranson: I'm gonna paint that four by four tile. And to me, when I see the paint, it's in the grout. It's all the same kind of monochromatic color. It looks painted, and then as soon as you get a scratch, it chips off these big pieces. And then it really. It looks like it's painted. So that's one that I've seen that has never gone well.
[:[00:31:45] Eric Goranson: I've not seen that go well. The other mistakes that I've seen, uh, on a bathroom is trying to paint your own bathtub with your over-the-counter kit. Um, I've not seen that gone well. I've seen that where it chips, [00:32:00] it'll chip. The first time somebody drops something in the tub, whether it's a toy or a bottle of shaving cream or whatever, it scratches and chips.
[:[00:32:28] Eric Goranson: When it hit the red cast iron, it turned to glass. So you had this glass coat finish. Super durable. It's great. The next one is you've got your kind of builder basic fiberglass tub shower where it's one piece. And, uh, that really is fiberglass and it has a color gel coat on it that's kind of built into it, kind of like a, a Corvette, but it's built into that.
[:[00:33:17] Eric Goranson: So all you're doing is painting it. You're getting a few more, you know, years of life maybe if you're careful. But that's all that is. So I want you to think about that. I think most of the time those that goes badly, you could do it, but it's just a temporary fix. Now, the other one I think is a big mistake as well, and I see a fair amount of this.
[:[00:34:01] Eric Goranson: And it's molded to feet, your tub. I have taken a fair amount of those out and uh, they can work okay. But again, you have a smaller tub and it's just a cap over the top and it's a, it's a temporary fix in most cases. I'm sure there's some companies out there that I haven't seen. I'm sure there's companies out there that are doing a great job that I haven't experienced.
[:[00:34:42] Eric Goranson: So, again, something to think about with those. But, uh, for those one day tub repairs, uh, I have seen that go pretty badly, more than once, so I'm gonna put it as buyer beware. Now, one of the things, if you're hiring a company to come in and do work, [00:35:00] the one company, and I'm gonna put on blast right now, the one company I don't trust is the bbb, the Better Business Bureau.
[:[00:35:32] Eric Goranson: That is not the place that I trust because I've seen too many things that went badly because, uh, they were able to, uh, purchase a better rating. And that to me is a big mistake when you allow that to happen. And if you Google search, there have been a lot of, uh, I think it was, uh, 2020 back 15 years ago or something.
[:[00:36:15] Eric Goranson: So another thing here too that's, let's get back to this. Bathroom stuff is we wanna be healthy with what we're doing in there. So the other thing that I'd like to see happen is that you're watching the chemicals you use, and what's the best way to do this? Actually, before you start any project that you're remodeling or fixing up that bathroom, please have your water quality issues resolved before you start.
[:[00:37:25] Eric Goranson: Do not go down without having a water test, cuz you really don't know now. I mean, if your neighbor, for instance, next door had a water test done and it's on the same water system. Maybe, but I really wanna see to make sure that if you've got an older house that that maybe lead's not coming up, or you're having some other issues that's within your house.
[:[00:38:11] Eric Goranson: So that's a key right there. So making sure that you have water quality issues, dial it in. That should be the first thing you handle in your house. And make sure it's going to make your fixtures last longer. It's gonna make your showers last longer. It's gonna make you use less soap. It's gonna make your water heater and your ice maker in the refrigerator, all these things will work better.
[:[00:38:53] Eric Goranson: Because when the builder built it, or the last person that remodeled it, there might be a better way. All right, everybody. [00:39:00] That's the end of the show. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you in. Thanks for listening to Around the House
