My top 10 mistakes homeowners make in repairs and DIY projects in their homes!

It's around the house. Now we've been talking about my, my top 10 mistakes homeowners make in repairs and DIY projects in their home. We've talked to, if you just joining us on the radio, we've talked about lack of planning, ruining the historic charm of your home, hurting resale, undersink, plumbing, drains, angle stops, everything there.

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[00:00:43] Eric Goranson: So if you have a problem down the road, it's not going to be protected. A junction box there is to, to one, give it a place to live where it's not getting messed with and protected and next it's there so you have access to it. So making sure you're using the right junction boxes. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, [00:01:00] there is a lot to know.

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[00:01:24] Eric Goranson: The next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me. Great announcement today. We are presented by monument grills. If you are looking for that tailgating or that fall barbecue season, and your barbecue is at the end of its life and you need something, we've got it. It'll get you through for a number of years, but you love all those really cool high end things that are on those high end barbecues, but you want those on something you can afford head to monumentgrills.

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[00:02:11] Eric Goranson: And this is a really important one here, guys, because there is so much going on inside your house. And I'm a member of a lot of different home improvement, social media groups. I can't I'm administrator on a few of them. And so I really jump in and try to help people out when I'm not on the air, doing that stuff.

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[00:02:46] Eric Goranson: I thought we'd talk about these things, which are the most common ones. And we're not going to get into the nitty gritty details, but we're going to talk about these is some of the most important mistakes that people make. So you can try to navigate away from these and [00:03:00] do it right the first time. And a lot of these have come up from either questions to me on the TV show, the radio show podcast, or just in those social media groups today, number one on the list.

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[00:03:29] Eric Goranson: Lack of planning from start to finish. And this is the most basic of any project. And I know people are going, Oh, of course, yes, seriously, there are some serious planning mistakes that happen. And it doesn't matter if you're just replacing a sink in your kitchen or you're building a deck or you're painting a room or remodeling a bathroom.

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[00:04:08] Eric Goranson: And I'm not talking just about the kitchen, but let's say that you're doing this kitchen remodel and you got to take down the ceiling because you're putting in can lights, moving some ventilation, whatever you're doing. The next step after this on the thing is to. I'm going to be doing the bathroom that's above it, which happens a lot because when they build homes, they try to get those stacks as many close together.

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[00:04:45] Eric Goranson: Is a really important part of that planning process, and I think it's really cool to go through and say, hey, I need to get this dialed in and while I'm at it, I don't want to have to rip a ceiling out again. There's other things you can do to be creating chase ways. So you could run [00:05:00] stuff through that.

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[00:05:16] Eric Goranson: Those are the things that I really want you to plan ahead with and. When it comes to design, just that planning can save you so much work and not have to do it twice. Take the time, plan it out, visualize it is what I do. I step by step, okay, what I'm going to tear it out, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.

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[00:05:52] Eric Goranson: All right. Next year is a big one. It's a big pet peeve of mine. And many people out there and this is ruining the historic charm of [00:06:00] your home and hurting resale I just saw on a facebook group post here recently that I was just like, oh, I was so disgusted These people had a very cool mid century house with beautiful stone fireplace big rocks cut up There it was done in the late 60s early 70s probably even up to the 80s and it was beautiful It fit the entire charm of the house These people decided for some reason and again So I'm not going to really bash them on this.

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[00:06:46] Eric Goranson: It was pink, it was nasty and they were going, Oh, what do we do to take it off? And the first thing that I looked at was you didn't plan this out correctly to that probably [00:07:00] was part of the charm that made that house valuable is what it is. Those 60 70s things right now are super hot that are part of that mid century feel.

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[00:07:34] Eric Goranson: And what I say to that is, You might be better off and I know today is the wrong time to talk about it with all of our high interest rates and inflation and everything else, but maybe you're going to be better off to let that house go to somebody that has, that wants that feel versus ruining your best investment for your home.

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[00:08:13] Eric Goranson: And I see people going in like a house flipper and ripping stuff out and sending it to the dump. And it's just a shame to see that. Now, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your home. That's your thing. But you're also going to be hurting your pocketbook. If you go and five years, I'm going to put this up for sale.

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[00:08:47] Eric Goranson: So try to honor the style of your home, do the stuff to it. If you want to update stuff, but do it in fixtures, do it in paints, do it in some of those finishes that can be changed down the road. And you're not going to hurt the [00:09:00] value of it. And I think that can really help you right there. All right, guys, when we come back, I've got eight more of these and they just keep getting better and better for your home that might be able to save you some money and some headaches.

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[00:09:32] Eric Goranson: We'll be right back after these important messages. Don't go anywhere

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[00:10:02] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the around the house show. The next generation of home improvement brought to you by our friends over at monument grills. These guys have really got you set. If you need a great backyard, portable barbecue for that fall cooking season, check them out at monumentgrills. com. Today we've been talking about my top 10 mistakes homeowners make in repairs and DIY projects in their home.

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[00:10:42] Eric Goranson: Right? So the next one on the list here is one of the biggest ones that I see. And it's probably has some of the most questions that I get personally. And this is under sink plumbing issues. This could be a garbage disposal. This could be the drain system is probably the most common one. And that is also [00:11:00] to the angle stop valves that traditionally turn the water off and on.

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[00:11:24] Eric Goranson: Which I think are absolute garbage as a whole. I don't usually use blanket statements like that, but if you've got one of those corrugated flex connectors, I'm sorry you bought the wrong part. And yes, this is one of my biggest pet peeves of home improvement, big spot, big box stores, because what do they do?

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[00:12:02] Eric Goranson: And this was crazy. This is just one of the places that you see disasters, leaks, water damage that leads to big insurance claims. Of putting in new floors, new cabinets, things like that underneath a sink. So the first thing in here is you just got to do some math to figure out now that water drain line is going to come out of the sink, whether it's a garbage disposal, a basket strainer, or a, just a waistline coming out of the bottom of the sink.

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[00:12:46] Eric Goranson: You might have to do some. Creative cutting and piecing together parts, but that's going to go back into the wall where it's going to go down into the sewer system and there's going to be a vent that goes up top. Now, if somebody added this [00:13:00] in and maybe plumbing was added because it was an 1800s house and it didn't have plumbing, you just need to make sure that the venting is right and that you've got proper flow throughout this.

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[00:13:26] Eric Goranson: They're going to come in there in an hour, probably and knock it out. And yeah, it's going to cost you some money and something it's going to be right. And if you hired the right licensed plumber, it's going to last years and years, decades before you have to mess with it again. So that's the key right there, making sure you're using the right system.

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[00:13:58] Eric Goranson: I'm not a fan of it because when it's [00:14:00] still plugged you or the plumber is going to have to deal with all that caustic material inside of that. And it's going to end up on you and your tools and the cabinet and everywhere else. So just stay away from the cleaners, snake it out, clean it up and get it right.

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[00:14:30] Eric Goranson: And they're looking for a reasonable answer to do this. And you know something, the answers, it's almost like somebody put wrong answers only down because you will get out of 50 answers. The first 50, you'll have 10 people that will give the right, correct answer. And you'll get 40 of the most crackhead, wild, wild answers out there.

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[00:15:12] Eric Goranson: You're going to get it ovaled. It's just, you're going to throw away parts. So just watch out for those bad answers out there. Cause I tell you what, some of them, I start laughing at going, you must be trolling them because you're just getting somebody down the wrong way to do a project. So be really careful with that out there.

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[00:15:48] Eric Goranson: If you turn the water off down there and you still notice a dripping, turn the water off to the house, take a minute, fix that while you're at it, because those things wear out and then you're going to have other issues. I've had a sink [00:16:00] one time that never got a lot of flow out of the cold water on it.

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[00:16:22] Eric Goranson: It's usually pretty easy, but make sure you turn the water off first. And if you've got CPVC pipe, when you're doing that stuff, always, when you're working on those valves, turn the water off to the house because that CPVC, that It's PVC type plastic. Make sure you're working with that correctly. That stuff there is going to cause it'll break right off.

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[00:16:57] Eric Goranson: I wasn't anywhere near it. It was like five or 10 minutes later and I [00:17:00] had to go shut off the water and clean up the mess. So be really careful with that. Now, the next one here, before you go out to break here, number four, electrical mistakes, and this is a big one. And this is one that people can really get over their skis on.

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[00:17:30] Eric Goranson: And we have a lot of people out there in the home improvement world that will sit there and especially in old house groups and things like that as going, we sure don't build them like we used to guys. I'm happy. We don't sometimes, because some of the things they got away with back then. Right now we would absolutely laugh at and here's why we were working on the beach house 1954 I think is what that thing is.

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[00:18:13] Eric Goranson: They'd continue going no junction box or anything. It looked like a DIY handyman special, but that's how they did it back then. And did it work? Yes. If you were trying to troubleshoot that circuit, it was going to drive you nuts. Yes. Because if that was a bad connection, it wasn't going to last. And in a beach community, it was a really horrible way to do it, but that's what they got away with because they weren't inspecting those back then.

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[00:19:09] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the around the house show. The next generation of home improvement presented by monument grills. If you're looking to upgrade that barbecue so it can make it through the rest of the year. And for many years to come, head to monumentgrills. com for your best barbecue experience. That's affordable.

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[00:19:42] Eric Goranson: And now we've been talking about electrical mistakes. These are things like, first off here, hidden junction boxes. This is stuff where people buried those connections in the wall. And those are issues that one are a fire hazard and two, you're making it so it's nearly impossible. To check [00:20:00] and inspect those connections.

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[00:20:19] Eric Goranson: I know it's tough sometimes. But that's how you have to do it. And you're better off having a little cover plate there. So it's there than trying to hide it. And that's one of the biggest mistakes that I see. One of the things that you see too, with older homes, and this happens when you have an older home with a outdated electrical panel, you'll have power going to each house, but it's two prong outlet.

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[00:20:59] Eric Goranson: You [00:21:00] get out, get out of that old cloth stuff. You could just go in and use something that's going to probably be, it's going to last you a lot longer and you're going to have to do the mess anyway. So it's probably easier just to go ahead and do the wire. Now, some people will go through and not upgrade that and they'll go and put GFCI outlets on every single.

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[00:21:34] Eric Goranson: With no ground that defeats the purpose and you're not helping yourself at all with that. So make sure that maybe it's time to do a panel upgrade, especially if you're going to be adding more things like new HVAC system or a hot tub or a car charger, all of those things might be smart just to put a bigger panel in and do the upgrade.

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[00:22:09] Eric Goranson: When I opened the panel, I did an inspection on that. It was already getting overheated and the plastic Bakelite stuff was already cracked. And I was. Very close to having an electrical fire in that panel. So make sure you stay on top of that. Now, the next one on this electrical mistakes is I see is people doing multiple wire sizes.

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[00:22:47] Eric Goranson: So just be very careful with that. So you need to make sure that you've got the same wire gauge going through it. If you're going bigger, check with your local building code to see if you can do that. What you don't want to do is have something bigger. And then people don't go look at the, [00:23:00] the breaker size and see the wire going into that go, Oh, wait a minute.

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[00:23:21] Eric Goranson: Do some shopping online. Take a look at your local electrical wholesaler. Take a look at your local home improvement store. For a while there, Amazon was selling it. I don't know why, but they were selling it like for what everybody else was. And I think it's just because people weren't stealing it off the shelves.

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[00:24:00] Eric Goranson: Now, the other one here too, is, is people. That have an outdated electrical panel. They don't sell breakers for it. They don't sell breakers on it for a reason, probably because it's so outdated. It's a fire hazard. I tell you what, I see a problem with this and it's a bad issue. I see some trades people out there that are swapping out electrical panels.

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[00:24:40] Eric Goranson: That thing could be well worn out and you're going to put it back in your house. Time to replace the panel when you get to that point. So again, that's a huge problem that I see and just make it sure that you're not overloading those panels as well. It's too easy to put things on there these days with all the power requirements that we have.

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[00:25:13] Eric Goranson: Let's say you're looking at your house and you're like, I want to do an addition out back and I'm looking at it and I have a gas meter and electrical out there. My roofline is funky, but that makes the most sense on a place to do the addition. You can do all the research in the world. But until you get a building design done, guess what?

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[00:25:50] Eric Goranson: This is what I'm looking for. That way it's a hundred thousand dollar edition. It's a 200, 000 edition or more. Okay. You've got an idea of what's going to cost you and where you're going to have to spend that [00:26:00] money. But until you do that design, you're not going to really know what's going on. And the same thing goes with a kitchen in our bathroom, especially kitchen, everybody doing a remodel out there that is not a design professional should be hiring a kitchen designer to help you through that.

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[00:26:39] Eric Goranson: That can cost you thousands of dollars and six to 12 weeks of lead time to get those new cabinets. If you had to order them in and a designer would have saved you that money right off the bat. And you're going to have a better project when it's all said and done. So take a look. If you want to find out where you can find a good kitchen designer, head over to nkba.[00:27:00]

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[00:27:18] Eric Goranson: Well, uh, really help you get your stuff fine tuned and they're going to bring things to you that you didn't even think of. So to do it right, always get that design help, just like picking colors. If you're stuck on picking colors, go grab a color expert to sit down with you to help go paint colors, furniture, colors, that kind of stuff.

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[00:28:01] Eric Goranson: That will cost you money every single time because the higher end of mid grade, not the high, high, and I'm not saying go buy a hundred, about a hundred dollar gallon paint. But if you're going to go out there and buy the 30 stuff, instead of maybe the 60 stuff, you're going to need three or four times more of that paint.

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[00:28:36] Eric Goranson: So then all of a sudden you save 30 percent of the paint, but now you're have to mark that up twice because you got to buy twice as much and do the work twice. More around the house and my top 10 mistakes homeowners make in repairs and DIY projects. When we return, don't change that dial. [00:29:00] Come

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[00:29:27] Eric Goranson: If you're just joining us on the radio, we have been talking about this and if you missed it, don't worry. You can catch this show on any podcast player. Just look for the around the house show. So next up here is one of the biggest mistakes I see on the radio. In projects when we're working outside and this is not flashing new windows and doors.

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[00:30:10] Eric Goranson: You'll use a paintable caulking. That's going to work, but I really want to make sure that if you're replacing windows and doors, take the time to get that flexible flashing used. And that is a product you can get. Krip makes a great one. If zip system has one for theirs, DePont makes one, all these major companies out there have a good flexible flashing system, and that's something that's going to keep water from getting shoved around the outside of that, and to stop that rot, that is one of the biggest things with windows being installed incorrectly is I'm not being flashed.

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[00:31:02] Eric Goranson: So make sure that's it. Now, number eight, here's a big one. This is not flashing decking connections to the house and not using the correct flashers. And I'm talking flashing. And fasteners as well. Let's get into that one. This is a hot button So when you're building a deck off your house, and you've got that ledger board that goes attaching it's attaching to it now one thing with the ledger board that you can do this and some people will do this and i'm like Oh, man, that doesn't meet code probably in your area If you have a little bump out like a window or something like that That is cantilevered off Or that part of the house is cantilevered off.

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[00:31:54] Eric Goranson: You should be putting in. Back behind that flexible flashing, some [00:32:00] metal flashing over the top of that ledger board to make sure that any water running down off that deck kicks around and out. So you need to have multiple layers of flashing on that. And that is a key right there. Now, if you want to find out more information on how to do that, I'm going to do a video on it one of these days.

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[00:32:35] Eric Goranson: And Mike's a friend of mine. I've worked on stages with him, gentlemen, and a scholar. That guy is one of the leading building experts out there. And that's why you see it. If you're a building contractor, remodeler, you see him up on the stages across the country, given classes. Cause yeah, he's that good, but I would refer to that on the right way to do it.

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[00:33:09] Eric Goranson: How are you going to flash that? And you need to know how to do this as well. So you can make sure you hired the right deck contractor to do it. If this is done wrong, the rest of the deck, isn't going to matter. And that includes using the right fasteners in there. And there's a lot of new code stuff on it.

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[00:33:41] Eric Goranson: And if you're going to be putting other stuff on there, like a hot tub, that's when you get the engineer involved to make sure that they're drawing it out correctly for you so you can do it. So that's one of the biggest ones. Now, next up here is one of the more expensive mistakes that I see people make, and it's a great time of year to do it.

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[00:34:10] Eric Goranson: But again, this is one of those maintenance things that if you don't do this right, it's going to cost you in the end. And that's having your HVAC system tuned up every single year. Now, depending on the climate, you're going to want to make sure you've got this dialed in. If you're in Florida, you're going to probably want your AC done twice a year.

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[00:34:47] Eric Goranson: And then coming into September, he better have that gas furnace taken a look at and made sure it's working correctly. And here's what they do. It's not just them coming in and cleaning up. They're like, ah, who cares? This is like an oil change on your house. Making sure that you get that taken care [00:35:00] of. And they'll come in and if it's a gas furnace, they'll go in, turn the heat on.

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[00:35:22] Eric Goranson: If you're using that gas furnace. So save some money on yourself and extend the life out of that thing. So you don't have to go spend 25, 000 in a new system. One of these days, that's the key right there to make sure you've got that dialed in that money will be well spent and you're going to extend the life of it.

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[00:35:53] Eric Goranson: You'll see it where they don't have overages for the after hours charges or the weekend, the holiday rates. They'll just charge you a regular service [00:36:00] call out there if you have a breakdown. So take a look at that stuff. Feel free to negotiate a little bit with them to get into that service plan. But I tell you what, that can be a cool deal for you.

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[00:36:35] Eric Goranson: Okay. I need to budget for that. What's that going to cost me? Maybe it's the roof on your house. Is it 20 years? And it was a 25 year roof. If you didn't maintain it, it could be already done. If you maintain it could have another 10 years. So these are things to really pay attention to that washer and dryer.

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[00:37:11] Eric Goranson: Some are really reliable. Some are throwaways after five years. So think about what those are and what the lifespan of those are. Take a look. If you're going to budget for your house and you go around and go, wait a minute, my garage door is 30 years old and it's wood and it's coming apart. I better have a garage door in my future planned and see what that costs.

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[00:37:51] Eric Goranson: I'm getting close to needing a roof. So I'm starting to do my research. What brand do I want to do? Do I want metal? Do I want composite? Do I want an [00:38:00] architectural? What is the statement I want to make on my house and where am I going to do it? So these are those things that you really need to think about.

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[00:38:20] Eric Goranson: It's probably to the end of my life. I better be maintaining that and making sure I'm on it. Could be the paint. It could be the vinyl siding that's starting to come apart outside. That you're going, Oh, I didn't account for that. Make sure that you've got that accounted for. Is that water heater 15 years old?

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[00:38:52] Eric Goranson: And there's going to come a point where you look at it and go, okay, we're about And you know something, I need to put some [00:39:00] money into this and invest back into my home and as expensive things are right now with interest rates and getting loans and stuff, hopefully that's going to change soon and that's going to take some election results.

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[00:39:26] Eric Goranson: It's on my podcast only. If you're a homeowner to think about when you're voting, if you want to find out more information about us, head to around the house online. com and make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel as well. I'm Eric G and you've been listening to around the house.