Stay Mold-Free: Expert Advice for a Cleaner, Healthier Space

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It's around the house.

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When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know.

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But we've got you covered.

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This is AROUND the house.

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

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Thanks for driving Today.

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It is our midweek update.

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This is the stuff that didn't make it into last weekend show and of course isn't going to make it into next weekend show.

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And boy, we got a jam packed episode up this weekend.

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Can't wait to talk to you about.

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And we've got some great people coming on the show over the next few weeks.

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It's going to be a lot of fun.

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Can't wait to tell you about it.

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But today I wanted to talk about something that a lot of people are battling across the country and a good way to do that.

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Before we do that though, I wanted to mention our friends over at Monument Grills who have a huge Black Friday sale coming up next week, only through December 5th.

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So head over to monumentgrills.com if you're looking for a killer barbecue on a budget that's quality, that is really something.

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If you're looking for a brand new gift for somebody, maybe they're a barbecuer and their barbecue as well seen better days.

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It's time for the upgrade and with this sale, it's going to be killer.

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Head over to monumentgrills.com and take a look.

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This is going to be a great sale for you and probably one of the best prices of the year for you.

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It's a great time to grab it.

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Well, today I wanted to talk about something.

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I wanted to talk about how to deal with mold around your house.

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Now this could be something simple like around the edge of a sink.

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It could be something that's in a shower or it could be something much worse like an attic, crawl space or basement or on a wall or in a closet where you didn't even realize where it went.

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Now the first thing is I always recommend people, if you see serious mold in your house, take a quick pause and go check to make sure what your air quality is.

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I want to see you stop for a minute.

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And of course it needs to be dealt with.

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But I recommend with big mold problems, doing some testing, see what kind of mold you're working with.

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And of course to get some baseline air testing.

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That way you know what's in the air.

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So when you take care of that, you'll go, oh, wait a minute, I just did a follow up test and I still have A lot.

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Where's the rest of it?

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Because many times if you haven't one spot, you could have it in others.

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It can be like mice.

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If you've got mice or rats in your house, if you see one, there's probably another someplace.

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So you want to make sure and get all of it.

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So I always recommend ear testing.

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And look up Carolyn Blasowski, America's healthy home expert.

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She has that examiner product where she can go through and do all the testing for you and see what's going on and can measure all the microtoxins.

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She has a whole program over there.

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Take a look at that.

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It's a good place to start.

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Well, one of the biggest mistakes people make with mold is they go grab the bleach and start wiping things away.

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And that's probably one of the worst things you can do.

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One, you're adding all the bleach to the air.

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Two, if it's a porous service, guess what?

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That bleach is not going to work.

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And quite frankly, it's probably going to feed it.

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If you had a piece of metal that had mold on it somehow and you wanted to wipe it down, the bleach would probably take care of it.

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But that's about it.

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The problem with bleach is there's a lot of water in it.

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And so first thing it does is it takes the color of the mold and bleaches it out so you can't see it.

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Second of all, it'll only get the top surface of it.

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That could release toxins or microtoxins into the air and make it more unhealthy for you.

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And then third, the residual water will feed the stuff you didn't kill.

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So why give it a superpower to grow back even bigger?

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So that's one of the biggest problems we see with it.

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So I want to see other products used out there.

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If you had a water leak on a wall and you've got framing that's nasty, if at all possible, remove all the material and start over, that's the easy way.

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But if you can't, there's a lot of good products you can do.

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If you're going to get in there with water damage or maybe it's a basement wall, I would recommend going in there.

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And there's a lot of different ways to do it.

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But my favorite one is a paint you can get called call.

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And call does a great job because it's made out of lime.

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So what happens is, because of the ph of the product, it is registered with the EPA to not let mold grow on it for five years because it's inhabitable for mold to grow on it.

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So you can go over and paint it and prime it and try to cover it up, but really that's not the best way to do it.

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The call is going to just keep it for five years so you can't have any more mold growth on it.

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So it's a really good way.

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It's non toxic.

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It's a great way to let mother nature help protect what you're working on now in showers.

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One of the things that you can do if you've got a master shower that keeps doing that and you're going to do a remodel and you're just battling mold issues.

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One, humidity is a problem.

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Any place you have humidity, like a laundry room, a bathroom with a shower or even a coat closet where everybody's taking their wet jackets in, you need some ventilation.

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For instance, what I recommend is having a really good bath fan, like 100, 120 cubic feet per minute.

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Take a look at like Panasonic, some of their fans do that.

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Really get a good fan going and then making sure that you have enough air coming into that, into that room.

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Well, one of the problems is, is in a bathroom sometimes to move that much air you need to have a bigger gap under the door which a lot of people don't like the lack of privacy with underneath that door having an inch and a half space.

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So that can be an issue.

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But there is a solution.

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And take a look on my social media today.

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I'm going to post this up on Wednesday here.

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Since it is Wednesday and we're recording this, there's a new door you can order out there that lets air go through it but gives you the sound quality of a solid core door.

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And those are doors made by Van Air design and they're Van Air doors.

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So V A N A I R I just put one in my house.

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This lets about 50 CFM through the door itself through this channel that it's like a muffler.

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It doesn't let the sound through.

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So it won quieted my bathroom down a ton.

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If I'm listening to music in the shower, not an issue outside the bathroom because I insulated my bathroom when I did it.

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But my hollow core door was the weak point with that.

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Now I've got air coming in.

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And then the other issue, if you've got a floor system down there that has heat in it, like a radiant floor, whether it's electric or water or whatever your system is, that air super cools the floor.

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So even though you've got a heated floor right there, it is pulling air through and cooling the floor.

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So instantaneously.

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After installing the van air door, I noticed that my floor was significantly warmer, which balanced that floor out and balanced the heat out in the room.

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So that was really cool.

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So take a look at van air door.

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Any place that you need, like a bedroom, if you've got mini splits, or if you've got a utility room that you need air to go into.

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Hall closet is even better where people are hanging up coats, because those places when you're bringing in wet clothes can really be a problem because people don't think they'll dry them out before they hang them up.

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And then all of a sudden you get mold on the back of the of the closet.

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Nobody notices, and it just keeps going and going.

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So the first thing I want you to do too, is make sure that you've got your relative humidity in the house under 60%.

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Now, there's a lot of thermostats that don't tell you humidity, but the problem is, is the humidity is they're telling you at the thermostat, which is usually in a hallway by the front door someplace or by the bedrooms.

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So one of those things right there, it's an issue.

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So you want to make sure and test your humidity.

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So jump on Amazon, go down to your, get online, order up a cheap weather station that has the outdoor remote, and that way you can put that remote someplace and then you can put the base station so you can check humidity in two places and on wet days.

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Or just try to keep your humidity dialed in.

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Many people in the wintertime because of their heat, maybe they're using electric.

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It dries out.

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Or you have a newer, more efficient furnace.

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You might need to add humidity to the space.

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But if you're over 60%, you're growing mold.

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And that's where you want to be careful with that.

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So really keeping that dialed in.

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And that's where you get dust mites and issues.

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So watch the humidity.

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Make sure nowhere in the house it's getting over 60%, because that's where we're going to have some significant issues that I don't want you to really have to worry about.

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And then keep an eye on your basement crawl space or attic spaces.

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Take a look up there, the flashlight.

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If you have a wet crawl space, it seems that all of a sudden that will work its way up because that's what mother nature does.

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Heat and humidity will rise.

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That goes up.

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And if you have a moldy crawl space, odds are you got a moldy attic space up top too.

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So that humidity goes up there.

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So make sure that if you've got a crawl space, for instance, that it's dialed in.

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You've got a good vapor barrier, you've got all that moisture getting out of the place or controlling it.

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Now, I'm not saying go in and have to go in and do a full crawl space, clean out with a, with an encapsulated crawl space, maybe that's what you need, but many times you don't.

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And so be very careful with that.

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And another thing is just keep testing your air.

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Make sure you don't have radon, any of those other contaminants, because any of that air that's down in that crawl space, about 60% of it makes it up into the living space.

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So that is something that you want to make sure that that is clean down there.

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Because if you go, I'm not going down there, it's dirty and nasty.

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Well, you are, because that air is coming up in your room.

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So make sure that you've got that cleaned up.

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And there are plenty of foundation companies out there.

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Do your research.

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There's some of that are scammers.

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There's other good ones out there.

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Like here in the Portland metro area, I work with a company called John's Waterproofing.

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They're really good, they do a really great job.

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And they will come down, for instance, and do a free crawl space inspection for you to tell you what's going on.

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And if there's something wrong, they're going to give you an estimate to take care of it, which is super cool.

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So take a look at that, see what needs to be done.

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See what needs to be taken care of.

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And think of that whole, your whole house, you're spending so much time there.

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Think of that environment, especially in the wintertime when you're stuck inside, make sure that you've got that dialed in and looking good.

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Because the more you can keep that system working, the more you can keep that mold under control.

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You'll be good to go.

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And in the shower system, guys, make sure you just do some good cleaning.

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And when the caulking starts to turn orange, that's mildew or starts turning other colors.

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Get in there, clean it out.

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Make sure that you're using a clear or color matched silicone caulking in the.

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Anytime that that shower system changes directions, if you've got tile or any other Hard surface like that, that shouldn't be grout in a corner, that should be caulking.

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And use a pure silicone.

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So that way you've got that dialed in and that keeps it and lasts the longest.

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Because if you use the latex stuff, it just, it's just not going to work well for you.

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Latexes are just not as durable in a shower situation as a silicone.

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And a little secret for doing that, the spray away glass cleaner that comes in the metal can, that comes out in a foam, you can pick them up at Home Depot, your grocery store, wherever you get it.

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What I do is I put the caulking down, I spray over the top of that.

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That releases the silicone.

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So you can just run your finger along it and clean up with a paper towel.

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It's actually easier to use.

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And we've got a video up on around the House Northwest where we did a video with that.

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But I tell you what, it works so well for cleaning up caulking when you're doing the silicone.

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It's just a great way to go.

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So that's a good thing to do.

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All right, guys, we're running out of time this weekend.

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We have a Black Friday deal going here where we're going to be talking about all these different products, some of my favorite products of the year and some Black Friday sales for you to talk about.

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So that way here on Saturday.

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I'm even going to post up the links and stuff so you can help find it.

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This is not some big sponsored segment.

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These are people I've worked with over the year that are either partners with the show or products I featured that I absolutely love over the last few years.

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And some of them have some ridiculous sales.

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And it's not something that's getting pushed out on like Home Depot or Lowe's or one of those they selling off their website.

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So I will give you those secrets this weekend on around the House show and we're gonna have a lot of fun doing it.

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All right, everybody, have a great rest of the week.

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We just had the bomb cyclone come through here.

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We did okay here in Oregon.

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I know our friends up in Washington got hit a little bit harder.

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And it looks like we have another storm coming in on Friday.

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So we are getting hit.

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And finally, my friends in the Northeast are going to be getting some rain here, which is well deserved.

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We need to see them not end up like us with wildfires and everything else.

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So stay safe out there.

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Get ready for Thanksgiving.

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It's coming around the corner.

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Thanks for tuning in to around the house.

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We'll see you on Saturday.

Guest: 00:15:35

Somewhere unseen and un undiscovered Anywhere beyond the me love is a love song let's be lovers we're all over the radio Take mine I know where to go all over the radio with.