Today's Home Checklist: 10 Essential To-Dos for your Home Today

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[00:00:34] Eric Goranson: Guess what? They had high levels of radon in your home. So I want you to make sure and check that every few years. Now here's the thing. Radon coming out of your house can be different and difficult to work with sometimes. Here's why. Like in my state here, if I sell my house, part of the condition of the sale is they have to have a radon check and do something [00:01:00] that company can come in.

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[00:01:23] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining me today. I'm Eric G. Thanks for tuning in. Now, it doesn't matter if you're listening on the national radio show on the talk media network, country. I think we're in five time zones. Thanks for catching us on the radio. Or if you're catching us on the podcast, I do appreciate that as well, especially out there on many of the streaming services that are now curing around the house show.

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[00:02:01] Eric Goranson: And, uh, something to protect you and your home. Now, if you want to find out more about us, head over to around the house, online. com. And you can give us a call at the studio here at 833 239 4144. That number again is 833 239 4144. If you like watching things in video, make sure you check us out. We've got about 420 YouTube videos just on the around the house, Northwest stuff.

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[00:02:44] Eric Goranson: Trying to get the bills paid in these things, just fly under the radar. And now these are important ones. These are things that you can do probably could save you money. It'll save you money in the long run, no matter what, and you're going to protect yourself. And [00:03:00] first on the list, these aren't in a particular order.

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[00:03:21] Eric Goranson: Make sure that you've got that storage backed up, but I want you to walk around your entire house, spend a half hour, walk around and open up every cabinet door while videotaping and narrating and documenting what you have. Start out one side of the house, walk down to the kitchen, open it up. Do you see something of value?

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[00:04:12] Eric Goranson: You can name it inventory, whatever month, 2024, whatever it is, save it as that. And that way you get it. Mention the big stuff. As I said, go around and then save it there. Just open every cabinet, every door. Don't forget the storage things up in the attic, down in the basement, out in the shed, go through your tools.

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[00:05:03] Eric Goranson: I have lost stuff before. It was probably 15 years ago. I pulled up in front of my rental house. I was in and somebody had pulled up with a truck and drugged the garage door off the front of the building in Seattle. And I lost all my tools in for a year. I'd go in my toolbox and go, Oh, I forgot I had that.

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[00:05:43] Eric Goranson: That's a good annual event. Go through and just take inventory and that way you've got it. It'll save you in the long run, especially if you have any kind of a theft, cause you can go back through it and go, Oh, where is that? And that'll help you out. All right. Next on the list here, are you measuring [00:06:00] humidity in your home?

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[00:06:28] Eric Goranson: So here's what you can do. You can get portable ones to go around. One of the easiest ways is to go get for 30 or 40 bucks. One of those weather stations. That you'd put on your kitchen counter and put this sensor outside. That gives you two sensors. So now you can move that around your house, put one in the basement, put one in a crawl space wherever, and you can modify that and move it around wherever you need to, because here's the thing.

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[00:07:14] Eric Goranson: It could be in one corner of the basement. But if you're not watching that humidity, you can have a problem. Now, certain areas have higher humidity, but it might not be that humid outside, but you could have a water leak or you could have a moisture issue that's raising that humidity and causing that problem.

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[00:07:52] Eric Goranson: So that's an important one right there. So there you go. That's a big one. Next on the list here. When was the last time you had [00:08:00] your HVAC system serviced? I want to say if you've got an HVAC system, you should have somebody coming out at least once a year. If it's new, if it's old, here's the thing, they can look at capacitors on your air conditioner.

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[00:08:39] Eric Goranson: If you're not changing the oil, that kind of thing, that maintenance will get you. So make sure that you've got that annual maintenance going. If you're in an area where you have a lot of heat and a lot of cooling, I would have it done every six months. You can have the heating system checked, have the cooling system checked.

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[00:09:14] Eric Goranson: So you want to make sure you're on it. And that way that service gets done because you want to extend this out as long as you can. Because systems are expensive right now, as you can spend 15 to 20, 000 bucks pretty quickly on a high efficiency system. And if you could hold that off for a little bit until interest rates get better or the economy gets a little better, that's going to save you some serious money, which I like.

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[00:09:56] Eric Goranson: So many people with[00:10:00]

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[00:10:28] Eric Goranson: So that way you can keep the most of your home. In the last segment, we talked about videotape and all your belongings for insurance purposes, keeping records of that. And are you measuring humidity in your home? And if you had your HVAC serviced this year, next on the list here, have you checked your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors to see if they're expired, these things have an expiration date on them and they usually say, Hey, they were manufactured here replaced by, but we always say, Hey, check the batteries, something we don't do that as [00:11:00] often anymore.

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[00:11:22] Eric Goranson: It's like milk. You want to make sure those things are dialed in, ready to go. Now, if you have those ones that give you the phantom settings and all that weird stuff where it goes beep and makes weird stuff, or you take a shower and somebody opens a bathroom door and it sets it off with steam, there are some smarter options out there.

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[00:11:59] Eric Goranson: And then [00:12:00] it will warn me that it's going to go off, Hey, smoke detected in the kitchen area. And then I can grab it on my app and mute it. So. The other thing with that too, that's really cool is if you're outside of the house and you're out running around and it's smoke and carbon monoxide detector goes off, it'll tell you whether you're at home or not.

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[00:12:36] Eric Goranson: Every time I bring this up, I will have a couple of messages saying that this is a scam, that it's some government conspiracy and. I'm a conspiracy junkie. I just don't think this is one of them. And that is, have you had your house checked for radon? I know of way too many people that were never smokers that didn't have a unhealthy lifestyle [00:13:00] and their entire family came down with some kind of lung cancer and guess what?

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[00:13:33] Eric Goranson: They go. Now you could be that you had all of the crawlspace vents open wide up. You could have a great breeze in the air that day in none of the radon that was coming out of the ground, came up into the house. You also could have had it where the HVAC system was working or they had windows. The place was aired out beforehand, whatever, or you'll have [00:14:00] a small earthquake event, like a little 3.

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[00:14:24] Eric Goranson: You can get portable radon detectors if you're really concerned about it. But in my area, there's a lot of areas in the country where radon is a huge issue. And radon is an odorless, colorless gas that's radioactive that comes up from the ground. And pops up through cracks in the earth and gets into your home.

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[00:15:01] Eric Goranson: So that way you're good to go. So check that radon. I recommend it no more than every five years to have it checked. Make sure you're good. It's not that expensive. And have it done that way. You know what you got going that way you're safe. That's an easy way to, uh, check off a box and not have to worry about the cancer risks that come with radon.

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[00:15:48] Eric Goranson: Without having to go to that expense, you can jump online and buy some air quality testing devices out there. There's some great ones and we'll bring her on and talk to her about it one of these days here and talk about it in the show. But if [00:16:00] you sit there and talk about that and start measuring like your PM 2.

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[00:16:31] Eric Goranson: That's upside down under my sink. That'll show up in that air testing. Trust me. Caroline has done air testing before and can look at the test results and go. Wow. You got five or six probably of those handy wipes. The ones that come in a little tub that you have sitting around your house for cleaning up messes with the kids.

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[00:17:10] Eric Goranson: Maybe you need more fresh air. Maybe you need a better filter. Maybe you need an air filter inside the house and all this stuff. It keeps down dust. It keeps down all that particulate matter is the stuff in that sunny day, that's floating around in the area. Oh, look at that stream of light. And you see all the little stuff floating around.

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[00:17:45] Eric Goranson: com. And if you have questions or comments, you can give us a call at 833 239 4144. That number again is 833 239 4144. And if you're listening to this episode between [00:18:00] June 1st, 2024, In July 3rd, 2024, we have a great contest. Where we are giving away an absolutely amazing gift. And this is a prize that is pretty amazing.

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[00:18:31] Eric Goranson: We'll be right back. Don't go anywhere.[00:19:00]

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[00:19:30] Eric Goranson: Or at least make sure that you've got it scheduled and you have it figured out. So this is that list. This isn't our home maintenance checklist. This isn't the fall or the spring version. This is just that one there that really helps you not forget these key items you should be doing around your house.

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[00:20:08] Eric Goranson: Are you measuring humidity or home, making sure that it's not over 60%. Have you had your HVAC system service this year? Have you checked your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detector to see if they're expired? And then have you checked your home for radon? And we just talked about having air quality check.

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[00:20:47] Eric Goranson: And I think it's something that we should always be paying attention to. And it's pretty easy to do a water quality test and send it off. And then what you're working with. And if you're planning on doing any kind of filtration system. If you go, Hey, [00:21:00] I want to reduce the hard water deposits. I want to make sure and put a filter in.

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[00:21:23] Eric Goranson: And you want to see chlorine. Is that an issue? Where is that at? Is your city, county, water company? What is that? Do you have too much chlorine in your water? That's another one. And then, of course, we're not going to get into this. There are systems out there that can remove fluoride and that kind of stuff if that's a concern.

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[00:22:04] Eric Goranson: That's been an issue. And even copper, which is that is. Is a degradation of your pipes. And that can happen as well from the pH being off on the water. So if it's too acidic, it's starting to etch into that copper. That can be a problem. It can really turn around and be a problem that way. And then the, and again, back in that inorganic, it could be salts.

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[00:22:53] Eric Goranson: And that's a really big one right there, including, uh, anything else that could be in the, in that groundwater. [00:23:00] So, uh, I've seen this with wells. I've seen people have high radon levels and it was coming in from their well system. And what happened was, is they were just taken in and they'd go take a steamy shower.

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[00:23:31] Eric Goranson: And those are ones that you have to be really careful of. And so those blooms really, if your water system is doing that, we have had that in the Pacific Northwest here where people like cities are pulling out of mountain lakes, things like that. Of course, you get a hot summer and these toxins come up and all of a sudden they have this algae bloom.

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[00:24:08] Eric Goranson: So that's big right there. Now, the other thing that we're starting to see here with drinking water that I want you to start to pay attention to, and finally the government's getting involved in this is PFAS, which is P F A S. That is that basically a group of human made chemicals found in a lot of different products.

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[00:24:49] Eric Goranson: So there are some new rules out there that the, the EPA is working on, and it's the basically unregulated contaminant monitoring rule that they're coming out with the EPA. [00:25:00] And it's technically, if you want to dive into the weeds on this, it's UCMR 5. So they're trying to understand the frequency of these different, basically 29 substances are found in the nation's drinking water system.

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[00:25:38] Eric Goranson: Do they have one? What's it say? What's in there? And they have to put that out. I think it's a federal mandate. Now they have to go in there and take a look at that, but they put that out and take a look and see what that is. So make sure if you're getting your testing, but here's the problem that's usually done at the city.

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[00:26:11] Eric Goranson: See what it's saying. See what comes up. All of a sudden, what could be one of those things that you're sitting there and you're like, wait a minute, all of a sudden I'm getting water spots. Maybe your softener is not working. Your filter's not working. These are things you want to do to test and make sure that you're looking good.

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[00:26:48] Eric Goranson: Has it been cleaned? All that stuff off season, like we're getting into now, it's not a bad time to have the chimney sweeps out there, making sure that thing's in good condition. Dean, it's a great time of year. If you need to have a [00:27:00] brick repointed up there. And have that dialed in that's important. So really take some time there.

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[00:27:28] Eric Goranson: And you can jump online on Amazon and get one of those devices. It's a fiberglass rod with some brushes on it. You can go through and do this yourself. Uh, what I do is I turn one, I measure the distance between the outside and where the dryer is. So I have an idea and then I'll Mark on the rods, how far that is.

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[00:28:09] Eric Goranson: You can always hire companies to come out and do it. There's plenty of those dryer vent companies out there that do it as well in many big cities, but that's how I would do it and make sure that styled in and clean, and that could prevent a dryer fire. It's gonna be more efficient. If it's all clogged up, your clothes are gonna dry so much faster, and that'll be a big thing right there.

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[00:29:09] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the around the house show, the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. We've been going through my top 10 things you should be doing for your home right now. And uh, we're going to, I'm going to give you these two quickly here and then we're going to go to an interview with my buddy, Tony.

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[00:29:43] Eric Goranson: And what it does is it monitors your electrical system in your home, and it can actually prevent a fire in many insurance companies are giving these away. Why go out and spend a few hundred bucks in the membership fees on those? When you can have an insurance company pay for it. You can look that up, uh, tingfire.

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[00:30:19] Eric Goranson: And, uh, he is also an insurance expert. Now let's go out here to Tony. You got my buddy, Tony Russell insurance. Welcome to around the house, my friend. Thank you, Eric. It's good to be here. Good to see you again. I great to see you, buddy. You and I used to work in the same building doing radio and full disclosure, I leaned on you when I did my insurance because I was buying online.

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[00:31:04] Eric Goranson: So. Everyone needs to be very careful. I would look at, go over your auto insurance with your agent, make sure you're covered. I guarantee state minimums not going to be enough because the price of parts and cars, the price to repair them has skyrocketed. You do not want state minimums, but we're going to talk about homeowners.

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[00:31:50] Eric Goranson: You're a great example, especially when we don't want to talk about too much what you got in your house, but as you can, people have seen it on the show. I've been doing a lot of projects. If you have, [00:32:00] you have nice things, right? And so if I drove by your home. Or if you stood outside your home, you'd put a value on it.

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[00:32:27] Eric Goranson: Once we added that. And what people don't understand, going back to the cars, like when you buy a car and you add a big tires and you add the roll bars and you add all these nice things, that's not covered if you're total your vehicle, unless you let the agent know and they add those things to your policy.

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[00:33:04] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Yeah. Ah, and it's interesting. I learned this the hard way a number of years ago and I had, I was living in Seattle at the time and single guy, single dad, raising two kids and. And all of a sudden I come home and 1920s house with kind of the barn style garage doors, right? And my garage doors are sitting in my driveway because somebody hooked a chain to it Off the building.

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[00:33:51] Eric Goranson: And that was tough. It is. And that's why that's, I understand going online and buying things. It's quick, it's simple, but when it comes to your home, your autos, you want [00:34:00] someone who's going to ask you the right question. It's like going on WebMD to diagnose your problem and saying, Oh, I must have a strep throat because that's what MD WebMD says.

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[00:34:27] Eric Goranson: And so you need to know that. Cause again. If the house is total and you only have on there that you had a back patio, the deck's not covered. And so you need to know those things. The big thing to remember right now, and I know if you've looked at your most recent renewal on your homeowners in the last six months, probably shocked.

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[00:35:17] Eric Goranson: Because the land's going to say, so you're, you're not, it's not based on the value of like your real estate agent comes and they appraise everything. As an agent, we're just, as an insurance agent, we're just looking at the structure itself. How is it designed? Is it custom built? That's a big one, right?

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[00:35:58] Eric Goranson: And now you're trying to build that to [00:36:00] current 2023 building code. And some of those materials that you wanted to put back in there were very expensive compared to what they were 50, 60, 70 years ago. That's up quick. And you need to make sure that you've got that covered versus just building a spec house back on the same lot.

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[00:36:36] Eric Goranson: Most are not, but you want to make sure you get them, you get it built back as close as they will get it for you. Absolutely. And the same goes for people out there that are apartments that are maybe wanting to be homeowners out there. My daughter, I gave her a big speech about making sure that she had a renter's insurance because she's a new renter.

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[00:37:11] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. One client, a teenage daughter was burning a candle. In her apartment in the apartment, they had a three bedroom apartment, two or three bedroom. One of the daughters was just burning the candle, caught the drapes on fire, the whole burned the room. Luckily they had sprinklers, which is a discount by the way, on your insurance.

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[00:37:55] Eric Goranson: That's what they paid for that 15 bucks a month. Yeah, and you can't go through [00:38:00] drive through for 2 people and get a meal. No, and people always underestimate how much they have in personal property. So I try to go minimum with maybe a couple living in. Uh, a home or so a minimum of 75, 000. It may sound like a lot to people.

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[00:38:36] Eric Goranson: What that means you want to make sure you ask the agent, are you going to replace that big screen TV? As if it's new or at a depreciated value. If somebody wants to talk to you, how do they track you down? My friend, they can go to Tony at Tony Russell, insurance. com. Email me right there. Or. Tony Russell, insurance.

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[00:39:17] Eric Goranson: So you're good, brother. You appreciate it, Tony. Hey man, thanks for being my insurance expert. I wanted to bring you on just to talk about this stuff. Cause I think it's important for everybody out there, whether you're a homeowner or a renter. Yeah, Eric, it's always good to see you. I love what you're doing and congratulations on your huge success.

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[00:39:44] Eric Goranson: house.