Speaker 1: Let's say good morning now to the host of Home
Speaker 1: on KFI our house, whisper Dean Sharp. Welcome back from vacation.
Speaker 2: Dean, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Ah, you're welcome. So today we're talking about like cool,
Speaker 1: new futuristic things that you can get for your house,
Speaker 1: not in the future, but right now here in the present.
Speaker 2: This is true. This is true. Every year or so
Speaker 2: I try and set aside at least a couple of
Speaker 2: shows and we talk about new stuff that's out there
Speaker 2: that really could change the game, as it were, when
Speaker 2: it comes to your home or home building or some
Speaker 2: aspect of home. And we've got a really cool list
Speaker 2: this year.
Speaker 1: All right, so give us, give us a couple of
Speaker 1: the highlights. It sounds like you're fighting a bit of
Speaker 1: a cold as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I'm a little nasally this morning, so forgive
Speaker 2: me for that. But all right, so right at the
Speaker 2: top of the list. Super wood. What is super wooderwood? Well,
Speaker 2: here's the thing. It's not so much a particular wood,
Speaker 2: but it is a process now that any kind of
Speaker 2: wood can go through that makes it get this stronger
Speaker 2: than steel, eighty percent lighter than equivalent steel, and rot resistant,
Speaker 2: fire resistant, water resistant. It's really kind of an amazing idea.
Speaker 1: Okay, So here's my one question on this, because in
Speaker 1: the wake of the wildfires in La County, they're talking
Speaker 1: about how these all these fire burn areas are toxic
Speaker 1: because the houses are built with thing with chemically you know,
Speaker 1: altered building materials, right, right, So is that does that
Speaker 1: superwood fall into that category?
Speaker 2: Not at all, not at all. It is wood, it
Speaker 2: is in fact, In fact, the strength of superwood doesn't
Speaker 2: come from adding anything to the wood. It comes from
Speaker 2: removing something from the wood. So it goes through a
Speaker 2: little chemical treatment and the chemicals don't stick around. Okay.
Speaker 2: The chemical treatment is the equivalent to the kind of
Speaker 2: tree that we already take wood through to create pulp.
Speaker 2: And what that does is it removes this part of
Speaker 2: the wood that are lignins and what we call hemicellulose,
Speaker 2: which are kind of the carbohydrates and the sugars inside
Speaker 2: the wood. By the way, those are the materials that
Speaker 2: bugs like termites like to eat. Okay, So imagine imagine this.
Speaker 2: Imagine you take a regular piece of wood and you
Speaker 2: let termites just get to it. You know, we've all
Speaker 2: come across it that's got all these tunnels inside it,
Speaker 2: all these voids, spaces where they have just eaten out
Speaker 2: all of the goodness inside this wood. What they've left
Speaker 2: behind are actually the strongest parts of the wood. And
Speaker 2: now we take that after chemically removing those areas, We
Speaker 2: take that kind of spongy, open hollow wood and we
Speaker 2: apply heat and pressure to it to press it down,
Speaker 2: recompress those areas and get them to find to each
Speaker 2: other again the walls of those inner voids. And what
Speaker 2: we end up with is a wood that is unbelievably strong,
Speaker 2: no added chemicals to it whatsoever. It's wood. It's just
Speaker 2: wood that's so cool.
Speaker 1: And is it available now?
Speaker 2: It is available now, just this year, just this year,
Speaker 2: and they're beginning their rollout now because they're talking about
Speaker 2: the possibilities of even creating car body frames, airplane frames,
Speaker 2: and skyscrapers out of this material.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But this year the rollout starts with siding and decking
Speaker 2: materials and then it will move on to structural beams.
Speaker 2: So imagine this. You talk about wildfire areas. Imagine that
Speaker 2: you have an house on the open space edge of
Speaker 2: a wildfire area. Imagine the freedom you have now from
Speaker 2: a design perspective to say, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 2: to put wood siding on my house and it's gonna
Speaker 2: be entirely class A fire rated because super wood burns
Speaker 2: at the same temperature that's stone and brick burn.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, And you're going to talk about more about this,
Speaker 1: and I would love to talk more about this, and
Speaker 1: your list of things is all things that I want
Speaker 1: to find out more about. But we don't have time
Speaker 1: here now, but we will this weekend on Home with
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp, and that is Saturday from six to eight
Speaker 1: and Sunday from nine to noon. And I will be
Speaker 1: particularly tuned into the firefly petunia.
Speaker 2: They glow in the dark.
Speaker 1: It's a petunia that glows in the dark. Yes, and
Speaker 1: there's no radioactivity.
Speaker 2: No no. They've mixed it with a lubinescent mushroom gene
Speaker 2: and now they glow at night.
Speaker 1: That is so cool. All right, Dean Sharp, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Can't wait to listen to your show this
Speaker 1: weekend again. It's a Home on KFI. It's six to
Speaker 1: eight on Saturday morning and nine to noon on Sunday morning.
Speaker 1: Cool things in the future that you can get right
Speaker 1: now in the present.
Speaker 2: We'll see you there, all right.