Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp, The
Speaker 1: House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: Here we go.
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to home, where every week we help you better
Speaker 1: understand that place where you live. I am Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: the House Whisper, or custom home Builder, custom home designer,
Speaker 1: and your guide to turning your ordinary house into an
Speaker 1: extraordinary home. Whether you are listening to us on the
Speaker 1: local broadcast right here in southern California, or streaming us
Speaker 1: digitally from wherever across the globe, here or anywhere else,
Speaker 1: or if you joined in for another episode of The
Speaker 1: House Whisper on demand podcast, I am just so very
Speaker 1: glad that you are here. We are doing an all
Speaker 1: calls weekend and nothing but your calls today, and I
Speaker 1: want to get back to the phone so we can
Speaker 1: get as many calls in as possible. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to Nishe Niche. Welcome home.
Speaker 3: I have a situation going on with my front lawn.
Speaker 3: It hasn't worked its way to the backyard yet, hopefully
Speaker 3: it doesn't. I have this statching going on. I'm not sure,
Speaker 3: like what it is. I've been told it's possums. I've
Speaker 3: been told it's raccoons. It's like, I go out and
Speaker 3: all my grass has been ripped up, and I'm getting
Speaker 3: these false spots in the lawn and I am not
Speaker 3: sure how to make.
Speaker 1: It go away, premature balding of the lawn. Have you
Speaker 1: have you done any surveillance so.
Speaker 3: I do have cameras, and I have not I've never
Speaker 3: noticed any creatures roaming around.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, kind I kind of figured that was
Speaker 1: the case. Yeah, you know, a lot of people blame
Speaker 1: possum and raccoons for messing up lawns. But you know,
Speaker 1: as if they just get come out in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night with their shovels and just decide, you
Speaker 1: know what, let's get under her skin and just take
Speaker 1: some of this lawn away, it really doesn't happen that way.
Speaker 1: It's more likely, you know, like the only larger mammal
Speaker 1: that really terrorizes lawns on a regular basis are you know,
Speaker 1: like gophers and prairie dogs, those kinds of things that
Speaker 1: come up from underneath and leave little mounds of dirt,
Speaker 1: and those are easy to identify because they've left behind
Speaker 1: the dirt from the tunnel that they've dug. But by
Speaker 1: and large, you know, I don't know. There's a handful
Speaker 1: of causes for balding lawn areas. It could be heavy
Speaker 1: foot traffic, but obviously that doesn't sound like it's a situation.
Speaker 1: Could be poor soil condition that is starting to kind
Speaker 1: of spread. That's a possibility, of course, your classic the
Speaker 1: neighbor's dogs are peeing on your lawn, But that use
Speaker 1: starts with a noticeable yellow patch first. But when you
Speaker 1: just find that there's bare soil in the lawn, I
Speaker 1: have found, generally speaking that it's a grub infestation. And
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, Cross, what is that. It's very simple.
Speaker 1: There are little, tiny little beetles out there that are
Speaker 1: all around us, and there are some species that like to,
Speaker 1: you know, lay their eggs in the soil of our
Speaker 1: lawns because they're nicely protected areas. And then as the
Speaker 1: grubs start to hatch, the little grub beetles, they're feeding
Speaker 1: on the roots of our grass and as a result
Speaker 1: of these bald patches start to occur. So it could
Speaker 1: be any one of those issues. I mean, you could
Speaker 1: have like a fungal disease or a chemical burn. But
Speaker 1: I'm putting my money on grubs because by and large
Speaker 1: that's my experience with this. Fortunately, it's not that difficult
Speaker 1: to deal with. What you do is, first of all,
Speaker 1: you go get some grub treatment and you will find
Speaker 1: that on the shelf of just about every garden center everywhere.
Speaker 1: That you mix into the soil, and that gets the
Speaker 1: grubs under control. They're not spreading everywhere, They're just where
Speaker 1: the bald patches are.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And you rough up the soil, add a little amendment
Speaker 1: to it, figure out what kind of grass you actually have,
Speaker 1: add some seed, keep it moist, and you'll grow the
Speaker 1: grass back.
Speaker 3: Okay, So add the grub killer and this and fertilizer
Speaker 3: at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, good to know. And then you need
Speaker 1: to reseed that area and keep it extra moist and
Speaker 1: you know, give the give the new seeds a shot
Speaker 1: the best fighting chance possible.
Speaker 3: Okay, what do you suggest for watering times? I'm always
Speaker 3: confused on that.
Speaker 1: Well, for watering times for a lawn in southern California,
Speaker 1: it all depends on the efficiency of your sprinklers. But
Speaker 1: not too long, you know, I mean, most lawns can
Speaker 1: will water down with good sprinkler system in a half
Speaker 1: hour or so. It also has to do with your
Speaker 1: soil condition, whether you've got clay or you know, rocky
Speaker 1: soil or sandy soil. In other words, how well how
Speaker 1: well your soil holds on to the moisture that's given
Speaker 1: to it. But here's a general rule. There are some
Speaker 1: guides out there that you can look up and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got this kind of grass and this kind of lawn.
Speaker 1: I live in southern California. How long should I be
Speaker 1: watering my lawn with decent sprinkler coverage? And then what
Speaker 1: I like to do? And I think this is just
Speaker 1: the most efficient, most effective ways I like to break
Speaker 1: that up. So let's say, in fact, my smart watering
Speaker 1: system does that if forty minutes is the amount of
Speaker 1: time that an area needs to be irrigated, then my
Speaker 1: smart watering system will break that up into you know,
Speaker 1: three twenty minute sessions that are about a half an
Speaker 1: hour apart, so that we water a little bit, we
Speaker 1: let that soak in fully and become fully effective, and
Speaker 1: then we water again, and then you know, you understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, So breaking it up into two or
Speaker 1: three cycles. And always here in southern California, in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night. Okay, not in the early morning
Speaker 1: when everybody can see the sprinkler's going off. Not during
Speaker 1: daylight hours. And the very simple reason is that sun
Speaker 1: evaporates water. I want all the water going into your soil. Now,
Speaker 1: this is not true if you live back east or
Speaker 1: you live somewhere where it's much colder and much wetter,
Speaker 1: because there, we want a water during daylight hours so
Speaker 1: that we're not building up too much water content and
Speaker 1: creating mold and fungal growth and all of that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But not here in southern California. No one
Speaker 1: in Southern California should ever see your sprinklers going off
Speaker 1: unless they're up in the middle of the night. That's
Speaker 1: how we take most efficient youth of our water. I
Speaker 1: want it all in the soil and so it's doing
Speaker 1: its job fully and effectively. Nishe, thanks for the call.
Speaker 1: Go check that out, check out your watering times, and
Speaker 1: go check out the grub treatments that you'll find at
Speaker 1: the garden center, and also figure out what kind of
Speaker 1: grass you've got and buy that receding mix so that
Speaker 1: Once you get the grubs under control, then you know
Speaker 1: you can grow in those patches. It's not a terminal situation.
Speaker 1: You can fix it. I promise when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll get to more of your calls. This is Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: the House Whisper on KFI. Welcome to Home, where every
Speaker 1: week we help you better understand that place where you live.
Speaker 1: I'm Dean Sharp, the House Whisper here with you live
Speaker 1: like I am every weekend, or whether you are listening
Speaker 1: to the local broadcast right here in southern California, or
Speaker 1: you're streaming us live from across the country, or if
Speaker 1: you have joined in for another episode of the House
Speaker 1: Whisper podcast. I am just glad that you are here
Speaker 1: with us. Good morning to you, and welcome home. We
Speaker 1: are doing an all calls weekend. Hey Wayne, welcome home.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Thanks.
Speaker 4: Got a question.
Speaker 2: I me a total house rebuild, and in the rebuild,
Speaker 2: the guys doing insallation put in ceiling which I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if I should call them on it or not.
Speaker 2: There's a vaulted ceiling in the house, but the bedrooms
Speaker 2: and kitchen are all lower I mean eight foot ceilings,
Speaker 2: and they put insulation in the ceilings of all the
Speaker 2: rooms except the kitchen, where they put it in the
Speaker 2: rafters by the roof instead. Is that a problem?
Speaker 4: Does that affect heating and.
Speaker 2: Cooling or what?
Speaker 1: Okay? So the ceiling in the kitchen is an eight
Speaker 1: foot ceiling. Yeah, so they didn't put the insulation in
Speaker 1: the ceiling. They put it up in the rafters. Did
Speaker 1: they explain why?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Okay? And that air the area directly above the kitchen,
Speaker 1: that area of attic, does it connect to other areas
Speaker 1: of attic open attic space?
Speaker 2: The attic is all connected, yeah, connected all across the bedrooms,
Speaker 2: in the kitchen, it's all like attic area.
Speaker 1: All right. So if I crawl through the attic or
Speaker 1: walk through the attic, whatever the case may be, if
Speaker 1: I get up in the attic, then I've got insulation
Speaker 1: down on the floor of the attic until I get
Speaker 1: over the kitchen then and all of a sudden it's
Speaker 1: up above in the roof rafter. Right, you're correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not that's not cool. Oh what is that effect?
Speaker 2: How does that change things?
Speaker 1: Well, what it is is that your attic is an
Speaker 1: unconditioned space. Okay. The whole reason we're insulating on the
Speaker 1: surface of the ceiling. Is that we want to keep
Speaker 1: the conditioned space, the conditioned air, meaning whatever we've heated
Speaker 1: or whatever we've cooled in the house. We want to
Speaker 1: keep those temperatures there, okay, and so and not in
Speaker 1: the attic. We don't share conditioned temperatures, can you know,
Speaker 1: controlled temperatures with the attic space. It's it's cut off.
Speaker 1: It's a separate space. It's technically kind of outside the
Speaker 1: house in essence, So we need that diaphragm of insulation
Speaker 1: to be complete over the whole thing. And so as
Speaker 1: it is right now, That's why I asked if it
Speaker 1: was if it's been isolated in the attic with other
Speaker 1: walls and things in the attic, then if the if
Speaker 1: the kitchen area or the area above the kitchen is
Speaker 1: isolated from the rest of the attic space, then that
Speaker 1: could be fine because what we ultimately need is insulation
Speaker 1: above the kitchen. But the fact that the kitchen ceiling
Speaker 1: has that that heat and cool that's down below in
Speaker 1: there can just soak right through unimpeded by insulation into
Speaker 1: the attic and vice versa. It's essentially it's a hole.
Speaker 1: It's a hole in your insulation, and so so that
Speaker 1: insulation needs to be down over the kitchen ceiling as well, period,
Speaker 1: because you need a blanket of insulation that seals up
Speaker 1: the house. So it's kind of a hole in the
Speaker 1: hull of the boat. The fact that the insulation is
Speaker 1: up in the in the rafter space above the kitchen,
Speaker 1: that's meaningless that it's not doing anything up there. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's just it's literally not doing anything. It needs to
Speaker 1: be down on the surface with the rest of the
Speaker 1: insulation in the act.
Speaker 4: Good.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks, I'll get them.
Speaker 1: The change, get them on it. Thanks Wayne, great question, Bertie,
Speaker 1: Doctor Richard, Hey Richard, welcome home.
Speaker 2: Good morning.
Speaker 4: I just had a question on whether the foundations that
Speaker 4: are left after a home fire can be reused.
Speaker 1: That is a really really good question. Is that just
Speaker 1: a curiosity or do you have a foundation that is
Speaker 1: in question yourself.
Speaker 4: It's a curiosity professional and personal.
Speaker 1: There are always exceptions to every rule, so I'll just
Speaker 1: start by saying that, and there is a I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are a handful of foundations out there that might
Speaker 1: be salvaged from this disaster, even though the house above
Speaker 1: them was burnt to the ground. However, I think the
Speaker 1: proper expectation is that to know the foundations underneath the
Speaker 1: house when it has burnt to the ground, especially in
Speaker 1: a mass fire event like this, are very very likely
Speaker 1: not going to be saved. And there's a couple of
Speaker 1: reasons why. Number one, there is no it's not It
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the fact that you know
Speaker 1: they didn't catch on fire. But if you take a
Speaker 1: look at concrete, concrete is actually not affected by flame
Speaker 1: per se, but concrete is affected by high heat. And
Speaker 1: when an entire house is burning to the point where
Speaker 1: it's all coming down, the heat inside that zone is intense.
Speaker 1: You know, fifteen hundred degrees plus is easily easily achieved.
Speaker 1: And when you think about the components of concrete, concrete
Speaker 1: is a is a recipe. It is a cement that
Speaker 1: is the actual you know, adhesive binder in concrete cement
Speaker 1: portland cement. And then you've got large aggregates like gravel
Speaker 1: three quarter inch gravel and sand and it's the sand
Speaker 1: inside the concrete that at high temperatures turns to glass.
Speaker 1: As we all know, if you melt sand down you
Speaker 1: can turn it to glass. So there is a there's
Speaker 1: a process that when concrete is exposed to stream heat,
Speaker 1: in which the concrete actually becomes siliconized. It actually, even
Speaker 1: though it looks the same as it did before, it
Speaker 1: has actually changed its chemical structure and it's become more brittle.
Speaker 1: The sand, which originally was a fine aggregate inside the cement,
Speaker 1: is now a glassy component inside the cement. So that's
Speaker 1: one reason why a lot of the foundations, most I
Speaker 1: would say, of the foundations in the houses that are
Speaker 1: burnt down, are not going to be reusable. And the
Speaker 1: second reason is that under again that high heat, any
Speaker 1: lines of value that are running underneath that concrete, like
Speaker 1: plastic abs, drain lines coming off of toilets and sinks
Speaker 1: and so on, any electrical lines, even though the conduits
Speaker 1: themselves probably were unaffected, but those conduits heat up, the
Speaker 1: conductor inside those conduits will absolutely have to be tested
Speaker 1: and replaced. And the chances are the damage of the
Speaker 1: lines that are running underneath the slab are such that
Speaker 1: we'd have to even if the slab was in perfect shape,
Speaker 1: we'd have to saw cut the slab open in order
Speaker 1: to run new lines, or we wouldn't be yanking out
Speaker 1: the old ones, we'd just be running new lines, And
Speaker 1: by the time we have dealt with the fact that
Speaker 1: the slab has changed its chemical composition somewhat and we've
Speaker 1: got to make a lot of saw cuts in it
Speaker 1: in order to get new drain lines or pull old
Speaker 1: ones out of the way. Now we've pretty much messed
Speaker 1: up this slab in extremes. So that's why I'm saying,
Speaker 1: by and large, it will be more cost effective and
Speaker 1: wiser from a structural perspective to just pull most of
Speaker 1: those slabs, scrape the lot, and restart from new. Does
Speaker 1: that help understand the situation?
Speaker 4: Certainly does?
Speaker 1: All right, Richard, thank you for your call, sir, how
Speaker 1: about some more of your calls when we return. You
Speaker 1: are listening to Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Speaker 5: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 5: KFI AM six forty, camp I.
Speaker 1: AM sixty and live streaming in HD everywhere on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. Hey, welcome to home where Every week we
Speaker 1: help you better understand that place where you live. I
Speaker 1: am Dean Sharp, the house Whisper, custom home builder, custom
Speaker 1: home designer. Most importantly, today, your guide to turning your
Speaker 1: ordinary house into something truly extraordinary. I tell you what
Speaker 1: we're doing today. It's an all calls day. It is it.
Speaker 1: You set the agenda. Anything that is going on with
Speaker 1: your home, whether it be construction issues, DIY questions, design concerns,
Speaker 1: anything at all. The phone lines are open. I am
Speaker 1: here to help you sort it all out. We'll put
Speaker 1: our heads together and we'll get it sorted. I promised.
Speaker 1: Here is the number to reach me, and these lines
Speaker 1: are open now. The number to reach me eight three
Speaker 1: three two. Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean.
Speaker 1: You see it just rolls off the tongue on that note.
Speaker 1: How about we go to it. We're going to take
Speaker 1: some calls. Anything you want to talk about, so let's
Speaker 1: get to it. I want to talk to Ginger. Ginger,
Speaker 1: welcome home.
Speaker 6: I have a question about the attic area in my home.
Speaker 3: My home has a little.
Speaker 6: Entry to the attic in the area between the two
Speaker 6: front bedrooms. There's a little opening there, and I have
Speaker 6: to get a ladder to climb up and get up
Speaker 6: into the attic.
Speaker 4: Through that section.
Speaker 6: The section that is connected to the kitchen area is
Speaker 6: all four and I can put things up there and
Speaker 6: store things there. But the whole other section of the
Speaker 6: house the entire complete attic area is just covered with
Speaker 6: the foam insulation thing. And when I have made my
Speaker 6: way up into that little opening that's in the hallway
Speaker 6: between the bedrooms, it's dark and there's nothing but foam insulation.
Speaker 6: And I was wondering if it's okay for me to
Speaker 6: try and put down flooring up there so that I
Speaker 6: could get up there and do something with the space
Speaker 6: without having to have a license or fees that I
Speaker 6: have to pay with the city and things like that. Also,
Speaker 6: at one point in time, I had seen these ingenious
Speaker 6: little slats that are like roll They're like rolls that
Speaker 6: you roll out and they're slack that end up being
Speaker 6: a floor. And I don't know if they're still around anywhere,
Speaker 6: but if they are, I wondered if you were aware
Speaker 6: of them and if that would be something I could do.
Speaker 1: Okay, So a lot of pack, a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: packed into those questions there. I am going to disappoint
Speaker 1: you on on a couple of levels, but let me
Speaker 1: start with a positive one. Yeah, I've seen those slats.
Speaker 1: Those are great. Uh, they're basically roll mats. They're they're
Speaker 1: rigid roll mats and they can come in they can
Speaker 1: come in handy in a lot of situations. Okay, so
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with them. There's they're out there around
Speaker 1: you probably find them on Amazon these days or other
Speaker 1: places like that. Here's the thing, Ginger, everybody wants to
Speaker 1: utilize as much attic space as possible these days for
Speaker 1: storage and stuff like that. I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: I totally totally understand that. However, our homes and and
Speaker 1: and where where is it that you live, Ginger out
Speaker 1: and see me Valley. Okay, so our homes in southern California,
Speaker 1: buy and large are not designed for addicts to be
Speaker 1: a part. I mentioned this earlier in the show, to
Speaker 1: be a part of the conditioned air space of the house.
Speaker 1: That means that insulation, a nice thick layer of insulation
Speaker 1: fiberglass or cellulose insulation, whether it's rolled bats or whether
Speaker 1: it's blown in, but a nice thick layer equivalent to
Speaker 1: R thirty for energy savings and all of that air
Speaker 1: conditioning expanse, heating expense and the like your general comfort
Speaker 1: in the home. R thirty is what we're shooting for
Speaker 1: in the attic. And that's thick. That's thick stuff. When
Speaker 1: people go up into their attics and make platforms, in
Speaker 1: other words, create an area of flooring. I don't have
Speaker 1: any big issue with that, okay, but just got to
Speaker 1: understand every square foot of flooring that you create up
Speaker 1: in your attic space for storage, you are squishing down
Speaker 1: and minimizeing, and you're reducing your attic insulation below the
Speaker 1: line of what where the bar should be set. Okay,
Speaker 1: because if you've got I'm gonna guess in SeeMe Valley
Speaker 1: tracked home in seem Valley, if we've got two by
Speaker 1: six ceiling joists running across the room, six inches or
Speaker 1: five and a half inches of space for insulation is
Speaker 1: not enough to reach that R thirty marker. So if
Speaker 1: we've squished it down because we've put plywood up there
Speaker 1: for storage, now you know, a few square feet fine,
Speaker 1: you know who's gonna know the difference. You probably won't
Speaker 1: notice the difference. But the more you do that up
Speaker 1: in your attic, the more of that area that you
Speaker 1: squish down and minimize that insulation, then the more compromised
Speaker 1: insulation wise your home becomes. And just to add on
Speaker 1: to that, some people will go overboard when it comes
Speaker 1: to the amount of storage up there. Some people even say, well,
Speaker 1: my roof is high enough, I could make a room
Speaker 1: up there. Well, that's debatable because if it was never
Speaker 1: designed to have human habitation up in there, then there's
Speaker 1: also a very distinct chance that the ceiling joists themselves
Speaker 1: are not floor joist rated. They're just ceiling joist rated.
Speaker 1: They're not designed to support a tremendous amount of hundreds
Speaker 1: or thousands of pounds of weight. So my answer to
Speaker 1: the question is a qualified Sure, you could add a
Speaker 1: little bit of storage area up in an attic, but no,
Speaker 1: that every time you do it, we are compromising the
Speaker 1: insulation of the house. And that most Southern California single
Speaker 1: story homes, well it's second story homes too, It doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter. Most attics in southern California are not designed
Speaker 1: to be load bearing in any significant sense or insulation
Speaker 1: compromised attic space when you put a platform up there.
Speaker 1: So that's my concern. My concern about accessing the attic
Speaker 1: in that way is that we run the risk of
Speaker 1: messing up the thermal continuity of the house, and you
Speaker 1: can overload an attic, and that's not a good thing
Speaker 1: as well. Now, can it be done? Of course, I
Speaker 1: was just saying before the break, anything can be done.
Speaker 1: If you are so committed to storage in a certain
Speaker 1: area of your attic and you want to preserve the
Speaker 1: insulated quality, then you could spill that area underneath the
Speaker 1: platform with rigid insulation. It's going to be more expensive,
Speaker 1: rigid insulation that compensates for the loss of the loft
Speaker 1: of the fluffy stuff basically, but that's more expensive, and
Speaker 1: it's very intentional. And if we're really starting to put
Speaker 1: lots of load up there, then we need to talk
Speaker 1: to an engineer about whether the kind of stuff we
Speaker 1: want to store up there is actually going to be
Speaker 1: well supported by the house, or if it's going to
Speaker 1: put too much of a load on those poor little
Speaker 1: ceiling joyces whose job originally was just to hold some
Speaker 1: insulation and hold up the drywall on the lid of
Speaker 1: the ceiling. That's the best I can tell you, side
Speaker 1: unseeing Ginger, So think those things through and then make
Speaker 1: decisions accordingly. And thank you so much for your call.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you joined me this morning. Hang tight,
Speaker 1: there is more to come. You're listening to Home with
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp the house whisper camp. I am six forty
Speaker 1: and live streaming in HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to home, where every week we help you better
Speaker 1: understand that place where you live. I am Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: the house whisper, custom home builder, custom home designer. Most importantly, today,
Speaker 1: your guide to turning your ordinary house into something truly extraordinary.
Speaker 1: We are doing an all calls. We nothing but your
Speaker 1: calls today, and I want to get back to the
Speaker 1: phone so we can get as many calls in as possible.
Speaker 1: Let's talk to Sally. Hey, Sally, welcome home.
Speaker 4: I have a question about my nineteen fifty seven back home,
Speaker 4: and I keep getting these letters in the mail from
Speaker 4: I think the gas company asking me if I want
Speaker 4: insurance from my gas and sewer lines that go from
Speaker 4: my home to the street. Yeah, And I just want
Speaker 4: to know is that I mean I kind of worry
Speaker 4: about the sewer line, the gas line. I never even
Speaker 4: gave a second bot to being the age of my
Speaker 4: house and have no idea what kind of pipes it has. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So yeah, you know, I think everybody is a
Speaker 1: really good question, because I'm pretty sure everybody in southern
Speaker 1: California has consistently received those letters. Now, I mean we
Speaker 1: get them. I don't know how how often do we
Speaker 1: get a letter from the gas company, Tina saying do
Speaker 1: you want insurance on the exterior lines? Like it once
Speaker 1: a year, a couple of times anyway. So I think
Speaker 1: they're covering, They're they're reaching out to everybody.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I don't have a definitive answer for you,
Speaker 1: but I can tell you this you just got. It's
Speaker 1: as with all insurance. Uh, you got to read the
Speaker 1: fine print, because my understanding of this situation, it's actually
Speaker 1: not the gas company that's doing the insuring. It is
Speaker 1: a partner company, an insurance company, I believe, so cal
Speaker 1: It's Home Serve is the name of the company that
Speaker 1: is right Home Serve. So they're a mega, mega insurance company.
Speaker 1: And uh and and it's in it's inexpensive. I think
Speaker 1: it's just a few dollars a month, Okay, So you know,
Speaker 1: weigh that against whether or not you know there are
Speaker 1: enough you know, coverage areas to make it worth your while.
Speaker 1: And what I mean is, as with all insurance policies,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to homeowner insurance of any sort whatsoever,
Speaker 1: usually the list of exclusions is like four times as
Speaker 1: long as the list of coverage. Okay, and so, and
Speaker 1: that's the thing. So I'll tell you this, and now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna by saying this, I'm gonna lose any potential
Speaker 1: endorsement from the gas company. So this call is costing
Speaker 1: me money, Sally.
Speaker 4: That's all here.
Speaker 1: Uh, we have not opted to do it at our home.
Speaker 1: And it's not just because well you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: builder and I know how to do it. It's not
Speaker 1: about that. It's just that I found for us that
Speaker 1: the list of exclusions, I mean, it just went on
Speaker 1: and on and on and on as far as like
Speaker 1: acts of God, flood fire, this, that nothing gets covered
Speaker 1: nuclear war like like I would be concerned about my
Speaker 1: sure lye after the nuclear bomb goes off. But but
Speaker 1: the point, so, so, all I can tell you is
Speaker 1: we did not pick up that coverage. And personally, that
Speaker 1: was our own personal decision. I'm not saying it's a ripoff.
Speaker 1: I'm simply saying that everybody has to evaluate their own
Speaker 1: situation and and read the fine print because at some point, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, what's left over after the list of exclusions,
Speaker 1: that's what you have to evaluate. What are the odds
Speaker 1: of this happening to me in just this way so
Speaker 1: that this gets covered and otherwise, you know, And isn't
Speaker 1: that all insurance really? I mean, all insurance is essentially
Speaker 1: a gamble. It's a pull of the of the slot
Speaker 1: machine wheel, like gee, I for the money I put in,
Speaker 1: I hope the disaster that happens is the is the
Speaker 1: one that's covered.
Speaker 4: So so.
Speaker 1: That's the best I can tell you is just read it,
Speaker 1: read the fine print, check the exclusions, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll find the six bucks a month is you know,
Speaker 1: no big deal. And yeah, why not? Why not?
Speaker 4: A guy come by about ten years ago, two guys
Speaker 4: come by and oh, they were going to replace my
Speaker 4: my sewer line. It was like fifteen thousand dollars or something.
Speaker 4: I thought, holy crap. You know, I'm not that far
Speaker 4: away from the street.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I will say maybe insurance is good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll tell you this. Uh, you know, replacing
Speaker 1: a sewer line is no joke. It's no joke because
Speaker 1: they go deep. You got to cut through your yard.
Speaker 1: You know. Maybe for a lot of people you end up,
Speaker 1: you know, cutting through a driveway. You know, depending on
Speaker 1: where it is and how it's running. And what material.
Speaker 1: I mean, there were still homes out there with clay
Speaker 1: sewer lines that are just begging to shut down at
Speaker 1: any moment today. Yeah, wow, what do you have to do? Though?
Speaker 1: Here's the I mean, I'll put I'll put a bright
Speaker 1: spin on it. Here's the nice thing about having to
Speaker 1: make an insurance decision about that kind of stuff. You
Speaker 1: should take it as an opportunity to figure out exactly
Speaker 1: where all of this stuff is in your yard, okay,
Speaker 1: what it's made out of, and where it goes. And
Speaker 1: I will tell you this. If I asked one hundred
Speaker 1: listeners right now where their sewer line leaves their house
Speaker 1: and joins up with the street, I'm thinking that I'm
Speaker 1: going to get seventy homeowners saying oh uh uh. And
Speaker 1: that's something you should just you should you should know,
Speaker 1: you should know, and you know what. One of the
Speaker 1: ways that you can do that is by calling a
Speaker 1: service like dig Alert, by calling eight one one, and
Speaker 1: they'll come out in the three days, no less than
Speaker 1: no more than three days from your call, maybe with
Speaker 1: the exception of Christmas week, and they will flag and
Speaker 1: locate all the stuff that's buried in your yard for free. Okay.
Speaker 1: So no, no, kiddie. This is they beg you to
Speaker 1: do it because if you're about to dig in your yard,
Speaker 1: they don't want you hitting gas lines, sewer lines, they
Speaker 1: don't want you hitting public utility lines that happened across
Speaker 1: your property and you didn't know it. They don't want
Speaker 1: you disrupting the neighborhood's cable service and all of that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So these companies, all of these utilities,
Speaker 1: they pay at their cost to be a part of
Speaker 1: the dig Alert program. And so and you don't have
Speaker 1: to justify, you don't have to show them a building
Speaker 1: permit and you say, listen, I'm planning on having work
Speaker 1: done in my yard. In your case, it's an emergency
Speaker 1: sewer repair in the future, and they will simply notify
Speaker 1: all of the utilities. They do a scan on your
Speaker 1: property public records, and they'll notify all the utilities and
Speaker 1: cable providers and all of that, and they'll all be
Speaker 1: out and they'll put little flags in the yard this
Speaker 1: is where the sewer is, this is where this is,
Speaker 1: and you can start to learn and see. So that way,
Speaker 1: my point is you can evaluate, like, wow, does my
Speaker 1: sewer line run on uneath my driveway or is it
Speaker 1: in a place where if I had to replace it
Speaker 1: it wouldn't completely tear up my yard for tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. That kind of stuff. Everybody should know that.
Speaker 1: But getting back, and I got to run here because
Speaker 1: we're right at the top of the hour, Sally, But
Speaker 1: such a great question, and again just you know, it's
Speaker 1: after all the exclusions, does the insurance cover enough of
Speaker 1: real life potential circumstances to be worth the you know,
Speaker 1: few bucks a month that you're going to pay for
Speaker 1: And then that's the best advice I can ray.
Speaker 4: Excellent advice. And thank you for the eight one one number.
Speaker 1: And you're very very welcome. Thanks Sally for the call.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper
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