Speaker 1: Kf I am six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp
Speaker 1: the house Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app. We're
Speaker 1: talking about new stuff today. But guess what's the top
Speaker 1: of the second hour, which means it's time to go
Speaker 1: to the phones. I want to talk to Lee. Is
Speaker 1: it Lee?
Speaker 2: It's Lee?
Speaker 1: Hi?
Speaker 2: Lee?
Speaker 1: How are you welcome home?
Speaker 2: I'm doing okay? You know, I just turned a d
Speaker 2: and I'm living in the three thousand square foot house
Speaker 2: on a big property, and I'm wondering how I'm going
Speaker 2: to be able to deal with this as I age.
Speaker 2: Are there some tips or some rules that you know?
Speaker 2: I'm thinking? Should I be downsizing? I love my house.
Speaker 2: I actually rent out my kid's bedrooms to travelers here
Speaker 2: in town because it helps me and it helps them.
Speaker 2: But it's just getting to be an awful lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can understand that. Okay, Well let's talk about
Speaker 1: let's not you know, let me ask you when you
Speaker 1: say it's getting to be an awful lot, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean the real question of should you downsize or
Speaker 1: how do you handle the home that you love and
Speaker 1: how do you see yourself growing into that home in
Speaker 1: the future, and by the way, congratulations on eighty You
Speaker 1: sound amazing.
Speaker 2: So oh well, thank you.
Speaker 1: And bravo for renting out part of your home to travel.
Speaker 1: I mean, just we need to make a visit over
Speaker 1: to your home. But here's the thing. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's a very very personal issue, and so I would
Speaker 1: love to talk to you about some of the things
Speaker 1: that you can do, but I need to know a
Speaker 1: little bit more what parts of your home are getting
Speaker 1: to be a little much as you say.
Speaker 2: Well, there's just a lot. Well, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: it to keep up. The yard is hard to keep up.
Speaker 2: I haven't ever had a yard service person, and I'm
Speaker 2: not real good at the outdoor stuff. I've never had
Speaker 2: a green some I think I've had. You know, I
Speaker 2: have trees, I have plants, and they do grow, but
Speaker 2: they have to they have to be strong to grow
Speaker 2: in my yard. But I live up in Lompoke, if
Speaker 2: you know where that is, absolutely and yeah, just the
Speaker 2: soil that we have up here makes it a little
Speaker 2: harder to garden when you don't know what you're doing
Speaker 2: and keeping the weeds down and all that. I'm just
Speaker 2: not too sure how to look at everything. My house
Speaker 2: is paid for, my ex and I built it in
Speaker 2: the eighties and it's in good shape and all that.
Speaker 2: It's just it's just a lot of work.
Speaker 1: A lot I get it. Now. Let me ask you
Speaker 1: not to get too personal, but I got to get
Speaker 1: a little bit personal. Would a gardener service or or
Speaker 1: an outside maintenance service is that? Would that? Is that
Speaker 1: something that could be affordable? Could that be in the budget?
Speaker 1: You know where? With where things are at right now?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm wondering if if I got on a lot
Speaker 2: of the services don't seem to do what I think
Speaker 2: they should be doing. I think weed should be pulled
Speaker 2: up and make sure you get the roots, you don't
Speaker 2: just weed whack them. Yeah, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just don't know how to judge some of these
Speaker 2: workers sometimes.
Speaker 1: Understand you and everybody else in the Southern California. One
Speaker 1: of the most rarest things to find in Southern California
Speaker 1: is an actual gardener, not a landscape service, not the
Speaker 1: mow and blow guys, but an actual gardner. All right, Lee,
Speaker 1: I'm finding this fascinating, and I do want to give
Speaker 1: you some suggestions, and I want everybody else to participate
Speaker 1: in that. But we're up against a break. So if
Speaker 1: I have your price, can I pop you on hold
Speaker 1: and we'll come back right after the break.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you?
Speaker 1: All right, you hang tight, my friend, and we're going
Speaker 1: to figure out how to help Lee downsize or at
Speaker 1: least get her arms back around this property. And the
Speaker 1: answer the big question maybe does she let go of
Speaker 1: this home that she has loved for so long and
Speaker 1: move some into something smaller? Or is there a way
Speaker 1: of managing what she's got. We'll do that and more
Speaker 1: of your calls when we return.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 3: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: I've been talking to Lee and I want to get
Speaker 1: Lee back on the line. Lee lives out in Loam
Speaker 1: Poke and she just turned eighty years young and she
Speaker 1: is trying to make some big decisions about the relatively
Speaker 1: large house and property that she has and where does
Speaker 1: she go from here? How does she take care of it?
Speaker 1: How does she get some help? Lee? Are you back
Speaker 1: with me? Bud?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, I'm still here all right?
Speaker 1: So here here's the thing. You certainly have options, right,
Speaker 1: I would assume we've got options. But the big question, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, you know, I wouldn't worry about being profitable.
Speaker 1: Is the house is paid off? How big is the house?
Speaker 2: Three thousand?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you got a three thousand square a lovely
Speaker 1: three thousand square foot house out in Lompo, which you
Speaker 1: know is nestled right up into Santa Inez wine country.
Speaker 1: There's definitely no question that there's profitability there. If you
Speaker 1: sell the house, it's paid off, there's plenty of equity.
Speaker 1: That would be a pretty easy path to travel, But
Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to travel down that path.
Speaker 1: There's questions like do you have help, can you get
Speaker 1: help with the house, can you afford help with the house?
Speaker 1: What money is available without selling the house? And if
Speaker 1: we sell, do we sell, do we rent? Do we stay?
Speaker 1: Do you have specific health or mobility concerns at eighty
Speaker 1: that you're you know, other than just it's a lot
Speaker 1: to handle. All of these are questions that should be
Speaker 1: asked and should be answered. But at the heart of it,
Speaker 1: my friend, is one one central question, okay, and it's
Speaker 1: the question that as a home designer, as a custom
Speaker 1: home designer, because I only design custom homes, that I
Speaker 1: have to ask every single client that we have, and
Speaker 1: that is, what do you really really want. Okay, now
Speaker 1: you may have conflicting wants or desire. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you probably don't have any desire to leave this house behind.
Speaker 1: But the question of what do you really really really
Speaker 1: want for your life may may you know, tip the scale.
Speaker 1: So what what are you really really looking for? What's
Speaker 1: the most important thing for you for the years ahead?
Speaker 2: Well, I want to be able to not work, you know,
Speaker 2: have so much work. I do have a housekeeper once
Speaker 2: a month at this point. And I love my house.
Speaker 2: And a lot of my friends that left their nice
Speaker 2: houses and moved to smaller houses are not very happy,
Speaker 2: you know. They miss they miss what they had. And
Speaker 2: I have a very nice house and it's hard to
Speaker 2: think of living somewhere else since I helped build this,
Speaker 2: build this house, but the upkeep is just getting Maybe
Speaker 2: in the next five years, I maybe need to make
Speaker 2: some big decision here. And what I've heard of people
Speaker 2: building on their property a smaller house than just renting
Speaker 2: the big house out. But I don't know that i'd
Speaker 2: be happy doing that. Hard to say, what are.
Speaker 1: You people doing to my house? Get out of my house? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, those are all those are really are
Speaker 1: big decisions. They really are the biggest decisions of all.
Speaker 1: And so let me ask you this. If money were
Speaker 1: no option, what would you do? It sounds like you
Speaker 1: would just stay put.
Speaker 2: Well, I think maybe I have to look at paying
Speaker 2: the help a little differently than I'm used to. I'm
Speaker 2: not used to getting help, you know, so maybe I
Speaker 2: need to look at it as a fixed bill a
Speaker 2: month instead of you know, sometimes i'd call someone that
Speaker 2: I you know that come before, and it's three hundred
Speaker 2: dollars just for for wig blacking and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it looks nice when you gets stunned, but
Speaker 2: it isn't anything that stays nice. Can a yard stay? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, it's not sustainable.
Speaker 1: So here's my advice here. It is okay, for having
Speaker 1: known you for nine and a half minutes, Okay, take
Speaker 1: it for what it's worth. But I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: listen really carefully. Here is my advice for you, Lee.
Speaker 1: I believe that that your maybe your first best option
Speaker 1: is to do exactly what you just said, which is,
Speaker 1: let's get serious about whether you can afford maintenance, regular maintenance. Okay,
Speaker 1: let you I think it came out of your own mouth.
Speaker 1: There you said, I think I need I think I
Speaker 1: need to change the way I think about about how
Speaker 1: I pay help and just even the idea of getting
Speaker 1: help to begin with. So, and here's why I think, Like,
Speaker 1: if I was a concerned family member sitting at the
Speaker 1: kitchen table with you, I think this would be my
Speaker 1: first approach, because you can always sell. Okay, It's doesn't
Speaker 1: change the fact that you know, three years from now,
Speaker 1: two years from now, five years from now, if if
Speaker 1: plan A doesn't work the way you hope it will,
Speaker 1: then you can always turn around and sell and downsize.
Speaker 1: But if there's a way to not have to do
Speaker 1: that in the home that you love, then the first
Speaker 1: step would be, Okay, you're going to have to do
Speaker 1: the work of finding a decent regular weekly you know,
Speaker 1: landscape maintenance service, and then maybe weekly, by weekly or
Speaker 1: bi monthly. I always get confused what that means, but
Speaker 1: you know, every couple of weeks, maybe you know, have
Speaker 1: the housekeeper come in or maybe increase that. In other words,
Speaker 1: who can you pay to reduce the workload for you?
Speaker 1: Can you afford to have that happen? And do you
Speaker 1: like the results? It seems to me, given your desire
Speaker 1: and your hesitation about selling. It seems to me that
Speaker 1: that would be the first course to pursue and to
Speaker 1: see if that can work. And if it does, then boom,
Speaker 1: there you are. You have found a new way to
Speaker 1: stay where you are, without the stress and without all
Speaker 1: the work, and you've essentially gotten your arms around it.
Speaker 1: And if it doesn't work, then what have you lost
Speaker 1: other than the experiment has proven that maybe it's time
Speaker 1: to sell and to downsize. But I think if it
Speaker 1: were me that situation, I love my home very much
Speaker 1: like it sounds like you love your home. I think
Speaker 1: I would be finding every imaginable way to stay here
Speaker 1: without letting go. And and so that's my advice to you,
Speaker 1: my friend.
Speaker 2: Okay, and I had one other question, what what about
Speaker 2: putting an elevator? My bedroom's upstairs? At some point that
Speaker 2: may not be as easy for me. I can go
Speaker 2: upstairs just fine now. But is that something that I
Speaker 2: just wait until I have to do?
Speaker 1: I think so, because you're not interested in resale right now,
Speaker 1: And and I will tell you this, and for everybody
Speaker 1: who's listening, elevators retrofit into homes are completely feasible. And
Speaker 1: every year you wait is a year that the cost
Speaker 1: of doing that goes down, not up. Elevators. That's good here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: residential elevators are only getting more common and less expensive,
Speaker 1: and including elevators that are just like like my little favorite,
Speaker 1: the little retrofit elevator, which is a vacuum tube elevator
Speaker 1: that literally lead needs about four by four area of space.
Speaker 1: It can be located just about anywhere in the house
Speaker 1: where we can get from the downstairs to the upstairs.
Speaker 1: And but it's still an expense, okay, And you know
Speaker 1: right now they're running about, you know, just going to
Speaker 1: people will be like, that's not inexpensive being but you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere between forty and sixty thousand dollars. Okay. But when
Speaker 1: you think about that, you think about the home that
Speaker 1: is your home for the cost of you know, which
Speaker 1: at home is paid off, and so if you were
Speaker 1: to get another little loan or have a way of payment,
Speaker 1: but basically for the cost of financing a car payment
Speaker 1: to stay in your home, uh, that is a relatively
Speaker 1: small cost. And but my point is that cost is
Speaker 1: also going down every single year. So my advice to
Speaker 1: anybody who's thinking about the future in that regard is
Speaker 1: you know, if you see yourself realistically getting to the
Speaker 1: point where yeah, I'm not getting up and down those
Speaker 1: stairs as well anymore, then then do it. I don't
Speaker 1: think everybody, just because of their age should automatically get
Speaker 1: an elevator in their house. In fact, I would make
Speaker 1: the argument against it that if it's keeping you healthy
Speaker 1: getting up and down the stairs, it may be the
Speaker 1: best thing not to do an elevator. Just you know,
Speaker 1: keep doing the StairMaster every day and it's improving your
Speaker 1: health and your longevity through that instead of just taking
Speaker 1: the easy way, only do that if it's simply going
Speaker 1: to become an impossibility, and at that point it will
Speaker 1: be at its lowest point of cost and the most
Speaker 1: effective ease of installation. So you would just I would
Speaker 1: just say, have that in mind, press pause on that,
Speaker 1: don't act too soon on that, and just wait wait
Speaker 1: for the time to come. Lee, I've got to go.
Speaker 1: I would love to talk to you for the rest
Speaker 1: of the morning, but it's time to go, so good luck.
Speaker 1: Get your arms around, try and rethink the way that
Speaker 1: you are living in the house so that you can
Speaker 1: pay others to take care of the hard stuff, to
Speaker 1: do the heavy lifting. For you, and if all else fails,
Speaker 1: you can always sell and downsize and hold off on
Speaker 1: that elevator until you absolutely, really really need it. Good luck,
Speaker 1: my friend. All right, everybody, when we come back, more
Speaker 1: of your calls. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 3: KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1: You are Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. That's me.
Speaker 1: We're right in smack dab in the middle of our
Speaker 1: Sunday Morning live broadcast, which well, of course will become
Speaker 1: The House Whisperer podcast as soon as we are done,
Speaker 1: and you can listen to it anytime, anywhere, whenever, and
Speaker 1: how often, however often you like. This is Home with
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp and we are in the middle of taking calls.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to the phones. We're going
Speaker 1: to be taking a couple more calls before we get
Speaker 1: back to new stuff, which is the theme of today's show.
Speaker 1: Got some new stuff to share with you, good stuff already,
Speaker 1: more new stuff to come, But first I want to
Speaker 1: talk to Gabe. He Gabe, welcome home.
Speaker 4: Thanks Teine, Good morning, Happy.
Speaker 1: Sunday, Happy Sunday to you. How can I help you?
Speaker 4: Thank you. I have a custom two story built in
Speaker 4: the mid nineties. It's built with a hip style roof
Speaker 4: framing on what I think is a twelve twelve pitch,
Speaker 4: not a lot of overhang. I literally have zero eves vents.
Speaker 4: The roof on the second story has a few dormer vents,
Speaker 4: but there's not a lot of air exchange I think
Speaker 4: happening in my attic. And my garage has zero eves
Speaker 4: or former vents. I mean, there's no air exchange in
Speaker 4: the garage, and I've always thought that was weird. The
Speaker 4: fires have have made me rethink that a little bit.
Speaker 4: But I'm just wondering if you have recommendations about how
Speaker 4: to optimize thermal efficiency given that situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do, all right. So, so a roof in
Speaker 1: standard building parlance, in standard building code, optimally should have
Speaker 1: low vents and high vents in order to allow convection
Speaker 1: to take place and air exchange to happen. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: the traditional code approach, all right. So you've got a
Speaker 1: roof that has eves that have some level of overhang.
Speaker 1: In those eves we put vents or in the eve
Speaker 1: blocking and the rafter blocking we put small vents enough
Speaker 1: to you know, half the venting requirement of the attic space, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, if it's if you have high and
Speaker 1: low vents, is you know, one square foot of venting
Speaker 1: for every one every three hundred square feet of flat
Speaker 1: attic space. And if you don't have high and low
Speaker 1: then there should be a square foot of venting for
Speaker 1: every one hundred and fifty square feet of attict venting space.
Speaker 1: But you're right, just the presence of vents, just kind
Speaker 1: of centrally located like a dormer vent is not the
Speaker 1: most efficient way thermally to get hot air out of
Speaker 1: the attic. The ideal way is to have the vents
Speaker 1: upper vents as high near the ridge as possible and
Speaker 1: then as low as possible fifty to fifty so that
Speaker 1: you get this convection current happening the eves, sucking in
Speaker 1: cooler or cooler air down below and replacing the hot
Speaker 1: air that rises up out of the attic, which can
Speaker 1: get you know, in the summertime easily up to one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty plus degrees. Get that stuff out of
Speaker 1: the attic because it affects the cooling properties of the
Speaker 1: rest of the house. So ideally that's the thing. Every
Speaker 1: roof is different. You've got nothing. You're saying, it's a
Speaker 1: hip roof, which for everybody else to understand, there's no big,
Speaker 1: flat triangular gables on the end of this house or
Speaker 1: roof anywhere that would be. And I'm glad you said that,
Speaker 1: because that would have been my first suggestion. If you've
Speaker 1: got an end gable on your roof, then that's an
Speaker 1: opportunity to put very low vents and very high vents
Speaker 1: in place on both ends or everywhere you've got a
Speaker 1: flat gable end, and that could go a long way.
Speaker 1: And it's an expensive way of getting your attic vented
Speaker 1: without having to disrupt roofing materials. So, my friend, you
Speaker 1: are left with essentially two options. If you have no
Speaker 1: eve overhang, then you've either got to if you want
Speaker 1: to improve the the thermal conditions in the attic, there
Speaker 1: are two approaches. One is to find a way to
Speaker 1: put low profile vents very low on as many sections
Speaker 1: of the low roof as possible, and a low profile
Speaker 1: vent uh might be like an O'Hagan vent that is
Speaker 1: really relatively low profile. There are some low profile vents
Speaker 1: out there, but it's going to mean disrupting some roofing materials,
Speaker 1: and the labor cost of installing that both low and
Speaker 1: then high. You know it's not going to be insignificant. Okay,
Speaker 1: the other direction, and you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: bust your budget or spend money. But you've already mentioned
Speaker 1: the idea, like you're concerned about wildfires, and maybe it's
Speaker 1: not such a bad idea that you've got, you know,
Speaker 1: minimal venting coming into your attic. Of course, like my
Speaker 1: friends at brand guard vent, any vent into any roof
Speaker 1: and attic area can be protected against wildfire embers with
Speaker 1: an ember resistant vent. Okay, but but there's also an
Speaker 1: option of building an attic that is completely ventless. And Gabe,
Speaker 1: what I've got to do here so I stay on
Speaker 1: track with time, is I got a popy on hold
Speaker 1: and have everybody just hanging there. What in the world
Speaker 1: is this idea of a ventless attic and what will
Speaker 1: it require? Because in your case, it might actually prove
Speaker 1: most cost efficient initially and long term way more cost
Speaker 1: efficient to at least consider or investigate the idea of
Speaker 1: a ventless attic. Are those even allowed? Yes, they are.
Speaker 1: How do you achieve them. We'll talk about that right after.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 3: KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1: We're talking about all things your home today. I'm actually
Speaker 1: talking about I've got my list of news stuff that
Speaker 1: I'm sharing with you here. For the first part of
Speaker 1: the year, I just collect new things, new insights, and
Speaker 1: new products and technologies that affect the building and the
Speaker 1: residential home industry. When I get enough of them to
Speaker 1: make a show out of them, boom new stuff. That's today,
Speaker 1: and of course there'll be another one later in the
Speaker 1: year as well. But right now I've been taking calls
Speaker 1: and I've got Gabe on the line. I'm going to
Speaker 1: get back to Gabe here. Gabe's still with me, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: all right. So Gabe's got a house, He's got a
Speaker 1: relatively high pitched roof with no eve overhang to speak of,
Speaker 1: and he's concerned that he has a gross lack of
Speaker 1: attic ventilation. And the question is how do how does
Speaker 1: he get it or how does he deal with it?
Speaker 1: Or in the bigger question that I love that he
Speaker 1: asked was how does he make his attic space more
Speaker 1: thermally efficient for the house. And I've already explained in
Speaker 1: the last segment what high and low attic do in
Speaker 1: the traditional way of doing that, and then I left
Speaker 1: you all hanging with the idea that there is such
Speaker 1: a thing as a ventless addic. Is it code approved?
Speaker 1: Yes it is? Is it cutting edge, yes it is.
Speaker 1: Is it the kind of attic that Dean would tries
Speaker 1: to design for all of his clients these days. Yes.
Speaker 1: Is it the kind of attic that if I built
Speaker 1: myself a new house, that I would have for myself,
Speaker 1: Yes it is. And so what exactly am I talking about? Well, Gabe,
Speaker 1: in your case, and you're going to have to weigh
Speaker 1: the financial upfront cost versus you know, the long term savings,
Speaker 1: and there is a massive amount of long term savings
Speaker 1: with it. But here's what you do. You've got, first
Speaker 1: of all, you've got an attic. If it has a
Speaker 1: twelve and twelve roof pitch, that's a forty five degree angle,
Speaker 1: that's a steep roof pitch. That means that you have
Speaker 1: a significantly navigable attic space up there. And so that
Speaker 1: being the case, these are the steps that you take.
Speaker 1: You move the attic insulation from the attic floor to
Speaker 1: the rafters, so that the rafters and the roof line
Speaker 1: itself becomes the edge of the thermal envelope, not the
Speaker 1: floor of the attic. Okay, everybody who has a traditional
Speaker 1: attic has insulation on their attic floor, and their attic
Speaker 1: is essentially as far as the code is concerned, very
Speaker 1: much like the garage, which is, yeah, it's covered, but
Speaker 1: it's technically outside. Okay, it is not a conditioned space.
Speaker 1: But by moving the attic insulation from the attic floor
Speaker 1: up into the rafter line, that becomes the edge of
Speaker 1: the thermal envelope. No vents needed, no vents wanted, because
Speaker 1: that makes the attic space itself part of the conditioned
Speaker 1: space of the house. What does that mean. It means
Speaker 1: that we also step two. We direct an AC duct
Speaker 1: or two into the attic and an AC return duct
Speaker 1: or two into the attic, and yeah, we air condition
Speaker 1: and heat the attic like we do the rest of
Speaker 1: the house at that point. Now that at first seems like, well,
Speaker 1: that's a waste of air conditioning and heating. No it's not. Actually,
Speaker 1: because if the thermal envelope of the house is the
Speaker 1: outside edge of the roofline. If the roofline itself the
Speaker 1: rafter line, then what happens is during a heat wave,
Speaker 1: the attic is just and we don't have to keep
Speaker 1: it absolutely as cool as the rest of the rooms
Speaker 1: in the house. But let's say the attic that at
Speaker 1: most gets to the mid seventies. What it means is
Speaker 1: as the day starts to cool off, the attic then
Speaker 1: does not sit there and radiate heat down into the
Speaker 1: rest of the house, forcing you to air condition the
Speaker 1: house for longer every day. And the same holds true
Speaker 1: during the winter. If the attic is as or relatively
Speaker 1: so as the rest of the home, then we don't
Speaker 1: have to keep piling in heat into the house to
Speaker 1: compensate for this thing radiating out during the day or
Speaker 1: at nighttime. It has been proven that these systems are,
Speaker 1: in fact, as far as the future is concerned, the
Speaker 1: most efficient by far thermally efficient homes. So now here's
Speaker 1: the trick. You can't just grab the attic insulation. Let's
Speaker 1: say you had bats up there and throw them up
Speaker 1: into the rafters, because roof rafters aren't deep enough with
Speaker 1: standard insulation. Okay, with regular batted insulation, fiberglass rock mineral
Speaker 1: wool insulation, whatever the case may be, cellulose insulation, there's
Speaker 1: usually not enough depth in the roof rafter itself in
Speaker 1: order to create that R thirty barrier that we need.
Speaker 1: So that means, and here's the cost. That means that
Speaker 1: we almost all always have to transition to spray on
Speaker 1: spray foam insulation, okay, which is amazing stuff, but it's
Speaker 1: more expensive. So it means clearing out all the yucky,
Speaker 1: you know, all the gritty itchy insulation out of the
Speaker 1: attic and then doing solid spray foam insulation in between
Speaker 1: the rafters. Only a few inches of that stuff, four
Speaker 1: to six inches at the most, gives you the R thirty.
Speaker 1: It cleans up the entire attic, which in your case
Speaker 1: for a tall attic, means you know, you got like
Speaker 1: another room up there, okay, and plenty of room for
Speaker 1: storage or even just fiddling around in. And then you
Speaker 1: insulate that space and that becomes a ventless attic which
Speaker 1: no exterior air exchange with the outside. Now, there are
Speaker 1: some small venting issues for moisture that may have to
Speaker 1: be taken into consideration, but it's very very very very minor.
Speaker 1: The point is this if you were to move to
Speaker 1: a conditioned attic space, you would be saving on heating
Speaker 1: and air conditioning bills in a big way for the
Speaker 1: rest of the life of the house. There are zero
Speaker 1: vents to invite embers from wildfires. It's the fire safest
Speaker 1: kind of condition to have a house in. But it
Speaker 1: is a higher initial upfront cost. Why aren't all homes
Speaker 1: built this way? Because builders do homes as cheaply as
Speaker 1: they can and get past the code. Is this a
Speaker 1: thing that's happening in California. Yeah, And if you want
Speaker 1: to see the examples of it the building departments. Every
Speaker 1: building department accepts this, by the way, and you want
Speaker 1: to see the ones that deal with it most, they're
Speaker 1: ones out in desert areas like Palm Springs. Most new
Speaker 1: homes being built in Palm Springs now are being built
Speaker 1: with non vented attic space because in extreme environmental conditions,
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of addicts that prove most cost
Speaker 1: effective and efficient long term, and that in and of itself,
Speaker 1: Gabe should tell you how effective this is. So in
Speaker 1: your case, my friend, there's some money to be spent
Speaker 1: one way or the other if you want to maximize
Speaker 1: thermal efficiency. You're either going to disrupt some roofing materials
Speaker 1: and do vents high and low, or you look into
Speaker 1: doing the a ventless conditioned space attic, which if you
Speaker 1: can afford to do that upfront, could in the long
Speaker 1: run be, in my opinion, be the ultimate solution for
Speaker 1: your attic. You turn your attic into almost essentially a
Speaker 1: habitable space, a navigable space, a clean space, a storage space,
Speaker 1: and a thermally efficient space. How'd I do.
Speaker 4: Really really great ideas, Dean, I hadn't thought of those.
Speaker 4: Really appreciate your expertise. The interesting thing is I still
Speaker 4: have the original composite shingle roof, so it's time to roof.
Speaker 4: I'm playing with I'm playing with the odds right now,
Speaker 4: but it sounds like that might be a good project
Speaker 4: to go ahead and lump in with a reroof at
Speaker 4: the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be it, It really could be. And
Speaker 1: so here's my point. My point is not to sell
Speaker 1: you on one or the other, but to tell you
Speaker 1: exactly what your best thermal options are. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: You know what, get pricing, Just get pricing. It doesn't
Speaker 1: cost you anything to window shop to get estimates and
Speaker 1: to look at all your options. And this is what
Speaker 1: I beg our clients, and I forced my clients to
Speaker 1: do this, and I beg our listeners to do this.
Speaker 1: Window shopping is free. Education is free when it comes
Speaker 1: to your home. It's out there. It's just waiting to
Speaker 1: pile into your brain. Look at every option, price, every
Speaker 1: option before you make a move, so that you know
Speaker 1: that you're doing the right thing. Never once, never once,
Speaker 1: And I'm very proud of this. In over forty years
Speaker 1: of doing this, never once has a client ever come
Speaker 1: back to me and said, Dean, why didn't we ever
Speaker 1: talk about doing that? Because we do. We exhaustively talk
Speaker 1: about every option. Every one of our clients knows the
Speaker 1: decisions they made were fully informed. And that's the way
Speaker 1: I want it for you guys too. All right, when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to take some more new
Speaker 1: stuff out of my list. We'll do that right after
Speaker 1: we get the news. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: the House Whisperer on KFI. This has been Home with
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp, the House whisper. Tune into the live broadcast
Speaker 1: on KFI AM six forty every Saturday morning from six
Speaker 1: to eight Pacific time, and every Sunday morning from nine
Speaker 1: to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app