Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp, the
Speaker 1: House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app AFI AM.
Speaker 1: It's forty live screaming in eighth D everywhere on the
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app. Hey, welcome home. Yeah you you, I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you. I am the Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer,
Speaker 1: custom home designer, custom home builder, and on the weekends
Speaker 1: here I am your guide to better understanding that place
Speaker 1: where you live. Thanks for joining us on the program today.
Speaker 1: Today on the show, we're gonna do what we do
Speaker 1: normally on Saturdays. Number one gonna take some calls. Any
Speaker 1: of your calls. The number to reach me eight three
Speaker 1: three two Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two.
Speaker 1: Ask Dean. Our phone lines are open right now. The
Speaker 1: phone board is completely blank, so it's just waiting for you.
Speaker 1: Anything you want to talk about regarding your home today, inside, outside, landscape, hardscape, construction,
Speaker 1: DIY design, Yes, please all of the above. Anything that's
Speaker 1: got you scratching your head about your home. Eight three
Speaker 1: three the numeral two Ask Dean. A three three two
Speaker 1: ask Dean. In addition to that, I want to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with you this morning about something that is
Speaker 1: very pressing in southern California and may find its way
Speaker 1: catching on across the country as well. And that is,
Speaker 1: you know, given the fires in the aftermath of the
Speaker 1: Eton and the Palisades fire, the mass destruction of thousands
Speaker 1: of homes, and now the rebuilding process, which when we
Speaker 1: say the rebuilding process begins, we don't mean that people
Speaker 1: are starting to rebuild right now, but we're turning the
Speaker 1: corner now and it's going to be some time before
Speaker 1: that happens. But the question is this, given the in
Speaker 1: rush of all of those properties being rebuilt and the
Speaker 1: already loaded to the gill taxed system of permit and
Speaker 1: planning approval in especially Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County,
Speaker 1: should builders be allowed to permit their own projects. Oh
Speaker 1: that's an interesting conversation. We're going to have that as
Speaker 1: well this morning, along with your calls, and let me
Speaker 1: introduce our awesome team to get it all started. Sam
Speaker 1: is on the board. There are not so live Plutio audience.
Speaker 1: Good morning, damn, good morning, Dean. How's it going? Good? Good,
Speaker 1: good good. My friend, the legendary Michelle Cube standing by
Speaker 1: to take calls this morning. Richie. I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I don't where Richie's Richie. Oh, I know where he is.
Speaker 1: He's sleeping in that's what he's doing. But Michelle is
Speaker 1: with us this morning. Always an honor to work with Michelle.
Speaker 1: She is the most awesome. Not near a microphone, but
Speaker 1: she is on the board right now, ready to take
Speaker 1: your call. So you want to talk to Michelle Cube,
Speaker 1: call in. She'll tell you everything you need to know
Speaker 1: and she'll pop you into the queue with your question
Speaker 1: for the show. And my buddy Andrew Caravella at the
Speaker 1: news desk, Good morning, how's it going, Oh, it's going.
Speaker 1: Had my coffee so I am awaken? Alert? Your coffee full?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 1: Let me pour you a little bit more. Oh, thank you. Well,
Speaker 1: hang up, got to leave room for cream. There it is, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, there it is right there. Everything well on
Speaker 1: the news desk this morning. So far, so far. But
Speaker 1: the day is young, it is. It's very young, a
Speaker 1: little younger than i'd like it to be. Actually all right,
Speaker 1: thanks for being with us here, Bud sitting across the
Speaker 1: table from me. Oh there she is my better half,
Speaker 1: no doubt, my design partner, the co author, co author,
Speaker 1: co owner, co founder of Housewifter. That is her legendary
Speaker 1: spirit animal. Right there, my best friend in all the world,
Speaker 1: Tina is here. Welcome home. Good morning to you, Mado
Speaker 1: morning to you, sir. I have no idea why I
Speaker 1: just said that. Do you need some coffee? Here you go.
Speaker 1: You know I'll be pushing that button again sometime very soon.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And I do not need room for cream. No, no
Speaker 1: room for cream for you, that black just straight up,
Speaker 1: straight up, straight up, all right, y'all. Uh, we've got
Speaker 1: a couple of calls popping in the board, plenty of
Speaker 1: room for you. Let me give the number out one
Speaker 1: more time, eight three three two, ass dean, eight three
Speaker 1: to three the numeral two. Ask dean it is time
Speaker 1: to dive into the show. When we come back, I'm
Speaker 1: going to open up this conversation about builders permitting their
Speaker 1: own work. Is that a thing? Should it be? All right?
Speaker 1: We'll do that, damn hi Pean charp the house whisper. Hey,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if your home is a castle, cottage,
Speaker 1: a condo. I'm here to help it take it to
Speaker 1: the next level. That's what we do around here. We're
Speaker 1: going to be going to the phones in just a
Speaker 1: smidge the number two. Reach me eight three three two.
Speaker 1: Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two. Ask Dean.
Speaker 1: All right, I wanted to at least open up this
Speaker 1: discussion here begin it, and there's several things to talk
Speaker 1: about the topic of whether or not builders should be
Speaker 1: allowed to fast track or basically self permit. It's known
Speaker 1: by different names fast tracked permits, but it comes down
Speaker 1: to builders permitting their own projects. Now. First of all,
Speaker 1: when people hear that, they get all sorts of reactions.
Speaker 1: All of our friendly libertarian listeners are like, yes, away
Speaker 1: with the Department of Building in Safety. Yeah, that's not me.
Speaker 1: That's not where I fall because I think there is
Speaker 1: a compelling public interest in safety when it comes to buildings.
Speaker 1: I want, believe me, I want builders to be monitored,
Speaker 1: double checked, and verified. Now, do I think that there's
Speaker 1: in this industry that there's a lot of overreach of
Speaker 1: government agencies into areas that just don't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: do and just muddle up the works. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there is. I think it's legitimate to say that, And
Speaker 1: I'm not particularly thrilled. I've never have been thrilled with
Speaker 1: the way that the State of California just deals with
Speaker 1: builders in general. Now, I'm all for heavy enforcement of violations,
Speaker 1: but the California State Contractors License Bureau basically treats all
Speaker 1: contractors as though they are guilty and criminals before before
Speaker 1: anything ever happens. I mean, I've had my contractor's license
Speaker 1: for you know, decades, and still you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: always a question of, yeah, what'd you do this time?
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I'm not thrilled about that. But
Speaker 1: that being said, I am not in favor of just
Speaker 1: turning builders loose and the way some people would imagine
Speaker 1: it would work and just letting them verify their own projects.
Speaker 1: That is not what's being discussed. So let me just
Speaker 1: be clear about that. This concept of self permitting is
Speaker 1: really kind of a misnomer. What it really comes down
Speaker 1: to is this, it's a program in this the way
Speaker 1: it looks in most places where it's happening, and yes
Speaker 1: it is happening, we'll talk about that too. It's happening
Speaker 1: here in southern California already and has been for some time.
Speaker 1: But generally speaking, when this program is in play, what
Speaker 1: happens is it's not even really accurate to say builders
Speaker 1: self permitting, because the programs that I am aware of
Speaker 1: require a licensed architect or a licensed civil or structural
Speaker 1: engineer to stamp the plans, which is not for a resident,
Speaker 1: not a requirement for normal plan check to stamp the plans.
Speaker 1: And then not just that, but then that architect and
Speaker 1: or engineer of record essentially assumes responsibility for the plan
Speaker 1: check process. In other words, that architect or engineer of
Speaker 1: record then assumes full responsibility that everything about the project
Speaker 1: comports with and is in accordance with everything that the
Speaker 1: project would be subject to if it went through city
Speaker 1: plan check. And that has to do with a lot
Speaker 1: more than just whether the building itself and the design
Speaker 1: of the building is meeting up with all the things
Speaker 1: that are necessary for the California building Code. That's one
Speaker 1: of the things that I want to kind of split
Speaker 1: a hair here for everybody to understand this morning. If
Speaker 1: you've never been through the building permitting process, then you
Speaker 1: likely don't. You likely just think that getting a building
Speaker 1: permit is about the city checking your plans to make
Speaker 1: sure that you're following the building code. But that's actually
Speaker 1: just a part of the project. It's a good part
Speaker 1: of the project, but it's just a part of the process.
Speaker 1: So in the case of self permitting, this question of
Speaker 1: self permitting, what we would be doing, would we'd be
Speaker 1: by check, by checking, bypassing that section of plan check,
Speaker 1: and the engineer and or the architect, and ultimately the
Speaker 1: homeowner because this all ultimately comes back to the homeowner,
Speaker 1: but the engineer or the architect would be taking on
Speaker 1: the responsibility to make sure those things are all in order.
Speaker 1: If and then city in spaces would proceed per normal
Speaker 1: with a city inspector. Now, if it's discovered that something
Speaker 1: is outside, that something's been forgotten, that something's been overlooked,
Speaker 1: then it has to get corrected, and the architect and
Speaker 1: or engineer is held responsible for that. So you can
Speaker 1: imagine that essentially what we're doing is deputizing licensed architects
Speaker 1: and licensed civil or structural engineers, kind of deputizing them
Speaker 1: to function as their own enforcement agency for their own clients.
Speaker 1: And not a lot of engineers and architects are prepared
Speaker 1: to step up and do that. Not a lot of
Speaker 1: them are prepared to step up and put themselves on
Speaker 1: the line for that, and those who do are likely
Speaker 1: and usually turning around to their clients and charging a
Speaker 1: pretty penny for it. Now, is a lot of that
Speaker 1: going to happen in out Dina when we've got a
Speaker 1: massive middle class families happening. Probably not. Will a lot
Speaker 1: of more of it happen in the Palisades area where
Speaker 1: upper class and wealthy clients have the money to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll pay you whatever you need to get paid. Let's
Speaker 1: fast track this project. And the proposal has been placed
Speaker 1: on the city council agenda by a city councilman and
Speaker 1: as a result of that, this is going to be
Speaker 1: an issue that's going to be discussed and is being
Speaker 1: discussed currently. All right, I've got more on this, but
Speaker 1: we've got some calls on the board, so let's hear
Speaker 1: some news and we'll come back and we'll answer some
Speaker 1: questions about your home. You're listening to Home with Dean
Speaker 1: Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty, KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty live streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: It's Dean Sharp the House whisper with you this morning
Speaker 1: like I am every Saturday morning from six to eight
Speaker 1: and Sundays from nine to noon. Speaking of Sunday tomorrow,
Speaker 1: the Big Show I'm gonna have a special guest in
Speaker 1: studio with me, one of the finest concrete contractors that
Speaker 1: I have come across in the course of my career,
Speaker 1: and he and I are going to be sitting down
Speaker 1: and talking all things concrete about your house. And so
Speaker 1: it should be a fascinating discussion, a helpful discussion, a
Speaker 1: fun discussion. What other words can I use? Anyway, a
Speaker 1: very productive and practical one for you learn all about
Speaker 1: concrete and what's going wrong with your house in concrete
Speaker 1: tomorrow on the Big Show. All right, Today, we're talking
Speaker 1: about a little conversation on the side here about whether
Speaker 1: builders should be able to permit their own projects regulate
Speaker 1: their own permitting for their own projects. We're going to
Speaker 1: come back to that in a bit, but I've got
Speaker 1: some calls on the board, so let's go to the phones.
Speaker 1: I talked to Wayne A. Wayne, welcome home.
Speaker 2: Yes, good morning, Dan.
Speaker 1: How are you sir? How can I help you?
Speaker 2: Well, recently recently I took and recently recently I took
Speaker 2: and changed out the sacrificial anode in the water heater
Speaker 2: in our house, trying to prolong its life and use here.
Speaker 2: And after I did that, I took and bled out
Speaker 2: the system to try to get any air out of
Speaker 2: the pipes and stuff. Unfortunately, we're getting a situation where
Speaker 2: when we turn like the mixers onto the bathroom sinks
Speaker 2: and such, or the the mixer to the tub, we
Speaker 2: get kind of like a sneeze and stuff, which to
Speaker 2: me sounds like air, but I've not been able to
Speaker 2: bleed that. And we get a little bit of cross
Speaker 2: over between the hot and cold. So somebody turns hot
Speaker 2: on in one side of the house and cold on
Speaker 2: the other side of the house. You get a little
Speaker 2: bit of a mixing going on there.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when you say you've tried to bleed it out,
Speaker 1: you've literally turned on every faucet everywhere and let it
Speaker 1: run for a few minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll let it run for about ten minutes or so,
Speaker 2: and all of.
Speaker 1: Them all together, I mean, yes, Okay, that's it. That's
Speaker 1: just important because when when sometimes you know, people have
Speaker 1: told me, yeah, I've run them all, and then I
Speaker 1: found out that, well, I ran them all one by one.
Speaker 1: And so when we're trying to get air, perje air
Speaker 1: out of a plumbing system after repair or something like that,
Speaker 1: and air is the cause of sputter. That's that's why
Speaker 1: they sputter. Then Uh, then uh, everything has to be
Speaker 1: turned on all at once in order to just get
Speaker 1: the maximum opportunity for air courge out of the system
Speaker 1: for several minutes. Having said that, you also get uh,
Speaker 1: if you're getting some hot and cold crossover, Uh, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't so much be cold in the it. You shouldn't
Speaker 1: so much be hot water coming through the cold line.
Speaker 1: Most of the time with a mixer valve. When people
Speaker 1: say hot and cold crossover, what they're experiencing are spatters
Speaker 1: or spurts of cold. Uh, you know, with the along
Speaker 1: with the hot, and that my friend unfortunately probably points
Speaker 1: back to the water heater. Again, when you when you
Speaker 1: haven't resolved sputtering through normal means, when we haven't isolated
Speaker 1: it down to you know, one aeriator out of one faucet,
Speaker 1: When it's happening everywhere around the house, then it's not
Speaker 1: a localized thing in the sense of like all the faucets.
Speaker 1: And when you said hot and cold sputtering crossover, that
Speaker 1: points back to the water heater and something else going
Speaker 1: inside going on inside the water here. There could be
Speaker 1: a blockage, There could be when you switched out the
Speaker 1: How how bad was the sacrificial anode when you remove
Speaker 1: the old one?
Speaker 2: I honestly, I've never seen one exposed before, so I
Speaker 2: would say it was probably about half at least half life.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it wasn't completely gone.
Speaker 2: It's probably eight years old.
Speaker 1: Huh huh.
Speaker 2: We did this on the recommendation of a plumber, as
Speaker 2: we had him out doing some other things, and he
Speaker 2: said the water here looked to be in good repair,
Speaker 2: and he thought it would help prolong the life of
Speaker 2: the unit a couple more years than normal. Possibly when
Speaker 2: I put the anode in, I did put teflon tape
Speaker 2: around the spreading, and I did lock it down really
Speaker 2: well with a break or bar. Maybe I need to
Speaker 2: take it back out and then retape that. Possibly air
Speaker 2: could be getting in at that point.
Speaker 1: It's a possibility. It is a possibility, And so yeah,
Speaker 1: you give that another shot since you already kind of
Speaker 1: are in the DIY mode there and then again. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, depending plumbing systems are tricky. They go up,
Speaker 1: they go down. It's sometimes tricky to purge it all out.
Speaker 1: But I would do that. I would I'd reset that,
Speaker 1: make sure that's sealed so that air isn't being sucked
Speaker 1: into the water heater and causing spurting. If the water
Speaker 1: heater isn't old, and it isn't at eight years, if
Speaker 1: the plumber always already thought that it appeared to be
Speaker 1: in good repair, If the arcrificial anode that you pulled
Speaker 1: out it was not all the way eaten through, then
Speaker 1: there's no reason to immediately think that there's other damage
Speaker 1: inside the water heater. But it's always a possibility. But
Speaker 1: let's just do this. You go ahead and reseal that
Speaker 1: and the new anode, and just to make sure that
Speaker 1: that's clear, make sure nothing's been cracked or leaking air,
Speaker 1: and then again turn everything on, including including any outside
Speaker 1: spigots water spigots that are attached to the house which
Speaker 1: are also part of the interior, and let it run.
Speaker 1: I mean, let them all run for even longer than
Speaker 1: you expect it all at the same time, flush toilets
Speaker 1: run fofits and just let them. Sometimes getting air out
Speaker 1: of the system is just persnickety. And after all of that,
Speaker 1: if you still are getting the same amount of spurting everywhere,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid you really should call plumber back out and
Speaker 1: have them take a look at the water here, right, Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: All right, good, yeah, very good advice. I appreciate that much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. I appreciate the question. Great question. Uh
Speaker 1: and yeah, I know somebody right now is scratching their
Speaker 1: head saying, what is a sacrificial anode? How about I?
Speaker 1: Just before I take the next call, I'll explain that
Speaker 1: I'll do it all. Hey bye. Being sharp for the
Speaker 1: houseworks for a welcome home. Thanks for being with us
Speaker 1: this morning. It's going to be a lovely day here
Speaker 1: in southern California, cool, sunny, everything we want, not a
Speaker 1: lot of crazy wind blowing. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: gorgeous weekend. I hope you have plans to get out
Speaker 1: into it and enjoy it. What are we doing right here,
Speaker 1: I'm kicking off your weekend, just conversations about your home.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the weather builders in life of you know,
Speaker 1: the recent devastating fires, should be allowed to essentially pull
Speaker 1: their own permits, regulate their own permits for their project.
Speaker 1: That's that's the way it gets talked about out there.
Speaker 1: I want to sit down and talk to you a
Speaker 1: little bit more about that in a bit, just because
Speaker 1: I want to kind of clarify what that really means
Speaker 1: and what would be involved, and give you my opinion
Speaker 1: as to whether that would be good or whether it's really,
Speaker 1: you know, practically going to help. We're going to return
Speaker 1: to that conversation just a bit, but I've got some
Speaker 1: calls on the board, and that's also what we prioritize
Speaker 1: on Saturday mornings. So I'm going to go back to
Speaker 1: the phones. Let's talk to Oh. I'm sorry, I promised.
Speaker 1: I was going to explain very quickly what a sacrificial
Speaker 1: anode is. If people are like, you're talking to that
Speaker 1: guy about a sacrificial anode in his water heater, What
Speaker 1: are you guys in a cult or something. No, if
Speaker 1: you look on the top of a water heater, you've
Speaker 1: probably seen a big fitting up there, big square looking
Speaker 1: nut up there with threads going into your water heater.
Speaker 1: And you might have assumed, oh, well, that must be
Speaker 1: some accessory or some pipe hook up that my house
Speaker 1: doesn't require, and so there's just a plug in there. Nope,
Speaker 1: at that right underneath that big old nut is a
Speaker 1: rod sticking down into your water heater. That is called
Speaker 1: a galvanic anode. We call it a sacrificial anode because
Speaker 1: its whole job it's either made out of aluminium or magnesium,
Speaker 1: and its whole job is to attract corrosive elements corrosive
Speaker 1: minerals in your water supply, attract those minerals to itself,
Speaker 1: basically saying, here, come, corrode me. Don't cling to the
Speaker 1: sides of the water heater and eat away at the
Speaker 1: steel tank. And that's what it's there for. It is
Speaker 1: called the sacrificial anode. It sacrifices itself. And the reason
Speaker 1: it's able to do that is because those corrosive elements
Speaker 1: are far more attracted to it, because it's a far
Speaker 1: more corrosive enabling material the aluminum or magnesium. And as
Speaker 1: a result, it preserves the steel in your water heater
Speaker 1: from being eaten away by corrosive elements. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: if your water heater gets to a certain age, especially
Speaker 1: if it gets past if you have exceptionally hard water
Speaker 1: and you get past like ten years, somebody should take
Speaker 1: a serious look at popping that old one out and
Speaker 1: putting the new one in. Because the day that the
Speaker 1: sacrificial anode is completely eaten away is the day that
Speaker 1: there's nothing else in there, attracting corrosion to it. Therefore boom.
Speaker 1: That stuff then turns to the steel tank of your
Speaker 1: water heater and prematurely ages it. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Now you know, the more you know, Let's talk to
Speaker 1: Wally real quick. Hey, Wally, welcome home.
Speaker 2: Hi sir.
Speaker 1: How can I help you?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I have no water heater? And how I have I
Speaker 3: installed a tank little water heater? And how hot can
Speaker 3: I have it here? To come up to the temperature?
Speaker 1: How hot can you have it come up?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What is the upper limit? Uh? So let me take
Speaker 1: a real quick here. I'm trying to remember. I think
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty degrees is the prob?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, right now it's you say, I.
Speaker 3: Have a Murray tankle little water here, and there's like
Speaker 3: an led upper I could see the temperature. Is I
Speaker 3: I could adjust the I think I think it's the
Speaker 3: I'm right now. It could I could put it on
Speaker 3: on winter or summer, but I brought it up. I
Speaker 3: think it's ninety five ninety five on a ninety five
Speaker 3: degrees So I'm gonna go up higher.
Speaker 1: But you won't get you can. All you have to
Speaker 1: do is consult the the owner's manual, and you'll get
Speaker 1: some directions in there. A tankless water heaters in California,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure if this is true in every state.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it is because you know, we're all human beings,
Speaker 1: and they they come preregulated for a max temperature of
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty degrees, so you can adjust with
Speaker 1: your thermostatic control. You can adjust it up to one twenty. Now,
Speaker 1: there's also an override some of us, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say who in this room, me, it's me. Some of
Speaker 1: us like even hotter water than that coming out of
Speaker 1: our water heater. Uh. And almost every brand of tankless
Speaker 1: water heater can be adjusted higher. You're not invalidating anything.
Speaker 1: There are instructions if they can be adjusted higher, they
Speaker 1: are instructions in your instruction manual. As to the procedure
Speaker 1: to override the one twenty or one twenty five whatever
Speaker 1: your water heater is preset max to. There's usually an
Speaker 1: instruction and it allows you to take it in most
Speaker 1: cases up to one forty one hundred and forty degrees,
Speaker 1: And for me, that makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker 1: But it won't just do that automatically. There's an override
Speaker 1: procedure that you go through in order to do that,
Speaker 1: and you can just do it with the controller. It'll
Speaker 1: say press this down, hold it long enough, bum bumb,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing, and then you can
Speaker 1: override and go up. And if, by the way, if
Speaker 1: you have a power outage or something like that, or
Speaker 1: the water heater gets worked on or serviced, it's going
Speaker 1: to default back to its one twenty and then you're
Speaker 1: going to have to reset the override again. So one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty degrees or lower. That is just free
Speaker 1: flowing on your thermostat arrows up and down. And if
Speaker 1: you want to get over one twenty, then you've got
Speaker 1: to follow the instructions in the manual how to override that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's right where a water heater should live
Speaker 1: about one or if you're dean, about one thirty or so.
Speaker 1: Because that's nice. All right, walle thanks for the call,
Speaker 1: my friend. All right, look at us right here at
Speaker 1: the top of the hour. When we come back, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have more thoughts for you on whether or not
Speaker 1: we should be allowing builders to pull their own regulate
Speaker 1: their own permits here in southern California. That and more
Speaker 1: of your calls your Home with Dean Sharp, the House
Speaker 1: Whisper on KFI. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp
Speaker 1: on demand from KFI AM six forty