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Speaker 1: House Whisperer dot Design. All right, it is Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: We are live as always, and uh we're taking calls
Speaker 1: and going to the phones. I want to go back
Speaker 1: to the phones right now. Let me give you the number,
Speaker 1: by the way, because Saturday morning, there's always room for you.
Speaker 1: It's always room on Saturday morning to get on the
Speaker 1: air with me. The number to reach me right now
Speaker 1: eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three the
Speaker 1: numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean.
Speaker 1: It's just that simple. Give me a call. I'd love
Speaker 1: to talk to you about your home. Let's talk to Susie. Hey, Susie,
Speaker 1: welcome home.
Speaker 2: Huh Hi Deane, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: So my family has had a rental property rental house
Speaker 2: for about fifty years, and over the last six years
Speaker 2: we did do you might hear my dog bark, We
Speaker 2: did do some remodeling, and the backyard has a slope
Speaker 2: to it, and now water has been intruding. And in
Speaker 2: the master bedroom we're getting molled. And we've had to
Speaker 2: take out the lower half of the wall and replace
Speaker 2: it twice. So I'm wondering if I should put in
Speaker 2: a French train. The gardener has readjusted the sprinklers so
Speaker 2: it wouldn't really hit the house the water. So my
Speaker 2: father put in stepping stones around own the uh, the
Speaker 2: the wall, the backside of the wall, and that worked
Speaker 2: for many years until I did this remodel and changed
Speaker 2: out the flooring. I've had some companies come out and
Speaker 2: they say, well, you need to have the air flowing
Speaker 2: through more, and that hasn't changed anything.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, no, no, no, yeah. Okay, So you've got
Speaker 1: a sloping backyard sloping towards the house. Yes, okay, ye
Speaker 1: tell me, what do we know? What is the soil
Speaker 1: level outside the master bedroom wall? Or is it a
Speaker 1: raised foundation? Is a slab house? What are we on here?
Speaker 2: It's a raised foundation. So there's dirt under the house.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there's dirt under the house, and and and
Speaker 1: yet so have we have we got under there and looked.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it saturated? Does it get really wet
Speaker 1: under there under the master bedroom area.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't seem to interesting I've had the first
Speaker 2: time that I have that it happened, I did have
Speaker 2: somebody go under the house and on the other side
Speaker 2: of the of the bedroom wall around the corner from
Speaker 2: the outside, there is a hose hook up there, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't seem to be the issue. It has something
Speaker 2: to do, I think with the sprinklers and then the
Speaker 2: waters going back. So I'm not sure what to do
Speaker 2: at this point.
Speaker 1: All right, So okay, next question, very important question. Do
Speaker 1: we know what relative to the floor inside. Do we
Speaker 1: know how high the soil is up against the master
Speaker 1: bedroom wall? In other words, is it level with the
Speaker 1: floor inside? Is it up actually a little higher? Is
Speaker 1: it below considerably? Where are we at there?
Speaker 2: I think it's higher, I think than the floor level.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, all right, Susie. Uh, there are there
Speaker 1: are answers to this question. And uh and I want
Speaker 1: to take it in a little bit more tail And
Speaker 1: there's your beautiful puppy doing his thing. Let me if
Speaker 1: if with your permission, can I pop you on. Hold.
Speaker 1: We're going to go to a break and when we
Speaker 1: come back, I'm going to try and address this issue
Speaker 1: of drainage. And I think you're right about the French strain,
Speaker 1: but there may be something else involved as well. So
Speaker 1: let's deal with it in a way that will work
Speaker 1: for you and that others will understand as well. So
Speaker 1: can you hang tight with me?
Speaker 2: I sure can, thank you?
Speaker 1: All right, see you, hold on, everybody, hold on. We're
Speaker 1: going to figure out this drainage problem. I promise you.
Speaker 1: You are home with Dean Sharp the house whisper. These
Speaker 1: whisper at your service. It's an all calls Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: like we do. The number to reach me eight three
Speaker 1: three two. Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two.
Speaker 1: Ask Dean eight three three to ask Dean anything about
Speaker 1: your home inside outside, from architectural uh lofty design concepts
Speaker 1: all the way down to you know, how do we
Speaker 1: keep water out of the master bedroom, which is what
Speaker 1: we're talking to Susie about. Susie, is he still with me?
Speaker 1: Did I lose Susie? Susie? Are you with me?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I'm here, okay, all right? So uh yes, I got you,
Speaker 1: I got you, Okay, so the question of this water
Speaker 1: intrusion that has messed up the drywall a couple of
Speaker 1: times in the master bedroom. From the outside of the house,
Speaker 1: we've got a sloping yard sloping towards the house, which
Speaker 1: is always a bit precarious. I uh, when whenever that happens. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's thing that we have to take very very seriously
Speaker 1: in terms of drainage and irrigation control on the outside
Speaker 1: of the house. So I asked a couple of questions
Speaker 1: right before the break. I'm just going to reiterate what
Speaker 1: the situation is. Not a lot of excess moisture underneath
Speaker 1: the house. She's got a raise foundation, so not a
Speaker 1: lot of excess moisture there, but a lot of moisture
Speaker 1: coming in through the wall underneath the wall. And so, Susie,
Speaker 1: here is my concern. A couple of concerns. Number one
Speaker 1: code the code for levels of soil outside a home
Speaker 1: versus the floor inside the home. When it comes to
Speaker 1: just open rough soil, the code is that there needs
Speaker 1: to be at least four inches of elevation drop where
Speaker 1: the soil surcharges the house on the outside than from
Speaker 1: your finished floor. So the soil level outside should be
Speaker 1: four inches below the the floor level of the home,
Speaker 1: including the master bedroom. That's number one, and that's really
Speaker 1: really key because moisture can build up in that soil
Speaker 1: and we never want to be in a situation where
Speaker 1: surface water has a chance to run in underneath the
Speaker 1: plate of the wall and get in, which it sounds
Speaker 1: like to me is exactly what's happening on some level.
Speaker 1: So that's number one. On a raised foundation, it's also
Speaker 1: really really important that we don't just run soil right
Speaker 1: up against the concrete stem wall that is the raised foundation,
Speaker 1: but that we put some waterproofing on the stem wall
Speaker 1: as well, which in older homes with raised foundations was
Speaker 1: rarely ever done. And so if you have a drainage
Speaker 1: and moisture issue, then then waterproofing the foundation is an
Speaker 1: important step along the way lowering the soil level, getting
Speaker 1: it away from anywhere near A third problem that often
Speaker 1: occurs is that older homes with stucco, Oh is it
Speaker 1: a stucco house or a sighting house?
Speaker 2: It sure isco okay.
Speaker 1: Older homes with stucco back in the day just runs
Speaker 1: the stucco just runs right down into the soil and
Speaker 1: doesn't have what we call a weep screed. The stucco
Speaker 1: doesn't stop above the soil line. What's yours like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just seems to go right down into the dirt.
Speaker 2: And now the stucco wall is starting to have that
Speaker 2: red mold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah to it. Okay, So here's the good news.
Speaker 1: The bad news is we've got multiple little problems. Okay.
Speaker 1: The good news is it's all solveable. It's all solvable. Okay.
Speaker 1: So number one, stucco, everybody, Your stucco should not be
Speaker 1: running down the wall into the soil. Why is that?
Speaker 1: Because water? We know this water has such a strong
Speaker 1: surface tension. It's always seeking to go from areas of
Speaker 1: greater concentration lesser concentration, which means the porosity of your stucco.
Speaker 1: It's concrete, it's full of pores and air spaces. The
Speaker 1: porosity of your concrete. Water can climb a foot twelve
Speaker 1: inches up, percolating up inside the stucco before it gets
Speaker 1: too heavy, and then it wants to release and then vush.
Speaker 1: It releases into the wall, out of the wall, all
Speaker 1: over the place, and it's no good. We don't this.
Speaker 1: The stucco coming down into the soil is a bridge
Speaker 1: for moisture to climb up the wall and get into
Speaker 1: the house. So that's something that if it's a serious
Speaker 1: enough problem that you can actually call a stucco company
Speaker 1: and say, hey, cut my stucco at the proper level
Speaker 1: of the plateline of the house. Cut it there and
Speaker 1: install a weep screed that's a bottom finishing flashing that
Speaker 1: has holes in the bottom of it, so that when
Speaker 1: the stucco does get wet, the water has a place
Speaker 1: to drain out up above the soil of that's number one,
Speaker 1: cut my stucco up and get it out of the
Speaker 1: wet zone. Number two, the soil has to come down
Speaker 1: so that we are not surcharging soil up against a
Speaker 1: wall above the level of the interior floor, because the
Speaker 1: moisture is always going to try and find a way in.
Speaker 1: So we lower the soil level, we cut the stucco up,
Speaker 1: so now we don't have a bridge, and then yes,
Speaker 1: I would say, now without seeing the yard there there
Speaker 1: may be other solutions, but generally speaking, when there's a
Speaker 1: large amount of slope pushing moisture towards the house, I
Speaker 1: love the idea of shutting it down or capturing it
Speaker 1: with what we call a French drain. A French drain
Speaker 1: is a trench that we're going to dig next to
Speaker 1: the house. It's going to be just a few inches deep.
Speaker 1: It's a you know, it's not a canyon. It's just
Speaker 1: a trench maybe twelve inches deep or so, maybe fourteen
Speaker 1: inches deep, and in a few inches wide, eight to
Speaker 1: ten inches wide. This trench. Then, while we have dug
Speaker 1: that trench out by the way Susie and expose the
Speaker 1: concrete of the stem wall of the of the raised foundation,
Speaker 1: then we're gonna cover that stem wall with some elastimeric coating,
Speaker 1: some waterproofing coating so that the concrete there doesn't absorb
Speaker 1: water unnecessarily. Then we're gonna pop a little bit of
Speaker 1: gravel in the bottom of this trench, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: lay in a horizontal drain pipe that has perforations in it,
Speaker 1: that has holes in it, and we're gonna it may
Speaker 1: have a sleeve, it may not. It's debatable, depending on
Speaker 1: you know, different people feel different ways about putting a
Speaker 1: cloth sleeve around it to keep mud from clogging it up.
Speaker 1: But the point is, if you embed that and then
Speaker 1: cover that in gravel, all the way up to the
Speaker 1: surface of the yard. Again, Now you don't have to
Speaker 1: expose the gravel on top. You could take a couple
Speaker 1: of inches of soil and cover over it so no
Speaker 1: one even knows it's there. But now that there's a
Speaker 1: void underneath, and it's totally walkable because the gravel is
Speaker 1: supporting everything. But now that there's lots of space in
Speaker 1: between that gravel, moisture, any moisture in that soil that
Speaker 1: it gets near that area will rush to that trench,
Speaker 1: go into that gravel area and be conveyed away by
Speaker 1: the pipe that's there. Of course, that pipe has to
Speaker 1: go somewhere, so you'll have to turn the corner with
Speaker 1: it and continue out. It could be completely flat, or
Speaker 1: if you've got room to slope it fine, tie it
Speaker 1: into other yard drains, or have it eventually emerge on
Speaker 1: the surface of the property at some place so it
Speaker 1: can drain off. But the goal is grab as much
Speaker 1: of that moisture that's coming towards the house, either divert
Speaker 1: it on the surface or capture it in this French drain.
Speaker 1: When you're all said and done with that, if you
Speaker 1: go those three or four steps, if you take all
Speaker 1: three or four of those steps. I guarantee you you're
Speaker 1: not going to be having moisture in the bedroom anymore.
Speaker 1: It's not about getting more air circulation. It's not. It's listen,
Speaker 1: we don't want to have to deal. Don't. Don't just
Speaker 1: constantly deal with the you know, with the symptoms. Get
Speaker 1: to the root cause, stop the water from getting near
Speaker 1: that part of the house.
Speaker 2: Got it. So the stucco company can handle the wall.
Speaker 2: But who would I use to put that French drain in?
Speaker 2: Would a landscaper do that? Or do I have to
Speaker 2: call it contractor yeah?
Speaker 1: No? Now very likely, very likely. You know a good
Speaker 1: landscaping company or the gardening company. They deal with this
Speaker 1: stuff a lot, all right. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've got a gardener or a landscaper, but you would talk.
Speaker 1: I would talk to them first. I'm like, hey, how
Speaker 1: do you guys feel about getting a French drain and
Speaker 1: put in there? My landscaper, my gardener. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll do it all the time, no problem, they'll take
Speaker 1: care of it for me.
Speaker 2: Okay, sounds fabulous. I really for sure.
Speaker 1: Your help, Susie, So thank you so much for the call.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the call, insightful questions, problems. That's the whole
Speaker 1: idea of taking calls here on the show, so we
Speaker 1: can all learn together. All right, when we return more
Speaker 1: of your calls. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. Welcome KFI AM six forty live
Speaker 1: streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're Home
Speaker 1: with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Welcome Home, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. I'm glad you're with us. We're talking all
Speaker 1: things home today. We're taking calls as we do now
Speaker 1: on Saturday mornings. It's an all call Saturday morning, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to the phones. I want
Speaker 1: to talk to Tricia. Hey, Tricia, welcome home.
Speaker 3: Oh thank you, Jean, and good morning. It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 1: It is, indeed, even though it's cloudy and I think
Speaker 1: it's starting to rain outside, but you know what, it's springtime,
Speaker 1: so I'm embracing it. How can I help you, Well.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm always looking to save a couple dollars,
Speaker 3: and my power bill right now runs between about thirty
Speaker 3: to forty dollars a month, and that includes gas and electric.
Speaker 3: Now I have your basic water heater. It's a forty
Speaker 3: gallon tank, and I live alone. It's just me. I
Speaker 3: don't even need that big heater, the water heater. But
Speaker 3: my question is, I went on vacation and I forgot
Speaker 3: to put I put the water heater on vacation mode,
Speaker 3: and I forgot to take it off vacation mode. This
Speaker 3: is like maybe four five months ago and it's been
Speaker 3: on vacation mode. And I'm thinking, am I damaging my
Speaker 3: water heater by keeping it that low? Should I turn
Speaker 3: it up? I'm very happy with the water that comes out, thoughts.
Speaker 1: So you're happy with the water that comes out of
Speaker 1: the water heater on vacation mode.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
Speaker 3: I'm just like it's perfect. I mean, it's it's great.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm happy. I'm in the shower, I'm out
Speaker 3: of the shower, in the bathtub, out of the bathtub.
Speaker 3: It's great. My dog's happy when I bathe them with
Speaker 3: the I mean, I couldn't be happier. But I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: am I damaging my water heater? I just replaced it
Speaker 3: about two years ago, and that water heater lasted thirteen years,
Speaker 3: but I had it on.
Speaker 2: I had it on the lowest, but not vacation mode.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so you're a person who doesn't need the
Speaker 1: you know, scalding hot water coming out of the water.
Speaker 1: We're opposite. That's when it comes to that. I always said,
Speaker 1: you know, I have a tankless water heater. It comes
Speaker 1: factory pre set at one hundred and twenty degrees and
Speaker 1: I always find the override code too, so I can
Speaker 1: set it up to one hundred and forty. Because I
Speaker 1: was hot water. I love it. But hey, no, So
Speaker 1: the answer to your question, very simply, Trisha, is is no,
Speaker 1: you're not damaging your water heater vacation mode. Vacation mode
Speaker 1: is just low. It is. It's low, and it does.
Speaker 1: Do you live here in southern California.
Speaker 3: I'm in Carlsbad, so I'm you know, with San Diego County.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah, so you're here in
Speaker 1: sokol And you know, vacation mode doesn't even really apply
Speaker 1: to us out here too much. So vacations just everybody understands.
Speaker 1: Vacation mode setting on a water heater is simply this,
Speaker 1: you know, is that you are setting the water heater
Speaker 1: all the way down to its lowest setting, so that
Speaker 1: while you're away, it is it's keeping the water warmish,
Speaker 1: but it's not overdoing it. Uh. And the whole reason,
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, in all honesty, Uh, if you live
Speaker 1: in southern California, we rarely have ever experience freezing temperatures,
Speaker 1: and if if we do, it's for a day and
Speaker 1: then we move on. And I don't want everybody don't
Speaker 1: don't sue me when I tell you this, but I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of us we can just turn our
Speaker 1: water heat. If you live in a warm climate, you
Speaker 1: could just turn your water heater off when you go
Speaker 1: on vacation and come back and just fire it back
Speaker 1: up again. Vacation mode is really for everybody who lives
Speaker 1: in a place where you may be going away during
Speaker 1: the winter months and you may get freezing temperatures, and
Speaker 1: what you don't want. Everybody understands that understands that if
Speaker 1: water freezes in your pipes, it expands. Water expands when
Speaker 1: it freezes, and as a result, in a closed system.
Speaker 1: If the water in your pipes freeze, then you it
Speaker 1: will expand against your pipes and often will burst pipe
Speaker 1: open and create a leak, and so vacation mode is
Speaker 1: the lowest setting on your water heater. It's usually fifty
Speaker 1: degrees and it will just barely keep the way you know,
Speaker 1: it keeps the water above freezing so that the pipes
Speaker 1: don't freeze while you're on vacation. And if you happen
Speaker 1: to like that setting, great, It's just it doesn't there's
Speaker 1: no special it's not a special thing where the water
Speaker 1: heater is working differently. It's just the lowest. It's just
Speaker 1: the lowest of low.
Speaker 3: That's all good to know because the next level is
Speaker 3: turning it off and I'm a little bit I get
Speaker 3: scared with the gas, you know, turning it off and
Speaker 3: then turning it back on again. So I just like,
Speaker 3: you know, what if I put it at the very level.
Speaker 3: And I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and we
Speaker 3: used to drip our pipe, you know, we should drip
Speaker 3: the faucet when it got really really cold, like in
Speaker 3: the seventeen degree weather. So yeah, so I'm familiar with
Speaker 3: bursting pipe.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so yeah, that's exactly why you drip, yess
Speaker 1: why you drip the faucet so that the water has
Speaker 1: a place to expand so it keeps it just trickling
Speaker 1: a little bit. So there's all these tricks. But vacation
Speaker 1: mode is a great setting in a modern water heater.
Speaker 1: And hey, if you like the temp, there's nothing weird
Speaker 1: about it other than it's just low. It's just low.
Speaker 3: A lot of money. I think. People laugh at me, like,
Speaker 3: how much is your problem? Like thirty dollars me, it's
Speaker 3: a little high, and they're laughing at me like what, well.
Speaker 1: You know what. I applaud you for that, Trisha. I'm
Speaker 1: just not coming over to your house for a hot shower,
Speaker 1: that's all. So it's all.
Speaker 3: It's good, Tris.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the call.
Speaker 3: Thank you to have a wonderful day.
Speaker 1: You and Tina, you two, my friend, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: All right, See this is such a lovely lady. Uh
Speaker 1: more of your calls. When we return your home with
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp, the house whisper. I r Hi Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: the house whisper with you on this lovely spring Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: Welcome home. Thanks for joining us on the program. It
Speaker 1: is a privilege. It's an honor to sit and talk
Speaker 1: to you about your home, that most precious place, the
Speaker 1: holy of holies, the ground zero of your life home.
Speaker 1: That's wherever it is that you live. Whether it's a condo,
Speaker 1: a cottage, a castle, matters not to me. I'm here
Speaker 1: to help you take it to the next level so
Speaker 1: it can be the very best home it can possible
Speaker 1: ble be for you. It is an all call Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: as is our growing custom here, and so I want
Speaker 1: to try and take at least one more call. I'll
Speaker 1: also tell you about what's going on with tomorrow's show,
Speaker 1: but first let's talk to Julie in Anaheim. Julie, welcome home,
Speaker 1: Good morning, Dean. How do I find a good, reliable handyman.
Speaker 1: That's a really good question, really good question. So there
Speaker 1: is there are some places around these days thanks to
Speaker 1: the Interweb and stuff like that. First of all, I
Speaker 1: would always ask a friend's family acquaintances, Hey, do you
Speaker 1: have anybody who you trust? Because personal referrals are just
Speaker 1: still the gold standard for this kind of thing. There's
Speaker 1: nothing that replaces in the end, you know, a trusted
Speaker 1: friend telling you, oh, this is this person is fantastic
Speaker 1: for this and and then you go that way. But
Speaker 1: if you are shy of those referrals, then a couple
Speaker 1: of places online would be Uh, they all have the
Speaker 1: word task in them. Uh a air tasker, air tasker.
Speaker 1: Did I get that right? Did I get yeah? Air
Speaker 1: tasker dot com is a is a website that you
Speaker 1: put in your zip code and you look for that,
Speaker 1: you know, you list out the thing you're looking for,
Speaker 1: and they'll meet they'll match you up with people who
Speaker 1: have signed up for just those kinds of jobs. And
Speaker 1: another one is task Rabbit TaskRabbit dot com, same kind
Speaker 1: of thing. These are really sites that are focused on
Speaker 1: handy people. Handy persons. We still say handyman, but I
Speaker 1: feel like that's not politically correct anymore, and it's probably
Speaker 1: just not great. But here, and just so you know,
Speaker 1: this is a critical part of the U the home
Speaker 1: repair and maintenance economy really really is a lot of
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, you're a handyman, you're not a
Speaker 1: real contractor. Well, you know what, here is the thing,
Speaker 1: Uh you get you you get a contractor's license, you
Speaker 1: have to have bonds and all of these other things.
Speaker 1: And and that's this is why most contractors are not
Speaker 1: interested in taking jobs that are just Hey, what I
Speaker 1: need is somebody to install my washer and dry my
Speaker 1: new washer and dryer. You know, because I don't want
Speaker 1: to do it myself or these kinds of things. By
Speaker 1: law in the state of California, and this may be
Speaker 1: different in other states, but I law, by law, in
Speaker 1: the state of California, handy person UH can operate and
Speaker 1: do all of these things without being a licensed contractor
Speaker 1: UH as long as as long as the the total
Speaker 1: value of the project is five hundred dollars or less,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the law. So if you and there
Speaker 1: are companies that are massively successful sending people around doing
Speaker 1: these small, odd, uh but important projects, little fix it
Speaker 1: things here and there, UH, just always be aware that
Speaker 1: if it's a larger project and that requires you know,
Speaker 1: something major, like you know, like a license plumber, for instance,
Speaker 1: then you want to be looking for a licensed plumber
Speaker 1: as opposed to But but it doesn't take a license
Speaker 1: plumber to change out a toilet or fix a toilet
Speaker 1: leak or you know, that's kind of that's the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and contractors usually just don't want to touch
Speaker 1: it or they're just going to charge you way way
Speaker 1: too much. So handy people are a critical part and
Speaker 1: just because they don't have a license does not mean
Speaker 1: that they don't know what they're doing or that they're
Speaker 1: not functioning legally. It is in fact a fully you know,
Speaker 1: legitimate category, and finding them at times is is really important.
Speaker 1: So yeah, task rabbit, air tasker, friends and family referrals.
Speaker 1: That's how you find a great qualified handy person. And
Speaker 1: they fell just a critically important niche. Yeah, and sometimes, honestly, legally,
Speaker 1: you may have a project that a general contractor actually
Speaker 1: is not supposed to touch. And this is just I'm just
Speaker 1: going to give everybody a little bit of trivia here
Speaker 1: or a little bit of info. In the state of California,
Speaker 1: a general contractor's license for residential is actually a carpentry license. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's technically it's the carpentry license. And so here's what
Speaker 1: a general contractor can and can't do. A general contractor
Speaker 1: can come in and do any of the trades that
Speaker 1: you need them to do. We can do plumbing, electrical,
Speaker 1: you know, carpenter, whatever, but we have to come in
Speaker 1: technically to do two or more of those trades. So
Speaker 1: in other words, if your project involves electrical and plumbing,
Speaker 1: then I can come in as a general and be
Speaker 1: you know, do the electrical work and the plumbing work myself, right,
Speaker 1: no problem. What I can't do, what I'm not allowed
Speaker 1: to do as a general contractor in California is come
Speaker 1: in and just do your electrical or just do plumbing work.
Speaker 1: Because now, wow, I am supplanting a licensed electrician and
Speaker 1: a licensed plumber with just my general contractor's license. So
Speaker 1: if I'm doing general work two or more trades, no problem.
Speaker 1: But I can't come in and just legally, you know,
Speaker 1: fix the toilet or fix a pipe, because it's one
Speaker 1: trade and that trade has its own specialized license. I
Speaker 1: know it's weird, but I think you can get the
Speaker 1: point is that the idea is that generals aren't allowed
Speaker 1: to come in and steal everybody else's work on an
Speaker 1: individual basis, but we can do the job if it's
Speaker 1: if it's two or more trades combined together. So the
Speaker 1: point is there are a lot of jobs that generals
Speaker 1: can't even legally touch that a handy person sits in
Speaker 1: and fits the bill and makes it work. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, I know some beautiful people who are really
Speaker 1: really really handy and know their stuff, and so air
Speaker 1: tasker task rabbits and referrals. Julie, thank you, so much
Speaker 1: for your call, and I hope that helps you. Pop
Speaker 1: in your zip code you'll get some referrals. But interview also,
Speaker 1: and remember VET a handy person, just like you would
Speaker 1: a contractor. Ask for referrals, talk to people who have
Speaker 1: just been using them recently and find out, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: is this person up to snuff? Were they helpful? Were
Speaker 1: they on time? You'll find the right one. And once
Speaker 1: you make that relationship, man, it's worth its weight in gold.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all. Here we are at the end of
Speaker 1: another couple of hours together on this lovely spring morning,
Speaker 1: and I hope your day is full of wonder and
Speaker 1: uh and productivity and rest or whatever it is supposed
Speaker 1: to be for you. That you get busy building yourself
Speaker 1: a beautiful life. Tomorrow on the show, we're talking pest
Speaker 1: control with my good friend Sue Freeze, founder owner of
Speaker 1: Ecola Pest Control, to Pest Control Sunday morning. So save
Speaker 1: up all your pest problem questions and we'll talk to
Speaker 1: Sue about it tomorrow. Until then, get out there and
Speaker 1: get busy building yourself a beautiful life. We'll see tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This has been home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper
Speaker 1: Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and
Speaker 1: every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
Speaker 1: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app