Speaker 1: KF I AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: the House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app
Speaker 1: Cam I AM six forty live streaming in h tod
Speaker 1: everywhere on the iHeart Radio app. Hey, welcome to home where.
Speaker 1: Every week we help you better understand that place where
Speaker 1: you live. I am Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer, custom
Speaker 1: home builder, custom home designer. Most importantly, today, your guide
Speaker 1: to transforming your ordinary house into an extraordinary home. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what I want to do this morning. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about just protecting your house, whether it
Speaker 1: be ordinary or extraordinary. I want you to have the
Speaker 1: chance of transforming your ordinary house into something extraordinary during
Speaker 1: wildfire season here in southern California. So we're gonna we
Speaker 1: had some other plans for this morning, but I want
Speaker 1: to take a little time this morning and talk about
Speaker 1: fire hardening your home. Once again, we've done this earlier
Speaker 1: in the year. We try to help you through that
Speaker 1: as much as we can. But then, of course everybody's
Speaker 1: ears and eyes sort of open up when we have
Speaker 1: something happening, like what is happening right now the Mountain
Speaker 1: fire out in Ventura County and a lot of homes
Speaker 1: lost to this fire already. Now hopefully, hopefully the wind
Speaker 1: event that really drove it at the beginning has calmed
Speaker 1: itself and will remain calm. But and right now, CalFire
Speaker 1: reports fourteen percent containment of the Mountain Fire, twenty thousand
Speaker 1: plus acres burned and a few hundred homes taken. But
Speaker 1: if that changes, then well we know things can change
Speaker 1: very very quickly. So we're going to talk wildfire hardening
Speaker 1: of your home today, appropriate for anybody who lives up
Speaker 1: against open space or within two or three miles of
Speaker 1: open space. And of course we're going to take some
Speaker 1: calls as we do. And when it comes to calls,
Speaker 1: always here on the program, you get to set the agenda.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk. I'm going to hand out the best
Speaker 1: wildfire advice I can give you this morning. You can
Speaker 1: call me about anything that's going on with your home,
Speaker 1: anything that's got you scratching your head wondering what do
Speaker 1: I do next, whether it's wildfire related or not. You
Speaker 1: set the agenda and don't be shy, because that's the
Speaker 1: way it always is with calls. Regardless of what I've
Speaker 1: set for the agenda today, you set the agenda when
Speaker 1: it comes to your call, so it can be construction,
Speaker 1: diy inside, outside, landscape, hardscape, decor design, whatever the case
Speaker 1: may be. Give me a call. The number to reach
Speaker 1: me eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three
Speaker 1: the numeral two ask Dean eight three to three to
Speaker 1: ask Dean. The phone lines are open now. We are
Speaker 1: live and ready to roll. Give me a call and
Speaker 1: we'll put our heads together, we'll figure and if we
Speaker 1: do this all right, we're gonna bring some light into
Speaker 1: your morning and we're gonna make you feel glad that
Speaker 1: you were here. I promise you, the team is here
Speaker 1: for you. Sam is on the board. Good morning Sam,
Speaker 1: Good morning Dean. How you doing today? I am well.
Speaker 1: I am doing well. And there is our live studio audience.
Speaker 1: More on live studio audience because then just a bit
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that on the other side of the break.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna give you yet another opportunity to win
Speaker 1: some tickets to our House Whisper Holiday Home show, What's
Speaker 1: going to be happening on November twenty fourth, Sunday the
Speaker 1: twenty fourth at the KFI Studios in Burbank, And you
Speaker 1: can be a part of it. More on that. In
Speaker 1: just a bit, Producer Lindsey is standing by taking Oh
Speaker 1: she's taking calls right now. Look at that. She's busy
Speaker 1: on the phone. That number again, eight three three to
Speaker 1: ask Dean eight three three two ask dean. Eileen Gonzalez
Speaker 1: is at the news desk. Good morning, Eileen, Good morning Dean.
Speaker 1: How's it going? Uh, I'm going. I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a tiring week. I won't uh,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to pull any punches. It was a busy, busy,
Speaker 1: kind of crazy, wacky week. How about you? Busy, always busy,
Speaker 1: same same, Yeah, Well, weekends. It continues on the weekends,
Speaker 1: doesn't it It does? Why is that? Well, it's because
Speaker 1: we're lucky enough to have these jobs. I do consider
Speaker 1: us lucky, don't They don't they know that they could
Speaker 1: just the world can just press pause and just just
Speaker 1: let us relax a little on the weekends. But no, no,
Speaker 1: all right, Eileen, glad that you're here as always. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sitting across the table from me, my better half, clearly,
Speaker 1: my design partner, the co owner, the co found owner
Speaker 1: of House Whisper, and just so happens, my best friend
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. Tina is here. Welcome home. How you
Speaker 1: doing good? Yeah? That was a loaded good. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot going on. Yeah, that's true. There's
Speaker 1: been a lot going on. All right, So how about this,
Speaker 1: how about we get to it. Yeah, okay, we're going
Speaker 1: to hand it some wildfire advice. When all right, on
Speaker 1: the other side of the news break, I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about winning some seats at the House
Speaker 1: Whisper Holiday home show. We'll talk about that and wildfires
Speaker 1: and your calls get fine sharp the House Whisper at
Speaker 1: your service. Ah, well, here we are a Saturday morning
Speaker 1: live here November ninth, twenty twenty four. We have the
Speaker 1: Mountain Fire burning here in southern California, twenty thousand acres
Speaker 1: and fourteen percent contained currently. Thankfully, the wind of that
Speaker 1: really really drove. It has subsided, and I haven't seen
Speaker 1: any indications that there's anticipation of another one coming soon.
Speaker 1: But so let's keep our fingers crossed on that. But
Speaker 1: a lot of homes lost, a lot of evacuations, a
Speaker 1: lot of people affected, and a good amount of acreage
Speaker 1: burned from the Mountain fire. And so we are tabling
Speaker 1: our previously planned discussion this morning, so that we can
Speaker 1: just spend some time talking to you about fire hardening
Speaker 1: homes and what you can do. I'm approaching it a
Speaker 1: little bit differently because the fire is present right now
Speaker 1: then I normally would where we take an extra amount
Speaker 1: of time on all of the prep I just basically
Speaker 1: want to divide my advice this morning up into two categories. One,
Speaker 1: if you have some time, however much time that is,
Speaker 1: meaning that you're not being threatened by a wildfire currently.
Speaker 1: And two, if you don't have much time when you
Speaker 1: find yourself in the situation of facing potential evacuation and
Speaker 1: the like, I just want you to hear the full,
Speaker 1: well rounded advice that you know what your options are.
Speaker 1: So number one, like I've said before many many times
Speaker 1: on the programs, if you have some time, you need
Speaker 1: to take a look at the orientation of your home
Speaker 1: in regards to the open space where wildfires can happen.
Speaker 1: And of course, none of this advice is you know,
Speaker 1: excludes your home whether or not you're anywhere near a
Speaker 1: wildfire open space area, because you know structure fires can happen,
Speaker 1: and none of this hurts even if you are embedded
Speaker 1: miles and miles into an urban or suburban environment without
Speaker 1: a lot of open space. But here in southern California,
Speaker 1: there is open space all round us. And it's rare,
Speaker 1: actually that you are more than just a handful of
Speaker 1: miles away from an open space area. And of course
Speaker 1: we've expressed the concern before that we now know embers
Speaker 1: flying from those wildfires can travel four miles two to
Speaker 1: three miles in good conditions, or I should say in
Speaker 1: bad conditions. In the right conditions, I should say, for
Speaker 1: an ember to stay lit can fly a long, long distance.
Speaker 1: And this is why when you hear about wildfires starting
Speaker 1: up and threatening neighborhoods and stuff, that quite often the
Speaker 1: first house that begins burning is not even on the
Speaker 1: fire line. It's before the fire line actually reaches the
Speaker 1: edges of residential properties, because attics are sucking those embers
Speaker 1: into their attic open space. And I get asked this
Speaker 1: question all the time, why is it dep that houses
Speaker 1: are designed for addicts to draw embers into them, And
Speaker 1: it's a really, really valid question. It's a question that
Speaker 1: I have been asking myself of the building community for
Speaker 1: a long long time, and it's one that just an
Speaker 1: fyi that I addressed an entire program around earlier this year,
Speaker 1: it's been what I don't know, a couple three months
Speaker 1: or so. Please go onto the podcast and look for
Speaker 1: a New Attic. It's a show on the new Attic.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if that's exactly the name. Maybe
Speaker 1: Tina can look that up and find it for us.
Speaker 1: But it's the idea of a conditioned attic space, meaning
Speaker 1: that we're including the attic space in the air conditioned
Speaker 1: and heated air of the house, and a lot of
Speaker 1: benefits to that. Not only is it nice in the
Speaker 1: attic because of that, but it's also, I make the argument,
Speaker 1: more energy efficient, and when that happens, then we don't
Speaker 1: need and we don't use at events at all, zero
Speaker 1: at events coming into your attic, which means that you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about embers crawling into your attic
Speaker 1: during a wildfire. One of the benefits of that is
Speaker 1: the fact that it really fire hardens a home. I
Speaker 1: believe that we're going to see in the next decade,
Speaker 1: because there already is a trend moving towards conditioned attic spaces,
Speaker 1: certainly among our clientele and others. I think in the
Speaker 1: next decade you're going to see it become a mainstream
Speaker 1: concept right here in southern California, conditioned attic spaces. So
Speaker 1: you can go and look that up and I discuss
Speaker 1: it in greater details. So find the episode on the
Speaker 1: podcast and Tina will have that title force just bit.
Speaker 1: But of course, the whole idea here is that the
Speaker 1: eighty percent of homes that are ignited as a result
Speaker 1: of wildfire activity are not not homes that are on
Speaker 1: the fire line, homes that are being literally threatened by
Speaker 1: the flames themselves. Oh. There, it is the New Attic
Speaker 1: in June, so you'll find it dated June sixteenth. June sixteenth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the New Attic is the show that we did that
Speaker 1: on to find out about conditioned attic spaces. So if
Speaker 1: you have some time, we need to talk about emberproofing
Speaker 1: your existing attic. Okay, assuming that we're not completely remodeling
Speaker 1: the attic to become a conditioned space, we need to
Speaker 1: talk about emberproofing it. We'll talk about emberproof vents and
Speaker 1: what that means. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp
Speaker 1: on demand from KFI AM six forty PFI AM forty Live,
Speaker 1: bringing an HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You have
Speaker 1: found home with Dean Sharp the house Whisper. I hope
Speaker 1: you do feel like your home here on Saturday mornings
Speaker 1: when we are live with you talking about your home
Speaker 1: and everything that makes it special. Trans transforming, transforming, Yeah,
Speaker 1: transforming ordinary houses into an extraordinary home. That's what we're
Speaker 1: all about this morning. We're talking about wildfires and fire
Speaker 1: hardening your home. So I've divided my advice up into
Speaker 1: two categories. One, if you have some time because you're
Speaker 1: not being threatened by a wildfire currently. Two if you
Speaker 1: don't have much time, and what you do in those situations.
Speaker 1: If you've got time, ember proofing the vents in your attic.
Speaker 1: And I already did a big lead up to this,
Speaker 1: so the point is those vents that you find, smaller
Speaker 1: vents around the eaves of your attic down the eaves
Speaker 1: of the roofline. Quite often they are small two inch
Speaker 1: holes with mesh over them. There's a number of different
Speaker 1: ways that attics can be vented over the years, and
Speaker 1: so that's not necessarily the configuration you're gonna find on
Speaker 1: your home. But the idea is this, a well vented
Speaker 1: attic has low vents for drawing in cooler air and
Speaker 1: higher vents up near the ridgeline in order to let
Speaker 1: hot air in the attic out. You may have a
Speaker 1: gabled roof in which there are large gable vents. A
Speaker 1: gable is the big triangle on the side of your
Speaker 1: house where the roof comes to an abrupt end, and
Speaker 1: you may have a gable vent there. You may have
Speaker 1: one on each side, whatever the case may be, where
Speaker 1: the vents are in order to fire harden them. If
Speaker 1: you live within realistically i would say four miles of
Speaker 1: a wildfire zone of an open space zone, then it
Speaker 1: would be very very wise, very very wise for you
Speaker 1: to invest in some emberproofing materials. Now, whether you just
Speaker 1: replace the vents or there are companies that will give
Speaker 1: you materials that you can place on the back side
Speaker 1: of the vents that you already have in order to emberproof.
Speaker 1: And basically what that means is that these materials are
Speaker 1: designed to trap the embers as they try and get through.
Speaker 1: As they're being sucked in. It's the convection process in
Speaker 1: your attic that actually draws them in. It's not like
Speaker 1: embers are hunting your house, but your house is very
Speaker 1: quietly vacuuming air around it on any given day as
Speaker 1: heat rises in the attic. So that's the idea. Brands
Speaker 1: that I've recommended before that are still out there doing
Speaker 1: a stellar job Vulcan Vents, Brand Guard, vent Embers, out vents,
Speaker 1: all cal fire approved, all fantastic materials, different effects, and
Speaker 1: so you need to shop it around and find out
Speaker 1: which one works best for your situation. Also, if you
Speaker 1: have some time, in other words, you're not being threatened currently,
Speaker 1: and you've got an older home and you've never changed
Speaker 1: out your windows and doors, then consider fire rated windows
Speaker 1: and doors, at least the side of the house that
Speaker 1: faces the wildlife urban interface the fire zone. Fire Rated
Speaker 1: windows and doors simply means that those windows and doors
Speaker 1: that face the open space will be switched out to
Speaker 1: tempered glass. Now, if you have a sliding glass door
Speaker 1: and it's not you know, I mean it's younger than
Speaker 1: let's say twenty years old, you have a tempered glass
Speaker 1: door there. That's the nature of sliding glass doors for
Speaker 1: a long long time. That's been the case, so that
Speaker 1: wouldn't need to shift. But the windows are annealed regular
Speaker 1: standard glass windows unless your home was built under current
Speaker 1: fire codes. And a lot of older homes aren't even
Speaker 1: a lot of older homes that already switched out their
Speaker 1: windows don't necessarily have tempered glass windows facing the side
Speaker 1: of threat for the house for fire. So you know,
Speaker 1: obviously this is money. Okay, So we're just talking about
Speaker 1: whether or not this is a good investment for you
Speaker 1: long term. And this is not something you do in
Speaker 1: an emergency, Okay, this is if we've got some time.
Speaker 1: And in addition to this, cleaning up your trees, getting
Speaker 1: your trees pruned this time of year is a wise
Speaker 1: thing to do for the life of the tree. We've
Speaker 1: had entire programs. If you want to look back again
Speaker 1: in the podcast, find the episodes about when to prune
Speaker 1: a tree. Fall is the optimal time to do this.
Speaker 1: Cleaning up and cleaning out trees in the fall is
Speaker 1: an excellent way of fire hardening your property and then
Speaker 1: clearing your defensible zone for those of you who are
Speaker 1: pushed up against the open space. A defensible zone is
Speaker 1: usually required by the HOA or your local city or
Speaker 1: the state. And you know, and I always see eye
Speaker 1: rolls on the parts of phoe owners who are like,
Speaker 1: I gotta go out there, and I got it pay
Speaker 1: to have this thing. Listen. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever asked this question before, but I'm gonna ask it
Speaker 1: and get you thinking about it. A wall of wildfire
Speaker 1: flames can be twenty feet tall on a still day, okay,
Speaker 1: when winds are blowing it and exasperating it. Thirty to
Speaker 1: forty foot tall walls of flame okay, coming down the
Speaker 1: hillside or up the hillside towards your neighborhood, all right,
Speaker 1: that wall of flame can pump out well over well
Speaker 1: over one thousand degrees of heat. Okay. So here's a question.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of people know the answer to how
Speaker 1: far away from that wall of flame does a firefighter
Speaker 1: need to stand to effectively defend your home from it?
Speaker 1: When it's forty feet tall and fifteen hundred degrees Well,
Speaker 1: the answer, generally speaking, is three to four times. The
Speaker 1: height of the flames is the distance that you need
Speaker 1: to stand away from it in order to even begin
Speaker 1: to effectively fight it. So let's just be moderate and
Speaker 1: say that we've got twenty five foot flames coming up
Speaker 1: the hillside. Okay, three to four times. That means one
Speaker 1: hundred feet away is the ideal, or I should say,
Speaker 1: minimum distance that firefighters want to be away from that
Speaker 1: flame in order to defend your home and your neighborhood.
Speaker 1: That is what the defensible zone is about. Okay, It's
Speaker 1: not just about not having materials that can burn all
Speaker 1: the way up to your home. It's about giving room
Speaker 1: for the fire department to come in and save your home.
Speaker 1: So clear the defensible zone. That should go without saying,
Speaker 1: I think all right, when we come back, well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna flip over to the other side of that conversation
Speaker 1: and talk about what do you do when you find
Speaker 1: out that you might be right in the path, you
Speaker 1: might be facing evacuation. What if some of these things
Speaker 1: that you could have done ahead of time weren't done
Speaker 1: ahead of time? What do you do? Then? I've got
Speaker 1: some solid advice for you, So go knowwhere your home
Speaker 1: with Dean Sharp the house whisper can't pie Dean Sharp
Speaker 1: the house whisper, Welcome home. We're talking about wildfire hardening
Speaker 1: of your home today, just handing out some advice, pertinent
Speaker 1: advice because of the Mountain fire and the fact that
Speaker 1: you know it always throws everybody's eyes open to the
Speaker 1: fact that oh yeah, oh yeah, it's fire season time,
Speaker 1: and every time we have a severe wind event, man,
Speaker 1: it comes and it comes fast and hard and heavy,
Speaker 1: as the Mountain fire did, destroying several hundred homes, earning
Speaker 1: twenty thousand acres. Currently fourteen percent contained according to cal Fire,
Speaker 1: and hopefully that's going to grow, assuming that wind events
Speaker 1: don't reoccur, you know, creating more problems with the fire.
Speaker 1: So we are talking about fire hardening your home, and
Speaker 1: I'm dividing it into two sections of advice. The first
Speaker 1: which I've already covered if you've got some time, things
Speaker 1: like changing out your windows and doors to fire rated
Speaker 1: temper glass windows and doors, and ember proofing the events
Speaker 1: for your attic, which you know, I know, I sound
Speaker 1: like a broken record on for those of you who
Speaker 1: have been listening to the show for years and years,
Speaker 1: It's true. It's just so necessary. Cleaning up your trees
Speaker 1: and clearing the defensible zone. Now we want to turn
Speaker 1: to what if you don't have much time, What if
Speaker 1: you get caught, you know, with your pants down as
Speaker 1: it were, in a fire zone and it's it's happening.
Speaker 1: I want to give you that advice, And so I'm
Speaker 1: first bit of advice here we're running a little late
Speaker 1: on time because I ran a little long on a
Speaker 1: couple other segments. So I will start this and then
Speaker 1: we'll pick up the other side, and then we are
Speaker 1: taking calls. By the way, eight three three two. Ask
Speaker 1: dean A three to three the numeral two, ask dean.
Speaker 1: If you're on the phone lines, hang tight. I'm coming
Speaker 1: to you, I promise. But the very first thing that
Speaker 1: you can do if you don't have much time is
Speaker 1: number one. Get stuff away from your house before you
Speaker 1: have to leave, before you potentially have to evacuate. Move
Speaker 1: the junk away from the walls of your house, anything,
Speaker 1: anything that could burn, anything that could ignite. Get it
Speaker 1: clear away from the house. I don't know how more
Speaker 1: so to put that. It is simply really really smart
Speaker 1: in terms of just you know, as a designer, I
Speaker 1: would tell you just do that permanently and never move
Speaker 1: it back. All right, but move stuff away from the house. Secondly,
Speaker 1: let's say we haven't ember proofed your vents and you
Speaker 1: are potentially inside the two or three mile radius of
Speaker 1: a wildfire, whether you've been told to evacuate or not.
Speaker 1: If you have your concerns and rightly so, tape them up.
Speaker 1: Tape up your vents. I don't care what you expected.
Speaker 1: To tape up your vents. Put cardboard over them. I know,
Speaker 1: cardboard burns. I'm not talking about the fire line reaching
Speaker 1: your house. We're simply talking about protecting your attic from
Speaker 1: sucking those vents in duct tape, cardboard, whatever you can find.
Speaker 1: Tape up as many of the vents on your attic.
Speaker 1: Believe me, your attic is not going to suffer for
Speaker 1: a few days or a few hours of having the
Speaker 1: vents closed off, especially this time of year, So tape
Speaker 1: them up. I don't want vents, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want embers getting into your attic, so safely. Okay, don't
Speaker 1: do any heroic stuff on extension ladders if you're on
Speaker 1: a two story house, But if at all possible, just
Speaker 1: seal those vents up, even temporarily, so you don't have
Speaker 1: that worry. And then, finally, I want to recommend again
Speaker 1: a product. I'm going to do this on the other
Speaker 1: side of the break Firejel, I wish every one of
Speaker 1: you listening to me right now had fire gel sitting
Speaker 1: in your garage. Some of you are like, what is Firejel,
Speaker 1: What does it do? We'll talk about that right after
Speaker 1: Eileen Gonzalez gives us the news. You're listening to Home
Speaker 1: with Dean Sharp The House Whisper on KFI. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty