You know what? I always thought that this would be a great idea for you, that if you had Dean's List instead of Angie's List or something like that, where you had all the guys that you've worked with in the past that you could recommend, I think that would be gangbusters, man.

In theory, yeah.

But it's just, man, you know, and here's the thing, you know, construction is such a local game.

It really is.

You know, so so I've got guys in West L.A., you know, from Bel Air and Beverly Hills out to Malibu and up into eastern Ventura County.

But, you know, that's not going to do anybody any good in Orange or Irvine or in San Bernardino.

And when we first started the show, we thought, you know what, maybe, maybe we'll put together kind of a referral system.

It's unbelievable.

You know what? I always thought that this would be a great idea for you, that if you had Dean's List instead of Angie's List or something like that, where you had all the guys that you've worked with in the past that you could recommend, I think that would be gangbusters, man.

In theory, yeah.

But it's just, man, you know, and here's the thing, you know, construction is such a local game.

It really is.

You know, so so I've got guys in West L.A., you know, from Bel Air and Beverly Hills out to Malibu and up into eastern Ventura County.

But, you know, that's not going to do anybody any good in Orange or Irvine or in San Bernardino.

And when we first started the show, we thought, you know what, maybe, maybe we'll put together kind of a referral system.

but what is it dean and i know you're not like this and i know you get you try to keep people on schedule but i've never ever seen a business before in my life where during a project guys might not show up for four or five straight days yeah it's unbelievable

How often, percentage-wise, when a husband and wife are really involved in the designing of the house, how often will they argue in front of you?

Hardly ever.

Really? Hardly ever.

But you know what? We have a very different approach to how we kind of intake a design than a lot of architects and a lot of designers.

Our intake form, if you want to call it that, that's what typically a design firm wants to know a bunch of stuff.

And design firms typically, I mean, I think this is the goal, but they miss the mark.

They end up asking for a lot of specifics, like how tall do you want the ceilings and what kind of kitchen appliances do you want? And you know what? That kind of stuff, I'm not even interested in.

you know, why? Then why

Are there any things that you're seeing right now or that people are asking for that you're recommending in homes that you do feel like are going to stand the test of time that are always a good idea?

Yeah, there are.

And there are things that are that are new ish.

OK, not fads, not fads, but there are trends.

Right.

So you watch and you see how culture evolves and moves and grows.

So, for instance, aging in place.

a lot harder to actually get that installed, though, than maybe a regular old drain?

doesn't

sound as good.

Yeah.

And I guess you could say, well, it improved my house because I had something broken and now it's not.

Okay.

Yeah.

But if you really, really take a look at it, the home improvement industry in the United States is like a $300 billion industry.

And then what about buying a house? What is the one thing when you look at, when you go into a house, what is the one thing you should look for where you know that the rest of the house is a well-kept and quality?

Why is it called a silent killer?

Well, you know, it's not the water, it's the plumbing and the silent killer, meaning that plumbing has a way, especially, you know, like old copper pipes in slabs, which is something that for generations was a thing, right? We would run copper piping down in the ground before we would pour the slab and then the slab gets poured and now they're trapped down there.

and uh copper in the ground has a very limited lifespan it turns out now up up above it still has a you know a limited lifespan copper is not forever copper piping is not forever But especially here in Southern California, you run copper in the ground.

And all of a sudden what happens is we start getting these pinhole leaks in aging copper.

And that's the result of the copper interacting with minerals in the soil and all sorts of things going on down there.

It just ages and it ages out.

And I'm not talking about busting at, you know, at unions and joints and couplers and things like that.

Is there really a benefit for one versus the other? When does one make the most sense? Right now,

Is there really a benefit for one versus the other? When does one make the most sense? Right now, I think the debate

is over pretty much.

I mean, there are still people who still want their tanked water heater.

Mostly the argument that I hear is that, well, you know what? We already have the tanked water heater.

We're just going to put another one in because it's a little bit less expensive.

And when the tankless first came out, they were a lot more expensive, a lot.

Now, they're not a lot more expensive.

Mm-hmm.

because, you know, we still, we do a

lot of work on century homes.

And some of these homes that are just these gorgeous, beautiful 1920s homes, you know, we walk in, they're like, oh yeah.

And then there's the outlets.

And I look around, I'm like, these are all the original outlets.

And they're like, yeah, but I don't want to tear up the walls.

How do I get a...

Yeah.

now

because, you know, we still, we do a lot of work on century homes.

And some of these homes that are just these gorgeous, beautiful 1920s homes, you know, we walk in, they're like, oh yeah.

And then there's the outlets.

And I look around, I'm like, these are all the original outlets.

And they're like, yeah, but I want to tear up the walls.

How do I get a...

And that's another

exactly sure what the

discrepancy is between 48 and 28, okay? Right.

But you're right, you're right.

And this, by the way, is why, if you're pricing this out and you've got to get a new system, you really, you've got to hold to your guns and do what I always tell everybody to do, which is... take three estimates you got to take three or more estimates you can't just shoot in the dark and expect that the first guy who comes along has given you the best price or even the best scope and a lot of a lot of it has to do with you know what they're actually doing up there some people are thinking well you know what we're just changing out the gear all right we're gonna keep your ducks where they're at and we're not gonna reconfigure everything and Other contractors like, oh, no, you got a mess up there.

We're going to have to pull all those ducks out.

And so you really got to understand the scope of what these guys are talking about.

And you got to get competitive bids along the way because air conditioning is not a plug and play appliance.

And that makes sense, though, that you would have sensors in every room because how else would, you know, the one thermostat that you have in the living room that's, you know, 40 feet away from your bedrooms and the door is closed, how would that know what the temperature is in the bedroom?

And that's how you water and you save a lot more water that way.

Heck, yeah.

If anybody is completely redoing their landscape or thinking about completely converting over to micro drip systems, that is the only way to go.

It's basically, I mean, imagine you've got a drip emitter hose that is running back and forth underneath your lawn, about 12 inches apart, each one of the strands.

So it ends up, you know, when we're done with it, it looks like a big radiator, a radiator coil.

uh and a lot of people are like well okay but i have a lawn right you don't want me to trench my lawn no we don't do that anymore we live in the golden age tim of tool rentals and so uh here's what you can do you can mosey on down to like your local home depot if there's a tool rental or your local tool rental company and you can rent the uh the household or residential version of a sod cutter which is essentially the exact same machine that are used on the big farms when they bring you your new grass, you know, when they bring rolls of sod.

So if you've got a lawn worth saving, you can literally sod cut it out, lay it on the driveway, lay it aside, run this irrigation coil in the soil that's behind, and then put your grass back on top of it, and you will forever... have a sprinkler-less lawn that is delivering water directly to the roots of the grass.

In

Okay

... 'cause, you know, here we are, right? Late May, and we're just, uh, we're just gonna dive into, uh...

Or I guess mid-May.

Uh, we're gonna dive into, uh, this weather that we've got, and everybody's thinking about stuff to get done outside.

So we're gonna talk about everything from irrigation to, you know, where to plant certain plants, 'cause I dunno, a lot of people don't realize that they have microclimates in their backyard.

Everybody.

Everybody has microclimates.

Yeah

What does that

mean? Microclimates simply mean this.

Let's say your house is facing east-west, front door, back door.

That means that you've also got walls that are on the north side of the house and the south side of the house.

On the south side of the house, you're getting all sun all day long because the sun is in the southern sky here in North America.

And on the north side of the house, everything that's right up against the house, like within 5 or 10 feet of the house, is in the shade all day long.

So it doesn't matter what the ambient air temperature is.

I have the greatest compliment I ever had was a woman came up to me and she asked me when I was sitting on the front porch, she said, who's your gardener? Can I get their phone number? That was the biggest compliment I've ever had in my life.

you,

I'll tell you.

And it's more than a theory, I think.

OK, good.

No, I'm seeing it from the inside out.

Right.

There are two very large categories of contractors out there that that come from two very different spheres.

Dean, take it away.

That's

what that's what our listeners love when I title shows like that.

So, you know, Sunday, I'm working on Sunday.

I'm doing a show.

It's Mother's Day.

I'm doing a show.

And I wanted to send something in the direction of moms.

Oh, God.

Why is it, and I'm in the same boat, I don't know if you are, but I know Crozier is, why is it so hard for homeowners to pull the trigger on spending on roof, air conditioning, and these big projects?

Well, because they're not cheap.

They're not cheap.

And so, you know, people hold off.

They hold off as long as they can.

Sometimes they hold off too long.

They're just not cheap things.

Oh, it is.

I'll

tell you.

And it's more than a theory, I think.

Okay, good.

No, I'm seeing it from the inside out.

Right.

There are two very large categories of contractors out there that come from two very different spheres.

Dean, take it away.

bigger

and bigger it was up to like 24 2500 square feet Hey, you know what? At some point, first-time buyers, if interest rates ever change, here's me talking in the early 2000s, if interest rates ever change and go back to normal, nobody's going to afford a 2,500-square-foot starter home.

We have to start building smaller homes.

And so, yeah, I think the table is turning now, and we're starting to realize that that may be the winning solution here.

Plus...

I work on a lot of older homes, pre-1960s homes, and they were all smaller.

They were all smaller.

These are full-blown, just smaller versions of BAMs.

Two of them died.

Two of them died.

One of them right out here in Thousand Oaks where I live.

And so it's a very serious situation.

There's a clear explanation for why that we should just talk about.

And so people stop getting bit by rattlesnakes right now.

The short answer, unseasonably early intense heat.

I know how

And that's happening, huh?

Yeah, it's happening.

So these are things, you know, to be concerned about, you know, whether...

Right when the tariffs started to kind of – everybody got used to those.

Then the gas prices went up.

So it's always something.

It's always something that hit us these days.

What are the high end drills and power

year no way yeah and a lot of honey do you put a mask on and gloves when you go to collect it

yeah you know you get the full-on uh bee suit there and get out the little smoker and that's cool you know and then open it up and you uh collect the honey from the upper area of the hive you don't bother the bottom you just check on them down below that's actually where they live and then they store you you you set it up so that so that the queen doesn't go up into the upper box.

There's a little sheet called a queen excluder.

Oh, wow.

Because she's bigger than the other bees.

Sure.

And so the worker bees can get through, but she can't.

uh rodents by the way

Either you've got a great wife or you don't.

So, you know, we work with, and there are problems, especially when it comes to tract homes, with both, right? Right.

I've been to tract homes.

I was one, you know, a few weeks ago.

sitting up a beautiful knoll overlooking the entire valley below it and not a single damn window out that side of the house.

Because again, tract homes aren't designed with that thinking in mind.

They just plop them down.

Well, they

exactly what I was thinking.

Yeah, but here's the thing.

It is an expensive door, but let's just talk brass tacks.

If you've got an entry door, like a big oak entry door, a 36-inch wide entry door, which is what they should be, and you also have in that oak frame two side lights, two glass side lights to both sides, the overall door opening is probably pushing a little over five feet.

Now, that whole assembly, all that put together, that could easily set you back you know, like four grand plus, even more for an oak or a mahogany front door.

And these doors, single door, no more expensive than that.

But it's one door.

And we've had to replace the hinges up there two or three times because they just wear out.

So what do you mean by romancing your house?

Listen, when I say romance, and I use that term a lot.

I do use it a lot.

I use it with clients.

I use it during the show, talking about raising the romance level of rooms and spaces in your house.

I am not...

First and foremost, talking about the sensuous relationship you have with your significant other or yourself or your vacuum cleaner.

I mean, I think that they have probably the most advanced in decoration and design and quality than maybe anything in your field over the last 10, 15, 20 years?

I think it's huge.

Absolutely.

It's of major importance.

And I'll tell you why.

Because, well, I'll say this.

It's of major importance to 98% of the people who are listening right now because most of us live in a, you know, tracked home.

In other words, a home that was not designed for that piece of property.

I think that really adds a tremendous value, especially visually to that room.