All-Calls Saturday! | Hour 1

extraordinary home. Whether you are listening to us on the local broadcast right here in southern California, or streaming us digitally from wherever across the globe, here or anywhere else, or if you joined in for another episode of The House Whisper on demand podcast, I am just so very glad that you are here. We are doing an all calls weekend and nothing but your calls today, and I want to get back to the phone so we can get as many calls in as possible. I want to

talk to Nishe Niche. Welcome home.

It's more likely, you know, like the only larger mammal that really terrorizes lawns on a regular basis are you know, like gophers and prairie dogs, those kinds of things that come up from underneath and leave little mounds of dirt, and those are easy to identify because they've left behind the dirt from the tunnel that they've dug. But by and large, you know, I don't know. There's a handful

of causes for balding lawn areas. It could be heavy foot traffic, but obviously that doesn't sound like it's a situation. Could be poor soil condition that is starting to kind of spread. That's a possibility, of course, your classic the neighbor's dogs are peeing on your lawn, But that use starts with a noticeable yellow patch first. But when you just find that there's bare soil in the lawn, I have found, generally speaking that it's a grub infestation. And

you're like, oh, Cross, what is that. It's very simple. There are little, tiny little beetles out there that are all around us, and there are some species that like to, you know, lay their eggs in the soil of our lawns because they're nicely protected areas. And then as the grubs start to hatch, the little grub beetles, they're feeding on the roots of our grass and as a result of these bald patches start to occur. So it could be any one of those issues. I mean, you could

have like a fungal disease or a chemical burn. But I'm putting my money on grubs because by and large that's my experience with this. Fortunately, it's not that difficult to deal with. What you do is, first of all, you go get some grub treatment and you will find that on the shelf of just about every garden center everywhere. That you mix into the soil, and that gets the grubs under control. They're not spreading everywhere, They're just where the bald patches are.

to it. But here's a general rule. There are some guides out there that you can look up and say, Okay, I've got this kind of grass and this kind of lawn. I live in southern California. How long should I be watering my lawn with decent sprinkler coverage? And then what I like to do? And I think this is just the most efficient, most effective ways I like to break

that up. So let's say, in fact, my smart watering system does that if forty minutes is the amount of time that an area needs to be irrigated, then my smart watering system will break that up into you know, three twenty minute sessions that are about a half an hour apart, so that we water a little bit, we let that soak in fully and become fully effective, and then we water again, and then you know, you understand what I'm saying, So breaking it up into two or

three cycles. And always here in southern California, in the middle of the night. Okay, not in the early morning when everybody can see the sprinkler's going off. Not during daylight hours. And the very simple reason is that sun

evaporates water. I want all the water going into your soil. Now, this is not true if you live back east or you live somewhere where it's much colder and much wetter, because there, we want a water during daylight hours so that we're not building up too much water content and creating mold and fungal growth and all of that kind of stuff. But not here in southern California. No one in Southern California should ever see your sprinklers going off

unless they're up in the middle of the night. That's how we take most efficient youth of our water. I want it all in the soil and so it's doing its job fully and effectively. Nishe, thanks for the call. Go check that out, check out your watering times, and go check out the grub treatments that you'll find at the garden center, and also figure out what kind of grass you've got and buy that receding mix so that Once you get the grubs under control, then you know

you can grow in those patches. It's not a terminal situation. You can fix it. I promise when we come back, we'll get to more of your calls. This is Dean Sharp, the House Whisper on KFI. Welcome to Home, where every week we help you better understand that place where you live.

I'm Dean Sharp, the House Whisper here with you live like I am every weekend, or whether you are listening to the local broadcast right here in southern California, or you're streaming us live from across the country, or if you have joined in for another episode of the House Whisper podcast. I am just glad that you are here with us. Good morning to you, and welcome home. We are doing an all calls weekend. Hey Wayne, welcome home.

It's a separate space. It's technically kind of outside the house in essence, So we need that diaphragm of insulation to be complete over the whole thing. And so as it is right now, That's why I asked if it was if it's been isolated in the attic with other walls and things in the attic, then if the if the kitchen area or the area above the kitchen is isolated from the rest of the attic space, then that could be fine because what we ultimately need is insulation

above the kitchen. But the fact that the kitchen ceiling has that that heat and cool that's down below in there can just soak right through unimpeded by insulation into the attic and vice versa. It's essentially it's a hole. It's a hole in your insulation, and so so that insulation needs to be down over the kitchen ceiling as well, period, because you need a blanket of insulation that seals up the house. So it's kind of a hole in the

hull of the boat. The fact that the insulation is up in the in the rafter space above the kitchen, that's meaningless that it's not doing anything up there. Okay, it's just it's literally not doing anything. It needs to be down on the surface with the rest of the insulation in the act.

reasons why. Number one, there is no it's not It has nothing to do with the fact that you know they didn't catch on fire. But if you take a look at concrete, concrete is actually not affected by flame per se, but concrete is affected by high heat. And when an entire house is burning to the point where it's all coming down, the heat inside that zone is intense. You know, fifteen hundred degrees plus is easily easily achieved. And when you think about the components of concrete, concrete

is a is a recipe. It is a cement that is the actual you know, adhesive binder in concrete cement portland cement. And then you've got large aggregates like gravel three quarter inch gravel and sand and it's the sand inside the concrete that at high temperatures turns to glass. As we all know, if you melt sand down you can turn it to glass. So there is a there's a process that when concrete is exposed to stream heat,

in which the concrete actually becomes siliconized. It actually, even though it looks the same as it did before, it has actually changed its chemical structure and it's become more brittle. The sand, which originally was a fine aggregate inside the cement, is now a glassy component inside the cement. So that's one reason why a lot of the foundations, most I would say, of the foundations in the houses that are

burnt down, are not going to be reusable. And the second reason is that under again that high heat, any lines of value that are running underneath that concrete, like plastic abs, drain lines coming off of toilets and sinks and so on, any electrical lines, even though the conduits themselves probably were unaffected, but those conduits heat up, the conductor inside those conduits will absolutely have to be tested

and replaced. And the chances are the damage of the lines that are running underneath the slab are such that we'd have to even if the slab was in perfect shape, we'd have to saw cut the slab open in order to run new lines, or we wouldn't be yanking out the old ones, we'd just be running new lines, And by the time we have dealt with the fact that the slab has changed its chemical composition somewhat and we've got to make a lot of saw cuts in it in order to get new drain lines or pull old

ones out of the way. Now we've pretty much messed up this slab in extremes. So that's why I'm saying, by and large, it will be more cost effective and wiser from a structural perspective to just pull most of those slabs, scrape the lot, and restart from new. Does that help understand the situation?

You set the agenda. Anything that is going on with your home, whether it be construction issues, DIY questions, design concerns, anything at all. The phone lines are open. I am here to help you sort it all out. We'll put our heads together and we'll get it sorted. I promised. Here is the number to reach me, and these lines are open now. The number to reach me eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean. You see it just rolls off the tongue on that note.

How about we go to it. We're going to take some calls. Anything you want to talk about, so let's get to it. I want to talk to Ginger. Ginger, welcome home.

And I was wondering if it's okay for me to try and put down flooring up there so that I could get up there and do something with the space without having to have a license or fees that I have to pay with the city and things like that. Also, at one point in time, I had seen these ingenious little slats that are like roll They're like rolls that you roll out and they're slack that end up being

a floor. And I don't know if they're still around anywhere, but if they are, I wondered if you were aware of them and if that would be something I could do.

places like that. Here's the thing, Ginger, everybody wants to utilize as much attic space as possible these days for storage and stuff like that. I get it, I get it. I totally totally understand that. However, our homes and and and where where is it that you live, Ginger out and see me Valley. Okay, so our homes in southern California, buy and large are not designed for addicts to be a part. I mentioned this earlier in the show, to be a part of the conditioned air space of the house.

That means that insulation, a nice thick layer of insulation fiberglass or cellulose insulation, whether it's rolled bats or whether it's blown in, but a nice thick layer equivalent to R thirty for energy savings and all of that air conditioning expanse, heating expense and the like your general comfort in the home. R thirty is what we're shooting for in the attic. And that's thick. That's thick stuff. When people go up into their attics and make platforms, in

other words, create an area of flooring. I don't have any big issue with that, okay, but just got to understand every square foot of flooring that you create up in your attic space for storage, you are squishing down and minimizeing, and you're reducing your attic insulation below the

line of what where the bar should be set. Okay, because if you've got I'm gonna guess in SeeMe Valley tracked home in seem Valley, if we've got two by six ceiling joists running across the room, six inches or five and a half inches of space for insulation is not enough to reach that R thirty marker. So if we've squished it down because we've put plywood up there for storage, now you know, a few square feet fine, you know who's gonna know the difference. You probably won't

notice the difference. But the more you do that up in your attic, the more of that area that you squish down and minimize that insulation, then the more compromised insulation wise your home becomes. And just to add on to that, some people will go overboard when it comes to the amount of storage up there. Some people even say, well, my roof is high enough, I could make a room

up there. Well, that's debatable because if it was never designed to have human habitation up in there, then there's also a very distinct chance that the ceiling joists themselves are not floor joist rated. They're just ceiling joist rated. They're not designed to support a tremendous amount of hundreds

or thousands of pounds of weight. So my answer to the question is a qualified Sure, you could add a little bit of storage area up in an attic, but no, that every time you do it, we are compromising the insulation of the house. And that most Southern California single story homes, well it's second story homes too, It doesn't

really matter. Most attics in southern California are not designed to be load bearing in any significant sense or insulation compromised attic space when you put a platform up there. So that's my concern. My concern about accessing the attic in that way is that we run the risk of messing up the thermal continuity of the house, and you can overload an attic, and that's not a good thing as well. Now, can it be done? Of course, I was just saying before the break, anything can be done.

If you are so committed to storage in a certain area of your attic and you want to preserve the insulated quality, then you could spill that area underneath the platform with rigid insulation. It's going to be more expensive, rigid insulation that compensates for the loss of the loft of the fluffy stuff basically, but that's more expensive, and

it's very intentional. And if we're really starting to put lots of load up there, then we need to talk to an engineer about whether the kind of stuff we want to store up there is actually going to be well supported by the house, or if it's going to put too much of a load on those poor little ceiling joyces whose job originally was just to hold some insulation and hold up the drywall on the lid of

the ceiling. That's the best I can tell you, side unseeing Ginger, So think those things through and then make decisions accordingly. And thank you so much for your call. I'm so glad you joined me this morning. Hang tight, there is more to come. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp the house whisper camp. I am six forty and live streaming in HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, welcome to home, where every week we help you better understand that place where you live. I am Dean Sharp,

the house whisper, custom home builder, custom home designer. Most importantly, today, your guide to turning your ordinary house into something truly extraordinary. We are doing an all calls. We nothing but your calls today, and I want to get back to the phone so we can get as many calls in as possible. Let's talk to Sally. Hey, Sally, welcome home.

And uh and and it's in it's inexpensive. I think it's just a few dollars a month, Okay, So you know, weigh that against whether or not you know there are enough you know, coverage areas to make it worth your while. And what I mean is, as with all insurance policies, especially when it comes to homeowner insurance of any sort whatsoever, usually the list of exclusions is like four times as long as the list of coverage. Okay, and so, and

that's the thing. So I'll tell you this, and now I'm gonna by saying this, I'm gonna lose any potential endorsement from the gas company. So this call is costing me money, Sally.

we did not pick up that coverage. And personally, that was our own personal decision. I'm not saying it's a ripoff. I'm simply saying that everybody has to evaluate their own situation and and read the fine print because at some point, uh, you know, what's left over after the list of exclusions, that's what you have to evaluate. What are the odds of this happening to me in just this way so that this gets covered and otherwise, you know, And isn't

that all insurance really? I mean, all insurance is essentially a gamble. It's a pull of the of the slot machine wheel, like gee, I for the money I put in, I hope the disaster that happens is the is the one that's covered.

any moment today. Yeah, wow, what do you have to do? Though? Here's the I mean, I'll put I'll put a bright spin on it. Here's the nice thing about having to make an insurance decision about that kind of stuff. You should take it as an opportunity to figure out exactly where all of this stuff is in your yard, okay, what it's made out of, and where it goes. And

I will tell you this. If I asked one hundred listeners right now where their sewer line leaves their house and joins up with the street, I'm thinking that I'm going to get seventy homeowners saying oh uh uh. And that's something you should just you should you should know,

you should know, and you know what. One of the ways that you can do that is by calling a service like dig Alert, by calling eight one one, and they'll come out in the three days, no less than no more than three days from your call, maybe with the exception of Christmas week, and they will flag and locate all the stuff that's buried in your yard for free. Okay.

So no, no, kiddie. This is they beg you to do it because if you're about to dig in your yard, they don't want you hitting gas lines, sewer lines, they don't want you hitting public utility lines that happened across your property and you didn't know it. They don't want you disrupting the neighborhood's cable service and all of that kind of stuff. So these companies, all of these utilities, they pay at their cost to be a part of

the dig Alert program. And so and you don't have to justify, you don't have to show them a building permit and you say, listen, I'm planning on having work done in my yard. In your case, it's an emergency sewer repair in the future, and they will simply notify

all of the utilities. They do a scan on your property public records, and they'll notify all the utilities and cable providers and all of that, and they'll all be out and they'll put little flags in the yard this is where the sewer is, this is where this is, and you can start to learn and see. So that way, my point is you can evaluate, like, wow, does my sewer line run on uneath my driveway or is it in a place where if I had to replace it it wouldn't completely tear up my yard for tens of

thousands of dollars. That kind of stuff. Everybody should know that. But getting back, and I got to run here because we're right at the top of the hour, Sally, But such a great question, and again just you know, it's after all the exclusions, does the insurance cover enough of real life potential circumstances to be worth the you know, few bucks a month that you're going to pay for And then that's the best advice I can ray.