You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Kf I AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You are listening to Home. I'm Dean Sharp, the house whisperer, craftsman builder, custom home designer, here to help you turn your ordinary house into an extraordinary home. It is an all calls weekend. We are just going to the phones. You're setting the agenda today. The number to reach me eight three three two ask Dean Dan, Welcome home.
I've got a slab. It's got a big puddle in it, but I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of It's going to have a hot tub and a deck on top of the slab, but I'm worried about the puddle getting into the wood that I'm going to build a deck out of and cause them problems.
Okay, so it's an exterior slab like a patio slab, that's right, and puddles in the middle so it doesn't drain super well. But you want to put a hot tub out there, a you know, like a free standing hot tub, and also build a deck out onto the slab.
Right, that's right.
Where is this slab going to drain when water hits it. Where does it generally drain? In other words, it's got a depression in it where it puddles, But does the rest of it Is there a slope to the slab, does the rest of it drain off? Okay? And you just you end up with a puddle or is the whole thing sort of you know a bowl.
It's probably about a quarter of the slab that will collect a puddle. There's there's two edges with garden walls on those sides, and then two edges that just end on the lawn, So the water just comes out onto the lawn off those two edges where it's knocking.
I would resolve that. I would want to resolve that before. You know, I'm not super worried about it in terms of the you know, setting a spa out there and then building a deck over it. Obviously, whatever deck you're going to build out over that, you're gonna whatever is making contact with the concrete is going to be pressure treated lumber, and then you're going to put your finished skin on the deck whatever that may be up above the stuff that everybody sees. But no regular untreated wood
touching the concrete. And that's regardless of whether it drains super well or not. It's simply code and unwise to put anything other than pressure treated lumber against concrete. So that's fine as far as that goes, especially if this is something that we're not going to see then because you're going to cover it all up. The answer is super simple, Dan, and that is that you go get
yourself a nice mixture of self leveling concrete self level solution. Basically, you're going to mix up a little bit of pancake batter that has a high bonding you know, apoxy style cement inside it. And the glory of self leveling is that, now, of course it's got to be dry get rid of the puddle first, but the glory of it is that it finds its own level, and so you simply pour it out and it will fill up the puddle. It will find its own level, and the puddle will be
no more when you're done. And the cool thing about self leveling compound is that it's most of the time it's dry to walk on in about an hour, and after twenty four hours of curing, you're ready to build and get on with you know, whatever it is that you're doing. So my recommendation would be an exterior grade self leveling compound. Lose the dip in the uneven patio concrete and then move on with your plants.
Okay, and that'll support the weight of the hot tub, no problem, it won't crumble.
Oh yeah, yeah, no, it's got actually tremendous Most of the most self leveling compounds have an excellent compressive strength. And you're still relying on the slant underneath to do the line's share of the work. You're just using the self leveling compound to get rid of the drainage issue. That's it, all right, Dan, thank you for your question. Buddy, let's talk to Robbie. Hey, Robbie, welcome home.
My problem, there are two large trees. I'm taking over of my grandmother's property. There are two large trees in the front yard. The roots are exposed. I believe they're causing the sidewalk in front to crack. I want to know can it be corrected or must I remove the trees?
Well, I hope you don't remove the trees, especially if they're big, beautiful trees and they are contributing to the overall aesthetic and look of the home, and most southern California homes, in my opinion, need more trees. So surface roots.
This is the question. Surface roots. If these are really old, well established trees, Robbie, then they get a lot of roots going all over the place, down out every So whatever roots are starting to cause uplift of the sidewalk itself, those roots could be cut, cut those at the sidewalk line and repair the sidewalk so it doesn't do any more damage to the sidewalk. Don't worry about cutting that
root is somehow going to kill the tree. An old established tree that is just one of you know, five hundred roots that it's got going on, and it can do without the one that's uplifting the sidewalk. The key is we don't want to encourage any more surface root growth and root growth, and so the principle is very simple. Trees that are watered and dependent upon surface water, those trees are the ones who are always going to be
growing roots on the surface. Okay, Old trees like what you've got right there have undoubtedly have far more than just surface roots, and so what we want to do to keep it from spreading any further is we want to make sure that these trees are not in an area where we're exposing them to lawn sprinklers or surface water. Okay, we want to make sure that we rework the irrigation
system so that we keep water away from them. Because number one, an old established tree, it doesn't need any more surface watering it has its own sources of water deep beneath us in the earth. But number two, it will still keep giving us surface root growth if it still keeps finding surface water to feed off of. And so we simply want to get rid of any surface water in the area of the canopy of these trees
as much as possible. And when we plant new trees, new trees need to be irrigated at the base of the root, not up on the surface. So trees that grow as the result of sprinkler water will always have surface roots. Trees that have deep water will grow deep roots. And that's how it works. Now, there's no getting rid of the surface roots at this point. But start feeding it deep and keep the surface water away and you should be good to go. Thanks, Robbie, appreciate the call.
When we come back, we'll get to more of your Calls. This is Dean Sharp, the House Whisper, 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. Let's talk to Row. Hey, Row, welcome home.
Hi.
I heard you talking to Mark Thompson the other day about his shower and how you have to have a certain amount of water in the pea trap so it doesn't smell. Yes, how often should you rent water so that you don't have that problem?
And how much water?
So all right, So let me just set the stage for everybody else who may not have heard that conversation with Mark Thompson. So Mark was talking about the fact that he has one bathroom in his home, the guest bathroom, and the sink gets used, the toilet gets used, but the shower hardly ever gets used, and they started developing this weird smell in the bathroom kind of sounded like a smelled like a sewer issue. And so I was explaining to Mark that every drain in your home has
that squirrely little pipe underneath it. Whether you could see it or not, you can totally see these underneath the sink, because the sink's usually sitting in a cabinet. You look underneath and it's where the drain goes down, and all of a sudden it curves up and goes up again before it goes down the rest of the way and into the wall and out of the house. That squirrely little piece, which really should be called an s trap
because it's sort of s shaped. Somebody I don't know whenever whoever, was laying on their side apparently and decided to call it a pea trap. It's not pe like in the bathroom urine. It's they just thought it looked like the letter P, although it lays on its side, so I don't anyway. The PA trap is it has one job, has one job, and people have often asked, why do we have to have that squirrely pipe attached to the bottom of our sink train. And that is
very simply this. The pea trap holds the last little bit of water that goes down the sink, last little bit, Okay, it holds it. And as a result of holding it in that lower pipe, right in that little droop of the pipe, that water becomes a plug that stops sewer gases from coming up from the main sewer system from the city, from the street. The whole thing keeps those gases from coming up through out of the sink drain and smelling up the bathroom in that way, or whatever
room we're in. That's the job of the pea trap. But of course, a sink, and by the way, every drain, every drain, the toilet has one built into it. Okay, the sink, you can see, the shower, it's underneath the shower drain where you can't see. But they all have them,
all of them. And so the thing is, water evaporates, right, So if you haven't used something like the tub or the shower or the sink in a particular room, you haven't used it very much, or it's been you know, however, many days, especially during the summer, right when it's warm and waters evaporating faster than in cold weather, then that water in the pea trap can start to evaporate, and as soon as it gets to a certain level it's no longer high enough to block out the sewer gases.
The gases will get through it, and as a result, you get that smell. This is why a home that is like up for sale that the seller has already moved out of so nobody's living there. Every good realtor knows this that they need to get in there before an open house and flush toilets and run a little water and sinks and showers and tubs. Otherwise all that evaporation's going to leave the home smelling a little weird.
Everybody I think I know has walked into a house that smells an empty house that smells a little weird. That's usually why it smells weird. So to set that stage now, wrote, it's really really simple. Pe trap is not very big at all. I mean it's like a cup a cup and a half of water at the most, even on a big drain, maybe two cups of water on a big drain. So how much do you have to run it? Hardly at all? You just need to turn it on for a couple of three seconds and
turn it back off, and you're good to go. And as far as how often, you know, you got me on that way, because it really has to do with how warm the house is, how warm the weather is, and so on. But you know what, once or twice a week is plenty to keep the water in the pea trap, right, But on a really warm day, if it's really warm in the house, you could lose you know, a quarter inch of water over a twenty four forty eight hour period. So you know what, let's say just
a couple of times a week. Mark's issue, though, just to cap it off, was that it had gone long long enough that you know, some bacterias had kind of taken hold on the lining of the sewer line. So even though come in after the fact and start running the water, he was still getting the smell. And the reason is that those bacterias had just kind of gotten that a little out of control. And to that, what I told him was, you get yourself some enzymatic cleaner,
some drain clean enzymes. Enzymes are key enzymes are these powerful little molecular components that break down organic or organic compounds. So they can easily be be broken down and disposed of by friendly bacteria. And the one that I recommend the most, which you can find at places like home Depot or Low's or the plumbing supply store the hardware store, is called Green Gobbler. Green Gobbler is just a brand,
but really great brand. And if you I recommend that folks, you know, get some and you know, send it down their drains every couple of time, you know, maybe twice a year, just to clear out the guck that lines the drains and keep your drains wide open and clear. So anyway, that's it, that's the story. Row a couple of times a week, and it only takes you know, just you know, turn it on for five seconds and turn it back off and you have reset. The Peachrap wrote,
thank you for your question. There is more to come. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty, KFI.
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. I tell you what we're doing today. It's an all calls day. It
is it 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 tomb.
Let's talk to Jonie. Joni, welcome home.
We're in the midst of a major kitchen remodel. The base cabinets are now in and they are inset cabinets, and they've put the subtops on top of the cabinets. But there's about a three quarter inch gap be set back between the edge of the face frame and the cabinet, and I'm wondering why they did that or is that a mistake. We are either going to do an og edge or a DuPont edge, which I want to ask you the difference between those two.
Okay, so you haven't you just noticed this. You haven't had a chance to ask your contractor or your cabinet installed.
No, I haven't had a chance to ask.
Just to clarify a couple of terms for everybody else who's listening. So when you do in a cabinet installation, the cabinet boxes go in, and then once all the boxes are in place, the base cabinet boxes, plywood is put on top. It's what we call a subtop, because that's obviously not the countertop. What goes on top of the plywood is the stone or the tile or whatever
it is that you got going on. Now you have in set cabinets which is very nice, very very old school, very nice, which is that the doors and drawers do not extend out from the face frame of the cabinets, but they actually recess in and flush themselves with the face frame of the cabinet, so you have no overhanging projecting doors and drawers on these base cabinets. It's just one plane coming down the face of the cabinet box. Of course, you've got knobs and such, but no overhang.
The typical typical countertop overhang for typical cabinets, which is the cabinet face plus doors and drawers, That typical overhang is about inch and a quarter to an inch and a half of the actual stone and or tile overhanging because the cabinet doors themselves are coming out another three quarter plus inches, and then you've got another half inch to three quarters of an inch of overhang protecting all of that. In your case, it won't be overhanging that
much because your inset, but the rule still applies. But here's where it gets tricky. It all depends on the configuration of that og edge. If you're doing a double laminated edge, in other words, instead of just one layer of stone at about seven eighths of an inch thick coming out and having its little finished edge, it sounds like you're planning on you've got a double lamination. In other words, another piece of stone is going to be put on the bottom there to make the appearance of
a big, built up thick edge. It all depends on, you know how, if we're hanging over let's say an inch okay, which would be kind of typical three cores of an inch to an inch of hanging over an inset cabinet face. If the builder has insight from the stone people that hey, we need more than just one inch square piece to laminate there. It needs to be deeper.
That may be the reason why the subtop has been held back a little bit in order to give more room for the bottom lamination stone to kind of nestle in to the top. But I will tell you that's not common at all, and so typically we will just run the full subtop right over to the face of the cabinet. So I can't tell you definitively that somebody
did something wrong. But but I can tell you you just got to ask the question to have no one go any further until that question gets answered, because there is a bit of a strength sacrifice by holding the
subtalk back. And quite often, once in a blue moon, I will tell you this, Jony, once in a blue moon, when we have to do that, because of the nature of the countertop material itself, right, when we have to provide a larger notch, what we will do is we will put yet another piece of wood underneath the subtop that supports that free floating subtop edge and connect to
the front face of the cabinet regardless. Okay, ideally you want a solid connection to the front cabinet face all along the front, whether or not the subtop is being held back or not. I hope we just didn't lose everybody in all of that terminology. But that's kind of.
Yeah yeah, And I have no idea why they did what they did so and it's the cabinet makers too, it's not the fall off the stone man.
So yeah, so just just find out, say, hey, what's the deal here, and uh and you know, they'll let you know what's going on.
Okay.
And a farmhouse sink should be level with the subtop.
If it's an inset, yeah, if it's an under mount farmhouse sinc. Then yes, it gets set level with the subtops so that the stone goes over and just rolls over the sink.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, I'm going to have to read front.
Yes, that's the nature of it. But as far as as it being underneath the countertop from the top, yeah, okay.
Well, thank you so much, appreciate it.
You are so very welcome. Thanks for the call. Good luck with all of that.
Uh.
One last thing on the I'm going to toss in there. I don't know if y'all kind of pick that up. But when you typically look at a stone countertop face, not a lot of people realize this that the stone slab that comes from the stone yard is only three quarter well three get it's more like seven eighths of an inch thick usually between depending on the kind of stone, it could be anywhere from seven eights to an inch thick stone. That's not that full, big fat countertop edge
that you see there. What happens is we take that stone and then we'll take a slice of it off that front edge, and we'll put it up underneath. We'll epoxyate laminated underneath, and then whatever kind of nosing of edging that you want. And there's twenty different kinds of edging that we can do there. But the idea is that we're giving the illusion that that stone is closer to two inches thick, when in reality it's just two pieces. And the quality of the install of that stone, by
the way, has to do with whether we're hiding the scene. Okay, any cheaper done countertops you can look on the face and you're like, well, look, and I can see the line where they glued it together. That's kind of a fail for us. We never do it that way. We either mter from the top corner down so that we have no visible seam on the face, or if it's like what Jonie was talking about, what's called an og or a double og edge, the scene can get hidden in the details of the carving of the fun of
the counter. So there you go. Did that make sense? Am I making sense to people? I know it's very technical, but just I know there are a lot of you out there are like, oh, okay, I get it. Now, run to your kitchen right now and check out your countertop and decide whether you know how it rates. When we come back, we'll get to more of your calls. This is Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Can't find 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. I'll tell you what we're doing today it's an all calls day. It is it. 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 promise.
I have seats in my house and they're really good shapes, they're.
Woolfs, but the back is webber. It's stouting to play golf.
Is there something I can put out the back?
All right? I know what you listeners are thinking. There's no way he has an answer for this. Okay. So Sherry, this is just just understand. What I'm about to tell you is a hack. A hack. Okay. What that means is this is not an established industry, like, oh yeah, this is exactly what you do when you have a deteriorating latex rubber throw rub backing. But uh, it will work, okay.
Uh.
And I'm glad you said you have several I I'm not glad that you have several rugs deteriorating, but this will help mitigate the cost. But here's the thing. You can run down to a big box store hardware store, UH, and get yourself a court of flex sealing. Okay, flex seal, it's uh is A is A it's a brand of
rubber eye. You know basically what it is. It's it's liquid rubber, latex rubber in can and it is the very very similar, if not exactly what the rubber backing, because most rubber backings on throw rugs are are a latex rubber backing and it's soft and it's wonderful and it makes them grippy and it's all the good things what latex rubber breaks down over time, It oxidizes, it breaks down and heat and cold and you know all
the things. So if these are really important throw rugs for you and they're looking good on the on the front side, I'm thinking you can extend the life of these throw rugs by doing this. You get yourself a quart of flex seal. A court of flexial costs about thirty five bucks. Okay. It's so if it was just one throw rug, I'd be like, you know what, could just buy a new throw rug because the fix is as expensive, if not more so, than the replacement throw rug.
But if you've got a lot of them, if you have a few of them, then this might be worth it to you. You get a can flex seal and a paintbrush and very carefully kind of mask off the edges. Don't go all the way right to the edge, because I don't want to getting on your the wool of
the fabric itself. But you can put a couple of coats of flex seal on the backside of a deteriorating latex grow rug and bring it back to life because you're just basically adding layers of fresh rubber and it'll bond with the old rubber and it should work for you. It is a hack, though, all right. So a hack means that this is a workaround, not a guaranteed fix. But I think that's probably your best shot.
Okay, thank you so much.
You are so welcome. Thanks Sherry. Let's talk to Joe. Hey, Joe, welcome home.
Hi.
We have a room that my father built about twenty five years ago in our backyard here in Data Point. It needs some roof repair and some other stuff done to it, but my father never got a permit to build this room. And before we put money into this, what are your thoughts about that? Can the city come in and just tell us to stop and tear it down or what are you thinking?
So when we say a room, how big is it and what do we have inside? Do we have electricity in this room? Do we have plumbing in this room?
You're about ten twenty and there is electricity? Yes, my brother steeds in there.
So ten by twenty that's a good sized room in your backyard and there's electricity in it. So absolutely, without question, permits were supposed to be pulled. Okay, So now the question is now, okay, so flat out the permit should have been pulled. Does that give the city the right to come in and tell you to take it all down? Yeah? It does. It does give them that right now, that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that that what they're going
to say. Okay, if you've got a question about this, then the best thing to do is to ask your city about it. The room in question, is it built like did your dad obey at least like the backyard setback? Is it built like right next to the neighbor's fence or is it the.
Yeah, you know, he is built right next to neighbor. Everybody's been fine with it for the last twenty five years.
Here's the thing. Talk to the city and like, you know, I got a friend. They're not going to ask you, listen, where's your address, or we're going to get a drone over the house immediately, you know, ask the city, hey, where do you stand on this? It's it's a well
built space. Could I get it retrofit permitted? The problem is if it isn't built according to code, though no permits were pulled, but if it wasn't built according to code, or if it's built and it's violating a setback, then you're going to get an answer back saying now that's
got to get changed. But I have seen any many times where folks have said, listen, they've built somebody has built something in the backyard, built it exactly according to code and can prove that everything was like photos were taken along the way and the city sends an inspector out and like, all right, I want to see this. I want to see you know what? Okay? I mean, if you had built this thing today, we would have said yes. So maybe there's a little penalty to pull.
In addition to the permit, you get a retroactive permit and it gets approved retroactively It all depends on the city, on the inspector, on what they had for breakfast. So literally it comes down to that kind of stuff sometimes because it's humans we're working with here. But I can tell you, technically speaking, if you're violating the setback ordinance and there's electricity in this room, in other words, it's not just a shed, then yeah, the city could could
tell you the whole thing's got to go. So you got to make your decision accordingly, my friend, you did not hear me say for it here. That's just the realities of permitting. It should have been permitted. The city has full authority in that. That doesn't mean though, that they're going to punish you for it, so you got to talk to them. You're listening to Dean Sharp the House Whisper on kf I Am six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app