I am pick forty live dreaming you make Dean everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, Dean Sharp. The House Whisper here with you live every Saturday and Sunday morning. Hey, don't forget follow us on social media. We're up there. We're getting some stuff done on social media. Home with Dean is the handle for all of the usual suspects Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x. You know, Home with Dean and of course you know this very program is also the House Whisper Podcast.
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Saturday morning, Saturday Morning live, as we do here, and as we do we are taking your calls. The number to reach me eight three to three two, ask Dean eight three three the numeral to ask Dean. We've got room on the callboard for you. It's a light traffic morning this morning. Eight three three to ask Dean. Whatever you got to scratch in your head about your home, design questions, architectural issues, construction issues, DIY concerns, you name it.
If it's got you in a quandary, give me a call. We'll put our heads together and we will figure it out. Producer Michelle standing by, ready to take your calls. All right, let's go back to the phones. I want to talk to JJ AYJJ welcome home.
Hi.
How are you?
I am well, how are you?
Oh?
Sorry, I'm great. So I have a question about putting some installation into my house. I have an older home and it has no insulation in it whatsoever. It does have that blown installation in the attic. It's about, you know, maybe an answer to now, but I was wondering, can you put the insulation in the walls from the top of the attic? Can you just like remove the plywood at the path and just like blow it down, or put some of that styrophone installation and just slide in there?
Is that.
Done?
I don't even know.
It's a really good question.
Let me ask you, JJ, just just before I get to a more thorough answer about that, what kind of what's on the outside of your home?
Is it stucco? Is it sighting?
What you?
Yeah, stuck, I have stucco and in the very very front, not a lot, but.
Okay, some siding all right.
So generally the answer is no, we don't want to approach insulating retrofit insulating through the attic because we don't want to disturb because back up retrofit insulation involves drilling a lot of holes in the house. Okay, we got to get into those wall cavities, every single wall cavity, every single stud cavity in the home on the exterior wall, we need access to to get insulation in there. Now, it used to be we used to blow in cellulose insulation.
There are still companies that do that. The one that I recommend more than anything, though, is to pump in expansing foam insulation for the walls. It is just absolutely the best. The best. It ends up you end up with a home that's better insulated than a home got insulated first time around with regular fiberglass bat insulation. It just is well worth the effort and the trouble. But we don't want to do those holes through the top plates of the walls, because those top plates of your
walls are what is holding your house together. It's a band that it already has some holes in it for plumbing vents and drain lines and some water lines. But we're talking about putting a good hole in every single stud bay, which means every sixteen inches along that and we don't want to compromise the top plates of the house that much. So very rarely do you find anybody
recommending going that way. What we typically do is we start on the exterior the wall, or, if you're more comfortable with it, on the interior with holes in the dry wall. So either we're keeping the interior attacked and we're putting holes in the stucco small holes, small like one inch holes in the stucco, or we're taking off
a piece of horizontal siding. That's usually optimal if you've got siding on your house, we can take off one strip of siding, drill the holes underneath it, patch them up, and then put the siding back on. Either way, it gets a little messy at some points, but it is well worth doing the insulation for the exterior of the home. We just don't go through the top plate, that's all.
Oh okay, I got it.
What about the flooring.
Do you recommend anything to do in insulate like the flooring the bottom Yeah.
No, if you've got a raised foundation house. In other words, if you're not on a slab and you're on a crawl space underneath your house, that can be gotten to very easily by an insulation company. And yes, I do recommend insulating your subfloor as well, that you can just buy bats for and get somebody under there, crawling under the house, getting those things put up into place. That doesn't require any kind of disruption of the house, and it's easy to get to and it's well worth it.
A lot of people are like, well, why you know he goes up Dean. No, no, no, no, no. The entire envelope of the house is what we want to try and insulate to maintain energy inside the house, whether it's heating or cooling either way. So yeah, the subfloor situation, if you're on a slab, there's nothing can be done about that. But if you have a crawl space underneath your house, then get somebody under there and putting bats
up into place. That's the easy part. That's the easiest part of insulating of everything that you've mentioned by way of retrofit insulation, no mess, and it can be done very very quickly.
JJ.
Thank you for your call and your question. Thanks for holding on as long as you have, and good luck with that. Get two or three different bids from insulating companies when it comes to that, and mostly be concerned about what they're putting in and how they're going to patch you up after the fact. It can be totally done, totally totally done at the hands of a company that knows what they're doing, and it is well well worth it. You'll pay for it in heating and cooling costs in
a very very short a matter of time. All right, when we come back, more of your calls. The number to reach me, it's an all calls Saturday morning eight three three two Ask dean eight three three the numeral two. Ask dean say.
If I teen sharp the house whisper.
At your service as I am every Saturday morning from six to eight for you early risers who are looking to get the edge on getting your honeydew list done for the weekend, staring at your home thinking, oh my goodness, what are we going to do at this place? We need some help. We better call Dean. That's why we take calls on Sat. Any mornings. The number to reach me eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two, Ask Dean.
It just rolls off the tongue. It's that simple, all right. Back to the phones we go. Let's talk to John. Hey, John, welcome home. Hello, Hello sir, How can I help you?
Yes, I had a leaking roof, and so I have a lot of water spots in the ceiling. I mean a lot of you know, something close to probably about ten percent of the ceiling. And now, of course I've replaced the roof. How do I deal with the water spots? Oh, it's very white, pop white popcorn type roof. Best ceiling. Excuse me?
Okay, right, so you've got acoustic ceiling up there. All right, So two things, just to be sure you've had a lot of water damage, and so before you do the easy thing, and it is a very easy thing to
deal with water spots on the ceiling. I just want you to make sure that you either you yourself get up there, or whoever's inspecting this or doing the work for you, gets up there and poke around a little bit with your finger, just to make sure that none of those water stains are indicative of a failure in the drywall. In other words, you've had a lot of water up there. Sometimes water can do more than just make a stain on the ceiling. Sometimes it can actually
begin to really affect the integrity of the drywall. And the drywall is soft and mushy, and if that's the case, then some of that drywall needs to be replaced and changed out. Now I'm not saying that's the case in your situation. I just want you to make sure that that isn't the case, because I don't want to put you know, makeup on something that is systemically a deeper problem, all right, And it's not like drywall replacement where water
damage has happened is all that expensive. I just want to make sure that you're addressing it the right way. So assuming, assuming that we've got no drywall damage, we just have staining, then it's a very simple solution, and it's very simply that you start the repainting effort with a stain capturing or a stain covering primer, and they're out there. The ones that I recommend probably the most often are made by zinzer Zi in s s Er and Kills k I l Z great primers before you paint.
I think I recommend the Zinser more often than anything because we've just had really good luck with it. And it is literally called cover stain. It is a stain blocking stained ceiling primer and it's not just for water spot stains, by the way. It's the kind of primer that are used by restoration companies when they come in after a disaster. It covers over nicotine and tar, it covers over smoke damage, it seals out odors as well. You don't need it for those purposes. You just need
the water spot to go away. And so for you, my friend, it's going to be just cover stain and then paint the room or the ceiling whatever color you plan on painting it, and you are good to go. My friend, John, thank you for your call. Sometimes the solution is very very simple, but as I said at the beginning, sometimes you need to just make sure you do your deal due diligence, make sure that the damage isn't just visible, or make sure that the damage is
just visible. So when you've got water stains on your ceilings or your walls, I just want you to feel around, and you don't have to be an expert at this.
You'll know.
You'll know as you're feeling around the drywall, you know what normal drywall feels like. And as you're poking around, all of a sudden, you're like, wow, it's kind of soft and bubbly here. It just doesn't feel right. That would be water getting too too saturated into the drywall. Drywall is made out of gypsum, which is a very very soft mineral, and once the paper and the saturation has gone too far, then what we end up with is a bailed drywall. And we don't want to just
paint over that. We want to actually cut that out and replace it. Not that big of a deal, but it's worth doing, all right. When we return more of your calls, The number to reach me a three to three two. Ask Dean A three to three the numeral two Ask Dean. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
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Dean Sharp the house whisper Saturday morning. We are taking calls. I want to go back to the phones. The number to reach me eight three three two, Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two ask Dean eight three three to ask Dean. Let's talk to James. Hey, James, welcome home.
Hey, get to talk to you.
How can I help you, sir? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can hear you. Just mine, all right.
I have a house. I've boned it over to twenty five years. I'm retired now, and there are a lot of options out there for rewriffing. But at the same time, I do not have solar and things have changed in the past few years, and you can't tell your excess electricity back like you used to be able to. And I have a garage that I could put a grandmother apartment on top of but I don't know which direction to go.
I don't know if the solar's can save me enough money to help me build the addition, or if I should just not do solar and worry about the addition. I'm confusing. I figure you've been in the business, you could give me the straight scoop on whether to install solar.
I gotcha, gotcha.
It's a good question, James, And in your situation, I can tell you you are a little bit confused about it. They really are kind of apples and oranges, those two subjects. But if we're talking about bottom line money savings, let me be clear about this. Yeah, solar has changed a lot over the years that it has, and it's not that solar has changed so much as it is. I
don't know how to describe this best. It's as if we want to move forward with something good, and at the same time, utility companies don't want to lose profits, and they have a lot of They've got a lot of leverage with state and local governments, and so you know, it's like two steps forward, one step back. It just it's it's kind of a pain in the booty when it comes to that butt is solar still worth it, and can you still save money with solar? Yes, the
answer is yes. Okay, everybody has to get a quote and evaluate this for their own home, get a couple of quotes from different solar companies. But the fact of the matter is solar saves you money on your energy costs period.
Right.
It's not as simple and straightforward as it used to be. As far as it just used to be. You know, you would you would get in on a level plan and you would sell back to the utility company, you know, your over production amounts. That is still the case. Okay,
it's still the case. But the situation now is that everybody is on a timed tiered plan and so a solar set up these days in California, at least a solar setup it absolutely must come with backup batteries, intelligent backup batteries as a part of the system, because what we want to be doing is in order to make up the savings, we've got a store that energy into the batteries and discharge the batteries at the right time during the day so that it knocks it so that
we're selling our energy back to the energy company, the utility at the right time, and we're using the power in our backup batteries to buffer that at the right time during the day. So it's more confusing, it's more complex than it used to be, but it's still totally totally doable. The key is a smart solar system with backup batteries, and then you get the added benefit of having a backup battery, which means that you've got the backup power when the power goes out or during disasters
or what have you. So is solar still worth it? Can you still put in a solar system that is what we call net zero solar, meaning at the end of the year that your energy bill has been neutralized taken out. And the answer to that question is yes, absolutely now based on that, that's the goal, okay of solar James is to is to neutralize your energy to get rid of your your electric bill. Okay, whether or not getting rid of your electric bill is the kind
of money savings that you're looking for. If that's enough for you, then that's something you're gonna have to you know evaluate. Okay, Now I'm comparing that now to the you know, building an ADU. In fact, you know what I want to give it a couple of more thoughts. So James, you hold on. I'm going to pop you on hold, and then we're gonna have this conversation on the other side, because James asked a very interesting question.
Should he go solar and save money that way or should he invest in uh, you know, an a du uh And basically I'm assuming collect rent from it uh And should he find savings that way or should he do both or should he do neither. So let's talk about that. I'm gonna par that out a little bit more, but we'll do it right on the other side of the break. So James, you hang tight, and my card for House Whisper Welcome home. Thanks for joining us on
the program today. It is a privilege and a pleasure as always to be invited into your home and into your headspace to talk about all things home. Saturday morning, we've been taking nothing but calls, as we do on a Saturday morning, and I've got James on the line, and James had an interesting question. He wanted to know. It's his roof is kind of at the end of its life, so he's thinking about reroofing he's gonna have to reroof and the question is should he do solar
right now? Is that how he's gonna save the most money, or should he potentially build a grandma unit an ADU on top of the garage. Is that a better investment? And James, So we talked about solar before the break, but all ultimately, my friend, this is a matter of doing the math, because they really are apples and oranges.
If you were to ask me to just shoot from the hip, I would tell you long term that your biggest money maker is going to be an ADU and acessory dwelling unit, you know, a casita, a guesthouse, a gramma flat, whatever you want to call them. They are
known in the industry as ADUs, accessory dwelling units. They're easy to permit these days in California because California wants them as a resolve of the housing crisis, and ADU permits are by and large the biggest permit that is getting pulled by way of quantity at the local building department wherever you live. ADUs ultimately are going to be after the initial investment, and the initial investment is significant
because you know you got building to do. But at the end of the day, with California housing prices, especially in California mental prices especially, you're going to be making passive income. That, of course, is if you are willing to and it works with you to rent out a unit in your home. And a lot of people are like, well, that sounds like a lovely idea, but I don't want strangers on my property, and you know that's totally acceptable
as well. So it really comes down to a personal choice, James, whether or not you are into the idea of supplementing your income assively by having a renter in your home. Ultimately, I will tell you there's no question that that's going to make you the most money versus solar. Solar is going to neutralize your electric bills, so whatever that is, okay.
So you know solar, you know, let's say you've got five hundred dollars a month that you're paying an electricity when you're all done with solar, and that's a great thing. Solar will knock out that five hundred dollars a month. But you know, as well as I do that, try renting anything for five hundred dollars a month in California. You might be able to rent a closet in an
apartment for five hundred dollars a month. So the point is past your initial investment, the ADU, the Grandma unit, that's going to be the biggest money maker long term for you. The question though, is you know, when you have solar knocking out your electric bill, maybe that's enough and you don't have to put up with renters versus the other. So it's kind of an apple an orange is thing. But financially, ADUs make people money. Solar saves people money, and that's how you have to kind of
look at it. James, thank you for your call. Do I have time to squeak one more in here? I think, so let's talk to Cameron. Hey, Cameron, welcome home.
Hey, happy Saturday bean.
Thank you, thank you very much.
You're welcome. I am calling. We are painting the exterior of our home and I have an accent color that's going to be used for the front door and then for the vent frames up by the roof that are kind of like a hexagon shape. But I have a man's door in between my garage doors, and then I have a door on the other side of the garage that goes out to the pool in the front and My question is do I save the accent color for
the front door and the vent frames? Is it too much if I put them on the other two doors?
Oh, a design question. I love design questions, especially right here at the end of the show. Okay, so obviously I can't look at your house right now and to give you a definity of answer, but I will tell you this. If I have to default, I'm going to tell you save the accent color for the front door, save it for the front door and for those funk event frames, and go with another color for the other doors.
And why.
As beautiful and as wonderful as that accent color is, that's why we're saving it for something special because the principle and I talked about this actually last week, or if you're a podcast listener, two episodes ago. We did a Design Matters most episode last Sunday, and I talked about this idea of focal points and hierarchy and all of last Sunday show, by the way, and if you missed it, oh, it was a good eat. You should listen. I was comparing it to theater, right, All design is
ultimately theater. All architecture is ultimately theater. And on a stage play or in the center of the screen. You know there are leading actors, they are supporting actors behind them, moving in and out. There are extras in the background, there are scenes and sets that everybody is acting in. It all can't be competing for front center stage. Otherwise you don't get to tell the story. It's just a mishmash of stuff and not everybody's talking at the same time.
The lead actors have most of the lines that drive the story forward. Supporting actors are just that they're supporting actors, extras, or just that they're in the background creating atmosphere. If you understand your homes theater, then if you're thinking, and it's a cool thought, because I love special colored accent front doors, the whole idea of that is for it
to stand out and to become a focal point. And if we put too much of that color on the front of the house, now it's not a focal point. Now it's just a themed color. So it would change your front door to have other doors the same color on the front side of the house. It would change it from the lead actor and the focal point to kind of a supporting actor or even just a scene setting in the back, and I don't think that's what
you're going for, so a side unseen. I'm telling you keep that special color for the front door.
Perfect.
I knew you'd have the answer because they asked my hubby and he says, well, it doesn't matter to me, and I said, I know who it mattered to.
Yes, Oh, it matters to me big time. And I think it'll matter to you too, Cameron. So good luck with that. Send me a pick when you're all done. All right, y'all, the end of a two hours just gone boom. It evaporates right when we're having such fun talking about your home. I'm going to be back tomorrow morning. Guess what for Father's Day? I am not letting you dads off the hook. No, no, not this year. This year,
it's time to organize. Not a lot of people are pressing the button or pulling the trigger, whatever your favorite metaphor is. On the big remodel. Things are a little unclear. Little people are holding a lot of people are pressing pause, and that means that we're engaging in smaller, more significant projects. And when you're not exactly sure how things are going to turn out, people tend to take inventory, they organize,
and they get it together. So tomorrow's show you get to meet my very very special system for decluttering, organizing, and talking storage in your home. It's all about storage and organization tomorrow. Do not miss it nine to noon right here, and until then, get out there in this beautiful day of ours and get busy building yourself a beautiful life. We'll see you tomorrow morning. This has been
Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app