KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app ray I AM six morting live streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Dean Sharp The House Whisper with you live every Saturday and Sunday morning Saturdays from six to eight Pacific time, Sunday Mornings The Big Show nine to noon Pacific time. Hey, follow us on social media. We only do the good kind, uplifting, informative, inspiring social media.
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We are live as always, and uh we're taking calls and going to the phones. I want to go back to the phones right now. Let me give you the number, by the way, because Saturday morning, there's always room for you. It's always room on Saturday morning to get on the air with me. The number to reach me right now eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three the numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean. It's just that simple. Give me a call. I'd love
to talk to you about your home. Let's talk to Susie. Hey, Susie, welcome home.
Huh Hi Deane, thanks for taking my call.
Uh huh.
So my family has had a rental property rental house for about fifty years, and over the last six years we did do you might hear my dog bark, We did do some remodeling, and the backyard has a slope to it, and now water has been intruding. And in the master bedroom we're getting molled. And we've had to take out the lower half of the wall and replace it twice. So I'm wondering if I should put in a French train. The gardener has readjusted the sprinklers so
it wouldn't really hit the house the water. So my father put in stepping stones around own the uh, the the wall, the backside of the wall, and that worked for many years until I did this remodel and changed out the flooring. I've had some companies come out and they say, well, you need to have the air flowing through more, and that hasn't changed anything.
No, yeah, no, no, no, yeah. Okay, So you've got a sloping backyard sloping towards the house. Yes, okay, ye tell me, what do we know? What is the soil level outside the master bedroom wall? Or is it a raised foundation? Is a slab house? What are we on here?
It's a raised foundation. So there's dirt under the house.
Okay, So there's dirt under the house, and and and yet so have we have we got under there and looked. I mean, is it saturated? Does it get really wet under there under the master bedroom area.
No, it doesn't seem to interesting I've had the first time that I have that it happened, I did have somebody go under the house and on the other side of the of the bedroom wall around the corner from the outside, there is a hose hook up there, but that doesn't seem to be the issue. It has something to do, I think with the sprinklers and then the waters going back. So I'm not sure what to do at this point.
All right, So okay, next question, very important question. Do we know what relative to the floor inside. Do we know how high the soil is up against the master bedroom wall? In other words, is it level with the floor inside? Is it up actually a little higher? Is it below considerably? Where are we at there?
I think it's higher, I think than the floor level. Oh okay, I'm not sure.
Okay, all right, all right, Susie. Uh, there are there are answers to this question. And uh and I want to take it in a little bit more tail And there's your beautiful puppy doing his thing. Let me if if with your permission, can I pop you on. Hold. We're going to go to a break and when we come back, I'm going to try and address this issue of drainage. And I think you're right about the French strain, but there may be something else involved as well. So let's deal with it in a way that will work
for you and that others will understand as well. So can you hang tight with me?
I sure can, thank you?
All right, see you, hold on, everybody, hold on. We're going to figure out this drainage problem. I promise you. You are home with Dean Sharp the house whisper. These whisper at your service. It's an all calls Saturday morning, like we do. 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 anything about your home inside outside, from architectural uh lofty design concepts all the way down to you know, how do we keep water out of the master bedroom, which is what we're talking to Susie about. Susie, is he still with me? Did I lose Susie? Susie? Are you with me?
Yeah?
I'm here, okay, all right? So uh yes, I got you, I got you, Okay, so the question of this water intrusion that has messed up the drywall a couple of times in the master bedroom. From the outside of the house, we've got a sloping yard sloping towards the house, which is always a bit precarious. I uh, when whenever that happens. Uh, it's thing that we have to take very very seriously in terms of drainage and irrigation control on the outside of the house. So I asked a couple of questions
right before the break. I'm just going to reiterate what the situation is. Not a lot of excess moisture underneath the house. She's got a raise foundation, so not a lot of excess moisture there, but a lot of moisture coming in through the wall underneath the wall. And so, Susie, here is my concern. A couple of concerns. Number one code the code for levels of soil outside a home
versus the floor inside the home. When it comes to just open rough soil, the code is that there needs to be at least four inches of elevation drop where the soil surcharges the house on the outside than from your finished floor. So the soil level outside should be four inches below the the floor level of the home,
including the master bedroom. That's number one, and that's really really key because moisture can build up in that soil and we never want to be in a situation where surface water has a chance to run in underneath the plate of the wall and get in, which it sounds like to me is exactly what's happening on some level.
So that's number one. On a raised foundation, it's also really really important that we don't just run soil right up against the concrete stem wall that is the raised foundation, but that we put some waterproofing on the stem wall as well, which in older homes with raised foundations was
rarely ever done. And so if you have a drainage and moisture issue, then then waterproofing the foundation is an important step along the way lowering the soil level, getting it away from anywhere near A third problem that often occurs is that older homes with stucco, Oh is it a stucco house or a sighting house?
It sure isco okay.
Older homes with stucco back in the day just runs the stucco just runs right down into the soil and doesn't have what we call a weep screed. The stucco doesn't stop above the soil line. What's yours like?
Yeah, it just seems to go right down into the dirt. And now the stucco wall is starting to have that red mold.
Yeah, yeah to it. Okay, So here's the good news. The bad news is we've got multiple little problems. Okay. The good news is it's all solveable. It's all solvable. Okay. So number one, stucco, everybody, Your stucco should not be running down the wall into the soil. Why is that? Because water? We know this water has such a strong surface tension. It's always seeking to go from areas of greater concentration lesser concentration, which means the porosity of your stucco.
It's concrete, it's full of pores and air spaces. The porosity of your concrete. Water can climb a foot twelve inches up, percolating up inside the stucco before it gets too heavy, and then it wants to release and then vush. It releases into the wall, out of the wall, all over the place, and it's no good. We don't this. The stucco coming down into the soil is a bridge for moisture to climb up the wall and get into
the house. So that's something that if it's a serious enough problem that you can actually call a stucco company and say, hey, cut my stucco at the proper level of the plateline of the house. Cut it there and install a weep screed that's a bottom finishing flashing that has holes in the bottom of it, so that when the stucco does get wet, the water has a place to drain out up above the soil of that's number one, cut my stucco up and get it out of the
wet zone. Number two, the soil has to come down so that we are not surcharging soil up against a wall above the level of the interior floor, because the moisture is always going to try and find a way in.
So we lower the soil level, we cut the stucco up, so now we don't have a bridge, and then yes, I would say, now without seeing the yard there there may be other solutions, but generally speaking, when there's a large amount of slope pushing moisture towards the house, I love the idea of shutting it down or capturing it with what we call a French drain. A French drain is a trench that we're going to dig next to the house. It's going to be just a few inches deep.
It's a you know, it's not a canyon. It's just a trench maybe twelve inches deep or so, maybe fourteen inches deep, and in a few inches wide, eight to ten inches wide. This trench. Then, while we have dug that trench out by the way Susie and expose the concrete of the stem wall of the of the raised foundation, then we're gonna cover that stem wall with some elastimeric coating, some waterproofing coating so that the concrete there doesn't absorb
water unnecessarily. Then we're gonna pop a little bit of gravel in the bottom of this trench, and we're gonna lay in a horizontal drain pipe that has perforations in it, that has holes in it, and we're gonna it may have a sleeve, it may not. It's debatable, depending on you know, different people feel different ways about putting a cloth sleeve around it to keep mud from clogging it up. But the point is, if you embed that and then cover that in gravel, all the way up to the
surface of the yard. Again, Now you don't have to expose the gravel on top. You could take a couple of inches of soil and cover over it so no one even knows it's there. But now that there's a void underneath, and it's totally walkable because the gravel is supporting everything. But now that there's lots of space in between that gravel, moisture, any moisture in that soil that it gets near that area will rush to that trench, go into that gravel area and be conveyed away by
the pipe that's there. Of course, that pipe has to go somewhere, so you'll have to turn the corner with it and continue out. It could be completely flat, or if you've got room to slope it fine, tie it into other yard drains, or have it eventually emerge on the surface of the property at some place so it can drain off. But the goal is grab as much of that moisture that's coming towards the house, either divert it on the surface or capture it in this French drain.
When you're all said and done with that, if you go those three or four steps, if you take all three or four of those steps. I guarantee you you're not going to be having moisture in the bedroom anymore. It's not about getting more air circulation. It's not. It's listen, we don't want to have to deal. Don't. Don't just constantly deal with the you know, with the symptoms. Get to the root cause, stop the water from getting near that part of the house.
Got it. So the stucco company can handle the wall. But who would I use to put that French drain in? Would a landscaper do that? Or do I have to call it contractor yeah?
No? Now very likely, very likely. You know a good landscaping company or the gardening company. They deal with this stuff a lot, all right. So I don't know if you've got a gardener or a landscaper, but you would talk. I would talk to them first. I'm like, hey, how do you guys feel about getting a French drain and put in there? My landscaper, my gardener. He's like, yeah, we'll do it all the time, no problem, they'll take care of it for me.
Okay, sounds fabulous. I really for sure.
Your help, Susie, So thank you so much for the call. I appreciate the call, insightful questions, problems. That's the whole idea of taking calls here on the show, so we can all learn together. All right, when we return more of your calls. Your Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty. Welcome KFI AM six forty live streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're Home
with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Welcome Home, Welcome to the show. I'm glad you're with us. We're talking all things home today. We're taking calls as we do now on Saturday mornings. It's an all call Saturday morning, and I'm going to go back to the phones. I want to talk to Tricia. Hey, Tricia, welcome home.
Oh thank you, Jean, and good morning. It's a beautiful day.
It is, indeed, even though it's cloudy and I think it's starting to rain outside, but you know what, it's springtime, so I'm embracing it. How can I help you, Well.
You know, I'm always looking to save a couple dollars, and my power bill right now runs between about thirty to forty dollars a month, and that includes gas and electric. Now I have your basic water heater. It's a forty gallon tank, and I live alone. It's just me. I don't even need that big heater, the water heater. But my question is, I went on vacation and I forgot to put I put the water heater on vacation mode,
and I forgot to take it off vacation mode. This is like maybe four five months ago and it's been on vacation mode. And I'm thinking, am I damaging my water heater by keeping it that low? Should I turn it up? I'm very happy with the water that comes out, thoughts.
So you're happy with the water that comes out of the water heater on vacation mode.
Yes, sir.
I'm just like it's perfect. I mean, it's it's great. I mean, I'm happy. I'm in the shower, I'm out of the shower, in the bathtub, out of the bathtub. It's great. My dog's happy when I bathe them with the I mean, I couldn't be happier. But I'm thinking, am I damaging my water heater? I just replaced it about two years ago, and that water heater lasted thirteen years, but I had it on.
I had it on the lowest, but not vacation mode.
Okay, yeah, so you're a person who doesn't need the you know, scalding hot water coming out of the water. We're opposite. That's when it comes to that. I always said, you know, I have a tankless water heater. It comes factory pre set at one hundred and twenty degrees and I always find the override code too, so I can set it up to one hundred and forty. Because I was hot water. I love it. But hey, no, So the answer to your question, very simply, Trisha, is is no,
you're not damaging your water heater vacation mode. Vacation mode is just low. It is. It's low, and it does. Do you live here in southern California.
I'm in Carlsbad, so I'm you know, with San Diego County.
Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah, so you're here in sokol And you know, vacation mode doesn't even really apply to us out here too much. So vacations just everybody understands. Vacation mode setting on a water heater is simply this, you know, is that you are setting the water heater all the way down to its lowest setting, so that while you're away, it is it's keeping the water warmish,
but it's not overdoing it. Uh. And the whole reason, I mean, honestly, in all honesty, Uh, if you live in southern California, we rarely have ever experience freezing temperatures, and if if we do, it's for a day and then we move on. And I don't want everybody don't don't sue me when I tell you this, but I mean a lot of us we can just turn our water heat. If you live in a warm climate, you could just turn your water heater off when you go on vacation and come back and just fire it back
up again. Vacation mode is really for everybody who lives in a place where you may be going away during the winter months and you may get freezing temperatures, and what you don't want. Everybody understands that understands that if water freezes in your pipes, it expands. Water expands when it freezes, and as a result, in a closed system. If the water in your pipes freeze, then you it will expand against your pipes and often will burst pipe open and create a leak, and so vacation mode is
the lowest setting on your water heater. It's usually fifty degrees and it will just barely keep the way you know, it keeps the water above freezing so that the pipes don't freeze while you're on vacation. And if you happen to like that setting, great, It's just it doesn't there's no special it's not a special thing where the water heater is working differently. It's just the lowest. It's just the lowest of low.
That's all good to know because the next level is turning it off and I'm a little bit I get scared with the gas, you know, turning it off and then turning it back on again. So I just like, you know, what if I put it at the very level. And I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and we used to drip our pipe, you know, we should drip the faucet when it got really really cold, like in the seventeen degree weather. So yeah, so I'm familiar with bursting pipe.
So yeah, so yeah, that's exactly why you drip, yess why you drip the faucet so that the water has a place to expand so it keeps it just trickling a little bit. So there's all these tricks. But vacation mode is a great setting in a modern water heater. And hey, if you like the temp, there's nothing weird about it other than it's just low. It's just low.
A lot of money. I think. People laugh at me, like, how much is your problem? Like thirty dollars me, it's a little high, and they're laughing at me like what, well.
You know what. I applaud you for that, Trisha. I'm just not coming over to your house for a hot shower, that's all. So it's all.
It's good, Tris.
Thanks for the call.
Thank you to have a wonderful day.
You and Tina, you two, my friend, Thank you so much. All right, See this is such a lovely lady. Uh more of your calls. When we return your home with Dean Sharp, the house whisper. I r Hi Dean Sharp, the house whisper with you on this lovely spring Saturday morning. Welcome home. Thanks for joining us on the program. It is a privilege. It's an honor to sit and talk to you about your home, that most precious place, the holy of holies, the ground zero of your life home.
That's wherever it is that you live. Whether it's a condo, a cottage, a castle, matters not to me. I'm here to help you take it to the next level so it can be the very best home it can possible ble be for you. It is an all call Saturday morning, as is our growing custom here, and so I want to try and take at least one more call. I'll also tell you about what's going on with tomorrow's show, but first let's talk to Julie in Anaheim. Julie, welcome home,
Good morning, Dean. How do I find a good, reliable handyman. That's a really good question, really good question. So there is there are some places around these days thanks to the Interweb and stuff like that. First of all, I would always ask a friend's family acquaintances, Hey, do you have anybody who you trust? Because personal referrals are just
still the gold standard for this kind of thing. There's nothing that replaces in the end, you know, a trusted friend telling you, oh, this is this person is fantastic for this and and then you go that way. But if you are shy of those referrals, then a couple of places online would be Uh, they all have the word task in them. Uh a air tasker, air tasker.
Did I get that right? Did I get yeah? Air tasker dot com is a is a website that you put in your zip code and you look for that, you know, you list out the thing you're looking for, and they'll meet they'll match you up with people who have signed up for just those kinds of jobs. And another one is task Rabbit TaskRabbit dot com, same kind of thing. These are really sites that are focused on
handy people. Handy persons. We still say handyman, but I feel like that's not politically correct anymore, and it's probably just not great. But here, and just so you know, this is a critical part of the U the home repair and maintenance economy really really is a lot of people are like, oh, you're a handyman, you're not a real contractor. Well, you know what, here is the thing, Uh you get you you get a contractor's license, you have to have bonds and all of these other things.
And and that's this is why most contractors are not interested in taking jobs that are just Hey, what I need is somebody to install my washer and dry my new washer and dryer. You know, because I don't want
to do it myself or these kinds of things. By law in the state of California, and this may be different in other states, but I law, by law, in the state of California, handy person UH can operate and do all of these things without being a licensed contractor UH as long as as long as the the total value of the project is five hundred dollars or less,
that's the that's the law. So if you and there are companies that are massively successful sending people around doing these small, odd, uh but important projects, little fix it things here and there, UH, just always be aware that if it's a larger project and that requires you know, something major, like you know, like a license plumber, for instance, then you want to be looking for a licensed plumber as opposed to But but it doesn't take a license plumber to change out a toilet or fix a toilet
leak or you know, that's kind of that's the kind of stuff, and contractors usually just don't want to touch it or they're just going to charge you way way too much. So handy people are a critical part and just because they don't have a license does not mean that they don't know what they're doing or that they're not functioning legally. It is in fact a fully you know, legitimate category, and finding them at times is is really important.
So yeah, task rabbit, air tasker, friends and family referrals. That's how you find a great qualified handy person. And they fell just a critically important niche. Yeah, and sometimes, honestly, legally, you may have a project that a general contractor actually is not supposed to touch. And this is just I'm just going to give everybody a little bit of trivia here or a little bit of info. In the state of California,
a general contractor's license for residential is actually a carpentry license. Okay, it's technically it's the carpentry license. And so here's what a general contractor can and can't do. A general contractor can come in and do any of the trades that you need them to do. We can do plumbing, electrical, you know, carpenter, whatever, but we have to come in
technically to do two or more of those trades. So in other words, if your project involves electrical and plumbing, then I can come in as a general and be you know, do the electrical work and the plumbing work myself, right, no problem. What I can't do, what I'm not allowed to do as a general contractor in California is come in and just do your electrical or just do plumbing work. Because now, wow, I am supplanting a licensed electrician and
a licensed plumber with just my general contractor's license. So if I'm doing general work two or more trades, no problem. But I can't come in and just legally, you know, fix the toilet or fix a pipe, because it's one trade and that trade has its own specialized license. I know it's weird, but I think you can get the point is that the idea is that generals aren't allowed to come in and steal everybody else's work on an individual basis, but we can do the job if it's
if it's two or more trades combined together. So the point is there are a lot of jobs that generals can't even legally touch that a handy person sits in and fits the bill and makes it work. And I, you know, I know some beautiful people who are really really really handy and know their stuff, and so air tasker task rabbits and referrals. Julie, thank you, so much for your call, and I hope that helps you. Pop
in your zip code you'll get some referrals. But interview also, and remember VET a handy person, just like you would a contractor. Ask for referrals, talk to people who have just been using them recently and find out, you know, hey, is this person up to snuff? Were they helpful? Were they on time? You'll find the right one. And once you make that relationship, man, it's worth its weight in gold.
All right, y'all. Here we are at the end of another couple of hours together on this lovely spring morning, and I hope your day is full of wonder and uh and productivity and rest or whatever it is supposed to be for you. That you get busy building yourself a beautiful life. Tomorrow on the show, we're talking pest control with my good friend Sue Freeze, founder owner of Ecola Pest Control, to Pest Control Sunday morning. So save up all your pest problem questions and we'll talk to
Sue about it tomorrow. Until then, get out there and get busy building yourself a beautiful life. We'll see tomorrow. 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