KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the house Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Dean Sharp, the house Whisper, craftsman builder, custom home designer, here to help you turn your ordinary house into an extraordinary home. We are doing an all calls weekend. I want to talk to Stephen. Hey, Stephen, welcome home.
Hello Dean, I'm so glad to talk to you. You know, I have a tankless water heater. I just replaced it. Actually the first one died after fourteen years, and now I want to add a recirculation pump under my kitchen sink. But I don't have a dedicated return line for the research pump. I found several products that'll do it, but I'm a little concerned of how they work, so I'm hoping you can give me some guidance.
The world of recirculation pumps has changed radically over the years here, and fairly recently too, in terms of construction innovations. Right over the last ten years, there's been a radical change, Especially over the last five years. It has truly truly taken hold, so much so that the research pump that I'm about to tell you about. And I'm not talking about a brand, I'm talking about a style. There are a lot of brands out there. You can shop those
out for yourself. But the research pump style or concept that I'm about to tell you about in southern California and throughout the state in many places, has been now adopted as a requirement for new home builds and for major remodels. That's how important it has become because it is a water saving recirculation pump that does not require
a dedicated return line. So what we used to do and what we still do, Okay, what we still do if we know that we're building a custom home from the ground up and the client's like, listen, I just want hot water everywhere, at every sink and every file all the time, right, I don't want to wait two
minutes for the hot water to show up. Then what we will often do still today is instead of plumbing out the hot water system like a tree branch, like a tree coming out from the water heater that branches out and keeps breaking off into smaller and smaller lines until it eventually reaches every source like the tub and the sink in the bathroom and so on, we will take each one of those and return them back in
a loop back to the water heater. And that allows us to put a recirculation pump on that just keeps hot water moving through those lines, because the reason why the hot water disappears is that it sits there for an hour or two or three or however long you haven't used the hot water, and it cools off, right, it cools off sitting in the pipe.
All right.
So the brilliance of the new fangled recirculation pumps and that is so much in the pump itself, but in this tiny little device called a bridge valve. A bridge valve is a device that gets mounted underneath a sink, the sink in question, and it gets mounted and what it does, it's a one way valve that actually joins the hot water supply to the cold water supply underneath
the sink. Now why is this important? And what it does is it allows you then to mount a small recirculation pump that draws hot water off of the hot water line. And even though there isn't a return circuit, what it does is it draws hot water off the hot water line and it pushes that hot water into the cold water line so that you get the action of a recirculation pump, but we're not we don't have to run a return circuit, and we're not wasting water
because it's still your water. It sits in the cold line and it cools off and it becomes cold water for you. So that's how they work. And this little brilliant one way valve called a bridge valve in combination with the recirculation pump. Now, configuring a research pump is something that you can do a number of different ways. You can put a research pump under every single sink in your house. It's a little overkill in most homes.
The way that we like to do it typically is if you're only concerned about getting the hot water at the kitchen sink immediate, then fine, just put it right
under the kitchen sink. But if you have a sense of the way you're plumbing is kind of bridged out, one way to do it is you take the sink that's furthest away from the hot water heater, the furthest end of the tree branch, as it were, the furthest branch on the very end, and you put the research pump there on a timer on a regular rotating timer so that it fires on and it pulls a little water and then it turns off, and that it fires on and pulls a little water and it turns off.
And the net benefit of that it's drawing the hot water through all of the main branches and getting hot water closer to all of your sinks with one research pump properly located under the right sink, so you can do it under every sink. You could do it under one sink that you want to prioritize, or you can run it at the end of the very very furthest branch in the house, and you'll get hot water quicker out of all your sinks and all of your appliances.
It won't be instant it's not instantaneous, but instead of like waiting two minutes, you know you're waiting ten seconds and that well, and instead of.
Dumping how many gallons of water down the sink, and then I don't waste the water. And my kitchen sink is ideal because it's the furthest away from everything, and it'll cover my bathrooms, my laundry room, all that perfect good. I guess my only concern is there's nothing on the back end, and so there's got to be a checkbowve or something back there to keep water from flowing in the wrong direction as it's using the cold side as
the return pipe. And I just want to make sure I'm not going to hurt pipes.
Or you know, yeah, yeah, not at all. No, that is what the bridge valve is. The bridge valve is essentially a check It serves as a as a bridge between hot and cold. Like I said, it's a one way valve. It allows hot water to move into the cold. It does not allow cold to come back into the hot. It is both a bridge and a check valve. It in no way threatens your plumbing system. They are approved, they are embraced, and everybody really who can afford to
get one should get one. These research pumps, by the way, they range in value anywhere from like the mid two hundreds to the mid three hundred, three hundred bucks three fifty or so two fifty to three hundred dollars. And the check valve itself is you know, the bridge valve is you know, it's like a sixty dollars item. So it's a really really good set up. And I wouldn't worry about your plumbing in any way, shape or form, Stephen. It's one of the it's one of the things water
heaters only. Does you know one of our sponsors is one of the benefit ads that they do to a house when they're installing a new water heater. So anyway, a really really good system and great questions, Stephen. It allowed me to explain this to everybody who is listening, and that's one of the reasons why we take calls. Not only answer your question, but answer the thousands of other listeners who are having the exact same situation in their house and have that same question in their mind,
but didn't call to more of your calls. When we return, you are listening to Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Thanks for joining us on the program.
Now it is time to take some calls, and I want to do exactly that.
I want to talk to Cheryl. Hey, Cheryl, welcome home.
My question is with regards to drain maintenance. I love my husband very much, but I'm noticing that the bathroom drain bath sink drain is a little bit slower. I have no blockages anywhere, but I'm thinking it's from his shaving cream and shaving. So what is the proper drain maintenance? Monthly? Weekly? I went to a local store and there was chemicals and enzymes, and there were things for the disposer, and
then another product for the toilet, another product. What's the best product to use baking soda, vinegar and hot water. I also read, so how often and what is best for maintaining a drink of the drains weekly or monthly?
Okay, great question, and uh so here's the answer. Now you're dealing specifically with a bathroom drain, okay, And but also people are wondering like, okay, but what about my kitchen singing two? That's where my problem is. And so here the first rule is for drain maintenance is don't put the wrong stuff down the drain.
Okay.
So if your husband in shaving cream and whatever, let him pull the stopper on the sink and let the sink fill up, okay with water as he shaved, so that the shaving cream is diluted in the water before it goes down the drain. Don't let just big clumps of shaving cream go down the drain undiluted, and the reason is that they have a tendency then to cling more to the sides of your drain pipes, and it's that eventual build up that leads eventually to some kind
of clog. The same is true for women who are prepping out a sink. If you're doing your hair or something like that, pull the stopper on the drain, let the hair get stopped in the sink, and then grab that hair, throw it in the trash can. Don't let it go down the drain, and your drains will be happier. And in the kitchen, stop putting food down the garbage disposal, so much of it macerates it into this mush, this biological mess, and that stuff clings to your drain pipes
as you go down. So that's just first the tip number one. Number two is I am a fan of drain maintenance. No heavy chemicals, So definitely not the draino definitely not the liquid plumber or any of that kind of stuff. It ultimately does damage to the drain pipes themselves. What you can put down, don't put bleach down the drain either. Bleach is useless down to drain.
It doesn't.
That's not what it's made for. Okay, vinegar and water, hot water. Fill up a sink with hot water, add some white vinegar. Let that go down the drain. That's great because vinegar has an ascetic acid in it, and that acid eats away at the junk that sits on the edge of your drain pipes. Baking soda also a good answer, because it has its own way of breaking down that material. Never baking soda and vinegar together because us even though you get this fizzing action, that's not
extra cleaning power. That's the acid and the pH neutral balance neutralizing itself. In other words, it's canceling itself out and rendering both less useful than they are on their own. So pick the vinegar or the baking soda, but not both at the same time. That's good for making your kids high school volcano project, but not for cleaning anything around the house. The thing that I like the best, though, Cheryl, this is my preference, is a nice well referenced enzyme.
You know, I mean well referenced meaning that it has good reviews. Right, you can buy this stuff just about anywhere at the local hardware store. You can buy them at the big box store. I'm staring at one right now. I just pulled it up. Green Gobbler is a really really good one, and they sell it in gallons jugs at a place like home Depot. Okay, it costs you about twenty five bucks for a gallon. You use very
little of it, and you just use it regularly. You don't have to use it every other day or anything like that. You know, once a week, once a month, pour a little of it down. Enzymes they're not critters, they're not alive, Okay. They are though naturally occurring biological molecular structures that dig in and break down biomass material. So enzymes will just basically coat over the slime that's building up on your pipes and start to break it up so that the next time you flush the drain,
more and more of it goes away. Enzymes are not going to do any good to clear a clogged drain, but they are the best thing out there at keeping a drain from clogging in the first place. There you go, that's my best shot, Cheryl. Thank you for your call. Let's talk to am. I going to get this name right. Bobart welcome home.
Yes, I have an eighty five year old father who is needs to be moved into his home, but he can't get into the bathtub anymore. We needs to get make it walk through backtop. So there's a there's something online that steps to step in and you cut apart the backtop and then you you've converted to a walk in Do you have any opinions about that?
Yeah, you know I've seen that. Uh and uh uh.
What can I tell you? I have no direct experience with it whatsoever. So I'm being completely honest and transparent with you.
Zero.
I have zero direct experience with it. But but I will tell you water is heavy, uh, and water pressure against the side of a tub, uh is significant And I really really have trouble imagining that in the long term, uh, that a retrofit of a door on the side of an existing bathtub is actually going to hold up and be functional. I would much much quicker recommend to you that you simply remove the existing tub and replace it
with a factory built walk in tub. The door swings in these tubs are built for exactly the thing that you are in need of it. They are for folks who need to sit down. The benches are located in the most convenient locations at the most convenient height. They need to sit down, they need to bathe, but they are not in a position to step over the edge of a tub because it's a danger to them. And so there is a door that simply opens up. But those doors are designed like you know, marine grade boat
submarine doors. I mean, they seal. And I've never actually seen one of those from reputable walk in tub manufacturers fail, honest, And what I wouldn't want to have happen is for how a retrofit fail on you. So my recommendation is that you remove the existing tub and replace with one designed by the factory for just this purpose. You're going to have the best warranty and I think you're going to have the best results with it. I'm so glad you join him this morning. Hang tight, 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.
We are taking your calls, which I love. I love talking to you about whatever's going on with your home today, whether it's a DIY question, a construction issue, a design question. I love design questions, So anyway, I would love to help. So why don't we just dive back in. I want to talk to Jason. Hey, Jason, welcome home.
Hey, thank you. I'm an original homeowner and as such, I have all the original photos of the framing, plumbing, electric. The house is about fifteen years old, three thousand square feet, two story. I'm in Orange County. We want to do a modest extent or expansion of our existing dining room, so that we would push out an exterior wall to basically capture an existing outdoor alcove type area that also has there's an exterior entrance to the kitchen that goes
into that same area. So if you can imagine a first story, little maybe hundred square foot alcove, there's an exterior door from the dining room to that alcove. There is an exterior door from the kitchen to that alcove. And I'm like, well, hey, if we just pushed out that wall maybe eight feet, we could have a way to get into the kitchen from the dining room, and we'd gather up another one hundred square feet. I reach out to various contractors and they're like, hey, do you
have the drawings? I'm like, well, what do you mean? Well, if when you go to get permits, they're going to want a drawing of the entire house, not just that little section. And I'm like, gosh, I'm yours aloner, but I don't have any drawings. Well, you know, you either have to get a firm to draw up the entire elevation of the house as it's existing and the plan for that wall, or or find another way to get them.
I'm sort of perplexed on like, a does the whole house really have to get drawn up just to move one wall? And secondly, do I, as like an original homeowner, do I have any sort of entitlement to maybe those drawings? Because I'm learning to hire an engineering firm to come in and draw the whole house. It's quite expensive for a small project like this.
Right, Okay, all right, so let me help you kind of break this down. First of all, your contractors are right ish, but they're probably correct. It changes municipality to municipality. But generally speaking, if you are doing a structural addition onto a house just for context sake, right, the city is going to be bare minimum. They're going to be looking for an exterior elevation of that three sides of
that push out and three sides meaning three cardinal directions. Right, So, if you're pushing out on the south side of the house, they're going to want the south elevation looking straight on. They're going to want the east and west elevations looking at the sides of that alcove. As a pushout, they won't care about the other side of the house, okay. They basically want context, and they want context in relation
to where this alcove is in relation to the first floor. Now, if you're not affecting anything on the second floor, they your city may not need second floor drawings, okay, they may not care about that, or they may feel like, okay, what is this affecting upstairs if anything. So that's the first thing you need to know, and the answer to those questions reside at your local building department, not with contractors, but actually just making a trip down and saying, hey,
this is what we're planning on doing with our home. Secondarily, your city may may it's getting rarer these days, but they may actually have your original house plans on file, especially if it's only been fifteen years since the house
was built. So while you're there, you should also ask the city at the planning department, do you have the original blueprints for my home or at least my tract, And maybe they've got blueprints for your floor plan that are flipped, that have been submitted by the builder of the developer back in the day. Those will work. That gives you a massive head start. Now sometimes the city will say, well, yes, we do have that. We can't release it to you though without notifying the builder, the
original developer, or the architects first. That's just a technicality. And most of the time what happens is they'll tell you, listen, we're gonna do the official notification and we will let you know in seven days if we haven't heard back from them, we're going to release the plans to you and you can have them on usually a digital file that you can then turn into a PDF, and you're off to the races as far as plans are concerned for your home. At least somebody doesn't have to pay.
Somebody's still going to have to draw the plans, right, You can't just work off of those original plans. But you can use those original plans instead of somebody having to remeasure the whole house and go to that expense. So it's going to reduce the cost. Finally, the thing that I want to tell you is that never ever hire an engineering firm to draw your house. The engineers come in after the fact and just pay them to deal with the specific engineering issues that this thing involves.
As far as the rest of the plan, whatever the city tells you the rest of the plan has to be. You can hire a draft I mean technically, Jason, you can do this yourself. You are a homeowner and you could actually draw the house yourself, but that is a headache for a lot of people. You can hire a drafts person. There are people out there for hire who will give you a really good price to draw up the layout of your home and draw the elevation. Believe me, there are a lot of drafts people out of work
and looking for work. It's a good time these days to hire a drafts person. It does not require a licensed architect or a licensed engineer to draw your home. I am not a licensed architect right and yet I design and build custom homes and have for the nearly forty years now because in the state of California, you do not the city. The state does not require a licensed architect to be involved in most cases up to
three stories in a residential home. Okay, so when it comes to residences, anybody who knows what they're doing can draw and submit those drawings generally speaking as a general rule in most municipalities. So it all starts with you go into the city getting the info you need from them, finding out if your plans are on file. If they're not, yeah, you're going to have to break down to follow whatever they are looking for, and you just give them the
minimum of what it is that they're looking for. They're not going to be super impressed if you give them extra extra extor they just want what they want. Uh, And you start it there, but don't hire an engineering firm to do it, because yeah, those guys are Those guys are engineers and they make engineering money. Hire and don't hire an architect. Hire a drafts person who work for engineers and architects in order to actually put the
drawings together. By the way, you hire an engineering firm to draw your house, they're going to hand it to their drafts person to actually do the measurement and the drawing. The engineers aren't going to do the drawings themselves until engineering time comes around, but you're going to get charged engineering prices for the whole thing.
So there you go. You sub it out as you need to as you go along. Does that help?
Thank you? No, that's great, all right, buddy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, you can get that done for for way less okay, and get it done well all right. So but start with the city. That's the key. Jason, Good luck, my friend on that remodel. Hope everything turns out really, really well. How about some more of your calls when we return. You are listening to Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
I dropped my pen Dean Sharp, the house Whisper. Welcome home. The number to reach me at eight three three two Ask Dean eight three three the numeral to ask Dean give me a call. I would love to help you out, all right, without any further ado, why don't we talk to Ann?
Hey Ann, welcome.
Home, Hi Dean, Okay, I just have a quick actually two quick questions. When I plug in my like vacuum or a san or something like that. And of course, you know your vacuum for a few minutes. When I go to unplug from the wall, that the plug is so hot you can hardly hold it. Is that something I should be concerned about.
The actual plug at the end of the vacuum cleaner, yes, has has has gotten super hot?
Huh.
Yeah.
And you know I vacuum for let's let's say at least ten minutes, because the room is kind of large, and I go over to unplug it to take it to another room, and the plug when I unplug it from the wall, it's really hot.
Well that you know what that's That's a bit of a quandary, I got to tell you, because it's it's normal for an appliance plug to become warm after you've used it for a while. It is abnormal for a plug to actually get hot. It's usually some kind of internal electrical fault in the appliance itself that is ready to go off if it's drawing too much energy, like like if it's drawing so much power that it's going
to overwhelm the wires in the plug. Sometimes an improperly grounded electrical connection can also cause a device to draw more power than necessary. So, you know what, that's a it's a bit of a mystery to me. I have heard. I haven't seen this firsthand, but I've heard that a properly an improperly grounded plug can sometimes allow an appliance to draw more energy than it should, and therefore the cord on the appliance gets way too hot. Now, if it's warm, that's one thing, but hot like oohow, I
can hardly hold it. That would be a concern. Does that happen to the to the vacuum cleaner, Let's say, when you plug it into any of your outlets or just one in particular.
Well, that's a I was going to suggest, is maybe I should try another because normally I use the same outlet because it's centrally located, you know, so that I can do the whole room. But maybe that's what I should do, is try another plug to see if the problem is that one particular outlet.
Yeah, exactly, So I'm going to suggest a couple of things. Number One, that you do that first, Let's see if that happens on every single outlet. If that's the case, it's very likely. By the way, when was your house.
Built, Well, the house was built in like around sixty But the two plugs that I use for the vacuum they are fairly new because I had a little remodeling done. So when you said it could be not grounded, I just wonder if the electrician didn't, you know, do something that he was supposed to do with those two new additional plugs or outlets.
I mean, okay, so let's do what you were saying. Let's plug the vacuum cleaner into a couple of other outlets in the house and see run it for the same amount of time. See if we get the same reaction out of the vacuum cleaner for that, because it could just be an issue with the vacuum cleaner. It really could. But here's another thing that you can do. If you run down to the hardware store or a home depot or low someplace like that, and you ask them, like I tell them that you want to get an
outlet tester. Okay, it's specifically an outlet tester. It's a little block of plastic. It's got three lights on the end of it, and it has a three prong plug.
Just like you plug in the any appliance. The thing that an outlet tester it's gonna do is when you plug it into any outlet in your house, depending on how the lights light up, And there's a little menu right on top that shows you depending on how the lights light up, it will tell you whether or not that outlet is properly grounded, whether the hot and the neutral have been revert whether there's a wiring issue with
the outlet. So if you plug in this outlet tester, it's the only gonna co you like ten bucks to do this. You can test every outlet in your house and you can know for sure whether or not the electrician properly grounded that plug.
Well, I was just concerned with it starting a fire, you know, and that's what that was my main concern. But in talking with you, that's that's a good idea to try another plug, another outlet, I mean, and then also get that little testra thing.
That's a good idea er And you definitely want to be concerned about starting a fire, and you don't want to mess with your electrical. If you're ever worried about your electrical just figure it out, get it tested, get it dealt with because we don't want to fire in your house. And thank you so much, sweetheart.
Thank you.
Let's talk to Antonio. Antonio. Welcome home.
Oh, thank you, welcome home.
Thank you, You're welcome. How can I help you?
Regallion small detectors and carbon monoxide And I wanted to find out if it's the best place to put on if I buy it the combination of both or buy them separately and put one inside the the bedrooms like a smoke detector, and then the carbon monoxide on the outside of the of the each bedroom.
Uh.
Yeah, you don't have to put a carbon monoxide detector on the outside of each bedroom. That's more than you need. Currently, southern California and most municipalities, the code is going to be a smoke detector inside each bedroom, just inside the door of each bedroom, a smoke detector in the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Okay, okay, a carbon monoxide detector
centrally located on each floor of the house. So typically what people do when they want to just be most efficient with their cash is they'll buy a regular smoke detector and put those inside each of the bedrooms, and then they'll take a smoke detector, slash carbon monoxide combo detector and put that as the hall waste detector on each floor outside the bedroom doors and that will get you covered.
Oh okay, I appreciate it.
Now, one last question is possible. How can you determine you know, they have the conservation facets or fixtures nowadays where you know you have to find out how many gallons of water you spend on the facets.
How can you determine if that one is under the guidelines.
Oh, everything that is being everything that is being sold in stores now legally is under the guidelines. I guarantee it, unless your city has extra stringent guidelines. So the best thing to do is simply if you're wondering, and you're and you're worried, is call your local city building department and say, hey, for our city, what what are the regulations for my toilet as far as how many gallons can my toilet use? How many gallons per minute can
my shower head be? How many gallons per minute can my faucets be? They will tell you straight out. They're like it's going to be this three and a half gallons per minute, but one and a half gallons per flush, so on, and then you can just go shopping and on the side of every single fixture that you buy, you're going to see the gallons per minute for that fixture, so that you end up getting the right one.
I see. I appreciate that, buddy.
Thank you so much. More of your calls to come. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper on KFI. 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.