K f I A M six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app i AM six forty live streaming and HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, welcome home. I'm Dean Sharp the House Whisper. I design custom homes. I build a few custom homes along the way, and I am your guide every weekend to better understand that place where you live. Today on the show, well this weekend. On the show, today's episode and tomorrow's It's an all calls weekend.
We do this every few weeks. I love all calls weekends. Why because you get to set the agenda of what's going on the show today. Anything you want to talk about regarding your home. I'm going to give you the number right now because the phone lines are open and it's a Saturday morning, so you can just rub the sleepy out of your eyes and give me a call. It's light traffic on a Saturday morning, So now is your chance 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 again, anything you want to talk about regarding your home construction design DIY. We can talk architecture, we can talk high and lofty things, we can talk about how to fix your leaky toilet and everything in between. Uh, let me introduce our awesome team to you. Of course, Sam is on the board as always, taking care of everything that's going on, and he's got his hands full this morning, so I'm not
gonna bug him right now. Producer Richie nowhere near a microphone at the moment, but standing by ready to take your calls. He's just opened up the phone boards again eight three three two. Ask Dean is the number to reach me and my buddy Eileen Gonzalez at the news desk. Good morning, Eileen, Good morning sunshine. How's it going. You sound nice and perky this morning. Well, thank you. That's all just a lie. It's a lie. Take it till
you make it, Take it till that coffee kicks in. Yeah, what flavor of tea are we sipping this morning today?
It's a sweet and spicy. It's actually decaff right now. I'll move to caffeinated in just a minute. But yeah, it's a nice sweet, naturally sweet blend of Rebos and who knows what else.
Clothes Oh my gosh. Eileen is our resident tea expert, so I always just have to check in and find out what's going on with the tea. Sitting across the table from me, my better half, my design partner, my best buddy in all the world, Tina is also here, Welcome home, Good morning to you, Good morning, And Sammy's here, and Sammy the beagle is also here. Sammy will probably not be screaming like he was a couple of weeks ago, because Sammy had a pinched nerve in his neck that
was hurting him really bad. But we're past that now. He's very calm, well as calm as a beagle can get, and he looks to be quite content and happy this morning. All right, y'all, listen, it is an all calls weekend. I'm just gonna be jabbering about a few odds and ends until the phone begins ringing. So eight three three two, ask Dean A three three the numeral two, Ask Dean, that's the number to call, and it all gets started.
Can't hi, Dean sharp the house whisper? Hey, Whether your home is a condo, a cottage, or a castle, it doesn't matter. I am here to help you take it to the next level. And guess what we're doing helping you take your home to the next level this weekend. It is an all calls weekend. We have just thrown open all the phone lines. We've got a couple of calls right now. I'm going to turn to them in just a second. But the number to reach me. We've
got so much room for you. Really, this is the advantage of being an early riser on a Saturday morning, or the advantage of living further east than California. Because for you, you're already up. So give me a call eight three three two Ask Dean eight three three. The numeral two ask Dean eight three three to ask Dean. It's just that simple, all right. I'm gonna finish out my thought as promised about this hidden barn door, and I'm using my famous air quotes with the word barn door.
You should check it out. If you go online and just search for sliding barn door a trackless, I'm sure you will run across at least one or two videos demonstrating it. But it is a wonderful innovation. It's a great piece of hardware. Tina and I checked it out thoroughly. And what we're talking about is the concept of a barn door, which of course you know is you know, they've been so popular and now they have started to fall out of favor for exactly the reason that I'm describing.
Because when the barn doors first came out, they're like, oh my gosh, how a door? But is that you can just put this rustic little door and it's hanging on an exposed track. You normally we use a barn door where we can't use a pocket door because the wall won't accept the door for whatever reason. Maybe it's a structural wall, maybe we don't have the room for that, and so on the outside of the wall hangs a door.
And you know, barn doors definitely have their limitations. They don't seal a you know, sound very well, and they're not lockable per se. But they do provide a certain level of sound buffing and privacy and the aesthetic is really cool if if you're going for that you know, farmy and or industrial look. But that's about where they
come to an end. And that's when you know everything when you know a few years back when everything was going you know, farmhouse chic and transitional farmhouse and modern farmhouse.
Everybody's like, I get myself a barn door, and now, you know, not so much of a thing, but because of this innovative hardware, now a barn door again, I'm just going to say, a trackless sliding door, uh is entirely available to any house, any style of house, and any motif from ultra custom and modern all the way down to the you know, the classic kind of farmy barn house look. And so we can take any door, a super contemporary, sleek looking door, any period door, and
simply hang it on this hardware. And now what do we have. We just have the door. That's it, just the door. That's all you see is the door sliding back and forth across the opening. No hardware, no track, no you know, hyper industrial look. So somebody asked me what I think? Amy asked me yesterday, what do you call a barn door that is trackless and where you can only see the door in any style used? I
call it sexy, That's what I call it. So, so that's one of the hidden and or flush things on my hidden in flush list, And if I need to, I will love I'll be peppering that into our program. Today in between calls. But right now we've got a couple of calls on the board, and so I want to get started. Let's get started at least before we go to a break with Grace. Hey, Grace, welcome home.
Hi, this is Grace. Good morning, Dean.
Good morning, Grace. How you doing this fine morning?
I'm doing actually very well. But let me get to my question. I have one hundred year old home with window units. I want to go to a new system, but I'm not sure which way to go with the HVAC. Are the mini splits leading towards the mini split? But I would like to know kind of your opinion and are they really more cost efficient later on?
Okay, that's a really good question. So tell me a little bit more about your house, Grace, hundred years old? Are you here in southern California? Are you elsewhere? Are we one story around?
I am in? I am in southern California and it is a single story it's a single story house.
And what style of home is it?
It's almost like I would say, between a tutor and a craftsman.
Okay, Okay, cool, cool, great, great, So here is the thing with you? And by the way, do you happen to have an old gravity furnace basement area underneath the house, which.
Is saying, no, we don't. Actually we have wall on the wall heater. But I have a basement.
In my garage, a basement in your garage. Yes, that's a unique setup. Okay, all right, So here's the thing, Grace, Well, here's the thing. I just looked at the clock, and it's time for me to take a quick break. So i am gonna leave everybody hanging, and I'm gonna pop you on hold, and I'm gonna take a thorough answer to your question as soon as we come back. So can you hang tight?
By can? Thank you very much?
Awesome? You hang tight, Grace. And we're going to answer a question that is becoming more and more important to Southern Californians as Southern California homes continue to age in place, and that is what do you do with one hundred year old home? If you want to put HVAC in it? What options are available to you. We'll talk about all of that, plus more of your calls when we return. You are Home with Dean Sharp the house whisper. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI
AM six forty. I am fine. I am forty. Live streaming in HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer, with you here on this lovely sun isn't even up yet Saturday morning. Thank you, Daylight Savings time. Not a big fan. I'm not a huge fan of daylight savings. I really am not. But you know, I don't mind. I'm up when I'm up. We're over it now, so I'm not going to whine and complain anymore than
I just did. It is an all calls weekend. So if you are up with me right now here on the West Coast in southern California or anywhere across our great nation. And if you're not on the West Coast, I hope you're up by now, you lazy bones. So give me a call. Anything you want to talk about regarding your home. It's a free flowing, free wheeling any subject you want, Saturday morning, today and tomorrow both. The number to reach me right now eight three three two.
Ask Dean eight three three The numeral to ask Dean. We've got room for you on the callboard. Eight three three two. Ask Dean anything that's got you scratching your head about your home. Now here is a really good one. Grace, who I popped on hold right before the break, is still with me? Yes, Grace, are you still with me? I'm here, okay. So Grace lives here in southern California. She's in a kind of craftsman Tutoresque style one hundred
year old home. We have, you know, more and more of those homes all the time, one hundred year old homes still though one of the classic eras of construction. Here in southern California, Craftsman, Spanish revival, tutor story book bungalow style homes. Lot of just beautiful homes. And she's running into one of those challenges that many one hundred year old homes face, and that is she's got old gas wall furnaces. She would love to have a full HVAC system in her house, and how do you go
about doing it? So here is the thing, Grace. Of course, I can't tell you exactly what to do regarding your home, but I can tell you this, If the integrity of the design of your home is of primary concern to you, and I hope that it is, I want you to take your time, and I want you to source out a number of different HVAC contractors and options for how
this gets done. Now, I know you said the mini split system is something that somebody has recommended to you, and that is a viable way to get air conditioning and heating into a home, and heating included because a mini split system, like so many air air conditioning systems can have, be a heat pump system that both provides. It's basically an air conditioner that also works in reverse.
So when an air conditioner brings cold air into the house, it can reverse itself and bring warm air into a house. And you know, for a room or two. Many split systems are you know, pretty economical and they're relatively easy to install because they don't need ducting in order to transmit. They use what we call cassettes. Cassettes are whatever they
come in ceiling size is now classic. The classic mini split cassette is kind of a long rectangular thing that gets mounted to the top of a wall and there's only a a refrigerant line set in between the unit outside and the cassette and meaning small copper piping with insulation around them. And so they can pretty much be you know, wormed in just about anywhere, in any space, and that's what makes them a viable option. However, I just want to I want you to know, Grace, that
there are, quite possibly, inevitably, there are other options. In your case, you have a one story home with attic space above you. If it was a two story home, that would definitely limit possibilities as well. But you've got a one story home that is one hundred years old, so you've got a crawl space and an attic space. You're not sitting just on a slab. You have a crawl space under your house, and since it's a single story, one hundred year old home, you have attic space, which
means we've got options. We've got some flexibility. You could, in theory, run an entire h FEVAC system, one single zone system just with ductwork underneath the house and have floor events delivering hot and cold air throughout your house. That is one distinct possibility for a system. The mini split system is another distinct possibility. And because this is something that I am very familiar with, because we get called upon to deal with century houses all the time.
From a design perspective, I've got clients who specifically call us and saying, all right, I know how important design and story preservation is for you, and I know how much integrity you approach a project with. So how can we update our house and live in it in the twenty first century and still maintain this beautiful one hundred year old home. And so there is yet a third option for you. And it's what's called the Unico System.
And I want you to write this down because you can do some research on it later and anybody who's interested in this, it's Unico. Unico is a company that has kind of been at the tip of the spear. They're not the only one out there doing this, but they're the one that is most readily available here on the West Coast. Unico Unico. And if you go to the Unico System website, you can put in your name and address and get a list of HVAC contractors who
are familiar with it. And what the unicosystem is is also a central heating and air conditioning system that uses what's called high velocity small ducts. So instead of your classic you know, six inch, eight inch, twelve inch duct work having to find space running through houses and up walls, which means opening up walls, which means tearing things up. The unicosystem was pretty much exclusively designed to retrofit into older homes. I mean century old homes, Victory East Coast,
Victorian homes, all sorts of problematic systems. Because their ducts are only three inches in diameter, they can be fed up through walls from the bottom to the top and then ducked out into ceilings in incredibly creative ways. It's high velocity, meaning that it produces the same heating and cooling effects as the large, low velocity ducts, but there's
no noise. It's super quiet and very very efficient. And when design preservation is at the top of your priority list, then a unicosystem is one of those things that we turn to grace. It's such an important question, and I've got a whole other set of comments on this, so I will if you can hang tight for one more break.
I want to just use this as a springboard to talk about the idea of how to find the right contractors given a difficult job, How to find the right contractors and what not to accept and what to accept from them along the way. Can you hang tight one more time?
I can sounds great.
All right, Grace, you hang tight such a pertinent question. This is why I love All Calls weekends, because it gives me an opportunity to really talk to everybody about super relevant important things. When you were trying to get stuff done on your home. So we'll get right back to it. Hey, Fie Bean sharp to the house, whisper, welcome home. Thanks for joining us on the program. The sun is coming up. I'm looking out the window and I see blue sky outside. Good Saturday morning to you all.
It is an all Calls weekend. I'm doing nothing but taken calls, so long as you know you're calling in the number to reach me eight three to three two ask Dean A three three the number two. Ask Dean. All right, I want to get back to Grace. Grace is still with me.
I'm still here, all right.
My friend. So, Grace has got a hundred year old home here in southern California, single story, one hundred year old home, and she, you know, has window air conditioner units that she's had to put up with until now, and she is ready to move on to something better. And somebody had recommended the mini split system, and I'm giving her a larger perspective, I hope on what's possible for her home, including all the way up to a
Unico system. So I just wanted to take a couple of more minutes, Grace and explain kind of the big picture of what you're looking at here. You've got window air conditioners. Window air conditioners are noisy, uh they are. And the reason they're noisy, by the way, is not
just because the fan. It's it's not the fan, actually, it's the little condenser motor that actually does the air conditioning work is right there inside that box that's hanging on your window, and there's no sound buffer in between it and the room. So that's why window air conditioners have that b hum to them, and they're you know, they are what they are. Plus they're single room in their efficiency, and they fill up a window, which you
know nobody likes. So for you, I just want to be really clear, everything that we're talking about from many split on up is an improvement, and the question of whether or not it should be a mini split system or a central system that's going to be entirely up to you as to what works with your budget and what works with your life and and just all of the things that are most important to you. I just want to make sure that you are aware of everything
out there. And this is that point that I wanted to hold you over for so I could talk to everybody about this. Windows shopping and estimates are free. So when it comes to anything that you are investigating for your home, in a remodel, in a renovation, I want you to take the time, take time, spend time to educate yourself as to every single possible option that's out there when it comes to whatever problem it is that
you are trying to solve. Why because it's free, because you're not committing to anything, So at least know what your options are so you can make the most intelligent, the most informed decision about what's going to work for
your home. Don't just call a couple of contractors out and what they have to tell you is that, well that's it, and do your own research, look around, ask questions, because unfortunately, unfortunately, there are far too many contractors out there in any specialty, in any category of home improvement that are what's the right word to say, oh, well, they just basically want to sell you on what they do and what they do best, and so some of them have a wider range of specialty. Others do not.
It's one of those you've heard the old phrase for a person who only owns a hammer, Every problem is a nail, right, They just turn every problem into a nail because the one tool they have is the hammer. So here is the thing, Grace. A mini split system, unlike your window air conditioner, will be an improvement because you can have an outside unit making the noise, and they're very quiet, but they're outside, so the mini split
system is quiet. You can buy many split systems that have multiple cassettes, but that cassette is still going to be a one room thing, and it's going to be hanging off the wall or up in the ceiling somewhere, and it's going to be next to the window air conditioning unit. It's going to be the most visible, but it won't be in a window, and it won't be noisy, and it'll be far more efficient. And so it's a
vast improvement. Okay, But a well designed central system that could be run, for instance, through your crawl space and up through your attic will be just as if not more efficient, than a mini split system. Have only one outside unit and a mini split system. To do your whole house, you might have to have more than one unit outside. This will have just one outside unit and it will look beautiful because you're just gonna have vents in your ceiling like everybody else, and or your floor
like everybody else. And for the most difficult of situations, a central system that's a Unico style system, a high velocity system. Those systems can get anywhere into any corner, any weird situation. And with your home, I'm not even sure that you would need that, because you've got the crawl space and the attic space to get flexible. What you really need is an intelligent, intuitive HVAC contractor who is willing to take the time to design a great
system for you. I believe we could probably get you set up with a standard central system with just a little bit of creative thought and process. But everything has its price, So call out reputable HVAC contractors. Tell them that you're well aware of many splits of central systems and of the unicosystem, and that you want bids along all those lines, and then you'll be able to make your choice. How does that sound, Grace.
That sounds great? You gave me a lot of information, so I was actually leaning towards the mini split.
Now I'm rethinking, well, you you might. You might end up leaning toward the mini split for cost or convenience or whatever. It doesn't matter to me. I am just here to let you know. I want you to know all your options before you make a choice. That's all. I have been doing this for a very long time, and I'm very proud to say that I have never, after you know, forty years of giving design advice and construction advice to people, I've never had a client come
back to me and say this. They've never said, Dean, why didn't we ever talk about this option. I exhaust my clients with options so that they are completely satisfied and comfortable making the intelligent choice. But you can only do that if you know what all your options are. Grace, thank you so much for the call. It is an all Calls morning right here on Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisperer on KFI. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty