Big Tract Home Remodel Wins, Part 1 | Hour 1

a tract home. And what I mean by that is very simply this, tract homes have certain characteristics that will be diving into very shortly here, and there are certain things, certain elements of a tract home that are so worth considering adding to your remodel or including in your remodel because for you know, I'm not going to say free, because nothing is free in his life, but for the cost and time put into them, they are dish proportionately huge payoffs, big big payoffs. So this is a small

bet with a big payoff for your tracked home. And there's a whole list of elements that do exactly that that if you are thinking about remodeling or getting ready to remodel, that you should consider adding to your list or your scope of work for your project so that you get the most out of all your money. So we'll be talking about that today and tomorrow on the show. And of course, also as always, take your calls. Richie

has opened up the phone lines right now. We've already got a call or too up there, but there's so much room for you. Early Saturday mornings here on the West Coast is a great time if you've ever thought about calling, to give me a call because traffic is light. As you could imagine. 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 you want to talk about regarding your home. It can

be construction question, DIY concern. It can be a design question, an architecture question, landscape, interior design and decor, architecture, anything at all. We can talk about high and lofty concepts you and I, or we can talk about how to fix that leaky toilet or anything in between. That's what I'm here for, here to help you out. Let me introduce our awesome team. Sam as always is on the board. He is wrangling our not so live studio audience. Good morning, Sam,

how you doing Dan? I'm actually really happy that I have on my resume live audience wrangler. There you go. See, not a lot of people have that. They're like, whoa, whoa. It's a skill, it is.

Every tract home has several weaknesses built into them, and it's good news if we understand what they are and the process of changing them and customizing them so that this home becomes yours. That is the pathway towards a big wins for a remodel relative to the time and the money that you spend. So when we come back, we are going to talk about the tract home, what it's all about. What is the inherent weaknesses that your home may still be displaying, how to get them fixed?

We'll do that. Kf I Dean Sharp, the house Whisper at your service. Hey, whether your home is a condo, a cottage, or castle does not matter. I am here to help you take it to the next level. We're going to be going to the phones in just a bit. Here is the number to reach me. The callboard is open and we've got some calls. But I always pick calls randomly, so it doesn't matter whether you call in right at the last minute or now or have been sitting there for well, the show hasn't been on that

long today, but you get the idea. There is always room for you and an equal shot to getting your question or concern on the The number to reach me eight three to three two. Ask dean eight three to three, the numeral two. Ask Dean. All right, it is time to talk about your tract home. Tract homes have strengths and weaknesses both. It's important that we understand what they are if we are going to be identifying these very very special category of wins for a tract home remodel.

That for the amount of time and energy that you and money that you put into it, you gain a disproportionately big payoff. And that goes to the very heart

of understanding what's going on with the tract home. So here's the thing, and I'm going to share this today and tomorrow because this is really the premise or the foundation for understanding what these other strengths are tracked home Right, the latter half of the twentieth century, millions upon millions of these cookie cutter castles helped give birth to the American middle class. Really, developers buy a large tract of land hence tracked, which is then subdivided into individual lots

upon which pre designed homes are built. There are lower income tracks, there are middle income tracks, and yeah, there are luxury tracts tracked home. Nonetheless, for a tracked home to be a tracked home, it falls under a certain category of features that we're about to list out. Homes are not custom homes. No matter what the target demographic,

all track developments share certain characteristics. A developer will typically design what two to four plans for a tract, and then they'll utilize some tricks to give a neighborhood the illusion of variety. For instance, you take four plans, four floor plans, and then reverse them from left to right, and then you immediately have eight different floor plans. You have four, but you know four of them are flipped this way, four of them flip the opposite direction, and

that gives that illusion of diversity. And then if you take each of those four houses and you have four different possible color palettes and or facade details out on front, then four times four of those equals sixteen. Now it looks like we've got sixteen different houses in the neighborhood. And you do the sixteen times two each of those flipped floor plans, and suddenly you've got thirty two unique

and I'm using my air quotes here unique homes. But in the end there are only four actual different floor plans or four houses. That's a typical American tracked home neighborhood or tracked home development. And those are the techniques that are used. And this is where you might be thinking that that snooty custom home designer Dean dislikes tracked homes. I don't. I don't at all. I live in one,

and I've mentioned this many times before. I am fully aware that the affordability of track developments has been the very means by which most folks who own homes are able to buy a home in the first place. And that is perhaps their greatest strength. And that's not the only strength that a tract home has. A modern tract

home is quite impressive in terms of its engineering. Where we live in California, I got to tell you I would much rather ride out an earthquake in a modest, recently built tract home than a wonder of architecture from the nineteen twenties. All Right, So there's that engineering just by definition of engineering standards improving through the years, and all homes having to be built according to current standards than what you have with a tract home is a

typically a really, really substantially decent engineering system. So that's one of the reasons that I love it. I also happened to love customizing tract homes. But to do it right, we need to understand their weaknesses as well. Now, I just said, for a mass produced product, the engineering is actually surprisingly good. But if you're looking for craftsmanship, then attract house or a house designed by spreadsheet and constructed as quickly as possible, you know, is usually not where

you're gonna find craftsmanship. But assuming that we're going to be redoing many of these things the right way as its owner, even a lack of craftsmanship isn't usually the biggest challenge for a tract home. There is a far, far bigger one. Can you guess what, in my estimation, is perhaps the largest weakness of a tract home? Hmm, let's think it through, shall we. I'm gonna I'm gonna guess.

I'm going a wager that most of you are not going to come up with the answer that is roller around in my mind but I want you to give it some thought. What is potentially the largest weakness of a tracked home as it stands, we'll talk about that.

to the phones right after the next news break. So if you haven't called in yet, the number to reach me eight three three two ask Dan A three three the numeral to ask Dan eight three three to ask d Okay before the break, I uh just hung this out there, and that is that you know, there are intrinsic weaknesses in a tracked home. What is, in my opinion as a custom home designer, what is the one of the largest, if not the largest, weakness of a tract home. And I asked you to challenge your brain

see if you could come up with it. Here is the thing. I don't think. I think most people are going to miss this one. And it's understandable.

home from the ground up. Here is our property. The very first thing we would be taking into account is, Okay, where is the property sitting? How is it oriented? Does it have a view? Is this north to south? Is it east to west? Where is the sun going to be traveling? Because a truly great custom home will be embracing taking advantage of warding off any problems with the orientation of the lot, but not a tract home. They

are by definition not created for any specific lot. They're kind of created in a just a void space, you know, inside an architectural studio, which means the living room in a predesigned floor plan might be facing north on some lots, or south or east or west on others, and that orientation to the rising and the path and the setting of the sun radically changes the quantity and quality of light that every room receives and heat for that matter,

in addition to compass orientation. Some of those floor plans get set on top of a hill, right if this is a tract that has lower and higher streets in terms of elevation. Some floorplans get views, some do not. Some are placed at the end of a cul de sac on a pie shaped lot with you know, ever growing large side yards. Others are soldiered in little parallel lines with minimal sideyards and privacy concerns between neighbors. So

that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Despite all of these diverse orientations, the location of windows and doors and other important features on that predesigned home do not change, which means it's literally the luck of the draw as to whether your tracked homes orientation gets to take advantage of the lot or misses out on taking advantage of the lot. And even if some features align well, rarely almost unheard of of, rarely do they all line up

and work. That is the luckiest of all luckiest tracked home floor plans, one that seems like it took into account everything about that lot. It didn't. It just happened to get sat on a lot that fitted its design well. So my point is this, A thoughtful remodel will attempt to correct some of these deficiencies and take advantage of

whatever orientation the house finds itself in. An unthoughtful remodel will not even consider those things and jump right over them to you know what the color of the bathroom tile should be? And I have taught you better than that, my friend, Have I not? Yes? Because what do we say here on the program? Design matters most, and orienting a house to the lot that it finds itself on is rule one. We do not jump over the fundamentals.

If you are looking to produce a beautifully, wondrously fantastic home. We have to obey the fundamentals, and there is nothing more fundamental than the cardinal directions of the compass, the path of the sun traveling through the sky, and the elevation and contour of the lot. These are the fundamentals

that every house finds itself sitting within. And the best thing that we can do to that tracked home of yours that got sat on that lot without regard to these things, is to see which of those predesigned aspects that don't fit so well can be changed in order to better or fit and take full advantage of the to property orientation. Does that make sense? Okay, So here's

what we're gonna do. We're gonna get some news, and then when we come back, we're going to take some calls, which can be about anything that's going on with your home, and then we will return to this subject of inherent tracked home weaknesses. I still got a couple more to talk about, and we're laying the foundation for this weekend of all Right, what's that list of things that we can do that make a big difference for a small

amount of money. All of it continues, including your calls. Right, Hey, if I team sharp to house with her. Welcome home.

Glad you're with us on the program this morning. We're talking about tracked homes, their inherent weaknesses, and how identifying those weaknesses opens the door for us to do some really significant advancements in your home's design for a minimal amount of we're taking full awareness I don't say taking advantage of your home's weaknesses, but we are using our awareness of the weaknesses and then turning right around and

making designs that make a difference. That is today and tomorrow. Today, I'm laying the groundwork for it by discussing your tracked homes inherent weaknesses. We just talked about a bigie. I've got a couple more to go, but it's top of the hour. It's time to go to the phones, so let's do it. I want to talk to Jerry. Hey, Jerry, welcome home.

bathroom models or such. You know, I would usually take everything for the shower or you down to studs tay, you know, fifteen thirty pounds paper wire mesh and then have the voice flow out the walls. But my question to you is with new products, well I'm not necessarily brand new, but new products that may not require floating out the walls per se. I know we've used a hearty type some them boards to do that and then red guarded that and then apply either tile or solid

surface materials to the walls. But I wanted to get your take with the Smowter sheeting that's available. I just wanted to take advantage of your expertise and see how you would go about doing the prep and the finished work on that.

mortar build up and float of the wall. Is there anything wrong with that old system? There really isn't. There's nothing wrong with the old system. The newer systems they save time, they can save money because they are you know, intrinsically water proof boards. I love hardybacker board in a shower with a red guard on it. I still, by the way, still and I don't know, this is just

the old school in me. I still put a membrane against the studs before I put up hardy backer board, even though I'm gonna, you know, put a red guard coating on the front. Red guard everybody is a liquid uh liquid applied waterproofing membrane that you literally brush or roll on in uh in a couple of different coats and it forms this this this great waterproofing membrane can be used for shower pans, can be used for shower walls uh in you know, in pans instead of the

classic tar and hot mopping procedure. But the intrinsic weakness of any new system is the straightness of the studs, you know, because the the advantage of the old float system when we're putting on a good amount of base mortar uh is the fact that you know, if we've got a boat out stud or we've got a boat in stud uh, we don't have to follow that line and you know, end up with a warped wall because the the very nature of the tile guys floating that wall,

they straighten it out with the thickness of the material that they've got. So it's like the difference between old plaster walls and dry wall walls. You know, if we're using and they're all great by the way, you know, whether it's a hard hardy backer system, whether it's shlowter panels.

These new waterproof foam panels that are coming out all great, no problem, but they are rigid panels that simply adhere to the studs, which means the studs have got to be straight, otherwise the panel is going to be warped.

So that's really the key to the whole thing. So if you take the time to make sure that the studs are straight, or that you get them furred out properly, or get them plane down if one is bowing in, then there's no reason not in my opinion, to use one of these newer systems, because they are waterproof as heck, and they're great surfaces for applying tile directly too. But you know they're going to be as straight and as

smooth as the wall behind them. And then as far as the steam unit itself, you know it's I also prefer mister Steam. In fact, I can't remember the last time that I didn't use a mister Steam unit. They're just head and shoulders in my opinion, above the rest.

And you know, the key these days with mister Steam, as always is uh, you have to calculate the material that you're using, the square footage, the material, the kind of material, because the steam unit sizing is all about how cold the walls are and what kind of thermal resistance they have in order to properly pump that space

full of steam. So ceramic tile has one rating, marble or granite has another rating, and then the glass that's at least on one wall for the door of the shower, if not many walls, has a different rating as well. But the cool thing about mister steam units is there's a formula that you just build in how many square feet of marble, how many square feet of glass, how many cubic feet of space inside the shower, and boom they hand you here's the unit, here's the proper unit. Uh,

and then you go to town. So that's it.

And if you want to take the extra step epoxy based grouts so that they are non porous, non staining, you just have to have somebody installing that epoxy grout that knows what they're talking about. Jerry, I am at the top of the hour and they are bugging me to go to a break. Thank you so much for your call, my friend. I appreciate the support, Thanks for listening to the show. And hopefully you know you got this, you got it under control. I can already tell all, right, y'all,

more of your calls when we return. You are listening to Home with Dean Sharp the House Whisper on KFI.