KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the house Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. It is or could be your home improvement reference library. And if you're thinking that's all great, Dean, but what we really need is you and Tina in our living room or standing in our kitchen telling us what to do next. Well you can do that too, Yeah, you really can. You can book an in home design consult with me and Tea. You just go to house Whisper dot design. Well,
it is the top of the hour. It is just a few minutes after eleven o'clock here on this first Sunday in twenty twenty five. Thanks for joining us on the program. We're talking essential tools for anybody's toolbox, for anyone who lives indoors. Whether you rent or own, doesn't matter. These are the essential tools for taking care of stuff
as it comes up. We're going to get back to that in a bit, but top of the hour, and I want to answer a few phone calls, so let's get to oh oh oh, oh, sorry, sorry I left you hanging. I asked you right before the break, is it duct tape or duck tape? Ducked like ac ducts or duck like the aquatic bird. Have you been arguing throughout the break with your significant other? Is the family and full you're not speaking to each other now because you swear that you're right, Well, here is the answer.
Is it ducked or duck Yes, yes, that is the answer. Everybody's right. And if you said it's this one or the other one, then you're also wrong. At the same time, they're both. Duck tape is the original name, the original brand name for this product, and also where it came from, because it came from the idea of taking duck cloth duck cotton, which is a tightly woven cotton kind of a canvassy cloth, and applying adhesive to one side of it to make a patch. Okay, and by the way,
duck that duck cloth cotton duck cloth. Its name does not come from the aquatic bird either. It comes from I believe I was just double checking here. It comes from the Dutch word for cloth, duck or douk. So there you go. Okay. Is duck tape designed to be used on ducts? Yes, that's its goal. So the point is everybody's right. Everyone can live in love and harmony with everyone else because everyone's right. How often in an argument do you get to be right? No matter what?
There you go okay with that. Let me now that I've taken care of that business, let's go to the phones. I want to talk to Rick. Hey, Rick, welcome home, my friend.
Hey Dean, Happy New Year. Question is regarding I recently had about seven eight months ago, my kitchen remodeled and they put ceramic tile all the way up, going up towards the ceiling. The size is about four by twelve and it's a ceramic tile. The question is right where the tile meets the countertop trim at the bottom, it's got like stress cracks and it looks like the grout started to crumble a little bit. I wonder if there was a way of me fixing that, making it look
a little bit better. That's my question.
Got you okay? So new tileback splash, old countertop? What is the countertop made out of? What surface are we dealing with?
There?
No, everything in the kitchen bean is all brand new. So it got okay, Yeah, all it's all brand new.
What so what is our what's our countertop?
Quartz?
Quartz countertop? Uh? And uh okay, so uh okay, there's two ways to deal with it. You regrout it, regrout the bottom there just to seal it up, or you could caulk it. Okay. Uh, I'm going to tell you if you if you caulked it today. And there are, by the way, there are some uh calk caulking compounds out there that are sanded caulk and they are colorized. Now that doesn't mean that the color is going to
exactly match your grout color, depending on what that is. Uh, but they do a better job than ever kind of disguising themselves as grout okay.
Uh.
And they are made for those situations where a whole wall of tile grout comes into contact with a flexible surface.
Uh.
Usually we use like in a bathroom setting where where a wall of tile comes down, not just any tub, a cast iron tub I don't have to worry about because it never moves or shifts or gives in at all, but a resin tub, fiberglass tub that's got some flex to it. Usually we like to caulk that bottom scene as opposed to grouting it because it's gonna move and grout is just cement that's all it is. It's cement.
It's got no pliability or flexibility to it. So if one of the surfaces is moving, like a countertop or a tub, then the movement there could cause the caulking the grout to crumble just because it's getting you know, pushed against and then pulled away from and so on. So if you're starting to see that happen, one of the things you could do is see if you can find a matching caulk and calk the seam so that you've got this rubberized gasket essentially in between the tip
and the countertop. And that's one way to do it. However, this is what I would advise, maybe live with it just for a little while longer because and then grout it regrout that scene. Because the grout, undoubtedly you're gonna match it up. It's gonna look great. It's gonna look as good as it did when it was brand new. But what you're probably experiencing here is the fact that everything is new in the kitchen. The tile that's mounted on the wall, on tile board, on the studs, it
ain't moving at all. It is there and done. But the new counter sitting on new cabinets sitting on the floor. There's there's this reality that's called micro settling that happens when we do a brand new kitchen remodel. And so even though that quartz countertop is not gonna flex, it's not gonna move, it's sitting on a set of cabinets that have probably kind of you know, they're just sort of finding their own, kind of settling in place and
finding their own. And we can get some gravity micro settlement that all of a sudden creates a crack along the back, like what's happening. It's falling apart. Now, it's just sort of settling in because the wall tile ain't moving at all, and the countertops are probably compressing a little bit and settling. So if you can live with it for a little while longer, then live with it
a little while longer, and then regrout it. In other words, allow the counters to kind of find their own and settle, and then at some point regrout that bottom and it probably won't happen again.
Okay, excellent, I will do that. And it doesn't matter. I know they use non sanded grout, is that the correct material?
How big are the grout joints in between the tiles are really thin, really really thin.
Yeah, it's pretty thin.
Okay, then, yeah, non sanded groud. Non sanded grout is allowed to be used. If we've got grout joints narrower than an eighth of an inch, Okay, if they are wider than an eighth of an inch, they should not use non sanded grout. They should use sand and grout because it's there for the sand is a structural element in the ground to keep it from crumbling. Non sanded grout is the weakest of all grouts. Okay, that doesn't mean it's the wrong choice there, it's just it's because
it doesn't have any aggregate in it. It's not a strong grout. And that being the case, by the way, if it's what color is the groud, it's like a standard. Is it gray, is it black? Is it white?
Yeah, well the ceramic tiles are white, and then just to give it a little bit of contrast, we went with like a a real light gray to kind of kind of match the cabinets.
Okay, well, in that case, since that's a really thin line right there, really thin line, you can do what I suggested, which is just weight and then just re groud it. Okay for the settling, but because it's so sensitive, maybe maybe you go ahead and just you know, chip out, you know, kind of scratch out the rest of what's there, and then go get yourself a light gray calc because there are a lot more colors available without aggregating them. A light great call, and just run a bead there.
And now you've got a rubberized gasket in between the two and they should be able to move independently of each other without cracking it or opening it back up. But the key will be just make it look as close to the grout color as possible and then you're worry free. Nothing's failing, I promise, it's just settlement, that's all. Rick. Thanks for the question, buddy, and for the call. Thanks for listening to the show. All right, y'all when we
come back, maybe one more call? Yeah, why not? You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty. Dean Sharp, the house whisper at your service. Thanks for joining us on the show. We're talking essential tools. I'm going to get back to it in just a bit. I want to take at least one more call though. Before we are done with calls today show, we talk to Monica. Let's talk to Monica. Welcome home, Monica, Hi.
Hi d Yeah. My question is regarding again a tackless water here that was installed in twenty twenty in this nineteen eighty house. Okay, it seems like the Furthest bathroom in the sink no hot water at all whatsoever.
The Furthest bathroom and the sink that's Furthest away from the water here. No hot water at all.
That's right, It's just cold.
And that's been the case for the last four years. That's right, Monica. Why haven't we dealt with this before?
Now, Well, the person that installed it was a friend and he said he was going to get to it, but then COVID hit and now blah blah blah, he can't work. So that's what it is.
Okay, So all right, I just want to be clear on this because this is a this is a unique situation. You literally, I mean, you've tested this out. You've literally no other facets, no other water being used anywhere else in the house. You go to the Furthest bathroom, you turn on only the hot water, and you wait and it never changes temperature ever.
That's right, that's right.
And this house was built in nineteen eighties and just plumbed conventionally. Yes, well, yeah, but you get hot water at the other facets we do. Okay, Now, what about in that bathroom? Is there a shower in that bathroom as well?
Yes?
Do you get hot water at that shower?
Yes?
Whoa, you get hot water? You get hot water at the shower in the same bathroom, but not at the faucet. That's correct, And it wasn't the case before the tankless water heater. No, did any plumbing happen apart from just swapping out the water heater, Any plumbing happened at around that facet or lines leading to it, or down at that end of the house, Not.
That I know, muf.
Hm.
And I am going to have another plumber come out on Monday to take.
A look at it.
All right, I am dying to because you okay, you have successfully stumped me. On the first show of the year, someone was just asking me last night, have you ever been stumped? I'm like, yeah, a couple of times, but mostly it's just well, I can't really end. So here's the thing without me doing some more tests and looking at the house, I'm not going to be able to figure out. So my answer to you, all right, I won't claim being stumped. My answer to you is you
got to get a plumber to look at this. Because here's the thing. It would be one thing if the friend who installed the hot water heater picked the wrong hot water heater, and by wrong I mean one that isn't sized large enough for your home. That would be
one thing. It would be another thing if something about the install if lines to that bathroom ran all the way back to the water heater location and somehow aligned to that bathroom didn't get hooked up the right way or got crossed over or missed or assigned to the cold water system. But you're telling me that the bathroom itself.
You've got the shower right there, and you got the sink right there, and the shower gets plenty of hot water from the new water hot hot water heater, but the sink gets zip no matter how long you run it. There's something funky going on either with the fire. It's not gonna be the faucet. It's gonna be something funky
with the plumbing at that end of the house. Probably unrelated to the hot water heater, but maybe having something to do with what happened when it was installed, and so because you're saying there was hot water there before the tankless Yeah, that's right. Okay, something what screwy with the install. I do not know exactly what, because we'd have to map the plumbing in your house to do it. But all I can tell you, Monica is get a plumber to get eyes on this situation, because that's a
that's a baffler. And the answer lies somewhere unrelated to just that bathroom and unrelated to the product that is the tankless hot water heater. Is something about the install went screwy and some something got messed up with that faucet. Oh yeah, okay, Now one more question. One one last question, and this would be a super coincidence if it was
the case. Is there any chance that the faucet in this bathroom has a single on off valve like a mixer valve, as opposed to like to a hot and a cold, separate, separate Uh, you know, valves that you turn How would I know, well, I mean the faucet, the faucet itself, how do you turn on the water do you just grab one thing in the middle and go left in one direction for temperature and right for the other, or they're they're separate. They're separate. Okay, Yeah,
see that was the thing. The other thing that sometimes happens to a faucet is that a mixer valve goes bad and no longer is able to to bring in water from the hot side or the cold side. And no matter which way you turn it, it's all one temperature. And that problem is just in the valve itself. But this is not a mixer valve. These are two separate valves. So the hot water is yeah, you got me, You got me on that one. A plumber needs to get
eyes on. And then I want you to send me an email and tell me what happened because I'm dying to know.
Okay, and I'll let the plumber know that too.
Okay, Thanks Monica, thanks for the call. I wish I could have just solved it for you, but some things need a little bit more intense examination along the way. All right, Well, you know, hey, we got time for one more call. Let's just sneak one morning here. Let's talk to Matthew. Hey, Matthew, welcome home.
Hey, Dane, how you doing?
I am well, sir. How can I help you?
I've got a Bradford White water heater and it seems like the pilot light keeps going out and there's no reason. It's only two years old, and I'm trying to figure out why would that pilot light keep going out.
Just a conventional tanked water heater with a pilot light. Okay, you may have a it's probably a faulty thermo coupler, and have a plumber or call. I don't know how long the warranty is on the Bradford White water heater. If it has a five year limited warranty, start by calling Bradford White and say, listen, it's two years I got your water heater right here, and the pilot won't stay on. Maybe it's a warranty repair, or maybe we just got to call a plumber. Either way, it's not
going to break the bank. It is very likely a faulty thermo coupler, which is basically like a little thermostat underneath that reads when the pilot light is actually on, and it's temperature sensitive, so the pilot light is on, the light from the pilot, the heat from the pilot flame itself activates this thermo coupler, and the thermo coupler stays open and keeps the gas flowing. Okay. What happens is if something was to blow that pilot light out, like a draft in the garage or some you know,
who knows what. If for some reason the pilot light went out, the thermo coupler cools off and its job is then to shut off the gas so that gas isn't seeping out of the little pilot light burner there. Okay, So it's a safety device, right to keep the the pilot light from from you know, from gas from coming out of it, seeping out of it when there's no flame there. Thermo couplers all the time. It's a simple
little kind of mechanical based temperature device. They can go bad and or get stuck and or sometimes they come from the factory just a little wonky, and as a result, it keeps thinking that there's no flame there, and it keeps shutting off the gas and turning off the pilot light. So that's the theory behind it. It's a very generalized theory. At one any plumbers calling me saying, well, it was
a good explanation, deem, but specifically this listen. I'm just giving you a general perspective on this, but chances are, bottom line, it's not. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty. All right, y'all, whoa, we had a power outage. Power went down across the board here. KFI was up, of course, but our local connection went down, and I apologize for that out of my control, but we are. We got our systems back
up and running again. And I missed a whole segment of telling you about the last of the house Whisper Essential homeowner Toolkit. So here's the thing. Go online, find our social media video. You will find the rest of the tools there. And I'll also try and post this. Maybe we can turn this list into a pdf, Tina, and then we'll get this. We'll get this posted as well, just to do justice to our topic today. Because things
happen sometimes, and there we find ourselves. All right. I am glad to be back up with you live again. Elmer very quickly filled in some pre recorded stuff for us. But we're here. We're here for real. It's Sunday, the very first Sunday in twenty twenty five, and of course we had our issue. So there we go. Maybe that's out of the way now for a few months before
the next gremlin gets into the equipment. Anyway, I want you to remind you to follow us on social media Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, at Home with Dean and the house Whisper Podcast everywhere your favorite podcasts are found. And if your home is in need of some personal house Whisper attention, you can book an in home design consult with me and Tea. The power doesn't go down when we're standing in your living room. All you have to do is go to
house Whisper dot Design. All right, Well took some getting to get back, but I still have a closing thought that I want to leave you with today. With your permission, I would like to share something, I mean, being a little transparent with you on this, Tina. You might want to video this so that we can put this up if you are ready to rock and roll. Little sip of coffee here, Okay, transparent moment with you today. I want to leave you with this thought. I've been wrestling
with some regrets lately. It's a normal thing to do at this time of year, right when we're all looking forward and looking back and evaluating things. And regret, by the way, if you didn't know, not a happy emotion, but it is a normal human emotion, and as such it shouldn't be ignored. I'm not a big believer in people who are like I've never had to regret. I
refuse to acknowledge them. I don't think that's a great idea. Also, though, it shouldn't be indulged in too much, because regret is a very very deep hole that is easy to fall into, is it not so. Lately, I've been thinking about two things that have helped me deal with regret and have helped me actually a lot, and I thought I would
share them with you. The first one is acknowledging that there are a thousand ways my life could have turned out if only right, if only ath would have and did lead me to Tina, that lady right there, and that thought alone goes a long way toward extinguishing the sting of any regret that I might have in my life. And if you have anything like a Tina in your life, then focus on that and perhaps that will help you too. The other tool is what I want to call the
mathematics of moments, and it goes something like this. In each moment of our lives, we make a choice. Whatever that choice is will instantly exclude all other possible choices that you could have made, all other possible life paths those other choices would have led to, and all other possible futures those paths would create, and all other possible versions of you living in those possible futures. At every moment.
The nearly infinite number of things that won't happen because of the choice that you made just now is mind boggling. And you take that multiply that by how many moments you'll pass through today, just today.
Now.
Of course, the length of a moment is completely subjective, but if we were to give it a duration of let's say, you know arbitrarily five seconds, five seconds is a moment. If we were to give it that duration, then we subtract eight hours of sleep from your twenty four hour day, then today you will have roughly eleven thousand and five hundred and twenty moments to live through. That is eleven thousand, five hundred and twenty times today that you'll make a decision, however small, it may be
that will forever change your life. Most of those decisions won't feel life changing. For example, in the next moment, next few seconds, you might choose to look left or look right, or look up or look down, or just close your eyes. But whatever you choose to do will exclude all other possible choices, all other possible life paths, all other possible futures, all other possible use. So now they are, in fact, each life changing decisions, nonetheless eleven thousand,
five hundred and twenty moments today. So what is there to learn from the mathematics of moments? Two things, I think at least. First, we all have regrets about choices we've made or didn't make. Most of us hold on to those regrets as if we know for certain that things would be better if only, But the mathematics of moments can help us understand that how we got here
today is in no way simple. Your present life is in fact the result of an infinity times infinity times infinity of possibilities, of paths taken, and not a few of you which were your choices, but most of which were not. And what that tells me is that perhaps I should stop obsessing with the if onlies, as if I have even the faintest clue, how any if only would actually have turned out. And finally, the second thing I think the mathematics of moments teaches me is just
how many opportunities I still have to change things. Eleven thousand, five hundred and twenty moments every day, Eleven five hundred and twenty moments still at my disposal, Opportunities still at my disposal, Eleven five hundred and twenty times. My life will forever change today, whether I take advantage of it or not. Eleven thousand, five hundred and twenty moments means it's not too late. It's not too late to make this moment count, It's not too late to change everything.
It's definitely not too late to get started building yourself a beautiful life. So take that into twenty twenty five, and we will take advantage of all those moments that we can and see you right back here next weekend. 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 iHeart Radio app.