The Home Monitoring Revolution | Hour 3

hour here starting off from eleven to noon. Today, we are talking about the home monitoring revolution, as it were, the fact that connectedness, this connected world that we live in technologically has led to a number of really, really beneficial ways in which we can keep track of what's going on in our home via our smartphones, apps and the kind of hardware and fixtures that communicate with them

about what's going on in our homes. We're going to return to that conversation in just a bit, but right now, top of the hour, it's time to go to the phones. When it comes to your calls, it can be anything you want to talk about. Let's talk to Diego, Ay diego, Welcome home.

story is a commercial person there. So they finally finished their landscape and now we're getting more water the summer. I put in a French drain because I saw that and I'm known to have some water problems coming up. That's when we have Nina in two thousand and nine, I think it was, and we were swimming almost down here, and so we put that friend straight in. But the mold it's still there. How do you attack mold and how do you prevent it from happening again? We have

a cement, just unfinished cement. Did they have carpet here? One time? Somebody did and they pulled it all off. You can see all the glue marks everywhere and some paint they tried to use. The paint. I looked it up out a year ago, and everybody have bad reviews, good and bad reviews about different products. One part I really liked is you can't be around it after you put it on. I means you can't live there or

be around it because but it works really great. We'll be to the point of doing that then, because we like to hide down here because it's cooler when we get the heat waves. Right, So what do you suggest?

all right, Okay, So here's the thing. If you really want to deal with the moisture intrusion, generally speaking, then there is the whole process of digging down around those basement walls, digging a trench down around the basement walls, getting French strains deeper down, closer to the base of the walls, and while you're at it, getting better water proofing on the exterior of those walls, whether it's a bitumous membrane, whether it's coated, roll on water proofing and

then protected with protection boards or foam boards so that rocks and soil don't come in and scratch it or penetrate it and kind of ruin it. Concrete in and of itself is not going to stop moisture from coming in through the ground around it and into the room.

So I'm just saying that I'm not I think I understand the spirit of your question that you're not asking for that kind of major redo, But that's kind of what we're looking at right, if it gets and I'm mentioning it, because if it gets to the point where you end up with like potentially standing water in the basement, then we really have to treat this basement like basements

are treated all across the country. Unlike here in relatively traditionally dry southern California, all across the country, basements are treated with heavy waterproofing on the outside before they're backfilled. They've got drains on the outside connected sometimes quite often to some pumps that because they're below grade, and they

will drain that water out. Some pumps placed in the basement floor so that if water begins to build up on the floor, it has a place to drain to and to be removed, and so on and so forth.

All right, Putting that aside, though, let's just say we've got lately, because of the neighbors landscaping redo, because we've had a couple of El Nino years and some heavy winters, Let's say we've got unusually high amounts of moisture building up, and that moisture is not leaking through but just sort of seeping into the concrete walls, and as a result of being down in this dark moist place down in

the ground. Mold, Okay, mold and mildeed. That can still be dealt with as long as we don't have water pouring through. We can deal with it in a couple of ways. Number One, the first thing is we got to kill the mold that's there, all right. That can be as simple as a mixture of water and bleach washing down the walls and the floor to kill what's there. Secondly, we want to keep that room dry. Okay, a dehumidifier. Now dehumidifier could take the form of a split system

heat pump, air conditioner slash heater. But why put an air conditioner in a room that's already cool, that you guys already escape to because it's a cool place. But dehumidification, this is critical. Mold is not going to no matter how much moisture is in the wall, Mold is not going to form on the surface of the wall and on the surfaces of stuff down there and on the close if the air is dry. One of the you

know there, there are rules to mold and mildew. They're not just magical creatures that show up whenever they want to. It's got to be dark it's got to be moist and the air around it has to be moist as well in order for it to thrive. So dry air down inside the basement area is going to be your biggest ongoing weapon to combat mold. So think about a dehumidifier. They can be portable, they can be built in, you can have it blown out one of the you know,

windows or what have you. But a dehumidification system down there, the drier the air is in the basement, the less issues you're ever going to have with mold on your stuff, on the floors, on the walls, and especially in the clothing. That's going to be the key. Lastly, there are some things not paint. Paint is a terrible approach, as you've seen to ceiling concrete, because moisture that builds up on the backside of the paint will simply bubble it and push it off and make it flake and crack and

just it's a mess. But there are some pretty decent seilers out there that you can absorbing sealers that you could go ahead and just coat the concrete wall your side with the interior. Is it going to stop moisture from completely coming through?

hear you. So so anyway I want I remember hearing a previous show, maybe a couple of years ago. I don't know, I don't know how to find it on your in the library, but you talked about a paint, a paint that you use pretty often, and I wanted to be neutral white without yellow in it. And I remember you talked about gloss, not too gloss. Right now it's a high gloss cottage white color and so uh, and it's all neutrals from chocolate vanity. It's a seventy

two inch vanity. There's a chocolate solid oak vanity with a weeded front. And I'll get to the metal part in a minute, because it's the two part questions. So I just wanted to ask you about what paint color would you recommend that's not a stark white, a warm white without yellow, and that will hold up to what you need in a bathroom.

It can be sexy and silky and matt finished on the walls and the ceiling and not lose its clean ability and not lose its water resistance. Aura Bath and Spa. That's the paint you want to use and can come in literally any color you want. And if you're talking about and there are a lot of options here, but if we're talking about a bright white that is just you know, soft, but not yellow, ye not creamy cream colored, you know that has that distinct creaminess to it. Just

a warm white's what we call a warm white. Then you're probably looking at either decorators white or Swiss coffee, which I know gets tossed around a lot these days as like, oh, that's what they painted my apartment in. Well, I don't really care about the what color they painted your apartment. I care about the quality of the paint.

And the fact of the matter is this is that, you know, because white, if you go too bright, you can start to go into the blues and that's going to really kind of mess with your chocolate, choice of cabinetry and all of that. So that's what we're talking about.

a little wider. Then order the sample size paints where they're just these tiny they're not even pints anymore. There's just these tiny, little sample size and then get in the room and get them on the wall, get a good size swatch of them on the wall, and evaluate them at that point. That's the key.

color you want. Any POxy grouts when they dry, they or I should say they when they cure, they are non porous. They don't absorb stains, They don't absorb the dirt or scum or anything like that. It takes a qualified installer who knows what they're doing to put the epoxy groud in because you don't want to have any leftover film on top of the tile surface. But an epoxy based growd is going to give you absolute smallest and strongest and least stained sensitive grout in between those tiles.

And then as far as the color goes, it's just like the paint. You want to get a couple of samples of colors. Now you're not going to have a billion options when it comes to any grout color. You only have the spectrum of color that the grout company offers. But there's a lot, and there's a lot in the

white and cream area. So you want to decide which one you like better, whether you go slightly darker than the tile, or whether you try and get one that matches as close to the main surface of the tile so that it just goes away. The good news in your case, even if you went a little bit slightly darker and you could see the grout line a little bit more noticeably. Uh, you know, twenty four by forty

eight porcelain tie, there's a large format tiles. You've got minimal grout there anyway, But of course, of course try for the matching color or something that blends in as well as possible, if that makes sense.

in the faucet set. But that doesn't mean necessarily that you can't just do a full on stainless faucet set and have the brush gold in other locations. Really has to do visually with how each one ties in and works. But changing metals and having more than one inside a space, a room, a kitchen area, a bathroom. It is not

in any way, shape or form a sin or a mistake. Again, it's just one of those things where you have to stand back, you know, take a look at the samples that you've got evaluated and make sure that it works. And you know, in your case, the worst case scenario is maybe the cabinet knobs get changed out to a stainless versus the brush gold. But you know, I'm thinking

it's probably gonna work. So there you go. All right, Linda, you got three three major questions answered, my friend, Thanks for being such a fan of the show, by the way, really really appreciating good luck on what sounds like is a really great bathroom remodel. And you have learned the lesson design matters most. All right, everybody, when we come back, we're gonna to get back into the monitored home. I've got so much more to talk to you about. We will do it.

possible just a few years ago. So I know I cover this stuff throughout the year when we hit various other subjects because these each of these areas are kind of, you know, subtopics of larger areas, but today it's all just an overview of monitoring your home. Very quickly, I want to mention one last thing in regards to safety that not a lot of people are aware of, and

you should be. If you are thinking about upgrading your electrical system, if a new panel is part of you know, maybe you're adding an ADU, maybe you're just doing an expansion or remodel, and you're like, you know what, we need more power. We're going to are electrician is going to put in a new panel. One of the things that you should at least be aware of and check out and talk to your electrician about is a smart

panel or at least smart breakers in your existing panel. Now, smart breakers breakers are have to be the brand or compatible with the brand of panel that you have. Okay, so the smart breakers coming out, for instance, Leveton smart breakers, they aren't going to work in a square D panel as an example, And you're like, what is a square D panel? Doesn't matter, just know that it has to

be brand specific or at least intentionally brand compatible. But the nice thing about a smart breaker is you don't need a whole panel upgrade. You can just start changing out the breakers from the old dumb breakers, the stupid breakers that you've got right now, which are just mechanically operated breakers. You know, you get a short and they pop and then you go and you reset them, or an overload and they pop and you reset them. A smart breaker can give you feedback on that circuit into

an app to let you know energy usage. But also a smart breaker will alert you when it goes off. And some smart breakers can actually be remotely reset. So yeah,

that's smart. That really is smart. And now there are panels, entire panels built with nothing but smart breakers, leaner, cleaner, way better, and the panel itself will help monitor energy flow and energy usage through your home and they can be set instead of you know, used to buy a regular breaker'll do, but you can buy a regular breaker standard like fifteen AM breaker, or you can buy a GFCI breaker which is a ground fault interrupt breaker for

bathrooms and kitchen areas, areas where there's water sensitivity. Or you can get an arc fault breaker, which is required by code in some rooms now throughout the home that monitor little arc faults like a worn cord or anything like that. Those are all specific, individualized breakers, but on some of these new smart panels, they simply come with universal smart breakers and you can set each one to be what you needed to be, GFI, arc fault or standard,

whatever the case may be. So this is the future, by the way. I mean twenty years from now, we're not going to be having this conversation because everybody's going to have a smart panel anyway, and we'll be moving on to other things. But I'm just letting you know, if you're in the market for upgrading right now, this is yet again another monitored system that you can have control of in your pocket. All right, Before we are done today, I absolutely want to talk about this, and

that is well being monitoring. Talking about somebody in your family, maybe an aging parent or an aging relative, or somebody who needs some assistance in regards to their health and their well being. And of course, you know, the conversations are endless these days about the Sandwich generation, those of us who are both taking care of kids and aging parents at the same time. All of that kind of stuff.

The cost of if you don't have, you know, if they don't have stellar insurance, The cost of getting somebody who may be suffering from dementsia or Alzheimer's or something like that into a nursing care facility can be massive. The cost of in home nursing care can be massive. So there are some technologies now that are considerably less massive that may, in many many circumstances enable a loved one to stay in their home longer and still receive

the kind of attention necessary. Now, it's going to make people shirk back when I say this, but the kind of care and attention that these systems do is a monitored, algorithm based attention. It's kind of an AI sort of attention that does not mean that big brother is watching you. Most of these systems employ what's called passive behavior discovery. What that means is I just give you an example. I'll give you an example from envoy at home. Okay, you can go check this out at envoy at home

dot com. They're a great system. They're not the only one out there, but they're a great one to talk about because they kind of, you know, are a great example system. Envoy at home. You would pay a subscription for monitoring an activity, a monthly subscription, and then the house gets installed with motion detectors and sensors in various parts almost every room of the house, hallways and so on and so forth, among other things. Now, does that

mean somebody is looking at you. No, it's not cameras, okay, they're motion detectors and sensors. So, as a result, the system, once it's installed, it starts learning. Let's say Mom's routine or a daily routine. Mom normally gets up at eight thirty. Between eight thirty and eight forty five every morning. Mom usually spends about a half an hour in the bathroom before she heads out to the kitchen and da da da da. These are just recorded. It's like a learning system, okay,

and it just learns it passively. Nobody's watching her, okay, it's just being recorded in the sense of sensors activated motion detector learning Mom's motion throughout the house. Then the day comes when Mom is not out of bed at eight forty five, maybe it's nine point fifteen, maybe it's nine thirty. And because this falls outside of the normal routine,

you get an alert. It's that simple. You get an alert saying, hey, it doesn't appear that mom has gotten out of bed on her normal schedule this morning, and what does that mean? You can do with that what you want. Maybe you're like, well, I know why that happened, because she was up late partying last night. Or maybe you just give a call, Hey, Mom, just call and checking in, how you doing, what's going on? So on and so forth. It's that kind of system that can

be placed in a house these days. Okay, And there are all sorts of levels to it, and I won't go into that because we don't have time, but just no. And you may be sitting there thinking maybe rightly so, oh, my parents would never go for that because they don't want to be watched. Well, they're not really being watched. They're simply having a second level of redundancy about you know what it is, their daily stuff, trip detection, fall detection,

it's all a part of this kind of stuff. And they can be really, really useful in the right situation. One last thing as a part of that if you are unaware of this, and that is especially with dimension Alzheimer's individuals, is remote medication dispensing. There are now, you know, countertop appliances like the size of a coffee maker, where you can load up a month's worth of meds, very

very complex medical dosing throughout the day. Maybe there's maybe you're maybe it's once or twice a day that mom or dad need to remember to take their pills, or maybe they're in a situation where they need to get their meds, you know, three or four or six times during the day. These can be programmed and these divice is these appliances that are just plug and play sitting

on the countertop. They can be set up so that at the right time they give a notice, they chime a little chime, or they have a little voice to remind mom or dad, oh, it's time to take your stuff. It's nine o'clock in the morning, and then they dispense just the right meds and they will not no matter how much somebody pushes the button a half an hour later, redispense those meds again, and we know that that's when

it comes to memory loss. That can be a problem of somebody kind of overdosing on their meds because they forgot that they just took them. So these are kind of devices are available. Hero herohealth dot com is one of those places you can go and see one of these units. You can control it, you can get an alert and you can kind of take control and not worry about that because again, remote medication, dispensing, remote monitoring, and all of the good things that go with it. Okay,

a couple of lighter issues when we come back. Let's talk about home irrigation and some heating and cooling, and then we will be wrapped for the day, of course, not without some final thoughts for you. We will do it all right after.

a little bit more for you here. We've been talking about the monitoring, the home monitoring revolution, living in the connected world that we live in, and what that technology means in terms of you being able to keep track of stuff when you're not home, which is in a lot of control in your hands now, a lot of agency in your hands if you want it to be able to take care of your home and keep an eye on out over it when you're not there. And one of those things a couple of last items, heating

and cooling. I think it's a given everybody knows these days about smart thermostats, whether you have one or not. The real advantage I think of a smart thermostat is if you're on your way home and you've had your HVAC system off heating ind or cooling to save energy,

which great idea. You're on your way home, you know you're going to be there in about a half an hour, and you can just pull out the phone and dial it up and set the thermostats so that it is waiting for you, a warm and or a cool house waiting for you when you walk in the door. And of course these thermostats are also what they call learning thermostats. I'm not necessarily convinced that they learn really, really well, but maybe that's just me because my schedule changes so

much from day to day. It's not the same kind of nine to five routine for us. So the learning part, which can be turned off, has never really served Tina and I super well, but I get it. And if you have a relatively routined life, then the learning thermostat will anticipate when you're going to be home, when you're going to be leaving, what temperatures you like at this time of day versus that time of day, and so on.

So the app controlled learning thermostat always always a good idea, and you know pretty soon you're not going to see the old manual ones around much anymore. And finally, smart irrigation control and monitored irrigation control. We're talking about controllers now that go way beyond just being able to control the timer of your irrigation system, but actually irrigation controllers

that are connected to Wi Fi and to the internet. Therefore, they are reading weather forecasts themselves, and if they know that there's rain in the forecast for tomorrow, they just automatically shut the year gate system down and say, you know, give it a pause, and they'll restart it when the

weather forecast clears up again. After a certain delay. But even beyond that, smart irrigation systems, they want to know your soil conditions, the plant type for every zone, so that they can actually figure out the right amount of moisture to put into those zones for those kinds of plants and that kind of soil. It really is kind of mind boggling how specific these systems can be and how well they work. I have a beehive system b dash hive with a y H y ve. We recommend

this system to most of our clients. I just think it's one of the best ones out there right now. There are o there's but you check it out, check it out and see what kind of and you know. One of the things I love is when I'm out doing repairs, instead of walking back and forth to valves turning them on to see how things are working, I literally just have my phone in my hand. I'm like, oh, turn on zone three and there it goes, and I can see whether what I've done is paying off or not,

or whether I need to redo something. So there you go. It is a pretty amazingly connected world when it comes to our homes and as AI and our personal assistant Electronic assistance you know, the series, the Alexas and so on. As they start to continue to get smarter and smarter, eventually all of this stuff will just plug in and you'll have a conversation with one voice handling all the rest of the stuff. That is what I anticipate will

be coming very very soon. Until then, we're all just going to have to muddle through living in a technologically advanced world. This morning, when I got up, you know, every Sunday morning I get up, I spend a little time just in my own head, my own thoughts, and quite often I'll write something down that I want to share with you. Sometimes I don't. You never know what

it's going to be. I never know what it's going to be, and I don't do it ahead of time because I just feel like it's more authentic this way. And this morning, you know, I jotted down what sort of looks like a poem, but it doesn't rhyme or anything, but you know what, here it goes. So I'm going to leave you with this thought today. Once upon a time, there was a little boy, fresh and young and full

of life. He sat and watched the big world moving so fast all around him, and wondered when he would take his place in it, and what he would be. He wasn't big or strong, he didn't know very much, but that was okay because he was alive and learning, and there was so much to see and do, and that was going to be enough. He was a good boy, but like all good boys, sometimes he made a mess

of things. He laughed a few times, he cried a few times, and in the blink of an eye, the boy was gone, and in his place stood a young man, young and strong and full of life. He was moving so fast it felt like the world was holding him back. He was ready to take his place in it, ready to be somebody. He felt big, he felt strong, He felt like he knew so much. He was alive and hungry to see and do and be, and nothing was enough. And he was a nice young man, but like all

young men, sometimes he made a mess of things. He laughed a few times, he cried a few times, and in a blink the young man was gone, and in his place sat an old man, not so fresh, not so strong, but still full of life. He sat and watched the world moving so fast all around him. In one if he still had a place in it, and what would he be. He knew for certain he wasn't big enough or strong enough, and would never know enough.

But that was okay, because he was still alive and still learning, and there was still so much to see and do, and finally that was enough. He was a kind man, and like all older men, he tried really to not make such a mess of things. He laughed a few times, he cried a few times, and finally he found his place in the world. In that place, he got busy building himself a beautiful life. But there you go. I was my thought on a Sunday morning,

probably somewhat semi biographical, I can prep. Nevertheless, it's thought I would share it with Hoki as it may be. I hope you've got a great day planned ahead of you. I hope you get out in this beautiful weather. I hope you're rooting for the Dodgers at five o'clock tonight, and most of all, I hope you get busy this week building yourself a beautiful life. And we'll see you right back here next week. 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