In this episode of Fix It Radio, we bring attention to the often underestimated yet critical home safety measure: carbon monoxide detectors. As spring approaches and warm weather invites various home maintenance tasks, our hosts prioritize safety with engaging discussions on portable carbon monoxide testers, their necessity for travelers, and how to ensure your home is always protected. Let us guide you through essential maintenance tips to keep your household safe and sound.
SPEAKER 01 :
Walter? Upstairs! Are you alright?
SPEAKER 03 :
In the floor behind the chair.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is America.
SPEAKER 01 :
Does everybody know what time it is? Fix It Radio!
SPEAKER 13 :
And it is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for joining us on this Saturday morning, April the 5th. April the 5th. So the year is rolling by. Myself, Larry Unger, here today. If you’re listening to us on Tuesday, thanks for doing that as well. We appreciate it very much. It is a colder… Day-to-day than we would typically expect, although it is still spring in Colorado, meaning that we can go from this to, I believe, next Saturday as we’re here. It’s going to be close to almost 80 degrees or so. So we will have a huge shift in the weather between now and even Monday. I think we’re going to have a big warm-up. It’s going to be 55-ish or so and sunny tomorrow and then going to be warmer even on Monday. And you’re listening to this on Tuesday. It’ll be nice and warm on Tuesday. So, you know, some of what we’re talking about today won’t matter.
SPEAKER 07 :
Looking forward to it.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah. You know what? I talked to several people. It’s funny you said that yesterday, or you just said that, Larry. There is a lot of people I’ve been talking to the last couple of days where they’re like, you know, we’re pretty much ready for winter to be over. And I can’t say as I disagree with that at all is what I’m trying to say.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. I ran into one of the guys. He was leaving. The station this morning as I was coming in and we said the same thing. Can’t wait until it’s turned sunny.
SPEAKER 13 :
Nope. Several things I want to get into today because it’s still, I mean, today you’re not going to do anything outside. I mean, if you do, great. You might do some cleanup or something like that. But it’s going to be a little bit warmer and sunnier as we get into the later afternoon hours. But during showtime today especially and even through drive radio, it’s still going to be pretty chilly out. Some of you will have a little snow on the ground depending upon what part of town you’re in. Even down here at the station as we look out, the golf course down here, it’s… It’s all white, and yeah, it’s a little tough to do much of anything. I will probably get into next weekend because it will be a warmer day, and a lot of you maybe because of whatever reason haven’t fired up your sprinkler systems quite yet. Some of us have, myself included. And yes, I know it’s 28 degrees, but I don’t care. Mine was fired up a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER 07 :
So they’re not going to freeze.
SPEAKER 13 :
No, it’s not that cold where it’s that big of an issue. But if you haven’t, I will walk through that whole process next Saturday as far as that goes. So I want to make sure that we get that done. We do that every year. And yes, I know we’ve We’ve been over that in the past and so on. But one thing, too, somebody asked earlier in the week, because I had talked about this on my daily show, and then I also talked about it a little bit yesterday on Ready Radio. So this is really important. I cannot find the one that I actually own, but where I’m going with this is carbon monoxide detectors. And I had somebody call in and say, you also want to check for the oxygen levels inside of the house, but I did some research on that. As far as portability goes, there’s quite a few. Kitty even makes a portable carbon monoxide tester, and there’s several of them out there. So if some of you wanted me to put a link up of the one that I own, I don’t see it listed on Amazon any longer. I’m sure I could still go find it, but it’s not there any longer. And one thing also to remember is some of what you maybe have purchased in the past, On Amazon, because of now some of the tariffs and things that have come in, especially in regards to China and so on, you may not find the same item that you once had and or were buying. You may not find that on their website. You may still be able to find it, but it may not be on the Amazon site because of some of that. So something else to remember and keep in mind when it comes to some of the things that are out there. The reason I mention that is there has been in the last – Three weeks in the news, one, a major baseball, major Major League Baseball player, they lost a child due to carbon monoxide poisoning in a hotel while on vacation. There were three young ladies that were that that were they found deceased for the same reason that were also on vacation. And so it’s something to be aware of, especially while traveling. I happen to travel with a portable carbon monoxide tester. I just keep it in my travel backpack at all times. When you get to the place you’re going, you just turn it on. You don’t have to take it out of your bag. Just turn it on. It’s there. Something happens. It’s audible. It goes off. It’s real simple. In the way mine works, I’ve got a little carabiner to where I can just hang it outside the bag. Now it’s outside. It can do its thing. Don’t have to unclip it. In other words, it’s always there. It makes it really easy so that it’s there working and all of that. And I don’t leave it on constantly when I come back home because we have testers at home. But it’s something to think about, especially when you’re traveling. And, by the way, some of you would say, well, as long as you stay in a really nice hotel, that’s not a problem. Out of country, not true. There have been some deaths reported even in some high-end hotels outside of country. Now, I haven’t seen too much about this in the United States of America. Every now and then you’ll find sort of a freak thing that happens. So typically in the U.S. it’s not as big of a deal. But outside of the U.S., I would not – I would not leave and go anywhere without one of these, period, just because that’s what I would do. And actually, I did find a carbon monoxide tester that actually is on Amazon, and I can put a link up for this one. This one’s about half the price of the one that I actually bought. And this one’s a rechargeable one as well. So this one’s actually, I would say, half the price and a little nicer than the one that I bought. Maybe not as robust. The one I bought is sort of in that rubberized coating where if it gets knocked around or whatever, it doesn’t get all beat up. And you kind of know what I’m talking about. Like a big phone case protector on it where it doesn’t get beat up. You could drop it and it wouldn’t have any effect on it. It’s pretty robust that way. But it’s not rechargeable like the one that… I’m going to go ahead and put up on our website. So I’ll put that up, by the way, on all of our different websites. I’ll have Producer Ann do that today. And I can do that now. In fact, as I… I will tell her to put that out there. So that way, because I had somebody the other day asking for that. So just a side note, and the reason I say that is it is today, given the fact that a lot of you are going to be inside and you’re maybe looking for something to do, and you may or may not have done even your smoke detectors with the time change we had here recently. So I would say, given the day that it is today, check all of your smoke detectors. If you’ve got carbon monoxide detectors, double-check those. And I will say this. If you’re living in an older home to where it’s, you know, this code hasn’t always been there when it comes to carbon monoxide testers, detectors, I should say. If you live in an older home and don’t have one, that is something that I would highly recommend. It’s like a smoke alarm, in my opinion. You need to have one. If you don’t, go get one. In a lot of cases, it is now code, and they’ll be built into a lot of the newer homes and so on. But they’re very inexpensive. And my suggestion would be to put a couple of them in the house. Always put one near where your gas appliances are. So, for example, if you’ve got a boiler room or a furnace room or whatever, go ahead and put one in that area. That’ll tell you if you get any leaks inside of that particular area itself. And then put one in the hall near your bedrooms or even… one in each bedroom if you’d like. It depends on how your house is set up and how many rooms you’ve got and so on. But they call it the silent killer or the unknown killer because you can’t smell it, you can’t detect it, you don’t know it’s there. And the problem is people just don’t wake up.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. And the sad part is for those of you that take the batteries out of your detectors because you don’t like the little beepy noise.
SPEAKER 13 :
Put them back in.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, shame on you.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, put them back in. Get yourself going again on that. And, yeah, they do save lives, and that’s something that you want to have. And, again, that’s the last thing you want to do. I know last week we talked about HVAC and the efficiencies of and changing filters and all of that. Didn’t quite get into doing anything along these lines. But again, given that it’s kind of a crummy weekend, crummy day today even, if you’re looking along those lines for something to do, yes. And again, those are very inexpensive. You can buy carbon monoxide detectors either online. All of your big box stores will have them. You see them literally everywhere. In some cases, they are literally as convenient as just finding an outlet and plugging them in. Most of them are made that way. Now, some of them you can put up on the roof. They’re battery operated. But there’s a lot of them where literally you go find an outlet someplace near wherever it is that you want to make sure you’re detecting things and you just go plug it in. So you can buy these in different different forms. I’ll put the portable one up. So if you’re traveling and again, I highly recommend for some of you that travel to different places, you may go out of country. And, you know, some of you think, well, I’m only going to Canada or I’m only going to, you know, Mexico or I’m only going down to the Caribbean or whatever. I don’t care. Travel with it.
SPEAKER 07 :
I don’t care if you’re going to South Dakota.
SPEAKER 13 :
Larry, I’ve got it in my travel backpack. I take it everywhere I go, no matter what, just because you’re exactly right. One more safety item, and no, I’m not always Mr. Safety, but in this particular case, yes, because this becomes something that is very easy to do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, that’s the point. It’s easy to do.
SPEAKER 13 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 07 :
It doesn’t take you out of your way to do it.
SPEAKER 13 :
So anyways, that’s one of the things that’s on my list for today is test all of your smoke and your carbon monoxide testers. Put new batteries in each if you haven’t done that with the, like normally you do that with the time change. Yep. And for some of you, you know whether you’ve needed to do that or not. And just a note along those lines as well. There are different types of labeling. In fact, there are a lot of labels you can now buy where you can use like a dry erase marker, and you can put a little label underneath the detector or even inside the battery area or on the battery. For that matter, you can use a Sharpie and mark on the battery when you actually installed it. Now when you open it and look at it, you would know exactly what the date was when you installed that particular item, and you know, okay, it’s due.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and if it’s longer than a year?
SPEAKER 13 :
Change it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes. For the cost of the battery, it’s not worth…
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Taking that chance.
SPEAKER 13 :
All right. Moving along. Other interior maintenance items, because that’s really what I wanted to focus on today is some of the interior maintenance things. And yes, I know if you’re listening on Tuesday, a lot of this won’t apply. And you’re going to wish on Tuesday I went ahead and did the sprinkler thing today. But for a lot of people that are listening live today, you’re not going to do your sprinklers. You’re going to do these other things instead. And this one’s a big one. And it’s a little bit… Maybe more difficult to do because it is cold, although it’s not super cold out. And that is clean and inspect your windows and your screens. Now, I get washing screens and so on on a day like today, although tomorrow, Sunday, you’ll be able to do this tomorrow if you would like. It’ll be warm enough then to do this. But look at your windows. Do they all open and close correctly? Get your vacuum out, whether it’s a little shop vac or your regular vacuum or whatever. Vacuum out all of the tracks and all the different things that can get in there because they get creepy crawlies and dust and junk and so on. Vacuum all that stuff out so when you go to use your windows, if you’re somebody that does open the windows, and I get it. Some people never open the window. Allergy-wise, whatever, you just don’t do it, and I get that. some people don’t open windows at all some do it just depends on who you are and what kind of you know lifestyle I guess you could say you live but either way for the continual functionality of your home yes go ahead and check all of your windows make sure that they open and close correctly in some cases you may want to lubricate some things depending upon the window itself and how it’s made and what you need to do and of course always use the proper lubricant for whatever it is that you’re working on in a case of windows you’re typically going to use like a silicone type based lubricant to where you don’t want a lot of stuff getting all i wouldn’t use wd-40 or anything along those lines you don’t want to gum everything all up just use some sort of a silicone spray if need be but again make sure that you know things happen over the winter months Even as far as your screens go, things can bang into them. If you’ve got kids, if you’ve got pets, I mean, there’s all sorts of things that can happen along those lines. And the last thing you want is, again, we’re going to get into next week where it’s going to be warm enough to where some of you may want to go ahead and open the window and not run your AC. If that’s you, well, use today to see how all of that is working. Some of you may have already done this because we’ve had some warm weather already up to this point. Although… Although, for a lot of you, you probably haven’t gotten to the point yet where you’ve opened up windows and done a lot of those things quite yet. We haven’t been quite that warm yet. But, again, double-check all those things.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and the other side of the coin is when you do open your windows, look at the felt seal around the windows. Now would be the time to change them, especially if you’re using your AC in the summertime.
SPEAKER 13 :
Good point. Good point. Yeah. Even for some of you that like to keep all the dust and everything down, you’re not one to open up windows and do things along those lines, which I know some of you are that way. Yeah. Double check that and make sure. Somebody also said that really quick, the CO2 detectors plug in, you know, bedroom, et cetera. They will accommodate that first floor floor. Kitty, Nighthawk, they’re both good brands. Thank you, by the way, for those recommendations. So there you go. So, yeah, again, yes, please get those. If you don’t have a home that has those, put those in. Highly, highly recommended. Believe me, the last thing you want is for loss of life over something that is expensive. And I mean easily preventable because the way that works is if it’s detected, number one, you immediately go outside, get some fresh air, make sure you’re breathing fresh air. Otherwise, you may even at that point still have a headache or whatever if that thing has already gone off. And then depending upon where that carbon monoxide is coming from, you most likely are going to want to call somebody, have them come and inspect and see exactly what’s going on. Is something plugged up? Has something happened? Is there a leak somewhere? What’s going on and why is that? Is that the case? Mark and Wiggins, go ahead, sir.
SPEAKER 15 :
Hey, good morning.
SPEAKER 13 :
Good morning, Mark.
SPEAKER 15 :
It’s cold and kind of dreary, and I am working in the garage with the radio going. I got my little… I got an AM radio that I bought from the thrift store for like $10 with. Nice.
SPEAKER 04 :
Nice.
SPEAKER 15 :
But I heard you guys talking about the CO detectors, and it kind of triggered a story and a comment. So when I was in school and college… I had one of my instructors that lived up in Nederland. And during the wintertime, he was running a stove. And I don’t know if it was a gas stove, wood stove. I’m guessing maybe not a wood stove. And maybe it was.
SPEAKER 13 :
Could have been.
SPEAKER 15 :
But my point is, it was snowing so bad that it had covered the exhaust pipe on the roof.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 15 :
And as an instructor, he understood the effects of CO gas poisoning and what was going on. When he came home and found his wife and kids laying on the floor and instantly knew what was going on and dragged them out of the building, then called 911. and he almost passed out in the process. Wow. And I asked him, I said, did you have any CO alarms? And he said, no. And I’m like, you’re our instructor, and you’re harping on safety nonstop, and you are the guy without the CO detector? What’s wrong with this picture?
SPEAKER 13 :
Mark, that’s like the old saying, you know, the shoemaker’s kid goes without shoes.
SPEAKER 15 :
So after that moment, I went and bought like four of them. And so I have two, actually, I think three in my garage because I’ve noticed, and I have them in the house too. I have one in the basement next to the furnace and, And our house actually has the converted or the newer CO fire alarm combo system, which does work. But what I’ve noticed is in the morning or any time during the day, really during this fall-winter season, is when my wife or I leave for work or go somewhere and fire up the car and back out, even though we’re pulled in straight and close the door, it set the alarm off. Because the gases kind of flow back into the garage and trigger the alarm. So I get woken up by the by the seal alarm firing off like, hey, there’s poison gas in here. And I’m like, oh, my gosh, I have to open the man door, the side door and the front door for maybe like 20 seconds to get the air out. And so what I’ve done is I’ve asked my wife and I to, when we back out, not shut the door right away, to leave it 30 seconds to a minute.
SPEAKER 13 :
Great point.
SPEAKER 15 :
And then close the door. And that hasn’t, you know, it’s not perfect, but the alarms don’t go off as often.
SPEAKER 13 :
Right.
SPEAKER 15 :
And, you know, I just, I have a passion for safety. I really do. Anybody that knows me knows that I’m, you know, harping on safety, everything. Right. And so, you know, when you go to the store and you see the prices of a CO detector and it’s, you know, they’re not cheap. They’re 30, 40, 50, 60 bucks, depending on the model you get. Think not about the cost of that detector and how much a funeral cost costs instead.
SPEAKER 13 :
And everything else that goes with that. Absolutely, Mark. Absolutely. Great, great thought on that. And yeah, I mean, these are very, in the grand scheme of things, Mark, very inexpensive devices to put in your home. And I like you, and for a lot of you listening, too, this is another big one. If you’ve got a shop or a garage that you’re working out of, a similar deal, Mark, and I’ve got one in my shop. I’ve got detectors and have had for years there. You just never know, you know, running the car inside or I’ve got heat in the garage or things like that. I mean, you want to make sure you’re safe while you’re out there as well.
SPEAKER 15 :
Right, right. I used to run multiple propane heaters, and while I was working on the car, I’d get a little dizzy, and my wife’s like, hey, man, are you doing okay? I’m like, oh, I’m good, I’m good. She’s like, no, I don’t know about that. You need some fresh air in there. But I’ve gotten rid of those and replaced them with electric, and yeah, it’s more expensive on the electric side, but I don’t have to burn up my oxygen, and there’s less safety concern there, especially with the lack of oxygen at our altitude. But my other comment, well, actually, I do want to comment on the detectors. So I’ve got multiples, and they’re the battery plug-in combo. They also make battery alone, which I keep in the older truck. And that way, if the exhaust is coming up into the cab of the truck, that thing goes off. And I’ve only had it happen once. And that’s because it was sitting there idle and warming up and the thing’s firing off. And I’m like, okay, I probably shouldn’t be getting in driving. I should roll the window down and open the doors and so on. But they also make one that has a little digital readout, and that’s my favorite one. Because I look at that thing, and as long as it’s a zero, I know I’m good to go. If I can’t see the zero, I know either the power’s out or the battery’s out. Good point. The other thing, probably I want to say about two weeks ago, My wife and daughter went for a walk. I had been, you know, I just came home. And they came home, you know, through the front door, and they said, hey, we smell gas. And I’m like, what do you mean? Like gasoline gas, natural gas, like somebody tooted kind of gas? What are we talking about? And they said, no, we smell natural gas. I couldn’t smell it. I went outside. I still couldn’t smell it. I went to the meter. Couldn’t smell anything. I’m like, OK, normally, you know, if you’re not sick or we actually have somebody that lives in this town that can’t smell at all. Unfortunately, they’re in the fire department. They have to use the meter that the gas smell just it was not registering either because I had a cold or what was going on. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 15 :
But I immediately called. Xcel Energy, I said, you know, we may have a problem. And they said, okay, you know, went through the prompts, very safe, don’t start any electricals, don’t light a cigarette, that kind of thing. And so they said, you know, it’s going to be probably an hour. Okay. So I told my wife, don’t fire off anything. Don’t turn on the light or off the light. It’s already, you know, in process. Don’t open or close the garage door. You know, we don’t need a spark because I don’t know how much gas is there. Well, anyway, I could not smell it. And even the guy, once he showed up, bless his heart, he had the patience to continuously test and run his meter around the front of the house. And what he found was all. So years ago, they had come out and resealed the fittings. And I guess they had found some of them that were leaking a little bit. But I never noticed. They just showed up and started doing the work. But what he found was none of those fittings were leaking. Where it was leaking from was the actual shutoff. And I didn’t understand this, but he explained that inside the valve itself is, I guess, grease. I don’t know if there was a grease fitting. I didn’t see one. But he said that that can solidify and allow grease to actually come out the side or the gas to come out the side of the valve and was leaking. And his alarm was definitely going off. um and so he said you know i’m i can you know fix the valve no problem well we won’t even have to disturb your your flow but we’ll try some things and and go from there and i’m i’m standing out in the street you know like okay you know i don’t know what’s gonna go um i’m keeping a safe distance he’s like it’s it’s not that bad he said it would be up in your face unbearable stinky to be dangerous. And that’s not to say don’t call if you can’t, you know, if you smell it. But his point was is that even a small amount is best to call. And when I called, they said, you know, did you call the fire department? I’m like, no. You know, like, why would I want to wake up an all-volunteer fire department when there is no fire, there’s no, like, I don’t hear gas blasting out of the ground, and they’re going to call the gas people anyway. So that doesn’t make sense. Right. And so my point is, is that I couldn’t smell it, and neither can a CO alarm. Okay. So a CO alarm is for CO, not natural gas, not the same.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, no, they’re not the same. You’re correct, not the same.
SPEAKER 15 :
So if you have a CO alarm in your basement, but you have a natural gas leak and it doesn’t go off, you could still have a leak and not know it if you can’t smell.
SPEAKER 13 :
True, and that’s why they put the smelly stuff in it.
SPEAKER 15 :
Right. Well, as long as you can smell. If you’re sick or got, I don’t know, COVID and can’t smell.
SPEAKER 13 :
No, we know colds, things like that can affect all that, Mark. You’re right. No, absolutely. Yes.
SPEAKER 15 :
So they do sell a little kit. I think I just looked it up on Home Depot. It’s similar to a seal alarm, but it’s for the purpose of propane and natural gas. I didn’t even know that until just now while you guys were talking.
SPEAKER 13 :
Good to know.
SPEAKER 15 :
Great show, guys.
SPEAKER 13 :
Keep it going. Mark, as always, I appreciate you, man. Thank you very much. Bill, Joe, guys, hang tight. We’ll come right back. This is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 13 :
All right, we are back. Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560. Bill and Lakewood, go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, my smoke detector, I’m pretty sure it’s a kitty. It comes with a 10-year battery. Oh, okay. And so you don’t even got to mess with it. Just throw it away and buy another one.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, that’s all right, too.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, well, it just is, you know, instead of messing around with batteries all the time. Yeah, good idea.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, didn’t know that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 13 :
How did it let you know that the battery’s discharged? Does it beep at you or something, or does it tell you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I don’t know. You ain’t got 10 years yet, so you don’t know.
SPEAKER 13 :
Good point.
SPEAKER 03 :
But I’m sure it does start to beep when it’s going.
SPEAKER 13 :
I’m sure it’ll do something, yeah. Okay, good to know. I didn’t know that, Bill. Thank you, by the way. I appreciate that. Joe in Jersey, what’s up?
SPEAKER 14 :
Hey, John, I know not everybody’s crazy like you and barbecues all winter long, but for those who don’t barbecue except when it gets to be warm weather like me, a lot of people don’t know that your propane tank regulator has a flow safety in it. And I accidentally tripped mine the other day because I didn’t realize when I opened the tank valve that two of my three burner valves were in the open position.
SPEAKER 04 :
Ah.
SPEAKER 14 :
And if you do that, you will trip the flow-limiting safety inside that little regulator, and you won’t get any flame or you’ll get a little tiny flame. And if you make the mistake of doing that, you don’t have to replace the regulator, which a lot of people, like my neighbor, mistakenly did one year. You simply close the tank, close the valves, undo the regulator from the tank, wait a minute, then reconnect the regulator. Make sure the burner valves are all completely closed. And then slowly open the tank valve because if you, let’s say you’ve got two or three burners and you have those valves wide open and you just crank open the tank valve, you will trip the flow limiting because there will be this sudden rush that exceeds the designated limit that’s built, the safety limit, and you will trip your regulator. And I can’t tell you. And I go and I look at all the regulators. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 13 :
Do people buy?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, you go into Lowe’s and they have like 18 in stock.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, it shows you how many they sell.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, because I, you know, like, and again, if you, so I believe what’s happening, John, is that people are tripping their flow limiting safety in the regulator and they go out and buy a new one because they think it’s bad. It’s not bad that you can reset it.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. Yeah. Good reminder.
SPEAKER 14 :
All right, that’s all I got.
SPEAKER 13 :
No, good reminder, Joe. Appreciate you very much. And, yeah, for a lot of you that may this next week even be firing things up. And, yeah, some people barbecue and do things all winter long. Some don’t. It just depends on, you know, you and how your setup is and how nice it is at different times. And we get some of our Indian summer days. And I am not a diehard where I will be out on a day like today doing things. Now, some will, and, no, I’m not one of those individuals. But… We get some pretty nice weather at times, even during the middle of winter where folks will go out and use the barbecue and do different things. And, you know, that’s a great reminder. So, Joe, thank you for that because, yeah, if you’re out there and you’re firing things up and you notice that they’re not quite working, you know, it isn’t working like it should be, there’s your instructions from Joe just a moment ago. Okay. Going along with our list of things to do when it’s a day like it is today. Should have asked Joe what his weather was like in Jersey. But anyways, here, there’s even a few snow flurries floating around here at the station, so a lot of you are not going to be outside doing things. this one is is interesting because honestly i don’t know that this is one that most people actually check for or they just finally notice it when it actually happens and that is checking for moisture in your basement or your crawl space look for leaks water stains mold and then figure out what those issues are and address those accordingly and yeah larry i will tell you that i even personally i don’t know that i’m somebody that purposely runs around and checks to see If there’s moistures in those areas, I think you go address it as you know it shows up. But I don’t know that most people are proactive in that. So that’s another one where if you’ve got an exposed crawl space or an exposed basement, yeah, by all means, take a peek underneath. Make sure that things are looking good. You don’t have any leaks, especially with as wet as we’ve been here over the past few days. It would be a great day to actually go and look at some of those things and figure out how things look when it comes to being dry and all of that. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, your biggest concern is why is it that I’m looking for the crawl space? Well, if it’s wet, you have moisture, you have mildew.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 07 :
The mildew is what really is the concern.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, the mold and mildew, you want to make sure you’re keeping that down. So, yes, by all means, check to make sure you don’t have anything along those lines. Jeff in Montana, what’s going on?
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, good morning, gents. It sounds like our weather’s a little bit better than yours for a change.
SPEAKER 13 :
I think we got what you had last week.
SPEAKER 06 :
This past Wednesday, we had every kind of weather in one day. I mean, sunshine, blowing snow, accumulations of over an inch. I thought we were back in March and it was supposed to be April. We’re not supposed to have this stuff anymore. Actually, for you guys, April is your second snowiest month.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, this is pretty normal for us, so it is what it is.
SPEAKER 07 :
So where did the storm come along? Did April showers bring May flowers? What happened to that?
SPEAKER 06 :
I don’t know, but you know what Mayflowers bring?
SPEAKER 13 :
What? Pilgrims. Ah, there we go. Mayflowers bring pilgrims. Good one, Jeff. Good one. Good one.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, for the CO2, or CO, I’m sorry. I’m so used to talking global warming that CO2 popped out. The CO detectors, my… We were on vacation in Colorado, of all places, when I was nine years old in 1961, and we stopped at some little hotel. I can’t remember where. It was around central Colorado, somewhere in the mining area, gold mine area. And they had an in-wall heater, propane heater, natural gas, and that leaked. And it either leaked or it had carbon monoxide. I’m not sure which. But I got up in the middle of the night because I wasn’t feeling good. I don’t know why I woke up. Nobody else did. But I went and opened the front door and put a couple of chairs in and just laid in front of the front door. And I was told later that ended up saving our lives, the whole family, because everybody else was back in the room and let enough oxygen in so that it didn’t kill us. Otherwise, it would have. My point is that, as you said, it can happen anywhere. It happened in Colorado. And if you go to the smaller motels, you know, they may still have the in-wall heaters. So you just don’t know. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
SPEAKER 13 :
It is very much so. I remember those. In fact, a lot of those have now gone to electric, but I can remember those in-wall heaters as a kid, Jeff, and I still see some of those floating around occasionally at different places. So, yeah, it’s something that you definitely want to be aware of, absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. And another thing that the detectors in a smoke detector wear out after 10 years is It’s made with, I think it’s americium, a radioactive element that can detect the carbon monoxide. So if your detector is 10 years or older, it needs to go. It’s no longer effective. When I moved into this house, we moved in in, what, 2017, and the detectors hadn’t been changed in 20 years. So the first thing I did was replace all the smoke detectors. And I did not know about the mobile CO detectors. Yep, I learned about those.
SPEAKER 13 :
Oh, I don’t know, Jeff. I’ve been carrying one now for a couple of years, I want to say, as I started reading more people on vacation dying from that. I’m like, yeah, I’m not going to be that guy, so I’m going to start dragging one along with me. And I get it, and everybody that’s out there, well, when it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. Well, you know, I don’t want to go by being stupid.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, it’s not my time to go if I can prevent it. There you go.
SPEAKER 13 :
Thank you, Jeff.
SPEAKER 06 :
No. If you want to go because you’re going to do something avoidable, fine. But it’s like saying, well, you know, I’m not going to worry about my breaks and change and stuff. If it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. No. No, don’t do that.
SPEAKER 13 :
Right. Right. Well, yeah, and what I’ve learned, even this morning, from when I bought the one I own versus what’s now available today, like anything else, the more they become popular and the more of them that are made, the cheaper they become, because the one that I actually just put up, that Ann will put up today on the websites, is about half of the one that I bought and actually is rechargeable.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Works very well. And I think CO detectors also… have a 15-year limit, I think, and they just flat stop working. Okay. So they’ll let you know when they’re no longer effective. But CO detectors don’t do that. So, you know, if you get a new one, what I did is just on the inside of the housing where you can’t see it right to date, when you go up and check the battery, you know what’s going on. And if it’s older than 10 years, change it.
SPEAKER 13 :
Good point. Good point.
SPEAKER 06 :
Anyway, I hope it does get warmer for you guys.
SPEAKER 13 :
Oh, it will be. It’s supposed to be a little bit better tomorrow, and then by the time people listen to this replay on Tuesday, it’s going to be very nice.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good. Well, we got bright sun and… My wife and I are alone together for one day before our granddaughter comes back to be with us. Good for you. We’re going to enjoy it.
SPEAKER 13 :
Good for you. We’ll enjoy both, by the way. The peace and quiet and them coming back, both.
SPEAKER 06 :
Some other time off air, I can tell you the sad story of how we got our granddaughter and the court battle we just went through to make sure her parents couldn’t get her back.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s too bad.
SPEAKER 07 :
Part of life, but it happens.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yes, it does. Jeff, appreciate you, man. Keep it up, man.
SPEAKER 07 :
I was going to tell you, John, talking about smoke detectors. I happen to be at Ace Hardware, and I was in the same aisle where the smoke detectors were, and I’m looking for different things. And there’s a couple standing next to me, and they’re talking about smoke detectors and how they want to replace them and this, that, and the other thing. And I heard the husband say something to the effect that we can’t afford this. And I remember listening to the woman say, is that all I’m worth? And all of a sudden, this guy picks up about four of these detectors and puts them in the buggy. Oh, she’s got the way to.
SPEAKER 13 :
Interesting.
SPEAKER 07 :
She’s got the way to twist a flower.
SPEAKER 13 :
Interesting. Yeah, good story. All right, let’s do this. We’ll take a break. We’ve got a call coming in. We’ll come right back. This is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
All right, we are back, Fix It Radio. And if you’re listening to us on Sunday or Tuesday, because, yes, this program replays on Sunday evenings as well. Thank you, by the way, at 5 o’clock on Sundays. Thank you for listening then as well. We do appreciate that. And Tuesday as well. It’s going to be a nicer day tomorrow, by the way, on Sunday. So as you’re listening on Sunday, it will be much nicer than it is actually. today. But for a lot of you, you’re inside, you’re trying to figure out, hey, I’ve got things I still need to get done. And as with anything, keep things up, keep them maintained. We left off that last segment talking about moisture in basement crawl space and so on. Yeah, double check those things. And again, with all the moisture we’ve had here over the past several days, it’d be a great day to actually look around to see, do I have any seepage any leaks you know do i have a water stain running down or even something that’s that’s wet you know running down the edge of something or whatever and if you do then yes by all means you want to have that looked at and if it’s something roof related of course we’ve got lots of different sponsors but on the roof end of things roof savers of colorado dave hart call have him out have him look at whatever it is that happens to be going on when it comes to you know leaks and things like that You don’t want those things to get worse because, to Larry’s point earlier, moisture causes mold and mildew and can rot out different things, boards and so on. And reality is sometimes those things are hidden and you don’t even know it’s there until it’s been happening for quite some time. So, yes, it’s a good idea to have a lot of those things inspected. If you can’t do it yourself, have somebody out and have it done for you. And if you can do it yourself, great. And I get everybody has a different level of ability depending upon experience, age and so on. I mean, some folks can get on a ladder, get up on the roof, look at a lot of things themselves. Other people, if you were up there, you wouldn’t even know what you were looking at. I understand there’s different levels for everyone. You do what you know you can do. And again, keep in mind, there’s all sorts of. of helps and tips and things out there that will help you with these things. I just got a note a moment ago about how, you know, do you know anybody that can help me with some security camera installs on the outside of my home? Yes, in fact, the ad we just heard a moment ago from Ease My Pain IT Services, they do some security camera work and things like that as well, and if not, have people that they know that can. So we’ve got resources for pretty much anything. Anything. Really, the only thing we don’t have, and I would love to get hooked up with a good one. And when I say good one, I mean good one because there’s a lot of folks in the handyman business end of things that did that because they don’t have anything else to do. So they went and became a handyman. And that’s not the person I want. I want someone that really does have a really good, firm understanding of all the different things that are needed that are probably licensed in some areas even because you really need to be to do certain things inside of the home. And I would love to get connected with a really good handyman service that would be a part of what we do here. And if any of you out there listening know anybody or you are one and you would like to be a part of what we do, I will tell you straight up that – that first of all advertising with us here you know being a sponsor of our program is one of the best and least expensive investments when it comes to marketing and advertising your business that you’ll ever find and I mean that sincerely I’m not gonna give rates out you know publicly but I will tell you that it is very very affordable us compared to a lot of other places in town that will solicit you for your business i will tell you that what we do here because i’m not doing this to get rich i’m not doing this as my main source of income i do this because i love all of you i want to help the the public whatever way we can whether it’s around the house whether it’s being prepared for the what-ifs of life like on ready radio or whether it’s drive radio on the car sides of things we do it really to help each person listening i don’t have to do this for a living like a lot of other talk show host that have shows out there do so in turn our rates and what we’re able to help those of you that would like to get your business promoted i can literally do at a fraction of what you’re going to pay somewhere else to have the same level of response and the same level of exposure. And I’m not bragging about that. It’s just simply the fact because I don’t do this as my living. I do this really as an addition to the other things that I already have going on in my world. I can do that for a lot less money than what you’re going to find with some of the other quote-unquote big-name folk industries. in town and larry knows exactly what i’m talking about so does charlie literally what you do here will be at a fraction of the price of what you will do someplace else
SPEAKER 07 :
And I will guarantee you, this is a guarantee for me personally. It works. Yes. I’ve done this for 25 years. I had my business and I ran through this program with my business. It works. Yes, it does. And we did, you know, as John knows, we’ve done a lot of different things advertising wise in the automotive industry. Yes, we have. This works in the automotive industry as well as every other thing that I come across.
SPEAKER 13 :
And if you don’t believe me, you can call some of our other sponsors that we have and find out from them how well things work. But I will tell you that it works. And, again, yes, it’s a fraction, literally a fraction of the price. So some of you listening, if you’ve got a really good handyman business or you know somebody that is and you think they would benefit from having some more exposure and so on for any of you, any business, by the way, it doesn’t have to be handyman. If you’ve got a business you’d like to have exposure with, by all means, reach out. Let me know. It doesn’t have to be even home-related, although most things out there are. There’s very few things out there that you could advertise that don’t have something to do with being around the house. But anyways, yeah, if you’re somebody that is interested in having more exposure, by all means, let us know. Just go to the website, fixitradio.com. Let me know. Send me a message. we will get together figure that okay here’s one that this time of the year is also this is in my notes more for termites which we don’t have a lot of in colorado and i i know i will get corrected on that somebody will say well yes we do well not like other places in the country so yes i know we can have some although We don’t you know, you will rarely ever be in Colorado and see an entire house tented like they do in other parts of the country whereby everybody leaves. They tent the place with a big bubble. Basically, they fumigate the thing to try to kill all the termites and nobody can be in there for a couple of days. We don’t do that in Colorado. You will rarely ever see. In fact, first time I ever saw one of those. And I was driving around. He was down in Houston or something. I’m like, what in the world? And then somebody said, well, yeah, that’s for termites. I’m like, what? Termites. I’m like, what’s that? I mean, literally, because I was that young. I’m like, what’s that? And, you know, of course, learn, you know, because we don’t have those. We don’t have much of that problem here in Colorado. But pests in general, yes, we can have those.
SPEAKER 07 :
Cockroaches are terrible in Colorado.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, so there you go. So for those of you listening, check for pests. And I’m more along the lines of look for infiltration of mice and squirrels and rabbits and things along those lines because those little boogers can get in a lot of different places and do a lot of damage at times. So that’s another one of those things that you can really double check and make sure, hey, I want to make sure I don’t have any issues in these particular areas and things. And some of those things, they will do things all year long. The other thing, too, this time of year that you’ll start noticing is the birds are back. They’ll start building nests, and in some cases, that’s fine. You want that nest to be there. In other cases, it’s like, yeah, that’s going to do nothing but make one big, huge, gigantic mess, and I don’t want that built there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, that’s where you look into your dryer vent. They will nest in your dryer vent if they can get in there. That’s a great point, too.
SPEAKER 13 :
In fact, that was on my next list here is make sure that your dryer vent, day like today, something else that could be clean and handled. In fact, you could do a lot of appliance cleaning today, period. Pull that fridge out. Vacuum out all of the coils and everything that are back behind. It’ll make things run more efficiently, cost you less money in the end to run it. There’s little simple things because all of those things have fans. They’re sucking in dust and pet hair and other things that are out there. So, yes, whatever you can do to keep those things clean, refrigeration coils, et cetera, by all means, make sure that you’re all dialed in on all of those things. Will, you are next. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello?
SPEAKER 13 :
Hello, Will.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey. Yeah, you were talking about different alarms and stuff, and I just was at Ace Hardware up here in Conifer and picked up a 3-in-1…
SPEAKER 13 :
carbon monoxide and explosive gas first alert oh nice good job yeah it has carbon monoxide methane and propane that’s really good nice yeah I’ve never seen one I’ve never seen one either I’m glad you just said that for a lot of folks that have been listening throughout this hour now some of you that have been listening will know you can go pick one of those up and it will do all of those yeah it’s pretty cool interesting it’s a plug-in cost
SPEAKER 05 :
First alert. Cost was by, what, $65 maybe.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, so given they’re all together, that’s not bad.
SPEAKER 05 :
No. It’s cheaper than replacing the house.
SPEAKER 13 :
Cheaper than replacing, you can’t replace a life, as we know, Will.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER 13 :
So, yeah, in that respect, it’s pennies on the dollar.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER 13 :
Even less. Or less, absolutely, less. Good to know, Will. Thank you. I did not know that. I will find one of those, put that up in our links as well. Thank you for that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Very good.
SPEAKER 13 :
Appreciate you, Will. Thank you for that. We have great listeners, by the way. And as you guys can all tell, that’s where I was going back to even the whole sponsor thing a moment ago. We have a huge community of listeners. Will’s all the way up in Conifer, so he’s up in the foothills. And we’ve got folks all the way up into Wyoming, Nebraska, out to Kansas, all the way down into the panhandle of Texas. I had somebody email me first thing this morning, Kyle from Dallas. We’ve got folks literally from all over the country. Joe’s back in Jersey. We’ve got folks that listen down – in Arizona, in California, in Minnesota, in Michigan, in Florida. And I’ve had some calls from Hawaii even. So we get them from all over. So we appreciate each and every one of you. And Will, thank you for that. I will definitely look that up here in a moment. Now, one thing, I know we talked about this in depth a few weeks ago, but since it’s on the list, I’ll go ahead and cover it really quick. But we did a whole show on this, spent an entire, I think we did almost two weeks on this, and that is your water heater. So… Check your water heater. Make sure things are working as they should and so on. Now, interestingly enough, and this one I’ve got to do a little bit more investigation work on because we talked about on-demand water heaters that particular show. And, again, this has been a few weeks ago, probably over a month ago. And I watched a video this last week that I didn’t fully trust because I’ve got to do a little more research on this. But in this particular video, this person was saying, stay away from on-demand water heaters because A, they’re super high maintenance. B, you never really own the heater. You’re just leasing it, which I’m not sure I understood exactly what this person was saying. Because last I checked, when you own one outright, you own it. But this guy was really getting into the whole minutia of they don’t work as good as they claim. They’re a lot higher maintenance, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, personally speaking, I have not found that to be the reality. So I question that particular video that I watch. It happened to be sort of a video slash ad that came my way. And I will definitely do a lot more research on that to determine if, in fact, and this guy was really talking about new home installs that especially in that case you’re not owning the heater somebody else is and i don’t think that’s true at least here in colorado i don’t believe that to be true i do have a way of double checking that and i will do that for those of you that listen on a regular basis and find out in fact if this particular video was true again one of those one of the things i always talk about here drive radio even during the week not everything you see in a video true there is still in there not still there is and always has been especially on the internet and a lot of untruths that still get pushed out and because enough people will watch believe and so on it will come out as a truth even though there may have been a hint of truth to it maybe that’s where it got started but all of a sudden it’s full bore out there and the fact of the matter is maybe only a fraction of that happens to be true so be careful even when you’re watching some of these videos and things along those lines Guys, that’ll do it for Fix It Radio today. Myself, Larry Unger, Charlie Grimes, our engineer. And again, thank you if you’re listening on Sunday and or Tuesday. We appreciate that as well. Website, fixitradio.com. This is KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 10 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
