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As the chill of November seeps in, it’s time to think about winterizing your home’s water system. Join us on Fix It Radio as we walk you through the critical steps of shutting down and maintaining your sprinkler systems for the season. With expert advice on ensuring your systems are protected from frost damage, this episode is a must-listen for homeowners across the region seeking to maximize longevity and efficiency. We provide insights on the differences between old and modern systems, and whether blowing out your system is necessary or an overcautious myth. A special segment highlights using the
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Walter? Upstairs! Are you alright?
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In the floor behind the chair.
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This is America.
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Does everybody know what time it is? Fix It Radio!
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And it’s that time, Fix It Radio, KLZ 560. Appreciate you joining us today on this Saturday, the 1st of November. And the year has rolled by quickly. I don’t know about the rest of you, but, man, it feels like it was just Christmas not long ago, and here we are rolling right back into it again. So several things I’ll talk about today. Yes, it’s time to shut your sprinklers down. I mean, some of you may have already done that. If you haven’t, you can do it this week and supposed to be actually – fairly nice later today supposed to be up into the mid 60s and in low 70s tomorrow so a nice couple of days here to do some things around the house we’ll talk about some of those things questions for us please let me know 303-477-5600 303-477-5600 don’t forget the text line as well 307 200-8222. Again, 307-282-22. And you can text us really any time. I know I say that a lot, but I mean that. And a lot of you do, which I appreciate, and I do my best to try to help you guys out. And there may be some times where it’s a little bit of a delay to getting back to you, but typically I can get back to you. pretty quickly. One other change, too, that I should mention as we head into November here, our normal replay of this program is on Tuesdays from 2 to 3, but we’re switching that to now Mondays from 2 to 3. So be a little closer even to the actual time frame of What we’re talking about today. So that works out well. So those of you that are used to hearing us on Tuesdays from 2 to 3, you’ll now hear us on Monday from 2 to 3 instead. So just a slight programming change along those lines as we head into November here. At any rate, if you guys have not shut your sprinklers down, and I told you I would tell you when it’s time, and we’re getting to the point now where the evenings are cool enough where, yes, it’s time, and the grass will now start to go somewhat dormant. I’m looking out here at the golf course to our west. It’s got frost on it this morning, so it’s that time where we’re rolling right into that anyway. So if you haven’t got it done, I’ll walk you through how to do some of that today. Now, as I always say, you need to know – hopefully you know your system is what I should say. And it was funny. I was talking to somebody about this yesterday. Some systems, newer systems especially – don’t necessarily have to be blown out. And I know I’ve talked about that before. How do I say this? If the system has been installed correctly and it’s a more modern system, your chances of having freeze-ups and things like that in the system itself past the backflow valve is pretty minimal, frankly. and now older systems where there’s a lot of pvc and things like that yeah you you probably need to look at getting that you know blown drain things like that but most of the modern systems and i mean modern systems as in put in in the last gosh 30 years or so so i mean i’m talking we’ve been using the more modern uh pipes and so on for the last 30 years easily maybe even longer than that and i get it there’s there’s times where that will vary and depending upon who installs the system and so on but If the system’s been installed correctly and it’s got the right, you know, slope and drain and so on to it, your chances of having any kind of issues, you know, out in the system itself is pretty minimal. Now, all that being said, a lot of people still feel more comfortable with just, you know, blowing the system out. And I can help you with that right now. So we’ll go through some of that. And I do this every year. So some of you, if you’ve heard this before, it’s a repeat. Just bear with me. I’ll get this for the folks that haven’t heard this because it’s not that difficult. And for most people… the amount of money that you spend to have somebody do this for you you can do it relatively easily and not spend a lot of money in doing so so if you can do this yourself great now you do if you’re gonna blow the system out of course you do need to have a fairly decent you know compressor whether that’s one that you own or a neighbor has or if you have to go rent one well now honestly if you go rent one because you don’t have the ability to blow it out on your own At that point, depending upon what the rental is, you might as well have somebody blow it out because they’re not that expensive to do. So, again, you need to look at your own system, how you want to do things and so on. Do you have the ability to actually blow it out? Do you need to blow it out? Those are all questions that you need to ask and then answer and then figure out what you want to do with your own system. Either way, you do need to get your backflow valve drained. And even if you haven’t had them blown out yet, this is something that you should be doing right now, period. Whether you’ve had somebody out to blow them out or not, you can shut down your own backflow valve fairly easily and at least get it drained. As I’ve said in the past, number one thing is to find where the water is coming to the backflow valve. In other words, where is that in your house? In some cases, it could be in the basement, could be in a crawl space, could be in a closet. Again, depends on how the house was built, when the house was built. Every plumber does that a little bit differently. There’s no standardization to this, by the way. You would think there would be, but there isn’t. In a lot of cases, it just depends on You know, where the main line in the house was, how easy is that to access to an outside wall? That’s where the backflow valve a lot of times will go. Usually it’s on the side of the house, but I’ve seen them in the side and the front and the back. Again, it just really depends on the house, how it was built and so on. So find where the inlet to the backflow valve is coming from, and there’s always, I don’t know, I’ve ever seen one where there’s not a shutoff. Now, it’ll usually be a ball valve shutoff, so it’s a 90-degree turn to shut the ball valve off. That’s what you’d turn the lever, 90 degrees. So when the ball valve is open, the handle will be parallel with… the pipe meaning it’s flowing with the pipe that gives you a good idea of whether that valve is on or not this is this is true by the way period with plumbing if the valve is open it’s parallel with the pipe if it’s closed it’s got a 90 degree to it it’s you know perpendicular to the pipe is what i should say so it will be opposite of the pipe so you’ll know whether that that particular valve is on or not pretty simple So first things first, you want to turn that off. We want to get all the water going out to the backflow valve stopped. Once that water is turned off and you do that on the inside of the house, it’s always on the inside. Again, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one where it’s on the they can’t be on the outside because then that pipe would actually freeze. It’s going to be on the inside of the house and normally It’s several feet to the inside of the house. So even if it’s in a crawl space and it’s along the outside wall, they’ll put that ball valve in three, four feet. I honestly don’t know what code is along those lines, but it’s always inside where it’s warmer. They don’t put it right next to the wall. So you’re going to find that ball valve inside the house. So just trace it out. It’s easy to figure out. Not a big deal. If you’re having a hard time finding where the pipe is and you’ve got two people, you can always have somebody outside with a little screwdriver or wrench or something like that and just kind of tap on the pipe and you’ll hear where that noise is coming through when you’re on the inside of the house or if you’re in the crawl space or whatever. If you’re trying to orient yourself, you can do that. That’s if it’s got copper piping, which most of the backflow valves will have copper piping to them. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one done out of PEX. You may have a… a change inside the house where it goes from you know pex to copper and then that runs out to the backflow valve but i’ve never seen a backflow valve done in pex so maybe somebody else has but i never have not yet so you want to turn that valve off of course we get all the water going to the backflow valve off nothing’s going to be flowing and then we go out to the backflow valve and again the water will be out of there now most backflow valves again to Depends on how things have been plumbed, but most backflow valves will have another drain outside on the backflow valve. And sometimes there’ll be a couple of drains now on the valve itself, on the backflow prevention valve, which is the little bell shaped thing on top. You’ll notice that there’s also ball valves on it. There’s typically two, one coming in, one going out. For right now, you want to leave both of those open. This is after we’ve shut the water off. And there’ll be two screwdriver ball valves, basically use a flat-bladed screwdriver. They’re a little mini ball valve, and they’re at the top or the end. of the backflow prevention valve and you want to turn those open right now they’re going to be 90 degrees again they’re going to be perpendicular to the flow you want that to be now with the flow of the pipe because we want to open those we don’t want those shut right now we want those open so we want to open those up you’ll have a little bit of water that will squirt out because there’ll still be some pressure in there and that’s going to relieve that pressure and let some of that drain out now a lot of Plumbers, again, not everybody, but a lot of plumbers will then put another drain, you know, a petcock type of a drain down towards the bottom of the inlet pipe coming into the backflow prevention valve. If you have one of those, of course, go ahead and loosen that up. Let’s get all the water drained out of there. And let’s make sure that that’s, you know, that’s got, and sometimes that petcock is on the inside drain. the house as well it can be I’ve seen them done either way sometimes they put them outside sometimes they put them inside just depends on your system who installed it and so on but you want to go ahead and if it has one of these on it go ahead and open that up and don’t don’t lose the little you know the little cap because you’re gonna loosen the cap up let the water drain and And then you’re just going to sort of put that back on with a couple of threads. That’s how you don’t lose the cap. But we’re going to go ahead and let that thing be open, if you would. We want that petcock to be open, and we’re going to leave it that way until next spring when we go to reverse all of this and turn the system back on. now that’s getting all the backflow valve and all of that drain now for a lot of folks you’re they want to go ahead and further that and blow everything out so you drain the backflow you get all of this done and then depending upon your system this is where it gets a little more technical and most people already know their system have a compressor know what they’re doing and so on you need to put an air fitting you know into the system where you can then push air all the way out through each zone you can either manually turn the zones on or you can turn them on with your clock and then let the air flow through, and you’ll see the air. You’ll basically see a mist of water and some air come out, although it’s a pretty good indicator, by the way, as to how much water is in the system. If you don’t see a lot coming out when you put air into it, it frankly didn’t need to be blown out because there’s not that much water left in it anyways. But again, everybody has a little different system and does things differently along these lines. So if you have the ability with an air compressor and all that, you most likely have the ability to build whatever you need to do adapter wise to go ahead and blow the system out and so on. So again, every system is different and you’ll know what you have. And if you’re handy enough and you’ve got a compressor and so on, you most likely have the ability to add whatever adapters you need to get everything blown out as well so once all that’s done uh you’re you’re pretty much it so when we’re finished with the backflow valve by the way we’ve got everything either drained and or blown out we then go back to those ball valves that are on the backflow prevention And you don’t want to close those off. You want to turn them at a 45-degree angle. That helps the backflow. If there’s any type of water or anything that might have been left behind just a teeny bit of, it keeps all of that from getting into those valves and then having an issue with freezing in a problem. So you want to turn the valve at this point now 45 degrees, not all the way off. don’t leave them on turn them to 45 degrees and there’s a reason to do that but and again it’s a it’s a because of a freezing issue so just turn those backflow ball valves leave the other two slotted you know the screwdriver ones leave those open don’t close those back off go ahead and leave those open but turn both ball valves on the backflow prevention device Turn those at 45 degrees, still leaving the one inside of the house at the 90 degree mark, meaning it’s completely turned off. And by the way, you’ll know if a ball valve is leaking a little bit. If you go to turn that off and you then continue to have water coming out of the slotted screwdriver hole, you know, the pet cocks that are there. If you have water coming out of that, then we’ve got something underneath, you know, inside of the house that’s not shutting completely off and ball valves can go bad. So if you’ve got any kind of water trickling out after what we’ve talked about, you need to go back inside the house and determine is the ball valve all the way off. Is there a problem there? You know, whatever the case, you need to get that figured out. So typically they don’t wear out. They’re really long lasting and they don’t get used that often. So normally they’re going to seal and shut and be just fine. So now I will say this too, they’re pretty tight, pretty snug. So if you have to, you know, put a little bit of pressure on that ball valve underneath the house or inside the house, I should say, to get it to shut off that’s fairly normal they’re pretty tight and in some cases because they don’t get used that often they’re not used daily you know it is going to be fairly tight along those lines which is what we want that’s what keeps everything all sealed up so once all that’s done really at that point there’s no need to put you know some of you that maybe have been watering up to this point you may have put some insulation in a trash bag or something over your backflow prevention you can remove all of that save it you don’t need to leave it on that valve throughout the winter once we’ve got everything all done and sealed you know signed sealed delivered basically once it’s all drained and everything’s ready to go you can leave it open you’re not going to bother anything and you can save your bag and your insulation store it away someplace else use it again next fall or if some of you water during the winter which some do and we’ll talk about that if we get to a point this winter where i feel like you guys need to be doing that i’ll let you know But, you know, for most people, they shut the system down. If you want to do any watering in the winter, you’ll hand water and do it that way. So, again, everybody’s system is a little bit different. If you’ve got a specific question along these lines, you are more than welcome to take a picture of your system, send me that. The easiest thing to do is text it to me. Text me a picture, and I can answer back as to what you have, what you need to do, which levers, which valves need to be turned off, and so on. So if you have any kind of questions along those lines, please let me know. More than happy to help along those lines. But it is time to do that. And again, for those of you that, depending upon your system, you may want to go ahead and have it blown out as well. Some of you probably already have. I’ve talked to a lot of people where that’s already been done, and some people did it several weeks ago. Again, to each his own. I haven’t done mine yet. I won’t until we get into more solid, you know, below freezing nights, you know, several in a row. I’ll go ahead and leave mine open and on and still water some to a degree, especially on a day like tomorrow where it’s going to be 70 degrees or so. But, again, everybody’s different. You do what you need to do for your own yard and situation. I’m going to talk about some other yard and care things here in a moment as soon as we come back. But that’s how you do things. your sprinkler system at this point again if you need any more help on that by all means reach out to me send me an email or a text message and happy to help you all right we’ll take our first break we’ll come right back don’t forget lines are open 303-477-5600 any questions you’ve got doesn’t have to be along the lines of sprinkler or lawns you can text you can call in about anything we’ll get you right on air again 303-477-5600 this is fix it radio klz 560.
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All right, we are back. Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560. I also want to mention, too, a sponsor. And we’ve had Paul, the water guy, around for a while. You’ve heard him on KLZ, but he’s a sponsor now of our weekend programming. So you’re going to hear some things from Paul. I’ll get him on air here in probably the next couple of weeks where we can get a real direct one-on-one with Paul. But if you need anything when it comes to water… filtration. Paul is your guy. We’ll get him linked up on the website and all of that. In fact, a reminder for me that I’ll get producer Ann to do that today. But Paul’s been, again, Paul’s been around some, so it’s, you know, he’s not new to us, I guess I should say. Some of you have heard him on Haystack Help with Scott Whatley, but he’s now going to be a part of what we do here on the weekends as well. So if you need anything when it comes to water filtration, please reach out to Paul. And again, we’ll have that listing right up on our website here just a little bit. So if you need him, be sure to give him a jingle. Joe, what’s going on today, sir?
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John, just a reminder for people about water heater add-ons. I had a friend in Lakewood call me last week. He lives in a condo, and the guy upstairs, his water heater leaked and ruined his ceilings. And I said, well, when was the last time you checked? Have you ever replaced the anode in yours? He said, no. He said, what’s that? I said, well, and what’s the nameplate on your water heater? And it was 2018, which makes it seven or eight years old was the manufacture date. So I walked him through how to pull it. John, when he pulled the nut out, there was literally nothing left of the anode after only seven years. And for the listeners out there who might want to do it, What they’ve done now in most of them, instead of the nut being exposed, they’ve got a little plastic cap, and the nut is recessed down below the top of the water heater, and typically it’s got some foam insulation around it. So you’ve got to dig out the foam insulation, and you need a deep socket, inch and 16th. But if your water heater is more than seven years old, John, and again, they’re on city water in Lakewood, and after seven years, I was stunned to find out that his anode had been completely eaten away down to nothing. And once the anode is gone, you’re starting to eat away at the inside lining of the water heater. So, again, you can buy the anode in a Home Depot for about $35. And if you have a deep socket, now you will need a fairly, you know, maybe at least 12-inch, if not an 18-inch arm on your socket. You’re not going to do it with a 6-inch arm. It’s a pretty, you know, it takes a little bit of push to get it done. But if you don’t want to do it, call a plumber, and I’m sure for less than $300, they would replace your anode. But, John, you know, seven years and your anode is completely gone, that doesn’t bode well for your water heater if you don’t change it out. True. And if you live upstairs, by the way, if you’re in a multi-story, like a condo, And your water heater leaks, you’re going to get a bill. You know, the people down below are going to file a claim against you for the damage you’ve done to your ceiling and your carpeting. So it’s just something you might want to.
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How often, Joe, would you recommend doing that? Because, and again, the reason I ask that is, does it have, I believe it does, depending upon how hard your water is, how much calcification you have. I mean, I don’t know if there’s a standard for that. I think it needs to be checked periodically, but some people are going to need to do that more often than others, correct?
SPEAKER 08 :
I would say after five years, you know, it doesn’t take much, John, After five years, pull it and see how much has been eaten away. And if it’s good, just make a note last time you checked it. But if you pull it out after five years and it’s either all gone or 90% gone, then you want to write yourself a note. You want to replace it, obviously, and then write yourself a note, whatever program or write it on the water heater, replace again in 2030. And it’s more, John, the acidity of your water. You can test the acidity of your tap water with a pool test kit, you know, for $5 in your pool test kit.
SPEAKER 04 :
True. Good point.
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So it’s more about the acidity than the calcification. But as long as you’re doing that, it’s also a good time. Now, you don’t typically have to drain the entire water heater just to replace the anode. You only have to drain out about three gallons so it doesn’t come gushing out the top when you loosen that plug.
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Right.
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But as long as you’re going to do it, you might as well, you know, drain out the sediment out of the bottom of your water heater while you’re at it. And it’s not a big job. I mean, if you’re at all handy and you’ve got an inch and a sixteenth deep socket, you know, it’s probably about a 30 to 45-minute job in total if you’re a do-it-yourselfer. You do want to drain a couple, even though you’ve got the valves, well, you want to shut certainly the inlet off. And then you want to leave the outlet open and open a faucet, open a hot water faucet in one of the upstairs sinks, and then drain out a couple of gallons. Because when you do pull the plug, you’ll have a couple of, you know, you might have a gallon or so in the water in the pipes. Right. Between the shutoff valves and the top of the water heater, that water is going to flow back into the water heater. So, you know, if you don’t drain out a couple of gallons of water, you’ll get a couple of gallons of water gush up out of the top of the water heater. So you want to drain up two gallons. If you have an electric heater, you want to make sure you turn off the power so you don’t burn out those elements on your water heater. The same thing on your gas valves, by the way. If you’re going to drain your water heater, you want to turn the gas valve off so you’re not running a flame on an empty heater. But, John, I would say if it’s been more than five years, you probably want to check it. And if you don’t want to do it, have a plumber come and tell them to bring an anode. Again, the anode’s $35.00. in Home Depot. So, and everybody listening, your water heater is probably way more than five years old. You know, you’re lucky to get 15 years out of a water heater these days without a nano change. With a nano change, you might stretch it to 20. Okay. But without a nano change, 13 to 15 is all you can expect to get.
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Okay.
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So, that’s the only tip I got, but it’s… No, good tip.
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You know, you’re looking at… Yep, no time of the year to do it. Absolutely. Yep.
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Yeah, it’s a $3,000 repair if you let it go. Well, $3,000 just to have the water heater replaced, not counting whatever damage it might result in a flooded basement. Of course, it’s going to happen on a Sunday night, too.
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Right. Never fails. And it’s funny you say that. I was watching a video earlier this week where a guy did – I was going to talk about this, so it’s perfect timing. A guy did a test on – how should I say this? Commercial-grade hot water heater or one that you would get through a professional versus the ones that are sold at the big box store. And this guy actually went and bought the exact same thing. as much as he possibly could you know same brand at you know a big box store versus what he got at actual plumbing supply house and then went through the process of and by the way they were very relatively close priced although the one from the supply house and again you’re gonna have a markup if you buy it through a plumber but at the at the supply house it was about 75 dollars more than what the one uh cost wise was at the big box stores you know home depot lowe’s whatever And at the end of the day, these were both in the $650 range or so, so pretty high quality water heaters to begin with. But he cut them all apart and basically went through the process of saying that even though the big box store makes it look like it’s exactly the same as the other, It is not. They are a far cry from one another, and you are getting a better value and a better heater in the commercial or, you know, the one that’s bought at the commercial stores, if you would, not at the big box stores. So even though the big box stores make it seem like it’s equal to what you’re getting at your plumbing supply house, they’re not the same, Joe.
SPEAKER 08 :
They aren’t. And by the way, one of the best brands out there, the professional grade, is a Bradford White. You know, Bradford White is really kind of the top of the line when it comes to And your Bradford White’s going to be about $200 to $300 more than your… I forget what some of the common names are, but Bradford White. But when you look at the reviews and you go on the Bradford White, where they do the comparison for you, they use a heavier gauge metal.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and A.O. Smith is the other one that’s a pretty solid brand as well. There’s another good one.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. But, yeah, don’t go cheap. I mean, if you save $100, you know, you might give up a couple of years of life.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
But even with the top of the line, John, I would say… If your water heater is more than five years old, check your anode because a good chance it’s either gone or almost gone. And, you know, even if you pay a plumber $300 a day with John, you’ll get another five years out of your water heater.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I think it’s money well spent.
SPEAKER 04 :
agree no i joe i appreciate it as always thank you very much and yeah and along those lines see this coincides with what we were talking about a moment ago having uh paul from water pros on with us now again the water quality and what you’ve actually got going through the pipes and even into the heater to joe’s point a moment ago having solid water quality and again i’ll get paul on to discuss this further because he’s the expert in this you know way more than i am but I’m sure what he’ll end up saying is, yes, you’re inside plumbing, faucets, shower heads, heaters, all of those sorts of things. Everything ends up being better the higher the water quality is that’s actually going through your house. And not only that, but you’re washing yourself with that water, you’re drinking that water and so on. And again, we’ll get Paul on. He talks a lot about some of the forever chemicals that are in the water sources now and what it takes to get some of that out. And again, depending upon where you live, how the water affects your skin and your hair and all sorts of things along those lines. And again, We will definitely get Paul back on or get Paul on. I’ve had him on some other programs in the past, and he and I have done some things together before. But he’ll be a regular part of what we do here now on the weekends. And, again, for those of you, and I should have mentioned this earlier, but if you want to talk to Paul directly, it’s 303. 303-862-5554. So 303-862-5554. If you do call him, make sure you tell him that you heard him here on Fix-It Radio or any of the weekend programming with me. He would appreciate that. I would appreciate that as well. And I will say that Paul’s one of the smartest guys on the water end of things that I think I’ve ever talked to. And the thing that Paul does is, It’s not a one-size-fits-all. Again, I’m kind of doing a commercial here for him, but since he’s a new sponsor, I want to do that. It’s not a one-size-fits-all. He will do a water quality test first, much like Joe talked about a moment ago, to determine what exactly do we need to – what does he need to clean up in your system. Some need more. Some need less. So where a lot of these water filtration companies will sell you the exact same system no matter what is going on in your home – They don’t do any kind of a water quality test, or if they do, it’s pretty minimal. And they’ll install the same filtration system all across the tri-state area that we’ve got, quad-state area that we have as far as listening audience goes. It’s kind of a one-size-fits-all. That is not the way Paul does it. It’s very specific to you and what you need. And for some people, you may only want to do it on your drinking water. He can do that. He can do a whole house system. Again, really comes down to, you know, what’s your water quality right now and what are you trying to achieve? Again, some people, even in this front range area, some people have better water than others. You’d think it’d all be the same, you know, from one city to another or, you know, one county, one municipality to another. We all know that is not the case. That is not the case. So, again, give Paul a call. He’ll walk through what you need to do there. And depending upon the quality of your water, his system will pay for itself because in a lot of cases, even what Joe was talking about a moment ago, your ability to keep things lasting longer plumbing-wise changes with higher water quality. So in a lot of cases, you’ll pay for his system and, of course, have all the benefits of having good, solid-quality water. We did a system here at the station several years ago, and I’ll tell you, I can’t tell you how many compliments we get on how good that water tastes that we’ve got. Now, of course, he’s not doing the entire building here. It’s just a single spigot that we have that we use to drink out of. But it’s better than bottled water all day long, and we’re doing it ourselves here, and that’s because of what Paul does. So again, 303-862-5554. Again, lines open, 303-477-5600. You can text us as well. Got a couple of them that have come in, 307-282-22, 307-282-22. And again, it’s always hard for me to talk and read at the same time. What’s the cost and process to change from tank to tankless? You know, that’s more of a plumber’s discussion. It’s not inexpensive. I will tell you that straight up. I’ve had a little bit of experience with some folks that have switched over from the tank type to the tankless type. And It’s a bigger changeover than you think because there’s more plumbing and things that they have to do that’s involved. And, of course, the tankless heater has to be mounted to a wall. And depending upon where that’s located and what needs to be done to actually attach it, there’s some expense that you can incur there and so on. I would say, on average… to put in a tankless, you’re probably going to spend 50% more to put that tankless in over what a regular water heater would be. And I might be low in that. Again, that’s one where you really should be careful in what I say, because it really depends upon your home where it’s located how all that’s done what your plumbing looks like you know how easy is the access on and on we go so i i hesitate to give any kind of a price along those lines because you really need to call a plumber and have them come out and look at that because it may not be i may be off in my price um Somebody said they tried calling but have connections issues. Have you ever replaced a hot water tank anode rod? In my case, only once because I’ve honestly never lived in a home long enough to where that became a factor. I mean, I rolled through homes up until the last two. I moved on average about every four to five years. So frankly, I wasn’t in it long enough to have to worry about doing an anode rod. And then the house that I have currently has a completely different system. I don’t have a regular, you know, I have hot water heat, which means I don’t have the same type of a hot water heater that most people have. So mine doesn’t even have one because my system is different. And those of you that have hot water heat know what I’m talking about. It’s a different type of a system than just having a hot water heater. you know a water tank heater if you would just for the hot water in the house in my case it heats the house as well and i just have basically a storage tank that gets heated that you know that that’s it’s a it’s still a water heater but it’s again it’s it’s a part of the system in a way and it’s different than what you would normally have because i don’t have any gas or electricity that’s running through my tank to actually heat the water it’s actually hot water inside of a bunch of coils or inside of a set of coils, I should say, that actually heats the water, and it’s very fast and efficient and does a really good job of heating the water. I mean, if I ever have an issue to where things have to get shut off and the tank cools off, it literally can be hot again in, oh gosh, it doesn’t take very long. 10, 15 minutes is about all it heats up that quickly. And I have, because of the system I have and the boiler system I have, it’s an instant, tankless, I guess you could say, heat because of the way the system works and so on. And all of the new boilers, those of you that have one know what I mean by this. The new boilers are made in such a way that they’re smart boilers, meaning that Depending upon what zone and where it’s being called for, the boiler heat will even change temperatures depending upon what it’s trying to do and heat at that time. So they’ve gotten very sophisticated. And those of you that have those systems know exactly what I mean by that. Much different than just the old straight boilers where they came on and off. The new boilers are very sophisticated and also expensive. And that’s different than just a regular straight tankless water heater. Let’s take a break. We’ll come right back again. Fix It Radio, go to our website, fixitradio.com, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 04 :
And we are back, Fix It Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for tuning in today. We appreciate it greatly. Jeff in Western Montana, you are next.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, good morning, Jeff. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 04 :
We are good. And I should have mentioned this earlier. Larry has got bronchitis today, so he is not able to help us out on the phone. So Charlie’s been answering phones. Larry, if you’re listening, hope you get to feeling better, and we’ll see you next week. But, yep, today, right now, Jeff, it’s just Charlie and I.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, yeah, I talked to Charlie. He didn’t seem overwhelmed, but maybe a bit whelmed. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good one.
SPEAKER 07 :
With Charlie, it’s kind of hard to tell. He’s kind of even.
SPEAKER 04 :
He’s even keel. He is. He’s Mr. Stable.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. A couple of comments and then a question. Joe is spot on on sacrificial anodes. That’s been one of my bugaboos. People… Water heaters will last a lot longer if you do that. Once you have it’s gone and you start leaking, your tank is gone. You need to replace it. You’re not going to come back. But if that preventive maintenance does work, I don’t know why they don’t let you know. I don’t know how they would, I guess.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, good question.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, the state of your anode. Right. But it would be great if they could. Yeah. I guess it’s not that hard to take it out every once in a while. But one thing I didn’t hear Joe say is make sure you turn off your water supply.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
So he may have said that.
SPEAKER 04 :
He did, yeah. Yeah, he was talking about that and draining the tank down just a little bit so that, you know, you don’t have it so it’s not full and so on. Yep, no, exactly. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. And the other thing is to maybe open up an upstairs tap.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yep, he did say that too.
SPEAKER 07 :
Get the upstairs water tap. Okay. I missed that part. And then on sprinkler systems… they have valves that you can put under each sprinkler head that are normally open. So when the water pressure comes on, they close up and allow the sprinkler to work. But as soon as the pressure goes off, they open up and drain the water. And people don’t realize you don’t have to get all the water out of the system. You actually only need at the least 10% of the water out because that’s about what ice expands, about 10%. But if you can get half the water out just from these little drains, even if it does freeze, it won’t burst the pipe because it’ll just freeze down the, freeze down the pipe. So something for people, if you want to kind of insure yourself against having to blow out your system every year in certain climbs up here, we still do that. I still do that. It just freezes so hard. But yeah, You can put those on there. It’s not a trivial thing because you have to put one under each sprinkler head.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, or the way you can, for those, if you’re doing your own system, for those of you that maybe, you know, at times may put your own sprinkler system in or whatever. Jeff, the other thing people can do, and a lot of the commercial guys, you know, when they’re installing will do this. If you’re doing the right slope and stuff, you can just position those in certain spots and not have to do every single head. In other words, you can go to the end of the line and do one. And a lot of the commercial guys will do it that way so that you’re not having to do the expense and the hassle of putting one underneath each.
SPEAKER 07 :
That is true. It doesn’t have to be every head. It can be just where the water would normally drain out anywhere, particularly if it’s downhill. It might be the first one if you’re going up a hill.
SPEAKER 04 :
And those of you that are installing those or you’re thinking about doing this, the other thing that, again, the commercial or the guys that install it correctly will do is where that end is and that valve Jeff is talking about, instead of just packing it all back in with dirt, they’ll put a little P gravel down in that area so when it drains out, it’s got a little bit easier flow that way so it’s not just flowing into the dirt. You don’t need a lot of P gravel, but just enough in there to where when that drains out, it goes right into the P gravel and off you go.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, because if you have a heavy clay soil, it’s going to take a while to drain out.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s exactly right. So put a little bit of that down in there. And here in Colorado, we have a lot of clay soil. So, yeah, definitely do that if you’re doing any of these installs yourself or you’re looking to do an upgrade. And by the way, a lot of folks, you know, you guys listening, people think, well, how can you do sprinkler systems and some of that stuff in the winter? We have enough nice days, i.e. tomorrow is going to be 70-some degrees. We have January days where it’s like that. You can get a lot of these sorts of things done.
SPEAKER 07 :
in the winter months our frost line jeff as you know doesn’t go down all that deep here in colorado not a hard thing to take care of even in the winter time right and even up here uh we get a pretty good frost line but it’s generally on the north sides of buildings where the sun doesn’t hit correct sitting during the winter that frost line comes way way up so um it’s true everywhere there’s not just a frost line you can you can look at the tree lines in the mountains here in colorado and you can tell okay the frost line’s lower on the north sides of the mountain than uh then the south side because the trees will go up further on the south side. So that’s just the way it works. I do have a question for you, though.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
Go ahead, Jeff. About compressors. And when I first bought my big tank compressor, I was putting an addition on my house, had a lot of air tools and doing a bunch of different things with it. And recently, in the last couple of years, I’ve stopped blowing out my own system. I just hire a guy. It’s like 80 bucks, I think. He comes in the neighborhood and he gets everybody and just blows us all out, and we’re good. But if you don’t need a big tank… or things like that, what kind of air compressor should you look at just for kind of a little shop thing?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, great question, Jeff. And for those of you listening, if you’re going to do any kind of sprinkler blowout or you’re going to try to run any kind of air tools or anything along those lines, the little pancake compressors, of course, aren’t enough. You can maybe blow out your backflow with that, but you’re not going to blow out zones with a pancake compressor. There’s just not enough air capacity, enough volume there to – I would say, Jeff, to be safe, you probably need even, you know, especially to do a sprinkler system, you need at least a 30-gallon tank, you know, that you can get pumped up to, you know, 150, 160 PSI. So it takes a pretty healthy compressor. to actually do the sprinkler blowouts that’s why a lot of the guys that do either commercial work or even a lot of household work will have the you know compressors that you tow on a trailer those put out a those have no tanks on them by the way they’re just putting out so much volume that you don’t need a tank they’re literally you know literally driving that much air out of the unit itself that it’s all it’s needed there’s no tank on them because it’s not necessary that’s how much volume those compressors have
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I actually got away from doing my own because I would have to let the tank charge up on every line. And we have like six lines, seven lines that I would have to let it rebuild after doing one. And then I’d have to go back and make sure that it actually drained well. So it’s a pretty time-consuming process. But if you don’t need a compressor to do that, Just for home use, what’s the size that you would look at? Because you’ve made comments about not needing air tools in the garage anymore. You know, it’s a lot of battery-packed stuff. I do have a few air tools.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, if you want to run some shop tools, some things like that. Again, now keep in mind that if you’re running constant air, so back in the day, and there still are a lot of air tools where it’s constant on, so… uh you know small drills and grinders and even buffers and things like that you know there’s a lot of air tools where it’s constant air and that’s where you know a lot of the bigger shops collision centers and so on you know they’ve got big compressors to to run all of that and storage and so on because of the amount of air if you get four or five you know six guys doing that at one time you can only imagine jeff how much volume you know they need to keep everything going at home If you’re not running that type of a tool, you know, you can get by with some of the 15 to 20 gallon tank units, even probably a 10 gallon tank unit if you have to. That’s probably the minimum I would do if you’re trying to do anything at home along those lines. Uh, but again, there’s just not that many air tools anymore that guys have to use Jeff. So really, as far as a home compressor goes, I don’t think you need much more than that. The reality is, you know, use it to pump up tires and all that kind of stuff. And even then, I mean, even me, I’ve got a compressor at home and I go grab my Milwaukee little compressor. That’s already got the. the you know the right hose on it and and the the tire pressure you know is all set and you literally say okay i want this i want this tire to be at 35 psi you plug it in and head on and it does everything for you you literally don’t have to do anything else i haven’t brought out an air hose and an air chuck with a compressor in years now yeah that brings up a question i was going to say for drive radio but since you brought up the milwaukee air tool um
SPEAKER 07 :
I have something similar. It’s a DeWalt knockoff that I got because I have all the DeWalt batteries.
SPEAKER 04 :
And by the way, that’s what you, I mean, yes, always stay with whatever brand you’ve currently got, I think.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. And I was just going around in my truck and checking the tire pressure, did it to 35, but then I went in and looked on the TPMS and it read them all at 37. And I went, hmm, that’s PSI different. And so I went and got a couple of gauges, and one read 37 and the other one read 35. The more sensitive one read 35, so I tend to believe that, but… I guess it’s how accurate are the TPMS systems in terms – which one should I believe, the hand tool?
SPEAKER 04 :
They’re not – no, no. What I have found is they’re not as accurate as either a really good – I mean, not a cheesy tire gauge like – and this is something I learned even back when I was first starting to turn a wrench some 40 years ago. Even back then, there was a difference between good – We didn’t have anything digital back then, but there was a difference even in good tire gauges versus bad ones back then. And you could grab one versus another, and if it wasn’t a good enough gauge, Jeff, they would still be off as well. All that to say, a really good gauge or… these gauges that are built into the compressors are really accurate to be honest with you uh they’re far more accurate than the tpms units are because i’ve done the same thing i’ve actually you know the other day i was out doing my truck and it’s supposed to have like 50 psi so i run around put 50 psi in it and you know the tpms will say 48 it’s like no i just put 50 in them so it can be off a couple of pounds pretty easily okay i just you know
SPEAKER 07 :
Didn’t know. Not all that concerned about it. I didn’t know if I should be concerned about a couple of PSI difference.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, no. I mean, if anything, you know, for those of you listening, as long as if you know that tire supposed to have in this case 50 and you put 50 in it and TPMS shows 48, a 48 is not going to set the light off. And I really don’t care because I know there’s 50 in them. So that’s how I do it, Jeff.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I was thinking more from the overpressure side than the under, you know, setting it at 35. And the fact that the tool I got is not a D-wall air compressor. It looks like one, but it’s a cheaper knockoff. So I don’t know how much to trust it versus the gauges or the TPMS. That’s kind of my – which one do I put more faith in? the well i guess i guess i guess here’s a question do you have another really solid gauge that you know is accurate that you’ve trusted in the past um just the ones i’ve been using and uh you know they were within two psi of each other but one goes up to like 120 and the other one only went up to 40 and the one that only goes up to 40 is the one i I used it, came up with 35.
SPEAKER 04 :
Gotcha. In my case, I’ve had a nice digital readout error gauge I’ve used forever. Even when I was turning a wrench, I’ve had it that long, and it’s a really solid, nice digital unit. I’ve checked the Milwaukee compressors. I have two of those, and I’ve checked those compressors to see how accurate the reading is on the compressor, and it’s dead on. So as long as you’ve got something you know is accurate and you want to test it, go for it.
SPEAKER 07 :
I may have a reading in search of a problem here rather than anything else.
SPEAKER 04 :
So I’m just curious about… Yeah, I think for me personally, I would trust that even though it’s a knockoff, I would trust that more than I would trust the TPMS.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, because I think it has probably the same electronics. I mean, they’re all made in the same places now.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. That’s exactly right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. All right. Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, and I got a text message a moment ago asking if I started turning any of my clocks back yet. I only have two analog clocks. Now, you know, I got the microwave that I’ll have to do in the morning and things like that, and I will do those in the morning. I won’t do them tonight. Yes, daylight saving, not savings, daylight saving time ends this evening. I shouldn’t say this evening. It ends at 2 a.m. tomorrow morning, so really Sunday morning is when that actually happens. And if you’ve ever been… awake I have actually in the past I’ve done it on purpose just to see okay what actually happens then and yeah I know I’m weird and everybody knows that but yes I’ve stayed up and on purpose just to see what happens then and yep it magically you just watch everything you know roll in this case roll back I’ve seen it go the other way too or it’ll just all of a sudden you know it’s 2 a.m no now it’s 3 a.m I mean you you can watch it do that so tonight at 2 a.m it becomes 1 a.m everything rolls back so It’s interesting how the electronic devices that are tied into the world clock and so on, the atomic clock, how they work. And again, for most people, there’s not that much analog anymore. Even your car radios, especially the factory units, they’ve even got a daylight saving time setting. It knows literally through the calendar what day it is when daylight saving time starts and ends and so on and so forth. In some cases, it’s a matter of turning that on or off, depending upon how old your car is and your car radio is. And each one of you knows how that works on your own. But typically, there’s a daylight saving time setting, even inside of your vehicle, that you can, again, you can either turn it on or off and not actually have to manually go in and adjust the clock. It makes it really, it’s a toggle, basically, on, off. And some know when that is, some don’t. If your car doesn’t have the smart ability to know what the date is. You just go in the next day and change it. Or in the case of this particular texter, you can change it this afternoon, this evening, however you want to do that. But, yes, don’t forget to fall back tonight. Now, the plus side to falling back is if you forget, you’re just going to be ahead of everything the next day anyway. So you’re not – this is the opposite of springing forward. When you spring forward, that’s when things can happen where you’re late because the clock moved ahead and you’re still working on the old time. And so everybody else is an hour ahead of you. And, yeah, that’s when you can end up being late for things. This one is the opposite of that. As you fall back, if you forgot to change something and you’re looking at a clock, a watch, a stopwatch, a wristwatch, whatever I should say, and it’s still set to the old time, you’re just going to be an hour ahead of everybody. So this one isn’t as big of a deal because the chance of sleeping in too long or oversleeping or whatever the case may be, that doesn’t happen with this particular changeover, as you guys all know. So anyways, don’t forget, fall back tonight. Most people will do that even before they go to bed, or you can do it when you wake up first thing in the morning. With all the digitized stuff we have today, this isn’t near the challenge that it used to be. For most of you, you might have a couple of analog devices, maybe have the oven or the microwave, and outside of that, most everything else is going to be pretty automatic. And some of you probably do have still some analog things that you have to go in and change. It may even look digital, but it’s still analog in the way that it acts. And if that’s the case, then yes, you’ll have to go in and make those changes. One last thing I was going to say today, if you’ve got time this weekend, and I haven’t talked about this for the past few weeks, but tomorrow is going to be a great day to do this. If you haven’t fertilized yet… For the winter, I talked about sprinklers and the shutdown and all of that. And don’t worry. Normally you put fertilizer down and you want to get some water on it. We’ll have moisture coming, even some of the dew in the mornings and so on. So you’re going to get moisture no matter what. We’re going to be to that time of the year. But, yes, it’s time to do your winter work. A lot of guys out there will tell you to use a different blend in the winter. I don’t. We use the same all year round. You’re safe to do that. You’re not going to bother anything. But yes, you need to get some feed down on your grass as we head through these winter months. It’ll make things green up easier and be more healthy for your grass on down the road. So if you’ve got time. this weekend to do that and aerate if you’ve got the ability to aerate either rent one or have it done or whatever the case may be some of the guys that actually blow sprinklers out will aerate at the same time if you hire a crew to come in and do that so it is that time of the year to where we want to get those things done keep your lawn nice and healthy it helps it by the way all of this helps you minimize water use and all of that as we get back into the spring next year so if you’ve got the ability to do that please you know get that done this weekend it’ll be a nice weekend to do so We don’t have a hard freeze really yet, so the ground’s still nice and soft, and you’ve got the ability to do those things as we head through the rest of the weekend. And again, as you listen to this or listen to a replay, anything else that you need, questions, we have answers for you. Don’t forget, you can always send me a picture of something as well, and I’ll do my best to answer it that way also. The text line 307-282-22. This is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 09 :
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.
