In this episode of Fix It Radio, we dive into seasonal tips and tricks for managing your home and yard efficiently. As fall approaches, learn the best practices for adjusting your sprinkler systems to cater to cooler temperatures and shorter daylight. Our host shares personal insights on how to utilize seasonal settings on modern irrigation clocks, ensuring your plants receive adequate watering even as the weather changes. Additionally, we discuss common misconceptions about sprinkler blowouts and how you can save money and avoid unnecessary services.
SPEAKER 05 :
Walter? Upstairs! Are you alright? In the floor behind the chair.
SPEAKER 09 :
This is America.
SPEAKER 02 :
Does everybody know what time it is?
SPEAKER 06 :
Fix It Radio!
SPEAKER 10 :
And at that time, Fix It Radio, KLZ 560. Again, appreciate you all joining us. If you’re listening to a replay of our program, we appreciate that as well. Larry Unger with me today. He’ll be with me all the way through the next four hours because he’ll switch gears and answer phones for me on drive radio. So appreciate Larry. And how’s Larry today?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, great. Good. Just loving another Colorado morning.
SPEAKER 10 :
And it is nice out. If you haven’t been out and about, it’s a beautiful day. We’ll talk about a few things getting ready for fall. And then, of course, we’ll head into winter. But fall, I believe, is Monday, right? Isn’t Monday the first official day of fall, I want to say?
SPEAKER 04 :
I believe it is.
SPEAKER 10 :
I think it is. So this is Saturday, the 20th of September. So I believe fall is Monday. I didn’t double check that, but I’m. pretty sure that is the case i know somebody out there listening probably can uh double check me on that but i believe monday is the first official day of fall uh either sunday or monday i can’t remember it’s either tomorrow or monday but anyways regardless we’re heading that direction night and charlie said yes i am correct so monday is the first official day of fall uh the 22nd uh so in turn we’ve got a few things today we’ll talk about we’re not at a point i get this question a lot this time of the year you can slow your sprinkler system down as far as how much it’s actually watering so in the best way to do that and i talk about this a lot but i think there’s still some confusion in this because i get this question periodically all modern clocks now some people might have an old irrigation clock i mean old enough to where it’s not even electronic but if you’ve got an electronic clock of any kind digital clock of any kind they will all have in them what they call a seasonal setting And the way I’ve always done it is I use the 100% setting for those times of the year. For example, early September, late August, that’s kind of your 100% mark. So whatever your zones are all set at. So if you’ve got a particular zone where it’s a rotor head and you want it to run for 45 minutes, that’s your 100% 45 minutes. And what I’ve always done is in the hotter months, you go from 100 to, say, 105% or 110% or 120%, meaning that 45 minutes gets time added automatically for the seasonal adjustment. And typically, you can either do that manually, or a lot of the modern clocks, you can even say, I want in August for it to be, you know, starting at the beginning of the year, I want April to be X, I want May to be X, I want June to be X, and so on. It’ll automatically program that. Now, if you don’t have that ability, and you have to manually set your seasonal adjustment, here’s my point. You don’t have to reset every zone’s time manually to lower the time down. So this time of the year, for example, you probably could be at about 90% of the normal settings instead of 100%, meaning we’re going to lower that 45 minutes 10%, meaning it’s going to be down around 40 minutes. Four minutes, roughly, you’re going to shave off. So 41 minutes instead of 45 minutes. And every zone will be similar to that. So this time of the year, I would be running anywhere from 85% to 90%. You can kind of determine where you’re at. We’ve got a little bit of cooler weather coming in next week. So you might even be able to drop down to 75%. You can kind of depend, you know, you can look at your grass and see where you’re at and what your need is and so on. But my point is you can do the seasonal settings right now, lower those down. You don’t need to be at 100% or above this time of the year with our lesser daylight, cooler nighttime temperatures. You can run in that 90, you know, 80 to 90% range and get plenty of water on and you’ll be fine. No, it is not time yet to shut the system off. no not yet your grass trees shrubs all of that still need water we’re still hot enough during the day even today going to be close to 80 degrees you still need water but just not as much as you did in the middle of july for example so that’s one way to do it and if you ever need any help with that you’re even you’re more than welcome to text me a picture of your clock and i can pretty much tell you by the clock you have where that setting is at And I can help you with that. So you’re not going through manually and adjusting every single zone on the time. You just do seasonal settings and change it that way. So just a little reminder right now or in that time of the year where you can be lowering that down. And personally, for me, I don’t shut my system down until I see it getting super cold, below freezing. And I mean below freezing, not 30 degrees. But it’s got to be like 25 degrees or below consistently for me to shut the system down because – typically will still be in the 50s and 60s during the day, and certain plants and trees and so on are going to need water when it’s that warm. So I’ll talk to you about that as we get closer. We’re still probably a month away from even getting to that point, and we’ll figure all of that out. Jerry, though, you’re first today. Go ahead, Jerry.
SPEAKER 07 :
A couple of years ago, I got a ventless propane heater for emergency heat And I don’t have really any other experience messing around with propane. But I had heard a caller to drive radio some years ago. I think the gentleman was a firefighter, and he was warning everybody about the tremendous explosive potential of propane and how they should never store the bottles in a home. And anyway, so I stored, I got three bottles. Propane 20-pound cylinders, and I put them in a little shed out back.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep, good idea.
SPEAKER 07 :
And recently one of them sprung a leak, and I have no idea why. So when I could smell it was leaking, I got my soapy water bottle out and leak tested it, and I found just a very slight leak at the base of the valve. Wow. on the bottle neck. So I just went ahead and vented it all off and extracted the valve. I just wanted to see if I could figure out what had gone wrong. The female threads on the neck of the bottle were just poorly formed. They didn’t have sharp crowns on the thread. But anyway, so now I’m worried about the other two bottles. They’re all from the same manufacturer. I just bought them all at the same time at the same store. So I don’t know if I should distrust those or not.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I’m sure you checked those with soap and water as well, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, there’s no signs of a problem.
SPEAKER 10 :
I wouldn’t worry about it if there’s no leak coming out. You could have just had one particular bottle that something didn’t get done correctly when they threaded that. I mean, who knows, Jerry? That’s not that common to have happen, as you know. I mean, the majority of people out there listening, myself included, I mean, I’ve used multiple propane bottles over the years, Jerry, and seldom do you ever have a problem like that. So I think that’s a one-off.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Is there a particular brand that has a reputation for being higher quality than others?
SPEAKER 10 :
I have no clue, to be honest with you. That is one thing that I – if there’s somebody listening that knows how propane cylinders are made and who makes a better cylinder versus somebody else, I would venture to guess, Jerry, and I don’t know this for sure, but I’ll bet it’s like a lot of other industries. I’ll bet there’s one or two manufacturers total – If it’s in the U.S. here, now out overseas, who knows? But I bet here in the U.S. there’s not that many people making them in the first place. That would be my guess. I mean, I don’t know that for positive, but I would venture to guess that that’s one of those industries where there’s not that many manufacturers.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, probably makes sense.
SPEAKER 04 :
Jerry, how old is your bottles anyway?
SPEAKER 07 :
Two years old. Well, yeah, two years old. So, yeah, and I hadn’t used this bottle, you know, it was just sitting there and sprung a leak, so I don’t understand that exactly, but I guess it… I was glad I had heard that advice on your show years ago, not to ever keep them in the house.
SPEAKER 10 :
And that’s, by the way, you just gave a great testimonial as to why, and I would agree with that one. I’ve never kept any in the house, even in the basement or anything. I’ve always kept them outside. shed, garage, barn, you know, something to that nature. And even in those cases, always keep them where it’s, you know, one of the cooler spots if you can. And, you know, I mean, they’re pretty robust, but, you know, trying to keep things as cool as possible in that particular end of things. And I just did a little bit of a search, you know, Googling on how many tanks, you know, how many different companies there are that make tanks. I can’t tell you. There’s a lot of resellers out there, as you know, Jerry, that actually will resell you bottle and even have a bottle full you know Blue Rhino Flame King on down the line we go but I can’t tell you who actually makes them okay well because I guarantee I would be I would be hard-pressed to believe any of those companies build their own tanks right
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you can always get a defect if it’s made by man.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, no, you’re right. We talk about that on both programs in regards to parts and supplies and different things and so on. Yeah, you are 100% correct, absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Well, I just thought I’d run that by you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Great comment, Jerry. You just gave a testimonial as to why you don’t store those in the house.
SPEAKER 07 :
I appreciate the advice, gentlemen.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you, Jerry. No, appreciate you very much. And I wish I knew that answer. You know, that’s one of those things, Larry, where I’ve never done any research to determine who actually makes propane tanks.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’ve never really put a thought to it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Somebody says that Worthington Industries in Columbus, Ohio is the largest manufacturer of propane tanks, especially the 20-pound tank. So thank you. I figured somebody out there listening would know that’s not something that I really have ever researched. So thank you. So Worthington Industries in Columbus, Ohio, largest manufacturer of propane tanks. So there’s an answer for you, Jerry. That’s probably where the majority of tanks, at least in the U.S., are coming from somebody also said or same person says our sprinklers are scheduled to get shut off on october 21st is that okay i always forget uh what can change in a month yeah and it will it’ll change a lot from even now because today’s the 20th so from now until then uh yeah it’ll change a lot and again it’s just here’s my answer on that There’s no standard answer. Again, for me, I have, depending upon the year, and this is not an exaggeration, I’ve ran my sprinklers all the way to the 1st of December. It depends on what our nighttime temperatures are and what’s going on and so on. Now, even though I’m in that industry and the majority of people have their sprinkler systems blown out, and I’ve talked about this in the past, in general… If you have a newer system that was installed correctly, I’ll be really frank, you don’t need to. You don’t need to. Most modern systems have drain valves. They self-drain. The heads will self-drain if they’ve done the right slopes and so on. And with the poly pipe, and that’s going to be down several inches underneath the ground, typically a foot or more underneath the ground. Our frost line here in Colorado… typically doesn’t run. You know, I mean, it, it runs fairly deep, but not as deep as you think. And that poly pipe is very forgiving. Even if there’s a little bit of water that sits down in the bottom of it, there’s still going to be some head space. It’s not going to be enough to bother anything that poly pipe even will expand, uh, without splitting, uh, especially when it’s down in the dirt because the earth is still somewhat warm. At the end of the day, yes, you do need to go ahead and drain, sometimes blow out, but drain out your backflow valve and all of that. But depending upon your system and how old it is, a lot of people waste a lot of money, not to take anything away from the sprinkler guys, but I’m in that world, so I can attest to this. A lot of people waste a lot of money having sprinklers blown out that they don’t need to. If you’re in a modern house, new or modern house, and everything’s been installed correctly, and what I mean by that is when you turn this, this is the way to test this, when you turn your system on manually, do you hear air coming out of that zone before the sprinkler actually fires? In other words, you manually can either turn the valve on or you do the clock, however you want to do it, and if you hear air getting pushed out, of that zone before the water actually starts to squirt out it’s self-draining and blowing it out as a waste of money because it’s already doing it for you yes you do need to make sure that your backflow and all of that is taken care of but but again believe me when i say this a lot of people spend a lot of money every year to either turn off or turn on their system where you could do the majority of that yourself. And the reality is most people don’t have to blow their systems out, but they do anyways.
SPEAKER 04 :
The biggest problem I’ve heard of sprinkler systems is not so much underground system as the above ground part of it. That’s right. The backflow valves and manifold valves, things like that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Now, if you have an older system and you should know what your house is, There’s a lot of older systems whereby there’s PVC pipe that has been run to each head and things like that. They didn’t use the softer, you know, poly pipe, which we now have, which, by the way, we’ve had now for decades. But there’s a lot of systems that, you know, if you get, you know, wow, I mean, you get, you know, 40, 50 years ago, a lot of those sprinkler systems were run with, you know, PVC. Yeah, you got to be a little more careful there because the PVC isn’t forgiving at all. If it gets hard, you know, if it gets frozen, it will split and crack and you’ll have a leak there. But if you’ve got a modern system that self-drains and has poly pipe and so on, I’ll just be extremely honest with you guys. It doesn’t typically need blown out. Yet, you’ll see guys running around. They do fertilization, aeration, and blowouts. And you know who I’m talking about. I’m not trying to badmouth anybody. But they make a lot of money on something that, quite frankly, most people don’t need in the first place. And that’s out of ignorance. or fear, or a little of both as to why they’re paying to have that service done, and you really don’t need to. And in most cases, with just a teeny bit of knowledge on how, and I talk about this every year, and I will as we get closer, with just a teeny bit of knowledge on how to drain the backflow, that’s all you’d need to do, and you could do it yourself, and you wouldn’t have any issues at all.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I see our cities do the same thing. They’ll blow out their systems. And every time I see it, I’m just shaking my head going, why?
SPEAKER 10 :
A lot of money is wasted doing that. So anyways, we’re going to take a quick break. We’ll come right back here in a moment. Fix-It Radio is our program. That’s our website as well, fixitradio.com. Larry and myself will be right back. This is Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 10 :
And we are back, Fix It Radio, KLZ 560. John, what’s going on? All right, I got a question for you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. You know how you go, you’re building a project, you’re doing some kind of project, you buy a couple of boxes of screws, you got a half a box left. How do you store those when the boxes always fall apart?
SPEAKER 10 :
I don’t even keep them in the box typically. I usually have – and this is what I just spent a bunch of time with all of my dad’s stuff and going through and organizing and so on. Sure. And I’ve gotten to the point now where I do have some old – from my shop days, some of the old metal drawers where you pull them out, lift the lid and that. But I’ve ran out of room in those. So just a few weeks ago, I went to – Home Depot and bought sort of the, I guess I call them tackle boxes, only they’re made for screws and nuts and bolts and fasteners and things like that. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve started putting them in those because if you’ve got a project and you kind of organize all of your fasteners in one type of tackle box versus the other type, in other words, if you’ve got self-drilling screws in one and you’ve got all drywall and wood screws in another and you’ve got regular nuts and bolts in another, if you’ve got a project, you just go pick the tackle box up and go.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, that makes sense. Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
And that’s what I’ve done, John.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, because those boxes notoriously fall apart.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, they’re awful. You’re exactly right. You would think they could build those better where you could reuse those. And if these guys were smart, by the way, if all these screw manufacturers were smart, this is just a tip for them if any of them are listening. John, they should have already had their own storage system whereby their own box would fit into their own storage container system. They would have additional sales from people if they would do what I just said.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, agreed. I’d like to see him in a clear plastic cheap jar container where Here’s your screws. They’re in a container. It’s clear plastic screw on top, you know?
SPEAKER 10 :
And by the way, these tackle boxes I just mentioned to you, that’s basically what these are. They’re clear on top, so you don’t even have to lift the lid to even see what’s inside. You literally, they’re two-sided. And they’re all sealed to where if you fold it over from one side to the other, nothing, you know, they’re all divided up inside, and you can change how your dividers are and so on. But you can actually see inside without even opening the lid.
SPEAKER 05 :
What section of Home Depot did you find them in?
SPEAKER 10 :
Good question, because it’s not where you would think they would be. It’s typically in the very back of the tool section in most Home Depots. It’s right near where the guy that takes your orders, and John left, but I’m sure you’re still listening. It’s right near that area whereby you can do sort of some custom orders for different things. And I think John’s calling back now, or he’s trying anyways. But it’s in that area where you’re right near the desk where you can actually custom order things. I don’t know, whatever. The guy sitting there and he’ll take custom orders for probably doors or windows or whatever. He’s kind of in that area. It’s literally right near where that person that sits at the desk is. If you just go to the tool section and find that desk and then walk down the middle aisle off of the desk, almost every Home Depot I have found, that’s where those are stored. It’s not in the area you would think they would be in. It’s not in the big bulk area where they have all of their other storage containers and so on. These little divider box things that I’m talking about, the tackle boxes, pack outs, all of that, those are all in that one particular area. And it’s towards the back end of the tool area. So that’s where I have found them in Home Depot. Now, where is it at in Lowe’s and some of the other places? I don’t know. You’ll have to go there. I don’t shop. For some reason, I’m a Home Depot guy. Nothing personal against Lowe’s. I’m just a Home Depot guy and find 99% of what I need there. And I don’t typically ever have to go to Lowe’s. And I have a Home Depot that’s closer. Maybe that’s part of it. But I’ve just become… And I’m very accustomed to where… Most everything is. Now, here’s another secret. This is a tip. It’s true, especially with Home Depot. I’m not sure about Lowe’s. But if you ever want to know where there is something at at Home Depot, and sometimes getting somebody to help is tricky, I’ll be the first to admit that. So download the Home Depot app onto your phone. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Android or iPhone. Download the app. Even while you’re in Home Depot, you can pull the app up, you can look for a particular item, and you can even do the search as to in-store only. And if it’s there, it will give you the aisle and bin that it’s in.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that’s the exact same system that the associates use while you’re there.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s exactly right. So you’ve seen those. I’ve seen them. If there’s a question – the other day there was something I literally could not find, and I had left my phone in the car, so I didn’t have – which I don’t rarely ever do. But in this case, I didn’t have it with me, and we did have to ask – a person where it was, and I knew they had it because I had checked prior to leaving. That’s the other thing I always do is if there’s something that I’m looking for specifically, I’ll actually go online before leaving to know if it’s actually in my store or which store is it in that’s near me so I don’t go to the wrong store. and I’ll double-check to make sure it’s there, and there’s more than one, by the way, because if there’s only one, that count could be off. I’ve learned that one. But I will check that before I leave and even look at where the aisle and bin number is. So that’s the other way you can do it is you can always check ahead of time, and it’ll tell you specifically in-store, and it’s in aisle 23, bin 5, or whatever, or row 5. You know what I mean by the bins. They’re all marked, and you can just… It’s like a map.
SPEAKER 04 :
Like a shelf, whatever. That’s right.
SPEAKER 10 :
You just correlate it and off you go. So there are not too many things I can’t just walk in and find because I’ve been in there enough and you sort of memorize where things are. But every now and again, there will be something somewhere. The case of John is a great example. That is one of those where I actually had to ask. I know you have these. I cannot find them. The associate couldn’t either. So we had to go through the process of what Larry just talked about. And he went and grabbed his phone and looked it up and walked me to it. And that’s where I learned where they were. And off we go. Yep. But for me personally, back to John’s question, that’s what I do. I don’t I keep very few screws down. I mean, if I only use a few out of the box and it’s something that I know I’m going to have a lot of, I might keep the box and do it that way. But typically, I’m emptying the box into something else that, to John’s point, isn’t in some flimsy thing that’s going to fall apart. And I’m one of those two. You guys probably already know this by now. I keep an inventory of different things, so you’re not running to the hardware store every time you need something. So I keep an arrangement of metric and fine and coarse and self-tapping screws and panhead screws and sheet metal screws and drywall screws and deck screws and so on. And some of you are thinking, geez, John, how do you keep track of all that stuff? Well, over the years, you just – Charlie’s in there shaking his head – Over the years you just, I don’t know, you just acquire it and I’m one of those where you just acquire the stuff. To John’s point, you buy a box of screws and there’s half a box left, I’m not gonna throw those away. I’ll keep those and save those for later use. I’m not gonna throw them out. And now, like I told you guys all a few weeks ago, as I was going through a lot of the hardware that had been combined from my dad to me, I did go through a lot of things and if it had been used once, If I could tell that there was rust on it, if it looked like the threads had been damaged at all, if the screw head looked like it had been used, yeah, those I got rid of. I went ahead and scrapped all those, gave them to my scrap iron guy, and I got rid of a lot of stuff that way because, yeah, I’ve got more than I needed, and I wasn’t going to keep a bunch of stuff that’s just going to sit around forever. But, yeah, my wife can attest to this. I’m not exaggerating. I probably have as much hardware as a lot of Ace hardware stores do. And I’m not exaggerating because over the years I’ve just collected that many things and probably even have some fasteners and things that they don’t even have. Just because especially coming out of the automotive world, there was a lot of things even there that you just you just Larry would know you just accumulate those things. And I will be the first to tell you organizing some of those things. is one of the most difficult things there is out there because even with everything I’ve got, I will still spend some more time this winter going through and even organizing more because, as you guys all know, all of that stuff takes up space. Everything from a quarter-inch nut and bolt, and keep in mind, it’s not just quarter-inch. It’s a quarter-inch by three-quarter-inch, an inch, an inch and a quarter, an inch and a half. You get the drift. I mean, just because it’s a quarter-inch doesn’t mean there’s only one. In my case, I might have a quarter all the way to a four inch length. And then sometimes that’s that’s about the only time you ever have to go buy something is this isn’t long enough.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER 10 :
So I need a longer. But then you take, you know, quarter five, 16, three, eight, seven, 16, half. You get the drift. I mean, as you start going through every one of those sizes. And you start adding those together, and every one of those needs its own bin, per se, quote, unquote. Yeah, it doesn’t take long to start filling things up. But, again, in my case, when you’re doing a lot of things out in your shop and so on, and in our case we’ve done a lot of classic car rebuilds and things like that, you need a lot of that so you’re not running. Again, you don’t want to run to the hardware store every time you turn around to try to find, in this case, Larry, a fastener.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, one of the things I’ve done over the years is because I would get a lot of these plastic containers with the shelves in them. Oh, yeah. And that’s great. But the problem is you have to pull each shelf out to see what’s in them. So I decided I would take whatever’s in that shelf. I glued it to the front of the shelf.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, that’s a good idea.
SPEAKER 04 :
So that way I can just look at the front of the shelf and I can see what’s in it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Somebody also texted in and said Lowe’s has exactly the same sort of system that I was mentioning with Home Depot. So those of you that are because of location or whatever, if you have to go to Lowe’s instead of Home Depot, they have the exact same situation. Somebody said, how are you keeping your sprinkler backflow valve from freezing when it’s below 32? it won’t be enough to freeze that completely. I mean, you’ve got to get down into the low 20s to really freeze that solid enough to where things expand and really start being a factor. Now, on that same token, You can take a big chunk of fiberglass insulation, and now they make things like this, but you can make your own. Just take a big old chunk of insulation and get a trash bag and wrap your backflow with a big chunk of insulation and some duct tape. and tie all that around to where it’s all nice and insulated, and then put a big trash bag over it, and you’ll be good down into the low 20s with no problem whatsoever. It will not freeze at that point, and that’s one of the tricks that you can do on a sprinkler system if you’re trying to still use your system and keep the backflow from freezing. Now, when you start getting into the teens, yeah, you probably ought to have the system drained. Now, as I’ve done numerous times, still do at my current house. I will go ahead and drain all of that to make sure that there’s no water in that end of things. But if we get into the Indian summer days of, say, December or January, and we get a week where it’s 70 degrees, I’ll water. And people think I’m crazy. I’m not. uh it’s how you keep especially your trees your trees will need some water if it gets to be where it’s 70 degrees during the day for any length of time you need to do what we call winter watering and in some cases the easiest way to do that is to fire your sprinkler system back up another reason why i’m not a huge believer in blowing your system out because there might be some times where you go ahead and turn things back on you might water during that day and yes that night if it gets cold enough you’re going to have to drain your backflow valve and so there’s a little bit of work here but Yes, you can do that, and keep in mind, there’s a lot of times even in January where we might only get into the high 20s, low 30s. Well, in that case, you could run your sprinkler system, leave it alone, not worry about it, and have no issues whatsoever, especially if you wrap it with insulation like I just said. So, again, I’m one of those to where I will do some winter watering and – For obvious reasons, because in certain cases you might say, well, gosh, why is this tree dying or why is this shrub dead as you get into the springtime? Why is it not coming back? It probably didn’t get enough water. And for some of you where that tree shrub and so on might be on the south side of your house, whereby it’s getting a lot more sun, especially in the winter months. And you definitely need to be either hand watering or making sure you’re getting, you know, however you want to do it, hand watering your drips on whatever the case may be. You’ve got to make sure you’re getting some water to some of those plants or you could end up with, you know, with some with some dead trees, bushes, things like that as you get back in, especially if you’ve planted some new stuff. So let’s say you put some new stuff in this summer and you put in a new tree. or you put in some new bushes or whatever. Those especially this winter, you’ll need to make sure that you’re keeping some moisture in those plants. Otherwise, next spring, you might find yourself with some issues. Now, if we get enough moisture, we get enough snow, and it’s one of those types of winters, you wouldn’t have any issues. You’d be just fine. But in Colorado, here’s the thing. We don’t know what we’re going to get. i don’t care what any news company says i don’t care what you know the weather station says i don’t i don’t care what the almanac says i mean at the end of the day it is what it is and even here in the front range you know we have a wide listening audience by the way we go from nebraska all the way down to new mexico all the way east out to kansas down to the panhandle Oklahoma, Texas. I mean, every one of those areas is different and could have different moisture throughout the year. So I try to not make blanket statements because every one of you listening is in a different area and even along the front range here. We could have an area down south that gets very little snow or gets a ton of snow. We could have areas up north, same thing. They could get a little bit of snow. They could get a ton of snow. So depending upon how much moisture you get has a lot to do with what you need to do with winter watering, and that’s where you just need to be looking at your plants. You know, there’s one of those things where in the middle of winter, even on those warmer days, you don’t – I hate to say this, but you do the walk around, go outside, look around. What are all your trees and everything look like? What are your bushes and shrubs look like? If you feel like you need to do a little bit of watering, then go ahead and do so. You’re never going to hurt anything by watering in the winter. Now, if the frost line is, you know, we’ve got really frozen ground and it’s been a hard winter and it’s been super cold. Yeah. In that case, the water is probably not going to do a whole lot. But frankly, that’s not typical for us in the front range here.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re not going to need water anyway.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you. At that point, you will not need water. That’s exactly right, Larry. But again, you guys, this is one of those things where you know your area, you know your house, you know your bushes and shrubs and grass and so on, and just do what you need to do. Somebody also said that I have several old metal note card file drawers that I put my sort of – you know what? Those work really well, too. They put assorted hardware and so on in. Yeah, those work great. And a lot of those – and this particular person said you can find a lot of those things at your secondhand stores. Salvation Army, Goodwill, ARC, places like that because people will get rid of those things. Yeah, get creative. There’s all sorts of things that you can store – uh the items that john was talking about i have just found on the items that you use regularly the tackle box style clear lid boxes i think work really well because when you’re gonna go do a job and you’re not sure exactly what screw you might need you just grab the whole box And if you know, okay, I know I’m going to need some wood screws. Okay, so grab your wood screw box and head out to whatever your job is and you’ve got everything you need with you. You take that and your screw gun and voila, you’re not making trips back and forth because you pretty much have everything with you. Now, when it comes to some of the larger hardware, nuts, bolts, flat washers, lock washers, all of that kind of stuff, yeah, okay, you typically know what you’re going to need there. Put that stuff in a bin if you want or drawer, however you want to do this and bottom line is you can do all of this relatively inexpensively there are fancy expensive systems out there to do everything I’m talking about and if you’re somebody that wants to go ahead and do all of that and spend the money guess what knock your socks off you’ll get no criticism from me doing so but most people myself included I’m not willing to spend a you know a boatload of money just to store different things in. So I’m going to do more of what this particular person is saying and find different types of uses for other things I might already have kicking around. And in my case, fortunately, you know, did enough time in the automotive industry to where he ended up with some extra storage space things over the years and i was able to grab some of those things throughout the years and you know you get you get this company to donate one one or two drawers to you or whatever the case may be and those things work really well if you’ve got any of the pull out metal you know cabinetry we call it or metal shelving i don’t i don’t know what you call those things bin boxes whatever if you’ve got the ability to have some of those yeah they work fabulous all right i did a really great interview on tuesday that i was really trying to do on saturday during this program especially because it’s a particular company that helps you with figuring out whether the bids that you’re getting for a remodel for example are in line and it’ll even do all of the comparison for you as to okay company a b and c well a might be one price but it’s because they’re doing xyz and b might be one price and c might be one price and what this tool does it’s an app using ai it takes all of those bids and deciphers for you exactly what each one is and does your cost comparison and gives you an idea of who’s your better deal here. In other words, are you comparing apples to apples when you do the bids, or is one guy giving you apples and the other one’s giving you oranges? So this particular thing will do that. We’re going to take a break. We’ll come back. We’ll play that for you in a moment. This is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 10 :
All right, let’s take Joe before I actually play that interview. Joe, go ahead.
SPEAKER 12 :
John, I know you need 12 minutes. I’ll try to be quick. One, for small parts storage, two things. You can buy a rack in Home Depot, whatever. It’s a steel rack that accepts these open-faced bins that you can clip on and take off. So for my larger things like big nails, big screws, bolts, I’ve got this. And you can get those little plastic. They’re open-faced bins. And you can get them different widths, different lengths. You can get short ones, you know, a three-inch one, a six-inch one. So I’ve got an assortment on my rack. For the really tiny stuff, like little tiny machine screws and whatnot, I’ve got one of these plastic cabinets. It’s got clear plastic pull-out drawers. It’s probably got, it’s probably eight by, it’s probably got 64 little drawers in it. I’ve got that bolted to the wall as well, so you can look right through it and Okay, yeah, this is washers, this is screws and whatnot. So those are the two things I use for, again, larger parts in the open bin and the small parts in the plastic pull-out drawers. And you’re right, you just pull the plastic drawer, take it with you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep. And just as a side note, and some of you probably would already say this, there’s a lot of the companies now, Milwaukee, they have their packouts. DeWalt has a, those are, by the way, those are extremely nice. My kids have bought me a few of those for different presents throughout the years for, you know, Father’s Day, birthdays, whatever, Joe. I love those, but they are not cheap.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yep. No, but, uh, if, but if you’re going to do a lot, if you’re a handyman, you could do a lot of work.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, they worked perfect for that. Absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 12 :
Another thing real quick, uh, um, you know, I’ve got this really big driveway and I think I called in a couple of weeks about doing some crack filling. And we were thinking about having it repaved at some point and we’d gotten some quotes around $12,000. Well, the other day there’s the guys paving my neighbor’s driveway. Guy comes, knocks on my door about 12 o’clock. He said, Hey, I noticed you got some cracks in your driveway. He said, uh, I’ve got nothing to do for my guys this afternoon, so if you want to let me pave your driveway, I’ll give you a really good price. And I said, well, you got a business card? I said, let me have your business card and check back with me in 30 minutes. So I go online, check them out. They’ve been in business 15 years. Great customer reviews, blah, blah, blah. And he’s got all the right equipment. He’s got the big hot, the machine that lays down the hot asphalt with the burners in it. He’s got the rollers, you know, to press it down. So he comes back over. I said, okay. are you going to rotomill it off or just put an overlay? So I’m going to put a scratch coat down. He says, first, we’re going to jackhammer out all those cracks and widen them so we can fill them. Jackhammer out your cracks, tamp it down. He’s got one of these man-guided mechanized tampers. And then we’re going to put a two-inch. I said, what are you going to do? I said, two inches. Right now, everything is flush with my driveway garage lips, my block patio, and my block sidewalk. He said, no. He said, we will jackhammer out 18 inches between each one of those areas so that we have a transition because we’re going to put two inches of new. And I said, well, how much? And he said, $8,500. And I said, make it $7,000 and you have a deal. Do it, yeah. And he looked around and he said, okay, deal. Perfect. Because he had nowhere for his guys to go.
SPEAKER 10 :
Perfect. Good way to do it.
SPEAKER 12 :
Beautiful job. But I wouldn’t have done it had I not taken the time to check.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep, that’s a good one to do, Joe. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Good stuff, Joe. Appreciate it very much. Okay, we’re going to play that interview next. Stay tuned. We’ll come back right after that. John Grishpole joining us now. John, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 13 :
I’m doing well.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thanks for having me. No, I appreciate it. You are with Great Builds, and you guys have a new free AI-powered tool that helps people compare bids when it comes to having things done around the house. Talk about it.
SPEAKER 14 :
That’s exactly it. I’ve been in the industry. My company, Great Builds, matches homeowners with contractors. In my time, when we started the business, we thought that the most important thing was just vetting contractors. We fully focused on finding the best of the best, thoroughly evaluating, speaking with references, doing background checks. all the important stuff to see if a contractor is good or not. But it turns out there’s one other major, major issue, and it’s that the average homeowner doesn’t know how to read a bid. They don’t know how to interact with contractors. So time and time again, I get clients come in to me and they say, hey, look, I got three bids. They look completely different. The numbers are totally different. They have varying levels of detail or clarity. Now what? What do I do? How do I pick which contractor is the right fit? So for years, this is a manual process that my in-house team has been helping clients with, evaluating bids, lining them up side by side so that they can truly be evaluated apple to apple. And over the past few years, I’ve been very closely following the AI space, and I’ve always been a big tech nerd trying to figure out how I can use it in my everyday life. And this was just a no brainer. So I created a tool that does everything that I would normally do to compare bids. And it does it automatically and it does it with AI and it sends it right to the homeowner.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, John, for the homeowner, is there a lot of data entry that they have to do or is it pretty user friendly?
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s simple. You hop into the website. You upload the bids that you received from the contractor. Typically, they come to you in a PDF file that they email to you. Just take that file, upload it to the tool, and put in your name and email so I have somewhere to send it to you. And it can currently work with anywhere between two and four bids.
SPEAKER 10 :
So it makes it very, to Andy’s point, fairly simple. Not fairly simple. It makes it very simple.
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s as easy as it gets. And frankly, all the homeowner needs to do is upload the bids and then wait a few minutes for the system to do its magic. And the whole point is to bring more clarity to the space. So it doesn’t just line up the bid side by side, but it also gives you an analysis. It helps you understand this bid is higher because of X, Y, and Z. This other bid is missing some of these details, so you should go back to your contractor and clarify these things with them so you can really, truly line up your bid side by side.
SPEAKER 03 :
How does it discern between all the variables? Because, I mean, you’re going to have various companies that are going to offer services that are totally different from other companies.
SPEAKER 14 :
That’s very true. So first and foremost, it understands what the scope is. It understands what type of project it is, whether it’s a kitchen remodel, a bathroom remodel, a full home gut project, whatever it is. By evaluating all the bids that were submitted, it’s able to identify and fully understand what type of project it is, what should typically be involved in that type of project, and set up the comprehensive scope of work based on that.
SPEAKER 10 :
You’re doing – I have another program on Saturdays called Drive Radio I’ve done for years, John, where it’s an automotive program. That’s my background. People call in with car questions and so on. And offline, in a lot of cases, I will have people say, hey, I’m looking to have XYZ repair done. I’ve got a couple of different options here. Which one of these – I’m getting all these different prices. What’s really going on? You’re essentially doing for the homeowner what I do with people, manually speaking, on car repair.
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. It’s the exact same problem. I mean, I started it for contractors about six years ago, but every time I talk to someone, they say the exact same thing. Either, I wish I heard about you six months ago, or, man, we need this for the automotive industry. We need this for the insurance industry, for the medical industry. There’s so many avenues that we have so many options.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
Reading Google and reading reviews online is not enough to identify the right option specifically for you.
SPEAKER 10 :
No, it’s not. You’re right. Really quick before Andy jumps in, if you ever get to the point where you want to do something on the automotive side, definitely reach out. I would love to chat because I do think there’s a big need on that front. There’s been some other companies that have tried to do some things, but quite frankly, John, there’s not a really solid solution like what you guys have with what you’re doing with great builds. And for all of you listening, it’s Bid Compare AI. Go ahead, Andy.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, John, does your AI also balance in reviews, online review scores for the various bidders?
SPEAKER 14 :
It does not, not currently. I have a running list of things I would like to add to it. That is certainly one of them because you hit the nail on the head. One of the, where I started truly is it’ll tell you which bid’s better. It’ll tell you which bid might be suspiciously low because but it is not evaluating the contractor for you. So I’ve written some really great content around it. That’s what my entire business is based on, just very clear, thorough contractor screening. And there’s some that is tangible, like reading reviews online, although not all those reviews are honest or legitimate. And sure, a system can verify a license, confirm that it’s active, identify that a contractor has insurance. But there’s a lot of the intangibles that’s really important to evaluate when considering a contractor. So I haven’t found the right way to fully automate that just yet. But trust me, work in progress.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, if my wife had this, she wouldn’t have fallen for my pickup line. What was that? I don’t remember. I’m just saying, you know, I wouldn’t have been able to con her into going out with me.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I hear you. Here locally, John, one of the things that I’ve run into, and I’ve had some people that have reached out to me, and I’ve even done some shows on this particular problem, and I don’t know if this is happening nationwide, but here in the Denver market, in the front range here, we’re encountering what I call third-party providers, whereby – They’re listing their services on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, and they act like they’re a genuine, quote-unquote, contractor, but they’re nothing more than a broker that is assembling people to go out and try to do work for individuals, none of which are probably licensed, insured, or what have you. The broker is handling the transaction, but it’s being done by another party. The warranty gets really flaky at that time.
SPEAKER 14 :
out sure so yeah we call that the home improvement company if you will yeah you know I’m not I’m not sure if it would be able to weed those out like I said it will identify if a bid is suspiciously low for what is for that type of project okay and certainly you have three or more options it’s much easier to be the odd one out um but it really just judges based on the quality of the proposal um as you guys know some bids might have 10 paragraphs and one number at the bottom for the price right other bids they have every single wine item called out so frankly at the end of the day there’s no right or wrong every contractor has their own reason to why they prepare their bids in their own way but really the point of this tool is to just help people understand Is this a comprehensive bid? Is this bid too low because half of the scope is missing? What materials are included? What are allowances? What is the homeowner responsible for? Those types of things. So, again, it’s not so good just yet at telling you if it’s a good or a bad contractor. It’s really good at telling you, is it a good or a bad bid?
SPEAKER 10 :
Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. And by the way, awesome. I appreciate this. I will definitely take this episode that we’re doing today. I’ll replay that on my Saturday program because this is great information for everybody that needs things done around the house, especially when it gets into some of these larger problems. And I guess that was my next question before I asked my last question, which is where do we get this at? But before I get into that, will this do any type of job? Let’s say, for example, somebody’s calling out a plumber and they’re trying to get a water heater replaced. Can you use it for something small or is it just those large projects?
SPEAKER 14 :
That’s a great question. So my company, Great Builds, we primarily only work with general contractors. So when I built the tool initially, the goal was for it to work for large scale projects like a full scale remodel or new construction. That said, I’ve had some people test it with smaller projects, just a small plumbing repair, some electrical work. It can still work. At the end of the day, it reads what’s in the bids and it compares them. So regardless, and it currently has helped a few clients that have used it for an architecture bid as well. So it doesn’t necessarily need to be construction. I’m curious, it actually might just work as is for your application in the auto industry. So I’m happy for that. But yeah, at the end of the day, it knows well enough how to read the documents, how to understand what they say and what the project is all about, and then puts them side by side and helps you understand, you know, simplify all the jargon that contractors may like to use in their bid and help homeowners, the average person like you or like me at least, really understand what’s going on in this bid.
SPEAKER 10 :
Awesome.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think helping them navigate the jargon is probably the biggest thing.
SPEAKER 10 :
I agree. Okay. How do folks get a hold of it, John?
SPEAKER 14 :
So my website is great build.com G R E A T B U I L D Z.com. That’s the website where I currently have it available. I’ve got a pop up on the page. You can see it all over the place on the website and, If it picks up, if it kicks off and people love it, I may turn it into its own website. Again, it’s a totally free service. I’m not trying to make money off of this. It’s just really something I created for my team because we’ve spent so many hours doing this work manually ourselves. And I’m happy to share it with anyone who can benefit from it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I appreciate you taking time out of your day. And, again, I will be replaying this on our Saturday program as well. And let’s stay in touch, John. I think this is great. I think it’s great for, A, the space that I’m in and all the different things that we try to do as radio programs and helping. We’ve literally been on Saturdays helping the motoring public for about 25 years. So I’m all for doing whatever we can to help people end up with a better job, whether it’s car, home, whatever, when it’s all said and done. Nothing worse than seeing people get ripped off.
SPEAKER 14 :
I completely agree. I’m right there with you. I thought I was getting into the industry of finding contractors for people, but really I’m in the helping industry. Everything that we do within our business and everything else is helping people and primarily helping innocent homeowners. avoid a nightmare. So same thing applies to anyone who’s innocent, who deserves to be treated fairly.
SPEAKER 10 :
Awesome. John, again, I appreciate it greatly. Thank you for taking time. I know I said it would be about, you know, 12 or 13 minutes. You’ve been five minutes longer. So I appreciate your time. Very grateful for it and appreciate what you’re doing. Keep up the great work, sir.
SPEAKER 13 :
Thank you, guys. Thanks for the opportunity.
SPEAKER 10 :
You’re very welcome, John. I appreciate it. And again, it’s greatbuilds.com. The tool is there. That was John Grishpul, G-R-I-S-H-P-U-L. He is the co-CEO of that company. And that was that interview that I said I would play. And again, folks, utilize that tool so that you can know exactly, especially when it comes to some of your larger projects, you’re going to put in addition, you’re getting the basement redone, you’re doing a bathroom remodel, whatever the case may be. utilize that service that he has to determine you know whose bid is what what am I actually getting is somebody doing more than what really I even needed how does it compare to the next bit and so on so it’s a great tool and sounds to me like he may very well expand that into some other areas and and I get it some of you that are listening you can already you know you already know what to read you know what to look at and so on some of you are very you know inclined that way but The reality is not a lot of people are. And some of you out there where you’re deciding, you know, what contractor do I use? And I’m a big one on getting more than one bid to do this. And in that particular case, there’s a tool for you where you can actually check out and see exactly what each bid is and how they compare to one another. And. And, again, I really appreciated his time this past week in talking to us and utilize that particular website. It’s greatbuilds, Z at the end, greatbuilds.com, and utilize that. And if you do, by the way, let me know, and I’ll pass that on to John as well. So if you end up using that and it ends up working out well. Let us know. One last thing, and Larry and I were just talking about this while that interview was playing. Don’t forget, it’s that time of the year also where we’ll close with this. Joe was just talking about his driveway and the asphalt and so on. Some of you have concrete driveways or sidewalks. Be looking at all of those. Do you have any huge, wide cracks that you need to get taken care of? You need to get filled in. You may have even some of your seams where they’ve gotten to be a lot larger gap. And I’ll tell you what we’ll do because we’re running out of time today. That is one thing that, because we’ve still got plenty of time left to get those things done. Larry and I will bring some tips for you because we’re going to try some things this week. Larry and I both are. We’ll bring some tips back to you next week on what products work best for whatever you’re doing to fill in some of those cracks in your driveway or asphalt. We’ll come back with that next week. So, guys, have a great rest of your day. We’ll be back here in just a moment. Thank you for listening. This is Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 08 :
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.
