To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/sbkwkInH1xg
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry discuss the problems that come with aging galvanized steel drain pipes. Reuben shares a story about a severely clogged kitchen drain at his rental property and explains why replacing old galvanized pipes during a remodel can prevent bigger and more expensive problems later.
They also discuss water heater anode rods, appliance age decoding, and the growing use of AI by home inspectors. After testing several AI tools to determine the age of his furnace, Reuben finds inconsistent results, reinforcing an important reminder: AI can be useful, but inspectors should always verify important information before sharing it with clients.
Here’s the link to Inspector Empire Builder: https://www.iebcoaching.com/events
Learn how to determine the age of common household appliances with Structure Tech’s Appliance Ages guide:
https://structuretech.com/appliance-age/
Takeaways
Galvanized steel drains corrode internally, allowing buildup to restrict or completely block water flow.
Chemical drain cleaners can damage the protective zinc coating on galvanized pipes and worsen deterioration.
Severely deteriorated galvanized drains may need replacement rather than repeated attempts at cleaning.
Remodeling is an ideal time to replace old galvanized pipes while walls and finished surfaces are already open.
Homeowners with galvanized steel drains should plan on eventually replacing them as they reach the end of their serviceable life.
Anode rods help protect water heater tanks from corrosion, and replacing them when needed can extend the life of the water heater.
Anode rod lifespan and accessibility vary depending on the water heater and water conditions.
Appliance and HVAC equipment ages can often be determined using manufacturer serial numbers and age-decoding resources.
Building Intelligence Center and Swift Reporter are useful resources for determining equipment age.
Reuben tested several AI tools to determine his furnace’s age and received inconsistent results.
Some deeper-thinking AI modes provided correct answers after quicker responses gave incorrect information.
AI can confidently provide inaccurate information, so home inspectors should verify important details before including them in reports or sharing them with clients.
Chapters
02:29 Inspector Empire Builder and AI Tools
09:40 Reuben’s Clogged Kitchen Sink Story
10:42 Problems With Galvanized Steel Drains
12:04 Drain Cleaners and Galvanized Pipes
14:34 Replacing the Galvanized Drain Pipe
20:00 When to Replace Galvanized Steel Drains
23:06 Water Heater Anode Rod Maintenance
26:46 Powered Anode Rods
28:37 Bradford White Anode Rod Design
30:32 Decoding Water Heater Manufacturing Dates
35:00 Determining the Age of Appliances and Equipment
35:31 Equipment Age-Decoding Resources
37:00 Testing AI to Determine Furnace Age
39:19 Comparing Different AI Tools
39:49 Why You Shouldn’t Always Trust AI
41:04 Reuben and Tessa’s AI Tool Preferences
42:18 The Benefits and Concerns Around AI
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.26)
Welcome back to the show. Tessa, how are you doing today?
Tessa Murry (00:06.484)
Okay, Ruben. I’m just I’m chuckling because right before we recorded, you’re like, hey, Tessa, looks like you got a bit of a breeze there. I realized my hair is flying. I’m having a little Beyonce moment. I am so hot all the time. I’m 39 weeks and one day pregnant and, you know, it down in Florida and it’s just I cannot get cool. So I have this cute little fan that I’ve been carrying with me everywhere. It’s just point.
Reuben Saltzman (00:21.454)
Ha ha.
Reuben Saltzman (00:30.766)
It’s so adorable. Is that rechargeable?
Tessa Murry (00:36.062)
It is. Yes. It’s got a USB C port on the back and yeah, it’s just you just plug it in, charge it and it’s got three different speeds. You can, you know, bend the legs and and wrap it around anything and portable. So it’s it’s my new best friend. It goes with me everywhere.
Reuben Saltzman (00:39.734)
Okay, nice. All right.
Reuben Saltzman (00:46.029)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (00:52.47)
Have you seen those neck fans people wear?
Tessa Murry (00:55.816)
Yes. Maybe I need to get one of those.
Reuben Saltzman (00:57.432)
Okay. You might like I mean, ’cause it it that’s really portable. I’ve never tried one, but I’ve seen a lot of people wearing them. And it’s like, well, they must be on to something. I don’t know. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (01:06.926)
That’s that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll try one of those. But you know, we’re we’re the due date’s coming up. actually usually we record these podcasts on Thursdays and that is Baby Callum’s due date next Thursday. So this will officially be probably my last podcast for a little while.
Reuben Saltzman (01:26.198)
Yes, yes. We’re gonna we’re gonna have you take a little bit of maternity leave, some well-deserved maternity leave. We’re gonna have Eric step in for you and and whether the baby’s here or not, we’re just gonna we’re gonna plan it so it’s not a big surprise. this will be Tessa’s last podcast for I don’t know, you know, maybe a week or two we’re gonna give you. We’ll be generous. That should be plenty. Yeah, yeah, no big deal.
Tessa Murry (01:30.222)
Sorry.
Tessa Murry (01:41.099)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (01:47.166)
Yeah, I you know, I should be back, I’d say in about seven days, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (01:53.359)
May or maybe even a little more. Who knows? Yeah.
Tessa Murry (01:56.557)
Well, you know, I do f I feel for a lot of women out there that, you know, their work does not allow maternity leave or they only get like, you know, two weeks or something like that. I can’t imagine having to go back to work immediately after giving birth. So I’m I’m lucky that I, you know, I’m self employed and I can kind of take the time off and come back when I’m when I’m ready. But I
Reuben Saltzman (02:10.552)
Can’t imagine. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (02:20.854)
I love doing this podcast. I love doing my consulting and so expect to see me kind of popping in here and there, hopefully sooner rather than later. So we’ll see. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:29.678)
Love it. Love it. All right. Well, before we get too far, I just want to give a shout out to our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder. They provide coaching and training and business systems for home inspectors. And this is not learning how to inspect a house. This is learning how to run your business, how to do all the stuff you need to do to not lose your mind.
As a business owner, and it’s it’s tailored for home inspectors. I mean, what more could you possibly want as a business owner? And one of my favorite things we do is the the monthly AI calls. once a month we have a call that’s devoted just to AI, how home inspectors are using this in their business, and we’re gonna touch on some of that in today’s podcast, too. So love my friends over at Inspector Empire Builder, appreciate all the help they give us. But
Tessa Murry (03:22.978)
Nice.
Reuben Saltzman (03:29.39)
today, tests. I thought we’d do a little bit of story time that might transition into a blog post or two, and that’s gonna transition into some AI talk as well. I I see the path where all this is going today. So
Tessa Murry (03:48.416)
Well, I love a little I love a little Reuben’s story time. I can’t wait to hear what you what you have to share.
Reuben Saltzman (03:55.023)
Cool, cool. but before we get too far into that, Tessa, it how’s the baby’s room? Kellen’s room, Kellum, Kellum, K-E-L-U-M, right? Or am I okay. Is it all set to go? C-A-L-U-M.
Tessa Murry (04:05.154)
Yeah.
Yes, Cowan. Mm-hmm. See it’s C A L U Yeah.
Tessa Murry (04:15.116)
C-A-L-U-M. Yeah. Baby count. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s, you know, I think it’s about as ready as we can be. I just put the sheets on the crib and the bassinet yesterday. we’ve we’ve got all of his little clothes folded and put away. Thank goodness my sister came down from Minnesota for a weekend to help me with that project because I had so many baby clothes from baby showers. I had one in Minnesota, one in Florida.
Reuben Saltzman (04:16.502)
Okay, got it. All right. All right. Got it.
Tessa Murry (04:43.298)
And then my sister has two little boys. So I just had mountains of baby clothes everywhere. So she helped me wash them, sort them, fold them, put store them. and I I’m feeling I’m feeling about as ready as I can be in that department. So I think we’re good to go.
Reuben Saltzman (04:59.458)
Good, good. Do you have a bag packed?
Tessa Murry (05:03.758)
You know what, Ruben? I’ve always been a bit of a procrastinator. I have things set out that I know I want to take, but I’ll have to kind of wait and throw everything together when it’s time to go because some of the things I’m using, like, you know, daily daily using.
Reuben Saltzman (05:11.266)
Uh-huh.
Reuben Saltzman (05:16.054)
No. No. I’m sorry. No, I’m sorry. Yeah, I’m n nope, you can’t do that. You need to have a pack to I need I need you to pack it today, Tess. I’m sorry.
Tessa Murry (05:27.182)
You know, I’ve got I’ve got the suitcase ready and I’ve got the stack of things that go in it close to it. It’s just, you know, it’s the everyday, day-to-day things that have to go in last minute. So I’m pr I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’m feeling pretty good. I’m not stressed. yes. There are definite snacks. Yes. What do you recommend in that department? Because you’ve been through this before. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (05:39.926)
Okay. All right. Do you have do you have some food packed? Okay. Okay. All right.
I anything. Anything is better than nothing. When my son was born, I had no food to bring. And I went for like a day without food. And I was a basket case. And I got no I don’t know, no sympathy from anybody. It was like shut up.
Tessa Murry (06:08.278)
I’m sure not. I’m sure not, Ruben. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, we’ve got lots of snacks packed. I think we’re good to go. Got the car seat ready. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (06:10.643)
You’re not giving birth. Yeah. So I
Yeah. Okay. All right. You’re good. All right. Awesome. And any I I assume you’re not doing any home projects right now. Yeah, I’m like, you’re just you’re hanging out.
Tessa Murry (06:29.77)
Actually, the nesting has hit strong. I have been organizing and reorganizing lots of things and I I recently just bought it like a a mobile kitchen cart thing from Amazon and I was gonna assemble that after the podcast.
Reuben Saltzman (06:46.19)
Good for you, Tess. Good for you. Love it.
Tessa Murry (06:50.666)
It is a little difficult bending down and doing projects like that and getting down and up. but you know, moving around and staying mobile is I think good for me at this point too. So, ’cause exercise outside is like out of the question. except, you know, evening and morning. Although there’s now there’s dengue, what is this? The mosquitoes are diseased in Florida. And so, going outside is always a risk too, because they love me. so it’s either, you know, cover myself in bug spray or, you know.
Reuben Saltzman (07:16.674)
Great.
Tessa Murry (07:20.35)
Drake myself in long sleeves and pants when it’s eighty five out. So not pleasant. Not pleasant. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (07:24.254)
Neither sounds great. Yeah. Okay. Alright. No, I no I’m asking what’s what’s going on at your house. Wanna make sure we’re not missing any good projects. Cause I I I was gonna talk about one that huh?
Tessa Murry (07:30.272)
Anyway, sorry, we got off topic there.
Tessa Murry (07:39.543)
Nothing too crazy. Nothing too crazy. I will mention there needs to be some new weather stripping put on the door, which that’s a tough one for me to get down there. So I’m gonna have Andrew do that. We had a couple wolf spiders show up on our house in the last week. We haven’t had any spiders until we had the most massive wolf spider show up. Like two weeks in a row, we had we had them back to back. And I tell you, I’m not a spider fan.
I can handle snakes, I can handle bugs, I can handle that kind of thing. But spiders no. And it was the size of my hand. It took up the entire baseboard and then some. And I killed one, Andrew killed the other, but there was a hunt that ensued where he had to tear apart the office to get it because they’re so fast and they hide in the cracks, and so he had to move everything and chase it down when he was done.
Reuben Saltzman (08:25.568)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (08:34.7)
The bookcase was away from the wall, the chair was pulled out, everything was moved. eventually yelling from the office and cursing. Eventually he got it. But they are disturbingly large.
Reuben Saltzman (08:49.632)
I’m looking at pictures of right now and that is that is ridiculous.
Tessa Murry (08:53.294)
yeah. They look Yeah, if you don’t know what a wolf spider looks like, just picture a tarantula and shrink it down a little bit. it’s brown, it’s fuzzy, it’s big. It will you need you need a you know s a shoe or something to get it ’cause I would never use my I’d be too freaked out to use my hand. It’s too c too big.
Reuben Saltzman (09:15.154)
yeah, no, no, no way. And it’s got a face almost like a baboon or something.
Tessa Murry (09:18.166)
I used my flip flop on on the one I killed. Yeah, they’re they’re creepy. They’re really creepy. In Florida, they are bigger. I’ve I’ve seen wolf spiders up where we are, Ruben, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but the ones down here are next level.
Reuben Saltzman (09:31.616)
Okay. All right. Yeah, you you keep I we don’t need any more. Wow.
Tessa Murry (09:34.638)
I missed having a hard frost. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (09:40.526)
No doubt.
All right. so couple quick things. Well, they’re they’re not quick. Little little story time. So we got this rental property, and we got a call saying the kitchen sink drain is clogged. Sent my pops out there. He’s like, Yep, it’s not the trap. Took it apart. it’s totally clean. You gotta send a snake down there. So then I come out to the property later.
Tessa Murry (09:54.509)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (10:07.126)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (10:13.772)
I’ve got my drain auger, you know, my power drain auger. It’s one that it’s good for smaller drains. And it’s it’s kind I’ve I got it stuck. Like the it’s it’s a steel drain going into the wall, and the cable kind of stuck because it ran into a lot of obstructions, and then the cable snapped on me. So my cable snaps in the drain. Luckily, I was able to pull it out, but I was not able to clean it out. And I go down to the basement.
Tessa Murry (10:24.366)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (10:32.246)
no.
Tessa Murry (10:39.01)
Mm.
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (10:42.634)
And I see it’s all galvanized steel. And you know, galvanized steel isn’t used anymore because it corrodes on the inside, rust forms, and then it gets this really rough surface on the inside with all these rust warts, basically. And then you get hair and grease and soap scum and all this stuff that builds up on there, and it just gets so impacted that at at a at some point.
Tessa Murry (10:44.142)
Almost your place. Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (10:54.574)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:01.186)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (11:12.096)
It just there’s there ain’t nothing getting through it. And I I go down in the basement and there’s a clean out hole down in the basement. I took the clean out plug off of the clean out hole and it’s like, I mean, it is just it looks like I’m looking at the inside at the outside of another pipe. It is so hard, so calcified. I took a screwdriver and I had to chip away at it just to make a hole, and then all this black sludge started coming out of there.
And I just went, yeah, there ain’t no cleaning this. I mean, I I had somebody comment on our Facebook page, who’s a plumber, he said, you probably could have cleaned that. And I thought, well, maybe you could have cleaned it. there’s no way I would have been able to get through this even with a powered drain auger and a brand new cable. I mean, it was gross. So
Tessa Murry (11:42.315)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (11:46.584)
No.
Tessa Murry (12:04.622)
Or like the stuff you buy, like C L R or what it what’s drain cleaners, draino. No hope for that, huh? It’s not gonna eat away the pipe.
Reuben Saltzman (12:10.936)
Draino, yeah. well, and it that would eat away the pipe, pretty much. for for all those drain openers, most of them are a very strong base. There’s one that’s a very strong acid. Santines. Santien’s drain cleaner is a strong acid. I think that’s muratic. I can’t remember which kind of acid, but it’s an acid.
Tessa Murry (12:27.19)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (12:32.344)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (12:40.492)
Most of them are bases. Either one is going to destroy the lining on your galvanized steel drain. See it it’s a steel pipe, but then they dip it in zinc. It’s this hot dip zinc coating, and that process is called the galvanization process. Now it’s galv it’s a galvanized pipe because it’s got this zinc coating on there, and that’s what pr prevents the metal from just rusting immediately.
But once that zinc coating is gone, it’s gonna start rusting. You use drain cleaners, they will just eat away that zinc coating. I mean, it it destroys it pretty quickly.
Tessa Murry (13:11.256)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (13:21.888)
This is good information to share and that’s why I brought it up because I think a lot of people that have older houses and have slow drains, that is their go to method for dealing with it first. And little do they know they’re probably making the issue worse.
Reuben Saltzman (13:29.389)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (13:35.971)
Yes, yes, exactly. I I do not recommend anything you pour down or drain to fix it. that no, just no. Hire a professional to come out if you can’t do it yourself. but in this case, I mean I did I I and by the way, hold on, back up. Before I went out there with my own drain auger, I didn’t want to do this because I live like a half hour away from the property. And, you know, it’s now it’s gonna be my evening. It’s like this is what I’m doing now.
Tessa Murry (14:02.038)
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
Reuben Saltzman (14:05.758)
so tried to find a company to do it and I got quotes. I threw I threw away the numbers, but the quotes I got were somewhere in the neighborhood of about two hundred and fifty to four hundred dollars to come out and clean out a kitchen sink drain. That’s it, just to clear out a kitchen sink drain. I mean, very expensive. Yeah. And and I don’t think any of them would have been been able to even clean this out. Who knows?
Tessa Murry (14:21.266)
my gosh.
Yeah, yeah, ouch, ouch.
Tessa Murry (14:34.517)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (14:34.936)
But I said we g we gotta take care of this. So I ended up going to the home improvement store the next day. It was Home Depot or Minards, bought a whole bunch of ABS pipe and all the fittings and I replaced it. And you know, i a as far as the pipe inside the wall, it’s it it it disappears into a finished space. And that was
Tessa Murry (14:43.502)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (14:55.221)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (15:01.582)
pretty much impossible to get at, but as soon as it comes down, it’s unfinished basement space. And so it was actually pretty easy to replace. I mean it was basically a matter of taking a sawzall or a reciprocating saw, if you don’t want to use a brand name, but I mine is a sawzall, taking a taking a sawzall and making one cut at the ceiling, one cut down at the floor, and take the pipe out.
Tessa Murry (15:07.683)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (15:18.08)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (15:21.486)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (15:29.548)
And then you just get a few new fittings, you glue together and you get to the right size and you stick in there, you get some clamps and you put it in place. So it it wasn’t that big of a deal to replace it.
Tessa Murry (15:40.832)
Reuben, I applaud you. You always make these projects sound so easy. Now, did you replace the section of the pipe that was behind the finished wall, like in the kitchen? Two? Okay. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (15:51.787)
No, no, that’s the one area. I mean, most of the arm going back is plastic, and then it turns into steel right at the wall, and then there’s probably about two feet of pipe that goes down into the basement, and I could not get at that. I I would have had to tear my wall open. I just said, look, I’m good enough getting most of it.
Tessa Murry (15:57.109)
Yeah. Okay.
Tessa Murry (16:08.168)
Yeah, okay. Right, right. Yeah.
So how did it how did you how did it work after you replaced that big long section?
Reuben Saltzman (16:18.966)
it drains like a champ. yeah, it’s fine. And but I just I I saved a little bit of it so you could see what it looks like. I I saved a little cutout. And and I mean, if you’re listening to the podcast, if you you can pull it up on YouTube, you can see what this looks like. But there it is. I’m holding it up to the camera, and I mean we’ll we’ll turn it around. I mean, this is just impacted and this is dried out.
Tessa Murry (16:20.832)
Nice.
Tessa Murry (16:28.576)
Me Yes Yes Yes
Tessa Murry (16:39.31)
that’s nasty. That’s nasty.
Reuben Saltzman (16:48.182)
And so there’s some cracks forming in this brown sludge, but before, I mean, it was just one solid surface. Picture, picture a one and a half inch pipe, and then basically take what might be dark chocolate peanut butter and stuff it into that pipe as tight as you can possibly get it. That’s what this looked like. Nothing getting through there.
Tessa Murry (17:11.96)
Raven, that’s that’s gross. Yeah, no, you can’t see daylight through that pipe.
Reuben Saltzman (17:16.0)
No way. No way. And and Tessa, I will tell you the most disgusting part was when I made the saw my wife Anna. She was there with me. She was she was helping out. because technically this is her project. It’s her rental. I’m just the handyman who helps out. I’m I’m up there at the ceiling, I’m cutting the pipe. As soon as the blade kind of gets about halfway through the pipe.
Tessa Murry (17:19.019)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (17:26.368)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (17:41.903)
There’s enough space for the water remaining in the drain to come out. And it starts shooting black water shooting out in every direction. And it was so disgusting. The the only saving grace is that this is thankfully kitchen sink water. You know, it’s not, it’s not sewage. It’s still super gross, but it could be worse. Could have been worse.
Tessa Murry (17:46.966)
You
Tessa Murry (18:05.812)
Yeah. Yeah. It could have been worse. my gosh. yeah, that reminds me of I mean, I’ve never cut open or like opened a drum trap before, but I n I know you’ve talked about that as well where you have to prepare yourself for that. And plumbing, y you know, it takes a certain y you gotta have a stomach for it, I think, if you’re gonna be cutting into drain pipes ’cause there’s some nasty stuff in there.
Reuben Saltzman (18:21.513)
yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (18:33.686)
That’s that’s how I feel about everybody who works in healthcare. Like you can Yeah. I’ll take the household fluids every time. I mean, there’s some people who get so disgusted by that, but I’m like, no, the disgusting stuff is the body flu bodily fluid. I hear some stories from my wife.
Tessa Murry (18:37.862)
Yeah. Well that too. Choose your pick. Household fluids or bodily fluids, I guess.
Tessa Murry (18:52.76)
Wow. So Ruben, are you gonna continue to be your own are you gonna continue to be your own handyman for your rental business here? Is that another is that another arm of your
Reuben Saltzman (19:02.85)
That was never the intention, but you know, it’s just like you get these quotes and you go, I can do this. What’s my time worth? Doesn’t matter. I can’t justify it. I
Tessa Murry (19:12.074)
Yeah. I’m curious, how much would it have been to have a plumber replace that section of pipe that you replaced? What would the bids have come back at?
Reuben Saltzman (19:20.407)
It’s it’s hideously expensive. I mean, I’m guessing probably twelve hundred bucks, something like that.
Tessa Murry (19:24.056)
What do you think it would have been?
Okay. I was gonna let’s say like a thousand. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s that’s crazy. And I know you’re just this you know, I can’t can do attitude and you can just run to the store, grab what you need and do it in an afternoon. Boom, done.
Reuben Saltzman (19:38.924)
Yeah, yeah. And if it if it wasn’t for the mess we had and all the water shooting out and all the cleanup, it probably would have taken well under an hour. As it was with all the mess, it was probably more like an hour and a half, you know.
Tessa Murry (19:51.349)
Wow. Wow. That’s impressive. And how how much did you spend on the materials, roughly?
Reuben Saltzman (20:00.15)
Nothing. I mean, I don’t know, a stick of pipe, a few fittings, probably probably forty bucks. I don’t know, something like that. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn’t much. but it drains like a champ now. And so the point of this whole story is to talk about galvanized steel drains. I would consider all of them to either be at or near the end of the their serviceable life.
Tessa Murry (20:07.244)
And the glue. Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty impressive.
Reuben Saltzman (20:29.92)
If you’re buying a home that and you look on your home inspection report, it says you got galvanized steel drains, plan on dealing with this at some point. This isn’t the first time I’ve replaced steel drains at that property. Last time I did it was probably about three or four years ago, and it was from one of the bathrooms. Had to replace a whole bunch of steel with plastic. And whatever remaining steel I have someday is gonna have to be dealt with. So
Tessa Murry (20:39.853)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:45.494)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (20:59.244)
If you’re buying a house, it’s got galvanized steel drains, your your clock is ticking. You’re gonna have to deal with it at some point. And the biggest thing I’ve got for you is if you’re gonna remodel a kitchen for the love of love, replace your galvanized steel drains. Even if they’re working okay today, do not bury them in the wall. When you’ve got it all torn apart, that is the easiest time to possibly deal with it.
Tessa Murry (21:05.079)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (21:19.458)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (21:27.822)
And if you f if if you put your kitchen all back together and you conceal old galvanized steel drains, you are being pennywise and pound foolish. Deal with it today. Don’t don’t put that off.
Tessa Murry (21:40.599)
Yes. That’s a great message, Ruben. And there’s a couple of clients I’ve been working with that have some remodel projects going on and they want to do some finishing of spaces or redoing of spaces and they’ve got older homes that have galvanized steel. And it’s like that is the time before you finish that wall or while that wall is open, make sure you replace that. and of course, you know, if you’ve got a basement that’s already finished, well then
you have to open everything up to get to it, which sucks. But it does. It’s at you know, a lot of added cost. But you’re right. It’s it’s it’s time. It’s time and you if you’re not dealing with issues yet, you will be at some point soon with those pipes.
Reuben Saltzman (22:11.99)
It sucks.
Reuben Saltzman (22:16.94)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (22:26.562)
Yeah, and having a fixture that just doesn’t drain is pretty hard to live with. I mean, you know, we got renters in the property, they’re going, well, can we at least run our dishwasher? No. You can’t do anything. You want to clean your dishes, you go do them in the bathtub. It’s like I mean, it was temporary. I was there the next morning replacing it. But I mean, even for a day, no thank you. No fun.
Tessa Murry (22:33.6)
It’s annoying, for sure. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:42.157)
Yeah.
Yeah, that yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:51.512)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. No good. No good. Well, they’re lucky to have you as a landlord, Ruben.
Reuben Saltzman (22:56.27)
Yeah.
yeah, yeah, we’re we’re good landlord lords. We were we are on top of that stuff. We don’t let it sit. Yeah. but while I was there, I thought, hey, I I I now’s a good time to replace the anode rods on both of the water heaters. I mean, I’d take care of it at my own house. Why am I not taking care of the rental property? And it you know, it’s a duplex, so
Tessa Murry (23:06.176)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (23:27.446)
I thought we’ll take care of these at the same time. And we’ve talked about that on the show. If you haven’t listened to the past episodes about one of our fifteen episodes on anode rods, it feels like the short version, Tessa. You want to explain the short version of this? 30-second version?
Tessa Murry (23:41.711)
They they get eaten away. They don’t last very long. And then all the sediment builds up in your tank and shortens the life of your tank. And nobody replaces them, even though the manufacturer doesn’t the manufacturer recommend replacing them yearly?
Reuben Saltzman (24:04.602)
Yeah, they recommend checking on at least every so often, yeah. And and the anode rod is there to prevent the rest of the tank from being eaten. It’s a sacrificial rod. Its only job is to corrode so the rest of the tank doesn’t corrode.
Tessa Murry (24:07.054)
Checking Yeah.
Tessa Murry (24:16.504)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (24:23.48)
Thank you. Yeah, sorry, I said that. I I think I was confused there for a second about sediment buildup. You’re right.
Reuben Saltzman (24:30.252)
Yeah, but so the the that’s why we have anode rods. It’s something most people don’t even know they have. Nobody ever checks on it. They just wait till the water heater springs a leak and then they replace the water heater. But you can dramatically improve the life of your water heater if you replace your anode rod when it’s time. When is it time? Who knows? I’ve got I’ve got this point of use water heater in my kitchen and
Tessa Murry (24:52.556)
Who knows?
Reuben Saltzman (24:59.668)
It it has failed prematurely twice on me now. And so I decided I’m gonna check on that anode rod every single year. And I realized that’s not enough. I’d I I’d check on it after one year, and it’s completely gone. There’s absolutely nothing left. So I said I’m gonna check on it every six months. I checked on it in six months. Same situation test, it’s gone.
Tessa Murry (25:19.448)
That’s crazy.
Reuben Saltzman (25:27.518)
Nothing left after six months. So I said, all right, I gotta check on it every four months. And I just did it like two days ago, four months later, and the anode rod is almost gone. It’s not gone yet. It’s still serving its purpose a little, but it was definitely due for replacement. So I am now on the four month anode rod replacement cycle for my little kitchen point of use water heater.
Tessa Murry (25:27.682)
That’s insane.
Tessa Murry (25:35.212)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (25:41.012)
my gosh.
Tessa Murry (25:47.884)
That’s crazy.
Tessa Murry (25:56.045)
At that point, I think I would just give it up, Ruben. I after two leaks, damage, and replacing it every four months, that’s too much maintenance for me. Too much risk and maintenance. I would just deal with having not hot water
Reuben Saltzman (26:07.232)
I know, I know, but I I cannot wait that I’m I’m too impatient.
Tessa Murry (26:11.827)
I was gonna say, how long does it take to replace the anode rod and how much does it cost?
Reuben Saltzman (26:18.026)
I’ve they cost nine dollars and fifty cents. I buy a two pack for eighteen ninety nine on Amazon, and it takes me approximately twenty minutes.
Tessa Murry (26:23.113)
wow. Okay.
Tessa Murry (26:27.342)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (26:33.11)
All right, not too bad. Not too bad. Okay. No, but for a for a standard size water heater, like a fifty gallon water heater or whatever that you have at your rental house, how much does that cost and how long does that take you to do?
Reuben Saltzman (26:35.392)
Not too bad. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:46.094)
that well, if you’re gonna do a standard anode rod, I don’t know. I have never purchased one. My guess is somewhere in the 40 to 50 range, but when I started deciding I’m gonna be on top of this, it was it was after we did that podcast with Tim Hammock, and he convinced me to go with the electric anode rod, the powered anode rod. And so
Tessa Murry (27:11.47)
yeah, okay. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (27:13.666)
That’s what I’ve done. And those the prices vary somewhere between about ninety and maybe a hundred and eighty dollars. I got this new one from Coral Protect, and they send out a kit where it’s like you got the anode rod, they give you the tape, they give you two sockets, they give you the socket that you need to get your anode rod out of there, which is an unusual size that most people don’t have.
Tessa Murry (27:23.566)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (27:35.134)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (27:42.553)
They g they give you a whole kit. it’s very nice. It’s a little more expensive than some other ones, but it’s it’s all good to go. And that’s all I do now. And I mean, I’d say 15 minutes. it’s it’s actually easier to replace the anode rod on a standard water heater than it is on this tiny little point of use water heater. Cause on the point-to-use one, I gotta completely uninstall it.
Tessa Murry (27:43.085)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (27:57.877)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (28:06.69)
Really?
Reuben Saltzman (28:10.776)
Dump it upside down, drain the water out, take the little front apart. I mean, it’s a hassle. On a standard water heater, there’s not much to it. So it’s it’s actually quite easy on a standard water heater. But so I I was at my rental, I did one of them. Like I said, took about 15 minutes, pretty easy. And then I went to do the other one, n and I couldn’t find it. I’m looking at the top.
Tessa Murry (28:13.612)
that is yeah.
Huh. Wow.
Tessa Murry (28:23.939)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (28:37.536)
And it’s got these little plastic plugs on the top of the tank. I’m going, where’s the anode rod? And it’s a Bradford White water heater. So I just Googled up how to replace the anode rod on a Bradford White water heater. It turns out you don’t have an anode rod that you can really access. The anode rod is built into the hot water inlet.
Tessa Murry (28:46.862)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (28:53.954)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:05.955)
Whoa
Reuben Saltzman (29:06.924)
Let that sink in.
It’s built into it.
Tessa Murry (29:10.144)
Okay. I was just gonna say it it this is I feel like this is just normal, Ruben, that appliances are built to not last anymore. And this is just you know, I who knows why they engineered it that way, but clearly it’s not meant to be maintained.
Reuben Saltzman (29:26.358)
No, they are making that impossible to maintain. And so this electric anode rod will not work with a Bradford white water heater because of this stupid design. And I’m saying stupid, maybe there’s a very good reason for it, and we’re just not smart enough to understand it, but you’re gonna have a tough time convincing me.
Tessa Murry (29:30.688)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:36.333)
Wow.
Wow.
Tessa Murry (29:53.729)
Well, I’m wondering if this is just kind of an industry shifting it to just doing it this way and if we’ll see more water heaters like this in time.
Reuben Saltzman (30:02.956)
we better not. I will be so upset. And I you know, we were gonna have Bradford White on the show. That was gonna be one of our guests. And I had some tough questions to ask them. Not not really tough, but you know, fair. Maybe I had some fair questions that other people have asked. Like one of the questions I had is on every water heater that’s manufactured.
Tessa Murry (30:13.517)
No.
Tessa Murry (30:21.752)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (30:32.93)
The manufacturers either put the date of manufacture right on the label so us home inspectors know how old it is, you know, manufactured in April of twenty twenty-one, or the serial number gives away the date of manufacture. Like if it was manufactured in April of twenty-one, the serial number might be zero four two one nine eight seven, blah blah blah blah blah. But
Tessa Murry (30:47.16)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (30:57.368)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (30:59.362)
The numbers indicate the age. They give it away in the age. And I don’t need a secret decoder chart. All the manufacturers make it really easy to figure out, except for Bradford White. They’re the one manufacturer where their coding makes absolutely no sense. It’s like J is 2021, Q is 2022. I mean, it’s no order whatsoever. It’s like they said, let’s come up with something that nobody can ever possibly figure out.
Tessa Murry (31:01.56)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:09.558)
Right.
Tessa Murry (31:21.299)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (31:29.536)
Unless they have a secret decoder chart. And so I I told them when you come on the podcast, I wanna know why you guys came up with this and they declined to do the podcast after they were already booked, after I sent them the questions.
Tessa Murry (31:32.536)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:37.58)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:41.486)
Mm-hmm.
Huh. That’s funny.
Reuben Saltzman (31:46.933)
I I don’t know. I I I I still want to get them on the show. And I sent him another email this week telling him, hey, I’d still love to have you guys on the show. And I also want to know why you put your anode rods below the hot water inlet. But I have not heard back from them yet.
So we’ll see. We’ll see.
Tessa Murry (32:09.772)
Surprise, surprise.
You ask the hard questions, Ruben. You ask the hard questions. You you could have lured them on with some easy ones and then hit with the hard ones without a warning, but you’re not that kind of guy.
Reuben Saltzman (32:16.814)
So tough. So tough.
Reuben Saltzman (32:23.662)
Well, the person coming on the show wouldn’t have any answers. I mean, yeah, it’d just be like, all right, I’m not I’m not trying to get you on here to make you feel stupid. I just I genuinely want to know. I mean, there’s gotta be a reason. I truly believe there’s a reason. So
Tessa Murry (32:28.078)
We need an engineer. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (32:39.586)
Yeah.
Well, and it’s funny ’cause there’s so many Bradford white water heaters out there. I feel like they’re one of the main the main brands that that we see. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (32:48.497)
they’re huge. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Tessa Murry (32:52.448)
So are you are you protesting against Bradford White now? Like you will not buy any more Bradford White water heaters?
Reuben Saltzman (32:58.35)
yes. I’m gonna say yes. Yes. un until I get answers to these two things. no. No more Bradford White water heaters for me.
Tessa Murry (33:02.702)
Okay. What’s the little what’s the little yeah? What’s the brand of the on demand one you have in your kitchen? Under your sink? Is that a Okay. All right. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (33:16.482)
That is a Bosch. Well, very weird. Cause they don’t make the traditional forty, fifty gallon water heaters. They make the they make the the tankless ones. I don’t know if they still do tankless anymore. This is a tank, but it’s just, you know, it’s like a two gallon tank. Tiny little thing. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:27.264)
No, the little ones.
Tessa Murry (33:35.592)
Yeah. And you stuck the other ones that failed, they were also bash.
Reuben Saltzman (33:41.728)
yeah. Yep. And it’s just it’s a nice little size. I don’t know why I keep going with the same one. But I think any of are gonna fail the same way. ‘Cause
Tessa Murry (33:43.021)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (33:50.765)
You’re loyal to that bush. Well, part of it is just your water quality out there where you live, right? Yeah. Very hard water.
Reuben Saltzman (33:56.845)
Yeah. Yeah. Maple grove water quality is terrible. I’ve been looking into what causes it to destroy a water heater so quickly. And I don’t exactly know, but some of the stuff I came up with, they said softened water will actually eat away the tank faster. Which I I did not that that seems counterintuitive to me. And I heard that.
Tessa Murry (34:08.226)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:18.752)
Really?
Tessa Murry (34:22.51)
Salt. Huh.
Reuben Saltzman (34:25.804)
The hotter you keep your water, the faster it’s going to corrode the tank. And there were a few other things and it didn’t make perfect sense to me, but I just kinda went, Well, I’ll keep replacing my anod. It’s fine.
Tessa Murry (34:32.653)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (34:39.414)
Yeah, we need we need a chemist. We need a chemist on here. I wonder if you could do like a whole house filtration system, not a softening system, but a fil I don’t know, some kind of filtration system to remove some of the the bad stuff. I don’t know. I guess yeah. Probably not worth the cost, but yeah. Here we go. Yep. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (34:41.954)
Yeah. Yeah, we do.
Reuben Saltzman (34:53.41)
Some of the baddies that eat your water eater. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (35:00.846)
Probably not. Maybe we gotta get Tim Hammack on the show again. Ask him about that. but the the last thing I thought I’d mention is I’m talking about figuring out the age of water heaters. And w there’s f for the longest time, home inspectors have always turned to the same website, Building Intelligence Center. You surely remember that one from your days as a home inspector test.
Tessa Murry (35:30.101)
yeah. Yeah, I had that one bookmarked. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (35:31.299)
great website. Yep. And you basically go there and you say, what are you looking for? Well I’m looking for a furnace. And you click on the furnace page and then it says what’s your manufacturer? We type in the manufacturer and then it gives you the the age serial number conventions that that manufacturer uses. And you can use this to figure out the age based on the serial number.
Tessa Murry (35:45.677)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:00.182)
Very helpful website. Again, building intelligence center. Been around for a long time. And it’s all free. They just provide this mostly used by home inspectors, I think. But they are not the only game in town now. There’s another one put out by this home inspection software company called Swift Reporter. And and I’ll have links to these in the show notes. And I’ve got a blog post on this. Actually, I’ll just link to my blog post on it. It’s got all that.
Tessa Murry (36:15.415)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (36:21.977)
Some
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:30.274)
But Swift Reporter, they’ve got an age age decoder where you pick the equipment, you pick the manufacturer, and then you type in the serial number and it figures it out for you. So you don’t need to look all these things up and go, wait, which is the second character and the fourth character? It represents this and look back and forth. You just type it in, boom, gives you the age. I find that very helpful. So
Tessa Murry (36:30.627)
Great.
Tessa Murry (36:42.689)
okay.
Yeah.
Right.
Tessa Murry (36:57.397)
Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Huh.
Reuben Saltzman (37:00.334)
Cool tool. And then I I heard an another inspector on my team was using AI to figure out the age of appliances. And so I tried it myself. I tried several different, and I don’t I don’t know. I I don’t know what to call an AI machine. Is it a machine? Is it an AI engine? I was on a call last night and they were calling them LLMs.
Tessa Murry (37:10.766)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (37:26.732)
I think that’s a langu learning language learning model or something like that. I I don’t know. AI tools. so I I tried a bunch of them. I tried Gemini, and you can you can adjust the thinking mode on here to whether you get instant results or you do some deep thinking. I tried Gemini and all all I did was I took a picture.
Tessa Murry (37:27.235)
Hmm. Sorry.
Tessa Murry (37:32.985)
Huh, okay.
Tessa Murry (37:37.879)
Yes. Yeah. Okay.
Tessa Murry (37:49.751)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (37:54.535)
Of the serial number number label on my phone on my on my furnace. I said, How old is this furnace? Well, first pass through Gemini, and the furnace was manufactured in March of 21. First pass through Gemini told me March of 2016. It was five years off. And and it gave me the reasoning for it. It said, Well,
Tessa Murry (38:00.069)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (38:11.407)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (38:16.507)
yikes.
Reuben Saltzman (38:23.948)
This age is based on the second and fourth numbers in the serial number to determine the year. And the serial number is this. It gave me the correct serial number. And then it said, and the second and fourth numbers are this, but it read the second and fifth numbers, even though it correctly identified them. It picked out the second and the fifth to give me the wrong year of manufacture.
Tessa Murry (38:47.107)
Huh.
Tessa Murry (38:52.941)
Give Gemini like one more month of learning and it’ll fix that issue.
Reuben Saltzman (38:57.034)
I probably so. But but then so I used Gemini again and I used the pro mode, professional mode, took took a little bit more time, but it gave me the right answer.
Tessa Murry (39:01.967)
Well.
Tessa Murry (39:05.295)
Okay. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:11.023)
that’s frustrating and concerning. So I mean, yes, using these tools you have to be careful. You can’t just trust everything it says, of course. gotta double check. Proofread.
Reuben Saltzman (39:19.372)
Yes. Yep. And I had the same thing happen with chat GPT. The quick answer was wrong. The longer answer was right. I used perplexity. Just gave me the wrong answer. I used Claude, I used the the quick answer, and it said basically, I I don’t know, look somewhere else. And then I used the deep thinking model and it gave me the right answer.
Tessa Murry (39:24.896)
Really,
Tessa Murry (39:28.768)
Really?
Tessa Murry (39:33.059)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (39:49.025)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (39:49.655)
And then I use Grok and it it gave me the right answer on the first try. So the takeaway here is AI can be wrong. AI definitely makes mistakes. It’ll make up stuff if it doesn’t know. And it’ll just it it’ll even when it does know, it can totally make mistakes and give you wrong info. So if you’re a home inspector, you’re using AI, I just I want to caution you, don’t
Tessa Murry (39:52.388)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (40:00.394)
for sure.
Tessa Murry (40:11.107)
Yeah.
Yeah. Careful. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (40:18.892)
Give your clients BS and it’s really easy to do. So I’m not
Tessa Murry (40:24.685)
Yeah. At this point in time with where AI is at, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (40:28.802)
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s easy to get bad information with AI.
Tessa Murry (40:32.675)
September of twenty twenty six. Check back in at the end of this year. Do the same test aga I’m serious. Do the same test again on these models in like three months and see what happens. It’s changing so quickly. Who knows? It’s not perfect, but I mean th it’s scary how quickly it’s they’re learning and changing.
Reuben Saltzman (40:38.542)
I No.
Reuben Saltzman (40:44.246)
No, you’re right. It’s probably all gonna be perfect. Yep. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (40:54.86)
It it’s changing, yes. Yeah. All right. well that was the last thing I had to chat about.
Tessa Murry (40:57.379)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:04.301)
Well that’s you know, that’s some interesting research, Ruben. Thanks for for testing all those different models out. So what would you what would you what model would you recommend or do you use the most reliably for AI?
Reuben Saltzman (41:10.872)
Certainly.
Reuben Saltzman (41:17.302)
You know, I it just what I happen to I mean I’d I started with chat, I’ve given it the most information, it probably knows the most about me, and I have a paid version, and we use that for our report reviews. So I use that more than anything, but I’ve been using Claude in Chrome a lot lately. I think I talked about that on a podcast two weeks ago or a week ago or something, and lately I’ve been using that more than anything.
Tessa Murry (41:22.711)
Uh-huh.
Tessa Murry (41:27.671)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (41:31.32)
Okay.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:39.703)
Okay. Yep. Yep. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (41:47.34)
Doesn’t mean these are the best. It’s just this is what I’ve had the most experience with lately.
Tessa Murry (41:47.639)
Okay. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:53.914)
Sure. Yeah. You know, I looked into that Claude and Chrome and I after we talked about that on the the podcast and it it I just paying one subscription to one AI engine is enough for me. I don’t want to pay a second subscription right now, this point in time, especially to like anthropic. So I’m like I just I was like, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. Some point, maybe I’ll change my mind. I don’t know.
Reuben Saltzman (41:54.966)
Yeah. How about you?
Reuben Saltzman (42:09.272)
Totally get it.
Reuben Saltzman (42:15.171)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (42:18.157)
I’m kind of conflicted on this whole AI thing. Yes, it’s it can be super helpful and beneficial and save me a bunch of time and it’s amazing in a lot of ways, but also it’s kind of scary too, and it’s unregulated in a lot of ways and it’s just growing and it’s it’s a little scary. so yeah. So I I held off on that. I have not tried it yet. Not saying I won’t, but at this point in time I’m just using chat for the most part for things. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (42:33.475)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (42:43.918)
Sure, sure. Which is still just amazing.
Tessa Murry (42:49.359)
It is. Saves a bunch of time, for sure. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (42:52.482)
Yeah. Yep.
All right, well, I think that’ll wrap up today’s show. Tessa, best of luck. Everything’s gonna turn out great.
Tessa Murry (43:04.345)
Thank you. Thank you, Reuben. Yep. I’ll I’ll give you some updates and you can share with the the podcast listeners once he’s here. So so you know. But yeah. I’m gonna miss you. Miss you guys, miss the podcast. You’re gonna have a great time with Eric. So I know you’re you’re you’re in good hands.
Reuben Saltzman (43:08.136)
And we will miss you.
Reuben Saltzman (43:17.452)
Yeah. Good. Good.
Reuben Saltzman (43:27.746)
Well, stay in touch and we’ll want pictures, updates, all that stuff. And yep. Saying a prayer for you, Tess.
Tessa Murry (43:34.329)
Sounds good. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (43:39.682)
All right. For our listeners, if you got questions, comments, any of that about today’s show or anything else, please reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you. Our email is podcast at structuretech.com. And you’ll catch Tessa sometime next year. You catch me and Eric on the show next week. Have a good one.
Tessa Murry (44:02.542)
Take care, everybody.