To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/jwVDbI86XKs
In this episode of the Structure Talk Podcast, hosts Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry share personal updates, including recent travels and experiences in different climates. They discuss the challenges of home inspections, particularly regarding insurance and aging roofs. The conversation delves into the impact of summer heat on homes and the potential damage it can cause. The hosts provide insights and advice for homeowners navigating these issues, emphasizing the importance of proactive maintenance and understanding insurance policies. They also discuss various home maintenance issues, focusing on sunlight and heat damage, water leaks, and the importance of proper dryer venting. They share personal experiences and insights on how to manage these issues effectively, emphasizing the need for awareness and innovative solutions in home construction and maintenance.
Takeaways
Reuben shares his recent experience chaperoning a school trip to Chicago.
Tessa discusses the challenges of adjusting to Florida’s heat.
Reuben reflects on a recent walkthrough consultation he conducted after years.
Tessa emphasizes the simplicity of visual inspections in her consulting work.
Tessa recounts her experience at a friend’s wedding in Arizona and the dry heat.
The hosts discuss the rising insurance costs related to aging roofs.
Reuben explains the insurance industry’s perspective on old roofs and potential claims.
Tessa shares insights on the impact of climate change on insurance rates.
The hosts explore the effects of summer heat on home systems and materials.
Tessa highlights the importance of understanding the longevity of home components. Sunlight can cause heat damage to neighboring properties.
Water leaks can occur unexpectedly, requiring quick action.
Proper management of rental properties is crucial.
Dryer ducts venting through roofs can lead to significant issues.
Ice dams can form due to improper dryer venting.
Regular maintenance of dryer ducts is essential to prevent fires.
Innovative products like Dryer Jack can improve dryer venting.
Cost and availability affect the choice of venting solutions.
Awareness of building codes is important for safety.
Homeowners should be proactive in managing home maintenance.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates
02:57 Consultation Insights and Experiences
05:53 Weather Experiences: Florida vs. Arizona
09:03 Insurance and Homeowner Concerns
11:49 The Impact of Aging Roofs on Insurance
14:57 Heat Damage to Homes: A Discussion
18:03 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
22:05 Sunlight and Heat Damage
23:01 Water Leak Incident
26:17 Dryer Ducts and Venting Issues
30:10 The Importance of Proper Dryer Venting
34:09 Innovative Solutions for Dryer Venting
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 (00:01.708)
Welcome back to the show. Welcome to the Structure Talk Podcast. It has been a hot minute. Tessa, how are you? How’s everything down in Florida?
Tessa Murry (00:08.875)
It has. Hey, Ruben. Hey, you know what? Things are heating up down here. We’re recording mid-May and it’s, you know, been in the 90s for a while. Trying to adjust to that. Yeah, it’s a whole other world. But yeah, it’s been a while. I know you’ve been traveling. Where have you been off to in the last few weeks?
Reuben Saltzman (00:20.114)
my god.
Reuben Saltzman (00:30.42)
Tess, I don’t even remember. It’s been a whirlwind. I can tell you the latest one was Chicago. I was helping to chaperone a field trip for my daughter’s choir class. We had like, I don’t know, 40 or 50 girls and about a dozen boys and then about another dozen adult chaperones, something like that.
Tessa Murry (00:33.359)
you
Reuben Saltzman (00:59.438)
And we took two huge coach buses and we drove down to Chicago and saw all the things that there are to see in Chicago. I mean, it was it was a lot of fun and it was very long days. It was like we would we would all board the bus at nine a.m. every day after getting breakfast. And then, you know, the first day I think we got to the hotel at nine thirty.
Tessa Murry (00:59.989)
my gosh.
Tessa Murry (01:10.507)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (01:15.826)
I’m sure.
Reuben Saltzman (01:26.222)
The next day, maybe we got back at 9.45. The next day, we got back at 10.45. Last day, I think we got back at about 11.45. So, way past Ruben’s bedtime.
Tessa Murry (01:37.195)
I was gonna say how did you survive that Ruben? Have you caught up on your sleep yet? my goodness. I bet.
Reuben Saltzman (01:42.158)
I barely survived, Tessa. my gosh. It was long.
It took me a few days to get caught up on sleep. I got the sleep tracker, I wear a woof, and it always tells you when you’re supposed to go to bed. I think that first day, it was like, all right, if you’re waking up at this time, you need to go to bed at 650 tonight. And I just looked at it like, ain’t gonna happen. Yo.
Tessa Murry (02:06.755)
You’re right. not happening. Not happening. my goodness. Well, you know, you are a good man being a chaperone for a bunch of, is this, they freshmen? How old is Lucy? Eighth grade, okay. Ooh, even more challenging. Middle schoolers. That’s good. Awesome.
Reuben Saltzman (02:19.918)
Eighth graders.
Yeah, middle schoolers, yeah. But we had fun. I got to know a bunch of the other dads on the trip, got to know a couple of moms. It was a good time. Yeah, I’m glad I had the opportunity to do it. What about you?
Tessa Murry (02:36.45)
That’s good. That’s good.
Did you have any well I was gonna ask did you have any work trips that you’ve done recently for teaching or or anything like that?
Reuben Saltzman (02:48.27)
Um, no, nothing teaching recently. I don’t think so. Now, um, I, although you know what I did do test. This is so weird. Um, I, I, I had a week where I just wasn’t feeling all that inspired and I was like, I don’t know what to write about right
Tessa Murry (02:51.861)
Okay. Okay.
Tessa Murry (02:57.259)
What?
Reuben Saltzman (03:09.034)
And I ended up, somebody had a request for a walkthrough consultation. know, it’s where we go through the house, I’m showing, and I saw there’s an agent that uses this all the time and nobody was available. And I was like, you know what? I can do this. And I did a walkthrough consultation. It’s the first inspection I’ve done in probably five or six years. I have no idea why I decided to do it.
Tessa Murry (03:19.928)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (03:29.099)
I’ll do it.
Reuben Saltzman (03:38.926)
But it was delightful. I had so much fun.
Tessa Murry (03:39.543)
Did you have fun? Good, good. I was going to say those were always my favorite. No reports and you’re just walking and talking. They’re the best.
Reuben Saltzman (03:45.484)
Yes. No reports! Yeah. Just walking and talking the whole time. So good.
Tessa Murry (03:53.365)
We for you. I bet the agent was like, when you showed up, were they starstruck?
Reuben Saltzman (03:57.27)
It was a little bit like, what are you doing here? Yeah. And, and I, the clients wrote a nice five star review for me and I didn’t even tell them to do this, but they didn’t put my name on the review. And I was so thankful because it’s like, I don’t want people asking for me by name. It’s taken five or six years to get people to not ask me for me by name. I don’t want them to start doing it again. So they’re nice enough to not, not mention my name on the review. I appreciate it.
Tessa Murry (04:17.199)
you
Tessa Murry (04:26.639)
Anonymous well good for you Ruben good for you
Reuben Saltzman (04:27.852)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was a ton of fun. A of fun. You could be doing that where you are, you know.
Tessa Murry (04:32.789)
That’s awesome. Well, so I don’t know about Florida, but Minnesota, that’s a lot of what I do for my consulting is I literally I don’t really bring any tools. I bring a flashlight. I’ve got the infrared camera that you gave me. Thank you very much. Just in case, but usually it’s just a visual inspection. And then I’m walking through the whole house looking at everything from top to bottom.
inside to outside like we would for StructureTech. And I’m just gathering all that data. And I’ll take pictures with my phone just as my notes basically if I need to refer back to them. And yeah, I just keep it simple, visual only. Pretty easy. Yeah, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (05:16.11)
Okay, okay, all right. Nothing wrong with that, love it.
Well,
Tessa Murry (05:23.829)
Well, I was going to say, Ruben, I experienced some more heat, even more intense than Florida recently. I was down in Arizona for a friend’s wedding. So they rented this basically this mansion in the hills outside of Phoenix and invited all their closest friends out to this house. And that’s where they had the wedding. It was a beautiful, beautiful house on the side of this mountain overlooking this valley.
Reuben Saltzman (05:33.485)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (05:53.391)
And it had a pool, had a hot tub, and I mean, that was a huge, huge house. And we just had a great weekend. Everybody was there and celebrating, and it was a good time. But what was going to say is the dry heat, I have never experienced. I’ve never been to the Southwest before. I’ve been to San Diego, I’ve been to like Tijuana, but like I’ve never been to Arizona or New Mexico or anything like that. And going from
Reuben Saltzman (05:53.598)
beautiful.
Tessa Murry (06:22.689)
like Tampa heat to Phoenix heat. I was not prepared for it. And I was like, I just felt like I could not drink enough water. I think it’s the altitude change like being that. But also just how dry it was. I was constantly drinking and I felt like I was dehydrated like the whole time drinking water, drinking water. And then yeah, and also like my skin got super dry again, almost like being back in Minnesota in the winter. I was like,
Reuben Saltzman (06:34.934)
Really?
Reuben Saltzman (06:43.745)
Really?
Tessa Murry (06:51.201)
need lotion again. Yeah. Well, I you know, I guess it does down there. I don’t know if this is a thing for for people in dry heat. But you know, it felt much more comfortable outside also too. I would prefer probably living in a dry heat than superhuman. But yeah, I just wasn’t prepared for that.
Reuben Saltzman (06:52.846)
Crazy! Crazy! That’s not supposed to happen in the summer.
Reuben Saltzman (07:06.669)
Okay.
I would think so. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (07:14.53)
Yeah, yeah, interesting. Okay, yeah, I’ve been to Arizona, but never, never in the summer, only in the winter where it’s like, you know, it’s, it’s, 80, 85 something.
Tessa Murry (07:17.463)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (07:25.301)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. It was. It was. Yeah, it was beautiful. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (07:28.878)
Nice nice good times
Reuben Saltzman (07:36.278)
I want to give a shout out to our show sponsors. IEB, Inspector Empire Builder, helping home inspectors improve their businesses, grow their businesses, be better if they’re one man shops. Speaking of one man shops, we’ve got a business mastery for solo inspectors class coming up. This is going to be on Friday, June 13th. This is a four hour
Tessa Murry (07:40.289)
Yes, let’s do that.
Reuben Saltzman (08:06.178)
virtual class and it’s going to be led by the CEO of IEB, that’s Mark Hummel, as well as one of the coaches, Chris Cochran. And they got a big list of stuff here I’m not going to get into all of it, but four hours mastering being a solo inspector and I will have a link to IEB in our show notes. If it’s something you’re interested in, check it out. And just one more reminder, we’ve got IEB Unite coming up in about
Well, it’ll be about a week and a half from the date that this podcast airs. So if you’re interested in that, it’s not too late to sign up to three-day conference. So that’s what we got going on with our sponsors. Back to the show. We don’t have any huge topics today. We’ve got a few mini topics to talk about. Right, Tess?
Tessa Murry (09:03.021)
Yeah, I’m excited dive in. What’s the first topic you want to… I’m thinking the email from the listener.
Reuben Saltzman (09:04.91)
All right, where do you want to start?
Reuben Saltzman (09:11.118)
Okay, all right, let’s do it. So we just got done with our series on Q &A from homeowners. We were going over a lot of questions that homeowners have sent us over the past year. And this one comes from Andy. He said, I’ll read it here. said, I’ve been joining podcasts for the last several years. Thought I’d contribute on the series you’re doing.
Tessa Murry (09:14.114)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (09:36.008)
Andy has a house that is 26 years old, or no, it has a 26 year old roof. Okay, roof is 26 years old. That’s old. I mean, he doesn’t say what type of shingles he has, but he’s local here. He’s writing out of Arden Hills, Minnesota. That’s within the Twin Cities Metro area. I’m going to assume he’s got asphalt shingles. I think he would have said something if it was anything other than asphalt shingles.
Tessa Murry (09:43.523)
Mm-hmm.
Pretty old.
Reuben Saltzman (10:04.878)
So his roof is way past the average life expectancy, but he says the shingles aren’t curling. They’re not breaking apart Doesn’t have any leaks. It’s got a split level Rambler style house Now now here’s here’s the problem His insurance company has started charging him eight hundred dollars more every year Because his roof is old eight hundred bucks a year more because he’s got an old roof
Tessa Murry (10:16.462)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (10:34.946)
he does have an ACV policy that’s actual cash value, meaning if he gets his roof replaced, he’s not gonna get much for it. I mean, the value of this roof, it’s already past the end of its life expectancy. I can’t see what he’d get at all if he gets his roof destroyed by hail damage. So he has an actual cash value policy, but still, if he gets his roof replaced, he will save 800 bucks a year for a new one. And he’s saying, this doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t a new roof
Tessa Murry (11:00.738)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (11:05.206)
have more cash value and therefore a claim would be more expensive for the insurance company to cover. Right? I mean, you buy a new car, your auto insurance goes up. As your car gets older, your auto insurance goes down. But here with the roof, it’s the opposite. You get an old roof and your insurance goes up. So what the heck? What’s going on here? And he says, he’s thinking about a new roof.
Tessa Murry (11:16.26)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:21.934)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (11:33.93)
sooner rather than later because of long-term premium savings and he’s saying is there any good reason to replace an otherwise fine roof. Tessa, I’ve got thoughts but what are your thoughts on this?
Tessa Murry (11:44.847)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (11:49.827)
You know, I think we’ve, we’ve talked about, insurance for homes on this podcast kind of several times in the last year, I feel like, and it’s interesting talking to different insurance agents and different inspectors from around the country and just getting their take on what’s happening. And I think this is just another example of how insurance rates are going up. A lot of it is.
You know, due to all these changes in climate and natural disasters that are costing insurance companies a lot of money. turns out Minnesota has what, one of the highest rate of claims out of the, out of the entire country. didn’t, I didn’t know that, until we did that podcast a while ago. And, know, you hear about Florida and all the hurricanes and, know, all the issues they have with insurance and in Florida and some other States, but Minnesota too. And so I think it’s just.
We’re starting to see that now being reflected in these insurance costs. And I’ve seen it too with a lot of the clients that I meet with for your house coach consulting. They’re in the same boat. just had someone a few weeks ago in Minneapolis who she’s got the same problem. She’s got an old roof and her insurance has like tripled in the last few years to cover her roof. So she’s like trying to figure out, should I replace it? Should I?
pay all this extra cost and she also said she could only find one company to cover her because of the age of her roof. So here we are. This is I think the world we’re living in now. And I guess my question to this guy would be how long do you plan on being in the house and is it worth it or not? But I don’t know. I’m curious to hear what your thoughts are on it.
Reuben Saltzman (13:18.573)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (13:37.784)
Well, my thought is that when you’re insuring a car, you’re insuring a car. When you’re insuring a house, you’re insuring a house. You’re not insuring the roof. The roof may be one of these things, but if you’ve got a roof leak, they’re gonna cover the leak. It’s like, okay, hail comes and destroys your roof, sure. They’ll take care of the roof, but the big thing is,
If you’ve got leaks, if you’ve got shingles that blow up, and you’ve got water that’s coming in, and you’ve got interior restoration that’s gotta happen, that’s where it gets really expensive. And I think that’s really what the insurance companies are worried about. They’re worried about water making its way through. They’re worried about the roof not doing its job. And you got a 26-year-old roof, there’s no question. You have a much
Tessa Murry (14:17.087)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (14:26.102)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (14:31.257)
you
Reuben Saltzman (14:31.8)
higher chance of water coming in, having some catastrophic event that they’re going to have to cover, then you do with a new roof. And that’s why they don’t like the old ones. It’s not about the roof covering itself. It’s about the job that it’s doing. I mean, I think it, well, I’m trying to come up with an analogy for cars. It’d be like, maybe you’ve got a car that doesn’t
Tessa Murry (14:44.525)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (14:57.708)
I don’t know, you don’t have anti-lock brakes and you don’t have all these modern safety features. Like that’s gonna be a lot more dangerous of a car to drive. It’s gonna increase your chances for getting in an accident. So I get it. I understand why the insurance companies wanna charge you more for an old roof, even though the value of that roof is far less because of the potential damage. Andy’s saying, there any good reason to replace an otherwise fine roof?
Tessa Murry (15:18.895)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (15:23.384)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (15:27.266)
Well, right here, not only saving 800 bucks, but the fact that, you know, one bad thing happening, you could have shingles coming off, you could have water leaking in, and you’re to have to deal with the mess. mean, having water coming in and having restoration contractors coming through your house sucks. That is a very unpleasant thing to go through. And you’ve got your deductible that you would end up having to pay.
Tessa Murry (15:33.411)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (15:50.851)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (15:57.43)
on all the damage. I I’d say as soon as the insurance company start charging more for it, go ahead, replace it. I totally get it. Any other thoughts, Tess?
Tessa Murry (16:11.407)
No, I guess I just would ask you like at what point do you think it, you know, for an aging roof, what is that turning point where it’s like, okay, maybe it’s 20 years old and it’s a 30 year shingle, you should have another 10 years lifespan out of it. But if the insurance company starts charging you another 800 a month, would you replace it at that point? When it’s kind of two thirds of the way through its life? To save you the risk and the $800? You would?
Reuben Saltzman (16:34.094)
Yeah, I probably would. Yeah, I probably would. And I would really have to think about how long I’m going to be in the house. And I mean, I hate to say this, maybe it’s not the most globally responsible thing to do. But for the house I’m living in now, I don’t plan to be here 10 years from now. I would put on another asphalt shingle roof. And I know it’s going to last me the next 10 years.
Tessa Murry (16:43.054)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (16:55.844)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (17:03.084)
barring some type of major hail damage and I’ll be good. If I was going to be here for the next 30, 40 years, I’d probably put on a steel roof. I think that would be a better option for me and I know that it’s going to last that.
Tessa Murry (17:15.918)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (17:21.92)
That’s where I’m at.
Tessa Murry (17:22.534)
Hmm Interesting yeah, yeah Well, I think it’s I think it’s you know, that’s a tough question and I think people have to weigh the pros and cons of you know that $800 a year additional fee versus how much a new roof is gonna cost for them And then how long they want to stay in the house You hate to
Reuben Saltzman (17:42.126)
Yeah, and I mean to Andy, you know, he’s living in this house now. How much longer are you planning on staying there, Andy? I mean, if you’re planning to be there for the next 10 years, I can pretty much guarantee you, you’re gonna have to replace your 26-year-old roof within the next 10 years, probably within the next couple of years. So why kick the can down the road? Why keep paying that 800 bucks a month?
Tessa Murry (18:03.193)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (18:11.502)
a year more when you could just have a brand spanking new roof now and then you can enjoy that for the next 10 years and it looks nice.
Tessa Murry (18:17.037)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (18:21.903)
Yeah, yeah, you’re saving yourself $8,000 in insurance if you just replace it and enjoy it for 10 years. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (18:28.194)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that’s our thoughts. It would be interesting to get an insurance person’s take on this, but I didn’t want to get a guest on the show for the one question.
Tessa Murry (18:39.33)
Yeah.
No, and we’ve had enough of them on the show in the last few months. think we’re kind of on the same page for what we think about this.
Reuben Saltzman (18:48.834)
Yeah. Yeah. All right, Tess. Another thing to talk about here. Let me see here if I can get this back. Another one I wanted to ask you about. We were going to answer a question from someone. Sorry, can you my dog barking? OK.
Tessa Murry (18:53.263)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (19:13.418)
yeah, hi Sarge.
Reuben Saltzman (19:18.926)
We got this question, someone was doing an article for a magazine and they wanted us to weigh in on this. What damage is caused to your house by the summer heat? And you know, it’s like, all right, know, homeowners summer heats come in, here’s all the steps you can take. And they’re kind of looking for examples like maybe peeling paint and blister shingles and stuff like that. I sat and thought about it. I really couldn’t think of much.
where a house gets damaged because of heat and the sun. I mean, okay, the sun, it’ll break stuff down, clearly. I mean, we know that the ultraviolet rays will destroy components, but we’re not talking about something. We’re just talking about heat itself. And I couldn’t come up with anything. thought maybe Tess, maybe you could come up with some ideas. And I already turned down contributing to this article because I thought, I don’t have anything to share. What do you got, Tess? How does heat damage us?
Tessa Murry (19:56.823)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:01.443)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:04.931)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (20:16.654)
Coming from Minnesota, I would say I’m not qualified to answer this question, even though I’m spending more and more time in these hot climates. You know, one thing I’m aware of is just like, okay, this is a little tangent, but I recently listened to John Bolton’s class on pecs, issues with pecs, and I think I…
Reuben Saltzman (20:23.938)
You lost your computer.
Tessa Murry (20:44.111)
told you about that room and I was like, if you haven’t heard that class, you should listen to it because it’s really, really good. So thank you, John Bolton, for putting that class together and teaching about it. But one of the things that is common in these southern climates where they don’t have to deal with freezing temperatures is they run their water lines in the attic. And a lot of newer construction is pecks. And so some of the issues with that is just the material degrading.
Reuben Saltzman (20:49.272)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (20:53.976)
Fine man.
Tessa Murry (21:13.455)
When it’s exposed to UV light, but then also like when it’s in these really hot temperatures, you can get chemical leaching through the piping as well into the water you’re drinking and then just issues with the plastic breaking down faster. So, you know, that’s where my mind went just because of me listening to that class recently is just in these really hot climates where these addicts get super hot.
Reuben Saltzman (21:36.686)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (21:38.017)
And you’ve got, you know, your mechanical system sitting up there and you’ve got your water piping sitting up there. Just the toll that takes on the systems. The systems don’t last as long. So it’s kind of where my head goes. And I don’t know, can you have, there’s also additional issues like, and you’ve blogged on this Ruben, but like the sun reflecting off of windows that have failed.
seals, double pane windows, and that sunlight will be reflected and directed right at usually a neighboring house that maybe has vinyl siding and it melts the siding. I’m thinking of heat damage with that too.
Reuben Saltzman (22:19.98)
Yes, however, that’s more of a wintertime phenomenon, believe it or not. It happens when the sun is like, you’re so smart. Dude, you just got up.
Tessa Murry (22:26.863)
No, because the sun is lower in the sky. Okay. Okay. Well, I don’t know about that. But okay, that makes sense. Well, so that’s a that’s a sunlight issue, I guess. Hmm. Okay. Yeah, I can’t think of any off the top of my head. And we’re missing. I know we’re missing a bunch of heat issues, probably. But
Reuben Saltzman (22:39.788)
Yeah, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (22:53.72)
Probably so, probably so.
Tessa Murry (22:56.779)
We need to have an expert from a hot climate to talk about that.
Reuben Saltzman (23:01.452)
Yeah, we probably do. Okay. All right. I was just curious if you had any. Now, Tess, you bring up John Bolton talking about the PAX tubing and water piping failures. I’ve got one that just came to me. It was, so my wife and I, we’ve got this rental property, it’s in St. Louis Park, and we got a call saying there was a water leak and…
Tessa Murry (23:04.985)
Thank
Tessa Murry (23:14.35)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (23:21.751)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (23:29.646)
like, okay, what do we do? You know, people are able to shut off the water. This was was a this is Sunday night. This was the night that I got back from that bus trip. So my wife was already fairly close. She’s kind of officially the property manager. I don’t really do anything. She handles all of it. She ended up going over there with my dad. He was pretty close by and
Let me share my screen. You’ve got to see what they found, Tess. Hold on. Where do I find this? Window.
I’ll just have to share my entire screen. don’t know how else to do this here. So, all right, this is weird. And I’ll find it there. Okay, do you see that? Describe what you’re looking at, Tess. This is a length of copper tubing going into a push fit fitting. And originally when I saw the photo from a distance, I thought, great, the push fit fitting failed on one of the water.
Tessa Murry (24:13.807)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (24:19.737)
There we go. What is that?
Reuben Saltzman (24:39.586)
pipes? no, this is a split in the copper tubing and it doesn’t go along the length of the pipe, it goes across the pipe. It’s almost as though someone like hung on a pipe or something. I mean it’s like a tear going all the way across the copper tubing. How in the world does this happen, Tess?
Tessa Murry (24:51.428)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (24:56.047)
Bye.
Tessa Murry (25:04.815)
I have no clue Ruben, I’ve never seen anything like that. I don’t know.
Reuben Saltzman (25:07.458)
Okay.
Alright, I’ve never seen anything like it either. I mean, one thought I had was someone was trying to do pull-ups on the copper tubing, but that’s pretty unlikely. Okay. Alright, love to share here.
Tessa Murry (25:21.335)
man, wait, did that cause any major water damage? Did you have any leaking?
Reuben Saltzman (25:26.574)
No, it happened in the utility room and somebody was there and they were able to shut off water to the whole house. So it was just, I mean, it just a concrete floor. So kind of mop up the water. And my dad was able to get out there and sweat some new copper tubing pretty quickly. So it was like Superman at eight o’clock on a Sunday night. He was able to fix it real quickly. But how obnoxious is that?
Tessa Murry (25:44.256)
my gosh.
Tessa Murry (25:50.959)
My goodness That’s the luckiest scenario in lots in lots of different capacities Wait was this like was this an Airbnb guest who shut off the water they happen to be in the utility room and see the leak and Turn off all the water. Okay, okay I’m gonna say well, that’s that’s weird that that break happened. There was someone right there ready to shut off the water
Reuben Saltzman (25:56.376)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:04.911)
no, no, no, no, somebody working at the house.
Reuben Saltzman (26:11.736)
So.
Reuben Saltzman (26:17.486)
I know, I know, yeah. So lucked out, okay. All right, last topic for today. We’ve talked about dryers going through the roof. We don’t like them. There’s a lot of reasons. Yeah, dryer ducts. And that’s kind of the new trend is on a lot of new builds, you have the laundry room on the second floor. You’ve got it connected to the.
Tessa Murry (26:20.025)
Crazy. Huh.
Tessa Murry (26:31.151)
Dryer, ducts. Yes, dryer ducts venting through the roof. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:44.898)
I was almost going to say master bedroom. We can’t say that anymore, Cass. The primary bedroom.
Tessa Murry (26:49.101)
Owner’s suite maybe, primary bedroom.
Reuben Saltzman (26:52.11)
Owner’s suite. Yeah, the the main bedroom you’ve got the laundry connected to the owner’s suite and Where do you vent the dryer? Well, usually they just vent it up through the roof and then the terminal that you got is gonna be the exact same terminal that you have for bath fans the it’s gonna be probably the ubiquitous Brone 636 roof cap. It’s it’s this black thing and points the ear down
Tessa Murry (27:03.651)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (27:21.41)
You see them all over the place. It’s kind of boxy looking. And that’s what everybody uses to vent their dryer. And if you’re using it for a bath fan, you just install it. If you’re using it for a dryer, we’ve always told people there’s this little screen on the terminal where the air comes out. You got to remove the screen so it doesn’t get clogged up with water. So that’s what’s been happening forever. And the problem with this is that number one,
Tessa Murry (27:28.879)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (27:44.163)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (27:48.962)
This is the minor issue. It can contribute to ice dams. You’ve got all this hot air blowing on the moon’s surface. You’re going to melt a bunch of snow. The water is going to run down. And then eventually it’s going to freeze again. And I have been to a house once where they have leaking because they had an ice dam formed right below the dryer duct. And there was no ice and water shield in the middle of the roof. And they had a leak right there. So.
Tessa Murry (27:54.307)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (28:14.666)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (28:16.984)
I’ve actually seen it happen and even if it doesn’t cause ice dams, it can contribute to other ice dams. So we don’t like to see dryers vented through roof for that reason. But much more importantly is that dryer ducts, all clog eventually. I mean, you’re gonna have lint that accumulates and it’s just one of those things where it vents out the side of your house about once a year when you’re walking by, just stick your hand up in there, checking for wasps first. Yes.
Tessa Murry (28:43.161)
Check first.
Reuben Saltzman (28:46.178)
You stick your hand up in there and you pull out all the extra lint, know, kind of wipe it out with your finger. No big deal. It’s fine. But when it goes up to your roof, how are you supposed to clean it? Right?
Tessa Murry (28:59.801)
Someone’s gotta get up there. Someone’s gotta get up there. That’s real fun on those three story town homes that have super steep pitches.
Reuben Saltzman (29:00.024)
How you feel? Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (29:08.268)
You’re telling me, And how’s the average homeowner supposed to do this? I mean, are they seriously supposed to get on the roof annually, clean this out?
Tessa Murry (29:18.435)
Hey, pretty soon I’m thinking just drones are gonna do it. And they probably already are in some cases. Until we get there though, someone’s gotta get out there. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (29:24.974)
Yes, yes, we need a joint to do this. Yes, yes, exactly. But we’re not there yet. However, I was putting together a blog post about this product that is a much better terminal. And I was at the store and I was checking out these products that we see everywhere made by Brown and nothing against their product. But I was looking at the package.
And it says right on the package, it says, not for use with dryer venting. And my jaw hit the floor. I’m like, what? This is what they use on new construction today. These are everywhere. This is what everyone uses.
Tessa Murry (30:05.103)
Are you sure? Are you sure it’s the same model and everything?
Reuben Saltzman (30:10.702)
100 % sure. No wiggle room for being unsure here. No. It is the same product, yes. Yes. Yeah. This is what they’re all using.
Tessa Murry (30:11.439)
My goodness.
Tessa Murry (30:19.171)
Well, your certainty. Okay. Wow. How can they get away with that? Yeah, if there’s like a dryer fire, I mean, it seems like the builder, whoever built the house would get would be in big trouble. There’d be a big lawsuit. If the manufacturer specifically states they cannot be used for dryer terminals.
Reuben Saltzman (30:32.448)
It seems like they’re low. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (30:37.422)
Yeah, yeah. And so once I discovered that, we changed our report comment. You know, we’re not saying, hey, fix this or you’re to die. But we are saying, hey, this is an unapproved thing coming up here. You got to stay really on top of cleaning this. Or, you know, it’s more probably getting clogged. And when they get clogged, does increase the risk of a fire. Or you might consider replacing it. Or at least if you have your roof covering replaced, have the terminal replace that. And the one that we’re
Tessa Murry (30:50.041)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (30:54.127)
Please sit.
Tessa Murry (31:03.983)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (31:07.546)
that we are recommending is this one made by Dryer Jack. And reminder to any show listeners, we are recording all of our podcasts on video now. So if you want to see it, can always, excuse me, you can always go to our YouTube channel to see it. But Tessa, this is the Dryer Jack. And yeah, this is so much bigger than the traditional brown roof cap. And it’s got
Tessa Murry (31:27.555)
Holy cow, that’s huge.
Reuben Saltzman (31:36.15)
I don’t know if you can tell in this video, but the damper is actually curved. It’s got this curved damper, so when it’s open, it completely matches the profile of the lid, and there are no seams. There’s no rivets, there’s no screws, there’s no welds. This is just all one piece, completely smooth. And they’ve got all the testing on their website where they put the magma helix thingy that measures
Tessa Murry (31:38.124)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:42.067)
I don’t know.
curved lid.
Reuben Saltzman (32:05.932)
what is it, inches of water column or whatever for air pressure. Yeah, they’re checking to see how much this reduces pressure and it does basically nothing. You can’t even tell that it’s there. You put any of the other caps on there and the thing just spikes. The pressure goes way up. So this beats the pants off of anything else out there. And if I were a roofing contractor, I would have a dozen of these in my shop.
Tessa Murry (32:25.113)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (32:35.596)
So anytime I’m replacing a roof covering for somebody who’s got one of those old dryer caps, I would put one of these on.
Tessa Murry (32:36.015)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (32:43.949)
That’s very interesting and it’s is it solid metal too?
Reuben Saltzman (32:47.726)
There is one one scene right where the flashing connects to the rest of it. So basically it’s two pieces of metal. There’s the one with the flashing and then there’s the whole assembly and then the damper of course is hinged. So that might be a third piece.
Tessa Murry (32:54.861)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (32:59.733)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (33:06.287)
So, okay, my, this is probably a dumb question, but if the other type of terminal is not allowed per manufacturer specifications, and there’s something out there that exists specifically for dryers venting through a roof, why aren’t the builders using it? Is it a cost issue? Okay, it’s just we don’t know about it. Okay, what’s… Yeah. Okay, what’s the difference?
Reuben Saltzman (33:24.117)
Nobody knows about this.
Reuben Saltzman (33:28.75)
Okay, it’s three things, Tess. Number one, cost. These do cost a lot more. mean, the Brone, those things are like 20 bucks. I think this one might’ve been 50 or 60 bucks. So it does cost significantly more. Number two, availability. You can get those Brone guys at any home improvement store. You can go to Home Depot, Menards, Lowe’s, everybody’s got them. It’s easy to get your hands on them. And number three,
Tessa Murry (33:42.113)
Okay. Okay.
Tessa Murry (33:56.493)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (33:58.408)
is knowledge. Nobody knows that those old-brown ones that they’re not allowed for dryer vents anymore. So it’s a combination of those three things.
Tessa Murry (34:09.295)
Well, makes a lot of sense. Well, when you think about it in the big scheme of things, know, 50, 60 bucks versus 20 bucks when you’re building a house is not that big of a difference, but it’s double the cost.
Reuben Saltzman (34:18.51)
I don’t think so.
And with this, mean, I don’t have any proof. I’m looking for a friend or family member who lives very close by with a dryer vented through the roof. And I want to replace their terminal with one of these. I already had somebody reach out to me, show listener, and you know, he’s on the other side of the cities. Like, I’m not coming to your house. I’m not doing it. I’m sorry. And like, I wouldn’t feel comfortable working on a stranger’s house. Like if it’s a family member’s,
Tessa Murry (34:32.239)
you
Tessa Murry (34:41.134)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:50.145)
No. Sure.
Reuben Saltzman (34:51.042)
I’ll get up on the roof, I’ll take care of it, but you gotta be somebody really close if I’m gonna work on your house. Because if something goes wrong, like, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I am not a licensed contractor. So I wanna do a semi long-term experiment, not semi, I wanna do a long-term experiment and I wanna see how much lint accumulates on this thing. I wanna just let it go for five years and see if you ever need to even clean this. Because I don’t think you’re ever gonna have to clean it.
Tessa Murry (34:59.491)
Don’t sue me.
you
Tessa Murry (35:07.545)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (35:10.809)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (35:16.899)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (35:21.186)
But who knows? We’ll see.
Tessa Murry (35:21.4)
Yeah.
Well, that’s very interesting. Yeah, I wish you could start your experiment right now, but need a house first. Yeah, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (35:28.898)
Well, soon enough, soon enough. And this product, it’s made by, again, it’s called Dryer Jack, and it’s made by Innovate. And I don’t have any relationship with them. I don’t get any compensation. My compensation for talking about it is this. The Dryer Jack. One Dryer Jack sent to my house. I reached out to him and I said, I’d to talk about your topic.
you send me one of them?” And they’re like, yeah, sure, we’ll send you one. That’s my compensation. know, it’s pretty sweet. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:01.675)
Nice.
There we go. Well, we’ll see what happens if they have a boom in their sales, Ruben. We might have to renegotiate that.
Reuben Saltzman (36:08.984)
We’re at the end.
They could be selling tens of them. Yeah, exactly. yeah, it’s just kind of our hot button thing we’re talking about for home inspections now that I’m seeing in reports a lot more often. Again, it’s saying, hey, you got to tear the house down with a fire hazard. But hey, look, there’s a better way to do this. So think about it next time you have your roof covered in your place.
Tessa Murry (36:14.957)
from all of our listeners.
that’s good.
Tessa Murry (36:24.27)
Yeah.
Yep, yep.
Tessa Murry (36:38.315)
It’s a it’s a legit concern. I follow a contractor that’s kind of in the Red Wing area and he just posted a video when he was up on the roof. He was cleaning different docks and he noticed that there was a screen on the dryer duct. So he removed it and there’s just like a garbage bag worth of lint that comes flying out.
Reuben Saltzman (36:57.698)
Totally believe it. Yes. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:59.895)
I’m sure their dryer is working much better now.
Reuben Saltzman (37:02.606)
I’m it is. And I’m sure that they, that would be a good candidate for a dryer cleaning too, a dryer duct cleaner.
Tessa Murry (37:08.947)
for sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, thanks for bringing up bringing this topic to light Ruben. Something that the average Joe would not know unless you were out there doing the doing the hard research. So thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (37:23.756)
That’s why we do this podcast. All right. Well, thank you, Tessa. And for the listeners, next week we had a guest on several weeks ago now, maybe a couple months ago, Noah Gavick with Brothers Underground Sewer. We’re having him come back. We talked about doing a part two with him and we just never got around the books, but we finally got it on the books. So we’ll have him next week to talk, talk about all the sewer stuff we didn’t have time for last time.
Tessa Murry (37:44.782)
Yeah.
Awesome.
Tessa Murry (37:54.841)
Can’t wait to dive in.
Reuben Saltzman (37:56.206)
All right, cool. And for listeners, if you’ve got questions for us, stuff you want us to talk about on the air, whatever, just like Andy wrote in with, us a line. You can reach us. Our email is podcast at structuretech.com. We’d love to hear from you. Any closing words, Tess?
Tessa Murry (38:04.728)
Yeah.
Mm.
Tessa Murry (38:16.599)
I don’t think so. I’m curious, anybody that’s listening that lives in a very hot climate, we’re missing a long list of things I think damage to a home that he does. So please let us know. Give us some feedback.
Reuben Saltzman (38:26.038)
Yeah, we’ll talk about heat. We’re not talking about sunlight. Two very different things. All right, cool. Well, we will catch you next week. As always, thanks for listening. We appreciate you. Take care.
Tessa Murry (38:31.447)
Okay. Awesome.
Tessa Murry (38:39.267)
Thanks. Take care.