Season 4, EP. 7 – Podcast Transcript: DIY Plumbing Repairs: Interview With Isaac Gann of Panther City Plumbing

NOTE: This transcript was automatically processed using artificial intelligence and may or may not be 100% accurate.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

[Brian]
Welcome to the House Fluent Podcast. I’m Brian. I’m Tony.

And we’re both licensed professional inspectors here in the state of Texas, and we hope you enjoy stress-free home ownership. You can always find us on Instagram, at Facebook, or at HouseFluent.com. Tony, how was your week?

[Tony]
Oh, it’s been going great so far. Just a little hot out there.

[Brian]
A little hot. Inspecting those roofs and crawl spaces in the heat, not fun. I mean, I’ll go under your house, I’ll go over your house, whatever.

Through your pipes. Through your pipes.

[Tony]
Whatever it takes. Nice.

[Brian]
Miniaturized Tony. All right. Well, we have a special guest with us today.

We have Isaac Gann from Panther City Plumbing. Welcome, Isaac. Hey, guys.

How you doing? Good.

[Isaac]
You want to introduce yourself to the folks? Well, I mean, he kind of just did it, but I’ll go through it over again. How you doing, guys?

My name is Isaac Gann with Panther City Plumbing. There you go. There you go.

Very good. And your license number? 42463.

[Brian]
So, guys, I thought I’d start the show a little differently today. I found in Isaac’s honor, I found a story, a news story, as I was going through getting ready for the show today. I want to get his perspective on it.

This was actually from Business Insider. And a Florida man went into a popular donut restaurant in Winter Park, Florida. And then he’s now suing them for $50,000 after using the men’s room.

He claims he suffered severe long-term injuries. He’s now in counseling, and he’s requiring mental health care due to the trauma he experienced when he was in the bathroom. Any guesses what happened?

[Isaac]
So, we’re going to refer to the Florida?

[Brian]
Yeah.

[Isaac]
I’m going to say either a snake came up the toilet or a live snake or a plumbing snake came up. So, either way, a snake came up the toilet.

[Brian]
Either way, a snake is a good guess.

[Isaac]
An alligator.

[Brian]
No, no, no. The man claims that the toilet spontaneously exploded in the men’s room, and both he and the interior of the room were covered with debris, including human feces. Yeah.

After leaving the room, he tried to get help from the staff at the store, and he was told that they were aware of the problem with the toilet as prior incidents have occurred.

[Isaac]
Prior? So, like, did the porcelain shatter or did it just erupt? It doesn’t say.

Water and other things up and out. That’s the question.

[Tony]
Yeah.

[Isaac]
I think the porcelain shattering must have been the last time it exploded. Listen, I have been in a restroom where the toilet explodes off the wall, as in porcelain shattering and shooting across. Is that how you get into plumbing?

It’s… no. Yeah.

[Brian]
That should be your story. That’s how I got…

[Isaac]
Yeah. That’s what made me get into plumbing. Was that your villain story or what your origin story is?

That’s how it started was…

[Tony]
That’s actually fun.

[Isaac]
I was like, you know what? Yeah, it was terrifying. I’ll say that.

[Brian]
I can imagine.

[Isaac]
I may have to go back and try to sue somebody now that that’s an option. We’re going to need to pay attention to that one.

[Brian]
$50,000.

[Tony]
Yeah, there you go. So, the topic of the show is going to be, what, DIY plumbing do’s and don’ts?

[Brian]
Yeah. I thought we’d talk today about…

[Tony]
Funny plumbing disaster stories.

[Brian]
Because Tony and I have never seen DIY plumbing.

[Tony]
Have you ever?

[Brian]
Never. Yeah. Isaac, I thought we’d start with maybe your advice on some things people can actually do.

Maybe some good tips for folks wanting to do some plumbing upgrades or repairs.

[Isaac]
You know, plumbing is like a lot of things. If you… enough time and energy put into it, just about any of us can do plumbing.

Garbage disposals, right?

[Brian]
Yeah.

[Isaac]
There’s not a lot to them. Most of the time, people will call and they’re jammed. So, if it’s humming and making noise when you turn the switch on, turn the power off.

It’s just jammed in the middle. Majority of them have a spot in the very bottom under the kitchen sink in the middle where Allen wrench will go. And you can manually spin that garbage disposal.

[Brian]
So, that’s that thing that when I put it on there…

[Isaac]
That’s that weird funky tool. That I threw away. The one you threw away.

Or it’s in the junk drawer, right? What’s this? No one knows what it’s for.

[Tony]
It’s a funky shaped Allen wrench.

[Isaac]
It like kicks 45 degrees off up and down on either end of it, right? To kind of give you a little bit of a handle there. Sometimes they’ll tape them to the plumbing underneath the sink, right?

So, you’ll see that every once in a while, but then the tape gets old and they fall or whatever. So, an irregular Allen wrench, it’s one of the bigger ones. I can’t remember the size offhand, but that will manually spin that.

[Tony]
Yeah, I would recommend they unplug it before they do it too.

[Isaac]
At the very least, just flip the switch off. But yeah, you can unplug it and not die. It may spin and take your hand out.

Or I thought you were going to say reach down in there to grab whatever was down at the bottom.

[Tony]
No, don’t do that. Well, because there’s something down there probably.

[Isaac]
There’s probably something down in there, right? And if you turn it back on after you get it to kind of free up. If you turn it on and you hear something banging around, just take a flashlight and look down in there.

Once again, when it’s turned off or unplugged as Tony mentioned. Or both. It’s kind of important, yeah.

Listen, don’t put your hands… Magnet. Don’t put your hands down in there.

Get you a pair of needle nose pliers and a flashlight. And you can kind of just sit there and you’re going fishing. The blades on a garbage disposal are actually on the very side of them.

Yeah, they kind of flip around. No, no, those aren’t the teeth. Those just push the waste to the outside edge, right?

So those are what will hit your hand. You’re not going to get cut by a garbage disposal, right? There’s not.

The teeth are on the very outside edge tucked into the corners. It’s like a cheese grater. Basically, yeah.

It’s just a grater on the edge that kind of chops it up. And those pieces that you see moving back and forth, they’re just used to push that waste to that outside edge. Got it.

There’s still a big chunk of metal. So when they’re spinning, they’re going to hit you.

[Tony]
Don’t put your hand in the disposal.

[Isaac]
Don’t go like, well, he said there’s no blades down there. No, that’s not what we said.

[Tony]
Just don’t touch the sides.

[Isaac]
So it’s not what we said. Isaac from Panther City Plumbing.

[Brian]
So one of the biggest things we see with people doing DIY garbage disposals, one of the biggest mistakes we see people make is when they hook the dishwasher drain line up. Yeah, buddy. What are some of the things you’ve seen there?

And maybe give some folks just a quick, you know.

[Isaac]
The first thing to always remember, and I’ll say that I have never, ever, ever done this.

[Brian]
Yeah.

[Isaac]
Ever, never. Never. Just like I’ve never had a leak.

Ever in plumbing. So your disposal comes with the port for the dishwasher drain. But it has a plug in it because not everyone has a dishwasher.

That’s right. Oh. And so you got to knock that sucker out.

Takes just a flathead screwdriver and a pair of pliers or a hammer or whatnot. Whatever you got on you. Kid’s head, whatever.

But make sure you knock that plug out because then you’ll put it up and then your wife will say, hey, this dishwasher ain’t working, babe. And then you get to take it all back apart.

[Brian]
I was at a new house and it was brand newly built and I turned the dishwasher on. Everything looked fine and I’m going about my business. I’m kind of on the other side of the kitchen looking at the stove and suddenly I hear this loud pop.

What was that? And then it sounded like a waterfall. Where’s the water coming from?

No. And then it came out of the cabinet and I knew immediately what it was. They never took the plug out of the disposal.

And they don’t turn your back.

[Isaac]
It happens. Yep. It happens.

I’ve been plumbing for 20 years now. And to this day, as you’re going through garbage, you go, OK, now we’re going to knock the plug out and just say it out loud because you’ll get rolling on it and you’ll throw it up in there and not even think twice about it. And then go, huh, that is a problem.

But it is in the directions.

[Tony]
It is in the directions. Instructions. Yeah.

So Tony, you know, I’m just saying I must have read the directions the one time I did. How many times have you read directions on every little thing that you get? Yeah.

Because the disposal seems really simple.

[Isaac]
Well, because the other one didn’t you didn’t have to do anything for it because you didn’t put that one in. But it’s set up and it’s hooked up and it’s fine, you know.

[Brian]
So Isaac, a lot of people, we get a lot of questions. People buy new houses and they move in and they’re like, hey, I want to renovate a bathroom. Scale of one to 10 difficulty rating on doing things like putting in a new toilet, putting in a new sink, bathtub.

I already know that’s that’s pretty high up there.

[Isaac]
Toilets, faucets are not a a huge thing, right? It’s more of a do you have the right tools? Are you physically able to do the job toilet?

It’s going to be heavy. It’s it’s not going to be a light piece of porcelain, right? And the other thing is like toilets, especially replacing the toilet isn’t overly difficult.

The only things we don’t know about when we come into a house when I’m changing the toilet is will a shut off at the wall work is the flange, which is what that toilet bolts down to in the floor. Is it still intact? Yep.

Right. I don’t know about either of those till I pull that toilet up. So yes, changing that toilet is perfectly fine and happy and easy.

And, you know, a lot of people can do it. I’ll tell you a story.

[Tony]
All right.

[Isaac]
Yeah, this is early, early marriage. I am my wife has gone away on a trip. What was a church ladies retreat for the weekend?

And I’m sitting around bored. And I thought I’m going to change the wax rings on my toilets because I have nothing better to do.

[Tony]
That’s what I do for fun. Yeah. OK.

[Isaac]
I was like, this is a boring Saturday. It’s too hot to do anything else. This is another origin story.

Yeah, this is this is what this one thing. Yeah, this one got the DIY, the at home renovation squashed for a while. So I go to pull the one in the master bath and all that flange is broke.

All right. Well, I’ll get back to that later. Let me go ahead and do the.

[Brian]
Oh, no.

[Isaac]
So go. I know where this is. Guest bath toilet and go to take the wax ring off of there.

And as I put my hand on the pipe on the flange, as it comes out of the concrete, it just spins in a 360 degree, like just completely loose down below the foundation. Start looking. And I mean, I pulled the whole flange and pipe up and it’s just snapped off completely.

Nice. Awesome. So go get the jackhammer from work.

It’s in a beam all the way down. Oh, no. So just absolute disaster.

Right. So I have to meet my wife on Sunday afternoon at the bus.

[Brian]
With wheelbarrows full of dirt.

[Isaac]
And just be like, I didn’t even meet her at home. Like she’s I met her at church at the bus, which comes off. Hey, dear.

Love of my life. Mother of my future children. I love you.

So get a little problem at home. There’s a hole in the guest bath. All the tiles out.

There’s a big hole in that bathroom. We’ll get it fixed. Love you.

Mean it. So, yeah, she came home to like a two foot hole in the guest bath.

[Brian]
Well, at least you’re smart enough to put the other one back.

[Isaac]
Yeah, I got that. Luckily, that house had three bathrooms miraculously. Now we can say, oh, about it, because the third bath was added on by someone.

Oh, nice. And if I were a woman, OK, tell you how small this bathroom is. If I were a woman or if I were a man and chose to do these things, I could sit on the toilet, shave my legs in the shower and wash my hands out of the lavatory.

Oh, it was that big. That big is like two and a half like two and a half feet wide, maybe. And like five feet long was how big this bathroom was.

[Brian]
Wow.

[Isaac]
18 inch vanity. If you close the door while sitting on the toilet, the door touched your knees. Oh, and then just like the tiniest stand up shower you’ve ever seen in your life.

[Tony]
So really, I kind of think what the moral of the story is here is that oftentimes it’s best to hire a plumber who knows what he’s doing to do some of these things that you do around the house, because it’s really, you know, like you said, how many times do you have to drive back to the hardware store? Which is my personal experience. I’ve done these things.

How many tools did I have to buy that I’ll never probably use again, or at least not for many, many years, you know? And then what could go wrong?

[Isaac]
We had a guy, a customer one time on a Saturday that he called us at five or six o’clock at night. And hey, I’ve been working on this all day. Yeah.

And it’s a shower cartridge. And shower cartridges aren’t cheap anymore. They’re 50 to 75 bucks for a shower cartridge these days.

He was trying to rebuild that shower cartridge. So he spent all day, eight hours probably, trying to make $5 worth of rubber gaskets and seats and springs and fittings to rebuild this thing to save the $50. Five trips to Home Depot.

Like at a certain point, it no longer makes sense. The dollars are not there. You’re not saving any money.

[Brian]
That’s one of those deals where once you’re in it, you’re in it.

[Isaac]
Right. Like you can’t see outside of it. You’re tunnel visioned on it.

Your wife is mad because the water’s been off all day. She’s been stuck at home because you said, well, we’ll go do this once I finish this shower thing, right? Yeah.

There are definite times where things can go perfectly smooth and happy and everything works out. You’re paying us to come in to do it faster so that you can sit down and hang out and not have to worry about it.

[Brian]
Right.

[Isaac]
You’re not getting in marital stress, you know, because plumbing brings out marital problems.

[Tony]
Yeah. But I feel so much satisfaction when I do or I am able to complete something and it works really well. And I mean, I can go, man, I just saved myself $200, you know, let’s go get some dinner.

But then when it goes wrong, it goes wrong and it’s just not fun.

[Brian]
Yeah, no, that is true. So our house was built in 1969, right? And so there are times when my wife wants me to do something and I’m a pretty handy guy.

I’m in the home inspection business. I know a lot about how stuff works, but there are times when I’ll look at something and just say, no, I need to, I need to bring a professional in because what ends up happening, especially on an older house, when you start doing DIY stuff, you get that DIY chain reaction. It’s just a chain reaction of events to where by the time you’re done, you’ve spent three days, you’ve exhausted yourself.

Like you said, you’ve gone back and forth to the store a hundred times. I could have just hired Isaac and he would have been in and out of my house in a day and life would have been good, right?

[Isaac]
And anything does go wrong, our insurance covers it, right?

[Brian]
There’s a warranty on it.

[Isaac]
And if something goes awry, I either have the ability, the parts or the knowledge to fix it in the moment, right? Or if something goes awry way down the way, which we’re going to knock on wood somewhere, um, my insurance is there to cover that.

[Brian]
The number one mistake I’ve seen people make when they try and do DIY plumbing repairs, at least on the supply side, is they forget to turn the water off to the house before they start. It happens. And flooding a house, not fun.

It’s not, it’s expensive.

[Isaac]
It’s expensive.

[Brian]
And as soon as you penetrate that envelope, water’s coming out and it doesn’t stop. It’s going to keep coming.

[Tony]
So sounds like, you know, firsthand, it doesn’t matter how many faucets you open.

[Brian]
It keeps coming.

[Isaac]
Just keeps going. So you’re talking, talking origin stories. We’ll, we’ll go back.

The house that we grew up, that I grew up in is like a late forties, early fifties house.

[Brian]
Yeah.

[Isaac]
And it was a home builder’s house.

[Brian]
Okay.

[Isaac]
Which.

[Brian]
It’s kind of like the mechanic’s house.

[Isaac]
Yeah. Like the mechanic’s cars barely run any kind of thing.

[Brian]
Yeah.

[Isaac]
Basically the same thing. So growing up, my parents would try to do plumbing and it would always go horribly awry. And we had a friend that was a master plumber and he would end up getting a phone call and come out and look and go, there’s no way these pipes should physically be able to connect to each other.

I don’t know how this dude pulled this off. But one time the, the water heater was in like a garage apartment that was detached back on the other side of the house. And they were working on it.

And the shutoff valve is way at the front of the house around the corner. We lived on like a double lot in, in old town, Fort Worth. The water starts leaking and spraying off of something in the, in the garage, right?

They’re working on it. Right. My mom runs back to the front of the house to turn the water off.

And our porch was like the slickest, smoothest concrete you’ve ever seen in your life. Like roller skate rink level slickness and her feet were wet. Oh no.

And she ended up falling and shattering her elbow. That hurts. Yeah.

To this day, she’ll try to show me the scar and I’ll dang near pass out from it. Cause I don’t do that. We’re sitting there and my dad is like, why is she not turning the water off?

What it’s taking? And she’s over there just dying in pain with a shattered elbow. But yeah, so other things can happen that aren’t related to plumbing while doing plumbing.

[Tony]
There you go.

[Brian]
We try and do get to some client questions on the show sometimes, and I’ve got some, you guys want to go through some client questions? Yeah.

[Tony]
Oh yeah.

[Brian]
All right. So I’m remodeling my house and I would like to go from a tank style water heater to a tankless water heater. What are some things I need to keep in mind?

I think that’s an Isaac question. I feel like that’s towards me.

[Isaac]
Strongly, strongly, strongly recommend only doing a tankless if you have gas. If you have natural gas or propane. So an electric tankless is going to need a completely new rewiring of all the power going to that tankless.

[Brian]
You can’t just use a standard 240 circuit.

[Isaac]
There are some that will, but to get one for a whole house, the amount of power that it’s going to need. Cause the way, the way a tankless works is it works off of your degree of rise, right? So if your water is coming in at 70 degrees and you want to get it to 120, you’re going to need a certain amount of power to make that happen instantly.

You also want to still have water flow because that tankless will slow the water down gas or electric to make sure it’s putting out 120 degree water.

[Brian]
Yeah, cause it’s going through like kind of a, it’s almost like a radiator, right? It goes through a bunch of coils and heats them up.

[Isaac]
It’s got a heat exchanger that is going to run back and forth through with all those coils that that power is heating up one way or another. A maxed out tankless can, electric can do 3.5 gallons a minute, which is a bathtub.

[Brian]
Yeah, I was going to say that’s not very much.

[Isaac]
It’s, it’s, it’s not a lot. It’s like a bathtub in one sink and you’re smoked out and you’re done.

[Brian]
So I, I looked at a house, this is, I don’t know, a couple of years ago now. It was really interesting. It was over in Highland Park and it didn’t have a water heater.

It had point of use water heaters at every fixture. And I thought that was really interesting. I thought it was kind of a cool design, but I mean, obviously it’s complicated, but.

[Isaac]
It gets complicated. Each of those can only do a certain amount of rise, right? And so winter months, your hot water is not going to be as hot as it is in the summer.

Oh, is that right? Okay. Because, because it can only do a certain amount because those generally don’t regulate that water flow.

Okay. It’s just passing right through and it’s trying to heat it up as it goes.

[Brian]
The owner that was building this house was trying to do a, like a net zero type bill. So they were, the energy efficiency was kind of their, their thing with it.

[Tony]
But so is it costly, more costly to you to have an electric?

[Isaac]
I think the bigger issue is you’re not going to be satisfied with the amount of hot water.

[Tony]
Okay.

[Isaac]
You’re going to spend a ton of money on electrical changing over to, to support it. Right. Okay.

And so you’re, you’re not going to be as, as cost-effective as say a natural gas or a propane tankless.

[Tony]
But I’d also heard that. And I don’t know, but that like to convert a gas that sometimes you have to change the gas plumbing to get the correct amount of gas flow to the water heater. So it might not just be as simple as installing the hot water, the tankless hot water heater in your garage.

You might have to do some gas plumbing also.

[Isaac]
So if you’re going from a tank to a tankless, everything changes.

[Tony]
Okay.

[Isaac]
Everything in the, the water where they hook up changes, your venting changes. Your standard tank water heater does 40,000 BTUs to fire, right? That’s how much gas it takes to fire a standard tank, tank type water heater.

Okay. A tankless can run up to 200,000. It’s technically 199,000.

We’ll say that for the lawyers somewhere, 199,000 BTUs for a tankless.

[Brian]
So I think what I’m hearing is hire a plumber.

[Tony]
Oh yeah. I didn’t know we were doing DIY. I’m interested in, in, in, when my water heater goes is to go tankless.

And, and so it’s probably going to cost more to put in a tankless and replace my.

[Isaac]
It’s going to cost you more. The biggest thing that we see with tankless is if someone is unhappy with the tankless water heater, it was either installed improperly or it was not sized properly.

[Tony]
Right.

[Isaac]
If you’ve got more than three and a half bathrooms, you really need two tankless.

[Tony]
Oh, I was in a real nice house that had one tankless water heater. I mean, it was a big house and they had flow problems. Just one sink turning on the hot water did not flow like the cold water.

Yeah.

[Isaac]
It, it, it will show. And right. And people are used to your tank type.

You turn those suckers on, whether it’s hot or cold or whatever temperature, it’s giving you all of that water. Yeah. Right.

That tankless is smart enough to say, Hey, you want 120 degree water. I’m going to give you 120 degree water. Right.

And all the units will say they have a max of like, oh, well, ours will put out 11 gallons a minute. Well, there’s a chart in there that says it depends on your water temperature coming into the house.

[Brian]
Oh, that makes sense.

[Isaac]
So, so we typically see where we’re at here, North Fort Worth, North Texas area. You’re going to see anywhere from about six to seven gallons a minute out of a tankless.

[Tony]
Yeah. So is there a good reason to convert to a tankless from just a standard water heater that. I’ve got one in my house.

[Isaac]
I love it. Right. It’s so there’s, so the extra cost.

There’s, there’s an additional, there’s an extra cost on that first install. Right. Because everything’s converting over.

Or we’re changing everything. But it’s a better system. It’s a better system.

As long as you understand it’s, it’s instant at the unit. It’s not instant at the fixtures unless you have a recirculation system.

[Brian]
So I actually, I have a question about that. So I recently have seen a recirculating system on a tankless. And tankless, the way I understand that it works anyway, it’s kind of an on demand thing.

It doesn’t actually heat unless you’re putting water through the system. Yeah. Unless you’re calling for water.

So how does the circulation system work with a tankless?

[Isaac]
So it depends on the style. So like the Navian A2 models, right? They’re the newer fancy, fancy models.

They have a circulation pump that’s built in that that unit controls. Right. So it uses your existing water supply system.

So underneath my sink, there’s a little T that I hook the hot and cold to, and then go up to the faucet out of the top of that. And so it allows the water heater pump to start drawing on the cold side.

[Brian]
So is the water heater just constantly cycling on and off then?

[Isaac]
That’s what I was, yeah. It does, but you’re not cycling a ton because I’ve got it set to intelligent. It’s not always constantly running.

It’s, it knows. Only doing it when it knows. It knows like, hey listen, y’all normally get up at this time, right?

[Tony]
So it’s going to maintain a certain temperature throughout all the lines. On the hot side, yeah. During that time period.

[Isaac]
Correct.

[Tony]
In the morning.

[Isaac]
And it’ll, it’ll kick on a little bit earlier than that. So it’ll say like, I need to be hot by now. It’s kind of taking me this long to do it.

So I’m going to go ahead and kick it up now.

[Tony]
I think you’ve sold me.

[Isaac]
That’s awesome.

[Brian]
A system like that. The other thing is. Basically, Isaac’s water heater knows when he takes a shower.

Yeah, it does.

[Tony]
That’s really weird. And then, yeah, and then, yeah.

[Brian]
All right, here’s our next question. My inspection report says that my expansion tank needs support. Is that something I can do myself?

And how big a deal is it?

[Isaac]
You can do it yourself. It cannot be supported by the pipe.

[Brian]
Which we see a lot. Oh yeah.

[Isaac]
It needs to be structurally supported.

[Tony]
And so. Why is that?

[Isaac]
Yeah, explain that to folks. Well, it should just have air in it. It has a bladder and you’re supposed to match it to the psi of the water coming into the home.

It comes pre-charged at about 40 psi. And I won’t tell you how many times people just throw them up there and don’t set that. So they fill with water.

And they fill with water. So whether it’s the 2.1 gallon or the 4.7 or 8 gallon, whichever one it is, eight pounds a gallon, 8.34 pounds a gallon. And now you’ve got this big metal two gallons of water or five, almost five gallons of water pulling down on that pipe.

It’s not heavy at all.

[Tony]
Yeah. Well, so that kind of leads to my question. If you have 80 pounds or 90 pounds of pressure, static pressure, that’s where you want to consider doing it?

Or is that kind of just in that area? It’s pushing it a little bit. At what point do you go, I need an expansion tank and know that?

[Isaac]
Technically, it’s not based off of your water pressure.

[Tony]
Okay.

[Isaac]
The reason an expansion tank becomes a necessity is if it is considered a closed system. So if there is a check or once that water comes onto your property, it cannot leave. All right.

Then it’s a closed loop system. Okay. Which says, hey, you need, that’s right.

Now there is a certain city around here that put in all new water meters and those meters have checks in them. Which most water meters do anyways, right? But definitely all these newer ones have a check in them.

So that once your water comes onto your property, it dictates that you needed an expansion tank. So we’re not going to name this. We’re not going to name the city.

Okay.

[Tony]
Is it Panther City or?

[Brian]
No, we’re not going to, Tony.

[Tony]
Panther City.

[Isaac]
I’ll get to the reason that we’re not saying the city. Okay. All right.

So when we install a water heater, we’re putting in an expansion tank. Not only is it good for the overall system, most of our area up here has high water pressure.

[Tony]
Okay.

[Isaac]
Which means they’re going to eventually need a pressure reducing valve. Yep. Which that definitely kicks and says you need an expansion tank, right?

[Brian]
Next question. We just moved here and you guys mentioned that our hot water heater is in a cabinet on the exterior of our home. And that if we have freezing temperatures outside and lose power, we need to be sure to run the hot water.

Is that a common problem? And how can we do that if we’re out of town?

[Isaac]
The tankless itself is smart enough to say, Hey, it’s getting low in temperature. I need to turn on to preserve myself. It’s kind of like the Borg.

It is kind of like the Borg.

[Brian]
AI. It will, you know…

[Isaac]
Artificial intelligence. Skynet, it will survive kind of thing. What we saw back in 21 with a lot of these neighborhoods where they lost power.

And so then that tankless can’t continue to fire.

[Brian]
Sure.

[Isaac]
Whereas your original old school tank type heaters, they don’t need any power. I mean, unless they’re electric, but that’s a whole different story. Blah, blah, blah.

Like the gas ones will continue to heat up and continue to fire.

[Brian]
As long as they have gas, they’ll keep going.

[Isaac]
As long as there’s gas, they just run. Yep. Tankless needs gas and power.

So when you combine it with being on an exterior wall up on a hill and no power for four days, it didn’t matter what you did.

[Tony]
Yeah.

[Isaac]
Right. You could have drained the whole thing out. But there’s most of those have four or five different drain ports on the bottom of them that a lot of people miss to try to drain and vacate that whole tankless.

If you’re going to be traveling and out of town, what I would recommend is on your tankless, know that unit and open up every of the little service ports and drain ports all over them. Because there’s going to be some that are just screwed up into the bottom that are just to unthread it and it drops that water out. Turn off the water at the street or in the garage.

If some of these newer houses have a ball valve in the garage that they’re able to shut it off, it’s typically hidden behind a panel, either garage or utility room, and open up every single faucet in your house and let everything drain out.

[Brian]
And then you don’t worry about it.

[Isaac]
And you don’t worry about it. Yeah. That’s what we did in 21 at our home because we lost power.

And I wasn’t about to sit there for four days, five days without power. Yeah. Stupid cold.

And so we didn’t have any issues. We did the same thing this last round and just tell the wife, we’re not going to have water for a couple days. Love you.

Bye. You know, yeah, that’s you told me that about that. That’s that’s a good idea.

[Tony]
And I guess some people just…

(This file is longer than 30 minutes. Go Unlimited at TurboScribe.ai to transcribe files up to 10 hours long.)