Slightly Above Average Podcast

Reacting to Reddit's Worst DIY Fails

• John Malecki, Sam Poola, and Joe Meinert • Episode 24

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Reddit is home to some of the craziest stuff on the internet — and today we're diving into the best of it. We're going through 15-plus threads of real photos, real disasters, and the people who got absolutely torn apart for them. 

Got a take, a story, or a question for John, Sam, and Joe? Drop us a voicemail and you might hear yourself on the Slightly Above Average Podcast. Record up to 60 seconds — no app needed: https://whatayarn.com/saa-pod

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Why Reddit DIY Fails Fascinate Us

SPEAKER_02

Is that your lead into the bathroom? Maybe you want to cook dinner while you're taking a shit. The worst mix of smells in that kitchen.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, that'd be horrible.

SPEAKER_01

So Reddit is home to some of the most ridiculous things you can find on the internet. Weirdly enough, it is rising in popularity. I personally have hated Reddit since the moment I saw those words, and I avoided at all costs. But the boys are insisting there's some juice that's living in those threads. So we've pulled 15 of them today to react and give our thoughts on, all dealing with ridiculous DIY and construction and whatever other chaos the guys could find. I'm pretty excited for this one. So excited that we're gonna hold off on eating. That way we can just, you know, kind of sit in the hunger and give you our absolute best thoughts on what's happening here. So, Joe, what do you got wired up for us today?

SPEAKER_02

Well, Paul has uh a dialogue he's going to read. Um, so we've pulled probably it's about 15 or more. Um you're not kidding. We have like closer to 20 threads of DIY failures, uh, some crazy work people have found in their homes from previous owners. Just abysmal, abysmal things that have happened.

SPEAKER_01

And then it's I wish I thought immediately to like put chaos on the internet like that. Like, I don't think like, oh, there's this terrible thing in my house. I should immediately stop what I'm doing instead of fixing it and then put it on Reddit. Like, because I uh when I was in my old house, remember we were talking about this on a couple episodes ago. Like you get into an old house show that's like a hundred plus years old, you're finding you're finding stuff people probably didn't think was ever going to be found. Yeah. I mean, you got like think think about being a little kid. Like you got like a opportunity to jam something in a hole in the wall or or you know, like throw it down like a I don't know, uh, an air return or something when event falls. That's the type of stuff you find in these old houses, and it's like I don't know, it's always so it's it's always just like ridiculous. I found like newspaper clippings, I found uh like what else is in that old house. I it was so it was so dusty, it was so sad. By that I mean because I was dying when I was remodeling it. Um you found like mementos that you don't know if they were like good, like something they wanted to keep, right? You got like little trinkets or like a bracelet or like a necklace or something. Um, I've never thought to go on the internet. That on top of like knob and tube tied directly into like a complete and other fire hazards and water lines.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, just crazy stuff with water dripping onto it. Anytime I ever do any work on my house, I always have this delusional thought whenever I'm like, I'll be like digging around the ceiling or something, and like there's some money hidden here. There's a bag of money.

SPEAKER_01

And one time I got someone filthy rich lived in this house before.

SPEAKER_03

Well, not that, but I'm like, you know what? Like, there was someone older in here. They lived through the Great Depression, they didn't trust the banking system, and they're like, I'm putting my money in the ceiling. I got so pumped one day there was a brown paper bag. I'm like, the money's here, like the money's here, and here we go. Open it up. It was just a big bag of no empty pill bottles. I was like, uh, why was that in the ceiling?

SPEAKER_01

I don't know. I found a brown paper bag wrapped like it was, it looked like well, I knew it wasn't money because of the size, but it was like family photos in the wall of my old house. And they were like, we it was like it was weird because it wasn't the same people in every photo. So you're like, you didn't, I don't know. I immediately just threw that right in the dumpster.

SPEAKER_03

You guys ever demo somewhere with the razor blade nook? Like in a bathroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are what you know I'm talking about. The old bathrooms, they'd have the medicine cabinet. There was this little slit in there. It was for your used razor blade, so you throw it in there, and it just falls down to the bottom of the bay, like between the studs. So you demo a wall and it's just like a pile of rusty razor blades.

SPEAKER_02

That's disgusting. Isn't it? That is foul. You just toss it behind the wall. But yeah, we we have a bunch of threads. We're gonna go through, read some of these horror stories, uh, get our reactions to them, and then and see what people think. All right. Happy

Meet Franz The Terrible DIYer

SPEAKER_02

with it. Up first, we have this guy pull it. If you could just read this first part, um, and then we'll we'll go through, we'll show the the project he posted about on this thread.

SPEAKER_01

And if you guys didn't know, Sam asked to read this specifically because he's trying to uh expand his career into becoming an audible novelist. Um so please, any feedback that you have on how Sam reads this, you know, we want him to get better. Yeah, leave it on the voicemail. Please do.

SPEAKER_03

How many of us have had a previous homeowner who was so bad at DIY that their name has become a noun, adjective, and a verb for shoddy handiwork? Why do you spell handiwork like that? Probably. We've taken to calling calling his work Franz's and Franz jobs with a verb form of to trans. Uh that toilet is really fronzed up. Evidently, Franz is an avid DIYer. He also deeply, deeply sucks at it. That's rude. Come on now. Come on now. He has the reverse mitus touch. That's hilarious. Everything he touches turns to shit. That happens sometimes. We believe Franz is a danger to himself and others. He should be on some kind of watch list of people who were prohibited from living within a thousand feet of a hardware store. That's a great introduction. I hope.

SPEAKER_02

So this guy posted about um just other homeowners, and he linked back this one. He had this Reddit thread two years ago that went pretty good. Uh, he had a bathroom that Franz he bought this home from, remodeled.

SPEAKER_01

I wasn't expecting something to look like.

SPEAKER_02

No, no, this is the before.

SPEAKER_01

Oh.

SPEAKER_02

Wait, that was Franz's remodel? No, this was what it looked like before Franz touched it.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, it looks like a after. All right. That's what Franz remodeled it to. Franz, what were you doing, friend? Alright, go back to the original one. You know what I love? What's that? There's no way that's the same bathroom. Go back.

SPEAKER_02

It is. It's like a screenshot from the home listing. And then this is the one he took off.

SPEAKER_01

So there's there no door now? What did they put like a curtain on?

SPEAKER_03

Uh probably. The only thing I'm seeing so far that's funky is the tile job. Look at the bottom.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I was I went, my eyes went straight to the tile nook. Look at the nook. Look at the nook. Go up to the nook. Is that a bottom plate? Okay, so I couldn't tell from the wide shot. But like a nook can uh look at the tile stacking on your page. Look at this, it's like curvy as hell.

SPEAKER_02

You can really see.

SPEAKER_01

I dude, that I I don't think people realize with tile. Like, I'm I've done enough of it that I that I very much dislike it. Is that uh a lot of the patterns that exist in tile are created to hide the that imperfection. Yeah like you know what I mean. Like if you're off like a 16th and like you're doing the hopscotch pattern or you're doing something other pattern, it won't really look as terrible. Yeah, you know, uh and and you might have something not fit, but you'll be like against a wall or in a corner and you might have to make it up. If you try to do like, you know, perfect straight stack tile and lines like this, you're just setting yourself up for disaster. But I also almost guarantee Sam, what what mistake do you think you made? I I have a guess. With the tile, with why this didn't work for him. Uh probably something with his back or board. I would say that I almost bet Franz started from the ground up and cut his tiles at the top. You think instead of putting a level ledger board like on the wall and then working from something completely flat or flip completely level, because you shouldn't have this.

SPEAKER_03

It does shrink there, doesn't it? Oh, but he has like the top right corner. Yeah, but there's also those ones in the middle that like are a little higher.

SPEAKER_02

He should have taken closer photos of this shower because I feel like there's things in here that well he said in the thread that this dude um attached these, he just he put them right on drywall, an uneven drywall surface.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's good. Yeah. So he just backbuttered to dry drywall. Dude, I've I've done a few showers that are just right the purple board. It's not that you don't want to do that because you're definitely giving yourself a high risk of water damage. But uh, that's brutal. I will say this a lot of people F themselves up with those shower niches. Like those are not as easy as well. Oh no. Especially if you're trying to match them to a tile pattern because you have to actually pre-plan for where your lines are gonna land and then work down and then work your fuck your your level surface. And I did my parents, and I remember sitting there when I was just learning how to like do bathrooms, and uh I stared at that thing for like four hours because I couldn't figure it out. I was drawing all lines on the wall and I was like, I can't get these. Um seems to like match up to look good to because you'll end up, you know, you never want small pieces, you never want pieces that are a third or less than the size of the tile you're trying to use. You never want slivers. It's like there's actually some art to it, which is why I love Italians. That's why the tiling. Just you know, they make the greatest food on the planet and they put that time and effort into their tile work. Phenomenal tile. No, I feel like every Italian in the world is just like, I'll DIY my own tile. No doubt. My grandfather has tiled more shit and concrete and more shit than any man on the planet should have. And he loves both of them, and it just feels so confident in all of it. Everything's measured just like fronds there. Just a thumb you look at it, you're like, Tuto, man, were you drinking too much wine when you did this, bro? Yeah. Yeah.

Kitchen Remodel Chaos And Bad Layouts

SPEAKER_01

All right.

SPEAKER_02

So for our first bucket, we're gonna start going through some kitchen and bath. Um, we'll we'll start with this one. This is called The Longer I Look, the Worse It Gets. Okay. So this is a kitchen reno.

SPEAKER_03

Uh this is a post-reno. This is after. They just got the exposed 12-2 link in the link in the. Oh my. Look at that.

SPEAKER_02

Uh looks like they were partway through a remodel. The countertop still has the label stuck to it. Okay. So it looks like they were part through a renovation.

SPEAKER_01

Sam's favorite project or material for Micah. They also put the range hood over the I didn't even notice that until maybe they're gonna add a cook like a cooktop sometimes.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. They what? Why is the counter so much higher?

SPEAKER_02

None of this makes sense. Yeah, you're right, it is higher.

SPEAKER_01

Look, it's peeling sticks, so you got tile peeling on the right side underneath that vent. What's the plan with that wire there? That wire was supposed to probably go to the kitchen box they filled in. So like that, the wire probably came down through there. They didn't finish the drywall above it. Well, I just don't understand like how you logically move the range hood and then don't move the stove. Or the range. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_03

And it doesn't make any sense. I was gonna try to say maybe the stove used to be there, but it makes no sense because the cabinets are older and it's a corner there. And you'd be right into a corner, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It's a brand new countertop. The sticker's still on it. What's going on here?

SPEAKER_01

I'm so lost. Do you think they move? Hold on, Joe, zoom in top right on that top cabinet. Did you think they moved it there? Is that a corner cabinet? It looks like they moved it. See how it's off on the top? Oh, look, the the backsplash.

SPEAKER_03

I think it's just a peeling stick. That's what I was saying. That's what you appeal and I'm just kind of lost.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you're not wrong. The more you look at this, the more it just turns into worse.

SPEAKER_03

I feel like this is like a Rorschach test for blue collar workers where it's like, we're gonna present you with some images. What do you see here?

SPEAKER_01

I'm yeah, you're not wrong, but this is nods. Two different tiles. So was this a DIY? I hope someone didn't pay money for that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that that was uh a kitchen remodel.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like with DIYing, like worst case, just start from scratch.

SPEAKER_03

That's what you think, though, but it could just get worse from that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but give yourself a blank slate. So this one, uh, someone's mom doesn't understand the whole boiling water tap integrated into the main tap. They drilled a hole into the countertop for it. Do you guys know what any of this is?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so why do they have the flex is that flex line coming through the base of the? What is it?

SPEAKER_02

I don't understand. We don't no one understands. The the other thing too is like I guess this produces boiling water.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. Yeah. Which is a thing, which is fine. I don't know. There's no I don't have a problem with that. But the faucet itself, though, so like those um wait. That's what I'm saying. I don't understand. So uh I don't get it. I why is it up? Like, why is it raised up? It should be sitting flush to that that that cup there on the bottom is what's that, what the hell those are called? A scutcheon. Yeah, a scutcheon. It should be sitting on the scutcheon, but I f look like it looks like on the right side the flex line comes through the scutcheon and then attaches. Yeah, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. I'll also say this um there's no mixer in those. Uh-uh. So you're just getting straight hot water on one and straight cold on the other. So you actually mix it by adjusting, like it's it's you burn the living shit out of yourself if you've got water coming straight in hot like that.

SPEAKER_03

I've got an old school system like that on my tub at home, and it's the same thing. You have to like get the dials just right, and like you could turn it just a hair too much, and it's scalding.

SPEAKER_01

My uh my in-laws put one of those in their shower and they regret it because they like it was like they look really cool, some of them. Yeah, um, but they're like, man, it's so hard to get the water adjusted properly.

SPEAKER_02

Um it seems like it's in the UK.

SPEAKER_01

The way he said mom, mom. Maybe. I don't know. I'm looking at it. I don't see the problem with the maybe they put like a full size, is that like a full-size spigot on the right? Because they're usually like these little like quarter inch, I don't know. Like boiling water things. Those things are sick, by the way. If you ever need like if you drink a lot of tea, it just comes straight out boiling.

SPEAKER_02

Definitely the UK then.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Definitely the UK.

SPEAKER_01

England, union, yuns in your tea. Don't bring that. There's only one tea around here, it's Turner's, are you?

SPEAKER_02

This one says Turner's tea for life.

SPEAKER_01

Let's get Turner's sponsoring an episode. That would be great. They actually used to send me tea, guys. Like back in the comedy. This is like 10, 11 years ago.

SPEAKER_02

They said kitchen remodels are hard. I've done it in an afternoon.

SPEAKER_01

Uh they have to be trolling. Oh, this is this is why I hate Reddit. Like, this is why I despise it. Because all you're going is for clickbait here. That's like a garage, first off. Secondly, they're just rage baiting. They have to be. And was that guy wearing one shoe when he put up all those shelving brackets? Because like the brackets just go downhill. I don't know if he's ever heard of a level. Right? Yeah, ball dodge. That's just rage bait. Yeah, there's no way that could be real.

SPEAKER_02

What is the comments? You know what I bet?

SPEAKER_01

I bet you that they were they had cabinet, like, uh, excuse me, they had like shelving brackets on the wall, and he saw an opportunity to like go viral on Reddit. He just threw those cabinets up there.

SPEAKER_02

Someone said, Where's the after? Where's the after photo? Everything is the after picture. You just need to finish it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02

You don't own a level?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you're on the dude. It's like the I see this is like this pisses me off. The rage bait? Reddit in general, but like also like cabinet, cabinet installation has some artistry to it. And it is something you can DIY. You should definitely like get some practice and learn. We've seen the clips of like that. We did we reviewed it, the woman getting like trying to hang one and knocked her onto the floor, like ripped her. Like, there's some little tricks you can do at a bare minimum, though, like everything in that last photo was a disgrace to all things cabinetry. Wait, wait, wait. Why is there shelving brackets involved at all? This next one is specifically for Pola. Huge

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SPEAKER_02

This

Gaudy Cabinets And A Toilet Kitchen

SPEAKER_02

guy, I'll read the thread after. Did you send it to him? Did he tag him? It's this thread, it says something about uh they redid their kitchen, he did his own cabinets. His dad owns a cabinet shop, and so I thought you would really enjoy pull of this one. Um, there's more photos to this. Oh god.

SPEAKER_01

Come on. Come on, I've seen this photo, but not on Reddit. What that's so much extra unnecessary work.

SPEAKER_02

All right, there's more photos. Give me when we find it.

SPEAKER_01

Why are you so for those of you that are watching at home? Um, the vaulted ceiling, what and the cabinet maker, I'll Sam's speechless. Actually, I'll let Sam explain. Go ahead. Explain what the problem is because some people are gonna look at this and think there's nothing wrong.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, just that he's staggering them up to match like the ceiling rather than just having like it's oh god, look at the end panels. Look at the end panels. They're just like three solid doors. Why are they a different color than the rest of the island? Look look at the look at that. I just don't like these end panels either. They're just like glue and doors to the edge of these things. And someone had to do all the crown for all of those.

SPEAKER_01

They put a separate hot and cold spigot in. Or is those two This is the most gaudy? What's the middle one for? Water? It looks like soap. They didn't. Okay, is this the same person?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, same person. They did the bathroom too.

SPEAKER_01

Alright, those vanity lights are wild. Crazy. This one isn't as terrible.

SPEAKER_02

No, it's let's go back to the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01

So, yeah, if you go back to the main shot, Joe. What what look first off, let's start in the center. You're never getting to that cabinet above that range.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, ever. Over 84 inches high.

SPEAKER_01

That thing is you need a ladder, not a step stool, a ladder to get up there. One. Two, the next cabinet over, you could do some display stuff on those top cabinets, right? But like once again, you need a ladder to get there. Even what about above the range? You're never gonna see it because of the angle. That's why I said above the range. Oh, yeah. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02

Unless you're across the room, you're never gonna see what's on display.

SPEAKER_01

Now, the thing that is actually terrible about this is that when you know how to build cabinets and you understand material yield, there's a reason cabinets come in the sizes they come in, and that's because you get the maximum amount of material out of plywood by doing cabinets in 30, what are they 30, 36, 42, 48, 48? Giant, like yeah, like three-inch increments, yeah, like 17, 18, 21. So, like to go, they they were just like burning through plywood to get these three-inch taller cabinets as they progress from right to left. Um and then none of it lines up. Like the I can't imagine the far left side lines up with the far, it just looks so terrible. And then on top of it, you tiered cabinets above a door. Like they had a great opportunity here to build a hidden door into the cabinetry that would have matched and looked like it would have looked super cool. You could have done like a butler's cabinet on the right, made those all the same size. Like it was a good size kitchen, could have been done so much better.

SPEAKER_02

There's no reason to stagger it. Why even have cabinets over top of the doorway? Just get rid of those and run cabinets all the same size on the right side.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, people think that you're getting extra storage and then they don't realize you can't get to it. Like extra storage is great, but there's a 25 other ways to do it in this kitchen. Look at all the lights in there, too.

SPEAKER_02

It's a one, two, three. This can't be real the more I'm looking at it. There's no way that this is real. Look at all those lights. There's over 20 lights.

SPEAKER_01

There's no way it's real. It has to be fake with all those lights. Someone might have judged it with the lights. But they could have put a cabinet um underneath the window on the right, increase the area. I think zoom in on the right side under the window. Is that a night light?

SPEAKER_02

Right here.

SPEAKER_01

Under the window. Down. Are there no night light? That is a night light. Why are you a night light? You have 20 ceiling lights. Are there no outlets on the counter? No, they might be up under, so I'm not gonna knock that out of there because it's like a lot of people are doing this granite. Up I don't think that's granite, but they're doing um the countertop up the wall, which is a sharp look, but usually they're not doing cabinets that look that terrible. Give me good actually, get the- We're wasting too much time on this. This is terrible.

SPEAKER_02

That's an aggressive one. That's a bold choice.

SPEAKER_01

You could just sit there and literally find more and more and more. What's wrong with it? Like Sam was talking about the panels, didn't even get into the panels. Panels weren't even included in the design. What the f, Joe? What is that? Wait, what's that? That is a headache. This is a kitchen. Ah, you remember those.

unknown

What?

SPEAKER_01

You remember where you used to like look at a picture back in the day in middle school and you'd like have to squint and you could read shit? Light switch. Look at the light switch, zoom in on that. It's cut in half. They had to cut the plate.

SPEAKER_02

There's a toilet right next to the pet. Oh my god. This is this is a big thing.

SPEAKER_01

You're gonna be cooking. It's a New York City flipper.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it has to be, man. I mean, there's no way your pet's. Hold up, I put to them.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my goodness, Sam, the thing we're overlooking the most. Give me a deep punch in on those cabinets. Keep going. That's as far as I can go. Those are straight off the floor builder grade cabinets from your Lozer Home Depot with no finish on them. You can watch it. And then they put the sink not over the sink basin. Wait a minute. How do Yeah, you're sick. The sink is they had to so just so for if you know anything about counter, there is a rail or styler or stretcher between those those um they look like they're faux, but they look like uh drawer fronts. They had to cut that out to drop the sink in and then move it because the sink's supposed to be in the middle. That is why would they have a lot of things?

SPEAKER_03

What is up with another countertop above the the the stove? Maybe they just didn't do the feet on the stove or something. Why is the bathroom there?

SPEAKER_01

Is that your lead-in to the bathroom? It's just tiny apartments, man. They're they're probably you you see some of them people in New York live in just some tiny ass apartments.

SPEAKER_03

I've lived in some small ones, but never one where I had to walk from the kitchen to the shitter just like maybe you wanna maybe you want to cook dinner while you're taking a shit.

SPEAKER_01

Like, don't lock someone for being multitasking here.

SPEAKER_02

That would just be the worst uh mix of smells in that kitchen. Oh yeah, that'd be horrible.

SPEAKER_01

Not even to mention, so what is above it, the sink? Like, is that a window, a hole in the wall? I can't even tell what that is. I think it's a it's like a pass-through, right? Is it a pass-through? Pass through, maybe a finished pass-through, maybe a slot for a microwave. This is a reason you should just develop some basic carpentry skills. Check the combo. You can make that look so much better, Sam, with like $25 in Home Depot Pine.

SPEAKER_03

It might take even a little more than that in this space.

SPEAKER_01

This is certainly I do not understand anything going on right now.

SPEAKER_03

We have this kind of a situation in my mom's house.

SPEAKER_01

What you're a poor mother, hold on. Curious bat 87. Oh, he's my age. Oh my god. Or her she is.

SPEAKER_03

Let's see. Uh it didn't uh it didn't used to have indoor plumbing when it was added, and it made sense to have the kitchen and the toilet in the new room that got built.

SPEAKER_02

Oh this is a basement apartment with good ventilation and the door uh being kept shut. There's no issue.

SPEAKER_01

Shut that door, shut the door's open. No. So like in certain situations, like a basement, if you're running plumbing, it gets quite it's way more expensive because you gotta like you're you're if your foundation's literally concrete or block or anything, like getting into those walls and the floors, it's like all it costs more. So people will try to share like water lines and runs and drains and stuff. Like I understand that, but uh this can't be the case. The water lines already run across the room. I'm I'm just lost. Yeah, that's wild. Delete this from my life. I'm scarred. Sorry, John. Emotionally and my eyes actually hurt from the design.

SPEAKER_02

Hold on.

Disaster Bathroom And Brutal Photos

SPEAKER_02

There's like an actual uh pelican?

SPEAKER_01

Hold on.

SPEAKER_02

So this is uh the king of DIY. This is someone's dad, I believe. Stumbled across this sub recently. I thought my dad would be a perfect DIY connector. Contender. I present the disaster bathroom. This is a DIY disaster right here. We'll walk through it. Wait, where oh yeah, they scroll. So up first.

SPEAKER_01

Hold on, go back. Oh no. Please go back. Just go to the top. Is that the same bathroom? Just with two lights. Alright, alright. Continue.

SPEAKER_02

Look at the top.

SPEAKER_04

The wood paneling.

SPEAKER_02

Look at the mold around that. Oh my goodness. At least they got some lotion right next to the toilet, man.

unknown

What the?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, it's just so sad.

SPEAKER_02

It's so avoidable. Wait a second. Wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_03

I don't think there's anything behind the what is this? It's the the shower curtain, right? Is that the bar for the shower curtain? No. What is it? Wait.

SPEAKER_01

No, don't tell me he's just a pipe dropping from the Oh my goodness. Oh, no, no.

SPEAKER_03

What? You know. Oh wow. I discover a lot of shit like this whenever I do renovations at my old house. I feel like there was a generation of people that wanted to make things just well enough that it could last for like a day or two. Okay, but hear me out. A generation? I'm telling you, there's all sorts of weird my garage or just be like these little, like I have a shelf that's hung up with like, you know, like that metal strapping for pipes. They like put a nail through that and then like nailed it to the wall so it's acting as like a bracket of sorts. I'm like, there's no reason they had a strong it like this.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they love putting stuff on the ceilings, man. You don't have to put up a wall.

SPEAKER_01

Wait a minute, what kind of pipe is that? I don't know. That's like galvanized. That's it, that's galvanized. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02

Galvanized steel is insane. That thing will rust in a year.

SPEAKER_03

Wow. A little bit of cult in there.

SPEAKER_01

It's bold move to run wood directly into your tub.

SPEAKER_03

Put it right down to the edge of it.

SPEAKER_01

That person, I hope their lungs are okay. Your dad. Yeah, I can't believe someone actually. So this is why I hate Reddit. Like, what prick puts their dad on blast like this on the internet? They're like, well, dad built all this shit. Let's tear him to pieces. You asshole. Only on Reddit can you do that. Maybe it's like an intervention.

SPEAKER_02

Why is his hand in all of these photos?

SPEAKER_01

That's a glossy red pile. Now, if your dad's an asshole, then good on you. But like, I think that's the um fake brick. Yeah, that was had a moment.

SPEAKER_02

Look at that line pull out. Does that make you happy?

SPEAKER_01

Just the butt joint, the cuffing of the wood.

SPEAKER_02

This thing is still good. 17 more images. This his dad must have done something to him, man. This dude hates his dad. Look at this. Look at this. Every photo.

SPEAKER_01

That one wasn't even worth being photographed, just so you know, dude. Look at this guy hates his dad. Just left the corner undone.

SPEAKER_03

There's bigger fish to fry in here than that. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01

He's he's just taking the paneling off. Oh.

SPEAKER_02

Why are there crazy?

SPEAKER_01

That's just a two by six. It wasn't even like paneling. Is that a GF? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh man, look at that. Little sliver.

SPEAKER_01

It looks like the guy was kind of just like finding stuff in the trash and putting it in the bathroom.

SPEAKER_02

Alright, this dude's poured down.

SPEAKER_01

That was all cult on there. Oh my god. Did you see that? The cult ground? No, it was cult, period. It wasn't using any any sort of fin set. Excellent. Or tiling call. Wow.

Electrical Red Flags In Old Houses

SPEAKER_02

I thought you'd like this one. Previous owner upgrades are slowly driving me insane. We bought our first house last fall, and I'm slowly realizing the previous owner was that DIY guy from YouTube who thinks he's a master. Let's go. I don't know which guy. At first it looked cute and updated. Now every week I find uh one more cursed project. Light switches that do not turn, that do turn that wait, what the f does he say? Light switches that do nothing or turn off half the basement, a bathroom fan that vents straight into the attic. So now the insulation smells weird. All the curtain rods are installed with tiny drywall screws, so they rip out every time you look at them wrong. In the kitchen, uh he put peel and stick backsplash right over the crack top. So it flexes when you press it. I pulled one outlet out to change the cover and found three different types of wire just twisted together and taped. No wire nuts at all. I feel like I need to call an electrician and just say, assume everything is wrong. Has anyone else bought a house that basically held together by vibes and coke? Uh that'd be a good show. Yeah, held by vibes and coke. How did you prioritize what to fix first without losing your mind or draining every cent at once? Any input from you two on this situation from this gentleman? I have to see. Do they have photos? No, there's no photos.

SPEAKER_01

The brutal part of this is like once you discover electrical problems, you're kind of stuck in that rabbit hole because you're like just living with it in the back of your mind. Like, am I gonna burn this place to the ground?

SPEAKER_02

Or like, well, you know, like is that something you should have discovered before purchasing?

SPEAKER_01

When you have an inspection on the home, it usually pops up because that like a good inspector is gonna go open the panel, they're gonna like red flag things that look jank. You get into older houses. I mean, like the panel in my old house, she wasn't pretty. She passed, but she was not pretty. Like and and uh we had knob and tube. So knob and tube has like it's just it's just very outdated and not as safe. Done properly, it's fine, but like you you want to replace it if you can. It then it gets expensive. So what we ended up doing was like anytime we needed a new run, it's what people will end up doing is splicing in the knob and tube, and they run instead of everything in one casing, they run the power through two different wires. So like you just end up pulling the knob and tube out of the panel, right? And and replacing it with like Romex and whatever it's supposed to be. But I feel like in that situation, once you get into those rabbit holes of of elect uh of electric electrical issues, you're kind of stuck fixing that first. Um, because you can do all the cosmetic stuff you want on top, but at the end of the day, you know, you you you might put a bunch of money into something and then end up having a massive problem pop up by like blowing a you know, blowing your range hood, or excuse me, blowing your microwave or something you just spend a bunch of money on, or or you know, frying a wire in the wall that catches on fire or something stupid.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and I feel like the home inspections only get you so far with that because they're not digging through like every single junction boss.

SPEAKER_01

But usually if they're doing something janky in the wall, they're doing it janky at the places they do inspect. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02

There's this guy on YouTube. I I watch all of his shorts, man. I've been getting served them. He does home inspections.

SPEAKER_01

They're great.

SPEAKER_02

He is his content is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01

I love watching home inspectors go and they'll be like, I used to watch this guy, uh he would just go rip to pieces flips in Texas. Because I for some reason I get those in good weather states, they have a larger volume of flips because they can work year-round to indoors and outdoors. Where they we can't do that here, really. Um, and this guy would just be destroying these home builders. Jordan Van Voorst.

SPEAKER_02

Butchering his last name. We'll pop him up on screen.

SPEAKER_01

But I I love I love that content. I love it because it's just real. They don't even have to do anything. But dude, he can just react to like how stupid I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_02

He does new home inspections and he tears people that fall apart.

SPEAKER_03

Like I don't blame.

SPEAKER_02

He's rattling whole entire islands, and he he's it's comical his stuff, but it's serious, but he makes it comical. Sad.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, what it is when it's like an older home, I'm more so like uh let's not be like too crazy here, but when it's like the new homes that where they'll like go through and find all this crazy shit, it's like it's fully justified. Like someone's buying a brand new house, like everything should be as tight as it could be.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, dude. Nuts. I figure this is a good stopping point that we could uh go into our pull of segment of the week.

King Of The Hill WD-40 Test

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yes. I regret to inform you, John. Nothing will be entering your stomach during this segment unless you're a more bold man than I once assumed. But today is a very special day. It's June 1st, which means it's time for the drop of the King of the Hill WD40. How long did you wait in line for this? I they told me at Home Depot they're like, buy as many as you can. They're selling them on eBay for like 45 bucks a pop, right? Four. Nice. Are you keeping them all? I was gonna divvy them up amongst us and have one. You want to put one on the shelf. Yeah, that's why I got four.

SPEAKER_01

That's so I I'm not I like King of the Hill. I'm not like Sam loves King of the Hill. Yes. I thought we could. Oh, test it? See if it's any better. Some of my old tools that you went and scrounged up. Excellent. Can we get like a towel or something? We could, I guess. I mean, I really don't want to get WD-40 all over everything in here. But I'll be back. I like King of the Hill. Um, and I've always been a fan of like the show's clips and stuff. I watched Sam watches this like religiously. I've burned through it so many times. He loves so this is Sam's all I and I will say we both I think are like we use WD-40 when appropriate, and from time to time. I don't think either one of us will sit here and be like, we're avid WD-40 guys. Like I might everything.

SPEAKER_00

What are you lying about?

SPEAKER_01

This is the best stuff you could buy.

SPEAKER_03

You use it on everything? No, no, right. Like, don't lie for the cameras. You both are using that shit all the time. John huffing this out in the parking lot one day. Where's that lubrication? It's actually a cleaner. Well it stands for water displacement 40, so it's like a water displacer before anything else.

SPEAKER_02

So, how do you guys feel about people using WD 40 on door hinges?

SPEAKER_03

I I I I feel like honestly, you shouldn't have this air of like uh people love to call it that's actually not a lubricant. Haven't you read into the deep history of WD-40? It's like, you know what, if it's gonna help, there is a small amount of lubricant in here. If it's gonna help a homeowner out just for a few days, what just let him be. I'm with you. Like, use what you got, right?

SPEAKER_01

Obviously, like if you're trying trying to like lubricate the cylinders in like a seized engine, like you're you're you're gonna, it's not gonna work. Yeah, but like there's I if if for most of us it's what you have just kind of kicking around the garage.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

If you've got it and you need a quick fix, like go with it, get rid of a little squeak, maybe on a hinge. I'm not opposed to it. No, no, no. Is it the proper product and the best thing? No. But are you out there, are you guys putting, you know, high octane, full synthetic whatever in your cars and doing all the highest level, most expensive shit to maintain all your stuff? No, you judgmental bastards. Right? You're running 87 at the gas pump and you're getting the cheapest oil you can put that in your truck and your car, and you're bitching, and then people are using WD-40 to solve shit that's not the same. Come on. And you know, you know that's true. No, what's true? That people do that. They'll like crochet in a corner, and then on the other corner, they're doing they're do they're cutting, cutting around it just as much. Yeah, there's everyone always has a blue.

SPEAKER_02

Cracker open bullet take take the first thing.

SPEAKER_03

Let's get a little yeah. Oh yeah. Does it smell any different? Yeah, it's a nice control over that. Oh yeah, that's OGWD 40 right there. I do think if they made a men's cologne.

SPEAKER_02

Smell like blue collar. That'd be amazing. Yeah. I'm uh not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01

Come on, John. I um I respect it though. I think I think it's awesomeness, like what a ridiculous, what a ridiculous collaboration, right? So like do they use WD40 a ton in the show?

SPEAKER_03

Not like a ton. Because I don't recall. It's well, there's like a pretty infamous moment where like Hank's trying to lubricate this doorknob and he can't get his his can of WD40 open, so he pulls out a smaller pocket-size can and then lubricates the cap on the larger one to pop it open. Remember that. I feel like they've just so good. There's so many companies I feel like this show is given like free advertising to, and I'm glad to see the fine folks at WD40.

SPEAKER_01

That's a that's a sick ass collab for like the world of the big thing. Is Beavis from King of the Hill? Same creator.

SPEAKER_02

Someone left a voicemail, uh, which we were gonna review in the bunker um for the first round. Someone left a voicemail and said, uh, when you eat the snack, sometimes you get angry like Beavis on Sugar.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I do. I do. I never really watched Beavis and Butthead.

SPEAKER_02

I never knew what Beavis on Sugar was like, and I looked it up and it was hilarious.

SPEAKER_01

Cornholio. Beavis is an interesting character. No, this has um this has Dale, right? Dale? Not Dale. Um yeah. Who's the who's the guy? Uh yeah, it's Dale. Dale. Yeah, Dale. Dale's the weird, the like goofy character in this show. Um, I guess you could equate him to like what, a quagmire and family guy? Uh just without like the like the misogynistic aspect of Quagmire.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I guess you just replace all like the lewd sex jokes with just conspiratorial, like hyper-libertarian takes on everything. He's an interesting cat. He's always got some weird take. Oh, yeah. He's always standing outside just drinking by his fence. The new season on Hulu, super solid, too. I was so nervous about that. I'm like, they're gonna tank this shit.

SPEAKER_01

I don't think we're gonna clean these. Come on, you didn't bring anything to clean them with. Any brush it? Well, you go ahead, dude. Do your thing. You want to get your fix? Go ahead. I think we just have to give it at least one pump. Just get do one of them. That was Giuseppe's. My Giuseppe's still here, but I mean, yeah, I did get those from my my grandfather. He rebuilt a garage. I remember I was talking about the Italians tiling and block and concrete. So he had a camp in Ty Nesta, and um he needed more storage space, Joe. So a neighbor's house caught on fire. He went and collected every single bit of lumber that he could from the house after it's burned down and they were doing the demolition, put it in his minivan, drove it two and a half hours to Ty Nesta, and then recut and rebuilt every piece of lumber to be usable to then frame out a garage that he poured on a solid concrete found. He did all this at like age 70 something.

SPEAKER_04

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01

With like a digging it by hand, poured the concrete footers, poured the concrete walls, excuse me, not the concrete walls. He did block walls, and then he built all this on the man was absolutely bored out of his mind and insane. And uh, when they realized that the timing wasn't there anymore, he gave me the tools from the place. So, did it work? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yeah, she's smooth as could be. Listen to that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's the sound you want to hear. Metal on metal with no lube.

unknown

All right.

SPEAKER_03

Throw that thing out. We're not throwing the we never throw a brace out like that. I guess we could probably take you guys.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we probably should do that. Now I'm kind of hungry.

SPEAKER_02

We could try something from First Form.

SPEAKER_03

I did also my initial snack whenever before I forgot, I remembered that it was the King of the Hill Day. I bought a big tub of homemade kimchi from uh an Asian market down the strip. I would love to try that. It's in the fridge.

SPEAKER_01

I don't like kimchi.

SPEAKER_02

I'm not a big kimchi fan.

SPEAKER_01

My family hates it. So I developed an egg allergy, you guys both know are aware in like the last two years. Um, but my breakfast every morning for like two years was like uh two eggs, four egg whites, and like a good scoop of kimchi. Great for the microbiome.

SPEAKER_03

You get the spicy stuff it wakes you up to open up your sinuses. Uh it's good for you.

SPEAKER_02

I do love something spicy to, you know, if I'm like ever congested, yeah. Clear right out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Speak uh well, yeah. Well, so we did get we did get some new stuff from First One. We could test test that.

SPEAKER_02

Let's do this one and then we'll even though they okay. Um I would love to hear your guys' thoughts on this.

The Landlord Special And Hidden Mold

SPEAKER_02

So I don't think any of you guys own like properties like rentals, but you guys ever lived in an apartment where your landlord like renovates it before you move in by chance? Every single one of them. So this is fixing the landlord special as a newbie. So this person moved in and it's just cluttered with a bunch of look at this caulk job, Pula. Does that make you sick?

SPEAKER_01

They painted over it, I believe. But you can paint, but that looks like mold.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, the cabinets are they just painted everything and then called it good.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, it's so common. See be honest. I've seen this isn't that bad.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you first apartment, it's worse. Yeah, that's like like so under a cabinet. What do you expect? Yeah, right. Like, why are they taking why are they so upset about that?

SPEAKER_03

The underneath of this has a gas.

SPEAKER_01

Who's gonna look at that? Right? I was I was trying to install.

SPEAKER_03

What's probably happened is it was just an old cabin, they dropped a new bottom in, and then I once lived in an apartment where there was mold on the ceiling because they didn't have an exhaust fan. They had like a window, and I like called my landlord, hey man, there's mold in here. And he was like, Yeah, I know. He goes, whenever you guys leave, we have to demo that whole bathroom. I was like, what are we gonna do about this? He's like, Well, he's like, we could paint it with some mold blocking paint, that'll help for a month. I was like, that's not a good fix. He's like, I'll let you do it. I'll give you like $300 off rent. I'm like, I guess it's the best I'm gonna get. Like that's so bad. Like, I guess it's nothing. I dude, well, how about that apartment you tried to buy last year?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that was an interesting one.

SPEAKER_03

They didn't even give him the option to paint his mold.

SPEAKER_02

No, man, moved into an apartment, and we move in like in the ceiling. There's just the seal, there's a there was a panel uh in the master bedroom, and it's had like a little feng shui smell. We're like, what the heck? And we pulled it off and there's there's just mold, there's knob and tube. It was just like a leaking excess. There was an active leak leaking onto knob and tube, and then onto the and they just tried painting over onto the light picture.

SPEAKER_01

Like he sent me a picture. We sent it, we were looking at it like, oh god, dude, like what is that? And then we sent it to our buddy, Jason, who's uh he he does the home inspections and he's like certified contract. He's like, Yeah, I'd get out of there pretty quick. And Joe's like, Well, we just moved all of our stuff in. Moved it all out, didn't move in, man. Yeah, you guys were able to get out of that. Yeah, some more stuff. You said that they were literally just like come in, you could tell they just kind of took a spray. Yeah, over top of it.

SPEAKER_02

It looked like it was an active leak and they painted over it, probably like we toured it, and I don't remember seeing that that there beforehand. I could have just missed it in like the lore of touring the apartment, right? But like, yeah, they put a it was a house they bought, and it was two they made it into two different apartments. And up top, they put a new kitchen in, and you could tell it was the piping to the kitchen, and they claimed it was a leak from that, and they fixed it.

SPEAKER_01

There was still water dripping, it wouldn't be actively dripping through a light fixture.

SPEAKER_02

What I think I figured out was every time you turned the sink on and water flowed through. Yeah, so it was just hold on, dude. It needs a lot taking a bath.

SPEAKER_01

We gotta leave this room in case it blows. Man, people get away with a lot of stuff in homes. Like I dude, well, think about it. If you're renting, you don't need an inspection. You're just like, hey, I'm a good person.

SPEAKER_03

Rent my house. That's what that's like what pushed me into buying a house. I'm like, I can't take this anymore. You just live in these places with all these like just horrible repairs, and you can't do anything about it.

DIY Burnout And Perfectionism Traps

SPEAKER_01

So the other end of the spectrum, I got I and I fall into this a little bit, but I got my my my buddy John. Uh he was a house I lived in before I bought my first house. And uh we were remodeling it while I was there. So I was like giving him a hand. He was he does a lot of work himself, he's a handy dude, he knows his shit. But like he is like a he has he probably has OCD, like like literally does. And so he's the kind of guy that's like shaving two by fours by a 16th or a 32nd to like get a wall to be perfectly like if he can't get it. Like he's he was so he's tearing walls out and like losing his mind over these like old Pittsburgh homes, which which like you could fart in the room in the like the east side of the house, and the left side's gonna fall down like an inch. Like, there's like they're just old. They're that you got that. That's like kind of how they function. But this poor guy, like, every time he tear a wall out, there would be something out of plum, something out of square, something broken, some some some little water drip that turned into like 97 other consecutive issues, and like replace like he and it was just this tiny house. He's he's in over his head now, like he's living in it still. Um, but I'm like, there's no way you're gonna be making any money on this because you put so much time into it. I feel like that's a lot of the other that's the other side of the spectrum as you get into something and you just stop caring about your time investment at all. Yeah, you're like, I'm gonna do it right, it's gonna take me seven years, right?

SPEAKER_03

I will say, uh looking around my house and that, because there was like a good almost year straight where just my day would just be like get home from work and then just put like another five, six hours like in that house. And like sometimes I'll just sit and look. I'm like, how did I do this? Like, I don't wanna like like I just can't imagine going back to that where it's like I've no free time, it's just all in that house. Like I'm like, the next one can't be a fixer upper, it's gotta be just ready to go.

SPEAKER_01

Or it's gotta be a fixer upper. Because I'm a huge fan of like doing that. That's what I did with my first house, right? Huge fan, but like you hit a point where you're like, okay, I gotta invest in the next fixer. Like it's gotta be like, yeah, someone else can come in and do this work, and I can pay them and still get equity and and like improve the house. Yeah, because you just you man, that you're right, that's exhausting.

SPEAKER_03

Like hopping from task to task, too. I'm sure you're the same where the same way where like certain things, it's like I'm very proficient at this, and there's other things where it's like I could do it, but I'm not the best. And those would be the things to just frustrate me endlessly, or it's like I know it can be better, but it's like the tile.

SPEAKER_01

The tile you know, it's like to do good tile work, it's like you gotta be good. Oh, yeah. And and uh it'll drive you mad, especially if you're like good enough at like woodwork or caventry or something. You're like, I know how to do something really well, and I can't get this damn tile to be good. Like, and you don't know where to go for resources, it's sucking up a bunch of time, and then that costs you a lot of money. Oh, it's frustrating as hell.

SPEAKER_02

So, snack

Pumpkin Spice Protein Bar Taste Test

SPEAKER_02

time, gentlemen. We have the uh, I think that they're new to us, uh, first form protein bars, level one bar, it's gluten-free, high quality pumpkin spice crunch.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I love these first form bars. You guys know I gas the peanut butter jelly. Peanut butter jelly is made. And we're and we're super grateful. I'll tell you a bit more about first form in a second, uh, because they're supporting the show. But these are new to me. Pumpkin spice in June.

SPEAKER_02

I haven't, I have, I've heard good things about these bars. It's good.

SPEAKER_03

I will say, this would smack in the fall. It feels like it's like encased like a marshmallow. There's like a chewiness. It's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01

I actually am I mean the flavor's great. It's it's pumpkin spice, 100%. You're getting it in the nose and in your palate. I'm most surprised. Usually bars that are flavored this way are not like moist at all. They're usually dry as hell. And this is actually nice and moist. I give it to them.

SPEAKER_03

I just appreciate that it's not one of those like super tough protein bars where it's like molasses.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Nice work, first worm. Give me a little fall, a little fall flavor in June. Kick off the month.

SPEAKER_02

Well, we're almost to October, you know.

SPEAKER_01

We gotta we haven't even got a week of summer yet here, don't even shit. We might walk into Costco later and literally start to see, you know, pumpkins out. Pumpkins and pumpkins how in pumpkin bullshit.

SPEAKER_03

I I you know I feel more justified in saying pumpkins the way I do. I've heard more and more people say it like that. Don't let that man take your yin.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. Is that a yin's thing? Pumpkin? Pumpkin. Yin's gonna get out there a pumpkin patch this weekend.

SPEAKER_02

Not a yin's thing. No artificial flavors. Pull a started that one. They'll let him take the train.

SPEAKER_01

I'm a fan. That's tasty. 20 grams of protein.

SPEAKER_02

That was a good little. Now that we're back from that ad break.

Toilets Shower Waterproofing And Wet Mortar

SPEAKER_02

It's time to move on, boys. We're we're we're almost there. What do you guys think about this? What is that? How do you remedy this? It's a DIY fail. The water disconnect is on top of the toilet.

SPEAKER_03

No. Uh is that bad? I mean, it's just bad because you can't put an escutcheon on there. Maybe just put a smaller scutcheon or move the pipe. Also, I didn't know they still sold the plastic flex lines. I thought they only have the braided steel ones.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I don't maybe that was a DIY fail right there.

SPEAKER_01

I think they make the plastic for other applications. Do they? I think it's not for that. But it does say toilet. Yeah, it does say toilet. It could be Europe. We don't know. Europe. They make um they make toilets with plates, base plates that don't look like that.

SPEAKER_02

I didn't think this was that much of a disaster.

SPEAKER_03

You already know how he's fixing it. He's gonna cut part of that toilet out. I mean my angle grinder.

SPEAKER_01

I think the thing I I appreciate more is like um the wet finger caulk line on top of the paint on the on the baseboard. See that? How it's just inconsistently continually going into the paint.

SPEAKER_03

They call for the he could just go back over with the paint. I don't know why he doesn't just cut in the top.

SPEAKER_02

He's worried more about his toilet water line touching the toilet.

SPEAKER_01

From this angle, it kind of looks like he painted like behind the water line. Could have. Look up top right.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, it wasn't that terrible. That one's not that bad. This was a good one. Okay. Flood test failed, leaked into kitchen ceiling. What is that? You guys ever seen this? I don't even know what I'm looking at.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, wait, is that the the back of the layout?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's the uh it was.

SPEAKER_01

They waterproofed it. Yeah. Okay, so they waterproofed what? What are we looking at?

SPEAKER_02

Um, I think it's a shower.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, shower redone and the floor test failed, flood test failed.

SPEAKER_02

Uh the tile subcontractor is saying the caul around the edges was defective and the batch did not dry after 48 hours.

SPEAKER_01

Is it right? Okay, show me the corners.

SPEAKER_02

People were saying they've never seen caulking on top of the safeguard.

SPEAKER_01

No, you put the caulking under it.

SPEAKER_02

Maybe that's why I looked at it.

SPEAKER_01

The safeguard honestly seals the corners.

SPEAKER_03

See, I've never done one of these. Don't they have like the pieces for the corners where it's like like a four-inch?

SPEAKER_01

This is a roll-on. It's a roll-on rubber coating. Oh, okay. Yeah, so you roll this. If you're using like purple board or hardybacker or something, and you want to get like the most waterproof seal you can, you roll this on, and it essentially becomes like a rubber, it's like flex seal for your shower pan. Shower around.

SPEAKER_02

Um that's an interesting one.

SPEAKER_03

See, w I I this one compared to the other ones isn't given the same oomph just because we just have to take this person's word for it.

SPEAKER_01

It looks like they rolled it straight on to like OSB though. Oh no. Punch but keep punching. Is that as far as you can get to it? Yeah, yeah. So you see like the the wood grain. No, that's concrete. You think? Yeah, I do. Because you see how spotty it is?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, over here.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, see that? That's concrete.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Let's see what the the the Which is probably why they called.

SPEAKER_01

Which is stupid.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I've never seen it on top of Red Guard.

SPEAKER_01

Redguard. I also didn't see a drain in the code. It looks like hack work and he's trying to blame. I think that's rectangle. That is the drain.

SPEAKER_03

It's like one of those big no-show ones.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I don't think that one deserves a Reddit thread, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think it's more or less this guy just asked like needing to know how do I ask my contractor to fix this. It's an interesting thing. Roll it again.

SPEAKER_03

You did you did bring up a good point earlier. I don't I don't think there's ever been it, and I've seen some weird shit in houses, but there's never been any like desire. I've had to be like, let me take a photo of this and post on Reddit. I'm gonna have a discussion with strangers for like six days about it. All right.

SPEAKER_02

This mortar is still wet after three weeks. I put this tile in myself about three weeks ago. I had to redo my shower floor because the grout failed. I put down some red guard over the old shower liner and tiled over that. When I press down on some of the tiles, there is a barely audible squish sound. Tiles don't seem to be moving. I know there isn't a lot of space between the tiles for moisture to get out, but do I just wait or is something wrong?

SPEAKER_03

What's wild is that he's having the like I feel like these are super like these are more like tame issues, but he's obviously like he did this wild shit where he'd like you know, cut it so it'd all be sloped towards the drain. It's like he was able to almost accomplish that, but we can't get the the thin set to bond. I feel like so.

SPEAKER_01

I think the problem is, this from my limited experience, using large format tiles on a shower floor, there's gonna obviously not be as much excuse me, there's gonna be more opportunity for air if it's an uneven surface underneath where you can you more or less have uh like your shit that's supposed to be dry and get something get trapped under. That's probably what it is. That's why you always see smaller tiles on shower floors that have these like custom pans in them for the slope and whatnot. Because it doesn't allow for as uh as many of those kind of issues. I'm wondering if it has something to do with like the slope and if that if it was a custom because those custom pans can be made on just straight mortar beds. Yeah, yeah, that's that's interesting. Or he mixed his mud wrong.

SPEAKER_03

Those gaps are killing me, though. There's not one line that goes like perfectly.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, that this man made his life so hard by it.

SPEAKER_02

How do you have like you could do all of this, it looks sweet, and then you get in here and it's just like doesn't look sweet.

SPEAKER_01

This looks stupid. Yeah, it's all yeah. Do yourself put small format tile on the on the ground.

SPEAKER_02

Like they make like you get penny tile, you can get large, like you could get patterns that already have them on them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's why they make them though, is so that there's a lot more opportunity for it to like flex to the floor as the floor slopes. Because you think about taking a board and like sloping one of them down. Yeah, that photo. Like that's why they exist, is so you can get the slope because you then there's no gap underneath it.

SPEAKER_02

So this guy here is having water leak into his basement because he didn't do it right. So same thing. I mean, you just gotta dude.

SPEAKER_01

I would DIY in your own shower can be quite horrendous if you are if you miss at all, like that water's gonna find a way out.

SPEAKER_03

And I've seen that in a couple people's homes where it's like, oh, so-and-so did the shower in here, and it's fine for like a year or two, and then they start to realize like, oh, water's been slowly leaking through this drain. It's like now the whole bathroom needs dental.

SPEAKER_01

My old house, the cleaning ladies, excuse my bougie ass, scrubbed the shit out of the shower floor so hard they scraped all the grout and caulk out of the out of the corners of the shower basin. And there was a seat in that shower. So I was out, I was taking the trash out one day. Sarah's taking a shower. I walked back like towards the house. There's just water pissing out of the external wall. And I'm like, uh. Right? And I'm like, I like run upstairs. I'm like, what are you doing in here? Right. And uh she's like, I'm I'm taking a shower, and I'm like, get out right now. She turns it off, the water stops going outside. And so there was also issues with like the it shouldn't have passed inspection past a certain point because if they ran plumbing on the external wall, but that part ignored. Um I know that's when I noticed that they scraped all the caulking off. So I actually ended up have I've I recalked that shower pan like three times. It didn't pass inspection when we sold the house. So we had to like go pay to have someone fix it. Um, but I use the the flexel caulk. We're in the can then. I wouldn't pressurize. I love flex seal, not we love Phil. Well, it was just like an ease, I didn't have to do all that.

Deck Rot Repairs And Building It Right

SPEAKER_02

Uh this is a DIY deck repair. Uh my deck seems to be one of those no-cut, no-dig decks installed by a previous owner. The joists are rotting and boards are popping up. I can't afford to pay someone to rebuild, even rebuild it myself right now. But I was thinking I could sister some joists to try uh and get another season or two out of it. What like when you see this? What do you think, John? You've done some decks.

SPEAKER_01

I honestly I think if you are a DIYer, one of the easiest projects you can do is a deck. As long as you're not getting into like crazy overhead blah blah blah. Essentially all that happens here, Joe, is that when you have a vertical, if you have a surface that's horizontal to the sky, water's gonna sit on it 100% of the time. So if you look at it, those boards are just rotting because they were water's just sitting on them as they get underneath the deck boards. Now they use uh they'll put a good deck builder, will put uh waterproof tape down on the room.

SPEAKER_02

But you also don't want it just sitting on it looks like it's sitting on it's sitting on all the the they didn't pull the rocks away. You kind of want it a little bit elevated.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you want it off the ground, right? But the problem with the photo, if you look back, is the top's rotting where the board deck boards are, the bottom's not rotting because there is some air gap underneath.

SPEAKER_03

I guess there's a little bit of that one on the back there. It looks like the whole thing's yeah, so that's pretty terrible.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, you're you're gonna get bugs and and all kinds of crap if you're just right like do yourself a favor, dig yourself something out and throw some uh you know, a water barrier down and some pebbles at least at a minimum.

SPEAKER_03

That would be a good subreddit for us to explore. I'm not a big like deck builder or anything at all, but there's a uh subreddit just for decks where people will take photos of theirs and they'll be like, oh, is this overbuilt, underbuilt?

SPEAKER_01

And it's like a whole I built my last the one deck I have, a deck deck that I've built, I built like deck substructures or like repaired decks, but uh, the only deck I built a deck on the my last house or two houses ago, and um that was actually an awesome project. And I learned a shit ton because I had to like tear a window out, put a door in, run a deck, and blah blah blah. Anyway, the fasteners that exist nowadays are in like ridiculous and insane. So they they do mitigate a lot of like the questionable parts of building a deck, like a big concern is a deck falling off the house, right? So me and Sam Green were incredibly concerned with this deck not being like stable at all, right? So we built this thing like to every single spec we could, and it was during COVID. So we scheduled as many we were trying to get building permits, we're trying to get inspectors, and the city's just like go fuck yourself, more or less. Like the like so we in in Pittsburgh, you can get away with it. We just built the thing, we built it all to code and then had them come out after. Um, and the inspector came out after. He's like, You could you could park a military tank on this thing. I was like super proud of like yeah, of course we could. We had like we needed four, we had like 10 pylons in the ground. We drilled them. We we literally brought an excavator back there and drilled the pylons to like four and a half feet above the frost line and all this crazy shit. That's crazy, it was wild. But um once you get into like the basic framing of a deck, uh they're they're they're not that the worst thing in the world to repair or upgrade or fix. Um, unfortunately, the house I have now, we have a ton of rotting boards because it was built by some schmuck. Um, and they're it's the exact same problem. Flat laying boards, water's just sitting on top of them, there's no waterproofing on it, and you can see it from underneath, and you're like, this is gonna be a problem in the future. We should build a deck here.

SPEAKER_03

Where are we gonna put a deck?

SPEAKER_01

We'll go up. Well, what's what purpose would it serve? You could tan on it.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Maybe get an outdoor workout? Maybe we build a deck over a deck would be sweet. Over the uh one of the bays outside?

SPEAKER_02

Something that we can get easy access to be on the roof. You need to get all the stairs to the deck, and then the ladder goes on the deck up to the roof. Oh, okay. So we don't have to go on the forklift. Off the forklift. That might not be a bad move.

SPEAKER_01

Deck roof, let's go.

SPEAKER_02

I I do want to

Home Inspectors Expose New Build Failures

SPEAKER_02

uh end on. I want you guys to watch one of this guy's shorts of him going and doing a home inspection. Yeah. Hold on, let me find it. Forget his name again. Yeah, tear him apart. I dig it.

SPEAKER_03

Here he is. I feel like I've seen this guy before.

SPEAKER_00

You know it's gonna be a good new building section when you pull up and the project manager's inside, and he comes out and he says, Hey Jordan, just so you know, we've had our own in-house inspector already go through the property. We had to fix a couple things, but it's all complete, so you shouldn't be here too long. Well, I've heard that one before.

SPEAKER_02

Is that is that very common people do that?

SPEAKER_01

What's up? It depends. Like a builder's gonna have different builder's gonna be trying to like get the shit done.

SPEAKER_03

So, yeah, and they just want to kind of move it along. They must hate when this dude comes rolling up.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. New bills, man. Yeah. The clips are right there, too. They're right there. He does this in every one of his videos. This is my I've watched his videos just for this moment.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's so sad. Oh.

SPEAKER_00

I probably shouldn't have done that.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, is that clogged?

SPEAKER_00

Oh can they leave that alone? I don't know who needs to hear this, but if your energy bill is, I don't know, six, seven, eight hundred dollars. Look at that. You might want to jump in your attic and insulate it. That'd be a good idea. But you know, for whoever insulated this water line though. That's nuts. You can open it, but you don't even need the doorknob. You can just push it open.

SPEAKER_01

So, like that's not an inspection thing. Like that would that wouldn't be on like the microphone violation, but uh I love that he put it in there.

SPEAKER_00

Why is the doorbell not working? Why is that light not working? But when you get closer, what is that? What is that? And then you see this.

SPEAKER_03

You see those V G guys? Why'd they mitre the brick? There is no need.

SPEAKER_00

Why is the only one that sees this? Somebody put all the screws on the grinder pump lid and left this and just left it. And he's like, I'm just I'm done. You know, the same guy that left that screw sitting on the grinder pump lid is probably the same guy that scrapped his conduit.

SPEAKER_02

He just goes.

SPEAKER_00

We got power. I'm gonna shut off the lights in the garage. Now I can see it. There's the opening for the spiders, and there's the opening for the snakes.

SPEAKER_02

This guy is amazing.

SPEAKER_03

They have to hate him though, because like he posts all of these, so it's not like it's one thing if a home inspector is like, hey, there's these things that need fixed. Once it's publicly out there, oh, I saw your house.

SPEAKER_01

I don't even care. I love it. I think it's amazing that he's holding people apart. I he needs to for the new builds. Do your shit right. Like, I dude, I only say this too because we went through the new build. Remember when I was telling you guys about that? And like it passed inspection, was going through all this stuff, and then the foundation cracked before we even moved in the house because it was some shoddy inspector came through, just checked some boxes, shook some hands, ate a donut, and his shit ass got out of the house. The house was built on like dirt and soil it shouldn't have been built on. Started sliding over the hill. Foundation cracked before we even moved in. Because I'm married to an attorney, I think that they were just willing to let us walk. But lo and behold, that house is sliding over the hill. The people that bought it after us because it was in the disclosure and they were willing to wave it and stuff. But like some inspectors, dude, do your job. You like people rely on you. I love that that guy's holding the one, holding the industry accountable, and two, propping up people doing what they're supposed to be doing to a high level. Good for you, bro.

SPEAKER_02

With some comedy.

SPEAKER_01

It definitely does. There's a couple guys that do that content really well. I think that's a great content. Good little niche's in.

SPEAKER_02

If he could keep hammering out, man, he might he might do some things.

SPEAKER_03

You ever think he gets at a house where everything's just super tight? He's got a he has they don't perform as well though, because videos of like he's gonna loosen the tight stuff over.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, like he he goes into a house and it'll actually like do well, and he'll he'll do it in honest video. Like this house actually was great, but yeah, like it'll do like 30,000 views, so that one did like five and a half million. Like, you know, so people just like seeing like the bad side of the world. Not wrong.

Wrap Up And What To Send Next

SPEAKER_02

That's all we have for today.

SPEAKER_01

Not wrong. Well, Reddit's a new part, new asshole of the internet that I don't ever explore. So if you've guys got um any Reddit threads or concepts or whatever you'd like to see us continually come back to this type of content, please um link it down below or call the uh number on the screen. We do have our voice message, uh voicemail, which we're gonna be doing our first ever uh voicemail reaction to here on the Builder Bunker, uh, which you can check out, which I also got linked down in the description for you. With all that being said, appreciate and love each and every one of you. Please comment on Sam's haircut below, and we'll see you guys on the next episode.

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John Malecki

Host
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Joe Meinert

Co-host
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Sam Poola

Co-host