Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Delaware County, PA (Delco"") and the surrounding Philadelphia Metro Region.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Master Attic LLC Owners: David Bengio & Eric Pepose, the Masters of Attic and Crawlspace Transformation Services
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Master Attic LLC Owners: David Bengio & Eric Pepose, the Masters of Attic and Crawlspace Transformation Services
If transforming your attic and basement crawl spaces into cleaner, safer and more energy-efficient spaces is on your list of homeownership tasks, this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast will deliver needed insights from David Bengio and Eric Pepose of Master Attic LLC. You'll hear Good Neighbor Podcast Host Bob Blaisse, ask David and Eric, who have been friends since childhood and are now also longtime business partners, to share their journey from being a single truck, home services company started 10 years ago, to now leading a renowned team of 25 employees who have tackled most attic or basement crawl space challenges and solved them all across the tri-state region of New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania and Northern Delaware.
Whether it's degraded insulation or unwelcome critters like squirrels, raccoons and rodents, David and Eric have seen it all and share how their experience has been used to develop the comprehensive approach that now is Master Attic LLC's expertise, which includes removing wildlife, cleaning, sanitizing, sealing unintended entry points and/or adding insulation or humidity preventive measures to create specific long-lasting solutions for homeowners.
Listen, learn and unlock the hidden potential of your attic and basement crawl spaces as David and Eric discuss how their home services boost home energy efficiency and can even increase home value and speed up home sales.
From dealing with insulation inefficiencies to transforming attics into livable spaces, these Good Neighbor Business owners of Master Attic LLC share their passion for making homes more comfortable, clean and secure by bringing attic and crawl spaces up to today's housing standards that protect the home investment by preventing future problems while improving home integrity, value and homeowner quality of life.
Master Attic LLC
www.masterattic.com
Serving NJ, DE & PA
800-285-4009
Angi
Next Door
--- About The Show--- Good Neighbor Podcast is a spotlight on local businesses in and around Delaware County, PA (“Delco” ) and Beyond... The executive producer and host, Bob Blaisse, is a community sponsorship advocate, business branding specialist, and publisher of several hometown magazines, including: Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors, Marple Friends & Neighbors and Newtown Edgmont Friends & Neighbors, mailed monthly to more than 12,000 homes in Western Delaware County, PA, and also available for reading online.
Master Attic LLC
Speaker 1Hello, delco. This is Michael Barkan, welcoming you to the Good Neighbor Podcast, where fans of local businesses and their neighbors come together. It's my pleasure once again to introduce my friend and neighbor, our host Bob Lacey.
Speaker 2Well, thank you, michael, for that introduction again. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We're coming into Thanksgiving week. It's the early part of the week, the best day of the week I understand for weather and yet the big day, the thank you day, is coming up on Thursday. We're very grateful for the year that we've had here at the Good Neighbor Podcast and today I'm very grateful for some wonderful guests that we have. We love when we have a twofer, two people from the same business, a good neighbor business, in our community.
Speaker 2We're coming to you from Delaware County, pennsylvania, which those of you who listen regularly know is the southeastern most county in the state of Pennsylvania. We're just above, just north of the state of Delaware and just west of New Jersey. We're just south of Philadelphia. So right there in the southeast corner, delaware County, lovingly referred to as Delco. This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, delco, but it's Delco and beyond, and today we're going to have a little bit of that beyond. So let me bring to the stage our two guests for the Good Neighbor Podcast. Today we have two business owners of Master Attic LLC, david Bengio and also Eric Pippos. Gentlemen, welcome to the Good Neighbor podcast. Good morning Bob. Thanks for having us. Pleasure to be here hey.
Speaker 4good morning Bob. How are you doing?
Speaker 2Well, that second voice was David and Eric. They're partners. You guys are business partners for Master Attic LLC. I understand correct? That's correct, yep. Well, the name Master Attic. We're going to figure out what that means. I'm asking the listeners right now to think what could Master Attic mean? They're probably heading down a course of I'll take a raw attic and I'll turn it into living space or something like that. But I think there's more here. Let's talk about Master Attic from a perspective of first, just to get the engine going here a bit, you're located in New Jersey, but you service several states Pennsylvania, eastern Pennsylvania, probably Northern Delaware as well, and all of New Jersey. Master Attic is a business that services people's attics. Also, let's ask, eric, if you could let me know what would be the way that Master Attic is servicing attics.
Speaker 3So there's a bunch of different aspects of the company that we service and a lot of different products that we offer, all based around attics and crawl spaces, and our slogan is Master, attic, insulation and Rodent Solutions. So it's twofold based on stuff that you have going on in your attic or your crawl space with new insulation Either you need new insulation or you're having rodent problems. Or even with crawl spaces where you're having some moisture problems and need stuff like a moisture barrier.
Speaker 2A lot there. I mean, that's a lot said right there. David, I have to think that the reason why your business was nominated to be a guest on the Good Neighbor podcast today is because there's probably a real wow factor after you all leave. Is the wow factor as simple as you've got that animal out of my attic, or is it like now we can actually use that attic, which is the reason why people nominated you to be a guest on the Good Neighbor podcast?
Speaker 4Yeah, good question. So it's really two things. It's the fact that we're able to get your energy efficiency up to code and now use a space that you once had a dirty, dusty area to now also getting rid of rodents that may have, you know, occupied the space for a while and were causing a lot of noises and stuff like that. Now that problem has been taken care of also, along with the energy efficiency. Killing two birds with one stone.
Speaker 2Yeah and listen. Whenever there's energy efficiency, there's a return on investment. So you know, whatever the cost is to bring in master attic LLC to kind of help your attic space become either safer or better use, there's going to be savings because of the installation that goes on. I would think that not just loss of heat, but also problems that you probably recognize being in the attic. When you climb into some of these attics, eric, are you kind of like. Even your workers and people like you that go in there are like wow, we've seen attics but this is a bad attic. Or this isn't that bad, but it doesn't look that bad. But they don't realize the problem they have with humidity or no insulation. What's your experience when you climb in there?
Speaker 3I'll tell you, around the insulation side we're primarily servicing homes that are, you know, older 15, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, very, you know, in newer homes they might not necessarily have an insulation problem, but they may have a rodent problem and what happens is is these areas are neglected. Nobody goes up there.
Speaker 3Nobody realizes what's happening there. They don't realize that their insulation over the last 20 years have degraded substantially and they're not any energy efficient at all. Until they hear some knocking around in their attic, some scratching, at night they wake up. They're like something's going on up there. Let me find out. So they give us a call, we come down and we see that you know, not only is the attic really old and needs to be upgraded, but you have a rodent that caused a lot of damage, either a family of raccoons or squirrels. So by cleaning that out, generally they leave around, they leave behind, you know, stuff like urine and feces and a smell. That's you know. The other rodents know it's a nesting area, so they want to come back.
Speaker 3And the only way to truly solve the problem is not just getting rid of the rodent, but by cleaning, sanitizing and re-insulating the whole space. Because now you need to do that once we've removed everything that's contaminated. Smart, so that's what happened. It. Do that once we removed everything that's contaminated. So that's what happened. It wasn't just the rodent problems. We could solve that, but now you need insulation as well. So we bundled it all together. We give you a package. We could solve your rodent problem. We can upgrade your home's insulation, ear seal, everything. Bring everything up to code and you're good to go for the next 20 years.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean that is some smart stuff. I have to say I've seen people driving around with you know can get you know squirrels out of your attic or something. But when I looked into this nomination that came in for Master Attic LLC I realized this is a pretty big business. I mean just the fact that you're willing to even service the coverage areas like into three states. You have multiple crews, I'm sure, going out and then you know licenses that are needed and insurance that's needed. So this is an important thing. When people are, you know, beginning a business and or people are looking at a business who I bring into my home, the idea of liability and safety is always important with contractors. David, can you give us an idea? Tell us how long has Master Attic LLC been in business and and how did you two meet and really kind of get the idea to build this business? Did it start in a kind of a past life of some side work?
Attic Cleaning and Restoration Services
Speaker 4Okay, great question. So I've been in this business for over 10 years now, and back around eight years ago is when Master Addict started. Now, just to give you a little background, I worked for a company 10 years ago in California where I was a technician on a crew and I did this exact work and learned the business over there. I worked there for about a year and a half and then I came back to New Jersey and me and Eric know each other for about 25 years now. We were kids in elementary school and we were five years old, so we've been friends ever since and I decided that you know he'd be a great partner for me to go on this journey with and start up a business like this. And you know we kicked it off from there. We started up with one little truck parked down on the corner of his house and, you know, built it up to a team of 25 employees.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, I thought as much that it was that big. I think I sold either the trucks or somewhere. I ran into you all and I didn't have a chance to do. You do you show up at like home shows at times too, where you're put setting up a booth or something like that, or maybe it was. It was like County or something. But I have to say your name is so perfect because you know when you're done it's like a master came in to fix the attic up.
Speaker 2But this ability, as Eric said, you know to kind of first say you know, ma'am, your problem isn't just that you have a squirrel in the attic or you know you're hearing mice in the attic, it's, it's really what they've been doing up there and and it's how they got in. And how can we prevent other people, other animals, from getting in? And squirrels people don't worry about too much. But, man, when you know you've got a raccoon in the attic or when it's really you see a lot of mice droppings that you're very concerned about, or God help us if it's a bat flying around in the attic, people are scared to death of that stuff. Are you guys really good at getting that stuff? I mean that would scare me daily work. Your guys go in there and just know exactly how to get them out well, they.
Speaker 3They've been doing this for for a long time.
Speaker 3Our crew is very well trained and and this is what they do every day, all day, so we've come across stuff like raccoons, squirrels, mice turkey vultures, if you could believe it oh wow, that was something that we had to kind of come up with a plan the day before of how we were going to handle that one, because they're very territorial and aggressive, so they're very, very good at what they do. It's also a very invasive job. We're coming through your home with a bunch of guys, we're taking out a ton of garbage from your attic, we're putting it in. So we came up with a system that we get this job done 99% of the time in one day. We'll send as many guys as we have to do to tackle this job and get it done. Most of the times the animals they run out. They're scared, they get out. It's about sealing up all those gaps and holes of where they're coming in, from which you're able to see a lot better once the whole attic is cleaned out.
Speaker 3And we start first thing in the morning and we don't leave until the job is done and it's because we're know we're going through your home and you know we're taking out all this stuff. We, you know, secure the area, use PPE and all that stuff and we start and get the job done.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, it sounds like you are very skilled at this and it's also, I think, is known that you are, because the name Master Attic LLC is really getting to be more and more known in the tri-state area.
Speaker 2We're talking here today to two master attic service persons, but really the owners of Master Attic LLC, david Bengio and Eric Peppers, who are boyhood friends, who found the niche for cleaning out attics, not to take away junk, cleaning out attics from the things that are causing attics to smell or to be having problems with humidity or even not be as warm, loss of efficiencies with energy. And it seems to me, eric, that there is not just getting the animals out, which might be the first call, but when someone realizes that they okay, I know, I have an animal in my attic, I got to get it out, I got to find out a way that they don't come back. But then that leads to the questions it's not just how they got in, it's really the efficiencies and stuff. How many people will actually hear about their attics not being efficient, heat-wise, insulation-wise, for the first time by having a problem with their attic some animal in there?
Speaker 3insulation-wise for the first time by having a problem with some animal in there. Well, I think that a lot of times, you know, as homes get older, as you realize you're coming into winter months or even summer months when you realize that your house is not cooling properly or it's not heating properly, your bills are going up. You start to think, you know, maybe something needs to be upgraded in the house, maybe we should go upstairs, because we haven't been up there in 15 years and check out what's going on there. So we get plenty of calls, not just for modem problems, for people saying my house is cold at night and something's going on.
Speaker 3Can you guys come down and check the insulation? And you know, we come in and we find out that you know you're supposed to have a minimum of R30, of insulation and you got old dust sitting there. You know two inches sitting just nastiness of dirt and and and debris and junk all over the place and it just settles and that causes dust to settle into your home and it's just. You know, it takes most of the time for people that are not knowledgeable. It takes things for you know them realizing that their energy, their gas bill is going up, their electric bill is going up or their house is not properly heating or cooling.
Speaker 2You know that sounds like a master attic professional conversation. Right there there is this thought that I'm having. When you were to go to my attic you'd see there's a lot of junk in it and we have to move the junk around to find out where the you know mice are getting in, or the squirrel got in and then that reveals that we don't have any insulation. But the junk is that a problem, having to get around that stuff? Or will you actually say to the customer we'll help you get rid of this junk out of the attic?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 3So, if we get a call. And if we get a call to come up and inspect somebody's attic, we don't just do junk removal but obviously if we need to do a job and a customer has a full years of storage up there, we have to take it down. Whether we take it down, sometimes we put it down in their garage and let them sort through it and figure out what they want to do with it. Sometimes we take it all down, do the full attic job and then put it all back. So every job is different and we suit the customer's needs it all back.
Speaker 2So every job is different and we suit the customer's needs. Sure, david, I wonder, do you find that even just marketing your service? I hate to talk about sales on the Good Neighbor podcast, but this is a bit of a runway that people don't even realize. My house could be warmer, my house could be cleaner, I could be protecting myself against the rodent infestation, but I might want to sell my house. Do you find, david, that this is a real way of getting your house ready for sale, absolutely.
Speaker 4So we get a lot of calls it's probably 30% of our business where people are buying and selling homes and what will happen is the inspector will come, will you know, come in to do that pre sale inspection, and he'll go ahead and check out the attic and tell you hey, you know you, your insulation is not enough up to code before you sell, or you have rodents in your attic, go ahead and call a company like like ours, to check it out.
Maximizing Attic Space and Value
Speaker 4And the problem is is that, you know, usually people cannot find a company that does all of this in one. So that's where we come in and you know, we're checking out the energy efficiency of the insulation plus the rodent issue, which we're able to tackle all at once and get rid of the problem for them. And that actually helps the sale of the home. When you're going to sell the home, the value goes up in general. Now you're not having a situation where the buyer or the seller wants to take money off the sale of the home. So this is something that is very beneficial to do in that type of scenario.
Speaker 2Sure, and if you've had your attic for years and you never worried about it and you got a lot of junk in there, this is one company now that can come in. And if you have to have attic cleanup, well, they can do it. Or if you need, you know, just to make it warmer, the insulation, or settle some gapping that's in the in between the walls and and those kinds of things. I see that in in the attics of my homes and then realize why I've never done anything about it. If listen, listeners if you want to do something about it and you want to be able to learn more about your attic and really how to make your attic usable or make your home more valuable by your attic not being quite what it is, you really want to talk to the master attic professionals.
Speaker 2David Bengio and also Eric Pippos are available. You can call them too at Master Attic LLC at 800-285-4009. And if you'd like to see them learn more about Master Attic, you can go to their website masteratticcom. Goodneighborhoodcom. Guys, I have to get ready to close this episode of the Good Neighbor podcast, but I don't want to do it without asking you this question how often, when somebody is just so tickled to death to see this now clean, fresh, safe, warmer attic. Do they actually say I've got more living space in my house? Do they often take the next step and go build it out as a room for living in?
Speaker 3It depends on the size of the attic. Not all attics could be finished. You know Some attics absolutely, and a lot of times they get calls of people that are planning to finish their attic. They're saying you know, we're planning on finishing, but this all needs to be taken care of first. It really depends. But a lot of times you know we'll build a little walkway up there, we'll put down some plywood so they can put stuff and they can go up there and you know it's a little bit, you know more of a room that they can access for storage rather than just, you know, an old dingy attic. So yeah, it really depends on specific attics.
Speaker 2I'm thinking about that right now, eric. I'm thinking about how I would love to have my attic completely clear. It's big enough that it would turn into a whole nother space. I might even think about, you know, putting some heat up there after getting it more efficient. And and and David, I have to say you two are very professional for being.
Speaker 2You know, what started maybe is like we're going to clean out your attic, guys, but then you learned really the art of your company because it was based in needs. You know, every year probably some new thing came along. You know whether it was based in needs. You know every year probably some new thing came along. You know whether it was insulation or whether it was. How do we get this kind of animal out of there? Or how do we make this now sanitized to make sure that what was left behind by those animals? So it's really an all-inclusive attic service, everything from cleaning the attic to making the attic livable and safe and certainly protecting the home against having any animal or rodent infestation.
Speaker 2Guys, I have to tell you, with everybody living in a home and everybody living under a roof and most people having attics, it's just really an amazing good neighbor business for the community, because people just don't know how to fix this problem and they're often afraid of something scratching on the floor up there in the attic or walking around. So you're heroes, you're really good neighbor businessmen for the Good Neighbor community. We want to thank you for being a guest here today on the Good Neighbor podcast. Thanks for coming into the studio for this episode, but thank you so much for the help that you give to the community that you serve through Master Attic LLC. David Bengio and Eric Papos. Thank you for being a guest today on the Good Neighbor Podcast.
Speaker 3Thanks for having us, bob, and when you're ready to tackle your own attic, you know who to call.
Speaker 4Thank you for giving us a shout, and if anybody needs a free estimate, just give us a holler.
Speaker 2Perfect, Wonderful guys. Thanks again.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast hosted by bob lacy. This is michael barkan inviting everyone to get on the good neighbor team. Nominate your favorite local business to be featured on an upcoming episode by going to gnpdelcocom or by calling bob at 610-557-3745.