The Carolina Contractor Show
The Carolina Contractor Show
HVAC Secrets for the Summer
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
When your professional HVAC technician warns you about a failing component, listen! This powerful lesson kicks off our deep dive into summer air conditioning maintenance as Eric shares how ignoring a $50 capacitor replacement led to an $800 repair bill when his blower motor eventually failed.
The value of maintenance contracts becomes crystal clear as we break down exactly what technicians check during routine service visits: refrigerant levels, operating pressures, capacitors, compressors, electrical loads, coil cleaning, and condensation line clearing. These regular check-ups can extend your HVAC system's lifespan by 5-10 years or more—potentially saving thousands on premature replacement costs.
While professional service is crucial, we also share several DIY checks homeowners can perform. Learn how to measure the temperature differential between your return and supply vents (ideally 15-20 degrees), monitor humidity levels for optimal comfort (50-60%), and locate your condensation drain line to ensure proper drainage. We also reveal a shocking story about how a simple maintenance oversight led to significant ceiling damage that went undetected for weeks.
Understanding your system's proper sizing (roughly 600 square feet per ton) and whether you have single or multi-stage equipment helps explain why your home might feel uncomfortably humid despite reaching the set temperature. For the adventurous, we provide guidance on inspecting ductwork connections and insulation to prevent energy waste and condensation issues.
The Carolina Contractor Show brings you practical knowledge that builds confidence in maintaining your home's most expensive systems. Share your HVAC questions or show topic ideas with us through our website at thecarolinacontractor.com, where you'll also find all our past episodes in podcast form.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with your host, general Contractor Donnie Blanchard. All right, donnie, I've known you long enough. I'm going to let you in on a secret of how I recovered from being sick. So if I was sick from whether it was a standard cold or the flu or whatever especially if I'd been calling Ralph on the big white phone after that day where you just wouldn't eat and you would just lay in bed and maybe sip some Gatorade about 24 hours after that point like clockwork, I would get up, take a shower, blurry eyed, worn out, get in my car, drive to Taco Bell and get a burrito supreme and a nacho bel grande, come back home, eat it and within 30 minutes to an hour I'd feel like a brand new person. And it doesn't work as effectively now that I'm older, but it sure did back then. And you said your son was sick the other day and you offered him floorboard Mexican food.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a long story behind that. It was just I had an extra soft taco supreme and we were actually recording the show last week and I was late getting to dinner and he was under the weather. And I was late getting to dinner and he was under the weather. I said, hey, bud, you know I've got some leftover Taco Bell, or I didn't eat that soft Taco Supreme. If you want to grab that while we record the show, I'll I'll be right out to to cook you a good square meal. But you thought that was funnier than I did.
Speaker 1:I was kind of embarrassed, it was just the way you said it to him was hey, I've got you know some Taco Bell on the floorboard of the truck if you're hungry. It was in a bag, I know, but I still related to it because I used to eat Taco Bell after I got really sick, and so when you said it I kind of reminisced. I was thinking about my youth too, like your son, about the same age, early 20s, and I would eat horrible food after I was sick and that seemed to be my recovery method for a couple decades.
Speaker 2:He's a savage and he works for my dad every day pouring concrete, so some days they don't even get a lunch. Him eating a leftover soft taco supreme is very not outside of his norm. He's a growing boy, so I think they'll just take anything.
Speaker 1:Well, this is the Carolina Contractor Show and of course we every week like to talk about concoctions that have cooked on a floorboard of a F-150, just because it's what we do. No, it's really not what we talk about, but sometimes those subjects pop up On the Carolina Contractor Show. We talk about your house, the inside and the outside, and DIY projects. So what we say uh, it's a sports center for DIY wires is Carolina contractor show. You can go to the website at uh, the Carolina contractorcom. We've got all our shows uploaded there in podcast form. Links to the YouTube show. You can check that out. Social media Again.
Speaker 1:If you have a question, which would you rather cook in the floorboard of your truck a burrito or an enchilada you can ask Donnie. He's not only a general contractor but he knows something about Mexican food sitting in a truck all day, so he can help you with those questions. He also is the owner of Sure Top Roofing and Blanchard Building Company and I just do sales. I sell tacos. No, I really don't sell tacos, but that'd be kind of a cool thing to sell at my store, which is a home builder supply in Wilson. Sorry, I've gotten completely distracted.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about Taco Bell. Now you sell to people who eat a lot of tacos. Okay, that's very accurate. Thank you very much, donnie.
Speaker 1:You've wrapped that up perfectly Okay. That's very accurate. Thank you very much, donnie. You've wrapped that up perfectly Okay. Last week on the show we were talking about things you can do to prep for summer and we kind of hit a quick hit list of about I don't know 10 or 12 things. Subject I'm like man, we only got like five minutes left of the show, we'd never be able to go in. All the things about an HVAC unit and we all have our war stories about air conditioning units and they always die in the summer.
Speaker 1:I personally, at the Smith household at the recording of this show, I'm waiting for a blower motor because ours went out and this ties into things. We've talked about maintenance programs and why you should get them. Before we get into the nitty gritty of maintenance programs that HVAC unit companies offer, let me say this when you hire a professional to take care of your car or your HVAC unit, as we're talking about now, listen to what they say, because he came in in February to do just a checkup and he said hey, man, I'm measuring the resistance and voltage and all that technical jargon on your capacitors and they're a little low. We might want to do a change out of that blower motor. I think it's going to start going bad. It'd be about 800 bucks installed.
Speaker 1:Start going bad It'd be about 800 bucks installed. I'm trying to pinch some pennies at the time and I said, well, maybe we can just talk about that in the future. So then the hot weather hits and the AC unit is on outside, the fan is blowing, but there's no air moving in the vents in the house. And so he comes in and says yep, the capacitors were trying to tell you something and your motor went into overdrive and it's dead. I'll order you a new one. You can enjoy this hot weather for a few days while you wait for that part to come in.
Speaker 1:I didn't listen to the profession.
Speaker 2:Shame on you E You're the guy that should know better. I know Well, Right.
Speaker 1:Happens to the best of us. So we want everybody to avoid those same things, and one of the big things you can do in the summer is prep work. A lot of homeowners think I can't do anything, but HVAC service is the easiest thing to do. An annual contract, that's what I have. My guy I don't know if you have one of these or have had them in the past, donnie my guy comes in and he checks capacitors and airflow and he even cleans the machines and he even pulls the weeds around the machines. Makes me feel kind of guilty, but he checks everything, goes up in the attic and he makes sure the fans working correctly and blows out the condensation lines, which is really important too. Do you, donnie, have a service contract with an HVAC company?
Speaker 2:So mine's kind of unfair. My next door neighbor is the heating and air guru and his son has also started. His son worked for another guy, which I think was very wise that he had his son work for someone besides himself. But his son did such a good job for the other guy that when he decided to get out of the business he passed his business along to Cody. So Cody's a whiz, his dad's probably the smartest person that I know, and they live next door to me so I never have any HVAC woes just because I've got these guys right here next door to me and they look out for me like family. So very fortunate in that aspect.
Speaker 2:But I do believe in the service contract thing. I think at least at a very minimum you should have your unit serviced annually. If not, you know bi-annually, and and, um, you know, hot to cold or cold to hot. I think that warrants, you know, uh, it depends on the service charge. But if they don't charge very much, you know they could extend the life of your unit. Um, what, five, six, seven, eight, maybe even 10 years?
Speaker 2:My dad got 20 years out of his heating and air unit and, uh, and it was all electric. So I it was. His house was built in 1990. So he he really got his money's worth. But he maintained it along the way and you know that keeps you from dropping another 15 grand, uh, when it's not necessary.
Speaker 2:But I do want to say I called my next door neighbor and I'm going to read this from a list because I can't keep all this in my head. But the typical HVAC service entails they check the refrigerant, they check the operating pressure, they check all the capacitors and compressors the compressor is the big ticket item. They check all the amps to the loads of the compressors, fans and et cetera. They clean all the amps to the loads of the compressors, fans and et cetera. They clean all the coils on the outdoor and indoor units and they blow out the condensation lines. And we'll get into the damage that can be caused from a blocked condensation line later. But it's very thorough and it sounds like your guy's doing a great job if he's pulling the weeds around the condenser units outside and he cares, and so hats off to him. He's doing a good job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've got a horror story, when we get to it, about condensation lines when they get plugged. Mine didn't get plugged, it got serviced incorrectly by a different person. I won't mention them but I'll tell that story. Is there things that we can do, donnie? First of all, don't mess with cleaning the coils if you're not sure what you're doing. A lot of people take their pressure washer and they'll sit there and clean all the dirt on the outside coils and they don't realize they're screwing up their was it fins.
Speaker 2:Yep, the fins, for sure, and that's something that even hail, things like that, can damage the fins. So it's funny that hail doesn't just cause damage to your roof, it can cause damage to your HVAC unit that's outside. So, um, uh, a few things. So, from a DIY standpoint, you know DIY and HVAC don't really go together, but there are a couple of things that that, uh, we're acronym heavy today.
Speaker 1:Uh, the you can check the temperature.
Speaker 2:You can check the temperature of the air coming out of your uh supply registers, whether they're on the floor or on the ceiling, and you can also check the temperature of the air going into the return. So those neat little thermometer guns that they use during COVID, when they shot those at your forehead and you had to act like it wasn't uncomfortable because you didn't want to move your head around a little bit. But you can get one if you still have one of those. From that point in time I keep one just because we're always needing those in the construction field. But it's a cheap thing. You can probably get it for $7, $10 on Amazon. And the air temperature going in and coming out should vary by about 15 degrees. So if you are calling for 70-degree air at the thermostat, then the air going into the return should measure about 70 degrees. The air coming out should be anywhere from 15 to 20 degrees cooler. So your register should be anywhere from 55, 50 degrees, something like that, depending on if your unit just kicked on or just how fast it's cooling that air down. So always want to be colder coming out of the supply than going in to the return, and I would say that the only other thing I could think about that you could check from a homeowner standpoint would be for a humidity issue. So the sweet spot for humidity is 50 to 60% inside of your house and a lot of these fancy thermostats now have a built in humidistat and, and if not, you know, something to monitor your humidity isn't expensive to do, but a lot of us have. We're intuitive enough to feel that humidity swing.
Speaker 2:So if you feel sticky in the house, you know then it's not doing its thing, not dehumidifying the air, then that could be not dehumidifying the air, then that could be caused for a bigger problem. And I'd say that in the morning, when it's a lot cooler, your system hadn't been working as aggressive through the night. So it's not going to obviously dehumidify the air and you might hover somewhere around 60. That's okay. And after lunch the heat starts going up pretty quick. It should be around 50 because a unit is cycling on and cycling off a lot faster. Where you might find a problem is that if you have an oversized unit and the square footage isn't working right, then the unit is cycling on and off too fast to dehumidify the air. So you're thinking, gee whiz, it's 70 degrees in here, but it's still humid and that's usually the problem.
Speaker 1:I will say it's nice when the tech comes in and says hey, I just want to let you know, Mr Smith, you have an oversized unit. Sorry, I'm sorry, it's really bad. That was kind of sketchy too. That kind of went to the zesty lane.
Speaker 2:You might have just topped last week's joke about inside hoses and yeah, but, lafonda, get the ditches, only you.
Speaker 1:So let's go ahead to the condensation thing, because this is important and anybody can do it. My house, for example, has two units, one's lower and upper level. The lower unit, floor unit the condensation line runs under the house basically and goes with the elevation of the house downward and goes through the masonry and so that one's easy to see. You can't miss usually your upstairs. If you have one condensation drain line, it's usually a PVC pipe coming straight down. Usually well, not usually sometimes it's covered with siding or they try to make it look a little less visible, but it drains usually near the unit. When that unit's running especially hot, heavy in summer, you should see dripping continually coming out of that drain. If you don't, there could be an issue. So my quick horror story is a horror story, I said was we had a guy checking our system and he said I'm going to make sure your condensation line is draining properly and he used a little shop vac. It was really cool. He was by himself, so for the average person who might not know, he went upstairs to the attic and he needed to create suction to vacuum out that. So he put a piece of duct tape over the open hole, went down, vacuumed it out, got distracted, didn't take the tape off. Vacuumed it out, got distracted, didn't take the tape off.
Speaker 1:About two weeks later my wife says there's a big stain in the ceiling in the bathroom. And I'm like what in the world? And I'm trying to figure out what it is. So I went up in the attic and the condensation pan is filled and the strain wouldn't drain out, so it had gone over, didn't have an alarm Not that it's my fault, but I do now and was dripping over the condensation pan, going through the blown insulation and sitting on the ceiling. And you know it's been happening for a couple of weeks because that leak won't show up in the ceiling right away. And when I called the guy could he look at it? He wasn't returning calls. I call another company, they come in and the guy goes why is there tape on this condensation line inside here? And I said I didn't put it there. He goes ah, whoever cleaned it last time forgot to take it off. See it all the time. Huge, huge problem. Go outside your house, make sure you got water dripping out of your condensation line. So what? He?
Speaker 2:did there is that that pipe that he covered up. It's actually a vent, just like you would have a plumbing vent going up from a toilet or a sink, and so that allows the water to flow both ways. You know it's basically it serves the exact same purpose as a plumbing vent as a plumbing vent. So he had to clog that up or block it with the tape so that when he pulled from the bottom to get the funk out of there, that uh, that it actually pulled where it was supposed to and not just from a blank vent. So he did the right thing but, like you said, he just mentioned, or he he just forgot to take the tape off.
Speaker 2:Um, that condensation line is a is a big issue in the summertime and that's one of those things where know where your condensation drain is. Homeowners and fellas just go out there, find where it is. Okay, I've got a puddle below that. It's working like it's supposed to. All good. I'm a fan of putting a little bit of pea gravel around the base, because it does make a muddy mess wherever it comes out, and a lot of times these heating and air guys will run the condensation drain out, not taking into consideration what it's going to be draining towards. So you need to look at the slope of the land and make sure that that thing's not uh cause when it's working properly, it's generating a lot of water, and especially in the summertime. But uh, two things could be a problem. It's either blockage, like you mentioned that you had, or it's a uh uh problem with the refrigerant. So if it's not producing water out of there, something's really going on. Need to call somebody right away. That's something that can't wait.
Speaker 2:Another thing I've had this happen I don't know five, six times in 10 years, but since it happened the first time, I know exactly what to do. That pan that you mentioned filled up under the unit. That pan is supposed to have a float switch in it, so your condensation line is blocked. This is a scenario your condensation line is blocked, it can't drain to the outside, so it's going to drain out the bottom of the air handler unit in the attic or the crawl space and it's going to fill up that pan. And what would you say? The sides of that pan are about three inches tall, something like that Between two and three, yeah, two and three.
Speaker 2:And so there's something called a float switch that they put in there. That float switch is when it floats it's telling the unit that it's full of water and there's a problem when the float switch goes up it actually cuts the power to the unit and the thermostat. So if you have a blank thermostat you're thinking, oh my God, what's going on. The blank thermostat is telling you that the float switch has activated and cut the power off to your unit. So that's something to think about there. And it's one of those things where you mentioned that he took a vacuum outside and did it. You can't always do it with a vacuum, but in a residential application sometimes that handy, dandy little shop vac will do the trick and you can save the money for the heating and air guy.
Speaker 1:Hey, talking about thermostats, I don't know if you've ever had one go out. I had one die. Well, it didn't fully die, so it was confusing for a little bit. It would click the unit on, the unit would run for five seconds and click right back off, and it had that issue. So I talked to somebody and they said, yeah, your thermostat is going bad and it's not hard to do.
Speaker 1:I decided to call my buddy Brandon Again, he's my tech because again, if you concentrate, it's fine. It's just hooking up multiple wires. They usually have a little flag system. Whereas you're taking off the first unit, you're hooking up A, b and C and D. It's not hard. But I decided one wire done incorrectly could fry my system. So he did it and he just bought a basic thermostat unit, but a lot of them. If you don't have a programmable unit and I'm surprised the number of people that still don't have one If you don't want to do it yourself, call somebody and get one, because it can save you so much money. Let you set it, forget it. And when you have a routine, especially when you have kids in school in the summer, it's a little more difficult, but you don't forget about it running. And now I mean, do you have one that you can even adjust remotely if you wanted to? Donnie, are you that high up the chain? Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I figured oh, I'm so nerdy, you know, I got them all over. I have one at the beach that when we're headed down to the beach I can kick the temperature up or down to be like we want it when we show up there. So technology has come a long way, but that's pretty standard. I would say that they all operate remotely, but you do have to have Wi-Fi to make that happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, remember I told my story at the beginning of the show, donnie, about my blower fan going out and my tech kind of said, hey, the capacitor, I'm waiting for that part to come in $850 fix. Remember what caused the problem? Yeah, the weak capacitor. And how much on average is just the part a capacitor versus a motor?
Speaker 2:Well, you probably have to go to a heating and air supply and some of those will sell to the public. Some of them won't, but it wouldn't hurt to call around before you drive all over town and just say, hey, I'm looking for a capacitor this size for this unit. But yeah, that's a great scenario where if you do not maintain your HVAC properly or know what to look for, that it's going to cost you a lot of money. And I want to say that capacitor is $40, $50 apart. Didn't you say it ended up being an $800 mistake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would have probably had to do it anyway, but he could have gotten more life by replacing the capacitor. But, yeah, $800 stupid tax for not listening to the guy that I pay because he's a pro to take care of Brandon. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. He's a pro. He pointed it out and I tried to baby the system, trying to get another year before I had to switch that capacitor out, and he warned me. And here we are no AC.
Speaker 2:Brandon, I think he just shed a happy tear for an. I told you so.
Speaker 1:No, he's going to put my picture up on his van and say this guy's an idiot. He didn't do what I said. Do what I say.
Speaker 2:Even bigger than that. I mentioned earlier in the show that the compressor is the big ticket item. So if you allow your unit to overheat because you don't have enough refrigerant, which is one of the things that they put in there during the service call a lack of refrigerant will cause premature compressor failure. Your compressor is the big ticket item where you're going to be over here thinking do I pay to do the compressor? Or I'm 12 years into my HVAC unit, just should I go ahead and do the whole darn thing? But that's a much bigger problem. So right back to what we said that service contract is gold and I recommend it heavily.
Speaker 1:Average cost in North Carolina to replace the compressor is $2,800 to $3,500. So let a pro look at your HVAC unit. Now there's another category I guess we could call it a category Donnie of things a homeowner can do themselves to help that HVAC unit and expand the life of it. We've always, always talked about changing the filters. My tech says buy a low MERV, like a three, and change them every month. You have to be careful of using a MERV filter that's too high, that strangles your system's airflow, strangles your system's airflow. Some people manufacturers say hey, put in our, we recommend a MIRV 8, and you change it every three months. Your mileage may vary but that's a pretty easy thing to do. The same tech also I told you you were impressed cleans the landscaping and the weeds and stuff that grows up around the units every spring. We can do that ourselves. I spring, we can do that ourselves. I mean you probably do that yourself, total DIY, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Hit it with a spring trimmer. And the last thing, don't pressure wash your outside unit.
Speaker 2:We mentioned earlier, it could damage the fins and that contributes to the flow of everything. So you definitely don't want to have any kind of compromise with the fins on your HVAC. I would say, going a little deeper on DIY and now that you have all the resources of AI and the Internet, take a picture of the tag on your outside condenser unit, and the rule of thumb is that it's supposed to be 600 square feet per ton. So you obviously know the square footage of your house. I hope you do, and the tonnage that you have outside should be in close correlation with that math. So you can do. If you've got a 1800 square foot house, you should have a three ton unit. So you can take a picture of that model number, put it on the internet and say hey, how much tonnage is this?
Speaker 2:And every every heating and air manufacturer has a different way to calculate tonnage. So, uh, it's going to be a different model number for each manufacturer, but that's totally something that you can uh figure out. And, like I mentioned, if your unit's undersized it's probably running all the time. It never turns off. So if you have a poorly insulated older home, your unit probably just runs all the time, and that's another whole can of worms that we won't open up with the poor insulation. But as far as if it's oversized, we mentioned earlier it's heating and cooling the air too quick to dehumidify the air properly. So if you have a humidity issue but the temperature is OK, units probably oversized.
Speaker 1:I had another question about AC unit and it slipped my brain right now because I'm getting up to that age group and you had talked about this and I was trying to. It was tied in with the thermostats. Oh, stages. Can you explain stages of HVAC units real quick?
Speaker 2:Donnie, yeah, multi-stage units are basically sort of like a vehicle that goes from eight-cylinder to six-cylinders when it gets on the highway. So multi-stage units don't operate at full capacity in the fall and the spring is a good explanation for that so they back it down to about 70%, and so it really makes a big contribution to your utilities. And there, uh, it really makes a big contribution to your utilities and you know there's no need for full heat or full AC if you're outside of those summer and winter months, and so it recognizes that and it doesn't work near as hard to get you to the desired temperature of that thermostat.
Speaker 1:So can you put in the wrong thermostat then?
Speaker 2:Uh, yes, absolutely Back when uh, I have a multi-stage unit. I built my house in 2010, 2011. And back then, the Nest thermostats. They were the pioneers, but they were close to the first smart thermostats and they didn't support anything except for a two-stage unit. So when you got into the three-stage units, they just couldn't handle it and basically you paid the money for a three-stage unit, but the smart thermostat wouldn't operate those. So that's a great point and the right question to ask. If you invest in a smart thermostat, you want to know if you have a multi-stage unit.
Speaker 1:Okay, because I know that some people have put in thermostats themselves and it's caused their system not to run correctly or efficiently themselves and it's caused their system not to run correctly or efficiently. So you which goes back to what you said take your cell phone, go out to your unit and the indoor and take pictures with, you know, the Google camera and it'll tell you what you have and then you can ask it to recommend a thermostat that will work with it correctly or, again, call a pro. It's what they do. My guy put in the new thermostat and total thermostat and installation for 80 bucks because I was part of a contract and he did it, you know, literally took him 15 minutes. It would have taken me a couple hours because half of it would be stress and anxiety of worrying about killing my own AC unit because I switched up a wire. So we're just really big fans of doing the people with the experience of hiring a contractor.
Speaker 2:Hey, the last thing I want to add, since we're on the DIY part of HVAC, is that if you have a unit in the attic or a unit under the house and you're not afraid of those spaces, crawl under there or crawl up there and take a look at all the connections so that air handler has supply plenums coming off in every direction. And a lot of times when these things are installed, I mean you've got a guy that may be putting it in there in the dead heat of summer and he's ready to go home and you know you're at the mercy of the clamps, the connections and whatever kind of tape that they used. So feel around your unit If you feel some cold air coming out in the summertime. Uh, feel around your unit. If you feel some cold air coming out in the summertime, oh, eric, stop, I sorry. Just because you have an oversized unit, you don't have to worry about anything. You know, don't make a joke about it every time. Anyway, feel around the air handler, is that better? And um and um and check to see if you have any. Any. Any cold air leaks and um, that's a very vulnerable point. I see it all the time I go in an attic, maybe to check for a roof leak or something, and I may see that they have a supply duct that's just hanging there because the tape failed and so tape failed. You've got positive pressure on that supply plenum and it basically blew the corner of that supply off of there. And the same applies to the crawl space, and a crawl space is a lot less comfortable than the attic uh, maybe a little cooler in the summer, but but that's a place to check.
Speaker 2:The other vulnerable point is when those supply lines leave the air handler they go out to the supply registers that actually go into your house. Those supply registers have a boot that's either hooked to your ceiling or to your floor. That boot is basically a, um, a metal housing and the flex duct is hooked to that metal housing. The flex duct has the insulation built in, but if that insulation isn't making contact with the floor or the ceiling, you've got a metal boot area that's exposed to the attic temperature or the crawl space temperature and it's usually going to cause it to sweat. So it usually happens in a ceiling application where you look up at your register and you've got mold all the way around it. Well, nine times out of 10, the culprit is that that boot's exposed because the insulation wasn't put all the way to the ceiling properly and it's sweating in the summertime and causing, you know, water buildup, mildew, mold come from that. It's not a big deal, but it's just something that needs to be fixed before it gets any worse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a big deal, but it's just something that needs to be fixed before it gets any worse. Yeah, and again, you might have to, after 20 years or more, have the ductwork replaced. You can at least have it updated. Sometimes it is just a piece of that tape that they need to put in place, or the insulation. If it does get a leak and the leak from the tape is it opened up top, it might cause the insulation inside it to get soaked and then it'll have to be replaced. It is not a hard thing for an HVA pro to replace the duct work In most cases. Sometimes how it stretches deep in the attic can be a little bit of a pain, but you know to have the whole say you're upstairs done. Be honest, it's going to be probably a couple thousand dollars. But yeah, you'll notice it. When you haven't had rain for a week and you're like why don't I have stains on my ceiling where there's no nothing above it, that means your vent and it'll, like you said, it follows the vents perfectly.
Speaker 2:I would call that DIY as well. If you've got to just retape a supply line, that's that's a piece of cake. You can go to the big box store, get the tape that's specific to HVAC applications and you know that's something that you can fix yourself. Another side note there is if you're checking out your FlexDuck, the current code is R8. That's the R value of what the FlexDuck that goes in new houses today is. If you've got an R6, you're probably okay for the lifespan of the unit, but you may want to consider upgrading to the R8 when you change that thing out.
Speaker 1:Well, there we go. We did a whole show on HVAC. I told you it was going to be a good show a lot of information for people and why it's important to take care of your HVAC unit. Go upstairs, don't be afraid of your attic, there's no monster in there. Take a look at your drip pan. Make sure you've got an alarm on it that it's working. You can look at your vent work. See if it looks like there's any sagging. Just call a pro. Have them come in. They'll do a tune-up on the machine. They'll look through that stuff and they can catch some issues that when they. By the time you see them again. When you see a drywall stain, it usually means it's been there for days or weeks before you even knew about it. So the damage is probably going to be more expansive than you realize. So go ahead and get a pro. Take care of your HVAC unit so you can spend your time outside grilling and then, when you get too hot, come in and be cool by the AC.
Speaker 2:Nice, Do you like talking about this stuff? And we do it all day, but I enjoy this man.
Speaker 1:I do too. I think people like the knowledge of it and they want to take care of what they have and what they've invested in. And it's not hard to do. And when you learn more than enough to be dangerous, when you learn some practical tips on how to take care of your stuff, you kind of a little house pride and I don't think that's a wrong thing because it's a big investment. Yep.
Speaker 2:Agreed man. No, I enjoy it. I appreciate all your time and research and all the things and we make a good team. We're going to do a little high five right here A little.
Speaker 1:And that was weird too. Sorry, it was back to the unit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, uh, you out there in a radio land and listening to the podcast, you have an idea for a show or something you want us to, uh, do a deep dive in. Let us know. Remember, ai will give you some information that is patently false about how to regulate an HVAC unit or we talked about last week the temperature in your attic. They'll just straight up go. Oh yeah, this is a great idea and you'll cause problems. So, if you got something you're curious about, we'll do the deep dive for you. Donnie and Eric, ai it's better than chat BT and again, website. Thecarolinacontractorcom is where you can contact us. Check out the YouTube page. We got Facebook, we got Instagram and all that good stuff, and until next week, we hope to see and hear from you again. Have a great day everybody. Thanks for listening to the Carolina Contractor Show. Visit thecarolinacontractorcom.