The Carolina Contractor Show
The Carolina Contractor Show
Myths About Owning a Home in NC: What Homeowners Need to Know
Ready to tackle fall projects without stepping on hidden landmines? We kick off with a hands-on deck build—why we chose two-by-sixes over five-quarter boards, used a camo jig to hide fasteners, and saved big by assembling stainless cable rails from components. Then we widen the lens to what really protects your home: how aluminum rails beat rust at the coast, when PVC makes maintenance easy, and why looks-versus-longevity is the trade you should decide up front.
From there, we dig into the myths that cost homeowners the most in North Carolina. Flood risk isn’t just for the coast—Raleigh and the mountains have real exposure, and flood policies cap out fast. We break down replacement cost versus actual cash value, the 80% insured-to-value rule, and why an annual call with your agent can save you tens of thousands when storms hit. Termites aren’t covered by standard policies, slab homes get chewed more often, and a low-cost termite bond offers the inspection, treatment, and paper trail future buyers trust.
We also draw a bright line on what to DIY: swapping a light is one thing, but bigger electrical work needs permits and documentation or it can trip fines and kill a sale. HOA power under North Carolina’s Planned Community Act surprises a lot of buyers—think fences, sheds, paint, and pools controlled by covenants with daily fines. And if your basement “waterproofing failed,” it probably didn’t; it’s your gutters and grading. Watch your house during a rain, extend downspouts, and ensure positive slope. To wrap, we hit septic pumping schedules tied to real household load and how revaluations push taxes and insurance—plus how to contest assessments and right-size coverage.
Subscribe, share this with a neighbor who loves a project, and leave a review with the one myth you’re double-checking this week. Your question might shape our next show.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with your host, General Contractor Donnie Blanchard. I love October, especially after a very, very, very hot June and July because now I not only have project ideas I want to do around the house, the weather is perfect for it. Would you agree, Donnie?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we still have a couple of warm days, but you know, they got pumpkin spice in Oktoberfest, so that kind of remedies the hot days.
SPEAKER_00:It just feels good. You just you get inspired because when it's hot, you can sit inside and go, I really should fix that, or I really should make a fire pit or work on a deck or whatever. And then you walk out and go, oh Lord, it's just too hot. But this time of year, you actually want to put those plans into action. Uh, you've been busy doing any projects like that?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. Um, we were very fortunate to find a sweet spot in our workload because we closed about five projects in four weeks, and so I found myself with one little remodel going on. It was an um insurance job that they had a pipe burst in, you know, bottom most floor of a split level house. And we went in there and turned that thing from the 70s to 2025. And, you know, just understanding where the load-bearing walls were, we were able to blow out some walls here and there. Um the homeowners are a realtor, and the husband is actually he he makes cornhole bags, and he quit his full-time job. He started as a side hustle, but uh really neat guy and and started this um cornhole bag business, and he actually goes to the big ESPN tournaments when they they host those, and and he makes a great living. I see his orders and everything, but uh uh, you know, the guy is is really making it happen, and he's able to spend a lot of time with his family simultaneously. But yeah, that job was the only thing we had. We uh sort of did a charity thing. A lot of local people listening here for uh Eastern Alamance football program. They asked me to build a media deck for two stations that actually host our radio show, WBAG and the Maverick. And basically they have this tower for all the the video folks, but they kind of pushed the radio folks out and and they don't have the room for it, so they knew they didn't need the vantage point of a of a second story window, and we built a tower off to the side of the bleachers, and I knew there'd be a lot of eyes on it, so we did so many cool things. Like I bought something called a camo deck screw jig where we use two by sixes, true two by six uh wood on as the floor instead of the five-quarter deck boards. Two by sixes are about the same price as the five-quarters, so I thought, why not get the extra half inch? And uh this deck jig fits over the board, and you're able to screw the uh floorboards or the deck boards into the joist from the sides, so it goes in at an angle and you have no face screws. So we did that along with the standing seam, which is a conceal fastener metal on the roof, and we just tried to jazz it up every chance we got, uh, along with the black cable rails, and I don't want to overstep because I know you're in building sales, but uh the the cable rails are what seems to be the hot thing these days, and you can watch a few YouTube videos and figure out how to put it together yourself instead of buying a kit. The kits range anywhere from a grand to two grand, and I think I had less than$400 buying it piece by piece on Amazon. You just have to know how to put it together, but yeah, really excited uh for WBAG and the Maverick to see this thing. I think this Friday will be the first game where they'll actually get to use it, so uh, we're pumped. Yeah, I don't have a problem with you doing that. It didn't hurt my feelings. Well, I say that because I didn't buy it from a building supply. And um, you know, the two by two pickets, ballusters, whatever you call them, they're guaranteed to warp. You know, they're gonna twist, they're gonna uh bow, and I'm just not a fan. Anything that's gonna be exposed to the weather, especially if you have a southern exposure through your deck, you know, that sun's just gonna eat that thing alive, and you're gonna have to eventually replace it. And these are stainless steel, they have black and they have the silver color. So uh we did black on this one because it goes more with the team colors, but um I just think the wire rails, you know, kind of mixes a little industrial with residential, and and uh it's a good look, man.
SPEAKER_00:PVC is fine. PVC, a lot of it has the metal insert, so it's very sturdy, it'll last, it's easy to replace or update if you need to. Lots of options, but that's the beauty of having options. Whatever works for you in your house or what you want to do, you can do it.
SPEAKER_01:I agree all the way around. I did not mention PVC. Sorry guys, uh, I am a fan of the PVC version because it's just a pressure washing thing for maintenance. And of course they have the um wrought iron version, but you know, everything with wrought iron has to be powder coated, and uh the powder coating process is expensive and it still has to be touched up at the joints uh every so often. But um one thing, and I didn't even mean to get into this, but since we're on it, handrails, um uh basically aluminum handrails uh kits, they sell them in six and eight foot sections at the big box stores, and I know you guys can get those as well. Um they I put those on several, several houses, and they seem to be a big hit too, because they give the wrought iron appearance, but they're more than half the cost. I mean, they're just I'm sorry, less than half the cost. They're they're really competitively priced. I want to say each section is less than$200. So if you look around your deck and pull a tape measure, that's pretty easy math to see what you can upgrade your rails for. And aluminum is what they use at the beach because it will not rust. And so it's very sturdy. You know, I think that they're strong and you know, very very much maintenance-free. So I'm a fan of that as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. Again, lots of options, and when you know uh what it's gonna be used for, what you would like, if you're not worried about aesthetics, or you might be. I I still like a wood one, I think it looks great. Nothing against PVC, but it it looks like PVC, if you know what I mean. So there's that trade-off. Yeah, you know what I mean? Um and for people who aren't familiar with this show, they're probably like, what am I tuning into? And it's engaging. This is the Carolina contractor show. And to sum it up, we talk about your house, and obviously, with this, we're talking about your house or even uh commercial or unique ways you can uh build a deck and what material materials you use. Uh for me, my name's Eric Smith, and I sell wood and lumber and stuff. And Donnie Blanchard across from me is a uh general contractor and he builds things with wood and puts PVC and railing systems and houses together from the from the ground up. And what we do every week is we just talk about your house, DIY projects, and we weren't even planning on talking about railing, it just popped up because there's really no um super strict schedule of things we have to talk about, but we just hey what pops in your mind and and uh I do want to thank those uh stations. That's a cool thing you did for me because uh TV people are just snobs. And me being former 30 years in radio, we're actually still doing radio. Uh, thanks to the Maverick and uh WBAG for you know keeping radio alive and and doing stuff like that, and kudos to you for helping them out.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, those are my guys. And uh Joe Gray does a great job at uh at WBAG and Chuck Marsh got the Maverick off the ground four or five, maybe longer than that, four or five years ago, I want to say, and he's just done a fantastic job. They host concerts, and uh you would be amazed at just how many people still listen to the radio. But um speaking of that, something popped into my head when you said that. WBAG, the B.A.G. stands for Burlington and Graham, and they've been around, you know, as they're as old as my grandparents with the radio station. But what the heck is the W? Do you know that since you're a radio guy?
SPEAKER_00:Aside from one station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, the W signifies that the station is east of the Mississippi, and stations with K, like in LA, I used to do stuff for uh stations there at KLOS. The K signifies it's uh west of the Mississippi. It was like a hundred years ago in the twenties they made that official. What always got me was why would you say stations that are east of the Mississippi will get the W prefix designation? Why not an E like East? And then obviously, where did they come up with the K for the west of the Mississippi stations? I don't know, I've never really looked that far into it. But basically, aside from KDKA in Pittsburgh, stations on the east are W, stations on the west of the Mississippi are a K.
SPEAKER_01:That's insane. I bet there's a a good answer for that. And and you know, radio used to be so much more popular when that was all established, but I might dig into that and see if I can come up with something for next week.
SPEAKER_00:So today's episode, though, it's funny we talked about rail systems for your house and stuff like that. Today, what we're gonna talk about is if you're a homeowner, you're gonna you're gonna dig this show because uh we're gonna talk about some myths of owning a home mainly in North Carolina, because there are a few unique things that are uh in this state that affect your home and owning it and people don't know. And the one of them I'm gonna get to at the end of the show, I think is gonna surprise maybe you, Donnie, when I looked at some percentages. But uh as you're whether you're a new homeowner, if you moved here to North Carolina and this is your second or third home you've bought, there are a couple things you need to know about. One of them, we've been very lucky with hurricane season this year. Uh last year, this time, the mountains were recovering and you know, flooding. It's a big deal. But a lot of people think I don't need flood insurance because I'm not on the coast. And ready for this stat? 40% of homes in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I was born, salute uh 40% of homes in Raleigh are in a flood zone. I had no idea about that. 1.2 million properties in North Carolina are in a flood zone. I don't know what percentage are covered, but we kind of think the beach is somewhere you need to have it when you don't. And Hurricane Helene last year showed that you can be on top of a mountain, basically, and have a flood. And last year, Helene being the the main uh uh flash point of this,$2.5 billion in damages across the state due to flooding. So the best thing, I guess, would contact your insurance agent, would you think would have that information know if you should get it or if you're in a flood zone?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. No, they can get that, they can put their finger right on that info, and that's their due diligence. That's their job when they take your policy out is to know if you're in a floodplain because of course they don't want to get burned and and miss that as an agent. But yeah, that's uh something that a lot of homeowners are underinsured because they don't know how to, they don't know to ask for, they don't know to ask the right questions. And I want to say the maximum amount of coverage for a flood policy is$250,000. I don't know where they arrived at that figure, but I guess they think that you know, where they stop, homeowners insurance will kick in after that. And so I think that they are basing that off of just building the first the first floor of your house or rebuilding, you know, the bottom four feet of your house after a flood.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because I guess, and you maybe you know better, that that's people might think that's pretty expensive for just the bottom section, but if you have a tree go through your your roof on your second floor, you don't have to worry about what's below it. You're you're repairing your roof and any damage to the structure on the second floor. But if the first floor has a lot of damage, fixing it is also going to have uh implications on what's above it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, absolutely. Yes, sir. And um I don't know that I've seen a flood claim where an engineer didn't have to get involved because you know it's your literally shakes your foundation, not shakes it, but you know, it compromises it for sure. And I want to say that when I was in uh Louisiana, so I I worked the very very first hurricane I worked as an insurance adjuster was Katrina, and that was baptism by fire, if there ever was a thing. And basically what we went in and did is we had to measure up to the outlets, which is 18 inches. So if the water got above the outlets, it was another price code. So if the four-foot break for the drywall was another price code, and there were several houses that got more than that because everything on the dam side of Lake Poncha train just really caught it bad. But um, yeah, they have they have coverage uh in place for it, but you got to ask the right questions to make sure you got it if you need it. And those poor people in the mountains, I don't think even if I lived there as a former insurance adjuster, I wouldn't have thought to ask for that. But everybody up there, or 90% of those people got burned.
SPEAKER_00:It's crazy. And that's why knowing what your policy covers, and every year talking to your insurance agent or even scheduling a one-on-one to let them go over the policy, we'll find all sorts of stuff you may be covered for, may not be covered for, or even over or undercovered, because being undercovered can be just as bad. Yep. Yep. Um totally. Uh not carrying enough coverage will burn you as well. All right. So speaking of insurance and and knowing your history, Donnie, in it, uh homeowners insurance in North Carolina covers termite damage, and a lot of people didn't realize that. And the reason reason they didn't realize it is because that's not even true. Your homeowner's insurance doesn't necessarily include pest problems, including termites, and you can get a rider for that.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, for sure. But you like again, you gotta ask the right questions, and termite damage is something that nobody thinks about until it happens to you.
SPEAKER_00:So my pest company here in uh in Wilson County, and they're they're uh all through the state, mine, is they'll offer termite inspection, and basically what they do is if you don't have the coverage, they come in, they go through your house and they determine in most cases you don't have any damage. Uh they might have to do uh a couple drills and some masonry to put in some repellent or whatever it is the process they use, and then you get an insurance policy. And then once a year, they come in and they inspect your house again, go underneath it and wherever they need to go, and that might just be 75 to 100 bucks, and you now have an insurance policy on your house that guarantees no termites, and if there is, there will be a monetary amount listed. But those guys know if they go in and they don't see any damage and they can do proactive things, they're so confident that termites won't come in if they're checking it every year that they can hand out these policies for pennies on the dollar. So that's like the the easy way to get some uh insurance on your house for termites.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, for sure. And I do recommend that if you have an older home and it's low to the ground, those are way more prone to termite damage than something new that's jacked up in the air a little bit. And um the way it works in my world from an inspection standpoint is that when we build a new home, most municipalities make require us to show a certificate of a termite treatment at some point uh where they not fail, but they don't want to keep up with it. You're the homeowner, it's your responsibility that they don't they don't require you to show a maintenance plan or anything like that. And um, you know, I'm guilty as charged because I don't have a maintenance plan on my personal house, but I'm also pretty far up in the air. I know what to look for, and um, you know, I I don't think that my house is very prone to to termites, but um, when I mentioned a second ago that houses that are lower to the ground uh are definitely something to keep an eye out for. Slabs, uh that's the nine out of ten times that I've seen termite damage, it's always been in a slab house because you've got the concrete slab right there at ground level. You know, you've got the uh bottom plate and just a few inches above that, and uh I'll get into that in a second because that bottom plate is required to be treated wood. Uh anything in contact with the ground or any kind of concrete is required to be treated, but uh most of those are um are where I've seen the termite damage. A lot of older homes that had the carport uh closed in. So you had this old car port on a ranch style house, and someone closed it in and made a recessed living room out of it. That those are are very much prone because you've got everything old, and they probably had no termite treatment when the house was built. And um a lot of times those folks look at it like, well, uh they'll just slap a regular two by four down for your bottom plate instead of a piece of treated wood or any kind of seal seal in there, and uh and termite damage is almost a guarantee. Um treated wood is not completely termite deterrent. Uh they they will eat treated old treated wood because that uh that chemical treatment that they put on there will eventually dissipate and it goes away as as time goes on. And I'm not gonna say that it doesn't work because as long as it's not exposed to water, it's really not a problem. But uh they seem to avoid treated wood, especially uh for the first 10, 15 years or so. And uh, but that's a pretty big misconception, is they won't eat treated wood, and I'm thinking, why would they? Because if they've got anything anywhere close by that's not, why would you eat the chemicals? But you know, termites are crazy. And just to give a quick rundown, not to be long-winded, but earlier you mentioned not carrying enough coverage burns people. Uh, if you do have homeowners insurance and don't know the right questions to ask, I think the most important one is do I carry enough coverage? And to make a reference to Hurricane Katrina down in New Orleans, what happened was people had the same insurance agent for 20 years, 30 years, and the insurance agents were comfortable. They didn't check their people to make sure they were up in their policy. So as the value of your house goes up, you're required to up your insurance coverage to meet that amount. And their threshold is 80% of the value of the house. So we had to do what was called an insured-to-value report, meaning if your house was uh a million-dollar home, you had to carry at least$800,000 worth of coverage. And what that what that adds up to is if you have an insurance claim and it's a total loss or what have you, you have replacement cost coverage, and anybody who's had a claim knows that they they keep a little bit of the money until you've complete the work and then they pay you the full value. So they'll depreciate whatever was damaged, whether it be your roof, your siding, your windows, whatever. And uh they may give you 60% up front and they hold 40% on the back end until you or I, as a contractor, shows proof or pictures that we actually went through with the replacement. So with the replacement cost coverage, you get that money back. If you are not insured to value and you don't carry at least 80%, they give you what's called ACV, actual cash value. So that that extra 40% that they they withheld, they keep instead of giving it back to you. And when I say there were people headhunting agents in New Orleans, I mean that was a real thing. There were some gangsters down there and they were gonna go get their guy, but insurance agents were were literally fleeing town because they had underinsured people by the hundreds out there getting shorted two, three, four hundred thousand dollars a piece.
SPEAKER_00:We've talked about this before, Donnie. I'm not a big fan of uh messing with too much electricity. I've changed out light switches before and I've hooked up a ceiling fan. But in North Carolina, the good news is you can do it yourself on even major electrical work in your own home and you don't need a permit. Now, if you believe that you could be facing fines as much as$500 a day because you can work on your own home and you can do electrical work, but you still have to pull that permit for anything above outlets. And a lot of people don't realize that. There is big fines if they find out. But the reason is great because if Billy Joe Jim Bob, who might be a fine person when it comes to doing electrical work in your house, but if he's not pulling permits and he doesn't know his stuff, you've got a house that you're reselling that you can't document electrical work was done correctly or with permit, that can help or hinder you from being able to sell it. And also, bad wiring accounts for 20% of all house fires in North Carolina. So if you don't know what you're doing, don't do it, get a pro. If you are pro, you s you probably already know you got to pull permits if you're gonna do some major electrical work. Amen.
SPEAKER_01:And is with outlets, I agree with you wholeheartedly there. You know, things like light fixtures and ceiling fans, if you're pretty darn handy, then you know the rule is that fixture is dead at the switch. So if it's turned off at the wall switch, then then have at it. You don't have to flip a breaker or anything, but not knowing how outlets and things like that are GFIs or tied together, and then then you really have to play the breaker game. And I think we posted something on our Instagram that that will actually you plug this little tool into the outlets you'd like to change out, and then you go down to the panel and it will it will identify the breaker that's associated with that run of outlets, and so it makes it a little bit easier, but I just say I agree with you and call an electrician.
SPEAKER_00:And some you've got the little uh it's like a sniffer, but it's for electricity, and you can hold it over a switch and it'll do a light. I learned, I think nobody got hurt, but I learned we have a uh three light switch at our front door. It does the outdoor lights, one inside above, and stairs, and found out they're on two different circuits because I uh turned off the circuit that it was labeled for and just took my sniffer there and uh put it up there and it lit up. And I'm like, that's impossible. No, whoever wired it up must have changed it in the past and has two independent circuits running to one light switch. So if you thought you'd turn it off because the light above you went off, no, it's still one of those switches was still hot. But as you said, it's a light switch, turn it off, there ain't no juice coming to it. But uh I don't like messing with electricity. Nah, stay away. All right, Donnie learned something today, and that was that I don't live in an hoa. Donnie lives out in the sticks. I live in the city of Wilson. I'm not in an HOA, and if I ever was buying a house and they said, here's this new house, it's for sale, you can look at this, it's in an HOA, I'd go, Well, I'm sorry. Did you say HOA? Because I'm I'm already out. I have no desire. I get it. Donnie gets it. We understand the point of HOAs. I kind of look at them as like an upper middle class prison and everybody's gonna be the same and act the same, and then you're gonna have some Karen or male Karen come around and say, You didn't move your trash cans correctly, or you have your kids' bicycles in the driveway at a 45 degree angle, or so fine. Say you do like that. I understand it. You come to North Carolina or you move into an HOA by your house, and you think, Well, I gotta cut my grass and keep my garage door shut, keep the bushes trim, I get it. But the backyard is mine, and I'm gonna paint this corner wall over here by the porch, fire engine red, and I'm putting up that silver uh stripper or silhouette on the side, you know, whatever you want to do. And people don't know in North Carolina there's a Planned Community Act that lets HOAs in 25% of new developments call the shots on fences, whether or not you can have a pool, paint colors, uh, you get that Leonard shed, then they bring it in, your HOA can say, uh, you didn't get permission for that. Well, it can't be seen from the street. Don't matter. We haul the shots, it's in your HOA agreement. And when breaking the rules, you can get daily liens by the HOA for like a hundred bucks. And if you want to follow an appeal, you got to pay for that. And I mentioned the um shed because some guy in uh Pinehurst put in a uh Shed$5,000 lawsuit against him filed by the his HOA.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I don't agree with the homeowner association thing, and and I don't know, but I guess you know what you're signing up for when you move in. And like you mentioned, um I some people need an hoa, or they would have cars and boats parked in the front yard, and I get it, and so you gotta you gotta account for the people who would bend the rules uh to the tune of something bad, but at the same time, not for me. And if I were buying a house, unless I just really love the area, that HOA would run me off.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, not not my thing. Now you have um a basement how uh I mean you can you've modded yours. Yours is not a crawl space, you have a basement. Uh you got waterproofing on it, and a lot of times when you're doing a foundation, I know your dad really knows about this stuff. You put in um foundation waterproofing on the outside and things like that. And a lot of people think in North Carolina that's enough, it's gonna last forever, you don't have to worry about that again, and you have experience with Midani.
SPEAKER_01:The waterproofing, I don't know that it has a shelf life or you have to update it because how hard would that be? But I I will say that um the waterproofing systems come with a guarantee, and it's good to always use a reputable company. In my experience, we do a combination of pre-cast walls, poured walls. I'm not a fan of a cinder block basement walls because the options are just so much better. But I'll start with the pre-cast, which people often know as superior walls. Um, though the ideal walls is the only other company in our area that does that, but that's 5,000 psi concrete, which is bridge concrete, and they claim that you don't even have to put a waterproofing agent on it, that it's going to be sealed. And they're banking on that because the base is basically anywhere from eight to ten inches of gravel, number sixty-seven uh cleanstone, and it has a series of corrugated pipe running through that and then around the perimeter. So uh their their reasoning is that if any water gets down to the vulnerable point at the bottom of the basin where it meets a slab, then it's gonna hit that gravel and those openings that the corrugated pipes make and make its way out. Well, I've never had a basement leak. I mean, I've just it works just exactly like it's supposed to. Um the other version with the poured concrete walls, of course they bring in forms, they pour a foot has a footing with a rebar and they tie all that into the poured walls, and that absolutely has to have that because you know you have joints and vulnerable places between the concrete. But um I said all that to say that I've never seen a basement leak problem that wasn't associated with from bad drainage up top. And so nine times out of ten, if you've got a basement leak, it's because you've got a downspout from your gutter system that channels a heavy volume of water right in that one area. So, you know, go outside and see what's dumping the water right there. It's not like it's gonna be some gradual thing unless you have a grading problem, and that's the other culprit, is that uh you don't have positive drain all the way around your house. I think the building code is 10 foot of positive drain all the way around all four sides of your house or whatever you have. And um and I think that you know the basement leak problem kind of or the even the basement potentially leaking goes away because uh that water's got to come from up top, obviously, and you know, just not having your downspouts routed underground in the proper location, or maybe you have a downspout drain that's been crushed in the yard and it's not and it's it's bubbling back. But we've said this on the show several times. It's not common to go outside and look around your house while it's raining, but you'll be amazed at what you find if you do. So throw a raincoat on, get your umbrella, go outside when it's raining in the daylight, and just make sure all your downspouts are draining the right way. If they're underground, make sure it's not bubbling back out there because you have a blockage there, and more than anything, make sure that you have the proper drainage around the perimeter because uh those two things are 95% of the culprit when you have a leak.
SPEAKER_00:And don't go out in that that storm if there's lightning in your holding umbrella. That's just a a safety tip. Uh we got a couple more minutes left in this episode of the Carolina contractor show. I want to try to get to both of them, Donnie, real quick. I don't have septic. Uh, a lot of people don't understand with septic, you're gonna want to have an inspection uh done on this. And the there's an issue not only with septics, the inspection is not to check for say leaks, but to make sure you avoid a backup because those are common and can be very, very expensive. And I didn't know, but we're talking insurance for flooding. You can get insurance for your septic tank?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, basically it's a sewer backup, and so that applies to city sewer or a septic tank, but that's not a that's not standard coverage. And another to dial back to the beginning of the show, that's the right question to ask. Make sure you talk to your agent. And, you know, if you have a house with uh average size family, it's you know, two adults, two kids, boy, girl, um, so two guys, two gals in the house. Maybe the rule of thumb applies to you and you only pump your septic tank every four to five years. But let me tell you, you got a house full of women, and they're flushing toilet paper and feminine products and all the things down, and something like COVID happens, or you're shut in your house, or anything like that. Like, man, I'm telling you, the heck with the rule of thumb, get that baby pumped about every two years at a minimum, and um, you know, get your kids out of the house, dial it back to every five years. But uh, if you got a lot of women in the house, sorry, gals, but they generate a whole lot of uh waste, and I I don't maybe it's just the girls around me or the women that I had with my my girls use a lot of toilet paper, but I see in general uh you know, a lot of women in the house, you got four girls, and uh that then I would definitely have that septic maintenance uh maintained a lot more regularly than five years.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm just gonna say I have three women in my life and they're angels and cause no problems. And for you to say something like that is shocking and I'm a little stunned, and it'll it'll probably harm our relationship. I'm sorry if I offended you, Eric. No, I'm just seeing, okay, they're gone now. Um but but yeah, that's that's a good point. Um take care of it because the the not taking care of it is very, very expensive.
SPEAKER_01:The whole point was I got carried away, didn't I? Uh sewer backup is is an endorsement that you have to add to your policy. So ask your agent and see if you have that or if you need to add it.
SPEAKER_00:All right. Speaking of insurance, I'm surprised a number of people that don't know this. This isn't necessarily a North Carolina thing. Uh it's very popular now, property taxes. Should we get rid of them? And some states are doing it. Uh, Governor DeSantis in Florida is talking about it, and some other states. Uh property taxes stay the same after you buy, and people don't understand. I was surprised a number of people that don't realize that they won't stay the same and they're always going to go up. But when we talked about your property value going up, people say, hey, your house that's worth$250 four years ago, the town has now decided that it's worth$300, and you go, Well, my property tax went up. Why'd my insurance go up? Because if the they say your house is worth more, your insurance company is automatically getting that information and going to say, Oh, well, that needs means you're gonna have to be insured for more. So we're gonna charge you more, which is also why after an evaluation, you should have a visit with your uh insurance. Adjuster to make sure that you are covered, as we talked about earlier in the show, we won't have to revisit all that. But uh the average bill in 2025 in North Carolina jumped$400. Um, and you can use online estimators to push back on those tax hikes and and and file a um a complaint or that you want a hearing on that. Um but at my house, for personal uh example, we got slammed combined a 29% increase on taxes and insurance, and they send it to you in a letter from your whoever you get your mortgage from, and it's and it's different looking. It says important mortgage payment information. And I opened it up and I said, Well, I could buy a new truck on monthly payments or pay the new difference on my mortgage. And it was almost$400 a month my mortgage went up because of re-evaluation and the property tax and insurance going up.
SPEAKER_01:No fun. I don't have anything good to say, money racket all day long. And I understand you know, the taxes pay things that we enjoy in terms of conveniences in everyday life, but man, like nobody wants to pay them. You know, I tell my children, just wait, don't decide your political affiliation until you pay your own taxes and utilities and house payment and all the stuff that dad pays now. But hold tight, you know, you're not gonna like it any more than I did.
SPEAKER_00:There's lots of stuff when you own a house that uh there's no rule book for, but that's why we tried to approach a few of them. Uh we got more of this on the website, the Carolinacontractor.com. You can listen to this show, past shows. Also got a YouTube page up. Just search the Carolina Contractor Show. We're on Instagram, as Donnie was mentioning. You can find us on social media. And if you have a question or a comment or something, uh ask the contractor is a literal clickable button on our website, and that goes to Donnie. So if there's a question or you have an idea for a show, or you, hey man, you said I don't believe that's right. I want to, I I think you're wrong on that. Hey, we take criticism too. You can uh go ahead and send it there. But uh we just want to thank you for listening and all the new listeners that are coming in. Uh the show's grown about uh 10, 15 percent listenership and people following us, and we're still killing it in Australia. Over 3% of our listeners, man, Australian. So good day down there too. Yeah, that's nice to include those folks. We appreciate it. So we thank you again for tuning in and checking out the show, and we hope to hear and see you next week on the Carolina Contractor Show. Have an awesome day, everybody. Thanks. Thanks for listening to the Carolina Contractor Show. Visit the Carolina Contractor.com.