The Carolina Contractor Show
The Carolina Contractor Show
Comfort Costs: HVAC Know How
A chilly room tells a story, and today we decode it with clear, practical advice you can use before your next utility bill arrives. We kick off with a quick nod to football, then dive straight into comfort science: why that “burnt” smell appears when the heat first comes on, how long it should last, and the simple signs that mean it’s time to call a pro. From there, we get hands-on with the fixes that matter most—filters, ducts, insulation, and air sealing—so you can keep more of the warmth you already pay for.
We break down MERV ratings without the jargon and explain why “higher” can backfire in a home system. You’ll learn why cheap filters swapped monthly often outperform pricey options left too long, and how pets and foot traffic downstairs change your replacement schedule. We unpack conductive vs convective heat transfer to show where heat actually escapes, then map out a weekend DIY plan: carefully pop interior casing, add low-expansion foam around doors and windows, and reseat trim for immediate draft control. We also spotlight hidden losses at the air handler, where failed tape and loose ducts send conditioned air into attics and crawl spaces.
Choosing a heat source is easier with context. Modern electric heat pumps maintain comfort efficiently; gas still delivers fast warmups for large or intermittently used spaces; and dual-fuel systems blend both. We share when each shines, plus budget-friendly ways to add targeted warmth with electric fireplaces that move real air and run flame-only for year-round ambiance. Rounding things out, we compare crawl spaces and slabs: site slope, repair access, HVAC placement, and long-term costs that often get overlooked during planning.
Ready to make your home feel better with fewer dollars? Follow the show, share this episode with a friend who’s fighting cold corners, and leave us a quick review with your best winter comfort tip. Your ideas help shape future topics and keep the conversation useful for everyone.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with your host, General Contractor Donnie Blanchard. For people who aren't familiar with the show, they don't realize that me and Donnie both love sports. We love football. Donnie's done fantasy football before for, I assume, many years, and I accidentally got into fantasy football this year. What place are you in with some of your fantasy football leagues, Donnie?
SPEAKER_00:Man, I'm in a proud third place. I um I've done fantasy for, gosh, 15 years plus, and um got a league with all my college buddies, which is a big way that we keep up with each other. But this year with injuries um just running rampant, I lost a couple of key players right out of the gate and did a ton of research in the offseason, which helped me zero. So probably won't ever, you know, give those hours up again preseason. But um yeah, my I I started out in tenth place, week two coming into the season, and I fought my way back off the waiver wire and battled all the way up to a proud third place. So I'm in the hunt for the playoffs, and I think I got a good shot at it.
SPEAKER_01:So I, as I said, hadn't done it before, um, just kind of accidentally clicked on a link for ESPN and it put me in a league, and I didn't even draft. I didn't research, I just let it do auto draft. It put my power ranking at eighth, and now I'm sitting in third place. I am taking care of it. I mean, I go in and I'll pull somebody who's on IR or I'll I'll value who's gonna most likely perform better, but I'm not trying, trying like people like you do, and I'm in a solid third place too.
SPEAKER_00:So you're that guy. Nobody likes a guy that doesn't draft, put any homework into it, doesn't even fix his lineup most of the time, and he still wins. That's just that's garbage. It's been that kind of year, though.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, look at now, ooh, do you think Burrow will come back uh in a couple three weeks?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the Bengals are sitting so low in the standings, I don't see the need for him to come back. It's not like he's gonna battle back and get them a playoff uh spot. So they're not even in contention, and I think you don't you don't put your Ferrari out there on the field during a losing season when it's only a couple of games to go.
SPEAKER_01:Now, I know at the recording of this show uh things can change afterwards, but you know they're only a couple games out because Pittsburgh's leading at what, five and five. So they actually still have a chance. They could win the conference. I think Baltimore will do it as long as Lamar stays healthy, but they could make the playoffs. Technically, they're easily in uh shot of making it with the record.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I would love to see him healthy, but but that's pretty much it. And he was my main player that got knocked out early in the season, so I'm just a little bit bitter, and uh maybe that sways my opinion because I dropped him on the waiver wire. But yeah, if he comes back, I would I would love to have him back. However, I just don't the Bengals have some crazy stuff going on in Cincinnati, and uh they were my team. I was a Cincinnati Bingle fan and a Buffalo Bill fan before the Panthers came to be in the 90s, and of course I had to dump both of those for the Panthers, but when the Panthers are pretty terrible, I keep up with them. And uh the Bengals have just been a train wreck lately, and um, you know, they Burrow seems to be their only shining star. And of course, the receiver Jamar Chase doesn't do the same things when Burrow's not on the field.
SPEAKER_01:No question. I agree with you, though. I think if Burrow does any playing this year, you wait till December, you let him do limited play because you don't want to ruin your franchise quarterback. Though I'm also gonna say I don't think he's Super Bowl quarterback quality. Maybe had some more targets, but just him and a couple receivers ain't enough. Yep. Agreed. Anyway, this is the Carolina contractor show, and yes, once again, we start off with sports, but that's okay. You probably like sports too. Uh, the Carolina Contractor.com is website and find more details about the show. We got all the shows uploaded in podcast form, and they're labeled by the title or subject, also the date, so you can go through the whole list of uh hundreds, literally hundreds of uh podcasts and listen to them at your own convenience, maybe while you're commiserating with all your Bengals fans about Joe Burrow being out with turf toe. Uh for the record, I'm doing today's show with turf toe. So I sucked it up and went to work while he, you know, he didn't. Hey, dude.
SPEAKER_00:I'm just saying. A toe injury is nothing to sneeze at. Uh a toe injury puts Shaquille O'Neal out of the NBA. I mean, that's that's a toe is a big deal. So yeah, I I sympathize for him.
SPEAKER_01:You're you're crushing my groove with my sarcastic joke right there. But I understand there's ligaments involved and everything else. Uh Deion Sanders had the same problem for a while. And now they go cut off his toe. But anyway, uh if you have a question about your house, because that's what we like to talk about, DIY projects, building, construction, all that sort of stuff, you'll find again at the website. If you have a question in particular, hit the website for the ask the contractor section. It's a little button you click on, ask your question. Donnie gets it. He's a general contractor. We answer them all. Sometimes we answer questions on the show. And uh, you know, hey, maybe just have a comment in general. Also check out social media. We've got our stuff uploaded on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. Again, website's the easiest place to find us, the Carolinacontractor.com. Um, one thing we try to do at the Smith household in Wilson Donnie is hold off turning on the AC as long as we can in the spring into summer, and hold off turning on the heat as far as we can into the winter. Have you turned your heat on yet?
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Oh yeah. But I have the uh thermostat that has the range, so I can set if it gets below a certain temperature, the heat kicks on. If it gets above a certain temperature, I get AC. And we're in that funky season right now, and in North Carolina, of course, so that's a real thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um we turned it on early this year, too, because we got that cold snap, seemed kind of early. But I literally turned the system off when we're doing that so it doesn't accidentally come on. And a couple times we made it to December, and I remember one year we made it into uh early June before we turned the AC on. And the bill, it was funny, it came up and it was like uh 45, 50 percent lower than normal. And I'm like, yes, let's go all through the entire summer without turning on the AC.
SPEAKER_00:I lost that battle. That's why everybody wants to live in North Carolina, man. That that moderate climate is is an attractive thing, and um, I think the key there is is what your insulation package looks like. If you're well insulated, then you can make it an extra month or so.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. Um so when people do turn their heat on for the first time in the season, there's usually that burn smell. Uh is that something to be concerned about, or is that normal?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we actually got a question about that. And um uh we probably yearly, that's a thing where people write us and say, hey, do I need to be worried about this? And uh basically what that is is there's there's dust accumulation on the coils and your air handler there um or your heat. And the way that works is it blows air across those coils to warm the air up uh before it comes out of your supply registers, and it's just nothing more than than just uh burning that dust off of those coils. I will say this that it maybe the first three or four times your unit cycles on and off, it should be that should be it. And if that smell continues, I would just recommend you to contact an HVAC professional.
SPEAKER_01:Now I have a shop back, I'm sure you do too. Sometimes I've taken the floor grates up and just kind of pushed it down as far as it would go, but you know, you get the bend and try to vacuum out. I I've never used one of the the duct cleaning services. Um have you ever used one?
SPEAKER_00:I have not personally. Um there's certain situations that call for that. You know, if if um maybe you didn't change your filters out very frequently or just in a in a situation where the house is still newer and the do the ductwork is code compliant, and in that case uh it has an R8 for an insulation value and it should be labeled right there on the ductwork in your attic or in your crawl space. But uh if if your ductwork is an R8 or better, then you're probably okay and cleaning those ducts is called for. But if you have older ductwork and it's poorly insulated, then the the price you pay to have your ducts cleaned, just a little bit more than that, you can probably just have them all replaced and brought up to code.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that's a good idea because they're not designed to last the life of the house. And uh, we talked about in a previous show, I remember, um, you get any moisture in a duct system, it's gonna develop mold, and you won't see that. If you see it on your register, that means it's already through the um rest of your system, so you might as well just have that pulled out and cleaned up and done right. I guess I don't know what's the lifespan, probably 20, 25 years.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And um just like I said, when you go to replace your unit, you want to uh consult that HVAC professional and just ask them, hey, does my does my ductwork look okay or does it need to be replaced? And if they're an honest salesperson, they're gonna, you know, take a good look and tell you the truth. And of course every heating and air company wants to do the whole shebang when they come in, but I'd say if the house is newer than 2010 or so, uh maybe even two thousand, then it probably is co-compliant in terms of the insulation value.
SPEAKER_01:Now we always talk about uh changing out your filters for your HVAC system, and one of the things my HVAC tech has always said, you you you you can put in a filter that's not as uh the MERV rating not as high uh if you change it more often. He he's a fan of airflow. Um first of all, I guess we should explain what the MERV rating is. It's minimum efficiency reporting values. Very sexy. If you use that as a pickup line at a bar, guys, man, you are you're going home tonight. Um but you look on your HVAC system, and with AI and phones, you can scan the label on your HVAC system, and it should give you a lot of information about your um heating and air conditioning unit, and it should give the MERV rating. You can always ask your tech to verify what it is. But say your MERV rating is to be a 10. Wouldn't then putting a 13 or a 14 be better for your system?
SPEAKER_00:Um no, not necessarily. Um and I know we've talked about this, I guess, in years past, but if you have a um a simplified definition of a MERV rating is the size of the holes in your air filter. And so uh if you uh I tell people just buy the cheaper air filter and stay on top of the change out every month. But if you go to a um uh a tighter hole in the uh or a higher MERV rating in the filter, you could actually choke off your system and it makes your your um heating and air equipment have to work that much harder to pass air through. So it's not always um a good thing, and it's not even called for. Those ones with the higher MERV ratings are meant for medical offices and places that have, you know, literally zero dust tolerance, dust particle tolerance. And so um you can go really fancy, and if you're a germophobe or you know, hypochondriac, whatever you want to say there, uh you you still you can go with a little bit higher MERV rating, but it you're gonna have to change those out so frequently that it's gonna turn into a pain in the rear end because uh you're gonna you're c you're paying more for the filter. You're changing it out, you know, not even uh in in half the time more than that because it's gonna clog up so fast. I just tell folks go ahead and get your filters on auto renew, get them delivered once monthly. That delivery will be your uh trigger to remind you to swap that thing out, and it takes two seconds to do, it extends the life of your heating and air equipment, so no-brainer all the way around.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I use the cheap ones from the big box store and they sell them in a three-pack for like five bucks. And what I love about that, you talked about changing them out. I only have two that I have to baby. The one downstairs, because you have more movement downstairs, there's constantly more stirring up of the elements in a downstairs room than upstairs. The one downstairs has to be changed twice as often. So I keep two downstairs, one upstairs, change them at the same time, and when I change the second time, the lower one, I know I need to go to the store, but uh yeah, the lower is good. As you pointed out, you may have an allergy or uh some sort of uh reaction to dust that you need to have that uh filtered out correctly. That's fine, I get it. And expensive, expensive. You're not kidding. I just told you you can buy three low Merv filters. Mine's a 20, 21 inch uh for five, six bucks, or you can buy one eight, nine, or ten Merv, and they're like twenty-five, thirty-five dollars.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. Pets are the pets are also really bad for your air filter. If you've got pets, you need to really monitor that that filter, and and people just don't think about it. It's terrible. And then, you know, like I mentioned, it it extends the life of your heating and air system, and it only gets expensive more expensive every year with the building codes. Uh, I want to say the minimum SEER rating now is a 15. It was a 10 or 11 not so long ago, and that just gives the heating and air folks uh room to charge more because the equipment costs them more, and it's just a big money racket when it when the part you actually have control over is how long your system lasts, and and um and a combination of filter uh changing out when it's supposed to, and then we always recommend you know having a uh at least annual contract with a heating and air company to check everything out, make sure it's running like it's supposed to. But I think two times a year when it turns cold to hot and hot to cold, then that's the two times to look at it, and it's not that expensive to do in the big picture, a lot less expensive than a brand new unit.
SPEAKER_01:And my guy Brandon Devnam comes in and he not only does the twice spring and and fall, he'll pull the grass that's been growing around it, he'll open the top and pull out the any weeds, you know, they sometimes can come through. I mean, I was stunned when he did it, but it makes you feel really confident about going into the warm season or the cold season when somebody goes through and measures the airflow and he sends me a printout that has all these technical terms that I don't even know what they mean. And and I'm like, this is awesome, this is fantastic. I'm a huge proponent of getting that contract.
SPEAKER_00:Let's go, Brandon.
SPEAKER_01:You're brilliant, Donnie. You're on tonight. Very good. Hey, um let's get a little scientific here because some people might not realize this, but uh the most common complaint this time of year is why is it cold my house? Why is the heat dissipating from my house? It seems like I'm always running this, or vice versa in the summer. Why is the cold air not staying here? I always feel hot. Um the obvious reasons that could be for heat loss are I said earlier before we started recording, you don't have a roof, you don't have a roof on your house, or you leave all your windows and doors open in December. Those would probably be the biggest reasons you have heat loss. But if you go outside and you check and you got a roof and your windows are shut, what are reasons that we have heat loss and heat gain in a house?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um I'll well, I'll answer that two ways and I'll say how it happens and then what a common cause would be. But um, if you read up, and and it's such an interesting thing to Google is convective and conductive heat transfer. Uh I won't get into radiation because that's not as interesting, but um, you know, conductive heat transfer is is surface to surface. So uh if it's cold outside and you have a vinyl siding house, then that vinyl's gonna obviously uh be within a few degrees of what the air temperature is, and that vinyl's touching the plywood on your house, plywood's touching the studs, studs touching the drywall, so you have that thermal bridging effect where whatever, you know, but it's it's basically um heat loss in the form of uh that cold is pulling the heat out of your house. And so and it it's it's flipped in the summertime because the heat from outside uh it's it's just it's trying to get in, and so you know it it happens in the reverse direction. But conductive heat transfer is one of those things you can really control um with a good insulation package and with the thermal bridging effect, you know, having um with a brick veneer house, you're supposed to have an airspace. So it's a brick veneer, then it's a one-inch airspace, and then it's your plywood. That airspace actually has an R value of one. I didn't know that for years and years, but uh that's wise because it is keeping that thermal bridging from happening as fast. And so um uh that is not that's the slowest way that you lose heat. Uh conductive heat transfer is air movement, and so it's not surface to surface. It's basically if you have a leaky house, and and before the days that spray foam uh insulation were common, you know, a lot of houses around the windows and doors, and they they just have this void or this airspace all the way around there that um on a good windy day you can put your hand right up to the casing around the doors and windows, and you can feel a breeze coming in. And uh that's not the case with anything probably built in the last 20, 25 years. But uh when we do a remodel, for instance, and we demo the drywall, man, it it's it's scary, you know, how house houses got by for years and years. But um, controlling your conductive heat transfer is basically using low expansion spray foam around the doors and windows. It's not a major surgery DIY thing. If you're handy and you have a uh chop saw or miter saw, whatever you call it, uh you could pop the trim uh off of the doors and windows very carefully, and especially if it's available, if you break a few pieces, so what? But go room by room and pop them off, and and on a Saturday, gosh, you could do half you know the upstairs in one weekend and the downstairs in another, but pop the trim off, uh put the low expansion spray foam around the doors and windows, pop the trim back on, and just you know, do the paint touch up, and it's a major, major savings in terms of your utilities. Um of the other things that that aren't uh any kind of long explanation causes is um your air handler. So check your air handler in the attic or in the crawl space, and all the ductwork usually comes off of that. It's either a distribution box or something that you'll see plenty of the supply uh connected to, and it's not uncommon to see that tape fail. So the heating and air tape can uh can turn loose, and especially if it's in a uh moist condition or if it's in a attic with any kind of condensation around that area. Um I've seen it a million times where you know the ductw was actually separated from the air handler. So that that's a big deal because you don't want to condition your crawl space or your attic. Um the the other thing I would say is uh poor insulation. We touched on that earlier in the show. If your ductwork is less than an R8, then it is basically uh it's radiating heat or you know, losing the cool air in the summer months. So making sure that your ductw is up to par with the building code, even a little stronger than the building code, is is a good thing. I always tell people when we insulate, we uh we overinsulate the attic area with the stack effect or the heat transfer. Uh I'm sorry, stack effect, the heat uh rises, and that that's that's common, no matter it's as kind it's as as true as gravity. And so, you know, having poor overhead insulation is a big factor in that. So those are are several of the things that that are common causes, and uh most of those can be uh fixed. It's one of those things where from a retrofit standpoint uh it's definitely something that that you can repair.
SPEAKER_01:And you see, Daisy's made her her appearance. She always hears your voice. She just out of the blue. Come on, lift up. There's Daisy. Something about your voice, Donnie. I don't know what I'm saying. I know, I know. Yours is so much better. I want I want to um uh address two quick things. One, the thermal bridging, people don't realize it also travels down from like your attic and can affect the interior walls. You were talking about exterior walls. One way to know if you've got a thermal bridging problem is in a really hot day or a really cold day, if you're in a hallway that you don't have an outer wall and you put your hand on that wall and it feels colder than what the air does, or warm or whatever the case may be, you're you're knowing, especially on the second floor of your house if you have one, that the attic is allowing that air to come in, which is not unnormal, but it's getting through and coming down the walls. So you might have an insulation issue where you have it, might just take a little bit extra insulation in the attic. It's not a huge worry necessarily. Secondly, on the casing, um, yeah, be careful when taking off casing if it's old and painted in, because you can crack it. But as Donnie said, it's probably what um 445 casing is the most common, but most casing around windows is pretty generic. That's one, two, maybe three different that it probably is. It's not expensive. If you're getting ready to paint some rooms, you're gonna be painting the casing probably, anyways. That might be a time to go ahead and incorporate in costs that you're gonna pop off casing. Anything that doesn't survive the pop-off, you can replace. But go ahead at that point, do some ceiling around your windows, and then you put on the new casing and you have your house painted, that interior room or whatever the room might be. Great point, dude. So I'm I'm just trying to sell some some prime finger joint wood here. Um here's another thing. Uh, people replacing their HVAC units, it happens every year. We say don't wait because the price ain't gonna go down. Uh someone had a question a while back and they said they're replacing their system and they have gas. Um, do you recommend that they stay with gas or go with electric? I have electric heat pump myself.
SPEAKER_00:Um I would I would say that the age of the house and the way it's insulated is everything in that scenario. So if your house is pretty new and it's well insulated, then then electric works just fine. The heat pumps, which is the electric heat uh heat pumps, are so much better than they used to be, and they work very well. Uh they they don't they're better at maintenance, so they don't heat your house up as fast as gas would, but you know, they're the basically the same thing when it comes to the AC, so you're just gonna have gas for the heat only. And I will say in a commercial application or a church sanctuary or something like that, where you come in at nine o'clock in the morning and you need that thing to be warm by 11, then you know, gas packs more of a punch. I think the air temperature coming out of a gas furnace is 130 degrees, whereas it's only about 90 degrees coming out of a heat pump. So uh what seems to be common, and and everybody's getting away from gas, but what seems to be common is a dual fuel in in that scenario I just mentioned, and it'll kick on with the gas and it'll heat it up really fast and it switches over to electric for maintenance. So uh at the very most I would say go dual fuel if you're a gas person, but man, I just don't see any any um need for gas. Every it from appliances to the heating and air units, everything is so much better these days. And uh if you've just got a little more time to manage it, then electric works just fine, and there's no cheaper thing than than the electric way to heat your house. It it's so much more expensive with gas.
SPEAKER_01:I agree with that. I I think my fantasy of having gas anything would would be a gas fireplace, but not for the heat necessarily, though that would be a benefit. But it's that instant flame. Like you just have that. So I get that luxury, I would like that, but am I gonna pay for them to run a line to my vented fireplace and set that up? I haven't in 20 years, I'm probably not, but I get it. I do have our uh my stepmother gave us uh for Christmas, the Smith Family, one of the electric-looking fireplaces, you know, the fake flames, and those turn out to be fantastic because they look great, but if you have it in one room and you go in that room early in the morning and I'm an early rise or I'm a pre-5 a.m.er, it just takes the chill off the room, and then you can turn that little heat element off and just have the fake fire. But that's a great way also to consider if you just have a room that gets a little chill in the morning, it'll take it right off. Have you ever opened the gone to the kitchen and and turned the oven on and just open it like a couple inches to to take off the chill in the room and then turn it off?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. We lived in an old, old house and it it I don't think it had any insulation other than overhead. But um, yeah, that was a real thing when you walked in the kitchen in the morning. That was an everyday thing in that old house. But um, and that that house is what turned me against gas. But um what you just mentioned is is um is very true. So I I I think with the uh the heat, the gas logs, that's if you're gonna have anything gas, that's very wise if the power goes out. It'll keep your house pretty warm, at least one room and you guys can hunker down in there. That's the only thing we have gas. And uh to comment on your electric fireplace uh thing that I've put about one of those in every year in a brand new house. And dude, I'm a fan. They they cost nothing to run. You don't have to have the gas. They have strong blowers, and a lot of times the gas logs don't have strong blowers. Those blowers, uh, I would I would say that you know, an Eden Pure heater, I don't know the exact uh term, but Eden Pure was the little boxy heaters on wheels that you could put in a room and it would take care of everything. Um I've had I had a knockoff version of that, but they work great in my basement, but um it's it's electric fireplaces are just about like that, but they have stronger blowers. So what you mentioned about getting the temperature of a room to jump up, you know, early in the morning, I think they work great. And you know, the you can change the color, you can change the design of the flame and some things like that. And and uh I I'm I'm becoming a fan.
SPEAKER_01:Now I want to stress, I may have uh uh misinterpreted the one we have. I know what you're talking about. This does not go inside the fireplace. What you're talking about is a level higher. These are literally plug and play. You can pick it up by a handle now and carry it to a different room, but it's has a nice metal frame, they come in different colors, and it just looks like a fireplace or an old stove, uh, but it works great. It's super portable. What you're talking about, I thought about putting it in this room where I have the fireplace and was talking about gas and having that fit in because it's the LEDs and the lights and the blowers, they're really cool. They look great. Okay, you might not have purple blue fire, but that's an option if you want it. But even in the middle of the summer, just for the ambiance of it, you can turn on just the faux flame and no heat and enjoy it. Yeah, for sure. I don't do purple blue flames or hair. No, nobody, it's it's it's a bad look no matter who you are. If you're if you're under 20, don't. Um, one more thing before we wrap up the show. Uh and this is a uh a discussion we have a lot with people that uh listen to the show. Um pros and cons of crawl spaces versus slab foundations. I have a crawl space. Um you know, you deal with this, you're more familiar. Give us a quick rundown.
SPEAKER_00:Um I think well, I'm not a big fan of a slab because obviously it has plumbing in the concrete. If you ever have a problem, you know it's very pricey to fix that. However, for folks who are interested in, you know, no steps or a zero entry into the house or handicap accessibility, really a slab is the best way to accomplish that. And I think the biggest factor is whether or not the lot works for the slab. If it's a nice flat lot, maybe with a little bit of a one foot of all from left to right or the or the or vice versa, then you can make that work and it's economical. But if you have a pretty aggressive slope on the lot, then that means you're gonna have to do a footing, you're gonna have to build the foundation on the low end up, you know, three, four, five, six feet. You've got to fill all that up with gravel, which I think gravel's like seven hundred dollars a load right now. Insane. And um, you know, by the time you get into that, you spent an extra 10 G's just to have a slab into the house. And in that, in that case, I would just do a crawl space. But uh in our neck of the or our area of the country, uh crawl spaces, vented crawl spaces have been the thing for years and years. We have started doing the condition crawl space, and if it's done right, it really works like it's supposed to. Uh so uh with the slab it on a flat lot, a little bit cheaper, and a crawl space is gonna cost a little bit more, but all of your heating and air uh can go under your house instead of in your attic, so you can gain that storage overhead. And it it's just uh even though it's more expensive, you've got you know a little bit of storage there, and if anything ever goes wrong, you can get right to it.
SPEAKER_01:I've told the story before um uh one of our because I've got a crawl space, one of the access doors, um the old metal ones, you know, they kind of jam in place and they wear out. Well, it had opened up a little bit, and I noticed my cats like going in there, and I was like, uh, I'm gonna go ahead and seal this back up, but I've left it open about this much because I thought, you know what, if my cats are going under the crawl space because it's probably a little warmer, even if they want to be outside, and they're digging it, that also means there's no varmintons living under my house. Snakes won't take root, mice, whatever other animals might go under there. So I'm like, I'm actually gonna leave it, and it's not gonna harm anything to leave it open that much. Um I'm not suggesting people go outside right now if they have cats and open up their vents to let them in, but uh I'm I'm leaving my open so I have some free pest control doing that because I don't have a mouse problem.
SPEAKER_00:But I think you just came up with a million-dollar idea, dude. So you could get a little a kitty door made for a crawl space door and um you know put it up about a foot and they can still get into it, but things that are low to the ground really can't. And if it's a certain size, that kind of eliminates anything else bigger than a cat getting in there. So I think you're onto something. There's one cavite.
SPEAKER_01:If you don't have a cat, you you've gotta then seal it off because then something else will go. Oh, I found a way in it. Oh, no doubt. You know, no doubt. You gotta keep a cat. If I my cats are gone, then I would I'm gonna seal that back up. Um is it cavite or caveat? You say caveat, just uh well, I was using it more of the uh bourgeois uh pronunciation of the higher educated people. Uh some people say caveat, but uh if you go to the Latin root of that word, it means BS. So um yeah, nice. So yeah, I was gonna cover myself by BSing my way through it, and you probably would have believed it, but I decided let's not get into Latin and Greek uh prefixes. And suffixes. Okay, I mispronounced a word. Sorry. I didn't know. I just wanted to get educated. If I were if I were wrong all these years, I don't know. Yeah, that that was me. That'll be deleted from the final edit of the show. But this part won't be. We appreciate everybody tuning into the Carolina Contractor Show. Again, the website is pretty simple, the Carolinacontractor.com, and it's got all the info on that. Hey, you got an idea? Maybe you've uh found a way to keep cats from getting under your house or you want them under your house. Uh or maybe you've got an idea on the electric fireplaces, because I'm maybe I'll move in that direction. That sounds pretty cool is to get the one professionally installed that looks cool and has a better blower. But uh any questions you have, comments, again, you can find us on YouTube. You can find us on the Instagram, and of course, if you want to contact us directly, click that Ask the Contractor button on the website. Oh, it's a great time of year. Got football going and everything else, and uh, we appreciate you taking time just to tune in and check out our show. And we'll do this again next week, but with more feeling, right?
SPEAKER_00:That's it.
SPEAKER_01:Way more feeling. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate the support. Yep. See you next week on the Carolina Contractor Show.