The Carolina Contractor Show
The Carolina Contractor Show
Christmas Gift Ideas for the DIY Dad!
Football brains, builder brains, and a holiday shopping list that actually gets used—this one brings it all together. We open with Phillip Rivers’ headline‑grabbing return, the Panthers’ late‑season spark, and a dash of fantasy playoff chaos, then steer straight into a practical gift guide for homeowners, weekend warriors, and anyone who loves a well‑equipped garage. No fluff, no gimmicks—just the tools and upgrades that save time, money, and headaches.
We break down why cordless tool ecosystems are the best value right now, and which pieces punch above their weight: impact drivers, orbital sanders, trim and framing nailers, and those versatile “everything in a bag” kits with shared batteries. From there, we get into smart home wins like a thermostat you can set and forget, compact air purifiers that help allergy sufferers, and small LED herb gardens that keep fresh basil and mint on hand without grocery markups. Cleaning up? A quality steam cleaner and a reliable wet/dry vac turn spills and shop dust into quick work when you’ve only got minutes to spare.
On the road and on the job site, we talk real preparedness: a “dad emergency kit” with a multi‑tool that can break glass and cut seatbelts, a bright lantern‑style flashlight, a proper floor jack, first aid supplies, and jumper solutions that don’t require a second car. We compare inverter generators to traditional units—quieter, more efficient, and friendly for tailgates and camping—and spotlight trickle chargers and solar maintainers that keep seasonal batteries alive. For grill lovers, think organized caddies, bold rubs, and wireless thermometers that save your turkey when you switch from electric to charcoal. And if cozy nights are your thing, rechargeable hand warmers, heated insoles, and a smokeless‑style fire pit can extend patio season, with quick tips for safe use on decks.
Ready to shop smarter and gift like a pro? Tap play, grab the full list, and send us your house questions at thecarolinacontractor.com. If this helped you pick a winner, share it with a friend and leave a quick review so more DIYers can find the show.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with your host, General Contractor Donnie Blanchard. Donnie, you're in your 40s. I'm in my 50s. How do you feel about Phillip Rivers back in the NFL?
SPEAKER_01:I'm pulling for the guy, man. It's pretty fascinating to see somebody just a couple years younger go out there and um really just take on mountain of men and uh take a chance on getting hurt, but more power to him, man.
SPEAKER_00:Old guys rule. By the time the show hits some markets, his first game will be over. But here's what I'm gonna make a prediction on is drop back three steps, two and second down, six yard throws, he'll probably do fine. You know he can throw 40 plus yards pretty comfortably, but no quarterback goes the whole game without getting hit, and that's what I worry about. He's gonna get tackled. I don't even mean a sack, but two or three of those, maybe reality sets in. Yeah, didn't you say that they already gave him a nickname?
SPEAKER_01:Uh yeah, Old Man Rivers. That's fit. How do how do all the Indianapolis quarterbacks get all the good nicknames? You know, Daniel Jones from Duke, he ended up there and you know had a fantastic season before he got hurt last week, but uh they named they nicknamed him Indiana Jones, and I thought that was spot on. Peyton didn't have a nickname, did he? I don't champion. He was great. He didn't need one. Yeah. Winner. He didn't need one. How's your fantasy team coming?
SPEAKER_00:Uh pretty good, and I'm excited. Uh, I mean, we had a uh a a little bit of a hiccup, but uh eight weeks ago uh Matt Stafford got dropped by somebody in my pool, and I picked him up and he'd been pretty much on fire, and he's got Nakua um as his hot target, and I've got both of them. So I'm in the playoffs. Um I'm playing the number one team. He's got one player who might not be running, uh, a running back who might not be playing this weekend. But uh if he's out, he has no backup on his pool. But you know these guys at last minute, like one minute before they lock down the rosters, he'll make that change. But I'm feeling good for somebody who didn't try to get into fantasy football, and now I'm in the playoffs.
SPEAKER_01:I haven't told you this, but I got to see both those grown men cry, Matt Stafford and Puka Nakua. Um last week, I got uh last minute Saturday, or on Saturday, I got Sunday tickets for the Panthers-Rams game, and I couldn't turn them down. They were great seats, and we actually missed one of our Thanksgiving dinners to go to that, but um it was it was probably the biggest win in Panthers since since I would say it's probably the biggest win since 2015-16, something like that, when we were actually good and going to the playoffs. But uh my sweetheart went with me and and her favorite part of the game was to walk to the car because it was electric, man. When we won, Charlotte was on fire, and it was like the walls were shaking with all the voices in Unity screaming, keep pounding! And people were just, I mean, on cloud nine, and it was just about as enjoyable to watch all the Rams fans walk to their car with their tail tucked and heads down, man. And it was good times.
SPEAKER_00:And Bryce is looking better, he's more comfortable, he's his accuracy is up, and they put up a stat over the past uh four games for him, and it's a 45-degree angle. Everything's going up, he seems comfortable, and I'm I'm not trying to be negative. I don't think he's gonna ever be an elite quarterback. He's got that, let's face it, a height issue, but he's starting to work that, and I think his defense is giving him a little bit more time. Just that half second extra is allowing him to find a target and finish that play. Yeah, he's a smart guy and a great kid, so I'm I'm pulling for him. Yeah, I'm I mean, we're both hometown boys and and love to see the Panthers make the playoffs. And if you had said even four weeks ago they've got a shot, I'd say Panthers ain't gonna make the playoffs. Man, they could host a game potentially the way they're playing. That's just that's nuts. So yeah, Phillip Rivers is playing football, and and of course, Cam Ward peed and moaned about it already, saying, Well, I'm only 36, why didn't they pick me? Well, let's be honest, Phillip Rivers knows that play so well, and he's not an ego guy. He's not a cancer in the locker room, and he'll probably be the first person that thinks if he's being detrimental to playing this and that it's uh an experiment that went awry, he'll say, You need to get me out of here. Yeah, I don't see Cam or Kaepernick or these other guys who are egotistical jerks gonna go in there and and make a better position or or a better uh influence on the team. Absolutely, absolutely. Chemistry is everything. Yeah. All right, this is the uh Carolina contractor football show. And uh I'm Eric Smith, Cross for Me General Contractor Donnie Blanchard, and yeah, we like talk football because we're just normal everyday guys. And the whole thing with the fantasy football is I've never done it before, and I actually got into it by accident. I clicked on a link and it says, Hey, you're in a group, and I went, Yeah, what the hell? Okay. And next thing I know, I finished well enough to make it to the playoffs, and Donnie hates people like me because you put like um four to five hours a night, weeks in advance, trying to figure out the best picks, and then somebody like me just falls into it accidentally and does really well. Yeah, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Yeah, it's life. But we're not gonna talk just about football, though we could. We are gonna talk about this time of year because it is uh getting close to Christmas. We're in December, and uh, you know, you might still be thinking, what can I get somebody on the Christmas list? And a lot of this stuff when it comes to DIYers, you might think of the normal stuff to get people, and we'll we'll go over some of those items you can get. But me and Donnie also got some personal favorites we wanted to talk about, and also some ideas that maybe you haven't thought about. And these are not exclusive to manly men things. There's uh stuff for everybody when it comes to home maintenance and DIY and stuff like that. First of all, hit the website thecarolinacontractor.com. We've got links to past shows there. You can listen to them in podcast for them. They're all up there by date they aired, or you can sort them by the title. So if there's a specific topic you want to learn about, we got uh the YouTube page running videos of the show up. We've got Instagram, social media, Facebook. Also, if you want to contact us, the best way to do it is through the Carolinacontractor.com website. There's a button that says ask the contractor, and those are for Donnie. And again, being a general contractor, he can answer a lot of your questions. Um we're a little overdue, I'd say, Donnie, for a show of nothing but questions from listeners. So maybe beginning of the year we do one of those. Yeah, let's do it. I'll put them together. All right, we'll do one of those. Uh, if again, you want to you have a question about your house, the inside, the outside, uh, anything plumbing, electrical, appliances, grilling, go ahead and submit that website again, the Carolina Contractor.com. All right. So let's just jump into this. Uh, we really don't have a script or much information. We just wanted to kind of shoot the bull about Christmas gifts. So you're shopping for a homeowner. Um, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's a parent, maybe it's a a child, maybe it's a cool neighbor, a cool boss. I never thought about that. Or maybe just some ideas, what to get your dad. Bosses get like snacks or cards and stuff, but imagine if you brought them a power saw or something. They'd probably like, I like this guy. This is cool. Um, but if you got somebody who tinkers, you like Calvin and Hobbs had a cartoon, I can't wait till I'm old and can just putter around the garage. You got somebody like that in your life, or they are maybe they're just a hand a handyman. They might not do it for a living, but they're really good at it. Um, tons of reasons, tons of items you can get. Uh I was not late to the game, but later than most. And this was I got the cordless drill set. I've got the basic DeWalt bag, and I've gotten a couple attachments, but I'm sure you've got a cordless drill set, Donnie. Oh yeah, like plenty.
SPEAKER_01:And um I got them for the truck, one for the garage, and it's one of those things where you just kind of accumulate those when they go on sale. And uh, yeah, good to have impact. That's kind of taken over in the drill world depending on the application. But yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so you can buy just like the the drill, but um, I've seen the DeWalt bag. It's very cool. It comes in a box, but when you take it out, it's a big bag and it's got everything in it. It's like um 400 bucks, but you get the drill, the impact driver you're talking about, uh reciprocating saw, circular saw. They got multi-purpose tools, they've got chargers, batteries, and the batteries work for everything. So you got one battery charging while you're using one. Uh, you could build a deck and uh and a screen porch on top of it just with a tool set in one of those big bags. I think cordless has revolutionized the hand tool business. Absolutely. Definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and I'm a big fan. I uh it's not that I just preferred to walt everything, but it makes it so much easier. So I have the uh the big bag with the sawzall, the reciprocating saw or skill saw, uh, as well as the um comes with the drill and all the bits, even like a handy-dandy flashlight that works on a battery, and they all work with the same batteries. Speaking of that, the black I shouldn't say this because it'll make people feel like they missed out on something, but the best Black Friday thing I've seen in a long time is Lowe's had a uh limit one per per customer, and I've could have gotten my you know kids or somebody to buy one as well. But I bought my future father-in-law a set of four DeWalt batteries, and there's two of the bigger ones and two of the regular batteries for$99. Four batteries for a hundred bucks is unheard of. That's a steal. Yeah, it was one day only, and um, I got it.
SPEAKER_00:Good for you. Yeah, now you're making us mad. We didn't know about that. I should have paid it, I should have paid attention. You didn't do it. Um let's see, something else. Um we won't go in details. If you don't have a smart thermostat, just go ahead and get one. Uh and if you're not cool on installing it, a great gift is hey, the HFAT guy is gonna put a smart thermostat in the house uh after the holidays. Just a money saver, uh set and forget type of item. Very practical. Me and Donnie have talked a whole lot about them. You're talking$100 and$150. Uh I guess I guess going to you said it Lowe's was it, I I guess gift cards always work to the big box stores. Oh, yeah, that's just boring. It is boring, but it is a gift card a lazy gift?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't think dudes care. I think you can't give a woman a gift card. I don't think I mean, I'm just like, yeah, I'll pick what I want, but you know, women want you to be a little more thoughtful, so I guess it depends on the person.
SPEAKER_00:Uh I agree with guys for the most part. Um, I think women are fine if it's maybe and it's gonna sound sexist if it's like coffee, like if it's Starbucks, where they can just drive through and hand them the card. But but I do agree, you can't just give gift cards or cash. Kids like cash, kids like gift cards, but I don't think here's what I'd say you give a cool one or two gifts in person, and then if you say, hey, if you I gave you this great little DeWalt drill bag with all these tools in it, here's another hundred bucks so you can pick up extra stuff when you fix all these things that she'll give you a list for later.
SPEAKER_01:You know, you just said something funny on accident. Kids like cash. No, they don't. I know what you mean. They like the gift cards just fine. But um uh I gave my daughter a hundred dollar bill for dinner and gas, and she said, Oh, dad, can I just like take your card instead? It's just so easy. They don't like the part about going in the gas station, you know, giving them the the card, remembering what the the meter said about what their tab was before they walked in, and then making sure the math is right. That's a lot of work for a teenager.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so you are 100% correct on my daughter Reagan's 16th birthday. I got her this box, and it you pull this little um happy birthday sign, and it pulls up a dollar bill that's in cellophane, and then it pulled like 10 of those, and then it pulled like 10 fives, and then it pulled like 10 10s. Know what she did within an hour of that? She thought it was really cool. She says, Can I give you the cash and you just put it on my cash app card? Oh yeah. So I ended up with a couple hundred bucks in cash that I withdrew like you know, two hours before the party, and ended up just keeping it anyway. So you're right. They they'd rather just have the card or have it on their phone. For sure. Uh something that's kind of you don't think about as a tool you want, but I'm gonna mention this, Donnie, is um we're talking cordless tools, orbital sanders. Having a sanders actually a kind of a big deal. You it's one of those items you don't know you need it until you need it. Um mine are actually still corded, so if I needed one when I use it occasionally, I have to pull the old extension cord. But I guess uh getting a cordless sander is a big deal or something pretty good that people could use.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. You always got to sand something if you're handy around the house. I mean, everything from the house to any kind of house project is gonna need a sander, and you're you're a hundred percent right. It's not one of those things where you're doing it for two hours at a time. So, you know, a battery works good in that application. I have gone full-blown battery, everything that I can because you know, when you're uh when you're going to a job site, you don't want to unload a nail gun, a hose, a compressor. You have to get a drop cord to run the compressor, and heaven forbid you need two separate nail guns. You got to run a splitter and another air hose to another nail gun. Uh, I bit the bullet when we closed it on several houses recently, and I bought a battery-powered framing nailer and a battery-powered uh trim gun. Uh, and so they both have saved me hours on end already, and it's so convenient just to have them on your truck. You go to a house, you got a punch list, you know, a piece of quarter round here or there, just go in there with a trim gun, bang, bang, bang, and you're done. Um, the framing nailer comes in handy when we do blocking and things like that, where we're not trying to frame a room or you know, put studs up to the point where we're gonna need, we're gonna go through 600 nails uh on that that particular thing. When we block behind the sheetrock before it goes up for things like handrails, paper uh towel, I'm sorry, toilet paper holders, uh, towel bars, things like that, then that frame of nailer comes in super handy.
SPEAKER_00:Is are are they is it a name brand or is it proprietary nails? Like we sell plastic and paper strip nails, like for pass load guns and Milwaukee. What is this one one of those or it's something else?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, both were DeWalt because that's the battery package I already had the most of. So I got DeWalt on both of those. There are other ones that have higher ratings, but that was convenient for me. But yes, sir, the nails are specific to DeWalt. So they do cost a little bit more for a box, but I hadn't gone through my first box on either. So all good there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and if you're you're at your house and you're not doing a major project and you like uh changed out, you you broke some cord around or or placed a little bit of casing or something, that um finished nailer is gonna be fine or whatever. I guess that makes a lot of sense. You don't need a big giant box of nails. For sure.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, sometimes if we're doing a bigger project, the nail gun compressor, I mean, that's just what you got to do if you're gonna be working there for several days. But for little onesies, twosies, it it comes in handy.
SPEAKER_00:All right. Uh last year, get this. I asked for a steam clean vacuum cleaner. And my wife told the mother-in-law and said, Hey, this is what Eric wants. And she didn't believe my wife, because what kind of straight red-blooded American male would say, I want a steam, I want a steam cleaner. And I said, I do. On the day it wasn't Christmas, we always go to their house a couple days before, and they're in the middle of the floor is a wrap box, and she walks up to me and goes, Now your wife told me you wanted this, and I'm not so sure. And I said, Is this a shark steam cleaner? And she goes, It is. I said, You don't understand. I want this thing. And I was so excited. I love a steam cleaner because when there's spills, whether it's animal, vegetable, or mineral, you get issues where of cleaning it up quickly. We usually, you know, damp it with a towel or something. I saw the test of one of them. I test rode one. Would you test ride a vacuum cleaner? I was drinking at the time. It was ugly. But it came in handy when my wife was sitting on. I always take her coffee because that's just the awesome person I am. I take her coffee upstairs every morning before I leave to work. And she barely had taken a sip and it spilled. And the kids tried to do what they could, and then I got home that afternoon and go upstairs, and you see obviously where the coffee had spilled, and it smelled like coffee in the room, which was kind of nice. But I got out my steam cleaner thing, and that shark took care of business you wouldn't have never known a full yeti cup of coffee had spilled and sat there for eight hours. That thing took it to task, and I love it. Also, don't use a shop vac inside. Have you ever tried to do that by accident? Not thinking uh yeah. Time or two. If you don't have the filter set correctly or you don't have a good filter on it, a shop vac will shoot dust out its vent. And if you think, man, if if a vacuum will vacuum this floor well, what will my shop vac do? You gotta make sure you have the right filter on it because otherwise, whatever you pull in, half of it's just gonna shoot right out the back end. But I use it in my attached um storage building because leaves and dirt and crap get all in there, and I I don't know a guy that doesn't have a shop back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and a shop back's one of those things. It goes bad every couple years, so that's that's always a safe bet. I think I have I have one that I don't think I've ever used before, but it's only a matter of time before I'll need it. Mine's got to be 10 years old. I don't. Maybe you got a good one, but I'm I'm striking out at the big box stores and I just get the cheap one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I just got a craftsman. It's run like a dream for me, and I've even used it for wet and dry applications.
SPEAKER_01:Mine go through uh heck, and so mine go from job site to job site. I'm I beat up on them. I'm I'm hard on the shop bag, man. Okay, that's all right.
SPEAKER_00:I'll I'll give you a pass on that one. You do work harder than I do. I don't know about that. Now, for uh people who like to cook, I think this is a great idea. Uh indoor herb gardens, they're they're little kits, they're self-watering systems, and they have their own LED lights, and you can just set them on your uh kitchen sink window if you have one, and you need basil or or something, it'll be right there. They're low maintenance. I think they're a great stocking stuff or gift. By the way, some of you just got excited because I said a self-watering LED light system that can grow things inside. You ain't growing pot inside your house with one of these, so don't get excited because first of all, your energy bill would give it away, that wheel outside when you turn on the grow lights. So I've heard would go yeah. But um, I thought it was kind of cool because my girls cook a lot and they they're into the spices and and and things like that. So I think I make a fun little gift.
SPEAKER_01:They hit you over the head for those spices just for a small amount at the grocery store. I mean, they they think a lot of those things. So I I think that not only is that a great gift idea, probably save you a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00:Last thing I want to mention, this is real-world advice that I have. Uh air purifiers. Um you have big ones, but I'm not talking about those. We've got this small portable air purifier. It's literally um the size of uh two malt liquors. And it's got a filter that you can clean and replace. I recommend getting that as a gift if you got somebody in your house with breathing or allergy problems.
SPEAKER_01:No, I think that's cool. It they look kind of like a novelty, but I I'm glad to hear you say that it works because if that's a air quality issue that your daughter's having, then that's a pretty easy fix.
SPEAKER_00:All right, Donnie, you came up with a uh uh idea of a package of gifts you could get somebody um the on Christmas, and I thought it was pretty cool. So why don't you take this one?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I just labeled this as emergency kit for dads. I mean, you could get a box of things, and dads are hard to buy for, no secret there, because you know, if you're 35 and up, you pretty much have one of everything. And if you're a homeowner on top of that, you know, you need these things that you buy and use one time a year. And um your children and and or wife, unless it's clothes or just something generic, you're probably a tough one to buy for. So I thought any of these are a safe bet or all these would make a cool package gift. But um, and most of this, most of this is available on Amazon, but a five-in-one tool with a glass break device on one end, that's one of those things that has a screwdriver, you know, a knife, and uh just kind of like a multi-tool. But um they've they've stepped up their game with those, and they have those where if you're trapped in a car, you know, you somebody else is trapped in a car, you could bust out a window without uh injuring yourself. And and and though they have the blade built in that can cut a seatbelt? Yes, blade built in for that. And some of them have flashlights and and uh you know you can get as funky as you want to, but I think just one with a the main core things is pretty good. Um my next item. Go ahead. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00:And you know someone's gonna make a five in one tool with a vape on it. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you made me go dad mode on that. No, I hate that stuff. And I mean, yeah, I I'm I'll protest that if they come out with that. But yeah. Uh a good flashlight. Most people neglect a good flashlight and and I say that I have one where you basically open the flashlight up and it turns into a lantern. So there's an internal flashlight and getting getting a flashlight that's either mobile and you can uh move it around or has a tripod attachment, something cool like that is a good dad gift. A self-defense tool, you know, anything that anything that you can have that basically you get into a pickle that's not you don't have to shoot somebody is always a nice option. I have a first aid kit in my truck. I have a first aid kit in every truck that I I own for the roofing company, the building business. I just think that's a cheap thing to have on on hand that can come in handy. Jumper cables. Everybody needs jumper cables or one of those jumper boxes. A decent jack, you know, car jack, they're always bare minimum and uh basically you just don't have the room in all trucks or trunks for that car jack, but that is a handy thing to have.
SPEAKER_00:Dude, anything with a flame I knew I can't believe you forgot that. Get a guy anything that shoots a flame out of it or burns. Yeah. Or if you can get something that shoots a flame and has a sharp edge, knife edge on it, that's a win.
SPEAKER_01:The cheapest best thing that produces a flame is a flamethrower attachment for a propane tank. And they sell those at all the big box stores. I think they're a little cheaper cheaper at Harbor Freight, but I use that all the time. Anytime we start a bonfire or that used a solo stove out on the deck or the patio it takes about two seconds and you know it uses very little propane and it's just really cool.
SPEAKER_00:I've seen people use it to uh get rid of weeds the the really thin on the driveway and stuff they'll just walk through and burn the weeds. Yeah oh I hadn't seen that but yeah multifaceted. Yeah um I have uh thought about getting a generator I'm very lucky in my uh town of Wilson at least my neighborhood my grounds my grounds my lines are underground we rarely have power go out but still having a little generator I've thought about getting it never pull the trigger but people need no generator sits outside and it's loud and it makes noise but there's also inverters and would you quickly tell the people the difference because you just got an inverter yeah I I actually was waiting on the power company to to bring a transformer to the job site and then the framers got started before we could do that.
SPEAKER_01:So you know me I just needed an excuse and um I was amazed the inverters were a couple thousand more than they are now and I got caught a Black Friday sale when I was in the market to buy that but the inverters are those super quiet generators for lack of a long explanation and I think the um uh basically the way that it works is it only produces as much power as being called for sort of like a um on demand water heater you know you're uh it it doesn't operate at max capacity as opposed to a generator which you know it cranks out as much uh as much watta as it possibly can all the time and that's why it runs so loud and it's just a pain but these inverters are really nice and when I'd get done with this on this job site you know we could use it for a camp or we could use it for a tailgate and it's not it's not obnoxiously loud so I just think that um uh shopping for those is is a lot different. I got that one at Harbor Freight and the one that they carry there is made just like the Honda. It's just uh you know a different casing but it looks super nice. It even has a remote control and uh you know for a camper application if you were in the camper didn't want to go turn it off you can just uh hit your key fob there and take care of that. What about battery chargers? So I got one for Christmas last year and it's the one that will actually jump a car off. And so not only will it do that it's got a mean flashlight on it. It will recharge phones. It's not like the the battery packs or the power banks that the kids have this thing is the real deal and um you know the fact that it'll start a car and you don't have to have another vehicle there or the jumper cables I think it cuts out a lot of the difficulty with that.
SPEAKER_00:And you also mentioned uh within the past couple years you got a trickle charger and those are you know if you have a riding lawnmower it has a battery on it or other devices like I've just got to pull lawnmower so I don't really need it. But uh these are becoming big I've seen people buy ones that have a solar shield that sticks on the windshield wires that go in the hood and you just connect it to your car battery for a car that you might not be using all the time so it doesn't go dead if you go to crank it up two or three weeks without it uh being used.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's genius. And uh a lot of times I've had to replace a battery from lead to go so far dead where something you don't use all winter long and summer comes around and not only did the battery not work, it can't be charged anymore. So something as cheap as a solar trickle charger uh it comes in handy. Basically I had uh our four wheeler battery go dead um I don't know several weeks ago and I literally hooked that trickle charger up pulled it out in the sun and maybe had it connected and under the sun for about two hours and instead of having to do all I mean not that it's a lot of trouble but instead of having to pull something else over there jump it off and all that it not only got the four wheeler to start the battery was already charged when we when we got on it.
SPEAKER_00:Great idea those trickle chargers you're right uh long range walkie talkies you may have heard ads on uh radio and TV for these things um your mileage will greatly vary I did some research on these and the distance advertised is like maximum on a good day clear range good weather um underwhelming the reviews I've seen from the tech magazines if it's something uh you have a relative living down the street or I don't know factories but I don't get the walkie-talkie fascination because with cell phones you can text andor call somebody nationwide why would you want to add another device to keep on your hip so you can next del them again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah I agree with that. You got certain people if you're a retiree and you know you don't like carrying a phone around and you're gonna be out on the farm or you know just out of sight and just for the sake of having some sort of safety mechanism to leave one on the kitchen counter and you know something happens you don't have a phone you could contact somebody but other than that maybe having a grandkid that lived within a few blocks of you that would think something like that's cool. That's the only justification I can think of.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah I say uh for grandma grandpa's and I'll be there soon enough uh life alert and a jitterbug phone. Just let him do that. All right we're gonna do some uh quick ideas here uh you'll understand what I mean when I tell you this Donnie red blue red i'll I'll do the reds these are some quick ideas you can get somebody for Christmas as we wrap up this episode of the Carolina contractor show grill caddies are great you can find them anywhere they're cheap that's gonna be all the basic tools for your your person who likes to cook out and you don't have to worry about mixing and matching and you can they're usually washable you keep them clean they stay organized they're always there meat rubs we talk about grilling out all the time again easy to find if you can imagine the flavor I'm sure somebody has it so if you've got somebody who loves to grill out and you don't in North Carolina you don't have to wait till summer to grill out you can be grilling out just about any time of year weather changes so much. Get that and then of course wireless thermometers so you can do that slow roast or you're doing that smoker or whatever you put in that wireless thermometer and it's going to monitor you can set it up to do alarms and let you know when it's reached temperature and and man you can stay inside with your baby while the stuff's outside cooking.
SPEAKER_01:Well not only that the wireless thermometer saving grace for me if I switch so uh for instance I made turkeys a different way completely and huge success on the electric smoker and the game with the electric smoker is it's low and slow. You don't have to worry about burning anything and it just does everything perfect unless there's a you know a better a different cut of meat that may require um a stronger heat source. So I cooked those same turkeys because I cooked multiple for Thanksgiving and I switched over to the green egg and having the charcoal as the heat source versus an electric heat source with the uh other smoker changed everything. I had one of these wireless thermometers in the turkeys and I expected a two to three hour cook time and within an hour I had reached the the go to temperature so had I not had those in there that would have alerted my phone that they were already you know to the finished with the cooking cycle and half the time I would have burned everything. Oof not not good. Rechargeable hit me with some things real quick. Yeah um I live with I mean by these things especially with you know kids playing sports and cold games at night but rechargeable hand warmers are the handiest thing on the internet and uh oh I said handy for hand warming. Anyway um I didn't do that on purpose but those and insoles I have the rechargeable insoles they both work with my iPhone charger so you're running late for the game you throw them on your charger in the car and and it works just fine it'll get you through two or three hours but also handy on the job site when we're working through winter. Rechargeable electric blankets that's something that if you sit outside or want to you know utilize your outside area in the colder months that's something that works well and I have several people that live by these heated jackets. The uh the heated jackets are are on the money but my understanding is they don't last more than a couple of years because of uh the the batteries just technology is just not there for those um and I can imagine there's a dance there you know they can't heat it up but so much because they'll light the coat on fire so I don't know what kind of parameters they operate in or what kind of test they run on those things but there's got to be something behind that. And the last thing is the coolest thing I want to buy my kids this but they just wouldn't appreciate it. My crew leader did some work uh or helped me with at my personal house with some things. Well we ate I got taco truck for everybody and you know we all ate he said man my wife made my lunch don't worry about me so comes in the house and he sits this 2050 Space Age lunchbox up on my counter and I'm thinking what in the world is this and it's a rechargeable lunchbox. I want to say the the name brand is called Lunch Ease and uh that's the name brand so I did my homework and there's several versions that are much less expensive but the lunchbox itself is about 130 and the lun the what carries the lunchbox and your other items and it all fits perfectly in there is about another hundred bucks. So if you really want to go all out for dad or the worker outside worker in your family these things will allow you to charge up the lunchbox you program it for what time you want to eat or roundabout and you can say I'm gonna have lunch at 12 o'clock and it'll start at 11 1130 it'll have your food 150 degrees like it just came out of a restaurant by the time you're ready for it and it's just a genius idea.
SPEAKER_00:Hey I just want to add to the list of stuff you can get at last minute guys are not offended when you give them tools uh yard tools rakes and and shovels and stuff you know some people would not give their their wife pots and pans guys don't mind that at all give us yard tools easy uh security cameras they're so small and cheap put them in a windowsill if you need an extra part of your house to watch that fits in a stocking um you mentioned uh solo stoves those are probably pretty big uh item and I don't mean price but just popularity uh real quick you like yours?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I love it because and and it they they've they've mastered the technology of uh the intake and the exhaust and so basically they have this intake uh plate or they have a a set a separating piece so it doesn't sit directly on the deck but I use my thermometer gun like they hit you in the forehead with during COVID and I uh at the very bottom of it it was it was close to the ambient temperature of you know 50 60 degrees and the uh temperature of the flame coming out of the top was 350 so just in about an 18 inch span you had a 300 degree swing and I think that's just amazing. So in your opinion if you have a wood deck it's fine to put that on and using cool weather what we do just for cheap insurance is I bought a grill mat for 20, 30 bucks and I put a grill mat under that and it works wonderful wonderful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah because a lot of people like myself wouldn't put something on it you go out in the yard or onto a concrete slab but man that would be nice to sit by the comfortable uh chairs that you have on your deck and have a a nice little fire.
SPEAKER_01:Is it pretty smokeless? Uh smokeless yeah I mean a little bit here and there but nothing crazy. You know I nobody's ever had to move their chair because the smoke was following the beauty.
SPEAKER_00:Well cool well maybe I'll find one my stock and I'll have to put that on my list. Again little ideas but sometimes this time year we forget those small items that someone might like or just a DIY item. I'd if I had a big tool bag with all the battery uh powered tools, the cordless tools in them, that'd be a pretty big deal but now that solo stove is sounding good too. But uh we'll have this list up on the website or for the most part just listen to the show at two times speed and you can find out the answers to gifts that you can give the DIYer twice as fast. But uh man, Christmas is here another year gone just about Donnie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah it goes by faster every year, dude. I don't like it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah it does. The years go up and the time goes faster but at least we still got football. I hope Philip Rivers does good. I'm looking forward to uh old man river grandpa out there on the gridiron throwing some football. I hope so yep all right uh thanks for tuning in we hope you have a great Christmas and uh hope these ideas uh help you for the DIYer in your house or in your family and again hit the website the Carolinacontractor.com and thanks for tuning in we hope you tune in again next time on the Carolina Contractor Show. Merry Christmas everybody