[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home. There is a lot to know though. We've got you coming. This is around the house. Welcome to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B. This is the midweek special. This is where we have a great time talking, but stuff. Maybe didn't make it into last week's show or today maybe even stuff that's gonna make it into this week's show.

[00:00:39] Eric Goranson: Cuz Caroline and I, we just had a killer interview. Didn't we?

[00:00:45] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, first off I cannot believe it's midweek already. Like I don't know where the time goes, but um, it's flying,

[00:00:52] Eric Goranson: Summer's flying, we ended up having, going out to the coast, staying out in a year on. Wednesday and [00:01:00] Thursday and, and, and, uh, had a great time tell

[00:01:02] Caroline Blazovsky: everybody what a a year is like, I know what a year it is because I learned about it from my San Francisco friends, but it's not like traditionally an east coast thing.

[00:01:10] Caroline Blazovsky: So tell people what a year

[00:01:11] Eric Goranson: is. Okay. So a UT and they have these, like at our state campgrounds here. So this is, uh, think of a round 10. That is up on a platform and it's got like a thick, almost insulated, like it's like a quilted outside area. There's a little bit of a wood structure on the inside to make sure that holds it up.

[00:01:32] Eric Goranson: So the, so the walls stay uptight, but it is a round tent. And there's no G wires on the outside that sits above the ground. So you have a couple steps to get up into it. And then you can put in bunk beds and a heater and power in there. And it's not that it's condo living. I mean, you still have to walk over to the bathroom and you still have, a faucet hookup outside for camping.

[00:01:56] Eric Goranson: So it's camping in a, in a, in a round tent [00:02:00] that's built up. So it's a little more luxurious than sleeping on the.

[00:02:04] Caroline Blazovsky: And they make these things like yours can actually be quite luxurious and people can actually make them into homes. I've seen crazy situations. It only, it kind of reminds me of burlap. Do you know what burlap is?

[00:02:16] Caroline Blazovsky: Mm-hmm like that material, not as rough, but that sort of material like a burlap see

[00:02:20] Eric Goranson: here, they, they actually had more of a vinyl coat because these are 365 days a year. And on the coast, they. A hundred inches of rain out there. So it's, it gets hammered. There's salt, water, they get abused. And so they've got the heavy duty UTS, I wouldn't wanna buy one of those cuz I, they gotta be thousands and thousands of dollars for those things, but those are the high end as far as durability goes, but.

[00:02:45] Eric Goranson: It's cool. It was fun. We had one injury to Julie, which was unfortunate. So she, uh, we were out playing with the dogs and, uh, one of the do our puppy decided to go run after a bird that landed next to it [00:03:00] and, uh, drug her down. And then she landed the sand and broke a finger. And I had to. Set her fingers cuz she dislocated two of 'em.

[00:03:07] Eric Goranson: So that was pretty brutal.

[00:03:08] Caroline Blazovsky: Not fun. That's not fun on it. That happened prior to vacation prior

[00:03:12] Eric Goranson: to going there. That was, yeah, I was at the very end of vacation. So I was like, all right, so she was a trooper. We gotta looked at, she actually hairline cracks. So technically broken. So she'll be, uh, out of commission on that, uh, on typing on that hand for a little bit.

[00:03:26] Eric Goranson: So she'll get it, but it's a little bit of healing going on.

[00:03:31] Caroline Blazovsky: To Eric in the Y

[00:03:33] Eric Goranson: yeah, that was cool. It was a good time. Got to eat a lot of seafood and, and, uh, enjoy ourselves down there. So it was a lot of fun, played a lot of Yachty and disconnected for a couple days, which is something I don't do a lot of.

[00:03:44] Caroline Blazovsky: No, that is important. And, um, yeah,

[00:03:48] Eric Goranson: that was healthy, but Hey, we were talking a little bit about our interview on Saturday and before we talk about swimming here, I wanted to just talk. De decompress from our interview. We just did that. You'll [00:04:00] get to hear on Saturday on, on the day before father's day, we've got constructing hope coming on the show.

[00:04:06] Eric Goranson: And my buddy Dave doll, who is the founder of Dave's killer bread. You probably have seen him on your grocery store shelves, playing a guitar. And, uh, we bring on constructing hope. That was a powerful interview.

[00:04:22] Caroline Blazovsky: It's and for those of you who don't understand it, and I learned, cuz I didn't know anything about constructing hope, but they basically help people who are were incarcerated and that are going to get out and need some type of direction and income and job to structure their lives so that they're able to become productive citizens.

[00:04:42] Caroline Blazovsky: And a lot of these people, they may be in for a misdemeanor or something that really. Isn't gonna prevent them from having a future, but they feel like they have a lower self-esteem cuz they've been in jail or been incarcerated. So instead of them repeating a process and ending up in jail, cause they don't feel that they have the, the wherewithal or the,[00:05:00] background to have a, a job or that anybody's gonna wanna take them and put them in a position.

[00:05:04] Caroline Blazovsky: This group actually comes in and helps build up their self-esteem gets their education so they can become productive workers in the trades. It's a, it's amazing. It's

[00:05:14] Eric Goranson: it's a great program. We're gonna talk about it. And if you wanna go take a look at it, you can do that. Now. That's just constructing hope.org.

[00:05:21] Eric Goranson: They're doing their leveling, the playing field, uh, program right now where they're donating, and this is gonna be something that they hope to put nationwide. But I tell you what it is such a need out there. There's not enough people building there's people that are coming outta prison. Are ready to maybe take a different path in life, but there's not really any good services out there.

[00:05:40] Eric Goranson: So this is something that's really could make a huge change across the country by putting people that want to stop that cycle and put 'em into having something very constructive and fill in the need for the trade. So it's a win, win, win across the board.

[00:05:55] Caroline Blazovsky: And how badly do we need tradesmen or women?

[00:05:58] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, every [00:06:00] time I turn around from. Someone putting in pavers to electricians, to plumbers, everybody's saying they can't find good help.

[00:06:06] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm and there's people out there that, that wanna do that work that wanna, fight for a good career. So that's, it's great. And it's great.

[00:06:15] Eric Goranson: And, and, Dave doll is that, that, that person, he's, he's that, that win he's the guy that, spent forced ins in prison. And created a, multi hundred million dollar bread empire, I mean, brilliant. Such a

[00:06:32] Caroline Blazovsky: good story. Yeah. And he, he's the spokesperson for this whole program, right?

[00:06:37] Caroline Blazovsky: I mean,

[00:06:37] Eric Goranson: he's basically the, yeah. He's, he's really, and he, it's not like he owns constructing hope. It's just a program. Dave spent a lot of time going through and hiring people. For his bread company back in the day when he owned it. And he would, he was always doing outreach to the prisons to get people to come to come work, at the bakery to cook bread.

[00:06:58] Eric Goranson: So it's just [00:07:00] another extension of him being able to do the same thing without having the bread company. So I love that he's still, even this day, living well and having a great time, but the same time he's, Putting this money where the mouth is, he's getting after it and still helping people get their lives turned around.

[00:07:15] Eric Goranson: So that'll be an interview on Saturday. You don't wanna

[00:07:17] Caroline Blazovsky: miss and guess what? You know what I wanna talk about?

[00:07:20] Eric Goranson: Ah, you wanna talk about spas and pools or swim spas and

[00:07:24] Caroline Blazovsky: swim spas.

[00:07:25] Eric Goranson: All right. Let's talk about swim spas.

[00:07:28] Caroline Blazovsky: So on. Yes. So, so you buy shopping. I am on, yes, I am on the road to getting either. A hot tub or a swim spa.

[00:07:37] Caroline Blazovsky: And I've come to the conclusion that this is, it's not something you just decide. Hey, one day I'm gonna go get a hot tub, cuz there's a lot to know from all of the, what the shells made out of how the insulation's done. And what I found fascinating Eric is that these spas and hot tubs are designed very similarly to a home.

[00:07:56] Caroline Blazovsky: Did you know that they actually use some of the companies use spray foam? That's [00:08:00] used in houses every day. Yeah. Not crazy, isn't it it's like built like a house and it has its own filtration system. So when you're talking about all this air quality, I can get into this cuz the water treatment there's ozone there's UVC or ultraviolet lake technology.

[00:08:14] Caroline Blazovsky: And then there's these combination technologies with filtration and filters. So it's really similar to a home in a lot of weird ways. Which I find fascinating. Mm-hmm ,

[00:08:22] Eric Goranson: What's cool. Is that one thing I don't like? And maybe it's just me. One thing I don't like about the spray foam stuff is that in a hot tub, if you have a leak, you have to rip all that spray foam out to get to it.

[00:08:36] Eric Goranson: Who

[00:08:37] Caroline Blazovsky: wants to dig through foam to get to the leak? Oh, it's no, you're, you're a

[00:08:42] Eric Goranson: hundred percent, right? I mean, and you don't know where the leak is, but you gotta just go mining with spray foam and that's anybody that's ever gone mining through spray foam before it isn't fun. So that's one of the concerns that I have, even though it's a killer.

[00:08:56] Eric Goranson: I mean, it's great for insulating value, right? I mean, it works well. [00:09:00] It doesn't, if it's closed cell, it's not soaking up water, that's it. Leaks can be horrible with hot tubs and that can cost your money. And I don't wanna have to go dig in and find this little pinhole leak. That's coming out on a hold the other side of the tub, cuz the foam is pushing it there.

[00:09:14] Eric Goranson: Yeah.

[00:09:14] Caroline Blazovsky: Master spas, which is the, is a company that recommends the foam. See, they go and say, oh, it's great to have the foam. My theory is, I agree with you. Who wants to go through that mess where the other companies use more of a, a urethane foam or I guess it's a urethane insulation. Probably insulation.

[00:09:32] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly.

[00:09:34] Eric Goranson: So I would much rather have foam on the outside of it that has created a wall system around it, so that you've got that there. And it's almost like an insulated crawl space underneath the tub. I'd much rather see the outside, but I still want to have access to those jets and stuff from the bottom side.

[00:09:53] Eric Goranson: If you have to get in there, do any repair work

[00:09:56] Caroline Blazovsky: and you will like most of these, if you're buying a hot tub, you're looking at [00:10:00] a seven to eight year max on a hot. And even like the fiberglass. So you have these most traditional hot tubs now are made with acrylic yeah. And thick, different variants of thickness.

[00:10:09] Caroline Blazovsky: So you would get into this cuz it's like countertops, it's like, it's this whole thing. Like it's amazing to look at a hot tub and see the resemblance to any kind of house mm-hmm . So you're looking at this, a thick acrylic. So companies like jacuzzi and some of the other name brands use this thicker acrylic.

[00:10:25] Caroline Blazovsky: So that's gonna hold up longer for you, but most hot tubs, it's a seven to eight year investment, and I'm not seeing a really vast difference between a hot tub that costs let's say $9,000 and a hot tub that costs $25,000. If you're only gonna use it for 78 years and it's predominantly the same part. I mean, what are you gonna spend?

[00:10:43] Caroline Blazovsky: You're spending the money for the name and the brand

[00:10:45] Eric Goranson: name, the jets. Sometimes if it's got the stereo system, I mean, stereo system, you kinda create lights bad.

[00:10:53] Caroline Blazovsky: They everybody told us the stereo systems never work well, and don't get one with them. Isn't not amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:58] Eric Goranson: I'm not sure they have my own music system [00:11:00] around it.

[00:11:00] Eric Goranson: That's outside of that, be great. But that's what happens though. You get into there and it's the spa salesman. That's like, oh boy, wait, you gotta check this out. I've got a sale on this today. If you wanna put your down payment on this, I'll have this to you in two weeks or two years and you'll be good to go.

[00:11:15] Eric Goranson: So that's, that's interesting. And then you've been. What's this, I'm a, if I'm gonna put in a swimming pool, I want a swimming pool that I can put my feet up. I can go get on my floaties out and, put my arm floaties on and get in the pool. You can do

[00:11:30] Caroline Blazovsky: this in a swim spa. I'm gonna, I'm gonna argue for a swim spa.

[00:11:33] Caroline Blazovsky: And this is the reason you can use this thing. 12 months of the year, doesn't matter. The weather, the temperature. It's gonna cost you $2 a day to have it heated. So that was the big thing. What's gonna be the electric and think about it. If you're on solar and you're running this thing, it's like nothing.

[00:11:48] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. A and these are big units. So 15 feet in lanes, 17 feet and go 19 feet. And you've got a whole pool section. You can get in a hammock, you can do exercise. It's got a hundred [00:12:00] different. Waves and, and roughness and all of this stuff that gives you that feeling of swimming. I mean, you gotta check out this.

[00:12:06] Caroline Blazovsky: Michael Michael Phelps has this swim spa that is $54,000 and something crazy, but it's got magnetics. You could get in and have the whole spa experience on one side and the whole swimming experience on the other. I mean, let me tell you, I wanna put you in one and I think you would be like, you'd have a cocktail in there and you'd be all ready to go.

[00:12:26] Eric Goranson: but it's awesome. I'll be honest though. And here's the thing. If I'm gonna spend $54,000, I'd much rather have an inground pool. .

[00:12:36] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah, but what did swimming pool? Steve say it is to put in a pool now who has now you're hundred, hundred times that hundred 50. Yeah. Yeah. And you can only use this, you know what, okay.

[00:12:45] Caroline Blazovsky: Let's give it four or five months out of the year in our neck of the woods. If your down in your neck of is correct. Yeah. Yeah, Florida. I mean, I get that Las Vegas. I get all those warmer places having pools and yeah.

[00:12:57] Eric Goranson: So that's an interesting debate, you know what I mean? It's just an [00:13:00] interesting debate.

[00:13:01] Eric Goranson: I I'm. I can see the argument for it. I can see that, especially for someone who really wants to be able to swim in it, that, Hey, I'm gonna do laps, mm, excellent. That, that to me is the perfect for that. But I would almost be, but again, now you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, so it's, it's comes down to budget again.

[00:13:21] Eric Goranson: Like everything else is that I would almost rather have the swimming pool for everybody to, to entertain in. And then have the spa swim spa over on the other side, away from it. So that would be on your, yeah. Have both

[00:13:39] Caroline Blazovsky: there like 500 GS hanging around. I can just like, yeah, pull a waterfall. Oh, the other thing you can get in the swim spa and also in the hot tub is you can have a waterfall action going on.

[00:13:50] Caroline Blazovsky: That's kind of cool. You've got lights. That's cool. I could totally see you in a hot tub. You're a hot tub guy.

[00:13:55] Eric Goranson: Like I just I'm total hot tub guy. I am go. I have had plenty of hot tubs in my [00:14:00] life. Um, if you wanted to see the funniest thing was me, my first hot tub, she almost 20 years ago, it was a neighbor down the street moved in and he is like, I gotta go to this hot tub.

[00:14:10] Eric Goranson: I get rid of it. I'm like, does it work? Well, I was told it worked when I bought the house, but it's been drained. I'm like, well, I'll take it. So we ended up getting the neighbors, riding lawnmower. Building a little cart, rolling it up the street, using six neighbors to put it in my backyard. And then it kind of worked.

[00:14:30] Eric Goranson: I had to do a lot of work on it to get it going, but it was, I bet. So I could, I could spend some money on it, but yeah, I love, I love hot tubs. They're great. But, uh, Right now I'm just not gonna go out and spend 12 grand on

[00:14:43] Caroline Blazovsky: one. Yeah. But you know, what's fascinating about a hot tub is that if you have a good fiberglass, like, so the material that the tub is made out of mm-hmm and the cabinetry is in good shape, you can fix almost anything DIY inside the hot tub for, for components.

[00:14:58] Caroline Blazovsky: So you could really get one, like the one [00:15:00] that you had and then fix it. And actually have something pretty decent barring in. Yeah, no question. That shells in place.

[00:15:07] Eric Goranson: Yeah, the Shell's good. It's not leaking, the parts are available. You're not having to put too many universal parts in it. Yeah. I mean, you can make it a DIY project by going up and staggering on somebody's, $1,200 hot tub off Craigslist.

[00:15:21] Eric Goranson: But the problem is

[00:15:22] Caroline Blazovsky: you gotta be careful. there's two companies that actually make all the internal parts. That's what I was reading about. It's two manufacturers that, off-label it for everybody. Yeah. And so it's interesting. So they, they sell, it's all marketing. So I guess if you're looking at jacuzzi or you're looking at mm-hmm hot Springs or bullfrog or whichever one.

[00:15:39] Caroline Blazovsky: A lot of these are all, you know, manufactured from the same, same bread, if you will.

[00:15:44] Eric Goranson: Yes. In a lot of the same parts in it, whether you're buying a mm-hmm maybe a sec. I mean, I'm sure there's different grades of parts, just like anything else, there's probably the cheap motor and the, the super high end motor that's, that's higher quality quieter, there's probably different levels of stuff because there's definitely different levels.

[00:15:59] Eric Goranson: [00:16:00] When you look at hot.

[00:16:01] Caroline Blazovsky: Swimming pool. Steve gave me that insight. So check out swimming pool. Steve, if you guys wanna get additional information, but he said there's two major manufacturers for all of those hot tubs.

[00:16:11] Eric Goranson: That's good to know. That's good to know. Secrets parts, at least. Yeah.

[00:16:14] Caroline Blazovsky: And around the house, we've got secrets.

[00:16:16] Caroline Blazovsky: So just buy the hot tub. It really doesn't matter what you get. That's what I'm kind of learning. And then if you really get one of the ones that are on the cheaper end, it's only gonna last you seven years. Anyway. So just upgrade when you get an, you know, when that, when it burns out on you. So it'll probably be sooner.

[00:16:31] Eric Goranson: Yep. I get that. I get that. Well, man, we've got, and if you're out there, Hey guys, just another quick note before we leave, if you're out there still shopping for dear old dad, and by the way, it is father's day on Sunday coming up here, on, uh, this next weekend. If you're listening to the show here during the middle of the week when we recorded it, here's the thing.

[00:16:51] Eric Goranson: We got a great show behind us here that, uh, if you just go back an episode, you can catch. Or two episodes. You can catch our [00:17:00] holiday father's day gift guide. It's not

[00:17:04] Caroline Blazovsky: too late to shop. You got it. Amazon can have it to you overnight. If you pay prime prices,

[00:17:09] Eric Goranson: you got it. And some of these things you can get at the, at the home improvement store, you can get, you can get a few of these things or at least you can get it ordered and say, Hey, this is what it looks like.

[00:17:19] Eric Goranson: Hmm. Fits in a card that way. So what do you got going on in the rest of the week? Caroline? You got anything going on?

[00:17:26] Caroline Blazovsky: I do wanna plug next Tuesday. I am going to be at the red bank library in New Jersey and it's called sustainable red bank and they bring in speakers to talk about different sustainable topics and keeping.

[00:17:40] Caroline Blazovsky: New Jersey green and, and also environmentally conscious. So that's exciting. And anybody can register too. You it's an online event too. You can do it virtually. And we're gonna be there talking about all kinds of good stuff about indoor air quality. So, uh, sustainable red bank, New Jersey, check it out.

[00:17:55] Caroline Blazovsky: It's 7:00 PM on Tuesday night, the 21st, but you can red preregister on the [00:18:00] website and we looked that up. Eric, what was it? Red bank bank you can

[00:18:02] Eric Goranson: register@redbanklibrary.org Ford slice calendar on the event page.

[00:18:09] Caroline Blazovsky: Yep. So you can come and listen to me. Talk about indoor air quality.

[00:18:12] Is

[00:18:12] Eric Goranson: that interesting?

[00:18:13] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Clean air in the home. And you're gonna be there, live doing that. Huh? Mm-hmm nice. Your first live event post COVID.

[00:18:23] Caroline Blazovsky: No, it hasn't been,

[00:18:25] Eric Goranson: have you done ano this? Have you done other live events? Post COVID? Not many, but yes. Okay. Mm-hmm I wasn't sure if you'd done any, I couldn't remember if you'd done any live ones.

[00:18:34] Eric Goranson: Yep.

[00:18:34] Caroline Blazovsky: We did. We, I did one or two, I think since. Okay. But not nothing

[00:18:38] Eric Goranson: major, nothing major. Okay. Well, cool. This is a good way for, uh, yeah. So if all of our audience in the area go down and say hi to she'll gonna do autographs there too.

[00:18:48] Caroline Blazovsky: No, who wants autograph from me? you know what you'll get from me. You'll get a lecture about how bad your indoor air quality is.

[00:18:55] Caroline Blazovsky: You won't want me to go?

[00:18:57] Eric Goranson: Ah, there we go. There we go. That's not how you sell this, [00:19:00] by the way.

[00:19:04] Eric Goranson: it's a must though. All right, everybody. I got so much stuff I gotta get done here. Let's get, I gotta get the show mixed up. Ready to go for Saturday. So I'm gonna get going after this. I'm Eric Gand I'm Caroline B. You've been listening to around the house