From coast to coast, it's the nation's number one home improvement radio show and podcast with certified kitchen designer Eric G. And co host John Dudley, a former contractor and online technology expert.
Speaker ADelivering real fixes, smart tech and trusted advice.
Speaker ARemodels, repairs, energy savings, smart homes, diy.
Speaker AWe've got your answers.
Speaker AIt's around the House.
Speaker ADive in and get inspired.
Speaker BWelcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.
Speaker BThanks for joining us today.
Speaker BI'm Eric G. John Dudley.
Speaker BGood to see you again, my friend.
Speaker BIt's been a bit now.
Speaker CYeah, brother.
Speaker CYou've been out running around riding roller coasters with a busted shoulder.
Speaker CTrue.
Speaker CI tell you what, we're supposed to get smarter as we get older, my friend.
Speaker CAnd neither of us listen, are not capable.
Speaker CNeither of us.
Speaker CI really have.
Speaker BIt's.
Speaker BWhat's that comedian that said I had the right to remain silent.
Speaker BI just didn't have the ability.
Speaker BYeah, I can relate to that, brother.
Speaker BI tell you what, it was so much fun.
Speaker BOrlando is a haul from the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker BFive and a half hour flight down there, six and a half flight flight back for a direct flight.
Speaker BIt just takes a bit to get down there.
Speaker BAnd it's Orlando too.
Speaker BAnd no, no shade to my Orlando friends out there.
Speaker BBut that city is not designed to throw 150,000 builders on top of all the tourists.
Speaker CYeah, no, that's, yeah, that's a recipe for high density cluster.
Speaker BYeah, we'll talk about that in a minute.
Speaker BBut I'll tell you what, I want to, I want to share my trip.
Speaker BI got down there, we get down there, had a good time.
Speaker BI went and decided to spend half my life savings and went to Disney, had fun, you know, like you said, rode some roller coasters, walked into the, to Disney World, Magic Kingdom, walked over to Tomorrowland and went, all right, doctor said I could technically do this.
Speaker BLet's go ride Space Mountain.
Speaker BStarted out heavy.
Speaker COh, man, it was good.
Speaker BDidn't hurt anything.
Speaker BJust wrote it.
Speaker BHere's the thing, it's a single car coaster.
Speaker BMy arm is in such a sling that's strapped to my body, I could probably take off on a rocket, not hurt it.
Speaker BBut I can't lift my arm over my head though.
Speaker BSo it's, it's like it was, there's nothing to bump up against.
Speaker BSo it was pretty easy when it goes to that.
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker BAnd it was fun cruising around there.
Speaker BIt was, it was two things I didn't think about it being President's Day weekend, Valentine's Day weekend.
Speaker BSo it was a busy weekend for Disney.
Speaker BHad a blast.
Speaker BHad dinner at Epcot, cruised over there.
Speaker BAnd then the next day we started out over there at.
Speaker BAnd had a lot of fun over at.
Speaker BWhat is that?
Speaker BThe Hollywood studios or their Hollywood area that they have, which is their California Adventure kind of thing over there.
Speaker BSo that wasn't too bad.
Speaker BThe Star wars ride is technology that is so new for Disney over there because they think about this, Johnny.
Speaker BThis is a roller coaster kind of thing without a track.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker BSo they came up with these boxes you can probably put 16 or 20 people in.
Speaker BThey're like these little cars and there's six or eight of them cruising around at high speed.
Speaker BAnd they're all autonomous, so they're on wheels and they're spinning around, moving you up and down.
Speaker BIt's almost like a, like that old Star Tours ride.
Speaker BBut you're cruising around in that box and it's open.
Speaker CIt's a scrambler without arms.
Speaker BYeah, exactly.
Speaker CCrazy now.
Speaker CSuper crazy.
Speaker CThose photos were insane.
Speaker CJust the scale of that was insane.
Speaker BThat room is probably 100ft by 60ft tall and there's 50 stormtroopers in there and it's just insane.
Speaker BThey do a great job with that
Speaker Cand that was cool stuff considering there was 50 stormtroopers.
Speaker CYou lucky made it out.
Speaker BI know it was tough.
Speaker BIt was tough.
Speaker BI thought it was.
Speaker BI only had one arm, so I felt like Luke Skywalker.
Speaker CHe did lose, didn't he, Lou?
Speaker CYeah, you lost.
Speaker BTaking you back, back to your childhood.
Speaker BSo that was awesome.
Speaker BThen we took a break.
Speaker BWe did two days of Disney and did that as.
Speaker BAs heavy as we could.
Speaker BAnd then the next day we decided to go full Florida and went and watched the Daytona 500.
Speaker CYeah, it's awesome.
Speaker BDude.
Speaker BThat is a bucket list thing that I think everybody should do.
Speaker BYeah, I love race cars.
Speaker BElisa, she loves race cars.
Speaker BIt was good.
Speaker BBut you know, I paid the extra 100 bucks so we could get down there on the start finish line, walk around by the pits.
Speaker BYou could sign the.
Speaker BThe start finish line.
Speaker BThere's a Miranda Lambert concert.
Speaker BSo it was 400 bucks.
Speaker BIt was total jam packed value for that.
Speaker BBecause you could.
Speaker CThat's crazy.
Speaker BCheap.
Speaker CLike in my head I would.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker CSeems crazy considering what Disney, what Disney costs, what a concert costs nowadays and lifetime event like that.
Speaker BThere's a Super bowl motorsports.
Speaker CIt's American history.
Speaker CAnd yeah, for 100 bucks, dude, that's crazy.
Speaker CI mean, and so
Speaker Btalking to people, I'm seeing sports stars, we're seeing everybody down there.
Speaker BI'm like, oh, my gosh.
Speaker BAnd it was cool, and that was a lot of fun.
Speaker BBut the amazing part was the national anthem.
Speaker BThey had somebody from.
Speaker BFrom the U.S. air Force Band sing, and then we had a flyby and air show from the thunderbirds flying at 100ft over you.
Speaker BIt's probably 500ft, but just blasting through there.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker BAnd they would trick you because they'd come up behind you and right over the top here.
Speaker BYou know, it was.
Speaker BYeah, that was nuts and a lot of fun.
Speaker BThe most moving thing was when they do that, they do the whole National Anthem, and then they come flying over with the smoke coming out the back, right over your head, and that was cool.
Speaker BThe most.
Speaker BI think the most touching part of it was on lap three.
Speaker BIt was the 25th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt dying there.
Speaker COh, wow.
Speaker BSo it was a moment of silence.
Speaker BEverybody holds three fingers up in the air on lap three, and you just heard engines.
Speaker BThere was not.
Speaker BOut of the 150,000 people there, there was not a word spoken for a lap.
Speaker BYou hear moments of silence or turn around.
Speaker CI got goosebumps.
Speaker CNo, that's cool.
Speaker BIt was touching.
Speaker BAnd I'm like.
Speaker BAnd again, I'm not the biggest NASCAR guy, but I knew what he is to that sport.
Speaker BAnd it was just.
Speaker BIt was a.
Speaker BA full lap of chill moments, and all you hear is cars, and you got to hear the pin drop.
Speaker BEven with that, because there was not one single kid person anywhere saying a word.
Speaker BI was like, holy smokes.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker CWow.
Speaker CThat's powerful.
Speaker BSo super powerful.
Speaker BOne of the most powerful moments of a moment of silence I've ever seen.
Speaker BI was just like, oh, wow, we have everybody on the same page for once.
Speaker BThat's crazy.
Speaker BAnd then, you know, it's row eight.
Speaker BSo every wreck on the front stretch happened right in front of us because we were, like, 40 yards past the start finish line.
Speaker BSo everybody vying for that.
Speaker BThe carnage came right in front of us.
Speaker CThat's cool.
Speaker CSuper cool.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker CAt the same time, you're like, man, I'd hate to eat a fender to the cheek.
Speaker BYeah, there's that.
Speaker BThat fence, you know, multiple layers of cable and everything else.
Speaker BThere was one time where we couldn't see two rows in front of us.
Speaker BIt was like we were stuck in a burning building.
Speaker BAnd there was little.
Speaker BLike, when you have a fire with.
Speaker BLet's say you're getting.
Speaker BYou got some papers or cardboard, and there's those little pieces that float around almost like you're in the upside down world in Stranger Things.
Speaker BThere was so much of that smoke that all those things were floating around and there was rubber in the air.
Speaker BIt was just the most toxic smell.
Speaker BAnd you're like, wow, that just happened right there in front of me.
Speaker BSo it was wild.
Speaker CYeah, that's intensity at its highest 200 miles an hour.
Speaker BAnd somebody's.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker BHitting the wall in front of you at eight rows ahead of you.
Speaker BSo it was pretty cool.
Speaker BAnd then afterwards it made the radius go a little earlier.
Speaker BAnd then all of a sudden we sat there and had the biggest thunderstorm.
Speaker BWas awesome.
Speaker BIt was cool.
Speaker BAnd then of course, what do we do?
Speaker BWe ended up going to Waffle House on the way home to ride the storm out because the freeway was doing 10 miles an hour is required.
Speaker BThat's the NASCAR experience.
Speaker BThat is the NASCAR experience.
Speaker BI tell you what I want to talk about here in our next segment.
Speaker BMan, we just blasted through three days of stuff right there quickly for me.
Speaker BBut guys, this is a home improvement show and we're going to talk about here some of the stuff that I saw that was groundbreaking at the Kitchen to Bath industry show or what we call the sign and construction week.
Speaker BBecause I tell you what, the technology there and the cool stuff for your home was probably.
Speaker BI think it was the best show I've seen as far as just leaps in wellness, safety, cool stuff, stuff that you never think of and you're like, why are we doing this now?
Speaker CYeah, I got the cheat sheet.
Speaker CYou already told me a couple of them.
Speaker CAnd I was just mind blown like, what?
Speaker CWhat?
Speaker BYeah, yeah, it's insane.
Speaker BAnd we have got.
Speaker CIt's only gonna get more insane right now.
Speaker CCreation with AI even in any kind, production is going to move so rapidly and be so intense.
Speaker CIt's in five years.
Speaker CIt's going to be crazy.
Speaker CThe stuff we have.
Speaker BLike, if you want to find out more about us, head over to aroundthehouse online.com around the house.
Speaker BWe'll be right back.
Speaker BGojeans dial.
Speaker AHey, Portland, Oregon, don't forget to come visit Eric G. At the Spring Home and Garden Show, March 1st at noon.
Speaker AHe will see you there.
Speaker AMake sure you stop in and say hello.
Speaker AThe around the House show will be right back.
Speaker CSam.
Speaker BWelcome back to the around the House show.
Speaker BYour trusted tours for everything about your home.
Speaker BI'm Eric G. And we're sitting here, Johnny Dudley and I, we're sitting here talking about now the stuff we saw at design and construction week.
Speaker BJohnny this in Orlando, Florida is about 2 million square feet of the craziest stuff for manufacturers.
Speaker BI mean, you walk into the Kohler booth as an example, brother, and you cruise in there, there's probably, I don't know, it's like half the size of a Home Depot store.
Speaker BIt seems.
Speaker BThey set this up on a trade show floor and there's, there's a, a pond that has like brown, black polished marble river rocks in it and it's pulling water into the shower system that's going back into it.
Speaker BI mean it is next level.
Speaker BI don't know how many millions, 4, 5, 6 million they spend on this thing for a three day show.
Speaker BThey have DJs going and all of that.
Speaker CYeah, not the home shows we used to have 25 years ago with Ash.
Speaker CThis is not a table, Astroturf and a vinyl banner.
Speaker BYeah, this is not this at all.
Speaker BAt all.
Speaker BSo this was one of the things that kind of shocked me.
Speaker BKohler came out with this and there's been other companies kind of talking about it as like, oh, what if we did it?
Speaker BKohler did it.
Speaker BThey came out with the Dakota.
Speaker BNow this is D E K o Day a Oda Dakota.
Speaker BAnd for 600 bucks, this snaps on the ring around the rim of your toilet, right where your toilet seat sits down.
Speaker BAnd this is a health tracking product that decodes your body signals from the comfort and privacy of the bathroom.
Speaker CAgain, I got the cheat sheet, right?
Speaker CYou brought this up earlier and the minute you said Kohler has this thing, I was like, oh no, this is going to be poop analysis.
Speaker BYes, it is.
Speaker BAnd it unlocks insights on gut health, hydration, blood detection in the bowl.
Speaker BAnd so basically it is to help you to build habits for living better and healthier.
Speaker CThis is so crazy.
Speaker CThey can do that, dude.
Speaker BSo this snaps over the top battery powered, so you can put it on just about any toilet over there.
Speaker BAnd they've got a membership thing where you can put multiple people on it.
Speaker BYou know, as far as if you've got four, you know, two, three people in the household, they can all do it.
Speaker BSo basically there's a little sensor you put on the wall where want it to be put your fingerprint on there, reads the fingerprint so it knows who it is and then it just simply sits there and reads as you use the bathroom.
Speaker CThat's crazy.
Speaker CSo I mean it is brilliant.
Speaker CIt's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker CAnd again like this kind of tech going forward, like the stuff we're going to start seeing is insane.
Speaker CI mean that alone is just.
Speaker CThat one blew my mind.
Speaker COf all the things you Told me about that one.
Speaker CJust like floored me, like, wow.
Speaker BSo they've got insights, trends.
Speaker BAll the data goes on your app.
Speaker BApp, it's 70 bucks a year for a single user.
Speaker BAnd if you have a big family, you can do 130 bucks a year for the family plan.
Speaker CWow.
Speaker BEach person has their own stuff.
Speaker BIt tells you how hydrated you are.
Speaker BHey, you better go drink something.
Speaker BYou know, better go have some lemonade or a water.
Speaker BAnd so it will send you.
Speaker BIt goes in the app.
Speaker BYou know, there's an app for the Apple Store or Google Play, whichever you use, and it's all WI FI enabled.
Speaker BSo it is so simple.
Speaker BAnd it's under the new KohlerHealth.com and I was impressed.
Speaker CYeah, that's beyond impressive.
Speaker CThat's just like.
Speaker CYeah, my mind is blown by that still.
Speaker CAlthough I do have a fear that if I put my fingerprint on, it would probably just error out.
Speaker BIt would just go, yeah.
Speaker CIt'd be like, don't bother, dude.
Speaker BLord, call.
Speaker BIt just comes up flashing that.
Speaker BCall 91 1, right?
Speaker BJust goes, call 91 1.
Speaker BI can't help you here.
Speaker CYou know, first alert falling, can't get up.
Speaker BExactly.
Speaker BThat would be it.
Speaker BBut super cool tech.
Speaker BI love it for people out there that, for instance, have kidney stones or things like that where it's going, hey, dude, you better, you know, ma', am, you better drink some more fluids.
Speaker CYep.
Speaker BSuper smart.
Speaker BSuper smart.
Speaker BSo thought that was cool and not crazy expensive.
Speaker BThat isn't thousands of dollars, right?
Speaker CNo, that and what a brilliant plan.
Speaker CI mean.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CTo make it affordable on a yearly basis like that for an entire family.
Speaker CIt's super smart.
Speaker BAdam, this isn't the Kohler show.
Speaker BAnd again, none of these things are sponsored here.
Speaker BBut the other thing they had was a shower system that would reuse some of the water onto another shower head so you could get in the shower, clean yourself up.
Speaker BAnd if you wanted to just sit there and relax in the shower and not worry about that $400 water bill for some people.
Speaker CUhhuh.
Speaker BYou switch it over to recycle, and there's a filter down by the.
Speaker BThere's a bigger trough kind of where your normal drain would be.
Speaker BAnd there's a micro filter down there, and it will take.
Speaker BFill that up and it will pump the water out of that and go in a loop like you were in a bathtub, for instance.
Speaker BPeople like, oh, that's gross.
Speaker BI'm like, well, you take a bath, don't you?
Speaker BYou're in the Same water.
Speaker BTaking the bath.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CYou're just sitting in your own thing.
Speaker BYou know, it's.
Speaker BIt's what it is.
Speaker BSo, you know, it's not that big a deal, but for people that are in, you know, one expensive water is like down in Orlando, all it was was wildfires and, and drought and going
Speaker Cthrough California, another great example.
Speaker BSo you could actually be able to sit in that shower and enjoy yourself.
Speaker BSo I think the way to do that would be to get yourself cleaned up, get the soap off, you sit there and you know, run the recycle thing on there, enjoy the warm water and then go through and turn it back over to the freshwasher again.
Speaker BGive yourself a nice quick rinse off.
Speaker BOff you go.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker BN. And then it self cleans the other cycle.
Speaker BIt uses special.
Speaker BI don't know if it's ionized water or whatever that cleans the system right.
Speaker BEvery so many times automatically.
Speaker BAnd it's all through the touch thing.
Speaker CI'm like smart, super smart.
Speaker CAs long as I'm not using your recycled water, I'm okay with it.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BSee, I don't want to be grabbing it from the toilet.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker CAs long as it's my own recycled water, I'm good with that.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BYou know, so I'm cool with that.
Speaker BThe other thing that was interesting out there, there was a.
Speaker BA guy that came up and let me get his name here while we're talking because it was so cool.
Speaker BYou know how we all use these crazy, you know, multi tool blades, you know, like your fine tool, that kind of stuff.
Speaker BYeah, right.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker BI love that tool because it is so fun to use for projects.
Speaker BYou know, you can sand, you can cut.
Speaker BWhat was cool was, and I thought about this, that was so awesome is this guy has made a sharpener because you could work on a project and throw 25 bucks with a blades away, right?
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd they're not cheap.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd yeah, usually the use case is fine finish work.
Speaker CLike you're not.
Speaker CIt's not like a skill saw blade where you just, ah, it's a little dull.
Speaker CBut I'll make it through this 2x4.
Speaker CEven if there's burn marks, like they've got to be sharp and they've got to be nice.
Speaker BAll it takes is for you to like nick that one little finish nail that you were trying to work around and you find that other finish nail
Speaker Cand it's dead gone.
Speaker BRight?
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker BSo this is Tiger Teeth Blades and I met with James diamond, totally cool dude, founder.
Speaker BAnd so he makes These for that and for Sawzall blades as well.
Speaker COh, nice.
Speaker BGo through and sharpen them.
Speaker BAnd now he's going to be making blades that have extra material on them.
Speaker BBecause when you buy like any of the store bought, whether it's DeWalt, Milwaukee or Diablo or any of those brand names, they only have just a little bit of that carbide on there.
Speaker BWell, he's going to be making.
Speaker BSo you got like three quarters of the material.
Speaker BSo you'll be able to buy those blades and get, you know, 50x life out of, I don't know, you know, depending on how you use them.
Speaker BBut it's just this little box that's got all these little blades that spin on it and you can run it off a power tool battery or drill or whatever.
Speaker BSo if you're a flooring guy going around, man, you could just touch that up and hit it with the thing real quick and just keep going.
Speaker CThat's super.
Speaker CI mean, what's up, what's the price on something like that?
Speaker CI mean, it's like a couple hundred bucks.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd you're saving what I mean, you know.
Speaker CYeah, I was gonna say you'll, you'll save that in less than 30 days if you're working every day.
Speaker BAbsolutely, absolutely.
Speaker BNow, when we come back, I want to talk real quick about some of the appliance things that were different.
Speaker BAnd this is some cool stuff.
Speaker BStuff that's going to be you didn't think, you know, you needed.
Speaker BWe'll be talking about that when around the House returns.
Speaker BIf you want to find out more about us, head over to our website aroundthehouse online dot com.
Speaker BMake sure you follow us on social media.
Speaker BWe'll be right back after these important messages.
Speaker BDon't change that dial.
Speaker BWelcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.
Speaker BI'm Eric G. And John Dudley.
Speaker BI are sitting here giving you a quick wrap.
Speaker BWe'll do a little bit deeper, dive into this later.
Speaker BBut I tell you what, saw some great stuff at Design and Construction Week.
Speaker BDesign and Construction Week is kind of two shows combined.
Speaker BIt's the Kitchen to Bath Industry show and the International Builder show.
Speaker BAnd you know, we get 150,000 contractors, designers and everybody else in there in the trades and you get to be an interesting, interesting group.
Speaker BBefore we went on to break, you know, we didn't get into this last segment.
Speaker BI want to talk a little bit of some of the appliance stuff coming out there.
Speaker BLG did some cool stuff and their higher End sks.
Speaker BThey started adding LED full light panels to the back of dishwashers.
Speaker BSo when you open the dishwasher, you can actually see if those dishes are dirty versus pulling it out going, oh, I guess I didn't run them.
Speaker BAnd how many times do we see that they do the same thing for ovens too.
Speaker BSo in the back of the range, you'll just have a light bulb.
Speaker BThe whole back is a light panel.
Speaker CHuh.
Speaker BSo that was kind of cool.
Speaker CThat is cool.
Speaker BSo a lot of access like that.
Speaker BAnd we were teasing before we went on to break.
Speaker BYou know, you walk in the toto booth and you go, wow, there's a $26,000 toilet or a $30,000 rocket ship bidet toilet.
Speaker BAnd I tell you what, the guys at Brondell, now this is a Mark Cuban company, so he kind of knows what he's doing with business.
Speaker BSo it grabs your attention a little bit.
Speaker BThey came out with a $2,500 version of that toilet.
Speaker BNow it has what I call the marriage saver feature.
Speaker CHere we go.
Speaker BHere we go.
Speaker BThere is a round, a little button on the front of it and you kick it and it raises and lowers the toilet seat.
Speaker BAnything.
Speaker BYou kick the button, toilet seat raises, kick the button, toilet seat goes down.
Speaker BNo one has to touch the bottom seat to put it up.
Speaker BSo I call it the Marriage Saver.
Speaker BThere's no debate of it should be up.
Speaker BNo, it should always be down.
Speaker BYou know, it's the Marriage saver.
Speaker CYeah, it should always be down, by the way.
Speaker BOh, yeah, that's.
Speaker BThat's our wisdom.
Speaker BWe're not 22 years old anymore, so that is our wisdom.
Speaker BBut especially if you have dogs.
Speaker BOh, true, true.
Speaker BBut that's.
Speaker BThat was where technology was just.
Speaker BAnd again, there was induction cooktops.
Speaker BYou couldn't see where the cooking was, but it was on the countertop.
Speaker BAnd you could literally put your, your pan on the countertop and cook and boil water on it.
Speaker BBut you didn't know.
Speaker BYou couldn't see where that was.
Speaker BYou know, so there's a lot of cool space age stuff like that where that's cool water.
Speaker BYeah, but a lot of.
Speaker BYou don't have a pan on there.
Speaker BYou're good.
Speaker BBut yeah, you're right.
Speaker BIt's so good stuff.
Speaker BBut technology all around was great.
Speaker BAnd of course, with our maximalism design out there, you know, all the colors and textures, this is not the 50 shades of millennial gray.
Speaker BThis is all color and texture.
Speaker BAnd so there's a lot of fun stuff out there.
Speaker BBut Definitely technology and using AI the right way to really help with design and function was cool.
Speaker BAnd speaking of that, Johnny, we could finally talk about what you and I have been talking about internally for a while, and you have been just jamming on for the last six months.
Speaker BAnd finally it's to a point where we could bring it out.
Speaker BLet's talk about what, how you are changing with this design of this new product for builders, remodelers, contractors.
Speaker BIt is going to change getting prices for homeowners all the way to how a contractor runs their business.
Speaker BAnd I think this is going to be a game changer out there for people that just want to get some numbers without having to have four hours of standing there in front of you for many projects.
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker CI mean, that.
Speaker CThat's a huge part of it is the time savings, obviously.
Speaker BRight?
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker CSo, yeah.
Speaker CSo what I've done over the last number of months and thousands of hours of sleepless nights with Monster and jelly beans.
Speaker BYep.
Speaker CHas created a product called Instabid, which is a web app.
Speaker CIt.
Speaker CSo perfect example.
Speaker CRight?
Speaker CLet's start with this.
Speaker CLiterally looking through.
Speaker CYou know, I'm always following the Reddit subreddits on construction contracting.
Speaker CLiterally, last night, guy posts on there, dude, I just cost myself $13,000 because I left out a labor figure on my spreadsheet.
Speaker CAnd I was like, dude, pain, no more spreadsheets, please.
Speaker BNo more spreadsheets.
Speaker CNo more nonsense.
Speaker CNo more.
Speaker CSo, I mean, look, man, I was a contractor for 30 years.
Speaker CYou were witness to it.
Speaker CYou went through a whole ton of garbage together and a bunch of horror stories and a lot of great times.
Speaker CBut we've seen these struggles, and we still hear these struggles on a daily basis with the people we're talking to.
Speaker CAnd, and.
Speaker CAnd literally, like, we're creating this to, to help, to.
Speaker CTo like, stop that pain.
Speaker CRight?
Speaker CLike, dude, I lost so many jobs and cost myself so much money because I would procrastinate because I hated writing bids.
Speaker CI hated spending four hours running the numbers.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker CThen figuring out the wording for the scope of work and how to, like, how do I explain to Mrs. Jones that you know what scraping means before I prime their house to paint?
Speaker CYou know, like, you know, having to put in, you know, cleanup of debris when we're done.
Speaker CI just.
Speaker CI hated it.
Speaker CI really didn't like it.
Speaker CThis.
Speaker BAnd then, Johnny, here's what.
Speaker BBut here's what happens.
Speaker BHere's what happens.
Speaker BYou go do all that and she comes back and you tried to qualify as best you Could.
Speaker BAnd she goes, you go, Ah, that's $60,000.
Speaker BAnd she goes, I thought it was gonna be 12.
Speaker BSorry.
Speaker CYep, that's exactly it.
Speaker CThat's exactly it.
Speaker CSo, okay, as a contractor, here's what I know.
Speaker CI, I in the past spent thousands of dollars on different software, different estimating tools, different that once I got them home I realized, oh, I need a college degree to figure out how to run this stupid thing.
Speaker CAbsolute chaos.
Speaker CUser interface, horrible.
Speaker CI don't have the time or the patience to figure that stuff out.
Speaker CI'm a contractor, man.
Speaker CI build stuff.
Speaker CI need to be on the job working, not figuring out how accounting integrates with how much screws cost.
Speaker CLike, forget it.
Speaker CThis, so this application does it does it all for you, the whole point.
Speaker CAnd I made a point.
Speaker CThat's why I've spent so much time building this thing.
Speaker CTo make it very, no touch, very automated.
Speaker CNo thinking you can install this thing in five minutes with three lines of an embed code on multiple platforms.
Speaker CNo matter what your website's running on, you literally drop these couple of lines of code in there.
Speaker CYou have an estimating tool on your website.
Speaker CYou can fully brand it with all your colors and your logos and your all.
Speaker CIt looks just like your website.
Speaker CYep, you can.
Speaker CAll the prices are fully bold.
Speaker CThere's a lot to cover and unpack here and I'm trying to be brief about it, but like, so I've incorporated BLS labor rates, right?
Speaker CWith multipliers according to region, we're covering over 800 zip codes.
Speaker CRegional material costs are considered multipliers on those depending on where you're at.
Speaker CSo you know, a roof in Texas is going to be what it should be in Texas.
Speaker CRoof in Seattle is going to be what it should be in Seattle.
Speaker CIf it's not, you're not stuck with those prices, right?
Speaker CThat was a big, big point for me.
Speaker CI'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker CThis has to be editable for two reasons.
Speaker COne, if you got a brother in law that works at Pioneer Supply and can get three tab roofing for 24 bucks a bundle instead of 48 bucks a bundle at Home Depot, right?
Speaker CYou can be competitive, right?
Speaker CYou can go, yeah, I'll charge 35 and I'm gonna beat the guy that has to pay 48.
Speaker BExactly.
Speaker COr if it spits out 35 and you're like, no man, I pay 48, you change it to 48.
Speaker COSB pricing, right?
Speaker CPerfect example.
Speaker BEvery day that thing's changing, changing weekly right now.
Speaker BSo $12 a sheet it's 21 a sheet.
Speaker CWhich one is right now, it's 28 bucks a sheet is what's in.
Speaker CIn instabate, right?
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker CIf it's 32 tomorrow, you go change it.
Speaker CThat's all you got to do.
Speaker CIt's one click, you go in the back end, you click, you Change it to 32.
Speaker CNow everybody that gets a bid from you, right, it's 32 bucks.
Speaker CSo, okay, so the estimate sheets on there, we've got eight trades from plumbing, the H vac to electrical, to painting, the siding to roofing, and more coming.
Speaker BTons, absolutely.
Speaker CTons more features coming.
Speaker CBut the basics are your client goes to your website.
Speaker CThey give all the pertinent information.
Speaker CHow many square foot is the roof?
Speaker CWhat's the pitch?
Speaker CWhat's the complexity factors, how many chimneys, how much ridge vents, you know?
Speaker BAbsolutely.
Speaker BHey, Johnny, let's run out to break because I want to dive deeper into this and let's try not to break real quick.
Speaker BLet's pay the bills and let's come back and touch on this.
Speaker BIt's going to be simple and it's going to give you those quotes.
Speaker BAnd you homeowners out there, you're going to be able to go, what's a roof cost?
Speaker BBam.
Speaker BI already know my size.
Speaker BWhat's it going to cost?
Speaker BNow you're in the ballpark, which is cool.
Speaker BSo, hey, if you want to find out more about this and other stuff, just reach out to us@aroundthehouseonline.com.
Speaker Bwe'll be right back after the event.
Speaker BImportant messages.
Speaker BDon't go anywhere because guess what?
Speaker BWe're just getting started on this.
Speaker BWelcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.
Speaker BJohn Dudley and I are sitting here talking about the new project we got here with around the House, which is instabid.
Speaker BAnd John, I think, you know, you think about how contractors out there.
Speaker BI was just at the Big Kitchen a Bath Design and Construction Week, which is, you know, the International Building show.
Speaker BAnd there's all these people walking around trying to figure out how to do their business better.
Speaker BYou know, contractors will go spend thousands of dollars a month on Angie's List, for example, right?
Speaker BSo let's, let's name one of these bid companies.
Speaker BLet's say it's Angie's List.
Speaker BIt's one that everybody kind of knows from a homeowner or contractor what they're doing.
Speaker BProblem is, is that they're probably giving that quote to five, six, seven, three other people, depending on what system you got, what program you're in.
Speaker BSo when a homeowner goes in there and says, I need a quote for a roof, it's the race to either who, who's the first one to get to Mrs. Smith that needs a roof, right?
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker CAnd, and that being said, like, there's real numbers that say first responder wins 60 to 70% more bids or jobs than the people that wait two days, right?
Speaker CAnd that's in any business, like you get a call, you respond in 15 minutes, odds of winning that bid, job, whatever it is, increase by 60 to 70%.
Speaker CThat's just science.
Speaker CThat's.
Speaker CYou can't argue with it.
Speaker BSimple.
Speaker CI will say this, I will say that as an experiment, I went to, you know, Home Advisor, I went to a couple of these different sites, right, and asked for five different bids, you know, from five different local contractors out of 20 something requests.
Speaker CI got two responses.
Speaker CYeah, I got two responses.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker CWhy?
Speaker CBecause contractors don't like doing bids, dude.
Speaker CNone of us did.
Speaker CThis is done for you.
Speaker CIt literally takes the information, gives the homeowner the bid instantly.
Speaker CThey get a PDF, they get a payment button if they want to put a deposit.
Speaker CIt integrates with your calendar.
Speaker CThey can book the date they want to start.
Speaker CIt'll block out the dates.
Speaker CYou're busy.
Speaker CYou get all the client information, information stored in the back end.
Speaker CYou've got an auto automatic built in CRM so you can follow up email sequences with will store your historical data so you can adjust your pricing and see where you're losing or gaining money, see what your winners are, see what your losers are.
Speaker CAnd you talked about pricing a minute ago, you know, and you look at some of these bigger, bigger players and they're charging, you know, thousands, $10,000 a year, some of them, you know, and we're talking about 99 bucks a month for one trade, you know, 199 if you want all eight trades, right?
Speaker CLike, and it's done for you.
Speaker CLike you, you're literally not touching anything.
Speaker CIt's got all the adaptability and adjustability that you want.
Speaker CSo you can make it fully yours, branding, pricing and otherwise, or you can no touch.
Speaker CAnd it's done for you.
Speaker CThe emails go out automatically.
Speaker CPDFs go out automatically.
Speaker CYou put your contract templates in there, the contracts go out automatically.
Speaker CThey can digitally sign, they can pay stripe.
Speaker CIt's all done, dude.
Speaker CMeanwhile, you're out on the job making money.
Speaker CThat's the idea.
Speaker BYou know, I got an idea here, Johnny.
Speaker BYou've been trying to do this for good.
Speaker BI have one that maybe might be a little more nefarious.
Speaker COh, nefarious.
Speaker BTo come up with a version where people pay 200 bucks and it gives out a bid out of a fake local company that is five times higher than what it should be for that spouse that doesn't want to do the remodel of the other spouse wants to pay for.
Speaker BAnd you go, hey, I got three bids and they're $42,000.
Speaker BI thought it was gonna be 10 or I thought it was gonna be dead.
Speaker BAnd you can kill that project.
Speaker CYou know what?
Speaker CThat would work.
Speaker CAnd nefarious is the exact word for that.
Speaker CYou're a devil.
Speaker CYou could definitely find some subscribers for that, right?
Speaker BYou just.
Speaker BYeah, just 2.99.
Speaker BAnd we'll fix that for you right now.
Speaker BWe'll send you three bids.
Speaker BIt'll be, you know.
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker CNo, I mean the long and the short of this thing is, is I've made a point to make it very plug and play.
Speaker CLike I said, it'll ADAP platform.
Speaker CYou've got your website on.
Speaker CYou get people showing up, do the bids are done for you.
Speaker CYour instant response rate increases your odds of winning the job by 60 to 70% for 99 bucks a month.
Speaker CIt's pretty much a no brainer unless you really love, you know, writing contracts and proposals, doing that and scopes of work and all that stuff.
Speaker CYou know, on top of the fact one other great feature in the back end in your dashboard, right, you've got, you've got estimate trackers.
Speaker CSo then you click generate material list, it literally prints off, okay, you need 58 bundles of shingles.
Speaker CYou need, you know, 100 lineal feet of drip edge.
Speaker CYou need blah blah strips prints.
Speaker CIt gives you a.
Speaker CYou can download the CSV, you can email it over to Home Depot, say, get my stuff ready, have it there Tuesday.
Speaker CMy guys will be there at 7am to pick it up, up.
Speaker CAnd I'll tell you what, I love that feature because, dude, I used to count receipts and time sheets and you know, Dean and Zach, those guys could never go to Home Depot separately and buy one 90 degree copper elbow.
Speaker COr you know what I mean?
Speaker CThey're like, oh, we spent three hours in Home Depot.
Speaker CWe had to go buy more, you know, plumbing supplies.
Speaker CDude, I'm not paying you guys, you know.
Speaker CYeah, a total of 80 bucks an hour to go shopping together and hold hands.
Speaker CTime.
Speaker BYou go get the coffee, you grab a bite.
Speaker COh, dude, yeah.
Speaker CSo, so take all that out of the mix and add it to your savings on top of increased revenue.
Speaker CWinning more bid like this thing is a no brainer, dude.
Speaker CAs a contractor, I'd buy this twice.
Speaker CAnd I'm not saying that because I built it.
Speaker CAnd I'm not saying it because I want to get rich.
Speaker CI'm saying it because I was a contractor that suffered for 30 years with this boy.
Speaker BYou're off your game.
Speaker BYou're fired up.
Speaker CBut you watch a guy like that lose 13,000 bucks because he's still doing it manually.
Speaker CAnd you're like, brother, I can fix that for you for 99amonth.
Speaker CStop.
Speaker CStop doing that.
Speaker CWe're in a different age.
Speaker BIt's so true, brother.
Speaker BAnd, and here's the thing too, you know, I mean, I saved one company.
Speaker BI was saving them tens of thousands of dollars a week because I went in and I went in and started helping them because I used to.
Speaker BRemember I used to do that for kitchen to bath company.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BWe're going to go, oh, how do we fix this?
Speaker BYou know, Vern with Corey and I was a great one.
Speaker BWhere we went in today.
Speaker BYeah, fix this, you know.
Speaker CYep.
Speaker BAnd we went in and helped them with that.
Speaker BAnd I had a company here in my Portland area that I helped and I noticed that their guys were losing 90 minutes a day going into Home Depot or Lowe's or the Supply show on the way to the.
Speaker CYep.
Speaker BEvery day 45 to work at 8.
Speaker BThey were there at 9:45 and then had to leave.
Speaker BThey were getting five hour work days in on a, on a construction company.
Speaker BAnd that doesn't work.
Speaker CSeriously.
Speaker CIt was one of my biggest pet peeves.
Speaker CThat's why I brought up Zach and Dean and I would look at their seats.
Speaker CI'm like, okay, you went to Home Depot three times today.
Speaker CWell, we forgot 190°.
Speaker BBut you both had to go, man.
Speaker CNo, it's crazy.
Speaker CYou know, Right?
Speaker CSo that's where the materialist generator comes in.
Speaker CAnd you're like, yeah, maybe it only gets 80 or 90% of everything you're gonna need.
Speaker CBut you just saved at least five trips to Home Depot with probably two guys or the whole crew first thing in the morning.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CAnd you're paying for that.
Speaker CYou're just throwing 100 bucks away every day.
Speaker CLet them go shop.
Speaker CLike that's.
Speaker CYeah, it's crazy.
Speaker BLike they're going to the mall or something, you know?
Speaker CYeah, no, yeah, it's super fixes a lot.
Speaker BI wanna, I wanna spin this around to the homeowners because this is where it is.
Speaker BCool.
Speaker BSometimes you just need to know what you want to budget, right?
Speaker CYep, yep.
Speaker BSo you jump on here, you spend five minutes, you get the number, and you're like, all right, this is gonna be 45, 000 for this project.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker BAll right.
Speaker BPlus or minus.
Speaker BWe're in the ballpark.
Speaker CYep.
Speaker BYou know, and then you know, and
Speaker Cyou get that in 30 seconds.
Speaker CIt's in your email or you can print the PDF off right from there.
Speaker CYou're not waiting two days for hopefully one of these guys calls me back.
Speaker CLike I said, I sent out over 20 requests and I got two emails back.
Speaker BYeah, I had that when I was doing, when I was doing, trying to find somebody that would do that.
Speaker BWindow glass on my house.
Speaker CYeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker BI didn't want to do windows.
Speaker BI'm like, oh man, if I just, I, I'll pay extra for somebody to swap out glass.
Speaker BAnd I got two people out of like ten call me back.
Speaker BAnd those guys were so high, I was like, I'm buying windows for half the price and I'm doing windows.
Speaker BBut yeah, the guy that I had to do with the estimate was the one that first called me back and I walked all the way up to the end and went, it's not worth it.
Speaker CYou know, I mean, I, I, I could talk about this thing all day.
Speaker CBut let me just say, like, man, any contractors out there listening?
Speaker CI've, and I actually have set up an ATH page, right.
Speaker CSo you can go to Instabid Pro.
Speaker CInstabid.pro, not dot com.
Speaker CInstabid Pro, slash, ah, for around the house.
Speaker CWe've got promo codes on there.
Speaker CYou get a free 14 day trial if you hate it.
Speaker CMan, if nothing else, I just want some beta testers.
Speaker CI want some real contractors out there telling me, dude, this is great, except for I'd really like to see, like, I'll give you a month free just to get your feedback.
Speaker CLike, just.
Speaker CYeah, I want to make this the best we possibly can to help people out, you know, And I think you brought something up earlier about, you know, helping out businesses, helping out old time Woodward, things like that.
Speaker CLike, I mean, I think this is just the beginning of our, Our what?
Speaker CWhat I hope to be kind of our, even if it's a minor move into doing some consulting with some of these contractors.
Speaker CBecause, because we genuinely care.
Speaker CBecause we lived it.
Speaker CYou know what I mean?
Speaker CNot, not for any other reason other than like, man, I, I like helping people.
Speaker CThat's why I do.
Speaker CThat's why I do what I do.
Speaker BWe're running out of time, Johnny.
Speaker BBut here's the thing.
Speaker BYou and I had people that helped us along the way, and now it's our time to be doing that same thing.
Speaker CIt totally is.
Speaker CAnd that's what we're here for, man.
Speaker CAnd I actually have set up an ATH page, right.
Speaker CSo you can go to Instabid Pro.
Speaker CInstabid.pro not.com Instabid.pro/ath for around the House.
Speaker BIt's been all right, Johnny.
Speaker BMan, this show went fast.
Speaker BComing up in the next hour, we've got my conversation with Dal tile, which is going to be a great one you don't want to miss.
Speaker BAwesome.
Speaker BFind out more about us.
Speaker BHead over to aroundthehouse online.com and make sure you subscribe over there.
Speaker BThanks for tuning into around the House.
Speaker BWe'll see you in the next hour.