[00:00:00] Intro: It's around the house. Yeah. I think having your own cruise is really a wonderful thing, especially if you're in the, especially if it's you or me, because we know, I know that my guys have been with me on average over 10 years,

[00:00:19] Matt Plaskoff: each one, I just retired a 35 year guy that was 35 years. So look, I can feel comfortable that no matter whose home they go into, one of our core values in our company is treat your home, like it's your mom's treat It's your mom.

[00:00:34] Matt Plaskoff: And so I can feel comfortable that they're going to care for the place, but having, being able to have the control, that's the thing, because with subs, look, I had great subs when I was building homes and guys in teams that I use

[00:00:49] Intro: forever, but you never know who they're going to send. They go up and down, something happens.

[00:00:54] Intro: They get pulled somewhere. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to [00:01:00] know, but we've got you covered. This is a round. Welcome

[00:01:04] Eric Goranson: to the around the house show. Thanks for tuning in last week. We've talked a little bit about designing kitchens and stuff, and this week, why not jump into bathrooms?

[00:01:14] Eric Goranson: And we have Matt Blastoff here, president and CEO of one week bath. Welcome to the around the house show, my friend.

[00:01:23] Matt Plaskoff: Thank you so much, Eric. Good to join you.

[00:01:25] Eric Goranson: Thanks for coming on today, man. You have been doing this for about as long as I have. Down in Southern California, focusing on bathrooms and man, that is a tough market to be in down there and you have learned a way to make this whole thing successful.

[00:01:40] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, I've been, just like you, I've been 35 plus years in the business, started in the custom home building world, and then was looking for a better way and developed this bath business about 22 years ago or so, so, uh, 4, 500 plus bathrooms later. Here we are,

[00:01:59] Eric Goranson: man. I tell [00:02:00] you what, and you're one of the few businesses out there that when you jump online and look, there's not a legitimate business out there with a hundred percent Yelp reviews.

[00:02:09] Eric Goranson: Cause I tell you what, that's how everybody gets back at contractors in this day and age. But. You have done a solid job, I can tell, just online of keeping people happy and managing projects. I can't find anybody out there that's done it better when you jump online.

[00:02:24] Matt Plaskoff: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Look, you're doing 250, 300 projects a year, thank goodness.

[00:02:31] Matt Plaskoff: Occasionally something comes up that, and I think the, the look, the key to it is just making sure that you resolve issues and that you don't, I've never walked away from anything. We don't walk away from anything. Our team is amazing. I don't, I'd love to take credit, but we have an amazing aftercare team.

[00:02:51] Matt Plaskoff: Brian, who runs all the crews. It, I think fortunately I've been able to populate my company with people that are customer [00:03:00] centric. And I think that's what it takes. Certainly I have to drive it, but yeah, it's a big deal for me. That's one of the things that would keep me up at night is if people weren't happy.

[00:03:11] Eric Goranson: Exactly. And sounds like you've just done a great job of. Creating that culture. And that's really where that success goes, because if you can keep all of those people out there heading in the right direction, which is on that consumer, that's hired you to do the project, or even look into a project. If you can keep everybody going the same direction, that's on you, brother.

[00:03:32] Eric Goranson: And nice job.

[00:03:33] Matt Plaskoff: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Consumers, they're scared. Let's face it. Most of them are scared to death. So you, you have, that's our approach. That's how we approach it is we know they're fearful. We know they're scared. How do we give them peace? That's the approach, right?

[00:03:49] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And it's, it comes down to planning on these projects too, right?

[00:03:53] Eric Goranson: It looks like you guys have a pretty solid system of getting things going before the job starts, because. [00:04:00] That's really where projects start to come off the rails is when those materials don't show up or that planning went sideways.

[00:04:07] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, I think that what I decided with this business and I was a design builder, even when we were building custom homes and big projects, but.

[00:04:16] Matt Plaskoff: We couldn't 1st of all, we couldn't have our own people because you can't keep 50 roofers on staff and 50 carpenters on staff and you had to sub things out. And as I started to get a little long in the tooth, I was like, man, there's got to be a better way here. So the design build thing where we are.

[00:04:33] Matt Plaskoff: Soup to nuts eliminates a, the disconnect between what the designer envisioned and what the contractor envisioned. And that's. Obviously, it's a big disconnect and so that since we're managing the entire process from start to finish design product procurement, we can guarantee that everything's going to be there before we start.

[00:04:51] Matt Plaskoff: We're not going to tear your house apart until we have everything. We need to put it back together. And then once we show up, we're going to make a commitment to be there every single day [00:05:00] without any gaps. Which is super rare. And you know how hard it is to try to maintain a schedule like that, but it's the only way to, you got to be accountable for the whole project from start to finish.

[00:05:12] Matt Plaskoff: In my opinion,

[00:05:13] Eric Goranson: if you are just joining us, we're talking to the Matt Plaskoff from one week bath. Now let's get back to the conversation. Yeah, no question. And materials is interesting. We learned that boy through 2019, with, with COVID and the materials just. Where's my tile? It's on a container ship out in the Bay and it's been there for six weeks.

[00:05:33] Eric Goranson: When's that going to be your good question? Right. Some of that stuff is tough, but if you're managing the project correctly, yeah, you're starting late, but you're not hung up without a bathroom for months on end waiting for that materials to show up.

[00:05:45] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, that was a big deal. And we had, as we all had to chuck and jive with that because we had to keep our people.

[00:05:54] Matt Plaskoff: And we had to create backlog enough backlog such that product would be [00:06:00] available when we were supposed to start. And even today, I tell people, because like, most contractors, they want to tear your house apart. They don't have they're expecting the homeowner to buy the stuff, or they don't have the stuff.

[00:06:11] Matt Plaskoff: They just want to get started. And so for us, we had to be very. What's the word? Committed and diligent about not doing that because of that. Even today, some of the lead times are longer than what we would hope and expect. But our model is don't tear Eric's house apart until you have every stitch of everything you need to put it back together.

[00:06:33] Matt Plaskoff: Because there's no, like you said, that typical thing where it's okay, we'll be back in six weeks when the tile shows up is insanity.

[00:06:41] Eric Goranson: Yeah, I had a container coming from a cabinet company in the east coast. It was in town. It's like, all right, I know where it is. It'll be at my warehouse next week. We're starting to plan this start.

[00:06:53] Eric Goranson: And semi driver took the exit too fast and rolled it over on its side. And we lost a whole container of cabinets and you're [00:07:00] like. All right, I'm going to start over on this eight week lead time again, or worse. And so those are those things that happen and it's always the, the consumer that kind of always is like, what's going on?

[00:07:11] Eric Goranson: But if you haven't started it, at least you don't have eight weeks of nobody sitting there in that bathroom, not getting anything done as you're waiting to get everything else.

[00:07:18] Matt Plaskoff: That's true. And our model is that we're. So we have a warehouse, which is somewhat rare for contractors, but we have 10, 000 square feet and basically we're not going to start the job unless we know that we have everything sitting there checked every box open.

[00:07:33] Matt Plaskoff: Nothing's damaged ready to go at least 2 weeks before the job starts. And that gives us like enough room to breathe, where if God forbid that happens, look, homeowners will understand if you're like this happened, but they're not going to understand if they're like, without a space for ever. Why did you start?

[00:07:52] Matt Plaskoff: Why didn't you wait? That kind of stuff. But then you, you, it's a double edged sword because when you're talking to people and they're like, what do you mean you can't start for 8 to 10 [00:08:00] weeks, Joey down the street says you can start in 2 weeks or a week. And you just have, again, you have to be disciplined to be able to say, look, we've been doing this a long time.

[00:08:09] Matt Plaskoff: We know what can go wrong. And if you want to go with Joey, then have fun. But this is not, that's not the right. It's not the right approach. So

[00:08:18] Eric Goranson: on many times you still even starting six, eight, 10 weeks later, odds are you're going to get that thing done before Joey does, just because he's waiting for the same stuff.

[00:08:29] Eric Goranson: He's just wanting to get in there and swing a hammer. So we can get that first check coming and then there's going to be weeks without work being done.

[00:08:36] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah. And that's the question that you have to ask yourself if you're a homeowner. Do you want to wait 8 to 10 weeks and then just go through a week of pain or whatever?

[00:08:45] Matt Plaskoff: Or do you want to get started right away because it's exciting and then you're torn up for 10 weeks plus, however long it takes them to do it. And most people are logical and they say, yeah, I get it. The industry is the [00:09:00] industry and what we're doing is so unique. What they hear from most contractors is, yeah, don't worry.

[00:09:04] Matt Plaskoff: We'll get started. And that's what they hear.

[00:09:08] Eric Goranson: Yeah, no, it's tough. And all of a sudden they're like, yeah, the towel guy will be out here in what two or three weeks, but we got the electrical rough in down in the plumbing rough end. So yeah, Jimmy will be back out here in three weeks when he gets cleared up with his schedule.

[00:09:21] Eric Goranson: And that's one of the problems that you see out there as well as is with many contractors out there is if they're little tiny contractors that are either doing it themselves or subbing out. You run into all these different issues of the shower not being done correctly, or worst case, his subs aren't, or her subs aren't showing up on time out there.

[00:09:42] Eric Goranson: And that can be a struggle for anybody, but it sounds like you guys really have that dialed in with this design build approach.

[00:09:49] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, I think having your own cruise is really a wonderful thing, especially if you're the, especially if it's you or me, because we know, I [00:10:00] know that my guys have been with me on average over 10 years, each one.

[00:10:03] Matt Plaskoff: I just retired a 35 year guy that was with me 35 years. So. Look, I can feel comfortable that no matter whose home they go into, one of our core values in our company is treat your home like it's your mom's, treat the home like it's your mom's. And so I can feel comfortable that they're going to care for the place, but having, being able to have the control, that's the thing, because with subs, look, I had great subs when I was building homes and guys in teams that I used forever, but you never know who they're going to send.

[00:10:35] Matt Plaskoff: They go up and down, something happens, they get pulled somewhere else, then the whole house of cards falls down. When you have your own people, you can say, hey, I'm going to put a supervisor on site full time. Everybody can communicate, they're going to show up every day at 7, they're going to leave every day at 3.

[00:10:50] Matt Plaskoff: 30. It's like a whole different ball game, but with that, to go back to what we were talking about, you've got to have the stuff there because otherwise you got [00:11:00] guys standing on shovels and that's painful from a financial perspective. So those 2 puzzle pieces, they lock in. So you've got the stuff, you've got the guys, you can trust them.

[00:11:12] Matt Plaskoff: And then you don't have the finger pointing, you don't have the plumber blaming the towel guy and it's just a headache. So I, that's the worst

[00:11:21] Eric Goranson: part is the finger pointing, right? That's the worst part is that with the subs going, no, it was them. It was them. It was them. And you've got four businesses now and their representatives out there trying to figure out what's going on.

[00:11:32] Eric Goranson: And the homeowner's just going. Who's in control of this situation. And that just gets ugly for everybody.

[00:11:38] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, for sure. I think that just having our owners, our homeowners are just like, they love the fact that they can just call one place and that's what it is. So yeah, it's great. It's a great. That's a

[00:11:52] Eric Goranson: great place to be right there, which is where I had to ask you this one week bath concept, that's pretty rare out there as [00:12:00] well, because even when you got materials there, that's a tough, that's a tough bull right there.

[00:12:04] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah. Especially when you're getting permits and things because here you need a permit to change a faucet. And so, but it's really not a tough thing. If. Truth be told, we do 7 and 8 day projects too, if someone says, hey, like a basic bath, right? We can do in 5 days. No problem. There's only 1 inspection.

[00:12:26] Matt Plaskoff: Typically, the inspectors are showing up for us. Obviously, we can't control that, but a guest bathroom in a week is not magic, but. When we do a separate, separate shower, bigger bathroom, or someone says, Hey, I want to convert my tub to a shower and we got to change the drain system from inch and a half to two inch or a homeowner's don't like, if you say it's a six day project, they're like in heaven because the guy down the street is like four, six weeks.

[00:12:50] Matt Plaskoff: And the other thing is we pay our customers for every day we're late. So we put our money where our mouth is. If we don't meet our, when we're not working multi family projects, because [00:13:00] those condos things are a whole nother story, but. Well, we're doing a single family residence, and we've made a commitment to finish on a particular time.

[00:13:06] Matt Plaskoff: If we don't finish, we're forking out the dough to say we're sorry it can happen. But I would, if it happened all the time, our house, our entire schedule would go to hell. And that's. So we have a system, we have a process, we have a procedure manual, we have experience. I guess it would be hard for others.

[00:13:27] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah. But, and trust me, when we first started, like we didn't, I had run extreme makeover home edition for two years. I ran that TV show for ABC and we were building houses in a week, but we had a hundred guys, I worked on some up

[00:13:41] Eric Goranson: in Seattle and that was the crazy situation. Yeah. So, yeah,

[00:13:45] Matt Plaskoff: I was up there on that Seattle build, Alan Luxmore and I were up there and so we took it all over the country, but I had the one week back idea before the show even existed.

[00:13:56] Matt Plaskoff: And what I learned on the show, too, was. If you [00:14:00] have everything you need, and you have the resources, and you make the commitment to be there, you can get these things done with quality. I mean, they're custom quality. Every bit as good as I used to build in my other company that took me four to six weeks to two months.

[00:14:15] Matt Plaskoff: Some of those master bathrooms would take me three months. I'm getting them done four or five times faster, just because we have everything and we're making a commitment to be there and we have the experience.

[00:14:26] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that's true. And I'll be the first to say, as a host of a TV show, myself, when you turn the cameras on, you want to slow a project down, that's exactly how you do it.

[00:14:35] Eric Goranson: Is, uh, Turn the cameras on and get the TV crews installed in there because what takes, what takes an hour now takes two. And the

[00:14:42] Matt Plaskoff: EP is always saying, Hey, find something wrong. I need some drama, but it's, it was fun. It was like going to camp and war at the same time. But yeah, definitely saw the

[00:14:54] Eric Goranson: war side, just rain and weather and all the stuff that gets thrown out of jobsite, especially on a short [00:15:00] time when you've got a handful of days to get a house done and you get a rainstorm pop in it.

[00:15:05] Eric Goranson: It changed the game pretty quick.

[00:15:08] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, that's Seattle. So it rained and it was. It was rough, but yeah, yeah, I

[00:15:14] Eric Goranson: volunteered on that one. So I remember that. So, yeah,

[00:15:17] Matt Plaskoff: that's funny. I'm sure we ran into each other over 20 years ago. Absolutely. Absolutely. About 20. So, yeah,

[00:15:26] Eric Goranson: it's interesting depending on the city you're in Southern California right now, and that's some of the challenges we have in like in the city of Portland, which is the metro area I'm in here with those guys, sometimes.

[00:15:36] Eric Goranson: Sometimes you'll call the inspection in the afternoon and maybe you've got a shower pan inspection up here that you have to do and you're hoping they show up in the morning, but sometimes they don't show up until the afternoon, which can absolutely kill the construction schedule. But I love your model because Everybody can be working on everything else around there and get jumping back on that once they get to that, where if you're a contractor with, with [00:16:00] subs, can't really do it that easily.

[00:16:03] Matt Plaskoff: Totally. You just hit it on the head because the typical construction project, as we know, is very linear. It's okay. The hot mopper came in and did his thing. The thing's full of water. We got to wait and then the tile guy can start, but you can't bring anybody else in. But in our model and the model that we're talking about, 1st of all, we're using like a Schluter system.

[00:16:22] Matt Plaskoff: So it's a cold system. We get it done. And then, and if you know what, if the inspector doesn't show up, we can still tile the floor. We can still install the cabinet. We can still paint the walls. We can do everything but tile. The wet space. And so it becomes more fluid in that way. And that's that when people say, I've lost jobs because contractors told homeowners, there's no way they can get it done.

[00:16:44] Matt Plaskoff: There's no possible way. They're crazy, but you're right. You hit it on the head. It becomes non linear and that's, and if it's a bigger job, you have a few extra days. It's not now, if an inspector doesn't show up for days on end, [00:17:00] or, you know, you can't control that. It's a, it's more of a hassle for us than for the homeowner.

[00:17:05] Matt Plaskoff: The homeowners, I understand. And we're like, yeah, but we, our schedule looks like Tetris. So that way, but yeah. So

[00:17:15] Eric Goranson: that's what's crazy with that is you get into that situation where it's just like, all right, but that's the beauty of it. And that other contractor wasn't wrong actually, because the way they're doing it.

[00:17:29] Eric Goranson: It's not going to get done that quickly because of their system and not calling them a liar, but you're right. They're not calling in the guy to be doing the other stuff. They had somebody scheduled on that job and their other subs not in the building. They're on another job. And you're right. You're not going to get that done in that situation because you don't have that flexibility and the ability.

[00:17:50] Eric Goranson: With your schedule to be able to pivot like a normal construction project when things get a little crazy like that with the schedule. Cause they always do. Yeah. And you're right. And they're not,

[00:17:59] Matt Plaskoff: it's not [00:18:00] deceptive. They're like, Hey, this is, we can't control it. And, and this is what it is. But, and the other part of that is that the minute you have a delay like that, because you've got these subs all lined up, all of a sudden the towel guys, if I can't start on Thursday, I can't see you for three weeks and then it becomes even worse, but that, but you and I both know, like.

[00:18:18] Matt Plaskoff: Our industry is so archaic it's, this is the way grandpa did it. And that's okay. There's some beautiful things about old craftsmanship. And I was a carpenter when I started 30, 40 years ago. And so, but I, I I'm all about new methods and new materials and improving the system. Where our industry tends to be very, no, we float showers and we use hot mop and we use flex conduit and we, and it's okay.

[00:18:50] Matt Plaskoff: If you want to do it like that, then it is what it is. You

[00:18:54] Eric Goranson: know, it's my favorite little saying that I see in social media out there that just makes [00:19:00] the hair stand up on my neck I've been doing it this way for 30 years, right? It's that i've been doing it this way for 30 years and it's a lot of things have changed in 30 years So maybe you need to upgrade look at everything around us.

[00:19:13] Eric Goranson: Look at electronics. Look at everything else in the home that is upgraded I mean Yeah, Hot Mopin worked, did its thing, but sorry, Sluder System to me is a better system. And a lot of the other systems are better, they're just, technology's better. Dude, pagers worked. Pagers

[00:19:30] Matt Plaskoff: worked. Fax machines worked. And we used to ring each other two rings because it was too expensive to call long distance.

[00:19:36] Matt Plaskoff: That stuff worked. But it's why I get it, I get it. And you and I both know that this whole craftsmanship thing, the mentorship programs, thank goodness. I think some of the craftsmanship mentor programs are coming back because that was lost. People didn't, but anyway, it's yeah, you're, that's funny. I'm totally with you on that.

[00:19:59] Eric Goranson: That's one of the [00:20:00] crazy ones. And it's the, and it's the guys that are out there that are, that have been doing it for a long time. They're grabbing the green board drywall. And they're tiling right over the top of that, the shower and I've never had a failure and I'm like, you're never, they've never called you back to fix it.

[00:20:15] Eric Goranson: And it's just that kind of stuff that

[00:20:16] Matt Plaskoff: drives me nuts. That's it. It looks good from my house guy.

[00:20:20] Eric Goranson: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Funny. I learned a lot about how Southern California construction. It's funny. In different parts of the country, there are so many different trends. Like hot mopping is really a Southern California thing for showers.

[00:20:33] Eric Goranson: And it's just what it is. But I didn't even realize some of the issues that you see down there that are different until my good friend Skip Adele did catch a contractor down there. With Adam Carolla on Spike TV network. And I saw some of the unlicensed really bad side of contractors down there. The guys that were basically the illegitimate contractors taken the projects out of the good contractors hands.

[00:20:59] Eric Goranson: [00:21:00] And most of them down there are good, but it's just shocking to see like in any area, how bad contracting gets when. The consumer finds the wrong person, and that's the dangerous side of any of these projects. And what I think many homeowners are really fearful of is, okay, I'm going into business with here.

[00:21:18] Eric Goranson: Somebody that's going to be inside my house and I hope they do this. And I think, you know, people like you that are out there really helping put that to rest and really helping the industry because people can look at it and go, wow, this is a good system. This is good. And you're in and out. And I get my project done the right way, but fast.

[00:21:37] Matt Plaskoff: It's a little bit about money, right? Because when you have those guys, you're talking about competing, you're competing against them and the homeowner doesn't know. And I can't tell you how many people I say I talked to. And I say, you know what? Send me the proposal. Let me look at the proposal. I will tear it apart because most of these guys aren't including [00:22:00] everything.

[00:22:00] Matt Plaskoff: Most of these guys might not have a license or insurance or any of this stuff. And if the homeowner Gets three bids and two of them are like super cheap and ours is more expensive. Their brain goes to Matt must be crazy. But the problem is that there's more of those types of guys than there are of the legit California.

[00:22:23] Matt Plaskoff: It's interesting. Cause well, California is very difficult place to work. Uh, and it's very consumer centric, which is good. They just put a new clause in the home improvement contracts. That required that the contractor give the homeowner their insurance agent's phone number, because there were so many.

[00:22:45] Matt Plaskoff: Because there were so many fake insurance certs going around that homeowners didn't know the guy would send a cert that was like whited out or whatever. And so California said, no, no, we're not doing that anymore. You got to put the, you got to put the insurance agents [00:23:00] name and number so that the consumer can call and say, Hey, does this guy legit have insurance?

[00:23:04] Matt Plaskoff: And so like you try to protect against everything, but there's always going to be a situation where it's a great deal. And a homeowner is willing to take the risk and liability, and you can't compete with that. You just, and you don't.

[00:23:21] Eric Goranson: No. And it's the scariest. We're in an estimate, the scariest line that I ever see in a bathroom is custom tile shower, 4, 000.

[00:23:30] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah. What are you doing exactly? What kind of tile? What are you

[00:23:35] Eric Goranson: doing? Right?

[00:23:36] Matt Plaskoff: Is it marble? Is it porcelain? Are they big tiles? Is it mosaic? Is it glass? Is it? That's what I go through. Right? So. Yeah. Are

[00:23:44] Eric Goranson: these 4x4 tiles that came out of the restore? What do you got there, man? What are you doing? And what's behind it?

[00:23:50] Matt Plaskoff: It's funny because yeah, 4 by 4, if you look at the cost value study that remodeling magazine does every year, right? They have these, [00:24:00] I love it too. They have these average price points across the nation or whatever. We're on the same coast, so we get the same numbers. But it's so funny because the definition of the bathroom that is being the definition of what the bathroom will be is what we're tearing out.

[00:24:17] Matt Plaskoff: So it'll say Right mid range, and I'm

[00:24:19] Eric Goranson: like, are you kidding me? There's not even a cabinet in this that you guys have on your list of things. Those details are the key, right? Yeah.

[00:24:27] Matt Plaskoff: It's bad. It, it's about the details, but look, truthfully, most contractors don't have a mechanism to work out the details upfront before they sign an agreement.

[00:24:36] Matt Plaskoff: They don't have the design piece. They're, they expect the homeowner to go out and. Buy all this stuff and they don't know what they're looking at. They don't know quality product. They don't know good price. They don't know anything. And so that's, it is rare on a smaller project, like a bathroom, for example, like when we're doing big projects, right.

[00:24:57] Matt Plaskoff: Design build is very prevalent, but you have your architect and [00:25:00] your designer and your builder. But on small bat, like kitchens, even there are more design built kitchen companies, but they're not as prevalent. But with the bathroom, what I figured out was the little guy, the people that are appreciative of doing a bathroom remodel, and we are very appreciative because that's what we do, are usually smaller companies that don't have the mechanism to help the homeowner figure out the details.

[00:25:22] Matt Plaskoff: So they just put allowances that are unrealistic. They just, they, or they say, here's the labor number. You got to buy all the stuff. And that's where it becomes really hard for a homeowner because they can't compare. There's no way to compare.

[00:25:35] Eric Goranson: And that's why I think it's a big deal is when you're looking at when there's no materials in there figured out, the contractor doesn't have, you know, have a way to bid that out.

[00:25:43] Eric Goranson: Really? Because Are they putting in a 199 store brand toilet? Are they putting in a, on the extreme, the 26, 000 robotic Toto? You know what I mean? It's just two extremes right there, but it's a great example. Everything, there's such big [00:26:00] swings on every product in the bathroom from That piece of tile to the shower.

[00:26:05] Matt Plaskoff: And not only that, Eric, the, as the product can drive labor too. So if you're installing something like when we install two foot, two foot tall by four foot wide porcelain tiles. You got to take your time. Those things weigh a ton. They got to dry before you put the next one. So it takes time. That's different than just laying 12 by 24s.

[00:26:26] Matt Plaskoff: Or so when they say, yeah, whatever you can buy, whatever you want, then all of a sudden the homeowner comes with this glass mosaic for the shower and the guys that's going to take me like three extra days. Here's your change order. And then that's what happens. And it's not the homeowner's fault. They don't know.

[00:26:45] Matt Plaskoff: They don't know what they don't know. And so that's the challenge. That's why the only, anything that anybody gives anybody is an estimate. It's not real unless you actually work through every detail, like in our [00:27:00] thing, every like literally when the homeowner signs off, it says cocking and like grout, like every pop, you know, every part that goes into that bathroom is listed.

[00:27:12] Matt Plaskoff: Because then it's real, then it's a real number. It's not some pie in the sky guests, but again, it's all driven by, this is how we've always done it. And yeah, that's a rock.

[00:27:25] Eric Goranson: And you're right. I worked with a number of contractors on the design side of things, and I love looking down the list and going, all right, you got the 12 cabinet knobs figured out on here.

[00:27:35] Eric Goranson: Perfect. You know what that is, right? So. Now, you know what that is and whether or not you're adding that to just adding that heated tile floor can be a big deal. Cause all of a sudden now you have to have a new electrical circuit run across the house to that. And so sometimes these little ads can be a massive deal, especially.

[00:27:54] Eric Goranson: Like in a place like California where maybe it's really hard because there's not a crawl space or basement to be working. [00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, are we the only ones that have slabs?

[00:28:03] Eric Goranson: I knew Texas, South. We have some stuff here, but you know, a lot of places across the country are not slab on grade construction, but it gives you a lot less options to get plumbing and electrical someplace.

[00:28:15] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah. And again, when you're doing those tub to shower conversions, you got to break the drain out and you got to change the pipe and it's, yeah, but you know what? There's so many old homes that it, the market's giant, you know? Yeah,

[00:28:31] Eric Goranson: absolutely. I will tell you my funniest, we're going to get off topic for a second here.

[00:28:35] Eric Goranson: My craziest slab on grade home construction project to had was early in my career over in Eastern Washington in the tri cities. And for all you guys listening over there on 610k on a on the radio. Yeah, you'll know what I'm talking about I ran into a government house and this was for the hanford nuclear project up there General electric in the town of richland built a bunch of houses in there And one [00:29:00] of the early ones they had messed up on the plans thought there was a basement And dug it out for the basement and then realized oh, wait a minute.

[00:29:07] Eric Goranson: There's not a basement. So instead Of filling it in and starting over and compacting it since the concrete was free since they were building nuclear reactors out there They set it in there and poured seven eight feet of concrete and the whole slab was Eight feet thick and so we literally to move plumbing and all the galvanized pipe Of course was in the slab.

[00:29:33] Eric Goranson: We went in there. We had to basically tunnel out Where we were doing, it was like notching out wood, but concrete just to get the plumbing in there because they poured that whole thing full of concrete.

[00:29:45] Matt Plaskoff: The house isn't going to move.

[00:29:47] Eric Goranson: No, you had the best. I couldn't believe it. They just kept obviously ordering concrete trucks to fill it in.

[00:29:52] Eric Goranson: Cause it was faster. Send me 10 more trucks and they just kept going. But, uh, That was back in the forties and fifties, but sometimes you [00:30:00] just run into stuff like that. You're like, never seen this ever in my life. And that's remodeling for you.

[00:30:06] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, that is remodeling. We see all kinds of crazy stuff. I found stuff in walls and feelings and all kinds of weird stuff.

[00:30:14] Eric Goranson: And then you get into multifamily. I've run into stuff there. Even on new great example, I was. Working with the drywall contractors had come through and we're high up in a building and I didn't realize that I, the cabinets wouldn't fit. It was a wall to wall situation. And I'm like, Where'd we lose an inch and a half here?

[00:30:31] Eric Goranson: Why isn't this working? Come to find out the drywallers didn't want to carry the extra drywall down. So they put three layers of drywall on the inside of that. And so they had to go back in and take out the three layers of drywall just because they didn't want to carry it back down. You're running into that stuff before and it's a head scratcher when it comes to rebuttling sometimes.

[00:30:51] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, that's for sure. Homebuilders, building from scratch is so much easier in my opinion.

[00:30:58] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. [00:31:00] So what tips do you have for homeowners out there before we run out of time? What tips do you have for people out there that are really starting to think about? Okay, I gotta take care of this bathroom.

[00:31:10] Eric Goranson: It's in rough shape, and I know i'm not moving How do they get started with you guys for instance?

[00:31:16] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, with us locally, the way it happens, and I, by the way, I had this dream of rolling this out in every NFL city in the country, but I couldn't find very many contractors that wanted to. We franchised it and rolled it out in Kansas city to test if we could replicate it.

[00:31:34] Matt Plaskoff: And we did it. I had a buddy in Kansas city and we did it in Kansas city for a little bit, but so it's a pretty, our system is pretty rare, but I think there's some things that you can learn from it. That a homeowner can learn from it and protect themselves to have a good experience for us. If someone were to call us to Southern California, basically, we get on the phone.

[00:31:53] Matt Plaskoff: We collect some information. We have a 1st phone call with them. They talk to a designer could be me could be 1 of my other 4 [00:32:00] designers. Designer chats them up about their project. We give them a ballpark to start with based on, uh, photographs. And in our experience, we have a system that will ballpark these things very accurately just from having built over 4500 of them.

[00:32:15] Matt Plaskoff: And then the next step for us is that we go out to their home. This is another unique thing that we have. We have a mobile showroom. Essentially Tahoe's and expeditions, and we come out with our tile samples and our cabinet samples and our countertop samples and everything we need. And we literally take them through a selection process in their home from start to finish.

[00:32:33] Matt Plaskoff: We have a software program. We wrote it allows us to price it right there on the spot. So we don't go away. They don't call us every day for 3 weeks. Where's the bid that whole thing? Yeah, they don't get like parties, cheese, paper bid and whatever. And so we, we quote it right there to the penny because we have every detail, including the knobs figured out.

[00:32:53] Matt Plaskoff: And then we sign a contract, go away. We. And we order everything. That's how it works for us. I, we don't [00:33:00] exist in Oregon. We don't exist really anywhere else. I'd love to exist somewhere else, but we don't. But what, if I were a homeowner in your area, there are reputable contractors. There's no question. And there, and I would look for design build contractors first.

[00:33:19] Matt Plaskoff: Somebody who would be interested in doing a bathroom project as a design bill, because then you don't get the finger pointing. They're responsible for the whole thing. And what I would do is I'd say, listen, here's some pictures of my project. Here's what I want to do. Give me a ballpark. Just give me a range.

[00:33:34] Matt Plaskoff: Right? And then if that range feels good, then commit to working with that individual. Of course, after you check them out, make sure that they're legit, make sure they have insurance. We have a sheet that we send to people that has 10 things you got to ask. Thanks. Which I could share with you at some point, but basically make sure that they you've checked references that if there's a license involved and check that.

[00:33:58] Matt Plaskoff: But I think [00:34:00] the point is that ideally, if you can have a design build situation where you, I would not sign a contract to build a project. Unless every detail was worked out up front for all the reasons that you and I talked about, because you don't want it to change. And if you can't find a design build contractor, then you don't have a choice other than to potentially hire a designer to help you make all those selections.

[00:34:26] Matt Plaskoff: The problem with that is a lot of designers don't know what things cost. They, some of them frankly don't care. And so they designed something that's going to be beautiful, but that's going to blow your budget. So you have to be cognizant of that because once you go out to the contractors, they're going to, it's, you're going to get numbers that are going to shock you.

[00:34:45] Matt Plaskoff: So that's, but going out and trying to buy all this stuff yourself and figure it out, and I don't know how much time you have, but that some people enjoy it. Well, and that's a

[00:34:55] Eric Goranson: great example. Let's hit on that for a second. Because Matt, here's the thing. If you're sitting [00:35:00] there as a homeowner and you went out and bought this bathroom faucet and you want your contractor to put it in, what happens when, you know, you picked it up from the home center, didn't realize it'd be returned and parts were missing out of the box?

[00:35:13] Eric Goranson: Do you have time to step out of your meeting during the day and go run out to the home center and exchange out while your plumber's charging a couple of hundred bucks an hour sitting there to put that thing in? Are you going to be caught on call 40 hours a week while they're working? That's the tough part when homeowners go out and buy stuff.

[00:35:30] Matt Plaskoff: I have a worse story, Eric, which is even better. There's this liability disconnect when you go buy the materials. So what happens is, so I had a project that I did a long time ago when I was building customs and the homeowner, he's a great guy, but he wanted to save some money on the plumbing fixtures. He didn't want to pay 20 percent markup or whatever.

[00:35:48] Matt Plaskoff: So he bought all the valves and everything for the house. And I won't mention the manufacturer because I wouldn't be nice, but he bought name brand stuff and he bought it. We put them all in. And [00:36:00] tiled all the showers and all that stuff. And we turned on the valves and they made noise. And he came back to me and said, this is your thing.

[00:36:08] Matt Plaskoff: And I said, nah, I don't think so. I said, I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal. Let's open up the wallets, take the valve out, but send it back to the manufacturer and see what they say. And if it's defective, then guess what? You get to pay to retile all the showers. And if it's not defective, then I'll pay to retile all the showers.

[00:36:24] Matt Plaskoff: Sure enough, this manufacturer name brand manufacturer, the Venturi had not been deburred in the valve. So it was making all this noise. And so it turned out that because he saved, I don't know, 3000 bucks on valves for the whole house or whatever, because he didn't pay my markup. He had to retile all the showers and I've had other stories like that.

[00:36:46] Matt Plaskoff: Someone buys a toilet and it leaks all over the hardwood floors downstairs. And it's a crack. It's not our, we didn't do it. So that's, that's, there are so many reasons why buying your own stuff is a big mistake. The [00:37:00] ideal scenario. A lot of times

[00:37:01] Eric Goranson: these plumbing wholesalers will give you the discount, right?

[00:37:04] Eric Goranson: So you're going in there. Maybe you're getting 20, 25 percent off. Is a, as a, as a contractor, you're marking up because you've got to cover your costs on that stuff to order it, manage it, deliver it, pick it up, whatever, and then they're not paying that much more for it because by the time they've, you get the discount, you mark it up and then the liability, which is the massive part of that, you're right, that's, it's a no brainer.

[00:37:31] Eric Goranson: Let your contractor get your stuff. It's going to save you in the long run, especially when you calc calculate in that liability.

[00:37:38] Matt Plaskoff: You hit the time issue, which is super valuable and it just depends. Look, it has to do with where you're at in your life. There was a time when I would go to a restaurant and I wouldn't pay 10 bucks for valet parking.

[00:37:50] Matt Plaskoff: I would walk like 30 blocks. That's not going to happen today. I'll pay 20 bucks, 25 bucks for valet parking because. My time is worth more than my money. [00:38:00] And so that's what it is. In a lot of cases, people are like, I can save some money, but you hit it on the head, the ultimate look, we buy half a million dollars a year worth of fixtures from a name brand company.

[00:38:11] Matt Plaskoff: I don't know if I'm allowed to say, and so we're going to get better deals than you're ever going to get. And even with our markup. You're not really paying that much of a premium. Why would you put yourself through that? But again, it's back to, this is the way it is. And the contractor said, he'll give me his price and we just have to buy the stuff.

[00:38:29] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah. That's because a, he doesn't want to put it anywhere. He doesn't have a warehouse and B, he doesn't want to be responsible for it. I don't blame him. You

[00:38:38] Eric Goranson: just suck your due into buying it and you get to go out and pick it. Hey, I'll put it in for you. You know, but you're not going to be calling him.

[00:38:44] Eric Goranson: You're going to be calling the manufacturer and you're going to be finding a plumber to come out and fix that stuff for her. That's

[00:38:47] Matt Plaskoff: just how it's

[00:38:48] Eric Goranson: going to

[00:38:48] Matt Plaskoff: work. No, you're right. So that's the biggest piece of advice is find some, obviously you've got to find someone you trust. You got to having it all in one place is always a better solution.[00:39:00]

[00:39:00] Matt Plaskoff: The challenge is trying to figure out for yourself the numbers, because that's where it ends up. Because if you're comparing, uh, design build contractor to a guy who's to, or gal, who's just doing labor only, it's too hard to compare. So it's happening and that's where people get hung up because they're like, this guy says it's 30 grand to do the bathroom.

[00:39:23] Matt Plaskoff: And this other guy says 15. That's that's the problem. So look, make sure the person has insurances, proper insurances, liability insurance, super important. It's not required by California workers compass, but I don't know what it's like up in Oregon, but liability insurance, plumber comes in with a torch, burns your house down and doesn't have any liability insurance.

[00:39:45] Matt Plaskoff: Good luck. So you don't want the, it's about risk. Return in a lot of cases, but yeah.

[00:39:54] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Here you've got to be a licensed, bonded and insured. And the state is so on top of this [00:40:00] here that you can go on to our state website. And if that contractor missed a payment on their insurance, their bond, any of that stuff, State law says that they have to immediately know the state and in 15 minutes, their license is suspended until that gets updated again.

[00:40:19] Eric Goranson: So I'll tell you what, they're quick here on that stuff, but that is not the case in most states.

[00:40:25] Matt Plaskoff: There's states I know of, I have friends throughout the country that are contractors. You don't even need a permit. You don't need A license, you know, but it's just

[00:40:34] Eric Goranson: a wild west and it's not in the west.

[00:40:37] Matt Plaskoff: Yeah, exactly.

[00:40:38] Matt Plaskoff: The wild mid Midwest or Northeast

[00:40:42] Eric Goranson: even. Yeah,

[00:40:43] Matt Plaskoff: exactly. Yeah. It's

[00:40:45] Eric Goranson: crazy. So Matt, how do people. We got to wrap up. We're running out of time here and I know your time's valuable here as well. And thanks for coming on today. But how do people track you down? If you're down in Southern California down there and I need a bathroom, where do they find you at?[00:41:00]

[00:41:00] Matt Plaskoff: So you can find us on the web, of course, oneweekbath. com. O N E E E K B A T H dot com. It's a beautiful website. There are a lot of projects on there. You can look at pictures, get ideas. You just hit us up through the website and Robbie in our office will connect with you and take some information. And then you'll work with one of the designers might be me.

[00:41:22] Matt Plaskoff: I don't do as much as I used to. I do mostly repeat and referral clients, but, or you call 1 800 1 WEEK O N E E K. It's 6 6 5 for those that don't want to figure it out. Uh, so you can do that and there's an email on the website as well. We have an Instagram, one week bath, LA, Facebook, all that good stuff, but yeah, we work, so our primary area is down to orange County, up to Ventura County, but we also halo out to San Diego, Santa Barbara, and then out to the desert.

[00:41:57] Matt Plaskoff: We do some of that stuff as well, depending [00:42:00] on the project, but yeah. And I so appreciate. You having me on also work with remodelers, by the way, doing some coaching to help them develop their systems and their businesses. I've got a guy in Texas. I work with. I've got a couple others. And so people need help reach out to me.

[00:42:19] Matt Plaskoff: My, you can reach out through the website and just tell. The office that you're a remodeler. Do you want to have a conversation with me and we'll set a time and I'll do my best to give you a piece of advice.

[00:42:30] Eric Goranson: Thanks, Matt, man. That is awesome. And yeah, you've got a great system here. So we got a huge remodeling audience out there of contractors and even builders.

[00:42:38] Eric Goranson: And I'm sure with that experience and what you've got going here, it can help a lot of people out in the trades out there as well. So thanks for coming on today, my friend, it's been a great conversation.

[00:42:47] Matt Plaskoff: Thanks Eric. I'd love to bring it to Portland too someday. Maybe somebody up there wants to do it and I'll teach 'em how to do it.

[00:42:53] Matt Plaskoff: But thanks for the time and I, I hope to catch you again. If you wanna have another chat, just reach out to me.

[00:42:59] Eric Goranson: [00:43:00] We will do it. Alright everybody, I'm Eric G and you've been listening to you around the house