Condo Kitchen Remodels, Remodeling Planning, Energy Efficiency, and Safety Upgrades
Host:
Welcome to the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction on News Talk 1310 WIBA. Have a question? Email it to EdgeConstructionRadio@gmail.com.
Now, here is your host, Sean Prebil, on News Talk 1310 WIBA.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction right here on 1310 WIBA.
Check out the website if you have not been there recently: EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
There is a great new project up, and we are actually going to be talking about it. It is a recent kitchen remodel, so I definitely urge you to head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
As mentioned, they are regularly updating and adding new work, so you always want to check back at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
There are links there to Facebook, Pinterest, and oh my goodness, Houzz, which is an amazing website if you have been thinking about doing some remodeling.
Just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com. They have a link right there for you.
Joining us this morning is Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
Mike, how are you doing this week?
Mike:
Great, Sean. It is good to talk with you.
Host:
And of course, their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE, spelling out EDGE, which makes it easy to do.
We are going to be talking about home remodeling, a little bit about planning a remodel, and the big thing is, of course, now is the time if you are thinking about getting that remodeling done in the springtime coming up next year.
But before we get to that, real quick, we were going to get more into this kitchen remodel that is up at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
What was amazing to me is the design that goes into it. It looks beautiful.
But you were saying that is a condo, and condos are a little bit different.
Do you guys do a lot of condos at Edge Construction, or is that here and there?
Mike:
Not a ton. It is kind of here and there.
For one, Madison does not have a ton of condos. We have a lot of apartments and a fair chunk of housing, but the rules for building condos changed a number of years back. I think it made it tougher for people to build condos, so you just do not see that many anymore.
But this is a very nice condo, as you can probably tell.
We had actually been in this condo two or three years ago. We did their three bathrooms, and we were lucky enough that they brought us back.
But there are a lot of challenges to working in condos.
Host:
I was going to say we will do it later, but I am going to ask now because I love the finished work.
It is described as the Coastal-Inspired Kitchen, and obviously the color palette is very coastal.
But the other thing I noticed was the tile: that ripple, wave, sandy-shores kind of feeling.
Where did you guys find that?
Mike:
Isn’t that a cool tile?
This is the third time we have used this tile.
If you come to our showroom on Industrial Drive in Monona, you can get a look at it too.
These are actually three feet long, I believe, by a foot wide. We call them very big tile, and it has some texture to it. It does look wavy.
We had a kitchen remodel where it was kind of an addition. We tore part of a house off, built it back on bigger and better, and then did the kitchen. We used it there as a backsplash.
Believe it or not, the time before that, maybe five or six years ago, we used this tile in a basement remodel with a very nice wet bar. We actually built a back bar with posts, like an old-school back bar, and used this tile between the posts. We sort of built it around this tile.
The homeowners loved this tile, and it has really grown on me too. I love the look of it.
Host:
Looking at their style, they do have really good taste.
Mike, oftentimes when we talk about some of these smaller kitchens, this is a galley-style kitchen. There are options like doing little bump-outs or those types of things.
Not so much on a condo, is there?
The outside wall is the outside wall. You are not moving that one inch whatsoever.
How does that design process differ from a standard home?
Mike:
It is tougher because you are trying to accomplish all the same things.
You want a kitchen to perform well as a kitchen.
If you look around the stove now, you are going to see lots of countertop on either side. That is a big goal.
Same thing on the sink on the other side.
It is sort of a galley, kind of a modified galley. You can go in and out both ends.
We got a nice pantry in on the end, a very nice little pantry.
We opened it up as much as we could.
But, yes, there are things that hem you in on a condo. There are certain points where loads might be coming down. You cannot get rid of that. We cannot change how this building was built.
The other thing we are hemmed in by is usually mechanical stuff.
We cannot just take the stove and move it four feet down because we are not going to have anything to vent it into. A lot of times, there is no way for us to get from one spot to another with pipes, venting, or plumbing stacks.
If you notice in this kitchen, we opened up the wall in front of the sink, trying to include it with the rest of the house and bring it to the rest of the house.
We could not get rid of that wall. There were heat runs going upstairs through there. There were point loads coming down, meaning there was weight coming down there. The plumbing stack was probably right there too, and we could not do a lot about that.
All in all, when you have fewer options, you might think design would be easier because the stove has to stay here and the sink has to stay here.
But the truth is, you still want to accomplish all of the things you could in a larger kitchen.
Host:
Does that force a little bit more creativity in the design process?
As you mentioned, the sink is where the sink is, and this wall has to stay here because we cannot move it. You cannot go down to the basement and make those shifts to move a wall.
Does that force a different level of creativity and imagination to pull that off?
Mike:
I think it does.
A lot of times, people think in terms of big things: “What if we tear out this wall?”
It forces you to look at it and say, “If we have a 12-foot wall here, can we make it an 11-foot wall?”
Our designers will ask us, “Okay, we cannot eliminate it, but can we widen out the doorways?”
You can see we did eliminate one wall that was not load-bearing and not being used for much. We rerouted a couple of things into our new wall, and that did happen.
I think you start looking for some of those small things.
Every inch now becomes important. If we can open things up a little bit, we will.
We did a pass-through in front of the sink. It is whatever we can do to get that kitchen to join the rest of the house. That is what we were doing.
Host:
You mentioned that pantry, and that was something I was going to ask you about.
Was there a pantry there previously, or did you guys include that?
Mike:
There was a pantry there.
It basically did not have much in it. It had some very basic shelving and was not organized well.
We were happy to see it because we knew right away that we could use that space.
Just to prove my point about the last conversation, on the right side of that pantry, if you open up that end cabinet, what you are going to find is kind of like half a cabinet.
That is because there was a heat stack and HVAC stack going all the way from the basement up in that corner.
We were able to get that down to about a 12-inch-tall pipe that we got into the wall, to eliminate it, make it look better, and give some more room to the pantry.
All those little gains really add up.
I live in an old farmhouse, and my wife would love to have a pantry like this.
Even though this is kind of modest compared to some of the ones we have done, I think it is beautiful. It really serves the purpose, has a lot of storage, and looks very nice.
Host:
That is the thing that jumped out to me with the features of this pantry.
It is not just an open room you walk into with simple shelving.
After I asked you, I scrolled down and looked at some of the before pictures, and I thought, “Oh, it is a pretty basic room.”
Then you look at the after, and you have great shelving, that nice butcher block countertop, cabinets, and drawers.
Really maximizing not only places for storage, but also the usefulness of that area, has to be huge in a condo.
Mike:
Yes.
Your eye is desperate for any of that storage.
I do not know what people do when they do not have something like this, or maybe a tall cabinet.
We generally try to design those in, but sometimes when you have a modest house, maybe not that big of a kitchen, it is tough to get those elements in there.
We were sure happy to see it. It was there, and it gave us a bunch to work with.
We did explore, “What if we use that space and make the kitchen bigger?”
I think we went through that exercise because it is at the end of the kitchen.
We thought maybe we could use that space and try to give the kitchen a bigger feel.
But in the end, it would have ended up being kind of an odd space. It just did not naturally fit.
You can get a great view of that now with the CAD programs that are out there and the one we use. It gives you a very realistic rendering of what this is going to look like.
When you start to explore those options, our designers are showing you what that could look like.
Host:
I know we have talked about going through the process, and oftentimes there is one design where you say, “This is it.”
But you always try to do a couple of different ones.
Is this one of those case-in-points where the one that was selected and built is such a perfect fit for that space, but there were other designs that maybe had things shifted around just to explore a little more and be sure?
Mike:
Yes, I am sure there were.
We always try, even when it is apparent that you only really have one way to go, to do two different looks, even if one does not work.
The reason for doing that is sometimes you can steal an idea out of the plan that did not work.
You can say, “Listen, 90 percent of this just does not make any sense, but I really like this. Is there a way we can incorporate that?”
As a designer, you want to get away from this thing where you just have a first impression in your head of how you think it should go.
Maybe there is some clutter in your brain from a past project, and you are carrying that in there without thinking about it.
When I am talking to our design team, I want them to design something new and at least go through the exercise, even if we know we are going to be going back to that first design.
Host:
You ever see the movie The Big Lebowski, the point where he is talking about, “My thinking on this has been too rigid”?
You want to expand out.
That is a great thing about working with Mike and the team at Edge Construction: getting those options and maybe expanding into things you had never thought of when it comes to a remodel, whether it is a kitchen or another space, a nice home on the isthmus, a nice condo around town, new construction, breaking ground, a nice complete new home, or an addition.
Mike and the team at Edge Construction would love to talk with you.
Pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Mike, I have to guess with the market out there, a lot of folks are choosing to — when they traditionally may have thought about listing and buying new — say, “You know what? We love the neighborhood. We love a lot of the house, but not everything.”
A lot of folks seem to be saying, “We are going to stay and spend money on doing a fantastic remodel.”
Do you see a lot of that, where people say, “When it comes to planning a home remodel, we decided to do a remodel because we love the area”?
Mike:
There is also the rate influence on the remodeling market right now.
Sean, I have to ask you: How would you feel about trading your 3 percent loan on your house for maybe 7.25 percent?
Host:
Painful. No.
Mike:
Me either.
I do not want to do that either.
I think these are always good times for remodeling.
Madison is so short of single-family homes that I do not see a cutback in this. I think we are just not going to have enough inventory to satisfy the demand.
For those of us who own a house, you are in a great spot.
Or maybe you got into a house and just do not like how it is. That remodeling does need to happen.
It has been a good year for our business, and I just think business is kind of steady. It just does not change.
Host:
It is interesting when you mention the conditions overall in Dane County and this area, as well as nationally. Some of this stuff is a little bit different.
When you talk about a shortage of single-family homes, I think people hear that nationally too.
Mike:
You have to be careful about importing national news here, especially on housing.
The national news is only looking at the national builders and trends in big cities.
When you live in Madison, you do not understand the difference.
If we build 1,200 or so houses a year here, Phoenix builds around 100,000. Miami is around 80,000.
You cannot import that news here.
Madison is in a great spot, especially if you already own a home. If you do not, I think it is tough to get in, and I hope there are options for you.
But remodeling is just a fact of life.
Host:
If you guys ever open Edge Construction West out in Arizona or somewhere warm, I know a guy who would gladly do the show from your western location during the winter months.
Mike:
Warming up a little bit.
Host:
Exactly.
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
We will talk about some of the reasons why folks remodel, kind of the impetus for starting that conversation.
If you have already had that conversation with your spouse and you are saying, “Let’s start that process,” Mike and the team at Edge Construction would love to talk with you.
Just pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
The Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction continues now on News Talk 1310 WIBA.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. We are hanging out this morning, as we do every weekend, with Mike Twohig of Edge Construction.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We left off last segment talking about some of the reasons why folks are sticking where they are and why people are saying, “We are going to stay here, and we are going to do some remodeling.”
Let’s talk a little bit about some of the factors that go into the “why” of the remodel.
Mike, I know you get a chance to meet with folks. What drives that?
Is it simply outdated or worn?
Is it sometimes, “I hate this kitchen”?
Mike:
Yes, I bet you do.
Host:
Can they tear it down? Do you let people do a ceremonial swing?
Mike:
Oh man, I would let them if they promised not to hurt themselves, I guess.
Sometimes they just get sick of looking at it.
The flip-culture thing that we went through the last while — did that start to wane, by the way?
Host:
I think so.
Mike:
It is 15 years later, and I hope we are through it.
A lot of people did things to houses just to get them bought or to sell them. They bought the house cheap, painted something, and called it good.
A lot of things got covered up.
I think homeowners now are largely through it, and we fixed a lot of those things.
But I feel bad for you if you are still stuck in it and saying, “This person Martha-Stewarted this house and did cutesy little stuff, but it is just not holding up.”
That does not ever take the place of a real remodel.
At some point, somebody has to get in there, tear it apart, tear it down, start over, and fix structural things, mechanical things, and all that stuff behind the drywall.
Then it is drywall and all the finishes.
Sometimes there are life events.
We have a bigger job going now where we tore the roof off a house in Middleton, and we are going up a floor.
This family is gaining two bathrooms, three bedrooms, and a much bigger kitchen downstairs. We are straightening out some of their common areas so they have more room and things are opened up.
They bought the house when they had one kid, and now they have more, and maybe more coming.
Life events change things.
I think we have talked about this forever.
You like your neighborhood, your house, your school district, your friends, and the area you are living in.
You just need your house to be different or updated.
Again, somebody needs to do a real remodel on that stuff.
I think that is so healthy for housing.
By the way, houses were never meant to be built and then just have somebody do little things to them. Then the flippers get ahold of them and kind of do not do them justice.
Houses should last for several hundred years, and it is hard to do that if you are not really fixing them up once in a while.
I think this is a good balance.
We have some new houses getting built in town, and we have people fixing up a lot of the houses in town.
Host:
With the priority of longevity and people staying in their houses longer, of course you want it done right.
You mentioned houses lasting 100-plus years should be the goal.
I have to guess, for a lot of folks contacting you, that is their drive. They are saying, “We want this remodel done, but we want it done right.”
Maybe they have been to EdgeConstructionCompany.com, have been listening to the show, or heard from folks about the kind of work you guys do at Edge Construction.
I have to guess that mindset is top of mind for people you work with, saying, “We want something that is not only going to look great today, but last for years and years to come.”
Mike:
Yes, that is a big change.
I do not know if you remember the time before everything came down in 2006, 2007, and 2008. The stat back then was that people stayed in a house for, I think, six years on average.
Now, you have to take my mom, who has been in her house for 50-some years, and average it with whoever else.
People were always moving up. It was always the move-up house. Go a little bigger, go a little better.
As my price increased and my value increased on my house, we were in that time where people just were not doing what we talked about.
There was not much incentive to do a real remodel, or even put good products into a new house, because you kind of felt like you were doing it for the next owner.
Why would I go through this pain and suffering just to provide a nicer product for the next person who is going to be in this house?
It is healthy when people stay in houses longer.
Host:
Something you touched on when you were talking about the house you guys are working on out in Middleton is comfort.
I see a note here that uses the word comfort to describe that.
That is an area I had not thought a lot about — making the space not just more visually appealing and functional, but making it more comfortable.
Whether it is for a growing family or somebody who is aging and thinking about physical limitations that may be coming, making sure the space looks great and is visually comforting, but also physically comfortable, is important.
Mike:
Yes.
A lot of times during design, you are trying to get a good idea of how the space is going to feel later on.
Do I have enough room between my cabinets and appliances? Are my walkways big enough? What are the color choices?
All of that stuff plays in.
That is where good designers can be such a help because, as a homeowner, you can get tunnel vision. You are living in this space.
We have worked for people who were just happy anything was happening. That is one level.
But the next level is, “Is this going to work? Is this space going to work if our family grows?”
Maybe somebody moves back home, God forbid. Maybe somebody’s mom moves in when she gets older.
Maybe you are young and healthy now, but you have an injury, break your leg skiing or something, and you do not have a first-floor bath.
We need to think about all of those things.
Then you throw in, “Okay, it has to serve my family, but I also want to entertain once in a while. I want to have extended family over or friends over to watch the Packers beat the Bears.”
Host:
Sorry, Sean. The Bears look pretty good, though.
I do not like the Bears.
Mike:
No. I do not.
Host:
I have drafted Bears in the past.
I actually have Justin Jefferson with the Vikings in my fantasy league, and I am always afraid I am going to tune in and he is going to do something great. I despise the Vikings so much, and I will be torn.
My aunt and uncle live in Minneapolis, and he is a season ticket holder.
I always say it must be so hard to play with both hands around your throat.
You mentioned football season. I have to ask about that.
Obviously, we are in football season, and big events — Packers Sunday, Badgers Saturday, Super Bowls — do you get people saying, as part of that comfort and entertaining, “I want to bring people over, not just to show off the space, but to make it a nice place to gather around the TV and do those fun events”?
Mike:
It is funny how your priorities change in the fall.
In Wisconsin, we have the Holy Land up here.
It definitely comes up.
I think it is not just the Packers and the Badgers. It is also that we are moving from the outside pretty soon to the inside.
I woke up the other day, and it was 43 degrees or something. It is fine if it just does not get colder. Can we just stop there? That would be okay.
Host:
Speaking of those temperatures, energy efficiency is something I wanted to ask you about.
We will do that coming up in the next segment.
We will talk a little bit about some of the other reasons folks choose to do a remodel.
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We will talk about energy efficiency, and we will also talk about the great benefits when it comes to overall homeownership.
We will get those details from Mike next as the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction continues here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is easy to remember: 636-EDGE.
We are talking this week about some of the reasons why folks are choosing to remodel.
Mike, energy efficiency has seen some amazing advances, probably none more than lighting.
We are not talking about going from incandescent to CFLs, which I think was kind of a whole debate, and probably for a really good reason.
What is available now for lighting is pretty darn amazing, isn’t it?
Mike:
Yes.
All the LED stuff has just taken over.
I did not foresee this. I did not foresee it being this nice, actually. But they were persistent, the LED people, whoever they are somewhere in a basement.
They are the base lighting for everywhere now.
For us, it looks like a recessed can light, but it is actually an LED fixture that is an inch thick. It is a pressed fixture, so it is pressed out of metal and has a light built into it.
The whole bottom of the fixture is the light.
The cone spreads out really wide, versus having a bulb up in a hole in the ceiling where you have a narrow cone and a lot of shadows.
You can pick your flavor and pick your color, and you can control it all with dimmers.
We daylight with that stuff.
We get a bunch of them in there. Our standard package means nobody ever really needs to add more, to be honest.
The thing is to light it and daylight it, but be able to control it.
So if you want to tame it down because it is too bright, you can fix that.
Host:
It is pretty amazing.
Obviously, not only do they look great and light up a room really well, but they are controllable, energy efficient, and they last.
Mike:
Yes.
That, to me, is starting to be one of the biggest factors on whether or not a product is green, for lack of a better term.
There is a lot of stuff out there that has that green stamp.
Okay, if it does not use much power but you have to replace it in six months, it does not seem very green to me.
The LED fixtures last thousands of hours, tens of thousands of hours, and they really do not use much.
Wiring is a little bit easier. You can put more things on a circuit and not overload it.
I will use myself as an example.
We have LED under-cabinet lights in our kitchen that we remodeled several years back, and I leave those on low at night.
It is nice, and I know it is an LED fixture. It is not lighting up the room, but even if it was, it is not really costing much power.
We know energy is a little more expensive right now than it has been for a while.
If we are talking about energy, I also want to hit on the exciting subject of insulation.
Host:
I know you are dying.
I am sitting down.
Mike:
This is one where I think it is underutilized: the different types of insulation, where we should put it, and how we manage it.
We call it the envelope.
The outside is the envelope, and we want to control our air and where it is coming from.
In a typical house now, even new houses that are getting built now, air makes its way through the insulation into the house, through stud cavities, around outlet holes, and through little perforations in the house.
Given a choice, I would not want to breathe air that comes through insulation, drywall, and little holes around things, because dirt, allergens, and other stuff collect over time.
We want to have a break on the outside, really insulate it well, and then bring our air in from a different spot.
We bring fresh air in, filter it, and then that is what feeds the house.
R-19 is generally why people went to two-by-six walls in new construction a bunch of years back.
Now we can get R-19 on a two-by-four wall.
If I have the choice, and we have a little bit of budget, it does not cost that much more. We will do rigid foam on the outside or flash-and-batt, which is what we call it.
We will spray an inch of foam on the inside and then insulate with something on the inside that may be a dense batt.
I wanted to talk about dense-pack insulation today.
We get that break on the outside, and it is kind of a frost break too.
In Wisconsin, when it is 30 below zero, you are not thinking about what is happening to your house, right?
But you have warm air and cold air meeting inside that stud cavity, and when that happens, it produces moisture.
That can cause all kinds of problems with mold and different things.
There are lots of reasons to get that insulation right.
Host:
Moisture is never good inside.
You mentioned a term there that I had not heard before. What was that word?
Mike:
Dense-pack.
We are actually doing this in a house next week.
It is where you staple fabric on the inside of the studs, on the inside of the walls, and then use a hose to blow insulation into those stud spaces.
Insulation goes everywhere inside there and packs hard.
Usually insulation is kind of loose. You go up in your attic, and it is really loose and floating.
This is more of a packed insulation, but it still has lots of airspace in there.
It is a wonderful way to insulate. You can get the R-value you need, it slows down air infiltration, and it is a really nice barrier along with it.
It is not something that costs that much more.
It is a nice way to go.
Host:
I like what you are saying this morning, Mike.
When we talk about energy efficiency, for good reason, you want to be environmentally friendly.
One of the things that, from talking with you years ago, I remember you brought up, and I thought it was an important way to look at this: the best thing for the environment is something that never ends up in the landfill.
Having something built to last and stand the test of time matters.
Using green materials and other things is all good and well, but if they are not going to hold up and end up in a landfill somewhere, it kind of defeats the purpose.
When we talk about doing a remodel and doing quality remodeling, there is nothing better for the environment than doing something that is going to be there for a lifetime.
Mike:
It is not just the products.
If we put a product in that fails and needs to be replaced, that product had to be produced, trucked, and all those things that impact that.
It is not just the cost.
If we do a good job on design, there is a good chance that remodel is going to last a lot longer too.
A great design is appealing. It does not just accomplish what you want to do. It is also appealing to, hopefully, a wide group of people so somebody comes in and does not hate it or want to tear it back out.
That design piece is important in every way.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner at Edge Construction.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is a great website. There are links to Houzz, Pinterest, and Facebook.
If you have been looking at those things and thinking about doing some remodeling, Mike would love to talk with you.
All you have to do is pick up the phone and give them a call at Edge Construction: 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We will continue our conversation and talk a little bit more about the reasons why folks choose to remodel.
We will do that next as the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
You are listening to the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction. Email your questions to EdgeConstructionRadio@gmail.com.
Once again, here is Sean Prebil on News Talk 1310 WIBA.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction here on 1310 WIBA.
We are chatting with Mike Twohig, owner at Edge Construction, this morning.
If you are thinking about doing a project, or maybe you have been thinking about making your house work better for you and look beautiful, they would love to talk with you at Edge Construction.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Check them out online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
They are always being updated, so you want to check back often.
We are talking this week about some of the reasons why folks choose to remodel.
Mike, one of the areas that should never be overlooked, and unfortunately some people do not always think about this, is safety.
I know we have talked on the show about some of the things you have found when you open up walls and the conditions are not always the best.
But even general safety matters.
I do not think people realize this: things like electrical have come a long way from even 10 years ago, or even a few years ago.
Plumbing and those types of areas have too.
Making sure the structure is safe and that upgrades are made properly is important.
You were able to tell me about some of these products that are made for insulation, things that are coated and have fire resistance.
Safety is a big factor for remodeling, isn’t it?
Mike:
It is.
That is another reason, if you watch the TV version where they sugarcoat it and just do the things you can see — the finishes — that is not enough.
Sometimes they try things out without peeking behind that drywall, and that really matters.
I am judging by the things we have found, from rot to water that had been getting in over the years and rotted out some framing members behind the wall.
You mentioned electrical.
We just had one recently. It was a water-damage project where a bath leaked on an upstairs bathroom.
We usually do not do that kind of insurance work, but this was a past customer, so we were going to work on their house.
It ruined some things in their kitchen and first floor.
When we took the opportunity to add some LED lighting and fix things electrically, Dale called me and said, “There are a lot of these wires that have been chewed by mice.”
I said, “All right, we can actually test for that.”
He has a way to test for that, some resistance test, I believe, and identified how much of the wire in the house had been chewed through by mice.
Believe it or not, I do not know when it was, maybe 30 years ago, the manufacturers, in their infinite wisdom, made some wire that tasted really good to mice.
They do not do that anymore. The mice tend not to like it unless you are really not feeding them.
We had to replace some wiring in there.
We are not going to leave something like that, obviously.
We chased down and pulled some new wires where we had to fix the rest of the house too.
We find plumbing issues too.
When we are doing your bath, we are always going to replace the valves.
This house had a prior remodel where the valves did not get replaced, or maybe an inferior product got put in. That valve failed and caused over six figures’ worth of damage in this house.
It is really worth it for us and for you to fix all those things that could be wrong, or could be wear and tear, or maybe a little bit of rot mixed in that needs to be fixed.
Host:
One of the big core things at Edge Construction is leaving things better and getting things up to modern standards.
I think people are sometimes surprised at how much detail goes into that.
But that is something you guys really strive for at Edge Construction.
It is not only for longevity, but also, as we talk about that safety aspect, modern products are more reliable and safer.
When we talk about electrical in spaces like a bathroom or a kitchen, modern technology and modern pieces of equipment have different safety features that even a few years ago just were not there.
Some of them, by the way, can be frustrating. But they are there for a good reason, aren’t they?
Mike:
They are.
You are probably alluding to the arc-fault stuff.
These are newer code. They have been around for the last couple of years, but this last January, or whenever we had to start abiding by the new code, things really changed.
Now we have to do arc-fault protection — arc-fault breakers in your electrical boxes and breaker box, and sometimes arc-fault-protected outlets.
They can be frustrating because appliances that are a little bit older can trigger the arc fault.
If you remember the old vacuums, when you started them up, you could see a spark in there.
That is an arc.
Something is arcing in there. Power is arcing in there.
This outlet or breaker can detect that, believe it or not, and trips.
Now your old vacuum that you love means you have to run a cord from your neighbor’s house to use it.
It can be frustrating.
We have had light fixtures that tripped these arc faults.
I think the technology has to catch up.
They wrote the codes, and we have arc-fault breakers, but I think they need to get better.
When GFI first came around, now everybody knows what GFI outlets are. They are in your bathroom, kitchen over countertops, garage, or basement.
They were a little frustrating. I do not think they were great the minute they were born.
Now we have them, and they work pretty well.
They have a little green light that tells you when it is working and a red one when it is not.
It is less frustrating, and I think we are going to get there with arc fault too.
Host:
As we talk about the benefits of safety and the benefits of a remodel in general, oftentimes it is the things you see: the great remodel that looks beautiful.
But oftentimes, it is the things you do not always notice that really make all the difference.
That is a great thing about working with Mike and the team at Edge Construction.
They would love to work with you and make your space not only beautiful, but also perform and function very well.
Just pick up the phone and give them a call this morning at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show here on 1310 WIBA.