Coming up on today's episode. But essentially water that kind of drips along your

foundation can actually erode your foundation. When your gutters are in place, you

know, you don't necessarily have to worry about that. But if your gutters clog and

they don't function properly, you know, you could get to a situation where, you

know, water is actually backing up into your gutters. They can fill up and overflow.

And then you're dealing with the same exact scenario is not having gutters. Well,

the water's going to flow down and it's going to kind of, you know, it's going to

impact your foundation. This is the You Ask, the Pros Answer podcast. Do you have

questions about an upcoming exterior contracting project? We've got answers. Welcome to

the You Ask, the Pros Answer podcast.

Hey, welcome to the You Ask the Pros Answer podcast. Your questions answered by the

pros you trust, presented by pro exteriors. My name Is Cole? I am the host on the

show.

It's getting colder outside. I don't know if you've noticed that. The leaves are

falling. Actually, where I live here in northern Kentucky, we got a record snowfall

earlier on the week. And it got me thinking, my house is not prepared for the

colder months. And so I want to get prepared and I want you to get prepared. So

today, you're going to have a chance to hear from owner and president of pro

exteriors, Aaron Rogers. I pepper him with all kinds of questions about what to do

to get your house and my house ready for the colder months now this is a two -part

episode today you will hear part one next week yeah you're gonna hear part two uh

so without further ado let's hop right in Aaron how you doing I'm doing wonderful

Cole how are you I'm doing pretty well today it's been pretty quiet around here

today yeah well Well, Aaron, before we jump into today's question,

I want to give just a brief rundown of what this show is for people that are just

finding it for the first time. Okay. Every week, we try to answer a question that

we've been asked either by one of our customers, or maybe it's a question that we

as a homeowner or as a consumer have asked ourselves or gone to the web looking

for answers. And then we try to have an honest conversation with somebody that is

an expert in that field. And so today is no different. We're going to tackle a

question with the time that we have remaining. I wanted to start with a quick

story. So Aaron, you know this, but some of our watchers and listeners won't.

So I moved not too long ago from southern Delaware, where our company is based,

moved to northern Kentucky. And we lived near the beach.

And so everybody that lives near the beach wants to have an outdoor shower, right?

Yep. We had a pool in our backyard. When we built the house, we wanted to have an

outdoor shower. And it was lovely, but it was just one more thing to maintain and

to keep up, well, the first winter that we were there, we did all the things we

thought we should do. You know, we shut the water off to it. It had a hot and

cold feed. So I went down at our crossbase turned it off, just like I do with our

hose bibs. Yep.

Went out the following spring to turn it all back on and turned the shower on for

the first time. And water did come out of the shower head, but it also came out

right in front of me from the mixing ball, the handle.

I was like, what in the world? So I had to call a plumber, and he's like, listen,

I see this every year. I don't know how many customers he goes to. He's like,

listen, it doesn't matter. You can turn the water source off. You can run it dry.

Water still sits behind there. And inevitably, the water freezes and it breaks the

components that are inside. It's like, oh, great. It's like, no problem. I can fix

it. I was like, yeah, I know you can fix it, but it costs money just to get our

outdoor shower up and running again. Time and money. Everything is possible with time

and money. Yep.

I think we ended up with the same problem two winters in a row. I can't remember.

Anyway, we now live in northern Kentucky. We don't have an outdoor shower. So that's

at least one less thing to worry about. but that

because I'm done with the hot weather. We had this taste of fall last week,

and now it's 90 degrees again today. I mean, it's gorgeous here.

It's only in the 70s here. Well, if you were here, it's gorgeous. All right.

But you're here.

I know living specifically on the East Coast, we have like 25 seasons.

There's like summer, late summer. There's false fall, I think I've seen people say.

And then there's real fall. Yeah. All right. So this conversation could go all over

the place. I want to kind of direct us from kind of like you shower. You shower

from the top down. Yep. At least that's what my mama taught me when I was younger.

Because you wash your dirty hair in it anyway. I get it. Okay,

so we're going to start from the roof down. I'm going to kind of feed you some

questions and then hopefully you can make me smarter by the end of this. Okay, I'll

do my best. All right. The top of my house, I don't have like a cool cupola or

whatever on top of it, is just the roof. So what are some of the things that I

need to be doing to prepare my my roof for the colder months uh well realistically

if you're able to get on your roof the easiest thing to do is get up there and

walk around enjoy the space um you know look at all your penetrations uh look at

your chimney um you know check out your gutters check all your pipes make sure

nothing's clogged make sure uh no critters have decided to take a to take up

residence um you know checking all your flashing making your flashing making sure

your flashing are all tight uh trying to do an inspection to see if there's you

know has there been wind damage that maybe you didn't notice um you know has

anything gotten on your roof uh you know in this area randomly we i think we just

got a call yesterday uh in regards to some turkey buzzards or some people call them

on turkey vultures getting onto somebody's house and they basically they'll just sit

there and eat the eat the shingles right off they're pull them off with their claws

um so you know getting up there before the winter months is is always a good idea

uh you know preparing for a long winter of not having to get on that roof and do

any sort of repairs because winter's the absolute worst time to do repairs on your

roof uh just trying to get ahead of all that stuff before you know the cold

weather sets in um you know most of this stuff is pretty simple we kind of look

for the same things in the in the fall that we do in the spring you know the

harshest the harshest time of the year is going to be the winter um that's the

time where we want to get up there we want to inspect it right before it gets

cold and right after it gets cold uh to just make sure everything kind of you know

made it through without issue um we always recommend you do this you know every

year so it's it's just like you know you go around and inspect your car you lift

your hood every once in a while you inspect the uh inspect the engine check the

fluids and whatnot this is kind of the same thing um but yeah so if your roof is

good then the next obvious place to go is the next place down which would be your

gutters um checking to see your gutters see what debris is in there currently uh

This is also a great time to clean these gutters out, not only the gutters

themselves, but also your downspouts. People sometimes fail to realize that, you know,

all the stuff that goes into your gutters ends up in your downspouts. And although

you can see the debris that's in your gutters, you can't always see the debris that

builds up into your downspouts. Especially, you know, if you have,

you know, pop -up drains or underground drains for your downspouts and you can't

actually see what comes out the other end. You know, a lot of times those things

can get clogged or roots can get into the underground piping. That may not be

working quite as well as you as you think it is. You know, we talk about adding

clean outs and stuff to, you know, the bottom of your downspouts just to be able

to kind of peek in there and check on everything. But yeah, great time to clean

your gutters out clean your downspouts out um seal up anything that might need

sealing you know your corners your uh the end caps and and things like that um and

then honestly like if if you live on a property that has a ridiculous amount of

trees or bushes or uh if your neighbor has a bunch of them and that stuff tends

to blow over on your side of the yard uh this may be a great time to talk about

possibly doing gutter guards. If you don't mind cleaning your gutters out twice a

year, then don't worry about it. But ultimately, you know, the investment of gutter

guards can save you money long term. You know, it does kind of take some of the

wear and tear off the gutters, make sure they function properly. And it does tend

to kind of control that debris. So yeah. So I can remember it's been a long time,

if I'm being honest, since I've inspected any gutters, my own or otherwise. But I

can remember as a kid, we lived in the woods. I mean, we had a house in the

woods. It's not like my parents had us living just in the woods.

But I remember being up on a ladder and checking the gutters, and it was very easy

to tell what was in there. How do you inspect the downspout itself? Do you

recommend, like, shooting a hose down it and seeing if water comes out the other

end or honestly that's the easiest way throw a hose up there um you know put it

right in the down spout you kind of should have a rough idea of what the amount

of water that's going in you know that same amount of water should be coming out

the other end or if you put your downspout up there or you put your hose in the

downspot at the top and you know in the process you you see some debris coming out

um you know that could be kind of a telltale sign you you can uh you can throw a

power washer up there put the down rod you know put the rod in there and kind of

put some higher pressure water in there um that doesn't always give you the best uh

best solution sometimes you may end up having a if you're not getting the proper

flow you may have to actually kind of take the elbows off and and spray down from

the actual straight pipe okay uh but again if you're handy enough to do it, go for

it. If not, you know, most exterior contractors will offer you some sort of

maintenance plan where they can come out there and do that stuff for you twice a

year. It's usually a pretty small investment in order to kind of keep everything

flowing properly. Yeah, speaking of calling somebody, I was going to say, what if

you want no part of climbing up on your roof? You make it sound like that's an

exciting thing. For you, I know it's, I've seen you eat lunch on a rooftop. Yeah,

I had a full pizza up there.

I would have a hard enough time just ordering pizza delivery to a roof, let alone

being on it. So what do you recommend in that instance? You suggest and I take

like a drone or like calling somebody? You can do a drone. You know, we as the

professionals will always say leave it to the professionals. We know the things to

look at. We know ultimately kind of the high priority areas that we're,

what am I trying to say? We ultimately know the target areas,

the areas that are most likely to fail, most likely to have issues. We can,

for the most part, you know, because we do this every single day, we know exactly

what to look at. We have no issue whatsoever getting on your roof and inspecting

the entire roof. We'll climb all over that thing with no issue whatsoever. We'll do

it safely. You know, we're licensed and sure. So if we fall, you're still good.

Yeah. But yeah, honestly, calling a licensed professional and talk to them about an

annual maintenance plan. It's one of those things that, you know, it's a small price

that realistically it's a nice little piece of mind. So, you know,

those things oftentimes are outside of your normal warranty, you know, wear and tear,

things that happen naturally in the course of just a house being in the position

that it's in. You know, you may have a warranty on your roof, but it doesn't

really cover like getting up there and doing, you know, the general maintenance

things that kind of come along with owning a home.

So yeah. I noticed, you know, our neighborhood is still being built.

Our house is being built every day. The neighbors right across from us,

Yeah. Even if you have one 12 inch tab missing, if that tab is missing,

you have exposed nails. Exposed nails, you know, over the course of a winter, you

know, they can rust out. But kind of the worst case scenario thing that would

happen was water would get into the actual nail hole. And if it freezes, it

actually expands and can actually force that nail out, which kind of could

potentially put you in a situation where you're losing more singles but yeah i mean

anytime you see a single off it's the the best suggestion is to get it taken care

of ASAP so yeah if i'm being honest i've tried to find a non -know -it -all kind of

a way to share with them like hey you guys might not even notice this because i

see it because we live across a street and i have a different angle to be able to

see they might not even realize it and i feel kind of bad but um all right so it

makes sense to me especially once the leaves have fallen to check the gutters but

what is it uh what are some of the things that can take place if the gutters are

clocked besides just having water run down the face of your house what is it that

yeah i should be concerned about well so gutters are there for a reason gutters are

there to kind of you know I manage the water coming off your roof. It is code

that we have gutters here in our county. I think most states and counties have that

code in place now. But essentially water that kind of drips along your foundation

can actually erode your foundation. When your gutters are in place, you don't

necessarily have to worry about that. But if your gutters clog and they don't

function properly, you know, you could get to a situation where, you know, water is

actually backing up into your gutters. They can fill up and overflow. And then

you're dealing with the same exact scenario is not having gutters. Well, the water's

going to flow down and it's going to kind of, you know, it's going to impact your

foundation. The other issue you may run into is if water sits in your gutters and

it gets super, super cold, you know, that freezes. Typically, most things on the

outside of your home don't do really, really well with standing water that ends up

freezing. as soon as that is

And just calls, you know, kind of another maintenance issue or worse calls you to

actually have to replace a section of gutter, which, you know, hundreds of dollars,

potentially thousands of dollars at, you know, every, every scenario is a little bit

different. But again, a lot of this is just about being proactive. These are the

things you're going to do, you know, every single year to kind of keep your home

and tip top condition to get maximum life out of, out of your home so yeah and

doing a little bit of prep for this episode i i saw that clog gutters could lead

to ice dams is that correct something you see so how does that work yeah so our

winters here on the east coast tend to be rather they're mild um so ice damning is

not a huge concern for us now when when you go north of us let's say we go two

hours north of us where they get you know consistent snow throughout the winter they

definitely get you know kind of cooler temperatures uh ice damning is basically when

water backs up underneath the shingles and it freezes and when it freezes it pops

and then as it melts it you know more water gets underneath there and it freezes

and it pops uh that can actually get to the point where it pops the shingles along

the bottom and water wants to go somewhere so it's going to follow the path of

least Since as it melts and it gets underneath the shingles, it's going to go

inside eventually. So we don't deal with it that often here.

The little bit of times that we've kind of ripped a roof apart and there's a lot

of surface rot at the bottom, there's a possibility that it is ice damning, but

it's typically kind of minimal. But yeah, you know, all of the water on your home

kind of ends up at the bottom of your roof you know the the largest volume of

water is right there at the gutter line if your gutters aren't controlling that

water it has to go somewhere um i've seen ice dams in some scenarios i've seen

fascia get rotted out where the water has to go somewhere it's getting into the

gutters and has no way to get out and it backs up and behind the gutters which

gets behind the fascia metal which rots up to two by six sub fascia which which,

you know, that's thousands of dollars. Sure. There's almost never a week that goes

by here where we don't have a repair where somebody basically has to have the

gutters removed, the fascia removed, the 2 -6 sub -fascia repaired, soffet replaced.

We've seen some pretty horrific situations where people don't have kickout flashings

where your gutter ties into kind of like where the siding is on another side of

your home. We consistently see situations where they don't have proper kickout

flashings there and water gets in between the siding and the end of the gutter and

it creates a very nasty mess down the side of the wall. So yeah,

these are all things that a professional, someone who knows what to look for, these

are all easy things for us to fix, but it has the potential to be hundreds to

thousands of dollars for you so yeah yeah all right before we move south on the

house you know we're working our way from the top down i want to take a quick

break we have a sponsor for this episode uh it just so happens that the sponsor is

is us it's pro exteriors but want to um pause real quick for a message from our

sponsor and we'll be right back and now a word from our sponsor

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All right, Aaron, so we've talked about the roof. We've talked about the gutters and

downspouts.

Let's go to windows and doors. What are some of the things? I can tell you I've

lived in.

you know, realistically how in depth you need to be with those inspections. You

know, some of the easy things to do is if, you know, if you've got ripped screens,

now's a great time to have them repaired. You can't really repair them in the

winter. Most screens these days are vinyl. Vinyl doesn't do really, really well in

the cold.

It's going to expand and contract. It's going to be contracted in the wintertime. As

soon as the summer gets here, you have the opportunity for that to expand and it

gets a little, If you've ever seen a screen kind of wave in the wind, yeah, that's

just because it expanded and now it's a little bit loose. Do you normally take the

screens out at your house?

Some people tend to take them out. It does, some screens do kind of, they don't,

they don't do great in wintertime. So, you know, rain comes in and then that rain

freezes and the extra weight on that vinyl, that vinyl screening can sometimes make

them sag or it can rip or it can pull it out of the channel there so yeah so

that's not quite as common now as it used to be i know a lot of people used to

uh go out and they take all their screens out for the winter and they storm in

the garage or storm in the basement the attic uh that's not quite as popular now

as it as it was at one time um anybody who's lived in an older home who's ever

had storm windows on the outside of their house knows that you you have your glass

for the for the winter time and you've got your screens for the summertime so that

was kind of you know more for that generation of home um not quite as popular now

you know most of our windows are vinyl uh the screens are all vinyl the frames are

metal or vinyl um so yeah but you know little things we're looking at the the

small little maintenance items, this is the time to go in. And if your screens are

dry -rotted, if your screens have tears, holes, what have you, this is a great time

to do it. You know, the inside of your home is nice and warm. All the bugs and

critters and everything else that's on the outside of your home, they can see that

warmth and they want a piece of it. So, you know, making sure your screens are

tight, making sure your windows open and close properly, making sure all your locking

mechanisms are operating properly, you know, these are all things you want to make

sure you're looking at, you know, twice a year, basically. So I've had,

we've had some windows in the past that had bad seals on them. I feel like I

could tell that because of the condensation that I saw on the inside. Are there any

other telltale signs that a windows, like the actual seal is no good and needs to

be replaced. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes you actually see the actual condensation and

sometimes your window just starts to kind of get foggy. And over time, it'll just

continue to get foggy and foggy. Most of your newer windows that are in the last,

say, 20 to 25 years, most of them will have lifetime replacement warranties

on the actual sash itself so if your window fails typically you can call the

original manufacturer you can get a replacement piece of glass scent and sometimes

they'll send you the full window sometimes it's just the glass but yeah um if you

have those seal failures then yeah call the manufacturer or call contractor have him

look at it uh we can usually tell exactly what the window was um this is one big

thing we always tell anybody because People don't realize what this sticker is on

for, but if you have vinyl windows and you look in the top of your window, in the

very top frame, there is a little sticker. That sticker typically has the

manufacturing info. It has the date of the original manufacturing of that window, and

it typically has a size or a serial number on there. That information is crucial

for us as contractors or if you're handy, for you as the consumer. that information

is what we need to order that replacement glass or that replacement.

actually fix that for you but yeah other things you want to look at is this is a

perfect time to kind of clean your windows cleaning the outside you know making them

nice and shiny before the for the cold weather hits while you're doing that you can

inspect all the all the insulation you know sometimes you'll have foam insulation

sometimes you'll have what looks like a little brush at the bottom of her window

that kind of keeps the critters out. You know, if those things are damaged or need

to be repaired, like now's the time. If you live in an older home, if you have an

old wood window, which we still have a considerable amount of old wood windows here,

any repairs that need to be done then, like now's the time. Because again,

same thing, water gets in there when it freezes it expands and it just kind of

creates a much larger issue so yeah all of this is just about basically getting

ahead of anything that could become a much larger more expensive repair we are it

seems like we live in a disposable society where yes and i've fallen into this

where you just rather assume replace the thing than repair it is it typically still

more affordable to have a repair done like yeah give you an instance for TVs yeah

there aren't TV repairman is like there used to be back in the tube TV days but

that's not the same thing in our industry right like repairs are a very real part

of our repairs are a very real part um doing them as soon as you see an issue

can it's the difference It's between, say, a $200 repair, $250 repair to,

you know, you wait a year because it doesn't look like it's leaking and now you

look up and all of a sudden there's a stain in the ceiling. I mean, it could go

from a $2 or $250 repair to a $1 ,500 repair in six months and nine months and a

year. So yeah, so like just do it all at the same time. Any reputable company when

they show up, if you call them for let's say your neighbor for instance you said

he has one tab off when we're up there we're going to go ahead and inspect

everything else at the same exact time you know we're going to make it worth our

while and we're going to make it worth your while if you're paying us the minimum

repair fee for us to come out you know we're going to offer you more than just

throwing up a tab and going thanks for your service and you know leave um but yeah

you know speaking of TVs like wife and I when we got married almost 18 years ago

our first TV we got a TV that Christmas it was a Samsung it was a 40 inch a 40

inch plasma or LCD we bought it at Best Buy and it was $1 ,500 so we still have

the TV it still works it does have a line down the center we have it out in our

garage it's perfect for the garage but yeah that was $1 ,500 back then.

I think you can get a 40 -inch TV now for $129 on Amazon. Yeah. Or close, very,

very close to it. So, yeah. So what would it cost you to have a TV repair guy or

somebody to come out and try and troubleshoot what the issue is? So, yeah. So

certain things 100%, price doesn't really dictate, like, having things repaired.

Yep. But very much when it comes to home services, get it done before it becomes a

larger issue. And then the next thing to really kind of remember is just let's just

use the last four years. Let's look at, you know, March of 2020, COVID hits.

The world goes into crisis. You know, we've seen a 40, 50 % increase in the service

trades as far as pricing goes for materials. Labor has gone way up because, you

know, the industry kind of went crazy. People aren't going into the trades. So

anything with, that's involving like service to your home, those prices are never

going to get cheaper. They are always going to be more expensive. During COVID, it

was completely realistic to have five or six price increases during a year. Things

are kind of regulated a little bit. So we're only seeing maybe one or two price

increases a year now. But this stuff is never going to get cheaper. So waiting

doesn't save you any money. Yeah. In most cases, it's only going to cost you more.

So yeah. All right. So I know we often lump windows with doors because they serve

similar functions. Are there any other tips you have for inspecting doors? So for

doors, uh, you know, we use doors way more than we use windows. Uh, you know, the

majority of society uses their HVA system for regulating their hot and cold.

and you don't quite pull the handle or turn the knob all the way and you slam

into the door as hard as you can and then look at it funny like why is the door

not working and then you realize that you turn it and it opens and then because

you hit it so hard the first time obviously the only way to close that door is to

slam it as hard as you can so yeah so you know that may not be the same

situation in every home but in my home our back door receives the brunt of the of

the wear and tear in our home so but being that that's the the way that things

usually work you know the weather stripping is uh tends to get ripped you know

that's a really easy repair you can get replacement kits it literally pulls out pops

right back in um the weather stripping on the bottom of your door there's a little

rubber seal that's supposed to kind of keep nice and tight to the bottom of bottom

of your threshold there if that starts to get ripped and starts to kind of fall

apart highly suggest you do that that keeps not only air from kind of going in out

but also keeps rain you know if you don't have a covered a covered porch or

anything like that over your door and essentially rain that gets at that back and

actually land on your threshold and get inside and then again we keep talking about

you know rain turns into ice in the wintertime if rain gets in there and then it

turns into ice, it can cause way, way, way, more issues. But yeah, those little

weather stripping pieces are super easy to pop in and pop out, really inexpensive.

That is something that we typically can say, like, we can do it for you. It's

going to be way cheaper for you to do it. These things are stock at all the big

box stores. It doesn't really take that much effort to do it. But yeah, and then

other things like you want your door to be, you know you should be able to kind

of give your door a medium amount of effort and it shuts and locks and you know

this is a great time to adjust the keeper to make sure that your handle is is

operating properly to make sure that when you shut the door that it's functioning

properly and actually fully setting into the weather stripping um to make sure that

you're not having a bunch of air gaps okay uh a great way to do that is to is

to do you see daylight you know can you feel a breeze coming through the the

bottom.

Yeah. So you lose a lot of air hot and cold through your doors because the weather

stripping typically gets a little, it gets used and abused. All right. That is all

we have for you for part one of this conversation. Come back next week. We're going

to jump right in. We're going to talk about how to protect your siding and a bunch

of other components of your home for the colder months. For everybody that's been

getting the word out about the show, thank you so much. Would you please continue

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If you are facing an upcoming home project or just trying to get your house ready

for winter, we hope episodes like this help empower you to tackle them with

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