Tools of the Trade: The Best Picks from Contractors and Homeowners!

From coast to coast, it's the nation's number one home improvement radio show and podcast with certified kitchen designer Eric G. And co host John Dudley, a former contractor and online technology expert.

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Welcome to the around the house show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining us today.

I'm Eric G. John Dudley.

Good to see you, my friend.

What's happening, brother?

Man, I am still inspired from last week's show.

Talking with Art Edmonds and all of his stuff that he's doing.

I just love that level of goodness.

And maybe that show wasn't for everybody out there, but I tell you what, just hearing what they're doing and all the good people out there, it's just left me in a positive attitude for spring.

You just asked about my call with Josh, and we had exactly that conversation.

And I told him about arts TV show coming out and he's in radio, right?

We're talking about news shows and how negative it can be.

And I was like, man, when he was talking about where they land in the middle, and I was like, isn't that what we all just want?

Like, we know the truth and let's take the divisiveness out of everything.

And yeah, great convo with him about exactly what our show is based on and how much.

How much we really need that more of that type of message in the world right now.

Always, brother.

Amen.

And I wanted to keep it positive in this first hour of the show today and talk about our favorite tools.

You come from the.

From the contractor side of things, and I come from the designer DIY kind of side of things because, yeah, I've been a contractor, but really, you're the one that was out there doing stuff like that.

And I was doing more of the design and saless stuff than I was swinging hammers.

But at the same point, sometimes that right tool for the job can make it so much more enjoyable because I think everybody's been stuck with that really bad tool.

And you're like, oh, if I only just had.

And you don't want to throw it, but you should.

Yeah, but that happens when you are over at somebody else's house and they're like, hey, you're a contractor.

Do you think you could.

Here, I have a drill or whatever.

You're like, that's not a drill.

But okay, let's try yeah, it's some.

Like 4 volt plug in thing from 25 years ago.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Looks like a toy.

Looks like a toy toy.

You know, probably a toy.

And it's so funny because I'm on social media all the time with tool stuff and it's so funny how the Milwaukee and the Milwaukee versus.

Versus Milwaukee and then you've got the Makitas and then the Ryobi, which everybody makes fun of your contractor with the Ryobi's these days.

It's.

That's the.

You're now the butt of the jokes there of.

Oh, you got the homeowner tools.

You know what's funny?

Everybody made fun of Ryobi back when I was still doing it and I bought a Ryobi stuff and it was their impact drive.

Yeah, there was nothing wrong with some of the Ryobi stuff.

So I knew those tools were getting stolen out of your van so quickly there wasn't a chance for it to go bad.

I was making fun of the guys paying too much money because they wanted all their tools to be yellow.

I'm like, ah, whatever, dude.

Yeah, and I get that.

I get that to some extent.

And I've got both, actually.

I have.

I've got lots of Milwaukee, but I've got my share Dewalt and I've even got some Bosch, like my big battery powered chop saws.

A Bosch.

And it's awesome.

Yeah.

So my boss, Roto Hammer.

Priceless.

Yeah, absolutely.

Johnny, we need to get out and do our segment here for the Red Wing.

We got to do our safety tip, so let's run out to that real quick and we'll be right back after this message.

Hey, guys, this is Eric G from around the house with a quick safety tip that could save you a trip to the ER before you even plug in.

Always inspect your drill saw or sander.

Unplug it first.

Remove the battery when changing bits or blades that prevents nasty accidental starts.

Now, wear properly fitted clothing.

Avoid loose sleeves, shirts, or jackets that can easily get caught in spinning bits or blades.

The right fitting gear, like the new clothing line from Red Wing, will keep you safe and moving freely.

Clamp your workpiece down tight so it doesn't kick back at you.

Stand steady, use both hands for full control and clear the clutter from your workspace to avoid trips.

When you're done, store tools in their cases or designated spots, never leaving batteries on the charger.

And always follow the manufacturer's instructions.

From weekend shelves to job site cuts, Power tools are great allies when you Treat them with respect, stay focused, skip the distractions and you'll create masterpieces instead of bruises.

Handle with care, guys.

And stay safe out there.

This project safety segment is proudly brought to you by Red Wing.

This month, Red Wing is launching their brand new clothing line built for the way you actually work.

Same legendary durability.

You trust in their boots now, in shirts and hoodies that move with you.

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Red Wing gear that works as hard as you do.

All right, guys, I love Red Wing.

Those guys, they've got such great new stuff out there.

Check them out.

I thought we'd talk about our favorite tools and I wanted to start out with one that I just absolutely love.

And we're gonna get into the normal stuff, but I always like to start out with at least one.

Is what I would call, I don't know, let's call it something that's out of the ordinary.

And my favorite out of the ordinary tool is made by Grabo and it's a vacuum suction cup that's battery powered.

So this thing is about the size of a.

Of an oval dinner plate.

Almost like decent size.

You put it up against something, it could be glass.

It is great for removing windows.

It's great for installing mirrors.

I love it for carrying Sheetrock or OSB or.

Yeah, yeah, I can scale.

But you probably could scale buildings at night.

It's totally not in the.

Don't do that.

I'll go full spider man on you.

Yep.

Mount them to your shoes.

And they've got other stuff too.

They've got them even for getting rough objects.

If you were doing patio pavers or something for tile setters to homeowners, I think it's so brilliant.

And Grabo makes them.

They're out there.

They also for all you yellow tool guys, Grabo makes them out there as well under the dewalt.

So they co branded with dewalt.

So if you want it yellow that fits a Dewalt battery, they do that as well.

And I'm going to make fun of.

You, you know, But I tell you what, it's a great tool and I use it so much for carrying stuff around.

It's just the easy button.

And it's not like one of the pump suction cups.

You see the glass guys use that.

You have to pump it and it stays there.

This will automatically adjust the vacuum pressure.

So if you're really refund.

It starts like a little bit of a leak.

It'll kick on and get it.

So it's just an extra tool.

So check out grabo.

That's an easy one.

And it's way fun.

Anything that makes lifting and carrying easier.

I'm in.

Yeah.

I used to call them laborers.

But that too.

But when you're doing it by yourself.

Which so many times we are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's easy to have that extra hand.

Or a better way to hold onto something.

So.

Yeah.

I've pulled some ridiculous nonsense.

Trying to move things.

That I had no business trying to move by myself.

Dude.

If I prop this up on here.

And leverage this with that.

Yeah.

Or just like you.

You framing up the carriage house.

And doing that.

Or me building my 24 by 32 garage.

And I had a loft upstairs.

And I'm up there 26ft in the air.

Trying to set the main beam.

And of course, the gable ends Are just flying around.

And I had ropes and one section of scaffolding.

And that's how we did it.

And keeps it exciting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Could I have gotten a boom truck?

Absolutely.

Would that have been way too much on the easy factor?

Absolutely.

Was it a mistake?

A thousand percent.

But here you are.

You made it.

Yeah.

It was 25.

There's a lot of things we did at 25.

That I won't do at 55.

Yeah.

We won't go there.

You know, Another one, I think.

And we'll jump into one of yours.

I'll do two of mine here.

Then we'll do yours.

Next segment here.

But another one, to me, Is a really good quality impact and drill driver set.

Just that dual set of man.

I need to sink some deck screws.

To drill a hole.

To have something there.

To really do something to make it work.

And I think that's really cool.

Johnny, we're gonna have to go out to break here in a second.

But I think just having that quality impact drill driver set.

With enough batteries to actually do something.

Have enough batteries to go through the cycle.

That if you're drilling or doing something.

That you can have a fast enough battery and charger.

To putting a roof on a house.

Maybe you're putting in some sheet metal roofing up there.

And you want to be able to sink screws.

Have enough batteries to get through that.

And you'll be good as gold.

Because otherwise, it seems that you're just waiting on batteries.

And I think that's the worst feeling in the world when you want to get stuff done and you don't have a battery to get through it.

Yeah, no, it just is.

It just is.

Then to some of your choices, we'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

To find out more about us, head to aroundthehouseonline.com and make sure to follow us on social media.

Around the House.

We'll be right back.

We are just getting started.

Welcome back to the around the house show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Hey, if you want to find out more about us, head over to the website at aroundthe house online.com and don't forget we have got our closed group which is around the house nation on Facebook as well.

And then make sure to follow us on social media.

Well, Johnny and I have been talking about here our first favorite tools.

Basically our top 10 tools that we like to use.

Coming from him as a contractor and me as a designer, remodeler, homeowner, the things that, that we all like to have.

That makes life just a little bit easier out there.

Johnny, what's your first one that you just go, man, this was one of my go tos.

Honestly.

The and it's going to sound silly and it's going to sound simple.

It's not as cool as spider man cups that you can scale a building with.

But nothing could replace my hammer, as goofy as that sounds like.

No, I used my hammer for everything from splitting wood.

And I'll tell you why.

I'll tell you why.

It's the most used tool on any remodel job thing.

I might as well have slept with it.

It was always in my hand and comfort and balance and how the handle felt like I took care of that thing like a good pair of Italian shoes.

Like sand it down like all that stuff, man.

Like it was my baby.

Sounds silly and simple, but my hammer was number one.

Hammers are complex and I almost say they're like a contractor's girlfriend or boyfriend.

It is such a personal thing because.

That's why I say it's like my baby.

Yeah, it is.

And we're talking about the choices.

The choices are so important.

There are people that have to have the wood handle.

There are people that have to have the like the, the steel handle that you've seen out there for framing hammers that have the leather handle around it.

Here's the like what I've got, the titanium stilettos with the titanium handle.

How you have that hammer configured is such how many ounces it is such a personal experience.

Yeah.

It really is like a good pair of shoes.

It's like a. I don't know how.

It's like a good guitar.

That's how I can explain.

There we go.

It just feels a certain way in your hand.

It's got the right balance.

You know exactly what it's going to do.

I could use my framing hammer, like a finish hammer.

I could literally put in little tiny finish nails on cabinetry and not leave a mark.

That's.

That may sound maybe.

There's probably eight people out there that know what I'm talking about.

Oh, yeah, I know.

I do.

I do.

Especially if you've got a waffle head framer, you got to hit it perfect.

That's the fine tuning that.

I don't know.

I just.

I loved.

Yeah.

Okay, so how would you con.

If you were gonna build a hammer right now, how would you configure that?

I would go back to my old stiletto with the wood handle and.24 ounce.

Is that what it was?

Yeah.

Probably something that's been a bit.

But yeah, that's probably it.

Yeah.

It was a whacker, right?

I mean, it's so silly, right?

You just get all.

No, it's not, though.

It's a personal problem.

I could sink a 16 penny.

One hit with this thing.

B.

Put a finish nail in a cabinet.

Like, absolutely.

It's.

But it really is.

It's your Swiss army knife, man.

It does everything.

It drags stuff, it cuts stuff it.

Yeah.

With my shoulders, elbows, and everything else that I've had worked on and everything else out there.

Over the years, I have gone to the titanium stiletto with the titanium handle and with the.

With just all one piece like that.

And I went to that because I like the lightness of it.

It's just a little easier on the body.

And I like some of the things that they've done.

Now one, you can unscrew the head off of it.

So if you want it to be a framer or finish, you're just jumping in there with a tool real quick and swapping the end out.

And so when you bash the, you know, the framer so there's no waffle left on it.

It's just kind of.

You can see some minor hash marks in it from where it was left.

How you can get the replacement piece and not mess with your trusted hammer.

Yep.

And then they came out with some cool accessories.

They have pushover rubber caps on the end.

So if you're trying to nudge something over without marring the surface.

It is awesome for that.

Nice.

So you can be doing.

What I liked it for is if you're going to be doing hardwood flooring, if you're going to be doing like cedar ceilings and things like that, where it's more of a ship lap or a.

Or a tongue and groove, you can tap it in without destroying it.

Yeah, right.

And so those kind of things are kind of handy.

But yeah, man hammers.

That's why when you walk into Home Depot, there's not like four hammers, there's 200 there because everybody has to have their version of it.

Yeah, there you go.

That's my number one pick.

Nice.

That's a good one.

You could talk fancy stuff all day, but for me, that was the most important one and a good impact driver.

And honestly, I liked my Ryobi ones.

And again, it was a comfort thing.

It was how they felt.

It was the weight of them.

They were balanced well.

And I had every brand out there and tried every brand out there.

And for some reason, I don't know, it's just for a carpenter, it's how it feels in your hand.

Right.

Again, it's the balancing.

Yeah.

I'm talking about my hammer.

And I can still feel how that hammer felt in my hand.

That sounds wacky, but.

No, but it's not.

It's.

It's again, it's like shoes.

It's.

I don't know.

Well, here's something interesting.

Okay.

You think of what tool brands are, what makes.

You know who makes what tool brands.

Did you know that Ryobi and DeWalt are actually from the same parent company?

Yeah, but don't actually in Milwaukee.

Sorry.

So you have.

That's tti.

So Milwaukee, Stiletto, you've got Ryobi.

All those are under the same umbrella, which is pretty interesting.

You get into it in the same thing.

Great example.

I got a little spreadsheet here that I have here.

So if you look at tti, for instance, so they have Milwaukee, Rigid, Hoover, Stiletto, Home, Light, Heart, Ryobi, Dirt Devil, Empire Levels, aeg, Oric and Vax.

Wow.

That's all under there.

Then if you go over to Stanley, Black and Decker, you've got MTD, Club Cadet, Troy Built, Wolf, you got all these outdoor lawn care stuff.

But then you get into power tools.

DeWalt, Stanley Irwin, Proto, Lennox, Lista, Sid Chrome.

Never heard of Porter, Cable, Bostish, Black and Decker, Mac Tools, Craftsman and many more.

One other thing that I noticed, now.

You're going Sears on me.

I know it.

Well, not that Sears isn't around anymore.

They're gone.

Yeah, no, but.

And actually I'm gonna take back the Ryobi bit because I really loved my Porter Cable drills as well.

So here's what's funny.

If you take the porter cable, the DeWalt, the Black and Decker, the Craftsman, and you take the same model of drill and take those all apart inside of them, they are exactly the same.

Yeah.

Now, there could be so many different to those.

Right.

Maybe the DeWalt has the best quality part, but you could almost make your own Frankenstein with all those and put them back together and do that.

And I did that a number of years ago.

It could be a little different now, but that's one of those things that you look at it and go, you can tear those things apart and do it.

And even Bosch, which is another one out there when you think about it, Bosch has Diablo, Dremel, Vermont American across the Bosch Tools, Freud, Diablo, all those different brands in their rotozip.

You know, there's only just a handful of major tool brands out there when it comes to all tools.

And you can back count those on your two hands.

And now you have the parent companies for the hundred plus tool brands out there.

So it's interesting how they've all kind of come together like that to do that.

But even Apex Tool Group has stuff like Wiss Crescent, Weller and all those kind of gear wrench and all those kind of hand tools there where Chevron has Cobalt, which you see in the, in the the house brand for Lowe's to flex to go to Skill.

Skill Saw Ego.

So again, those things you go, wow, it's not that really too many tool brands out there when you look at it, that there's only probably a dozen companies that are designing these from the beginning.

So kind of interesting.

All right, we come back.

Let's dive into more tool talk.

We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

Foreign.

Welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you want to find out more about us, just head over to the website around the House online dot com.

Johnny before we get back to our tools, I wanted to talk about something interesting that we had.

We did this poll over on around the House Nation and that's our closed group over there, our private group, easy to just jump over.

Just search up around the House Nation on Facebook.

But we had a really cool poll that I put up.

What do they want to hear?

More about.

And the winner on that poll was more remodeling tips.

So we're going to work on that.

I did say, though, Noah, that added more cowbell.

We can work on that.

Nice.

Now, Noah is a guy I went to high school with, I haven't talked to in forever.

So it was cool that he was following.

But I'm like, oh, he wants more cowbell.

Thanks, Noah.

That was good.

There's points for being.

All I have is the rabbit.

I know you got the rabbit, which is good.

Dude, I tell you what, favorite tools, let's get into this.

I think the multi purpose tool outside of the hammer is really that oscillating multi tool and the fine brand.

Get out.

There is nothing better in my book than that.

And I have one.

Yeah, it's that is that.

It's magic, right?

That was the tool that as a contractor you wanted for like 10 years.

You're like, why is there not something to do this or cut this little piece?

And the fine tool came out.

You're like, oh, thank God.

Finally.

Yeah, yeah.

Because Lifesaver, when you're trying, it's.

And I'll give a perfect example out there, guys, that, you know, this is a blade that's basically on the end of a tool and it oscillates so you can get really square corners.

The battle with circular saws.

Right.

Cutting with something round.

And so you don't always cut through the bottom of it.

Right.

Without flipping it over and destroying or over cutting.

You can get in there with that fine tool and go in there and cut and just do brain surgery with this thing.

It's literally trying to.

You're trying to deal toe kicks on cabots or something stupid, right?

Yep.

It's just magical.

And you could put scraping blades on them, you can put sanders on them.

You can do a detail sander out of that.

Oh, cut grout next.

Whatever.

Yeah, Grout is the great one.

Oh, my gosh.

There is not a better grout removal tool than that.

When you put in the grout cutting blade.

Yeah.

I was going to say magical.

And you said magical legitimately is like, really?

They finally made this and it does all this.

He brought up toe kicks like grout remove.

Like.

Yeah, no, it is.

Yeah.

Irreplaceable in so many levels.

And.

And I tell you what, there is a difference between brands.

People will say, oh, it's just.

It'll just.

It's just moving a blade.

How hard can it be?

If you take a look at most brands versus the fine, the level of it's.

It comes down to the level of accuracy and the level.

And this is the big one.

The level of vibration that comes up through the tool.

My fine one, they put in a vibration basically dampener in it.

And so none of that is shaking my hand.

And so you can hold onto it.

And it's just like holding onto a drill when it's running.

It just takes that.

Now I have a first generation.

I'll just say it's red.

We'll leave it out of there.

That first generation of that one.

Yeah.

It could feel like.

It felt like you were playing baseball and you're using a metal bat and it just hit wrong and the vibration gotcha.

Light you up.

It felt like that using it at times.

And they really took it to the next level.

So take a look at that, guys.

If you're doing a lot of work as a pro or even a semi pro, you're starting a big project.

Put that one on the tool list.

One of the things that makes life so much easier too is they now have a vacuum attachment for it.

So it snaps on with a thing around the blade.

You could put your dust distracture to it.

And so that will extract 95% of the dust where you're doing drywall or if you're doing tile or anything else.

So it'll actually take that and suck up the sawdust or waste material that's flowing off and dust.

So you can do that without making a tire mess of the house, which is cool.

Great for grout removal.

That's new.

I haven't seen that.

Yeah, so that's a new one.

It's really cool.

So that's one of those.

You just go, man.

Okay, that's a good one.

So brother, that's a great one.

Another one here.

And this is almost like the hammer.

A high quality tape measure and laser measure.

I like a tape measure.

I know as a designer, I liked having the laser measure because I could get.

And I had a Bosch one, which was my favorite.

I could get a 16 foot wall measurement.

Exactly.

Without having to have somebody hold the tape.

And when I'm out there by myself trying to lay out a kitchen and I didn't know exactly where they were holding it.

That could be a big mistake, right?

Yep, yep.

And so for me, be able to go, boom, I've got a red or green laser.

I can look at it and go, bam, it's going to that trim.

Here it is.

I know what it is.

Versus I hope she or he.

Even worse with he.

Because he Most of the guys helping were like, I know what I'm doing, and they weren't doing what I wanted them to do.

What they were doing, what they wanted to do.

When you see the laborer counting lines on the tape measure, it's the six, seven, while after the four.

No, never mind.

Yep, Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And it's like, dude, come on, you didn't take shop class.

Clearly.

Yeah.

There's a reason they call it the smart end.

Yes, there is.

All right, man, can you grab your wife?

She can read a tape measure.

Bring her over here.

Ouch.

Just saying.

Just saying.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

But you know what I'm saying, though, it's just having a good quality one.

Not something that's going to snap back and rip your hand off, but something that you can lay out.

And if you can get 8, 9, 10ft out of that thing out there hanging where you're trying to get a measurement, I'm happy and I know what it's gonna do.

Yep, it works.

Yeah.

No, you're right.

You're exactly.

Yeah.

It's just like a hammer.

And.

And I couldn't work with a bad tape measure.

Drove me.

Many, many a bad tape measure found its way to flight via my hand.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And yes, the end of it is supposed to move.

Oh, it's worn out.

It's worn out if it's torn.

Really?

Yeah.

How many of those.

Yeah, we've all done that.

But really, that tape measure is the important part here on making sure you know how to use it.

You can do it safely.

There's a lot of new ones out in the market out there that are laser and tape that are cool, and those are neat.

I have a couple of them.

I don't ever use them because they're so bulky that I just.

I want to be able to throw it in my tool belt and be fine.

I don't want to have to sit there and.

Okay, this is sitting over here.

I don't need the mash rerun walkie talkie.

Suck it up.

Suck it up.

I know it.

So that's another one right there.

And again, another.

I have another one that I want to talk about just real quick before we go out to break here in a minute.

This is an asterisk on this.

And it's good tool storage, so you can be organized.

Whether it's that pack out that you can roll out or just the big toolbox you have in the garage that you can go, okay, this is my screwdriver drawer.

This is my tape measure drawer.

This is to have a home to put it so the next time you can go get it is to me just as important as the is the quality of the tool to some extent.

Because if you don't know where it is, it's like tape measures.

I have to have five or six tape measures and I always have one in the truck as a backup.

Storage is huge.

And even as a contractor, right.

You remember my wheels had the big box truck, right?

And you put shelves in there and you got labeled Tupperwares.

You're like, paintbrushes are in here, roof and nails are in here.

Blah blah, blah blah blah.

It's such a time saver.

Nothing.

Well, it always gets mixed up.

But you're like, hey, go to the truck and get me this.

That could take 20 minutes with the right clown on the other end of that comment.

You know what I mean?

Request.

Where is it?

It's in the big red toolbox that says it's here.

Right?

Dude, I see more for companies and we'll talk.

Let's talk about this.

When I came back, I saved one company almost six figures a year.

Just one thing that they did differently.

You're cliffhanger.

I am, I am.

And we'll talk about it just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't change that tile.

Hey everybody, before we go to break, we want to personally invite you to join Eric g. This Saturday, April 25th at 11am at Park Rose Hardware in West Lynn, Oregon.

We're celebrating their big 60th anniversary with a fun in store party.

And he'll be there live to talk home improvement, answer your questions and hang out with all of you.

Plus, they're running a fantastic 20% off sale because who doesn't love saving money on their next project.

Come on out, say hello and let's talk tools, tips and upgrades.

He will see you there.

Saturday, April 25, 11am at Parkrose Hardware, West Lynn.

Welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining us.

We've been talking about our favorite tools.

We got off on a little side subject here where before went out to break.

I was teasing you guys about how I saved a company about six figures a year and it was all an organization.

And you know this Johnny, because when you're sending people out to the job site, if they have to go stop at the Home Depot Lowe's lumberyard on the way there.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's how a crew loses an hour and a half a day.

They roll in, they go hit the coffee pot at the lumberyard.

They chit chat.

They're organizing stuff in the truck.

They're going to get stuff.

And I said, guys, and they have six or eight crews.

Yeah.

And they were a foundation repair company.

And I went, if you brought in a laborer that was smart, doesn't need to have any construction experience.

And they come in and work from when the trucks get in at 5 o' clock at night if they work a 5 to 1am shift.

And what they do is they start out the day looking at tomorrow's orders and go out and run to the stores like they were always getting stuff from the home centers.

I get it.

You carried some inventory.

The stuff they use all the time.

And then they went to into the evening when it's a heck of a lot easier to get into the pro checkout.

Yes, it is.

Yep.

Right?

Yep.

Eight o' clock at night's a great time to hit the pro checkout because there's not as many people there.

And they came in and their trucks were stocked and loaded.

Yeah.

And ready to go to work.

No.

Hour and a half coffee break first thing in the morning.

Yeah.

Yep.

You see me over here shaking my head because I literally used to call people out.

I'd be, I'd get the receipts.

I'd look at the receipts and be like, wait a minute.

Three trips to Home Depot Wednesday, both of you.

Took two of you to go get a copper.

90.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That literally, like, I know the numbers you're talking about are real because I would do the math and go, guys, I'm not going to pay you a grand a month to go shopping together unless you get married.

Not happening anymore.

Stop.

Yeah.

No craziness.

Yeah.

And so putting that runner position in there changed how they did work because all of a sudden, and this comes down to how does this relate to the homeowners out there making sure that you have some of those basics in your house?

Do you have some screws and some nails and some caulking and some just inventory of what you need around the house that you're doing all the time.

And they're all the same ones.

When you guy.

When you buy one repair kit, buy two, because you're going to need it in a few minutes.

Yeah.

Just having a little bit inventory.

It's actually.

That's a perfect example because.

Yeah, they always got right.

The float goes out and the chain breaks and the.

Yeah.

And they're all going to do it at the same time, man.

Because they were all.

Absolutely.

They've all been in that water for the exact same amount of days and years and whatever.

Just get it.

Have a tarp so that you can.

If you break a window with a tree branch coming down, you can staple something up there.

Just some basics will go a long way.

So another side one there.

Now here's another one that I think is really important, too.

And I guess you're gonna agree with this probably too, Johnny.

On my list here, having a good circular saw and blades.

My skill saw was like an appendage.

Like it.

Same thing.

Just like my hammer, my skill saw, my hammer and a good screw gun.

That's how I started my company.

Those were the three tools I had.

And a sawzill.

That was it.

That was it.

Absolutely.

And you saw how it ended up.

But my point being, you could do almost anything with a skill saw, a good hammer, and a screw gun.

You're pretty much.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

And having those blades, because you need that.

Having that good framing blade is good.

Having a panel.

Yeah.

And then my favorite, the demo blade that'll cut through the nails and the screws and that kind of stuff.

It's not my favorite because it hurts when that stuff hits you in the arm and the face.

It could be 80 degrees.

And that's where you put the hoodie on, in the face shield.

And you're good.

So that's when you get your.

That's when you get your work wear out.

You got the red wing hoodie on, and you're out there going, all right, I'm going to be safe with this.

Yeah, I never did that.

I know.

We all just went out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's how it happened.

So, Johnny, what's your favorite tool?

I bet you there's one that's as a contractor now that you've developed.

I think we're walking into a promotion here.

You're talking your way into a sponsor.

I think we got a sponsor.

Well, I'll tell you what.

So, yeah, I'm gonna tout my own product here for two reasons.

You should.

For two reasons.

There's a bunch of reasons.

But Two that are really relevant right now.

One you just brought up.

First of all, I just hated doing estimates.

And I'd put them off and I'd lose jobs because I put them off.

And I knew it.

And it makes no sense.

Like, it made no sense.

I knew if I didn't get the bid out, I was going to lose the job.

They'd go with somebody else and I'd still procrastinate and just, oh, well, I'll find another job.

So Instabid takes all that out of the mix.

Like, it does all the bidding, sends the emails for you.

There's a deposit, stripe button in the email you get.

I don't have to do estimates anymore.

Done.

Like, literally, the client fills in some info.

I can set my prices how I want them.

Bid goes out without me.

I'm on the job while the bids are going out.

Literally done.

Check them to make sure that the homeowner was understanding and how they put the information in.

Totally.

And there's obviously there's going to be a conversation, right?

But now you've got somebody who's got your price and is interested and ready to go if they.

Or you've already talked to them and they're hitting the pay the deposit on the stripe button and booking your calendar.

Like, done.

Boom.

Yeah.

The hours I would spend working out bids and working out numbers, and that's why I put them off.

I didn't want to spend the time.

This is done in two minutes, so there's that.

The second thing it does is print out the entire material list.

Right?

It's a roof, it can sit.

It's got your drip edge in there.

It's got your mastic in there.

It's got your.

You know how many nails, Anything else.

You got to have in there?

Oil, nails, everything's in there.

Printed material list.

You can print the CSV file, you can email it, you send it to your supplier.

Guess what?

It's on the loading dock on Tuesday morning for your guys to show up, load it into the truck and leave.

Not cruise around Home Depot with a coffee, shopping, checking out the new hammers, checking out the tape measures.

Oh, look at this thing.

Oh, dude, I know.

Exactly.

So speaking of saving money on keeping your guys out of the shopping center, this does that for you.

Here's the material list.

Call ahead suppliers got it loaded, ready to go.

Bam.

For 100 bucks a month, you just saved it right there on in one week of the way my guys used to shop, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Definitely a tool of mine.

Yeah.

No it's good.

It's good.

Another one for me to.

Another little asterisk is a good job site radio.

Yeah.

I buy cheap ones because they always got destroyed.

Yeah.

Well, I've got the.

This isn't a commercial by any means, but I've got the pack out M18, Milwaukee one.

And so it snaps on the top of your toolbox and it's got radio.

And I'm using it in the new.

In our new video production studio right now as I'm building that out.

And man, it.

That's a 42 by 26 foot build.

Square building.

Thousand square foot building.

It fills that thing with sound, which is awesome now.

Yeah, nice.

There's an asterisk to this one, too, because you gotta use when there's homeowners around.

You gotta.

You can't have.

Yeah.

It's not a rave construction site.

It's a construction site.

If you've got the conservative talk radio on, your guys are listening to and there's purple hair of the person that's owning the house, it might not go well.

So just common sense goes a long ways on.

Maybe listening to something that's good.

Little Van Halen shouldn't be putting anybody out.

A little country, but really just common sense goes a long ways right there.

I've got.

Could you tell your guys maybe to not have the radio today with that crazy rock music on?

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

I get that.

I get that.

And it works that way.

But it's just one of those things that I go, man, okay.

It's one of those things we should be a little more careful of.

But having that, that's the best.

Framing up new homes.

You're out in the sun, you spitting, you're swearing.

Turn the music up, get busy.

Nobody knows any different, right?

Mrs. Smith's kitchen, a little bit different environment.

And Johnny, it's even worse now, the last 10 years that you've been out of it because you got all these people working from home.

Oh, right, yeah.

You got homeowner in there having a zoom meeting, and somebody's out there with the roto hammer trying to put the new bolts into the foundation right outside the window.

And yeah, it just goes sideways.

Sideways.

I mean, I love you homeowners.

You guys are great.

And you gave me a career for 30 years, but nobody wants a homeowner around all day, every day.

No, it's.

There's a lot of things you can do.

And sometimes moving out of the house is just a smart one.

When the big remodel is going on, especially when you're working from home.

That's good.

Well, Johnny, we have blasted through that so quick, man.

We are out of time and always good.

We got a great conversation coming up here in the next hour.

But if you want to find out more about us, head over to aroundthehouse online.com I'm Eric Gene for John Dudley.

You've been listening to the first hour of around the House.

Hey everybody, before we go to break, we want to personally invite you to join Eric g. This Saturday, April 25th at 11am at Park Rose Hardware in West Lynn or Oregon.

We're celebrating their big 60th anniversary with a fun in store party and he'll be there live to talk home improvement, answer your questions and hang out with all of you.

Plus they're running a fantastic 20% off sale because who doesn't love saving money on their next project?

Come on out, say hello and let's talk tools, tips and upgrades.

He will see you there.

Saturday, April 25, 11am and Parkrose Hardware, West Lynn.