Latest / Around the House with Eric G®: Home Improvement Remodeling & DIY / From Drips to Disasters: Stop Water Damage Before It Starts!

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From Drips to Disasters: Stop Water Damage Before It Starts! · Around the House with Eric G®: Home Improvement Remodeling & DIY

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  Foreign.
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  It's the nation's number one home improvement radio show and podcast with certified kitchen designer Eric G.
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  And co host John Dudley, a former contractor and online technology expert.
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  Delivering real fixes, smart tech and trusted advice.
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  Remodels, repairs, energy savings, smart homes, diy.
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  We've got your answers.
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  It's around the House.
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  Dive in and get inspired.
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  Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.
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  I'm Eric G.
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  Thanks for joining me today.
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  Today we are going to talk about something that I think everybody should have in your home.
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  We've got Ian Green from flowlogic.
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  Welcome to around the House Eric.
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  It's great to be here.
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  I appreciate the opportunity.
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  Look forward to our conversation today.
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  Thanks man.
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  I appreciate it.
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  It's this is one of those things that when I look at it, it is so simple to prevent some of these accidents that happen in your home that can create so much damage.
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  Yeah, it's a great point.
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  Not all of them are easy to prevent.
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  Hailstorms, what are you going to do about that?
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  Or tornadoes coming in your path, hurricanes, wildfires, a lot of perilous things that cause damage to our homes and disrupt our lives and cause insurance claims.
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  But some of them are very preventable.
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  And the number two insurance claim is non weather related water damage, typically from a plumbing leak.
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  And that is something that a simple technology installed in your pipes can virtually eliminate the risk of.
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  So you're right, it can be very.
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  And I don't like to talk about materials that are bad out there, but I tell you what, we once we got into like the 70s and 80s and 90s, we got away from copper and some of those products
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  out there that had been so reliable over the years and all the different plastics and things.
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  It really lent ourselves to some homes that were built over generations there.
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  That boy, it didn't work as they intended it to.
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  Which I can tell you what.
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  I had a house that I was renting for a time in between houses that I could hear in the middle of the day watching television, watching the big game or something and I'd hear a poof in the crawl
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  space and that was the three quarter plastic line down there bursting in a 15 year old house that just happened to happen on a 60 degree day.
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  And that's where that kind of product would have helped.
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  Absolutely.
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  You're very lucky to be a human leak detector.
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  Most of those types of leaks don't get detected until there's significant damage.
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  But you happen to be home and able to hear it and you're right.
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  There's a lot of materials that's kind of come and gone if they're not selling today.
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  Polybutylene will be the prime example because it just wasn't as resilient as it needed to be.
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  Even though anything can really fail and not to be too much of a realist, but everything is going to fail eventually.
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  Nothing's going to last forever.
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  Everything is eventually kind of wearing down.
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  So our plumbing infrastructure, even though they're built to last and they typically do for decades and decades, even on a brand new home, there's risk of some type of failure.
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  Whether that was because the installer had a bad day and something didn't come get put together quite right, or a component at some sort of issue or impurity installed in it during the manufacturing phase, or some type of
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  event such as freezing occurs.
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  There's a whole lot of factors that cause our plumbing systems to fail.
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  Supply lines being one of the most, one of the prime failure points.
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  Just lots of opportunities that that show up.
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  Which is why again, it's the number two category of loss in the insurance property insurance space.
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  Yeah Ian, it's funny, I was, I had my own design business up in Seattle.
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  Was the largest design firm in Seattle up there.
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  When I was living up there 15 years ago, got called into a contractor that said, oh we got a water mitigation one here that you've probably never seen before.
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  Beautiful three story luxury view home looking down across the sound.
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  Gorgeous place.
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  People went to Europe for two weeks and soon after they left the washing machine, hot water line broke in back.
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  And guys, if you don't think about that, that is a three quarter inch garden hose basically running.
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  And it went down from the top floor where the master bedroom and bathroom were because it was in the suite and it filled up the basement daylight basement so much that it pushed out the sliding glass door.
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  Oh wow.
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  Popped it out because it was that sealed up down there.
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  And when the water went running down the driveway like a flood of hundreds to hundreds of gallons, people started figuring out we got a problem.
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  And that house was down for over a year as they took it down to the studs.
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  And it was almost a total loss because of just the amount of water damage and leak detection would have solved that.
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  It would have prevented that.
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  Yeah, would have, would have caught that and shut it off in very short order.
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  Flow logic's designed in the away mode to shut off flow after 30 seconds.
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  Because when you're not home, not more than like a ice maker should be running for a few seconds, it would, it would have caught that and shut it off right away.
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  So that's, that's the technology that, that I'm very familiar with, it's full logic and how in essence it would have prevented that.
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  I think you're hitting on a couple of important points there.
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  One is that water actually quite destructive.
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  And we think about ways to safeguard our homes and we have security systems and security cameras, door locks and smart locks, certainly fire smoke detectors.
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  And we think about those threats, fire and burglars is very scary and they are.
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  But the reality is the likelihood of that type of event happening is much lower than a plumbing leak and water.
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  We don't think about it as being scary and destructive, but boy, it sure is destructive and it's pretty scary when you think about how destructive it can be.
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  As an example of this, of the, of the story, of the real life story you just told.
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  And also make another important point that we talked about, how not everything always is going to last forever.
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  But our pipes that are behind the walls and under our foundations are typically good for many decades.
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  Many, many decades.
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  Typically that they are, although they do fail.
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  But things like supply lines to washing machines, supply lines to toilets and ice makers, though that is the number one failure point that causes destructive leaks and it can spill tiny supply line just running unabated just for a
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  number of hours.
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  When you get into a number of days, that's when the real disruption happens.
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  And another point you made is they're out of the home for over a year.
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  It's one thing to experience just the shock of the event and to lose personal belongings that may be irreplaceable, but hopefully you've got insurance.
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  It's going to at least eventually make you whole on the home.
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  It's never going to replace the irreplaceable heirlooms that you may have lost, but it's going to put you out of your home for a long time, weeks, months, even more than a year.
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  And boy, that's disruptive.
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  And, and you might have the best insurance in the world.
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  It's going to cost you because it's.
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  Going to cost you.
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  It's going to cost you.
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  You have to pay a premium.
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  And, and when you've had a loss, there's something called the CLUE database, which stands for Casualty Loss Underwriters Exchange.
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  So everybody's got a, who's got property insurance.
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  You're in that database.
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  And if you go shopping for insurance, they're going to see your losses.
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  And if you've had a water loss, you're going to pay more for insurance because you're higher risk.
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  The data says if you've had a water loss, you're about twice as likely as the typical homeowner to have another water loss.
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  And that's just usually because your home you're in has got some kind of problem.
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  Yeah, no question, no question.
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  So let's talk about flow logic a little bit.
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  How does this work within your home for people out there that are going, I have no idea what you guys are talking about.
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  Yeah, it's a good question because it is sort of an abstract concept.
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  Okay, wait, there's this technology that I put in my pipes and it's gonna catch a leak, but what is it gonna shut my shower off?
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  It's actually pretty simple.
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  Typical water use comes in, starts and stops.
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  You wash your hands, you flush it totally, you take a shower.
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  And showers being typically the longest duration of continuous flow that would be intentionally used in most households.
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  Flow Logic as an example is a flow based leak detection product that watches all of your water use.
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  So it's quantifying and is measuring every water flow event.
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  And like I mentioned, most events are kind of a start and a stop.
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  On Fullogic there's a home mode and a wave mode where the user actually gets to decide the parameters for how long water is allowed to flow in their home.
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  And that's variable based on how many people are in your home.
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  Or if you've got teenagers and you want to take 40 minute showers, you need 40, 45 minutes in your home mode that if it's just a couple who takes 10 minute showers, maybe you have 20 or 30 minutes.
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  If water flows beyond that setting, it would be considered abnormal in a likely leak and gets shut off automatically.
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  So the lowest common denominator of any plumbing supply leak is its typically water that starts when they start.
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  Typically don't stop.
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  So from the moment a water flow event begins, Fologic is recognizing that, quantifying that and if it goes for abnormally long, it's going to get shut off automatically.
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  The away mode, the amount of time is much shorter because only things like ice makers or perhaps a refill off cool might run for a couple minutes and then anything beyond that because they're normal, shop nearly immediately to
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  really mitigate damage.
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  To find out more, head to aroundthe house online.com we will be right back with more from Ian Green and flowlogic after these important messages from our sponsors.
• 9:41
  Don't change that dial.
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  Welcome back to the around the House show.
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  Did you know that water damage on average does way more damage to your home than fire?
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  Let's continue our conversation with Ian Green from flowlogic.
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  So we can try to prevent that from happening in your home or property.
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  That makes a lot of sense.
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  And my question is, let's say you've got the hot tub and you're out there every couple months you got to refill the dang thing and clean it out and do that.
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  Is that something that, that will catch or is that something that you can control with an app or something like that to go, hey, I'm going to fill my hot tub, so don't shut me off?
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  Yeah, it's real simple.
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  On Fullogic we've got what's called a bypass mode, which is basically like snooze bug and it says, hey, go to sleep for a couple hours while I fill this hot tub.
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  Taking it one step further, Fullogic can actually integrate.
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  We route the home for things like irrigations.
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  You may be thinking, wow, okay, I'm going to be out of that home for a couple of weeks to go to Europe for my irrigation to run every Thursday at 4am for an hour and a half.
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  It can actually integrate through a communication interface with the aviation systems, water softeners that have backwash cycle cycles, pool fillers, hot tub fillers, your little devices called flow switches and relays that would connect directly into our system through
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  a wireless interface.
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  So your whole plumbing ecosystem, when you have some of those complexities like hot tubs, are actually connected to full logic.
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  So it allows them to use water for you to refill your hot tub without any sort of nuisance shut offs while still providing very tight protection.
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  It would automatically shut off and leak while you're out of the house in a minute, but still let your irrigation run without causing any nuisance shut offs.
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  That makes sense because us humans are kind of creatures of habit.
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  If you're gonna, if you're a 10 minute shower person, you're kind of a 10 minute shower person.
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  If you're a 25 minute shower person, you're kind Of a 25 minute shower person.
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  So it gets probably a little predictable when it's looking at those algorithms.
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  It gets predictable and there's ability to do the learning space on a lot of systems.
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  And that's the, the beauty of smart leak detection is once you get it installed and dialed in and adjust settings when the settings are maybe user defined as the logic system or integrated, where there's possibility to integrate other
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  parts of your plumbing ecosystem then you don't have to think about it anymore.
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  That's a common misconception that people have is like do I need to actually kind of like my security system?
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  Do I need to disarm it so I don't trip it automatically?
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  No, you don't.
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  Fullogic and other systems are designed once you get them dialed in and all the settings set and integrations, then you don't really need to think about them because they're going to know if you're home or not.
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  They're going to be able to to recognize what's abnormal outside of your typical usage.
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  So what happens when you have maybe a machine that can cause leaking like a dishwasher, washing machine or that dreaded ice maker that loves to tear up the kitchen floor?
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  Do you guys have a solution for that?
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  Yeah, I mean definitely.
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  Any of those types of leaks that are coming from the supply side are typically going to cause abnormal continuous flow.
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  Flow Logic system Logic's been doing this for over 20 years.
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  We're the first brand of Flow Basically Detection, a sixth generation product today.
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  And our system could see real time flow from the moment it begins, as small as a half an ounce per minute.
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  So that's like a drip level leak which is how most of those leaks in a supply line to an ice maker as you mentioned, that's most how most of them began.
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  So we'll see it from the moment it starts and at the very second that gets to be too long based on the parameters, it gets shut off automatically.
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  Then adding another level of sort of suspenders along with the belt and suspenders approach would be adding what we have are called pinpoint sensors.
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  Other there's other brands out there too that are just basically looking for water, whether it's not supposed to be water.
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  And you can set these in high risk areas like behind refrigerators and in the laundry room or near the water heater.
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  And so if water contacts this sensor, it's going to trigger a shut off and alert the immediately.
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  So you can have immediate.
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  So if this story you told about the washing machine hose that popped off, if they had a sensor there, even if they were in the home mode with a 40 minute flow allowance, that sensor would have triggered a
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  shut off immediately and alerted them immediately.
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  So you literally just have a mop up and not a tear down.
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  And that is awesome because sometimes it's that seal around the pump on the dishwasher.
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  It's not a supply line and it's been dripping down there for a while.
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  So that sensor grabs it because maybe it's not even leaking from a supply line, it's coming out of the machine itself.
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  So it's not going to show as a leak.
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  It's a leak within the appliance itself.
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  And that's where that sensor can really help you.
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  Because if it's the bottom of the dishwasher or it's the you broke the side of the garbage disposal under the sink or something like that and it's only leaking when something's draining, it's still a point of damage that
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  you can catch early.
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  Yeah, great point that the drain side leaks are typically.
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  They take longer to cause damage and to be noticed.
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  So when you use those sensors you're adding that level of protection that's going to be able to see those typically from the start.
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  It's the supply drain side leak is not going to be an issue.
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  If you're not using water, it's not going down the drain.
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  So you're on vacation, you're typically not going to have an issue with that.
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  But while you're home this can be just happening in the background without you realizing it.
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  So having those sensors is an extra level of protection and you can use those on your own.
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  Some folks, if they maybe you're in a tight budget situation.
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  Oil based systems do require a plumber to install them.
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  They're a little bit more of an investment because there's more technology and more hardware involved with those.
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  You can just get the sensors on their own and then add the valve later is an option as well.
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  Even just the sensors is a lot better than most homes.
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  There's not a lot of real good data out there on this, but the best estimates I see show it's.
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  It's definitely only single digit percentage of U.S.
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  homes have any type of leak detection technology.
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  So vast majority of homes have nothing.
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  So if you've got even just sensors, that's way better than nothing and you're providing yourself a level of protection.
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  When it comes to flow based systems where you have to cut the pipe and put the valve in, it's going to see virtually any supply leak in real time and be able to shut it off.
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  Importantly to really prevent damage.
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  It's that level of protection that's not only giving you better protection and peace of mind, but also insurance policies more and more are giving people premium discounts for having flow based leak detection systems and that premium savings over
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  time will typically pay for the device and the installation.
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  So there's, there's actually a payback period.
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  I'm Always quick to say you don't really do it for the money, you do it for the peace of mind to protect your valued asset and their use enjoyment of your home.
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  But it never hurts that you're gonna actually save on insurance.
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  And that helps people rationalize it sometimes when they're really just thinking through dollars and cents.
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  Hey, if they're going to give you a little bit off your, your annual premium on that that pays for itself in time, it's pretty natural that way.
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  So there's nothing wrong with that.
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  That's happening more and more.
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  More and more insurance companies, they're, they're obviously paying out the claim.
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  They see this their number two category of loss and in the typical middle market insurance category in the high end category where multi million dollar home is the number one area of loss.
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  And instead simply because there's higher risk in bigger homes, more things can break that tend to be more occupied because those types of folks travel more have more than one home.
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  So it's more exposed.
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  It's the number one category loss in the, in that segment.
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  So those in carriers are actually not only giving premium discounts in a lot of cases they're requiring systems as a consumer condition of coverage.
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  Yeah which may sound kind of, I don't know, like it's a little hardcore and like you know something disagreeable.
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  But it's really helping everybody when, when we drive down claims, the ones that we could control, we're all benefiting because our premiums that we're paying, the ones I'm paying every month, the ones you're paying every month that I
• 17:42
  knock on wood, not filed any claims really ever but I'm still paying a premium that's going to pay for other folks losses.
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  So if I can just drive down losses, we're all going to save and that's not only that, we're also going to save water.
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  And that's sort of a tertiary reason why behind why people install leak detection.
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  But water scarcity is a, is a real issue in a lot of parts of the world and a lot of parts of the United States.
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  It's estimated that about 12% of water that, that goes past a water meter gets wasted on leaks.
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  Things like toilet leaks are stuck open flapper.
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  It's going to waste thousands and thousands of gallons of water in a month and all it takes is a few homes and all of a sudden the aggregate amount of water going into homes is actually just wasted on
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  leaks.
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  So if we could cut down on those leaks that go down the drain, it may not be causing a damage and going on the floor, it's just going down the drain.
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  That's still a leak and it's wasting water and it's drying up a precious resource that we've had.
• 18:35
  So it's just another benefit that a lot of folks don't think about when you think about the greater good.
• 18:40
  To find out more, head to aroundthehouse online.com we will be right back with more from Ian Green and flowlogic after these important messages from our sponsors.
• 18:50
  Don't change that dial.
• 19:02
  Welcome back to the around the House show.
• 19:05
  Did you know that water damage on average does way more damage to your home than fire?
• 19:10
  Let's continue our conversation with Ian Green from flowlogic.
• 19:13
  So we can try to prevent that from happening in your home or property.
• 19:17
  When you think about the greater good of what leak detection does is driving down everybody's premiums.
• 19:22
  It's helping people get insurance.
• 19:23
  It's also helping save water.
• 19:25
  Yeah, you're seeing out there, I've worked with on the show here, a company called Ting Fire and they're a electrical people.
• 19:30
  You've probably seen those guys and now you're seeing companies like State Farm and other guys like that that are actually.
• 19:36
  And again, these are, these are a few hundred dollars.
• 19:40
  It's not a few thousand dollars.
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  So it's easy for an insurance company to go here, take one of these and plug it in because it stops electrical fires, which are way less likely than water damage.
• 19:51
  I think I saw water damage is what, seven or eight times more likely than fire burglary.
• 19:56
  I mean, it's, it's a huge number.
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  It's a huge number.
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  But you're right, the insurance industry as a whole is evolving from repair, replace, to prevent, protective, prevent.
• 20:09
  Just trying to be more proactive and just really be a partner to the insurer to protect their assets and protect their way of life.
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  Certainly to be there if, if a disaster happens, if a loss happens, they're there to help make you whole.
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  But they're also playing a different role than they were say 10 or 15, 20 years ago, where they're also just working with either trial prevention, the loss from happening in the first place.
• 20:32
  The Ting is a great example of a DIY type of product that is easy to implement.
• 20:37
  You just send it to and you plug it in.
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  So that's very helpful.
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  Kind of like a water sensor.
• 20:42
  Yeah, yeah, like a water sensor.
• 20:44
  Again, some, some level of protection is helpful.
• 20:46
  But when it comes to safe harm that you gave as an example, we're on their Preferred vendor list.
• 20:51
  So there are some markets where they're requiring leak detection as a condition of continuing your coverage.
• 20:57
  And when it gets to that level where they're requiring a system, them and other carriers are typically requiring flow based.
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  It's only because you really take a leap at the level of protection and boss mitigation when it comes to having something flow based.
• 21:09
  Again because it's more comprehensive, it's co leaking where it happens and importantly it's going to shut off automatically.
• 21:15
  Yeah, I think what you're going to see if I was going to make a prediction in the next five years, I think you're going to see people that own homes that have polyputylene in it, if they have cpvc,
• 21:26
  some of these products that have been troublesome with the insurance companies from time to time.
• 21:31
  I think it's going to be almost like what you see out there with people that have knob and tube wiring.
• 21:37
  Oh, we'll insure you, but you need to have X, Y and Z installed for us to cover you.
• 21:41
  And I think that's kind of where the next phase of this is going to go.
• 21:45
  Because what you're seeing out there with the losses these guys are getting, they've got to stay in business because after all they are a business and they got to stay profitable.
• 21:55
  Yeah, I think they're getting a lot more intelligent about what they're insuring.
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  And also there's the insurance industry.
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  There's a lot of diversification and the types of insurance products available.
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  There's been a real big growth in what are called non admitted policies or also called excess and surplus policies.
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  Property insurance is always regulated by state insurance and so there's a lot of rules around like what they can charge and what they have to cover.
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  But then there's insurance products that live outside of that admitted infrastructure where they're allowed to do things like maybe in a hurricane from an area where it's really difficult to ensure that you're very high risk if hurricane.
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  These policies that are, that are excess and surplus would make cover for insurance for hurricane damage but they may ride out things like water damage or other types of losses.
• 22:41
  So that's where those technologies come in and become even more important because the insurance may not necessarily cover a water wall so they may have a really high deductible because you have polybutylene pipes for example.
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  And that's where these devices can come in and sort of in a way supplement insurance in terms of providing that, that protection and peace of mind.
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  Nice.
• 23:01
  So where does flowlogic install in the home, is it kind of right where it enters the home or is it up by the water meter?
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  How does that work for the people out there that don't understand?
• 23:10
  Yeah, great question.
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  So it kind of depends on your home's plumbing architecture.
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  And a lot of homes in the Northeast, everybody has basements and that's kind of where the meter is and the water comes in.
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  But yes, typically right where the water enters the home.
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  Sometimes that's outside of the home if you're on a slab where you would go to turn your water off.
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  So basically wherever you would go to manually turn your water off is typically about approximately where the flogic or any other leak detection system would be installed before it branches off to the water heater or other parts of
• 23:38
  the plumbing infrastructure.
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  That way anything downstream of that is going to get recognized.
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  So it doesn't matter if your home's a thousand square feet or a gigantic 15,000 square foot mansion.
• 23:49
  Any leak anywhere is going to cause flow and it's going to be fed through that main line where the system's installed.
• 23:55
  So it'll see it the same whether it's 3ft away or 300ft away.
• 23:59
  It's going to cause that flow that's going to be abnormal and it's going to shut it off automatically.
• 24:05
  Yeah.
• 24:05
  And I noticed you guys have some serious sizes that you run for this.
• 24:08
  It's not just your oh, it's four of five, eight and a three quarters and you're done.
• 24:13
  You guys go from one all the way up to two inch if I remember.
• 24:16
  I.
• 24:17
  Yeah, well, full of.
• 24:17
  We're really trying to offer a product that's going to be an answer for any type of property, particularly residential property and then a lot of commercial properties as well.
• 24:26
  So go up to 2 inches, which, which covers vast majority of residences in smaller sizes as well.
• 24:32
  That little versatility, it's also can be installed outdoors so it can take some rain.
• 24:38
  If you have that slab construction where the only place to get to your pipe is outside because it goes in into the slab, it comes up at various places throughout the whole.
• 24:45
  That's where you would install it.
• 24:47
  So that that versatility is really helpful.
• 24:49
  With our brand, we can very confidently cover most properties in the U.S.
• 24:55
  nice.
• 24:56
  So what is the power requirements for that?
• 24:57
  Is that a plug in or a battery or how does that work for people?
• 25:00
  Yeah.
• 25:00
  So really all flow based systems require power.
• 25:03
  Pretty much all of them plug into just a regular 110 outlet.
• 25:07
  That's the case with full logic Logic's a little different.
• 25:10
  And then we also as a standard part of our system have a, a backup battery that's part of it as well.
• 25:15
  And that's a 12 volt battery.
• 25:16
  So it plugs into a regular outlet, but it actually gets converted to 12 volts.
• 25:21
  That, that's what powers the system.
• 25:22
  And then if you lose AC power, the battery's there and there's, there's zero downtime.
• 25:27
  It just redundantly continues to power the system through the battery.
• 25:31
  And the battery on the flogic will power the system for five to seven days.
• 25:35
  That'll get you through most power outages.
• 25:37
  That's very important.
• 25:38
  It's interesting.
• 25:39
  We saw during the big Texas freeze we saw a few years ago where these areas that you typically don't see freezing weather, huge power outages, then a lot of frozen pipes.
• 25:48
  When that, when those regions came back online, we were able to look at our, our data and see that the phlogic systems in these areas actually saw the temperature getting low.
• 25:58
  And we didn't mention we also have a temperature monitor so it can automatically shut the water off if you get to a freezing temperature.
• 26:05
  So those were occurring even when the power was out because that backup battery was there.
• 26:09
  And this all, all this functionality happens even when the system is offline.
• 26:13
  So the power came back on and systems came back online.
• 26:16
  We could see where these shots were occurring because of the low temperature thresholds are debris or in some cases there may have been something that froze and broke and the system saw it and shut it off because it
• 26:25
  saw the abnormal flow.
• 26:27
  Man, that is awesome.
• 26:28
  Because I tell you what, love Texas down there.
• 26:30
  Not going to throw any shade to them, but those plumbers love to put water lines in the attic space.
• 26:35
  It's uninsulated.
• 26:37
  Yeah.
• 26:37
  Water lines and water heaters and Yeah, I don't know why architects think that's a good idea.
• 26:41
  I could see I'd optimize his living space.
• 26:44
  But that does really increase risk.
• 26:46
  A lot of exposure there.
• 26:47
  And that goes back to.
• 26:48
  It doesn't matter how old your home is.
• 26:51
  Freezing event doesn't care if your house was built yesterday or 75 years ago.
• 26:55
  Freezing is freezing and that's a huge risk to your pipes.
• 27:00
  Yeah.
• 27:00
  I will say that I do love some of the new PEX products and the newer homes out there.
• 27:04
  The ones have been recently remodeled because if it's got the right packs and at least you've got a little flexibility, if you get that, that it might not just absolutely explode like every other material on the marketplace well,
• 27:15
  but it still doesn't absolve you from freezing because it goes into a fitting, it goes into pieces that will.
• 27:21
  So you still have to deal with it.
• 27:23
  Yeah, it doesn't want to expand, but you're right.
• 27:25
  There's a lot more resilient types of materials.
• 27:27
  There's a little bit more of a focus on resiliency these days.
• 27:30
  Supply lines is one great example where you see more standardized, like steel braided supply lines versus just the plastic ones.
• 27:37
  And by the way, it's the PSA on supply lines.
• 27:39
  Those need to be changed out every, depending on who you ask.
• 27:42
  At least every seven years, nobody does it.
• 27:45
  Or anytime you change an appliance out, you get a new washer, get a new toilet, always change the supply line or if you haven't replaced the appliance every seven years, go and replace those supply lines.
• 27:56
  They're a few dollars and they are the number one failure point.
• 27:59
  Just they're not going to last forever.
• 28:01
  Go ahead and change them out proactively.
• 28:03
  That's going to help you stay a lot more resilient, prevent those leaks, but obviously also install leak detection because leaks can happen anywhere and they do.
• 28:11
  I've heard many different stories about where and how.
• 28:15
  Yeah, Ian, I couldn't agree more.
• 28:17
  That's one of the things we talk about around the house a lot because we've got these wash machines and dishwashers and you get the water flowing and it has a solenoid in there that shuts the water off.
• 28:30
  It's like slamming the door every time.
• 28:33
  And that water has a collision with that gate of the valve and then what happens?
• 28:41
  That whole hose expands and takes the load and it can only do that so many times.
• 28:47
  And if it's just a rubber hose, especially on a washing machine, those are just one of the biggest failure ports points in a whole plumbing system.
• 28:55
  Because it could be a couple years or five and all of a sudden it's going to start coming apart, you're going to see bubbles and then you're just playing with a water leak at that point.
• 29:06
  Yeah, that's a great point.
• 29:07
  There's really everything's kind of slowly surely wearing down.
• 29:12
  Even copper.
• 29:12
  As resilient as it is, there's friction when water runs through it.
• 29:15
  So over years and years and years, that friction and then if you have certain water types, hard water and certain non dissolved solvents in your waters that might accelerate the breakdown of copper, there's really no type of material
• 29:28
  that's completely immune to the wear and tear of usage so again, it's not to be so much too much of a doomsayer, but it's not really a matter of like if, but just when because something's going to eventually
• 29:37
  start to fail in your home.
• 29:39
  Focus on the ones that are the higher failure points that are easily replaceable, like supply lines.
• 29:44
  But just inspections are important.
• 29:46
  More plumbers are offering proactive inspections to go in and just kind of check you out and recognize areas that might need some level of maintenance before failure happens.
• 29:55
  When you have a weak detection system, especially one like logic that can see the little tiny leaks in real time, you'll be able to catch those problems that may persist for a long time before you actually catch them.
• 30:05
  And that'll help you maintain your plumbing system as well, just to be on top of any anomaly or issue that happens from the start.
• 30:12
  Great point.
• 30:13
  And Ian, so for those people out there that not everybody has that big 30,000 square foot estate, but maybe you've got a farm, maybe you've got some things that you've got buildings.
• 30:24
  How do you deal with that with one unit?
• 30:27
  Will it monitor all that or do you have extenders or how does that work with that whole system?
• 30:31
  Oh, you're asking a personal question.
• 30:33
  I actually live on a lot of property and have a barn that is, I'm on a well.
• 30:37
  So on electric works.
• 30:39
  Finally you put it after the pressure tank.
• 30:40
  I've got a Barn, it's like 200 yards from my house.
• 30:43
  It's fed from the same well, same supply that my home is.
• 30:46
  There's a pipe underground that goes to barn and it actually had a.
• 30:50
  I was at work one day on a very cold day and I got an alert that had automatic shut off and I thought, huh, I'm not going to turn the water back on.
• 30:57
  The, the hose down there, the spigot actually froze and burst and started to leak.
• 31:02
  But it, it saw the flow just the same as it would have if it had been just a few inches from the quadric valve.
• 31:09
  So it shut it off.
• 31:10
  So basically one leak detection system, flow based system is gonna monitor anything that's downstream of it.
• 31:17
  Even if it's a guest house or some type of other structure, if it's being fed to that main line, it's going to be able to monitor it, protect it.
• 31:25
  Some homes or some properties will have more than one well or more than one supply, or more than one meter.
• 31:30
  You basically need one system per meter per well person.
• 31:34
  Yeah, that makes sense.
• 31:35
  But then anything beyond that it's going to get going to get monitored and protected.
• 31:39
  That makes it easy.
• 31:40
  I had 20 acres in my 20s and I tell you what, that was its own set of work.
• 31:46
  And all it took was a break in a, in a.
• 31:49
  Up by the barn or whatever.
• 31:50
  And you came home and you're like, where's that water coming from?
• 31:53
  And why is my pump at the well been running for six hours while I was at work?
• 31:56
  So yeah, yeah, it can be a real problem.
• 31:58
  That's why just having technology can help you provide that oversight.
• 32:02
  It's not only just going to protect you, it's going to give you oversight and insights around what's going on in your home.
• 32:08
  Right now I can pull up a camera and see what's going on.
• 32:10
  I can control my locks.
• 32:12
  I can see if water's flowing.
• 32:13
  I can see how much water has flowed.
• 32:15
  So it's.
• 32:16
  We're already connected to our homes in so many ways.
• 32:19
  So today's homeowner.
• 32:20
  It's not as much of a leap as it may have been two years ago to realize, hey, plumbing should be part of this plumbing smart home ecosystem.
• 32:27
  Because it's going to help me.
• 32:28
  It's going to help me just keep an eye on things, but also keep me secure.
• 32:32
  That makes sense.
• 32:33
  So how do people get these and install them?
• 32:35
  Because of course most people are not going to be sitting there cutting into the main line of their house and sweating pipe if it's copper and doing that.
• 32:43
  But what's the best way to people to go, oh my gosh.
• 32:46
  I'm adding this because I'm, I'm just sweating when I'm out of town.
• 32:49
  It's the.
• 32:49
  Did I leave the iron on or.
• 32:51
  Yeah, did we turn the water off?
• 32:53
  You know, turn the water off.
• 32:54
  Did my cat go there and knock the faucet on that.
• 32:56
  Is that causing a problem?
• 32:57
  Especially those touch faucets in the kitchen.
• 32:59
  That could get interesting.
• 33:00
  So many things can happen.
• 33:01
  Like, it's pretty simple.
• 33:03
  The easiest thing to do is just call a plumber.
• 33:04
  And fortunately, today most plumbers have some level of familiarity and experience with leak detection systems and they will even sell you the the valve along with the installations.
• 33:14
  That's really simple.
• 33:15
  Just call your.
• 33:16
  Any plumber has the skills to install leak detection system fullogic.
• 33:20
  We also make it quite easy to sell the system direct to you and then you can just hire a plumber at your own convenience.
• 33:26
  We also have thousands of plumbers in a referral network.
• 33:30
  So we can help you find a plumber.
• 33:31
  Not everybody has a go to plumber in their rolodex.
• 33:34
  Or just kind of that they would go to if they ever needed something.
• 33:36
  So we can help connect you to a plumber in your local area who can install the system for you.
• 33:42
  Yeah, I mean it is a little bit of legwork to get a system and get it installed, but when it comes down to actually doing it, when you work with a company like Logic vez, those connections and that
• 33:52
  infrastructure, it's not that hard.
• 33:53
  It's pretty simple.
• 33:55
  I love that you guys are under the Bradford White umbrella now.
• 33:58
  That is super exciting because we talk about their heat pump water heaters all the time in the show here when we have their team team on and we've been doing that for years.
• 34:06
  But you guys could not have been paired up with a better company for that.
• 34:10
  I agree.
• 34:10
  We're excited too.
• 34:11
  We're in our second year of being part of the Bradford White Company.
• 34:14
  Logic's been around for over 20 years but now we're part of a very strong US manufacturing company that makes water heaters are built to be the best.
• 34:23
  And there's a whole lot of alignment in what their brain stands for and what the FU Logic brands always stood for in providing a resilient product.
• 34:31
  It's pro grade.
• 34:32
  Our system has a five year warranty.
• 34:34
  Best in category by far.
• 34:36
  Backup battery is part of it.
• 34:38
  The greatest visibility to leaks of virtually any size.
• 34:41
  So we're part of a company that's committed to providing best in class durable plumbing goods and couldn't be more excited about it.
• 34:48
  Yeah, no kidding.
• 34:49
  Those guys are just the OG on that stuff and they are such a great maiden America success story that I just love to see.
• 34:57
  And if I remember right, you guys are doing a lot of manufacturing here in the states as well, aren't you?
• 35:02
  We are, yeah.
• 35:02
  Our valves are cast in Pennsylvania machine right here in North Carolina where our headquarters is.
• 35:08
  You have.
• 35:08
  Vast majority of our components are actually made right here in the United States.
• 35:12
  Assembly's done here in the US So we're committed to as much domestic manufacturing and certainly assembly and management as possible.
• 35:21
  Man, that is awesome.
• 35:22
  That is great.
• 35:23
  Yeah, we just did a whole series here made in America 250 where we were highlighting companies and stuff that have been making stuff in America and, and that is.
• 35:31
  I just love that success story.
• 35:33
  It's something we've been doing on the show for over the entire 38 years we've been on the air and it's just anytime we can have that stuff made here kind of takes the tariff discussions and all that stuff.
• 35:43
  Just mostly out of the conversation because it's on the shelf at your local plumbing store now.
• 35:49
  That's right.
• 35:51
  That is great.
• 35:52
  Ian, is there anything we forgot to talk about today?
• 35:54
  Because I'll tell you what, you guys are doing some great stuff out there and I wanted to make sure to get you guys in front of our friends here in the audience to make sure that, hey, there's a
• 36:01
  solution for this that can really reduce the risk in your home from damage.
• 36:07
  Yeah, I just appreciate the opportunity.
• 36:09
  Most individual homeowners are still not aware of leak detection or they may have heard of it and have questions about what it really is and how it works.
• 36:17
  And hopefully we've been able to answer some of those questions today.
• 36:19
  I will say to learn more you can go to the Flogic website and it's spelled F L O L O g I c fullogic.com we have some helpful information.
• 36:30
  If you scroll down at the bottom of our of our homepage, there's actually a leak risk assessment guide that you can get and it'll ask you a series of questions about your home and how your home is used
• 36:40
  and it'll give you insights around what your real risk is.
• 36:44
  It also give you practical tips on how to prevent plumbing leaks and make your home more resilient.
• 36:49
  Of course, leak detection is part of that, but there's more to the brittle than just installing leak detection.
• 36:54
  There's things to do around your home that can make it more resilient.
• 36:56
  So there's a resource on our on and also it's going to tell you more about the logic system and how it works.
• 37:04
  And we're always here to answer questions.
• 37:05
  We have.
• 37:06
  Our support team is right here in our office in North Carolina and we love to answer questions from anybody who's just inquiring about leak detection, if it's right for them and how to get it installed.
• 37:16
  We're here to help with that.
• 37:18
  Perfect.
• 37:18
  In green.
• 37:19
  Thanks for coming on today, guys.
• 37:21
  Check out Flow Logic.
• 37:22
  This could be something that changes your home for the good and can reduce a heck of a lot of headaches if you have a problem.
• 37:28
  Right?
• 37:29
  Absolutely.
• 37:30
  Save on your insurance too, by the way.
• 37:32
  No question.
• 37:33
  Thanks again, brother.
• 37:34
  I'm Eric G.
• 37:35
  You've been listening to around the House.
• 37:51
  Don't wander.
• 37:58
  Nah.