Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: This is Short Term Rental Management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Karl.
Short Term Rental Management. We are here this week with my buddy Ryan Ferguson, who's a great, great dude in east Tennessee. He is.
Well, I'll let him explain what he is, but he's an all around kind of electrical handyman type of a guy that focuses on hot tubs. And we wanted to discuss the ins and outs of maintenance on rental real estate. And I figured you were a fantastic guy to talk to. So Ryan, tell us a little bit about yourself.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: I was born and raised here in Tennessee, you know, went smokies every single weekend or maybe every other weekend as a kid. Had no idea it would end up being a, you know, a life choice, you know, whether it be on the maintenance side or owning real estate side.
But about bought my first cabin up there in 2021 and then bought another one 20, 20, 2022. And during that process we had a hard time finding reputable maintenance guys or handyman just to come and do simple projects. Even though I only lived about an hour away, sometimes you couldn't make it up there to do things. And so I left my cushy electrical job that I had and about a little over two years ago and started doing cabin maintenance. And we molded our business to be more of a general handyman type of business because I didn't really know where the niche was going to be. But over these past a little over two years now, it's really molded into hot tubs. That's pretty much what we do mostly now. And of course we used to do a lot of electric. We take care of pretty much everything from the panel all the way to the tub. Pretty much anything you need done, we can take care of it.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: So your background is an electrician, correct. And you worked, you had a full time gig doing that somewhere?
[00:01:48] Speaker B: I did, I used to. I've done everything from facility maintenance and in my last eight years I was there, I was electrician at the nuclear weapons facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: What goes on there? They literally have nuke. What are they doing with these nuclear weapons? Hopefully nothing.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: But I mean I can't really get into great detail because a lot of stuff you're kind of sworn to secrecy, but a lot of it, that's why 12, you know, it was during the Manhattan Project, you know, back in the 40s. And basically it there it's the pretty much the nation's like kind of like warehouse, I guess, like, like for nuclear Weapons and stuff.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: And you were in house on site, full time electrician at this facility?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: I was, I was in maintenance out there. So I floated around between the H Vac crew to build maintenance to just kind of wherever they needed me.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: And how did you get into that? You got your electrician's license years before that or was.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah, right out of high school. When I was 19, I got into electrical apprenticeship and then did that for five years. Worked during the day as electrician for a local company here and then I, once I topped out there, graduated I guess you would technically would say in 2012. Then I was on several facility maintenance contracts with a local utility board until I got on and applied for that position in 2015.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: And I do apologize if you can hear. I got a guy running a saw upstairs because I live in a house that's being remodeled because I always have a house that's being remodeled and this one has some, some action going on. So if anybody can hear. I don't think it sounds like he's using a sander or something at this point, but it's a little obnoxious. I don't know if you can hear it, but I figured I'd point it out. But that's what we're doing here. This is rental real estate. It's non stop. It's always something, you know. So, okay, so you were basically a full time employed electrician at this facility for 10 plus years.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: For. Right. At eight years.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Eight years. Okay. And at that point you got a taste for real estate. Got got your toes like, I guess. What, what brought you into real estate? Do you remember?
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Was there an event at the time? I was in the H Vac crew there and a buddy of mine, Zeke Goodman, was sitting next to me and I overheard him talking about him and his wife buying a cabin.
And. And so I kind of piqued my interest and we started talking and so I was like, I would like to do that because we actually got our taste in real estate. A little bit before that we rented out. We had a camper that we rented out for about a year to like RV outdoorsy and of course living near the Smokies. Three out of four rentals. That's where it always wanted to go. Somebody wanted to go in the national park or some campground around the Smokies. But then we sold it in, in right around the peak of COVID We wanted to get a newer model and that's when you couldn't find campers anywhere. You couldn't get anything. And so Then we just held off. And then that's when I overheard my buddy Zeke talking about, you know, buying a cabin. And it's kind of piqued our interest. And that's when we bought our first one, I believe in July of 2021, and bought another one in April of 2022.
And we currently distillers have the two at this point.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. And Zeke's actually one of our real estate agents at the short term shop. So it's all coming full circle. And so around that time you noticed that there was a gap in the labor force.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: It sounds like I did. It's one. And it's a lot of personal, personal experience. Really goes back to the hot tub thing. I had a hot tub that wasn't working. And I called a, at the time, a reputable a company, had a lot of good recommendations. And just when I called them, you know, coming out, the communication wasn't very clear when they were coming out, when they, you know, when they were coming. And then when they did come, you know, you'd see them leave and then you wouldn't for hours. You'd be like, well, did they fix it or what? I gotta let the guest know what's going on. This communication just wasn't there. And then they told me that, you know, they needed to order a part and. And you're having to call and talk to the lady that worked there, you know, and they had to call detectives. The information was just there. Like the communication was just not there. And when they finally come back out, the fix it, you know, like. Well, and then they left. Did you fix it? Oh, yeah, I think, you know, we did. And it was like just this. I just saw it's a big niche in communication. Just tell everybody when you're going to be there. You know, people that they just want to keep me informed.
And so that's kind of where I saw the niche was and kind of took a leap of faith and left, you know, and started doing this now full time.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And I, I'm very tight in the community. I know exactly what you're talking about. And it seems to me like, you know, again, first of all, there's only one basically hot tub store in the area. There's maybe two. There's the one in Wares Valley that's a little even smaller. But it was always clear to me, ever since I bought my very first one years ago, that maintenance wasn't really their thing. You know, I don't know what it is. It's like they Just want to sell them and they will do maintenance. But it's almost like these local stores haven't figured out a way to make money on the maintenance or what. What. What do you think's going. What it is with that?
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Of course, we're mostly doing this all the time now. I'm in a lot of those stores, know a lot of people on a first name basis. And, you know, there's certain ones are. There are just out there and they just sell them and they don't really do their own maintenance. And there's. And there's a couple of them in particular that they do have their own guys, but it may only be like one or two techs. And so if you're. If you're wanting to go with them, sometimes you usually kind of have to wait because they're not able to get to you. That's just because they just don't have the manpower. But yeah, there are. There's a couple of them out there that once they sell them, they'll probably forge you. Like, they may give them my number or some other somebody else, but they usually just. They're just mainly ones that come off the showroom floor. Like, they'll cover their warranty if you need one, but it won't be anybody like a direct employee from that necessarily that store that'll come out and service your tub.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: And when you got into this, you weren't necessarily looking to, you know, specialize in hot tubs. You just knew that you. Sounds to me like you knew you wanted out of the day job, which was a very common thing, especially in the COVID era. Everybody wanted out of their day job in Covid.
And you said, you know what, I'm a pretty, pretty talented guy. I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. And. And I'm gonna see where this takes me. And were you. Were you. And maybe do you still do random maintenance? Are you going to work with any wood or railings or decks or anything like that?
[00:07:35] Speaker B: I mean, I would do very little. I was like, carbony wasn't really my thing. I could do some of it, but it just wasn't something that I enjoyed. I would do like a couple little trim jobs here or there, but it just wasn't. It wasn't really my thing. I said, I really. I really like the service part of it. I like, like, hey, we got a problem is broke. I need you to go fix it. I really like it. I've been in service pretty much my whole entire career, you know, kind of Being like, problem solving. I'm more or less on the set, on the, the, the service side. Not much on the construction side of it. So, like, that's why kind of the hot tubs kind of fell into my lap because, like, it's, you know, people's calling, they need you there. And almost like you have like a bat phone, you know, especially when you got guests there, it's like, hey, they call you at, you know, five or six o' clock in the afternoon and they're like, hey, I got a guest there, checked in, it's cold, they're mad, you know, so you got to, like, you got to go, you know, try to solve the problem, I guess. And so I'll tell you a funny story. My wife, when I first got into this, she looked at me in the kitchen and she said, you know, you're going to be the hot tub guy, right? And I was like, I don't know about that. And she, a couple of weeks ago, she was like, I told you. I told you. So it was just, you know, a hot tub kind of come easy to me just because I've got a big control background. And I really like problem solving. And there's a lot of problem solving in that, especially some of the scenarios you get where the hot tubs, you know, tucked into a corner and you can't get three of the sides. You got to figure out a way to fix it. And so that's. That's. I guess that's. That's. That's pretty much it, I guess, is just as far as I do a lot of other electrical stuff too. Like, we do a lot of troubleshooting with that or any people converting their tubs from a 120 to 240 or they didn't have a hot tub, those kinds of things. And that's probably one of the biggest things I've had to kind of retrain my mind to. As far as in the Smokies, where being in heavy industrial and commercial my entire career, as far as electrical goes, there's a. There's a quality standard there. And so you just assume that the person that installed something from A to B knew what they were doing and you only have to take it over from, you know, the C to D. But in the Smokies, that's not the case. I had to retrain my brain to think outside the box and don't assume, don't assume anything. And so that's probably been the biggest challenge I had at first, was just assuming that everything was done Right. That would be like common sense and electrical. And you'd just be surprised what you see out there. That I've had to retrain my brain, that it was. It was an understood where I came from.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Yes. And I. I do agree with you there in. In defense of the Smokies, which I'm a big fan and been there a long time.
It's every vacation town.
You know, I live on the beach in a vacation town these days, and it's the same thing down here. I got this guy fixing something that's been busted on this house for 20 years right now, you know, and it just.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Because some idiot threw it together and didn't care. And it's just kind of how it goes in vacation towns. They're trying to put them up quick. I mean, builders are always trying to do stuff quick. But. And another thing is a lot of times in a vacation town, the owner of the property sees it maybe once every year or two years sometimes, you know, So a lot of times I just throw them together and nobody ever really notices or cares, you know.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: That's very true. I go to a lot of properties at first, and when I go in, I. When I walked out, I'd be there for something simple and I'd be like, you realize this was broke, or this looks like this, or that looks like this. And they were like, we had no idea. You know, cleaners didn't say anything.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: You know, so I mean, I still see that all the time. Yeah.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, it's. It's no fault of the vacation town. The same thing can happen in Indiana or Cleveland or whatever.
And I realized that was a state and a city, but you know what I mean, like builder. Builders, they tend to cut corners. If you're not spending a massive amount of money on a luxury property, any town, usa, you can pretty much expect some things to be a little bit, you know, corner cut. But so when you first got into it, you kind of were just like basically just answering your phone. Right. Putting yourself out there and answering the phone, which is. I've said this a thousand times, if you move to a vacation town and answer your phone, you will get business.
That's true business. So when you first started, was it just answer the phone and do whatever?
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it was pretty much answer the phone kind of do whatever.
Biggest things is kind of getting your name out there, where I did have a lot of people that. That was in the real estate business already. Just knowing some realtors and stuff up there kind of helped me kind of get in and kind of get started. But yeah, I really, at first I was kind of just taking just about anything that I really could. Even if it wasn't something I really wanted to do. It was just kind of getting your name out there and getting like, hey, he's going to answer the phone and he's going to be, going to be truthful. Because one thing I like to do, and I wish lot of people do more of this, is that, you know, if it's something that I don't feel like that I can do it justice or do it the quality that it needs to, I'm going to be like, hey, look, you need to call, you know, somebody else because it really needs to be done better than what I can necessarily do. And a lot of people appreciate that because most of the time you don't get that. The guy will just try it and butcher it. And then next thing you know you're having to redo it again and that's it. That's just not, that's just not my personality.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: I've been through that a hundred times where I was, I mean, even redoing bathrooms and they just did a terrible job. Next thing you know, the, the waterproofing's leaking all over the place and you got the whole damn out. You know, right. After a year and a half, I.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Know, I, trust me, I get it. I totally get it.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: So eventually, did you make a conscious decision to niche it down or did, did the phone calls just. Did it happen organically where people were only calling you for hot tubs?
[00:12:38] Speaker B: It kind of happened organically where I started getting a lot of hot tub type stuff. And then also I kind of started forwarding a lot of the other stuff, potentially like other people. And just because I was so busy with hot tubs. But I just officially changed my name to have hot tub repair in it recently because I decided expand a little bit and put myself on Google where I was just all my business was pretty much just through all the, the short term rental Facebook groups and word of mouth up there. And so when you're dealing with like maybe primary residence people or other businesses, you know, when they're trying to find somebody that to work on their hot tub, they're looking for a specialist. And it looks better having hot tub repair in your name than it is to having like property maintenance, like a general handyman doing it. Okay. In the Smokies, they understand there's a lot of handyman do a lot of stuff. But you know, as far as in a Primary residence or outside the Smokey's Market. Everybody's looking for an expert or a specialist and it just looked better.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: And have you considered hiring people? In other words, are you getting busy enough to bring other people on it?
[00:13:35] Speaker B: It's starting to pick up that way. I'm not at the point to where I could do that full time yet, but yeah, it's getting. It's getting pretty busy. To where, like now I've got, like, before I was, I'd schedule out a day or two because it was a lot of emergency stuff. But now a lot of times I'm getting stuff pretty scheduled out. I'm not booked out like two weeks, but I'm getting like, you know, trying to balance in between the, the homeowner and the, the investor. Because, like, what, you know, the homeowner, they're like, hey, I can wait and do it when you get a chance. Investors like, hey, I need you like yesterday. So it's like trying to balance that, you know, that kind of juggle those, those schedules, I guess. But as far as like hiring anybody, I mean, I'd look to possibly do it in the future, but not quite there yet. But also we've not. We've only been on, you know, Google for a short time, and so it's starting to pick up, especially with a lot of hot tub stores. Find out that you work on hot tubs because there's just not a lot of people out there that do it.
So I get a lot of people reaching out to me in businesses for warranty work and stuff like that. Just because it's just a limited supply of people that do it or the guy that's been known to do it in the area are starting to kind of slow down and kind of retire because they've been doing it for a long time.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Because, you know, here's another thing. In a vacation town, it's hard to find good help. It is. So, you know, I always worry about a guy, you know, somewhere maybe at your level, where you start to bring somebody on and then it can, it can go to. It can go down, down the tubes pretty quick.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: I totally get that. That's one of my biggest things is if I get to that point, just relinquishing the reins and being able to trust someone to do it in the same capacity that I would.
And so it may be a struggle for me when I go to do it, just the fact of that I know what I'm capable of doing. And when you have to put your name on the back of someone else. That is hard.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: It is hard. And here's my theory there. In vacation towns, again, having lived in one for a number of years, multiple vacation towns, there's two types of folks that are living and working in these areas. Well, there's three. There's the doctors, and there's not very many of those.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: And then there's the entrepreneur, and then there's the guy that doesn't know what the hell they're doing and they're just passing through, you know, transient. They're just moving in and out and.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Oh, very, very true.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: And sometimes those folks are, you know, caught up into things that they shouldn't be doing and, you know, not living much of a healthy lifestyle.
And so the entrepreneur doesn't want to work for you because he wants to have his own business.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: That's very true.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: And the other guy, you don't want working for you because they're not going to be any good at it.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: I agree. I agree. That's very hard. You almost have to find that niche and find that guy that, like, he's good at what he does, but he just. He doesn't want to deal with the headache of, you know, the scheduling and the business thing. And he's like, I just want to, you know, just. Just pay me and I'll go fix it. That kind of thing.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
So let's talk about the nuts and bolts as far as.
I guess my first question is, when you show up to a house, this is very broad and we're going to get deeper. How often is it something stupid and easy?
[00:16:29] Speaker B: I'd probably say 30%.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: And is that usually economy mode, sleep mode?
[00:16:34] Speaker B: It can be. It can be that or it can be something simple like the, the guests that turned all the jets off. You know, you can turn them off individually or it'll. It'll throw. It'll throw a code because it can't flow enough water. And it's just a matter they've got all the. All the jets turned off, and it's like trying to breathe through a mask. Or you show up and there's not enough water in it, so, you know, so it's. It's doing the same thing. Or you show up and say there's no power at the tub, and it's like. Because the cleaner put the disconnect t handle back in upside down, so it ain't gonna have any power. You know, something. I mean, you know, you get those, those, those. Those simple, simple things. That's. And I've learned to Check for those first.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Okay, let's break that down for the good host out there that's running their own property, which is pretty common, that wants to know how to fix this stuff before it happens or get, you know, like at least have a protocol here. And before we even get into that, I want to back up even further. If you don't know anything about the East Tennessee Smoky Mountains, first of all, it's the biggest Airbnb market in the world. It's all overnight rentals. And we love it. I love it. It's so gorgeous. You always get that warm, fuzzy feeling rolling into town. You know, it's just a wonderful place.
And it's a lot of overnight single family homes, which is weird. There's not a lot of towns in the world that are a whole bunch of houses that they rent overnight rather than renting to tenants or just living in them. But that's how things go there. And it's just how things go in Myrtle beach and Branson, these very niche down vacation towns.
So my point there is every single house in East Tennessee, if you want to do well, you got to have a hot tub, right? And it's always been like that. It's been like that since as long as I can remember.
That's not anything new. So you gotta have a hot tub. And if you've got a hot tub, you gotta learn a couple of things about hot tubs. So I do want to talk about the code thing first, which is, you know, EC for economy mode, SL for sleep mode, et cetera. And what happens is, is the guest rolls up, he's got two Corona, one Corona in each hand, he's half drunk, and he's pushing every button he can to get that thing as hot as he can get it. And in the process, he's pushed so many buttons that he's put it in sleep mode and now it won't get hot at all.
And now he's mad and he's messaging the host and he's saying, this hot tub, busted. I hate this house.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Right?
[00:18:46] Speaker A: So then you gotta call Ryan. He goes out there, he literally pushes six buttons and he's on his way. And I'm not saying that's what he's doing for a living, but I am saying that if you're a good host or a good owner or a good property manager, you should know those things.
And also you can disable that on some hot tubs, there's toggle switches that you can flip the toggle and it will no longer allow the Mode. So Ryan, you're the hot tub guy. You're dealing with these things all day long. Give me a few minutes speech here on modes and what I can do as a host.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Well, just like you said on a lot of the ones in the Smokies where the hot tubs and the Smokies are a little different than outside of the Smokies because we try to keep stuff simple up there and a lot of the hot tub manufacturers that are the ones that are selling try to keep them as simple as possible, especially a lot of, a lot of older hot tubs. I've even seen some up there from like the mid-90s that still had like you, like you turn the dial from red to blue like in your car to turn just the heat and it's still working, but a lot of those have been retrofitted. And so it's got newer spa pack or control systems in it. And so a lot of them that when whoever installed it, like Luke said, you can actually disable the economy and sleep mode. But if yours hasn't been disabled, what you'd have to do is just a button sequence. Basically. This is easy that you can trying to remember. It's either like the, on. It's different on certain ones, I believe it's either the, the, the. The light and the up temperature button and it'll go through it. SL means sleep EC is economy and then SE is standard. And what that necessarily means is standard is operating the way it is. If you set it 104, it's going to heat to 104 and going to shut off. Economy mode is usually means it's going to only heat up to a certain degree. Usually it's like 20 degrees, I believe of the set point. So somebody's going to call you, they got it. If you get the phone calls I hate won't heat up above 84th because they've got a 104 and they've got an economy mode. Asleep mode means it just keeps, it keeps it kind of pretty much like above freezing or it's different on different hot tubs. But pretty much both those modes are really designed for the homeowner and not for the investor for the, for the short term rental. And just like you said, everybody comes in, whether it's the, you know, the guy coming or hitting buttons or the kids, you know, every, every kid's gonna, they're gonna push every button they can back and forth. I mean they're gonna, it's gonna be pushed. Every knob is going to be Turned every. It's like, you know, until I try to tell everybody buys a hot tub up there to keep it as simple as possible. Because if it's got a button, if it's got a knob, it's going to be, it's going to be operated.
And you see a lot of people that'll buy these over elaborate tubs and next thing you know, the water shooting up the deck below it. And because they've opened the waterfall valve and then, you know, and they have to go find it down the hill and it's just, you know, just big things just keeping it simple. But pretty much if you've got a standard like Balboa 4 button display, 9 out of 10 times you can, you can disable it pretty, pretty easy.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: All right, can I disable it? In other words? It's just, there's like little toggle switches in there.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: I mean, what you have to do is, is it just depends on how comfortable you are with being around like the electrical. But you have to take the side skirt off of the, take the lid off the spa pack and then there'll be seven. There'll be ten little red dip switches in the bottom right corner kind of towards the center. And it's usually depending on what spa pack you have, it's usually number seven. But if you look inside the lid, it'll tell you what each, what each dip switch does.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Another one that I see up there that people that haven't had the economy mode done, especially on your convertible models where it can be 120 or 240, they've got a mode on the. It's usually number 10 and it's called low amp mode. And a lot of time when you convert it to 40, you always flip that down or turn that off. And what that does is when you turn the jets on high speed, it'll allow the heating element to run at the same time. And they have that feature to where. When you turn it when it's off or when. I'm sorry, when low mode is on, then when you turn the jets on high speed, it turns the element off. Because when it's on 120 volt and it's plugged into a standard outlet, it doesn't have enough amperage to run the high speed and that. And it's one of those that you really don't notice it as bad until you get when it's that really cold temperatures. You know, it's in the 15 degrees out there and you've got, you know, six people in the hot tub. And then everybody wants the jets on high speed. It's losing a lot of that heat out of the tub. And they say, well, it's just not keeping up. It's because they, they've hit the, the high speed jets on two different times. And so it's been running for 30 minutes and not.
And not knowing that. That's why it's just a matter. It's a simple toggle switch that they should have probably they should have when they converted it or changed that pack that spot back out. They should just flip that dip switch down too.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: Got it. All right, so other issues that are pretty common is the water level being too low. What does that do?
[00:23:04] Speaker B: If the water level is too low, it'll start sucking air at that point and then it can cause air to get in the system and then it'll start giving you like an overheat code or a lot of times it's a flow code, which means that there's not enough water to go in across the sensors there where the element is to safely turn the element on. So then it shuts itself off saying, hey, there's a problem.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Got it. And is that something I can fix? How do I fix that?
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Yeah, what you would do there is you do, of course, you fill it up where you need to. Depending on your hot tub, you can, sometimes you can just hit the button and it'll go ahead and reset itself. If not yet cycle the power.
And then with your Balboa systems, that which a lot of them are up there, when you first turn it on, it'll give you a go through a series of numbers and then it'll say pr, which means prime mode. And they'll give you about one to two minutes to bleed all the air out of the lines before it tries to start operating and sensing the water temperature. And that's when you just make sure that you're not hearing if you usually if the water level's too low, you'll start hearing it gurgle like it's starving for like starving for water. And you can usually when you get up to a level, it's no longer starving at that point, then it'll usually it'll fix itself. And after that two minutes, it'll start blinking, telling you that it's detecting the temperature and trying to determine if it needs to heat or not.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Okay. Fascinating how I'm going to YouTube how to fix an airlock, because that does come up pretty, pretty often.
And then the disconnect. In other words, what is a disconnect.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: A disconnect is basically a. It's a way to shut the, in this case the hot tub off safely without having to like go back to find where the breaker panel is in case there was a problem, like for some reason it started making a loud noise or spitting fire or something started happening to it. You can run over and turn it off to go figure out where the panel is. Hey, I can't get to the panel. It's locked in the mechanical room, that type of thing. So it's mainly for. For your safety and also for convenience of working on it too.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: And this is called a plunger, the thing you pull out of there. It's like.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: There's several kind of styles of disconnect, but like the one that's the most common, that's just because that's the easiest and readily accessible. I call it a T handle. T handle disconnect. That's where you grab it and pull. It looks like a T. And you pull it straight out and it disconnects the copper conductors, I guess, or the plates. You're breaking the circuit and then you put it back in, you know, then it turns the power back on, creates a circuit on it legally.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: I'm sorry, go ahead.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: What happened, what happens with those is that because people pull those disconnects out is if you don't, people would lose them. So what they would do is you can actually put it in. One way it's on and the other way you can turn, put it in and it's off to where you keep the. If you're working on it so you don't lose that T handle. But a lot of. I've ran to a lot of instance where the cleaners, they'll put it in upside down, think, well, I got it in there and it's not making any contact. They flip the blades upside down.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: The cleaner should know that before because it's not going to come on, right?
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Yeah, but you'd be surprised. I tell everybody that I work on if I've had an airlock issue or a lot of those can be prevented by the cleaners. And for. I mean, I've been around cleaners, you know, at my cabin, and they fill it up, they turn it on and then they, they walk right out and they're ready to go, move on to the next one. And if they just wait about two more minutes and make sure that they go over during that prime mode, or if your hot tub doesn't have that mode, make sure all the jets are Working and it doesn't seem like it's low on pressure. You know, a lot of these, a lot of service calls can prevented just by cleaners taking that extra two minutes to make sure. I don't say service calls can't be prevented, but it can be addressed before the guest is the one that's calling you with the problem.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Right. Which is what you're trying to avoid.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: What you're trying to avoid. Yeah, but a lot, a lot of cleaners, they'll, they'll, unfortunately they'll, they'll, they'll put it back in and they're, they're right out the door. All you have to do is go over and hit the jets, cycle the jets back on, make sure they're working in both and if not, then they let the owner know, hey, these jets ain't working or the hot tub's not working. And, and you know, if you had a clean at 10, you have somebody out there in a couple hours and the guests never knows are affected. But then they, you know, the worst part is when they, you know, the cleaner, you know, put it in there and they, they went on their way and then the guests didn't get there till 7, 8 at night. They go to get in the hot tub after being on a long trip and it's, you know, it's 55 degrees and they're like, what's going on? And then you go out there and you just, you just bleed the air out of the lines and you're done and you know, 10, 15 minutes, but then you gotta wait, you know, 10 or 12 hours for it to heat up, so they don't get to use it till the next day.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: So an airlock is not bad for the system. In other words, if I airlock it multiple times, does it, does it fall apart?
[00:27:12] Speaker B: I don't know about fall apart, but I mean, depending on your system and how the sensors catch it, I mean if the element tries to turn on and it's like a little two inch tube with a, between a 4,000 watt element to a five and a half watt, you know, KW element, you know, at the same size in your hot water heater, but it's in a little 2 inch tube. So you know, when that, when it comes on, if the sensors ain't working properly, you can hear it sizzling there. And so, yeah, it can cause premature, you know, the elements to go out, especially if it's done multiple times. A lot of the newer ones now have like bleeder valves on them and they're A lot better the way they've popped them in where they don't get airlocked as much. A lot of it's the older ones and especially if, if the ones I've seen on the older ones the most have been where somebody has put in what they call like a quick dump drain. And they'll, they'll put in like a 2 inch drain. Like one of my hot tubs actually, for my personal ones, actually have it to where they can open it up and it'll drain the tub through a hard pipe like pretty fast. But when you do that, you're taking all the water completely out of the system. Compared to like if somebody drains it with a hose or a pump, you still got water in the jet lines and so that's where you get the airlock type of stuff.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, interesting.
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[00:28:54] Speaker B: It is. It's been code for a long time, but it's really just kind of stirred its face because these new short term rental inspections up there, you know, as everything's going on, so that's one of the things that they're looking at. And so basically you got to have a disconnect for the hot tub. It's got to be a minimum of 5 foot from the water's edge. And that's just so nobody can be inside the tub and try to turn the, turn the power off with their feet still in the water. And then of course it's got to be within a lot of line of sight. I mean you can't put it like around the corner where you got to go through a door to get to it. It's got to be, you know, accessible.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: And is there a maximum number of feet?
[00:29:26] Speaker B: I believe. How can I believe? It's like 25 or 50ft, but most of the time in the Smokies, I mean, like you're not going to get that far away from them.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: I got you. And how many homes would you say even have the disconnect?
[00:29:38] Speaker B: There's a lot more now. I put in a lot of Them, but there's. I run into a lot of them where they have a disconnect, but it's in the wrong place. You'd be surprised. We've been into a couple of them where the disconnect is mounted inside the hot tub, like where you have to take. You have to take the lid off in order to even activate the disconnect, which completes the completely, you know, eliminates the whole purpose of the disconnect. I was actually working at one the other day that I told the lady, I was like, hey, you know, your hot tub doesn't have a disconnect. And she's like, okay. Or, you know, if she's want me to give her a price to put one in. And as I go underneath the deck, it's mounted underneath the deck, like underneath. Underneath the joist. And I was like, that serves no purpose at all. You know, it's just crazy, you know, some of the things you see up there. But as far as one don't having one, I'd say.
I'd say two every ten. Probably doesn't have one. But over the next, you know, couple years, everybody's getting these inspections. Eventually it'll all be done. Because when things they're looking at and.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: It does need to be. We need to have this disconnect.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, because like, for instance, the one we were working on the other day, like, I had to go in and go all the way downstairs and turn the breaker off. And if I wasn't, you know, if I didn't have access to the. To the. The. The electrical panel or if I say the door was locked or, you know, if I had an issue that was really quick, I needed to turn something off. That extra, you know, 15 to 30 seconds could be a, you know, a heating element or something like that going on.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: But is a drunk person on vacation savvy enough to know that that's what that thing is and what to do with it?
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Well, I mean, typically, I mean, you should, I guess, shouldn't have to operate it because it should be working when they get there. So I mean, every once in a while you get somebody that's like, where it is airlocked or it's throwing a code and they have to add more water to it. I just trying to walk them through how to do it. That's why a lot of times the. The disconnects I like to put in is like a breaker style to where it looks just like a circuit breaker, but it's not. It's Just a, it's just a switch and it's, it's, it's pretty, pretty dummy proof. You know, you just turn it off, turn it on instead of having to figure out how the handle goes in and push it back in. It's a little more complicated type thing. This is very, very easy. That's the ones I like to put in.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: And 110 versus 220. You hear about this all the time. And then usually to me it sounds like they're trying to save a few bucks. So they get the 110 and try and convert it or whatever. What is, is the 110? Why are we doing that? Because it's less expensive. And do those, Are they worth it?
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Well, I mean, a lot of, I'd say two, two every three hot tubs that you buy in the Smokies or people have at the rentals are convertible models, which means you could make it 120 volt tub, but they already had 240 there before. So they just go ahead and convert it over to 240. But what that necessarily means is, is that basically if you're at a, if you have, if you don't have the ability to run a 240 volt circuit over there, you can plug it in. But your limitations are that let's say if it's got a 4000 watt element in it at 240 volt, at 120 volt, it's only going to heat it a thousand. So you're at like a quarter of, of your heating capacity and it's only going to heat it about 1 degree an hour. So if you're, you know, you're in the 50s, it's going to be like 25 to 27 hours to free gets up to temperature. And then when it's really cold and they're using the jets, you know it's going to turn the, it's going to turn the element off. And when you lose all your heat out of the water, it's just never going to recover. So, you know, it can drop very fast, you know, in the wintertime. And so I, you know, there's not as many 120 volts out there as, as there is there used to be. But some of the things I have seen people do in the Smokies is instead of just running a 240 volt circuit over there and kind of eliminate, eliminating the problem, they'd hire a plumber to come out and he'll run a, he'll tap on the water on the hot Water line and they'll basically have a hot water spigot on the deck and they'll fill the tub with hot water. You know, they're going to fill a whole tub up, but at least it cuts down on the, the recovery time.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Yes. I have a house where the hose is connected to the hot water.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: It's always annoyed me, to be honest, because then if you got a guest checking in shortly thereafter, then you got no hot water.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: And.
But yeah, I would tend to think it would end up, you know, causing, you know, when you're draining your hot water, you know, tank completely down to nothing up to three to four times a week. You'd think it would shorten the lifespan of the hot water you have to.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Drink so much, but 100%. Yeah, I don't like that at all. I might write that down, actually. I don't know if I ever got that converted. I always meant to hot to cold. I'm writing that down. Do you see anything or do you have any advice that cleaners could do better? In other words, do you ever walk, you walk into these houses and you're like, man, this cleaner is not doing this right.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Right.
I'd say probably the biggest thing that I see is just not turning them, not turning the hot tub off before they start draining it. That's probably the biggest one I've been in there before. I was full hot tubs pretty much. I was at a cabin one time and I was doing some, I think I was doing some smoke detectors for a guy. And I got there and the cleaners, they were starting to drain it. And that's another thing is that I always recommend putting some kind of a drain in there, whether it be like a black corrugated pipe up the side of your deck or a lot of people will put like a bell housing. I got 4 inch at the 2 inch bell housing in the deck and then hard pipe it down, just get it away from your pillars. But even though that, that drain is there, you know, you, you, you, what's the old saying, you know, that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink? Yeah, yeah, they'll, the cleaners will dump their hose right on the deck and the drain is like literally six inches from there. And I was like, I told the galley, you got to put that in there. And then I come back out about, you know, two, three minutes later and the hot tub sucking air, shooting water like out the hot tub, you didn't turn it off. And so that, you know, there's that's probably the biggest thing is just, just turning it off before they, they drain it.
And then make sure that whenever they, you know, that they drain it. It's not necessarily a hot tub thing, but it's more or less just the longevity of the deck and the property thing. I see it all the time. You hear water just come gushing down at the cabin next to you're working on, and they're not, they're not putting it in the drain. They just dump the hose off. It's running down the deck, running under the, you know, you know, some of these hot tubs can be, you know, 300 gallons. It could be, you know, 900, 1,000 gallons of water dump in there, you know, multiple times a week during the summer.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Yes, erosion is a problem. I've seen this a million times where you, you show up and you're looking at the bat the back of this house because a lot of these houses are built on a slope like that anyway, right. And you're sitting, you're sitting here like, man, you got a problem here with your deck posts or, you know, like the, the back of your crawl space is, is getting real bad. And it's because they're dumping 3, 400 gallons of water at a time two or three times a week. And they're just too dumb to realize it. Or nobody ever even looked.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody even looked. Nobody even thinks anything. The cleaners you would think would understand that. But like I see it all the time, especially when in these more like cabin developments where they're all kind of stacked in there together. You'll see, you'll see hot tubs flowing out. You know, even. I've even taken some pictures before I was a show, my wife was like, there's a drain right there. And they're like dumping it on the deck and it's going, hitting the deck below it. Yeah, it's just, it's just, it's just, you know, it, it cuts down and a lot of times, a lot of cleaner the get. The owner doesn't know because I mean, their, their hot tubs clean. They don't know. But it's just, they don't realize like what you just said until they have a problem. They're like, what in the world's been going on? It's been, it's been dumping right here for five years. You have to a thousand gallons a week. You know, potentially 4 to 5,000 gallons a month right there. Dumping in that one space.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Water is the number one problem with houses. In all capacities. The rain off the roof and leaks and floods and, and again with these hot tubs. It's like a self induced stupidity. It's, it's dumb. You gotta have a drain. Just get a 4 inch corrugated. You know, you like a French drain style obviously with no holes in it.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: It.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: But and, and zip tie the damn thing if you have to. It doesn't need to be a high dollar job, right. You know, just get some, some C clamps, clamp it to the side of the house and then make it run down into the woods, you know.
You know, a couple hundred bucks you can have just saved yourself. I mean, you know, a dead house, you could end up completely destroying the deck or the foundation if you don't do this. And most people don't even think about, about it, right?
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Most people don't think about it.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And then you mentioned dropping on the deck below because we see that all the time. First of all, why in the world are you putting the hot tub on this for way up in the air like that? It's so. They're so heavy. It's just not smart. It's best to put it somewhere that can handle the weight. So we'll talk about reinforcing in here in a second. But what, what Ryan's saying is a lot of times if you got that upper decker hot tub and it's leaking down to the deck below, et cetera, it's going all over the place. This water is treated. It is, it is chemically treated and it's destroying that wood on the deck. At the, at the very least you're going to have rotted nasty ass deck boards. So it's just, it's stupidity. And again, most owners don't even know what's going on. So talk to me about that. How often are you seeing sagging decks and, and deficiencies due to, you know, bracing issues?
[00:37:40] Speaker B: I don't see it as much as you would think you would, especially in a lot of places that I'm at eventually. I mean you'll see some from time to time. But now because of the short term rental inspections, that's another thing that they're looking at. So a lot of people have went ahead and I had somebody either like double the joist up or they put some kind of a girder system underneath it, some kind of bracing of some sort. I don't see, I don't really see as like where I feel like it's a danger as much as maybe we did in the, at the first. But even at that. It wasn't, it wasn't as big of a deal. I didn't see it as much, I guess. But a lot of people have kind of already been proactive, especially when they realized what they were going to be looking for. That was one of the biggest things that they were talking about was bracing and stuff for hot tubs. A lot of people have, I've seen they've been had, they've had them installed recently. You can tell stuff was new, concrete was new, you know, footers or they've been put underneath it were new. So I'm not seeing as much of like deck issues as much as you used to, right?
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Yes, it was getting to be a bit of a problem there.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: You know, in the pre Covid, like in the 1920 era, it was almost like nobody even realized that how heavy these tubs are. They are heavy.
I mean, the tub itself is not heavy. Right. You can move it around with one or two guys, right?
[00:38:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean it just depends on it is like if you get one of the what they call roller molded tubs, which was like the 4 or 5 personnel plastic free flow. Yeah, like free flow tubs. Or like the ones from Jacuzzi of Knoxville. Like those kinds of tubs you can put. I can push those around like, you know, a five person tub all the way across the deck by myself. But even the larger ones, I mean, if you got the right equipment, I mean, you can move them pretty easy. Now, it's not something we're going to pick up in dead weight move, but if you got some PVC and you can get some, you know, 2 inch PVC underneath it, you can roll it like on a, on a conveyor belt pretty easy.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: But once you fill it with 400 gallons of water.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it's not. No, no, no. Even the rolling ball, once you get them filled. Yeah, you're not moving them.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Yeah, they're extremely, extremely heavy. You got to be careful where you're putting these things. Most people just put them up there 30 years ago when the house was built in the most, you know, private place of, of the deck. And then the 30 years goes by and the damn thing sagging and it looks like crap and it's about to fall through. You got to pay attention to this stuff.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: And you got a lot of, A lot of codes have changed, you know, since as far as like the way they do decks and everything today with the extra bracing and bolts and everything else can do, they didn't do back then.
And so improving especially with those inspections, just people being proactive, especially with the hot tubs, you know, incidents that's happened in the past.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Yes. It's not a good thing. You got to be careful with these things. They're very dangerous if you don't pay attention, you know, so. And you're right. And the Joyce hangers and all this other stuff. You know, up until about. About COVID there was no Joyce hangers anywhere in the Smokies. It just didn't exist.
And somebody coming in from the Midwest and they get an inspection report, like, they didn't put joist hangers on this house. I'm not buying this house. Well, first of all, Joyce hang a dollar fifty.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: You know, just throw some damn Joyce hangers on there. It isn't a big deal. And second of all, every other damn house in town doesn't have them either, you know?
[00:40:32] Speaker B: Right. That's very true.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: And now we are to the point where I'll be. I. I feel like I'm starting to see Joyce hangers maybe a little more often than not.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Yeah, you are. A lot of that gets brought up on the inspections, and a lot of people, especially because of incidents that have happened with the hot tubs and decks and stuff, a lot of people are more adamant about, like, hey, I'm not going to go through with this deal unless you fix that, or I. Or I'm getting a quote and getting some money off to have it fixed when I possession of it.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Which again, joist hangers are literally like a dollar sixty.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: And they're not. They're not even close to difficult to install unless your deck's all out of whack. Then. Then you got a problem.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: But anyway. Okay, cool. So we hear about the shock every now and then with this. With the.
The hot tub needs to be shocked. What does that mean? Do you do that? Do we need to have that done?
[00:41:19] Speaker B: I'll be honest. In the Smokies, I mean, not necessarily. I mean, it's one of those things, like, you treat it like a pool usually, you know, like, for reference, my pool, after you have like a big party or something like that, a lot of people with body oils and other things that kind of go on in there, you know, you shock it just to kind of kill all that stuff away. But in the Smokies, where, you know, hot dog can be drained up three times a week, depending on the. How frequently the guest is there or their duration of their stay, only time, you're really going to have to shock them. From my Experience is if you start having a problem and most of the time I don't usually shock it. Like if I've had people that's had what they call biofilm in there where they've some algae's grown by either body oils or something the guest has put in there.
And it's kind of the same concept to do like a deep clean on it jet flush, flush everything out and it brings all the organics or the living material out of the jet lines and we clean it, do the same thing as a shock wheel. But as far as up there goes, like I, I don't personally do any kind of shock treatments or really try to do much balancing water just because the water's turned over so much. You'll just, you'll, you'll, you'll hurt your brain trying to be a chemist up there and balancing water and hardness and everything for as limited amount of time that water is going to be in there, there.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk about some water issues. You mentioned body oils that'll make the water nasty. We every now and then we get pictures on Facebook where the. Somebody got a picture of their water in their hot tub being green. And of course the hot tubs in east Tennessee and these folks are posting this from Arizona and they have no idea what's going on, what causes these discolorations. You mentioned the body oil.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: And I mean a lot of times I say you can get your biofilm stuff or it's cocking algae can, can cause it. A lot of times up there, you know where everything is on a well, they have a lot of iron issues up there. And even though people say, well it shouldn't be an iron issue, I've got a water filtration system. You still end up having issues, especially when you get, if you have any other kind of chemicals in the water and it reacts especially when you get some heat in there. So I always recommend everybody to fill them with an. It's. That's called an X10 water filter. It's like an inline, like a water hose filter from like an rv. But it's a little, it's a little better. So it's made for like a metal. I mean it's good for about 10,000 gallons. So that's a lot, a lot of hot tub fields and a lot of times that usually helps out pretty well.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. And of course the iron can come and go based on the amount of rain.
[00:43:27] Speaker B: It can, yeah, yeah.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: The iron and the sulfur. What about sulfur? Do you ever run into that I.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: Don'T run into that as much. A lot. A lot of times if it's. If you're going to smell it in a hot tub, you just start having issues like in the showers and other places you've addressed it like, otherwise. But you have to drain it and kind of. And wipe it down and probably refill it back up. Like, I went to one the other day that just smelled. It smelled terrible. Somebody lady called me and the hot tub wasn't that old, but it did. It smelled. It smelled really bad. And we did a deep clean on it and it was really nasty. And it filled it back up and everything was good to go. So, I mean, if something got in it, sometimes you can't really explain it.
But usually in your hot tubs, if you've got any kind of like that, but causing like the white floating flakes, if you fill them and they're like, slimy, that's usually like an organic or like a biofilm. If it's like gritty or sandpapery, that's usually like a hard water water.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Okay. Do you have any funny stories or horror stories where you walked into a tub that was clearly part of some sort of party or something like that?
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Probably the one that. Only one that comes to mind is I've had a couple. I've had one in particular that I went to. I opened it up and that was a raccoon come out on me. One that's raccoons is raccoons and squirrels love the hot tubs because it's hot, especially in the winter. It's like, you know, like a heated home.
So you always had to seal the holes up. I've had that a couple times.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: So he was in there with the. With it full?
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Yes. He wasn't like in the tub. He was in the cabinet. We're like, underneath. Like where the ground living underneath it.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: I got you between the tub and the wall, right? Yeah.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: I'm trying to think. The other story I've had is I went to one. The lady, she came. And of course, you've always got those type of people that they. They bring their own test strips, you know.
[00:45:06] Speaker A: Oh, Lord.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: And so the lady, she's like, said. They said, well, you said the. The chlorine level was low and this and this. So they said. So they put shock in it. But now it is just not working. It looks different. So my son and I, we go out there and the water looked like milk. And we were like, well, you know, what did you use? And we looked over there and they'd used almost a whole bag of shock. And really for, like, the amount of gallons is in it, they needed like, like a teaspoon. And so they, like, like quadruple shocked it. I mean, I was like, you'd, like, burnt your skin if they'd gotten in it so high. So we end up having to drain it and clean it. And I was like, don't ever use this again. We just thought we put it in there. I was like, if there's a certain amount per gallon, you know, you're supposed to do. I guess probably the most funny story that I have is I went to work on a hot tub one time in Gatlinburg. And, you know. And, you know, everybody knows Gatlinburg has a lot of bears. And. And. And so I go to work on this hot tub. I go around there, and the water level was low, but the water was like. It had, like a lake smell to it. It was, like, stunk. And I was like, well, I didn't have the part that I needed. So I come back the next morning. As I come out of, the water's even more dirty and smelled even worse. I was like, what in the world? So I texted the lady, and I was like, you're. Your hot tubs under the deck, it's covered. Like, what. How. How is this so dirty? And she sent me a picture, and there's a picture of a mama bear and a cub sitting in the hot tub. And they come and get in that thing all the time.
And it wasn't maybe 15 minutes after that, I hear my van doors open, and the mom bear got in my van and ate my Doritos. And so as I was sitting there, I had to watch her for, like, 30 minutes because she was. She didn't care that I was there one bit. My tools were in the van, man. And so I got to experience her. And after I talked to her, she was like, be careful. There's a couple other, like, smaller bears that when they. When you start filling that tub up, she knows you. You're gonna hear them coming down the. You know, they like to get in it too. And no joke, I'm filling the hot tub. By this time, it's starting to get dark, and hot tub. The cabin right on a hillside. And I hear they can. I squirted them bears two or three times that water hose that's coming there to get in that hot tub. So that's probably. That's probably the most interesting story that I've had. It was just never Ending.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: Fantastic. That's hilarious. Be careful with bears. They are everywhere and they are not friendly. Okay. So be careful. Make sure your guests are aware that they're coming to an area where bears exist. Get with severe county and talk to them about how you should warn your guests about this. We are not qualified to talk about this subject. It's definitely some legal stuff there and you know, you need to be making sure that they know what's going on. The bears will get into the car.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah. They've opened my van door. I mean they, I've seen them stand and open my van door like you and I would like pull the door and slide it open several times and I know better to lock them but I just get in the habit of not locking it and get starting to get into bear season now. We're starting to see them starting to get active.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: Yes. This, this time of year for sure. What else did we miss? Anything? I do want to talk about a little bit about your family life. You've got nine children.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: I do, yeah.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: What is that like? I mean, how does this come up? How does that happen? I mean, I know how it happens, but how did it happen?
[00:47:56] Speaker B: I guess it's just about, you know, by the grace of God that he's, he's, he's, you know, gave us this many children. Like they're, you know, they're just completely blessings. I mean I never would have thought that I would have, we would be where we are, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: Unbelievable. And you know, I had Mike Sutton on the show not too long ago and he's got eight.
So I'm going to ask you the same thing. How does the vehicle, what's your vehicle?
[00:48:16] Speaker B: We've got a Ford Transit 15 passenger van. That's one of those mid roofs you can walk through without hitting your head on the top. So that's what we drive.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Oh my goodness. And what are the age, what's the age gap?
[00:48:28] Speaker B: I've got 21, 16, 11, 9, 2 seven year old girls and then a five year old boy, three year old boy and then an 18 month old girl.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: Same woman, same wife.
[00:48:40] Speaker B: All of them but one. Yes. And one of them's adopted. One of them was. We adopted her because she was, she had a family member that wasn't making good life choices. And so we took her in and we've had her, her from the time we brought her home from the hospital. She's one of the seven year olds.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Oh my goodness.
Wow. What about school? Did they Homeschool or are they home?
[00:48:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. My wife homeschools all of them. She's. She's a champ.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: Oh man, she must be. I've got two and it is a handful.
Well, good for you, man. That is absolutely fascinating. Fascinating. Well, what did we miss? Anything we missed here about Smoky Mountain hot tub?
[00:49:17] Speaker B: Probably one thing I'd probably mention is a lot of people are one of the biggest recommendations or things I get all the time is like what do I need to look for when buying a new hot tub.
I would probably say the biggest thing is in the Smokies is I'm a lot. Some people disagree with me a little bit. I like the roller molded tubs like the one that's all plastic so there's no, there's no wood to rot. They're very lightweight, especially for decks. And, and the biggest thing up there is whichever one you get, like, just, just make sure. I always, I like the Balboa operating systems because you've got Balboa and Gecko are the two main ones. Ones I like Balboa better. I keep a lot more parts just a little more easier to work on.
But also too that when you, when you're looking for one is just, just keep it simple. I'm like you, you try to get one Scott, you know, one like ask questions like how many pumps this has like get once, get one pump. Very simple. Because the more bells and whistles you have, the more pumps you have and everything else, the more you're potentially going to have to go wrong. That's more moving parts, that's more everything else. And all the guest really cares about is that they have, you know, that the tub gets hot, blows bubbles, has of a lot lot. You know, they don't, they don't care about speakers, they don't care about waterfalls or you know, Alexa's built into it because you know, because like I said before earlier that any knob you've got or button, they're going to push it, they're going to find it, they're going to break it. And so you need to kind of keep it simple. That's probably the thing I'd probably say the most is just keep it simple. And then also I recommend getting one that's not. Doesn't have a light colored bottom like a white or like an ivory color. Because in the Smokies where you do have like water imperfections or like dirt and everything else that the ones that are light colored, especially the white ones, they don't give you any grace at all so like the cleaners missed like a little piece of mulch or something fell off whenever they were shutting the lid or something like that. It's going to show it and the right person comes in, they're going to want to complain and want some kind of money off of it. So that's probably the biggest thing is just, you know, keep it simple and stick with a dark colored, dark colored shell or inside of the tub if possible.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: 100 agree. We get a lot of folks that come into this. They're new, they're excited, they want to make their house better than everybody else's and they think they need some twelve thousand dollar hot tub with radios and everything else and speakers and Bluetooth. And man, you do not, do not put speakers on your hot tub. It's going to break. Not only that, but you're making your, you're annoying the hell out of your neighbors, you know. So I did buy one in Covid. It was the only one I could get my hands on. And you know how that went. It was really hard to get them during COVID Yeah. And this thing showed up and had speakers all over it and I was like, no, no way. I pulled them right out. I actually, I pulled the radio out of it and put. It's the hole still there?
And I put you know, a hot tub safety sign over and screwed side over the hole.
[00:51:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Especially during, during COVID there was a lot of, a lot of hot tubs we're still seeing now that where they were just trying to turn them out as much as they could. So they weren't necessarily building them to the way they typically would. And you know, a lot of them that have like undersized element tubes and stuff like that be okay at your house. But at, at a, at a, at a rental, they're very, very important that you keep the flow going on them. And all the jets are open, the filters are clean. If not, they burn out a lot more prematurely. And there's a lot of those out there and also too a lot of those control boards, those particular models that they making anymore. So that's eventually tubs that may only be four or five years old. Once you can't get those boards, if the board goes out, you're going to have to replace it and really not be that old. It's just, it's just the COVID and, and the times that was going on and what, you know, what you kind of had to do. But, but I see that a lot up there too.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: Oh man.
All right. Listen, it's been fantastic. How do I. How do I get a hold of you? What's the name of the company?
[00:52:35] Speaker B: It's Ferguson Hot Tub Repair. So you can get a hold of us at my cell phone number at 865-563-59383.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: Okay. All right, brother. Well, we appreciate you. You've always done great service and easy to get a hold of, which is not very easy to find. So you do great work. Thank you for that. And what did we learn today? We learned a lot about hot tubs, and we also learned that bears like Doritos.
All right. Thank you so much, brother. Short term rental management, the Smoky Mountain Podcast and hot tubs. We appreciate you. Don't overthrow think it's.
