Avery Carl [00:00:03]:
Hey all. Welcome to the short term show special episode series on the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. We are doing a ten episode deep dive into buying short term rentals in the Smoky Mountains. So we’re going to talk about a lot of things in these episodes and we’ll probably be doing a quarterly update from here on out after we finish these ten. So make sure you hit that subscribe button so you get those delivered straight to your phone when they come out of. We do have some supplemental materials for you in addition to the content on this podcast. So any information that you need on current property pricing, you can find on our website at the shorttermshop.com. and we also have, courtesy of our friends over at Air DNA, current air DNA data for this market on our website as well.

Avery Carl [00:00:50]:
So you can check that out on the shorttermshop.com. and if you guys are interested in buying a property in the Smoky Mountains with a short term shop agent, you can email us at agent@theshorttermshop.com or if you just want to learn more about buying short term rentals in this market, you can join our Facebook group. We’ve created a 50,000 person community on Facebook all about investing in short term rentals. You can join that. It’s the same title as my book. It’s called short term rental, long term wealth. See you guys over there. Hello, potential Smoky Mountain short term rental investors.

Avery Carl [00:01:27]:
This episode of the Smokey Mountain short term rental show is about common things that you are going to run into in terms of managing, specifically here in the smokies. So there are things that happen in the smokies that don’t happen in Florida, for example, or Scottsdale or anywhere else you might own things. So today we’re going to talk about those things and how to manage those. So I have three of the best managers I know in the smokies. I’ve got Luke, Carl, Chuck Kramer, and Tim Grillio. And guys, you just want to give a quick intro. I know some of y’all have been on previous episodes, but introduce yourself anyway. Luke, you go first.

Luke Carl [00:02:05]:
Yeah, I’m Luke. I am the shaman of short term cash flow Carl. And I am also the host of the short term rental management podcast. So please give me a, like, give me a follow over there. Give me a five star review because that’s what we are in the business to do. So I’ll turn it over to Chuck.

Avery Carl [00:02:22]:
Can you tell that Luke has 15 years of radio dj experience now?

Luke Carl [00:02:27]:
I’m just a big Ric flair fan, is really all that is.

Chuck Kramer [00:02:33]:
Hey, Chuck Kramer, longtime Smokey investor, restaurateur as well, and start my own series. We’ll talk about soon.

Tim Grillot [00:02:43]:
Can’t wait to hear that. My name is Tim Grillio. I’m actually an agent up here in the smokies with a short term shop and own several properties up here as well. And got some long terms, Kentucky, and some other short terms in some other states. So, uh, yeah, and I am not a radio dj.

Avery Carl [00:03:05]:
All right, so today we’re talking about things that you might run into management wise. So, guys, what we’re not talking about today are general things like how to set up property management software, things like that. These are smokey specific things that can and will happen when you own in the Smoky mountains. So do I want to give the first topic, or do one of you want to start off the topic?

Luke Carl [00:03:32]:
Let it roll.

Chuck Kramer [00:03:32]:
Go ahead.

Avery Carl [00:03:33]:
Okay. So the first thing that, that comes to mind for me is wells a lot or are wells? First thing is, I think it’s is, uh, whatever. Somebody email me the correct grammar for that because that’s going to bother me the rest of the show. Uh, so let’s talk about wells. The majority of the properties in the smokies are on wells and septics, and there are certain things that can, that you’re going to run into with owning a well. It’s just inevitable. And, Luke, what are those things?

Luke Carl [00:04:01]:
Well, here’s the deal with a well. You know, I mean, the water comes out of the ground, so it’s got its own personality. You never really know what to expect. And, and that’s not a big deal. Most people think that well water, and they’re right. Uh, that well water is better than city water. City water, meaning it comes, you know, pumps in from the city, you pay for it by the gallon, and it’s got a bunch of bleach and all that kind of crap in it. Fluoride.

Luke Carl [00:04:24]:
It’s good for your kids teeth and all that other crap they tell you. And, uh, you know, uh, most people, especially people that live in the country, will tell you that well water is superior to quote unquote, city water. Now, the downside of this is, is that when you’re renting this home to people who are coming from city water and have no idea or have never dealt with well water in their life, um, it can be a little sticky sometimes. So what you get is you get, you get one of a few different things. You’ll get. You’ll get colors. The color you get most often is generally a little bit red. And it’s iron.

Luke Carl [00:05:00]:
Iron also comes with a smell which smells like metal, believe it or not, because this is exactly what it is, although it’s, you know, it’s coming from the ground, coming from the minerals in the earth, basically. And then you get other color, other, other smells, such as sulfur, which is not good. Sulfur, again, a mineral, whatever, vegetable mineral, one of the two. And it does not smell good. It smells like rotten eggs. To be. To be easy on it, it’s, it’s pretty nasty. Can be corrected.

Luke Carl [00:05:31]:
Any of these problems, by the way, can be corrected. And then we have, we have things like silt, which is a fancy way to say, basically you’ve got some sand kicking up in your, in your water, and that could be corrected as well. But anyway, so, but what I do is if I buy a new house, I’ll have my inspector, or if I’m able to go there myself, I’ll fill up a glass with. I’ll do two things. I’ll turn on all the water in the whole house at the same time and plug the tub so I can see what’s doing there. As far as, you know, large amounts of water at one time. And then I’ll fill up a glass and smell it and see if it looks like anything. Then you also want to, you know, if you got a hot tub, open it up and see what that looks like.

Luke Carl [00:06:11]:
Of course, that water’s probably been sitting there for a few days, at least, so who knows what it looks like when it’s fresh, you know? So all of these issues can be fixed with the filters of various types of filters. They have these big, whole house filters that look like what you fill your, your kids balloons up with at a birthday party. And they fill them with different types of, you know, I think they call it. What do they call them? There’s a name for that. I’ll come back to that.

Tim Grillot [00:06:39]:
Medium.

Luke Carl [00:06:39]:
Medium. Thank you. And the medium is changed based on what attributes your water is dealing with. And they can get, get rid of almost any problem out there. These filters are around, you know, anywhere from $500 to three, maybe $4,000 for a high tech system. And these are going to be something that are, you know, you’re going to change. It’s got, it’s got a lifespan, in other words, about the same lifespan as a water heater. Somewhere around maybe ten years, maybe 15 years if you get lucky.

Luke Carl [00:07:13]:
And of course, you have them serviced and you have them checked out. And then, of course, water softeners come into play if you’ve got hard water and water softener can deal with a lot of these minerals and smells and things as well. And that’s enough for me. I’ll turn it over to one of the other guys. What? Where do we go from there?

Tim Grillot [00:07:27]:
Guys, that’s a lot of well stuff, but it’s all. It’s all spot on, you know? I don’t know. We. We actually recommend to our guests, we let them know it’s well water and say, uh, you know, basically you may want to bring bottled water to drink, but for everything else, it’s fine. You know, and just. Just to kind of alleviate that, you know, some people freak out about it. I grew up on Iowa and drank out of a well my entire life, so it doesn’t bother me at all. But some people get a little queasy about it.

Chuck Kramer [00:07:53]:
Evan, my case, the one place I have it’s on a well. People actually compliment me on the water, say it’s the best stuff they’ve ever had and that. So it can go that way too.

Tim Grillot [00:08:02]:
Yeah, I agree. I’ve actually got three out of the four of ours are on wells and none of them have any kind of water treatment system at all. And it’s great water. I just. The one in the valley is like the. Where’s Valley? It’s like the best water I’ve ever had.

Chuck Kramer [00:08:18]:
That’s where ours is at.

Avery Carl [00:08:20]:
There are people. I see them in the Facebook group sometimes. There are people. There are a few little areas in the smokies, like on the side of the road where there’s a pipe stuck out of the. Out of the mountain. And it’s for drainage of the rainwater. But people will take their. Their big, like, thermoses and stuff and go fill it up with out of youth, baby.

Avery Carl [00:08:43]:
Yeah, yeah. And on Facebook, people are posting like, okay, this one’s doing really good today. There’s a lot of water coming out of it. Or don’t go to this one. It’s dry and like, it’s a thing. It’s a subculture of people.

Luke Carl [00:08:53]:
In essence, what you’re talking about is a well. You know, I mean, all they’re doing is putting a hole in the ground and water comes out of it and it’s exactly what’s going on there, you know? And another thing to keep in mind is there’s a pump. There is a pump. You know, your well is going to be anywhere from, who knows, 50ft to 700ft deep. They got to go until they hit water and. And that. And then they drop a pump down there which has electricity going to it and a big line of electrical wires. And that runs to your breaker box.

Luke Carl [00:09:21]:
And that pumps going to go out as well. Also has a lifespan again, 1015. I’ve had them last 20 years.

Tim Grillot [00:09:29]:
Usually go a while.

Luke Carl [00:09:30]:
Yep. Not. Not that expensive either. How much is the last? I think my last well pump was maybe 1800 bucks.

Tim Grillot [00:09:36]:
Yeah, a couple grand. A couple grand. And, uh. So you got your well pump. Yeah, I mean, components wise, you got the pump and then you got a pressure tank somewhere. You know, I’ll say in your basement or crawl space, but it could be in a closet or something. Uh, and then I don’t even want to talk about storage tanks. I mean, some of these, some, uh, some wells.

Tim Grillot [00:09:53]:
And it typically is the higher up the mountain you go, uh, they can be a little bit low producing, uh, like they put out water, but not enough. So especially for, like, rental guests. Like, if it’s just a person living there, it’s probably not a big deal. But when you start draining hot tubs, you know, every few days and stuff, it puts a. Puts a hit on it. So what they do is they put in big holding tanks somewhere, either in a crawl space or whatever, and it’s basically a reservoir. So depending on where your cabin is, you may have. Have holding tanks.

Tim Grillot [00:10:21]:
I have it in one of, one of our cabins. And, uh, and, uh, it kind of. It gives you a buffer, you know, if you run out of water.

Luke Carl [00:10:29]:
Yeah. It’s for a low yield. Yeah. Well, is what they’re saying there. And basically, whether it’s a gallon per minute issue or just a, you know, a lack of water in general issue could. Because a rental properties, obviously, especially with a hot tub, is going to get way more use than somebody living in it unless you got a bunch of kids and taking baths. We understand that as well. But I think what you’re really looking for is, you know, five gallons per minute is, I think, you know, just on a quick Google search anyway.

Luke Carl [00:10:54]:
And if you’re running lower than that or you have a low yield well that doesn’t have, you know, a massive amount of gallons, uh, that’s when they’ll do those holding tanks. And it’s literally, you know, uh, they’re storing water for future use. So they’ll pump the well when the house is not being used and fill that tank up, and then the water becomes out of the tank rather than out of the well. That’s kind of how that goes. Is that about right, Chuck?

Chuck Kramer [00:11:19]:
Yep.

Luke Carl [00:11:20]:
You nailed that person. I don’t. I don’t personally have one of those, but, uh, I’ve done a lot of research. Anything else on wells smells? Now, the sulfur smell, don’t let it drive you nuts. It is fixable. It is annoying, and it is really annoying if you didn’t know about it before you actually went to the home, like, because your home inspector might not catch that. So that’s, that’s, that’s a good little tip there. If you’re, if you’re doing a home inspection on something in the smokies for your first purchase, ask the inspector to fill up a glass of water and, and smell it.

Luke Carl [00:11:47]:
Or even better, hire an actual filter place to. To go over there and. And inspect the water for you and give you a kind of a parts per million type of a situation. As far as your water quality, one.

Avery Carl [00:11:58]:
Thing I wanted to hit on wells, too, is if you have a well emergency, like, if for some reason the water is not working, uh, they do have emergency. They have water delivery. They will bring you a big tank of water, but you have to have holding tanks. They’ll come fill it up if you get into that situation. But the holding tanks have to be there already.

Tim Grillot [00:12:17]:
Uh, yeah, I mean, we pretty much said that they come with a huge tank. It’s usually about a thousand gallons. And they’ll either fill up your holding tanks, and then I’ve actually had, like, where my holding tank wasn’t all the way empty, and they put the rest of the water down your well shaft, and they’ll actually put the water right in your well. So, um, my one property, though, it seems like about once, maybe twice a year, it’ll actually go dry, and we’ll have to get a water delivery. It’s like three, $400. They come up, dump a bunch of water in, and then it’ll go for months and months and months again.

Luke Carl [00:12:45]:
Well, hold on on that, because you’re going to scare a lot of people with this dry well thing. Now, uh, what, what happens if I buy a house with a well and it goes dry? Uh, to my, my knowledge, that doesn’t really happen. Or if it does, I mean, if you get a situation where it’s like, worst case scenario, which is very rare, you could always go deeper, right?

Tim Grillot [00:13:00]:
Yeah, you can go deeper and you can actually, they frack them as well. That’s another thing that people do, is they’re going to actually frack the well. And I don’t know a ton about that. I know of other people have had that done has been successful to bring kind of a well that, you know, it can knock out. You brought up silt and stuff. It kind of knocks that out and reactivates the well, if you will. So.

Luke Carl [00:13:19]:
And an ultimate, ultimate worst case scenario. In my experience, it’s somewhere around anywhere from maybe $15 to $20,000 to drill a brand new, shiny spanking, brand new well, give or take years of service.

Tim Grillot [00:13:31]:
Yeah. Yep.

Luke Carl [00:13:33]:
And then you got water for free forever. Well, not for free. You got to pump electricity to it, but pretty close to free.

Chuck Kramer [00:13:38]:
Yeah. And with the ongoing maintenance, it probably runs about the same as being on city water. So.

Luke Carl [00:13:45]:
Yeah, I agree with that.

Avery Carl [00:13:46]:
It’s just one. One extra system to manage. It’s not anything to be afraid of if you’re not somebody who’s ever owned anything on a well. I mean, we’d never owned anything on a well when we bought our first one, and. And it’s not, not anything to be afraid of. So let’s move on to septics. So, uh, what are the things that can potentially go wrong? Because I know a lot of people who’ve never been on a septic tank are kind of scared of septic tanks. There’s nothing to be scared of either.

Avery Carl [00:14:11]:
So what are some common occurrences with septic tanks and how do you manage them?

Tim Grillot [00:14:15]:
Oh, man, this could be a whole podcast. I love septic tanks.

Luke Carl [00:14:19]:
I actually do have a.

Chuck Kramer [00:14:20]:
We could do a whole episode on this.

Luke Carl [00:14:22]:
I do have a YouTube video on this subject from a few years ago. That is my shining crown. That’s like my, my ultimate moment in history is my YouTube on, on where, where does it all go?

Tim Grillot [00:14:35]:
Yeah, so, I mean, essentially you got, you got a tank in the ground that everything goes into, and it’s kind of a deal where solids sink down and the liquids float up. And towards the top of the tank, there’s an outlet that, I won’t say it goes out into your yard, which sounds crazy, but, uh, it, you know, it’s. This is all a really engineered thing that people been doing for years. And, uh, uh, you know, the way the lines are done and they’re buried in the ground, it basically uses the, the system to filter it out, and it’s clean, clean water when it comes out and it’s done. And, uh, so the biggest thing with septics is you’re not supposed to put things down that don’t decompose, and guests are never going to understand that or know that. So my biggest thing that I tell everybody, uh, is, you know, in a normal situation, you’re going to want to pump a septic every, what, five years or whatever. In a rental situation, just do it once a year and it’s, it’s like $350. It’s cheap insurance.

Tim Grillot [00:15:26]:
And they basically, when they pump it out, they’re pumping out all the stuff that’s not supposed to be in there. You know, they come in with a big tank and suck it out. It’s disgusting. But, you know, if you do, the worst thing that can happen to your septic is it fills the tank up with solids, whether they’re decomposable or not. And when those go all the way to the top, and if those solids start to go out your field lines and plug your field lines, that’s the worst thing that can happen to a septic. If you get plugged field lines, then you’re looking at digging up all those field lines. So the best way to not have that happen is not let your tank get that full solids. And that’s where you just pump it out once a year.

Chuck Kramer [00:16:02]:
Not to mention that it becomes very fragrant.

Luke Carl [00:16:06]:
Yeah.

Tim Grillot [00:16:06]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:16:07]:
You’ll probably know when things are acting up.

Chuck Kramer [00:16:09]:
Yeah. Either, you know, or your guest will tell you.

Luke Carl [00:16:12]:
And sometimes they can be difficult to find. Most septic guys are going to be able to find it located pretty easily. They can just go in your crawl and see where the PVC is exiting the home and then go out into the yard and figure it out. Or there’s, there’s also diagrams at the county for most of most homes, but they’re all, they’re very, you know, they’re archaic, I will say that. So it’s, it’s not going to be, you know, like here it is, you know, so sometimes they’re hard to find. So there’s that. And so if you do get, you know, we were recommending here to get it pumped as soon, as, soon as you buy the home. It’s like the, you know, the week after you buy the home, get it pumped, there’s a very good chance it’s never been pumped because most people, most owners don’t even know what these things are or how to handle them because they live in a city somewhere else, you know, out of state owners, almost everybody here.

Luke Carl [00:16:55]:
And, and when you do that, put a riser on it because so the riser basically just says, here it is. And then that way, next time you need to get it pumped, it’s super easy. They can just open it up right there. They don’t have to dig up the actual tank and pop the lid off of it. Risers, basically. Just like a fancy cover for the. For the lid.

Tim Grillot [00:17:13]:
No, that’s a great tip. You want to do that? Absolutely. First thing. So that, that’ll take your first pumping from, you know, $350 to maybe, you know, 700 or something like that to add the riser. If it don’t. Has it done that one? Some of the high, high tech septic company is, they have a little egg that they call. They, they actually flush down and it’s like a. Got a transmitter in it.

Tim Grillot [00:17:32]:
And they can use that to find the tank if, you know, if it’s a hard to find one. Usually they’re pretty good about finding them. These guys know what they’re doing. Another tip, if you meet the guy there, don’t shake that guy’s hand.

Luke Carl [00:17:46]:
My septic guy use. He also keeps. He keeps homemade moonshine in his truck. So.

Avery Carl [00:17:52]:
Yeah, I was about to say, yeah, there is one where you can act. They’ll sell you some moonshine, too.

Luke Carl [00:17:57]:
I’m not going to give his name out because I don’t know that that’s legal, but I may have partaken in past. In the past.

Chuck Kramer [00:18:04]:
It’s a moonshine capital. What do you expect? Yeah, but wells aren’t only for the mountains, you know, so remember that, too. So.

Luke Carl [00:18:15]:
And shit runs downhill. That is a very good tip.

Chuck Kramer [00:18:17]:
Yeah. Your riser put in a. Put a locker or some type of seal on that cover. Otherwise kids are going to be dropping rocks down there to hear the splashing because they don’t know what it is really.

Avery Carl [00:18:28]:
That is not something that ever would have occurred to me as a kid to do.

Luke Carl [00:18:33]:
Usually told you not to play around.

Chuck Kramer [00:18:35]:
With it, but I know you check your cameras, but if you check them later, you’ll probably see it.

Tim Grillot [00:18:42]:
All my risers have a, like a plastic lid on top that has screws to take it off.

Luke Carl [00:18:47]:
Yeah. You’d have to unscrew it. Yep.

Chuck Kramer [00:18:49]:
Yeah.

Avery Carl [00:18:50]:
Well, that’s disgusting.

Luke Carl [00:18:52]:
Yeah, well, what did you expect?

Tim Grillot [00:18:55]:
Yeah, that’s the reality.

Luke Carl [00:18:57]:
We should move on.

Chuck Kramer [00:18:58]:
Yeah.

Avery Carl [00:18:59]:
Well, moving right along here, another thing, it doesn’t happen every year, but it happens sometimes. I would say maybe every other. Well, before last year, it hadn’t happened in three or four. Anyway, snow in the smokies, and not necessarily snow, that’s the problem, but ice. So it rains and then it gets below freezing, and then you have ice. Doesn’t happen every year, really. Doesn’t snow much in the smokies at all. It might just get an inch or two.

Avery Carl [00:19:29]:
Usually it’s gone within a day. But what can happen? Because it doesn’t snow much. A lot of people who are from the northern states who are really used to snow where their cities are really well equipped for it, they’re like, what’s the problem? Why is everything closing down because it snowed? It’s because northern cities like Chicago, for example, has a lot of infrastructure to deal with that you have snowplows. You have all of this tax dollar allocated services to make it to where you can continue with regular life during that time. The smokies is not like that because it doesn’t snow enough for them to have to allocate things that way. So if it snows and there’s ice on the roads, it shuts down. So, guys, how do you manage guests coming, for example, guests coming in during that time, guests trying to get out during that time? There’s lots of things that can happen, like busted pipes. Let’s.

Avery Carl [00:20:22]:
Let’s start with incoming guests, though, for management purposes.

Tim Grillot [00:20:26]:
Communication. Communication, yeah.

Luke Carl [00:20:28]:
Now, assume we all have a policy, right? So, chuck, what’s your snow policy? And do you break it?

Chuck Kramer [00:20:34]:
We. We simply say we do not refund for weather. You know, we expect our customers to know that ahead of time and make plans appropriately. And we have a weather widget right in our guidebook. You know, they open the guidebook and there’s the weather. So there’s not much reason for them not to know. Do we break it? Yes.

Luke Carl [00:20:55]:
Right.

Chuck Kramer [00:20:55]:
On occasion, because they could do everything right. But it’s like that old saying, four wheel drive doesn’t do you any good if the guys.

Luke Carl [00:21:02]:
So here’s my system. On my listings say no refunds for weather, period. My guidebook says no listings for weather, period. When it actually happens. Again, we’re talking snow in the smokies. And this would be very similar to, God forbid, hurricane in Florida. It’s case by case scenario, but I do actually issue the refund. My policy is to just let them cancel, not come and give them their money back if it’s, like, inevitable.

Luke Carl [00:21:30]:
I mean, we’re talking, it’s a hundred percent snow for at least, you know, a six or eight hour period, and then no above 32 degree weather for two to three days, which is really, I hate to say this because everybody in the last two years is going to be mad at me, but this really freaking rare. For it to be below 32 in east Tennessee for more than 24 hours is relatively unheard of. Uh, we are talking again here, guys, as a guy that’s originally from the midwest, the same as Tim. A lot of snow. And then I lived in New York City for a very long time. This is the south, and the south is freaking hot, you know, so it.

Tim Grillot [00:22:09]:
Is a freak out. They freak out.

Luke Carl [00:22:13]:
Freak out. Cannot drive in the snow. Everybody’s car will be in the ditch. Everybody, you know, so my policy is to go ahead and give them refunds if it gets to the point where it’s absolutely inevitable, because it’s not worth dealing with them once they’re in there. Because if they’re in there and it snows, it’s a real giant pain in my rear end, quite frankly. It’s not worth. It’s not worth the trouble. So, yeah, that’s.

Luke Carl [00:22:36]:
That’s my take on it.

Tim Grillot [00:22:37]:
Yep.

Avery Carl [00:22:37]:
What about fireplaces? Uh, I see a lot of people that will say, like, oh, you need to make sure you have a gas fireplace, so if it snows, then your guests still have a heat source. How do you guys handle that?

Luke Carl [00:22:48]:
To me, that’s the only reason to have a gas fireplace. Uh, I. I’ve gotten rid of all mine, and I’ll stand behind that. I do not like the gas. The propane, the smoky mountain propane fireplace. They’re very common. Um, I’ve gotten rid of all mine converted to electric. However, if you have guests in there and there is an impending snow apocalypse, snowpocalypse, that could potentially keep somebody alive, really, you know, so there’s that.

Luke Carl [00:23:13]:
And that’s another reason I’m going to go ahead and offer them full refund to get the hell out of there, because it’s, you know, I mean, if the. And then also snow, east Tennessee power outages goes together. There are millions of trees. I mean, just so many more trees than a normal area. And these trees, you know, this with the snow comes the wind, and the mountains and the wind are. It’s amplified, you know, so the trees start coming down, and then I got no way for heat. So now, again, propane fireplace is not really going to do much other than possibly keep your ass alive. It’s not like it’s not going to heat a whole house, you know? So I don’t know, what do you guys do on the fireplace?

Tim Grillot [00:23:50]:
And they help, you know, they help. And like you said, it could keep somebody alive. Also, you know, this kind of rolls into h vacs. You know, it depends on, you know, how cold it gets and what kind of h vac you got. If you have a heat pump, which I’ll say most of the stuff up here has, they don’t keep up once it gets below, you know, 1520 degrees, which is rare. But we did have that snap this year. And between the fireplace was enough to supplement the heat pump. You know, the heat pump was having a hard time keeping anything above 60.

Tim Grillot [00:24:22]:
They ran the fireplace and were able to keep it like 65, and, uh, where I was able to keep guests in, and they were happy as Christmas, and they had a great time. Um, you know, and it just added to their experience, which you don’t always get that, but, uh, so, anyway, I’m a little mixed on them, too. The propane fireplaces can be a pain, but they can help.

Chuck Kramer [00:24:40]:
And we have two in our place in the valley. I mean, it’s so it really can heat the whole place. But then the other thing is, you got to make sure the tanks full, that the only thing worse than having all that happen is to then run out of propane after the first day, because then you can’t get a truck up there either. So.

Tim Grillot [00:24:59]:
And I’ll say, generally, like just building, the way they build buildings here is different than in the north. You know, Luke and I grew up in Iowa, Nebraska. Frozen pipes weren’t even a thing because they, they did things here they are. And it’s. Because it’s so rare, it’s not normal for it to get as cold as it did this year. And, you know, people get all, you know, kind of wadded up that, like, oh, my gosh, my house isn’t built right. The pipes are all frozen. And, you know, you can argue that, but they’re all like that here.

Tim Grillot [00:25:25]:
And that’s just because the building codes are different, because we’re not in a climate that is. That’s normal, you know? So, you know, there are workarounds that you can do to kind of protect your house on that, but none of it’s 100% foolproof unless you go in and do, like, a full custom something, you know, because, I mean, the power goes out, he tapes not going to do anything, you know?

Luke Carl [00:25:44]:
So, yeah, you bring up an interesting point, because, again, I grew up in Nebraska, and you grew up right down the road from me. I never heard of a frozen pipe ever.

Avery Carl [00:25:53]:
Oh, my God. Yeah, Luke, the first time that it was getting really cold, like in the house that we lived in, in Tennessee.

Luke Carl [00:25:59]:
In Tennessee.

Avery Carl [00:26:00]:
And I was going through dripping all the pipes, and he’s like, what does that mean, dripping? And I was opening. You also open the cabinets. And he was looked at me like I was doing the craziest thing he had ever seen. In his life, he was like, offended. He was like, what are you talking about? Dripping? Like, because they will freeze and then they will burst.

Luke Carl [00:26:21]:
And I was like, what are you. Were you raised in a barn? I mean, who does something like this and then turns out it is true. So if you’re a Yankee buying a house in the smokies, if it gets below 30, ask somebody to drip the sink. And you really want them to drip one the furthest from that, from the street, from the. From the water source. The well is ideal, or all of them is ideal, and just a tiny little drip. It’s not about the water coming through. It’s about relieving pressure.

Luke Carl [00:26:47]:
I ended up doing a ton of research on this because, once again, my wife was right, as usual.

Tim Grillot [00:26:53]:
My wife’s from Dallas, and we went through the same thing. At one point, I was like, she was. The first time it got cold when she moved a little up north, I’m like, what are you doing?

Luke Carl [00:27:02]:
It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, right. But it turns out it’s real. It’s a thing. Yeah, yeah.

Avery Carl [00:27:07]:
So drip the pipes or drip the sinks and. All right. So kind of along those same lines, but it doesn’t always have to be snow related. How do you manage a steep driveway? Because that is really common in the smokies, especially for view properties. If you want to view, you got to go up the mountain. And a lot of people, myself included, when I first started going out there, like in Luke especially, I mean, my God, Luke has left me at the top of mountains because he was having a pain.

Luke Carl [00:27:36]:
I didn’t leave you. I did have definitely, definitely threaten to leave my truck a time or two, but.

Avery Carl [00:27:43]:
So how do you manage? Because you definitely want to make sure that they’re not surprised by it. Because I think that the bad reviews are spurred by guests being negatively surprised by something. So if you make sure they know about it way off in the future before they even book, then I think you’re in good shape. But what are you. What’s the three of your advice about having a cabin?

Luke Carl [00:28:04]:
Are we talking about steep roads in general or steep roads and snow situations or both in general?

Tim Grillot [00:28:09]:
In general, upfront expectations, 100% is, like, your first. You have to, if you got a driveway this deep, you know, you gotta. You gotta let them know and, and be bold about it. And it’s. It’s scary at first, but, you know, I have one. It’s steep that, you know, we’ve had. You know, you’re gonna have at least some point in time in your life, you’re gonna have somebody at the bottom crying on the phone that can’t, says their car won’t go up it, and, you know, you may have to coax them up or whatever, but the reality is, you know, outside of bad weather, the cars will go up the driveway. You know, it’s just, you know, if you’re not used to that, it is scary, you know, so 100% disclosure and let people know.

Tim Grillot [00:28:48]:
Four wheel drive is required in bad weather. And I don’t even say snow, I just say bad weather. Because, to be honest, if, you know, if you’re not experienced driving on that, it can be tricky in the rain. You know, somebody that’s used to it goes right up at, like, nothing, you know? But if you’re a flatlander, like I used to be, it can be tough.

Chuck Kramer [00:29:05]:
Or, like a lot of our Florida guests.

Tim Grillot [00:29:07]:
Yeah.

Chuck Kramer [00:29:08]:
So, yeah, but even the leaves can create problems. So doesn’t even have to be bad weather.

Luke Carl [00:29:14]:
It’s all about expectations with guests in general, which, by the way, we do absolutely love our guests. That’s why we’re in business, and we are here to provide people with excellent, excellent times on their vacation. But the steep road is 100% about expectation, which most of the business is. And if you, you know, I have one that is really kind of scary for your first time. And I let them know, hey, this. This is a steep, one lane road, and it’s got gravel. It is scary. If you’re from Ohio, if you’re a flatlander, it’s scary.

Luke Carl [00:29:42]:
And every now and then, somebody will say, hey, I saw about your road, but I’m worried, you know, I like, can I get up there in a toyota? Can I get up there in a. Sometimes I’ll even say an suv, like a Rav four or something. And I always discourage them, because if they are even asking about the road, probably not going to go well, you know, but I do take it the other direction, and I use it as a part of my marketing. Like, you know, if you want to come to the mountains and go up a mountain and look at a mountain, come to this house, this is. This is cool because. Because, you know, as the saying goes, I don’t know where I got it from, but you cannot see the world if you do not climb the mountain.

Tim Grillot [00:30:21]:
That’s a great tip, too, Luke. You know, when you put your disclosure in and be upfront about it, you don’t have to be scary. You know, you can. You know you can. Word it in a manner that says, look, when you get the tops, we well worth it. You know, after time or two, you get used to it. Blah, blah, blah. Make it.

Tim Grillot [00:30:35]:
Make it sound nice, but don’t. Don’t sugarcoat that. It’s still a hill.

Luke Carl [00:30:39]:
We got enough guests to go around. There’s people that want the mountain experience, and then there’s people that want the Flatlander experience. So just be obvious about what you’re actually renting.

Chuck Kramer [00:30:48]:
Yeah, we provide a video. Actually, it’s two videos. We. We have one of the private road to our place, and we furnish to them right after they book because there’s no real way to get them ahead of time. So they have an opportunity to look at it and change their mind if they want. Then we have a second video of a drone flying level next to it to really give you an idea of the angle of the. Or the incline.

Luke Carl [00:31:17]:
Did you make this video yourself? I would love to hire your video guy.

Chuck Kramer [00:31:21]:
Yeah, did it myself.

Luke Carl [00:31:23]:
Cool. I love that. That’s brilliant.

Avery Carl [00:31:25]:
Oh, wow. What a tip.

Luke Carl [00:31:27]:
What’s the soundtrack? Black Sabbath or something or.

Chuck Kramer [00:31:30]:
No, it’s one of my brother songs called Country Road.

Luke Carl [00:31:34]:
Oh, okay.

Chuck Kramer [00:31:37]:
So.

Avery Carl [00:31:37]:
Well, I learned something. At certain times of year in the smokies, it is very possible that your guest is going to open the door and walk in, and there are going to be a large amount of dead ladybugs in the house. Why is that? And what do you do when that happens?

Tim Grillot [00:31:57]:
Let’s just say. Or flies or bugs.

Chuck Kramer [00:31:59]:
Yes.

Luke Carl [00:32:00]:
Yes. The flies were new this last year, and they are saying that they’re not, maybe not coming back. I had a whole podcast on that, on the short term management show, short term rental management show. But anyway, go ahead, Chuck, with the ladybugs.

Chuck Kramer [00:32:11]:
Oh, good old ladybugs. Well, there’s two things we deal with. There’s ladybugs, and then there’s the asian beetles. Their behavior is very similar, but one is beneficial and the other is not. And those asian beetles bite. But you can walk in your house and you find them, you know, on the floor by the windows. They’re seeking warmth for the most part, so that you’re going to find them on the sunny side of the house. There they will find a way in.

Chuck Kramer [00:32:40]:
You can hire people to come every week and reseal your house, and they’re still going to find the way in. The. As with many things we’ve talked about, the best way to deal with them is let your guests know ahead of a time. Ahead of time. They’re not dangerous. It’s not going to hurt you. In our case, we even have a dustbuster labeled for Ladybug use. It sits on a charger right in the living area where we tend to have the problem in this one house.

Chuck Kramer [00:33:05]:
And since I’ve put that in and put it in the description, I haven’t heard of people.

Tim Grillot [00:33:09]:
I love that. That’s awesome.

Chuck Kramer [00:33:11]:
Forewarned is forearmed, right?

Luke Carl [00:33:13]:
Ladybug season is, give or take, early October to mid November. Usually they go away at the first or usually, realistically, the second or third or fourth freeze of the year, which, again, could be December, really. You know, so they’re looking for heat, they’re looking for warmth to stay alive is what it is.

Chuck Kramer [00:33:31]:
And actually where we are, like, we’re at higher altitude, so we have trouble starting in the spring, so. And all through, just all through the summer.

Luke Carl [00:33:40]:
Oh, really? Interesting.

Chuck Kramer [00:33:41]:
They’ll try to come in at night.

Luke Carl [00:33:42]:
I don’t really see any ladybugs, unless they’re, like being coming, you know, coming out of the woodwork because they were dormant. Maybe that’s what it is.

Chuck Kramer [00:33:50]:
That could be.

Avery Carl [00:33:51]:
All right, so another living organism, specific or not necessarily specific to the smokies, but mountain markets bears. So what do we need to tell our guests about black bears in the smokies? Because they will probably, in certain areas like Chalet Village and Gatlinburg, they’re more likely to run across them than other areas, but I’ve seen them in a lot of places. So, uh, what, how do you guys manage warning them about bears, telling them what to do and what not to do and all that stuff?

Luke Carl [00:34:22]:
Don’t take selfies with the bears. That’s what I tell them.

Chuck Kramer [00:34:24]:
Yeah, this is not a zoo. They’re not tame. Um, we put it in our listing. We remind people in one of the early messages, we send them a. It’s in our guidebook. And we send them a link directly, that part of the guidebook about three days before they arrive as a reminder. And we put it in everything we can. The major things, don’t leave trash out.

Chuck Kramer [00:34:50]:
Bears will find it. Don’t ever approach a bear, you know, before you walk out the door, just take a look around so that you don’t surprise a bear. If you see a cub move away, try to get back into the cabin or your car. And of course, don’t leave food in your car. Always keep your car doors locked.

Avery Carl [00:35:10]:
They will get inside your car. I’ve seen so many videos. It hasn’t happened to me personally, but I’ve seen a lot of videos about bears getting in cars.

Tim Grillot [00:35:18]:
I’ve had one in the back of my truck. He, uh, he climbed up in there and had a party. And. And you kind of just got to let them get done, you know?

Luke Carl [00:35:27]:
If you got marriage, you’ve got trash. I mean, you can get. They will go away if you. If there’s nothing for them to eat. So it’s either you or your neighbors that they’re eating something, you know?

Tim Grillot [00:35:36]:
Yeah.

Chuck Kramer [00:35:37]:
And don’t ever feed them. In fact, if the wildlife people find out that they’ve been fed, they will chase you down.

Tim Grillot [00:35:46]:
And I’ll say in some of the common, you know, some of the resorts, they. The bears kind of know what time turns are. You know, you’re. You’re. You’re going to see more bears around the time the cleaners are there moving trash around, and they know it, you know. And, uh, so again, I think Chuck pretty well nailed everything. It’s disclosure. Disclosure.

Tim Grillot [00:36:03]:
Uh, I don’t remember where it’s from, but we have a link that we send that is like an external source about, like, all you need to know about black bears. And it’s kind of. Yeah, that’s what it is. And it was, it’s, uh, we send that so it’s not coming from us, you know, just so that it’s just a third party source that’s educating about bears. And, uh, they’re awesome, you know, and we tell people to enjoy them and watch them from a distance and all that stuff.

Chuck Kramer [00:36:27]:
A lot of people come just for.

Luke Carl [00:36:28]:
The bears, and you need a bear proof trash can. So if you don’t, your house will likely come with one. When you buy one doesn’t mean it’s not in bad shape. So if you need to replace it or you don’t have one at all, you can google that. There’s a couple places that do that, just smoky mountain bear proof trash can. You can find a couple places out there. They’re easy to find.

Chuck Kramer [00:36:47]:
And it’s not just the trash can, it’s actually an enclosure for the trash can. There are places you can buy something called a bear proof trash can. It’s not. The bears can’t open it. They’ll drag it down the road.

Tim Grillot [00:37:02]:
It’s a good idea to secure the COVID on your hot tub. They. They also love hot tubs as much as they love getting in cars. And they’ll get in a hot tub and chill out and take a bath. And, uh, so, you know, there’s different ways to do that. Some people just run a cable over them with a hook or some of the newer ones have like, latches. But, uh, in a bad situation, a bear can mess up a cover, you know, if they want to crawl on top of it, you know, that’s kind of worst case scenario. And they’ll, they’ll mess her up, you know, but not too big of a deal.

Tim Grillot [00:37:26]:
And that’s pretty rare.

Chuck Kramer [00:37:28]:
And the last, the last note I have on that is, remember, bears climb one of our homes. We have, our deck is, our top deck is 80ft off the ground. Bears are on it all the time. So that slides probably left food out.

Luke Carl [00:37:43]:
That slides essentially both hot tubs and grills. Let’s. Should we tackle the grills quickly? Because that’s going to be the same guy that does the grill. My grill system is this. I get a part grilled. It is cemented in the ground, a decent amount of space from the home. So they can’t, they really can’t burn it down unless something horrible were to happen. Um, and, and I do, I do not play with propane or, uh, charcoal.

Luke Carl [00:38:07]:
Well, these are charcoal, but they’re not like a weber that you can move around. And I love the fact that you can’t move it. Therefore, the chances of them bring your house down are much smaller. So that’s my system. Propane is way cooler, nicer, easier. Some, some folks prefer the charcoal. So that, that’s, there’s that, but that’s what I do. You can get, you can get the grill, park style grill from the same guy that does the bear trash cans.

Luke Carl [00:38:32]:
So I don’t know what you guys do.

Tim Grillot [00:38:34]:
Similar. If you have a propane grill or Weber style or whatever, you know, portable, you need to chain that thing somewhere or cable it because people will move it. It. They’ll move it. I mean, I want to say this, but they’ll move it inside. You know, you don’t, you don’t want them to be able to put the grill where they want it because they will, they’ll move it on your porch. They’ll melt your siding, though. They’ll do whatever, you know.

Tim Grillot [00:38:57]:
Uh, so I prefer the, the park style grills as well. Cemented in the ground. That’s 100% my preference. But if you’re not going to do that, I highly recommend, uh, securing your grill somehow.

Luke Carl [00:39:08]:
Yep, I had a grill, a fence burned down from a grill and that was the end of it for me. Park style owners and other park styles.

Chuck Kramer [00:39:16]:
You got to check, you got to still clean them and you got to check them every so often to see what condition the grates are in. The grates often need to be replaced about every one or two years, depending where you are, what kind of. How much rain we got.

Avery Carl [00:39:31]:
Awesome. Well, that’s a good. Another segue into the next thing that you should. You should have this in your smoky mountain rental always. Not because it’s going to make you so much more money, but because everyone else has one and you need to be on parental with everyone. And that’s a hot tub. So what are some common issues we run into with hot tubs?

Luke Carl [00:39:54]:
Owning them.

Tim Grillot [00:39:56]:
Yeah. So, I mean, at the end of the day, a hot tub is really pretty simple. You got a pump and you’ve got what they call a spa pack, which is like kind of the brains and the heater and everything. It’s all kind of in that one unit. And then you got an upper control and, you know, Luke’s going to tell you, don’t ever fix a hotel. But, you know, in the event that you do need to fix a hot tub, those are, those are, you know, the three. You got a few sensors and stuff. But, yeah, I mean, they get cleaned, you know, they get drained and cleaned every turn, you know, so.

Luke Carl [00:40:27]:
Well. And just to clarify what he’s saying, never fix a high. I’m a never fixed anything guy. I always replace everything. I will fix a hot tub, though, because there’s a lot of parts in like a pump or the jets. I mean, that’s a real easy fix. So if the, if the hot tub is, you know, under five or six years old. Five years old, I will go, I’ll replace the pump and things like that.

Luke Carl [00:40:48]:
Now, if the damn tub cracks, then. No, I mean, you know, that’s not something you want to fix and play around with. It’s going to look terrible and it’s probably going to start leaking again. So in general, I will not let a hot tub go as long as, say, an h vac. You know, if I got. If I got issues on a hot tub and it’s over five years old, it’s probably gone. Because it is a huge part of their vacation. They are extremely excited about this hot tub.

Luke Carl [00:41:12]:
It’s. They’re going straight to the hot tub, getting right in it. That’s one of the main reasons they picked your house. You’ll hear that all the time. I picked your house because it had hot tub. Well, they all have hot tubs, you know, so I want to. If. My rule of thumb is if they can touch it, if they’re touching it and using it, such as a washing machine, dishwasher, hot tub.

Luke Carl [00:41:29]:
It needs to be nice in a short term. At least that’s where I’m at my career. In the early days, I couldn’t afford nice. Nothing wrong with that. You just got to adjust your listing and your pricing accordingly. Today I like to fetch a premium on my rents. And you can’t get a premium and you can’t more. More importantly, get smoking reviews unless you got really nice stuff.

Luke Carl [00:41:48]:
So that’s what he meant by don’t fix it, replace it. This is my little speech on that.

Chuck Kramer [00:41:54]:
You should consider them basically disposable unless you have the hard vinyl ones, but the foam ones that are covered with the fake vine or just vinyl, the fake leather. You’re going to go through those probably once every year, 18 months. Weather, people, wildlife. It’s just a fact. And sometimes they just look grungy. And as Luke said, first impressions are everything. People walk up, see a really grungy top on the hot tub. It doesn’t matter how great that hot tub is at that point in time, they’re going to have a negative attitude about it right away.

Chuck Kramer [00:42:28]:
Spend the money.

Tim Grillot [00:42:29]:
I really do like the hardcovers. I just got one on the hot tub with the hard. The hardcover on it and it’s game with it.

Luke Carl [00:42:35]:
Or was it replacement?

Tim Grillot [00:42:36]:
It came with it. It was a brand new hot tub and it came, came with the hardcover.

Luke Carl [00:42:39]:
And I get a hardcover on an old, you know, a plate, you know, one that didn’t come with a hardcover. I don’t know.

Tim Grillot [00:42:45]:
I’m not sure on that.

Luke Carl [00:42:47]:
That sounds appealing to me. Might look into that.

Tim Grillot [00:42:50]:
They’re actually easier to open. They’ve got some like, like I like a lever on it that the. You pull and it opens. It’s like a soft open cabinet, kind of. It’s the way it works. But, uh, you know, it’s just seemed. I don’t know, I, I wanted to give it a shot, so I got one. And so far I like it.

Tim Grillot [00:43:05]:
But, uh, we’re only a few months in, so we’ll give it a year or two before. I love it.

Chuck Kramer [00:43:10]:
Excellent.

Avery Carl [00:43:11]:
Hot tub was my last point to hit. Do you guys have anything extra that you want to.

Luke Carl [00:43:16]:
Okay, sorry. Keep in mind on the hot tub you’re going to get a message that says your hot tub is broken. It’s not actually broken. It means they push too many buttons and they put it into sleep and or economy mode. You can get it out of economy mode. I would recommend finding a video for your particular hot tub and how that they call it the top side. That’s the buttons on the top. Find your video on YouTube, put it in your guidebook.

Luke Carl [00:43:38]:
That’s what I do. And then I can refer back to that if and when they are had 16 too many coronas and put it in sleep mode. And Chuck, you keep bringing up guidebook briefly. What are you, what are you saying when you, what are you using for a guidebook?

Chuck Kramer [00:43:51]:
I’m using touch day, but there’s other options out there, too. You just got to figure out what you, what you want to have in your guidebook and make sure the one you pick will handle that.

Luke Carl [00:44:01]:
I’m also using touch day. There’s bully would be the other, the other.

Tim Grillot [00:44:07]:
Another first impression thing on the hot tub, not to keep beating that horse, but on the top side, controls. You will get people, they peel the buttons and stuff. They get faded, they get kind of wore off. People will peel them away. That’s just a sticker. Uh, and you can read. They’re like $5. You can, uh, you know, so that’s something we actually put on our spring maintenance.

Tim Grillot [00:44:28]:
We just replace it every year. Uh, you can go and order them, or you can have your handyman do it or a hot tub person do it, but they’ll literally just pull sticker off, clean it up, put a new one on there, and it looks brand new, and it just gives it a crisper look. Uh, you know, a new cover, new, new sticker. It just, it’s another first impression thing. Uh, if your stickers half peeled off or you can’t read the words or whatever, it just looks old. And really, the rest of hot tub can be fine. You know, it’s just needs touched up. So.

Tim Grillot [00:44:53]:
And that’s super cheap, super easy.

Luke Carl [00:44:55]:
And if you want a real estate agent that knows all this stuff to help you buy a house. I know we weren’t going to go there, but I’m going there. Avery does that. That’s what we do with the short term shop. And if you, if you guys are impressed with what we know, it’s because we’re the best in the business. We’d be happy to help you on a purchase of your home, the shorttermshop.com dot.

Avery Carl [00:45:14]:
All right. Any, anything else you guys can think of that you run into management wise that’s specific to the smokies very often?

Chuck Kramer [00:45:23]:
Well, one thing we haven’t talked about a lot is, but it’s related to some of these is labor, whether it’s cleaners or handyman. I mean, in the weather situation, not only do we have to worry about our guests, but we have to worry about whether or not our cleaners, our turnover, people can get to our properties to get them ready for the next guest. Got to have a backup. And that, that’s true of any time. But you also need to, you know, you need to check on things. Stuff gets stale. People get complacent because they do the same job week after week or, you know, every, every three or four days. And sometimes you just need to give a little shot in the arm, you know, a little bonus, you know, whatever it is you think will incentivize your people because it can get boring.

Luke Carl [00:46:09]:
Be nice to you.

Chuck Kramer [00:46:10]:
I mean, I, whenever I go up, I clean my houses and I get.

Luke Carl [00:46:13]:
Bored of be nice to him. You know, it’s, they, they don’t understand, you know, this is different world than where most owners live in. It’s, you know, it’s. Owners are living in Arizona. This is East Tennessee. It’s a different language. But, and I disagree slightly. I’d not to use that word.

Luke Carl [00:46:29]:
It’s not the right word. But I don’t do a backup. I make sure that my cleaner has some sort of backup. Like, I don’t want to hear about it. Like, if you’re not coming to clean my house, you better have somebody else that’s gonna do it. And, and that’s, that’s my system. Like, you know, I’ll ask him that when I’m interviewing him. Not, not to dwell on the cleaner thing.

Luke Carl [00:46:44]:
That’s a whole other call.

Tim Grillot [00:46:45]:
Yeah.

Luke Carl [00:46:45]:
But, yeah, carpenter bees. That comes up.

Tim Grillot [00:46:49]:
Oh, yeah.

Luke Carl [00:46:49]:
Similar to the ladybugs. But if you’re getting, if you’re from Arizona or wherever. They used to never seen a carpenter bee. They are a thing, and they are huge.

Tim Grillot [00:46:57]:
Again, Iowa, we did not have carpenter bees. I never saw him. So I moved to the south, and they freaked me out. They’re like a little hawk, and I, uh. There, that’s an exaggeration. They’re not that big, but, but if you see them, they’ll freak you out. And they actually, I’m not 100% sure. I had somebody tell me they don’t actually sting at all.

Tim Grillot [00:47:16]:
They just chew. But they’re, they will, they. If you have a wooden structure in Tennessee, it is going to get hit by carpenter bees. And you there, there, you know, there’s some preventive stuff you can do. Uh, you definitely want to get your house sprayed for them. I personally do it twice, both in the spring, uh, you know, like a month and a half apart. Um, and, uh, and helps for sure. Um, you know, they’re still going to come, and you want to stay on top of the maintenance.

Tim Grillot [00:47:44]:
What basically what they do is they. They bore a hole, you know, about, I don’t know, the size of your finger in your house and. Or in anything that’s wood. And they bore a hole and they go and live in there, and they. They lay eggs. And that hole’s bad enough, but what tends to happen is the woodpeckers come in behind them, and the woodpeckers want to eat those eggs. So they’ll take that tiny little hole and blow it out into a massive, ugly hole. So any.

Tim Grillot [00:48:07]:
Anyway, usually what I. What I do and what I tell clients is, you want to get those holes filled in, you know, get on a schedule, whether you do it every once a year, twice a year, three years, whatever works for you. But fill in the holes, and that keeps the, you know, the woodpeckers away and. And keeps it in check. And also, like, as you stain your cabin, there’s stains and stuff that. That you can get, you know, that help, you know, deter the. The would bees as well.

Luke Carl [00:48:31]:
They are big and scary in general. Carpenter bees don’t sting. It is possible for them to sting. It’s the female only. I understand. I could be wrong on that. Maybe it’s the male.

Avery Carl [00:48:41]:
How do you know that? Why?

Luke Carl [00:48:43]:
I had Jimmy the bug guy on my podcast, which is called short term rental management.

Chuck Kramer [00:48:50]:
Yeah, but you’re right. These carpenter bees, you know, it’s about the size of ping pong balls, and they have no reservations about hovering right in front of your face.

Avery Carl [00:48:59]:
No.

Chuck Kramer [00:49:00]:
Like, staring you in the eye.

Tim Grillot [00:49:01]:
But no, you do want to stay on. They can do significant damage if you don’t stay on top of it, you know, but it’s another thing. If you have a system in place and do the system, uh, it’s very manageable. It’s not. It’s nothing to be scared of, but it’s definitely something you want to be aware of and ready for it. So, uh, if it’s wood, they’re. They’re going for it. And, uh, you know, a lot of the newer cabins are built.

Tim Grillot [00:49:22]:
Uh, they’re using, like, a hardy board or like, a cement siding now, uh, depending on them. And those are way less susceptible to them. I can’t. I won’t say immune because you still have deck posts and other things, but that siding, uh, they don’t. They. I don’t really get into that. But any of the older, and I say older, it’s not that old. Any, any with anything.

Tim Grillot [00:49:40]:
If it’s wood, you’re going to have some carpenter be damaged. And I know we’re not really talking inspections right now, but if you’re buying in the smokies, be prepared. The inspection is going to have carpenter be damaged on it, period. And it’s just, I don’t, I hate to say normal, but they all have it.

Luke Carl [00:49:57]:
And speaking of inspections with the hot tub, the joist hangers are going to come up on your, on your inspection in and in the joists in the now, these days you have to have them. But back when these cabins were built, most of the time you didn’t have to have Joyce hangers. And in the defense of the joy Sanger, you do want your deck to be reinforced somehow, some way under the hot tub. That doesn’t mean that if it’s not reinforced, you don’t buy the house. This is a very easy. I’ve done it myself in past, and, you know, I don’t know that I want to recommend that. Don’t hire me to do your hot tub reinforcing, but it can be a relative relatively easy job. Just a couple of four bys and a couple of two buys or whatever the case may be.

Luke Carl [00:50:35]:
So maybe just run an additional joist going the opposite direction of the current joists and then a six by going down something like that. But definitely reinforce the hot tub. One more thing on the hot tub. This is. Now we’re going down all these rabbit holes. Don’t. The hot tub is in a ridiculous amount of water. Right.

Luke Carl [00:50:52]:
And the worst thing for a home is water. So make sure you get. I just use like a french drain, you know, like a. It’s. I don’t know what that is, Tim. It’s black.

Tim Grillot [00:51:02]:
Yeah, the black corrugated. Yeah, it’s tight like a black tile or, you know, corrugated tiling. Now, this is a great point. You can do with that or pvc, but you. It’s a drain. You want to have somewhere for your cleaners to drain the hot tub because if you don’t, they’re dumping it right off the side of your deck or wherever your hot tub is. That’s where the water is getting dumped because they come in with a big hose and siphon it out. And, you know, they dump, uh, you know, whatever that holds 500 gallons of water in like five minutes, and it.

Tim Grillot [00:51:29]:
It’ll wash out. You know, if there’s a deck post there and a foundation, it’ll. It will erode the. Erode it. So, uh, I guess where Luke was going with that is run a drain pipe for him. Any, any handy man, the smokies can do it. And, uh, it gets the water away from your foundation.

Luke Carl [00:51:43]:
Nobody’s ever going to see it. You could just zip tie the damn thing if you wanted to. You know, it’s just going to get, like, up underneath the backside of the deck and. And. Because otherwise, it will start destroying the backside of your deck and I, maybe even the foundation, the crawl space. So make sure you’re diverting that water. Water is always an issue.

Chuck Kramer [00:51:59]:
Great point.

Avery Carl [00:52:01]:
Do you want to hit anything on crawl spaces before we go?

Luke Carl [00:52:04]:
I love crawl spaces. I think they’re the best. I mean, it depends on where your house is located, right? I prefer a slab. If it’s in Alabama, if it’s in the midwest, where Tim and I are from, you have to have a basement. It just makes sense because, again, back to the pump, the plumbing and the heating and all that stuff. In east Tennessee, the ground is made out of sandstone, and it is rock hard. And across base makes the most sense in.

Avery Carl [00:52:36]:
It is, in fact, a rock.

Luke Carl [00:52:38]:
It is, in fact, the sandstone is a rock. What are you, a geologist?

Tim Grillot [00:52:42]:
They call, they call them the mountains.

Luke Carl [00:52:47]:
So crawl space is the best way to do it. It. And then, you know, all the fixings, all the guts of the house, most of them, anyway, are in the. In the crawl space. You’re plumbing, you’re. A lot of times, half your h vac is going to be down there. Your water heater sometimes is going to be down there, so. But it is, you know, especially if you’re new and you’re looking at an inspection, every single inspection is going to say moisture in the crawl space.

Luke Carl [00:53:08]:
And if you’re from Minnesota, where there’s no crawl spaces, you know, that can be kind of scary because water is the worst thing for a home. Home. Uh, but in most cases, a lot of times, I mean, I’m not going to get into home. I did go to home inspector school, but I am not practicing. Uh, water’s going to happen, and if it’s minimal and it’s, you know, a natural, like, flow from just rain water runoff, that type of thing, a lot of times it’s totally fine. Moisture barrier. What is that? It’s a freaking piece of plastic. You could go in there and.

Luke Carl [00:53:39]:
You know what I mean? It’s. You go to Lowe’s and buy a tarp and throw it in there. You got a moisture barrier, basically, is what that is. Anybody else have any thoughts on the crawl? I love crawl spaces. I think they’re great. But any in East Tennessee?

Chuck Kramer [00:53:50]:
Yeah. Now you just make sure they’re ventilated. That’s it.

Avery Carl [00:53:54]:
Anything else that we want to hit on before we go? We need to wrap it up.

Chuck Kramer [00:53:59]:
Yeah. You know, we’ve talked about a bunch of things here, but some of the mitigation steps that you need are you need to familiarize yourself with this and have a list of people to call. Don’t wait until the problem happens to start scrambling for somebody, you know, have a, you know, know who to call if you have a, well, problem. Know who to call if you have a septic problem. Have that list. And, you know, make sure you know what kind of air conditioning h vac system you have. Just take a picture of the labels. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but if you’re a remote owner, you may need to know it.

Chuck Kramer [00:54:37]:
Someone’s going to ask, well, what kind of system do you have? How big is it? I don’t know, but I can send you a picture label. Yeah, that works for most people.

Luke Carl [00:54:44]:
I’ve never done any of that, and I learned the hard way, take it from me, do it Chuck’s way. It is so much easier to have a plan in place. A lot of times you don’t know what you’re planning for, you know, so that can be difficult. But he’s right, man. Having a picture of your h vac label, dude, you gotta have it. You know, I put it on a spreadsheet.

Tim Grillot [00:55:01]:
Everything we’re saying is a system. You know, our system is very similar to chucks. We have a Google Drive, and there’s a folder for every property in there. And when we buy the property, there’s a number of pictures that go in there, and it’s h vac labels, appliances, blah, blah, blah. That’s our binder, if you will, of whatever is in there. And it’ll surprise you sometimes when, like, looking at a picture or something, like, something like a guest is having a problem and you just look at it. Oh, well, yeah, I forgot this was that way or whatever. You know, there’s, you see a switch on the wall that you forgot was there, and then, hey, uh, the dishwasher not working, turn that switch on, you know, or something silly, you know? And, uh, so pictures of your own properties are definitely helpful.

Chuck Kramer [00:55:41]:
Yeah. Everyone’s got a camera with them these days, so storage is cheap.

Tim Grillot [00:55:47]:
And sometimes, you know, I’ve, I’ve I haven’t been too ashamed to ask a guest to send me a picture. You know, if they’re having a problem, send me a picture. And sometimes those pictures get saved in my drive because whatever it was, I thought it was useful for later, and, you know, so.

Chuck Kramer [00:56:00]:
And I advise you, when you get back home, look at those pictures, get the model numbers, do a quick Google search, find the PDF of the manual, download it to wherever you’re storing the pictures.

Luke Carl [00:56:12]:
Look at this guy.

Avery Carl [00:56:13]:
Yeah. Chuck is next level ninja.

Chuck Kramer [00:56:16]:
No, I’ve just got a lot of calls. You know, I have to replace appliances and stuff, and then I got to figure, okay, well, what size am I replacing? Do I have enough room for these other models? Because there can be differences in sizes, and having the manual helps you with that information.

Tim Grillot [00:56:30]:
It’s, you know, people. People lose their mind a little on their vacation, and they’re supposed to, you know, I mean, they kind of forget how to do stuff like work a house, you know, I mean, so. Or it’s something, you know, it’s your. Your shower comes on different than they. Theirs does, and they’ll lose their mind over that a little bit. And as you scale, having all this information at your fingertips is awesome.

Chuck Kramer [00:56:50]:
Yep.

Avery Carl [00:56:51]:
All right, guys, well, thank you so much for coming on. And hopefully the listeners learned a little something about the comments, things that you might run into management wise when it comes to the smoky mountains, specifically. And again, thanks so much for coming, and we will see everyone on the next episode.