The Fix-It Show 3-21-26: Outdoor Living Unlimited

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Now here's your host, Dayton Kane and David Nason.

Welcome to our number two, going to be a beautiful day.

So thanks for joining us before you get out and run all your errands and be safe.

I don't know what I'm going to do today, I've probably got some projects to work on.

I'm sure, probably not guarding it, it's probably a real muddy still, so you might not be working in the yard necessarily.

I have some old woodstorm windows that I'm fixing, so.

Oh, there you go.

Eric Brown, on with us this hour from Outdoor Living Unlimited, how are you, sir?

Very good, how are you guys?

It's been a good morning so far, so don't ruin it for us, okay?

I was trying not to ruin the morning, you guys.

Tell us not sure what I would have to do to do that, but...

I don't know that you could.

I don't know that you could.

Tell us about Outdoor Living Unlimited, what do you guys do?

So yeah, Outdoor Living Unlimited, so obviously last Saturday I was on with Siding Unlimited, representing that company.

Air and my brother and I, we are business partners in Siding Unlimited, and then about 10 years ago, not quite, we started.

Outdoor Living Unlimited, because we started getting people asking about DAX, that's what kicked it off.

We had customers that were asking you guys, we'd put the windows in, we'd put the doors in, we'd do the siding, we'd do the roof,

and then they'd say, can you build our deck?

And we're looking like, well, at the time, well, we never really dabbled in DAX too much, we've done framework,

and we've done some pretty cool projects along the way, like, well, we can build a deck, let's figure this out.

And we had customers that only would go with us, they didn't trust anybody else.

And that's what kind of pushed us that direction.

So we built a deck for this lady in New Berlin, a fantastic customer over the years.

She's been super, and so we started building, we built it.

We had our sales rep for our decking company, our timber tech is the product that we use.

We had them come out, double check our work, you know, and they're like, oh my gosh, you guys, this is outstanding.

And I think it's just a testimony to the quality work that we do, that we could jump in and do a deck.

And then the rest of history, we started that we just spun the decking portion off in the outdoor living unlimited and created an outdoor hardscapes company that now after after use of experience and doing things the right way and and diving into it had first, we now do a lot of decking, a lot of outdoor

titchens, a lot of pavers projects retaining walls, screen rooms, in ground pools now, that's been a third year doing in ground pools.

You know, so everything on the outside of the, you know, really your backyard, I mean, we're doing porches and all of that stuff.

We're really that hardscapes that outdoor that that construction that's outside the house type stuff and all you has a booth at the Wisconsin expo this weekend and next.

Yeah, yeah, we're at the realtor's home and garden show down at the at the state fair park expo center that's today tomorrow and then off on Monday and Tuesday, the whole show is off Monday, Tuesday and then it picks back up again Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday next week, so it's a long show, we have a really nice display showing off decking our automated purgolas, we can describe those later.

You know, we have TV that shows a lot of our images, I think we have 16 different colors of decking, so if you're looking for colors, the rails are all different style rails all down at that home show also all in our show room, so if you don't make it down to the show, the best thing to do is give us call set up a one on one appointment and we can take you through so many different ideas that we've done and that we can do and my gosh, we.

We threw this out there a while ago a few years back, you know, if you have ideas, if you're on vacation and you have ideas and you bring them back and you want those in your backyard show us challenge us and we've done that we've done some really cool projects that replicate what people have enjoyed for one week and now they can enjoy it.

Every week of the year in their own backyard outdoor living unlimited commas website really impressive stuff if you want to go check out the gallery there as well and on Instagram, you can see them outdoor living unlimited get your calls and text in citing unlimited WTMJ talk in text line is 85561620 thanks for listening to the fix it show this morning.

Get her down. It's the fix it show on WTMJ sunny today. I have 63 near the lake 71 in land. It's going to be beautiful. It wasn't supposed to be sunny. Well, hopefully that's what she say and that's I'm going off Elizabeth Linton and she's our news person. That's great.

I hope she's right melt all the snow away. I hope she's right Eric Brown on with us from outdoor living unlimited these decks that you guys are making are huge they're beautiful and they're like multi level and then there's pavers and there's pools and it's like every time I look at the website I'm just fascinated.

Yeah, I get I get a little a little nervous actually some of these products that we do are pretty amazing and the ones in the queue the ones coming up for this spring summer are actually really, really cool. We have one going going on. It's going to start later this summer.

In McWanago, I think it's on Phantom Lake. That is a two two tier deck. It's got the inside out product which is underneath the top level the second level deck that catches the rain so you can actually be underneath on the lower deck while it's outside rain and enjoy storms. If you enjoy you know, even if it's a light rain or something like that you can still be outside.

You're sheltered and we have that product going on this two tier deck. We're setting up for a swim spa as well. And then they added different. It was a big project already then they added stairs to another project.

A lot of times we do projects and phases. It might be a deck and then a outdoor kitchen. It might be a screen room over over over a deck or something like that. And then that leads to a bigger project. And then this one before we could even get started the homeowners were adding on.

But what scares me about it is that we we talk about these big projects and we show a lot of them on Instagram, which our Instagram page is unbelievable. It shows so many really good ideas.

So I always say on the show if you don't have Instagram, get it. It's a cool social media platform that you control pretty well. I think Facebook gets a little crazy.

But Instagram then go to our outdoor living unlimited page and we have drawn footage video images of just so many different ideas of the projects that we've done. But we also do small backs.

So if if you're in Milwaukee County, you have a smaller property, but you have a backyard that you're like, you know what, I'm done mowing the grass back here. There's probably not a lot of space.

But we can do something with it. It's a blank canvas for us. We can we can build a really cool backyard.

And some of these backyard properties, even in Milwaukee County. And it's fun. We have a lot of fun with it.

And you're using timber tech, right? For your product?

Yeah, so so for decking timber tech. So asak exteriors is the company that owns timber tech, decking products.

And we are Wisconsin. This is our third year in a row that we're Wisconsin's number one timber tech deck installer.

So we we've we're very comfortable with the product. We love the product.

There's competition in the composite board business in the composite board industry. There is competition. The way timber tech builds their board, their warranties.

And just how they service their product is second to none. So that's why we piggyback with with them.

So you have the product. And a last week was citing unlimited. We talked a lot about product and install. Same thing with deck, same thing with pavers with outdoor kitchens with everything that we do.

It's product and install is it going to last is the product going to last. And then we have to make it last with our installation and timber tech really is a premium product for for decking.

Eric Brown from outdoor living unlimited on with us eight five five six one six one six twenty if you have questions.

When we come back, we're going to talk about the design feature and how we come up with this. You said bring pictures, but let's go through that process when we got back.

It is the fix it show on WTMJ.

Advice you can use. It's the fix it show on WTMJ indeed. It is eight twenty three on a Saturday. Thanks for listening date and cane. David Nason on with Eric Brown from outdoor living unlimited.

So Eric, I was looking on the website there. And one of the pictures on there shows a deck with round areas. So the timber tech product.

It's a composite product, right? So it allows you to actually bend some of the materials like the facing of it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's actually pretty cool.

We take the board. So 16 foot lengths. I think up to 20 foot lengths. I think our sleep. We have a sleeve that we slide them in.

It's a blanket. It's a heating blanket, basically, but it's a sleeve. The board goes in. It warms it up. And when you take it out, it feels like it's like a wet spaghetti noodle.

And then you. So we build all the framework and then we'll build all the framing and then we'll cut.

We'll cut all of our deck boards the way we want it. And then like a perimeter board.

We would use that that heating blanket warm them up. And then we can lay it in the form of the deck that we that we built.

And then six, six, it's a framework in a way we go and we built.

We get some pretty cool projects with it. So you can do like a curved instead of a 90 degree corner. We can do a curve.

So if you want to radius and you want that look, we can do that. We've also built benches round benches, which is a really nice accent feature on on decks.

You know, just give it gives it that if you're looking for a nice simple deck, we can do that. And if you're looking for the next level, that's where this comes in the play.

And we can do these as well. So.

Talk about that. We're always up for the challenge.

Talk about that because you don't just like make this up out of thin air. So the design work that goes into this beforehand has to be pretty intense.

Yeah, we, I mean, it's brainstorming, right? It's bringing ideas together. So homeowners come to us with their ideas. They'll bring pictures.

The backyard, we meet them at their house, all of that stuff.

You know, to get their ideas, but then we have ideas of our own plus we definitely we utilize Instagram and that and those images and the videos and our website and our and we use those so much.

Just to give inspiration to homeowners to let them know.

You know, this is stuff that we can do in your own backyard. And it takes something so simple. Most people bring simple ideas to us. And that's really that's easy. That's fair.

Because nobody you're not supposed to know all this stuff.

Everyone else goes about their business and their daily lives. You're not supposed to think about decking daily like we do.

But when you come to us, we, we definitely are the, are the pros. We are the experts. And then we start giving you ideas and stuff. And you can say yes or no to them.

But it's, it's all brainstorming. And then we have our design team in house.

So we have a design team that puts everything together, puts the ideas, everything that we talk about. They put them together on a computer, animated drawing that you can look at.

And we take you through the image. And we refine it. You might look at it and think, okay, we went a little, little overboard. We're not looking to look at anything crazy extreme.

Or they look, somebody looks at it like we love it. And we want to add more. So it really the design process being in house makes it very flexible for us to adjust and, and, and work with homeowners and their ideas.

And we can adjust to make it bigger. We can, we can shorten it up. We can, it sets up the game planning really well as far as I said in one of the breaks earlier.

But we can go in phases in the design, having the design in house gives us that flexibility to really create opportunity to all right here.

We're going to build this. This is your project. But we're going to go on phases. It says, it allows us to game plan.

Yeah, that's nice. So if somebody wants to get in touch with you, how do they do that?

There's many ways to get in touch with us. 262-567-4513 is our phone number. That's in in Waukesha.

We have a showroom in Waukesha showroom in Madison as well. And both showrooms are fantastic. And you can, we'll meet you at either one of them.

You can reach us by going to the website outdoor living unlimited.com and filling out a form fill on there and sending that in.

We're not, we're not, we're not hiding anywhere. So if, if we're just trying to be available for everybody, when the time is right, give us a call and we'll work with you on your next project.

100th annual realtors home and guard show going on this weekend next Wednesday through the following weekend.

You guys are going to be out there as well. You've got your pergola out there that you can show people on how that can open and close and be used in all kinds of weather with the screens that go up and down on the side.

It's, it's a pretty cool thing. So make sure you find them if you're going to the home show.

We are going to take a break over to the WTMJ Breaking News Center with Elizabeth Linton and good morning, Elizabeth.

Good morning, Dayton.

Call with your problem. We'll try to solve it. It's the fix it show on WTMJ.

Dayton came here with David Nason looking forward to the Eagles ballroom tomorrow night. I'm going to be going to see the summer set.

I'm sure you know all their songs.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Way back. Yes. Can't wait. Another concert on the books.

All right, Eric Brown from Outdoor Living Unlimited on with us today.

Yeah. So Eric, obviously I'm a home inspector and consultant and everything.

And I've seen a few bad decks in my day.

And what what I mean, I know you guys see them too.

If you people got a deck or something, we should talk about what what the problems are with your deck.

Why why you shouldn't go out and get a couple buddies and build your own deck on a weekend.

Well, that that's that's exactly what's what's happened. And and you know, Dave, Dave is a fantastic home inspector.

And so I know I know you've seen exactly what we've seen and we see plenty of it.

Exactly why you why what you said is so many decks in our area were built by, you know, the weekend warriors.

The do it yourself first. The guys that have, you know, he have five or six buddies that, you know, you're all carpenters.

And I'm using air quotes that you can't see. It's on radio because they're all carpenters.

And the DIY guys because that stands for destroyed yourself.

Right. Exactly. And and those guys, what what what goes with all of their tools on a weekend that they're going to build their buddies deck.

And the one thing you can count on if you're that if you're if it's your house.

And you have all these guys over on Saturday and they get halfway done.

Someday two of them are showing up and they're only going to be there to about noon.

And then you're left, you know, holding the bag trying to finish your own deck and it doesn't get complete.

It's just we see it so many times. And it was probably done wrong in the first place.

So but but these these decks age. I mean, that's just what we saw a lot in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s.

We see we still see it going on because people can save a buck doing that.

But these decks start to fail. And and where they fail is if they use the wrong fasteners because they didn't want to make a trip to the to the store to get to get another box of the right fasteners.

Or they or they just they say it's good enough or that will hold.

You know, so basically nothing's to code. Nothing's to spec. Nothing was engineered behind it.

And everything that we build is exactly that. It's the right the right lumber. It's the right board for the right task.

It's the right fastener for the right task. That's probably the job one is using the right fasteners.

And and then we do it in a way that it's going to look fantastic and it's going to last. And where we run into issues.

We literally if you Google disaster decks or decks falling off the house, you can see.

Decks that are falling off because ledger boards were not fastened correctly and it's scary stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. And probably one of the biggest things that and if it's difficult for me to see as a home inspector is a lot of homes being built today have these eye joists in them.

And so the rim joist is also probably possibly an eye joist. You got to make sure that deck is attached to something solid.

And that you're not just, you know, drilling into OSB sheathing. And then now your decks going to, you know, come come right off your house kind of like you're saying.

Yeah. And historically what would happen is even a builder, the siding crew would come up and they would they would they would tack with nails just nails.

They would just hit it a couple times just so that holds the ledger board in place so they can go around it. It's just a placeholder.

And then the framers come in and they build their deck off of it without securing it. Well, now your whole deck.

Imagine that like all your family, your friends all over for one party doesn't even have to do that many people. It could just be your family or just you.

But that just any type of weight any type of load is putting pressure on fasteners that are just not fixed to anything and eventually that's going to come straight down.

And that's why I say Google these images because they're real. The other issue.

And this is time and this is this could be a deck that was a wood deck cedar or even or even treated that that was built perfect.

You know, the way it was built would last forever, but the product itself starts to fail because wood starts to rot if it's not protected.

And we see it where water every time it rains every time it snows and melts every time this water around a deck board.

It runs off, but it holds on underneath the deck. It's capillary action and the drips off there.

And so if you look underneath the deck after it rains, you'll see all this water sitting on the bottom of the underneath the deck boards and it's just solely dripping off.

Well, that wears on the deck as well. That starts to rot the wood and your deck starts the deck boards start to rot from underneath that you don't see.

And so any type of step could be devastating and it could result in a trip to the ER.

If you put your foot through and you imagine all your weight going straight through unsupported, you know, you could really hurt yourself.

And so it's pitfalls like that that you should be aware of when it's time for when you start to look at your own deck and say, all right, now it's time for a new one.

So when you're when you're going out to people's homes and you're looking at their yards and their decks and they want to replace a deck.

You're not you're not taking off just the top deck boards and put new ones down. You have to you're building them all from scratch, right? That all comes out and you're putting a new deck on.

Yeah, yeah. If the treated if the framing and the treated isn't really good shape, we might have to add some boards or maybe there's a couple that need to be replaced.

So we can do a resurface is what we call it. We're just replacing the deck boards and the and the railing and there's some limitations to that, but you're getting what looks like a brand new deck.

And we're not going to leave walk away with it not structurally correct. You know, we're going to double check the fasteners.

There's times where we went to a house. We sold a resurface. We could not see the framing underneath, but we told them if it's if it's rotted and that's possible.

Or if it's all split, it's not in good shape or the fasteners. It's just not worth saving. Here's what the price is going to be and we've and we've gone into projects where the expectation was a resurface and then we pulled the boards off and now now we expose the framing that you couldn't see before.

And we have to show the homeowner. Hey, this is this is this can't be saved. They understand when they don't want to put a brand new deck over over a bad frame.

So there are some adjustments that we have to make on the fly, but we try to let homeowners know that ahead of time that that could happen.

My preference always is let's reframe the whole deck. I think I think there's so many value is so many benefits to that.

I mean, in a lot of cases, I mean, I mean, we're using a lifetime board virtually a lifetime board. The warranties on these things are our 50 years. They're long warranties.

The support on them. Like if we if we build the deck with timber tech, the rail and the and the board. There's a 10 year warranty behind it.

You know, so I mean, if we're building a deck for longevity, let's let's reframe it as well. Let's get it all all all with a new timeline.

Everything from the framing, the footings, the boards, the facial boards, the rail, all of that stuff.

Starting over from day one, you know, nothing's aged and then and then we're in a really good position for the future outdoor living unlimited.com is the website.

You can check them out there and on Instagram and outdoor living unlimited Eric Brown with a couple more segments to go 8556161620. If you have questions, it is the fix it show on WTMJ.

We can help fix your relationship, but we can help with that lead. It's the fix it show on WTMJ.

Sunny 63 years of late for a high today 71 inland going to be a beautiful day to be outside looking on what you could put on your property without doing living unlimited.

I just want to say before I have a question for you, but before we go too far, I mean this last segment, we kind of bash guys people doing their own work. This is the fix it show.

There are plenty of people out there who do know how to do their own work. I get it.

We're talking about the people who don't and you really some things you shouldn't do.

If you're doing a second story deck and you're not experienced, you probably shouldn't be doing it because there's people's lives at stake.

But yes, there are plenty of people out there who do know maybe to look up the right things or you know get their own permit and have an inspect and everything.

So out on these outdoor areas and everything and some of these cool pictures you have on the there's kitchens in there.

What are you seeing as far as trends in putting an outdoor kitchen? What's going on in those projects?

It's wild. You know in the past you could you could follow trends and it was pretty it was pretty common that a color or a design or or or some sort of feature would be very popular.

And now everybody comes with different ideas and it becomes so custom but I will say one of the things that has been really blowing up the outdoor outdoor living environment has been these automated screen purgolas, screen rooms, these automated structures.

And it's funny because it's like it doesn't it there's so pretty pretty well new and when they came out it wasn't like they even had a name one company was calling them automated purgola or their purgola and another company was calling them their structure.

And so what but but but they're really cool because they're just we can create this room without without tearing up over we can actually open up a wall and tie in the structure of a screen room into the house and make it look like it was built that way from original.

But some people don't want to go to that great lengths but they still want privacy they still want some shelter some shade and they want their own space and and the space is really cool because it's whatever you want it for.

And so these structures we can build them and the sides the side walls can be an automated screen so you press the button the screen comes down and it's there and these screens are not are not they're not your typical window screen like these are they're really heavy duty.

So they actually act a little bit they act as a little bit privacy the we have different colors and and different sicknesses of the of the fabric so it can be a privacy screen it can be a win block if it's a win block we can add a heating element and then it also acts to contain the heat.

I mean it's not going to work like your wall of your house but it does a really good job for a temporary moment outside to just turn the heating drop the screens turn the heating element on and warm up that little space.

We can also use plastic we can have plastic that drops down for the walls and it's a clear plastic.

So you have an option of screen or plastic and or you could do both and then the ceiling the ceiling and this is where the pergola comparison comes in because the ceiling has a series of slats that open and close and when they're open it looks like a pergola and when they're closed you press a button they close up it becomes a gutter system so it now it carries the water away from you and it gives you a ceiling and protection.

So again you can be outside and if it's getting a little rainy out or a little sprinkle or something like that you can be outside and still enjoy the weather and enjoy the space.

The sighting and limited booth at the home and garden show is right across the aisle from outdoor living unlimited so they're both right there and I was watching Nate show somebody how that all worked the screen the pergola and everything that you guys have set up there and just watching people's faces when they see it is awesome they're like whoa that is so cool.

So go check it out at the home show we have to take our final break when we come back a final segment with Eric Brown from outdoor living unlimited.

Check them out outdoor living unlimited dot com it is the fix it show WT MJ W277 CV and WKTI HD 2 milwalk from the annex wealth management studios.

This is news radio WT MJ a good karma brand station making it a great fix it day.

It's the fix it show on WT MJ sponsored each week by J&B construction and citing unlimited air Brown from outdoor living unlimited been on with us all this hour and we're going to wrap it up by letting people know how they get in touch with you Eric.

Oh sorry I went out you went out there sorry about that.

Oh yeah just how do people get in touch and like what's the time frame when it comes to getting somebody out to their house.

Oh yeah getting in touch 262567 4513 is the number the best best thing to do is to call us up you have a project bring ideas and we'll set up that one on one consultation.

You can always pop into the showroom during normal business hours but the one on one is going to be more definitely more worth your time.

You can go outside outdoor living unlimited almost exciting and limited dot com you can go there to outdoor living unlimited dot com and fill out a form fill on the website that those actually go to my to my email address.

So I do I do see how those come in and but but anyway you always you always get ahold of us you know we're always available.

We try to make ourselves available I would say now that we're coming into the spring.

I would say in around a week week and a half we should be able to meet with you and start going over some ideas and after that the timeline.

The next step next phase of the timeline is all upon the homeowner with ideas getting the design figured out and then when they want to sign a contract that's that more more times than not that phase of the of the process is on the homeowner as far as the timing goes.

And then and then after that.

Depending on the time of the year we might be a couple months out we might get up to three or four months out on work.

So it's just a matter of working with us and what what time of the year makes sense to do it but the thing that works the best is if you if you're ready to go.

Give us a call we'll start the planning we'll start the design we'll start the and then we'll get under contract and then we'll start figuring out when the best time of the year works for both of us.

We talked a lot about decks but what can you guys all do.

So the decks and pavers is like what would I always call is the canvas of our projects like that's usually the foundation.

So we're either building a deck or we're laying down pavers and then from there we can build a deck project it can be a screen room it can be just a hangout it can be a we can we can do outdoor kitchen we can do fire pits.

The screen rooms those automated purgulas which I wanted to mention the last segment the space that those automated purgulas create we had a lady come in and she said I want you guys to create a space for my yoga and we showed her that those automated purgulas and she's like that's perfect and we ended up doing 15 foot by 15 foot structure and it's her it's her yoga her outdoor yoga studio.

She just I mean she just enjoys that space another gentleman came in which is cool because I heard the commercial this hour for Wisconsin indoor golf center I go there quite a bit that that place can be dangerous it's right around the corner for my house.

But we had a guy come in and he's like I want base for a golf simulator and we created that using one of these automated purgulas so so really you know we're creating the space we're creating the outdoor you know we're creating all of this but it's for useful space for the homeowner so so really that that starts the process is what are you going to use it for what do you want it for because that that's what really triggers the project and then creates the love.

Start the process now outdoor living unlimited dot com thanks Eric thanks Eric for the fix it show have a good week yeah we'll see you next week this has been the fix it show on WTMJ presented by J&B construction and citing unlimited advice and opinions expressed during the program or solely that of the hosts or guests and not WTMJ radio or good karma brands Milwaukee LLC.