Thesidingguy

I thought this week I’d expand on last week’s topic discussing all of the extra cash we have lying around in the form of items that we don’t use. Let’s face it, Marketplace or selling items is a pain because we are dealing with a wide range of people - from stand up citizens, to people with no etiquette and even scammers. I made this video hoping that it helps some of you to make this process a lot easier. If you price your item low, it will sell quick. If you operate on first come first serve, you won’t have to rely on “trusting” that one person to show up next week. If you don’t give out your address until the buyer is leaving, it saves you waiting around or wasting your time hoping the buyer will be punctual. If you don’t engage with someone who offers you less, you haven’t wasted your time and at the end of the day, the possible buyer loses out if he/she really wanted the item. This little tips took a few years of experimenting with, I don’t remember the last no-show I had - it was probably back in the Kijiji days. One more thing, when I type “Mkt” into my phone, I have a text replacement paragraph to address all of my points in the video so I don’t have to keep typing it every time I create an ad - this alone has saved me A LOT of time in selling items.

Anyway, please comment down below if you have any more tips and tricks to selling on Marketplace. Thanks for watching and I hope this video keeps encouraging you to take action toward a better financial future for yourself.

This is a pretty common trick so that you can easily use the leverage of a hammer to flush up the boards while nailing them together. The nailer actually ended up bouncing the hammer off prematurely so I didn’t quite get it flush. I ended up just pulling the nail and doing it again and ensured that it didn’t bounce. Hopefully you get the idea and are able to use this sometime if you run into this situation. Without leverage, it’s impossible with my strength to try to flush up the boards with just my hands - even if I could, I’d have to then get someone else to nail it.

I hired a guy named Zia to supply underlay and kick the carpet back in after I had some water in a portion of my basement last month. I threw out the wet underlay and had fans on the carpet immediately and it dried out in a day. He charged me $300 and was here for an hour. It was worth every single penny as I called him this morning based on many good reviews. He originally could schedule me in tomorrow at 4:30, but then called me and asked if he could fit me in today. He came with his 13 yr old son, who is working with him all summer. I love seeing that.

It is definitely great seeing trades with experience at work. He was quick and efficient. He’s been doing flooring in Canada for 18 years and started doing flooring in his home country since he was 12. It turns out he has some siding in need of repair on his house so it looks like I can return the favour of some service work.

I’ve said it before, every trade should have a minimum service fee regardless of whether they’re there for 15 mins or an hour. It takes overhead to run a business and many people don’t see the time it takes behind the scenes to schedule a job and quote it. Could I have done this myself? Probably, but it was much more worth it to me to have someone come in and out and have it done and cleaned up. I would have had to buy a roll of underlay, then I would have leftovers to deal with etc.

Zia allowed me to video him.

This is something you can do every year to keep your A/C unit in tip top shape. The company who installed my A/C unit reminds me every year to schedule this service and warn me that they won’t cover warranty if I don’t use them to clean the coils. They charge $247 for this service. If I used them for 10 years, that pretty much would almost pay for a new unit. I choose to do it myself for $12 (the cost of the coil foam cleaner) and 30 mins of my time. I know that my unit will still be under manufacturer warranty as I have a receipt so I’m not too concerned about that. I picked up the foam cleaner from my local Rona hardware store.

The main points are:
1. Make sure you disconnect power to the A/C unit before doing anything
2. Don’t use high pressure water or you can bend or wreck the coil fins
3. Let the foam cleaner sit for 10 mins before rinsing it off. Start from the inside as the air flows from the outside in, so you want to wash it out in reverse.

It is a straightforward process requiring very minimal tools. Really, you only need a nutdriver. This post isn’t to diminish the HVAC trades as I do believe every trade must have a minimum charge as it costs lots of money to run a business. Rather, it’s a post to show you that you can save money without skimping on a professional service, knowing that you still did the job correctly. Many of us would be glad to spend 30 mins of our time doing this in exchange for a nice dinner out with their family or spouse.

I learned to do this from a YouTube HVAC guy who suggests homeowners do it themselves. I hope this video was helpful. Maybe you’ll try this yourself. Thanks for watching.

I didn’t know that you could just insert the bit into most modern day impacts until a couple of years ago when a commenter commented on one of my videos informing me of this. When you’ve spent your entire career getting used to pulling the collar forward to insert the bit, it becomes second nature. I’m not sure how many of you grew up in the generation of older impact drivers where you had to do this. If you didn’t know this, I hope I’ve made life a bit easier for you in the future. Now you can single handedly insert a bit into your impact driver without using the other hand 😂. You’re welcome. Thanks for watching. Comment down below if it took you too long to know this like myself.

I didn’t know what topic I was going to cover this week but it came naturally as I’ve been slowly trying to purge items out of my house for the past couple of weeks. It really surprised me how quickly the extra cash added up. I have enough for a small vacation if I wanted. It’s a bit daunting to me as I’ve been married for 26 years - so that’s 26 years of joint accumulation of things. Step by step we’re working on letting go of stuff we have. Even selling items at below market value, the little bits of cash adds up. And guess what? It’s tax free because you’ve already used your taxed dollars to purchase the items, so you’re essentially recouping a small portion of what you’ve put into the item originally.

As always, I want to be clear that I’m not a finance expert. I have done well for my family over the years and I only seek to share what I’ve learned from personal experiences. I hope this video encourages you to take action toward a better financial future for you and your family. Thanks for watching.

Please comment below if you want me to cover a specific topic in the future.

This is a quick video showing how these anchors work. They hold quite a bit of weight - the hold up to 63 lbs in 1/2” drywall which is pretty impressive. I’ve always been fascinated by how things work, so if you’re like me hopefully this video gives you a nice visual of how it works. Thanks for watching.

A couple of weeks ago I showed a video on the basics of lifting a pump jack pole vertically and moving it around. Here is another common way installers move them around. This is actually the first time I tried this. I know a few installers who prefer this way. Practice whatever method feels more comfortable for you. If you learn this skill early on in your career, it will save a lot of time in your career so that you can eliminate lowering and raising the pole every time you have to move it around the house. I hope these videos have helped you. Thanks for watching.

I started out cutting with a knife my first couple of years of siding. Then I went to the Vanmark cutter with the Vanmark Mark 2 brake. I later upgraded to the Innovatools 2-way cutter. It’s much faster (even easier with a 1” offset opposed to a 1.5” offset). Since I bend in the shop, everything is set up to be more efficient. With the 2 way cutter, you’re able to cut in both directions AND leave the cutter on the brake while you bend. This has made a huge difference for me over the past few years. If you have a Tapco, or Vanmark or Innovatools brake, they have a 2 way cutter that fits. There’s a link in my bio for a coupon code if you wanted to save a bit of money. Definitely worth it.

I’ve been using Stealthmounts for a number of years. As you can see, it allows me to put my batteries and tools tucked away in all sorts of nooks and crannies - out of the way. I use the battery holders in my work van as well - clipping drained batteries on one side of my console, and charged batteries on the other side. I get my stealthmounts from since they’re fairly close to me. If you haven’t heard of , check them out. I think I have links to them on my Amazon favorites as well in my bio.