how did you all get tied up with this uh TI system oh did you already dial one yeah i just dial one we're being recorded already yeah okay uh we're supposed to be discussing our homes yeah but what what uh what did you uh are you with TIer or how did you get tied up with this oh it's a uh long story but uh let's discuss about our homes um what kind of home do you live in uh i guess a typical home here is without a uh uh basement i guess that's the classical uh raised style yeah uh we have something here we have something here you may not have up there which is a well we we were phasing them out is the wood shingle roof i don't know if you had it when i first got here uh-huh my parents live huh where did you got get there from from New Jersey all right uh i new you didn't have a Texas accent right no i i'm my accent's gone i've practiced a long time to get rid of it uh uh-huh uh-huh the the wood shingle roofs are phasing out here they're very they're good for air-conditioning you know they they i hear you it's you it's very shocking when you look inside the attic and on a dry day and see a hundred little or thousands of little light wholes you know i would imagine so it it's very strange and then when of course when it rains then it then it then it stretches uh-huh and does a pretty good job but uh the the fire hazard has is uh-huh uh-huh i would imagine phasing that kind of construction out it it's so so what kind of home do you live in oh it's a rent it's a multistorey uh last year uh luckily oh a colonial style two story no colonial is not the word had they use here uh that's multistorey is what they call them a multilevel it's called multilevel okay it it it's not it's not really that typical it's a custom home uh-huh uh i live in Arlington actually this i'm working tonight actually in Dallas uh uh-huh uh-huh at TI here oh you work at TI oh yeah so that's how you got hooked up to this oh yeah you know you know you can converse with the person for a while and get to know them before you punch the one you don't have to get started on the conversation right away oh yeah your right your right well anyway um well uh how many calls have you made uh have you oh i don't know several eleven twelve thirteen i guess oh really everyone everyone's higher than i am well i haven't made the calls mostly i've just uh i answered them i live in a two story type colonial here in Maryland yeah that that i heard i know those words from the east when i was there but that they don't use that word here yeah well most the homes here are two story because uh they stack them up since the property is so expensive at least in the Maryland area where i am do you have a basement yeah oh yeah that's typical up there to you know yeah well like i say the land here and depending on where you are and how crowded it is the land bays go up and here a little old measly quarter of an acre goes from anywhere from four to five thousand to a hundred and some odd thousand depending on where it is oh yeah no the land is much cheaper here and if you're in a fairly decent subdivision which i guess maybe i'm in a fairly middle-class subdivision then the general trend is to put as much house as you can on a quarter acre it took me a long time to get used to it coming from down south up here big big houses on little bitty postage stamp lots yeah but uh that's the general way they uh they build them here so you get about a twenty two hundred to three thousand square foot home depending on whether you include the basement or not yeah uh on about a quarter of an acre or less about ten thousand square feet yeah the lots aren't very big here either in the Dallas uh Fort Worth area uh-huh uh-huh uh but the basement there just aren't any basements i don't know of anyone ever even thought of putting a basement in here huh well they use slab foundations or do they use block foundations or the little uh it used to be a pier and beam where they would drill piers and and the first you would have a crawl space underneath your house but that's phased out in the last twenty five years where it's all slab crawl space okay slabs are easier and quicker to pour and lay i guess yeah and uh they they say that the the reason they don't put pier i think it's cheaper like you say but uh the soil does move a lot here and they say that you just couldn't uh uh uh-huh put a basement in the soil but i'd think they just to me i don't know really know why it wouldn't work i think you can put a basement in anywhere it's just not not popular i see what to dig out for it yeah really do you have high water tables no no it's not very high some of the water here so it's just a matter they just don't do it yeah this is Dallas there the water's down two thousand feet uh-huh well of course down there you probably don't have land as quite as much a premium so you can sprawl a big rancher out yeah i guess it's the style i really don't have an answer here because of the tornado i always thought tornados uh i thought people would build a lot of storm cellars you know or shelters you know but even that is not uh popular at all i don't know i don't know of anyone doing that uh yeah yeah uh-huh uh i don't even see it in the newspaper where people advertise that they have storm cellars or anything they just don't have them period uh-huh i understand well uh you say you live in a ranch style house yourself yeah it's it's multilevel yeah like my garage i have uh uh a bedroom over well now is it like a split level split level yeah in other words you've got some bedrooms above say a garage area and then the living room dining room area is halfway between both you go down steps to your garage and maybe a family room down there and you go up the steps to your bedroom right right exactly right right right okay that's what they call a split level up here and a split foyer is where all the steps are at the entrance way if you know what i mean yeah yeah that's a split foyer type and then uh a colonial is where they stack it on top of each other and you pretty well have most of your living space on the first floor like uh a family room or uh you know something like that and the dining room area and a living room and maybe a a kitchen with a possible little eat in area or somethi ng like that what's your typical heating up there in Maryland gas or well uh you i've been through two or three different things of them first house i came up here had gas heat with electric stove then the second house i owned had gas heat and gas stove and uh uh-huh um even gas water heater whereas my previous home it had electric water heater anyway and then the house i'm in now is all yeah uh electric it even has a heat pump oh really yeah and uh well heat pumps nice up there it would probably work pretty well well heat pumps do work pretty well up here it's taking them a few years to get the bugs out of them but uh yeah that's true they they finally seem to work quite well and i would imagine down where you all live heat pumps will work quite well or maybe down there all you need is just air-conditioning that's all well they should yeah because it's warmer in the winter or you have less of a winter down here of course it's a short winter but it does get down to five degrees uh occasionally uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh but uh i don't really know if heat pumps are that popular yet i guess uh i don't i haven't been that close to it in the newer homes well i would imagine all you need is just air-conditioning yeah we we have heat uh some have air-conditioning units i i i have an all electric house but uh it's fifty fifty there's a lot of gas houses here uh because it's so popular uh-huh oh that's right you're you're in the oil state so i would imagine there's plenty of gas around so that's the way to go for heat oh yeah people i think probably prefer natural gas for for heating yeah uh-huh i would too because me i like gas heat i love it i don't i'm an engineer and i don't like the danger of it i've seen too many houses here blowup and i think yeah and i just think oh really when i had i had uh a gas uh uh fireplace you know i had and i saw the way it was constructed yeah it went over my daughter's bedrooms you know over the garage i thought and there's there's just too many fittings in this thing to leak and so i just disconnected i never did hook that sucker up so i just took it out completely uh-huh gas logs uh-huh uh-huh although people love gas here but i i'm ultraconservative on safety and i just don't don't want it uh um-hum uh-huh well i don't mind electric heating and and the like it's okay i mean i i like gas heat because it's so nice and warm but when it comes to cooking i cook i just absolute think a gas stove's the best that money can buy yeah well i've heard people you just can't beat cooking on gas yeah i've heard people say that i and i that flame man is hard to beat because you can regulate it and i mean you you want to turn the flame down on the stove you turn it down right now you don't have to wait for a cool down time which you have to rely on with uh conventional stove or or a warm-up time i mean it's instantly there yeah yeah right and that kind of response is quite uh quite effective i think for cooking oh yeah no i i've i've known people love it for years and uh but uh we've done without it for twenty years here and and uh uh-huh yeah well i've done without it too but i sure prefer it my wife does too yeah yeah no i i haven't i haven't really noticed uh i don't miss it you know with our of course i'm against i'm just i'm one of the yeah uh-huh a million people that uh is against uh gas well do your houses down there have porches or are they just pretty much like just a front door and that's it no no there's not much in front there's no sitting out front you know there's no like like in the east when i was young uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh of course it goes way back we used to sit out front i had a porch up front but no there's not a porch yeah aren't they nice yeah yeah oh yeah they're sort of coming back up here in the east i i i wish i had that you know front porches are they're not very big but they're kind of coming back right i i think the old ways in a lot of uh ways should come back uh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh but i really love a screened in porch outback man i just eat that up but no the yeah no that there it's not popular here either screens in screen in is not that that's so that's uh huh well don't you all have mosquitoes down there not like not like you have up there no really it's too dry it's so dry that it's uh that's surprising Dallas is super dry hm how far are you guys from the coast down there where uh uh what is it uh uh three hundred miles yeah oh are you that's a pretty good piece then yeah i didn't know you were that far inland i knew it was a ways but our our weather is like we have a we have a the warm raining season is now is April uh-huh uh-huh and a little bit of May an then it goes into super dry all summer then you summer with a hurricane season but uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh well tell me uh do your homes down there pretty much have garage disposals and things like that yeah yeah they have everything they do are y'all on septic or y'all have public sewage no public there's essentially no septic not in Dallas Fort Worth though you have it in the out lying areas but uh uh-huh oh they use one and two car garages or just one car garages or carports two two no not carports uh it's essentially garages okay so they do go garage because i lived down south for a long time carports were real popular in certain areas where i yeah not Dallas uh Fort Worth is you know the two car garage and certainly all air-conditioned uh used to live uh-huh uh-huh uh uh two thousand square feet is probably i don't know if that's average or not about how much floor space yeah that sounds about average i think all over the country yeah uh i i think so too there's a lot of swimming pools here i don't have one uh yeah oh really i don't either i hate to clean the rascals i had a i had a pool outback behind my previous house one of those