Homeowners Be Aware

Repairing Drywall the Right Way with Ted Speers

• George Siegal • Season 2 • Episode 136

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May 21, 2024

136.  Repairing Drywall the Right Way with Ted Speers

Ever wondered why that tiny dent in your wall seems to draw your eye every time you walk past it? Ted Speers, the drywall whisperer and president of the Patch Boys, joins me to shed light on the surprisingly significant world of drywall repair. We peel back the layers of this often-overlooked craft, discussing the meticulous artistry required to make even the smallest imperfections vanish. Ted shares tales from the trenches focusing on repairs that can make all the difference in a home's appearance and value.

 
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George Siegal:

Today, we are going to dive into a topic that's often overlooked but incredibly important for maintaining the beauty and integrity of your home Drywall repair. Now, whether you're dealing with a small gash or a major hole, knowing how to fix drywall correctly can save you time, money and a lot of frustration. My guest today is Ted Spears, the president of the Patch Boys, the only national drywall repair company in the US. So why should you, as a homeowner, care about drywall repair? Fixing drywall the right way is crucial. It ensures the repairs are seamless, durable and blend perfectly with the rest of your walls. Now, whether you're preparing your home for sale, just moved in or have been putting off repairs for years, this episode will equip you with the knowledge you need to tackle drywall damage head on.

George Siegal:

I'm George Siegal, and this is Homeowners Be Aware the podcast that teaches you everything you need to know about being a homeowner, ted, thank you so much for joining me today, george, excited to be here. Yeah, it's exciting. We were talking before we went on and you're in Michigan. I worked in Detroit for three years, so that's an exciting connection and, as I was telling you, I loved living there, minus the cold weather.

Ted Speers:

Yeah, it gets a little chilly up here, but it's predictable and it makes spring, summer and fall all that much more enjoyable.

George Siegal:

Oh, there's nothing more beautiful than fall. When the leaves are turning, the apple cider is out and it's incredible. But that's not what we're here to talk about today. We're going to talk about the Patch Boys. Sounds like a gang, but it's not. You guys do some interesting stuff. Tell me about the Patch Boys.

Ted Speers:

Yeah, the Patch Boys would be trying to get small drywall repair fixed and nobody wanted to do it because you know a lot of the drywall companies. They did the big stuff right. You know they drywall your home or you know you'd want to drywall your basement but the problem is when you have a leak in your upstairs bathroom and it comes through, you know, through the ceiling and it's right in your dining room and it looks terrible. You know you get the plumber to come and fix it but nobody wants to come in, you know, and fix that hole and so along the way, you know this concept was developed and you know the Belfort Franchise Group, who I work for, purchased the Patch Boys about four years ago and we'd grown it from 35 franchisees to over 110, now a national presence and we're still growing.

George Siegal:

So it sounds interesting. But what I would wanna know is okay, so I have this hole. I need somebody to come out and fix it. A lot of times when I've had that and unfortunately I have had that problem a handful of times the painter has done it. So what's the difference when you is this just an extra step and then it's easier to find somebody to run out and paint afterwards, so you're kind of separating those two tasks.

Ted Speers:

I mean good question. I mean I'm sure there are, you know, painters that can do this. You know there are great. You know people, you know that can come in and do a variety of things. What we do is we specialize in making sure that hole goes away 100%, and so we not only fix the hole right, and probably 60% of our jobs, george, are ceiling jobs. You know, when you think of it, water coming from upstairs, water coming from the roof, people stepping through things, you know, basically in the attic when they're working on things, that's where those holes come from. And then our franchisees, you know we work, train and hire technicians that specialize in drywall repair and then, once we make that hole go away, sure you know, we prime and many of our franchisees paint too, because customers, they, you know they like to make one call and have that hole gone and have their house, you know, back to the way it was.

George Siegal:

Well, anybody that's ever well first of all tried to do that themselves or seen a bad drywall job. It really stands out. So with the artists, the people that are good at it, you don't even know there was a hole there when they're done.

Ted Speers:

I mean, and I'm fascinated. I always joke that, hey, I am not a drywall specialist, I can do it, but you wouldn't want to pay me to do it. Okay, I just want to. But it's art and science because it's a combination of you know making sure that. You know you're putting the mud, mud on it, right, you're fixing the hole, you're putting three coats. There's sanding involved, then there's priming and paint with you know the goal. Then there's priming and paint with you know the goal. It's that hole is gone. And so you're right, it's fascinating. And we all go.

Ted Speers:

I travel with our franchisees out. You know I was just in Jacksonville, fort Lauderdale, you know, a couple of weeks ago and we go out and work with our technicians and they're pros, I mean you know, they know how to do, you know fix any of those issues that are there. Make sure it's clean too, because the last you know, drywall is messy, I got to tell you. So you know we make sure that that home is clean and plastic is there. So when we walk away, it's not only the hole is gone, you know, we make sure your house is as clean as it was when we walked through the door yeah.

George Siegal:

Now yeah, anybody that's ever even tried to plug little holes where you had pictures or something. It's hard to get that right. You know you put, you put the spackle in and you get it down there. But when a painter has done that for me, I haven't even noticed it. When I do it, it looks like it's a polka dotted room.

Ted Speers:

I have to tell you and it's a no judgment zone for us, you know, in terms of but we get so many calls from spouses, husband or wives, and say, well, we tried to fix it, it didn't turn out that well, can you come over so that it looks right? And so, yes, people try it all the time but it's not easy. It is not easy and there's definitely, you know, science to the process in terms of getting that mud to dry and making sure that it's. You know that whole smooth, and then you know the priming and painting to make sure it blends in. So it's gone. Because that's as a homeowner I've had it done in my house a number of times. You want it gone, that's all you know. I don't care how you do it, I just want to make sure that it's gone so that, hey, when we're entertaining or whatever, my brother's not pointing up at the ceiling going. Hey, ted, nice try.

George Siegal:

Yeah, hey, nice job, ted. So when you call somebody out, is it by the job, is it by the hour? How do you guys price out? So somebody knows? Well, I'll wait till I have a few more holes, then I'll call these guys.

Ted Speers:

It's, we set it up by the job and you know, we we try to keep it as simple as possible half day, full day, and then increments of that and and then there's, there's some fine tuning of the pricing. That's there, but it, you know, we try to keep it as as simple as possible for the customer so they can kind of understand in terms of, hey, you know, the smaller the job for the most part, the less time it, less time it takes. And then when you get into ceiling work, like I talked to you about, you know that takes more time because, hey, the higher you go, you need ladders, you need to make sure your site is clean, and when you're working up on the ceiling, you know, dust kind of goes everywhere. So we have to set up more plastic.

Ted Speers:

And then, yeah, sometimes we will come into a home and if you just have one hole, you know, one wall, you know we'll say you know what, you got a stress crack over here for this, for the same amount of money we can do both, like I did a. I did a laundry room. You know I had, uh, guys do a laundry, my laundry room and my dog. We kept my dog in the laundry room when we weren't there and she had scratched up the wall and and the guy goes tell you what I, I'll do this and this and I can get it all done. For that half day job I was like fantastic.

George Siegal:

Now a lot of the challenges with trades are and especially from an employer point of view is finding good people that want to work and want to show up. How has that challenge been? Because you guys are growing pretty fast.

Ted Speers:

That's the number one challenge. I mean, I think everybody understands that. You know in. You know in our business or any type of construction business is getting good workers, and that's our number one priority when we launch a franchise. And it's our focus because, you know, we like to differentiate ourselves not only from our quality of work, but you know in terms of what our brand stands for. And so you know we want to be on time, we want to make sure we're treating the customer with respect, we want a clean job site and we want a great job.

Ted Speers:

In order to do that, you need to have people that are working with you, that understand the importance and then can do the work working with you, that understand the importance and then can do the work. And so that is one of our, you know, biggest focuses of the company is making sure we're getting experienced technicians, because it takes time. You know the art and science. You know it's not something you know I can train you on in two weeks. You know we like to hire people that have years of experience, have gone through it, and then make sure that they understand what our brand stands for and then treat them great. We really, you know, try to treat our technicians well and they're part of the team and with that we've been able to grow.

George Siegal:

Now anybody that watches HGTV or DIY channels or YouTube videos. They're always trying to show you how to fix things really quickly. What are some of the common mistakes that people make when they're trying to fix drywall?

Ted Speers:

you know, the longer you wait, the worse it can get. And so normally when you have drywall and it's a ceiling, it's some type of leak. And you know we'll walk into a home, george, and they'll. You know, the first question we'll ask is, hey, have you fixed the leak? Because the last thing we want to do is fix something and then it comes back. It comes back later, and so we want to, we want to make sure that you know that leak is fixed. And you know, having something sit there, I've walked into a dining room, you know, in Chicago a couple months ago and that that ceiling was getting ready to fall. Somebody left. If you let it, if you, the longer you wait, the, you know, the worse the circumstances that are there. So you know, the sooner you raise your hand and reach out, reach out to you know, to us or someone, the better it is, so that you can come out. And you know we can come out and make sure we get those. Get those fixed that are there, get those fixed that are there.

Ted Speers:

And water is, you know, is something that impacts your drywall. You know sometimes you'll see bubbling, you know in a paint, you know on a. You know a side wall and a lot of times that's because of the water that's come in, you know, either through, you know your window, or it's leaked down, you know, from from the ceiling and those. Those are things that, hey, you can, you can just fix it, but you know you also have to make sure you get rid of that moisture, because moisture can lead to a lot of other things besides bubbling, mold and, you know, eroding of, you know of the wall or the structure.

George Siegal:

Absolutely, and you know, I looked this up. I thought it was really interesting. You know why they call it drywall? Yeah, tell me. Oh, there's actually a story behind it. There was a whole section on on Google, so then I guess I don't know how accurate that is. But when I said because it's dry, all four walls are dry and there's no but, but. But as I was reading that, I was going but if you have to put the mud on there and you have to do certain things, isn't that putting wet on dry?

Ted Speers:

So if you don't have the answer for that, then we really don't need to go down this trail, because I know nothing about drywall yeah, well, and the funny thing you bring it up is have you heard the term sheetrock? Yes, so what's the difference between sheetrock and drywall?

George Siegal:

see now, you stumped me, I, I haven't, I don't.

Ted Speers:

No difference. Sheetrock is a brand name for drywall that, especially in the South, has kind of taken over for the generic term of drywall, just like Kleenex and tissue. You know that. You know Kleenex is so popular and so Sheetrock is actually a brand name for drywall that a lot of people will use, you know, as a synonym for drywall. That's there.

George Siegal:

And I did learn that it's not as simple as just running into the local home supply store and buying it. You need to know the thickness of what you're trying to match it with. I mean, there are certain elements and I saw a guy take out a bunch of popsicle sticks and all this other stuff and I'm going yeah, I probably want a professional to do this, because I'm going to make a mess.

Ted Speers:

Yeah, I mean it's amazing the things that we run into. You know. You know you might say popsicle sticks, we call them backers. So you know, a lot of times behind the wall you need to affix the drywall and a lot of times it's not a full sheet. I'm cutting out maybe a three by three you know piece of drywall and then cutting the drywall so we fit it in and then I use what we call a backer, any any type of you know wood that I can screw into so that I can put my drywall in. But it's, you know, there's so many different ways that that you can use it. But you know you really want to make sure that somebody knows what they're doing when they're in your home.

George Siegal:

Now, earlier this season my wife and I were at a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game and this young guy they put up on the board before the game was his first game in the NHL and he scored a goal that night.

Ted Speers:

And then when I was reading about you, you have something in common with this guy. Tell us about that. Yeah, yeah, that is funny. I knew where you're going when you said that. But but yeah, so I I was a hockey player, uh, growing up in Michigan and I played at university of Michigan and then I I signed with the wings and I played mostly in the minors, but I got called up to play with the Detroit Red Wings back in the late eighties and, for a variety of reasons you know, I had been called up before and sat in the press box and my dad was coming in for this game that I was going to play with and I asked the coach if I was playing, because my dad was going to fly in from Baltimore to Detroit the day of expensive flight.

Ted Speers:

And the coach said tell you what, ted, if your dad comes in, you can start. So Brad Park was the coach and I started that game. First shift, first game. 52 seconds into the game I scored a goal. So I only played four games in the NHL. You can look it up, it's there. But my claim to fame is I still am in the top 10 of the fastest first goal in the NHL for somebody.

George Siegal:

That's just started. Wow, congratulations, did you get in many fights, that's just started.

Ted Speers:

Wow, congratulations. Did you get in many fights? I didn't, I didn't, I, you know. I mean, back then everybody got in some. Uh, you know, I, I definitely got in, you know some fights. But uh, you know, coming from college, at that time, you know if you fought in college you got suspended for you know the game. So I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie and say it was a great fighter, but uh, I definitely got in a few fights and uh, and you know, I was probably more of a wrestler than a fighter when I got in those fights.

George Siegal:

Man. One of the greatest moments I've ever seen when I was living there was when, darren it was Darren McCarty and Claude Lemieux when- Lemieux had injured Chris Draper and, uh, and it was payback time. That was incredible it was.

Ted Speers:

That was unbelievable. You know you talk about the Wings against the Avalanche and that you know that was in 97 when the Wings eventually won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 42 years. And you're right, that rivalry and you know those fights and you know Detroit, such a, you know such a blue collar town sticking up for somebody that we felt was wrong and wow, that that was a lot of fun. And you know those, you know those years with the wings. You know fond memories.

George Siegal:

A lot of people say that hockey players are really nice guys when they're off the ice, but on the ice they're crazy.

Ted Speers:

I had a lot of teammates and you know some guys that are still involved in the NHL and as teammates they you know we do anything for your teammate to. You know, to help each other off the ice Nicest, nicest guys ever. You know I played and then I worked for the Wings for 10 years on the marketing side and you know dealing with, you know, professional athletes and sure they have a lot of things going on but you know, very personable and you know had a great perspective.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I was a Lakers fan growing up and so I hated the Pistons. And one Sunday night bad boys.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I know. And who was it? It was a. Rick Mahorn was one of my the players I hated the most and he was at the station that night and he came up and shook my hand and said he enjoyed watching me and it was nice to meet me and I felt like such an asshole for hating the guy. After that I go. This is a really nice guy but he was not nice on the court. Those guys were tough.

Ted Speers:

Yeah Well, and you know you have to be in order. You know, I mean, in order to get to a certain level, you have to protect yourself. You know you have to. You know there's there's certain skills that you develop, and and so it's, it's something that you know. Rick Mahorn, bill Lambert, all those bad boys, I mean they, they played a certain way of basketball so they could be successful. And hey, I would. I'm still a Pistons fan.

George Siegal:

Yeah, no, I bet, but I'll never like Lambert. I'm sorry that's that one's off the market completely and ever and never changing my opinion all right, I like bill, but that's okay okay, let's bring this back around to drywall and, uh, wrap it up with that. So the number one thing that a homeowner should do I have a drywall problem. Tell me the the steps I should take to tackle that don't, don't wait, don't wait.

Ted Speers:

Get somebody. You know, if it's batch work, it's great, but get somebody in there to take a look at it. You know because a lot of times you know everything's behind the wall. You know weather, and that's really where our business started it's. You know electrical's behind the wall, plumbing's behind the wall. You know you have HVAC wall plumbing's behind the wall. You know you have HVAC. You know you have so many things that are behind the wall, and that's one of the reasons we work a lot with.

Ted Speers:

You know a variety of contractors because you know you'll do a flood cut. You know somebody. You know somebody has flooding in their home. You have to go in. You have to get two or three feet of drywall out of that area and get up, and then and then they call us. And so you know my number one thing is is is don't wait. You know, don't wait to do it. And then, in terms of you know from from our standpoint, what we like to talk about is is you know, if you call us, we're going to make sure it's done right. You know we're. We're a national company, we're owned by Belfor, which is an international company, and so you can trust us. If there's ever a question, you can call one of the franchisees. You call me. I get calls all the time from a customer that has a question. We're not going anywhere. We stand behind our work and we want to make sure that customer is 100% satisfied.

George Siegal:

Excellent. Well, all your contact information will be in the show notes and congratulations on that goal.

Ted Speers:

I do have the puck on the wall. They give you a plaque and everything. So you know for my one goal, george.

George Siegal:

That's awesome. Hey, Ted, thank you so much for coming on today. All right, thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time to listen today. See you next time.

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