How to Perform a Home Inspection Class #33 with Ben Gromicko

hey everybody I'm Ben from internachi that's the international association of certified home inspectors world's largest organization of home inspectors and this is a free webinar that we do just about every month on nachi TV and ACH I TV and ACH on TV I'll take you there so it looks like that any Chii TV it's got the old TV with the rabbit antenna ears and you can register for a free webinar we do things about anything you wanted to know about home inspections we go through the process of performing an inspection performing inspections on certain systems we have special guests there's questions and answers if you register and then you have to go somewhere and you can't attend the live event no big deal I'll send you a recording of the webinar so you won't miss a thing you can watch it later so go to n achi TV and register for a free webinar coming up even if you can't make it just register anyways and if you are live online feel free to ask questions so if you registered for the webinar you click the link and something popped up on your on your computer screen where you can chat so I can't see you you should be able to see me I can't hear you you should be able to hear me and if you wanted to say hello or ask a question or talk to other attendees of the webinar feel free to just chat something that would be great we had several hundred students register for today's live webinar class that's great at the end if you stay for the whole event you get a certificate of completion and it's good for internachi continuing education credits so let's go here so today's presentation is how to perform a home inspection and it is about how to perform a home inspection we're gonna go through a home and a home that I inspected so we're gonna inspect that house by going through all the pictures that I took during the inspection and we're going to talk about several of our other topics like marketing and business and things like that and if you wanted to contact us there's the contact page Nachi org slash contact and that's where we all are which is a good idea a good resource if you're an internet you member you have at your disposal to use about 40 full-time staff members and for example there are seven very professional highly talented creative illustrators designers and consultants and an editor-in-chief that work at the internet remember marketing team and that's that department is on the contact page so if you wanted to contact the member marketing team it's right there at the NatGeo doric slash contact so let's see looks like I have a frozen screen let me see if I can fix that technology's great when it all works [Music] let's see if we can get this I see so just hang on for a second looks like GoToWebinar has crashed a little bit let's see if I can pop up again [Music] [Music] sorry for this everybody let's see if we can get this to work again but one out of ten webinars have a serious problem okay so it looks like my camera's back one hopefully you could see me and hear me again I can't see you or hear you but if you have a question feel free to ask a question using your text um we're also a live on Facebook and that may be causing the technical difficulties but yeah so if you wanted to contact the internet remember marketing team we're on the contact page and that's an etchant / slash contact okay let's inspect this home but we can talk about a bunch of other things if you wanted to we can talk about how to perform an inspection obviously software and writing reports business strategies scheduling and time management hiring inspectors or employees branding marketing and websites calculating profitable fees handling complaints terms of ethics real estate agents job leads reducing your liability and legal issues anything you want so feel free to ask questions Facebook live and through the go to webinar system ok shall we continue them can you only hear me you can type in hello did that be fantastic if you can all just type in something in your little text area that'd be great all right James hey miss LaPlante how are you Nicole Eric Angela fantastic ok so let's do a home inspection on this house again everything we do at internachi is accredited so internachi is a an accredited post-secondary educational institution and we do tuition free online live and elearning training certification examination continuing education and we provide CEUs and credits that can actually be transfer to any university in the United States we're the only home inspection school that's a credit by the US Department of Education and so when you enroll in a class make sure it's accredited by someone so internachi is accredited by the US Department of Education I believe we're the only institution for only College accredited college for home inspectors that provides tuition free training and education and that's at internachi edu and the dot edu domain name is a good indicator of an accredited institution if you don't have dot edu it could be just a for-profit company so that's all I'll say about that look for schools that are accredited performing a home inspection is fairly straightforward all the knowledge that you need is online and free through internachi so if you need the knowledge of how to perform a home inspection on how to perform a roof inspection you can go online and we have many online resources and you take those training courses and you learn how to perform a home inspection or a roof inspection or a furnace inspection we have videos as well that's the easy part actually of cabinas successful home inspector of operating a successful home inspection business what's difficult is building and operating a successful business because you have to do both you have to be tech good and also good at marketing if you're just thinking well if I can just be the greatest home inspector I'll be successful that's wrong you have to tell people that you're the greatest home inspector and that takes marketing and a business strategy if you are terrible technically if you are incompetence at performing an inspection because you haven't taken any internachi training well and you're great at marketing well that's terrible too you know so we don't want you hurting the public by being a terrible home inspector but really great at marketing what you want to do is you want to be good at both so you want to go online and get free online training don't pay for any kind of training when you have access through internachi school to free online accredited training and the marketing and business resources well guess what we have that as well and I'll show you that later and you want to attain this and it doesn't matter if you're in a licensed state or not in Colorado when from its unregulated home inspectors are not regulated so what what should you do is you just become a home inspector and not on a regulated area of state or province know you should attain some type of accreditation from an accredited institution like internet otherwise it doesn't mean anything so whether you're in the licensed thing or not attain something that consumers demand consumers are looking for right now or they're on Google and they're talking to their friends in real estate agent so looking for an inspector who's professional and certified so internet she got CPI certified professional inspector trademarked it's a federal registered certification mark no one on the planet can say I'm a certified professional inspector you can't use those three words unless you are actually certified by internachi good idea to get accredited and certified that's right before we start an inspection I want to share with you my daily routine and you can develop your own and routine try to look at mine and use it for inspiration I did two home inspections every day I left early but I came home before 5:00 and we're gonna have dinner with my family right so I leave at around 7 o'clock and I arrive at my first job early I had an 8 o'clock at a 12 o'clock 8 and 12 and my home inspections mmm we're about 2 to 3 hours long with a break in between so about an hour in the in the morning and are in the middle of the day of driving and an hour at night to come home so it's three hours of driving with two jobs at about three hours that's a long day however I made a lot of cash I mean it stacks of money operate my own business and I think that's your goal when you're a business owner if you wanted to make a good living you could get a good job if you wanted to make a great living and set your own time and be your own boss and hire people and make a ton of cash and do good things in the world not just pay your bills but go on vacation and then do other things then and and take on all the risk and responsibilities that that entails in operating your own business well that's that's what we recommend here at internachi we have all the resources for you to be your own boss and run a successful home inspection business and again the knowledge that you need to be technically competent as an inspector is fairly straightforward and it's all free an online through an accredited school but here's my daily routine where I made about a grossed maybe a little over a thousand dollars a day and that's pretty good for every inspector in your company thinking bringing home my grand a day mmm that's good money that's great money so I start early 7 o'clock I want to arrive at my first job early where I come from if you arrive on time you're late so you arrive early and get your stuff literally your stuff like your your tool bag right your appearance get your business card out get your tools ready maybe even set up your ladder if you're gonna use a ladder ring the doorbell introduce yourself make sure you the neighbors know about you stick a sign in the yard maybe some door hangers get yourself ready to do an inspection with your client because arriving late is just a terrible first impression and in this business you never actually meet your client until after they hire you and you meet for the first time during your inspection right so you want to arrive early so that you're not sweating and you're calm and ready to go well what I did was I arrived early and introduced myself to the seller if they were home occupied and then I got up on the roof I did a roof inspection that's the hardest the most dangerous thing you know required to perform and not required to walk upon any roof surface but you're required to inspect the roof so I did the hardest thing that that didn't require me to meet my client AO or meet anybody I'm on myself I'm on my own and so I go up on the roof if I had extra time I'll start the exterior and by that time by the time I get down from the roof inspection from my ladder my clients there with me so I my client arrives around 8:00 right and we inspect the exterior in exterior together and it's only about 15-20 minutes to inspect the exterior the the heavy stuff is like the HVAC the hot water source the drain waste the supply the electrical the structure that's the big part of the home inspection so doing the roof and exterior fairly easy fairly quick I'm you're looking for big defects major defects and you want to you could this is what I did I inspected the exterior with my client I asked my client what would you like to do would you like to go inside and start measuring that's okay by me if I find a problem I'll find you you won't miss a thing or would you like to go around the exterior with me just for a few minutes and I'll show you a few things even before I saw the exterior I would just have my client with me that helps me because I'm more efficient I'm more efficient when my client is with me and I'm doing the exterior on the inspection I explain the roof I don't take my client up on the roof because I don't want to answer the phone at night I want their questions answered immediately while we're performing an inspection so not only am i learning how to communicate know not only am I have I learn how to inspect the house I've learned how to communicate - I can inspect and talk and answer questions and take pictures and write the software write the report using my software all at the same time so it takes a little practice so you can become a great inspector online but eventually you're gonna have to inspect your home 10 20 times your neighbors homes every neighbor should know that you're the home inspector every neighbor in my collar sac on my street knows that I'm the inspector they don't actually know what I do but they know I have the infrared camera the flashlights the ladder the moisture meter and things like that because I talk everybody knows that I'm the inspector so here's my here's my schedule you have to figure out are you going to do one inspection the day or two inspections today well I got really efficient so I was able to do two a day and at about 11 o'clock I'm finishing up my first inspection my morning inspection and I'm striking a card right and I'm getting paid immediately in my report is actually written and I send that out electronically you do the PDF or online report but send it out because I am not writing my inspection report at night so I'll show you how I do two inspections a day by doing one inspection with you so I get there early and I inspect the roof you're required to inspect the roof you're not required to walk upon any loose surface it's dangerous to get up on the roof stay on the ground if you can home inspection standards are practice I use this as a guide as the foundation upon which to build a very successful home inspection service right that's it's successful because it guides me along it's a guide it tells me what to inspect and what's not required to inspect and it helps me reduce my mistakes reduce my liability my exposure to liability it's a checklist and if you go there it kind of looks like this so here's the internet a home inspection students to practice and here are the sections roof exterior basement heating cooling fireplace in attic and here's the roof you click the roof and it says the inspectors shall inspect from ground level or the eaves yada-yada-yada an inspector is not required to walk out on any roof surface even if it's a flat roof that's a one-story building pizza shop or something condo or something something like that ten feet up flat roof nope you're not required it to walk upon any new surface according to the area actually seen as a practice if you have a local standards to practice you also refer to that okay so that's at nachi org SOP oh and let me show you what I use see if we can get this to work and I use this as a guide so I have my let's see if I get this to work I'll show you my software so here's my inspection stop on my phone and so I go to my reports and here are the things that I'm required to inspect and this is mobile software on my thumb let's open it up a little bit and it's a brand new report so I haven't even taken a picture of the photo of the the of the house but I could actually I wanted to so I take a picture like that so if I go to roof it's a couple things that help me here it helps me remember what I'm supposed to inspect so according to the sansa practice I'm required to inspect a few things and then I put that into my checklist it could be a document for us like a word document and you write it out what you're going to inspect and then you incorporate that that checklist into your software you can start with a blank template or the internet residential students to practice template than most software companies use if the software that you're using doesn't have the internet residential centers a practice template don't use the I would question not using the software or tell them contact internet Chi so you go to roof covering and here are the things that I'm required to inspect right and there's some restrictions and limitations and there are my defects so if I find that I have exposed roof fasteners there I just click the sentence I don't type anything unless I I have to and there are the things that I'm required to inspect so roof covering flashing humming vent pipes gutters in Townsville's and if there's a chimney well I can I uh skylight I can add skylight and if there's a flue gas vent pipes from a furnace or something I can add that as well and if I go to roof covering materials then I can select asphalt and core I inspected it from the ground maybe I inspected it from the ladder and I can take a picture of the roof and I can use that in my report now that's in my report as a picture and so when I'm inspecting I'm following the checklist I'm taking pictures and video you can take video as well and it's basically it makes me you look really smart I can't forget what to inspect because it's right there in front of me so for flashing I have wall intersections and ease and Gables and them there's some limitations and there are my defects sentences click click take a couple pictures select the sentences that I want and I'm done so I'm inspecting with my software and my software is what I'm required to inspect it's in my software which is based upon the document that I've made which was based upon the standards of practice you can't mess up this is how you can do two inspections a day and gross a thousand dollars a day that's the point so if you are writing reports at night and you and I are in the same market and we're competing I'm eventually going to beat you because you're gonna wear out and people are going to get ticked off reading for you to write a report Wow there's someone else in the market big van inspections who immediately after the inspection sends my clients a full complete report with pictures and video no waiting a summary and a full report and I'll show you that full report at the end of this near the end of the presentation we'll go over the actual inspection report that I produced how are you going to beat that so you have to figure out if you're not using mobile software and you're not writing report at the same time then you have to figure out how you're going to be back because that is not something that people pay for you have to if you're writing a report and you say something like well our reports are available within 24 hours yeah that's not good enough nowadays it's almost 20/20 right you gotta get with the times there's beautiful software that's very easy to use out there and if you need a recommendation just email me and we have some deals with certain software providers so this is how your daily schedule could be influenced right by doing mobile software reports you can do two inspections a day and you can have a daily schedule like this where it's not a 14-hour day and you're making a lot of money and you're doing two jobs a day and you're not working at night right so that's an example of how you can be technically competent at performing an inspection but kind of miss out on the business strategy and you're wondering why your phone's not ringing because there are other inspectors who are providing incredible value in business you have to figure out how to provide incredible value that's greater than the cost of getting that service okay so according to the standards practice you're required to inspect these things so I get up on the roof again you're not required to get up on any root surface but I get up on the roof because that's part of my brand I make sure that picture and that picture are in my inspection report which are passed around I make sure those are on my website as well and part of my marketing my my fliers that are designed by an intern Qi member marketing team all the design work is great and if you wanted to get very good at technically what is required to inspect right maybe based upon code we're not code inspectors we don't say code we say things like standard or or best practices but if you want to know what does the code book say about inspecting the roof well that's an excellent question you know and I refer you to the International residential code international residential code the most recent iteration is the 2018 IRC and Section r90 three is about weather protection but they talk about three things roof deck roof coverings and roof assemblies and you ought to consider using those terms as well so roof deck is that which the roof coverings rest upon right so you have asphalt shingles and that's roof coverings and they arrests and it's fastened to and is gear to the roof deck that's the structure that you walk on if you're going to walk upon any wood the roof assembly is the system so we don't really talk about roof systems inspecting roof systems or roof assemblies you really shouldn't because you can't see everything all the components that make up a system of a roof assembly so the roof assembly is the big thing a component is something small like fasteners so you can't inspect every fastener can you on a roof assembly or a root system no it's a visual only inspection it's highly limited it's extremely restrictive a home inspection is just a quick look at things systems big systems and roof coverings including roof rafters you're required to inspect the roof don't comment upon the system the system includes things you can't see it's why are you commenting on like the underlayment and the flashing they can't see and the fastening that you can't see and the adherence that you can't see right so careful with your terminologies and this comes from the code so consider using roof deck with coverings roof assemblies and let's take you to the code because it's a an excellent resource see if I'm getting there okay so section are 903 of the 2018 international residential code talks about roof decks shall be covered with approved roof coverings secured into the building or structure in accordance with the provisions of this chapter roof assemblies shall be designed and installed according to the code but that shall serve and protect the building of our structure so they talk about flashing where should flashing be installed it's in all these locations there's a section about locations it's interesting because it says flashing shipping installment at wall and roof intersections for the wall or something intersects with the roof right like a chimney jimmy long - or a pipe penetration or a sidewall a dormer skylight wherever there's a change in the roof slope or direction so if you have a low slope to a higher slope and it's not pitch it's slope slope and the changes direction there should be flashing there and around roof openings it says and that's anything that penetrates through the roof covering so that could be a vent pipe that could be a chimney stack skylight things like that and flashing should be installed to divert water away from where the eve of a sloped roof yeah intersects with a vertical sidewall we're eve of a sloped roof the eave that's gutter right gable is the other side gutter eve where the eve of a sloped roof intersects with the sidewall best at the end of the gutter where the end of the gutter bumps up against the side wall that's a kick-out they didn't use kick-out but that's what they're referring to we call it a kick-out flashing where that certain area kicks water away out from the sidewalk and into the gutter if that's missing well that's a defect and I call it a major defect because when it's missing there's usually a hole and water to go behind the siding materials the exterior coverings okay so I thought that was cool to refer to international residential credit to give your terminology straight so these are pictures that I took during inspection I take pictures of every plane every surface every components and there's the roof covering there's my finger touching the rubber roof membrane around the vent pipe that kind of penetrates through flashing is required if it's torn or damaged that's a defect it's not a minor defect homeowners don't have the skill set to replace something like this or fix it it needs a professional and so that's a major defect and we'll go over some terminology about that the differences between them there's a roof vent the gutters are filled that gutter looks okay I like that shot it kind of proves that I was there up high where no other route inspector goes so that's part of my brand I use any kind of ladder to get up there so there's a collapsible ladder I hate that they use that term collapsible ladder because it could collapse but just to get up to the very top I'll use anything I can do drones are great sticks painter sticks are great watch don't get electrocuted it shouldn't be metal it should be non conductive material binoculars anything you got to inspect the roof and so I get up on a roof because well I built Helms before I was a home inspector also builder and I learned how to do it safely so I have experience the skill set needed to get up on a roof safely and I don't recommend you doing this however you have to figure out how to beat me in the market if I have that advantage over you if there's a value proposition that your home inspector is going to get up on any roof surface you have to figure out how to beat that in the marketplace so what you want to do is a business strategy is figure out how to overwhelm your client with incredible value that's greater than the cost so if the value is greater than the cost it's a good decision and that's what your client needs to figure out is the value that my home inspector Eric is proposing to give me greater than five hundred dollars then yeah I'm gonna hire that inspector okay so there's a side wall there has to be flashing there it's hard to see the flashing in those areas because it's covered by the siding and the roof covering but that is an attempt of me to see confirm that there is some type of flashing there you can see everything but I just want to confirm that there's some kind of step flashing installed there's a gas furnace there are some stack restriction stack minimums that's in the code as well it's in the internet use online courses about how to inspect furnaces and chimneys that's a gas vent pipe and what I want it to be is at least two feet off the surface of the roof and if there's anything within 10 feet it's kind of like a masonry chimney in being within 10 feet it's got to be up two feet so there's some some restrictions on there if you just remember like the code that 3:00 to 10:00 that's pretty good but for gas is two feet so that's me checking it out little minor rust on the collar to prevent water from penetrating through that metal chimney that's okay I really don't like the way the flashing was installed wind-driven rain can go sideways it's very easy for water to go here there's four inches six inches of distance to get to the hole for water to penetrate through these are not sealed they really shouldn't be exposed wasn't installed very well I would have done it in a different way where this shingle road comes all the way across and this is all shingle covering and you only have a little tab here and you don't even have to fasten it so there's some tricks to doing flashing well and I don't think this installer did it well so I'm going to pay attention to the underside and see if I can get underneath and look for water stains there are water stains I'm gonna call it an active roof leak this is a problem this boot here this flashing rubber is just destroyed and any roof nail fastener that you can see ahead it's a potential water entry point and that's a defect and it's a major defect because most homeowners can't even get up on the roof so you need to hire somebody to get up on there I don't like the staining rust it's not very old I'm gonna tap it with my screwdriver but I don't want my screwdriver to go through anything that's rusty this could be prepped and painted to preserve the integrity of the metal capping so that's what I'm going to ask my client to do prior to closing and then they can negotiate over it on what to do you can't force any seller to do anything so I'm working for my client and that's a concern that I have there's step flashing at where the side wall of the chimney meets the roof covering roof surface and that's about it for my roof inspection Angela says seems like a an awesome schedule it just seems unrealistic with the way clients schedule with me and their realtor schedule yep you issue ought to I would just directly asked if you're working with real estate agents why do you ask what would be a good schedule for your best home inspection experience let the real estate agent tell you that yeah I really like eight-hour hell inspections I have never heard of an agent who loves a really long inspection they really like a thorough inspection nothing too scary because every house has problems and most homeowners don't even know about serious defects most homeowners are honest they don't know that the roof is leaking for example and they don't want to stay there for more than two or three hours now if you're in an area where are you doing in like a four point or roof inspection I mean it's a you've done to the minutes like 15 minutes thirty minutes buh-buh-buh but if you're doing a full home inspection according to Stan practice yeah two three hours it's not right I don't think of an agent wants to stay there much longer any agent that I've met but why don't you just ask while you ask the next real estate agent you know I'm trying to customize my service that fits your needs and your client's needs and what would you say is a good time frame for a home inspection do you like mourning ones you like at nine o'clock eight o'clock do you like it about two three hours do you want me to stay all day I'll stay all day so what in my area what worked was that scheduled to a day in and out in about three hours just walking the property with the client during the entire inspection slow the inspector down or distract their own asks slows down just slightly but it's worth it so the amount of the amount of good things that happen when I slow down my inspection with my client is worth it if I'm addressing for example questions and concerns from my clients while I'm inspecting instead of addressing them later that's a great way to be efficient with my time business strategy is to address your client while they're there if they have a concern I want to address it right now if my car I hate when my clients not are not there because undoubtedly they will inevitably they don't have a question a series of questions about what happened in the inspection what did it smell like what it look like and they don't know because they were in California and I was in Pennsylvania or something like that so I want my client with me that's what video is great for absentee clients you do a video you do a body cam there you got a body cam somewhere around here and you record everything and play the video for your clients you want to address your clients needs as efficiently as possible because that could be a drag on your process what which program are you using you're in report I like cone gauge like home inspector Pro there's easy there's four rise in there's 3d I have on my phone SPECT Ora spectra calm you go to nachi org slash SPECT aura you can find some information there in a video about this software so I'm trying to learn every software that I recommend and right now I'm learning that software John is having trouble hearing us I apologize and sometimes the the software itself that go to webinar system so if you go back to your email and click the link and log back in that usually works to use them for read in your 396 yeah so I use infrared let's see if I can turn this one that's not it let's see see if it's there no it's not there there we go let's see if I can show you what I've got I can't it's okay I'll answer your question there we are so here's my infrared camera and I use infrared because it helps me do a better job as an inspector and so if that's one of the main purposes of helping me to a better visual inspection then I'm not really going to invest a whole lot of money into a camera that's going to be kind of like a flashlight so an infrared camera is like a flashlight don't freak out about infrared this is a FLIR c2 one of my favorites the c3 I'm having problems with the Wi-Fi and the connection between that and my computer but the c2 is really cool there are others I think of a five or eight or something plane that at-6 the more money you spend the more you see basically but I see it just fine with this infrared and they're you know things that you have to learn how this works you don't want to interpret images incorrectly so you want to sure that you are using the infrared to help you see things that you wouldn't be able to see otherwise and it's like a flashlight the word flashlight flashlight doesn't appear in the stands of practice so one could argue that using a flashlight during an inspection is exceeding the same as your practice then be that one so here's a flashlight it's really good flashlight it allows me to see things that wouldn't normally be able to see without it so a flashlight allows me to see under in that corner under the table right because without it I can't see much but with it I can see things I wouldn't normally be able to see without using a flashlight in every home inspectors okay with using the flashlight right same thing with infrared break you're at my infrared camera and infrared camera allows me to see things I wouldn't normally be able to see without it and there's the table there and the cool thing about infrared is I can see things that are cool and more it's temperature temperature differences so that is a cold area right there I bet there's a lack of insulation underneath the wall outlet you can just see the cold air dropping on the floor actually I haven't looked at this area so there's the stunts there's no magic TV sign and it doesn't it's not x-ray you don't see through walls you see service temperature with the infrared and what I did was I use it on every inspection if I'm gonna use a flashlight why not using a Fred do I charge extra for it I could but I didn't I just raised my fee because if I provide more value than I can demand a higher price inspectors who just do the minimum walk around with a flashlight in the screwdriver and no ladder no home maintenance book no crawl gear no infrared camera their prices are low you can't really demand higher price when you don't provide extra value so I I wanted to overwhelm my client again overall my client with incredible value so I can demand a higher price so I can bring home a thousand dollars a day and so I just used them my infrared camera like a flashlight every inspection and I included it for free it wasn't free I raise my fees so my clients had the opportunity to pay for my inspection camera basically within a year I paid for my camera just by raising my feet just a little bit no one even knew cosmetic minor major material defects those are the types of defects that identify there's only one one defect that's identified specifically in the standards of practice and do you know what it is which one which one of those defects is defined in the standards of practice which one of those defects are you required to report upon if you see it and demon to be a material defect oh I said material defect so that's the only type of defect that is actually listed identified specifically in the series of practice there are other things you're required to report upon like active roof leaks or space that's too big in between the railing spindles things like that but a material defect is a serious one something's gonna something's really bad with the house there's an entire floor filled with mold or there's something that is like a deck collapse is eminent something that's going to hurt somebody a major defect is like a flashing problem that we saw on the roof around the vent pipe and we need a professional roofer to go up on the roof as a homeowner can do it I'm not the effect is like a dirty air filter in a homeowner should be able to do it because like a maintenance kind of thing you know air filters can be changed now cosmetic is something that really doesn't show up in a report it's not really part of a home inspection in scope and it's that's like a burn on the carpet from an iron or a stain on the carpet or a hole in the drywall from the doorknob hitting it or something it's cosmetic you can put it I put it in my reports as courtesy only now these are defined in our glossary and nacho are slash glossary if you wanted to use these terms remember we talked about roofing terms roof coverings roof deck and roof assemblies so those these terms are in our glossary notch or slash glossary and are you required to find every defect in a home are you required to find every defect in a home you're a home inspector right and isn't that the purpose of having a home inspection - to report upon than all the defects in the home know so a home inspector is not required to find all the problems in a home home inspector is required to report upon only those defects that she both observes and deems to be material so if there's a defect above me there's there's a terrible defect of ugly right now and I don't see it it won't be in the report your honor I'm required to pour report upon things that I see within scope my home inspection and that I deem him to be material so bad it's gonna hurt somebody or have an adverse impact on the value now none one of those things haven't so it's not a report I can't see a defect behind that wall they're got everything you need all in one place that's Internet everything you need all in one place there could be a huge wall behind that little banner to that right let's say I'm in the basement somebody puts a cabinet on a foundation wall right there that's happened to me the cellar moved the cabinet on a vertical crack in the poor concrete foundation wall and it was leaking water right and I couldn't move that cabinet it was huge just like an old TV cabinet when the TVs were huge and big and heavy good move it the cellar moves the cabinet as they leave the house homeowner comes in there's a huge crack in the foundation there's water streaming out of it no I didn't see it couldn't see it can't report upon it let's say I did see it let's say I saw a vertical hairline crack no displacement no separation no water I saw the crack maybe a report upon a I took a picture of it cracking foundation wall hairline crack or something like that later on it moves right in leaks water well I'm not required to predict future events if the foundation looked in good shape when I took a picture of it well I'm required to report upon the condition at the time of the inspection if it leaves water through that crack a week later I am NOT responsible for it this is not a warranty or a guarantee so if you get a call and say hey I just moved into the house and there's a crack in the foundation you should go Wow I don't think I saw a crack in the foundation I'll take a look at my other pictures in my report I don't remember a major defect in the foundation could I come over and see what you're seeing yeah I want to know when you come down into the basement or somewhere in the house and there's this big defect from 20 feet away should go holy kind of look at that you know that wasn't there doing my inspection right it must've been covered up or something and then you take out your pictures and you scroll through them because you take pictures of everything take bridges the whole world I'm trying to figure out how come just can take a 360 picture and image so you just click and you move on click every room it's just every inch of every room is taking a picture is captured with a 360 camera the 360 cameras are coming so you want to kind of document what you see in your report and you're not required to report upon all the defects only the ones that you both observe and deemed to be material now that you know that man how inspection is a lot of fun you're not required to find everything no wow I'm gonna use a flashlight maybe if Fred to see more than I could speed to make my inspections a little bit better but I'm not required to port upon all the defects there's so many defects in this room I know I have no idea could be electrical problems in the wall water under the crepitus I have no idea I'm only required to port upon the things that are both the defects that both see and deemed to be material serious thoughts now you can have fun making the lot of money we haven't even got to 8 o'clock yet in my first inspection let's go I'm done with the roof inspection right I walk around I'm using my mobile software I'm taking pictures in video I'm writing the report before I step down from the roof right I'm done I'm done inspecting the roof I'm done I'm taking pictures I'm done capturing video I'm done with everything Wow and now I go down and I meet my client for the first time after they and I mean big smile on my face shake hands five business cards because they're gonna pass them out a little bit never get one business card five at least so the talk to real estate agents can tell them about the roof there's a couple defects on the roof what do we have the roof covering looks good gutters are filled rusted metal on the chimney cap we have a flashing problem around a couple of the met pipes you think anything else no that's about it would you like to go inside and take measurements and do things out that you won't miss a thing I'm going to walk around the exterior and perform the exterior inspection take 15 minutes or so I love it if you come along with me because we can address issues about half of my clients just want to go inside they want to get to their ideas of renovation and doing the kitchen and painting and carpeting and drapes and all that stuff and when I come in from an exterior I find them tell them anything facts that I found on the exterior and then I go and do the other systems so write your own special report as you inspect I inspect the exterior exterior in about 15 minutes and let's do it okay let's see if we got questions here getting on the roof can damage the roof by disturbance or granule yeah Angela you can especially have a hot roof you can twist your toes twist your foot let's see if I can get it okay look I'm not very good at this so even twist your foot like that and damage the granular surface of a hot asphalt signal so you don't want to do that these boots are actually spongy soft I'm not doing it roof inspections but you can find shoes that look really good and protected protect your feet and stuff like that and are very soft for the roof some folks use special boots and shoes just for the would like to use sneakers for the roof and those are really nice if it's too hot to walk on you think you're gonna damage adult right so it's possible to damage roof covering materials especially that tile I don't walk on tile I don't do slate metal roofs I'm careful with metal roofs because I'm not sure what the roof decking is like sometimes you know I'll step on the minerals and then they like are so careful I told channels is kind of fun but that's for me because I'm experienced and I'm safe in doing the roof inspection and walking on it with remember you're not required to walk on the roof okay have you used iron fashion as an auxilary I haven't I just I supported my core service my home inspection service by adding on certain things to make my core service my home inspection service the best thing in the market instead of having a good home inspection and a good ancillary infrared and good ancillary moisture meter inspection and a good this kind of inspection that kind and like people look dumb so I bundle into all of my other stuff that I used in my big toe bag right and I brought all this stuff I don't even swipe here I would swipe for mold right if they wanted to I'm ready to go with other types of value propositions and I demanded higher prices because I / well my client with value and infrared is one of those easy decisions that a home inspection business owner can make by an infrared camera it's the shock and awe it actually helps you perform at home inspection but it's the fun stuff if friends that fun thing that value thing that you get that's kind of fun it's I tell you a short story about value and the word commodity you should look up the word commodity so you go to a clothing store so I would go through the men's jewelry area and you know the watches are there and there's 100 watches and to the left or the cheap watch is inexpensive they tell time they're like 10 bucks but over here there are these watches that are like a hundred dollars they do the same thing they tell the time right nowyou I don't know why he wore watches because we have those but you know they're the they do the same thing so all home inspectors are actually doing the same thing we're all doing in the home especially according to the standards practice basically writing a report looks the same so how can one watch demand ten times more than the other how can one home inspector demand $600 while the other inspectors doing it for 200 bucks right because of the perceived value if the perceived value is much greater than the cost then it's a good decision and as a consumer if I see value in those really expensive watches I'm going to purchase one of those really expensive watches over here and I really don't care what the price is because I see incredible overwhelming value even though they're doing the same thing they're telling time so as a home inspector in your market area you don't want to be a commodity you want to be something special you want to be demonstrating incredible value and demanding a higher fee because you know on the other side if the perceived the value I perceived that value is much greater than the cost then it's a good decision for me as a consumer I'll buy that expensive watch all the time I'll rent to have a really expensive rental car all the time because the perceived value of having problems even seeds or something is much greater than the rental cost maybe it's highly gas efficient energy efficient car that's the value I'll pay more for that rental car it just goes on and on about commodities so look up the word commodity it means interchangeable without any difference you don't want to play in that world as I'm inspector even though we are we're all doing a home expression according to the same as practice all writing record we're all working at the same stuff saying the same thing every day what's going to distinguish you from all the rest that is your brand your brand is something you should work on as a business stretch you have to work on what your brand is the answer to the question why should I hire you instead the other person the brand is why should I bother this expensive watch when I can buy a cheap watch that does the same thing work on your brand who can help you work on your brand and your marketing and your business strategies so we have for example a home inspection business course internachi has a free online home inspection business course and it's open to everyone you don't have to be a member to take it you can just register I think we asked your first thing last name anemia or something like that and then you go in go to chapter 11 of the internet you free online home inspection business course that's a really cool chapter because we go through a real life example of how a home inspector calculates a profitable home inspection fee according to the amount of time it takes and their design his desired annual salary and the cost of running a business and all that stuff it's really a great chapter about free online home inspection business course okay so this is what I do I often get on a track you know know what I'm talking about so oh we start the exterior okay we're going through the exterior and here's pictures of the exterior siding which is in contact with the ground which is a bad thing you want clearance I like six to eight inches so I like at least six inches eight if it's a hard surface near the bottom and signing material that bottom of the signing material is actually covered up with several inches I could see another row of the siding underneath the mulch so that's a defect of a put it in the report it's a click of a picture and it click with my finger to say this sentence the picture is associated with the sentence of the defect that I observed it's in my report I'm moving on I do not have to inspect and some detached buildings like barns and things like that and sheds but I do as a courtesy because they're kind of fun to inspect especially when they're in this condition so the roof is shot the structure is being eaten by moisture damaged by moisture eaten by bugs and there's a lot of problems inside the small shed which is no big deal but I put in the report as courtesy because it's just for me to inspect ooh we have a question let's see if I can do a poll so for those of you on the live webinar we have a question about let's see if I can share it on Facebook I don't know if I can share it on Facebook but I'm going to try and the question is do you use mobile software during inspections it's like one of the following answers yes I use mobile software no I don't use mobile software it's just a laptop or desktop software and third one is I don't have any software yet and so I'll give you like 10 seconds to answer to the poll I'll take a look at the Facebook questions I don't think we have any J says on Facebook hello everybody Angela said my audio was out they came back gone sometimes that happens Bruce uses mobile software okay in five four three eight two one close the poll and I'll share results and let's see what we've got okay so 36% of you said yes I used mobile software that's excellent 13 says I use laptop software that's good and 51 51 percent of you half of any of you and we have hundreds of registered attendees you don't have any software yet ooh so Internet gee I we have a list of software providers that actually recognize Internet team membership and give exclusive discounts because you're an internet remember and so if you need that information I can help you with that awesome thanks for doing that that was kind of fun let's do the exterior so we can get to the fun stuff like HVAC okay okay so here's the fence you know required to inspect fences but this one's leaning over I do it as a courtesy I'm back there anyways you can see the shed in the back this fence is leaning over it's an really poor shave it's rotten all over the place I've got one sentence that just destroys wooden fences it's really damaged as well you can see the lateral ones or just it's a mess gas meter so I know that there's some ice already saw the gas vent pipe on the roof right furnace probably hot water too I don't know but there's the gas meter shutoff valve I don't like the rust I'm gonna recommend a couple things on that there's a shutoff valve there's the rust on the pipe it should be sealed as it goes into the siding there's a hairline crack at the poured concrete foundation wall it's okay on this side one of the things I like to do is imagine the holding a quarter right and sticking the quarter on edge into the crack if you can do that or if there's a displacement of a corner either way I'm gonna call it out as a major problem but this is hairline so far but I'm gonna go in the basement see if I can see anything or I'm trying to figure out is this a basement or is this flat one grade maybe that's why the siding is so low because flat on great houses tend to like be built right on the gray level and then they cover things up so we'll see what's going on exterior water faucets front porch we can see that this is not plumb plumbing straight up and down and it's off to the side so I don't have time to draw arrows and lines and text and all that stuff so this is this is what I used for arrows my hand and so this means like the post is leaning so I put that up driveway looks good so covering so I have a inspection limitation or a restriction sentence and I can't see everything because of snow covering the exterior trim on the garage door is okay and then I'm looking at why are these panels not lighting up these panels should be straight on top of each other so the top panel of the garage door with the window panes it's kind of like a half-inch out so I'm it's not a defect from this side but I have a feeling I know what's going on on the inside so we'll take a look you have to remember now right what did I wanted to remember on the other side of the roof remember there was there's that chimney stack the gas pipe and the flashing wasn't installed well and we had those exposed fasteners yeah that's an example of like here's one components or one observation of a system or component on the exterior and when you get on the inside you want to find that same thing and look at the other side of the court other side of the coin right you want to see the other side of what could be causing that defect potential defect so I'm going to try to remember to look on the inside of the garage door there's electric meter with cable and phone hooked up the meter is good I try to pull it off the side of the house sometimes they fall off them don't worry about damaging things it was as soon as I damaged something I take a picture of it and put in a report I'm not supposed to be damaging anything it's visual only inspection so but if I like right grab an electric meter box and it falls off the house into my hand I mean that's a major defect that I discovered that's fantastic if I open up that garage door that seems a little weird and it falls down in pieces all right that's my job well yeah it damaged while I was inspecting you with normal operating controls I wasn't like running into it or smashing in a wholly-owned or hang you onto it like just using the door opener and it fell apart I just grabbed the meter to make sure it was secure to the house and it fell off click major defect for the report downspouts or diverting water away from the house there's my ladder this is an air conditioner unit outside unit it's covered with dense vegetation I mean that is textbook dense vegetation inadequate clearance around an air conditioner unit but nothing is like trying to work as hard as it can and it's not breathing very well I take a picture of the manufacturing labels of anything that can get my hands on I don't put it in the report but I find to refer to it than I could if I wanted to there's a electric disconnect should be inside of the air-conditioning unit there's a refrigerant line the large line is a sexual mind it's cool needs to be insulated in a smaller diameter line it's the liquid line it should be sealed where it goes into the house there's a discharge pipe plastic tube and it is old and nasty I guess there's a condensate pump near the air handler so I'm gonna take a look at that there's a chimney in the siding just taking pictures here and there there's the gazebo wooden structure on the back patio area the brick patio area so I'm gonna take a look at that all exterior receptacles need to be GFCI protected there's the dryer vent I think so there must be a second floor dryer bed or something or some kind of exhaust hood I'm not sure but I can't get to it closely but there it is I'll try to find something on the inside there's a smaller diameter PVC pipe looks like a 3/4 inch pipe or something 5/8 maybe an inch I'm not sure I don't know what that's from I'll try to remember it's probably like that hmm a condensate drain line now what would a condensate drain line be doing above a first-floor window well maybe there is like if the unit is upstairs maybe it's in the Attic and is draining out it's in the annex usually like drain I'm not sure so I'm gonna pay attention to this okay the wooden structure in the back I don't like that the load-bearing posts gonna below the surface the bottom is actually buried in the ground so I have a stick you do one of these so this is a gardening tool it's a three tying hoe I heat up one of the times and straighten it out so I can poke things and then keep the other ones curled so that I can grab things and put it back like insulation and a band rim joist I can grab it it's also extendable as a gardening tool so it's extendable oh so this fits in my tool bag here he's about to like yeah and I bring it to every inspection you know this is the same exact one we've used 20 years ago it doesn't change the bit and it comes in really handy so I'll poke the bottom of the post to see if there's wood rot or I'll bend over you know and use my screwdrivers or if you have a hammer or something to tap you know you can do the sound thing right let's see should I report hairline cracks because they can cause moisture intrusion in July how to report the hairline crack and I make a recommendation to monitor it if it doesn't meet those criteria that major defect that I mentioned before [Music] Richard know this is that the crack is wider at the top yeah so on a poor concrete foundation hairline cracks are common because when the concrete dries cures it tends to shrink if it's a very long wall without a bend or a break it will crack by it's something that's okay what we don't want is signs of defects and that would be a displacement and movement opening and water so if it's hairline crack and it's a little bit more open at the top than it is at the bottom that makes sense because the foundation wall bottom is essentially stuck it's secured and the top of the foundation wall that poor concrete foundation is wow it's I would call it loose and open it allows if it does crack it'll crack at the top it'll be more open at the top than it is at the bottom and that's the typical shrinkage crack and that could be a posse so easily even if if you wanted to make a recommendation that's a good recommendation because it could in the future leak water who knows it could break open more it could who knows what might do in the future you know in the job of predicting future events but you're in charge of reporting upon the defects that you both see and deemed to be major and if you wanted to out of courtesy recommend a posse at a hairline crack in the foundation wall I don't see any problems with that it may not actually be negotiated over because there's no water coming in and doesn't look really bad but that's that's one of the things that I did all the time especially when it came to like the big major things major systems I made a lot of recommendations to monitor and or repair and a hairline crack oh we have a couple really good structural courses on how to inspect foundations walls piers structural design elements and that's in our education curriculum accredited regular ok good questions good questions so where am I oh I do really don't like how this thing was built this is not how you build phase a sound safe structure that's over your head made out of wood the bullets are rusting wrong kind of fasteners the if you don't nail at the very end of a board you don't attach a board to a post on the side you let it sit you cut out right so there's a shelf and your joist sits right there there's so many defects wrong with it I really just didn't like it at all and then I saw it was actually leaning when I I should have caught it earlier when I was in the backyard remember I was doing the shed roof I should have looked this way and oh but no I go around once or twice that's the value of going around once or twice from the exterior cleaned over slinging it over and it's actually settling so the one post I was concerned about when you look back you can actually see that the middle post was actually settling down and that's the post I was concerned about because I can't see the bottom of the post ideally the bottom of the post will be above grade on top of a really nice concrete foundation and a fastening system and there's many different options so is a major defect I'm really happy I found it so far I've found major defects on the roof and now on the exterior and I'm not even in the difficult stuff yet I'm not even inside the house and I'm smiling giddy because I charged what five six hundred dollars for this and they have gotten that back if they negotiate over these defects they've gotten that back over two three four right so their return on investment so far I'm down to systems roofing exterior and my client has a huge return on investment that's what you should be thinking about as well that's a hazard for small children ponds open water and the exterior paint is peeling it's weathered I'll try to look for wood rot like that that is major wood rot you can just tell it's all squishy so if you stick your screwdriver in there which I often do I take a picture of it you know someone complained once that I caused wood rot or something no my screwdriver just discovered wood rot and explained that this the structure of the wood is no longer the integrity is no longer sound you can actually push a pencil but screwdriver or any kind of object your toothbrush through rotten wood right I don't care a toothbrush should I carry two screwdrivers that's why I put a picture of a screwdriver going through wood rot in my inspection report it's kind of fun to explain would rock exterior siding it could be washed no big deal that's really cosmetic got some algae on it exterior exterior so you know these pictures are me stepping away and taking a look at the exterior one last time before I go in right so you want to think of like three distances when you're inspecting anything on a house during an inspection you want to think of far distance away long distance you want cut that in half and come in nice and close or a closer closer kind of business than that so let's say 30 feet away and now you're at dozen feet away you want to take a picture and now you want to move in real close a couple feet away maybe within touching distance you'll see a lot of pictures have my hand I'm touching on things right so I'm going to get it real close and then I take another picture so you want to have like 3d when you're doing an infrared scan of a room one of the recommendations is to think it like that so you walk into a room with your infrared camera and far away you want it to get skin and then you want to move in half distance and take a scan and then if you see something or move in to where you can almost touch that anomaly that you see in your infrared camera that's how I inspect every system actually gas fired furnace right go to the basement or the furnace room take a picture of the entire system and see what's going on and then you move in closer and you can see oh okay this is where the air filter is that's a condensate pump and that's the a and then you touch every component and what am i what am i inspecting a furnace I don't have to remember checklist is on my mobile software helps you be more efficient and make less mistakes Michael says I haven't mentioned the vegetation growing on sunny I probably won't mention all the defects this is you know my report is actually really thorough and you know there's a cost and I'm trying to go a little bit faster because it could take a long time if we went over everything that I actually inspected so there are probably defects here that I haven't mentioned and I know that that I'm not going to mention everything into the once a webinar new construction you got it we can do that we don't will you include all of your pictures in the report only one showing difference so I provide all of my pictures to my clients thermal images all my pictures and all my videos I try to put all of them in the report but you can't really so it all depends on your software there's a lot of cover yourself career backside with all the pictures in a file and then you like the ones you want in your report I'll show you my report at the end of this presentation here they'll give you an idea that I took I think 350 pictures total but only about 40 showed up in the inspection report and I provided all of my pictures that's my clients and all my photos my clients we used to do it on CD then USB and all just electronic so they can look at them from the cloud and I never had any problems with that it always helped that I was transparent and I showed everything to my client showed my cards and I think one of the concerns that home inspectors have brought up is that what if I take a picture of a major defect and I don't put it in the report and I give my picture of the major defect to my client and my client goes hey there's a hole in the roof you have a picture of it but it's not in the report okay so you don't have a problem with like should she you'll have a problem with the question should you give all your pictures to your client or not you have a problem with performing an inspection right be sure because if you saw all new roof took a picture of it and forgot to put it in the report yeah you're responsible for that and you can't hide behind that so don't worry if you see a large hole in the roof and you take a picture of it in a video of it you should be putting it in your report automatically because if you take a picture you should be using this if you take a picture of effect it's it will appear in your software right where you want it with the sentence that this is a defect okay so it's another way to eliminate mistakes way back when when I was doing inspections with paper and pen we actually paper and pen yeah there could be a lot of error there taking a picture and forgetting to put it in as an attachment look at the document that you printed out nowadays you know it's 20/20 almost it's time to use software that helps reduce your liability it helps reduce making mistakes it makes you more efficient and actually adds perceived value to your service because you've got your software or rocking and rolling Scott are you using your phone to take pictures or using digital camera so I used to take I used to carry a pouch with two digital cameras and then connect them to my computer and download the pictures now you know when I start doing inspections I did inspections and comes over here for 12 years we didn't have these we didn't have iPhones and they have mobile phones we have these PDA things but that I did inspections with so I did this and then I downloaded the pictures with the cameras now it's all incorporated so use your phone has fantastic image capturing and video captioning audio capturing features and again you take a picture while you're at the system and you select the sentence that you want in the report in that picture and your defect sentence your narrative that we call the group of sentences that describes the picture and then you simply select you don't type in anything I don't even say I can't do my thumbs like money daughter's do so you could do voice command on on the software I know if you have to write a sentence just use the voice command and it pops right into a report right where you want it so yeah it's it's a great way I highly recommend all home inspectors using mobile devices done with the exterior now I want to inspect for the next hour or so the big stuff HVAC hot water source water supply drain waste vent plumbing and then I'll get to electrical and structure HVAC there's a thermostat take picture of the thermostat that's an old thermostat should be programmable it's not theirs the HVAC system it's a gas-fired furnace maybe the gas meter on the outside with the rust get a shutoff valve for every appliance air filter I showed my client where the air filter is the size the direction every 30 days yadda yadda there is how you access the air filter or the bottom panel comes out there's the burners this is a natural draft furnace so the burners are open they're burning combustion air that comes from the air of the house there's a couple things you can pay attention to just take our HVAC course I take pictures of every system and components there's a lot of wiring on these old systems and the new ones but there's a lot of sensors as well this is the part of that heat exchanger like take a picture of that because sometimes there's some funky stuff there I don't see anything wrong there's no service switch so it's hardwired in how do you consider our filter safely well you know a service which would be really nice so that's what that means that is for me right to remind myself that there's something wrong here so again I don't have time to draw a little arrows and little circles and write text on my images let's do that right my point is my finger is a more great moisture meter as well your hand so there's no service disconnect there's a refrigerant line we saw it on the outside there's a condensate line coming from the air conditioner trap drain into a condensate pump remember the tube on the outside was kind of nasty the tip on the inside is kind of nasty so I'm going to recommend that that be serviced and cleans and there's the the vent pipe connect sure the connect connecting pipe of the gas-fired furnace the vent connector or the vent connector pipe I like to say the metal pipe that takes the exhaust gases from the furnace appliance into the chimney stack and we saw the chimney stack on the roof member the collar was rusted I don't like the clearance there's no clearance here I'm not a code inspector but I'm gonna call this out cuz that symbol is like a double protection right but I'm not sure if that should be a half inch clearance of one inch clearance from the drywall or not and it looks like the drywall was installed after that was installed I don't know what's going on I don't like combustible materials near a really hot furnace and the exhaust pipe is we're in hundreds of degrees the exhaust gas is coming from a natural draft for this heat exchanger that's hot and so I'm gonna call this out if the HVAC guy comes and says there's nothing wrong great let that technician say everything's fine there-there is no fire hazard that's fine if I can do that and I'm kind of concerned about the slope - you know that's that furnace there and that flue of the hot water tank coming in a weird angle because the Visegrad in the way it's kind of flat so I've got two concerns now I've got the rusted collar at the top pool we're flashing around the chimney stack at the top remember in the webinar and then I've got this vent connector pipe that's almost level and I have an adequate clearance from combustible materials I've got really great things for reasons for recommending HVAC service and cleaning and further evaluation drain lease vent plumbing I can't find anything everything's finished and there's no basement so I go down the first floor and I'm looking for there's no basement there's no crawlspace so those foundational cracks they went down to a foundation that wasn't a walk-in basement or anything or a crawlspace and this is the only pipe I seen and it's not part of the plumbing pipe it's a radon mitigation system pipe because there's a little sticker that says something about radon and there's no meter there's no sensor like the manometer you know with the red or blue liquid in it to show that there's a radon fan sucking the air into this there isn't that and it doesn't look like it's labeled well or properly or I don't know where at this point is I'm gonna pull up my phone right I have a checklist on how to inspect all the features of a well performing radon mitigation system I bet this system was installed a long time ago it doesn't have a couple features I'm looking for like manometer and a good sticker that's right easily readable that's one of the things I mean it needs to be labeled you're going to tell people this isn't where the sewer is this is a radon mitigation pipe and the type of pipe might be wrong it's scheduled 1040 and I can get that from my checklist that I have and so I'm going to turn to my client and say the magic words while I'm here those are the magic words while I'm here performing a home inspection Tomas ver generally would you like me to inspect this radon mitigation system I have a checklist here according to modern standards and what we can see if there is any problems with the installation of this radon mitigation system there cookies something's wrong I already see three things that are wrong that make it a concern for me we're not sure if this is performing well and there's only one way to know if a Reyno mitigation system is performing as a way it's should be is to test it so magic words while I'm here why don't you hire me to inspect this radon mitigation system itself the pipe with some electronics in the fan and while over here while I perform a radon test oh this is ancillary inspections and this is where profit is so I'm here performing a home inspection and I come across something like a radon mitigation system and I have an opportunity for my client to get more information and I can provide that information while I'm here at a little cost because while I'm here my price is for a while I'm here and state inspections are a little bit lower right because while I'm here I'm gonna this is just basically profit for me it's gonna be doing it going to add a few more minutes of my time right but a lot of gross income so in business thing about reduction to make money it's written is a very simple simplistic idea but you may get the point so remember in grade school math and you have a fraction his numerator divided by denominator so on the fraction the top is your gross revenue divided by what time so what you want to do is have a huge top have a huge numerator have a huge amount of gross as much gross revenue as possible so that's home inspection and he attached ancillary radon mitigation system service and ancillary radon gas test right that's a Kalandar box more divided by your time if you don't expand your time that's good you're making a lot of money and a little bit the time what if it was foot what if you're making $200 home inspection and you take all day long it takes six hours to perform a house right that's that's bottom-heavy you don't want to do that to be profitable when you want your gross revenue really big divided by a little bit of time and to be more efficient you want to squeeze that denominator you want squeeze your time you don't want to run through a house and screw all your kinds because you're not inspecting everything like you should be you want to be efficient with your time an efficiency comes with one of these things right you want to be efficient with your time and the mobile device mobile software helps you reduce your time and adding ancillary services insulate inspections add to your gross revenue hopefully without adding too much time you're gonna add some time but maybe not too much if I can make another three hundred dollars an extra 15 minutes I like that rate I'm gonna do that I'm gonna add those ancillary inspections how do I do it I'm gonna look for opportunities and say the magic words while I'm here while I'm here while I yada-yada okay so ancillary inspections is where the profit is and guess what internachi does internet she has over 45 additional different types of inspector or certifications and they're all free and online so if you wanted to be a certified home energy inspector we haven't even gotten to the energy features of the house yet you could turn to your client and say you know I'm a certified home energy inspector would you like me to add a home energy report to this home inspection it'll give you a lot more information about energy efficiency issues that I see and how to correct them in order to save money on average my clients who order a home energy inspection in a report can save about 1,200 dollars a year that's a really nice weekend vacation for my family are you interested while I'm here while I you know so these are opportunities that you can do and you can become you can offer various types of ancillary services and be trained and certified in each one of them through internachi school free and online okay so let's see just take a look at the questions Facebook GoToWebinar ok so right there is a network / home - an inspection - checklist I apologize for the long URL it's like an SEO kind of thing so naturally / / column - an inspection - checklist is where you'll find the checklist to inspect a radon mitigation system just download it it's free and incorporate it into your software and get ready to say while I'm here why don't I inspect this radon mitigation system so make sure it's actually working let's take a look at the water supply it's very easy 36 30 seconds to the inspector water supply there's water supply coming in remember there's no basement so the water supply from the street is coming up through the slab on grade foundation so this is the lowest liveable section that's all finished and covered with drywall which that drywall was installed after this was they put a lot of drywall up so I can't see a lot of things they put drywall up against a really hot then connecting pipe from the furnace shutoff valve jumper cable bonding water meter another shutoff valve I don't see a check valve or pressure regulator valve that's in my report it's not leaking the best way to determine if something's leaking is you use your hand press moisture meter or bend it and you just wipe the bottom if there's water marks that's a leak right because it's like impossible to put your water meter underneath a bolt you know it's just so you use your hand I did I use my hand on them on every valve so if I'm looking at a bathroom sink right open up the cabinet look the bathroom sink the trap and I get my hand and I wipe the bottom of the valve in the bottom of the trap and that's pretty good that's pretty good way to test see if there's a water leak water source hot water tank gas-fired shutoff valve on the cold line coming in there's the temperature gauge don't mess with it but that's how you change the temperature I document the temperature gauge someone accused me once of cranking it all the way hot turned out to be the plumber forgot he was testing something and forgot to turn it back so the plumber was there doing at the end of the inspection those one day what are you gonna fix on the okay so I'm putting in the report so document things prior and after that's why I'll take a picture of the electrical panel before I touch it and then after I touch it manufacturing label natural gas right here is indication of a back draft of the flue I'm not too concerned about putting the report that's a plastic washer you could be it could be removed but it's there it's not like a functional thing but it's melted so that means we did have a back draft it was probably once telling will never happen again I don't know it could have been it's a natural drafts and these things burn a little bit you can explain but I'm gonna put that in a report there should be a carbon monoxide detector as well installed according to local code or national code or best practices so whenever there's a natural vent natural draft that means air from the room it's going up into this flue pipe that's there's no fan there's a possibility of it back drafting and it's hot flue gases and sometimes they they they'll score something or melt something or deteriorate something that's close by and so this wood is the natural dress men hood and it could be backdraft and it could cause a problem like that and that's an indication of a prior problem it's now I've got a plumber coming TP or extension pipe no leaks at the bottom that's good it should be extended to the floor there's a couple things that you should probably pay attention to on every TP our relief valve how it extends to the floor through the pipe and all that stuff and how do you know what they are there's actually 14 requirements of a properly installed TP our relief valve discharge pipe where's that in the latest international residential code section p20 8.0 4.6.1 i wouldn't refer to code but I would use code and just like you use Internet cheese free online courses as a foundation upon which to build a really good inspection process so use these to all of internet cheese courses are based upon standards so if you take the courses that's fine but if you want to look at the actual code it's available to you so there's 14 things that the TPR valve needs to comply with there are 14 requirements one of them is what if the TPR discharge pipe has to be doing down slope I found one to pure like many actually in my experience in my many years of performing inspections deeper CPR discharge pipes going vertical up right so that's no good that's a defect it has to discharge within the same room within sight has to be conspicuous because of a deep a pressure relief valve is discharging it has to discharge where you're going to see it because that's an indication of a serious problem so you can't be discharging it outside into the gutter or underground or somewhere no way you can see that's me that's because Vegas right there so couple things like that structure it's a slab on grade so any picture that I take of the lowest livable finished floor that's the structure I really can't see anything other than those little hairline cracks in the foundation attic and insulation I can when I get to the attic and installation while I'm moving along I'm doing really well but I really can't enter this attic because it doesn't have a floor so it's not safe probably last loose fill insulation looking kind of fluffy all over plates a little disturbed here and there probably because of the cable or phone technician the structure looks good to me trusses if I see any modified cut damaged trusses that's no good you can't modify or cut or damage a truss after its installed without a structural engineer taking a look at it there's clips on the ply wall plywood and on the particle board looks good I see a vent maybe that turtle bent or that hood that square hood that's one vent I take a picture of a mouse trip path if I see it and I'll put it in the report that I observed the mouse trap I also look for rat traps nests from animals pet doors mouse droppings I won't identify termites but I'll look for damage that's caused by insects or organisms events bent pipe looking for any kind of roof problem I ventured out and took a look at this so this is a this is my access to the attic space through the second floor bedroom ceiling in the closet and that's my picnic blanket so I put a picnic blanket on top of the clothing or personal items on this shelf that is below the access panel so that when I move the access panel it doesn't get stuff on other people's they sell I use a picnic blanket because a picnic blankets you know should be clean enough to eat off of so that's why I use a picnic blanket to protect other people stuff okay interior rooms and bathrooms it's very easy maybe 15 minutes for all the interiors and all the alternative rooms and bathrooms I think there's two net baths in this house and basically a bathroom is couple minutes in flush the toilets use the side of the side of your leg to see if it wobbles on the floor question toilet turn on the water hot and cold at the sink shower tub look for water leaks look for functional flow test the GFCI look for a window or a light or event or a bathroom event or stuff like that all bathroom vents exhaust outside and looking services very easy in and out so on the sink shower shower shower floor pipe drain pipe GFCI there's a stain on the vinyl because of the carpeting and so there's a discoloration some minor cosmetic it's a cosmetic defect I'll put it in the report as some courtesy that's another cosmetic defect that's an actual iron that has scorched the carpeting I'll put that on the report that's courtesy open and closed representative number of windows representative number of doors representative number of wall receptacles so I'll take a picture of what I did take pictures of every room any smoke detector without battery backup is a defect any smoke detector that's yellow that wasn't designed to be yellow as a defect if it's an indication of age and that one doesn't work so I tested it and it actually didn't work at all so that's what that cross finger means next bathroom same thing toilet shower and tub GFCI I'm not really concerned about the plumbing traps I'm supposed to have s traps P traps or the standard there's the vent coming from the site for bathroom I'm where the vinyl meets the shower or top wall I kind of push on it and see if there's any water damage there underneath the vinyl this floor has a cut in the vinyl it's also discolored and stained just like the other one there is no plumbing access panel for the shower no plumbing access panel there I can't see the plumbing from the access panel I like to have the plumbing access panels another bathroom there's the ask job so it's the sink is probably going to gurgle GFCI protection the door doesn't really open close very low it's kind of sticky oh this is the door oh this is the front door yep so this is the front door that's the with the throat latch yeah they don't really have a thrill out of the bathroom door so that's the metal door in it it sticks so that's what I'm showing there in the picture windows receptacles trying to wrap up I know I have an attached garage so I'm trying to get the attached garage there's a broken window feature no big deal minor looking at the corners of things corners of things the corners of rooms quarters of the laundry room there's the ceiling I like to take a look at the ceiling below the second floor bathrooms there is a watermark there so I'll call that as an active link the moisture meter was dry the infrared didn't show anything that is a moisture meter they still make it they're hard to find inspector coach comm in an inspector outlet um have these I believe and it's a it's like a extended pin moisture meter and they know if it's wet it gives you a light and an audible indicator that's all it does I like it because I don't have to get on a ladder I can just reach the ceiling to see if it's wet or probe through the carpeting and padding to see the floor is wet so it's kind of anything that's inspector outlets and inspector coach inspector outlets calm inspector coach calm what receptacles doors take a look around as you can see I just take pictures of me looking for things so I can describe you know to a judge you know that I did a thorough inspection and I didn't come across that defect and then my client is complaining about I've been taking the small claims court no big deal just make sure you have all your documents in order documentation you should have a local business attorney helping you so when you do get that call they can step in with a letter and help resolve those things and Internet she has that kind of service when you buy insurance and home inspector insurance with internachi there's a claims person who can come in and just try to squelch kill that complaint with a strong letter supporting you if that goes even further oh and you can find that insurance it Nachi org slash insurance and you should have an agreement system in place Henry achi has a rating system it's like an illegal zoom for home inspectors it's within your online accounts you can get all the legal documentation that you need make sure you have pictures video if you can that video lots of a really nice narrative report and pictures are worth a thousand words so take pictures of everything and that will help you but you know I went to small claims a few times somebody sued me for a cat urine in the carpet padding and that's well beyond the scope of the home inspection so I was in and out we were in and out in like five minutes um there's a vent pipe a non-event pipe there's the ductwork from a full register so sometimes I'll pull off a floor register sticking my hand in there see if there's anything you know are really a camera and take a shot sometimes there's a lot of debris from when the house was built and you'll see meals and wood and sawdust and a lot of things like that may affect people who are sensitive to those things and maybe I would if I saw a lot of construction and dust and hair and all that stuff in a ductwork in one of the veterans that I randomly selected I'll recommend a duct cleaning fireplace remember the fireplace we had the fireplace cap the mineral cap was rusted at the beginning of this presentation remember that was a defect well I'm looking on the inside of the fireplace looking for defects it's so nice when I opened up the damper door because you're required to open and close the inventory to make sure it works and when I opened it a lot of sort came out and it's just filled with so it there's so there's a niche a layer of soot on the damper door itself and it's just stuck there so we need a chimney sweep that's great and I'm looking for any kind of indications of were all out of smoke that's no good or damage to the firewall and there is so there's significant major damage to the walls of the factory bill fireplace this isn't a brick fireplace it's a factory bill fireplace and those panels can be replaced and if they really need to be replaced you cannot have breaches in that firewall and have a fire it'll just catch the chimney on fire so you're really saving somebody from a fire so you can see there's a lot of damage there I'm trying to to get a close-up shot of it and there's a really good close-up shot you can even see the reinforcement men or wire mesh inside this one and a half inch thick firewall and the fact that you've got fireplace so take a look in there remember as you can see from my pictures I started off away they're moving a little bit closer than they got to touch it and by the time you get it all the way to touch it you already can see that what you want to focus on is the defects that are both observed in deemed to be material laundry I hate untested I love braided tested hoses and those are not those are the cheap rubber hoses that tend to burst open when you're on vacation the dryer outlet is an older householder inspection so those have changed there's a one a catch pan down into need the clothes washer which is great but it's actually damaged so the rim of the water leak catch pan won't catch any water leaks the garage here's why there was displacement of the panel's that we observed a long time ago in the inspection almost two hours ago in the inspection right it's because we're missing actual nuts and fasteners on the hinges of the panel's of the garage door that's kind of cool there's a couple that are missing that's why it's loose and it sounds nuts when you open it it's a really good encoder they got I mean there's just loose missing nuts and washers and components of the garage door so that's a great catch careful opening and closing it so open it be closed it and there are ten steps to inspecting a garage door opener that's attached to a garage door a vehicle garage door overhead and you can follow those 10 steps easily you don't have to forget them on your mobile device right you have your checklist so we have a couple of courses on how to inspect a garage door opener and a couple videos on how to it inspector garage door opener in those 10 steps so I would take a look at Internet she's free online courses or videos using normal operating controls they open and close there's the mechanics that's the first step you check for the red handle release and uh and then for the rest of the garage all receptacles in the garage all of them have to be on a GFCI in the panel the main electrical panels in the garage I'm looking at all the corners looking for damage water damage insect the image remember we had a lot of lining above the bottom of the signing that was buried by vegetation and or like mulch and ground there was an a clearance so I'm kind of concerned his money really is my opportunity to look at the structure of the home because the rest of it was just finished there was no crawlspace or basement and then I want to demonstrate with this picture that I tried to see everything but I could really can't there's so much stuff in my way a visual inspection is really limited and restricted in the picture is worth a thousand words so if I got sued or brought into court or sort of had a complaint I would show that this was assumed what I was working with at the time of the inspection it's very difficult to see everything so I'll take a picture of my flashlight in my hand and a picture of that just to demonstrate that I'm really trying to look and see everything by the structure maybe how the bottom plate has attached the foundation so I think pictures of a lot of things in the garage all the surfaces the floor has a hairline crack no big deal in this picture there's a major defect you can see what it is mmm I'm just looking at the questions no I kissed my parents mention okay there's a firewall breach in the garage ceiling you can't have exposed wood and an opening and pull on stairs in a garage so this was installed maybe by the homeowner maybe by the Builder not sure doesn't matter you can't have it can have this in the ceiling of a garage residential garage fire starting in the garage we'll just blow right through this and then we'll spread throughout the whole house and there's also the image to the drywall over here so you can't have damaged drywall either because the fire will find that breach so that's what it looks like and here's the attic above the garage wiring and all that stuff and up three known fan there's the radon fan so we can take a look at that and see if it's compliant with modern standards for a radon mitigation system and that's why that one flashing remember the flashing on the roof was so damaged because it was different from all the rest it was rubber a cheap rubber saying that the radon mitigation system folks installed so I used to install rated mitigation systems so I know a little bit about inspecting them there's the flue pipe from the furnace remember that looks good I don't see any watermarks remember I was concerned about the flashing and the fastening looks okay on the see any signs of prior or active leaks and then there's the chase now this chase comes from that furnace room and you can see that some of the walls are insulated and some are not the walls that are not insulated are actually the walls in the garage and the walls that are not are insulated ones that on the other side of our conditions rhythms and what we don't want is conditioned air escaping the house and being chased up essentially so this is a stack and there's a natural physics thing that goes on in buildings that air tends to have a stack of every building has a stack effect where air tends to be sucked in from the blower areas and exhaust out naturally vented out and sometimes by pressure and sometimes usually unintentionally and stacks like this should be sealed up to prevent any kind of escaped conditioned air from escaping into the outside so that's a home energy efficiency opportunity and if I was inspecting the home and I was certified through internachi as a home energy inspector I would turn to my client and say while I'm here would you like me to report upon some energy deficiencies that I observed and some opportunities to save energy with insulation and air sealing there's that damaged drywall somebody stepped on it or stored something up there so needs to be fixed and that's the surface okay electro panel it's in the garage you're not required to remove the dead front cover don't it's hazardous can we fade all so don't do it but I opened up this one you don't required it to do it by stairs to practice you know what I'm looking for are major problems like the easy defects to find are the breakers that are really fat big breakers like a 20 or 30 gauge breaker and amp breaker on a small gauge wire big breaker on a small gauge wire and got one so here's a 20 amp breaker on a 14 gauge wire that's an improper sight that's an impasse problem that's over fusing so in our electrical course or a standards course 25 standards or let's go course how to perform a residential electrical inspection this has gone over a couple times so you want to identify those defects you don't want a big breaker connected to a small wire kitchens I end my inspection in the kitchen because well that's what everybody likes to hang out and talk and have coffee and complete something to eat for the home inspector so I'll inspect the kitchen last and that's where I'll lined everything up I'll summarize I'll go over and I get paid and then we shake hands and move on kitchen sink hot cold water take a look for leaks there is a leak at that feature at the sink there's a garbage disposal so the the filtering system looks kind of old so and it's leaking at the top so that's no good GFCI protection GFCI protection that's good but that one doesn't work so this count all kitchen counter receptacles anymore have to be protected by a GFCI and there's a FCI's as well and this home was built in the past before afcis so i will call that out as a defect at the electrical panel I don't see any afcis and we have GFCI problems as well so now we need an electrician we have an over fusing inside the panel at a 20 mm breaker on the 14 gauge water lack of afcis and problems with GFCIs I'll turn on the dishwasher I'll run a short cycle while I'm there if it leaks great that's absolutely fantastic it has leaked in the past and I take a picture of it it's probably a gasket problem but who knows it could be something else like a drainage problem and I'll put in the report I'll wipe everything up I'll try to drain it and put it back to where I found it stovetop oven ideally it would be venting outside especially if it was gas I would recommend a vent over the range that exhausts outside but this one's okay recycling electric stove I do a summary it's about 10 15 minutes I have a report summary in my inspection report software and I can send the entire report to my client immediately after the inspection and the report summary is very quick just a few pages long and then a report itself has a bunch of pictures in it and there's the member the leaning posts of the rear gazebo structure or wooden structure so what I do is I write my reports in the same sequence as I inspected it which is very similar to the standards of practice sequence so the first section the first chapter of my report is the roof and that's the first section of the standard practice and that's the first section that I actually inspect this first system I inspect second system I inspect this is the exterior and I believe that's the second system of the standard practice and that's the second chapter of my inspection report and it's also similar to how the home maintenance book internachi home a nice book now that you've had a home inspection now that you had a home inspection house problems are yours it's basically the gist of the home in this book and inside its really nice becoming this book it's only two hours two dollars and seventy cents each and it's adds weight to your to your electronic report it also has some about 10-12 different reasons to hire you again to come back again every year to inspect the house and every chapter of this is kind of reflective of my inspection process as I move through the house so that give us the kind this consistency like I remember going through the house this when we went down to the basement and here's the report of the basement and then we moved up into the Attic and here's the special toward the Attic comments this is a nice flow inconsistency there so there's the air conditioning a lot of Correction and further evaluations so there's um any type of there's a wherever there's in the report recommendation like a monitoring recommend recommendation there's um it's in red in all caps and italicized I want to get involved I want to get my attention I want to get my client attention whenever I made a recommendation everything else is black blue ink doesn't really you know it just describes like here's the electrical system some narratives disclaimers here's the meter it's in good condition and grounding outside mid electrical line location of the panel and then the next page there regularly Brinker labeling most of the breakers are labeled not all they all should be more clearly marked so that's the recommendation there and it's in red ink bold all caps italicized just the right minute it's not a requirement it's really not to you and how you report your defects but I am any type of recommendation was all red so here's a good here's monitoring recommend improvement recommend proven repair recommended correction the further evaluation recommended so and that was for the water leakage pin that's replaced and the rest of the report looks like that there's the kitchen there's some illustrations and you can get those illustrations to spice up your inspection report from internachi they're free downloadable high-res if you want and that's something that that's at Nazi dork slash gallery if you want to boost the look of your inspection report there's a final report inclusion and walkthrough and there's a letter from my company to the homeowner that we left and you can also do creative things like this is from the internet remember marketing team a little lunch box this says we really appreciate you as your business card thank you for allowing us to inspect your home look inside and this is for the when they come back that maybe you have to work after the inspection is over and we're out of there they open up the lunch box and what's inside well that's really up to you right there could be some marking material off hey I just inspected your home I took care of it made me request a copy of the inspection report and you'll see I'm the best inspector in the whole world yeah yeah if you're moving in the neighborhood I can be your home inspector something like that because every seller is a potential client a little bit of one I swiped credit cards it's my checking account and if you don't know how to do that go to NatGeo org slash Merchants notch org slash merchants and Merchants means you're you know I'm an ability to accept credit card payments and here's your homework look up the word come on a team and then we already talked about it earlier in the class and then what you want to do is look up these following webpages notch or slash everything that's a webpage of 15 steps to be successful it doesn't matter if you're a beginner inspector or a veteran should go through those steps make sure you have checked off everything that identifies a successful on the special business net channel north slash and mentoring if he wants a mentoring from experienced inspectors who have agreed to volunteer their time to help other inspectors nectar thorough / monitoring inspector coach comm is a coaching service I know the coach she's great but I would first download the free stuff that she has available so there's free there's a there's a checklist for success in eight steps just shorter oh here is you can download the free eight steps checklist that's what I would do or you can almost like that eight steps to building any successful home inspection business because sometimes you need a mentor an experienced inspector a coach to help you assess where you are set goals and then make a customized plan to reach those goals and so a coach or a mentor should be customizing there are systems out there that they tried to apply to everybody in a blanket kind of way and that doesn't work so you want custom one-on-one coaching but don't don't hire anything download download for free the materials first now to the work / contact is where you can find everybody two more things Nachi TV some of you who are already on dutch and ebert right now we do free live webinars for home inspectors I really love the business and marketing tips from inspectors look for that guy on the couch that is your competitor who is really into watching football games all day or the TV shows or maybe he's playing a game of video game and you're gonna beat the heck out of your competitor who's doing that because that is not you right and you want to get smarter while you're driving from job to job so good or a podcast nacho or a slash podcast and you'll hear me talking to you some questions taking a look at Facebook hi Bradley on Facebook thanks for showing up Angela says how long should we keep pictures for legal purposes you should probably consult your legal business an attorney but it's very easy to keep pictures and reports forever when testing automatic safety refers to you to close the door on the 2x4 paper towel roll or a different way so that's the tenth step that's the physical contact reversal test and intern actually does not recommend that you do it because you're you're going beyond a visual only home inspection there are ten steps nine of them are visual only kind of the tenth one is actual physical contact reverse so be careful with that dosmo I forget what it stands for but it's the manufacturers of garage door openers have recommended a two eye for lying flat below on the floor of the garage where the garage door comes down it should automatically reverse so if you want to do visual only kind of it's not really but you know if you don't want to touch the door with your hands you could do the flat 2x4 and you can carry a 5 2 by 4 in your toolbox maybe 6 inches long it's very lightweight doesn't get in the way and just put it down let it bounce back it should bounce back if it doesn't that's a problem I like the paper towel rule but eventually it's gonna have this slop before it hits the garage floor so you know it's squishy for a lot but eventually the idea is that it's something solid and instead of before it I'm still a tenant consumer so if it's a detached garage there's a less concern about a fire moving from a detached garage to the house right because it's detached there's some clearances that's within three feet there's a couple things and the standards and the building codes where you want some drywall but you know the idea is that if it's an attached attached garage you don't want any like you want to look for ductwork you want to look for openings you want to look for breaches you want to look for the seams you want to look for everything that allows a fire to blow through that firewall into the house on an attached garage detached it's less of a concern you're right Tamara concerns about the electrical wires close to the Foos deck yeah like I said before there are defects in my presentation that I'm not going to identify them all but I think we identified the in earlier in the presentation where there was a flue pipe hot flue pipe that could be too close to combustible materials like the drywall yep I I hate seeing wires lying on hot dot he is just insane he especially chimneys I mean even though code and right may say one is clearance or something like minimum that's just a minimum so I went that away and you're not a code inspector or the local Township building inspectors so you could say whatever you feel that's your opinion as a certified home inspector you went thattaway do it you know if you are signing on your client side you know then you it's like um it's like stairs and handrails that's my example so in code it says you're required to have a handrail for a stair stairway with four or more risers no no no no no I'm a home inspector on my code inspector if I see one step two steps without a handrail I'm caught under that as a defect because I I have family members and I have friends and I know people who can't make one step without a around but just can't maybe need a handle and if that's my client I am NOT going to notice that can not say anything I'm an inspector I'm going to be on the side of my client so that's an example of what a home inspector does and what a code inspector does code inspectors are stuck in code I don't have a code book they're stuck in that thick cookbook they can't go beyond it even though they know that an old person needs help going up a stairway they can't make that recommendation they're stuck it must be really frustrating to know that code stinks in this particular situation and they probably just wish they made a order home inspectors so that they can make their own recommendations that are applicable in the real world so that's an example of what I do I see one step in row recommendation BAM almost immediately yep let's see that's the beauty of being a home inspector right would you call retro to prom with no ground a defect yes because modern day was that close how about right so if you're expecting to buy a home that's built to the standard right I mean you want a FCI's protecting everything just like a modern homeless you don't want an agent to try to convince you that it was its grandfathered well its grandfathered well the another cool thing is um space between the vertical spindles over a rail can be more than four inches can't have a four inch sphere you can buy this from the specter outlet can't have a four inch sphere pass through the space between the spindles of a handrail that's the modern code now if a house is built at nineteen seventy five not six inches I believe burner right but it's it's unsafe all most of the homes that home inspectors inspect were built to code 30 years ago which means that they have inherent defects in them simply because they were built to come back that and people have gotten hurt since then so they've revised the code so that people don't get hurt children don't fall through railings anymore because code changed so if you ever see a space between spindles that's large enough for a foreign spirit to pass through that's a defect and you're helping children not get hurt unfortunately code changes when someone gets hurt like the fire code unfortunately you know fire code changes because of things that happened in the past so you can feel that connection with helping people that you just met by knowing what the standards are and being able to make recommendations beyond those standards right so the sphere with the railing the FCI's that recommendation the to prolong things these are all good recommendations reasonable recommendations for home inspectors right they are unreasonable right Nations for code inspectors you can't just say it's crazy stuff like what do you gotta install EOC is or something right that's what billing inspectors don't do that bill inspectors inspect homes according to the the local code which is probably ten years past they're always way behind the township is way me hide the code unless they adopt them immediately and then for existing homes they just let them be grandfathered in that's why real estate agents have problems with the word grandfather we're not code inspectors wear helmets Packers and I personally inspected homes without any regard to the age I could care less when the house was built so it feels built 100 years ago I'm still gonna recommend a of cis and GFCIs and smoke detectors okay let's see we're gonna find examples of written reports excellent question M it's on that that you develop slash everything so go to this URL Nachi dot org slash everything and scroll down to this section about in special reports on we just do it okay so here's NetID or slash everything fifteen step checklist for home inspector success you scroll down and there's resources for your website it's really good you gotta have a website and then reporting software so here's some here's a link to this kind of report software through inspector all that here's how to write home inspection reports here's home inspection report checklists and here's how inspections sample reports so you click that good question Charles Charlie thanks John said very interesting is there any kind of software that you recommend the chain charges a one-time fee that does not charge but I don't know I kind of like the per report per month charge per month a seventeen seventy nine dollars i think is suspect I don't know where this perspective this it's $100 for Big Bend and inspection report software right I can make a hundred box in a month if you can't make it otherwise in both you got a problem right I may not have $1,200 to buy an entire year's worth of software but I can certainly get them up to month so that's my right then that's how I think that's my business strategy but it can be different for you so I don't know if there's software with a one-time fee I don't know that's part of the calculation when you're making a business decision obviously how much does it cost but you also have to figure out like what do you want you want to write while you inspect and you want the end report to be better than your competitors so you want the best software at the best price that's easily accessible for you so yeah you have to figure that out and I've been through a lot of software and it's turning out to be like there's software that produces PDFs there's software that's that produces reports in the cloud I kind of like the calm stuff because can't put a video in PDF you put a video up in the cloud so may want to think about that as well and if there's one thing that people are going to judge you on its your inspection report it's the one marketing piece it's a it's and your inspection report is actually a marketing piece it's got to be really good that's why you want the best software and for the best price and you want to work on your narratives or your sentences almost every day you want to keep making small improvements to the way you communicate every day you don't have to take a big leap in anything in business it's usually really risky what you want to do in business is like you have let's say a dozen things to do probably have a lot more than that let's say you have doesn't doesn't things do you want to do a little bit of work every day you want to move forward you know you move like a lever you know like a soundboard where you turn off the sound when I move forward you know a little bit of marketing over the report okay let's let's deliver some peaches to real estate agents and talk to them it's working on the website let's upload to the social media okay now I'm going to work on my scheduling script I'm working on website again I get you know you don't want to go on one thing and concentrate I'm gonna I'm gonna learn how to inspect es for the next month right and only do that one thing the rest of your business is crapping okay so you have to success is small steps on a wide range and it's manageable that way too okay any questions on Facebook nope okay any questions through the webinar system no we want to show you this it's one of the best things you can do for your business I know it's a newsletter you've got more things to read yeah cuz I keep bumping into home inspectors that have no clue what is going on and they're there asking questions about their business and how do I want boost my business how to be more success it how do I hire more people how do I find about drones alright that's all the newsletter every month we put the best of the last two weeks we get we have two newsletters every two weeks when you put the best stuff in the past two weeks in the newsletter I'm not saying spent in four hours reading this letter I'm saying open up a newsletter subscribe to it sort of pops in your inbox go subscribe open it up and skin real fast you can read the newsletter on your mobile device right while you're eating french fries before your second inspection we're gonna hit scan through it and find that one thing that you need to read or watch or download that will help your business that's all I'm asking subscribe to the newsletter we have two every month every two weeks it comes out and we give you the latest best thing that you ought to know about skin it don't read the whole thing skin and find the one thing that you need it's all masculine it's a really great idea so you don't miss out okay and that's at nachi org and achi org slash monthly newsletter one word nacho devil org slash monthly newsletter and I think I'm gonna leave you on that what do you think you have a good time hope you did you probably registered through Nazi TV and there it is that's a little blue TV and achi TV that's where we have free webinars and we talk to each other and have a lot of fun every month or so so i'm ben gromicko from internachi if you have any questions we're on the contact page and remember your homework look up commodity go through these URLs slash everything slash mentoring the inspector coach calm and slash contact and we're always available to you and we think we have everything you need all in one place if we don't if you need something that you don't know how to find it email us and we'll find it for you so you can be successful at being an international number and a certified home inspector alright everybody see ya stay safe out there bye you

Channel: International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (InterNACHI)

Views: 3,750

Keywords: International association of certified home inspectors, InterNACHI, NACHI, become a home inspector, home inspection training, home inspection education, gromicko

Id: VRzAvt5c0RY

Length: 145min 14sec (8714 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 13 2020