An Inspector's View

Website/Resources to Help Home Inspectors

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:35:01 -0500

I was writing an email to an inspector who teaches a green building class with a few resources that he may want to share, then I thought it would be appropriate to share them here.

Why would you want to know about green building techniques? Maybe you are not going to be an energy rater or a green building verifier, but these building practices are becoming standard practice. On two phase inspections recently, I saw the techniques being applied to make the air tight seal which is common in green building. In fact, one builder was moving further towards this standard. It might be to your benefit to be ahead of the curve. Here is what I sent. These two sites and the book pack a lot of information.

http://www.buildingscience.com has research papers and case studies on best building practices for homes in different areas. There is a focus on green building techniques.

http://www.wbdg.org is a site putting together the best practices for the construction of Federal buildings, but the information is shared with others to encourage better building techniques. Mainly there is a focus on larger building projects, but basics are applicable to home construction. Also discussions of new green techniques.

For inspectors interested in passive green designs, there is a book out which discusses how a home can be built in different climates. It is called The Barefoot Architect by Johan van Lengen. The first part of the book is probably more refresher topics for most inspectors, the remainder of the book has good material on how to build homes. It is meant for a general audience, so it does not go into too much technical details.

Of course, I might want o promote my own blog. On my site Inspected Thoughts, I go over various items, but I have a section detailing green home conversions which may help you out. Shameless self-promotion I know, but you may enjoy the site.

How Much Time Does a Home Inspctor Spend on an Inspection?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:35:35 -0500

A recent comment by me on Facebook prompted an acquantince to ask me to justify how I determine the average amount of time spent on an inspection. This was published on my blog, but I thought it may be good to share here.

I calculated that I spend roughly nine hours per home inspection. I know that not all inspectors may sit down to figure this number out, but you should if you wish to price your inspections properly. The nine hour figure seemed high to a person at a party I was attending last night. I mentioned that it was actually down from the over ten hours that it was last year. The inspectors that I know who do think about this topic generally come up with a similiar number. Here are factors to consider when thinking about how much time is spent on the job:

Time at the home- my average is close to three and a quarter hours. This includes inspections of condos to homes.

Pre-inspection prep work- average is around an hour and a half. This includes printing forms needed to perform the inspection. Preparing a package for the home buyer. This package also includes having to do research on a few sites about the home. Some of this research is to prepare me for the inspection.

Post inspection work- organizing my notes, writing my report, and sending out emails takes two hours on average.

Reinspections/time spent explaining findings- some inspectors charge for reinspections. I decided since I often do not meet my clients that it might be better to plan on meeting them at one point. Emails and phone communications are also part of the equation. Add discussions with buyer's or seller's agents, and possibly the mortgage personnel. This avreages to around two hours.

Education to improve service- in Texas we are required to have 16 hours of continuing education. However, we spend time learning about changes to the codes in the state, as well as studying building science and construction techniques on a frequent basis. I spend around ten hours a week on average reading books, periodicals, websites, and research papers. This would add significant hours per inspection, so I picked a number that helps me determine the cost of this education in terms of time (arbitrary, I know, but I felt this may be more reasonable.I took cost divided by $60/hour which is pretty typical for a contractor to come up with the number of hours needed to pay for the education) Average is a half hour.

I did not include time spent going to and from inspection sites. To help with factors like the cost of office supplies, gas, car maintenance, insurance, and so on would also be calculated per inspection to determine price. I feel that I arrive at a more accurate calculation of cost when considering cost of gas rather than time spent travelling to and from a job. I also have to consider marketing: time spent and cost, but again, this is not really time spent on a specific job.
This brings my average time on an inspection to approxiamtely nine and a quarter hours. Why did it go down from last year? Partly increased inspections bringing the average down, and partly improved performance on the inspection. There are a few other factors, but those two cover most of the time savings. I hope this gives you a little insight into what goes into an inspection report.

How close a relationship should a home inspector have with a Realtor?

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:11:51 -0500

A report from a local NBC news affiliate raises a few concerns for home inspectors and Realtors. The story in a nutshell is Realtor A is selling a home. Realtor B takes Buyer C to see the home. Buyer C likes the home, and hires an inspector to examine the home. The inspector happens to be a “termite inspector” as well, so he produces a WDI report too. It also happens that Realtor A and Realtor B work for the same brokerage. The inspector states that there are no termites in the home. Buyer C begins to remodel the home to find that a bedroom wall has extensive termite damage, and that there is an active infestation. This happens in the first month. The inspector denies any wrong doing, but the state board overseeing his Pest control license finds that he did not do his job properly, which by state rules gives him a warning on his file. In the mean time, several other recent home buyers file the same complaint. In one case, it appears that the same situation between a Realtor seller and buyer's agent from the exact same brokerage existed.

Why would this be a concern for a home inspector, when I am talking about a termite inspection? Well, the news report focuses on the termite inspection, but it does mention the home inspection aspect of the incident. The real problem develops in that the second inspector sent to check the home for a WDI report found obvious evidence of termites. One area he mentioned was opening an access panel to examine underneath a tub. As home inspectors in Texas should know, we are required to report if there is access to work on the valves for a shower and tub. The only way to be sure that a panel provides this access is to remove it. I have found in many of my inspections that these panels are placed on walls, but that there is no hole in the wall to look under the tub. This inspector did not perform an inspection that meets the minimum standards of practice by this fact alone. From the news article, the inspector appears to feel that he did nothing wrong.

Here is the thing; all inspectors make mistakes. We are human. The moment that you believe that you are perfect is the moment you are not doing your job right. I am always trying to find ways to improve how I do my job. I discover ways to include checks and balances to ensure that I catch any problems or issues in a home. On an inspection last week, the Realtor stated that he loves my reports when he represents the buyer, but he hates them when he represents the seller. He turned to the buyer and said “he is so meticulous”. I was not sure how to take that, but at least it validated that my methods were heading in the right direction

Yesterday I was chatting with another Realtor about various topics, and he mentioned an inspection report that he had seen. The inspector had a long paragraph explaining each finding, making for a very long report. He mentioned that it scared his client. That is part of the balancing act that inspectors must carry out when writing a report. We never know which item will be important, so everything needs to be given equal weight. I believe that one mistake that could be easy for us inspectors to make is to over emphasize one issue by longer explanations, while others are just mentioned. A question does arise here: did this inspector tailor his reports to make the Realtors happy? When my wife heard the news report, her comment was “remember when that Realtor wanted to dictate to you what you should put in the report?” It happened many years ago when I was green, but I had refused, so I did not work with that Realtor again. I bring this incident to the attention to the Realtors who will read this piece. You could be setting yourself up for a liability if the home inspector says that you were pressuring him/her on what should go into the report.

A final question is should a relationship between a home inspector and Realtor be so close that the Realtor recommends no other inspectors to their buyer? Some Realtors have told me that this is against Texas law. It is not. In fact I heard a lawyer from TREC (the Texas Real Estate Commission) state that it might be better for a Realtor to suggest only one inspector who they really trust. Most brokerages do have a rule though that states Realtors should have a few inspector names to give their clients. I think that the lesson from the news report should be is to discover if your inspector really is as good as you think he is. The inspector in the news report is well established in areas in the north of Houston.

Well here is the link to the report if you like to see it for your self: http://www.click2houston.com/news/21168973/detail.html What are your thoughts? Liked the post? Maybe visit me at http://yourhoustonhomeinspector.com .

A Little HOPE in Houston while Going Green

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:26:22 -0500

This past week the Houston Association Realtors announced its initiative to help Houston's HOPE program by listing those homes for sale on the MLS. I know many Realtors have been involved with this program, but it is nice to see this renewed commitment by the real estate community in helping to improve our neighborhoods.

HOPE focuses on rebuilding neglected neighborhoods while helping families into homes. The program is open to first time and low income home buyers, and there are additional incentives for teachers, fire fighters, and police officers. When you couple the money you could receive through HOPE and the tax credit for home buyers, this turns out to be an extraordinarily fantastic deal. One of my favorite aspects of the program is that it teams up with builders to produce green homes for these families. These are not homes where the builder slaps on the green label to make them attractive to buyers; the homes meet Houston's Green Building Initiative, which follows the guide lines established for building a green home as laid out in the ANSI 700 and the International Residential code.

If you wish to read my thoughts on the program in further detail, you can see what I have written about Houston's Hope program, which will provide you with more information about taking advantage of it.

I have been writing a bit about converting an existing home to include green features. I have seen where my posts on this topic inspired others to take my ideas to discuss on their own. I think that this is great. If you are not buying a home, you should consider how you can add green features; hopefully this past Earth Day may have inspired you. Yesterday, I posted an article that looks at the solar lights that can be used to brighten spots around your home at night. This post has already been read by quite a few people, so you may want to check it out. If you are interested in finding some of those lights, CSN Lighting has a good selection, with great customer service from my experience. Soon I will be buying the solar light that can be turned on and off for my garage. (I was working on taking some solar light panels apart to see if I could make my own, then I found one there, which will serve my needs in the garage and shed).

Have a little HOPE in Houston, and go green in your home.

Thoughts on Another Year

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:06:17 -0600

It is early morning and I have my cup of coffee, so it is a good time to sit back to reflect on the past year, along with my birthday wishes for the next year. I may not have been sharing these meanderings, but fortunately Dale Barker was kind enough to remind me to create a post for the Texas Birthday Group.

Having a birthday close to Thanksgiving has always placed me in a mood to consider what I am thankful for on this day. It may be easy to take a negative outlook though. I am still dealing with repairs to my home due to Hurricane Ike; business is not great; my stock portfolio seems non-existent; and I could go on. However, it is important to note that all of those concerns are temporary.

My wife has presented me with the most wonderful gift recently: the birth of a healthy baby girl, Sakura Erika (ten days ago). Why a Japanese first name? My son has a friend with this name, which means cherry blossom, and he thinks it a beautiful name. My two and half year old daughter, Katya, has been running around the house trying to help us with the newest member. My favorite moment is when I explained to her that the baby was hungry. She ran off to bring me all of the items my wife surrounds herself with when breastfeeding. Ok Papa, ready? It was an experience explaining that I did not have that capability. After finishing with work on Sunday morning, I spent the afternoon in the park with my son and toddler. That was a great gift to watch a teenager and toddler playing. I am ever so grateful for my family.

I have not been Active in the Rain recently, but I am thankful for this community. A little over a week ago, I encouraged a newly minted home inspector to come to this site. It has taught me so much, and I have made many great connections here, but, yes, it is not really part of my business plan at this time. This space has been the best ground to develop various skills, and I feel that there is more to learn here, so I cannot see fully giving up on this community. I just have to cut back to look at the broader picture.

I am thankful for my life, and the fact that I am in the business that I am in. I worked for years in a job where I could not be part of family events, or to see friends. I worked sixty or more hours a week as a senior manager, but I felt that my efforts were not providing me with the life that I wanted. Sure the home inspection profession has not been great, but I am making ends meet, and I have been pursuing paths to improve this work in these trying times. The challenges encountered are actually fun. Finding new ways to make it last and grow in difficult periods is a joy. We will see what happens in the coming year, but it will be good.

Home Inspection Checklist for Texas Home Inspectors

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:57:06 -0600

As most home inspectors in Texas should be aware by now, the new SOP and report form go into effect in February 2009. There have been changes made that we need to be aware of, and that we need to include in our reports. I took a preliminary version of those SOPs to create a simple checklist for our inspections. The requirements are listed on the form, and then spaces are left for notes. In some cases, I put down Yes/No answers which can be circled.

I based it on the SOPs so we would have a quick reference guide to ensure that we are meeting these requirements as we are getting used to them. I also included space at the beginning for some basic information about the job to have on hand. I included reminders to write the serial numbers down for appliances. This is not a requirement, but it is a good practice. You can then say that this is the specific piece of equipment that was examined, in case a unit was changed out, and there is an issue with the new unit. If you come up with any ideas on how to improve this, let me know, so I can update this file. I created this one fairly quickly, so I probably will be making changes to it soon. I was having fun creating a report form in HTML, but I am still working on it. I want to be able to save it as a pdf that would be clear when printed.

Here it is in pdf format:

New Checklist

Unusual Air Circulation Method for an HVAC System

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:47:02 -0600

I was performing a home inspection on the West side of Houston when I came across a method of creating air flow in rooms that was a bit unusual. I thought that I would share it with you as a continuation of part 3 of this series, but I am not sure that it really works too well. My simple test did not show much air going through it.

I noticed that there were a lot of return vents when walking through the rooms then in the hallway. Pictured below is two large returns in the hall, and then below that is a picture of a room. On the ceiling of the room, you will notice two vents that use a cover typical for registers. One is a register, while the other is meant to be a return.

Great, I thought. They have no ceiling fans in this house, so they are trying to get the air to flow by using ducts attached to the return plenum in each room. I noticed that one of the hall returns did not have a filter in it, and this should have been my first clue to its true purpose. I then go up into the attic. While wandering around, taking in the sights, I find two plenums above the returns in the hall ceiling, but something looked off.

I checked the duct work to see that the ducts from one return were going to the return plenum on the HVAC system, but the other plenum had ducts going to the returns in each room. I wondered if this could work. The drawing below is demonstrating what was meant to be happening.

The air goes through the returns in each room to the vent in the hallway. When the return in the hallway draws air, it is meant to suck air from this vent connected to the room returns. They could have hooked those ducts up to the plenum created for the return air since it was right there.

I took some tissue paper to the returns in the rooms to see if there was any air movement when the air conditioning came on. There may have been a little, but the tissue was not pulled by any suction, like it was at the actual return. This method may cause some air to move, but I doubt that it helps much. I would just take the fake return ducts, and attach them to the return plenum.

Thoughts after the Hurricane

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:42:11 -0500

Last night, my son read to me a paper he is working on about his experience with Hurricane Ike, and I realized that although I have been dealing with the aftermath of the storm, that I had not written about some of my observations of events around it. I was surprised by the lack of preparation by some people, and I was impressed at how neighbors pulled together, so I wish to share some random thoughts with you.

Home inspectors love their tools and gadgets, and I was glad that I stored my hand tools in an easily accessible spot. With no electricity or gasoline available, power tools quickly became useless. My son organized some neighborhood boys to create their own clean up crew, and to assist some neighbors, while I went with my pruning saw to several homes. The collapsible ladders that I sue during my home inspections became invaluable because I was able to carry them across the flooded areas with no problems. I managed to clear a few roofs of debris because of them. My son managed to help clear drains with my pick axe and rakes. Before the hurricane, people smiled at me for being so dedicated to hand tools; the week after the storm saw these tools in a different light. By the way, I have a lot of power tools; I just always preferred using hand tools, even my push mower.

I was glad that my son found several other boys. Our lives are so focused on what is happening inside the home, that boys do not seem to experience the outdoors as much, unless it is through some group's activity. For the evenings, I discovered that reading fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm proved to be a family favorite. My wife laughed as I trying to keep up with all of the different voices for the various characters. I have always read to my children, but the time became special when there was little else to do in the evenings. My son liked my reading of the play Cyrano De Bergerac which came after the fairy tales, which my daughter enjoyed. I often have not thought about the fact that many people do not keep books. One visitor called my home a library, since I have tomes stuffed into spaces in every room.

I am the cook in the family, and I worked hard to prepare healthy meals after we had lost power. I wished that my cooktop worked on gas, but I did have my grill. I had canned vegetables, but I was concerned that my pregnant wife and small daughter were not obtaining the nutrition that they needed. I rummaged around the remnants of my vegetable garden to find something for them. Grilled beets turned out well. I had to use my cell phone as a flashlight in a store to find some fruits and other vegetables. When a co-worker of my wife's complained that her children were starving because they had no cooked food to eat, my wife told her of my efforts. It turned out that this person had a gas stove, but simply was not cooking because the kitchen was dark. My wife became angry at this foolishness, and I became glad that I kept my head, so I could make a family meal each night.

Each evening after the storm we had a neighborhood party. We gathered at one house or the other to share what news we had managed to hear. During the day, we sought ways to help each other with the clean up. At one of these gatherings, we had families from two other subdivisions in our mist. They were amazed at the atmosphere on our block. They mentioned that nothing like this was happening around their own homes. Although I know that such events were taking place all around Houston, it is easy to forget that in some places this feeling of community was not as lively as I was experiencing, so I am glad for my neighbors. We really did look out for one another.

What can you expect in the aftermath of a storm? Well, that question is hard to answer. Many neighbors did not have coolers to store ice and other items in. Many did not have a means to cook, or stay entertained when there was no power. Clean water also became an issue. Keeping a cool head and thinking through problems becomes very important. Having good relationships with the neighbors was important too.

My Real Estate Mashup: Adding a Home Listing Service to My Blog

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:14:48 -0500

When I decided to create an additional site apart from my original static site, I wanted to develop a Wordpress blog site, because I believe that the blog is the best way to interact with others on the internet, and that Wordpress was the best platform to use. I was not disappointed.

Being a curious soul, I started to examine SEO, but my true interest was how could we in the real estate industry take the blog format into a further development that would best serve our consumers. I found that with a little determination, a little knowledge of code, and a little patience that I could make my site a one stop shop.

I have added a forum to allow visitors to have their own voice. I am creating a visual library to help people see some aspects of home inspections. I added the store to help you find items for the home. I am a professional real estate inspector (home inspector), who has written (what I think of as) useful articles when it comes to buying and selling a home. In short, I am placing the elements together to make this a site which can benefit home buyers and sellers or anyone interested in real estate.

When I first discovered OpenRealty, I thought that it would be nice for Realtors, but what use was it to me. I decide to download this open source program (free but donations appreciated) to see what it could do. I went through the process of uploading it to my site, and taking time here and there to see if I can easily modify it. This was a wonderful experience.

Was everything simple and the way that I like it? Well, no. The directions for the install were straight forward, but I had one head scratcher. I needed to set permissions for certain files after upload. This stumped me, but when I right clicked on the file on the site when I was using my FTP Client, I obtained a dialog box, which had an option similar in name to file properties. That allowed me to set the permissions. The next hiccup was when I was going from the administration section to the home page. I received an error. Reading the error message, I realized that the “Lazuli” template was set as my default, and that the first line could not be read by my browser. I opened the main page for the lazuli template in my editor, and deleted the first line. The page loaded fine.

Iwas then able to play with different pages in my editor to add my navigation buttons and blog header. To edit the pages like the home, contact us and about pages was easy enough, but I would have liked to copy information into it. I typed everything out in the editor, which allowed me to play with the style somewhat. Not bad, but I would have like a little more control. All other aspects of the program made perfect sense. I liked how to enter homes or agents. The listings looked good.

I know many of you have professional looking posts on your blogs for individual homes for sale, but this app may be worth a little effort for you. I decided to open this to the public to see how well it can work. If you like to check it out a little before using it on your own site, e-mail me, and I can set you up as an agent on my site. You can check it out by listing homes. I think you will find that this makes for a stunning way to present your clients homes. Here is the link: http://www.yourhoustonhomeinspector.com/openrealty. Let me know what you think.

My Real Estate Mashup: Adding a Home Listing Service to My Blog

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:14:18 -0500

Creative Ways to Keep Visitors on Your Site

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:14:55 -0500

If you have been reading the various internet marketing blogs, you may have seen references to a growing trend for sites: having everything that a visitor needs for your niche right on your site. Once this is accomplished, they will have no need to go anywhere else. Do they need information on a specific topic? (Then use Wordpress as your CMS to post away). Do they want to have their own say in a forum?(Then integrate bbpress into your Wordpress blog). Do they need to know where to go for more information? (a blogroll or a links page, but maybe...a search engine on your own site?).

I have been slowly but surely converting my site into a one stop shop, so visitors will not need to leave. My site has come along way in the past few months, and I am about to launch an offline/online campaign to help promote it (I had to delay this to have time to work on the site). There is still work to be done (I am not looking for perfection, but I do want the elements to be working correctly). The last big part was having a search engine on my own site, where I can control the search to provide better results.

Until yesterday, my quest was taking me towards Zillow's API, which produced results that our visitors would like. I am still really impressed with Zillow for offering this to us, but I decided upon a different route because I felt that the consumer may need more than a search for homes. If I was clever enough, I guess I could have played with Zillow's codes to obtain my goal, but I found that all of my needs could be satisfied by Google. I created a search engine which produces results on my site, the way I want, and it is monetized with little effort. It was done through my Adsense account, where there is an option for a search engine.

Here are the steps (after much trial and error), so you can create this on your own search site:

You need to have the Adsense account. This was fairly easy to obtain.
Create a page where your results will appear. I went to my blog, viewed the source code in my browser, copied it onto my editor (notepadd++), I deleted all of the information that I did not want, which left me with a header and navigation buttons, I uploaded the page to my website's public html folder through my FTP client (Filezilla), and then I checked that it was there and looking good, while saving the URL of the page.
I logged onto my Adsense account, and followed the instruction for setting up the search engine. It was a quick and easy process, but here are some things to have at hand: websites where you want the search to be conducted; the html codes for colors to integrate the search engine's look with your site; and that exact URL for the results page. If you make a mistake, you can go back and change it on the Manage Ads section.
There will be two sets of code to copy and paste. One is for the search box, which I placed in my Sidebar.php (under the theme editor, remember to update file). The second was pasted onto my results page, which I had to upload again replacing the first one.
Done. Take it for a test drive to see the results. Oh well, I still do not position number one in the search results :).

I have my real estate mash-up site. I am going to continue playing with it, but at this point, I have the basic structure that I wanted for my goal of having what the customer needs in one place. If your curious about this process, you can go to my blog and read the posts in the Art of Business section. Any question, just e-mail me; otherwise, I wish you well with your own clients.

Your Houston Home Inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

An Open Letter to the Houston Association of Realtors

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:49:57 -0500

If this home inspector may beg a moment of your indifference to leave you with a thought to ponder, I would be most appreciative (he says with a smile). Looking at how internet users have been interacting with the real estate community on the web for the past few months in greater detail, and seeing that your site has been improving while receiving due recognition, I believe that I can make a helpful suggestion to take the association to a next step.

This missive has been inspired by a circumstance of last week. I was going to do an inspection of a home, and the Realtor representing a buyer was one whom I had worked with some months earlier. Being on the internet already, I googled his name to find his phone number, instead of digging through my rollodex. I found that his profile on your site was his main web presence, and I believe it could have been much better. Here are my thoughts:

A detailed, unique profile- sites like LinkedIn, ActiveRain, or Konnects among others allow users to create a personal profile which better serves the member. To have Realtors and other RE professionals create an original profile may enhance the web presence of many members who have no other site.

Add a social networking aspect to the site- this is a growing trend on the web, and HAR could help spread its message quickly and effectively to professionals and consumers through this medium. It will help develop a stronger community between the various professionals too.

Allow articles to be posted on your site and through e-mails like the Five Minute Realtor- my example here would be from the Houston West Chamber of Commerce. We can write one article per month, which is made available to the public through the web, and to members via e-mail. This is a great marketing and networking tool, which would be easy for HAR to accomplish.

Tying in offline and online networking- again from the chamber, having a business over lunch each month, where topics discussed could be about creating a valid working internet presence, which members could take back to improve their profiles and article submissions.

Well, that is my humble, basic outline, which I hope that you will consider. Considering that this is just a blog post, I will not belabor the points, but I think that these additions to the site could create a better real estate community here.

Your Houston Home Inspector,
Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Website Tune-Up: Finding Ways to Increase Traffic

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:48:05 -0500

Is anyone out there? Writing a blog (or a static site) can be lonely at times, particularly if you feel that you are not driving traffic to your site. You check your analytics to see that certain posts are pulling in readers, so you may want to use them to help drive up the visitors to other posts. Here is one simple method to help your visitors find what others are reading on your site, and it could help increase traffic.

I cannot take credit for this idea, but I read the original post from an SEO a month ago, and I forgot to save the link. I developed a method which does not go into such detail as the original, but it works for me. Because of my business background, I have a love of going through reports, drilling down to the data that I need, but you do not need to be so detailed. I just installed Google Analytics, which does present the most read posts easily. I prefer my Awstats for a good quick overview. Even the statistics from a platform like Wordpress will provide you with what you need.

Step 1: Find the ten most popular posts or sections from your site.

Step 2: Find the ten most popular keywords or keyphrases being used to bring

visitors to your site. These are the terms people used to probably find the

post/sections mentioned above.

Step 3: Check those keywords/phrases in search engines like Google, Yahoo, or

Live. See where your post positions. Check out other results for that term

to find out what they did for that phrase. When you click on your site in

the search results, where did you land? Did you go to the area where the

result is?

Step 4: Go over your post or section to see how you can incorporate the

keyword/phrase into your post title, the first paragraph, or other means to

optimize for it. Make sure that the post has a clear call to action for what

you would like the visitor to do. Do you want them to comment? Or would

you like them to use your service? Make it easy for them to take the

action that you want.

Step 5: Set up a landing page or post for your blog or site which contains a list

with links of your most popular posts or sections. Use the keywords/phrases

which brought visitors to your site to describe the posts. If someone liked

one post, they may want to read more items.

Step 6: Have a friend check out your site navigation. You need an impartial

observer to tell you how easy it is to move about the site and find what

they are looking for. Ask different people to do this every so often, so you

can understand how your visitors interact with the site.

About the keywords/phrases: I find that searchers use slightly different terms when trying to find the same bit of information. For example, a popular post on this site deals with obscuring an exterior air conditioning unit from view. Some people find the post with a phrase like “landscaping around the air conditioning unit”, while others use “hiding the outside air conditioning unit”. A few people use the term compressor or condenser when referring to this unit. I combined the phrases to make “using landscaping to hide an exterior air conditioning unit”, then I incorporated the terms condenser and compressor into the post.

To do this thoroughly will take about three hours each month, which is not bad. This method has increased the average time spent on my blog by visitors, which is three times more than my static site's number. Sometimes, I just do a little bit of this each week when I have time. The main effort is rewriting the posts. Having a background of English lit, I try to avoid using the same terms again and again, but for optimization reasons, you should use your keyword or keyphrase again or again (about 15% of the post is the maximum). I still find that idea makes for odd reading, but I am getting a little better at it.

I Need Your Input: Let us create authority with Google's Knol

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:01:15 -0500

Fellow inspectors, lend me your eyes? Alright, I am not a speech writer, but I have a plan to make our sites gain some authority, and I need some information and/or help from you. Here is my plan.

Google just released its knol pages, which are a lot like Wikipedia, and they are already getting some good traction in the Google page positions. My plan is twofold: 1) I would like to write a page about home inspections (at this time there are none specifically on this topic) and I want to link to the inspectors here. I would need to know which site you would want me to link to, in order to give your site authority. 2) We could each write on the same topics, but we could each pick a topic to write on, so that we do not compete with each other. For example, one inspector takes on Slab-on-grade foundations, while another takes on pier and beam.

We could all write on the same topics, but it may help us if we do not compete with each other. I am going to write on the topic of home inspections, so I would really appreciate you letting me know to where I should link to you, or otherwise I will just pick a spot for some of you.

Have a great day!

Becoming Everything to the Consumer on Your Website: Creating a Real Estate Mash-up

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:02:47 -0500

This post is really to direct you to a post on my blog that went up yesterday. It has already generated an interesting discussion, that I believe can be useful to the members of Active Rain.

First a little background, the open source movement is providing us with wonderful programs that we can use for our websites to help improve their functionality as well as the interactions with our clients. Along with this movement, more people are moving onto the internet to find information which they need to help them, like assistance with a real estate transaction. Sites like Zillow or Trulia have moved into this void, but you could fill this void on your own for your market.

After the announcement of Yahoo's BOSS (build your own search site), I pondered what effect this may have on real estate sites. Inspired by a writer on alternative search engines, I attempted to get some answers. In the end, I produced this post with my thoughts on the matter.

My speculations and question drew some high profile responses from an internet marketer for the real estate industry, and people associated with Zillow and Zoomf. My post should be read to understand the comments, but I am really suggesting that you go to my site to read the comments, if you want some insight to real estate on the internet. I provide links in the post, so you can download the pieces to create your own hub site for your market if you wish to follow my experiment; however, you may just find a little bit of information to help you comprehend how real estate on the internet may evolve.

Announcing A New Forum for Discussing Real Estate in Houston

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:42:52 -0500

What does an inspector do when it is three in the morning, and he is contemplating life, the universe, and why his dog is staring at him? He decides to have fun with his website. To that end, a forum on my site went live today.

In my hopes of creating a “third place” for internet users looking for information about their home on my blog, I thought it important to enable visitors to develop threads in this space on their own. Being new to this software, I will have to see what has been created, but I think it would be interesting to see visitors interacting with each other. Posing questions about home maintenance, or aspects of buying or selling a home, or anything else that could be about life in the home or city, which would allow a community to evolve.

If you wish to visit this forum, you will find a link in my blog's header, or you can follow me to this bulletin board. You are welcome to join, and create your own discussions. Maybe we can see what develops together.

Your Houston Home Inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Is Your Firm Helping You Market Your Listings?

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:34:00 -0500

As I wander around the internet, following the thread of an interesting comment, I find myself in new spaces. I am fairly analytical, so I like reading about studies that have been conducted on various topics. Because I am considering how to develop my blog site, and what is the latest trend for SEO, I have been spending my time poking around the sites of many of the experts on this topic. After partaking in some discussions about Yahoo's BOSS, I followed a thread back to a site, which may prove useful to Realtors in our community here in the Rain.

Please read this post for yourself, but here is a quick summary. Marketers are researching how consumers find information on line, so they can better meet their needs. Many alt search engines have been filling this void, causing our clients to eschew Google and Yahoo for something more focused. Look around you, to see that there are many of these sites for the real estate industry. (A little definition as a precaution: “alt search engines” of course means alternative search engines, and these are sites that specialize in searching one specific topic; it is felt that they produce better results for searchers because they are so focused; for example, a search for home inspection can bring up results for nursing home inspections or for a real estate inspection).

Realtors will be aware that their firm has a main site that helps market homes that they are listing, so in a way they provide the same service as one of these search engines, but with a greater focus. Here is the rub of the study: your firm does not position well in search results. Independent websites are doing a better job at pushing homes than your brokerage firm. ReMax is doing best among these companies.

What does this mean for a Realtor? Maybe not much. From sites like Active Rain, we can see Realtors posting listings on their own, and they can come to position well in a specific market if they work on their SEO. However, if ReMax was at the top position for searches, a Realtor for Remax could gain quite a bit of authority in the search engines by associating with that site. Remember part of positioning on a page is based on the authority of other sites linked to you. Probably right now, it would be better for you to be associated with a site like Trulia or Zillow rather than your own firm's site. You may consider holding your firm accountable, and have them start working on their marketing for the internet.

What does this mean for the consumer? I pose this question because internet marketing does take on more significance in our world. You may wish to be more knowledgeable about how your home is being marketed. Does your Realtor have a presence on a site like Trulia? Here I should clarify a fact. If you are trying to go the FSBO route, you will find that many of these alt search engines will only except listings from Realtors or sites that have information provided by Realtors, so in some fashion, you should go with a Realtor, or you have to pay a fee to a site like FSBO.com. When you compare the Realtor's commission to the charges on that site, you may find that you are not really coming out ahead (I know because I did my own study of the costs vs. fees involved).

In the end, I encourage you to go to the source post. I just wish to give you something to think about, before you head over there.

Your Houston Home Inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

A New Website For A Green Houston

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:21:16 -0500

Since last year, there has been talk of improving the city's connection with alternative energy, and taking steps to make the city more environmentally friendly. Considering that Houston covers more surface area than most cities, it is hard to see how this could be quickly accomplished. Yet here we are. Houston has adopted the LEEDs standards for green building; commuter and light rail expansion is on the way; forty percent of the power to public buildings is said to come from wind power. Houston is also trying to attract alternative fuel industries to fit in with the energy firms that are already here.

Admittedly, I do not believe that Houston can claim a title like “greenest city in America”, although I have heard that phrase applied to this city recently. Speak to various environmental groups, and you will find that there is no consensus on what the term “green” means. This is probably why the FTC hopes to have rules in place next year. All of that aside, I am quite happy with my city's efforts to encourage a green environment. With all things, you need to start walking before you get there, and Houston is trying to build up speed to arrive at its destination.

With these efforts, Houston has launched a new site to help the residents go green. The site is Green Houston, and I am impressed by it. There is a forthright effort to deal with many issues, and to show Houston's response. I particularly liked the report section where you could read about the problems which the city faces along with the cities response (basically allowing both sides to have a voice). Otherwise, there are many helpful links to bring you to the information that you need to improve your green life.

I could simply say that these efforts are due to the current cost of fuel, or to the fact that organic and green are popular words among advertisers right now. However, the city has been making efforts for some time to improve this aspect of life. I can point to plans that appeared to be useless in improving situations that we faced, but then I have to give the officials credit for trying. If you have a chance follow the link above to check out the site for yourself. Let me know what you think.

Considering a PPC campaign, Displaying Ads on Your Site, and Text Link Ads

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:14:16 -0500

Since stating my new blog, I have been forced to go back to basics. For proper SEO, I need to go back to some tasks that I had already done for my static site. As I delve deeper into marketing on the internet, I am fascinated by all of the information that I find, much of which seems to contradict some other piece of data that I had. Rumors seem to fly from one blog to the next about what is happening in this medium. Some of these rumors just seem to be based on misunderstanding terminology. I thought it might help some novices like myself to go over three marketing strategies on the internet with the terms as I understand them.

A PPC campaign stands for pay per click. You put your ad up through a service. Once someone clicks on your ad, you are charged based upon the value assigned to that keyword which brought the visitor to your ad. For example, they search for the phrase “Realtor in Houston”, and you indicated that Realtor is one of the keywords to be used for showing your ad, the firm will take the value assigned to the term Realtor and charge you for it. The most popular PPC campaign is Google's Adwords. Pleas note one little fact, Google receives the most search traffic, but most people using the site go for the organic results (the non-ads). Microsoft's Live Search has very little traffic in comparison, but its user click on ads more often. This type of marketing may not generate many leads, but it should be part of your internet strategy. However, you should take the time to study these ads before rushing out to start your own campaign. Fortunately for us, Yahoo has come to our rescue. Yahoo has produced a guide on developing the best PPC campaign. If you are interested in this 43 page pdf file, go to this site to find out more about it along with download instructions.

There has been a rumor floating around that if you are not part of Google's Adwords or AdSense, you site will not rank or position well in Google's organic results. First, a clarification on a term that I see misused. AdWords is the program for you to create an ad to be shown. AdSense is the program which allows you to display ads from other advertisers on your site. I think the rumor is bunk. My static site and blog have done well without Adsense, and I only have AdWords for my static site. Recently I did choose to display ads on my blog through AdSense. I did not do this because I felt that I was going to make some big windfall of income. I did it because I figured that I might make some money to cover expenses for the site. An interesting twist occurred though on the day that I started displaying ads. My site traffic more than doubled. Is this specifically do to AdSense? I cannot really be positive, but I think there is a correlation, so this has been a strange SEO strategy that I found.

The last basic means to increase site traffic is through text link ads which are bought. You may have heard of “link juice”, creating back links, or other means to have your site noticed. I had the impression that paying for a link is not seen favorably by Google, but according to some marketers, buying a link through a reputable firm is fine. These links are called text link ads. If you go to this site, you can download a pdf file which will explain how these links work.

Of course, content is king. If you are driving people to your site, you need to keep them there with easy navigation and good articles, but these SEO methods can help you out. You may wonder about displaying ads though. What if your competitors ads are displayed? Well, the visitor is on your site. You need to make it clear to them that you are the best option, with an easy means of contacting you. I feel that I can compete with any inspector in my area for service or price, so if they go to a competitor through my site, then maybe they were not the customer for me.

Your Houston Home Inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Our Evolving Commute: The resurgence of trains in Texas

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:47:47 -0500

This past week found me travelling through much of central Texas for business and pleasure. It was interesting to note the character of the different communities, when it came to materials used to construct their homes, and how they were decorated. However, stopping and talking to people was of the greatest interest to me.

On Sunday afternoon, you could find me outside of a church in Spicewood, which is just outside of Austin, sitting in the shade of a tree with my tea, speaking to an artist from Germany, who is now living in our fair state. I was admiring a cross that she had made from timber, copper, and driftwood, so we spoke about her work. We swapped birdhouse designs as the hummingbirds flew past.

Our conversation turned to life in different cities, with a focus on commuting. She was going to return home to pick up some pieces to deliver to Fredricksburg later. She was not looking forward to the drive under our Texas' sun, but it was one that she needed to make. She mentioned how travelling around was easier in Europe, where she did not need a car. Her vitriol was directed to the traffic jams of my city, Houston. She did not see how I could live with it. I mentioned that I heard a report the Judge Emmet was looking into reviving commuter rail in the region. Much of the infrastructure is here, but it is used for other purposes. She did not believe that Houston would go that route.

Upon coming back home, I find an e-mail informing me that my region is moving ahead with commuter rail. I guess that high fuel costs bring about unexpected benefits. At first, I thought that the plans would just be between Houston and Galveston, but I discovered that it will be much more than that. The plan has its critics, but mainly it seems that people are complaining that they are not included, rather than having rail come by them. Well, we are just in the first steps, and there does seem to be a desire to make such a system work, so I feel that eventually the rail will be more inclusive. I would like to see if this system will somehow tie into the light rail lines that are now being built to pull the city together.

We are still in the proposal period for this development, so your voice can be heard, if you wish to comment about the routes or plans. Follow this link to read them for your self.

If only they had a train to take me to a tree in the Hill Country for a peaceful Sunday afternoon, I would be ever so happy.

Your Houston Home Inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Creating comfort

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:30:44 -0500

You have come home from work, and it has been a hard day. Bickering at the office, clients who are not sure what they want, and a boss who needs those reports yesterday. You have a cup of coffee, and you find your self here on AR reading this post. The spouse is shouting “Are you on AR again?! Can't you do the lawn now?”. You know that you need this time to unwind, so you look for a quite place. The kids are jumping around the office, supposedly studying, so you retreat into your bedroom. You close the door. Position those pillows so that you are comfortable. The coffee still has wisps of steam rising from it, so you are good to go. You turn on the lap top to continue reading your favorite blogs. You are comfortable in this room, but may I ask you why?

My daughter just had her second birthday party yesterday. This may seem an odd thing to say, but I dread my wife's parties. Why you may ask, because she creates a long honey do list for redecorating the house, but I started before she finalized her list. I am doing little updates all of the time, but I started changing the style of the home early this time, because I did not feel like redoing the garden beds and painting the rooms the day before a party again. This time around I managed to make the home more comfortable with some simple things.

I had my plan in action. My wife generally takes out all of my indoor plants to the patio, so I have none in the house. I never could understand this habit, but she has been consistent in it. I noticed that my mother-in-law does the same thing, so there must be something behind it. Since the patio is now full, I placed several heavy large plants around the house. With so much to do, she let them be. On the day of the party, several people commented on how nice they look, so I think they are safe. Plants just really make a room feel different. They add a warmth, so you may consider looking into adding them to your house if you want an easy way to give it a feeling of comfort.

The other problem area for my wife has been family photographs. She constantly is removing them from the walls. I am not sure where this habit comes from, but she always seems dissatisfied with them. This time I was clever. I took her to a store for some supplies for the party, and I hung around the frame section. Inspired, she picked several matching frames that were on sale. This meant that I had to pull out my levels and tape measure to set the pictures up on that last day with other things to do, but we had a nice collection of family snaps on the wall.

Alright, maybe I was a little sneaky, but It made my room to sit down and read that much more comfortable.

Little steps count when creating a brand: adding a flavicon to your site<

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:27:46 -0500

You may be hearing others mention that you have to brand yourself, or the importance of branding. It is often the first step in marketing, and we may all agree with it, but do we carry it across all of our advertising? Is it always present we show our image to the world? After a business meeting recently, I found my colleague carefully examining my card. She remarked that she thought it quite clever, and she asked about the symbol that I use. She mentioned that she noticed that I use it in e-mails, as my gravatar, on my paperwork, and on my website. I explained that it is a variation on my family crest, which is significant to me, because the meaning of the symbol on the crest was to remind my family that we were responsible for protecting people on both sides of the river Ladbeck. I see it as a reminder that I am to protect my client.

Considering that this woman was in marketing, I noticed that she did not present a consistent brand throughout her materials, but she is not really alone in this fact. I still am not the best at consistently using my branding elements across the board, but I do spend time thinking about them on occasion. I have now started a new blog, where I am trying to take the steps to make it successful, so in a way, I have gone back to square one. I have been looking into ways of incorporating my logo into different features of the blog where it makes sense. I realized that most highly visited sites have an image by their URL in the “Go” line of the browser. This image will show up on my bookmarks if I save the site there. Since I am trying to have people bookmark my site, I want it to stand out when they look it up.

This may be one small marketing element, but it helps in creating your professional look, so here I am sharing with you how I created mine. You can use any png or gif file of your logo to accomplish this task.

Scale the image so that it is 16x16 pixels. I use Gimp Shop, which is free at sourceforge, but you should be able to do this in any image editor.
When saving the image, you may want to save it as an ico file. Most web browsers will recognize a gif or png image, but there are versions of MS ie which will only recognize an image if it is .ico. I had a problem saving my logo as an ico so I used the gif.
Up load the image to your site into the public_html or www section. These are the two locations which contain files that can be seen by your site. I use my FTP Client, Filezilla.
Now you have to paste some code in a specific place. First the code: <link rel="icon" type="image/gif" href="http://www.yourhoustonhomeinspector.com/SchulteLadbeck.gif">. Since I have a gif file, I typed the gif extension under the type command. If it was a png file, then I would write type=”image/png”. I then need to tell the browser where to find the image. I titled my image with my last name, and placed it in the public_html folder, so I write my website's name slash the image name for the location. Alright, simple enough, so let's move onto pasting this code into your site. It needs to be embedded within the <head> </head> commands. Each page of your static site will have a head, so your will need to paste it there. For a blog, you may have a head.php or a main header.php or a style sheet template that contains this command. You look for the proper section under your theme editor. Once the change to the sheet has been saved, you will have the flavicon (flavor icon is the name of this image) come up in the browser.

That is it. Some considerations: an overly complex image will not look good so small, so pick something that can be easily read and identified with you. Although most browsers out there are excepting png or gif images, to make this work across the board, you really need an ico image. I have not done this as you can see, but I am looking into why my ico image is not showing up the way that I want. Try to have the image fit your theme. The image does not have to be exactly like your logo, but make it similar. For example, if your logo uses a phrase or word in it, you could delete the word for the flavicon. Have fun with it.

Expanding Your Authority on the Web, While Looking Professional on Your Site

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:24:24 -0500

I have been working on several projects this week to help improve my web presence. Two of them I thought that I would share here, because they are a little bit unique. I mean, why does someone need to hear that I joined digg? If you have been around the internet for a bit, you probably know about sites like digg, Technorati, Furl, Reddit, or Shadows, so that is why I am going into something a little different on this post.

Do you keep track of yourself with Google Alerts? I have it set up that once a week, I receive an alert for my name and the names for my websites. I am sometimes surprised where I show up (my name travels around more than I do). This is a great way to check up on what is being said about you. Have you considered using this alert system to help your web presence though? I am setting up alerts for some keywords to see what shows up. When I find a blog dealing with a topic I am interested in, I go and comment, leaving my URL in the appropriate space, creating a backlink to my site. I started with a generic keyword “home inspections” as a test for this strategy. It was interesting to see that this past week, only Charles Buell and myself showed up on the alert for this keyword, which shows that some inspectors here in the Rain should think about their posts and keywords. Your alert could be more specific, like “Houston home inspections”, if you want to see what is being said about a specific keyword or general like my first one, if you just one to create backlinks where ever they may be found.

I have been going through my sites, looking at the codes, trying to improve performance, appearance, and functionality. I came across this post discussing the 400 error pages. The link will discuss his method, but I found that I could simply set this up on my cpanel for my website through an editor there, which is much simpler than his method. Here is the basic idea. View a page on your website by going to View> Source (or Page Source) so you can see the code. Copy this code into an editor like Notepad or Notepad++ (Notepad is standard on Windows, while Notepad++ is available at sourceforge.net for free-donations appreciated). Remove the information that does not pertain, and recreate an error page with your own redirects. For example, if you take your “About” page, remove the information about yourself and replace it with information for an Error Page. Something like “Sorry, but you are trying to find a page that does not exist, but how about going here (link to your site) to see if there is something there for you!” You will then have an error page that looks like your other webpages instead of a plain white page screaming Error! It would look much more professional on your part. On my cpanel, under the Advanced Options, I can edit the information on my different error pages. My editor looks just like the Notepad format, so I just copy and paste, then save.

Well, I hope this gives you some ideas on how to improve your web presence. If you have any ideas, please share them.

Your Houston Home Inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Loosing History by the Brick; Gaining New Homes by the Lot

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:08:30 -0500

Freedman's Town is the oldest African settlement in Houston. It was settled by freed slaves before the civil war. It is on the National Historic Places list. Should it not be the pride of the African American community here? Should it not be the pride of all Houstonians? I have driven through the neighborhood with my children when showing them the older parts of my city. I wanted them to see where this city came from.

Freedman's Town sits right next to downtown, and it has recently been in the news. An older church was recently demolished by the city, because it was considered a hazard to the residents. One of the residents reported that bricks were crumbling off (some say taken off), and that a wall close to a sidewalk could come down. Most of the remaining historic buildings in the neighborhood area close to suffering the same fate. The low income residents simply do not have the means to maintain their heritage. However, this community is experiencing a rebirth. It is becoming vibrant once more.

Young professionals who had lived in the suburbs are now moving into this section of town, because of it desirable location. Downtown workers no longer want long rides to work in downtown offices. They do not mind exchanging larger lots for smaller locations when it means more convenience in other aspects of their lives. This new influx of residents have brought benefits to their older neighbors. New stores and shops have arrived to serve the community, and I am sure that the city is improving the infrastructure now. Property values have been rising rapidly, so the older residents now have access to funds that may have never realized by selling their historic home.

This is where I have a dilemma. It has longed bothered me that the inner city areas do not have access to the same amenities that other areas do. The emphasis on creating a city focused on the car has irked me as well. The idea of walking through a neighborhood, and meeting neighbors seems lost when we rely so heavily on the car. Moreover, I do not begrudge those who have little managing to make a profit n their belongings; however, I am saddened for my city's loss. What becomes of a town that forgets its past? Houston has always been looking towards the future, but there is a history here. These elements have helped shape the town to become what it is today. Somehow I wish that I could rally the troops to save some of this history; make its importance recognized by the city at large, while allowing the trend of creating a better community too. How do we accomplish this? Obviously the newer residents need to learn to respect the past of the neighborhood, while bringing it new life; a blending if you will, but I fear that may not happen.

Your Houston Home Inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

County Inspections: Property Code Chapter 446 The New Texas Law for Residential Inspections

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:22:57 -0500

Is your house falling down? Did the builder cut a few corners because he did not have to worry about a building department? As of September 1,2008, this should not be the case in Texas. The Texas state legislature has assigned the task to the Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC) of ensuring that all building projects from builders and remodelers working on projects costing over $10,000 will have to be registered, and that such projects will always be inspected.

The real change is the idea that all homes will need to be inspected. The phrasing in the code requires that all homes in unincorporated areas or municipalities which do not conduct inspections to now be inspected. The builder or remodeler will have to hire a county inspector to perform the appropriate inspections. For a new home, this will necessitate three inspections: a foundation inspection before the concrete is poured; a framing/mechanical inspection to be done before the interior wall coverings are placed; and a final home inspection when the structure is complete.

In the last paragraph, I introduced the term county inspector, which may be nice to define for you. Although some counties do have a building code, they do not have inspectors. The state provides a simple definition: a fee inspector, but I thought you may wish to know a little more than that. A fee inspector is either a licensed engineer, a registered architect, or a professional real estate inspector. To be considered a county inspector, this professional will have to be registered with the TRCC. (The registration process will be starting at the end of June or early July online at their site.)

What does this mean for the homeowner? If you built your own home and you live in it for one year, this new code effects you lightly. You will need to report to the buyer that the home has not been certified as being built to code. Ms. Rivera from the TRCC reported to me that this is on the Seller's Disclosure Form, but it should be revealed in the sales contract.

In the end, this is a step towards ensuring that buyers will be purchasing well built homes. There is still some work to do towards that goal. You could do your part by commenting on the draft rules that the TRCC is considering. There will be a meeting next week of the commission to discuss possible changes to the proposed rules. I have not checked yet, but I was told that we can view them online. This effects all of us who live in a home, so if you wish your voice to be heard, now is the time before the rules are set.

Your Houston home inspector,

Frank Schulte-Ladbeck