Delete's Blog

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post; Lots of Changes

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:12:29 -0500

Our company as well as my family have relocated to beautiful sunny Northeast Ohio and have settled down in the city of Medina. We have changed our logo. The old one was so drab and boring. Cookie has grown up since my last post and is the absolutely best dog I have ever had. Absolutely smartest dog as well. Sit, lay down, roll over, play dead all taught in one 5 minute session each. Hand signals were added later as commands were given and it took her about twice before she picked them up.

So one sold house, two temporary apartments(one in Columbus, one in Medina) one bought house and 6 days of moving fun later. Here we are moved into Medina, OH. This isn't our first trip to NE Ohio. We lived in Wooster (where my wife grew up) for 8 years prior to moving down to Westerville, so at least everything isn't new.

Anyhow, what a tough time time to pick up and relocate and reestablish a referral base for inspections. Need some help from you local Medina and Cleveland folks. What are the current market conditions here in this area. I just need to know so that I don't get so frustrated banging my head against the wall with marketing producing zero results. I know the agents usually have a better grasp on what the market realities are. If you would leave a comment about this below. Thanks.

Cookie gets a new home

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:23:51 -0600

After visiting several shelters around Columbus trying to match a new family member with existing family members and calling the various rescue groups, I had given up the search for awhile. I can't believe what is expected of a person trying to rescue an unwanted dog these days. It is truly easier and sometimes more cost effective to just purchase a new puppy from a breeder. But I did't want to add to the overpopulation problem. Still, the thought of a long drawn out application process, including sometimes two home visits and a rehoming fee that was sometimes just ludicrous was not appealing either. Did I mention, all this trouble is to take an unwanted dog off of somebody's hands...Geesh. I know, I know, they don't want them back and they don't want them used in any dog fighting practice, but there has to be a happy medium.

Anyhoo, I decided that during our weekend visit back to my adopted hometown of Wooster,OH that I would stop by the Wayne County Humane Society for a peek at their pooches. We had recently lost our last WCHS dog last February to what appeared to be tainted dog food problems. Their adoption procedures were much relaxed compared to C-bus. The family decided on a new family member and I will be making the drive up tomorrow to pick her up and bring her home.

Why is that on my inspection report again? Trees too close to the roof. Need trimmed back

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:57:37 -0600

Trees and/or shrubs are in contact with or are close to the roof in one or more areas. Damage to the roof may result, especially during high winds. Vegetation can also act as a conduit for wood destroying insects. Vegetation should be pruned back and/or removed as necessary to prevent damage and infestation by wood destroying insects.

C'mon is it really that important? So what the trees are touching the roof surface on this house. It's no big deal. The trees are touching on my house too and I have never seen any damage!

Therein lies the problem. Many times this situation presents a blind area, where of course, there is no damage apparent; sometimes, until it is too late. The problem does not necessarily come from the tree touching the roof. The problem is when the wind moves the tree that is touching the roof. See the picture below. This is typical damage from a similar situation although this occurs at the edge of the roof, which can be even more susceptible to this type of damage, although it is not uncommon to see the above photo resulting in shingles that have been caught by a moving limb and bent backwards until they break.

This all happens in addition to providing carpenter ants and the like easy access from the tree to your home, where they just might start gnawing on that new wet wood under the damaged shingles.

Defect of the Day: New home should have a new roof,right?

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:25:52 -0600

Well, today's case study has us looking at a brand new home costing around $400K, maybe more considering it's neighborhood.

What you see is quite common among some Columbus builders. Do not be distracted by the torn shingle. That is a little unusual for these builders and was called out for repair. The typical finding is in the background. Notice the couple of areas with 4 dots in a square. There are two areas visible in this shot. Now there were no leaks but these patches are the result of scaffolding that the stucco contractors used. It is quite common for the stucco contractors and or the siding contractors to come in after the roof is completed and to leave these patched shingles. The question is, if you are buying a $400K home, do you want the shingles on your home to be less than new. These individual shingles have had their lifespan shortened to at the most 10 years, which is the highest life expectancy I could find for roof patching products of this type(flexible asphalt based) whilst doing research for this blog entry. After the siding contractors have removed their equipment, it would be a better building practice to have the roofer come along and replace these damaged shingles rather than the siding guys patching them.

Unfortuanately the buyer had still not heeded the advice of having the contractor repair these shingles at his one year warranty inspection as these defects were still present.

Why is that on my inspection report again? Bathroom vent ducts terminate in attic

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:40:52 -0600

What could be so wrong about this seemingly benign situation. The vent is taking the odors out of the bath isn't it. So what if the so called "fart fan" sends my bouquet into the nether regions of the attic. That's better than my in-laws gagging as they walk into my house. Right?

Wrong. The so called "fart fan" is there not to remove odors, but to redirect moisture out of the interior of the home. If it redirects moisture to the attic, then the result will be inevitable. You will get wood rot and mold, two things we never want to see in our homes. Take a look at the results of a similar problem in another home with the same issue.

Defect of the day: One of my personal favorites

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:51:30 -0600

This one won't need much explaining. The first picture shows the source of the mystery ducting coming up the back wall and the first and second picture shows the attachment of the mystery ducting to the gas fired appliances flue.

This was a wrong application on so many levels, it was hard to find a place to start. I was flabbergasted at Johnny Handy Homeowner's(JHH) complete lack of common sense.

As you can probably imagine the top of the inside of the furnace was corroded and filled with lint. This application presented both Carbon monoxide problems as well as fire issues.

Truly one for the ages.

Don't forget to have some fun

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:43:40 -0600

With end of the year paperwork, Christmas shopping and entertaining, its easy to forget to have some fun.

My boys and I did a little "fun having" during our recent snowfall

This day gave us the only opportunity in about 4 days of snow pack to make a snowman. The boys had patiently waited through the first day of very fine dry(if you will) snow that is terrible for packing and then a couple of days of well below freezing temperatures that didn't help the snow packing at all. Finally on the fourth day temps rose into the 40's which started the melting process and gave us the perfect opportunity to roll those little snowballs into great big snowmen. The kids kept saying it was magic how you start with a little snowball and just keep rolling it until its almost too big for dad to carry and place on top of the previous one. Remember that magic carries over into business as well. Grab your snowball in the middle of the meltdown and start rolling (persistency and consistency) and see how big your snowman gets.

Defect of the Day: Bowing walls

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:30:28 -0600

What's the problem?

Notice the bowing wall on the right wall.

This defect is characterized by a long horizontal crack usually along the entire length of the affected wall.

The cause is usually due to wet, heavy soil that is antagonized by water not being diverted from the foundation via proper grading or gutter systems. Rick has some timely info on that here. Many times concrete or pavement that is not properly pitched can be found on the outside of this wall.

So how does one take care of this problem?

First of all: fix the underlying issue, water, frost pressure, other excessive weight behing the wall, etc.

Then there are a multitude of fixes. The most common is probably a pier system as pictured in the bottom photo.

This system involves sinking I beams into the concrete and fastening the beams to the frame overhead. This slows the movement of the block wall, but in most cases will not alleviate the crack which should be filled to prevent further moisture intrusion.

Another system uses reinforced carbon strips to accomplish similar results. It can be found at the following link.

http://www.nachi.org/reinforcer.htm

That's Not Code! :GFCI's

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:43:59 -0600

Many home inspectors are used to hearing something similar to: "That's not a necessary item on the report, this house was built in 1947, and XXX was not required then."

We as home inspectors for the most part will not cite code and for the most part things that look like they are "code related" defects are indeed "safety defects." There are many items in a home or are not in a home built 50 years ago that are not in agreement with current codes, and many of these are never mentioned in a home inspection report, but there are some that are routinely called out to sometimes the disagreement of an agent or agents involved in the deal.

Today we will look at GFCI's.

What are they:

GFCI's mechanically function in the same way a breaker does. Input A causes the mechanical switch to change locations and open the circuit, thereby cutting off the flow of electrons through the circuit or in simple terms it kills the juice. The difference lies in the input type of the devices. Breakers use either a thermal or magnetic input to trigger the open current situation. GFCI's utilize a small circuit board to analyze the amount of current out compared to the amount of current coming back in. GFCI's will trip or open the circuit when this comparison is unbalanced or in other words if current is leaking to ground and not coming back to the circuit board analyzer the GFCI trips. This happens in the blink of an eye. The small amount of current required to trip a GFCI in many case may not be enough to trip a breaker. This ability to detect small current changes is what makes a GFCI a recommended addition to areas where shock likelihood is higher such as wet areas.

Why are they included in a home inspection report:

According to the CPSC if every household installed GFCI's, electrocution rates in households would drop by half.

http://pregnancy.parenthood.com/articles.html?article_id=1598

This is one of those areas in which we need to strive for perfection.

So, no they may not have been called for in the original construction of homes and the local code inspector is not going to come by the house and insist on their installation but let's start looking at this defect as a valid one for inclusion on home inspection reports, even if it only ranks under Recommended Safety Upgrades.

We don't want our clients or yours ending up with scenarios similar to these:

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=78718

http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/2007/12/01/wi/00wis01.txt

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB0505EDFA351BB&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

If you have a problem item that you keep seeing on reports that you would like addressed, please send me an email or leave it in the comments and I will try to get to them as they come in.

Get some of your time back

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:52:01 -0600

Hire a virtual assistant. I got to the point where I really needed help answering phones and scheduling appointments last February. It really made no sense for me to hire someone to sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring, so I started looking for options. That's when I discovered what a virtual assistant is. Imagine having to pay someone only when they are actually working.

From my experience, there are many types of VA's available. Some only do typing; some only do administrative tasks; others do marketing; and still others do all or some of these in combination.

The way mine works is that I have phones and email forwarded to my VA's office and she takes care of answering phones, scheduling inspections, following up on contracts and confirmation emails and the like. I then receive a bill at the end of the month showing the hours logged per week and the bill due.

I have found that VA's fees vary wildly and some can include a retainer that guarantees that you will pay for X amount of hours per week or month. I have found a very reasonable provider who has no such retainers and has been very flexible with what I need done and is willling to learn whatever I throw at her.

I have recently invited her to Active Rain, but she has not got her full profile set up. She can be visited here: http://activerain.com/astrosnider . I highly recommend her services for all those looking for help in their small business.

I encourage others to actively encourage her to fully set up her profile so she can begin to reap the benefits of the Active Rain community.

What Really Matters

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:24:29 -0600

Buying a home? The process can be stressful. A home inspection is supposed to give you peace of mind, but often has the opposite effect. You will be asked to absorb a lot of information in a short time. This often includes a written report, checklist, photographs, environmental reports and what the inspector himself says during the inspection. All this combined with the seller's disclosure and what you notice yourself makes the experience even more overwhelming. What should you do?

Relax. Most of your inspection will be maintenance recommendations, life expectancies and minor imperfections. These are nice to know about. However, the issues that really matter will fall into four categories:

Major defects. An example of this would be a structural failure.
Things that lead to major defects. A small roof-flashing leak, for example.
Things that may hinder your ability to finance, legally occupy or insure the home.
Safety hazards, such as an exposed, live buss bar at the electric panel.

Anything in these categories should be addressed. Often a serious problem can be corrected inexpensively to protect both life and property (especially in categories 2 and 4).

Most sellers are honest and are often surprised to learn of defects uncovered during an inspection. Realize that sellers are under no obligation to repair everything mentioned in the report. No home is perfect. Keep things in perspective. Do not kill your deal over things that do not matter. It is inappropriate to demand that a seller address deferred maintenance, conditions already listed on the seller's disclosure or nit-picky items.

We gave away our first free home inspection today

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:33:56 -0600

Congratulations to Daniel K from New Albany on being the winner of our November free inspection. Daniel used our services twice this month as he is an investor and obviously like the services provided. Be sure to send your clients this way so they too can have a chance of getting their inspection fee refunded next month.

Remember to give Thanks and appreciate what we have

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:01:04 -0600

During participation in an elite Columbus learning program, my wife yesterday had the opportunity to visit and learn about the city's homeless population.

She visited and toured 3 sites that give homeless people help all through the year. She was even given the opportunity to eat where and what they eat at a local soup kitchen. Sadly, she was unable to eat, as her sense were completely overloaded. Between the sights and smells(oh yes, the smells) she could only play with her food. (she only took a little bit in line and she and her group did make donations well above the cost of what they consumed or did not consume) She shared with me that the food really did not look like what it was supposed to be.

Sights, sounds and interesting facts about the day:

She was saddened to see little kids about the size of ours (4yrs and 7yrs) walk into the soup kitchen with no shoes or socks on their feet in upper 30's weather
Most people piled their plates as high as they could on their trip through the line; what they couldn't eat was dumped in an empty WalMart bag or the like to be taken with them, so that later in the evening when hunger consumed them again, they would have some solace
The shelter provides small bags of food for women who live in the wooded homeless camps that are prevalent in Columbus. These women would only make the trip in at certain times of the day because if they were seen by the wrong person they and their family would most likely not live to tell about it--she saw several women come into the food bank with multiple bruises all over them
People working at the food banks informed them that they were in the company of bank robbers and child molesters(as children roam around the eating areas)

I sure do apologize for this entry having no real flow, direction or organization. The information that my wife passed along to me may well take days for my mind to process and think about, but I just wanted to remind everybody(including myself) of everything we have to be thankful for this holiday season. Additionally please remember to go through your old things this year maybe before you get too busy with the holidays. What is an old comforter to you, may well be a lifesaver to someone less fortunate. Additionally, remember that those kids shoes that you have in your yard sale pile for next year are only worth about $1.50 to you along with the hassle of pricing and selling them and don't forget the haggling. They would be pure gold to that mother whose child walks through the snow barefooted this winter.

Donations can be made here:(partial list)

http://www.theopenshelter.org/openshelterwishlist.htm

http://www.friendsofthehomeless.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx

http://homelessfamiliesfoundation.org/10676.cfm

What else can I find that NACHI has provided for me

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 21:22:29 -0600

Just doing a walk through of The National Association of Certified Home Inspector's(NACHI) website www.NACHI.organd I am only through about #9 on a list that is miles long of benefits that I didn't know we had. I have discovered a very neat on-line inspection agreement that I can send out to my customers rather than relying on email and fax. I found a very cool button for my website that when pressed lets a customer enter their telephone number and sends me the info so I can give them a call right away.Check it out on my home page. I also found that NACHI operates an askNACHI website wherein you ask a question about anything home or home inspection related and it gets answered by one of many qualified individuals. The page does list several previous questions, but I wish it had a link back to the forum where the questions are posed so you could view all the asked questions with answers.

I am like a kid in a candy shop right now and all the candy is free to me. I am going back to look for more benefits...

Let's get those homes ready for inspections.

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:44:35 -0600

I had an inspection today that I pretty much called off due to inaccessibility issues. Of course, I let the client make the final choice, but I strongly recommended that we not proceed with the inspection. After all, the home was completely filled up with stuff. The electrical panel was behind three or four stacks of boxes and a book case. Above that was the garage side attic access. The furnace and water heater were from my best estimates in a bi-fold closet behind the couch which was pushed snugly against the closet doors. The house side attic access was blocked from access by a closet full of personal effects. Additionally the house was crammed full of boxes and furniture. About 40% of wall space was visible. About 25% of floor space was visible and nearly all electrical receptacles were inaccessible. We all want this process to go as smoothly as possible, so what can be done?

How about handing the following info (ripped with permission from The National Association of Home Inspectors's website) to your sellers as they get ready for an impending inspection:

Confirm that water, electric and gas service are on, with gas pilot lights burning.
Ensure pets won't hinder the inspection. Ideally, they should be removed from premises or secured outside. Tell your agent about any pets at home.
Replace burned out bulbs to avoid a "Light is inoperable" report that may suggest an electrical problem.
Test smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and replace dead batteries.
Clean or replace dirty HVAC air filters. They should fit securely.
Remove stored items, debris and wood from foundation. These may be cited as "conducive conditions" for termites.
Remove items blocking access to HVAC equipment, electric service panels, water heaters, attics and crawl spaces.
Unlock areas the inspector must access - attic doors or hatches, electric service panels, closets, fence gates and crawl spaces.
Trim tree limbs to 10' from the roof and shrubs from the house to allow access.
Attend to broken or missing items like doorknobs, locks and latches; windowpanes, screens and locks; gutters, downspouts and chimney caps.

How does one create new member types?

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:22:21 -0600

I was looking through the available types under which new members could enter and saw what I feel is a pretty glaring defeciency. Where is the category real estate investor? Maybe I did not see it or maybe it just is not poular enough to rise above "Real Estate-Other," but aren't investors quite a large part of the real estate world. I have several associates who I would recommend ,but I am not sure they would feel as though they belong if a category for them were not present.

Any thoughts.

Don't you just sometimes wish you had an UNSEND button

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:15:08 -0600

So here I was sending a nice little followup note to a Realtor I had not worked with

before. I am trying to be very professional. I even used my spellchecker to make sure everything was just right. I changed an 'a to an 's for one last correction and there it is... got it...now let's send it. [pressing send] Oh no! Look at that....I put the wrong name at the top...nooooo. Where's the cancel button...where's the cancel button? Doh! too late my message disappeared as Gmail happily announced that it had sent my email sucessfully. Where is that darn unsend button. Why didn't Google learn anything from Microsoft....Are you sure you want to send...[clicked yes]...Outlook is sending the email below are you sure you want to continue.

Oh well I guess the world will never be perfect. Just remember to check you email carefully before you send it. Besides you are saving all that time by not having to lick and stuff an envelope.

It's Great to have other Active Rainers watching out for newbies

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:27:01 -0600

I got an email this morning from fellow Active Rainer,Maureen McCabe, in my market, saying that a link from my ad wasn't working. I would have never known, because I have the ad placed on pages that I don't personally see. I have used Adwords and always check my link, but was unaware that I could do it from my ad creation window in Active Rain. It was just a simpe matter of too many http:\\'s.

Thanks again Maureen

Life is great in Genoa Township

Delete My Account please (Please Delete my account) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:31:02 -0600

This place is great. My wife, kids and I moved to Genoa Twp in July 2004 and I must admit that I love it here even though I gave up country life to get here. Minutes from just about everything to do in Columbus, yet nestled in a cozy, albeit fast growing SE Delaware County corner. There seems to be a park on every corner and bike trails galore.

The neighbors are friendly and so is the township government. The fire department will even bring a couple of trucks and a full crew out to visit your children on their birthday and let them tour the trucks and give out little plastic firefighter hats.

I think the best advertisement for our community is the following link to Genoa Township's brochure and map:

http://www.genoatwp.com/administration/2007%20Genoa%20Township%20Map.pdf

Oh and don't forget the township after realizing a budget surplus last year voted to lower our taxes.