Home inspectors on the web seem to consistently write two types of posts: why do you need a home inspection; and look what was done wrong by this homeowner. Of the latter type, there consistently seems to be the attitude of looking down at the home handy man and his efforts to repair his own house. Ask any home inspector about their own house, and they will have to admit that another inspector would find the same problems. It comes across as a double standard.

Last week at a home inspection in the 77084 zip code, I found a house that looked beautiful, but there were many small mistakes. Either a newly minted general contractor had done all of these repairs, or it was a homeowner who knew the basics of home maintenance. I mentioned the zip code for a reason. If you know this area, then you would know that many homes here are smaller, and the residents range from working class to middle class. Every time that I am in this neighborhood, I see many do it yourself repairs. With the current economy, this trend makes sense. I grew up in a family that did many repairs or maintenance on our own, so I always have thought of doing things myself. The problem is that most of us like to take shortcuts. We use parts and tools that we have at hand. When we go to buy parts, we make do with what we find, but often this is not the proper piece.

Is hiring a service company that much better? Not always. I singled out “newly minted” professionals in the previous paragraph; however, in the last three months, I have run into a plumber who used the wrong parts on a job. He defended himself at first with the statement that the parts are correct, just mislabelled. Afterwards he stated that since the building inspector had approved his work that he does not need to correct his mistakes. An HVAC technician informed that he had the ability to carbon date soot marks to the month through a visual inspection. How does someone develop such super human powers? With another technician, I was trying to explain a problem that I noted on a unit. He had just completed the job, and he did not want anyone questioning his work. He did not actually listen to my question, and he answered by referring to another part. It turned out that a month later, another technician had to perform the same job. This man was surprised when we mentioned that this job was performed last month. He showed us the evidence that it had not been done. The problem with these service men is that they were at established companies with a long period of personal experience. If they cannot do the job correctly, there is no point in using them. A contractor should always listen to you, and they should be able to reasonably explain their work.

I had fun repairing a leak under my kitchen sink yesterday. A pipe had a small crack which caused a small drip. Even a small amount of water does a great deal of damage over time. I took apart the P-trap to discover that the pipe which had the crack was welded into another pipe. I cut it out, then I go to a big box home improvement center to buy the parts that I needed. Problem: they did not have everything I wanted to make the repair in the right way. I did what many people do; I bought what they had to make the fix. Being a home inspector, I was thinking to myself: if I am selling this house, will another inspector point out this job? I am not planning to sell, but this thought has occurred to me recently, because I have been considering what homeowners who are selling are facing. I ended up constructing the parts that I needed from what was available with the help of some marine epoxy. I could have gone to a specialty plumbing supply store, which would have been the best option, but it was out of the way. When I looked around me in this warehouse of a store, I saw a man standing in front of some fittings asking a passing employee for help. The employee only had a vague knowledge that the part he needed must be in this section. I came to his assistance, and we found the part. It struck me that the average homeowner is best served by a smaller hardware store. Much of the time, I find the precise part that I need there, and the staff frequently has a better understanding of how to do the repair, so they can offer good advice. That is my first tip: if you are not sure of the best way to fix your project, avoid the big box home improvement center. If you have a clear idea of what needs to be done, then this big boxes can be great, but I would not expect to obtain all the help that you may need in one.

Practice makes perfect in home maintenance. If you are an occasional do it yourselfer in repairing your home, the best tip that I can give you is to plan extensively before you begin any project. Going back to my plumbing project, replacing a pipe under the sink is really quite easy. However, I faced the problem that the part that I wanted was not available to me. Things go awry, and a project which should have lasted a half hour ended up lasting several hours. The job was expanded by a further problem caused by me. The food waste disposer has a gasket between the mounting flange and the basin. When I moved the disposer to fit my new pipes, I broke this gasket, so I had a new leak. I had gasket material on hand, so I made a new one. Trying to fix one item can lead to problems with another, so it is best to be prepared. I try to visualize what I need to do, and what may go wrong, so the job does not get away from me. My second tip is to take a breather to think about what you will need and what you will have to do for your project.

Even experienced people need help would be my third tip. Right now I am working in my attic. I have little space up there, so I stay in a crawl or seated position for my adventures in that realm. I am installing a radiant barrier, and to be honest, the whole process would be so much better if I had help. My son does not realize it yet, but he will be recruited during the holidays for another project that I have in mind up there. Sometimes we just need someone to look over our shoulder for a little advice, and sometimes we need a little knowledge. For the knowledge part, I think that there are several home maintenance books that suffice, and it is good to consult those before a project. Your project may entail something that you had not considered.

Thoroughly check out your work. Getting back to that house which I inspected last week, there was item that could have been a simple wiring mistake, or it could have been something more serious. A popular project for a homeowner to obtain some energy efficiency is to update their thermostat to a programmable one. This is a do-able task for most people, but you do have to make sure that you followed the steps correctly. I had difficulty with the jumper wires that were needed to make the thermostat work. These wires are about a half inch long, and they are used by the control system of the thermostat to send messages to your unit. You have to determine the set up by looking at your old thermostat, and then set the wires to the correct positions in the new one. In the case of this home, the heater never would engage. When you set the thermostat to heat, the air conditioning began. The heat did not start in any setting. My guess was that whoever installed this nice thermostat failed to look at the wiring of the old unit. Since it was installed when the weather was nice, I can imagine that either all of the settings were not tested, or if they were, the installer decided it would not be noticed. The problem now is that the old thermostat is no longer there. A service technician will now have to figure out the proper way to wire the unit.

Study up on how to do a job. In this house, there were many small mistakes evident in the repairs. Before becoming a home inspector, I think that I could very well have made many of these mistakes. We gain a bit of knowledge about how to make a repair, but we really do not understand how the system is meant to function. For example, the weepholes in a brick wall on this home were sealed. These holes let moisture from behind the wall escape, so that moisture will not damage the framing. Most of us know that pests use these holes to enter the home, so we want to block them, thus causing another problem. You could place a wire mesh in these holes. This prevents pests from entering (at least most types of pests), while allowing the moisture to escape. There are a few internet sites that can help you learn, but I think the best solution is to have a home repair manual, like the one from Reader’s Digest or Home Depot.

I one time produced a home inspection report which had every item listed as in need of repair. Many items were small issues like the weepholes. I realize that sellers may find this to be nitpicking. The biggest bone of contention is mentioning that a home built fifty years ago is not built to current standards. Next year, I will have to mark service panels (breaker boxes) as deficient if they do not have an AFCI breaker in place for the bedroom areas, because it will be required by the state of Texas. The reason is that it is a safety issue, but I can hear a seller now saying that it has been safe all of this time, so why do I need to put it down. Here is the heart of the matter: a home inspection report focuses on safety issues as well as problems with the home, but it does not require sellers to make any of these repairs. Looking at a home inspection report can be daunting, but a seller needs to discuss with the buyer what is important to them.

Those are my tips. Do you have anything to add?

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Have you had a moment of epiphany? You look at something and say, oh, yes that makes sense. I had such a revelation recently when I was in a meeting with other home inspectors. We were discussing factors that make a home green, construction methods of such homes, and the current programs that define a green home. Most of these discussions revolved around the upcoming code, the ANSI 700, which will help define many of these ideas. We were also looking at the Green Home Verifier program for home builders, which can be a good business opportunity for home inspectors. At one point, our talk dealt with the idea of the building envelope and how it effects energy use. This led to a focused consideration of attached garages.

My home has an attached garage, about half the homes in my neighborhood have this arrangement. I was inspecting a home in a subdivision where all of the houses had attached garages. It is a great convenience. The space can be converted into another room. I use one bay as a play area for the kids when the weather turns wet. However, I have seen people create family rooms from their garages, since they leave their cars outside. Storage is a big deal for many. I have at times taken jobs organizing garages for people. With the remodeling of my home, my space is filling up with old furniture that we will eventually be sending to family in Mexico. Sometimes it becomes a work area. I have a ‘64 Beetle that I am restoring in the other bay. Mainly, I think most of us use this area in our home as a catch-all for everything that cannot fit in the home proper.

When this space is being built, it is not treated like other rooms inside the walls of the building (the envelope). The attic above is not insulated. Rarely is natural light used. Then we have the doors to allow the cars to enter that also allow the cold wind to blow into that area. During a Houston summer, the garage becomes unbearably hot, because there is no air movement through it. During the winters, the garage can feel colder than the exterior, with no sun to warm the surfaces there. Yesterday morning, as I was taking the trash out, I stopped to look around the space. I had not turned on the lights. Around the side door I could see streams of light. The garage doors allowed a good deal of light to flow through. I felt the chill from the night’s near freezing temperatures linger. Now consider what is happening to your home.

Imagine a cooler that you use for your picnics. If you have placed an item from the refrigerator inside of it, and you have kept the lid closed, the interior of the cooler stays quite cool for a good while. This is the idea behind insulating your home. Super insulated homes can be heated or cooled with little energy. Now cut out a corner of this cooler. Place a cardboard box into that space. You have broken the envelope of the cooler, but you do have a wall between the cooler area inside the chest. Warm air in the cardboard box does eventually move into the chest, which causes more energy to maintain the temperature in the cooler. This is the same principle behind the attached garage breaking into your envelope.

Taking steps to prevent this energy loss is not too difficult. If your house is like mine, you will have attic space above this space. Insulate this area like you would the other areas of your home. My favorite insulation for a do it yourself project is batts sheathed in plastic made by Johns Manville. Loose insulation is great for certain areas, but to achieve good coverage, you need to blow it in. Other types of batts work perfectly well; however, the exposed insulation will be exposed to your skin. The batts covered in a sheath help reduce this discomfort. Covering the area in the attic is not too bad, even in a low roof like mine. The garage door presents another problem though.

There are two steps to dealing with the door. First, the easier procedure is installing a door seal around the sides of the door. This is a gasket material which can be tacked into place with nails. A lip of the seal fits against the door when closed preventing drafts. It took me about forty-five minutes to seal two doors. Here is the fun part. Like many people, I have a metal door with two foot wide panels. They are four inches deep. I do not want to add too much weight, and I am looking for a product that is readily available. I have seen insulation that would fit, but most home centers have batts that would fit in a sixteen inch stud space, which leaves eight inches to fill my bay. These are the batts that are R13 in value. Any larger than this number, and the batts are too heavy. You do not want to add much more weight, because this will cause problems with the system that allows you to open the door.

Since I wanted to have the R13, I went with batts, cutting pieces to fit into the extra space. I used wire to hold the pieces into place. If I did not want to go this route, I did have other options. There are 4×8 feet sheets of insulation that you can cut to fit into the spaces. These sheets are about an inch thick, and they equate to an R3. Do you use one of those insulating covers for your car’s front window to reduce heat? Well, that product is made for the home. It is mainly used in the attic, but placing it on garage doors gives you about an R8. It is also simple to cut, and you could glue it into place. To be honest, I think that these last two options are best for most people. They add less weight, and they are faster to install.

I am considering adding a window to this space. I like the idea of not having to turn on a light when I am just passing through this space to the side exit door, or if I am getting something that is stored there. Placing a window in the garage door would not be hard. I could cut out part of a panel to be replaced with plexiglass. Another option would be to add a window into the side door. Going through the wall takes more effort. You have to remove the exterior wall; expose the framing on the interior, so you can reframe that area for a window. Not a simple diy project. Looking at the side door, I realized that most of these doors do not have weather stripping or insulation strips around them. The peel and stick thin insulation strips are the easiest for this task.

Lastly, you may have created an insulated space, but I would still treat the walls inside your home proper which butt up to the garage as exterior walls. In a previous post about insulating to be green, I mentioned the foam insulation pieces that can be used behind outlet covers. If you just used these on the exterior walls, you may have skipped the walls adjacent to the garage. I did. The garage space is still not conditioned, so try to isolate it from the home with this action.

In all, I spent under two hundred dollars on this project for a two car garage. What will be the benefit to my energy costs? I have not exactly calculated that amount. I think that it could equal the savings that would be achieved by installing CFLs in your house. In a few years, the energy cost savings will pay for the project.

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Finally, a quiet moment where I can sit down and write. I find that I have not posted for a while, yet I have been receiving e-mails with questions, and the number of daily readers has been doing well without my efforts. You see between work, a course on green building techniques for home inspectors, and the birth of my third child, I had no time to deliver the posts that I wanted to create for this site. However, I think that I achieved some sort of success for myself if the blog can continue going well without assistance.

During the course, a new home inspector was asking about marketing techniques, and I gave him a bit of advice about marketing his business on the internet. I made a quick comment about blogging, but there really was not enough time to detail my thoughts. We home inspectors face a situation which may not be dissimilar to other careers, so this may apply to others. We have suffered more than some other real estate professionals, because our service is seen as optional. Buyers and sellers would rather save the money now than pay for an inspection. Most consumers will go with the recommendations of their Realtors, which means the consumer never does search for us. Yet there are consumers who see our profession as indispensable. We have to market to all of these groups.

Will the internet be the answer to our marketing issues? The answer is a double edged sword. My business is local, but my website is global. A reader in Russia will more than likely not use my service. Only readers in the greater Houston area are truly my target. To have a successful website though, you need both. While I was not working on this blog, I continued to receive e-mails from around this country (and one from outside this land) with questions about problems that people faced in their homes or other people wanting to find work in a specific niche of the home inspection business. If they have a website, they may link to me, or they may create a link to my site in a comment on someone else’s blog. This helps establish me as an authority, particularly with the search engines. If the search engine’s robots see these links, they may direct others to my site on their results page. If my site is easier to find, local internet users may find this site more rapidly, leading to increased business.

What about keywords? Every week I receive inquiries about the best keywords for home inspectors. It is easy to say that I should pick words or phrases that relate to “home inspector” or “home inspection” along with “Houston”, so I could have “Houston home inspector” or “home inspections in Houston”, but those terms have hardly brought me clients. The internet is filled with people looking for information, and the keyword which may bring them to you may be a surprise. I have obtained more work from the keywords “stucco”, “EIFS”, “foreclosure”, “winterization”, and “flooding” along with phrases that include those terms than any variation involving my actual profession. This is the beauty of the blog format. I can write about items that I find on my inspections or general concerns about homes. If I include my location in the post, I can make contact with my target audience for my business. I can do a series of posts on that topic, working to optimize the selected keyword. If you want to know more about keywords, I think that you should read this twelve part guide to keywords written by Stoney deGeyter. I am always reading his posts on Search Engine Guide.

Do I need to post often to build up the readership? I remember the advice of writing three posts a week to really obtain an audience. Now I read that writing three posts a day is needed for some sites, but this is not really necessary. Are you trying to place your blog in the top one hundred list from Technorati? You are a small business that is focused on a specific geographic location, so having one of the most read blogs should not be your goal. What you need is a few posts that will always generate readership. Finding a topic can be hit or miss. Focus on your customer. Think about their concerns. The keywords that I mentioned above are some concerns that my clients have. You could apply this to any small business though. A florist could write about various flower arranging techniques; or a baker could describe how to get the best possible bread from a home oven. Being generous with your information is important. A home cook will realize that maybe they cannot get the bread exactly right, or they may just want to taste the one from the baker, so they go to his store to buy a loaf. A home buyer realizes that there is more to looking at stucco, so they hire a specialist (me). Build these anchor posts, and the internet traffic keeps coming, whether you are writing or not. The most popular formats for these posts are the “how-to” or the list (“top ten”). To create these anchor posts, I like to write down what is happening to my client at different stages of the real estate transaction. For each stage, I write down ten things that could be happening to them or that they could be thinking about. I try to find a topic there that will let me connect with them. If you are new to blogging, I think that the best primer I have come across recently was written by Bill Slawski. You should really read his advice to a new blogger.

What happens if you do not like to write? You are out of luck. Alright bad joke. Marketing is communication, and an aspect of your job now is opening up a dialog with the consumer. I am just now reading The Cluetrain Manifesto again. If you are new to creating a business blog or website, this book will give you the basis to understanding how communication works on the internet. You are looking to start a conversation with your potential clients. Blog formats offer a better environment for this talk. A reader can comment, or they may send an e-mail. I have seen experts on internet marketing state that you should turn the comments off till you build up your readership, but this tactic turns me off as a user. I do not go back to such blogs. Let’s get back to the question though. I think it is better that you write your own material, but there are other options. You can hire a ghost writer. I did this for some people. This can be an expense. For example, I charged $50 for an article over 500 words. Now, what if you need ten articles? Maybe some ghost writing is not bad, but I think you have to work on your own to have good information on your site. The other option is a guest blogger. I have written for many other sites, and I have only one requirement: they have to allow a link back to my site. Having some experts write posts for you can be great (as well as free), but I am still advocating that you need to have some of your own words on the site. You are your own best promoter.

Since blogging is a form of social networking, should you expand out to such sites on the internet? Facebook and Twitter have been getting a lot of attention in the news. Large corporations are using these sites and others like them to promote and defend their brands. It may seem natural for a small business to follow suit, but there have been studies showing that users of these sites do not look for local businesses in this social sphere of the internet. Taking the conversation beyond the bounds of your blog is important though. You have to pick where you socialize on the web to be effective. Take my business; I need to connect with Realtors to encourage them to suggest me. Sites like LinkedIn or Plaxo are good for that, but then it is easier to make a connection on a site like ActiveRain. My focus now is more on the consumer. To convince people that a good home inspection can be invaluable to them, I can participate in sites like Trulia or Zillow, as well as on my own blog. I can find other blogs to leave comments on too. However, you should think beyond the confines of your immediate profession. In my case, most home buyers are also interested in financial matters. If you survey financial sites, like Yahoo!Finance, or the field of financial advice blogs, you will find discussions about home ownership. You can take this idea for other small businesses as well. Going back to our florist and baker, we can see that they may want to hang out in a common niche on the web, gardening sites. Many home cooks like to grow their own herbs (which can be included in a bread), and many people want to grow their own flowers for arrangements. The basic idea is to participate in the conversations out there which somehow relate to your field.

How should I develop the site, and do I need professional help for that? Look around this site and you are going to find a collection of programs that may be good for a real estate site, but are not really needed to make this a good business blog. I have been fascinated with the open source movement since the mid 90’s. When I was trying to show some Realtors what they could do with their sites, I decided to add on such features as a forum, a store, and a way to list homes, but I have not spent time promoting those aspects of this site. I wanted to see how to install them, and how I could work with them. I am just having a bit of fun. Depending on your business, you may find such aspects of site development useful. I would go to sourceforge.net to see if they may have a program that can help you and your customers create a community on your site. Installing these programs is not so hard when you have some basic knowledge of the internet. Hiring a professional can be a good option though. I have seen internet marketing experts offer evaluations of your site with a roadmap of what to do to improve it for as little as $100. Spending some money on a search engine marketer may be the best move you could make to have your site noticed. If I am remembering correctly, I believe that the figure was approximately $1300 spent by bloggers on their sites is the average amount according to Technorati’s State of the Blogoshpere report for this year. This would include all of the different types of blogs. You may find that you need only $500 worth of help.

Well, this post is becoming too long, but I hope that it may serve as a good introduction into creating a small business website. (So Josh, if you are reading this, it was for you). You have to coordinate your efforts on the web with what you are doing offline. Go to networking meetings, and hand out your business card, which has your website listed on it. My card has several sites listed on the back. Not all of my own, but sites where I have written posts. It helps to show my authority. Good luck in your own efforts.

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At a meeting the other day with a group of home inspectors, we discussed the idea of a unit being installed correctly to the specifications, but it causes a safety issue. We home inspectors are frequently very concerned about possible safety concerns, which is a great frustration to many sellers who feel that such matters should not be pointed out. Most of the time, I am required by state code or by my own desire to report on current thinking or findings that will make an older home more secure. Along these lines, you should be aware that there may be some causes for concern being addressed in your home.

Gas Water Heater Recall- about half of the homes that I have inspected recently have A.O. Smith water heaters. There may be an issue with certain models having their flue glass temperatures becoming too hot. Here is what may be happening: you have a burner compartment below which heats the base of the chamber containing the water. This produces a gas (combustion gas which you can think is comparable to the gas that needs to be handled by the muffler of your car). This gas goes through a tube passing through the water chamber (this also helps heat the water). This gas comes out of the top of the unit, and it is caught by a another tube that has a funnel like object on the end of the tube. This generally passes through your ceiling and then out your roof to a vent that needs to be well away from your roof. The concern is that the vents will overheat due to the heat in this escaping gas. This can be a fire hazard. The recall concerns units with the A.O. Smith model numbers FCG-75 300 and FCG-75 301 with serial numbers L07A071460 through L07A144966 and State model GS6 75 XRR S and GS6 75 CRR S water heaters with serial numbers M07A009387 through M07A072884. You can follow this link to the Consumer Product Safety Commission for more information.

Wall Oven Recall- GE has recalled various wall ovens to inspect and repair them because there may be concerns about fires and because you can be burned. Here is the link to the Commission information on this recall.

Other concerns have to do with building codes. Fire safety is becoming a larger concern, and fire protection equipment has been greatly improved. Costs have come down so that they are practical for homeowners. This has led to fire sprinklers being required in newly built single or two family residences starting in January 2011. I know this seems far off, but it will be coming sooner than you think, and it may mean that if you plan to sell your home around that time, buyers will be looking for such a feature.

After suffering the damage from Ike, many Houstonians are still dealing with the repairs. I know that on home inspections, I have clients asking me about features that will help protect the home from a hurricane or at least a strong wind. Engineers and others have been working on this issue constantly, and this has lead to standard in home construction. This standard will be incorporated in the 2009 International Residential Code. This will take a while to filter through to become a requirement from local governments, but it may be nice for you to know about if you want to be more secure in your home.

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I have been in many situations where the seller hated my performing a home inspection. There is a belief that we are going to force the seller to loose money. It is a strong impression that can be hard to overcome. I have been hired by sellers who do not want to make more repairs than necessary, and they want their Realtor to enforce the “as is” aspect of the sale. Some sellers go to the extent that they want the sales contract amended to state that fact.

Paragraph 7D (1) states that the "buyer accepts the property in its present condition”. This sounds pretty much like stating “as is”. However, other parts of the contract allow for home inspections and the right of termination. To truly enforce buying a home with no other requirements, a seller would have to prevent termination because of a finding by the buyer. The seller now has opened himself up to a great liability. The seller has to state the condition of the property on the seller disclosure form. If you fail to mention something, and the buyers are not allowed to find out the truth before purchase, you have a situation which sounds quite a bit like the lemon laws concerning car sales. The buyer could come back to argue that the seller did not permit discovery of issues since they knew of the problem.

As a seller, you have to be willing to work with the buyer. You can state that you believe the price is fair for the condition of the home, so you will not consider lowering the price to deal with found issues. Allow the buyer to inspect, so they know what they are buying. If the buyer is willing to accept these terms, then you have the deal that you want, while not facing possible a lawsuit.

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I noticed a little tidbit about a new requirement for property managers and landlords in Texas: you need to be able to provide to perspective tenants a set of criteria that you use to choose who will be your future tenant. I was trying to find the exact Property Code that deals with this issue, but I could not find it. I did discover that the rental application form used by Realtors created by TAR has a line referring to this form.

Real estate investors that I work with are not using property managers or Realtors to help them deal with these properties, so I thought I would go over this idea with you to make you aware of your responsibilities. The criteria form needs to be typed with clear definitions of what you will consider to be an acceptable client, or what might cause you to decide to not to rent to a potential tenant. Your selection process may include factors like a tenant’s criminal history, credit history, current income and rental history. Spell out clearly what your concerns are. For example, you may not want sex offenders at all, but what if a drug conviction is acceptable if the tenant can show that he successfully completed rehab? You have to consider the details which may cause you to have an exception.

On your application form, you should have a statement informing the possible tenant of their right to see this list. The statement is simple: state that this form is available upon request, and generalize what may be in the criteria (like the factors for the selection process mentioned above).

If you are unsure of your criteria list or the statement on the application, it may be worth it to consult a real estate attorney. The best prevention for loosing a law suit is to do everything properly when dealing with tenants and applicants. In that case, a lawyer can be worth it.

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Business moves on. We see more firms in the real estate industry facing difficulties, but I noticed that many other businesses are being effected by our current economic climate. I was surprised to see a number of websites up for sale, mainly because they were not making the money that the owners expected. Yet we have to find a way to continue with our daily lives.

In the midst of this, we are finding that banks are going under, and other businesses are looking to the basics. We may see some new business models come about. I have heard from more Realtors who are questioning the usefulness of their corporate offices. Why share the commission, if the firms are not helping them appears to be the feeling. On that subject, I always thought that the book Freakonomics had it right. If you have a chance you should read the authors’ blog. It opens your eyes.

Rick Aster writes an article going over Franklin Bank being acquired by Prosperity Bank (both banks from Houston) after the FDIC had to step in. The post gives an overview of the nation.

Paloma Contreras shares an article from Ken Brand about what you should expect from a Realtor helping you find your new home. It is a good guide to show you what services they should be providing.

Here is a post going over what is happening in one specific neighborhood , Glen Bay, in Clear Lake. It is interesting to see these figures. Yes all real estate is local, and you can have local real estate go down to the neighborhood level.

The Houston Downtown Alliance has released a statement that registration is open for its tour to show people what living in our downtown is like. Alright, the end of the registration is in March of next year, but since it has been released, I decided to create the link.

Enjoy the read!

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In the past few days, I have heard from friends around the country who work in some field related to the real estate industry that they may be laid off or that they are going through financially tough times. Some home inspectors that I know around Texas have been talking about the fact that none of us would consider telling someone starting out in the home inspection business that this is the career with potential to make a decent living. Most inspectors have been looking into other ways of increasing their income.

I write this post because in the past week I have been seeing articles in newspapers or websites that suggest this career can make you a great deal of money, and it is easy to get started. Depending on the state, this may be true, but still it does have its costs. The other thing is that these articles posited the idea that once your business is going, money will start coming in. Think about it. You are starting a business so you need to start marketing to let people know that you are available. You need to find ways to differentiate yourself from established inspectors. All of this is a job unto itself, and you have to pay for this effort. In this economic climate, many consumers are foregoing home inspections, because they do not want to spend the money, so the pool of possible jobs is shrinking faster than home sales.

Do not get me wrong, I love this business. To me it is truly fascinating, and I believe that I am helping people, and that makes me feel good. If you love the job, then it is always a good time to enter into the profession. I am just sad that some friends are having a tough go of it during this period.

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As most home inspectors 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.

For Real Estate Investors: please use an inspector, he says in a whining tone;) Alright, now that is over with, I am sure that you would like some type of checklist form. This may suffice, but you have to educate yourself on what would be considered a deficiency,how tests are performed, or what the terms mean. The SOPs are just a guide of the minimum requirements of what we home inspectors check. Otherwise, I think this may be a good starting off point for your checklist. You have to remember, home inspectors are not concerned with bad paint jobs, or dirty carpets. You may want to add notes about these concerns.

Here it is in pdf format:

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I had cut an old bookshelf in half to create two shelving units in two different parts of the house. One was sliding under a countertop in the kitchen; while the other was going up on a wall above my daughters bed. I had two problems which caused this set up to look a little unprofessional in appearance: the walls are not perfectly level; and the cabinet had rounded edges which highlighted the gap.

Most cabinets that are meant to be installed on a wall have a small lip which can be scribed so that the surface of the cabinet follows the wall. It is not really hard to do, but unless you have the skill to make the cut, something goes slightly wrong. In my case, I was taking a unit that was not meant to be used in the way that I was now intending. No wall is perfectly level, so butting my cabinet against the wall would not have worked. Measuring down from the ceiling at different points along the length of my shelf, I found that the ceiling drops down a quarter of an inch over a span of four and a half feet. This meant that there would be a quarter inch gap on one side that would stand out like a sore thumb. Here in this picture, you can see that the rounded edge of the cabinet frame with the uneveness of the wall makes for quite a gap.

By taking a quarter inch round molding, I can cover over that space. In this picture, I tacked the molding up to demonstrate how it will make for a better appearance.

Now, this trick of using molding to cover gaps or mistakes is a great way to make something look as though it belongs. Molding is sold in various lengths, sizes, and styles. I picked a simple quarter round, but I could have used any number of pieces to make that joint stand out. I also used this technique recently on my brothers home. His fascia board had pulled away from the soffit and rafters during the hurricane. I used lag bolts to pull the fascia in towards the rafters, but a small gap remained, so I used a small trim piece there to cover the small gap.

The one thing to plan when adding trim to these cabinets is your cuts for corners. I cut one length at a times, then I determine how to make the cut for the corner joint. I fit everything together before attaching it to the cabinet and wall. If you take your time, you can make it look quite professional. Small joint mistakes could be covered up with wood putty. You smooth it into the joint to make it look even, and then you paint.

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