Structure Talk

Dirk van Reenen, the co-founder and owner of Inspector Empire Builder (IEB) joins the show to talk about the business of home inspections. The show starts off with Dirk introducing himself and his company. He shares how they work with other companies by opening up the lanes of growth in structure and the people in the organization, which opens up the scalability, growth, profitability, and time freedom of companies. He also points out that if you want to have a great business, you have to have great people.

Dirk also discusses the size and growth of IEB, where entrepreneurship flaws happen, and etiquette for hiring competitors from competitors.

Steve Trumble, the owner of Chimney Doctors in the Twin Cities, joins the show to talk about all things related to chimneys. The show starts off with Steve introducing himself and his company. He also discusses a metal fabrication company which he owns. Then, Steve, having  a massive amount of knowledge about this topic, answers the following questions:

• How can there be such discrepancies in most chimney inspections? Is there some type of standard that just makes it black and white?
  
• What are the three most often things you see when you're looking at the chimney?
  
• What percentage of chimneys would you say are built improperly from the get-go?
  
• What are some of the most common repairs that you make on chimneys?
  
• How do you get up in chimneys and do the work with the damper in place?
  
• How much do liners and smoke chamber repairs cost?
  
• What type of license do you need to work on a chimney? Is there any special training?
  
• What are these metal caps that your company, Sota Metal Fabrication, is making? What is it going to protect?
  
• What do you think is the average cost to replace a traditional concrete form?
  

Today’s episode features George Ury, a licensed Truth in Sale of Housing evaluator and one of the finest home inspectors at Structure Tech. Today’s focus is on Minneapolis Truth-in-Housing Evaluations, and the whole new energy component that was added last year. George discusses how the new TISH evaluations are going and shares some of the inspections he has participated in. He also shares how this is related to the company’s new service, the walk-through consultations.

Reuben then shares the feedback he is getting from the Walk-through Consultations. He shares how thrilled clients are with this new service and mentions some of the questions asked.

Related topic:

https://www.structuretech.com/podcast-structure-talk/podcast-minneapolis-energy-disclosure

The show starts off with Peter Troast, the founder and CEO of Energy Circle, sharing a little bit about himself and his company. He joins the show to talk about the concept of healthy homes and indoor air quality and some of the changes that people are starting to think about in terms of their homes and the actual health of the indoor air they're breathing in on a day-to-day basis. He  then answers the following questions:

• What’s the rank order of remodeling priorities in homes?
  
• What is your definition of a High-Performance House?
  
• Why would you want an all-electric home?
  
• From a retrofit perspective, are you always doing air-to-air exchanges in these retrofitted houses that are now becoming tighter, or is there some interim or band-aid to exchanging air that you can put in these older retrofit houses?
  
• What can you say about eliminating exhaust systems in houses, getting rid of bath, kitchen, and hood fans, and switching from vented clothes dryers to the type that are condensing?
  

Kevin Wagstaff, the co-CEO of Spectora, joins the show to talk about home inspection software, the home inspection industry, and company culture. The show starts off with Kevin introducing himself and how he decided to get into the home inspection industry from a technology perspective. He  then answers the following questions:

• How much competition is there in the home inspection software field? When you're building this technology, how much did that affect the touch and the feel, and what your technology looked like once you delivered it to the home inspection industry?
• When did you have your first customer?
• How many customers do you have now?
• When you were looking at February of 2021, how many people as clients did you set a goal at?
• What's next? How much could you envision getting out of this market?
  

Reuben then brings up how intrigued he was with the tech support at Spectora. He shares how responsive, quick, motivated, and fantastic the entire team at Spectora is, and Kevin shares what has driven his company to deliver in this manner.

Today’s episode starts off by digging into the local real estate market with our guest, a Realtor® extraordinaire at RE/MAX Advantage Plus, Jim Starr. He shares what the real estate market’s like in the Twin cities in the last week of February. He shares a couple of listings they had, some overlapping showings they did, and how chaotic they were. Also, he shares an experience he had where the buyer didn’t do an inspection and ended up with some issues and concluded that having a home inspection is indeed important. He  then answers the following questions:

• Do you recommend a home inspection to potential buyers?
  
• Is there anything in the code of ethics for Realtors® to talk about home inspections? Can you recommend against them? What's the actual language when it comes to this thing?
  
• Why do you think some people are afraid to forgo inspections?
  
• Why do you think deals which are in a seller’s market still blow up? What are the steps to prevent it from happening?
  
• If somebody gets a pre-listing inspection and something turns up, say there's an issue, but we're in this crazy market, what does the seller do at that point?
  
• Should sellers disclose issues that turn up during a pre-listing inspection?
  
• If there is a material defect found with the property, should the owner of that property have to fix it?
  
• How much will it cost if the buyer will forgo or fly-buy an inspection?
  

Reuben then brings up the new service that the company is rolling out which is called a Walk-Through Consultation. He shares how the company came up with the idea, how it works, and how they are trying to open up schedules as much as possible to help people in these situations.

Joseph Whitters, a second-generation sewer guy and the owner of  Drain Busters joins the show to talk about the importance of maintaining sewer systems for homes. Sometimes, trouble with a sewer system can turn into a major problem that may show itself quickly and can be due to a damaged pipe or some other issues. Thus, it is indeed important to make sure that there are no potential issues present in the sewer system.

The show starts off with Joe introducing himself and his company. He shares that his company specializes in drain cleaning and inspection services. He also shares that they don’t just inspect, but also educate clients about their pipe, what material it is made of, what the current condition is, when and how to maintain it, and tips and tricks to get people to move forward with a reliable sewer system. He also shares how long he and his company have been working side by side with Structure Tech.

Joe then begins to share some of the crazy sewer inspections he’s had and answers the following questions:

• What percentage of drain lines out of houses in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, that you personally encountered, are in good shape?
  
• What is the estimated cost for sewer lines that need repair?
  
• What are some of the things you've found in newer homes, like less than 10 years old? What tends to go wrong?
  
• After laying the pipe in the ground on properties that have heavy soil (like the subdivisions), is there shifting and moving around, or does it tend to be pretty stable?
  
• What is a sand rock sewer system?
  
• What's your take on “flushable” wipes?
  
• Which pipes are best according to the materials they are made from?
  

Today’s episode is a very timely topic that is related to the very cold weather that we are experiencing right now. The gang will be talking about frozen faucets and some of the plumbing that runs through the exteriors of houses. The gang will also be sharing “what to do” when the water flow is shut off so that homeowners won’t end up with a problem later.

The show starts off with Reuben defining an outside faucet. He mentions several terms such as an outside hose bib, a spigot, a hose valve, and a sillcock (used in the Minnesota State Plumbing Code). He makes a point that faucet maintenance is one of the most important things to do in the fall winterization checklist. He also gives a piece of advice to home inspectors: “do not miss testing every single faucet without fail, regardless of whether it’s summer or winter.”

Bill shares how he once forgot to winterize his outside faucet. He forgot to disconnect the hose on his frost-free faucet which caused it to back up and break the pipe between the actual shut-off and the hose connection. He also shares how much it cost him to replace it, not to mention the plumber he hired since he is not a handyman sort.

Tessa relives her story; a mistake she made when she was taking out screws from a bathtub access panel to check the overflow for leaks. She shares how water started spraying out right after putting the screw back in the exact same hole through the sheetrock. She also shares the difference between having insulation at the rim joist and not.

Lastly, the gang finishes by sharing some of the home inspections from the past and answering the following questions:

• Is it allowed to run plumbing pipes in an exterior wall even if the pipe is right next to the drywall?
  
• How should the outside valve be drained?
  
• What to do in case you forget to winterize an outside faucet?
  
• What will happen if there is no insulation at the rim joist?
  

Related link: https://www.structuretech.com/blog/how-to-replace-a-shutoff-valve-the-easy-way-use-a-sharkbite

Reuben has been meaning to blog about the subject of this episode since 2014. He was finally able to create and post it when it was brought up by an internal team question.

Today, the gang will be talking about the issues of rotted rim joists, beam fill, and floor structure problems that tend to come up in old houses. The gang answers the questions “why it happens,” “when it happens,” “what are the signs that one should look for," and “ when does it need further evaluation.”

The show starts off with Reuben sharing what prompted him to write this post. He shares an inspection he participated in with Duane Erickson, now a retired home inspector, from whom he got the term “beam fill.” He also shares an inspection from the past in a house that had rotted rim  joists behind beam fill, and how much it cost to be fixed.

Then, Tessa explains how fiberglass insulation at a rim joist adds only a little bit of an R-value and how it is actually a bad thing when it comes to building science regarding heat, airflow, and moisture movement. She shares how a homeowner can still have airflow getting through the insulation when fiberglass is used at a rim joist and how it isolates it from the heat and the airflow in the basement.

Bill then asks the following questions:

• How much money does it actually save me in the long run in terms of heating cost or cooling cost to spray a rim joist?
  
• What are the risks of creating some sort of rot or mold?
  
• How often do you think this is a concern in older houses?
  
• In making some improvements to one’s house, can durability and comfort be achieved, or is it a sliding scale, where you give up one to accomplish the other?
  
• Do stucco houses have this problem more frequently than wood-sided houses?
  
• Will water vapor cause rot?
  

Related link: https://www.structuretech.com/blog/beam-fill

• What happens when there's something just off the property that is glaringly obvious? Should an inspector comment on it in terms of things that aren't actually part of this property but anybody with eyes can see? Should the inspector bring this up in conversation, either in the report or just verbally with the client?
  
• Should an inspector comment about the personal possessions or the cosmetic things in the house being inspected?
  
• Is it true that we shouldn’t say whether or not a house is family-friendly?