- Coming up on this episode of the Disaster Podcast, we talk with Jim Brownell of Clearview Inspections about the different types of inspections available, what home inspectors look for, and the advice he has for anyone that is buying or selling a home. Stay tuned! Welcome back everyone, and welcome to The Disaster Podcast, your place for learning and discussion about what you need to know about your home. I'm Matthew Lyons with Disaster Blaster, and today we have a great guest, Jim Brownell with Clearview Inspections is here to talk with us. Jim specializes in home and commercial property inspections, mold testing, and radon testing. Thanks for joining us today, Jim. - Hey guys, thanks for having me, Matt. This is awesome. - Thank you very much. I, I think it'll be a very, very, interesting discussion. I think we're gonna learn a lot today. - Absolutely. I'm excited. Thank you for having me again. This is, this is cool. - Absolutely. So we were talking a little bit before, I know that you do, so you do residential and commercial inspections. How are they different from an inspector's point of view? Are, are there different things you look for? - Absolutely. So your residential inspection, usually 99% of the time we're doing it for a prospective buyer or, or, you know, a seller. Most sellers and most buyers, they want to know the ins and outs, the nitty gritty things about their home, things about their home that maybe they didn't even know about themselves. So, residential inspections, they're much, much different than commercial inspections. Most of my clients for your residential inspections are, are present during the inspection. They want to get to know the home, like I said, in and out. They kind of want to get to know a little bit more about what they might potentially be, you know, living with, you know, in the future when, when they do move in versus your commercial inspections. Commercial inspections are very... I don't wanna consider it vague, but they're, they're much less down to the nitty gritty part of it. Most commercial buyers, you know, they're buying a gas station. They're buying an office building, they're buying a doctor's office. I've had several doctors and, you know, people in the medical profession get a home, well, not a home inspection, but a commercial inspection... from me. And they're more concerned about a couple big items. And those items are the foundation, the roof, HVAC, and electrical. And honestly, they're not really concerned, it doesn't seem, like a homeowner would be concerned about, say, a cracked window or a broken doorknob or loose hinges or, you know, kitchen cabinets that might be a little askew or not working properly. So there's a big, the commercial inspections, again, are the big items, you know, and because most of the buyers of those properties, they're going to change most of the innards of the house or, of the building anyway. So when they change that stuff, most of the small stuff that we would normally call out when in a regular typical home inspection, they're gonna be changing anyway. So there's a big difference. There's a big difference. - Okay. So for a commercial inspection, they're looking more at if the property has good bones, let's say? - Absolutely. Absolutely. - Okay. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. I always stress to people that being in this industry as I am, that property inspections, especially home inspections are extremely, extremely, important because you kind of get rose colored glasses a little bit, you know, you see a house that you love and you start missing the things, and you need that third party like you to come in and point out, okay, you know, this is going on and that's going on, and they go into the purchase. I mean, it doesn't mean not to buy the property. Most cases, things that might come up in a home inspection are easily rectified. They're informed, right? - Sure, sure. And, and that's our goal. You know, when we go into a home inspection, surprises are a good thing usually, right? But not when you're buying a house. When you move into a house, you know, a week or two or a month or two, or, you know, even beyond that, I don't want my clients, I don't want them going in and finding something that I didn't find that they should have known about. So that's kind of why I take a little bit more time, you know, with each client and going through the home piece by piece, if you will. I mean, I know I wouldn't want to move into a house and, you know, have a home inspection done. You're paying, you know, your average home inspection is anywhere between $500 and $600-ish, you know, now, depending on what you get, but I don't... I wouldn't want to spend that as a home buyer and then come to find out I move in a week later, I find out that there's foundation crack that should be repaired, or the roof needs to be replaced. What's the point then, you know, you really need to find these things. And that's kind of what we strive to do. I know it kind of sounds cliche, but I do every inspection as if, you know, I was buying the home or my family was buying the home. because I don't want surprises, you know, to be quite honest with you. - Yeah, I completely understand that. When I was purchasing my house, the things that come up that you don't realize is always surprising. So... - Absolutely. Absolutely. For sure. And everybody has their horror stories. You know, I hear them all the time. Clients who didn't buy, or they, they bought a home, but they didn't get a home inspection before buying it, or they had a home inspection and it wasn't what they thought it was going to be. And for some reason they, you know, they, they want a thorough home inspection now. But the only bad thing about that is, you know, after you move in, after you sign those papers, you walk away, you have the keys, it's too late. I mean, it's not too late to discover the issues, you're gonna find out either way, but it's too late for any remediation or negotiations that ship has sailed. - Yeah. Yeah. 100% 100%. And when are home inspections normally performed? Do sellers do them before listing the property as like a pre-listing inspection? Or are buyers generally having the inspection done as part of the purchase process? What do you see, or, what trends do you see with that as well? Sure, - Sure. So most of my inspections, I would say probably 60 to 80%, not a huge majority, but a majority of the home inspections are buyers. My clients will, you know, enter into a sales agreement, they'll be under contract, they either have 10, 15, or sometimes they'll get an extension for those inspection periods. But they'll call me, they'll call me usually within a day or two of being under contract. The earlier the better, because sometimes if they wait, you know, a week or so, it's beyond that, timeline for their inspections. But what they do is they'll call me, I'll come in, we'll go through the house. I have a process that we do. I start on the roof, on the outside, do the exterior, and once we go into the house, we always go up to the attic first if we can, if there's a hatch or access. And then we start on the second floor, first floor, and finally finish in the basement. But we go through, we check everything out for them, you know, all the nitty gritties of the home, if you will. I try to find out, and I always tell my clients too, you know, you're gonna have stuff that you might have noticed during the walkthrough. Walkthroughs are generally not a rush process, but they're, they might be there 10, 15 or 20 minutes or so. It's not a, it's not really a walkthrough to look for issues. And like you said earlier, they see the, you know, the diamond coated glass and it's just a beautiful home. But when we come through, we're pointing out issues that, and I don't wanna say I'm the bearer of bad news, but I am kind of that that's my job. I want to point out these issues to these buyers, you know, that they might not know about or didn't notice during the walkthrough. So, you know, once they call us, we get in, usually about three to five business days, we're booked out and we try to get in, we do same day reports. The radon monitoring, which we'll talk about later, I'm sure, is a two day process. But yeah, once we get in there, we do our inspection. Our reports are same day most of the time, unless it's, you know, later in the day, a bigger home or commercial inspections. They're not the same day, usually within 24 hours though. - Okay. Okay. And, what are your thoughts on the pre-listing inspections? When we spoke with Kathy Casarin with Berkshire Hathaway previously, she was talking a lot about the, I guess it, it's kind of a trend towards pre-listing inspections with sellers and it kind of streamlines the process and kind of makes things go a little bit smoother through the negotiations and everything. Are you seeing that too, or are you seeing that sellers are doing that more often, or? - Sure, sure. And I forgot to mention that, but yeah, the pre-listing inspections are becoming more of a pattern around here I think. Nationally, it's been a thing for a little while, but I think nationally and locally, it's becoming even more popular now. I do have some buyers that will... they're thinking about putting their home on the market, or they have a potential buyer, you know, through talks or family or friends that might be in the line waiting for that home. But they want to get an inspection to see, you know, what can be fixed or what might I have to fix as the seller, you know, in order to sell it. There's a lot of people who will, you know, go kind of blindly into a sale. And then, you know, once a home inspector comes in for the buyer, then they run into surprises. They might realize that jeepers is my roof I thought was okay, but now it's, you know, it's, 35 years old and it's on, it's on its last wing, you know? So a pre-listing inspection is a great way to go as far as what, what I do in my process, it's the same exact thing. The only difference is it's just the report is for the seller of the home. And then they could take that report and do what they want, you know, in terms of saying, Hey, I, I might want to replace these steps. Or, you know, if we have a potential FHA or VA buyer, which by the way, they're big into safety items. So, you know, if I have a potential FHA or VA buyer, I might want to consider putting handrails up and GFCI's and stuff like that and fix little things that they're gonna ultimately be required to do anyway. You know, but the earlier, I guess they can do it, the better, less holdups in the closing process and everybody seems to be happier that way, you know. There's less surprises New homeowners can move into their home you know, maybe a week or two quicker. And the sellers can be off to wherever they're planning to go a week or two quicker. So pre-listing inspections are a great way, and I think they're up and coming. In this area they weren't too popular for a while, but now I, there's a lot, there's a lot of people calling and saying, Hey, my house is under, you know, contract even, you know, that late, my house is under contract to buyers, you know, we're thinking about doing home inspection, but I want to do one instead. Just so that they, you know, you know, don't run into surprises or even, even just for liability purposes, you know, so home seller will sometimes want to take a little piece of mind in what they're leaving to somebody. So that's, that's what they do. - Okay. Yeah, because, it's a perception thing, right? Like, so when a... and I don't think sellers think about that a lot... but from my perspective, and I'm sure you'll probably agree, anything that the seller can fix before the buyer sees it improves the perception of the property. The more issues that the buyer sees or that, you know, are found during the buyer's home inspection, let's say, the more critical they'll be of all of the other things. - Absolutely. 100% 100%. - Okay. Yeah. I very much think that the pre-listing inspections are a really, really, good move for the industry and for, for home sales, just because it makes things so much easier. - Absolutely. I was recently in a different part of the country. I was down south just last week actually, and I saw there was a ton of listings, homes for sale, you know, at the houses, you know, in these beautiful neighborhoods and stuff, relatively newer homes. But a lot of the, the for sale signs out front in the yard advertises, you know, pre-inspected and would have a QR code, you could actually log in and that home inspection report is available to any potential buyers, which is really cool. Wow. In a way that might actually be a really good thing, because, you know, buyers might want to look at that before putting in an offer or making an offer in terms of dollar amount, you know, so they might see, hey, you know, the roof needs replacement in 10 years or five years, maybe we don't wanna offer that price. Maybe we want to come in a little bit lower. And really that cuts through a lot of the tape through the selling process, in my opinion, brcause now you don't have this going back and forth. It's just, everybody knows what they're getting, you know, and that's, that's a good thing. Transparency is great when it comes to home selling and buying - That, that is really, really, neat. I hadn't heard of that, but I could see how that would be a huge benefit to a home sale, because any buyer would be able to look through everything and know that, you know, what issues have already been addressed or, or what might... that's really, really great. I hope to see that up in our area more. - I do too. It would be really cool. It would be a different approach for up here. Because again, even now, it's not that popular, but I think it's becoming more popular, so it'd be really cool to see that. - Yeah, absolutely. So how long does a home inspection normally take? Are there a lot of variables or, I guess what can people kind of expect there? - Absolutely. So your typical home inspection, 2,500 square feet or under, or right around that mark, you're looking at between two and three hours on site. You know, by the time we go through everything, you know, when we get in the basement, we're spending probably, 40% of our time in the basement during those two to three hours. There's a lot of stuff in the basement to cover. Yeah, Two or three hours. There's a lot of variables. If you're getting a water test, you know, if you're getting a septic inspection that takes about an hour. As well as square footage, you know, recently I did a huge house down in Lackawaxen, which is about an hour south of here in northeast pa, and I was there for about five hours. There was a lot of stuff to go through. It was a huge house, huge cathedral ceilings. Not a lot of issues, but just the time that it takes to cover that, you know, warrants that time. So there's a lot of variables to go into it. And we kind of budget that. So, you know, when somebody books online or somebody, you know, books through the telephone or email, our number one question is, what services do you need? And how big is the home? Because it's really gonna determine how long we're gonna have to, you know, budget to be there and go through the place. Because just because a place is bigger and more things to do, we don't, we're not gonna rush it. We're gonna do the same, we're gonna go the same speed, whether the house is, you know, 1500 square feet or 8,500 square feet, we're doing the same thing at the same pace. So that's why we have to budget our time wisely. But generally about two to three hours is your average. - Okay. And what variables would they be looking at? There's optional additional inspections, right? So what do those entail or what options are there that would be available as add-ons? - Sure, sure. So what we do with our standard residential home inspections, we do our structural, that's everything in the house, from the foundation to the basement, everything in between, your termite, which is your WDO inspection, and then your radon. The radon takes a few minutes to set. That doesn't take up a whole lot of time. But when people want to add services, we do a lot of septic inspections. We're actually one of the few home inspectors locally that do what's called a PSMA Septic Inspection. That stands for Pennsylvania Septic Management Association. And it's a little bit more detailed of a septic inspection than some will do. Water tests generally don't take too, too long. We run a water for about 10 minutes and take a sample. But if a home has outbuildings or there's a barn on site, or there's a huge garage... I recently went to a house... and it's always best to be upfront when booking, because honestly, it's, it's a surprise to me. And then it's kind of a disappointment to some, when some people say, Hey, I have a a home that needs inspection. It's 2,500 square feet, I need structural, radon, and termite. And then you get there and they tell you that, well, we have a, a four car garage, it has lifts, and you know, it's own utilities, its own heat... Okay, we can do it. But now that screws everything up because now, you know, they're surprised that it's gonna be another fee and stuff like that. So yeah, it really depends on, you know, the amount of stuff that needs to be inspected and what we need to do. So septic inspection is the number one time taker upper, if you will, because it does take a little bit, it could add up to an hour to your inspection. In addition, though, we do mold testing. If we see some mold in a home or we suspect mold in a home, we're going to recommend the client have mold air testing done. I mean, that process usually takes about 45 minutes or so. We could do that on site the same day. But yeah, things change. You know, we might budget three hours for a home inspection and that might take four and a half, five hours and depending on what unfolds during the inspection. But we're, we're ready for it, you know, it is what it is. We kind of adjust that and, and make our day work either way. So - You hit on something that we haven't talked about before on the podcast, but the septic issues can be extremely costly if there's a problem with a septic system. And I mean, from my experience, a lot of home buyers don't seem to get septic inspections. Is that something that you're, you're kind of recommending more in those sorts of situations where there would be a septic on site? - Yep, yep. Anytime... We ask a series of questions when somebody books with us, the first question is, well, one of the first questions is, what kind of utilities are on site? Do we have a well, do you want your water tested? Does it have a septic? Do you want your septic inspected? I would say 90% of my homes, my clients with the septic system, will get it inspected because septics can be very expensive, you know, to replace a traditional drain field. And there's, there's a few, without going too much in detail, there's too main septic systems we find around here. You have your traditional drain field and you have your conventional sand mound. Sand mounds are very pricey. I mean, to get a sand mound replaced... It's all engineered, it's all built up, it's all manmade. And there's a lot of components to that system. You're looking at, easy, you know, $15,000 to $20,000 to get a sand mound replaced if that were failing. So, you know, for a measly $300 or $400, you're gonna potentially save yourself some, some major headaches down the road with the septic system. But yeah, I'd say most of my clients get a septic inspection when they have a septic system present. What I do find out though, through my talking with them and stuff, is most of my clients that have a septic inspection or, or getting a house with a septic system, they've never had one before. So they don't know the ins and outs. They just think, well, you know, our, our stuff goes out to drain. We don't have to ever think about it again. Well, that's the worst thing you want to do because your septic system is your own private sewage disposal system and you're responsible for that upkeep and maintenance and, and everything like that, so they, they can be pricey. I always recommend that they have a septic inspection done. Some people won't. And that's, you know, that's obviously their decision, but they can be pricey. I always caution people, they can be pricey if something is wrong. And the thing with that is, if you're moving into a house, you're gonna find out about a septic problem pretty quickly, depending on how many people are living in the home, you know, might be a day or two before something starts going wrong, backing up, or you have a smell in your yard. But yeah, septics are one of those things I always recommend. That's, in my own opinion, it's probably more important than the roof. - Okay. Yeah. because it's definitely... some of these, these issues can be very, very expensive to rectify. So to invest in a home inspection and protect yourself from that surprise. Right. Is really a huge value that you're providing. - Absolutely. Absolutely. And we educate our clients too, about their systems. You know, what to do, what not to do, what to flush down the toilet, what not to flush down the toilet. I had a client recently was, I would say Ill-informed that it was best once a month to dump down some hot grease down their drains to clear out everything. And that's probably the worst thing you could do. Don't do that. No bueno. Very, very bad. - Oh my gosh. - So we try to, we try to take the education approach too. You know, in a way, I consider myself almost like a teacher when it comes to trying to show my clients, well, not just the septics, but they're homes too. - That's really great. Because a lot of times they're first time home buyers, you know, they don't know what's involved in maintaining a property or you know, what they might look for with different issues. So I love that education approach. That's really, really helpful. - Sure. Absolutely. - So a along those lines, what are some of the most common issues that you see with properties when you're doing home inspections? - Honestly, recently it's been water in the basements. Water in the basements is one of those things I find in, just a rough, crazy guess, probably half the amount of the inspections I do. And, a lot of those basements are finished basements. So I always tell people, you know, water in basements is a relatively common thing depending on the type of foundation. But where you run into a problem is when you have a finished basement or you are planning to finish that basement. Because what happens then is you take that water or moisture, you know, however much or little it may be that was coming through those walls, whether it be a stone foundation or a cinder, an old cinder or a concrete or a block. You know, that water now, used to have a place to go. You know, running dehumidifiers in basements is almost on par with every home inspection. That's my recommendation. Run dehumidifiers manage that moisture. But the problem is, again, like I said, is when you finish that basement and you put up walls, you put up these permanent rooms and stuff, now you're taking that moisture that would normally be managed by evaporation. And, you know, running through the dehumidifier and stuff like that. Now you're taking it, you're trapping it, you're trapping it behind your wooden wall structure, your drywall wall structure. That's when you run into issues, I'm sure you've seen too, where now you know, these people finished your basement, you know, 10 years ago. It's beautiful. But you go down into the basement and it stinks. It stinks like mold, musty, it stinks like an old cave. And almost immediately, without even, you know, going down there and actually looking around, you know, there's mold, you know, there's mold behind the walls because year after year after year, all that water or moisture was coming in is now trapped. It's trapped behind those walls. And so there's a constant food source for growth. But yeah, I would say water in basements is the, is the most common thing we find that people are very surprised about sometimes, unfortunately, you know, but the thing is, it's, it's definitely fixable. It would be much more easily fixed if it wasn't finished. But even finished basements are fixable. It takes a lot of work, a lot tearing out, but it can be fixed. It's not the end of the world. It's not, you know, the worst thing that can happen. But it can cause problems if you have a finished basement and you know, you're not expecting that water to be behind your walls, you know? - Absolutely. And I mean, we do basement waterproofing systems ourselves. So, I mean, we're very familiar with those sorts of issues. It's definitely something where, you know, wet basements are more common than, than a lot of people do realize that that's absolutely true. - 100%, 100%. - We'll be back after a short break. But while you're here, don't forget to like, and subscribe. And you also mentioned the mold issues. So I guess you do mold testing as well. How do you, how do you structure that? At, at what point do you recommend mold testing? Is it when you see something? Is it when you smell something? How do you make that decision? - So, as a home inspector doing a home inspection, most of the time I go into a home and I smell it, whether it's in the basement or in the living area. Obviously if we see it, we're gonna recommend testing too. But smelling is your number one, at least during a home inspection, my number one indicator or red flag of a potential mold issue in a home. That being said, you know, some homes, especially around here, you know, they sit vacant for a while. They're seasonal homes, and it may be just that the windows weren't open, you know, for a year or nobody was in the house for a year. Well, most of the time those houses are gonna have a smell too. But it might be just an accumulation of that in the air and not so much more indicative of a bigger mold problem. But maybe, maybe there's a small amount of mold, but not a huge problem. But my big red flag is when I go into a home that's either occupied or only has been vacant for a little while, and you just smell it, those kind of homes, I always recommend a mold inspection be done. But most of my mold testing is a result of somebody who's not selling a home or buying a home, but somebody who's been in a home for a while and their chief complaint is, Hey, I, you know, I was down in the laundry room the other day, or I was down in the basement or had guests over and they smelled something, you know, and I say, you know, can you describe the smell? And most of the time it's a musty smell. It smells like a wet t-shirt that might've been sitting down in the laundry, room floor in the shower or something that, you know, it just, just stinks. It smells musty. So that's kind of what I would want to recommend to them is to have mold testing done. Now, mold testing is a multifaceted approach, if you will, because the, the most common test we do is what's called an air sampling. So air sampling consists of us pulling air via an air pump into what's called a cassette. And those mold spores, if there are any, they would stick to this medium that's inside this cassette. And that's analyzed inside of a lab, a third party lab, and then we can find out what type of mold, how many spores per meter cubed of air. That's all spore counts are measured. But yeah, that's by far our most common type of testing is air sampling. That's a very good test to have to either rule out or confirm the presence of mold, because when you have mold, most of the time you're gonna have spores in the air. That's how mold reproduces and spreads. And I call it happy mold. But we can also do swab testing. If we see an active of mold growth or suspected mold growth, we could swab that with a swab that gets analyzed the same way at the lab. It gets taken apart and analyzed for mold spores as well as what type of mold. We can also do tape sampling. Tape sampling is very similar to swabs, but literally you're just taking a tape, it looks like a microscope slide, and we're sticking that, there's an adhesive on there, we're sticking that to that surface and putting a cover over that and that gets shipped to the lab. Same thing, they analyze that for species and how much, so there's a multifaceted approach to that. We could, you know, we could actually do air samples behind the walls. We have tools and gadgets that allow us to take, you know, mold samples between your space in your wall, your hollow wall space, or ceiling or floors. So sometimes I just use air sampling depending on the situation. Sometimes it's just air sampling, sometimes it's a combination of both. Because what we try to do is try to confirm, in more than one way, we have mold present. You know, we could show them, Hey, look at the, the swab sample, that's coming up, you know, very high in mold or, you know, look at the air samples. That's an abnormal spore count. So we try to tie in the loose ends, if you will, when we try to confirm that, because mold can be funny. You know, you might have an active mold growth and it may not show up in your air samples for one reason or another. It may be a happy colon may completely, you know, done spreading, or at the current moment it could be temperature, you know, seasonally you're gonna get more mold spores generally, you know, in the summertime when it's hot and humid, especially in the attics. Attics are very... you might have an active air mold problem in your attic that may not show up in an air sample in the wintertime. It's just, it's just not gonna happen because it's, it's too, you know, not much air movement or, you know, the spores and the colonies are actually dormant. We try to cut through those variables and try to get somebody a clear picture of what's going on. - Okay. And so, since mold growth can occur inside wall cavities or above ceilings or under floors a lot of time, so the big difference would be with the swab or tape strip samples, you're basically collecting from that surface that you're swabbing or you're doing the tape lift from Yep. And an air sample test, you're, you're going to get a result based on what might be inside walls or above ceilings or under floors that might be going on - Or in the living area, Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. - From your experience as a home inspector, what are the most common areas that you, you see mold issues in homes? - It's a toss up between the attic sheathing and basements. Basements, as we mentioned earlier, are very humid and naturally moist, if you will. There's a number of problems that can contribute to mold in the attic. On the attic sheathing, we see it a lot because of condensation that happens. I'll give you a quick example. So it's January, you know, it's cold around here. Most attics, if they're properly built and insulated, your attic ceiling structure, so those, those rafters, that sheathing, that's all gonna be relatively the same temperature as the outside temperature - it should be. Now, when you have an indoor, you know, area, it's, it's heated, it's climate controlled. You have warm, moist air generally in your house in wintertime. So if you have, say, a bathroom vent fan or you have an attic hatch that's not insulated, and you're getting some seepage of that warm, moist air into that cold attic, what happens if that moisture hits your attic ceiling structure and it actually will condensate, it'll be wet. I've been into attics in the wintertime where they're dripping the attics are, the ceilings are dripping. The issue with that is, when that happens year after year, day after day, you're gonna end up with a mold issue. It's, it's almost a guarantee because you have that food source for that mold, and it has the surface to grow on. It's an organic surface wood. So you have like the perfect recipe, if you will, for mold growth. And that's, some people are very surprised to find mold in the attic. And, and I see it, or at least a little bit of it on most of my inspections, believe it or not, new old, it doesn't really matter. I've seen new homes with terrible mold problems in the attic. I've seen old homes with no mold growth in the attic. So it can go either way really. But that's again, back to our opening conversations, really. That's why it's really important to have a home inspection, because I don't know anybody who's really gone through or attic while looking at the house. You know, maybe they peeked their head up, but I crawl all over the place. I'm up there like a little robot, you know, just crawling in these little crevices. Sometimes I get lost, but you know what, I wanna find that problem if there is one. So attics and basements are a toss up. - Yeah. And it, it's unfortunate because they're the two areas of the home that property owners go into the least, you know? People go into their, you know... I saw a statistic the other day that most people only go into their attics once a year. You know, if, if that, and it's because, you know... okay, I'm gonna get down my Christmas decorations or I'm gonna get down, you know, and you're, you're not really looking around or paying attention when you're up there. So these issues can kind of go on for, for an extended period of time. So most cases with an attic, you generally, you see that it is a ventilation issue, probably that led to the mold problem - Ventilation or like an interior source of moisture that's getting up into that attic ventilation is, is becoming less of an issue, I think.... Well, most of these newer homes now, they're all required to have, you know, quite a bit of ventilation, and most of them do, but some of the older homes, yeah, some of the older homes are, their attics are just, they're, they're closed up. And that's when you're trapping that moisture in that attic, and the same thing goes for basements, you know, you're trapping that moisture. When you trap the moisture and it has nowhere to go to, that's when you're, you know, you're looking for trouble, you know. So yeah, attics, if they have adequate ventilation, they don't have a major source of moisture escape from the living area, if you will. Most of them are okay, you know, but, but when you have either one or two of those go on, or both, you know, lack of ventilation or, or a source of moisture getting up in there, that's when it could lead to some issues. - The one that always amazes me is how common it is to find bathroom exhausts that are vented into attic spaces. - Yep. - That's still something that we see weekly. - Absolutely. 100% Or they had it originally venting to the outside, and then that vent has been somehow disconnected or broken. So now you have all this steam and hot air and moist air from your shower going right up, you know, into the attic. And that's, that's obviously no good. - Absolutely, absolutely. And I agree with you. Basements and attics are the most common that we see too. It's just, you know, it's unfortunate, but, you know, those sorts of things do need to be addressed. Sure. You know? Sure. So, and, and I know you also do, just to change gears a little bit from mold, I know you also do radon testing, so if you can kind of, you know, explain to everybody, you know, what radon is and why it's so important to have it tested, you know, that would be, that would be great. And maybe briefly what's involved in actually testing for radon? - Yep, yep. So first off, radon is a misunderstood service that we offer. A lot of home buyers or even home sellers. They're kind of skeptical, you know, about radon, what it, what it is. But cut to the point, radon is decaying uranium, and it is a... it's not a stable element. So what happens when you breathe that radon in, or that decaying uranium, that releases what's called alpha particles, when it further breaks down in your lungs, those alpha particles, they, they lodge themselves into your little, you know, lung, lung tissue and stuff. And that's what they say causes lung cancer over time. So radon is... it's an invisible gas. You can't smell it. You can't see it, you can't taste it, but it's there. You know, before I started doing home inspections and learning more about radon, I was a little bit skeptical of it too as to, you know, is it a big issue? Is it really there? Is it really something? But absolutely it is. What we do is for radon testing, and I would say 95% of my home inspections will get radon tests. And what that consists of is you're placing a, what's, well... there's a number of monitors or, or test methods, but the particular one we use is called a continuous radon monitor. It's a little box, it's no bigger than a small fishing tackle box. It plugs in, it gets reset on that day of the inspection. And we get a 48 hour average of those radon levels. And I've actually proved to myself that radon is there, and it's actually measuring something. I've done two side... a few side-by-side tests. We have to do them anyway, but I've done it just for my own knowledge and outta curiosity. They're almost exact in what they measure. And I could sit there after I plugged that device in, and on these particular monitors, there's a little yellow light that will blink every time a radon decay product is registered in the machine. And those are floating through the air, by the way. So as they go through the machine, we get a 48 hour average, and we get an average every hour. And then those are all average up to 48 hours. But yeah, I've seen it, I've seen them work and I've seen, I've tried proving it wrong, but it's, it's not possible. Radon is real and is a problem. It's the second leading cause of lung cancer besides smoking. But anyway, we place our monitor for two days, 48 hours. We bring that monitor back, we place that on a machine, we print out that report, it'll have a graph of your radon levels. It's a pretty cool way to test. It's probably one of the more economically feasible tests that we can do. The monitors themselves are expensive, but, you know, we're not using some third party lab or anything like that. All that stuff is done on site, through the computer and through their software. So radon is real, and we do our testing for it. I do have some requests to do like long-term monitoring. Sometimes that's something we don't do. We do your standard 48 hour test, and that's usually sufficient. - Okay. Okay. And I just want to throw out there, because I think it's important to mention... The continuous monitor tests should be done by a professional, right? Because I see people buying off of, you know, an online website, a continuous monitor, and those often aren't calibrated, you know, often enough, and they tend to be inaccurate. So if you're goning to do a continuous monitor test, you definitely want to have a professional like you do that. - Correct. Continuous radon of monitors... the ones we have, they have to be calibrated every single year. We have to do side-by-side tests, comparison tests. They have to be entered into a spike chamber. There's different things that are required of those machines, of and of me who is certified through the DEP. Those have to be, you know, done almost meticulously and maintained almost meticulously. If you bump your machine or you drop it, you have to send it in for recalibration. So there's, there's a number of controls that has to, you know, have to be followed by me and a number of quality control things that have to be done by that actual monitor as well, or by me, but through that monitor. So to get a true test, a truly calibrated, accurate, radon test, it's best to call a professional and have them, have them do it. Leave it to the professionals, you know, as they say. - So speaking of radon, is it a common issue? I know people, you know, are kind of starting to hear about it, maybe, or they're not really sure if it's something that is likely to be at their property and I'm sure that changes state by state across the country too. - Yeah, no, absolutely. Radon is pretty common around here. Pennsylvania is actually third in the nation with high radon levels. I think our average is 8.6 pCi/L, which stands for picocuries per liter. So Pennsylvania's third, out of all the states, Pennsylvania is, is up there, the top three. So radon testing is almost always recommended... I mean, it is always recommended. There's really no reason why you shouldn't do a radon test. You know, for the small feed it adds onto the inspection, it's well worth it. If you're gonna be having children in the home or even, you know, just, just adults, you know, know what you're gonna be breathing, you know. So 40% of PA homes have radon levels higher than what we call the action limit. The action limit, which is that limit... that level that is established by the state and nationally as well is 4.0 pCi/L. So anything 4.0 picocuries per liter, radon mitigation is required for real estate transactions, and recommended, obviously, if you're just doing a radon test, obviously you want to get that tested if you can. And, you know, living in a home for a while... But 4.0 is that action limit. And again, 40% of homes in Pennsylvania have that or higher. So it's definitely common, more common than I thought. - Yeah, I'm in the same boat. When we started performing radon mitigation services and became licensed with the state to do so, I was very surprised at just how common that issue actually is in the state of Pennsylvania. I know the 40% works out to be one in every 2 1/2 homes that would have a radon issue. So if you look down your street, you know... how many houses are on your street? Could you be one of those that has a radon issue? And then nationally it's one in every 15 homes. So that kind of shows you the difference between Pennsylvania as number three and, and some of the other states. But even that, you know, when you're looking at one in every 15 homes, that shows that, you know, wherever you are in the country, you could potentially have an issue that you may want to at, least know, whether or not there's a radon problem. - Absolutely. 100% The problem is, you know, not for people who are going in and out of the house quickly, but somebody who's living there. You know, somebody who's living there, who's breathing this day in and day out, especially in the winter around here, you know, most people I know myself, we don't open the windows and doors in the wintertime besides going in and out quick and we're really quick to shut them. So when you have those closed house conditions, your radar levels are gonna spike and they're gonna be higher during the winter in your basement where a lot of people like to winter it out, if you will. If you have a high radon, you're breathing that. You're breathing it all winter long. And that long term exposure is what gets you, what caused that lung cancer, not so much the short term exposure. - Okay. That really great to know. Absolutely. Yep. So you would recommend testing in the winter months then, or - I mean, if you want to get a higher radon reading, you know, if you're living in a home and you want to get the higher reading, testing in the winter is almost always gonna cause higher levels to show up in your test. But I mean, obviously, you know, somebody buying a home is not going to wait until the winter to do a test. They wanna do it prior to moving in. So, testing any time of year is definitely recommended. Better than no testing. - Okay, perfect. So a winter test would kind of be like a worst case scenario then for your level - Yep. - Okay. - A lot of times what you have too is when you have snow cover in these, you know, these cold northern states that snow cover will actually cause that radon to be elevated in your basement versus the summertime. Because radon does emanate from the ground, it does come up, but when you have more pressure around your house, snow, like dense snow cover, it's been shown to increase your radon levels through your basement. Because what happens is you have your, your snow covered surrounding your house and radon that may have been kind of seeping out alongside your home is now kind of taking a path of least resistance and going up through the basement floor, hence your, your higher radon levels. So it's been shown to increase during winter months, especially with snow cover. - Okay. Okay. But test anytime of the year to find out what kind of a radon issue you might have so you can address it. - Yeah. Testing, whether it's summer, spring, winter, or fall, it's better than no testing. - Okay. Definitely, definitely. Something to keep in mind. One of the questions I did definitely want to ask you, because, you know, as a home inspector you walk in and out of houses all the time, and you've seen all sorts of things. What would be the biggest disaster, you know, that you've ever actually seen on a home inspection? - Oh God. We run into some, some, some real doozies. The worst one I've seen was probably a home, it was a beautiful home that they had built, maybe about 15 years ago. It sat empty before somebody moving in. Somebody lived there, briefly moved out and it sat vacant for years. And what happened was they had a major water leak. I believe, if I remember correctly, it was due to pipes breaking in the wintertime. It wasn't properly winterized. And the particular pipes that had broken were on the second floor. But, come to find out the home had sat with all this water damage unnoticed, unmitigated, for years. And how I ended up in the place was I had a client who was looking to purchase the property at a very low price. They wanted me to come in just to give a rough idea of what the bones of the house looked like. It was... I can tell you it was a disaster. There was major structural damage due to the water, A lot of rot, a lot of mold. The foundation had actually started to become compromised in an area because the water was just sitting there and sitting there and sitting. It had nowhere to go. When I got there, it was in a dryer, part of the summer and the basement, still had about two feet of water in it. And it just... it was a, it was a complete disaster. It really was. It was the worst I've ever seen. It was sad. I don't know the story behind the house and why it sat and what happened, but I mean, the buyers, the potential buyers, they didn't, I mean, they didn't buy it obviously, but it was bad. water damage, mold, all over the place. - Now was that, was that something that could have been rectified or was it... I know sometimes you see some properties that have been sitting, especially when they've been sitting for a long period of - Time. Yeah, I don't know, Matt, this, this one here was, was bad. I mean, I'm sure with a whole ton of money, some of the stuff might've been salvageable, but I'm talking, you know, ceiling joists, floor joists, significant rot and compromising of the structure. It was bad. I'm sure maybe some of it might have been saveable, but the majority of that home probably had to come down, believe it or not. Believe it or not, it was sad. And it was like you said, it wasn't any older than 20 years old. It just had a really bad life, I guess, you know? - Yeah. It's unfortunate when you have a property that has sat for a length of time like that. - Yeah. - It's... A property that sits, I always say, you know, like, people recognize, I think that letting a car sit is bad. Right. You know, like, you let a car sit and nothing good's going to happen to that car, but people don't really think about it from the same perspective with houses, you know. But if you let that house sit, even if you do winterize it, and it, it's sitting through all of the, the cold and the warm and the hot, you know, all, all the different seasons, it does take a toll on the property. - 100% That's why like, you know, a lot of times around here, we have a lot of vacation homes, you know, and that's one thing I always recommend to people if they're buying it, they don't plan on being here for a while or an extended period of time. You know, have it winterized, have it properly watched and looked upon because you know, you're gonna end up with issues down the road if you don't, a home, a home needs to be, you know, as I like to call it TLC, it needs to have tender loving care. And if you don't, you know, if you don't maintain the small things, it become big things. And if you're not in a home for a while, you're, you're just asking for issues. You know, even if it is winterized, homes aren't meant to be unconditioned, you know, they're meant to be climate controlled, air conditioned, cooled, you know, heated in the, in the, in the winter times. And if you don't, you know, you could get some weird issues going on. - Absolutely. I agree with you 100%. I mean, we see the same things and homes are meant to be lived in. So, you know, when you have a situation where someone's not going to be there, it's really a good idea to at the very least, be checking on them so you can catch any sort of issues as quickly as possible. - Yep. A hundred percent. - So wrapping up here, because we're getting to the end of the podcast. I definitely, I very much appreciate all of your time with this. If you were to give a home buyer one tip with regards to a home inspection or, you know, what to select or what's necessary or how things are structured, you know, what would that one tip be? - The single, the most important thing I think is somebody who might be on fence of getting one or not - get a home inspection, you know, get a professional home inspection. Most of the time my clients will get their money back in negotiations that they paid for the home inspection. It's a small fee in the bigger picture of things. But get a home inspection. Surprises, like we said earlier, are no good when it comes to home inspections or homes. Moving into a home. You don't want a surprise, you know, get a home inspection and spend that $400 to $600 fee and, and get one done. - I agree 100%. I'm always telling people, you know, make sure you get a home inspection. As a home buyer, most times home buyers feel that they're critical and that they can recognize these issues, but that's just not accurate for most home buyers. - You're right. - It's much better to have that skilled third party that's able to go in there and identify problems that they will have no way of knowing actually exist. - You're right. And I always say, you know, Bob, the handyman is not the home inspector. You know, your uncle who builds porches on the weekends is not a home inspector. You know, a home inspector has a general knowledge of all the homes components, not just one or two. You know, so we recognize problems in the home, not just on the deck or in the electrical panel. Get a home inspection. It's probably the single most important step, in my opinion, of buying a home. - And so let's say they're looking for a home inspector, you know, obviously if they're in Northeastern pa, they should call you. Yeah, call me. That's it. That's all you gotta do. But you know, if they're not in the area and they're kind of listening to the podcast here and, you know, what kind of suggestion or recommendation would you have for them on how to select the right home inspector for them? - So you wanna look at their credentials. You know, look at, are they ASHI or InterNACHI certified? They should be one or the other. They should be insured. They should have experience, you know, call a couple different home inspectors. Ask them what their experience is. How long have they been doing it? We've been inspecting homes since 2018. Experience. Experiences, what matters. Call around, look at Google reviews, go on Google, look at the reviews, see what their, their clients have to say about them. Every single one of my Google reviews, we have quite a few five star reviews. Every single one of those, I can back up and give somebody a number to call to verify that you can call every single one of my clients and ask them. Google reviews are a great thing. Web presence is a great thing. Podcasting. And ask them too, you know. Do you recommend that I go to the home inspection? Absolutely. If you are not invited to the home inspection or, or welcome to be there, that's kind of a red flag. I invite everybody to come, you know, it's a learning experience. We're gonna learn a lot in two to three hours. But yeah, reviews ask around, ask what kind of experience they have. Do they belong to InterNACHI or, or ASHI? One of the sad things I've seen is, is a whole lot of inspectors, like, not just in this area, but nationally, ever since Covid happened, they're just like, they pop up and their a home inspector all of a sudden and then, you know, and then they, I don't know, sometimes they, they peter out. You have to do it the right way. You have to go through and educate yourself if you're gonna go ahead and, and jump to the field because it's, it's not an easy job. And there's a lot to know, there's a lot to explain. There's ways to, ways to explain it. But yeah, Google reviews are a great thing. Client testimonials, website presence, all that stuff. - One of the things that I see a lot is a home inspector that, you know, does the inspection, but he doesn't do radon testing or he does mold testing, but only swab or strip. He doesn't do air testing. What are, what's your perspective on that? I always feel like those are qualifications that you should expect in a home inspector that they're able to do those sorts of things. You just talked before about the importance of radon testing with an inspection, particularly in, in this area, but across, you know, many parts of the country. If as a home inspector you don't do radon testing, that to me is a need that they're not really meeting. And if they're doing mold testing, but they don't do air testing as far as I'm concerned, they don't do mold testing. - Correct. - So, right. So those are things that people can look at, look for too, as far as, you know, what their qualifications are and what their service offering is then. Right. - Absolutely. You know, what services do you offer is a great question. It's a lot easier to book, you know, with somebody who can do all that versus saying, oh, I might have to call three different people to get, you know, the same services I need. I need radon. Well, he doesn't do radon. I'm gonna have to call somebody else. Or mold testing. I consider myself a one stop shop. We do most everything that people need for a home purchase or suspected issues in their homes. So we, we take care of it all most of the time in the same appointment. - Great information. I mean, I think that this was a great discussion. I think we covered a lot of really, really important information about home inspections and about the process and what buyers and sellers can look for there. So I really do appreciate your time with this. - Absolutely, Matt. I appreciate you having me on. This has been, been really fun. I enjoyed it. Sorry about the sun. Sorry about the outside. You probably didn't see if we had a cat running around here. Our house cat was outside. I don't think he appeared on camera, though, so that's a good thing. - Well, you know, quite honestly, I, I think we're all gonna be jealous, you know, of, of you enjoying the, the sun outside and, and you know, we're all inside. So, - You know, after this I'll be rushing to my afternoon inspection. So this morning it was off. I took this, this day off, the morning off to be on here. But don't be too jealous. It's nice for now, but it's getting warm. - I appreciate it. I appreciate you, you taking the time. So thank you very much for coming on and talking with us today. - Absolutely. - I know, I know, I found it extremely interesting. I'm sure, you know, everybody listening is going to as well. Jim, you know, can you provide your contact information in case anyone wants to reach out to you, you know, your phone number, website, and also what your service area is so that they have that information as well. - Sure, sure. So we, we service all of Northeastern pa, you know, Luzerne County, Monroe County, pike County, Susquehanna, Wyoming, the whole northeast corner. Our phone number is, the best way to get ahold of us is our phone number, 561-3981. You'll either get me or my voicemail, you're not gonna get anybody else or an answering service or anything like that. And I personally return all my calls. It's just me, myself, and I. So it's not, you know, you're not getting anybody else. You could email us at clearviewinspections2018@gmail.com or you can go on our website. You could actually, there's all that information on our website, but you could actually book on our website. Our website is www.clearviewinspectionsllc.com. And again, you could book 24 7, if you forget you have to book a home inspection. You know, you wake up at two o'clock in the morning, you go on the website and book a home inspection or you could email me too, call, text. I might not answer at two o'clock in the morning, but I'll definitely return your call. - Perfect. I really appreciate that. I always recommend people get a home inspection when they're buying a home, and I think that it's invaluable because you don't want to be in a situation where you have a very expensive or, or costly repair that's ultimately necessary that you could have been aware of before purchasing. So definitely the peace of mind is huge there. So, absolutely. I, so I very much appreciate you coming on and, and going over that and everything. If there is something that you would like to hear about on the Disaster Podcast, please email us at disasterpodcast@disasterblaster.com. We read all of that information and we're always looking for ways to better answer the questions that you have about your home and the property experience. And please visit our website for a ton of great content about property damage and the home buying process at www.disasterblaster.com. Thank you everybody, and I look forward to seeing you at the next episode. - Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having me. - Thank you. 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