A home inspection can take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours. The length of time a home inspection takes depends on many different factors. The main factors are age, size, and condition. The main factor I use to give a rough estimate of how long the inspection will take is the size of the house. Before I dive deeper I want to put a little […]
When buying a home there come some inherent risks, especially when purchasing a used home. However, purchasing a home in the winter time brings some additional inherent risks that you may not know about. Now before I start I want to say that you will probably hear from real estate agents that winter is the best time to buy a house. I’m not necessarily arguing […]
As a home inspector the tool I use most is undoubtedly a flashlight. In this very first installment of Rigid Reviews I review my favorite flashlight, the GearLight. The past 4+ years I have been inspecting homes I have gone through or tried at least 30 different flashlights. I landed on this one as my favorite and most reliable flashlight: GearLight (Buy on Amazon). The […]
You may be asking yourself “What constitutes as a stupid thing to negotiate from a home inspection report?” Over my years in this industry I’ve been part of a variety of transactions that were stuck in negotiations over extremely minor and stupid stuff that had me saying to myself “They really requested that to be fixed out of everything in that report??”. That, coupled with […]
You’ve landed here wanting to know how much a home inspection costs I suppose? Here I will tell you how much a home inspection costs, but keep in mind that there are many variables to this question. Below I open up and get completely transparent with my pricing, so let’s get started! First off, it’s unfortunately not as easy as just giving you a price […]
Rigid Inspections, LLC offers Radon testing in O’Fallon Missouri. We also do Radon testing in St. Charles county, St. Louis County, and St. Louis city. What is Radon? Radon is a radioactive, colorless, odorless, tasteless gas, occurring naturally as a decay product of radium. Radon enters your home through the soil and it is everywhere, some areas just have higher levels of it. Why is Radon […]
I do a fair amount of new construction inspections. On occasion the builder has push back on my report when I write up defects/items on their new house. The common quotes from them are “It meets code” or “That’s not Code”. Yes that may be true, BUT… Code is a minimum. Code is the absolute bare minimum that is required by law for a new […]
You may have heard at some point that double pane windows are better than single pane. The main reason for being better is because of the energy efficiency of double pane and triple pane windows. At an inspection I had the right set up at a home to test and prove this on two different windows using my thermal camera which is a free service […]
As a home inspector I see this happen often and even I get fooled by these techniques. A client calls me looking for a home inspection on a home they are potentially buying. I look up the address online and look through the photos and think “oh what a nice house”. Come inspection day I arrive at the house and after looking at the outside […]
I have been Infrared Certified for years now and have come across many different types of issues using my Flir thermal camera. Anytime a client calls me to book an inspection I always mention that the inspection includes Free Thermal Imaging. It’s a outstanding service and tool and I think it’s only fair to include that with the home inspection for my clients. Not many […]
If you are looking to move to the quaint town of Edwardsville Illinois, it’s a good idea to know what you’ll be getting into. Edwardsville’s population is a little over 24,000 people and growing with lots to see and do! Moving to a new town can be a stressful process and so you’re not caught up wasting time searching the web for resources, I’ve made […]
A word I hear tossed around a lot in the real estate industry is “Grandfathered”. What is the meaning of that term? In the housing and real estate industry it’s a term I will sometimes hear agents or sellers use to down play issues that come up in an inspection report. By definition it means “exempt from new law or regulation”. Why?…Because it’s old?…that’s insensible! […]
Welcome to my new blog post series called Agent Tips! For the first tip we’re going to talk about re-wording inspection report comments for your inspection response/request sheet. If you don’t feel like reading this whole post then here is the TL;DR… Don’t Re-Word Inspection Report Comments for your inspection response. You are not qualified to do so and in doing so it opens you […]
If you are looking to move to the beautiful town of Saint Charles Missouri it’s a good idea to know the ins an outs of what you’re getting into. With a population of just over 70,000 people, Saint Charles Missouri is a larger town so there’s plenty to see and do! Since I know moving can be stressful and the last thing you want is to […]
A recent conversation with another home inspector friend of mine prompted me to write this article. We, as home inspectors, are not specialists. A common misconception of people who hire home inspectors is that the inspectors are specialists with a superior source of home knowledge and ability to explain any problem and the fix for it. This is not entirely true. Yes home inspectors are very knowledgeable when it comes […]