Listen and learn how some stand out from competition and gain market share. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Can Christmas shopping with adult children actually be fun? Laura and I think so! Picture this: margaritas in hand, laughter shared over gift ideas, and the joy of plotting a holiday surprise together. But while the season is all about spreading cheer, it’s also crucial to keep an eye on ethical behavior in all aspects of life, including those pesky home maintenance tasks. We share a not-so-jolly tale of an unethical electrician who took advantage of unsuspecting homeowners, turning a routine inspection into an unnecessary expense. This episode uncovers the hidden traps some homeowners fall into and highlights how maintaining integrity is just as important as picking the perfect present.
In our discussion, we also tackle the sneaky tactics of dishonest electricians, shedding light on how they exploit warranty flat rates to push for unneeded replacements. We delve into a case where a Murray electrical panel, still quite serviceable, was wrongfully declared obsolete. By dissecting these deceptive practices, we aim to equip you with the knowledge to navigate these situations wisely. Remember, getting multiple opinions and estimates is not just a suggestion, it's a necessity. We reflect on why homeowners might mistakenly trust technicians over inspectors and offer insights on making informed decisions. Tune in for essential tips to protect yourself from holiday season scams and ensure your home is both safe and festive.
If you would like to be a guest on the podcast contact us and let us know. You can visit Home (jimtroth.com) and go to the podcast page or message Habitation Investigation.
Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim.
Speaker 2:
Hey everybody, welcome to the Standing Out how podcast. This is Jim and of course, with me is Laura, the office goddess.
Speaker 3:
Hello everyone.
Speaker 2:
She just got back from Christmas shopping.
Speaker 3:
With Megan.
Speaker 2:
With Megan.
Speaker 3:
You know, I do have to say Christmas shopping with your kid when they're in their 20s is completely different and a crap ton more fun. How you sat down and had a margarita. You had a margarita.
Speaker 2:
Well, you can have like adult conversations. You're not trying to sneak things as much.
Speaker 3:
Well, yeah, and you could like it's just more much. Well, yeah, and you could like it's just more fun. I get it. You could plot together to get stuff for people and work on things and make a little Plotting's always fun.
Speaker 2:
Plotting's fun. Plotting's a good reason to plot Nothing nefarious.
Speaker 3:
Well, christmas gifts, those are fun reasons to plot.
Speaker 2:
Well, in this time of year, people should be good. They should be good always, right. But we have a story where somebody was not good and deserves coal in their electrician's pouch.
Speaker 3:
Yes, very true.
Speaker 2:
But first let's listen to this.
Speaker 4:
Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs from radon to mold to warranties for a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit home inspections in ohiocom.
Speaker 2:
All right, Laura. So this is a season where you should always be ethical, Just always.
Speaker 3:
Even more so in Christmas.
Speaker 2:
Just traditionally, if you're little, if your parents did the whole Santa thing, you're kind of taught like, no, you need to be really good this time of year. So if your parents were, you know Christmas and Santa-like, you learned, oh, I need to be really good. But we have a story that this is something that happened last week. Yeah Well first of all, we did an inspection in July, I believe.
Speaker 4:
Yes, right.
Speaker 2:
And one of our inspectors did the inspection.
Speaker 3:
Ironically enough, the inspector, who used to be the electrician, who was the electrician?
Speaker 2:
yeah, so he called out things with the electrical panel I think it was wiring issues kind of throughout the house and the attic as well Called him out hey, get looked at, get fixed. Prior to close Of course, and then you won't get that done prior to close, because you want estimates and you want to know how much things are going to cost Electricity is all lower.
Speaker 2:
Any subcontractor, contractor, can be all lower the place with fees and how they want to do things. So you want to get at least a good idea of what it's going to cost. So anyway that was July. We did an inspection for them. Something happened Now December, july, august, september, october, november.
Speaker 3:
It started in November. It started in November, I think.
Speaker 2:
So what happened? They had some issues with the electrical panel in November. Was it a break or start a trip or something?
Speaker 3:
I don't know exactly what the cause was, because it wasn't just me talking to them. Somebody else had talked and gotten more information. Steve did.
Speaker 2:
Steve is I don't want to describe this he, if somebody has a complaint or a homeowner is having an issue with something, he helps them to navigate. The whole home warranty is what he does, really. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
How to best help people to get what they need in the best possible way, in the cheapest way. So somehow this couple called.
Speaker 2:
Something happened in November. It sounds like something with a panel, which I'm going to only guess it was that a breaker started tripping.
Speaker 3:
So or that something happened and this electrician used that as an excuse to replace the panel. Because what it so it started with them calling and complaining that we didn't tell them that the Murray panels were no longer made.
Speaker 2:
Well, wait, wait, wait, all right, all right.
Speaker 3:
So that was the initial.
Speaker 2:
Was this before or after they talked to the warranty company?
Speaker 3:
This was after.
Speaker 2:
So they talked to the warranty company.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so once again, I don't know what the warranty was in lieu of Maybe they talked to us first. So my understanding was that the warranty company had approved it. Whatever the issue was, the warranty company approved it. The electrician came out and denied it, Took their $75 trip fee and denied it and just waltzed off and left After telling them that he would happily replace their electric panel for $7,000 to $8,000 because that panel wasn't made anymore, which is true it isn't. However, there's a caveat to that.
Speaker 2:
It's largely bullshit, to be honest. So they had a new issue with the panel, okay, and then they warranted.
Speaker 3:
Or he created one in an attempt to get the money from the investment.
Speaker 2:
Well, there's a problem before he even showed up, right. So he comes over and he claims hey, the warranty company actually denied this claim. It will be between $7,000. And he claims hey, the warranty company actually denied this claim. It will be between $7,000 and $8,000 for me to replace your panel, because they don't make these panels anymore.
Speaker 3:
And there's no choice. Yeah, you'll make them anymore.
Speaker 2:
You got no choice. So the client then called us and said hey, why did you guys tell me the panel is no longer in use, you can't replace? Well, the panel was a Murray panel, and because they don't make anything anymore is not a reason why it needs replaced.
Speaker 3:
No, weren't they bought out by another company actually?
Speaker 2:
Siemens which makes electric panels I think they do other things as well. But Siemens, which makes electric panels, I think they do other things as well. But Siemens bought Murray, so you can still buy breakers to replace those old breakers. There's no need to replace that panel.
Speaker 3:
And doesn't the Murray even have the double D where you can do the two wires into that?
Speaker 2:
I think double D breakers may work in those. That's one of the things when we that's kind of getting outside the scope of the home inspection. When you look into a panel and you see different types of breakers in there, oh okay, sometimes that's wrong, but we don't know until we really like delve into the model number and really and we really don't do that.
Speaker 2:
That needs to be Sometimes you can't see the model number of the panel to know what kind of brand this panel is rated for. So you don't really know exactly. But any Murray panel and they don't make them under the name Murray anymore, siemens owns that brand doesn't keep the Murray brand, changes to the Siemens but they still have the replacement breakers for those, and I think Square D may be able to fit that. I don't know for certain. But anyway, the bad thing is is like the electrician lied through his teeth.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, he lied, obviously because he said the Warrant to Come did not approve that in the first place.
Speaker 3:
And they did. And they did, he lied and he said that the panel needed replaced. It didn't.
Speaker 2:
And this is not the first time we had an electrician say something about they need to get a whole new panel. And so anyway, we, steve, did but talked to the homeowner and go listen this that's crap.
Speaker 4:
Here's the scoop.
Speaker 2:
Here's how you can get it replaced. Your warranty company actually did fully approve that. I guess Steve talked to them and they're like oh, and then we hooked them up with a electrician that we recommend.
Speaker 3:
Wait, wait, wait. Guess how much he is going to charge and this is just a blanket off-the-cuff estimate for him to completely replace a service, so like that's the new breaker, that's the wires coming in and all of that stuff. Guess how much he charged.
Speaker 2:
I don't know.
Speaker 3:
He said it would be between 3 300 and 4 300 is, on average, what it would cost to replace out that service, not seven to eight thousand dollars, and that included the service line.
Speaker 2:
Coming right, it was the new service and not just a panel, not just a couple of panels.
Speaker 3:
I think it says about 1300 just the panel, he said was 1300, and usually that's what they need.
Speaker 2:
If, well, if that just replace the panel. At the worst, typically if it's overloaded, you add one sub panel and that's all you need, and not not that expensive so that electrician completely and totally tried to take advantage.
Speaker 3:
And I also learned an interesting thing about warranty companies. So I guess part of the thing that a warranty company has is like, let's say they paid 300 bucks period end story, flat rate for a house visit Okay, house visit, okay. So let's say it cost him a hundred bucks to replace whatever the part was, an hour time, whatever that comes out of that 300. Like he doesn't get paid any more than 300. If it's something beyond that he has to call and get approval for that. This guy obviously was just trying to milk the system because he told them that the claim was denied and that they should just go through him to have him fix it just go through me yeah, and he don't tell you he'd take care of him, which which is crap.
Speaker 3:
And then today I hear about a guy who paid 13 000 to get his service panel replaced yeah, yeah and that guy's like old dementia and somebody was helping him out and I'm like you got taken.
Speaker 2:
Taken advantage. Yeah, so well, talk to the electrician that we recommend, and if you do ask and want to know who the bad electrician is, we're not going to tell you. They're not on our list.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, they are not on our electrician's list.
Speaker 2:
Yes, they will never not on our professional list.
Speaker 3:
Yes, they will never be on our professional list.
Speaker 2:
He the good guy. Good electricians said that when he hires other electricians to work for him, he has to kind of battle their training, because a lot of the companies and it's not just electric, it's plumbers as well, plumbers and HVAC do a ton.
Speaker 3:
This happens to be about an electrician right now. That's who we're focusing on.
Speaker 2:
As many industries will do this. Once the technician gets out there, their job is a salesman, not to fix that problem, it's a salesman. Remember when Caitlin had a little issue with her furnace and the guy wants what? Spent like nine thousand dollars because he hears list like, oh, this is gonna go bad, you need to take care of this, and then this is gonna need it. So we'll put you on a plan like nine thousand dollars over the course of the next nine months and I'm looking like that one part.
Speaker 2:
that's's 26 bucks, right, the most expensive I've found. It I'll get myself, so you definitely want to shop around, but, uh, what I don't get is the first. I don't, like, I should say, is the homeowner. As soon as they heard the electrician say that this is a bad panel and you need to be replaced immediately, assumed that we were wrong, instead of assuming that the technician was exaggerating or lying.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I don't get why a lot of people want to throw a homeless person underneath the bus, because we have no motivation to ever be wrong and we could be wrong. But our goal is to find it when it's. Is it function as design? That's it I've had. I've had real estate agents complain can we find too much stuff? I'm like this is actually how the house is. We're not making up issues.
Speaker 3:
We don't go in and we don't do 20 years of damage in two hours. It is what it is. We are the only only group of people in a real estate transaction or even just going out and doing maintenance inspections. That has nothing to gain. We don't have people that come in as service tax. We don't have any stake in whether or not the house gets sold and we've got a paycheck coming if it does.
Speaker 2:
We make no money on repairs.
Speaker 3:
We make no money on repairs. We make no money on the sale. We are the most impartial you will have anywhere in a transaction.
Speaker 2:
But if you have an electrical panel or an electrician saying, hey, you guys need to in a transaction, but if you have an electrical panel or electrician saying, hey, you guys need a new panel or this is wrong, that's wrong. I like to carry it.
Speaker 3:
Double check get, get another can I put a caveat on that? Actually not just for, like, in the middle of a real estate transaction or the end of a transaction, not just an electrician, for Pete's sakes. If something doesn't sound right to you or it sounds inordinately expensive, call a home inspection company, have them come out and look at the stuff and do an inspection for you and tell you what's going on and then use their list of recommended professionals.
Speaker 3:
Don't, don't just go with you know whatever list you find on Google, because one of the things that this electrician did was that they had Google review already up and gave to the client say okay, is this okay? And then they had the client submit that to Google. So before they even realized what a schmuck this company was, they'd already taken that Google review and uploaded it, so you're not going to have accurate reviews on these companies, because they're scamming the system.
Speaker 2:
And if I remember I overheard part of the conversation that review the electric. The bad lectures I wrote up for this couple talk about a panel upgrade, didn't it?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, panel upgrade or replacement or something like that you come with that already.
Speaker 2:
I'm like, no, it's all a sales pitch. A lot of people are just sales pitches. Home, home, we're basically trying to like is those pitches we're basically trying to make. Is it working? Yes, good, it doesn't. I don't care if it's. I really I like old houses, yeah, and I think every homeless person really loves an old house that's maintained and doing what it should. It's not for us.
Speaker 2:
It's about function, safety, make sure there's no damage going on, or something that you know, like a huge roof leak or a little roof leak, or contractors yeah, they can come and make some money for fixing your stuff, but they make a lot more money if they can rope you into paying for repairs that really are not necessary. They might say they're necessary, but they're not really necessary.
Speaker 3:
And then make sure you have a home inspection company come out and do the work. Tell them that you're going to have a home inspection company come out and do the work because, whether you do or not, they're going to do a better job for you.
Speaker 2:
Yep, yep.
Speaker 3:
And that.
Speaker 2:
Oh, yeah, yeah, we have seen that. I was going to say all right, so I'm going to see if I can find these pictures. I don't know if I can find them or not. Remember when I did a chimney scope a couple years ago and there are handprints on the?
Speaker 3:
inside of the chimney scope.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I do remember that I'm going to try and find that. It was pretty cool because the people their kids were watching and this was not planned, but their handprints were like holy cow.
Speaker 3:
That's proof that Santa was up in the ship. And their little eyes got so big yeah.
Speaker 2:
And the year before that. This is when I rigged I pretend I did a sewer. I'm going to it down and have a piece of red cloth.
Speaker 3:
You're like oh crap, santa got stuck.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, but I'm like, oh, I guess Santa tore his crazy coat up inside, so I'll see if I can find those videos. I'm not guaranteeing I'll see if. I can find them. I'll put them on Facebook as well. I'll find them. But I think that's about it for here. But if you hear crazy estimates, get a different opinion. Definitely want to double check with things. And just because somebody's licensed doesn't mean they're going to tell you the truth. Electricians are licensed but they need money too, and sometimes they will exaggerate.
Speaker 2:
Sometimes their ethics are purchasable, depending upon the time of year and time of year and how much money they need to make or they want to make but if you do want to know of a very good, ethical electrician who will do good work, call. I will happily give his name out yeah or or, if you're out out this Columbus Ohio area. Call us, because we do know home inspectors all across the country, or just call an inspector that you trust in your area.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
I remember a long time ago I had an electrician who the agent recommended and I go how do you fix those? He's like, oh, I do this, he would make them bootleg grounds. That ain't right. He goes, yeah, but it works. So just because they're licensed doesn't mean they're going to do it correctly so he was never recommended After that, that's for sure. So I think that's about it. Thank you everybody. Have a Merry Christmas everybody and listen.
Speaker 3:
Stay safe.
Speaker 2:
If you want coffee, Trothwood Forest Coffee.
Speaker 3:
They have the peppermint canes. I got peppermint candy sprinkles for the coffee for it Did you. Yes, I did.
Speaker 2:
But no yeah, trothwood Forest Coffee. It's good, very good. Sometimes coffee bothers, your stomach Hurts a little bit in the morning.
Speaker 3:
This hasn't bothered me as much as the other stuff. I think it's pretty low.
Speaker 2:
I think it was low acidicness and I like the blonde rose you've been having.
Speaker 3:
No breakfast and the blend, the candy, she's in the candy. That was good. The Sim is good also, but anyway, transport for coffee.
Speaker 2:
I think it's about it.
Speaker 3:
Have a great Christmas and an amazing 2025.
Speaker 2:
And just stay safe next week we'll have to do it.
Speaker 3:
End of the year, end of the year one alright, thanks everybody, bye, bye you've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast.
Speaker 1:
be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google podcast to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H and click on podcast Until next time. Learn and go do stuff.
