Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Brought to you from Ohio based home inspection company of Habitation Investigation. 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/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Why Your House Needs Check-ups More Than Your Car Does
Home maintenance inspections are crucial for catching small problems before they become expensive disasters, just like regular car maintenance prevents breakdowns despite houses having far more components than vehicles.
• Regular maintenance inspections recommended every 2-3 years, coinciding with EPA's radon testing recommendations
• New houses aren't immune to problems—our 10-month-old home already needed bathroom fan replacement and furnace repairs
• Women typically have 30% more olfactory nerves, making them better at detecting problems through smell
• One client's mysterious illness was traced to a disconnected sump pump causing hidden mold growth
• Pre-listing inspections save money—replacing GFCIs yourself costs about $20 each versus $120+ when requested during buyer's inspection
• Many homeowners don't know basic maintenance requirements like monthly GFCI testing or water shutoff valve locations
• Maintenance inspections serve educational purposes for first-time homeowners or elderly individuals who need assistance
Call a professional inspection company to perform a maintenance inspection. It provides you with a report and a prioritized list of issues to address, ensuring your home stays in better condition than when you bought it.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
NBC4 news segments: The importance of home inspections, and what to look for | NBC4 WCMH-TV
Advice from experts: Don’t skip the home inspection | NBC4 WCMH-TV
OSU student’s mysterious symptoms end up tied to apartment’s air quality | NBC4 WCMH-TV
How to save money by winterizing your home | NBC4 WCMH-TV
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Scheduled classes
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Course lis...
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: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 homeinspectionsinohiocom.
Speaker 3:Hey everybody, welcome to the Standing Out of the House podcast. This is Jim, and, of course, laura, the office goddess is here. Hi everyone. All right, laura, we should have a guest. We have one person that wants to be a guest. He's a mold remediator.
Speaker 4:Yes, I need to get a time set up with him. He's been really busy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everybody's been busy and we're squeezing this in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We have a few moments today, but we need to get him in. But what was it we're talking about was the importance of having maintenance done in your house.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:And keep an eye on your house.
Speaker 4:As is evidenced by our house, by our house.
Speaker 3:Yes, home inspections are not for just when you're purchasing the house.
Speaker 4:It is when you buy the house Maintenance inspections throughout.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, maintenance inspections, I'd say like every two to three years. What was the epa tell you for?
Speaker 4:radon. Epa says every two years for radon to have your, your house tested to me that would probably be a good time to do a maintenance inspection and the home which maintenance, which is basically a whole house inspection right maybe we don't test the appliances or the outlets, depending no, no well, if we've already done it once and we're coming back that, do it again. You're still doing it again, really, yeah, we did a inspection for some of the other day.
Speaker 3:Uh, the only thing we did not test was the kitchen appliances. I got all these working like they should. He's like, yep, okay, that's all. I mean he knows more than us, right, than we do of his appliances are working. We did check if there's a high loop for the dishwasher and checked on where the range hood vented out and checked for leaks. Of course, well, we're going to check for leaks, right, but the maintenance inspection, it's important to do that, I'd say, every two years, just like with your radon.
Speaker 3:Right Good idea to do that. So here's my analogy that I have about a house and cars yes, okay, very good one and actually I'd use this the other day with some lady a buyer she was she was good she was concerned about uh, it was an older house, decent shape, but you know, no house is perfect, even brand new ones not perfect.
Speaker 3:So there are a few issues there. And she's like well, I just don't want things to, you know, have you know repairs and maintenance, things like that? And I go well, look at your car, you, you expect your car to have trouble every, every you know. Maybe maybe once a year, two years.
Speaker 3:Year and a half, something's going to happen. You need to get your take care of your car. Well, definitely, oil change a couple times a year probably, or at least you should be A couple times a year getting your oil changed, filter replaced, tires, brakes.
Speaker 4:Transmission fluid.
Speaker 3:You expect things to break down.
Speaker 4:She's like yeah, I'm like your house has so many more moving parts than your car does. Why is that you?
Speaker 3:should not take expectation. You should expect issues if you also pop up and she's like yeah, she's like well, thank you for that, because that put in perspective right, because she never thought about like that. I think a lot of people don't think about that. Your car does not have as many parts as your house does no our house brand new what is?
Speaker 4:it 10 months old. Maybe we officially moved in september 1st we really didn't have an official day.
Speaker 3:We owned it the whole time because we didn't. There's no closing for us, right? But?
Speaker 4:september 1st is when I officially transferred everything from the post office and everything from the old address to here gotcha that's. That's why I consider that the official move-in date okay, so new house.
Speaker 3:I've already already replaced the bathroom fan.
Speaker 4:That fan stopped working A couple times.
Speaker 3:You've got it repaired a little bit Wow If you heard that there's a thunderstorm in the background here. So kind of tells you what day we're recording this perhaps. But the fan would just work really slow and then it would work fine. It did that for about a month and then it just gave up the ghost. So I went to Home depot or lowe's I don't know where I went, but I bought a new fan motor, stuck that in there. First time ever replaced one of those it's not that bad but brand new house.
Speaker 3:Something happened. It got fixed right. Our furnace has a leak in it from the condensation from their conditioning.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like the bottom pan or something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most likely. There's just a little something blocking the condensation line. Really an easy fix. But we're going to have the furnace guy come in and take care of it but it's a new furnace yeah, he put it in probably right about a year, guys. He put in about a month or so before we. Now he put it in it was a couple months before before we moved in, so it's probably about this time of year may or june it was.
Speaker 4:It was very close, yeah so we may, when he comes out, just have him do a service on it completely.
Speaker 3:He may as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and just be done with it, and then we'll just get it serviced once a year. So we'll just know every June, july, we have somebody, we have them come out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so right now, if it's so hot out and the thing leaking, oh, it's been pushing it hard. We still have the furnace on for air conditioning. We still have that on, but we have towels around the bottom to help absorb and prevent any real issues. We're living on a slab house, so it's like it's not going to damage anything really.
Speaker 4:No, but once we get that to stop dripping and we can put fans on underneath the wood not the wood, but the plank boards we have that Vinyl planking.
Speaker 3:LVP yeah, vinyl plank boards Yep and dry those out. We have that Vinyl planking. Lvp yeah, we have the vinyl planking, so there's nothing that's going to get damaged there. But of course you don't want it moist around there, but there's really no moisture touching wood or anything like that.
Speaker 4:No, it's not going to rot or anything, nothing terrible. But Megan had forgotten last night because she was worried about that.
Speaker 3:She's, she was like but, mom, I'm like remember slab concrete. Oh, that's right, thank gosh, she was worried about the wood.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she was, she was learning, she's learning, home inspector's daughter home inspector's daughter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but yeah, many things happen.
Speaker 4:They need, they need taken care of also do you remember that one guy that we went out to? Um, it was a family and she'd been complaining that you know, when the air conditioner came on or the furnace came on, she just didn't feel well and she's like there's something going on, but we just have no clue what it is and within what. Five minutes the we figured out that the sump pump hose wasn't connected and the sump pump, every time the sump pump kicked on, it, was kicking it back into the finished area of the basement, and so that whole bedroom beside where that sump pump was was just completely a sodden mess with mold underneath the carpet, and it was why she was getting sick.
Speaker 3:They had an extra roll of carpet up against that wall which may hit it a little bit on the, because it was a finished basement they hit it a little bit. But, man, you have to take a look at your house and women, was it 30 more olfactory nerves?
Speaker 4:I believe.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so we smell things faster guys, if you're, if your girlfriend, mom, wife is like I smell something funny.
Speaker 4:Listen to your woman.
Speaker 3:They smell something weird. They probably do. They probably do. There's always that one percentage that's just like all right, that's kind of a little crazy, but Nope, most likely it's legit. They actually do smell something that you as a guy cannot, well, and if you don't?
Speaker 4:listen to them right away and you keep living there. What we have found is that it usually goes for a few months with the woman complaining and complaining and complaining, and then all of a sudden, the guy gets sick and goes oh, you might actually be right, I'm not feeling well either. Well, if you'd have listened to her four, four months ago, yeah wouldn't be feeling crappy now well, a lot of guys are not fast learners you said it, not me I did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I say, some guys are not fast and this is recorded, ladies yep, but but maintenance, maintenance. You need to expect things happen to the house, which which comes around to prepping your, your, your agent, prepping your client what to expect when they're getting their potential home inspected. They should not. They should expect there to be issues.
Speaker 4:Well, back to that one woman that I spent the hour on that didn't speak English. So like I've had calls in the past, okay, where people have had water lines that froze or they had a pipe that burst and they did not know to turn off the water supply valve at all in any way, shape or form and were totally clueless. So when I was going through the report with that woman yesterday I'm like, okay, that's your water supply valve, because I think when I read the report there wasn't a supply on like the toilets or a sink or something like that. So I'm like if you've got something that happens, make sure you turn that off, because that will give everything that will give you time to get help and have somebody come out and fix it and it won't damage your house anymore. So like I tried to explain that to her a little bit because we've had problems with that New people coming in just had no clue.
Speaker 4:So like a maintenance inspection if you've got an old parent, if you have a kid and this is their first house because our daughter bought her house and she's still kind of clueless on stuff and will occasionally call us but have a maintenance inspection. They're also educational. Here's where your your um filter goes in your air conditioner. Here's how often you should change that. Here's how you should do this.
Speaker 3:If you already own the house, you should know where the filter is already. But you you'll be surprised because almost nobody knows they're supposed to test that gfci outlet every month they look at me like yeah, every month was supposed to test that GFCI outlet every month.
Speaker 1:They look at me like yeah every month.
Speaker 3:you're supposed to test that, Otherwise it might start sticking and they won't trip when you maybe really need them to.
Speaker 4:So that's one thing. If you're a seller, hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, check your GFCI outlets and make sure that they work, because you're just one test away from a home inspection and that not working and you have to replace it. I did a pre-listed inspection the other day, right, okay and there were.
Speaker 3:There were at least two, maybe three gfcis that would not trip with the tester, and so at this point, the guy who seemed pretty handy, it'll cost him about 20 each in some time right, so you can just swap them out if we, if we found that out during the home inspection, it's going to be a request to Ramney, and they're going to want a receipt from some electrician to come out. I'm just going to guess he'll charge you $120 for each one.
Speaker 4:Well, and then not only that, but let's say we go back out to this house and another inspector does that and has no clue that this was a pre-listing, all they inspector does that and has no clue that this was a pre-listing all they care about when they test that does that trip. Is it grounded? Is it working correctly? Is it wired correctly? Yep, okay, on to the next it doesn't that we don't care who fixed it, as long as it's done right no inspectors, we don't care, we, we don't, we don't know code.
Speaker 3:This is not a code inspection, but we look for function. Is this working like it should and is it, you know, by the time it was built? Is it holding up? Over that span of time? We did a house well. You and I had a house over 200 years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was so old A couple weeks ago.
Speaker 3:There were some weird things in that place, but somebody did something like 70 years ago Like wow, it's still here.
Speaker 4:But you still need to get that out because something's not right there's a, found there's a weird foundation repair.
Speaker 3:Yeah, on this one a couple different things that they did.
Speaker 1:Very odd, that would like yeah, no, no, no, I'm gonna get that, get that looked at you.
Speaker 3:Think about anything else on this one? Just yeah, you need to.
Speaker 4:Actually, this is a really good idea for like father's Day or Mother's Day if you've got older parents, or if you've got an estate that you want to have an idea for what's going on before it gets sold, if you've got a kid that's kind of clueless and doesn't know anything, or if you're just too freaking busy because life sucks and you don't have time to get into your attic or your crawl space or look around, and and maybe not only do you not have time, but you have no clue what you're looking for call an inspection company. Have us come out and do a maintenance inspection for you. It gives you your report and it gives you your honeydew list and then you can work on that and then by the time you're done, if you do decide to sell your house, it's in better shape than when you bought it because you've kept up on it.
Speaker 3:All right, I got to tell you that would suck as a Father's Day gift.
Speaker 4:You would not want Okay.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. Let me explain this.
Speaker 4:For like an older father.
Speaker 3:Like an older, like, I'm still gonna explain this. Oh my god, here we go, ladies. Oh, now they're prepping to sell it. Explain on it, okay, cool, you may be saving some headache down the road. Regular old dad really doesn't want to come up. Somebody else, come in the place, go. Hey, there's something wrong with your house. All right, I'm saying typical, average guy. He definitely does not want to have some strange dude. Come on, give him a list of chores to do that his wife is aware of whatever all right, any guys listen to this make a comment
Speaker 4:we need to have a running commentary between the women and the men I think it shows karen because he doesn't have to get in and do any of that crap.
Speaker 3:I agree for an elderly parent.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what I meant.
Speaker 1:Like an elderly parent for Father's Day gift.
Speaker 3:All right, I'm talking somebody who's not elderly, all those people, man.
Speaker 4:Really honey. So you think some dude who has absolutely no bloody freaking clue how to like oh I don't know change out a doorknob, is going to have an idea of what he's looking at when he goes to the attic or the crawl space? You don't think that person would actually?
Speaker 3:need to have an inspection. It's going to depend on the guy. But you said develop your honeydew list no.
Speaker 4:Ladies help me out.
Speaker 3:Guys, do you want a honey-do list?
Speaker 4:Some guys will, some guys like that, but they'll know what they're fixing and they'll know how to fix it.
Speaker 3:With YouTube, internet, you can learn anything nowadays.
Speaker 4:Right, and now they'll know how to do that, and that will give them more skills.
Speaker 3:If you want to add a comment, go Laura's right, laura comment go laura's right laura's wrong. Jim's right, laura's right we guys don't want a whole bunch of honey do list. Now, guys, will I guys have no problem go. Hey, I think there's something wrong. My addy, can you come help you know, clarify with me what that is. I think most guys would be all right with that, but for the goal of getting a honeydew list, no, no.
Speaker 4:So anyway, give a comment please thank you everybody, ladies, for the help. Bye.
