Don’t Pay Your Contractor Until An Independent Inspector Checks The Work

Ever wondered if that “finished” project is actually finished right? We unpack a homeowner’s renovation that looked fine from the sofa but fell apart under closer inspection: a deck ledger bolted into rotten wood, sliding doors with a one-inch gap and nonfunctional locks, and siding so loose the J channel could be moved inches by hand. It’s a case study in why independent inspections—before you release the final payment—can save you thousands and protect your home from moisture, drafts, and long-term structural problems.

We walk through smart timing for maintenance inspections, including pairing an every-two-years radon retest with a targeted moisture inspection. Not all permits are required everywhere, but contractor behavior is a tell: if someone panics when permits are mentioned, that’s a signal to slow down and verify. In this story, the roof was actually done well by a subcontractor, yet warranty expectations were mismatched because the product wasn’t the 50-year shingle the owner thought. Documentation matters. Keep invoices, product data, and warranty paperwork for roofs, windows, doors, and HVAC.

We also dig into the dangers of missing labels and scratched-off serial numbers, which can void warranties and raise serious questions about sourcing. For new construction, a pre-drywall inspection is essential; once walls close, you can’t see wire protection, pipe clearances, or window flashing that keep water and electricity where they belong. Our goal is simple: celebrate what’s right, clearly flag what’s wrong, and give you a practical checklist to hold contractors to professional standards.

If you found this helpful, follow the show, share it with a homeowner who’s mid-renovation, and leave a quick review to help others find these tips. Got a renovation red flag we should cover next? Send us your story.

Chapters

• 0:01 Beyond Purchase: Maintenance Inspections
• 0:59 Radon Retesting And Moisture Focus
• 1:24 Sponsor: Habitation Investigation
• 1:49 Red Flags With Permits And Contractors
• 2:48 Roof Done Right, Expectations Wrong
• 3:40 Deck Ledger Attached To Rot
• 4:37 Sliding Door Gaps And Failed Locks
• 5:45 Loose Siding And J Channel Issues
• 6:46 No Shadowing Inspectors, Seek Proof
• 7:20 Scratched-Off Serial Numbers Risks
• 9:12 Inspect Before Final Payment
• 9:52 Pre-Drywall And Window Flashing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

All right. So Laura, often when people think of home inspections, it is for a home purchase. True, most of the time. Most of the time. It can also be done for maintenance inspections. Which we have done a lot more of this year. Yeah, which is a nice thing to see. People learn how to take care of their house.

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

Well, it's cheaper to take care of it now than have something go on that you don't know about, and then all of a sudden your roof caves in because you've had this huge leak and all of the stuff rotted and fell.

SPEAKER_00: 0:32

Yeah, and you neglect the squirrel nest up there. Or raccoons. Raccoons will rip the a new whole area. They'll rip a new new vent in your in your attic space because they will just tear that up. Raccoons are nasty in the house. But so you got home purchase, you got maintenance inspection, like somebody's owned the house for five years and they want to get it checked out because they haven't done it forever, which is fine. Which is two years is a good idea to get it checked. Because that's EPA tells you to get your house retested for radon every two years. May as well do a whole house inspection at that at that point in time, or maybe just the moisture inspection. So which is a little more streamlined inspection, but just looking for more for moisture issues, which the moisture is the bane of every house. Oh, yes, it is. But here's another reason to hire a home inspector.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24

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 warranty. For a grade home inspection, you really can't go ball. Visit home inspections in Ohio.com.

SPEAKER_00: 1:49

Oh, you have a contractor do home and quotes improvements to your house, and you're not quite certain he's doing things right. Because you talk when you talk to him about maybe going get uh you know, co getting permits, he freaks out and almost cries, it sounds like. So it's like that that is a big red flag. Not not every city or county, I should say county, requires permits to do things to your house. But if you're if your contract gets nervous, man, that is so tell me that one. Wow, is this the one for yesterday? She yeah, the homeowner told me that, like how much the guy was freaking out. So anyway. And they let him continue? That's about the time they said, hey, we're we're gonna have somebody looking about done here. Yeah, we're gonna have somebody somebody look before they give the payment out. The last payment payment, I should say. At least I believe. So anyway, went to the house, check it out. They did like siding, roofing. The guy subbed some of the stuff out. He hired us a roofing company to do the roof.

SPEAKER_01: 2:57

Oh, that's why the roof was done well.

SPEAKER_00: 2:59

Roof was done well, which was well, and my goal was not to say everything's all screwed up or anything like that. Uh if there's good news, I'm gonna tell that as well. Just like all of our inspectors will tell them. You're right. Like, hey, your AC is running great. And we we like doing that. Gives people good, you know, they feel good about this. Homeowner here was very relieved that uh the roof was done well. Roof looked good. I think there may have been a misunderstanding about how long the roof is gonna last, because they were thinking it's 50 years. There are some roof shingles that will last 50 years. I don't think this is this is was this type. I told him just to verify that, but the installation looked good. There were some issues with the deck that they had put on. That they attach to the rotten wood on the house. Yes. So when you have a house, you can have a freestanding where it's not attached to the house, just next to it, and then you have the ones that attached to the house with a ledger board that gets bolted onto the house. This one, the ledger board that's part of the deck, that was bolted onto rotten wood from the old bandboard former deck, which is not right. That should have been pulled off. So they have that issue. And of course, I'm not gonna tell you the address or anything like that or where this is, but anyway, you always need to double check your contractors, let them know that you're gonna have a home inspector come by just to jump double check their work to make sure it's good. Because that was not right. Sliding glass door, man. Just from the from sitting in their living room, you wouldn't be able to see it, but as soon as you get next to it, there's like a at least an inch gap between the sliding glass door and the top of the frame. So all this cold air was just rushing. Pouring in. Both doors are like that. So they didn't write the frame is not right for that size door. It didn't lock. It didn't lock. He tried to tell him it was a dummy lock on the one side, it really doesn't work, just just for looks. I don't get the purpose of that.

SPEAKER_01: 5:12

And then the to get his butt out of it.

SPEAKER_00: 5:15

It's like a pin lock where there's little levers on the doors when you pull the lever up. Like we have on our back door. You pull the lever up, and there's a rod that goes up and went through the bottom into the frame that kind of keeps the door from ever being moved until that's unlatched. Each sliding glass door for this pair had that, neither one did anything. I put my finger underneath there and move that latch, nothing. There's no metal pin in there. And also that's not right. Siding wasn't right, too. The siding was loose. They had new siding to put on the J channel. Which, if you look at siding, you right where the siding kind of like meets door frames or the roof, there's like a little lip underneath it called J channel. Basically, it it's attached to the wall and it curls up a little bit, and you tuck the siding inside that kind of helps keep it getting from being blown away from the bottom edges or the sides. The J channel itself was not attached in everywhere. So it could still, I mean, I could blown away. I did a video of that, but I can move it easy six inches. Oh, that's it. I shouldn't be able to move it hardly anything at all. I mean, just more than than this, it will bend because it was vinyl. No more than it bend, it'll bend, but no, this was way too loose, and this is out in the country. This gonna blow. Had fields, strong winds, and a lot more potential for it getting ripped off.

SPEAKER_01: 6:46

Well, this is the one where the homeowner told the person doing the work that we were coming out, and all of a sudden he wanted to be there and follow you while you were doing your inspection, and I said no.

SPEAKER_00: 7:01

No, no, I don't need anybody to follow me around trying to tell me the how how to do how they did things. You know, I don't know everything, but I'd definitely do research on things that I'm not positive of. Which is, you know, I don't think a lot of people just make up something something until you get get evaluated. You know, like the slang glass door, I that is way too big of a gap. They're still gonna have to get evaluated because is the framing wrong? Did they mess the is the door missing something on the bottom? They need to get it all all evaluated, make sure because the whole frame probably needs resized. Yeah, something's not right with that. Yeah, there's there's several things wrong with that door. Oh, they said also that the identification numbers which of the windows were all scratched off, which doesn't make sense to me.

SPEAKER_01: 7:50

Why would you scratch off identification numbers? Wouldn't you need those for a warranty?

SPEAKER_00: 7:54

To me, it would just be the label describing the describing the type of window, which is no big deal. So so they they need to get verification. Hey, I want I want to see the paperwork of where you bought this from, so I have the warranty information of the company that manufactured. That totally makes sense that you as a homeowner or having some work done, you need to have those receipts. That way, if there is an issue, you got your little warranty to uh to help you out.

SPEAKER_01: 8:19

To help protect you.

SPEAKER_00: 8:21

Because I have been up on apartment complexes. Oh, yeah. Man, they're at least 20, 25. Yeah, 2530 um air conditioned units up on the roof. Every single I because I walked around and looked, because it wasn't on the one I was inspecting. I looked at every single condenser up on that roof. The serial number was scratched off of every single one of those. Which is very unusual.

SPEAKER_01: 8:49

Very sus. That's very sus.

SPEAKER_00: 8:52

Which to me, I'm like, all right, why is somebody not wanting to know the serial number of this unit? Oh, oh yeah, probably because.

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

Yes, or they legitimately bought it from somebody who had stolen them and had then they took off the serial numbers before they sold them.

SPEAKER_00: 9:09

Yeah, very, very suspicious on that one. But uh, yeah, have you work done in a house, get a new roof done, have the con tell the contractor, hey, just before I do the final payment to you, I am going to have a uh independent home inspector come by and take a look at it just to see if it's stalled right. Or or just to see if it looks okay. Because like the siding, once it's on, we can't see the house wrap or how they did every little thing.

SPEAKER_01: 9:36

Or to see, I can definitely find out if it's loose or if they well, and here's my question if they messed up so much on other stuff, what's to say they didn't mess up on underneath it and that it's not gonna cause more damage down the road.

SPEAKER_00: 9:49

Correct, correct, and there's no way and there's no way to know at this point. There's no way of knowing at some point because you look at a house, this is why it's important if you're uh having a house built, is you have somebody, a home inspectant, come to come and do a pre-drywall inspection.

SPEAKER_01: 10:04

Yes, very important.

SPEAKER_00: 10:05

Once the house has drywall on, I we cannot see did they position the wires or the pipes correctly so they don't get damaged from nails and screws and cause shorts, fires, uh you know, little leaks in the pipes that end up in uh mold growth and making everybody sick. Yep. We can't see that once the drywall and the trim's on. We also can't see once they have the signal, we can't see do they put that house wrap, do they put the house wrap on correctly? Do they do the flashing around the windows correctly? Which is the same thing. Most of the time they don't, yeah. Which has been a big issue how they do the flashing, the pan flashing around the windows. So a lot of reason to hire a home inspector, but yeah, just do not hire just anybody for your subconscious for your home improvements, and then always have it looked at. Always, always, always. So anything else you can think of, Laura?

SPEAKER_01: 11:00

No, not with that one. I think that's done.

SPEAKER_00: 11:02

Alright, everybody. Take care. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_01: 11:04

Bye y'all.