Jim Sells The Suncoast: Buying and Selling Real Estate in Sarasota, Manatee County, Tampa, Port Charlotte, and Beyond

Demystifying Florida Home Inspections: Roofs, Red Flags & Coastal Realities with Rich Carroll

• Jim Ahearn • Season 1 • Episode 31

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In this episode of Jim Sells the Suncoast, Jim chats with Rich Carroll from HomeTeam Inspections about the nuts and bolts of home inspections in Florida. From spotting early signs of roof trouble to understanding cast iron pipe risks and navigating local insurance requirements, Rich shares pro insights that can save you money—and major headaches—down the road.

Key Highlights

  1. Roof Inspections & Coastal Conditions
    • Roof Checks: Moisture stains in attics, damaged or lifted shingles, and aging materials are prime indicators of potential roof problems.
    • Salt Air Corrosion: Coastal humidity and salt can accelerate rust on metal components like air conditioners and outdoor electrical panels.
  2. Water & Moisture Concerns
    • Most Common Red Flag: Moisture intrusion – from roof leaks to hidden plumbing drips – can cause hidden (and expensive) damage if left unchecked.
    • Attic Investigations: Inspectors often spot leaks by observing water stains on roof decking or near pipe penetrations.
  3. Foundation & Structure
    • Signs of Trouble: Settlement cracks in floors or walls, erosion around the slab, and unexplained loose or cracked tiles can indicate potential structural issues.
    • Wood-Frame vs. Block: Wood-frame homes are more susceptible to termites and moisture damage but can be maintained with regular treatments and inspections.
  4. Electrical & Plumbing Systems
    • Panel Red Flags: Federal Pacific, Zinsco, Challenger, and certain Sylvania panels are often flagged by insurance due to higher fire risks.
    • Cast Iron Pipes: Homes built before the mid-’80s may have aging cast iron drains. A sewer scope inspection is strongly recommended to avoid costly slab removal later.
  5. Insurance & Additional Inspections
    • Four-Point Inspection: Typically required for older homes (often 5-20+ years old) and covers roof, HVAC, electrical, and plumbing systems in a pass/fail format.
    • Wind Mitigation: A must for newer or recently updated roofs to qualify for significant insurance discounts.
    • Other Considerations: Termite (WDO) inspections are essential, and specialized checks like sewer scoping can be crucial for older homes.
  6. Preparing for an Inspection
    • Clear Access: Ensure the inspector can reach the attic hatch, electrical panel, HVAC systems, and water heater.
    • Utilities On: Keep water, gas, and electricity active so that all fixtures and appliances can be tested.
    • Full Disclosure: If there’s a unique setup or hidden switch, provide instructions to avoid “non-functioning” mentions on the report.

What’s Next?

Ready to tackle a home inspection without surprises? Reach out to Jim at jim.ahearn@gmail.com or visit Jim Sells the Suncoast for more tips on staying ahead in Florida’s real estate market. For thorough, team-based inspections around Sarasota, Manatee, and Venice, contact Rich Carroll at HomeTeam Inspections. Knowledge is

A Personal Note from Jim:

Hey there, I’m Jim Ahearn, your go-to real estate guide and host of Jim Sells The Suncoast podcast! 🎙️✨ Dreaming of Florida life? I’ve got you covered! As your dedicated buyer's agent, I’ll handle everything from walk-throughs to closing, making your home-buying journey as smooth as a Florida breeze.

Whether you're local or tuning in from afar, I’ll bring the Suncoast to you with virtual tours and expert advice. Let’s chat about your dream home and I'll connect you with all the right people to make it happen.

Ready to move to paradise? Drop me a line – I can’t wait to help! 🌴🏡

Jim:

All right, and welcome to Jim Sells the Suncoast. Today I am honored to have Rich Carroll with me. He is with home team, home inspections. He's been doing this since 2019. And he has Sarasota Manatee, Venice really the whole Suncoast area. So welcome, rich.

Rich:

Thank you.

Jim:

So glad you're here. If anybody that's bought a home knows, one of the things they do is you have to get an inspection. You want to know what's going on, what you have in your home. what are the most common issues that you encounter during an inspection on the Sun Coast?

Rich:

Probably the thing that I feel like is the most important is looking at the roofs. The roof, it's your most important, expensive component of your house. And it's very important to your insurance company. It's the one that they're focused on. And it's the place where. Not only is it expensive, but if it does fail on you, you end up with some pretty expensive repairs. Actually, the roof's probably the biggest thing. Trying to get a good look at the roof and let people know how long they have within reason, we've had three hurricanes in the last couple of years, that even the best home inspector goes out and says, 10 years, three hurricanes hit two years. It's hard on them. But the idea of trying to understand that complexity of your home, that's probably the biggest thing is the roof after that. Plumbing, one of the things that we have down here is we have a lot of older homes with cast iron pipes. So letting people understand how their plumbing works, that's very important. I'm asked almost every day, who do you suggest for HVAC systems and stuff like that too? Because, you're talking, if you have a single system, it's 10 grand. If you have a double system, it's 20 and you can just count the number of condenses you have and multiply it by eight to$10,000. Those are expensive, so people wanna know about that too.

Jim:

right. How do coastal conditions like humidity and salt water, how do they impact the longevity of the home?

Rich:

So everybody's seen, like the rust or in some cases it's corrosion. Older houses in a lot of our neighborhoods were built around 2000, give or take. And if you start looking at all the corners, back when they were doing stucco on those corners, you had metal corners and they would stucco up to that metal corner and paint over it. So when you go out and you look at a house in the corner starting to rust, and you got rust bleeding through. That's the corrosion from that salt, air and moisture getting in there and really working on that metal there.

Jim:

My editor's great. we're gonna look like we were brilliant and seamless.

Rich:

Anyway where was I going? So the metal corners.

Jim:

Stucco.

Rich:

So the metal corners. You're gonna see a lot of corrosion there. And there'll be like little rust lines and stuff there. especially if you get out close to the water. a condenser, an air conditioning condenser that's. Five, six years old is gonna have some pretty significant rust on it just because that salt air is just so hard on the metal and it's gonna attack anything metal closer water, right? The more that you're gonna have to keep things painted and coated up real good so that they don't rust. Condensers. I've seen that were seven years old, looking like they were 30 years old. The other thing is electrical panels and stuff that are outside. So anything like that, any metal conduit, any electrical panels, those things will rust through, rust out, and then they'll start giving you problems because once you get moisture and electricity, you don't have to be a master electrician to know that isn't a good combination.

Jim:

What's the biggest red flag you look for when you're inspecting a home out here on the Suncoast?

Rich:

Okay, moisture more. Anything else? One of the things we love, we got the ocean. Love the water. We got some great rivers. If you own a kayak, it's wonderful place to live. Even the rainy days are cool. I'm from the west coast, so we're used to drizzle nine months out of the year, whereas here, I mean it rains, it's done. Go back outside. It's cool. But that's probably the biggest red flag is you want to make sure the water is staying where it's supposed to water inside the house. Any kind of moisture whatsoever is going to be destructive. So the first thing that we'll do is, in fact, everybody that I train walks through the house, first thing we do is we start looking at the ceiling for water stains and watermarks. Same thing with walls. any kinda large deterioration on a wall probably, is some kind of a water staining. Then if we find anything, first thing we do is throw a moisture meter on it. Let's just make sure there's no water there, because even if it's not a roof leak, even if it's not a leak through a wall or a slab. Something like that. There's a lot of times when you end up with leaks in pipes, inside lines. I had one about a month ago that, man, I couldn't find the leak, but after a while, it's just wait a minute. Do you hear it? And you can hear this. And it's a steady drip inside a wall. You can hear it, but you couldn't see it until we got down along the baseboard, where behind the baseboard it was clearly leaking. Moisture's, the biggest thing, any kind of discoloration that makes you think moisture, that makes you question marks, and that's what you gotta start looking for

Jim:

when you see moisture inside. If you've got that moisture buildup on there.

Rich:

Usually it takes a minute for it to happen. Even with a roof leak. Unless you have just boom, right? You have a lot of wind catastrophic failure of the roof. You lose a chunk and it starts raining inside. Most of the time you'll start with a little dribble and you'll get a little moisture. I've had several times where the owner said, I had no idea this was going on. and you look at them and you say, I believe you. the thing is a lot of us, if you have a bigger house, you may not go into every room every day, all the time. And then when you do go in there, I'm like the worst house guest to have. Don't everyone invite a home inspector over for dinner?'cause the first thing they're doing right is number right here. They're looking at your ceiling. they're looking for any kind of anything that could be a defect in a home inspection. But that's the thing is people aren't attuned to necessarily seeing stains. That's probably a roof leak and likely is not. It could be as simple as just a nail rusted out or a nail got loose and then it starts dripping through and that's that. The other one is plumbing leaks. And a lot of times you have drain line leaks, and if it's a drain line leak, you may not notice a drain line leak because it only leaks when there's water in there. So underneath everybody's sink is full of stuff. And you may be a week, two weeks, a month, into something before you go Oh. Everything I own is wet under here. What's going on? And by that time, since the cabinets are some are nice, but a lot of the components for the cabinets are made out of particle board, and that does not hold the water very well. So the first day it's fine, just wipe it off. Even the third day is probably fine, just wipe it off. After that, it's starting to get into the wood itself and break that out and cause all kinds of grief. So water, usually my experience is it takes a little bit of time to really cause some damage because either we don't recognize it because we don't see it, or once we do recognize it, we wanna wait and see for a day or two to make sure that we know what's going on. And then sometimes it's hard to get it fixed, yeah.

Jim:

Yeah, so I think that says something when the inspector comes through and says, there may be damage up there, it's moist. Follow up on it.

Rich:

Yeah and I always tell people too. And this was something that I learned from running factories was if you have a spot where it leaked, I guarantee you that is probably your next likely spot to look for leaks too. So yeah, problems tend to happen in the same spot.

Jim:

How do you assess the quality and condition of a roof? Overall, and what on the roof are you looking at? You're looking at the top, you're looking inside up in the attic. What are the, any specific things you're looking for?

Rich:

the first thing when we first start out is we'll take a walk around the house. We're looking at the gutters themselves and the soffits and the fascia to see what kind of condition those are in. With a lot of wind lately, we've seen a lot of soffits that are either missing or just damaged and bent up shape. Gutters, of course we keep an eye on, you wanna look for any gutters that look like they might be bleeding water back into the house, so that can be an issue too. Then typically what I will do under normal circumstances, I'll go up on, walk on the roof and take a look at the roof itself. I'm looking for broken tiles, crack tiles, missing tiles. if it's not a tile roof, then I'll be looking at shingles and again, it's the same thing. It's missing shingles. It's torn shingles. If any place where the shingles are lifted, we get a lot of wind. So a lot of times you can lift, you can touch those shingles and if it comes up in your hand and you can get your fingers under it, that's bad. So we're looking for anything that's lifted and then anything that looks like it could be a hole or should be a hole, if there's any kind of places where it's worn out. After that, we start looking for a thing called granular loss, and that's on your shingles. There's a sand up there and the way the shingle works is it's an asphalt and fiberglass shingle. once the sand goes away, the ultraviolet light starts working on that fiberglass and that asphalt and it stops shed and water like it's supposed to. And the longevity of the roof, the amount of time it's going to last is directly related to how much of that sand you still have on those shingles. And so we're looking at that, trying to assess that. And then just generally given age of the roof, of how old is it? how much longer will it last? Give people kind of an idea of what they're looking at right? When a roof's 40,000 plus dollars. You wanna know when that bill collector's coming.

Jim:

Yeah. And you wanna get as much use out of it as you can,

Rich:

And that's what I tell people too, in a lot of cases, the. roof, whether you are going to just do a repair or replace a roof. Once the repair costs x, then it's better to just replace it. And then finally what we'll do is we'll go in the attic and we'll look for leaks in the attic. In most cases, if you see a leak, you're not gonna see it on top of a roof. You can see missing shingles, you can see something, but leaks and stuff start out being easier to see in the attic. If you think about it, a nail is, how wide. And so if you have a nail hole in the top of a roof, it's gonna be pretty darn hard to see that little tiny hole, right? But on the inside of the attic, the water goes in and then it spreads and it makes a big wet stain there. really having people that go through your attic and take a good look there, that's probably the best way to find any kind of a problem that's already there.

Jim:

Okay.

Rich:

If your house does not have access to the attic, or if you don't have access in all the places, you may want to think about where could I put a scuttle, which is just the porthole that you go up into the attic. where is a good, safe place to put one of those? that's one of the maintenance points of your house. You don't want to have somebody go look at it once in a while.

Jim:

Don't wait 20 years to find a problem.

Rich:

And to where the ceiling's falling down and now the entire bedroom ceiling is now your right.

Jim:

Yep. How do you inspect a Holmes foundation?

Rich:

Yeah. And the inspection is very similar. We're looking for any kind of moisture. Most of the time for the slabs, we're looking for anything that could be loose crack tiles inside your house, any big cracks in there. Those are signs that there's a problem with it. We also, as we're walking around the outside of it, we want to see how your gutters are working. Are they dropping water right at the edge of the slab, because if it's undermining, we're gonna tell you, put some dirt back in there, get that pushed back up there and fix the grade so that we can push that water further away from the house. you don't want to make the, pressure of the house against the slab itself. You want to get the ground, the dirt, the slab. All to be one continuous load-bearing device to spread that weight out. The other thing you gotta watch out for is just settling cracks.'cause there's always gonna be some of those, so you wanna watch out for any kind of settling cracks, anything that looks like it's clearly a crack there. And then finally, the last thing you're looking for is any moisture at the baseboards or at the base of the floor. If you see staining, things like that. I'll be honest with you, I find more roof problems than slab problems. For sure. But every once in a while, you go out there and you'll find somebody that's got four corners of their house that down by the slab that's chipped out or broke up or cracked. And, that needs a little bit of attention. You'd have somebody a contractor that's experienced with fixing those structural problems out there and have them actually. Fix it. Not just, don't just stuck over it. You need to actually support it.

Jim:

are there any specific building materials or construction styles that are more prone to problems in this area?

Rich:

I suppose I would start out wood frame versus block. Wood frame houses are always gonna be more susceptible'cause they're made out of termite food, that's something that you want to be prepared for. So if you have a house that's predominantly wood, it, they have several here that have been here since, the twenties. So it's not that they won't exist. And I've been up in Tampa too, and they have some that are before the twenties that have been around and entire neighborhoods that are all wood. It's not that you can't have a wood house, you just need to protect it from the termites, and that means, regular treatments and somebody checking it and things like that. So that would probably be my first, if you're gonna look at what you would watch out for, after that, I'd be concerned if you're very close to water or the coast if you don't have your house set up for impact protection. And then as time goes on, I think what we're gonna see is those houses on the coast too have to be lifted up and raised up higher because That those storm surges were. They were devastating. I've been in several houses that have taken one to four feet of water and, it's just, it's almost a start over point at the house. they gut'em and start just repairing them all the way from scratch, and I think that, what you're gonna see is a lot of that particular style of building where you have mobile homes and you have houses that are sitting, the Florida style house with the low slope roof really small down there next to the water. I think that's gonna go away. So those are the two things I would say right off the bat That you're gonna see less and less of. And then after that, the interesting thing I think is that you're gonna see the insurance companies push around and tend to define what we will and won't have for building here. It's what you can afford to And some of that is, based on science and some of it's based a little bit on emotion it feels and There's gonna be some give and take there for sure too. So the insurance companies are gonna start picking what can be where and how you can do it. Because we just won't be able to afford to insure something. And for most of us that can't show up with, 500,$600,000 of cash, you're gonna have to have insurance because you're gonna have to have a mortgage. there are a couple of things that are probably happening in the industry that are a little bit, I am not saying good or bad one way or the other, but the building practices are faster than they ever were. And planned redundancy or the planned obsolescence is happening a little bit more. Some of the components that we use in our houses used to last a very long time, and they just flat don't last as long anymore. Be prepared once their AC units hit 10 years, once their water heaters hits 10 years old. You need to be prepared. Honestly, I had one that was 27 years old in Oregon before I changed it out. used to be very common is to have, those things last a lifetime. They're just not anymore. And so I would say those are things that you have to be planning and preparing for. you need to look at what makes the most sense. I've said to people for a long time if the insurance companies only give you 20 years on your shingle roof, Do you really want a 35 year shingle, a 20 year shingle or a 50 year shingle. there's a trade off there and you gotta figure out what makes the most sense and that, that's a personal choice, I think, right at this point still.

Jim:

gonna be in the mix of what you're considering.

Rich:

Exactly. And a lot of times it comes down to a math test. If I spend this much money and I buy this thing, is it really better? And you have to do your research.

Jim:

When,

Rich:

so when you're, I love older style stuff too. Personally, some of these places with the older style homes, I think they're cool looking. They give you that flavor of Florida, yeah. So I hate to see everything change and turn into something else, but you know that, that's part of life, right?

Jim:

How do you evaluate the plumbing and electrical systems in a home?

Rich:

There are several of them that are flagged by insurance companies. They don't like them. They're for various rea usually and it sounds like I'm saying the insurance people are bad guys and they're not. What it is what it is. They're worse than bad guys. They understand math. That's right. That's why they're bad people is they get math. It makes sense to'em. If you have so many of X and less than 1% of them start fires, that's a good one. But if you have so many of Y and 22% of them start fires, they don't want you to use those anymore. They're doing us a favor in reality, right? So if you have a Federal Pacific panel, if you have a stab lock panel, if you have a GTE Sylvania panel, those are flagged, those are all flagged challengers flagged now too. These are all flagged because they have a higher incidence of failure. So what do we do? We go into a house, we look to see what kind of a panel you have. We'll take a look at it, we'll open it up, see how it's wired. The world does not love solid strand aluminum wiring. It is notorious for, again, starting fires and not being as safe as regular copper wires. So people want copper. That being said. There are ways to remediate that aluminum too, but again, it's not as well liked as the other. So we're gonna look for copper, aluminum, solid strand or multis strand. Then once we get done with that, we're gonna check all your outlets and make sure all the lights go on and the fans go on. So basically make sure any electrical appliance is functioning. Keep in mind your inspector is looking for functioning. That doesn't mean if it's ugly, that's not our job, yeah. What do you think about how it looks? I said, you know what, to be honest with you if you want me to decorate your house, you better get used to wagon wheels and steer horns, because that's what I like. And at that point, nobody cares about my opinion on aesthetics and how it looks. But in your inspector, that's what his job is. Does it or does it not function? And if it functions it's doing its part. We're gonna look for any place where there's any kind of fire hazards. Are there exposed wires somewhere? Do you have the right kind of covers on your exterior outlets? Lights work. Do they function like they're supposed to? That's really our goal there is to make sure that the electrical system is working and functional. We're gonna make sure everything's grounded. We're gonna make sure it's wired correctly to the extent that we look at it, which is to say outlets and. Fans now,

Jim:

right?

Rich:

We're not going to take things apart. That's one thing that your home inspector shouldn't do. We're allowed to observe. But if you want somebody to go into the wall and take apart the electrical system or open up, inspection from conduit and stuff like that, you need to get an electrician to do that. Our job is to say, Hey. Here's something that you need to get an electrician to take a look at.'cause it does not look right.

Jim:

We expect it to do X and it did Y

Rich:

Same thing with plumbing. Exact same thing. If we go and we look at it and say that is not hooked up, how we would normally see it? We think you should have a plumber look at it to make sure that's gonna continue working for you. That's one of the other things, people that are doing houses, if you're building a house, they have certain milestones they're looking for, right? And a week before the house is ready to close, you walk people through and that's a milestone. And the house closes, that's a milestone and they hit 12 months. And that's another milestone. Once the house closes, it goes from the building manager to the warranty side. And then once it's a year old, then the warranty's right gone on. Almost everything. Our look at, it's a little bit different. We look at is it functioning and how long and how is it functioning? So if we look at a new build. Is that gonna work for the next five years, or is that going to fail three years down the road? It's a, there's a different perspective too, at the way people look at things, and I think that's important too.

Jim:

Yeah, and I think one of the things you're alluding to is did it work in the manner it's supposed to work,

Rich:

Yeah. And that's where it comes down to, right? It's, does it work in the manner that it was intended. And that sometimes Is an absolute firm. Yes. And other times it's not so much. And maybe you look at it and just say, you know what, I don't care if the light and the fan come on every time you hit the button. What's important to me is that the light comes on and as long as that's working, don't care. And that's where your inspection is. Yours too. You can do.

Jim:

Do you do anything with the overall energy efficiency of a home when you're doing an inspection?

Rich:

I do not, but there are several people out there that do efficiency, Okay. Type of inspections. It's a different animal I would say. Not as popular here as other places. I know in California when I was there, they had people that, that's all they focused on was just the efficiency and the carbon footprint of your house. And how to minimize that. I don't really do that, but I know that you can find people that will,

Jim:

how can homeowners prepare for a home inspection so that it's a smooth process?

Rich:

So there's a handful of things that we're gonna have to do. We're gonna have to be able to get to the majority of the stuff in your house, right? Where in some cases you're told declutter the house, and so you take everything outta the house and you put it in the garage, but you stack it all on the water heater and against the electrical panel. First off, we're gonna want to go up in the attic'cause if we do a wind or just a regular home inspection, we need to be able to get it in the attic and. Don't take this the wrong way. I'm pretty good about getting into weird spots, but I am not going to crawl into an attic if I have to crawl over your 240,000 Corvette. It's just not gonna happen. and I'm telling you, it hurts a lot worse to fall out of an attic and land on a$240,000 car. Than it does on a Pinto, so we're gonna not crawl over those, and to be fair, the point I'm trying to make is we need access to stuff. For your four point, we have to be able to get to your water heater. We have to get to the air handler and the condenser. We have to be able to get to all the plumbing. We have to be able to get to the electrical panel and we're gonna have to be able to get there enough that we can take the cover of it off. I had a house today with a. Stacked washer and dryer, and it's right up against an electrical panel and it's all hooked up to water. And I just had to say, yeah, I gotta be able to get into there and I don't move washer and dryer because those hoses are notorious for breaking. And after talking with the realtor. She just said the listing agent's coming over. I'll talk to him about it and see what we can do. And I thought as long as we all know and we're all going to do this together, I'm happy to help. What I'm saying is I just don't wanna be responsible for a broken water line that I can't really do anything about. So needless to say, before I even got a chance to go in there and talk to him, he goes, oh, not a problem. I'll move it outta the way He moves. It outta the way. And then the guy that was with me we always go out and clean, we go out two at a time at least. So broke the hose, and so they had to run in there really quick and do the quick shut out, down the water as fast as you can on this house. And so it's just one of those things, right? There, there's things that are just notorious that we have to get to. So electrical panel, you have to be able to get to and take the cover off. Need to be able to get in the attics. That's the first thing. The first thing you can do to make it a smooth process is make sure that we can get to everything we need to. The next thing I would say is make sure that some of the stuff that's, if you have something that's really weird and it's hard to figure out how to work. If The refrigerator work, you have to crawl up on a ladder and crank a handle up in the attic and then stand on one foot and spin around. Yeah. Make sure that, that stuff is very easy for us to figure out because if it's really difficult for us to figure out how to make something work, we're just gonna say, does not function. Recommend you talk to the owner about how to make it work. Where did we hide the switch to the pool light? Where did we hide the switch to the blower, to the spa? I had one the other day. It was hilarious. There's not a switch over in the pool stuff. There's not a switch on the one one of the bathrooms had a light switch in it. it just so happened that when the person that was working with me was testing all the switches in the bathroom, they go, what does this do? I'm like, the floor went on. How did that happen? And so you back in, find who touched what and so if you have stuff like that make it as simple as possible because otherwise you end up with this. It doesn't work. and'cause there's a limit to how long we're gonna look for a switch that's somewhere. I one time went up and there's A-G-F-C-I reset above the kitchen in the attic again. We flagged that and said, listen, you need to take that out of there.'cause A-G-F-C-I that says you have to go up from the attic to reset your hood, fan for your oven. That's a bad place for it. But if you have something like that, let us know ahead of time, because otherwise you're gonna get home and that hood fan's not gonna work for three weeks and then it's gonna dawn on you. Oh, that's where that is. The other thing I would say too is we're not gonna move furniture or appliances, so if there's something that clearly you need to be able to get to. Have a clear path to it. And we open all the windows. If one of my guys was to stand with his boots, even with booties on it, on top of your couch to open a window, I'd have to choke'em out. That's just, they know it. I know it. It's just that's how it goes down, that's just not cool. Access to stuff that's gonna be the most important thing. Anything that's really odd, I would leave instructions on how things work. I certainly wouldn't try to hide anything because if you hide stuff, then it just looks like you're trying to do something dishonest, and so then you end up with something in the inspection report that says, I accidentally had to move this cabinet so that I could show you this giant hole in the wall.

Jim:

Yeah.

Rich:

And maybe you didn't mean to, maybe it wasn't being tricky, but it certainly does.

Jim:

Sure that plants that seed.

Rich:

Yeah. And doesn't it work best when we all are honest and upfront? Just say, Hey, this is a condition of the house. Fixing the roof and making sure there's no leaks should include making sure that you've, painted the ceilings and all that. Disclose it. Like you're supposed to. one of the things that I see that plants more. Concern in our client's mind is when they go into a house and they see stains on the ceiling, they don't like that and they're like, oh man, the roof probably leaks. They replaced it a year and a half ago. It probably doesn't, they just haven't painted the ceilings. I would think about that. You have a realtor take their advice, they're gonna tell you not to leave a problem where it's obvious and where there's gonna be a question

Jim:

from.

Rich:

So to sum that one up, attic access, electrical panel access AC access, and, water heater access, those are gonna be real important. Then access to anything inside the house that needs to be looked at. I would make sure that you have your water on and that you have your water bill paid and you have your gas on. You have your gas bill paid because we get to a house and we are doing the inspection. If the water's off, say for instance, if the county stuck a pin in it, we're not gonna cut the pin. We're not, no matter what the county, everybody can say it's okay, but it's not okay. We're not gonna go around. The county. And that means everything on your fourth point just failed. Your water heater, your hot water, your sink, everything just is gonna show up as did not work'cause you don't have water.

Jim:

Sure. And it sounds like they should be working with their real estate agent with clear communication to guide'em through. Are there any inspections that are often overlooked but should be prioritized in this area?

Rich:

So I'd like I talked there about insurance inspections. First you have a four point inspection if your house is over five years old. If your house is 20 years old, definitely ask your insurance agent, do I need a four point? My understanding is 20 years old, you definitely have to have one. Nowadays, when you get much over five, eight years old, you're gonna have to have one. Work with your insurance agent. Make that phone call before we get there because almost everybody tries to bundle and save you a little bit of money by being there. But that's a very important thing. There's nothing worse than finding out that you waited to get your four point'cause you're gonna save yourself a couple of dollars and then you're week from closing and your insurance is gonna be$8,000 a year because of the four point. So that's all something you should think about a little bit. I would definitely get your four point. If you look at a four point, it is like pass fail for the house. So if we go into a house and we do the four point and we find. Something wrong with the electrical system, something wrong with the plumbing system that's pass fail. The insurance company's gonna say before we insure the house. You need to fix that.

Jim:

it.

Rich:

That's now I'm not an insurance guy. I can't say that's always how everybody works, but 99% of them that I've been involved with, and I do three or four of these a day they all want that fixed. If you have a roof that is newer than a 2002, you're always better off to get a wind mitigation. I don't know of anybody that charges so much money in their wind mitigation that it won't offset the deductions you're gonna get on your homeowner's insurance with wind mitigation if you have a newer roof. Wind mitigation is a way of reducing your insurance costs because your insurance has to give you deductions for each one of the categories that you are qualified for on a win mitigation. So although we can't tell you, oh, it's gonna be$18, we can tell you are gonna get a deduction for this because you know it, it's all kinda legislated in there. So right. Definitely worth your while for those two PE inspections are a good idea, especially if you have wood or you're close to where there's going to be termites. I firmly think that as a rule, they're pretty reasonably priced It's better to find out that you got nothing and at least you have a, you're starting from square one.

Jim:

the peace of mind of knowing that too goes along.

Rich:

Just, yeah. Do you hear or might chewing on the wood. Yeah. Other inspections, if your house is pre 82, pre 84, I would definitely recommend a sewer scope. your home inspection may or may not determine if you have cast iron pipe, but they definitely won't be able to tell you without a sewer scope if the cast iron pipe is deteriorated to the point where it be replaced. The way we build drain lines in Florida, especially pre 82, was you have big three and four inch lines that are. Sunk into the slab of your home. They're made outta cast iron. Cast iron tends to live about 50 years. So anything that's 50 years old is worth having it scoped. scoping them is expensive, but it's not as expensive as if you have to have somebody take a concrete saw to the, to your living room. So it's probably. One of the least sexy inspections to do. But in my mind, for the times that people call me and say, Hey, I got a cracked cast iron pipe you didn't tell me about. And it's I didn't tell you it was cracked because you didn't get a sewer scope. And I did tell you that the age of your house has a, possibility of having cast iron, and we recommend that you have somebody scope it and plumber evaluate it. Unfortunately you're on your own with that one.'cause we did say that and the risk versus reward is huge, I guess is what I would say with cast iron pipe. So I would be aware of that. I'd also consider that a red flag if somebody says, Hey, you got cast iron in the vents, or you got cast iron in the attic. Not everybody, when they re-pipe a house will change those because they don't deteriorate as much'cause they're not in constant contact with water. But, it still could mean that you have cast iron everywhere. Be aware, ask some questions see if it makes sense. I've just been going by luck until, I started getting into the home inspection business and learning a little bit more about this, and now it's man, I would definitely like to have one of these older places, but I would definitely not buy someone. Built in the seventies and not have somebody stick a camera down there just to see.

Jim:

Yeah. go in knowing what's there and be forewarned.

Rich:

Knowledge is always gonna be power, right? Yep. You can make any decision you want. If you have all the knowledge of which way going to, probably the outcome, it's worth it. But the cast iron ones, it's expensive if it doesn't work out those are probably the biggest ones that I would say, the other stuff that you can get, you can have an HVAC guy come out and go through your HVAC system. But by and large and this is my opinion, it's not really a statement of science. But once they start hitting 10 years, you need to be prepared because you could get 18 or 20 years out of it. But. That means you're taking good care of it, you're taking very good care of it. You're having an HVAC guy come out and service it regularly, and you're watching it. If that isn't the case, you better be prepared after 10 years to put another one in. And those are expensive decisions. Without a doubt. Oh, absolutely. You can get an electrician to come in and do a electric electrical evaluation of the entire house too. But again, I don't really see that as being the huge ones. I would consider the cast iron pipe to be one that I would look at definitely get a pest inspection. I think those are worthwhile. But those are the big ones. I see.

Jim:

Cool. Rich. Thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate you coming out. I learn every time I talk with people who are experts in their field and what they're doing. So the home inspection vital when you're going into a home, as you just said, knowledge is power. Know what you're getting into. Anything else you would say about a home inspection before we sign off?

Rich:

Just a, and this isn't so much a home inspection is it's more of a commercial for realtors. They do a job they have a function in this process and they can help you navigate some pretty tricky questions that come up, and that's the, what they're there for. I may not always say you should have this inspection or that inspection outside, but I really feel strongly that you should always have a realtor. when we work on jobs where people don't have a realtor It's really difficult for folks because there's a lot of really hard decisions to make and a lot of things that need to be explained to you, not just on the house itself, Finding the house is the first and maybe the easy part but finding out about the house, finding out how to own the house. If you really own the house. The legalities of owning a house what kind of expenses you're gonna have for the house. I really feel the realtors, the ones that I work with that are very good, are really experts at. Helping you negotiate the whole process. They keep a lot of balls up in the air for making the process work, so everybody's got their own role in this process. You got Insurance people that are helping you. You got title people, you got attorneys, you got, your inspection folks. there's a lot of moving parts and having the right team to help you is huge, my opinion. Absolutely. Same thing with the inspection teams. There's a lot of good inspectors out there. I like to think we do a very reputable job and nothing that we have to be ashamed of. There's other people out there that do a very reputable job. Nothing to be ashamed of too. And, just take the time to make sure that your guy is insured, that he's licensed, that he's got some level of experience. None of us would want to go to the eye doctor that's doing his. Third lasing surgery, right? They all have to have number three, but number 30,000 makes you feel a little more confident.

Jim:

yeah, so I

Rich:

would look for somebody that's got some experience and at least a way of vetting themselves so that they can get through the process. Those are the things that just pop into my mind right now. Appreciate you inviting me. It's always fun to talk to people about houses. it's turned into, a big part of my life. So it's important.

Jim:

Yeah.

Rich:

Thank you.

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