Reuben's Home Inspection Blog

When a home buyer asks a seller to make repairs to a property after a home inspection, how do the repairs get verified?  Do they get verified?  Do they need to be verified?  I recently blogged about a hack chimney repair that I found at a re-inspection, and several people commented about the imp...

Water stains on window sills is often a source of anxiety for home buyers, and it's the home inspector's job to help determine if the stains are the sign of a major problem or not. There are three common causes of water stains on windows: Leaving the windows open.  The windows get left open, and ...

I don't get hired to re-inspect chimney repairs often, but when I do, I'm often disgusted.  Here's how it works: the home inspector says the chimney needs repair, and the buyer tells the seller to fix the chimney.  The sellers usually hire the cheapest chimney repair contractor they can find... ...

The biggest problem I find with boilers on old Minneapolis and Saint Paul homes is leaking exhaust gas.  While every heating contractor knows to look for backdrafting at the vent while performing maintenance checkups on boilers, I've found that many contractors don't bother to check for exhaust g...

I'm not sure if it's handy homeowners or negligent contractors that are responsible, but I find the same installation defects on water softeners over and over again.  The installation instructions for water softeners are pretty much the same for all the different manufacturers, so the informatio...

As a Minnesota home inspector who does a lot of radon testing, I hear a lot of myths about radon being repeated over and over again.  I've actually heard other home inspectors perpetuate a few of these radon myths as well. Myth: vacant houses have high levels of radon. The idea behind this myth ...

Most houses with sump pumps rely on the pumps to keep the basement from flooding.  When a big rain storm comes through, the sump pump will really be needed... and that's also the time that the power to a  neighborhood is most likely going to get knocked out, disabling the sump pump and allowing ...

Many years ago, I learned about a bath tub leak that I never caught during my home inspection.  The seller didn't have any children and didn't take baths, so they never knew about the problem with the bath tub drain.  I did my standard inspection of the bath tub, which included filling the tub u...

  Today is going to be a long day.  As I sit here writing this blog post, it's 4:55 am and I just finished doing a little research on the house that I'll be inspecting at 9:00 am.  The online listing for this property says it has lots of square footage and needs some cosmetic updates. I haven't b...

  I've taken many building code classes that were taught by the Building Official for the City of New Hope, Roger Axel.  He's a fantastic teacher.  In his classes, I remember him repeatedly telling us to take off the blinders; what he meant by this was to not miss the forest for the trees.  Sure,...