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How to prevent your outside faucets from freezing

With all of the recent cold weather, I’ve noticed a huge increase in traffic on one of my older blog posts on how to keep outside faucets from freezing.  I have a few more tips to add, so I’m...

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Forgot to Winterize Your Outside Faucet(s)? Here’s what to do.

Did you forget to winterize your outside faucets this year?  I did.  It doesn’t matter that I posted a Fall Maintenance Checklist reminding homeowners to shut off water to their outside faucets nearly...

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Reuben's rant: hail damaged roof claims are out of control

I’ve given up all hope of trying to assess hail damage to asphalt shingle roofs during home inspections. It’s a game. I’ve looked at dozens of roofs that were in fantastic condition, only to have...

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Buying a home with a roof over 15 years old? Heads up.

I’ve been ranting and raving about hail-damaged roofs and how messed-up homeowners insurance is for the past couple of blog posts. While digging into this topic with a number of roofing contractors and...

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Home inspector training advice

Today I’ll share my advice on how to become a home inspector. I blogged on this topic back in 2011, and again in 2016, but things change and it’s time for another update. I’m writing this because I get...

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A few new flashlights

It seems like most new flashlights that come out today are simply variations on flashlights that already exist, but every once a while, something a bit new and novel comes across my desk. I simply must...

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Inspecting Permanent Wood Foundations

After attending a seminar on permanent wood foundations back in 2010, I was turned into a big fan of wood foundations. But I was also convinced that most wood foundations are built improperly.I was...

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Cisterns and abandoned rainleaders

Have you ever noticed those big cast-iron pipes sticking up out of the ground in various places around the outside of old houses? They’re old rainleaders. They took rainwater from the roof and brought...

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Q&A: "What causes black stains on my walls along the stud lines?"

I frequently receive this same question: what causes those black verticals stains on walls along the stud lines? To make it short and sweet, the answer is soot, and it’s usually caused by candles and...

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Fall maintenance checklist for Minnesota homeowners

Fall is here and the weather is beautiful in Minnesota, but we all know what’s coming next. Yes, there’s snow in the forecast. If you haven't finished your fall maintenance list, get on it now. To help...

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Animals, skeletons, and creepy home inspection stuff 2020

There is zero educational content in this post. It’s all gross or creepy stuff we’ve seen over the past year as home inspectors. Enjoy!This is the remains of a bat, found in a furnace return plenum....

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Home Inspectors don’t have to be old white guys

Take a look around any room full of home inspectors, and you’ll notice we look a lot alike. We are almost all white men with a lot of gray hair. It’s as if there’s an unwritten rule that you have to be...

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Stone Siding Installation Defects

This post was originally published in 2012. This is an updated version of that post.Stone siding might be the most problematic siding that we come across as home inspectors. This stuff is failing left...

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Stone veneer, major failures

I recently had an informative email exchange with a past client that highlighted the discovery of some especially nasty water damage behind the stone siding at her townhome. I was curious about the...

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How to calculate makeup air for Minnesota homes and the 300-cfm myth

Today I’ll explain what makeup air is and when it’s required for a Minnesota home. I’ll also go through a few examples to show how to do your own calculation. I wrote about this back in 2013, but the...

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FLIR C5 Review

FLIR has a relatively new pocket-sized infrared camera with all of the bells and whistles of the much larger and expensive E6. It boasts the same resolution as the E6 but it’s a fraction of the price...

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Minnesota CO alarm requirements for 2020

Today I’ll share the current requirements for carbon monoxide alarms in Minnesota, and I’ll also discuss some myths and misconceptions surrounding these devices. Words matterBefore we get into the...

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The 2020 National Electrical Code has been adopted in Minnesota

The 2020 version of the National Electrical Code was officially adopted in Minnesota on November 17, 2020. Unlike the International Residential Code, Minnesota doesn’t have their own flavor of this...

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How to determine the age of major appliances

The ASHI Standard of Practice for Home Inspections requires home inspectors to report on components near the end of their service lives. To figure this out, we need to determine the age of appliances...

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Beam fill and the case of the missing rim joists

Today I’m going to discuss rotted rim joist mysteries, and I’m going to introduce a term that I’ve never mentioned in this blog: beam fill. I wrote this blog post many years ago, but I never published...

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