In this episode of the Structure Talk podcast, hosts Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry welcome Will Misegades from Redfish Inspections in Houston, Texas. They discuss the unique challenges of home inspections in hot and humid climates, the merger of Redfish Inspections with Magnolia Home Inspections, and the importance of a strong leadership structure in running a successful inspection business. Will shares insights from his diverse background in construction management and the evolution of his company, including the impact of local housing stock and insurance challenges on home inspections. They highlight the prevalence of asphalt shingles in Houston, the issues with stucco, and the implications of HVAC systems in attics. The conversation emphasizes the importance of understanding moisture dynamics in different climates and how it affects building durability. In this conversation, Will Misegades also explains the unique foundation care required in Texas due to clay soil and the common plumbing materials used in the area. The conversation emphasizes the critical role of home inspections in identifying potential issues before they escalate.
Takeaways
The importance of networking in the home inspection industry.
A scarcity mindset can hinder growth and collaboration.
Merging businesses can lead to new opportunities and growth.
Leadership teams can effectively run a business without owner involvement.
Understanding local housing stock is crucial for effective inspections.
Insurance challenges are becoming more prevalent in older homes.
The quality of building materials significantly affects longevity.
Hot and humid climates present unique challenges for home inspectors.
Collaboration and open communication are key in business partnerships.
The inspection industry can benefit from a board of directors model. 90-95% of residential roofs in Houston are asphalt shingles.
Insurance policies often undervalue roof replacements.
The housing industry lacks incentives for quality materials.
Stucco is problematic in humid climates like Houston.
Crawl spaces are less common; slab foundations are prevalent.
HVAC systems are primarily located in attics in Houston.
Moisture management is crucial in southern climates.
Mold can develop quickly if moisture issues are not addressed.
Open-cell spray foam is preferred for insulation in humid areas.
Home inspectors should always check for hidden leaks in closets. Mold issues are prevalent in new neighborhoods due to HVAC inadequacies.
Texas homes often require unique foundation care due to clay soil.
Homeowners should water their foundations during dry seasons.
Proper air exchange systems are becoming necessary for new construction.
HVAC systems must be sized correctly to manage humidity levels.
Plumbing issues with PEX are not common in Texas.
Home inspections are crucial for identifying potential problems early.
Insurance companies are starting to reject older roofs.
Energy efficiency improvements can lead to new HVAC challenges.
Understanding the age and type of roofing can impact insurance coverage.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Holiday Reflections
02:04 Meet Will Misegades: Background and Journey
07:16 The Merger of Redfish Inspections and Magnolia Home Inspections
10:24 Business Operations and Leadership Structure
12:12 Typical Housing Stock in Houston
17:51 Insurance Challenges and Building Quality
19:47 Roofing Materials and Their Lifespan
22:43 Siding Choices and Their Implications
25:05 Crawl Spaces vs. Slab Foundations
27:16 Attic Conditions and HVAC Systems
32:32 Moisture Management in Construction
38:31 The HVAC Dilemma: Mold and Air Quality Issues
47:21 Foundation Challenges in Texas Homes
50:30 Plumbing Concerns: PEX and Other Issues
51:29 HVAC Systems: Heating and Cooling Solutions
54:23 The Importance of Home Inspections
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.644)
Welcome back to the Structure Talk podcast. Tessa, always great to see you. How you doing today?
Tessa Murry (00:07.165)
Good to see you too. We made it through one holiday. We’re recording this in between Christmas for anybody that celebrates Christmas and the New Year. So good to see you, Ruben. We survived one holiday. We just have a few more to go. And then we’re going to be in a whole new year. I can’t believe it. 2025.
Reuben Saltzman (00:22.04)
Heck yeah, heck yeah.
Yeah, and well, and by the time this airs, I’m pretty sure it will be 2025. This will be one of the first episodes of the new year. And before we get into the topic, though, I want to give a shout out to our sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder. We have been partnering with them for about half a year now, something like that. They are our official show sponsor. And that’s where I met our guest is through IEB. Today, we’ve got Will Meisgades.
from Redfish Inspections down in Texas. And he and I met each other through some conference, I don’t know how long ago, probably about five, six years ago. And we’ve known each other for a long time now. Just, and that’s part of the power of IEB is all the people you get to meet all over the country. So Will, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
Will Misegades (01:08.091)
Yeah, it’s.
Will Misegades (01:16.881)
Thank you very much. Thank you, Ruben, for having me and Tessa. I’m doing well. I’m full from Christmas parties, ease, so multiples. And then we enjoyed our Christmas and family yesterday. So it was good. I’m good.
Reuben Saltzman (01:26.849)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (01:26.877)
it.
Tessa Murry (01:32.915)
That’s nice. Very nice.
Reuben Saltzman (01:34.453)
Awesome. And I pronounced your name right, right? Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. I was pretty confident. didn’t ask you before the show, but then as soon as it came out of my mouth, went, wait, I got that right, right? Okay. Yes. Yes. It’s spelled M-I-S-E-G-A-D-E-S. Okay. All right. Perfect. And I got the company name right too, right? I’m going my memory here. Okay. Yeah. Redfish inspections. Perfect. Okay.
Will Misegades (01:36.665)
You did. You’re one of the few. You did real good.
Will Misegades (01:46.799)
It’s better than misguided, so it’s good.
Will Misegades (01:55.334)
That’s it.
Tessa Murry (02:04.351)
Well, this is fun. We’re continuing on with our series. This is our second year now of interviewing different experts, home inspectors from around the country to talk about their unique challenges with their geographical location in terms of building science issues that they see or just talking about the differences with housing stock and how that plays into how they inspect and what they look for and the problems they have. So we’re excited to have you on today, Will. And can you?
Can you tell our listeners where you’re located?
Will Misegades (02:35.045)
Yes, we are in Houston, Texas. So we are south of the country.
Tessa Murry (02:40.307)
Okay, Houston, Texas. tell me, is this, okay, this is kind of coastal. Is it hot, humid where you are or do you also deal with kind of more semi-arid climate as well?
Will Misegades (02:52.313)
No, it’s hot and humid. It’s currently 75 degrees out. Yeah. So I’m in two short, short sleeves.
Reuben Saltzman (02:56.747)
Lucky. Sounds great.
Tessa Murry (02:56.997)
I just got back from sledding with my nephew. So slight contrast. my goodness. OK, so hot, humid. know, just to recap, shout out to last year we had on special guest John Bolton from Florida to talk about hot, humid climates. And man, is he fun. He’s he’s a fun guy to have on the podcast. It took me a second to catch up to his wit. But.
Will Misegades (03:14.695)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (03:24.541)
He’s wealth and knowledge. So we’re excited to kind of dive into some hot, humid climate stuff with you today. But before we do that, can you give us a little background on just yourself and your business and how you got to where you are today?
Will Misegades (03:38.841)
Yeah, how far back do you want me to go?
Tessa Murry (03:41.39)
Hahaha
Reuben Saltzman (03:42.378)
All the way. What got you into home inspections? Any career or whatever experience that led up to home inspections? How you got into this and what you’re doing today?
Will Misegades (03:48.635)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (03:54.663)
All right, so I will go back to about my 22nd year on this earth. So I was born and raised in France. I did all my education in France. So my background is construction management, but in France with French climate. And then after I graduated, I moved to Finland and I built log homes there. So I worked for a manufacturing company and we sold our log houses all over the world.
did that for about four years while living in Finland and then became their export manager and in the process moved to the States to meet my now wife while still working in Finland and I was just traveling back and forth as an export manager.
Tessa Murry (04:40.097)
my goodness, fascinating background. You don’t even have an accent. Well, no, mean, you know, I was going to say maybe the French and Finnish experience kind of negated the Southern Texas twang, because I don’t hear any twang.
Will Misegades (04:43.963)
Thank you. I worked real hard on it.
Reuben Saltzman (04:47.278)
No, he really doesn’t.
Reuben Saltzman (04:56.568)
Hahaha
Will Misegades (04:57.159)
So I do cheat, my parents are American, but they’ve lived in France close to 50 years now. And so I was their first son, first child, so I’m of five and I’m the middle child, but the first born in France, then I have two siblings born in France under me. My two older siblings were born in Portland, Oregon. So that’s kind of a quick, quick story. But so how did I get in the home inspection industry when, when
Tessa Murry (05:03.589)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (05:18.37)
Got it.
Tessa Murry (05:18.383)
Wow.
Will Misegades (05:26.183)
we bought our first house back in 2006, 2007, actually the process of 2007 to 2008. We bought our first house and the guy who inspected my house just got me really interested. well, 2008 is when the crash happened. And so one day my boss called me up and he said, Hey, I have to put you on straight commission. And we, so we just bought a house.
About to have our first baby and I was like well if I’m gonna be put on commission I’m just gonna be my own boss. I’m not gonna work for anybody else and so we I was looking for something else to do and my wife was like why don’t you do like a handyman type of job and I’ve been working in the office and traveling the world for too long I don’t want to go back to manual labor and so when we got our house inspected and he got me really interested and that’s kind of how I got into it
Tessa Murry (06:23.421)
Cheers.
Will Misegades (06:26.063)
When, I asked him at the end of the inspection, said, would you take me under your wing? And he flat out said, no. And I went, yeah. He, said, I don’t want to train my competition. And I said, well, that that’s kind of, it’s too bad because now I’m going to become your biggest competitor.
Tessa Murry (06:33.479)
Really?
Tessa Murry (06:37.618)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (06:40.792)
Yeah, what?
Say, what do we call that in IEB, Will?
Will Misegades (06:47.403)
it’s close minded. It’s what’s the words? Not air city mindset instead of abundance mindset. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so I had vowed from that
Tessa Murry (06:51.379)
scarcity mindset.
Reuben Saltzman (06:51.726)
Scarcity Scarcity mindset. Yes. Yeah
Tessa Murry (06:56.435)
Yeah. It’s all too common in this industry, I think, too.
Will Misegades (07:01.977)
Unfortunately, and so I had vowed, and that was before I even knew the industry, I vowed that if anybody ever wanted to get into the industry, had any questions, I’d be an open book. So, yeah.
Tessa Murry (07:12.295)
Hmm, very cool. You and Ruben align with that.
Reuben Saltzman (07:12.298)
Love it. Love it.
Will Misegades (07:16.838)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (07:16.93)
Yeah, absolutely. And so what does your business look like today?
Will Misegades (07:22.727)
Gosh, so we’ve had massive transformation in 2024. in May of this year, Magnolia home inspections and Redfish inspections merged. So we’re two companies that are about an hour, hour and half apart of each other. Magnolia is on the north side. We’re on the south side of Houston. And Jeremy Love Lady and Mike Love Lady who own Magnolia basically
approached me. Well, Jeremy called me up because he was an IB ambassador back in 23. And just to check in with me as an IB member. And so he asked for my point pain points. And, you know, once I started talking, goes, Whoa, let’s let’s go sit down at a coffee shop and really talk, see how I can help you out. And after three hours of talking,
Tessa Murry (07:56.371)
Hmm.
Will Misegades (08:17.595)
You know, we kind of left, he gave me solutions for my pain points. And then as we’re driving back to each other’s homes, he calls me up while we’re still in the car and goes, Hey, have you ever thought about merging? And I went, not really. I thought about it, but I also knew myself that I don’t play nice with other people. And so especially once we become partners, I will help anybody else. But man, that that partnership, I
Tessa Murry (08:29.373)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (08:36.698)
You
Tessa Murry (08:37.267)
Hehehe.
Will Misegades (08:44.559)
I’ve had family members who’ve had really bad experiences. And so I really didn’t want to go into that. But we just said, you know, with the IB mentality of let’s get a conversation going. And if nothing ever happens and nothing ever happens, if anything, we created a new relationship and we kind of expanded our mind. And so we really went into that conversation of merging very slowly and we just talked for months.
just to get to know each other. So between the father, the son, and then me, and ultimately we said, yes, this is a good thing. And so we merged in May of 2024.
Reuben Saltzman (09:15.564)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (09:24.268)
Wow, okay, cool.
Will Misegades (09:26.023)
So what it.
Tessa Murry (09:26.813)
Does your inspection company, does it offer additional services to just residential home inspections?
Will Misegades (09:32.837)
We do commercial as well. do mold inspections. Anything that touches residential as far as like well and septic and pools and things like that.
Tessa Murry (09:43.739)
Okay, do you do mold and radon and sewer inspections too?
Will Misegades (09:46.119)
So we do mold, we do not have radon in Texas according to the EPA. So we don’t have to test for that. The very few requests we get are typically from people who are moving north down to our area. And I’m like, no, we need, we need, you know, to get that checked out. And we’re like, no, there’s just no radon around here. And so, yeah.
Tessa Murry (09:51.738)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (10:00.44)
Sure.
Tessa Murry (10:00.605)
Sure.
Tessa Murry (10:07.985)
Must be nice.
Reuben Saltzman (10:08.374)
Yeah, we get the same with termites.
Will Misegades (10:10.767)
Yeah. So we live on the termite mound. we do, we, yeah, we do a lot of termite inspections.
Reuben Saltzman (10:16.824)
Sure. Okay. Got it. And so what does your business look like today? Are you still out in the field doing home inspections yourself or are you spending more time running the business?
Will Misegades (10:24.039)
No, completely running the, we don’t even run the business. This is a cool part. So what we did with the merger, really what the three owners wanted was to be completely out of the day-to-day operation. So that was our primary goal. We each had individual goals, but the main focus was how do we get the owners completely out of the business? And so within this first, you know, since May we’ve been working on the leadership team.
Reuben Saltzman (10:38.104)
Okay.
Will Misegades (10:52.569)
So we were able to get a leadership team up and running and they’re fully running the thing. They’re running the show. So we gave our vision and recently we even had the leadership team rework the MVVC, so mission, vision, value and culture per IEB. And they rewarded it to where it fits more, you know, how they want to see Redfish grow. So we have our ultimate vision as the owners, but really we’re letting them kind of run the show.
Reuben Saltzman (11:08.748)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (11:23.126)
And so now I assume you sit on the couch and watch soap operas and eat bonbons, correct?
Will Misegades (11:27.143)
And you do podcasts and things like that. I have more time for that. You know, the fun stuff.
Reuben Saltzman (11:31.374)
Yeah, yeah, love it.
Tessa Murry (11:31.635)
The fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
Will Misegades (11:34.661)
Yeah, but really we wanted more time for ourselves to create other things. so, and the other thing is we don’t know any other inspection business that is run as a board of directors. So that’s the main difference in the way we run our business. We created a holding company that actually owns Redfish inspections. And, and essentially we have a board of directors with five members and we make our big decisions together. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:40.541)
here.
Tessa Murry (11:49.139)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (12:02.286)
Cool. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, that is unique. I have not heard about that.
Tessa Murry (12:03.517)
Very neat. Very neat. Well, how many years were you inspecting out in the field down in Houston then?
Will Misegades (12:04.55)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (12:12.377)
So I officially told my staff in September of 2019 that I’m out of the field. So I had neck issues, know, kind of medical issues, and I was just tired. And I also knew, I knew in theory that the only way to grow the business was to work on it, be completely out of the field. But there’s that step that’s very scary for any business owner, especially when you’re bringing revenue in.
And my first thought is, and we were working as teams. So we were doing three inspections a day, five days a week. and so I was like, well, that’s 15 inspections that w that’s no longer going to be coming in. So how am I going to replace that? And within a couple of months, I had tripled that just because I was able to focus on the business, hiring people. And, know, I kicked myself because I was like, man, I should have done that six years prior.
Reuben Saltzman (13:00.333)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (13:07.274)
out.
Reuben Saltzman (13:07.374)
So I want to pause on something you said there. said, I just clarify, you said that you were working in teams and you were doing three inspections a day, five days a week. Does that mean you had more than one person at the house? Okay, so how many, what would you have? Two people at a house?
Will Misegades (13:21.831)
Correct.
two, three, four, five, it depended on the size of the house. So our biggest house when I was still in the field was I would say 21,000 square feet or something like that, some big house. And I had, I think, eight people on that house. And we were still in and out within a half day. And that’s kind of the goal is essentially.
Reuben Saltzman (13:43.552)
Okay, okay.
Sure.
Will Misegades (13:49.991)
The idea was to time block. And so each inspection had a half day, so four hours roughly. And so how can I always have that four hour window? And so we could have eight guys on one house in the morning and then split them off to do houses, know, just two teams of two guys at, you know, at the same time. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (14:01.059)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (14:10.862)
Sure, Okay, love it. And I just wanted to clarify that, because nobody that we’re having on this series is the type of inspector who’s doing three houses a day every day. I just don’t think you can do a very good inspection, not by yourself. I mean, I know many inspectors who do do that, but…
Tessa Murry (14:26.621)
Uh-uh.
Will Misegades (14:26.84)
End.
Will Misegades (14:30.365)
not not at all by yourself. There’s no way and
Tessa Murry (14:32.549)
No.
Reuben Saltzman (14:36.654)
They’re not the people we would invite to come on the show as experts. They’re good business owners, but maybe not such good home inspectors typically.
Will Misegades (14:39.975)
So and other things.
So there’s also the fact remember like in the south, we don’t have basements. And so that will cut a lot of time out. But there we have pools. Yes. Yeah, if you have Yeah, if you dig, you’ll have a pool. So yeah, john john’s is going to be in the same boat. There’s probably going to be a lot of things that I’m going to repeat, you know, with what he said, probably not with the same wit, as you said, Tessa, because he is a pretty funny guy.
Reuben Saltzman (14:52.429)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (14:57.465)
John Bolton said you do have pools though. Those are your basements.
Tessa Murry (15:15.356)
because
Will Misegades (15:17.159)
Very knowledgeable. I love John.
Tessa Murry (15:20.401)
He said they have two climates in Florida, hot humid and humid hot. Yeah, there we go. Hot and hotter.
Will Misegades (15:24.441)
Yes. So we say hot and hotter. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (15:30.861)
Yeah, speaking of John, just gotta throw this out to him if he happens to listen. I got his book in the mail. He’s got this new book. It’s called How to be a Badass Home Inspector. And there was like… Yeah, yeah. I will let him know. I’ll let him know. But plug for John’s book. How to be a… No, no, I said it wrong. It’s How to be a Home Inspector Badass. That’s the title. Yeah.
Will Misegades (15:40.037)
I need to get me one. I need to have him sign it too.
Tessa Murry (15:41.713)
Me too. Me too.
Will Misegades (15:49.596)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (15:53.991)
I’m sure his sequel is going to be a badass home inspector.
Tessa Murry (15:54.227)
There we go.
Reuben Saltzman (15:59.159)
I’m sure it will be. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (15:59.373)
Thank you.
Well, Will, can you tell us a little bit about kind of the typical housing stock that you have in your area? Like in terms of kind of what a typical house looks like, how it’s how it’s built, basements, no basements, slab on grade, no slab on grade, wood frame versus concrete block, kind of what you typically see in maybe the age range too. Because I know when we’re talking to John, he’s like, we don’t have anything over like 1940s and 50s. Like that’s an old house for us. What about you guys down in Houston?
Will Misegades (16:30.469)
The age is gonna be quite similar. Now we still have some historic houses that are going to get into the 100 year old houses. I’ve inspected a few, but there’s so few and far in between that, know, 40 year old house and you’re getting into a dump, unfortunately. So yeah.
Tessa Murry (16:37.928)
That’s right.
Tessa Murry (16:46.643)
Really? prior to like 20, 20, or actually, I guess it’d be like 1980 and older, you’re saying it’s, it’s going to be not good condition typically. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (16:48.266)
Wow.
Will Misegades (16:56.31)
it’s correct. Yeah, they’re not well kept. Those that are you know, typically they were really flipped not long prior, and they’re not necessarily going to be great flips. Who a friend of mine said, friends don’t let friends buy flips, something like that. But and so yeah, they just don’t age very well down here.
Reuben Saltzman (17:13.122)
Ha ha ha ha!
Tessa Murry (17:13.619)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (17:21.604)
between the humidity and then just the lack of maintenance.
Tessa Murry (17:21.969)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (17:26.739)
Yeah. Now, and I want to go back to just kind of the types of, you know, the different materials that you’ll see typically too, but quick question for you regarding the age of these houses. So if you’ve got a house that’s, you know, over 20, 30 years old, it’s got these older systems, it, are you seeing insurance play a big part of the success of people purchasing houses these days where you are too?
Will Misegades (17:51.175)
I think it’s going to start becoming a problem. So we just had Hurricane Barrel come through Houston and I just had to replace my roof, 12 year old roof shot. and I was just telling my mom, mom, ooh, my wife, as we’re on a walk while ago, that it’s like, we’re going around the neighborhood and we’re seeing all these new roofs. And I told her, said, 12 years and it just cost me $30,000 to replace this roof.
Tessa Murry (18:04.575)
wow.
Will Misegades (18:21.383)
and it only lasted 12 years. And me coming from Europe, I’m going, how is this even possible? How do we create, how do we build these houses that only last, certain elements only last 10, 15 years? And I mean, granted, it went through Hurricane Harvey, Barrel. We’ve had multiple hurricanes that came through, so that’s really gonna deteriorate the shingles faster. But still, there’s gotta be a better way to build.
Reuben Saltzman (18:52.015)
Now Tessa and I both want to know what type of material did you have for your roof? Asphalt shingles and so it needed to be replaced after 12 years, why?
Tessa Murry (19:00.115)
asphalt.
Will Misegades (19:05.447)
the granule loss on it then so as the hurricane came through it uplifted significant amount of shingles that the adjuster came in and said all right these shingles are broken you’ve got missing shingles here lots of granule loss there some became brittle as well so mean the heat is pretty important down here you know once you get into the triple digits for multiple days in a row
Tessa Murry (19:22.995)
Peace.
Will Misegades (19:32.954)
then it’s just gonna be brutal for any material really. So the roots do get a massive beating and yeah, 12 years and I was walking it and yeah, you’re starting to slide down. The granules are so loose.
Tessa Murry (19:36.764)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (19:47.99)
Yeah, starts turning into peanut butter at that point, doesn’t it? Yeah. And so you said.
Will Misegades (19:51.713)
It’s nasty. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (19:53.829)
What are the typical types of roofing materials that you see in Houston? What’s the majority, would you say, asphalt shingles?
Will Misegades (20:00.007)
90, yeah, 95 % on residential, it’s gonna be asphalt. And then the other 5 % is gonna be clay, very little clay really, it’s gonna be concrete tile.
Tessa Murry (20:05.586)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (20:11.527)
So, okay. So did you go back with, you decide to put asphalt shingles on your house then? Yep.
Will Misegades (20:15.495)
Yeah, because I was looking at the life expectancy and the insurance, know, is it going to reduce my premiums? It really wasn’t. And then they also have a new clause that is the depreciation clause in it. So my roof that was 12 years old, they only gave me 65%. And actually, yeah, 65 % worth of the roof. So they didn’t give me 100%.
They didn’t give me 30,000, so they gave me, really it was 22,000, but then I had a $10,000 deductible, so they sent me a check for like 12 grand, not even. And I have to replace the roof.
Reuben Saltzman (20:56.783)
okay so you gotta check for twelve grand and you need to come up with the other eighteen grand yourself okay
Will Misegades (21:02.407)
Correct. Correct.
Tessa Murry (21:03.311)
Well, you know, one of the systemic problems I think with just the way that our country works and insurance and everything like that, we’re so short-sighted. Like you said, coming from Europe, you’ve got this perspective like, can’t believe a roof only lasts 12 years and then I have to replace it. Like what a waste and what a costly environment and our pocketbook and everything. But it’s fueled by this industry that’s like not giving you any sort of bonus points or…
or rewards if you’re putting on something that’s going to last longer. So why do it? Why make that investment?
Will Misegades (21:35.367)
Yeah, so it you’re right. Why do that? And so the cost analysis was it doesn’t make sense to go back to the and then on top of that, so we you know, in the US, how often do we change homes? Roughly, it’s every seven years. And so so why put, you know, and a very expensive, why put a 40 $50,000 roof on a house that you might be moving out of in the next two, three years?
Tessa Murry (21:42.803)
Doesn’t make sense.
Reuben Saltzman (21:52.494)
that I’ve always heard, yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:04.071)
You don’t benefit from it. Yeah, it’s, yeah.
Will Misegades (22:05.223)
you don’t benefit from it.
Reuben Saltzman (22:06.71)
Yeah, you’re not going to sell it for that much more. Yeah.
Will Misegades (22:09.11)
Exactly. I mean, the housing industry has become has been commoditized, become commoditized. And so there’s no real value, incentive to do something of quality, unfortunately.
Tessa Murry (22:09.778)
Right.
Tessa Murry (22:17.255)
Yeah.
Incentive. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:25.307)
I think you nailed it right there. Yeah. going back to the kind of just describing your housing stock. So a lot of the housing stock that sounds like is newer and the stuff that’s over 40 years is problematic. It sounds like what what type of materials do you typically see for for siding being used?
Will Misegades (22:43.303)
The majority is going to be cement board fiber siding, know, hardy plank typically, and then brick veneer. And that’s pretty much it. You have some stucco. Unfortunately, I would say almost probably 98 % of the stucco homes that I’ve inspected had issues. And so I highly do not recommend stucco in the Houston area.
Tessa Murry (23:03.923)
Please.
Reuben Saltzman (23:04.59)
Mmm.
Will Misegades (23:09.415)
One, they don’t know how to install it properly and two, just hasn’t been aging very well. Then on top of that, so unlike Florida, I would say 100 % of our homes down here are gonna be stick frame built. So we do not have concrete block. I don’t think I’ve, maybe I inspected one, two possible homes that were built in concrete blocks. So between all that movement going on, the stucco just doesn’t age very well.
Reuben Saltzman (23:09.526)
Ha
Tessa Murry (23:22.129)
Okay. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (23:39.512)
Then do you ever get into intrusive moisture testing or do you have companies in your area that do that?
Will Misegades (23:44.167)
There are are Yeah, there are companies a good good friend of mine actually does intrusive stucco inspections. So he’ll drill and you know, put the probe in there and but a lot of the the stucco inspectors that I’ve worked with, they don’t even go from the outside anymore. They just drill from the inside. Like, hey, it’s going to be cheaper. You know, they don’t have to caulk the outside. They just go on the inside drill and keep points. Yeah. All right. It’s wet.
Reuben Saltzman (24:03.211)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (24:03.216)
Really?
Reuben Saltzman (24:09.806)
It’s a lot more comfortable. I mean, you’re working in a climate controlled environment. I can understand why they’d want to do it for sure. Okay. All right. Got it.
Will Misegades (24:14.148)
Exactly. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (24:14.759)
That’s true. Yeah.
Will Misegades (24:17.477)
Yeah. So, but there’s good money to be done in stucco inspections, intrusive stucco inspections. We just haven’t pulled the trigger to do it.
Tessa Murry (24:24.669)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (24:25.58)
Yeah. Okay. All right.
Tessa Murry (24:28.787)
Is there any place in the country where stucco is praised and beloved by all? I don’t know if I’ve, it seems like everyone we talk to from all over the country has their own issues with stucco too. We have problems with newer stucco homes here as well in Minnesota.
Reuben Saltzman (24:44.812)
Yeah, what about Arizona? They don’t have any problems, do they?
Tessa Murry (24:46.995)
There you go, maybe Arizona where they don’t have any, well, humidity or a lot of rainfall. Yeah.
Will Misegades (24:50.011)
Yeah, maybe. It’s dry. I guess, you know, if they have issues, it’s going to be during the installation if the stock would dry too fast. It’s going to be my guess. So depending on how they do it. But yeah, I don’t know. Good question.
Reuben Saltzman (24:53.368)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (25:00.057)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (25:01.537)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (25:05.041)
Okay, and the majority of your houses are slab on grade, right? Or do you have a lot of crawl spaces too?
Will Misegades (25:08.699)
Yes. We have, so years ago, I kind of outpriced myself for the crawl spaces, mainly because I just didn’t want to do them. So we were up charging like 180 bucks just on if you had a PRN beam foundation and, you know, I was small enough to where I could be picky. It’s like, no, I don’t want to do them.
Reuben Saltzman (25:25.144)
Sure.
Will Misegades (25:30.119)
And so I would say there are certain pockets of the greater Houston area that will have more so you go out in the rural areas and it’s going to be more a pier and beam But where we are is going to be mainly slab on grade if you go downtown the interesting thing is They’ve started building these three four-story houses so you’ve got no yard whatsoever back or front and it’s just straight up four story houses right next to each other and
There are a few sections in the Houston area that are a pier and beam, but what they’ve done is they’ve created this slab with the drain, and then on this slab, you’ve got your piers and your beams. So it’s really nice, me as the inspector, I go in, it’s nice and clean. And they did it on purpose because there was so much water always draining down in that area, so they just put it on the pier and beam, but with this slab.
Tessa Murry (26:12.498)
you
Tessa Murry (26:19.911)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (26:19.992)
smart yeah you ever get a like one of those crawlspace crawlers where you get to just roll around in there
Will Misegades (26:28.025)
No, I again, because I wasn’t doing enough, I didn’t see the value. So I had our extension poles with GoPro cameras, I would just put that in there, put the pole under there if I couldn’t crawl. And then you have all your limitations also. But yeah, I’ve instructed years ago, my inspectors just do use your GoPro. Even if you have this much space, like you’re showing the effort.
Reuben Saltzman (26:41.048)
Sure.
Reuben Saltzman (26:52.15)
And you’re holding your hands four inches away from each other. Yeah. Yeah.
Will Misegades (26:55.493)
Yeah, pretty much. Exactly. I’ve just put that extension pole with the GoPro, take a few pictures. At least we’re trying our best to see what’s going on under there. And most likely, especially, it’s going to be a no-hold-housed if you only have that much space. So you are going to find issues with the foundation no matter what. So really, it’s been.
Tessa Murry (26:56.211)
Tiny little space.
Tessa Murry (27:16.871)
gonna say do you have a lot of mold issues in these crawl spaces? Do you have duct work running through them and with this this humid climate that you’re in?
Will Misegades (27:19.801)
yeah.
No, that’s going to be the biggest difference than other areas like probably Florida or even the Carolinas where they put everything in the crawl space. We don’t. So you’ll have your plumbing, your electrical, but all of your ducts is mainly going to be in the attic.
Tessa Murry (27:40.689)
Okay, that leads me to my next question then. So what are some typical issues you might see in an attic and do you have a lot of HVAC up there too? And it sounds like yes, you do have HVAC up there.
Will Misegades (27:52.517)
Yeah, 80 % I would say of the HVAC is up in the attic and the water heaters as well. And it’s such a terrible place to put them. And I understand why. I mean, it’s real estate. So, you know, if you don’t have that in the house, then that’s one extra closet that you can have for your clothes. But it’s a terrible place to have it because inevitably it’s going to leak at some point or another. And so all of our HVAC are
Reuben Saltzman (28:11.534)
Sure.
Reuben Saltzman (28:17.57)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:18.151)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (28:20.427)
For the majority, HVAC is going to be up there. Your water heaters are going to be up there. Your electrical, your plumbing. So you have all your major systems that are going to be up in the attic, which is terrible, especially in the summer, because that’s where you’re going to want to spend a good amount of time. And so I’ve trained my guys to just go up there and take a bunch of pictures because it gets too dangerous in the summer. And come back down in the air, it gets too hot. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:43.685)
It gets too hot.
Will Misegades (28:46.033)
come back in the air conditioning and start writing your report from those pictures and then go back up if you need to. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (28:52.717)
man, okay. Just curious, how do you guys replace your water heaters? Okay, all right, so you got big strong people who just carry them right up into the attic.
Tessa Murry (28:54.075)
Wow.
Will Misegades (29:00.293)
by hand.
Tessa Murry (29:03.613)
in the winter months?
Will Misegades (29:06.279)
I mean, an empty water heater is not that that heavy. Like I just lifted my 50 gallon tank all by myself. So I had a you know, I got my Jeep straps and then use the Perlin and then just started, you know, just, yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:20.605)
like a pulley system.
Reuben Saltzman (29:20.864)
Okay, yeah, speak for yourself, Will, because I’ve seen you. You can bench about 600 pounds, I think. So he’s not speaking for most people, I think.
Will Misegades (29:25.191)
Now, but two people will easily bring it up there. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:29.863)
There’s no way I’m moving a water heater out of an attic by myself. No way.
Reuben Saltzman (29:33.666)
you
Reuben Saltzman (29:37.334)
Okay, all right, very good. No thanks.
Tessa Murry (29:38.227)
Dash, okay. Do you have plumbing that goes through the attic space too? Because I remember a while ago when there was that freak kind of winter storm that went through Texas in the south and a lot of places had burst water pipes. So do you have a lot of plumbing that goes through the attic space too?
Will Misegades (29:44.518)
Yes.
Will Misegades (29:52.823)
yeah.
Most of it, yeah. like in my house, so my house is 12 years old. So new construction and I had to replace a roof, you going back to that. Well, it’s not any more 12 years old. But so you have the water coming in. know, we had our main water shutout valve is in one of the kids closets and they go straight up into the attic, then kind of goes everywhere and then comes back down in the laundry room, actually comes back in the laundry room for the manifold because it’s pecs that we have.
Tessa Murry (30:05.458)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (30:24.389)
and then everything is back up in the attic and through the walls and primarily inside walls. they try to not put too much water in the exterior walls, which I think is a good idea.
Reuben Saltzman (30:35.126)
and why do they not put it in the exterior wall?
Will Misegades (30:38.567)
freezing conditions if it ever happens.
Reuben Saltzman (30:41.23)
So you do see some freezing conditions occasionally.
Will Misegades (30:43.271)
I mean, rarely, not enough, but you know, like when when snowmageddon, you know, happened in Texas that shut the entire state down, which is ridiculous.
Reuben Saltzman (30:55.139)
Yeah, you guys had like half an inch. was devastating, I heard. No, just kidding.
Will Misegades (30:58.315)
Maybe on the north side, we almost had nothing down here, but it froze and we’re just not used to We can deal with 120 degree weathers, but we can’t deal with 10 degrees.
Reuben Saltzman (31:09.474)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:10.163)
Well, and who needs a water heater when you’ve got your water piping running through a 150 degree attic, you just turn on your faucet and you got hot water.
Will Misegades (31:21.093)
So, the reverse is true as well. We don’t have cold water in the summer. So fun fact. I had my, so I have this, this family in Finland. So they’re pretty much my family. They adopted me when I moved out there. And so my Finnish mom came with my Finnish sister and they were visiting and so my Finnish mom is getting water at the sink. And she goes, Hey, well, what side is the cold water on?
Reuben Saltzman (31:28.215)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:29.169)
That’s what I, yeah. Yeah. What do do?
Tessa Murry (31:50.821)
Okay.
Will Misegades (31:51.321)
I said, Gaia, it’s August. There is no cold water in summer over here. It just doesn’t exist. It’s warm. Yeah, exactly.
Reuben Saltzman (31:52.856)
Hahaha.
It’s warm and hot.
Tessa Murry (32:00.339)
Warm and hotter. my goodness. Wow. Okay, that’s completely different from how how we do it since we have basements here in Minnesota. Obviously, you know, all of our plumbing is running through kind of conditioned space and it’s coming from a, you know, ground that’s frozen. So you turn on the cold water and you’ve got cold water here. Yeah.
Will Misegades (32:18.011)
It’s cold.
Reuben Saltzman (32:19.298)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (32:21.147)
Yeah, see our ice bath challenges, like we’ve got to keep putting ice into it. You guys just turn your faucet on.
Tessa Murry (32:26.619)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (32:28.62)
Yeah, yeah, we’re ready to go and you are exactly right. You’re not you’re not exaggerating with that. Yeah.
Will Misegades (32:31.623)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (32:32.223)
my goodness. Going back to the attic, some more kind of technical questions. I’m just curious, are a lot of attics vented or not vented then since they have duct work and mechanicals and stuff located in them?
Will Misegades (32:44.209)
So we are seeing more and more closed off attics with the avenue of spray foam insulation. for example, and it’s open cell spray foam down here. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (32:51.685)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (32:55.171)
open cell spray foam and is that on the attic floor or are they installing it on the underside of the roof deck?
Will Misegades (33:00.975)
on the underside of the roof deck. Yeah. So my house, for example, I have it in the walls and in the roof deck. So it’s all air conditioned essentially.
Tessa Murry (33:03.132)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (33:07.446)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (33:07.601)
Interesting.
Reuben Saltzman (33:10.478)
So why are they using open cell versus closed cell?
Tessa Murry (33:10.491)
Yep, you’re bringing that. Yeah.
Will Misegades (33:13.851)
So, you know how up in the north, so where you guys are at, you want your class one or class two vapor barrier to be on the inside. So you’ve got your dry wall, and then you’ve got your moisture air barrier right there. For us, it has to be on the outside, because you need that moisture to transfer straight through the wall as it goes through, otherwise it’s gonna stay trapped in there and then mold starts happening. So if you have closed cell up against
Reuben Saltzman (33:27.896)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:28.177)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (33:30.551)
Okay.
Will Misegades (33:43.175)
your decking, then all of a you get that moisture that accumulates between your closed cell and your roof deck and then condensation happens and then mold eventually occurs in that area.
Tessa Murry (33:56.957)
So you don’t want, what you’re saying is you don’t want a vapor barrier right on the underside of the roof deck. You want in your climate where it’s hot, humid, you want that vapor barrier on the outside of the house so that that hot, humid air isn’t coming through the building assembly. As you’re air conditioning, that vapor drive is from more to less, from hot to cold. So you’re just, you want to keep that humidity out and that having close cell is problematic when it’s installed even on the roof deck, you’re saying. You’re finding mold between.
the closed cell spray foam and the wood roof sheathing. Is that something that’s been, you guys have uncovered that in the last like five, 10, 20 years of doing that. You’ve seen enough problems with closed cell on the underside of roof deck that you just don’t do it anymore. They’re using open cell.
Will Misegades (34:39.877)
No, so I think one, why we don’t see it as often down here probably is the cost maybe. just the, so I’ll go back. So I read a ton on building science when I first got into the home inspection industry. And I was doing it even more in the log house industry. So I’d been studying, know, spray foam, especially because Germany adopted it really early on. I’m talking about, you
Tessa Murry (34:46.685)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (35:01.224)
Mm.
Will Misegades (35:09.285)
decades ago. And, and I started noticing how construction was very different in the north than it was down here. So in France, you actually have two layers of house wrap, you have one on the outside, one on the inside, versus down in the south, our air barrier is going to be the drywall, we consider that enough. And so all of a sudden, I had to retrain my thought process on building science in the south.
Reuben Saltzman (35:31.19)
Okay, yep.
Tessa Murry (35:31.303)
Mm-hmm.
Will Misegades (35:39.397)
And then I started reading more about open cell versus closed cell and realizing, man, that that closed cell is just not allowing the moisture to go through properly. It’s not allowing it. And so that could create issues. So my guess is we don’t see it because other people smarter than me started analyzing that, you know, a long time ago. So yeah, we don’t see now. I have seen other companies who are starting to do the spray foam where they advertise the closed cell. Now it’s a much better product.
Tessa Murry (35:59.025)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (36:09.383)
I don’t know how long they’re going to last, And I have not, I don’t remember ever inspecting a house with closed cell either. So, but yeah, there, there is a big issue with moisture transfer down in the South. That’s your main goal. Essentially it’s managing that moisture more than anything else.
Reuben Saltzman (36:11.822)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (36:15.936)
Okay, all right.
Tessa Murry (36:28.389)
Yeah, I mean, I think when you’re when you’re trying to analyze, you know, the durability of a house and you’re thinking about, you know, how how to make sure it performs well and lasts a long time, you have to think about moisture and all the different ways that moisture moves through the house and how it attacks the house. And I mean, obviously rain, you don’t want gaps and cracks and stuff like that for for bulk water to get in. You know, in our climate, we have to think about indoor humidity. And when it’s really cold outside, we don’t want
leaks and cracks in the building envelope to let that humidity into the walls and into the attic. But down where you are, it’s the exact opposite. You don’t want to be pulling in that humid air into your building envelope. So do you guys have a lot of problems with mold and moisture where you are? And what do you typically look for? What are the typical problems that you see?
Will Misegades (37:16.999)
So it’s not uncommon to go into like a coat closet and you start smelling something or you look straight up. So when I was being trained, you know, 16 years ago now to become a home inspector, the first thing that our trainer said was when you open up a closet, look straight up. That’s the first thing you do. You want to see the ceiling because that’s where you’re going to find a lot of hidden leaks or moisture issues or whatnot.
So closed coat closet will most likely have issues. What mold would look like on the registers? So if your HVAC system isn’t able to keep up, you’ll see a lot of just condensation dripping from the registers, and ultimately that’s going to lead to mold. Yeah, I mean, it’s, and then any leaks?
Tessa Murry (38:03.645)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (38:07.931)
you’ll find moisture stains and then all of sudden that if it’s an active leak that’ll turn into mold pretty quickly. So that’s the thing is down here, it’s gonna turn into mold really fast if you don’t take care of it as soon as possible.
Tessa Murry (38:19.141)
I bet. Well, yeah, it’s, you know, I guess with the newer construction, then moving the insulation up to the roof deck, the underside of the roof deck, you’re turning that attic space into conditioned, in theory, living space. And so you’re bringing inside, you know, you know, that more controlled climate. So you probably have less chance of having condensation issues. Maybe, maybe not.
Will Misegades (38:31.143)
Correct.
Will Misegades (38:42.023)
No, still not. we have neighborhoods, whole neighborhoods who are having issues very close to where I live. And I started inspecting houses in there 10 years ago and started seeing issues. And I was already noting things before they even became an issue, not realizing how big of an impact it was going to become. But I started noticing some HVAC systems not having any vents and returns in the attic.
And I would write that up and the builder would say, no, you know, there’s enough air transference, you know, through the ceiling that we don’t need to air condition that. So fast forward a few years later, now a lot of these houses are becoming moldy. Um, in the starts in the attic and then just gradually comes down. And what we also realized was the HVAC industry did not change fast enough for the building codes that had changed. And so the.
Tessa Murry (39:25.949)
Thanks
Will Misegades (39:39.663)
the HVAC system was undersized for a lot of these houses or oversized and not running long enough to pull the moisture out. So yeah, we’re still seeing problems, brand new neighborhoods that are having mold issues and they can’t find the source. And so to me, just, by elimination, to me it’s the HVAC system that’s just not keeping up. Then on top of that, the houses have become so
Reuben Saltzman (39:45.058)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (39:48.397)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (40:09.223)
so closed, so hermetic, so airtight that they don’t have enough makeup air that’s coming in either. I think again, the HVAC world hasn’t adapted well to the building codes that have changed in the South at least.
Tessa Murry (40:12.231)
They’re tight. Like, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (40:21.518)
You
Reuben Saltzman (40:29.58)
Yeah, now in Minnesota, anytime we build a house, we need to put in these devices that bring in fresh air and exhaust stale air called an air exchanger. More specific terms would be like a heat recovery ventilator, or occasionally once in a blue moon, we’ll see an energy recovery ventilator. Do you guys require any type of air exchange system?
Will Misegades (40:53.615)
while so for many years we did it I think we’re starting to see that in the brand new construction. Like even my neighborhood that was built I think they started building it probably 15, 20 years ago now. So we saw the progress of know just traditional construction down here to my neighborhood my part of the neighborhood was the very first portion that had spray foam insulation. So we have our spray foam
Reuben Saltzman (41:00.664)
Okay.
Will Misegades (41:21.829)
We have our HVAC system that’s a lot smaller than traditional insulation, but it’s keeping up. But then you go into the new neighborhoods and all of a sudden they’re having mold issues. It’s like, okay, what changed in their construction practice between my zone and then their zone, that’s just across the street to where they finally had to add in dehumidifiers on top of the system that they had. And I think the only
Tessa Murry (41:46.695)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (41:47.132)
Hmm
Will Misegades (41:50.833)
fresh air intake that I have is over my garage because I have an apartment over there and it’s, and I don’t even understand why it’s there because it’s an electric furnace. It’s not even a gas furnace. So I don’t have a system in my house that brings in fresh air from the outside because honestly any air from the outside in the summer is going to be more humid than anything else. So yes. Yeah. So it would have to go through a heat exchanger type of system in order to dry it up.
Tessa Murry (42:02.064)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (42:12.219)
It’s adding to the humidity load, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (42:12.312)
Sure, sure.
Will Misegades (42:19.751)
but at least it’d be fresh, so.
Reuben Saltzman (42:20.054)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (42:21.605)
You’re hitting the nail on the head with I think the one of the biggest problems that we’re going to start coming across in this, you know, in this housing industry as we build houses that are more energy efficient, they’re going to be more airtight, better insulated, all of these things. And we can have AC systems that are even sized properly. But when it’s so energy efficient, the load is so small, especially as we
start improving the energy efficiency of our light bulbs and our appliances that even used to create internal heat gains. Like that’s even a smaller load now. So you size these, you know, our HVAC systems and they provide enough cooling for the space, but it doesn’t run long enough to take the humidity out, especially in these humid areas. So what do we do next? Okay, well, we’re going to have to add some sort of central dehumidifier.
Reuben Saltzman (42:52.428)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:11.501)
system, dehumidification system to these houses so that they don’t have these condensation and moisture issues like you’re talking about.
Will Misegades (43:19.729)
Yeah, and I’d be curious to know why, like just in my neighborhood, why across the street they’re having issues that we’re not seeing. So they changed, so did they change their whole HVAC system with something that’s, is it a different brand, is it size smaller, what exactly is going on? So I don’t know if you guys, so in our area, clients are often asking, is the AC sized properly for the house?
Tessa Murry (43:28.339)
That’s very interesting.
Tessa Murry (43:40.275)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (43:49.681)
So we used to have this quick mental calculation of 500 square feet per ton with traditional construction. Well, with the spray foam, it goes out the window. You can’t use that anymore. But nobody has a rule of thumb on how to calculate. And plus on top of that, we’re home inspectors. We’re not there to kind of give a specialty answer. But at the same time, if we can quickly identify to say, I think that unit is undersized,
Tessa Murry (43:50.278)
Tessa Murry (43:56.241)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (43:58.381)
Yep.
Well, sure. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (44:01.756)
Right.
Reuben Saltzman (44:19.438)
Yeah, and you can kinda, I mean, you can have an idea. It’s like if you’re inspecting a 1200 square foot house and you got a six ton unit, you can kinda look at it and you go, this ain’t right. And vice versa. I mean, you know the extremes at least. Yeah.
Will Misegades (44:20.474)
We’re gonna finish.
Will Misegades (44:27.963)
You got a problem. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (44:31.174)
you
you
Will Misegades (44:34.471)
Yes. And we’ve had, we’ve came into arguments with builders before and very rarely, like I don’t argue with people. It’s like, all right, he’s the builder. You can sue him later if you want to just, this is my recommendation. Uh, but I was, uh, Oh, I was inspecting. Can I name like, uh, construction company names or, Oh, wait, no, a minute. No. So anyway, I was doing a home inspection for the VP of one builder, but he was buying a house of his competitor. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (44:45.9)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (44:52.682)
Nobody listens, it’s fine, you can say anything you want.
Tessa Murry (45:02.47)
How?
Reuben Saltzman (45:02.948)
my.
Will Misegades (45:04.167)
And so it’s probably good that I’m not announcing who is who and working for what. But I told him, and this is at the time, I think it was 4,300 square foot home, and I’m looking at the HVAC system and they had one. And I said, I think you’re undersized. I think you need two units on this. Plus it’s a two story house. It’s like, I don’t care if you have split zone systems.
Reuben Saltzman (45:07.48)
Probably, yeah.
Tessa Murry (45:23.815)
Thanks.
Will Misegades (45:27.099)
man, that house that big, you need a couple units. And so he argued back and forth with the builder and it took months and finally the builder ended up putting a second one in. So fast forward, I did other inspections in that area that only had one unit and they were having mold issues ultimately because it just was not pulling enough. And so, that quick calculation can potentially do good at the same time. I’m sure HVAC techs hate us for that.
Reuben Saltzman (45:44.59)
Sure.
Tessa Murry (45:46.995)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (45:57.011)
Well, there’s so much that goes into it too, like orientation of the house, land, is there shading, there trees, occupant behavior, and what types of insulation do you have? All of those things that can really change the load.
Reuben Saltzman (45:57.228)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (45:57.361)
But yeah, absolutely.
Reuben Saltzman (46:00.847)
you
Will Misegades (46:09.443)
Absolutely. So the cool thing, part of my job when I was in Finland, so I did a market study for France because we were exporting into France and I was reading up a lot on energy efficient homes and they have passive houses and now they have active houses to where now the house is actually producing energy. so during the passive house research I was doing, so this goes back 20, 25 years,
Tessa Murry (46:31.986)
Yeah, cool.
Will Misegades (46:38.087)
I was reading up on the orientation of the house and how to put different rooms in different areas. And so there’s a whole science behind it. And so we could literally create homes that are much healthier ultimately, but we’re not because it’s cheaper to do it the way we are doing it.
Tessa Murry (46:48.083)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (46:52.956)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (46:57.799)
Mm, sure.
Tessa Murry (46:58.183)
Yeah. Again, back to the whole not having the incentive, right? And yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the challenge. Okay, so you see a lot of condensation and mold issues in houses where you’re at. What other kinds of typical issues would you say are kind of, you know, that you run into a lot in Texas that we haven’t touched on?
Will Misegades (47:03.053)
Exactly.
Reuben Saltzman (47:04.173)
Yeah.
Will Misegades (47:21.125)
Foundation issues, so foundation issues is going to be a big one. So, you know our soil is clay so it moves a lot You know if you’re on a peering beam, you’re definitely going to have issues even after it’s fixed. It still doesn’t look good But then your slab on great so we use post tension slab down here and that really is the ultimate type of construction foundation in order to kind of fight that But you still will have
Reuben Saltzman (47:22.998)
Mmm, yeah.
Tessa Murry (47:24.765)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (47:35.763)
Thanks.
Will Misegades (47:49.063)
problems eventually. And so we actually teach our clients how to water their foundation. And when they go, what do mean water? Yeah, you literally have to water your foundation during the summer because you want that soil to compress your side of the foundation. Like you want that soil to be there. so and so we tell them like you don’t want you put a soaker hose around your foundation, put it on a timer that will turn on every so often during the day, maybe once or
Tessa Murry (48:06.854)
Interesting.
Will Misegades (48:17.945)
Yeah, once a day, maybe three times a week. And you let it soak for 30 minutes. It’s, I know it’s crazy.
Reuben Saltzman (48:25.907)
my gosh. I’m losing my mind. Okay.
Tessa Murry (48:26.983)
Okay, so now we’re Okay, need to so let me just think this through out loud. So concrete is porous and Moisture will move through concrete if it’s in contact with wet soil through capillary action. So you’re basically Humidifying your house potentially is that is that happening? Do you guys have vapor barriers under the slab?
Will Misegades (48:44.551)
We don’t see as no Yeah, yeah, you have to have a six mil vapor barrier under the slab so between the soil and your concrete Yeah, yeah, and so what we tell our clients like you don’t want your soaker hose completely against your foundation You actually want it about 12 to 18 inches off because you want that soil Basically to be wet from the foundation to the soaker hose, but also beyond
Tessa Murry (48:51.163)
Okay, there’s a capillary break in a vapor barrier. Okay.
Will Misegades (49:10.599)
So you have more soil that’s compressing that slab, that’s keeping that slab from moving. so yeah, your water bill typically goes a little bit up during the summer.
Tessa Murry (49:20.691)
So would you say that you don’t recommend gutters where you are because you actually want that water around the foundation?
Reuben Saltzman (49:21.708)
Wow.
Will Misegades (49:25.255)
No, so you still want those gutters because it is a massive amount of water. So when it rains down here, it pours. And so you want that water to move to the street as fast as possible. It’s all going to get wet. It’s raining around. And the other thing is with your downspout extensions moving that water away, then hopefully you have the same equal amount of water that’s going on the soil completely around the foundation.
Reuben Saltzman (49:37.837)
Okay.
Will Misegades (49:53.521)
versus if you have a gutter, a downspout just right there and not on the other side of the house, then does that create issues with too much water on one side and not enough on the other side?
Reuben Saltzman (50:04.898)
Okay, sure.
Tessa Murry (50:04.909)
Okay. I have another technical question that’s completely changing the subject. But I know we’re running short on time and we have a lot more that we could cover. two main questions. One’s about plumbing and one is about HVAC. So let’s maybe do the plumbing first. I’m wondering, do you guys have problems with PECs where you are too? Is that starting to become recognized as a defect? Are insurance companies having issues with it at all?
Will Misegades (50:28.519)
So again, like I think Florida is like the main state that has issues with plumbing and weather and So we know we don’t see as many issues and even the Chinese drywall We don’t have it in Texas the way that Florida had it so I think I saw maybe twice in my 15 year career as a home inspector so No, no issues with pecs. We don’t even see
Tessa Murry (50:34.652)
Okay.
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (50:42.134)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (50:46.616)
God.
Tessa Murry (50:51.751)
Okay.
Will Misegades (50:57.521)
PB very often. I think I’ve seen it maybe one time. And so, I mean, we train our inspectors how to identify it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if, you know, they do an inspection and they kind of look at it go, okay, that’s different. I need to send a picture to the group to double check to make sure it’s PB. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:59.475)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (51:01.91)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (51:15.544)
Sure, sure.
Tessa Murry (51:15.635)
What about HVAC? Do you guys predominantly have heat pumps there that are doing heating and cooling? It sounds like you don’t really need too much heating most of the year, so you’re focusing on air conditioning. How are houses kept comfortable and cool?
Will Misegades (51:29.491)
Hahaha.
Will Misegades (51:35.527)
98 % of the time it’s going to be a split system HVAC. So yeah, heat pumps are quite rare in this area, you still find them. The reality is they become super expensive. And even if you have an electric furnace, that becomes expensive to run during the winter. I mean, as short of our winter is just that electricity is going to go up pretty high. Gas.
Reuben Saltzman (51:58.447)
So what do you have for heat then? You still have gas furnaces. Okay, got it. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (52:02.383)
Okay. Huh. I’m surprised by that.
Will Misegades (52:03.717)
Yeah. Yep.
So a lot of electric furnaces, we have a whole city that that’s all they allowed was electric furnaces, which is weird. And so my area is now this is old. This I think was built in the 19 late 1970s, early 80s. And all of their houses are electric. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (52:14.821)
in are these like newer newer houses that have electric rooms? Okay.
Tessa Murry (52:25.466)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (52:26.926)
So is that because they just didn’t have natural gas coming into the city period or what?
Will Misegades (52:31.163)
No, I mean the-
Tessa Murry (52:31.424)
Wasn’t there the fuel embargo that the oil embargo happening and then Yeah
Will Misegades (52:34.727)
Maybe so during that time. I mean, it’s possible. Or they had a really good deal on electric furnaces. Who knows? And then sometimes from the government. The whole city. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, mine is.
Tessa Murry (52:44.637)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (52:45.75)
really good salesperson who influenced the local building officials.
Tessa Murry (52:48.255)
Yeah. Okay. Most houses are still running on natural gas then and they have a split system for heating and cooling like a separate condenser outside that delivers the cooling. Okay.
Will Misegades (52:57.947)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, so it’s pretty straightforward. Yeah, we have to teach our guys how to look for that reversing valve in order to determine what kind of system it is. But yeah, we almost never see it down here.
Tessa Murry (53:14.652)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (53:17.024)
Okay. Yeah, I’m surprised. It seems like a prime environment for a heat pump, but okay. Okay. Very good.
Will Misegades (53:23.963)
Yeah. Florida has a bunch. think he pumps. We don’t. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (53:27.525)
Mm-hmm.
Not yet. Yeah, not yet. I guess Texas is known for its oil though, right? So why would we, why would we change if, you know, again, back to incentives. Follow the money.
Will Misegades (53:35.964)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (53:38.902)
Yeah, right.
Will Misegades (53:42.215)
Absolutely. Yep. Pretty much.
Tessa Murry (53:49.747)
Okay, so I could keep talking to you for hours, Will, and we could dive into a lot more things. But for the sake of time here, we should probably wrap this up. Ruben, do you have any other questions that you want to ask Will today we didn’t cover?
Reuben Saltzman (54:05.335)
I’ve been hitting them as we’ve been going along. No, no, think we’re good. Thank you.
Tessa Murry (54:08.549)
Okay. Perfect. Will, is there anything else that you want to mention today that we didn’t ask you? Any questions that we didn’t ask you that you want to tell our listeners about Houston Homes that they should know?
Will Misegades (54:22.631)
Get a home inspection. Absolutely. Call Redfish, get a home inspection. And because the houses age so quickly, you want to be able to know as much as possible. And then on top of that, there are certain things that your home inspector might be able to help you out with in educating you. What kind of electric panel do you have? Because we are starting to see what Florida sees with their entrances.
Reuben Saltzman (54:24.686)
Ha ha.
Will Misegades (54:51.623)
that are starting to reject certain materials in your homes. And so, you know, get an inspector who kind of knows a little bit about that. I mean, it’s not our role to tell them, you know, anything about the entrance, but at the same time, if you can tell them, hey, you have an FPE panel, you might want to talk to your insurance company to see if they’ll cover it. Or you have, we don’t really see lead plumbing down here, but you know, if you have that, or if you have cast iron pipes as your drains, is that going to create an issue? So yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (54:51.884)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (54:55.677)
Really? Okay.
Tessa Murry (55:10.384)
you
Tessa Murry (55:15.471)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Or if you have a roof that’s over 12 years old.
Will Misegades (55:22.183)
So, you know, in my office, we have a real estate brokerage that’s here as well. And we talk on a regular basis with some of my best friends. And they now tell their clients when they buy a house, like, okay, we need to know the age of the roof. Because if it’s over 15 years old, we will negotiate a new roof. I mean, that’s how crazy it is. Because insurance companies are starting to say no to 15 year old
Reuben Saltzman (55:44.696)
wow.
Will Misegades (55:51.715)
your old roofs. It’s crazy. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (55:52.728)
Sir, okay, okay.
Tessa Murry (55:53.073)
Wow. it is, you know, that’s what we’re hearing and it hasn’t hit us in Minnesota yet, but it’s definitely, we’re starting to see that trend. So it’s only a matter of time, I think.
Reuben Saltzman (56:02.298)
Yeah, yeah. And Will, if people want to find you, how can they find you online?
Will Misegades (56:02.919)
Yeah. Absolutely.
Will Misegades (56:08.653)
Absolutely, you can Google us. So it’s redfishinspections.com or you can give us a call at 713-568-8184 and we will answer any questions. We are in the Houston market, Greater Houston Market, the Dallas Market, San Antonio Market, and we’re moving into other Texas markets next year.
Reuben Saltzman (56:31.608)
Fantastic. Cool. Well, Will, thank you so much for your, yeah, thank you for your time. Yeah, man. Appreciate having you on. Always good to chat with you. And for the listeners, if you got any questions for us, for me and Tessa, you’re welcome to reach out. You can email us. It’s podcast at structuretech.com and we will catch you next time. Thank you so much.
Tessa Murry (56:32.338)
So exciting. Well, thank you so much, Will. Yeah.
Will Misegades (56:36.539)
Thank you for having me. This was fun. I appreciate your time.