To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/vwDEHoyPgG4
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman, Tessa Murry, and Eric Houseman share some of the most memorable and unusual service inquiries they’ve encountered in the home inspection industry. From clients complaining about issues already documented in the inspection report to hidden defects concealed behind artwork and inaccessible attics, the conversation explores the challenges inspectors face when managing expectations after a home purchase.
Takeaways
Managing client expectations before, during, and after an inspection is critical to customer satisfaction.
Many service inquiries originate from misunderstandings about what a home inspection can and cannot uncover.
Home inspectors are not required to move personal property, remove artwork, or access concealed areas that are not readily accessible.
Hidden defects behind furnishings, artwork, insulation, or inaccessible spaces often become points of contention after a sale.
Contractor opinions provided after an inspection do not automatically mean the inspector made a mistake.
Home inspectors are not code inspectors, and older homes often contain conditions that would not meet current codes but are still functioning. Strong documentation, photographs, videos, and clear report writing help protect inspectors when questions arise later.
AI can be a valuable quality-control tool by reviewing inspection reports for inconsistencies, missing comments, and reporting standards.
Structure Tech has begun implementing an AI-powered report review process using uploaded procedures, style guides, and inspection requirements.
Even experienced inspectors occasionally miss obvious issues, which can impact client confidence in the report.
Showing up, listening, and communicating directly with clients often resolves concerns better than lengthy back-and-forth correspondence
Most home inspection complaints are relatively rare, especially when a company has strong training, processes, and quality control systems in place.
A dedicated service manager can help objectively handle complaints without the emotional attachment inspectors may have to their own reports.
Building trust through transparency and responsiveness is often more important than determining who is right or wrong.
Continuous improvement through technology, training, and customer feedback strengthens both inspection quality and customer experience.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Weather Updates
02:43 Inspection Fuel Conference and Sponsor Spotlight
04:19 Listener Feedback on Cosmetic Defects and Reporting Standards
09:54 Real Estate Agents, Buyer Expectations, and New Construction Inspections
11:31 Introducing AI-Powered Home Inspection Report Reviews
18:41 Free vs. Paid AI Tools and Early Results
19:54 Crazy Complaint #1: The Client Who Never Opened the Report
22:23 Crazy Complaint #2: Garage Door Opener That Was Actually Locked
26:24 Crazy Complaint #3: Hidden Drywall Damage Behind Artwork
29:17 When Does a Refund Make Sense?
32:57 Complaint Statistics and Customer Service Insights
35:12 Crazy Complaint #4: Hidden Attic Access and Undisclosed Structural Repairs
42:46 Crazy Complaint #5: Water Heater Code Upgrade Disputes
46:02 Crazy Complaint #6: “Illegal” Plumbing Connections and Contractor Claims
50:20 Standing Behind Accurate Findings and Industry Expertise
53:06 Crazy Complaint #7: Cracked Heat Exchanger Discovered After Closing
55:03 Lessons Learned and Final Thoughts on Service Inquiries
56:17 Closing Remarks and Contact Information
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 (00:01.142)
Welcome back to the show. Tessa, how is sunny Florida treating you?
Tessa Murry (00:07.008)
Actually Reuben, right now it is a kind of a s a a bad storm going through and I was out driving earlier today and all the roads were flooded and I was like, Woo, it’s a little sketchy. A lot of I mean it was like flash flooding, like we’re getting over an inch of rain in twenty four hours and so just everything is kinda Yeah. But you know, it’ll eventually stop and then it’ll just be a a sauna again. All the the water will evaporate into the air and it’s you know.
Reuben (00:23.28)
my.
Reuben (00:32.322)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (00:37.166)
The huge. But how about
Reuben (00:37.314)
We could use we could use some of that rain up here in Minnesota. We haven’t seen any rain for a while. And I I got we got Eric on the show here today too. Eric, how’s it going?
Tessa Murry (00:43.334)
really?
Eric Houseman (00:47.836)
I’m good. I’m good. Thanks for having me back again.
Tessa Murry (00:47.95)
Hey Eric.
Reuben (00:50.616)
I and I didn’t even say his last name. It’s like he’s just such a regular people know Eric. It’s Eric Houssman. He’s a service manager here at Structure Tech. Greatest home inspector name ever. but yeah, Eric, Eric is nodding when I’m talking about lack of rain. a lot of brown lawns right now. I’ve got a sprinkler system at my house at for my yard or or irrigation system, I should call it. And I I haven’t even
Tessa Murry (00:56.867)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (01:01.286)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (01:05.944)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (01:16.696)
de winterized it for the past several years until this year. This year I I said I gotta use it and I have put it to use. Eric, you seeing that too?
Tessa Murry (01:21.944)
Wow. Wow. Huh.
Eric Houseman (01:26.83)
Yes, I do not have a sprinkler system at my house. I do my best to water as much as I possibly can. We are supposed to get like an inch of rain tomorrow though.
Reuben (01:38.004)
okay. Yeah, we could use it.
Tessa Murry (01:40.216)
Well, there you go, Reuben.
Eric Houseman (01:40.22)
Yeah. We need it.
Reuben (01:41.752)
Good. Good. Okay. my daughter is supposed to be pressure washing the deck tomorrow, so she may be doing it in the rain. We’ll see how that goes.
Tessa Murry (01:44.942)
Nice.
Tessa Murry (01:50.222)
Tessa Murry (01:54.499)
Is this a punishment or she or is this just by choice? Because if it’s I mean, if it’s raining, let Mother Nature change. Okay. That’s good. Yeah. There you go. What it and what is that?
Reuben (02:01.88)
I told her I’d pay her. I you wanna you wanna earn some money? I got a project for ya. Yeah. I’m paying her over market rate for a fifteen year old, if you ask me.
well it it should come out to about twenty five bucks an hour if all goes right. Yeah. We’ll see. Not bad. It’s pretty good money. Yeah. So we’ll see. all right. So we got we got a packed show today. We got a lot of stuff to talk about. I hope I can cover all the topics that I was thinking of. I mean, the biggest one, we got Eric coming back to talk about some of the craziest service inquiries.
Tessa Murry (02:21.176)
That’s not bad. Not bad. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (02:35.802)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (02:43.998)
aka complaints that we have received. Thought that would be fun to go over. But before we do, gotta give a shout out to our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder. We’ve been working with them for a long time, well before COVID happened. And right now what we’re gonna talk about is inspection fuel. This is an annual conference and it is put on well i it it it’s happening
Tessa Murry (02:49.304)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (02:58.905)
Right.
Reuben (03:12.584)
In Louisville, Kentucky, and it’s happening at the end of September. And IEB is doing like a full day of training at inspection fuel. So, and and that’s actually where I first heard about IEB, I think, was at Inspection Fuel many years ago. And we’ll we’ll talk about talking point number one that’s going to be covered, which is helping.
Tessa Murry (03:30.582)
Mm. Mm.
Reuben (03:41.387)
Owners to think like CEOs instead of technicians, building systems that create consistency, leading teams more effectively, developing strategies that can be implemented when they get home, and finally leaving with a clear plan instead of a notebook full of ideas. So if you want to hear more about it or you wanna well you want to attend, IB is going to be there at inspectionfuel.
I’ve attended Inspection Fuel a number of times, always found it to be a fantastic conference. So you can look for that. And let’s see, what else? I wanted to share some feedback from our latest episode. We were talking about new construction standards and what home inspectors should be reporting on. Should home inspectors talk about cosmetics? And I had a lot of home inspectors write into me.
And I I I almost want to read all of the feedback on the show here, but there’s I I got so many emails it it feels like it would just fill up a big part of our show. So I I thought I’d I’m just gonna share one because this was possibly the most passionate email I got. This one was from Paul and Tessa, I muted your mic because I was getting a little bit of feedback. but unmute at any time.
The this one was from Paul, and I I’m just gonna read it because I I thought it was great. He said, I I just listened to your episode on overreporting, and you have me fired up. First, I want to say that any report that is a hundred pages is a crime against humanity and will not properly relay important information to the reader. In your conversation, it was suggested that the comments you make in a report should be partly based on the client, but I cannot disagree more. And now
From that, I had to go back and I had to re-listen to our podcast tests. And like, how much did we talk about customizing our report to the client? I think we had one sentence on it. So I think Paul Paul, you might be latching on to that a little bit more strongly than we meant the the we meant I I I do customize.
Tessa Murry (06:02.99)
Leave it to our home inspector audience to be very detail oriented, Ruben, and to pick up on that one sentence.
Reuben (06:08.134)
That is that is damn good. I’m impressed, Paul. I I didn’t even remember talking about it. I had to listen to it again. We did mention it. I I won’t say that reports are going to vary wildly from client to client. If you had a Venn diagram of here’s an experienced builder and they already know all this stuff and they just want the basics. And then you had a first-time homebuyer who is an engineer and is super meticulous, and he had those two circles, they would overlap almost completely.
There would be a little bit of difference in between the two. We’re not going to get two wildly different reports. So, Paul, I I do mostly agree with you. Paul says if you inspect a house for a family of acrobats, would you not mention a missing guardrail? What happens when grandma comes over to visit her acrobat family? What happens when the acrobat family decides not to buy the house and the report gets passed along to the next buyers? For these reasons, you have to report, write a report that is true to the house and not tailored to the clients.
I agree with you mostly, but I I still I do do a little bit of tailoring. And he says, okay, while this was sitting in my drafts, I listened to the episode where you asked if we should be reporting on cosmetic issues. Now I’m even more fired up. He says I he doesn’t normally yell in the car when he’s listening to podcasts, but this is now in all caps. In no way should we be commenting on purely cosmetic issues.
I would not consider staining a cosmetic issue, since that is related to a plumbing/slash exterior issue. The only reason a small minority of inspectors are doing this is because they have no idea what they are doing, he says with an exclamation point. Ironically, they try to make it a selling point. Look how thorough thorough I am. When in fact it only reveals how incompetent they are.
Tessa Murry (07:55.042)
Reuben (08:07.424)
It may be tempting to think that adding cosmetic issues would add value to a home inspection, but wading into the murky waters of subjectivity will only devalue the important findings and open the inspectors up to unreasonable expectations, such as why didn’t the inspector mention the Sharpie mark on the water piping?
This is the tail wagging the dog. This is the uninformed masses/mob mentality thinking that they know better than the so-called experts. Setting expectations is critical for customer satisfaction. And it’s our job to set the ground rules and expectations in our pre-inspection communications. After all, or no, excuse me, after that, all we have to do is hand the clients a roll of blue tape.
Tessa Murry (08:32.222)
yeah.
Reuben (08:59.66)
And let them go to town.
Reuben (09:03.724)
The end. What do you guys think?
Eric Houseman (09:07.216)
I would just like to say, Paul, you get a gigantic round of applause from me. Thank you. I love big bold opinions. I’m full of big bold opinions. I like big bold opinions. We should get a beer sometime.
Tessa Murry (09:24.25)
I I yeah, I I think we all agree with his perspective. The challenge is you’ve got a you’ve got clientele that are expecting and requesting something different. So do we change with the times and and offer a service that people are expecting and wanting? Or do we hold to our to our standards, outdated or not? I don’t know.
Reuben (09:24.322)
Yes.
Reuben (09:47.554)
No. No. So thank you for writing in, Paul. Appreciate it. good stuff.
Eric Houseman (09:54.569)
I think there’s another layer to sorry Ruben. I I think there’s another layer, at least from what I’m seeing. There are a lot of obviously we’re talking about new construction. I think it is more common now than it was five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago for a client to represent themselves when purchasing a new construction home. So they don’t have the guidance of a
Reuben (09:55.733)
Next. go.
Eric Houseman (10:23.492)
seasoned real estate agent teaching them along the way about this is what the process looks like. Which then that right. Which then that falls more on us because a seasoned real estate agent is going to tell a client or prepare a client and say, look, no house is perfect. There’s going to be cosmetics. These are things that a home inspector is not going to talk about in a home inspection report.
Tessa Murry (10:32.738)
We’re headed for disaster.
Eric Houseman (10:50.782)
But I would say there’s a a higher percentage of clients now that are no longer represented by a real estate agent in a new construction and s transaction.
Reuben (11:00.824)
So so maybe it falls on us to do a better job of setting expectations ahead of time. Yeah. Okay. All right. so had to touch on that. We’ll probably be talking about this even more. but yeah, we’ll come back to that another day. Before we get into Eric’s list of crazy complaints, service inquiries.
Tessa Murry (11:01.411)
Interesting point.
Eric Houseman (11:08.69)
Yes.
Reuben (11:30.999)
I also wanted to share a project that Eric and I have been working on, which is an AI report reviewer. It’s it’s so funny because we do these, yeah, we do these quarterly meetings with the leadership team. Me, Eric, and Mindy. We get together and we spend a full we we use we use traction, the EOS entrepreneur operating system. And we do these.
Tessa Murry (11:41.786)
Ooh.
Reuben (11:58.159)
Quarterly meetings where we spend a full day going over what’s going to happen for the next quarter, what are our quarterly rocks? You know, what are we going to achieve in the next 90 days? All that stuff. And the biggest thing that Eric and I came to the last meeting with completely independently, we didn’t talk about this at all amongst each other. We both came with the exact same idea: that we want to start using AI.
To review our home inspection reports before our inspectors send them out. You know, the way it works now is the home inspector writes a report, they hit publish, kind of, you know, they they publish a draft and then they read it, and then they check it for accuracy, all that stuff. They make all the corrections on another screen, ideally, and then they send out the final report to the client, having corrected all their mistakes. But
What if we could use AI to do that? That that was the idea. And so Eric and I both came to the meeting with the exact same idea. Let’s do this. And it was it was pretty pretty wild that we we that this is what we were most excited to talk about. And we said, let’s let’s go. And yeah, and and we’ve been working on it for the past month or so. Does that sound about right, Eric? Yeah. and we we have a working model now.
Tessa Murry (13:14.398)
That’s cool.
Reuben (13:27.084)
And it’s crazy.
Tessa Murry (13:29.422)
That’s amazing. Do you guys use it for quality control too? Cause I know I know for a while you were kind of using a person to kind of go through reports randomly and make sure that the pick you know, required pictures are being taken and reports are being written to standard and that sort of thing. So can can this software also monitor quality control and help you track too? Okay. Wow.
Reuben (13:50.613)
It it does exactly that. And and we programmed it. You know, we’ve got our internal handbook, which you’re very familiar with, Tessa. It’s got our policies and procedures section on exactly what a home inspector is supposed to inspect. And I mean it gets down into the nitty gritty details, like if there’s a sump pump present or you need to comment on a sump pump during every inspection.
If it’s there, you need to test it. You can test it by doing this or by doing that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you can’t test it, then you need to write in your report that it was not tested. And you know, it gets into the granular details. So we uploaded that entire document. We have a list of photos that need to be taken and need to be included in the report. It has gone over that. We have a report writing style guide that says how you need to write your comments. It
You need to use full sentences. You should avoid the use of the word I, things like that. And and so we uploaded our style guide. We were uploaded all these different things that we had structure tech do, and then we used it to audit our software comment library. We have a library of what do you think, Eric? Maybe.
2000, 3000 canned comments that we use. So we audited the entire library and it said, in your library, you’ve got 700 comments that don’t fit your own rules perfectly. So Eric and I painstakingly reviewed our entire library to make sure that it fits our own internal rules. So it’s not flagging.
Eric Houseman (15:21.47)
Yep.
Tessa Murry (15:33.218)
Ooh. Mm-hmm.
Reuben (15:45.849)
Canned comments. And then we we used it to really tweak our report reviewer. And then we started using the reviewer on a bunch of reports from inspectors. And we went over every little detail. Is this a valid critique? Is it not? And we we changed our report software even more. And we tweaked the report reviewer, the AI report reviewer, even more.
And I I guess I’m probably getting into more detail than I need to, but the the bottom line is we have a working report reviewer now. I had to get a paid version of well I we’re using Chat GPT. We looked into a few different models and this was the one that really it was the only one that worked well.
Tessa Murry (16:31.962)
Yeah, I was curious I was curious what platform you were using. Yeah. Okay.
Reuben (16:36.246)
Yeah, we’re we’re using Chat GPT and everybody is using a paid version of it because the free version is nearly worthless. So it’s expensive. However, we just recently had a service inquiry come in where someone said, Hey, you know, this isn’t working right, and you inspected my house four months ago, and and I I think you guys should have caught this. And
I thought the inspector probably should have caught it too. I ran their report through the AI reviewer, and the AI reviewer flagged exactly what our inspector should have flagged, and had they used this, would have saved this complaint. I mean, it it’s it’s
Tessa Murry (17:19.354)
Wow.
wow. How did it was it was it something, a defect that was buried in the pictures that the inspector forgot to put in the report or missed and so wow.
Reuben (17:29.196)
Yep. Almost. Yeah. It was just like that. They they it was a photo that showed this is not working right and it made it in the report. And it wasn’t obviously not working right, but it was it was not working right. And it made it in the report and AI said, Hey, this photo says this ain’t right, but you said it was right. You need to fix this. Yes. Yes.
Tessa Murry (17:51.323)
Wow, that’s insane. Okay, so I think you’re like one step away from just uploading all the pictures and having it write the report for you.
Reuben (18:02.865)
Tess, someday. Some day. I mean we’re getting closer to that. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (18:05.676)
Not far. Yeah, that’s what it sounds like.
Reuben (18:09.324)
Yep. So Eric and I are very excited about this. We’re still in the early stages of it. I mean, we’re still kind of ruling it out. Not every inspector on our team is actually even using it yet, but most of them are. And I’m kind of holding everybody’s hand. Hi, Tess. Tessa just smells something to me. okay. No, you were muted, and that’s perfect. You were muted. That’s good.
Tessa Murry (18:11.278)
That’s crazy.
Tessa Murry (18:30.49)
was I muted? Sorry.
Reuben (18:38.74)
Eric, any other thoughts on that?
Eric Houseman (18:41.972)
no, I’m I’m glad you brought up like the fact that, you know, the model that we’re using and I I think the most interesting thing that we’ve learned, maybe the most frustrating thing that we’ve learned is there is a big difference between these different models, and there’s a big difference between a free and a paid account.
Reuben (19:02.594)
Yes, holy cow.
Eric Houseman (19:05.374)
Huge difference.
Tessa Murry (19:05.972)
to admit it, but I’ve been using a paid account for a while too. I don’t like it. I don’t want to contribute money towards this. But it has saved me so much time with my business, my consulting business. And I use it for a lot of different things, mainly report writing, emails, that sort of thing. And I, you know, like you said, you you don’t get very far with the free version. So I, you know, switched over a while ago. But it it’s made a it’s made a big difference. Save me a lot of time.
Reuben (19:33.698)
Yeah. Yep. Yep. It’s really cool. All right. So had to share that we’re working on that. And yeah, we’re th this could be a show and we could just call it call an end to it. But no, we got a lot, we got a lot more. Eric, we we teased this a long time ago. Yeah, exactly. Take it away.
Tessa Murry (19:50.606)
Take it away.
Eric Houseman (19:54.933)
all right. so first of all I wanna go back really quick and apologize to anybody that’s living in the Kentucky area. Ruben pronounced Louisville Louisville earlier.
Reuben (20:05.816)
Ha I did. I did. Thank you. I said Louisville.
Eric Houseman (20:10.014)
People in Kentucky or the surrounding area, we apologize. My mother in law lives in Kentucky. I know how the residents of Louisville and the surrounding Kentucky area are very passionate about how this is pronounced.
Reuben (20:24.106)
I am I am appropriately embarrassed.
Eric Houseman (20:28.148)
I just I caught it and I was like, no, he didn’t. all right. So with that out of the way, we’ll dive in. For those that that haven’t listened in the past, I just want to throw out my favorite one ever. I’ve thrown this one out before, but I I have to put it in this one. It was the service inventory.
Tessa Murry (20:32.452)
Yeah.
Reuben (20:35.158)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:53.754)
Are we talking top ten complaints here now, R Eric? Top ten complaints.
Eric Houseman (20:57.332)
I’m I’m not gonna say these are the top ten. These are just ones that I picked out where I’m like, they were kind of the most, you know, maybe erroneous, unfounded, egregious for a number of different reasons. I’m also going to bring some humility to us because we’re not perfect. So I have an example of that. We’re not. but the the my favorite one of all time was
Tessa Murry (21:00.089)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (21:09.401)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (21:17.732)
We’re not Okay. Fine. Okay.
Eric Houseman (21:26.93)
The client that called to file a complaint about a number of different things that they found once they moved into the home. And in taking the phone call, I was just like, What is going on? Did we even inspect this house? This doesn’t make any sense. And I go to look at the report, and everything that we talked about is in the report. I can’t make heads or tails of this. And then I go into the ISN order and I look, and the order’s not even paid.
For those of you listening at home, if you don’t pay for the order, if you don’t pay for the inspection, you can’t view the report.
Tessa Murry (22:04.247)
Ridiculous.
Eric Houseman (22:05.33)
Yes. So that that’s my favorite one of all time. Every penny. Yes. Every penny. Yeah. I know I’ve covered that one before, but I just I can’t get enough of that one. That one entertains me so much.
Tessa Murry (22:08.196)
So you gave them all of their money back? No, it’s scary.
Reuben (22:18.028)
Yeah.
Reuben (22:21.624)
Yeah, that’s what kicked us off. Yeah, we had to come back to that one.
Eric Houseman (22:23.356)
Yes. Yeah. That that’s that’s the OG, right? I’ll I’ll I’ll start off with the one putting us in the spotlight. The so inspector goes out to the house, completes the report, sends it off. It’s a vacant property. And you know, we we find some things in vacant properties, particularly things that are turned off, right?
So inspector goes in, gas fireplace, gas is off to the fireplace. We don’t operate gas valves. We don’t know if it’s off for a reason. Okay, fine. Agent’s like, cool, we can look past that. We understand you don’t do it. Not the primary purpose of this phone call. The next thing was pilot was off on the water heater. Inspector did everything they could to try and light this pilot on this water heater. The thing would not light. Agent’s like, cool, I get it. I appreciate you guys going.
The extra mile and trying to get that thing lit, we’ll have it looked at. The last thing was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And a lot of times in these situations, it’s never just one thing, it’s always a multitude of things that build up. But the agent tells me they’re like, Yep, in the report, there’s a comment about the third garage stall. It has an opener, and the inspector’s got a video.
Of them attempting to open said garage door with the opener standing next to the button, got a video of the garage door, and every time they push the button, you can see it binds on the left hand side. And then of course the garage door shuts itself again. So the inspector calls it out that the garage door, garage door opener isn’t operational. And the agent’s like, you can see in the report why it’s not operational.
Lo and behold, if you zoom in, the hasp that locks the garage door down is pushed through the track, and the inspector missed it. So they’re operate just in oversight. There’s another photo in the report. You can zoom in on it. You can see that the HASP is pushed through the track. That’s why it’s not.
Reuben (24:29.53)
No.
Tessa Murry (24:31.386)
or shoot.
Reuben (24:37.592)
Yeah.
Reuben (24:41.412)
I’m sad.
Tessa Murry (24:41.592)
man. Do we damage the door? Does that hurt the door? Okay, that’s good. At least. Yeah, okay. Good.
Eric Houseman (24:45.138)
No. No. Nope. Dor was not damaged. But this just it’s ridiculous in a different way. It’s one of those like it never should have been type of situations, right?
Reuben (24:58.99)
Absolutely not. Gosh, that’s embarrassing. Probably. Seriously, probably. Yes. Yeah. We should. We should. Just for fun.
Tessa Murry (24:59.254)
I wonder if your AI program would have caught that.
Tessa Murry (25:05.146)
Really? You should upload it and ask.
Eric Houseman (25:06.278)
It may have. Who knows? Yeah.
Tessa Murry (25:12.346)
Teach it to look for that. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (25:12.68)
I think I had the address. Yeah. Yeah. So nobody’s perfect, right? It’s on us. Yep.
Reuben (25:20.034)
Yeah, that one’s on us. Yep.
And so what do we do? We we what do we do? Do we buy a new opener or d d did they just say, Look, you look stupid and it does work? ‘Cause it’s okay. Yeah. All right.
Eric Houseman (25:31.634)
The latter. Yeah. Yep. And it it it then of course, you know, the the common thing that I hear the common theme is, you know, this calls into question their confidence in the rest of the report. It if if they miss something this obvious, what else did they miss? Right? Yes.
Reuben (25:47.032)
Totally. It does. And I
I tell everybody that in training. I mean, you make a stupid mistake like this and you the consumer confidence has just plummeted. They don’t trust anything anymore. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (25:59.163)
It’s hard to come back from.
Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (26:03.292)
Yeah. Yep. What it what is it that you tell every trainee in in in when they’re in training Ruben? just whatever you do, don’t be wrong.
Reuben (26:15.502)
Yeah, all I’m asking for is complete perfection. That’s it.
Tessa Murry (26:20.718)
Be right every single time, one hundred percent of time.
Reuben (26:23.406)
about everything. Yeah. That’s all I’m asking for.
Eric Houseman (26:24.764)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. all right, moving on. there was one client moved into the house. This is a occupied property. And of course, in an occupied property, you’ve got stored items, you’ve got furniture, you’ve got art hanging on the walls, all of these things, right? And we do the inspection.
Client moves in and we get a phone call only, you know, a day, less than a day after they move into the house. And apparently when the sellers moved out, they left a painting hanging on the wall in a bedroom. And the new buyers were kind of like, huh, okay, that wasn’t included in the purchase of the home. Why would they leave it there? The buyers weren’t fans of it, so they were like, all right, we’re gonna take it off the wall. Well,
They take it off the wall and behind it is a hole in the drywall. We’re not talking a small hole either. This hole in the drywall is an entire stud cavity wide, so it’s 16 inches by about 36 inches tall. Hidden by a painting. And you know, of course, as inspectors, like we’re not required to move personal property.
Tessa Murry (27:32.346)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (27:40.846)
Okay, sure.
Eric Houseman (27:49.905)
I’m I’m definitely not taking a painting or a print off the wall because I I have plenty of art in my own house and I know how much money I’ve spent on it. I’m definitely not risking damaging something or it not being hung back on the wall appropriately or a camera seeing me taking it off the wall.
Reuben (27:53.914)
No.
Tessa Murry (28:05.914)
This is reminiscent of area rugs that cover up patched flooring. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (28:14.728)
Yep. Yep.
Tessa Murry (28:17.72)
What did we do? So what did what what did what did we do?
Reuben (28:19.308)
Yeah, how’d it turn out?
Eric Houseman (28:20.828)
I refunded the client. Here you go. Get it fixed. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:23.829)
Really?
man, but those expectations are unreasonable. It’s not fair.
Eric Houseman (28:30.504)
They are. Yes. The expectations are unreasonable. It’s in the Ashy standard of practice. we don’t move personal property. I mean, it’s just not only is it like home inspector standard and company policy, but it’s just it’s uncouth. Right? If if if you don’t need to move something, don’t move it. Now, I’m not gonna lie, I’m perfectly guilty of going into a house and needing access to.
you know, a a front foundation clean out or getting access to an electrical panel to inspect it. And and I will move a thing or two here and there. Absolutely I will, because it’s a critical component of the home. But nobody nobody thinks that a piece of art hanging on the wall is covering something up behind it.
Reuben (29:07.171)
for sure. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:17.326)
So can I ask you a question, Eric, how do you decide which situations you’re gonna refund the client? Because if if this is unreasonable expectation and our you know, our standards of practice say it’s not included and blah, blah, blah. you know, wha what how how do you make your decisions, I guess, on how to handle that?
Eric Houseman (29:37.139)
The short way of putting it would be is is standing on principle is the juice worth the squeeze, so to speak. I know what my time is worth. And while it’s my job to defend our inspectors and defend the company, I can still do that even if it requires giving some money back. we
Have a policy publicized, verbalized on our website if you’re not 100% satisfied with the any portion of the inspection experience, whether it’s scheduling, the interaction with the inspector, the report after the fact, we’ll refund the cost of the inspection. Thankfully, we don’t do that very often. But regardless of whether or not the situation is
Founded or erroneous, the guarantee still remains.
Reuben (30:42.04)
Yeah. And
Tessa Murry (30:42.234)
So if they ask for it back, you give it back. Or if you think they’re gonna be a major headache and a pain in the butt and that’s gonna drag on, you give it back. Is that am I understanding that right? Okay.
Eric Houseman (30:51.262)
Correct. Yes. Yep. Yeah.
Reuben (30:56.002)
Yep, that’s our guarantee. And I mean, no matter how stupid it is, I mean, if somebody calls up and they’re like, I don’t like you. That’s it. I don’t I don’t like you. I didn’t agree with a Facebook post you made later on. And I don’t want to support you and I want my money back. We have it in writing. That’s our guarantee. Most people are good.
Tessa Murry (31:14.404)
Crazy. Wow.
And now everybody, every client potential client listening to this is gonna know. Yes.
Reuben (31:22.904)
Well, yeah, I’ll tell you what, Tess. Most people are good. And most people aren’t gonna do that. We work with very good people. The vast majority are never gonna pull some stunt like that. And that’s why we can do it.
Tessa Murry (31:30.65)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:36.227)
You know, yeah. And y occasionally you’ll get that type of person, but they exist. So it’s it’s inevitable. But w what what percentage of inspections do you know end up in a having to refund them? Like out of if structure tech does, you know, X amount of inspections a year, how many get refunded? Do you have any idea of what that number is? Sorry, I’m putting you on the spot here, Eric, but
Eric Houseman (32:00.717)
No, it’s I c I could give you numbers and percentages all day long because I I track yes. Yeah. So to give you an idea, Ruben, how how many home inspections did we do last year? Thirty four, thirty-five hundred, somewhere around there.
Tessa Murry (32:04.13)
Is it like less than one percent? Okay.
Okay.
Reuben (32:16.642)
Yeah, it was right in there. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (32:17.83)
Yeah, somewhere in that area. as of right now on the spreadsheet that I track these on, we have less than fifty from last calendar year. Total. Fifty.
Reuben (32:28.042)
And and and those are things that have come up. It doesn’t mean those are refunds, it was just Eric dealt with something. Somebody called for some reason. And it maybe Eric came out and he said, Yeah, there’s a painting there. We can’t see behind it. I mean, there’s no way we’d possibly know. And they go, Yeah, you’re right, you wouldn’t possibly know. Thanks for coming out and listening to me. And then Eric left. That’s one of the 50. It’s it doesn’t mean we paid anything else.
Tessa Murry (32:28.162)
Okay. Wow. Wow.
Eric Houseman (32:33.246)
Correct.
Tessa Murry (32:35.274)
wow. Okay.
Tessa Murry (32:55.97)
Mm. Wow. That’s pretty cool. Pretty cool.
Eric Houseman (32:57.768)
Yeah. And it just to give you kind of like other other numbers, right? So the average home inspection company generally budgets somewhere in the ballpark of approximately two to three and a half percent of their annual revenue that they will give back in the form of refunds or gives backs to upset clients. That that’s average, national average.
Tessa Murry (33:23.705)
Well
Eric Houseman (33:27.713)
the last six years that I’ve been tracking this, we have consistently always been under point seven percent.
Tessa Murry (33:28.066)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (33:41.114)
Whoa, you guys. I’m doing a slow clap. My mic’s probably blocking that out, but I’m doing a slow clap.
Eric Houseman (33:43.645)
So I
Reuben (33:46.614)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (33:49.405)
Yeah. So to Ruben’s point, what he said earlier, we work with really, really good people. Yes, we do. But I also want to give a shout out to our team. Our team does a phenomenal job. I have no issue if our client care coordinators, the first thing out of their mouth when they took every single phone call for scheduling, if they if they aired it out and said
Reuben (33:49.406)
thanks, Jeff.
Tessa Murry (33:55.642)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:59.515)
Gonna say.
Yes, excellent.
Eric Houseman (34:13.914)
If you’re not happy with any portion of this process, we’ll give you your money back. If they said that to every single person, I don’t think our percentage would increase. Our team is just that good.
Reuben (34:24.6)
Yeah. Yep. Agreed.
Tessa Murry (34:26.892)
What is your secret?
Reuben (34:31.223)
We can’t say it’s AI report reviews yet.
Eric Houseman (34:31.56)
the training. Yeah. It it’s the training. It’s the process. It’s the what is it now, Ruben? Hundred and seventy five years of combined experience on the team, roughly. Like yeah. Yep. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:34.458)
Great training program. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:43.256)
Yeah. Great team.
Reuben (34:45.294)
A lot of experience. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:47.308)
Yep. Great team. Great team. Great leadership. Smart people.
Reuben (34:51.224)
Well, you had a lot to do with that training program, Teth. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Tessa Murry (34:54.446)
Good communication. Good communication is key. You you know, yeah. But we all know that. But like like we’re talking about expectations, managing expectations, communicating things can save a lot of a a lot of pain later.
Eric Houseman (35:12.146)
Yep. Yeah. all right. This this was a good one. So we get a call about a month, month and a half, two months after the client moves into the house. they said that they got up into their garage attic and there’s a whole bunch of scab pieces of lumber and plywood that are
Reuben (35:14.603)
what else we got, Eric?
Eric Houseman (35:41.853)
Reinforcing the garage attic framing. And this is not factory built trusses. This is hand frame attached garage attic, like 60s, 70s built-era home. Look at the report. inspector commented on the fact that when they were on the garage roof, that there was evidence of the roof structure, the roof framing, the sheathing.
Boeing or sagging, kind of like you could look at the profile of it and you could see that there was a visible sag to the roof. You go into the garage, inspector’s got photos in his report. There’s no access to the garage attic whatsoever. None. It’s completely drywalled. You can’t see anything. There’s no access inside the house. Cause you know, we’ve all been in houses where you can get into the garage attic, but the attic is inside the house. It’s buried in a closet somewhere. Nothing.
I make it out to the property to do a site visit, and the clients had removed a four foot by four foot sheet of drywall from the garage ceiling in order to access the attic. And this garage ceiling, the drywall was not done by a professional. Let’s just put it that way.
There’s four by eight sheets, there’s a bunch of four by four sheets, et cetera, et cetera. But they’ve got it down, they’ve got it leaning up against the side of the garage. I poke my head up there, and I I wish we could show photos. Like there’s just random cut pieces of plywood, one by fours, two by fours, just scabbed in place.
Eric Houseman (37:33.038)
and it
Tessa Murry (37:34.866)
I said at least at least they were consistent. It sounds like the people who did the framing also did the drywall.
Eric Houseman (37:39.989)
Yeah, yeah, there there was definite consistency. So I and of course, like I asked him because the garage attic was insulated also. And I asked him, I said, you know, when you took this four by four sheet of drywall down, like did you have a bunch of insulation that came down too? And they were like, no, that this was the access. This was the attic access. And I’m looking at the piece of drywall and there’s like 20 screws around the edge of it.
There’s no way that you could have known that this was the access panel. And I said, How did you figure out that this was the access panel? And they said, the neighbor across the street is the one that told us this was the attic access panel. And he also told us that he’s the one that helped quote unquote reinforce the garage framing with the previous owner.
Tessa Murry (38:34.052)
Ha ha ha
Eric Houseman (38:35.058)
I said, so what was there anything in the disclosure about, you know, failure of the framing and the fact that, you know, they did this, anything like nope, nothing in the disclosure. But of course, we’re the ones that should have caught it, because you know, we are supposed to catch everything. That one ended up actually going all the way to a claim with our insurance company, errors and omissions.
Tessa Murry (39:02.626)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (39:04.472)
And of course, errors and omissions said, no, there’s no way. This was not a defined attic access. We were not told that this was an attic access. This is something that the sellers should have disclosed that they had a problem, that they had it repaired, or they attempted to repair it themselves. You’re not liable.
Reuben (39:23.586)
Yeah. Yeah, but that one I I knew exactly where you were going with this one because I don’t hear about most of this, but I definitely heard about that one. Yeah. That one made me mad.
Tessa Murry (39:25.86)
That’s crazy.
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (39:31.602)
Yeah. Yeah. Well
Tessa Murry (39:31.97)
That was crazy. What did did they want more than just the cost of their report back? Were they hoping for like the cost of a new roof or something? What did they want? Yeah, okay.
Reuben (39:38.784)
They wanted a new roof, and I don’t mean roof covering, I mean structure, everything. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:43.93)
Framing, sheathing. my gosh. Wow. Wow. Okay. Yep.
Eric Houseman (39:45.748)
Framing yes. Yeah. They they wanted it all. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Yeah. all right, what what else do I have here? What else? I’ve got I’ve got a notebook with things written down. the this was one
Tessa Murry (40:09.518)
Give us one that you lose you lost sleep over, Eric.
Eric Houseman (40:13.988)
I
Eric Houseman (40:17.982)
To be honest with you, I don’t lose sleep over any of these. I don’t. And it I don’t know if that makes me sound cold hearted or callous or like I don’t care, but I I understand at the end of the day. At the end of the day, and I think that this is probably a good lesson for anyone out there who runs a multi-inspector firm. You need someone.
Tessa Murry (40:21.676)
good job.
Reuben (40:22.744)
Hi five.
Tessa Murry (40:27.716)
No.
You’ve been doing it too long.
Eric Houseman (40:47.506)
Doing this job, who is not responsible or not the party that did the inspection to begin with. Because we are all very prideful when it comes to the work that we do. And I cannot imagine one of our inspectors handling their own complaint or their own service inquiry. They’re they’re too emotionally involved.
You know, we spend hours putting these reports together and the vast majority of the things that I encounter are not necessarily valid for one reason or another. And to have the person who built the report handle these things, I think is is a misstep by that company or that inspector. You know, if you’re a single owner operator, fine, I get it. You you know, you’re
you’re pretty much forced to or you have to turn to your insurance company every single time. But
Reuben (41:45.283)
Well, and and I I will say, for the single owner operator, it your your complaint number is going to be far lower because you have a different relationship with your clients. When it was me, my dad, and Dwayne. I mean, we would never get complaints. I I don’t think I ever got a single complaint where I paid out on something that I did myself. And it’s not because I’m a better home inspector, it’s because it’s a different relationship.
you have with that client and they they are much quicker to call a company than John Smith. It’s just it’s a different relationship. So I mean if you’re a single operator, you know, you can you can pound your chest and be like, well, I never get a single complaint every year. But it’s different. It is very different for you. It’s a different dynamic. I mean, maybe you are a better home inspector, but
Tessa Murry (42:25.86)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (42:43.672)
There’s a different dynamic too.
Eric Houseman (42:46.462)
Yep. Agreed. Yep.
Let’s see, water heater noted in a report as having, you know, it’s over 20 years old, multiple defects noted in the report. basically everything short of it was leaking. the Venn connector had a negative pitch to it. temperature pressure relief valve was improper length, a lot of different things going on with it. And it was even a priority item in the report.
And client moved into the house, went to go have it replaced, plumber came in, and of course, many, many times you have a contractor come in after the fact and say, Well, your home inspector should have noted this, or they should have said this, or they should have done this. And at at the end of the day, there was the bill for the client was higher dollar amount than what he expected, because there was, according to the HVAC contractor that came in.
There’s a number of code violations that should have been flagged in the report that weren’t in the report that had to be corrected when the new water heater was put in. And y you can expect that. You’ve got a twenty plus year old water heater. How many times has plumbing code changed in that twenty plus years, Ruben?
Reuben (44:17.045)
a lot.
Eric Houseman (44:18.364)
A lot. Yes. So you you’re going to have things that need to be updated when code comes in, especially when you’ve got that many years or decades that have have gone since that piece of mechanical equipment or appliance has been updated or replaced. you know, and that’s why the Ashy standard of practice says that we’re not code inspectors, that a if a contractor comes in after the fact, they may find things
beyond what we comment on that need to be upgraded or replaced.
Reuben (44:55.48)
Yeah. Yep, agreed.
Tessa Murry (44:58.252)
So did you pay for the new water heater?
Eric Houseman (45:00.306)
No, we did not. That was a situation where I ended up having a conversation with the client and explained things. And at the end of the conversation, he was like, you know, I just appreciate an actual human being calling me and walking me through this. there’s to a certain extent I I play a therapist in these situations.
Tessa Murry (45:03.642)
True.
Tessa Murry (45:18.969)
Nice.
Eric Houseman (45:30.086)
I’m a punching bag. People want someone to blame and just being able to get on the phone or go out to their house and talk through it with them. I think I said this on a previous podcast. Showing up matters.
Not making people jump through hoops when these types of things arise by filling out a form. Just call them, email them, contact them.
Reuben (45:55.747)
Yeah. Agreed.
Tessa Murry (45:59.009)
One position that will not be of threatened by AI.
Eric Houseman (46:02.79)
No. No. No. Definitely not. No. another good example of that type of situation is this was actually an agent that called after an inspection and claimed that there was a number of illegal plumbing connections. I always love that terminology when dealing with a complaint is illegal. fl illegal plumbing connection.
Reuben (46:30.262)
Because that’s what a plumber told them. Cause that’s what a plumber told them. That’s where it comes from.
Eric Houseman (46:32.124)
What’s that? Yes, yes, exactly. illegal plumbing connections. There’s a flexible dryer duct, and there was combustibles in contact with a water heater vent. And I go out to the property and I take a look at everything. The illegal plumbing connections, again, this was sixties, seventies built house. The illegal plumbing connections were ABS and PVC glued together.
Reuben (47:02.978)
Don’t care. I’m sorry. Don’t look look hold on, Eric. before you go on, I I did I I’m already fired up. Yes, yes. I I have blogged about this. And yes, you’re not supposed to glue those two together, and it doesn’t make any difference. I have I have glued them with with PVC cement.
Tessa Murry (47:03.226)
Just your typical Tuesday.
Eric Houseman (47:09.652)
boy. Now Ruben’s gonna get all fired up like Paul.
Tessa Murry (47:12.034)
Yeah.
Reuben (47:31.29)
And with ABS cement and I have tried it where I prime it first, where I don’t prime it. I’ve tried the green ABS to PVC transition cement. I’ve tried them all.
Tessa Murry (47:43.064)
Those the videos with the great bloopers?
Reuben (47:47.19)
Was it? No, no, that was on that that was something else. That was at Aaron Mensel’s.
Eric Houseman (47:48.915)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (47:51.48)
Inhale a few paint f inhale a few glue fumes during those videos for my
Reuben (47:56.719)
I I surely in inhaled some fumes while making this one. There was no bloopers on this one. But it they they all stay together. It does not come apart. It doesn’t leak. Yes, you’re not supposed to glue them together, but it doesn’t matter. And we usually point it out in our reports in our reports just so a plumber doesn’t come in and say your home inspector missed this illegal connection. But that’s the only reason we put it in our reports. It doesn’t matter. But go on, Eric. Sorry.
Tessa Murry (48:19.726)
Yeah.
Yeah. We thought don’t care.
Eric Houseman (48:25.128)
Yeah. Correct. But my standpipe for my clothes washer in my house is PVC glued with ABS. It’s been that way for eight years since I remodeled the laundry room. Not a single leak. Yeah, not a no. the flexible dryer duct was less than four feet of flexible dryer duct and it was in pristine condition.
Tessa Murry (48:33.55)
Let me
Since you did it eight years ago. Yeah.
Reuben (48:39.436)
And it’s not kind of weak, yes.
Reuben (48:51.328)
And and this is transition duct, which is legal, I assume, right? It’s going from the dryer to the dryer vent, and you’re allowed to have up to eight feet. So this is a non-issue whatsoever, okay.
Eric Houseman (48:55.838)
Correct.
Eric Houseman (49:00.82)
Correct. Yes.
Tessa Murry (49:02.19)
Bruya.
Eric Houseman (49:05.044)
Correct. And the water heater vent, yes, the water heater vent was close to combustibles, however, it was a B vent. Double wall B vent. And the plumber mistook it for a single wall vent, because it transitioned from a single wall vent to a double wall vent before it went close to all of this combustible material.
Reuben (49:32.694)
And so what did the plumber want? They wanted to redo everything?
Eric Houseman (49:36.243)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (49:36.864)
Money, they wanted more money.
Reuben (49:38.635)
my gosh. Gosh, this makes me mad.
Eric Houseman (49:39.25)
Yes. Yes.
Tessa Murry (49:41.402)
The more repairs, the more money they make.
Eric Houseman (49:43.785)
But this this is a good example of why showing up matters. That was the agent that called. The agent met me at the property. I walked her through every one of those things. That agent still uses us to this day. I could pull up an inspection within the last fourteen days where that agent has used us. Yes. Yep. And another situation, we refunded nothing.
Reuben (50:04.888)
Sure. ‘Cause you showed up. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:05.71)
See, this one has a happy ending.
Tessa Murry (50:12.506)
Hey
Reuben (50:13.538)
Good. Yeah, we shouldn’t. Yeah. Excellent.
Eric Houseman (50:13.576)
Nothing. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Tessa Murry (50:17.037)
Win win.
Eric Houseman (50:20.776)
Keeping with the theme of contractor trying to throw us under the bus. I don’t remember if I’ve talked about this one in a past podcast episode or not, but our inspector called out tandem breakers in a panel that shouldn’t have allowed tandem breakers and other breakers, you know, breakers that don’t have this are not the same manufacturer as the panel itself.
This one I happen to be out of town for. We were at an IEB event. I remember this when this one came across. And the agent called and I had a conversation with the agent. And I’m like, look, I’m I’m looking at the inspection photos and this is accurate. And she’s saying, well, the sellers had an electrician came come in. And the electrician said, Nope, it’s fine. It’s been that way for decades. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I give my blessing. And I actually ended up contacting GE Tech Support.
Shout out to GE Tech Support. I do not remember the gentleman’s name, but I got on the phone. And he said, Nope, this is definitely wrong. And here’s the reasons why. And he outlined it for me, saying that we have not manufactured a single GE panel that has allowed tandem breakers since this month of this year. We don’t make panels that allow tandem breakers anymore.
You should not have other breakers inside of this panel. Tell me who I need to email. This guy put together a very strongly worded document on GE company letterhead, sent it to me via email. I sent it to the buyer’s agent, who then forwarded it to the listing agent and the sellers and the electrician. The electrician was in there in 48 hours fixing what he said was okay based on this information from GE.
Reuben (52:14.776)
So good.
Tessa Murry (52:15.482)
So did did you pay him, Eric in this case?
Eric Houseman (52:18.296)
I I should have. Yeah. I mean, the this guy was my hero. Like he just he went above and beyond. And I cannot there’s I there’s no way that I could thank that man enough because the knowledge that he put in that letter, it was just it was great. And it just I think that’s a really good example of like if you know what you’re saying is correct, stand up for it. Back it. Don’t don’t cave.
Reuben (52:30.318)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (52:45.97)
Don’t just say, well, the electrician came in and they said it’s okay, so it’s fine. Like we we have a responsibility to our client when we report on something. If we know it’s wrong, we have to follow through.
Reuben (52:57.186)
Yep. Yep. Agreed. All right. Eric, do you have one more or are we good? We’re just about out of time.
Eric Houseman (53:06.644)
I
I think the the last one that I will bring up is I had two very recently where we had issues with cracked heat exchangers, HVAC contractors going in after the fact and finding cracked heat exchangers. the first one, the most prominent one, we actually commented on this was a 19 year old furnace, was not operational at the time of the inspection.
We recommended, you know, we tried everything, replacing batteries in the furnace, et cetera. Couldn’t get it to fire up. Recommended that the seller have an HVAC contractor come in there to take a look at it, repair it, prove that it was functional. Seller hired an HVAC contractor. HVAC contractor went in there, gave it a clean bill of health, got it working again, gave an entire report that said, Yep, I checked this, I checked this, I checked this. Client moved in.
Had an HVAC contractor come in to do a tune-up prior to the cooling season, because we did this during kind of like the heating season, still on the tail end of the heating season season. Their HVAC contractor looked at the heat exchanger and found a crack. And of course, the clients like, hey, you guys didn’t catch this. To which I’m like, we said that this thing wasn’t operational.
The sellers hired an HVAC contractor to come in and take a look at this thing. This isn’t on us. This is on the HVAC contractor that came in and claimed gave this thing a clean bill of health.
Tessa Murry (54:37.955)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (54:47.832)
They probably already went back to that contractor first and didn’t get what they wanted, so then they tried you.
Eric Houseman (54:52.754)
Right. Yep. So that again, that one went all the way to insurance because the client basically demanded it at that point in time and insurance said no, not yeah.
Reuben (54:55.821)
Wild.
Reuben (55:03.117)
Mm.
Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. Okay. All right, Eric. The these are great. These are wild. for people thinking about getting into this profession. I I think it’s eye-opening to hear some of these stories. I mean, this is this is the stuff you get to deal with, but thankfully they’re few and far between. And and Eric
Tessa Murry (55:06.234)
It’s crazy.
Tessa Murry (55:26.414)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (55:31.977)
They are.
Tessa Murry (55:33.252)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (55:35.378)
Tessa, Eric does a damn good job of taking care of all of this. And I don’t know what I’d do without him. Yes. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (55:40.474)
It’s not an easy job. You’re you’re down. Yeah. Not an easy job. Congrats. Making it through and not losing sleep. Let’s trade places.
Eric Houseman (55:49.385)
Thanks.
Reuben (55:51.694)
Yeah.
All right. that is it for the home inspectors out there listening. If you have some crazy complaints slash service inquiries that you’d like to share, email us and I’d love to read on the air. Think it’d be fun. But yeah, we’re at time. We gotta go, Tessa. I know you gotta run. Always great to see ya.
Tessa Murry (56:12.196)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (56:17.186)
Yes. Good to see you guys. Take care. Thanks for listening, everybody. We’ll catch you next time.
Eric Houseman (56:20.477)
You do.
Reuben (56:20.931)
All right. Catch you next time. And and email us podcast at structure tech dot com. Take care.